Author's Note: Don't ask why I'm writing about Oliver. Really, don't.
It was the beautiful people who always went far in life. The nobles' daughters who became duchesses, the attractive youth in the military. Never once had Oliver seen such a man as himself going far based on looks alone. Duke of Tanas, yes, but it meant nothing. There was no respect for him held among the other nobles, nor had there ever been. He was the forgotten one, the one tossed aside, thrown to the dogs.
There was a time when this was enough to dash all Oliver's hopes. A time when he could no longer face himself each morning, nor could he face the uncle who sat across from him at the table every morning. This very uncle, the one who looked on with disdain whenever his ward entered the room, taught six-year-old Oliver the most important lesson he would ever learn: no one was ever going to look upon him with satisfaction if he behaved properly, so he might as well not even bother with the trying. Never would they see him as more than the disgruntled orphan boy who was a burden to his adoptive uncle – the boy who shriveled up and cried at the mention of his dead parents. For awhile, he was pitied, yes, but this would not – could not – last forever. If he were to be anything at all, Oliver would have to find his own way into the world, and he knew this would never come from his own physical beauty; any portrayal of such a belief was merely a façade meant to conceal his real thoughts from others.
The beauty of others attracted Oliver. When once he was young and his parents alive, his mother's beauty shocked him, but never could he understand her. The daughter of the former Duke Tanas, his mother was as stunning as any other noble lady in Begnion. With her looks and noble bearing, she would have been one of the most sought after women in the country, yet she had never fulfilled this destiny. Instead, she bore the illegitimate child of a peasant and was forced to quickly marry a man twice her age in order to conceal the treachery.
Oliver was thirteen when he learned the truth of his parentage, and the ugliness of the facts seemed to resonate from within him. Never again could he assume the noble status that he thought he had once possessed. None but he and his uncle knew, true, but the sheer weight of the secret between them was enough to pass the truth onto those around them, as it seemed to Oliver. From that point onward, he knew that he would never himself contain the physical beauty of the other nobles he knew. Instead, he would have to possess such beauty.
The butterflies, the doves. Anything and everything with wings would be snatched by the young Oliver. The wings were the key characteristic, the defining aspect of beauty for him. Nothing, he decided, was more beautiful than the ability of an animal to fly away from its surroundings. Nothing appealed to him more than having the capability of getting away from the rest of the world, if only for a little while, and so he was determined never to tear the wings. To break the wings was as if to break an ancient pact made between the animals and their creator – a pact to always remain beautiful – and Oliver could never bring himself to break such a sacred pact, especially when that longing inside him wished for such a pact for himself.
Herons came to be a natural obsession for one with views such as Oliver held. In books, these creatures were nothing but fantastical beings with no real appeal, but it was not so in person. It wasn't until a butterfly-catching expedition led him to the edge of the Serenes Forest when he was seventeen that Oliver began to recognize the true beauty of the herons. She was a lone figure, drifting along the edge of the trees. Although the feathers were black and the face only modestly normal, the bearing of the woman was itself perfection. Another heron, this one a male, approached her from the trees and called to her, and Oliver recognized him as equally beautiful. For the herons, gender had absolutely no discrimination in beauty. It was not the man's face, but rather his wings that captivated the teenager. As the heron's took off in flight, Oliver dared not blink. Here they were, these humans who could fly away, just as he had always dreamed he could.
From the girl, a black feather glided to the ground in front of Oliver, and the future Duke Tanas could not help but bend down to take the delicate piece of long-admired wing between his fingers. Gleaming in the sunlight, this feather left the butterflies long forgotten, for Oliver had found what he most desired. At this moment, Oliver realized what it was that could make him beautiful, what he truly wanted: if he could be born again and start over, Oliver would not choose to be born to a noblewoman. Despite all the prejudices he had encountered and even participated in, Oliver would want to be born as a laguz. A heron, gliding through the clouds, was his ideal candidate. To Oliver, there was nothing more beautiful than the heron escaping the life into which it was born. Given the choice, Oliver would gladly take to wing.