Even from an early age, though, Lucian knew that the stories and tales were more than imaginings of his parents and the older wives of the village. Sometimes, a villager would go missing, and while everybody blamed the mountain weather, or even wolves, Lucian couldn't imagine a storm or wild beast that could take somebody from their bed where they lay, or snatch up a straggling villager without trace after nightfall. Quietly, the villagers mouthed names of evils older than the stories that had grown up around them: "Vrolok", or "Neuri" , making the warding signs against evil as they did so. Lucian learnt the gestures by heart, in case he should ever meet one, whatever they really looked like, and hoped he would never need to use them in truth.
Lucian and his twin brother were only children, an unusual situation for a village with families that frequently numbered more than ten, that did not escape comment. Lucian's father was considered one of the village's leaders, and often made decisions when they needed to be made. Several families complained that Lucian's father was content to be in charge, but not to do his share of the work, a situation which Lucian's father was very aware of. He frequently took his frustrations out on the twins and their mother, leaving Lucian's brother Petrov shy, withdrawn, and silent, while fuelling in Lucian a fierce temper, stubborness, and resilience. Their mother, though, bore the worst of their father's rages, enduring them as if to shield her sons from the full brunt of their father's rages. This was the only small mercy in the otherwise harsh life of subsistence under the shadow of the mountains above.