Ariadne (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
demonicbeauty) wrote2015-09-29 09:26 pm
demonicbeauty) wrote2015-09-29 09:26 pm
Entry tags:
Backstory
Ariadne--or Airy, as she'll tell you to call her--was born in the kingdom of Deleo, a smaller kingdom in her realm, known for its lush forests. It was one of the leading producers of lumber. And, more importantly, it was home to dozens of nomadic tribes of Alastrians, a demonoid race native to the realm. Ariadne was born in the middle of a litter of twenty, to father Feofan--the pack's storyteller--and mother Rotspine. Being one of twenty made Ariadne something of an unremarkable child, with two noteworthy exceptions. The first was that she learned, at a reasonably early age, to secrete pheromones that could make her appear Human, a trait she shared with her mother and several other siblings. The second was that she had a talent for disobeying her mother's strict rules, often wandering just a little bit too close to the Human villages of Deleo for comfort.
Rotspine and Feofan had left their family group years before Ariadne's birth. The nature of their departure was mysterious to Ariadne, but it meant that they often received visitors from far-away places, such as the kingdom of Valeria, one of the bustling centers of commerce and culture. Ariadne's favorite visitor was her Uncle Tahafra, who would often bring little trinkets and wild tales about the way that the humanoids of the realm (Humans, Elves, and Darcus) lived. Like Rotspine and Ariadne, Tahafra possessed the ability to appear Human. He'd even gone a step further, severing his own wings in order to pass. His stories often filled Ariadne's little head with the idea of someday living and passing as a Human herself.
As it was, the Alastrians were ill-treated in the realm. Sorcerers would sometimes bind them as familiars. And hunters often illegally hunted them down for their hair. It was considered a luxury good in the realm, finer than silk and nearly twenty times as expensive. Most hunters outright killed Alastrians and scalped them. But there were some who settled for simple humiliation. When Ariadne was seven, one of her brothers, Lief, crossed paths with such hunters. They stripped him naked, shaved his head, and left him alone in the forest. Ariadne's family found him three days later, shivering and scared senseless, unable to speak or make eye contact for weeks. And the incident taught Ariadne, for the first time, how deeply dangerous it was to be Alastrian.
Strangely, it didn't dampen Ariadne's curiosity the way her mother hoped it would. Instead, it led her to the conclusion that she ought to be ashamed of who and what she was. She therefore dedicated as much time to learning how to control her pheromones as possible. Soon, she was able to maintain the spell even while sleeping. Her disgruntled mother was tempered by her gentle father. Feofan believed that not all Humans and other humanoids were dangerous. He passed this optimism on to his daughter. The two of them had a special bond. Feofan loved each and every one of his children, but Ariadne was the apple of his eye.
Rotspine was the disciplinarian of the family. Of all the Alastrians in their pack, she was the most aggressive. She'd also had the most experience with humanoids, having spent a great deal of her life trying to pass for one, although she refused to give up her wings. Life with them taught her cruelty and pain. It drove her to worship the most powerful and warlike of gods, a faith she tried--with varying degrees of success--to pass on to her children.
Most of Ariadne's childhood was spent in the forest, living from day to day. Alastrians didn't believe in formal schooling or apprenticeships. Rather, the adults in the pack taught the children of the litter various skills and the children naturally divided up the labor, according to their aptitudes. Lithe and spritely, Ariadne was often charged with the task of climbing up into the canopy to fetch various fruits and nuts and also to look for signs of danger. When the day was plentiful, nights would be spent listening to Feofan sing songs of the ancient times, of the times when the Alastrian people had a home of their own and feared no one. If the day was meager, the family would make due, sleeping up in the branches.
Ariadne's skill in climbing and moving from tree to tree served her well. At the age of ten, a forest fire ravaged Deleo, one she would later learn was set by a warlord calling himself the Red Dragon. As it happened, Ariadne was up in a tree, sulking over her latest quarrel with her mother when the blaze started. Every child in the litter had been taught, at the first sign of danger, to run. Or if possible, fly. When Ariadne smelled the smoke, she did just that, moving through the canopy and cutting up into the air, high above the trouble. She screamed out the names of her brothers and sisters, but was unable to find any of them in the ensuing chaos. For three days, there was nothing but fire and smoke and ash. It was longer than she'd ever dared to stay up in the air, leaving her vulnerable and exhausted. On the fourth day, turned around and confused, Ariadne came upon Uncle Tahafra, who'd just arrived for a visit. Finding only devastation and a very frightened little girl, Tahafra decided to take her to Valeria with him, giving her the strictest of instructions to look Human, no matter what.
