Zepher

Soul's Price

Admiration, Respect, and Love

Zepher doesn't really understand that this is her desire, but it is the underlying themes of everything she does. Zepher longs to be adored and admired. It is why she takes great pride in everything she does. It is why she longs to know and understand the Gods, and why she can't see herself as above them ever. It is why she wants to restore Aun Tang. She wants to be seen as capable and strong. This is why she is so valorous, why it aggrivates her so much when people mistreat her, and why she strives for wisdom. It is also why she loves working with the animals so much, because the animals are trained to respect and obey thier master. As for love, love is a dream she's all but given up on, but she strongly desires to be loved wholeheartedly my another, in the romantic sense. It is for these reasons that she was easy to convince to leave with the wild hunt. Love is something she looked for with her companions there, and was unable to have returned. All of her intimate interactions have clearly been not this. Nine Tines Cunning was very clear that he was interested in her in a "for now" way, as has everyone else that has ever expressed such things. She kind of sees herself as unworthy of this kind of admiration and desire and is looking to make herself more so without the depressing realisation of what she is doing.

Animals

Skydancer

Zepher's Familiar, A hawk that has been with her since she became slave to the wild hunt.

• Strength: 2 Max 4
• Dexterity: 3 Max 6
• Stamina: 3 Max 4
• Perception: 4 Max 4
• Intelligence: 2 Max 2
• Witts: 2 Max 4

• Athletics: 3
• Awareness: 4
• Dodge: 3
• Integrety: 2
• Martial Arts: 4
• Presence: 1
• Resistance: 3
• Stealth: 3
• Survival: 4

Hope

A baby white elephant trained as a warhorse by a dragon-blooded sent to kill the group. Zepher liberated him and is training him for the day she will ride with the regalia.

Attributes

• Strength: 7 Max 14
• Dexterity: 4 Max 4
• Stamina: 9 Max 16
• Perception: 3 Max 4
• Intelligence: 2 Max 2
• Wits: 4 Max 8

• Athletics: 4
• Awareness: 4
• Integrity: 2
• Martial Arts: 3
• Presence: 4
• Resistance: 3
• Survival: 3

Background

From An Tang to The Wild Hunt

I knew my life would change that day, I had seen it in the stars. My sincerest regret is that I never gave anyone any warning. My father, Morning Sun and I left my mother, Star of Hope, and little brother, Gift of Chance (age 8 then), at our house and headed into The City of The Steel Lotus to sell birds at the market. I was sixteen and full of excitement for what was to come, but at the same time scared of looking ignorant as all teenagers are and the stars are vague and easy to misread.

Ledaal Furek came to our booth so see our birds. In Au Tang it is said that the Dragonblooded are like a hurricane, absentminedly changing everything in thier path. The addendum to that is that it's futile to say no to a hurricane, and better to give them what they want in hopes that they will be gentle and well peased. So it was that we went about trying to satisfy the hurricane in our midst. I put on a grand display showing all of the many talents of our birds. Furek watched intently and then asked, "But wouldn't I need someone skilled to handle them?" My father went pale, and Ledaal Furek began sizing up weather or not I make a good asset for him. His words were all business, but his eyes and his gestures showed me that there was more to his intent. In that moment I was captivated by him. I saw his mental restraint. His motions were like a storm that had somehow been corralled, but like all wild things it couldn't be contained forever. I wanted to know that power and I went with him willingly. So eager was I that I hardly noticed that there was no discussion of terms of service, simply money exchanging hands. I had been bought and sold and was now his, but that knowlege didn't sink in until much later.

We traveled to the Blessed Isle and there I met the other membered of his group of the wild hunt. I was now an asset of the hunt. Through my birds Furek was able to see and track anathama. For ten years I traveled with them and they were a quite sucessful group. I saw the slaying of three anathama and the prestige that they got for doing such tasks.

After I time I became less enchanted with Ledal Furak. He is a brisk businesslike man with strong faith that he is doing the right thing and a dislike for his own lusts. Often I felt ignored by him and, naturally, my attention turned to our other companions. In time I came to know them all intimately. Deals were made, debts were owed or repayed, and on one or two occasions I offeded someone and had to make ammends. This was a secret that was tightly guarded amongst the group of them. Apparently thier superiors would disapprove.

Sesus Lepuso is the pretty one. He is a joy to look at and is the first that I tried to connect with when I got bored with Furak's ways. When I finally got him it was a disappointing dull encounter. His looks seem to get him places that others need genuine charm to go, so he is not near as charming as most of the others.

Mnemon Soras is perhaps my least favorate. She is a spoiled bitch living off of her religious sense of entitlement. Her demenor is brisk and direct and she wants what she wants immeadiately. My time with her was spent scrambling to fulfil all of her orders and it was time I dreaded.

Ragara Sedil was the first that I was to know beyond Furak. There is something about him that comes off as very sleezy and to this day sends chills down my spine. I think he genuinely likes watching me squirm. I also suspect he's a bit of a sadist, although if that is the case he has gone through great effort to hide it from his companions. I don't like him very much and I think that for that reason and that reason alone he keeps finding ways to be with me.

