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Nahia Ur-Kari: An Extended History

Nahia was raised by the Ur-Kari island tribe, one of many such tribes that war amongst each other for control of the fertile islands to the Southwest. Her adopted parents were Txomin the Great Albatross, and Usoa the Blind Dove. Both were Lunar Exalted, the former a Full Moon and the chieftain of the tribe, the latter a No Moon and the tribe's wise woman. Previously, Txomin and Usoa had been the head of their own respective tribes, the warriors of Ur and the witches of Kari, both at war with one another for as long as they can remember. Soon enough their conflict escalated into a large-scale conflict on the island of Eveshorn, the most hotly contested territory between them. Warrior and witch laid waste to one another in those bloodiest of bloody days -- and amidst terrible losses on both sides, Txomin and Usoa withdrew from the battlefield to commence a private battle of their own.

No one knows what happened during that meeting, held in a half-submerged cave hollowed out into the reefs of Eveshorn by hundreds of years of tides. But when Txomin and Usoa emerged from that cave, they emerged with hands held high and clasped together, and they proclaimed their intent to marry, uniting their tribes and promoting peace between one another. Their respective people, weary and wounded from the days of fighting, were all too happy to comply with their leaders' change of heart. But one in particular found the conditions of the peace to be a betrayal, and so secretly swore to have her revenge -- by any means possible. For she was Zurinye the Quiet Seagull, and she was Usoa's lover among the Kari, a Waning Moon who could never bring herself to come to terms with the corruption of the Kari by the more patriarchal Ur.

But for the moment peace reigned, and the Ur and Kari merged to form the Ur-Kari tribe. Txomin and Usoa had many children, and so did their children strive to please their honored parents, but the most favored of their progeny was not one of their own, but an adopted child. Nahia, they named her, for the name meant "desire", and ever since they encountered her -- a stowaway on a ship their tribe had plundered for supplies -- she was always thirsty for new experiences and intensely curious about the people and environment around her. No one, not even young Nahia herself, knew where she had come from, who had been her real parents or why she was there. All she really knew of her past, as a wide-eyed, dark-haired girl watching those barbarian pirates swoop down like birds of prey in the dead of night, was that she had once been named Milagra, and her parents no longer wanted her. So Usoa the Blind Dove took pity on the girl, and bade Txomin, her husband, to make her their child.

No matter where Nahia had grown up previously, she took to life among the Ur-Kari as a fish takes to water. She was no stranger to hard work and high expectations. Her hands and wrists bore the marks of shackles, a child sold into slavery perhaps. But among these new people with their exciting and alien customs, she was more often than not all smiles and questions, wanting the ways of her new benefactors to be her ways, as well. Not long after her menarche, she underwent the rites of passage as a true Ur-Kari should, traveling alone on her hand-made raft to No-Name Isle to anoint the sacred waters with the blood of from the first prey she encountered on its shores. It was Cormorant that chose her, and so Cormorant's blood was spilled into the sacred well, and Nahia drank of the effervescent fluid that bubbled up from its depths. When she returned, proud and weary, from her task, she bore Cormorant's wings upon her back, and her black hair was streaked with the white crest of the Cormorant in mating season. Thus was she proclaimed both a woman and a warrior, and a full-fledged member of the Ur-Kari tribe.

Years passed. Nahia continued to grow more fierce and beautiful with time, and few would contest her favor in the eyes of Txomin and Usoa. But a shrewd few harbored their jealousy deeply and patiently, and it was jealousy that led to the undoing of the Ur-Kari tribe. So it came to be that the treacherous few among Nahia's brothers and sisters conspired secretly with Zurinye the Seagull, whom in the decades since her departure had taken control of several tribes on the far side of the southwest isles, and allied herself and her new people with the Lintha. After half a century, Zurinye returned to the shores of Eveshorn with a fleet of Lintha ships, their bowels brimming with a horde of barbarians set on wiping the Ur-Kari off the face of the isles. The attack came so unexpectedly, aided by forces both within and without the tribe, that the Ur-Kari were completely decimated in the course of a single night. Txomin the Great Albatross perished that night, but not before striking a crippling, mortal blow upon Zurinye, whose name he cursed with his dying breath.

