Marcus

Marcus Geoffrey McGovern

Werewolf

Male

Heterosexual

In his human form, Marcus McGovern is tall and almost unnervingly slender with thick, curled, black hair to his shoulders. His eyes are a slate grey that twinkle with joy at conversation. He dresses simply, his hands and clothes stained with color, pigments, and paints that have been left to dry.

In his wolf form, he is indistinguishable physically from a natural-born wolf of medium size with a silvery-white coat and deep amber eyes. The only difference lies in his behavior, he is more intelligent than a natural wolf and behaves more like a friendly dog than a wild animal.

He is soft-spoken and honest, but quite friendly to those who wish to strike up a conversation. He might often be guilty of rambling about the subjects he cares about most.

Primarily, Marcus is a loner. He is not quite a hermit as he enjoys the company of others, but he prefers to spend most of his time in isolation. He enjoys his privacy and rarely shows people his home. Unless they're lovely ladies, of course. These are always welcome.

Some day he may settle down and find the right woman to spend his life with, but for now, he enjoys a bit of flexibility in his partners and the freedom it gives him to remain independent.

Marcus and his bestial nature are in harmony, man and nature together in one body. He holds a reverence for nature and its many facets, taking pride in the fact that he is now part of it.

He is a pacifist, a painter, and a Druid. All parts of nature are sacred. Rocks, trees, animals, the air that he breathes, all have their place in the great cycle and should be revered equally. Marcus is most enamored of trees and their long lives and strength. He is, quite literally, a tree-hugger.

Marcus is a painter by trade and a habitual runner.

Studio apartment above a small gallery he owns and manages as well as an older, navy-blue Jeep Wrangler.

Marcus is the product of hippies turned yuppies. Parents, who in their glory days, went by names such as “Flower” and “Earth Child.” This lasted until Marcus was old enough to go to school, and his parents realized it might be about time to get some serious work done. They got respectable jobs and as Marcus grew up, acquired enough money for a fancy house up in the Boise foothills and a summer cabin in the Sawtooth Mountains.

Marcus loved that house. Summers in the mountains, with his parents love of nature spurring his curiosity about the natural world around him. Hikes into the mountains, swimming in clear lakes, camping under the stars. This paradise, more than any city of man, was where he belonged, and he slowly began to revere nature as a spiritual thing.

Through research, he came to discover and study a religious movement loosely based on the ancient Druids of Ireland. Very loosely. In name only, mostly. Making no attempt at following the practices of those early transvestites, Marcus adapted the beliefs into a sincere reverence for the virgin earth and all her beauties. Animals being pure of soul, and of trees being ancient wise observers.

As he reached his twenties, his parents told him they were selling the cabin because they had no desire to care for it anymore. Marcus jumped at this chance, and moved into it himself, forsaking the city life and taking on a simpler life tucked away in the mountains, three miles off the highway up a dirt road.

Not to say he was completely cut off, nor that he turned to a primitive live-off-the-land existence. He had a log cabin with satellite television, a laptop, and a cellphone. He even drove a jeep to get him to town and back. He took up painting during that first sequestered winter, and found he had a knack for it. His painting became his income. He sold art online, and at a small gift-shop in town.

One summer when he was in his early twenties, he was out on an evening walk and came across the mangled corpse of a wolf. He was so caught up in the scene that he completely failed to sense the creature coming up behind him. There was no sound, no pain, just blackness and he awoke the next morning lying on blood soaked ground, but without a scratch.

The next several months were confusing and slightly disturbing. Strange images in his head of hunting, of running in the wild. Waking up naked in the forest. Craving fresh, bloody meat.

It took almost a year, but memories started surfacing of his nights out.

Of course he'd heard of werewolves. Even given thought to some of the validity of the stories. But to think that he had become one? That was bordering on absurd.

Eventually, head to face reality. He was remembering more and more of his nights under the full moon, and he was definitely spending them in a non-human shape. His best guess was that the spirit of the wolf was so angered by its untimely and gruesome demise that it lashed out and gave its spirit to the closest being. And that's what he came to believe for many years.

With this realization he sought to take control of the beast. It took years of study before he felt he had mastered the wolf's spirit enough to bring it under his control. At the full moon, he is forced to change, but he learned the ability to shift at will without regard to the lunar cycle. When the moon comes full, though, when the beast forces its way out, it is a holy night for him, to feel the wolf take over and go wherever he takes them. Freedom. Beauty. Peace.

In this way, he has lived a simple life for many years. He has since learned what it really means to be a werewolf, having finally met others like him and befriending them. Recently something has stirred in the sky, passed through the trees, over the mountains. It has troubled his wolf, and he hit the road, leaving behind his tranquil hideaway, to travel to Lake Harmony to join a public community of the supernatural.

He spent all of his savings on a small gallery space and the studio above where he lives and sells his art. It is not his quiet, peaceful hideaway in the forest, but there is something to be said about being part of a community.