In Valeria, Tahafra brought Ariadne to his sister, Lysia. Ariadne was baffled. She'd never seen an Alastrian who lived in a house before. Nor one who wore shoes and jewelry and plaited her hair. Tahafra and Lysia had been passing for Humans for years, making lives for themselves in Valeria. But there was one person who knew their secret. The reigning Elvish monarch of Valeria, Amanda, employed Lysia (who had sacrificed her wings as well) as a court translator. At least on the surface.
The true story was much more complicated than anything Ariadne had seen in her life. Amanda and Lysia had both spent the larger part of Ariadne's lifetime watching the growing threat of the Red Dragon, an Elvish warlord who'd once been a peaceful king. As it was, he'd already marched his army into five other kingdoms, meeting almost no resistance and easily taking them over. The monarchs had been publicly executed. There was a constant stream of refugees, trying to escape. And the Red Dragon showed no signs of slowing. At first, no one had taken him seriously as a threat. Now it seemed too late. He appeared unstoppable. Only Lysia and Amanda had had the foresight to start working against him.
Lysia adopted Ariadne, raising her as her own. Judging the girl old enough to make her own decisions, she asked Ariadne if she would be willing to trade her wings for a Human life. Ariadne barely hesitated. While the process of losing her wings was painful, she decided it was well worth it. For the first time, she was treated as a Human girl. She was given shoes and dresses and sent to school where she excelled in mathematics and languages. Although friendly and well-liked, she had a hard time adjusting at first. All of her classmates could tell there was something strange about her, but they couldn't put their fingers on what. For that matter, Ariadne didn't understand that some of her own habits were off-putting. Where she came from, it was perfectly natural to drop down to your haunches when threatened or to burst into song for no reason at all, just because the muse struck.
When she was fourteen, Lysia caught sight of her in a tree. Impressed by her ability to move, even without her wings, Lysia decided that the time had come for Ariadne to join in the effort to slow the Red Dragon's progress. She began with little tests here and there, encouraging Ariadne to try to snatch a handkerchief out of her pocket without her noticing, or slip a bracelet off of her wrist. With her light touch and dexterous fingers, Ariadne was a natural and was quickly being tested against some of Amanda's guards. Her talent was too good to put to waste. Soon, Ariadne was being sent over the border into neighboring kingdoms, some controlled by the Red Dragon, for papers and other items.
She was never caught. For someone who'd grown up to be so beautiful, she was entirely too easy to overlook, when things went missing.
While her efforts were useful on a small scale, in the greater scheme of things, Amanda and Lysia were fighting a losing battle. Eventually, it became too dangerous for anyone to leave Valeria. The kingdom was very slowly coming under siege. Hoping to attempt some new tactics, Amanda and Lysia began to assemble small tactical cells to sabotage the Red Dragon's efforts. Ariadne was put on a team with seven other young people, none of whom knew who or what she was. To them, Ariadne became something of a light in the darkness, eternally optimistic despite the losing battle.
And it was a losing battle. They knew that any day, the Red Dragon would begin his final assault on Valeria and the realm would inevitably fall.
Rotspine and Feofan had left their family group years before Ariadne's birth. The nature of their departure was mysterious to Ariadne, but it meant that they often received visitors from far-away places, such as the kingdom of Valeria, one of the bustling centers of commerce and culture. Ariadne's favorite visitor was her Uncle Tahafra, who would often bring little trinkets and wild tales about the way that the humanoids of the realm (Humans, Elves, and Darcus) lived. Like Rotspine and Ariadne, Tahafra possessed the ability to appear Human. He'd even gone a step further, severing his own wings in order to pass. His stories often filled Ariadne's little head with the idea of someday living and passing as a Human herself.
As it was, the Alastrians were ill-treated in the realm. Sorcerers would sometimes bind them as familiars. And hunters often illegally hunted them down for their hair. It was considered a luxury good in the realm, finer than silk and nearly twenty times as expensive. Most hunters outright killed Alastrians and scalped them. But there were some who settled for simple humiliation. When Ariadne was seven, one of her brothers, Lief, crossed paths with such hunters. They stripped him naked, shaved his head, and left him alone in the forest. Ariadne's family found him three days later, shivering and scared senseless, unable to speak or make eye contact for weeks. And the incident taught Ariadne, for the first time, how deeply dangerous it was to be Alastrian.
Strangely, it didn't dampen Ariadne's curiosity the way her mother hoped it would. Instead, it led her to the conclusion that she ought to be ashamed of who and what she was. She therefore dedicated as much time to learning how to control her pheromones as possible. Soon, she was able to maintain the spell even while sleeping. Her disgruntled mother was tempered by her gentle father. Feofan believed that not all Humans and other humanoids were dangerous. He passed this optimism on to his daughter. The two of them had a special bond. Feofan loved each and every one of his children, but Ariadne was the apple of his eye.
