Vaska was born to a young couple in Boraska, a market townlet in eastern Poland. His father had long hoped for a child, and the previous nine months had found him swelling with pride at the local tavern, where he spent most of his evenings, or the market stall where patrons found themselves buying produce just to halt the flow of hyperbole. Most locals gave him the benefit of the doubt; Boraska had been but a small village until the opening of the market three years earlier, now, with farm producing being bought and sold the population was growing rapidly, the hamlet had its own priest, and the general feeling in the town itself was one of birth. Still, as the months passed, and the delivery approached, many prayed for an early birth to quiet the man.
Vaska's mother, in contrast, was always quiet and reserved, but as she swelled she seemed to develop the gentle radiance and beauty of one for whom the entire world is as it should be. The new priest, a passionate young man, blessed the unborn child, and the midwife warned of no complications. The birth, when it came, was no more anxious than most, though the father had spent the afternoon drinking himself into a stupor in an effort to calm his nerves. The neighbours, clustered around the small house's door, smiled in relief as the sound of grunting was replaced by the lusty wailing of a newborn.
Their expressions changed, however, when a scream from the midwife was added to the general clamour. Dropping the baby on the corner of the bed she fled the dwelling, pronouncing the child to touched by the devil. Hustling inside, the listeners found the exhausted mother staring in sick fascination at the tiny red object squalling on the bedding. Half of the child's face was hideously twisted and disfigured; one ear was missing and the eye was sunk deep into the skull. In a gaggle, they fled to inform the priest, the father and anyone else who would stand still to listen.
The priest arrived to find the child being carefully suckled by a grim-faced mother. "I have named him Vaska" she announced, before any could forestall her. "He is my son".
"He is touched by the Dark One" announced the priest, after examining the tiny face. "No good will come of this". With a flourish of his heavy cape, he strode from the little house, followed by a flock of questioning neighbours.
The father knew nothing of this; he had held to consciousness long enough to hear his new son's first cry, and then had slipped quietly into unconsciousness, a smile imprinted on his face. This changed the next morning, when he roused to examine the new centre of his world, and beheld something clearly not of his get. He had spent the previous half of the year extolling the quality of his bloodline; the mother must have consorted with the Devil to produce such a malformed offspring.
Vaska's first memories were of the thin screams of his mother being beaten yet again by his father. The neighbours, knowing full well what was going on, refused to interfere in what they saw as his right as husband. The child was just nine months old when his mothers heart, tired by caring for a child single-handed and wearied from the ostracism of her neighbours, gave out during one of these chastisements. With an expression of satisfaction the drunken man reeled out of the house and collapsed unconscious in the snow. With none willing to approach the dwelling after dark for fear of what they might witness, it was not until the next morning that a sweeper found him dead of hypothermia.
With both parents dead, young Vaska officially became a ward of the state, and, in a tradition brought with the recent influx of Christian influence, was given into the care of the priest, much to the dismay of the minister, who's opinion of his own rights and duties did not include caring for a small devil-child. However, orders from the bishop that he must obey all aspects of the charter detailing the duties of a priest, drawn up at the baptism of the King, left him with little choice, and the assurance of his parishioners that he would be just the mentor required to "beat the devil out of that child" that decided him.
Vaska's childhood was short and brutal. The slightest mistake or wrongdoing, whether imaginary or real, was punished with harsh blows or constraint within a tiny cupboard. Almost as soon as he was able to walk, he was expected to earn his keep, performing the numerous chores even a small church requires to continue functioning.
The child was considered subhuman, and treated as such. He was expected to make do with ragged clothing and scraps, while those around him gorged on the donated bounty of the God-fearing villages. He was not even accorded the basic right of baptism; according to the scriptures, when he died he would have no hope of entering heaven, as he had not been cleansed of original sin.
Vaska discovered this shortly after his fourth birthday; he had been taught to read latin at an early age to increase the range of menial tasks he could perform. This ability was put to the test by the priest, who would order him to memorise passages of the Bible in addition to his ordinary tasks. However, the young boy showed an incredible aptitude for these challenges, though this went unnoticed for many years; Vaska quickly discovered that memorising more text simply resulted in the next task being made correspondingly more difficult. Thus, while openly displaying moderate skill, he began to rapidly devour the tiny cache of religious texts owned by his guardian. While there was much he did not understand, he read and reread every page, pondering and discarding theories and world-views.