Sesus Sanar is a kind and gentle man who genuinely wants to do good in the world. He would keep me up late telling him about life in Au Tang and genuinely loved to hear me talk because my viewpoint was not the one he was accustom to. He strives to live up to the ideals of the immaculate faith, but is really just in service to the hunt to make a name for himself so that he can one day have the power to change the world.

Zepher's Exhaultation

One evening an informant came to our camp, telling Furak of anthema sighting nearby. He was a kind man and we sat up the night after he came reading the stars from the wagon where my cages were kept. It was an ominous night, difficult to read but clearly one of great changes. The foreboding had just begun to sink in when lights filled the sky.

The Wild Hunt raced ahead, not bothering to think about getting those of us in the entorage out of harms way this once. As the attack commenced it became obvious that we were dealing with multiple anathema. I moved to wake the birds and get them out of harms way I heard the voice of the Unconcored Sun. Sesus Sanar turned to me brandishing a sword and said the word anathema. I realised that part of the light filling the night sky was coming from me, and that Sanar, the only man I'd ever loved, had meant to kill me. I tried to talk him out of it, but one of the other anathema came to my rescue dropping him to the ground in a single blow.

As the battle drew to a swift conclusion the guide turned to me and said, "I'd only meant to lead them to the wolf, I didn't know, I'm sorry." And he proceeded to attack the hunt defending me and the other anathema.

The last of the wild hunt fell and the others moved to survey the fallen. "This one's still alive," the old woman noted, pointing to Sanar. My heart lept and sank at the same time. I ran to him.

As I did the merchant pulled a dagger from his belt. "No!" I cried out in panic.

"If we let him live he will come for us later," The robed one told me full of cold rationalness.

"He would have killed you," the merchant reminded me. And somehow I allowed them to finish him. In that moment I knew that I had become a great monster. I resigned myself to being the anathema of legend and knew that if this was my destany I would follow where it lead. Tears stung my cheeks.

Then I rememberd the guide's earlier words and those that echoed in my head of deception among us. "You!" I turned to him in rage, "This is your doing!" As I advanced on him a colored light radiated from him.

He began to speak. He told us that we would not survive on the Blessed Isle. He told us that he could get us to the safety of a Southwestern Isle, but first we'd need to do him a favor in a small villiage along the way. We all knew he was right, and that we'd need his aid to live. Part of me wanted to die, but the rest of me knew that I had a new destany to fill and the first step in that destany was surviving.

The Blessed Isle

Through the quest we were sent on by my strange companion we learned of the Illuminated. We learned that what we had become was creatures of great power capable of both great good, The Illuminated, or great evil, The Anathema.

We aided villiages. We found ruins of history. We talked to spirits. I prayed to the sun and my morning lord in secret, and eventually even openly at a manse alter we came accross. I found my companious to be good people, capable of all human falicies and struggling to have the best of intentions now that that wield such vast power. Even Balak, who had been a great mortal sorcerer of the heptogram struggled, if only to keep from making enemies of us by misstepping.

It was with great hesitation that I agreed to return to my homeland. Once I was the boat swept up in the hurricane that was the dragonblooded. Now I would be returning, a greater hurricane than we had seen. In the end my sentimentality won out. It had been ten years since I'd seen my family.

The Unconcored Sun

While still on the island it came to be known to us that we were exhaulted, like the Dragon-Blooded that shaped everything about the world I'd ever known. The sun itself had reached down and blessed us with powers, without really giving us a litergy to understand what was expected of us. His name was The Unconcored Sun. I longed to meet this great God and to understand him. Most of all I longed for the answer to one single question, "Why me?". What was it about me that brought on such a fate and what did he hope to gain by such action?

It also became apparent that we knew things that we shouldn't. Mountain knew that there was a manse hidden on the island and felt compelled to confirm this hunch. We traveled there and it stood just as he had said it would. It was glorious. I had been in very few manses in my time, and considering the number of years it had hidden unnoticed it was in fine condition. Inside was the greatest thing I could have hoped to find: a shrine to the Unconcored Sun.

When the time was right I slipped off to the shrine to pray. It felt good to be able to pray again. We of Aun Tang had always prayed in secret, for fear of the Dragon-Blooded, but when I was with The Hunt there wasn't really a way to run off and practice sacriliges, so it had been many years. I was rusty, and didn't know what sorts of things he would like, but I needed answers and decided to just do what felt right. With great regret I sacrificed the broach Idoru had given me from her regal wardrobe. It wasn't really mine to give and I didn't look foreward to having to explain what became of it, but it was all I had of worth. The sacrifice was accepted and the brasers grew. I felt wonderful. The Gods themselves were taking note of me. In a flash I saw his face, and it burned into some parchement nearby. I still didn't have my answers, but I knew he was real and watching, and somehow that helped.