First time meeting a student

When Cabel asked about her past life, who she had been, Amaya's glazed over and she sighed in delight as she started to reminisce. "I was a traveler, with my wife, my teacher, and my teacher's pet human. We did not fight any wars, but where soldiers failed, or could not act, the people turned to people like us. For the sake of our freedom, we were sworn to success, even at the cost of our very lives."


With a giggle, she sat back down and put a hand on the outside of her lower right leg, just above her right ankle, where her Crescent Scorpion tattoo was hidden beneath her clothes. "We were part of an organization spread throughout Europe and China, three hundred strong at our peak, nearly all of us creatures of magic who had chosen to leave our tribes and abandon the rules and rigors of old in pursuit of our dreams, desires, and goals. Each of us sought a different kind of power, as we knew power was the key to our independence, but betrayal and tragedy were also commonplace, and so there was only one rule all of those who bore our crest followed: Bear no loyalties."


She frowned, then, and her smile faded, and the look in her eyes turned dark. "Of course, people who do not understand ambitions and desires like ours, and those who are afraid of those unafraid to plumb the depths of magic and wield power to its full potential without fear of social opinion, those who would fear the free, they called us monsters. It was because to them we were vicious creatures; cruel, vile savages of the wild, or perhaps because we were not human and clung to the past when the world was young, it is the humans who began to hunt us, to kill us, for sport and for their twisted idea of justice, honor, or vengeance. Some of them were nothing but bored, and anything not human to them was an animal to be murdered and put on display as a trophy of might. Free those of my kind may have been, but hunted we were, and settle, we could not."

Amaya was silent for a little bit, staring at the ground, and then she looked up, her heart once more hard as ice, her resolve back and her expression unreadable. "Cay-bell, you said you were a student, did you not? For a student you seem very old. Do not most students complete their apprenticeships by fifteen summers? In my time I did not know of any villages where adults stayed students for so long while farms needed tending and wood needed cutting."

(OOC: there's no problem; I'm not worried; the next couple of days I'll be patchy as per attendance as well. This'll be a short post; I'm guessing you have a direction you want to take and I'll try to help. Also, sorry about the dialogue again)

Amaya frowned when she heard there would be people older than children attending the college. "Ah. I see. That is very important information." Important, because she would have looked like an idiot if she had walked into a classroom full of adults when only expecting children after she started doing some work as a teacher's aide.

Amaya look confused when she heard the word 'pizza'. "It is not something I have heard of before. In my time,our meals mostly consisted of what we could make over a campfire, and since I have woken, what I have not grown myself has been obtained for me by one of the teachers. They called him a crypt-oh-zoo-oh-low-jest." Amaya stumbled over the word 'cryptozoologist', clearly unfamiliar with it. She hesitated, then shook her head. "My meals have been mainly what they call 'Asian', mostly Chinese, but sometimes Indian or Japanese. Otherwise I make my own food from what the school grows."

She crossed her arms, sitting cross-legged on the floor. "Dark Faeries typically consume a certain type of meat once a month around the full moon as a celebration of the full moon, but I have abandoned that practice. All Faeries, not just Dark Fae, do not particularly like meat or non-natural food. I abandoned my tribe at thirteen summers, so I have greater tolerance for human food than most Faeries, but I am still a Faerie. To me the best food comes from the bounty of the earth."

(OOC: It's no problem; this isn't a major plot-development thread for the character, otherwise I'd be sending off half a hundred PM's and be very focused on direction of the thread to guide it to a certain point. For now I'll respond to the PM and have Amaya show her Scorpion tattoo. One reason I don't let her go into town yet is because of Pierce (Wikd Black), my other character with the same tattoo on his shoulder, who she used to know. He does odd jobs for the city and is a forest ranger/guide.)

When Cabel told her that pizza was natural, she became interested, but when he handed her the card, her face fell. "Oh. This place is in the town. I would not be able to attend."

She bit her lip. "I am not allowed to leave the dormitories and the school territory. Before I lost my magic, I was not a very nice person. I hurt a great number of people. Although some of my history may be justified, some was for sexual pleasure with my wife and some was merely for the sake of making others feel the pain I had felt. There were other reasons as well."

She hesitated, then, she took off her left boot, then her left sock, and raised up her pants leg enough to show the Crescent Scorpion tattoo. "Just as the mark of dedication, sins of the past do not always fade and sometimes stain the soul. My crimes of the past are represented by the Crescent Scorpion. Some of the faculty still believe I present a threat even without magic. They are not entirely wrong, but that is not a lifestyle I would wish to embrace again."

After Amaya had put her sock and boot back on, she stared at the number for a bit while slowly walking back to her dorm room. Today have given her a lot to think about.

A lot.

In this new time, she had an honest job that didn't involve hurting people. There wasn't anybody trying to hunt her down and kill her, that she knew of. She had a home, one that didn't move around and wasn't made of flimsy cloth that had to dried out after the rain, if she'd even had a tent sometimes. No insects crawling over her as she slept, she could generally expect to know where her next meal was coming from, people weren't terrified of her even when they knew she wasn't human, and they didn't condemn her for wanting to have a voice, not just be some obedient wife.

That wasn't a bad thing. It was a good thing, actually.

But, then, she'd lost her 'father', Darkness. Her 'sister', Scorpion. All the rest of her 'family', such as Liken Moss and Rekku Lyras. She'd lost her magic, she'd lost part of her memory, she'd lost some of her skills, she'd lost her health, of a sort. She'd lost over three centuries of her lifespan. The second most important thing she'd lost was her wife, Ishiki, and the feeling of love that kept her from despair and darkness, the feeling of knowing you have somebody beside you no matter what, the one person in this world she'd wanted to confide in, to go to bed with and to wake up in her arms.

But, the worst of all, she didn't know who'd tried to kill her, or why. But, since they attempted to do it by ripping the magic out of her soul, it meant it had to be somebody close to her. All of them had reason to do it. There were only three she could think of with opportunity, though. Darkness. Scorpion. And..... and....... and Ishiki.

She'd reached her room now, and had shut and locked the door behind her. Slowly, she walked over to the bed, sitting down, having set down the number on her nightstand and having removed her boots.

Darkness, Scorpion, or Ishiki. She hadn't wanted to face the idea of it. But, the future had presented itself. The Fates had given her a chance encounter. This was destiny's way of letting her know it was time to move on, to forget the past, and time to embrace the future and her new life. Of that she was certain. But, without knowing, without finding out the truth she had been running from and trying to escape for five years, she didn't think she could move on.

It was a powerful thing, to know the truth. Each of her three family had knowledge, opportunity, and motive. Oh, yes. They had had motive, and Amaya knew, in her heart, no matter how angry she would get, no matter who she would have to blame, her attempted murder was justified. To know who it was would destroy her, but to not know, it would be an injustice to the innocent ones, to those whose memories she should be honoring, not be scared of and analyzing every word, every action, every encounter for any sign of treachery.

To know would destroy her, that was certain, but not to know who had tried to kill her, well, that would be a new form of hell she had previously never known.

Amaya shook her head, and tears began to flow. Fate was shoving her away from the past and toward the future, telling her to leave it all behind and get on with her existence. But, not yet. She wasn't ready. She had to find closure. For that, she needed answers to those two burning questions.

Who?

And, most importantly....

"Why? Amaya only spoke that one word, but it was enough to make her start sobbing and force her head into her hands in despair.