As he aged, the discrimination of those about him became more obvious. He quickly realised that all those around him did not live as he did, but that the world contained such wonders as love and joy. While he had vague recollections of a woman who would hold him in her arms and make everything seem right with the world, he forced himself into a more cynical outlook, ignoring love as soft and weak, merely because he had never experienced it himself.
No adult would speak to him without some overriding reason, and when they did so they use harsh, clipped terms. They refused to allow their children to play with him; a needless order, since the only time one of his peers would speak with him was when dared by another. Vaska discovered that merely wandering around the town would earn him a scolding at best, or simply result in the setting of more chores.
The solution to this dilemma was readily available. Though Boraska itself was dependant on farmers and produce for its wealth, all of the cleared cropland lay to the south and the east. To the north lay vast expanses of wilderness; rocky outcrops studded with dripping fur trees. It was here that Vaska found what he considered to be his first true home.
The boy whiled away many happy hours in the forest. Though he had no formal training, he taught himself the lore of the forest and wilderness. He learned the habits and tracks of the inhabitants, the properties of different species of plant (though not by their correct names). By following the wild boar through the wilderness, he determined which plants would be safe to supplement his meagre diet. As his legs and arms became more powerful from the outdoor living, he learned to hunt down small animals. His first attempts at cooking ended badly, but soon he grew to depend upon this new source of energy to provide the vigour needed by a growing boy.
This state of affairs might have continued, had it not been for the great storm that year. Vaska had spent three whole days polishing and arranging ornaments in the church for the feast of Boraska's patron saint, and was desperate for some time alone. While the service started (he was, of course, excluded from such an important ceremony), he ignored the driving rain and made for his forest, to shelter under the outstretched branches.
A few hours were spent happily hurling stones at a twig stuck upright in a tree stump, and halted only when the sound of dripping from the branches was shattered by a crash of thunder. The rain began to pour down through the trees, turning the forest surface underfoot into a muddy morass. Turning to hurry home, Vaska caught his leg under an exposed root and crashed to the ground, badly twisting his ankle.
In his earlier exuberance, he had ventured further that was his wont from the town, and he knew full well that he would be unable to drag himself the five miles back to the church in the storm. Twenty minutes of agonising crawling brought him to a small outcrop of rock under which he gratefully slid.
Lying half-submerged in a pool of water, Vaska slowly realised that, unless he could find some way to warm himself, it was unlikely that he would survive the night. Unable to venture out, he was able to collect a small pile of twigs from within reach, but every branch was soaked through. Unwilling to admit defeat, he constructed a small pile and tried desperately to spark a warming fire into life.
After almost an hour of effort, his attempts were becoming more, not less frantic. His legs had gone numb from the cold. His fingers raw and bleeding from the frenzied impacts of the flint on the striker, lungs raw from the hacking cough he had developed, he wished, more than anything he had wanted before, more than he had ever wanted to be whole and normal, more than he had prayed for the return of his loving mother, that the fire would catch and warm him.
He assumed the tingling sensation building in his arms and legs was yet another symptom of approaching death from the cold, but it swelled inside him, making him feel as if he would burst from the pressure. As he opened his mouth and screamed, the pile of dead wood exploded into flames, incinerating much of the wood, and throwing the tiny shelter into harsh relief. Dizzy with exhaustion, Vaska had just enough energy to pile more damp wood onto the tiny inferno before sleep claimed him.
On waking, the storm had slackened, and he was able to drag himself back to civilisation. He barely felt the beating he received for dirtying his rags, so preoccupied was he with what had occurred. On waking he had examined the fire, and was sure that his memories were not mere cold-fuelled hallucinations; even if he had somehow lit damp twigs no normal fire would have been sufficient to melt the solid rock above the flames.
As far as he knew, unnatural powers came from two sources; his guardian often preached on the subject. Large-scale demonstrations of power were good things, granted by God. Smaller uses of power, such as a cow falling ill unexpectedly, were evil sent by some witch in the neighbourhood, powers that came directly from the Devil.
However, the identity of a third group was slowly uncovered by some judicious listening and a few questions. Mages were a necessary evil, whose power was not openly acknowledged as coming from the Dark One, although this seemed to be the source secretly considered most likely by the inhabitants of Boraska. Direct questions on the subject, however, drew even more blows that usual from those around him, and he resorted to the small stock of theological texts. In these, mages were often mentioned, but rarely more than in passing. Scholars and priests in the book often travelled "in the company of mages", or vanquished evils "with the assistance of a mage". No details, however, were forthcoming.
