In part I don't understand why you've come, in part I suppose I do. I know you're expecting some grand tale. Some great story of adventure, of riches, gods, and great warriors. But I will be telling you of sadness and loss, of living too long, and of the pettiness of those with power.
Yes, I am Lilith Soldevi, daughter of the goddess Sekhmet and a son of the celtic god Taranis, a god of thunder and war. I was born before the great pyramids of Egypt had risen from the sands. I couldn't tell you how the union of an Egyptian goddess and a Celtic demigod occurred and honestly I know nothing of my father aside from his ancestory. I can tell you I was born in secret, an unknown child of the goddess. I was given to be raised in her temple, rumored to be the bastard child of a shamed temple priestess.
I grew quickly and my height and the paleness of my eyes made it all too clear to the temple priests and priestesses that I was not entirely of Egyptian blood. I was an enigma to them, something to be carefully watched and hesitantly dealt with. Children my own age quickly developed a fear of me, or my differences. My mother was absent from my life, she had better things to do than raise a not fully divine daughter. I can honestly say it was probably fear and uncertainty that made the temple priests sell me away as a slave at a young age, before my teen years I believe. I do not necessarily hold it against them. It made me all that much stronger, now didn't it?
The life of a slave in Egypt is not one I wish to relate to you. But I learned a great many difficult lessons, many painful ones as well. But sometime into my teenage years I began to discover certain oddities about myself, I was faster than others... stronger. No matter how badly beaten or how starved I was, I would not die. Curiosity about my nature fueled my escape and with little real effort I managed to elude my captures, to escape into the desert. None were foolish enough to pursue a single slave into the heat of the desert. It was assumed that I would perish and one mere girl wasn't worth anyone's time.
As you well know I did not die in the desert. I did however become hopelessly lost and curse every god I could think of, not that it did me any good. I could not tell you how much time I spent in the delerium of starvation and thirst. I do not know how long it took me to stagger out of the desert and onto the steps of a temple. A temple of the goddess Sekhmet, given not the one I was born into... But a shelter of my mother's none the less. You must remember, I had no knowledge of my parents by this time. I was taken in, given a chance to heal and offered the opportunity to join the ranks of the priestesses there. I did so, that quiet life and serenity was the healing my shattered childhood needed.
My unusual traits did not go unnoticed there either and whispers and rumors quickly started. I could not bare the thought of being tossed aside again so I fled before I could be discard. Fled to the very young lands of greece, where cities were just forming and no one thought overmuch of a dark skinned woman with pale eyes. I made my way as a horse trader in those days, as I had been a slave to a man who did as much. And in all honesty, when first I lifted a blade, it was in defense of my own life and not out of aggression as many would like to believe. But there was something right about the feeling of a blade in my hand, there was a simplicity to the movement, almost as if it was a part of my soul. And it was, daughter of two divine lines of war. What more could be expected?
But my way did not change there, I continued to sell horses across Greece. To trade and to move, adapting and learning much of other cultures. Greece was young then I remind you, Athens was but a small town. It wasn't long before the area was torn by warring tribes, by cities fighting for lands and wealth. There was no safe place for a single trader and a blade in defense turned easily to the weapon of a mercenary. The pay was better, although there was little security in terms of longevity. I made a name for myself with ease. A woman warrior who seemed to escape even the most bloody battles. And these rumors and tales were enough to bring me to the attention of a single goddess who's temple I'd long ago abandoned.
I would like to believe that I had always been under my mother's eye, but I'm quite sure that's not true. In fact I'd be willing to bet every last minute of my life that she did care a shred for me until I showed talent in battle. A warrior was a child a vengeful goddess could be proud of, not a slave. It was in the midst of battle that she revealed herself to me, that she called me home to Egypt, tempting me with the offer of revealing my true nature. What can I say? Doesn't every born slave with to believe they might be something more? I had no idea just how much more...
My call back to Egypt lead me once more to the temples of Sekhmet, where I was offered unusual greeting and reverence from priestesses who used to shun and ignore more. Whispered rumors stirred in the shadows and my life became a trial by fire. I was groomed in the arts of war, refined and tempered. Given the craft and authority of a general and the passion and intensity of a jungle cat. Then I was unleashed upon an unsuspecting Egypt. They called me the lioness, the conqueror An artist with a sword, or any weapon in my grip, I didn't yet understand why I was faster or stronger than any who tried to test their skill against me. Battle became a blood sport and killing an art. I lost myself into the darker half of my soul. I believe I became the creature my mother desired, an heir she could train and groom. And it was sometime in this haze of battle that she revealed herself to me, that I became the daughter of a goddess.
I don't know what changed me, at one point I realized the monster I'd become. But I did and I took my one horse and fled Egypt in the night. I was pursued of course, first by other members of my armies and then by my mother herself. It wasn't until I crossed the waters into Egypt that I finally found some peace. You see the gods are rather protective of their lands and I was simply lucky enough that the Greek gods did not want an Egyptian goddess hunting their home. Even if it was for her own daughter.
There might have been peace from my mother back in Greece, but there was no peace from myself. I lived a life of torment, regretting my actions and the many lives my hands had claimed. I believed myself a monster, because I was. And my soul was just as tainted. I lived as a nomad, wandering from place to place without any purpose or reason. That is until one fateful day that I had the unfortunate luck of wandering into a forest that the Romans were attempting to burn down. To burn down in hopes of flushing out an amazon tribe.
