Legends of Belariath
Zaira
A jumble of memories brought back with her recent resurrection, glimpses of the past and lingering thoughts that the cat-woman had thought forgotten. Ghosts within her mind, shadowy echoes tracing out the path that she had walked through life - the path that had formed her into what she had become - what she was becoming. Always shifting, always changing, a creature of fluid grace and steely resolve. The past came bubbling up like a nightmare, her own weakness, the weakness of others, and the familiar sting of a lost love, and a betrayal that she thought forgotten. The past, the path that had brought her out into the empire eerily similar to her reception on the return.
Not always known as Zaira, a taken name for herself - the true name of the cat-woman had not been spoken for years - never seeing the need for using it, nor the want to. It’s sounds, the letters of it perhaps lost to time, forgotten away for better things to hold onto. Born into a simple tribe, a once nomadic group of cat-folk that had found it necessary to instead build up a village to support the growing population of the once very small tribe. The tribe itself fairly type of what one would expect from a cat-folk gathering - save for the spiritual inclinations of the tribe - influenced by the tribe of wolvens that held territory nearby, occasionally trading with one another. The cat-people respected the hunting and spiritual skills of the wolven race, in turn the wolvens found the cat-people’s creativity and ingenuity useful.
Such a loose alliance however, was not strong enough for one tribe’s problems to become the problems of the other. The cat-folk made for an easy target for slavers that lurked through the area - while the wolvens held the strength and might to fight them back from their own lands, such a threat only seemed to entice the slavers towards hunting the cat-folk all the more - the males of the tribe particularly targeted, for the sake of their rarity. Such hunting threatening to devastate the tribe, so the leader of the tribe struck up a deal with the slavers.
The leader’s daughter, the woman that would be come to be known as Zaira, was almost turning of age - slotted, trained to become of the tribe’s priestesses made her especially vulnerable to be captured, and enslaved. Perhaps the last nudge needed for the leader to strike a deal with the slavers - an allotment of flesh would be given over to them every spring, willingly. The plot was discovered by Zaira, and in her youth, her fury and self assurance wouldn’t accept that it was for the greater good of the tribe. Cursing her father, and the other elders of the tribe that supported the course of action, she left - casting them out of her heart and, in her arrogance, thought she was prepared for the harsh world that she would be faced with. Behind her, her brother followed with her - unwilling to allow his sister to be cast out on her own. The two traveled eastward, wandering the land and surviving as best as they could until coming to a large city - the likes of which seemed amazing to the two tribal cat-folk.
Life did not become any easier for the pair once they arrived within the city however, they had few things of value and even less skills to make a profession within the world. Resorting to begging and stealing where they could - such a life style brought them into a fated encounter with another thief. The city was wide and populated enough to support a guild of thieves - organized amongst each other for their own safety, pooling resources to outwit or simply bribe guards. The pair of cat-people were being pursued by a guard that had caught them stealing, another game to their aid. A striking cat-man of dark colors lead them under the city, to a winding pathway of unused tunnels - evading the guard and introducing them to the network under the city that hosted the thieves guild.
She lived that way for a time, months passed with ease - the cat-woman living under the city and lurking about at night to creep and steal items from shops and homes with the others - an uneasy friendship between those within the guild. Happy to have one another, but always weary of treachery or betrayal. Slade, the one that had found Zaira and brought her into the guild, along with her sibling, took a personal interest in the young cat-woman. The two grow close and quickly became lovers.
Life seemed simple and perfect, a blissful state that the cat-woman could have been content with for many years, not always enough food to go around, nor were there always warm clothing to be had in the colder months, but time passed, and she was surviving - what more could one wish for. Other members within the guild were not as content however, wanting to take more power for themselves - to exploit the shop keepers, to strong arm the streets instead of merely work within the shadows. The uneasy truce held between the parties until a little pressure was applied. A new captain of the guard appointed - a ruthless and lecherous man - position held by his relation with the lord of the city, whom treated the guards more as a personal gang than soldiers protecting the interests of the city. The thieves within the city were hunted relentlessly, without mercy or care - usually killed and left to rot in the city streets. The captain seeing more as competition, and easy targets than an actual threat to the city - delighting in the slaying of others, merely needing a way of justifying it to others.
The more aggressive members of the thief guild banded together and formed a plot - to rid themselves of the more passive members that carried reputation and weight, and gain favor with the Captain in one swoop. They came into contact with the foul captain and formed a plan - their safety from the guards, in exchange for following the Captain’s desires for more covert thugs under his command, at the price of setting up a trap for the members of the guild that sought to keep their practices more traditional.
The result was not as cleanly executed as any would have wanted - in fighting amongst the guards and the thieves that had allied with them in a play for power, the uncovering of the plot - which came too late to do of any good created a system of chaos that cost a few lives - more were captured to the executed in view of the public. Zaira had uncovered the plot, and sought to warn others - especially her lover, but was captured by the members of the guild that she had once trusted. She managed to escape in the resulting chaos of power struggles, unable to locate her brother and finding her lover in hands of the guards.
Helpless to prevent the execution, and once more without friends in the dangerous city that had danger growing around every corner for the cat-woman, for being recognized by the wrong person could easily cost her life. So she fled the city - wandering out into the wilderness and learning how to survive in the most basic sense.
After time had passed, and the chaos of the betrayal became little more than a memory, Zaira decided on a plan - a simple plan driven by revenge. She would be captured by “slavers” - rangers and others that dwelled in the solitude of the wildness that she had befriended over the time, and sold off to the Captain’s household as a simple servant. Once within the household, the cat-girl used her physical appearance to gain attention from the Captain. At the first chance that Zaira had, she killed the sleeping man in his bed with a knife stolen from the kitchen. In the night she fled from the city for the last time - unnoticed, and not to be noted missing until the morning. Through the start of the winter she traveled until finally the weather mounted and made it impossible for a single traveler to make it far - taking up home in the next town that was passed, Nanthalion.