Empire Sized Shadows 1:1 The un-horned legacy.

My name is Mi'ishaen.  I am a Tiefling.

When most folk of other races think of Tieflings, they think of beautiful architecture, incredible magical advances, alluring riches, or an impressive empire built at an unfathomable cost.

Not the Dragonborn, of course.  Some of them still think of the vicious territory expansion, the bloody border skirmishes, and the total war waged over pride and greed. 

I find, now, that I cannot say which race lost more in that war.  Whereas the culture born of Arkhosia may be damaged, it is still identifiable.  The languages, religions, and customs of the Turathi Empire are all outlawed, in most places, and Tieflings, now as different to each other as we are to everyone else, are largely defined by the shape of a beholder's prejudice.

This cultural disappearance is the punishment our short-sighted forebears deserve, but they will never feel it.

My father was a well-renowned street performer- good enough to serve in Vor Kragal itself.  You would think this a harmless profession, until you heard of his "tricks."  He juggled throwing stars and daggers, his simple wooden flute also served as a blowgun, and "entertaining the troops" was usually code for a scouting mission.  A Dragonborn scion had him burned alive after he was caught behind enemy lines.  I was only three years old when he died, and wailed for days when my brother told me the news, but my mother said it was his own fault for botching the job.

My mother was a warlock.  She wanted to be a wizard, but just didn't have the control that wizardry took.  She was hot tempered and sour mouthed, but she was also unusually beautiful, and wound up kidnapped to serve as an entertainer for the court soon after my father was drafted and sent away.  Since the intelligence of pretty women is almost always ignored, her wealth of magical talent was used only for parlor tricks.  About a year and a half after she tricked, threatened, and poisoned her way into being one of the top performers in the court, a rival poisoned her food in hopes that she would move into her place.  I was five then, and would have mourned, but my elder brother told me it was our mother's own fault for being so rough and bitter with the other performers.  Practice at cutting throats, he preached, and one day, you'll find an inconvenient slit in your own.

His advice didn't at all keep me from being rough and bitter, but I'll tell you more about that later. 

My brother was training to be a warrior, but wound up being sent to the front lines of the fight as the Tiefling losses grew and grew.  The desperate War of Ruin was long over by the time he was forced to join the armed forces, but both sides were far too stubborn to admit that one had truly been a match for the other.  I don't know exactly what happened to him, so I can't go into much detail, but I do know he died fighting.  I was eight when the army's messenger found me to read me the letter of condolence sent by his commander, and I wailed for him just as piteously as I had for my father.  The messenger tried to console me, saying that at least he gave his life on the pretext that he was defending his people- not that the hideous cacophony of power-hungry idiocy that was Bael Turath deserved such chivalry.  I thought it was foolish, both then and now.  But for my brother, orders were orders no matter how stupid they were, and he, like my father, died as honorably as was possible, considering the uselessness of the fight itself.

I was pushed out of town as soon as the hag to which I'd been apprenticed had received word that my brother had died, because she had no real use for me.  The government repossessed my family's home, despite the fact that my father had bought it outright when we moved to Vor Kragal, and the door was barred against me. 

I suddenly discovered, when I was locked out of my own home with nothing but the clothes on my body, that I hated everyone.

I returned under the cover of darkness to rob the apothecary shop, just for spite's sake, and then left the city.  One or two guards called after me, but I paid them no mind, and it didn't take them long to give up.  I didn't think much of why that might have been; logical questions like that don't tend to arise in a mind that has only had eight or nine years' worth of usage.

I was a sheltered city girl, and it showed.  I didn't immediately realize that I needed money, but when I did, I very soon afterward discovered that I was not too young to learn to get it.  A lot of shopkeepers outside of the Turathi Empire would not hire a child, especially not one with ram's horns and a clearly visible tail.  I was not cute, and irrespective of how hungry, tired, or sick I was, I could not look pitiful.  I could only look as any Tiefling would look to any member of any other race- dangerous.  It wasn't long, as you can imagine, before I began living up to common consensus.  Honesty and kindness dried up in my bones like water spilled in a desert.  People were no longer people, but targets from whom I could exact my revenge.  First, I got better at breaking into stores.  Then, I learned to cut purses more effectively.  My pickpocket skills got sharper and faster, especially whenever I got locked up with kids who were better at it than I was.  Said kids were also great to talk to and spar with, which I know now was very useful.  Back then, I thought it was just fun.  At any rate, every time I'd get thrown into prison with a bunch of street rats I didn't know, I'd come back out with a pack of allies.

Believe it or not, those allies made me confident before my skills did.

Years passed.  My fingers got more nimble, and my reflexes more refined.  I sliced my long, black hair at my shoulders and braided it back to prevent it from becoming a liability in a fight.  My thick, wheat colored horns, their progress unchecked, curled back over my head and delighted themselves with delicate curls just below my ears.  When I turned fifteen, I bought leather armor and wore nothing but that until it felt as comfortable as my own skin- and until the money I got for the junk I'd nicked and sold off paid me back for the armor.  There was a particularly interesting incarceration during which I spent some time learning from an older Tiefling who also had a prehensile tail, and after I got out, I bought a knife specifically for mine.  Despite being only seventeen at the time, I certainly felt old enough.  I suppose spending most of my life with no other home but whatever jail cell I'd managed to get thrown into on any given night can be blamed for that.

I'll spare you all the details of how precisely I've gotten to where I am now- being in the company of a very good story teller has taught me not to waste words. 

How about I tell you about the luckiest day of my life?