In the midst of a raging inferno I met a woman unlike any other. Silver haired and gold eyed, pale skinned with an attitude to stop any in their tracks. One woman alone trying to defeat an entire cohort of Romans in the midst of a burning forest. I don't know what compelled me to fight at her side, to help her drive off the attack and flee the forest. It was an instinct, a reaction, something more natural than breathing. I can still remember every movement, every action. I can still remember the first instant I laid eyes upon my future wife Thermodosa, the silver assassin.
I had no way of knowing that the woman I'd practically rescued was among the high council of amazons, that she was their most noted assassin. That she was leaving the tribe because she felt herself unworthy, felt she had forgotten what it meant to be an amazon. But she told me there and then that I had reminded her what it meant to be an amazon, through nobility and self sacrifice That I had given her the reason and courage to return to the tribe. She insisted that I come with her, even if only for the night to rest. I declined, but after many unsuccessful attempts she finally won me over. And while it might have been love at first sight, there was no immediate relationship.
There were many moons of awkward encounters of casual conversation, of meetings and finally of me helping her resurrect her farm from the dirt and ashes it had been burned to. I don't know how or when we realized that we had fallen in love, but we had regardless. I respected her desire to remain an amazon and the importance of it in her life and went before the high council and their queen Hippolyta to become an amazon myself. It was no simple task and I honestly believe that it was only by Thermodosa's urging that I was accepted as amazon at all.
But with the quiet of the tribe and times of relative peace I was able to discover that my hands were good for other work aside from swordcraft. Wood and stone easily molded beneath my fingers into art and furniture. My craft and artistry became so well respected that I myself came to sit the high council in the position of head artisan. So far from the bloody lioness of Egypt. And while my crafts healed my soul, Thermodosa healed my heart. And sometime in our work to rebuild the farm and create a home we came across an orphan boy, who worked his way into our hearts and into our home to become our son.
It was by luck or fate that Thermodosa too was a child of the gods and we had little fear in losing each other to old age. With my craft and Thermodosa's unique ability to heal we were even able to conceive a child of our own. A daughter that Thermodosa was carrying. As much as I'd like to tell you that this story ends happily, with us and our family surviving through the ages. I cannot. A few months after Thermodosa has successfully conceived our child, several members of the tribe were held hostage in Rome. Dosa was the experienced assassin and as much as I didn't want her to go, it was her duty. I stayed with the farm and with our son.
It was pure instinct that told me something had gone wrong. Our son, being 9 at the time insisted he could stay among the tribe and with the farm. I took the risk and trusted him to the sisterhood, taking off for Rome myself. I could not explain to you the agony of discovering I was much too late. Of finding only pieces of my one love remaining. The Romans had found her hard to injure and even harder to kill. Their solution was to dismember her, to carry pieces away and bury them as far apart as they could. That day my heart died. That day I lost both wife and daughter. In a frenzy I destroyed more Roman troops than I could count to you, for many years there were legends of a fury descending upon that prison and leveling it. It took me several months, but I managed to find and collect the remains of Thermodosa, in hopes of at least returning her home to her farm so that she might rest in peace.
But returning home was another agony. In my haze to avenge my wife, I'd lost sight of the tribe and returned only to discover they themselves had been ravaged by Roman troops. To find my homestead burned to the ground, the body of my son among the wreckage. I buried my wife and two children there in Greece, packed my horse and disappeared.
I became as wild as the lands I wandered, moving across the continent and back. From country to country without any source or destination. I learned to speak many languages, blend with many cultures. I became as hard and forgotten as my own heart. When my young horse died of old age I finally stopped to rest, to sleep in some forgotten temple for years uncounted.
I woke to a different world, a world of chivalry and kingdoms... Knights and royalty where women held little rank or place. My height and stature made it easy for me to conceal myself, to be a man for a time. To walk the world and view it through the eyes of a gender who believed themselves superior. I fought in the battles of Europe and watched great nations rise. I could never remain in one place for long or I risked being discovered as a woman and as immortal. Kingdoms rose and fell, times changed again and I was able to reinvent myself with the Renaissance The flourishing of arts and creativity struck a chord in my soul again and I took to painting, but my work at the time was considered too heavy, too dark. There was still too much weighing on my soul.
I had no place in this world and once more took to sleep in the vaults of Paris. It wasn't till talk of a new world that I awakened again. I went with the first ships to this new land. I discovered and explored, ran free among native tribes who welcomed me much more than any in Europe might. But this was not where my heart was, my soul still ached for family I had left buried across the seas. Once the Americas were settled and the battle for independence raged, I sailed home to Greece. I sailed home and remembered and mourned and slept.
And slept until the bombs of the first world war shook my slumber. This was a battle I did not understand, a war of guns and machines and of senseless slaughter. But I fought none the less, blood soothing my soul into silence once more. A first world war settled only to erupt into a second. A second war that fought and faded until a warrior was once again useless. It was rage and curiosity that sent me across the seas again. Some longing to perhaps try for a new start, to let old wounds seal and be forgotten. Egypt and Greece will always be home, but there must be something more for me.
The United States provided an interesting haven, a melting pot of societies and cultures where an oddity could go unnoticed. I shifted through cities and towns, through decades in an amused and watchful haze. I picked up my art again and perhaps found a new median for it. Once more I wield a weapon, but this time a needle. Again I practice my art, now ink... With a canvas of skin. If you've come for a touch of pain, I will satisfy that need. If you've come for art, I will create it for you. If you've come for my story, for care or compassion... You've come to the wrong place indeed.