Instinctively, Vaska knew that mentioning his new-found ability would be an extremely bad idea. Instead, he spent as much free time as he could sneak out in the wilderness, trying to recreate that night he had formed fire. Hon his first attempt, he spent many hours attempting to summon the power from inside himself. Enraged by his failure when evening came, he eventually managed to channel his fury and blast a tree.
Practise brought control and finesse. He no longer required hatred and anger to wield his power; the memory of the priest beating him, or the losses he had suffered, was enough to draw the energy out of him and summon fire. He was careful never to display any indication of power in town; if anything, abuse became easier to stand with the knowledge that he had to power to take revenge if he chose to use it.
Just six months after he began experimenting with this new-found power, a stranger in a dark cloak arrived in the town. While Boraska was not unused to stranger, this one had an air of mystery and power which caused those around him to avoid him where possible. It drew Vaska to him like a moth to a flame.
Vaska trailed the man around the markets for a day. Vaska was good at making himself inconspicuous, but he was sure from the way his target held himself that his presence was known. Eventually, the memory of chores undone forced Vaska to return to the church, determined to finish his polishing as quickly as possible and track down the mysterious man again.
He felt, rather than heard, the presence behind him. Turning, he found himself staring into the dark, glinting eyes of one he knew to be a kindred spirit. The dark man proceeded to explain the basic system of Hermatic magic; the process of apprenticeship, power and responsibility. He acknowledged himself as a member of House Flambeau, and offered Vaska the place as his apprentice.Vaska had never had anyone speak openly to him, as an equal, and his thirst for knowledge drove him to a rapid decision. "This is not something to enter into lightly, however", noted his master-to-be, before Vaska could voice his acceptance. "I will leave town at first light tomorrow morning, it was your power that drew me here anyway. If you wish to dedicate your life to magic, you may join me".
As the man he now knew to be an authentic mage swept from the church, Vaska felt like he was about to explode with joy. He had the opportunity to find a place he would fit in, where he would be accepted for what he was, rather than what he looked like. He was capering with glee as he replaced the ornaments on their respective shelves; he would be gone by tomorrow morning, no need for polishing now. It was as he was doing so that he heard that tap of a shoe on the floor behind him.
"So, I always knew that you were touched by the Devil! Consorting with that spawn of Satan, who wields evil powers openly! Well, since I cannot rouse the village and turn their righteous anger against him, I will ensure that his evil influence spreads no further!" So saying, the priest sent Vaska sprawling. Seizing a candlestick from the shelf, he declared "But, before I lock you in the closet to ensure you remain true to the faith, I will beat the evil from your hide!" So saying, he began to rain blows upon the cowering Vaska, screaming "Repent!" with each impact.
Vaska's mind was filled with a soundless scream of rage. His opportunity for a good life, for fulfilment and happiness, was being snatched by this ignorant cleric, too sure of his own righteousness to acknowledge his prejudice or selfishness. Finally, the rage took over; as his parent for the last ten years raised the weapon to head-height, it exploded in a shower of molten metal. Screaming, trying to protect his face, the man hurled the misshapen lump from him, where it set fire to some draperies. Soon the church was burning violently, and its pastor was crawling outside, attempting to sooth his ruined hands and face. Vaska limped out unnoticed in the confusion, and tired to put as much distance between himself and the blaze as possible, until he was halted by a figure blocking his path.
"This was not what I had in mind when I offered you an apprenticeship. It may be that you do not have to control required to act as a Mage". It was only then that the man noticed the bleeding wounds covering Vaska's back. "However, I think that perhaps in these very special circumstances I can afford to be lenient. Now, let us leave before that priest decides that something else needs burning, eh". With that, he led Vaska to a pair of horses, which, instead of snorting violently as most animals did in his presence, tolerated his touch and allowed him to mount. Together, the pair rode out.
Vaska served a fifteen year apprenticeship, and entered House Flambeau as a member at the age of twenty-six. He has an incredible affinity for fire, and almost all of his formulaic spells are of this form, though he shows some aptitude with earth, particularly metal. He is still extremely shy and reclusive, and avoids strangers whenever possible. After the last, nightmarish night of his mundane life, he has developed a great deal more control over his powers, and is no longer prone to spontaneous outbursts.
He still despises those who believe too strongly in their own righteousness, while he goes out of his way to protect the crippled and disabled. To hold together his fragile self-esteem, he has come to consider those who shun him to be insignificant, else he would likely by crushed under the weight of their distain. However, while he affects a gruff and sour disposition he cares very much for those who accept him as a friend.