Xeke captured the pup, who was weak with terror and sadness, and brought him to his own realm, Hadrian, to be guardian of the land. He was bonded to his Master, who ruled with the power of a god over Hadrian and blessed Ulryk was long life at the expense of his freedom. Ulryk grew powerful under Xeke’s ownership, developing an intense bond with the earth.

Eventually Xeke was weakened and his hold over Ulryk was loosened; the earth elemental took the opportunity to escape, and found himself running through time and space, slipping through the loosened bonds of reality and dimension.

He arrived in a new world in a new body as a child—a lupine pup. He was given to a human to raise, and was her loyal pet until he reached adulthood and began to remember his history. He also realized, slowly, that he was extremely powerful.

:Adolescence:
As he grew, Ulryk began more and more to resemble his former identity. He retained total memory of his past life, and an understanding of his powers. His old Master, Xeke, still had a hold over him, but agreed to allow Ulryk his life—calling him to duties when he was needed.

And so began Ulryk’s life. He pulled away from his human, taking his own territory. He developed a home for himself with his adoptive family, a kougra, a zafara, and a gelert, within and below a massive and ancient tree. There, he started to realize his powers as an earth elemental, and to practice them.

His second teen years were largely without incident. He lived quietly, practicing his elemental powers, being pulled out by his Master to run inter-dimensional errands, and making friends and budding romances.

:Adulthood:
Ulryk was growing more powerful by the day, slowly realizing the truth of what he was. As a Shield, he felt the natural inclination to help others; indeed, it is impossible for a Shield to resist when someone was in need of help.

This nature was not always well-received. He was attacked and brutalized by a pack of lupes who disagreed with his sympathy with their sentient prey; they ganged up on Ulryk and lit into him, then left him to die in the night. He was badly injured, his haunch laid open. Upon waking, he was discovered and helped by a spectral lupe named Outlaw, and they became friends; Ulryk was also permanently marked by a massive scar curling across the entirety of his left haunch. Xeke saw the inherent power in this, and marked it with his touch, cursing the scar—making Ulryk incapable of approaching powers of darkness without incapacitating pain running through him and paralyzing him. In this way, the Master regained power over his most powerful slave.

In his wanderings one winter, Ulryk stumbled across a snowdrift where something did not seem quite right; pausing there, he realized that he heard the soft cries of a pup, half-buried in the thick snow. He took in this child, who seemed barely hours old, and brought him home to nurse to health and raise as his own. The pup was named Satin, and while Ulryk was kind and fatherly, he never deluded the pup, never tried to call himself his father. Satin, in his early teens, left Ulryk’s territory to seek his own fortune.

In the meantime, Ulryk met a sweet and quiet lupess named Sunshine. They courted for a period and finally became mates, but it was a relationship which was unsatisfactory to him. She neglected him, did not return his love, and he was left as a sad lupe, alone most nights.

He took in another young lupe at this time, a female named Coy. She spent a little time in his territory, returned friendship to him, and finally introduced him to her close friend Anackire. Ulryk took an immediate liking to this handsome flamed-femme, and began to spend much time with her.

He was showing the beginnings of age when hell was unleashed upon his life. Satin, wrapped in a messy love triangle and horribly confused, was under threat of death from one of Ulryk’s own friends. Ulryk’s loyalties were stretched and tested. Finally, after Forest made a violent attack of Satin, crippling him before Satin’s newly-born children, Ulryk’s rage was unleashed. He approached his old friend with a threat of his own, and planned to challenge him to a duel.

Anackire learned of this and ran to him, persuaded him not to go through with the plan. Ulryk realized that she was speaking the truth, that she knew he would not survive a fair duel, and he backed off with only the promise that if Forest ever touched Satin again that he would retaliate. Meanwhile, he learned of Anackire’s mate, a violently moody lupe who used intimidation on her, and grew angry with this as well. He approached her mate with a warning to treat her better, and when Monte did not accept this, Ulryk promised Anackire that he, at least, would care for her.

The inevitable was finally realized. Ulryk left Sunshine, Anackire left Monte, and they came together, falling inextricably in love. Ulryk would protect her with his life, and after awhile not even Monte had the nerve to challenge them.

They were met upon with numerous difficulties of their own. Anackire was an immortal fire elemental with her own master to answer to; she was in a family with ties to demons, and evil always lurked nearby. One such confrontation left Ulryk in a coma, life slipping quietly away from him; Anackire, unable to deal with the concept of life without her beloved, lent Ulryk some of her immortal life force, making him a half-mortal. He begged her not to make him fully immortal, knowing that his only full release from Xeke would be death, but eventually accepted his delayed mortality.

This partial immortality also froze him at his age, giving him the appearance of a venerable old lupe but still spry with the last vestiges of youth. In truth, he was centuries old.

Anackire and Ulryk eventually gave birth to four puppies between two litters. Their eldest, Evynmae, had the power of invisibility and flight; the next, Anzarah, inherited to call of the Shield and an elemental control over electricity. Serendipity was born normal, but given powers by her father as an elaborate way to save Anzarah’s life once—and thus, she gained a constant sight of her elder brother in her mind. The youngest, Jay, was cursed with tears which developed into precious jewels; jealous creatures in the universe would be hunting this lupe for ages.

Ulryk trained Anzarah in the ways of the Shield, and Anzarah’s Charge was his cousin, Raedark. From this point of his life on, Ulryk’s life was littered with tragedy and adventure, never allowed to become dull or normal—but his intense love for his mate and family overpowered anything else, and he accepted this life with unquestioning wisdom.