Ianto was born to a commoner mother and a shapechanger father. They were unmarried and the union was brief and… transactional, given that it took place inside the brothel where his mother worked. Poverty, illness and depravity ruled the district and, upon finding herself with child, Ianto’s mother was forced onto the streets. She gave birth on a winter morning in a butcher’s store room, alone and terrified.

Ianto knows none of this.

He was found on the streets at just a few days old, squalling in a filthy blanket, abandoned between two storage crates. The good news, of course, is that he was found, saving his life and giving him a future. The bad news revolved around just who found him, and what that future would entail.

His first memories come through a fox’s eyes. Given that he has never and will never know any different, this appears as ordinary to him as any other childhood. Unbeknownst to him, an illegal ceremony performed mere weeks after his birth set him on a shapechanger’s path before he could decide for himself. Nevertheless, he seemed to thrive on it. Ianto’s early years were a game of escape with his apparent family; he ran away frequently and was punished even more often, but it was the only normality that he knew.

It was normal, too, that he often gained and lost ‘siblings’ – other children whose arrival and departure was punctuated by the exchange of coin. Only when his turn finally came, at the age of fourteen, did he realise that he had been raised just to be sold.

Warren Swanson was an enigma to the young fox. After passing into his ownership, in Ianto’s eyes he became both hero and villain, both tormentor and saviour in equal measure. After some initial teething problems that put a swift end to Ianto’s escapism and antics, his education began in earnest. The quirky caravan that Warren called the Wumpus Wagon and the sprawling empire it would eventually become was his bread and butter, and what started as play and lessons soon morphed into a meticulous apprenticeship that saw him mature into a fierce businessman.

His crowning achievement, of course, was when his master was selected to go through to Northaven with the Second Wave, leaving the Wumpus Wagon’s remaining caravans in Ianto’s care. And they all lived happily ever after.

Not.

War took out the bulk of the business. Ianto lost merchants, stock and all manner of other assets, and anything that remained was left vulnerable to robbery or abandonment or even theft by those he had employed to manage it. Ianto resorted to bad deals and gross loans, which soon accumulated into massive amounts of debt. In mere months, the rest of the Wumpus Wagon’s empire was in ruins.

It was at his lowest point that Warren, predictably, requested someone check on his apprentice by means of a portal. And that, understandably, went down like a lead balloon. Shortly after, without knowing how many strings his master had to pull or how tightly, Ianto found himself invited to Northaven to face the music. His time there was brief, and blessedly free of punishment, before he was swallowed up into somewhere entirely different.

308 PC - Leafchange: Unlike the majority of the Northaveners pulled into the world by the Voice and the Core, Ianto was flung outside the barrier, into the wilderness of the Greatwood. To survive, Ianto made himself the charge of an outcast Fae in the Wildwood. Running the Wishing Wagon on her behest, he did his very best to make himself useful to those who live in the forest.

309 PC - Flowerbirth: The barrier fell around the Hollowed Grounds, reuniting Ianto with many of those he had lost. In particular, he found Remi Abruzzo once more, and the two began a fledgling relationship which would ultimately end when Remi fell in love with Ronin Taliesin.

309 PC - Leafchange: Disappearing into the Greatwood with Arduinna, Ianto is drugged and primed as a fighter in the Cloister of Trials, despite his gentle nature.

309 PC - Deepfrost: Arduinna sacrifices herself to aid the halt of the blight, freeing Ianto from her shackles. He disappears once more into the woods, appearing only now and then to sell goods in his Wishing Wagon.

311 PC - Longheat: Arriving in Torchline after a long absence, looking for his friend James, Ianto encounters Remi and hears of his leaving his post as Torchline's Governor. He offers him the use of the Wishing Wagon for traversing the Greatwood to go on aDveNTuReS.

311 PC - Leafchange: Finding himself semi-living with Remi and his son Mateo as Remi tries to turn the Greatwood into some kind of stronghold, Ianto becomes half confidante, half babysitter.

312 PC - Flowerbirth: Unbeknownst to Ianto, some drug and booze addled enjoyment at Torchline's Halenani during Longheat has resulted in a child. The child's mother regrettably died during Deepfrost, and so Fiadh arrives in his life shortly after, to grow and thrive in the Greatwood.