It was in this battle, pushed on by despair and desperation and an indominitable will to survive, that Nahia was marked by Luna. No -- perhaps she had taken notice of Nahia long before then, and herself arranged the conditions with which such a treacherous attack would be brought to fruition. Perhaps Luna herself had bade Txomin and Usoa that fateful night to drop their arms and embrace one another as allies and lovers. Whatever the case, that battle would be Nahia's final test in the eyes of the Fickle Lady: would she choose death at her father's side, having seen all she learned to love destroyed, or would she choose life, and all its yet undiscovered opportunities on the horizon? The choice for Nahia was as clear as the full moon that dominated the star-strewn heavens that night. It was life that she craved more than anything else in the world, a life of new experiences and new discoveries, a life of new challenges she would meet with laughter, daring and a spear haft in her hands.

Luna's Exaltation descended upon Nahia, and her wild, triumphant laughter echoed across the blood-soaked beaches, alerting all who opposed her that their deaths would come as swiftly and unerringly as Cormorant's aim. The conclusion of the battle was short indeed, and when she was finished, the sands were strewn with the bodies of the enemies she had slain, and the friends and family that had aided her in her relentless advance. So many dead. Only she remained unscathed, bathed in moonlight and black feathers as the last of the Lintha sails retreated from her sight. But Nahia was not the only survivor. Not far ahead her knelt her mother, Usoa the Blind Dove, kneeling before the dying form of Zurinye the Quiet Seagull, who -- true to her namesake -- only gazed up at Usoa with a silent, mirthless smile. Guided by senses beyond her grey, sightless eyes, Usoa lifted the dagger of moonsilver in her hands, and delivered the Seagull mercifully to meet her ancestors. The deed done, she rose to meet Nahia with a grave expression on her fair features, beckoning to her one remaining daughter with an outstretched palm. "Come with me," was what the white lady said.

After the bodies of the slain had been ritually cleansed and set out to sea, Usoa fixed the caste of her husband upon Nahia's fair brow, the shining silver circle of the Full Moon. In the months that followed, Usoa initiated her daughter into the mysteries of what it meant to be a Chosen of Luna. Alone on the island now but for her mother, the forces of nature and its myriad flora and fauna, Nahia learned how to quell that protean beast within her, the part of her that had become inhuman with the blessing of the Fickle Lady. She learned to shape it, shape herself into a predator of stunning beauty and feral grace. And she enjoyed every moment of it, for to dwell in the past was to suffer in stagnation, and this she would never do. The betrayers were dead, and while they had taken Txomin down with them, his death had been properly honored, and his body rested at sea. As for the Lintha, well -- she would have to wait and see!

When a year had passed, Usoa brought Nahia back to the very sands upon which Txomin and Zurinye had died, and granted her two special gifts. First, the moonsilver harpoon Ilar Ehiztari, whose name means "Star Hunter", that Txomin the Great Albatross had wielded until his final breath. And second, a simple shift of fluid silver cloth woven of spun moonsilver and strands of siren's hair, which when worn would protect her from all but the mightiest of blows. When Nahia garbed herself with this shift, it reshaped itself into the form that most suited her, much to her unabashed delight -- a bikini, or more accurately, a halter top and hot pants, molded snugly to the contours of her body. This would be the last image Usoa would remember of her: wings folded around her like a mantle of dark feathers, the briefest of moonsilver garments covering her modesty underneath, Ehiztari wrapped and slung across her back as she waved to the woman she called mother... and smiled.

The Departure

"We have kept you shackled long enough," Usoa told her daughter with a wistful smile of her own, standing with her on the shores of Eveshorn. "Our wars should never have been yours. Now go. The seas and the skies are yours to explore."

"I will," replied Nahia, her cheerful grin only broadening as she flexed her wings in preparation for flight. "But this will always be home to me. You and father --" she pats the harpoon wrapped behind her "-- have helped me grow into what I am. I have no regrets! I'n sure we'll meet again someday. If not in this life, then the next."

"If you remember me, I would be honored. Goodbye and good luck, my Nahia."

But Usoa's farewell is met with silence. For Nahia did not believe in long goodbyes, nor did she have any doubt that what she said was true. There was only the swoop of air under Cormorant's wings as they lifted her into the sky, propelling her upon favorable winds to destinations unknown. Hers would be an adventure to end all adventures, and it has just begun.