Weeping Cloud Lily

    Her name is Weeping Cloud Lily, though as per my way I just called her Lily for short.  I've never understood why people have to have such long names.  I'm usually tired of talking to them by the time I've finished just reciting their name, if I can remember it all.  So I just bypass most of it and get on to what needs to be said.   Well Lily responded in kind and only called me by the last part of my name as I do her.  So to Lily my name is Pony.  Or worse, she often refers to me as her little pony because she's so damn tall.  To this day, she is the only person who uses my given name, or part of it, that hasn't had a body part broken in response.  My parents stopped calling me Amicable Azure Pony the day I purchased my first slave.  If they speak to me at all now, they call me Aapo or more commonly "our damnable ungrateful son".  Well back to Lily.  Our parents were not only neighbors growing up but very close friends.  We were both our parents' only children and practically grew up as siblings.  She was such a pale, scrawny thing with long limp black hair that hooded her lavender eyes.  I'd try to ditch her to go hang with the other boys, but she would always find a way to tag along.  They would call her my shadow back then.  She annoyed me so much, but I must admit, I was rather fond of her.  She was passionate, persistent, stubborn, willful, cold as ice when she wanted to be and very capable.  If she wanted something, she would make it hers, one way or another.
    When we got older, she really blossomed.  I seemed to stop growing taller pretty early, but she grew like a tree and was quickly a good foot taller than I was and she had an athletic figure that would turn any man's head.  Her long raven black hair worn loose was like a hooded cloak of midnight that would swirl hypnotically around her and she always seemed to find just the right place to grandstand that the wind would whip it in the most dramatic ways.
    We became close friends and friendly but aggressive rivals.  We both underwent weapons training under Sensei Capering Puma and he focused on our particular strengths.  I was stronger than her, but she was so much faster and agile than I was.  I'd be in midswing at her and she'd have tapped me about six times before my baton made contact with her, if it made contact with her.  But when I did, I'd send her flying through Sensei's window.  While I focused on larger melee and thrown weapons, she preferred to duel wield smaller weapons and was fierce with a bow.  Unlike me, she also studied calligraphy, history and art.  She was always pretty smart.  She was driven by some need that I did not understand.  But I thank her to this day, because it was her drive and my competitive nature that caused me to work as hard as I did.  I wanted to beat her, I wanted to win and the only way to do that was to train and work and push myself as hard as she did in order to keep up.  If not for her, I'd probably be some slob in Great Forks, working a field, shoveling shit or selling delicate pastries in my parents quaint little shop.
    When I started doing mercenary work, so did she.  We worked together and became very popular candidates for jobs because of our exceptional skills, no questions asked mentality and that we worked so well together.  We were headed up in the world, something very important to Lily.  She would always say to me that we had a great destiny in store for us.  That she knew it, felt it to the depths of her soul that we were both meant for great things.  She was focused on it to the point of a feverish need to be the best in order to move up and forward.  I was just pretty content being comfortable.  I never felt any sort of need for anything more back then, never felt some great destiny was in store for me.  But I supported her ambition.  But my lack thereof eventually caused us to drift apart.
    She had caught the eye of the Guild and was recruited by them.  We continued to work together, but now I was a contracted mercenary by the Guild who worked for her.  She began to claw her way up, going around or destroying whatever was in her way, always racing towards this vague notion of destiny that consumed her.  I continued to work for the Guild as a mercenary until she sponsored me into the Guild as an official member.  I followed her to Nexus.  And then we lost track.  I was happy with my place in the world, but she wanted the world on a gilded plate.  And so I was left behind.  We saw each other less and less and then almost not at all.  Last time I saw her was about four months before I ended up in Mahanaga.  She was with some other snooty, upper Guild guys who's names I didn't know.  She looked amazing, wearing some sort of black & silver half surcoat over something that looked like a cross between a dress and leather armor.  She stopped when she saw me, I was gearing up for a caravan route, came over and hugged me.  Her companions looked absolutely appalled.  "How is my little pony?", she asked.  We made awkward smalltalk and a few minutes later she smiled, kissed me on the forehead and said goodbye.  She rejoined the others and as she was walking away she turned, gave me a wink, rolled her beautiful lavender eyes and vanished with them into a doorway.  Off to find her destiny I guess.  Little did I know mine was waiting for me only a job or two away.