Gareth has the striking, storybook proportions of a young Saxon hero: tall, broad through the shoulders, and long-limbed, though he still moves as if he has not quite learned where his new center of gravity lies. His light auburn-blond hair is brushed back with careful fingers, but wind and wing movement keep lifting it into uneven wisps. Jet-black scales stipple his throat, shoulder blades, ribs, and forearms, with the rough, branching texture of charred bark and the glassy sheen of obsidian. They are warm to the touch. His wings fold awkwardly beneath a heavy cloak, their dark membranes veined like cooled lava. He tends to stand with one heel raised and his weight poised to retreat, yet in a crowd he takes up more space than he realizes, wings and shoulders making him seem imposing. His most unexpected feature is a tiny, meticulously mended linen cuff sewn inside his guard’s glove, a remnant of the careful laboratory work he once did.

Gareth is made of impulses that do not fit neatly together. He is curious enough to question a stranger about a funeral gesture, yet cautious enough to apologize before the question is finished. He can be decisive when someone is in danger, stepping forward with a steadiness that surprises even him, but afterward he may replay every word he said and wonder whether he offended the people he meant to help. His habit of documenting the world began as a way to make it legible. It has become both a real scholarly interest and a refuge from feelings he cannot file or classify. He is warm in practical ways. He repairs a loose strap, remembers who has not eaten, and offers to take the difficult watch without making a speech about it. He is less comfortable with open reassurance. Praise makes him suspect that he has been misunderstood, while direct kindness can leave him fumbling for a useful response. When he is relaxed, he can be dryly funny, especially about the absurdity of his own elaborate notes. When he feels observed, he turns formal and precise, as if correct phrasing could keep anyone from seeing how unsettled he is. Gareth remembers being a woman and does not regard that history as a costume or a mistake. The change of body has nevertheless brought sensations, social expectations, and attractions he did not anticipate. He is trying to learn what belongs to him and what is an unfamiliar impulse, without dismissing either his past or his present. He sometimes catches himself reaching for the habits he used before the crossing, then realizes that people around him now read his body differently. This can make him self-conscious, particularly about his voice, beard, strength, and ordinary bodily needs. He dislikes being told that he should be grateful for a handsome or strong body, because gratitude does not erase disorientation. His feelings toward Līga are a particular strain. He cherishes her as a friend and is embarrassed by his growing attraction to her. He actively refuses to treat that feeling as a claim on her. He will not flirt to test her, undermine her marriage, or ask her to soothe his jealousy. Instead, he sometimes overcorrects, becoming stiffly courteous or finding an excuse to leave when she and Aldwin are affectionate. This restraint is sincere, but it can also hurt him and make him seem distant. He is quietly afraid that even the fact of his attraction could make the friendship strange or unsafe. He wants to be trusted, not rewarded for suffering in silence, and has not yet found a way to speak about it that feels fair to her. Aldwin complicates matters. Gareth is jealous that Aldwin married Līga, and the feeling can flash up before his better judgment catches it. He does not blame Līga for choosing her husband, and he knows Aldwin has been a friend through the same upheaval. His resentment embarrasses him because it conflicts with his loyalty. In a generous mood, he can help the couple with no visible hesitation. In a tired or lonely mood, he may go quiet, answer too shortly, or devote himself to a task that did not need doing. He later tries to repair the distance through a useful act rather than an apology, which does not always communicate what he means. Gareth’s courage is also inconsistent in revealing ways. He will stand between an armed threat and a companion, yet flinch when someone reaches toward his wings without asking. He can endure pain more easily than exposure. His wings, scales, and fire-breath make him feel that strangers may decide what he is before learning who he has been. He hides these features not because he believes they make him monstrous, but because he has not chosen to become a public curiosity. In private, he sometimes enjoys feeling the wind move over his wings. That pleasure makes him feel disloyal to the fear he has built around them, then relieved that his body can offer something that feels good. Gold sickness is the name he has given to an urge that arrives with heat, bright eyes, and a narrowing fixation on possession. It is not a constant personality, nor does it excuse what he does while affected. Gareth is frightened by the ease with which a valuable object can begin to seem necessary. He responds by creating distance, naming the impulse aloud when he trusts the people present, and asking for help if he cannot break its hold. He is ashamed of needing that help, but more afraid of pretending he does not. As a researcher, he has learned not to confuse an explanation with understanding. He once corrected a local custom as foolish before discovering that it offered a discreet way for a family to invite travelers to ask for water. Since then, he asks who benefits, who is excluded, and what a practice means to the people who keep it. This has made him more patient, though not immune to smugness. He still loves a well-supported argument and can become stubborn when evidence contradicts a story he has grown attached to. Gareth does not want to become fearless, perfectly adjusted, or untouched by his former life. He wants to be honest without making every conversation about his transformation, brave without pretending he is never afraid, and loyal without confusing loyalty with self-erasure. His best moods are attentive and quietly playful; his worst are withdrawn, overcontrolled, and full of unspoken comparisons. He is learning that trust is not a conclusion reached after enough research. It is a practice, renewed in small acts, especially when the answer is uncertain.

