A is for Action - Morgan is the sharp edge of the knife, the tip of the spear. When there is action to be seen to, the Council sends him. He may be the second-oldest of the Wardens in the field; he may be the oldest Warden in the field after what happened to Luccio, but he is only more dangerous for all that. He can keep up. He can surpass. And when he takes action it is swift and to the purpose, sparing energy for nothing else but the fulfillment of that precise goal.

B is for Brave - No one would dare doubt Morgan's physical courage. He has charged into battle more times than any dozen wizards would ever see a battle in their long, long lifetimes. What is more significant is that he has the emotional, the mental courage to shape himself into the weapon that the Council requires. To cut all ties, to bend his will to their liking, to obey and be the perfect instrument and sacrifice everything of himself to a cause that is perhaps more precarious than he thinks. And then, to go on in the spirit of that idea even after the Council itself is suspect. It takes more bravery than most would ever know.

C is for Cause - Morgan's cause is his life. He has cut away every other piece of himself over the years, spared no part of himself for a selfish purpose, held nothing back. The only thing that may have changed over the years is that his cause has aged, grown experienced and wiser, shaped by the issues he has had to confront. It might be easier on him if his cause had been stripped from him when he was younger. Now he will not give it up, not now that it is all he has.

D is for Deeds - Morgan says nothing in his own defense; his deeds speak for themselves. The near slaughter of the Red King and the deaths of several of his guard speak for his power and skill on the battlefield. The fact that the Wardens have not yet been eradicated speak for his strategic thinking as well as his teaching expertise, even if he's made fun of by the trainees as a hidebound dinosaur. The hesitation and sick appreciation of what he is about to do as he walks towards Molly with his sword upraised for the death blow speaks to the still-beating heart under all that weathered hide and the callouses on his soul.

E is for Energy - Even standing perfectly still Morgan's energy is felt meters away from his body. The raw power that courses through him is nothing compared to the will that uses it. It can be felt in the air as one moves by him, by the hand that reaches out to touch him. It can be seen in whoever's eyes meet his in the moment before he lets the gaze drop or drift apart. It is laced into every move and gesture he makes, even more so when he makes no move at all.

F is for Follow - Morgan's detractors claim he has no mind of his own, that he is a warrior puppet dancing to the Council's strings. Morgan's allies know that while he chooses to follow the Council's lead it is a choice. He makes that choice every time he takes a life in battle, every time he executes a criminal judged by the Council he makes the choice to follow the instructions of a group of old men and women with prejudices, secrets, and emotions. He places his trust in them to follow their lead and do as they say.

G is for Go - The affairs of battle are often best described as hurry up and wait. Morgan plans and Morgan prepares but in the end what he is doing is waiting for the word to go. To commit to action and then perform that action and carry it through to the only conclusion available to him: success. To win. This is life and death, if not for him then for those he cares for and the people he fights for, and it must be life for them all right from the word Go.

H is for Honor - Morgan comes from a time when honor was a word of the day and not a word associated with antiquity. He knows what honor is and he knows the way of nurturing it and keeping it safe when the world not only would steal it from him, but also would change the shape and nature of it. His ideas and ideals are older, fossilized, ossified from the time in which he was born. His actions and words keep his honor alive while the world changes it around him.

I is for Intelligence - Anyone who accuses Morgan of being a person of little intelligence simply because he was a good soldier who followed orders clearly has never come up against the man in battle. Morgan was never an idiot; perhaps a little foolish, in his youth, certainly he could be reckless and there were ways in which he rushed to judgment and stayed there until the proof to the contrary was so overwhelming it drowned him. But he isn't stupid. He isn't a fool. And anyone who ever scoffed at the idea of a person's mind being their greatest weapon clearly never came up against Warden Morgan leading the charge on the front lines of the White Council's war.

J is for Justice - Morgan's idea of justice is sharp, swift, and to the point. Be good. If you cannot be good, be civil. Be careful. Do no wrong and you will be rewarded. Do evil and you will be punished. Over time his idea of justice has slid from absolute and unyielding to desperate and rigid. There must be right. There must be good and evil or things would fall into chaos and he had seen the results of chaos. He clings to justice as a pure concept as the backbone of his thoughts and feelings, without which he would be useless even to himself. It helps, every small victory helps, when something he does rights a wrong in the world. It hurts, every time he sees someone suffer for no reason.

K is for Kill - Morgan approaches death with both deep respect and deep regret. It is not a side of him often seen or even given rein to within himself; he has too much killing to do in his line of work for that. But even though others believe differently, despite what Dresden may say, he does not take a life for the fun of it. He is not unaware of the gravity of death. He carries out his orders to kill because he believes that by doing so he is serving a greater purpose. He is not afraid to put himself at risk of death if it serves a greater purpose, as well.

L is for Lead - Morgan has lived long enough to become a force of nature in the minds of the younger wizards. His command over the elements and his chosen earth is not as strong as the Senior Council's, certainly not as strong as the Merlin's on his laziest day, but it is significant. His will and mind are sharpened. And where he leads there is often one, or two, or a crowd of young Wardens and trainees following, to learn or to impress or even just to spend a few moments in the shadow of his outwardly perceived glory.

M is for Mentor - Luccio was a strong-featured woman even in her youth. When Morgan was taken under her tutelage she was as fierce as she was beautiful, and he adored her. She turned him down, of course. He saw the wisdom in it even then. Later, when he had his own students and his own proteges, he realized how much learning he had done from her, and how far he had yet to go. It was the sort of experience that rounded a person in ways that he hadn't considered, and though he would never say it it did make him feel a little bit better to see Dresden teaching his young student, even if they were both as unpredictable as they were dangerous.

