Moth was born to shaman parents, Feather and Miako, in the Vale - and thus, the shaman blood is strong in him, but his mind was not suited for their duties. He was much too carefree, too spirited, but fortunately for all, he was never cruel. For a few years many feared that his shaman blood would awaken corrupted, full of malice, but it never did. Mischievous he might be, but never evil.
          The Vale herd's leader, Menth, was a bit too strict for Moth's tastes, and often scolded him, especially for his "flying" lessons. Ever since he was a colt, Moth loved to fly, and loved to "help" others learn to fly. It often involved bringing them up into the mountains, and pushing them off ledges, forcing them to unfurl their wings and feel the air - some other colts did it as a way of bullying, and perhaps many thought Moth did too, but he was always there, falling with them, ready to catch them should their wings fail them. But in the end, he grew tired of his life in the Vale, and of Menth's strict ways. His shaman blood had still not awakened, but that did not stay his wings, and Moth moved away in search for a new home.

He came to Isilme: Anarore, a land of both moonlight and dawn. One day when flying over their Gateway forest a tobiano mare with a sweet, shy smile and pretty blue eyes found him. Her name was Onni, and she was a mare of the Wildwing Islands. Charmed by her, and eager to live among his own kind again, he followed her to her home, where they met the dragon-like stallion Drexore and the herd's leader, Voltaic. Voltaic's heart was heavy, burdened by the death of a close friend, and the instinctive desire to heal the spirit awoke in him, but with no proper training, the result was a catastrophe. His clumsy attempts only pissed Voltaic off and made him fly away, leaving Moth crestfallen and with guilt for company.
          He had to learn, though, and he guessed the fault lay not in his intentions, but in his stupid inability to acknowledge deep hurts, and in his inability to connect, to understand. While exploring his new home on his own, he found a pegasus mare, not of the herd, busy destroying a rare mint plant. Furious with her for so nonchalantly destroying a piece of nature he drove her out, aided by a fellow herd member called Eve. Later, it was with the very same mare that he went to the Frostspine, to patrol upon Voltaic's orders. There, as a blizzard threatened to overcome them, he learned of Isilme's Great War, and how it had crumbled parts of the old Windswept Cliffs and covered them in snow. Clumsily he tried to cheer her up, but dropped it when an Outcast pegasus mare arrived with the blizzard on her heels. Together they weathered it in a cave, before going about on their own business.
          Onni had promised to show him more of Anarore's lands, and stayed true to it, despite the overhanging threat of shades, creatures neither dead nor alive that formed in the hours of the night and preyed upon the living. One night she took him up to Perpetua, a land of clouds above the ground. They met a herdmate there, Anumati, and had just settled into a somewhat comfortable conversation when one of the shades appeared, relentlessly driving them back to their Islands. They spent the night on the run from it, until the sun rose to burn it away. The trio had barely recovered from their adventure when Voltaic called the herd together, informing all of them of the shades and the threat they posed. Onni was tasked with seeking out the old Tome Guardian to ask about them. Moth, of course, went with her, and the small mare Virva came along too.
          When they came to the Hollow Manor, they found that the Guardian was not alone. A black stag, Roanne of the Woodlands, was busy trying to coax information out of him, something that didn't seem to be going too well. Roanne seemed to lose what patience he had and leaped onto the old table where the Guardian was sitting, and after that he was banished from the Hollow Manor. Moth thought it served him right, for upsetting the ancient creature so. In the meanwhile an equine by the name of Ricochet had arrived, and the Guardian imparted his knowledge to them - they were restless spirits who had broken through the veil of death. The Great War had damaged the balance, and to restore it was a length task. Their first mission was to fill something called a "bucket" with iron, and eager to get the whole ordeal over and done with, they set off to the Wildwing Islands to dig up the iron.
          However, so many more from other herds had joined by that point, so Moth found no reason to stay with them. He felt like he was only getting in their way, and focused on his other herd duties instead. Together with the sturdy Stonewall he went up to the Sky Mirror, to see if there was anything of interest to find there. All they found, apart from the beautiful lake, was a mean, grumpy old black unicorn, and his mood didn't exactly improve when Moth was characteristically rude to him. He left the meeting to Stonewall, hoping the black bastard Liekhn would tell him something he wouldn't say in the presence of churlish Moth. They didn't learn anything useful, though, and he returned to the Islands in a foul mood.
          Things took a turn then, but whether it was for better or for worse he didn't know. One day when patrolling in Seronia Dreamscape he found the sweet mare, Onni, talking to a crude-looking pegasus stallion. In a fit of sudden fear and envy, he snapped at the creature and then took off without a word. He wasn't quite sure why, but he began to pick flowers, and when he returned to Onni, the other stallion was gone. Unaware of the things he felt for her, she chided him for not having asked for her help in picking flowers, and then topped it all off by asking who they were for.
          "You," he'd told her, and the words had barely registered with her when one of the cursed shades attacked them. They managed to flee to the Islands, but Moth's hocks were badly cut, and he made a crash landing in the sea. He healed up okay though, but had no time to discover what might've changed between him and Onni, for the shades took the land in a bloody grip and refused to let go. He fled Anarore with the others, but ended up far to the north. There, he stayed briefly with a tribe of nomadic shamans, and one of the talents of his blood quickened - the ability to track someone's soul, if he but had a scent or a remembered touch to trace them by. Satisfied that he wasn't an entirely useless shaman at all, Moth set off on a quest to hunt Onni down, but boyish pride kept him from using his talent to find her. Instead, he tracked her by conventional means.

Unprepared for the raging warmth of the sun, and unfamiliar with the terrain, Moth made a bad decision and suffered from a severe heat stroke. He landed upon the Heavenly Fields, but didn't make it further than just below the clouds before he fell unconscious. Onni found him lying there upon the ledge, and healed him. After a day's rest in a cool cave, he was ready to set out again, and Onni led him south towards a new life in the Dragon's Throat. thread two -- thread three -- thread four