Aaron Mantooth

[Dark Sky Singer]

Aaron Mantooth is a child of the Oklahoma Cherokee reservation. His parents were modern Native Americans (though Aaron prefers the term "Indian"), and had little time or patience for the traditional Cherokee ways. Aaron's paternal grandfather, however, despaired at the loss of the traditions and stories, and was determined to at least teach Aaron a little bit about how things used to be.

Two weeks after Aaron's birth, he was marked. An owl flew into the nursery, the largest owl that his parents had ever seen, and it clawed his face. The scar it left, red against his copper skin, is still clearly visible today. Aaron's grandfather was convinced that the Owl spirit had chosen Aaron as a shaman, but when he expressed that view to Aaron's parents, they were (to put it mildly) unconvinced; it was simply a freak occurrence to them.

Aaron grew up as normally as possible on the rez, and while he took some teasing for his scar, his was hardly the only one on the playgrounds. He humored his grandfather when the old man told him stories, trying to remember that elders knew something about the world even when he didn't understand what the stories meant. Aaron's only real complaint was a case of asthma that sidelined him from the few sports that his small school organized (mostly football and basketball).

When Aaron turned 15, his grandfather insisted on taking the boy on a spirit walk to usher the boy into manhood. Aaron finally agreed, if only to keep the old man from badgering him about it anymore, and they made plans. A spirit walk was a session in a sweat lodge, something Aaron had always been told to avoid thanks to his asthma. He figured that one session wouldn't hurt, and when his parents were gone for a convention, he and his grandfather crawled into the tiny lodge and began the ceremony.

They heated the rocks and poured dipperfuls of water, turning the inside of the lodge into a dense, hot fog. Aaron sat and breathed, and eventually, he saw a vision. He hasn't told anyone what it was, but it involved being rechosen by the Owl spirit. His asthma kicked in at some point, and when he finally woke up in the hospital, he found another legacy from the Owl: he had grown wings in the colors of twilight.

Aaron's parents were horrified at the situation, and they forbade his grandfather from ever speaking to Aaron again. Realizing that their son would have no chance to grow up with any semblance of normalcy on the reservation, they found Saint Joseph's School and sent him there. They made the choice as much to get him away from his grandfather as to make sure that he'd have a more normal life. They deny that his wings have anything to do with a magical owl, and insist that he is a mutant of some kind (going to far as to distrust the genetic testing that pretty conclusively proved that Aaron was no mutant).

Aaron tends to be quiet and shy. He's not used to speaking to girls or (to put it bluntly) races besides Cherokee. He has been in Paragon for about six months, so some of that has worn off, but a lifetime's habits are hard to break.

[Dark Sky Singer]

((i14.5 Update

Aaron is still somewhat ashamed of having taken a break from his patrolling, and occasionally tries to overcompensate for that by tackling things like giant monsters. The fact that he's had some slight success with that only encourages him.

In other news, he's recently found that if he concentrates on channeling the Owl spirit, he undergoes a physical transformation. He refers to this altered form as his "patrol outfit," and quietly doesn't admit that he actually likes some of the scared looks that he gets while in that form. While wearing that form, Aaron's fingers and toes grow claws, and his eyes turn completely black (among other effects), making him appear as close to Owl-like as the costume creator allows.

He's also found that, while channeling the Owl that strongly, he's not the only one who can see the spirit. Owl follows him around, visible as a humanoid boil of smoke.

Aaron is still awkward around others, particularly girls. It remains to be seen whether he'll ever get over that.))