My story, like so many others, actually begins before I was born. My half-elven mother, Catspaw, was both a ranger and a cleric to Rillifane Rallathil, as well as a pretty good illusionist. Back then, she apparently had something of an attitude problem(probably based on the fact she could become a panther at will). Rillifane had tried to teach he a sort of humility by making her hair pink(as well as her fur as a panther, don't say it!).
She was part of an adventuring group with Romark the Swifthanded, a halfling thief; and two halfling illusionists with the unlikely names of Wink and Dink. To make a long story short, the three halflings were really put off by Mom's attitude and decided to do something about it. Using Romark as their foil, they made him look for all the world like the Cat Lord. He then pursued Mom through the trees for awhile until they did the deed that made one child--me.
Mom, after discovering she was pregnant with me. decided to move back into the woods and live a slightly more peaceful life with another, just as pregnant(by a different man), ranger friend of hers.
Her kid, Arilond Shadowing, was basically a brother to me while we were both taught al the things we'd need to know to be good little rangers. Mom also taught me the basics of being a cleric, so that I could eventually make up for her problems with Rillifane.
Dad eventually left his own happy retirement to join us in the woods with his new son, my baby half-brother, Takiro.
As all kids do, eventually we got to adventuring on our own and got into big trouble and had to be bailed out by our parents after running afoul of a bunch of drow, and nearly getting ourselves all killed. As it was I nearly died and a couple of our friends actually did. It really forced me to get serious for awhile(well, as serious as I ever get, anyway).
A few years later, I was off on my own when I heard some tinkling, like bells. My world dropped out from under me and I landed in the woods right next to the biggest blue eyes I had ever seen. He looked sorta like me, but was missing a finger on each hand. We eventually sorted things out and he took me back to his people.
After I got to where I could actually speak their language, they named me Shadowcat FiveFinger because of my hands.
Stargazer, the guy I had landed in front of, was my constant companion during those first few months and eventually we bonded and I became his "mate"(that's what his people called folks who were married). I had a set of twins a couple of years after that, and Star and I settled down.
Times were tough, but we got through okay until the blasted trolls decided to start playing rough again. But that's another story....
Copyright 1997 by PT Riley except where otherwise noted