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TW: Mentions of murder, rape, racism, drug use and prostitution

We'll ride the waves of the ocean

Wasting all of our days

You were born in the slums of a run down city in an overwhelmed part of the continent. A coven was dying out there, slowly but surely, and monsters were starting to roam the streets. The “walls” of your town were being drawn back, but you knew none of this. You lived in an apartment complex with several other families, who never seemed to get along. The fighting made you cry a lot, but things seemed to...actually settle once people found out you existed. You didn’t like it there in the cold dark apartment with the leaking pipes and dusty ceilings. Luckily, or rather unluckily, for you, you wouldn’t have to live there for much longer. [break][break]

What you never found out until you were old enough to dig around was that mother had a hereditary illness. She collapsed from a seizure while you screamed and cried, and next thing you knew the apartment was filled with cold voices and grave tones. You never stopped screaming though, not until you were picked up and cradled close by an officer who brought you away from that place. Your father was inconsolable. He’d lost his wife, and had a screaming infant to take care of all alone now. [break][break]

Life was very unfair you would soon find out.[break][break]

While you were still young and precious, your father couldn’t….handle it. Couldn’t deal with the stress of handling an infant on his own. So he did the only thing he thought he could do, and sent you away to the orphanage that was safely tucked on the other side of town. You were often told you were lucky as you grew up, switched when bad and smacked even when you were good. They didn’t like you, the kids or the staff. You were from a clan that was thought to have been ancient, but mostly dispersed across the continent now. What they didn’t like was the way you looked, and your name. Anass Fakhoury. An Ass Fuckery they taunted you behind your back.[break][break]

You hated it there, they did what they could to make you feel like you didn’t belong and deep in your heart you knew you didn’t. They didn’t treat you right, but you knew they were in the wrong not you. It fueled a fire inside of you, one that refused to go out. There wasn’t much you could do….or was there….

We could roll with the motion

It could all float away

At 12 you finally had enough, and ran away for the first time. You packed what you could in a bag and no one stopped you, no one seemed to be particularly concerned that you were slipping out. Everyone was conveniently away from the doors when you made your escape and with a wildly thumping heart you managed to sneak out of a hole in the poorly guarded section of the walls of the city, out into the vast thereafter. You made it about five yards before a pack of wild dogs attacked you, and suddenly you were hiccuping bubbles wildly before blacking out from pain and shrieking, and everything became cold.[break][break]

You awoke in a white room that smelled strongly of herbs and illness. A hospital. It was like your worst nightmare, and you shifted before pain rippled through you. It was manageable, but shocking. You found your leg in a cast, broken, and stitches in your stomach where it had been ripped open. Healing magic had saved your life, just barely, a nurse had whispered with a grave expression as she changed your bandages. You’d be returned to the orphanage with no repercussions due to your injuries, they figured you’d learned your lesson. [break][break]

You couldn’t go back. You’d be slaughtered.[break][break]

So you schemed. You had another few days to make your escape so you stocked up and pretended to take the pain meds, evaluated how much pain you were actually in, and kept them in a small section of wrappings you turned into a pouch. You insisted on walking around on the broken leg, was obnoxious and loud about it until they allowed it with exhausted sighs. Finally one night you made your escape with a few coins the nurses had given you for sweets in the hospital shop you’d never spent, and you managed to change and catch a train going as far as possible.[break][break]

You barely afforded a one way ticket, but the tender took one look at you and let it slide.[break][break]

The meds helped make the ride go smoother, every bump was lulled by the sweet release of medicinal remedies. You were treated to food by concerned motherly figures who thought you were too skinny, which you were. You ate relatively well for your trip, but then you came to Sundial City. You gravitated toward the spires and the glamour of the richer neighborhoods, but soon found yourself out of your element considering you had no money.[break][break]

Life on the streets was hard.[break][break]

You turned to begging, and quickly found out that not many people cared for a child who looked like you did. It turned your stomach that so many people would allow a child to starve, and you started to grow bitter and resentful. Once you hit fifteen you found about another way to make money….prostitution. It was awful and sickening, how much money people were willing to pay for young flesh, but it made you more money than begging and stealing. You vomited the first time you had sex with a much older man, three hundred dollars richer and officially no longer a virgin. That’s all you were worth in his eyes. Three hundred dollars. [break][break]

All these feels in the open

Reasons I've been afraid

The light in your eyes dimmed the more you did your job.[break][break]

You had a designated street corner now, and unlike most of the others who had pimps and thugs on their cases, you were scrawny and agile and angry enough to keep them away from you. You kept your profits, grew angrier and more resentful and bitter as time went on. Money built in your pockets and you finally could afford to do something you never thought you could do - buy an apartment. For once you had a space that was totally yours and it was amazing. Your clients came to you now, you could even shut the door in their faces if you didn’t like who showed up. It was in The Hovel, so it wasn’t the best, but it was four walls and a door that locked with a space heater and hot water. [break][break]

Your clients weren't the best. They got angry, they got drunk. You were tired. You were angry. You loved hot water, you loved eating properly, you loved having warm clothes and lots of blankets. Even if you didn’t always have those things right now. But it wasn’t precisely what you wanted. What you really wanted was revenge on people, on those who had used and abused you. You wanted a way to fight back.[break][break]

In order to do that you needed to show potential, to prove your worth. You managed to get your hands on some books on affinities, talked - actually talked to some of your more ….er… “professional” clients who seemed to know what they were doing. You were a water witch that much was clear from the way you hiccuped bubbles when stressed. You decided to move to a different complex, a few doors down but enough away where clientele wouldn’t bother you anymore. You weren’t that person anymore. You went to join the Silvertongue’s, a fire in your chest and a deep ache in your soul. [break][break]

You’d given up notions such as love and devotion. Loyalty meant nothing to you anymore. You were determined to get those things back, one way or another.