Editing Lily (section)

=Lily=
Ship's Bursar of the Caveat Emptor.
 
''In the Beginning:''
 
She was placed with a dozen other albinos in the Workhouse for Misbegotten Souls run by the Vicar of Old Borealis.
 
''An Odd Thing:''
 
There were two albino groups in the workhouse. The "real" albinos (of which there were only a handful) lived in the dorm with the various other  "contra-normatively hued" children.  Lily's dozen brothers and sisters ("just a figure of speech," the Vicar said) were isolated from the other Misbegotten.

''It was the Eyes:''

"Real" albinos have pink eyes.  Lily and her "siblings" had coal-black eyes--pupil, iris and sclera.  And they all could see in near-total darkness.  The children used their skill to sneak out at night and commit petty theft to supplement their meager rations.  Sometimes they were caught and punished, but that only made Lily and her siblings more clever and careful in their midnight runs.

''In the Mines:''

Rumor had it that the Vicar's cousin stumbled across a mother lode of gems in the Rockies and decided that what the Emperor didn't know wouldn't hurt him.  The Vicar told the children that they now had to pay back the kindness that he had bestowed upon them (beatings, rotten food, abuse).  They were all spirited out of Old Borealis to the mountains and set to work digging brilliant purple amethyst.  The Vicar got a cut of the profits from his cousin by providing laborers who could see in the dark.

''Jewels and Numbers:''

Being weak and frail, Lily (she went by many names in her life) nearly died in the mines.  But the Vicar found her nimble hands were much more suited to polishing and carving the gems than mining them.  She got very good at this and began to live a relatively tolerable life (for a Misbegotten) in the jewelry factory that the Vicar and his cousin secretly owned.  Pleased at her craftsmanship and sharp mind, the Vicar trained her to be his bookkeeper.  He couldn't trust anyone he didn't completely control to take care of his finances.  

''Strike from Afar:''

The Vicar was no fool.  The only money Lily handled were the numbers in the Vicar's books.  She would never set her pale hands on a single real penny of his.  But there are other ways to steal and cheat.  Lily moved accounts, hid sums of money in counting houses under false names and embezzled as much as she could get away with it.  Though she could never get a hold of the money, she thought she could hold it hostage.  She left a note demanding freedom for her siblings from the mines in exchange for the location of the millions she had hidden.  Hiding in the Vicar's home and office in the crawl spaces, she waited for the letter in response that the Vicar was to drop down a certain sewer.  When it arrived the Vicar wrote that he would execute an albino a day until his money was returned.  Lily's last day in the Vicar's house was to secretly drop off another letter promising to inform the Emperor of the Vicar's accounts if any of her siblings were harmed.  A stalemate for now--she hoped.

''On the Run:''

Escaping by night, Lily stowed away on the first airship she could find.  Unfortunately it was headed to the hot deserts of the south--no place for an albino.  She snuck off when it reached an Air Naval base.  She lived for a few weeks on the base, stealing food in the dark and sleeping in attics and crawl spaces by day.  She was awakened one day by an explosion from the ammunition dump and saw that the whole base was either under attack or facing a mutiny or both.  Quickly slipping though the thick smoke, she slipped unnoticed on the only airship leaving the place--the one commandeer by the mutinous Edmund Aubrey Blackthorn-Santiago.

''A Pirate's Bookkeeper:''

For several days she remained hidden on the airship, listening in on the pirate crew's chatter.  She soon discovered that two of the former prisoners from the base were plotting to betray the pirates in hopes of having their past crimes pardoned.  They were also swindling the Captain blind--he seemed to have a violent aversion to adding any numbers himself.  So after a week she snuck into the Captain's cabin and waited.  Upon his arrival she managed to convince him both not to toss her overboard outright, and that his current Bursar was plotting to hand him over to the Imperial Air Navy.  So the two plotters found themselves marooned at the bottom of the Grand Canyon with no shoes, no shirts and a single one-shot pistol between them, while Lily found herself with a job offer.


*Culture: Misbegotten
*Background: Factory Worker & Criminal