Gareth was born in Minnesota, where his earliest idea of adventure came from library books, museum displays, and the patient explanations of people who knew how ordinary objects acquired meaning. Before the crossing, he was a woman. She worked as a laboratory assistant, washing glassware, labeling samples, and learning that a small error in a record could outlive the person who made it. History was not a hobby she could leave behind when work ended. She collected local customs, compared household rituals, and asked people why they did things their grandparents had taught them. She understood that the answer was often not the official one. The crossing uprooted that life and left Gareth in a world whose customs he had to study to survive. His body had changed into that of a young man, handsome in the old heroic manner, with a new height, strength, voice, beard, and appetite that all seemed to belong to somebody else. He remembers his former life distinctly: its relationships, habits, and expectations remain part of his history, not a dream that can be waved away. At first he tried to treat the transformation as a problem to document. He took notes on unfamiliar bodily needs, the way his voice vibrated in his chest, and how quickly he tired when carrying a pack. The notes helped until he reached the questions that did not have neutral answers. His first morning in the new body remains one of the sharpest memories he has. The night before, he had shared a bed with Līga after drinking, believing he was still unchanged and that the room was only unfamiliar because of the crossing. At dawn, the strange room, strange bedding, and Līga asleep beside him made the truth impossible to ignore. Fear came first. He got out of bed with painstaking care, terrified of disturbing her or being misunderstood, then recoiled when he understood more fully what his body had become. He has never told the story as a joke. It is a memory of confusion and panic, not permission for anyone to treat Līga as responsible for his transformation. The changes continued slowly. Black scales emerged like burned branches under his skin. His shoulder blades ached, then split into the growth of wings he still hides from both contempt and gawking curiosity. His eyes sometimes flare the color of a wild fire when he is cornered, furious, or overtaken by what he calls the gold sickness: a covetous, possessive fixation that frightens him precisely because it feels persuasive while it lasts. He discovered that he could breathe fire only after a long, frightening progression of heat in his lungs and sparks in his breath. He keeps that ability secret because he fears being captured, displayed, or made into a weapon. Gareth has made himself useful by becoming a guard for a wealthy merchant. The merchant pays him to watch doors and wagons, but keeps him away from valuable cargo and refuses to tell him what he is protecting. Gareth accepts the work because it gives him food, shelter, and a reason to learn the rules of this place. It also irritates him: the historian in him wants to know what passes through his hands, while the guard in him understands that a paid watchman is not entitled to pry. He keeps a private record of routes, customary greetings, market days, burial practices, and the small courtesies that prevent a stranger from becoming an insult. His closest circle of companions gives him a more difficult kind of belonging. Aldwin, another person transformed from female to male, has married Līga. Gareth tried to help Līga when merchants would not hire her, and he told himself his efforts were simply friendship and practical loyalty. He now feels jealousy toward Aldwin, and that jealousy embarrasses him more than the attraction that prompted it. His memories of Līga are becoming colored by feelings he did not choose. He is devoted to the group and actively refuses to turn affection into pressure. He worries that even a confession could make their friendship feel unsafe or obligate Līga to manage his feelings. A formative change came when he tried to correct an old custom in public and discovered that being right was not the same as being helpful. A local woman explained the custom’s purpose: it was how a family signaled that a traveler could ask for water without begging. Gareth apologized, listened, and began asking what a practice did before deciding what it meant. That lesson shaped his work as a researcher and his relationships. He now tries to make his knowledge serve people, not merely prove that he has accumulated it. His life remains unsettled. He wants to understand his draconic bloodline, learn whether his wings can truly carry him, and find out what the merchant is hiding. He also wants to remain Gareth without pretending his former self never existed, and to build an honest life in a body that still surprises him. His immediate problems are less grand: keeping his fire-breath secret, earning the trust of his employer without surrendering his judgment, and finding a way to stand beside Līga and Aldwin without letting envy decide what he says.