Tanner Shyft
Sharing lineage with ancient lemurs was never in the long range plans for Tanner Shyft. Sailing, ship craft, exploration and ultimately settling with a brood of children, yes. Were these not the nobler pursuits sought by the craftsmen in the coastal town of Baronesse? His life journey had been cruising along with the graceful ease of the tidal flows. Sailing was in his blood, and he had done so since he could walk. He had already aided in the creation of several ships and had been designing his own sleeker reef vessels for navigating the precarious outcroppings which abutted the southern end of the continent.
All was well and good, until he undertook the exploring facet of his future self. That was where he encountered the island. That was where he became a werelemur.
The cunning of Tanner’s adversaries was beyond his reckoning. Simple docility and purposeful sluggishness had lead him to underestimate the indigenous population of primates. The isolation of the island had bred a unique twist of intelligence in the nearly man-sized lemurs. Three of the crew were taken, Tanner being the third. His disappearance sent the remainder of the skittish crewmen seaward with tales of ghosts, and haunts, and whispered screams in the night.
The baser truth was that Tanner and his pilfered crewmates were breeders, serving as new blood in a thinning population. The persistent mingling of flesh resulted in transference of the lycanthropy in short order. The language and societal regime took considerably longer.
Tanner stood on the rise of beach, gazing at the moon slivers which gleamed in the bright day sky. There would be a good stretch of time yet before the next conjoining. Time enough to make good progress. A smile crested on his lips. He could already hear the chittering joy of his family as they climbed in the rigging with the waves crashing around them. As he pondered how his path had changed, but the journey was the same, he turned with his mallet back to the vessel which was taking shape under his handiwork.