N is for Necessity - If he'd had his way there would be peace in the world, and Morgan would be able to retire to his home in the mountains and the forests and spend the rest of his days reading and thinking and living quietly, keeping to himself. But the world is not a peaceful place, and there will always be a need for men who can handle themselves in a fight, who will put themselves between those who cannot fight and those who are all too willing to. Men who will give up their lives for whatever is necessary to protect the innocent and good, whether that means living for the cause and only for the cause, or dying for it.

O is for Orders - There is a state of mind that he believes must not be shared by those who have never been in a battle command before. He's heard it shared by soldiers, ordinary mundane soldiers with no magical talent whatsoever, and yet Dresden cannot fathom the simplest concept of do as you're told. There are times when one does not have the luxury of questioning orders, and the only questions you have to ask are do you trust the person telling you this and can you afford to do otherwise? For Morgan, the answers are most often yes and no.

P is for Path - Even as a young man Morgan was destined to be, if not a soldier, then a defender. He was the one who went out to rescue the younger boys in the small farm community where he grew up. He was the one who stood up against the claim jumpers with his father, the one who picked up the rifle and peeked out the window. It has never occurred to him that he might want to do something else with his life, anything else. His life has never been about blazing the path, only about ensuring the safety of his people as they walk it.

Q is for Quickness - There is never any time, or at least, not as much of it as he would like. Morgan must make decisions quickly, must react as he is presented with things to react to. There are times when he may consider his options, but those are never as frequent as they should be. He makes decisions with a speed that frightens many people, for various reasons. His quickness of thought is almost as reflexive as his quickness of movement, and all in the interests of survival.

R is for Right - In the quiet moments between battles and trials and fires to put out Morgan does wonder, no matter what others may think, if what he is doing is right. There are some executions where the warlock has so destroyed his mind with the black arts that it is little more than putting down a rabid dog, and he doesn't consider those. Defending his people and the innocents of the world against the vampires doesn't bother him either. It's the executions on the tip of the law that worry at him, the ones who broke one, maybe two rules. Who are killed because the Council has a zero tolerance policy, rigid standards, because the Council as a whole knows better than Warden Morgan as an individual who can and cannot be saved. He knows this. But still, sometimes, he wonders if he was right.

S is for Strategy - It isn't all about the glory of the battlefield. It's also about the preparation, what preparations they have the luxury of making. It's about knowing your ground, your enemy, what their habits are, where they are likely to strike and what they can afford to lose. Knowing what they know about you. It's about the rules, secrets remain secrets between two and three is a crowd. It is about the endless hours over the map and over the table, until his aged back is sore and his vision is blurring. It is about knowing, and it is about being able to put that knowledge to good use.

T is for Trial - Morgan is a fixture at Council trials, has been for over fifty years. There are times when he tires of it, when he wonders if someone else could or would take up the mantle of executioner. There is something grim about trials, about what they have to do when a wizard transgresses. Every such session is a mark of failure. One person who they failed to teach, or to catch in time, or to protect from themselves. He wonders, sometimes, how much the trials are about enforcing the laws as strictly as they may be and how much they are about the failures not just of the warlocks, but of the Council themselves. Molly's trial, in particular, weighs on him this way of late.

U is for Understanding - Morgan learned the value of studying his opponent after he lost his first battle by being dumped in the mud. By a woman. Who was smaller than he was, at that. He survived, even if his ego and his pride took a considerable beating that day and during the days that followed, and he gained new understanding, the most valuable of which he considered until the day he died to be the understanding that no matter how much he learned there was always something new to discover about himself or the world around him. Even if he was slow to learn it.

V is for Vigor - To look at Morgan it would be easy to believe he was older, perhaps not as old as he is if one was not of the wizarding world, but older. To look at him move in combat would be to marvel that a man of any age could move so fast, cleave heads from shoulders, face down monsters the size of small apartment buildings. Morgan moves and lives with a vitality that is never apparent until he needs to use it, an energy that is hoarded and stored until the time comes to unleash it in appropriate action.

W is for Will - Morgan is renowned for being unshakeable in his beliefs. Ossified, even, his ideas and his view of the world steeped in decades of habit. He is resolute, undoubting (to all outward appearances at least), and what questions he may have are asked to those he trusts. It is not, it is never any one thing. It is many upon many moments, many decisions he has made in the pursuit of his goals and the furtherance of what he believes in that makes his will into iron, into stone as unyielding as the Senior Council whose decisions he enforces.

X is for Crosshairs - Unlike many wizards his age, Morgan does not scorn firearms simply because they are growing modern. He prefers his sword and its enchantments but if a gun is the more expedient weapon, he will use it. He prefers precision, whatever the tool for the job, whatever the necessary weapon, he will use it. He takes aim, looks through the crosshairs and down the sight to the target, and then, when it is time, he strikes. When it is time, when he has the enemy in his sights, and not before.

Y is for Yearn - Morgan has pared down his life to the essentials of being a Warden and he is content with that. For the most part, he is content. And there is a part of him that will always want more. That is aware of what he is sacrificing, a life, love. Home and family and security, cut out of his life for the sake of his work and the safety of his people. It is a willing sacrifice. It is one he makes every day, it is a price he gladly pays. But it is still a wistful dream, one he has late at night in the dark where no one will ever see.

Z is for Zen - Not exactly a warrior poet. But he is not always as hot tempered as those on the wrong side of his wrath are willing to believe. He would not have lived so long otherwise. Morgan is as much a man of serene contemplation as he is a man of vengeful wrath; it is his judgment which side of himself to show at any given moment.

Go to the top! For you have reached the bottom.