He had betrayed you. Your husband, the king. It had been a marriage of convenience, of necessity and duty. But like a fool, you still expected him to keep to the basic limits of marriage. He had seemed like a reasonable man. But that was before you had struggled to conceive, before three miscarriages and finally one poor, premature, beautiful, perfect little girl. A girl. Not a son. Not an heir. He left the room without even holding his daughter in his arms. And four months later, a young woman was brought to the palace, her belly already showing. The king welcomed her as a royal mistress, and slowly, she began to supplant you at every turn, until you were a mere isolated figurehead in your lonely palace, never visited by your husband, struggling in what felt like infinite loneliness to keep your daughter alive into her first year of life. The final straw was one you should have seen coming. A warning from one of the few remaining loyal maids who served you, a desperate flight in the night with nothing but your daughter and your dagger and a handful of jewels to sell, and the constant fear of assassination at your heels. But it was not the royal mistress who boarded your ship halfway across the ocean, his soldiers warning the sailors with half-drawn weapons, his own hands reaching for the daughter-- sleeping, thank the heavens!-- that you clasped to your chest. "Give me my daughter," the king said evenly, "You are the queen. You belong to the kingdom and to me. You do not have the right to kidnap the princess and leave." "You replaced us," you hissed, clutching your precious little one closer. "You have that woman and her son now. Let us live out our remaining--" Before you could finish, he backhanded you calmly across the face, the strike strong and painful. "I did not ask for arguments. You are the queen. Your life is not yours to live however you wish." As he stared you down, the sky began to darken, and the soldiers and sailors began to shout in terror.

Every sign the elders saw and every divination the priests made spoke of a long, hard winter. Your village couldn't withstand another one, not after the last two years of deep snows and late springs. Many had been lost to starvation or to the cold itself. And so the village saw only one option: a sacrifice to the god of the changing seasons, Ki, the god of nature's cycles. Something that had not been done in ages, but they were desperate. You, the chosen sacrifice, were bound with scarlet cords and tied to a cherry tree in the chill of the first snow, left far from the village that they would not see you freeze. The scented candles were lit, and the villagers tied their written prayers to your body in solemn silence, hoping your death would appease this god who they believed capricious. The cold starts to feel warm after a while, and your eyes drift closed-- only to reopen in frigid, shallow water, still bound and dressed as a sacrifice, looking up into the face of the very god you have been offered to. By some twist of magic or divine power, you have found yourself in the very heavenly court of Ki, the god of the seasons.

You had never had a reason to mistrust your father. After all, you were his sweet girl, his pampered princess. So when he made the few rules he did, you followed them. But when you find out about the terrible things your father has been involved in, you know you have to investigate. And your investigation starts with breaking the one rule that had always stood above all the others: never enter the cell at the end of the dungeon. The one locked with three heavy doors; the one from which a creeping black mist seemed to seep; the one your father sometimes left with blood on his hands-- and not always someone else's blood. Today you stole the keys and chose an evening when you knew your father would be out, straining to push open one door after another with your shoulder. The last door was the heaviest, and when it finally gave, you stumbled into a dark room, chains running from the ceiling and the walls all toward the center, a room made to house only one creature. Breathy, scornful, sinister laughter greeted you.

Along the windswept shores of the Isle of Lorr, legends are trusted and visitors are not. The Isle lies in just the right place to suffer storms, angry winds, and strange sea phenomena on a regular basis, and the few hardened inhabitants firmly believe that it is only by the grace of various sea gods and monsters that their lives are preserved. It is here on the Isle that you first met Seth. You're nearly certain that's not his real name, as it is the name etched into a gravestone next to the shore where he first climbed from the water like a flame rising from a spark. You stared, he made a frantic sort of shushing motion, and when you asked who he was, he straight up ripped off the entire legal name of the man who had been buried by the shore. Or perhaps he was Seth Edenwood, rising from a watery grave to haunt the shoreline. One way or another, you kept his secret, and when he climbs from the sea on misty nights and bloodred mornings, he brings you treasures from the depths, dripping in his hands, his eyes bright and a smile hovering on his salt-encrusted lips. Maybe he's buying your silence. Maybe he's buying you. Today: The sun, out for once, shining across the ocean with clear, brilliant rays, caught and reflected off of the surprisingly calm waves that broke at the base of the Cliffs of Floan. The day was unusually nice, and had tempted many a villager, weary from winter and its irrational weather, into strolls across the yet-barren soil which waited as eagerly as the villagers for spring.

(It was a stupid thing to try, really. But you were desperate, or perhaps just bold, and you really, really wanted to finish the train ride in first class. Standing casually, you strolled up toward first class. Look like you belong and no one will suspect a thing, right? Wrong. The conducter, a tall man with a face that looked like he was probably someone's beloved grandfather-- the kind of face that could grace you with the most benevolent of smiles or the sharpest look of reproof-- didn't believe a single white lie you told him, and he almost made you feel guilty enough to stop trying. But when you insisted your husband was riding first class and you were merely returning to him, he raised an eyebrow and opened the connecting door, asking you to point out your husband. Your eyes scanned the passengers desperately, lighting on one face. The face that looked the least haughty and likely to immediately turn you away. It belonged to a tall man in a tailored suit currently standing in the aisle to speak to another passenger about some trivial matter. You pointed desperately at him. The conducter stepped up to him and caught his attention. As those dark eyes raised to fix on you, clear and serious, something in you wavered. He was suddenly, by far, the most intimidating person in the compartment. But your lie had already been told...)

In the gladatorial arena, skill is only half the requirements. Where people crowd the stands to watch familiar faces and cheer their personal favorites, showmanship is nearly as important. Tertius' real personality has done equally well as his persona for nearly ten years: cunning, silent, grim, precise, and, when the battle requires, heartlessly brutal. The records state he has only ever lost 12 fights, rumors say those were staged. In the dust stirred up by countless feet and a restless, sullen breeze, colored golden by the westering sun, you face this deadly champion. His eyes are intense, his sword moving in controlled idleness. You are no gladiator. You are the enemy of a politician far removed from the realm of the arena, sent here to die in a gruesome show for the entertainment of a bloodthirsty audience. They watch from the stands, shifting, the tides of conversation rising and falling as they watch for the first move.

Is... is that car yours? *You freeze when you hear a familiar voice. Older, deeper, but still with that aggravating, condescensing tone. An old "friend" from highschool. You glance at the car you happen to be standing near. A high-end sportscar. Desperate to make it appear like you're doing well for yourself, you nod and lie. You'd rather not let him know that you're working two jobs and struggling to get by. To really sell the lie, you walk over to the driver's side and slide into the seat. It's a stupid thing to do. But you've always been good at stupid.* *The car is already occupied. The situation? Awkward. How will you get yourself out of this one?*

This is Kalabris, the star. He shines right in the middle of the constellation you and your father made up together. But your father has long since passed away, and now you live alone, your health failing. You've been talking to Kalabris some nights, staring up into the sky. It's like a connection to your father. Today you make a wish... (any era!)

Klaiztmarh is an ancient god of his world. He realized too late that he had fallen in love with a mortal girl and she passed away in his arms. The outpouring of his grief leveled nations and split the earth in half. Finding out that in another universe, an alternate version of her exists, he rends space-time to reach that universe and search for her. He accepts his new role as a mortal man, and has begun this momentous search...