Editing A Thousand Useless Regrets (section)

=History=

Born to poor but freed slaves in the Lap, the Northern heritage in her blood was obvious to all. White hair, pale skin, eyes of the cold blue skies; the neighborhood aldsmen laughed, and said that here, she was marked to be of the night, for the sun would burn her skin black. Her parents were poor - they put her to work right soon as they could. The alderman sent her to scare away the crows in the fields. Come the end of the third season, many a night her family had fresh crow or raiton to supplement their simple bean stew, thanks to her keen eye and aim with her slingshot.

The alderman reported to his superior that he had a watcher and a fair shot - perhaps the city guard for her? So it was that she was being inspected along with other youths for talent, when one of the city magistrates stopped by to see. When he had been watching a while, she took out her sling, pulled back long - then spun and let fly just past the magistrate's left ear. Oaths were shouted, until they heard a bellow from an unexpected quarter - the would-be assassin stumbled from the shadows, clutching his eye. She was made an apprentice to the magistrate on the spot.

In time, the young woman was made a junior investigator of the Lap, and a proud day that was for her aging parents. 

The rest of the story goes down hill. 

It took several years for her to realize the subtle lies and misdirection of the Realm's "help" in the Lap, and a few more to piece things together - the Dynasts were proxy fighting, but all intended to bring the Lap under direct control. 

They set the Hounds on her, literally - contrived a case in an empty warehouse, locked the doors, and unleashed starved demon-bred hounds, who foiled all her tricks, finally leaping at her head and ripping half her face off, then going straight for her entrails. A empty laugh, with a promise for revenge; she was easy to convince. 

She learned Occult from her Deathlord, as well as the rudiments of Necromancy. She believes the Understandings of the Philosophy of the Neverborn, and in her black hate, was a willing servant. Gradually she came to question whether her Deathlord served truly the cause of the Neverborn - and whether the Neverborn truly understood the whole of their story. Of how the first lingering ghosts were pale echoes that foretold what the Primordials would become - that Creation was flawed from before the first Usurpation, the seeds in the cracks already there. And came to pity the ghosts, when not being annoyed with their obsessions.

Chiaroscuro was her first home after her rebellion; plenty of ghosts, easy entry to Creation. When she met the others of this Council (as it was too large for a proper Circle, to her thinking), and heard that Paragon was their target, she signed on with a savage grin - every day brought a score of ghosts to her that begged for justice, of whatever sort, against the Perfect. Against his precious stability over all else, including respect for the dead, and those he had judged in such a shallow fashion.