The Artist/Thief

“I like the red stains between your teeth,

and the way your hands grip my hair.

The decoration of scars across your flesh,

cicatrix telling of messes you made.

Each growl from a clenched jaw makes me tremble.

My wild lover. My wicked beast.”

Once just an artist from Bazi. Now a Karian Thief

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Born among the tea leaves of Bazi with a silver spoon in her mouth, to a wealthy merchant. A beauty with dark tresses and light eyes, the only features visible through the robes and veils. From a young age she showed a true talent for painting. Her father fostered that talent, providing the best teachers he could find for her. She embraced her path and became an artist, painting portraits, landscapes, anything that strikes her eye.

She undertook the trip to the Sardar Mountains as all Goreans must, when life threw the young woman her first curve. She got in a spot of trouble with a man from Ar on the way home. A misunderstanding between him, his companion and Tae almost had her placed in chains. Disgusted, her father cut her off. Her innocence proven, the Arian magistrate released her and she left Ar immediately. Determined to return home and throw herself on her father's mercy, her talent with portraiture earned her enough coin to get her to Brundisium, where life threw her yet another curve.

She met another man, Trajan Retief, he needed a job, and she needed a guard.

He was a former pit fighter: strong, loyal and trustworthy.

Just what one looks for in a guard. She hired him to help her get home.

The life that gave him his scars made him a better guard.

She had not considered the scars such a life had left on the inside.

What she didn't know was he was also a beast.

An uncontrollable raging tempest of hatred.

He latched onto her as the only solace in the churning maelstrom that was his life.

Within no time he had taken control of her meager coin and her life.

He still took her home. That fateful decision ended in blood and fire.

It forged a bond between them.

Sometimes bonds are blessings and curses.

"Our fates bind us.

Join me, and together will we do whatever it takes to escape."

-B. Vallejo

They live off what they can steal, make off her art, or he can earn as a guard.

He took her to the one place he thought they could survive,

Port Kar.