Rotspine was the disciplinarian of the family. Of all the Alastrians in their pack, she was the most aggressive. She'd also had the most experience with humanoids, having spent a great deal of her life trying to pass for one, although she refused to give up her wings. Life with them taught her cruelty and pain. It drove her to worship the most powerful and warlike of gods, a faith she tried--with varying degrees of success--to pass on to her children.
Most of Ariadne's childhood was spent in the forest, living from day to day. Alastrians didn't believe in formal schooling or apprenticeships. Rather, the adults in the pack taught the children of the litter various skills and the children naturally divided up the labor, according to their aptitudes. Lithe and spritely, Ariadne was often charged with the task of climbing up into the canopy to fetch various fruits and nuts and also to look for signs of danger. When the day was plentiful, nights would be spent listening to Feofan sing songs of the ancient times, of the times when the Alastrian people had a home of their own and feared no one. If the day was meager, the family would make due, sleeping up in the branches.
Ariadne's skill in climbing and moving from tree to tree served her well. At the age of ten, a forest fire ravaged Deleo, one she would later learn was set by a warlord calling himself the Red Dragon. As it happened, Ariadne was up in a tree, sulking over her latest quarrel with her mother when the blaze started. Every child in the litter had been taught, at the first sign of danger, to run. Or if possible, fly. When Ariadne smelled the smoke, she did just that, moving through the canopy and cutting up into the air, high above the trouble. She screamed out the names of her brothers and sisters, but was unable to find any of them in the ensuing chaos. For three days, there was nothing but fire and smoke and ash. It was longer than she'd ever dared to stay up in the air, leaving her vulnerable and exhausted. On the fourth day, turned around and confused, Ariadne came upon Uncle Tahafra, who'd just arrived for a visit. Finding only devastation and a very frightened little girl, Tahafra decided to take her to Valeria with him, giving her the strictest of instructions to look Human, no matter what.
In Valeria, Tahafra brought Ariadne to his sister, Lysia. Ariadne was baffled. She'd never seen an Alastrian who lived in a house before. Nor one who wore shoes and jewelry and plaited her hair. Tahafra and Lysia had been passing for Humans for years, making lives for themselves in Valeria. But there was one person who knew their secret. The reigning Elvish monarch of Valeria, Amanda, employed Lysia (who had sacrificed her wings as well) as a court translator. At least on the surface.
The true story was much more complicated than anything Ariadne had seen in her life. Amanda and Lysia had both spent the larger part of Ariadne's lifetime watching the growing threat of the Red Dragon, an Elvish warlord who'd once been a peaceful king. As it was, he'd already marched his army into five other kingdoms, meeting almost no resistance and easily taking them over. The monarchs had been publicly executed. There was a constant stream of refugees, trying to escape. And the Red Dragon showed no signs of slowing. At first, no one had taken him seriously as a threat. Now it seemed too late. He appeared unstoppable. Only Lysia and Amanda had had the foresight to start working against him.
Lysia adopted Ariadne, raising her as her own. Judging the girl old enough to make her own decisions, she asked Ariadne if she would be willing to trade her wings for a Human life. Ariadne barely hesitated. While the process of losing her wings was painful, she decided it was well worth it. For the first time, she was treated as a Human girl. She was given shoes and dresses and sent to school where she excelled in mathematics and languages. Although friendly and well-liked, she had a hard time adjusting at first. All of her classmates could tell there was something strange about her, but they couldn't put their fingers on what. For that matter, Ariadne didn't understand that some of her own habits were off-putting. Where she came from, it was perfectly natural to drop down to your haunches when threatened or to burst into song for no reason at all, just because the muse struck.
When she was fourteen, Lysia caught sight of her in a tree. Impressed by her ability to move, even without her wings, Lysia decided that the time had come for Ariadne to join in the effort to slow the Red Dragon's progress. She began with little tests here and there, encouraging Ariadne to try to snatch a handkerchief out of her pocket without her noticing, or slip a bracelet off of her wrist. With her light touch and dexterous fingers, Ariadne was a natural and was quickly being tested against some of Amanda's guards. Her talent was too good to put to waste. Soon, Ariadne was being sent over the border into neighboring kingdoms, some controlled by the Red Dragon, for papers and other items.
She was never caught. For someone who'd grown up to be so beautiful, she was entirely too easy to overlook, when things went missing.
While her efforts were useful on a small scale, in the greater scheme of things, Amanda and Lysia were fighting a losing battle. Eventually, it became too dangerous for anyone to leave Valeria. The kingdom was very slowly coming under siege. Hoping to attempt some new tactics, Amanda and Lysia began to assemble small tactical cells to sabotage the Red Dragon's efforts. Ariadne was put on a team with seven other young people, none of whom knew who or what she was. To them, Ariadne became something of a light in the darkness, eternally optimistic despite the losing battle.
And it was a losing battle. They knew that any day, the Red Dragon would begin his final assault on Valeria and the realm would inevitably fall.