So you've come to meet the one being who's both the first of her kind and most likely the last of her kind to inhabit this planet. First off, let me assure you, I'm not that interesting.
But, to begin with, I wasn't even born on this planet and if I had my choice, I wouldn't be here at all. I was born on my race's home world of Comurant. A planet which is inhabited by only two sentient races, my own and the elementals... But thats neither here nor there.
It's said that my birth was both highly anticipated and thoroughly dreaded. But I guess I'd have to explain more about my culture for you to understand that. My people, who call themselves the Lyconians, are honestly a primitive race. We live in a number of highly warlike tribes, much like your ancient celts or saxons. Our tribes are ruled by our War Duke and our High Shaman and much of our lives are spent fighting with other tribes over land and resources. Interaction between tribes is usually bloody and violent. So its understandable how any child born to parents of warring tribes might be considered both asset and liability. Much more so when your parents are the War Duke and High Shaman of the largest and most highly opposed tribes.
Welcome to my life...
My parents will tell you that love is blind and that it chooses its victims in the most haphazard manners. I don't even know the story of how they met, that remains a carefully guarded secret. But none the less, they met, fell in love, and conceived a child who would mix the blood if the powerful Farahs and Dailyn tribes. And if that doesn't make my life difficult enough, I have to explain that there are those among my people who are powerful magic users.
How does magic make this more complicated you ask? Thats a bit more difficult to explain. Firstly, all of my race is born with some magical ability, its inherent to our nature. Its what allows us to shift through many forms. There are those who are much more skilled in magic, our shamans. And, a rarer gift still, among our shamans there are those with the gift of prophecy. And a prophecy is another part of my problem.
Countless centuries ago, a highly noted shaman recorded a prophecy stating that some day a child would be born of warring tribes who could unite our race. Now why I was singled out among all the children of opposing tribes, I couldn't tell you. My mother, the High Shaman, might have been more inclined to offer an explanation. But I don't hold much stock in prophecy, I believe we choose our own paths in life.
So, right. I was born, child of tribal leaders and victim of prophecy. There were a great many who didn't wish for me to be born, they didn't want the potential for anyone to unite the tribes. They desired for history and tradition to be maintained. My mother's pregnancy was in danger from the first moment it was discovered. She was forced to go into hiding for her and my protection. There were those who believed that uniting the tribes was the path for our race and these revolutionaries protected my mother until I was born.
I was born on the darkest, stormiest night of the year in midwinter with only my mother's sister shaman present for the birth. And so began one of the many coverups that is my life. My mother's sister shaman returned their Dailyn tribe to announce that I had been stillborn and that announcement meant that my mother could safely return and resume her life as High Shaman. But she certainly could not return with me. I was sent away under cover of darkness to my father's tribe, to a lower class warrior who's child had died at birth that same night, awkwardly convenient if you ask me.
So my first years of life were spent under my father's eye, raised as another woman's child in his ruling court. Among my people, childhood ends early, almost as soon as a child can walk. We are a fast maturing race, a necessity of our violent nature. By the age of three, we can speak well, walk, and have mastered the simplest of our form changes, from human to garoux or wolf as you call it.
So at age three, as with all warrior's children, my combat training began. Our training begins simply, with basic hand to hand combat and with mastering the control of our forms. By age six we begin weaponry training. Needless to say, I excelled in all forms of combat training, I am the daughter of a War Duke after all. By age ten, there were those among the war council who took notice of me and began to question. Questioned to the point that the shamans were consulted and they in turn consulted the one weak oracle they had.
The same night of the oracle's seeing, I was spirited away to my mother's tribe. It was claimed that suspicious warriors had taken my life and oddly enough the oracle died in his attempt. So, the war council's question remained unanswered.
Among my mother's tribe it was not unusual for the shamans to take and tutor the children of lower class warriors who they suspect to be well gifted with magic.
So, at the age of ten, I was just another acolyte in the shaman's training grounds. I was tutored in magic under my mother's watchful eye. But, I never really knew or grew close to either of my parents, because neither could acknowledge me. But that's not important.
I did well in my studies as a shaman and I was kept far enough from my mother that similarities in our appearance were never noticed. Well, at least not noticed until I passes the barrier for adult maturity, upon which we achieve our final form. Most reach this mark in their early twenties, I transformed at nineteen.
Upon transformation, we shed the final vestiges of our childhood selves in all forms and after my transformation my striking adult resemblance to my mother was well noted.
I was forced to flee for my life. And I fled back to the only place I knew, the Farahs tribe, my father's people. There I had to hide among the lowest ranks of warriors and study the shaman's arts in carefully guarded solitude. I was certainly not as talented a shaman as my mother, but later, it was my combination of magic and combat that made me so unique.
Understand, we are an exceptionally long lived race, but the lowest classes of warriors rarely enjoy such longevity. We heal very quickly, but there are some wounds that even we cannot survive. And, the lowest class of warriors are first into battle and most likely to sustain these mortal injuries. So for several years, I lived in hell, fighting almost daily for my survival and my father couldn't spare me for the risk of exposing me. I will tell you I gained new appreciations for our warrior classes. I know what it feels like to live and breath war, to fall asleep from exhaustion on the battlefield weapons still in hand, to stare death in the face.
I know how it feels to stand before death, to make foolish decisions to insure your own survival. I remember it very clearly, I was badly outnumbered, injured, and purely on instinct I chose to combine magical weapons with physical ones. You have to understand, our warriors fight with physical weapons and our shamans with magical and they were never combined, until I was forced to drastic measures for survival.
My actions spread like a shock wave through many tribes. Neither my father or mother had any further hope of concealing my identity. I was forced to flee again, this time into the wilds, because there was no safe place in any tribe for me. I was marked as the child of prophecy, identified as a daughter of both War Duke and High Shaman (because magic and strength were rarely mixed as well).
I survived in the wild, not comfortably, but I am obviously still alive. While I was in hiding, both of my parents were brought to trial by their tribes, both were condemned for their actions. In the moments before her death, my mother somehow reached out to the elementals and made a plea for my safety and survival.
It was the elementals who found me in the wilds and brought me to the safety of their capital city, but even they decided they could not protect me. So they chose to hide me where my own race had no hope of finding me. I crossed through an interstellar gateway and ended up on this planet, earth.
First off, let me say, you humans are loud, careless, and destructive. Your lack of respect for your environment puts my entire magical being into flux. But enough of that. Your language was easy enough to learn. But, quite honestly, some of your technologies still elude me. With the help of some contacts within your government, I was able to obtain a legal identity. I took up residence in one of your larger cities, mostly because it's easier to blend in. I decided to take up a line of work that was best suited to my skills.
Given, I have little interest in your technology dependent military, but what else is there for a trained warrior? I rose with distinction through your air force, and had chosen that branch because flying is fascinating. I quickly found myself working your most elite and secretive missions, even testing your newest jets. But I did not love the massive deaths your wars account for and after serving my time, I left iraq and your military.
Back in the states I was forced to find more elaborate ways of occupying my time. I considered joining your police force, but didn't like the associations the position had. So, I turned instead to bounty hunting. I hunt the most dangerous, most evil of your criminals. Why? Because its what I do best, because it occupies my time and my mind.
Because in my free moments, my mind wanders to home... To what might have been. To solutions to the problems of the tribes. To nascisistically think that I might actually be the one to unite the tribes. But that is just a late night fantasy.
Will I ever really go back? Maybe... Someday...
