Alyshia: Pre-Game History

When A Mommy Horse And Daddy Corn Love Each Other Very Much...

Once upon a time in a land of earth and freezing wind, a fearsome unicorn of the Stone Circle fell in love with an esteemed merchant from the fiery lands of Eithne...  But seeing as Alyshia's parents never went into details over their epic romance story, she grew up never knowing, or frankly caring, about the vague and most likely mortifying tale of her conception.

She also likely does not remember those first few hours of her life where she learned to walk for the first time, but the highly affectionate man-squealing of her doting father most certainly remains somewhere in the subconsciousness of her heart.  That moment lives on in the wonderful fatherly-daughterly bond they share, today.  But more on them, later.

As strongly devoted as she was to the Aodh herd, Alyshia's mother chose to remain with her husband and raise their family together in the fertile mountains of Skeldr Town, providing the little filly with a fairly stable childhood that was void of the usual traumatic experiences of split custody.  In any case, the cold and challenging terrain had slowly grown on Jadis, and it wasn't (too) much of a problem for her to take up permanent residence in the War-Forged herd.  Thus, little Aly grew up as a full fledged Onean citizen, being raised in the ways of strength and endurance, molded by the elements of stone and ice while thankfully skirting the terrible lyrical earworms that normally plagued them.

Full House Roll Credits

However, Alyshia would not be an only child for very long.  Three years later her parents would have another foal-- this time a colt whom they named Ales, <s>for Jadis apparently had a special fondness for A names.</s>  However, where one may have braced for a grand sibling rivalry filled with merciless pranks and pulled hair and threats of violence, there was only love and adoration.  Alyshia was endeared to her little brother from the start, and Ales clung to her almost as soon as he could walk.  She would read him stories of valiant heroes from Onean lore, and Ales would insist on playing out the chapters that thrilled his heart, most.  Later on, he would insist in his own way that his sister was a hero to him, too.  Alyshia would politely disagree <s>even as her ego was stoked by the fires of his praise.</s>

Later on the two of them would gain another brother in Adair; the son of Edmond's good friend, Conrad.  You see, Conrad was already an only parent-- Adair's mother had passed away soon after his birth-- so when he got word that the staunch and aloof stallion perished in a shipwreck, Edmond was more than willing to take the poor boy into his home (one of the few times his wife didn't have anything argumentative to say about his patriarchal decisions, for some reason.)  This worked out well for the family, for not only was the lad already a good friend of Aly and Ales, and not only did his name conveniently match theirs in theme, but he also set the ominous precedent of terrible parents finding their deaths on international trips!

... More on that later.

*Years from now, Edmond would go on to adopt Addeva, yet another orphaned child, although this would be three or so years after his messy divorce with Jadis and her eventual death.  However, it should be noted that because Addy's parents died within the country, this obviously means that they were decent people and therefore don't really count for this family history's morbid habit of killing off bad parents.

I Used To Wonder What Friendship Could Be

Of course, that's not to say that Alyshia's life revolved around her nuclear family; she made some friends, too!  Mmmaybe not in the most conventional way possible, but for this instance (Edmond told himself as he desperately clung to the fading hope that his daughter would ever be normal) perhaps the end did justify the means... at... at least she was getting to know the other kids in her neighborhood.  Social interaction was important, after all!

And by that I mean her first batch of friends were actually forged through hatred and destruction.

Granted, things didn't start out that way.  Alyshia's first true friendship bloomed out of simple commonality and loneliness.  She and Kathra were both odd little girls in a town that held little value for them.  They weren't content with playing dress-up indoors, playing with dolls, and learning how to be good wives for brave stallions.  They were too brave, too restless, and too enamored with being the heroes of those stories to even fathom marrying one.  So when the two first stumbled upon each other playing such games for themselves, they made the instant and unanimous decision to play them together.  Coincidentally, the day they first met and became sparring pals was the same day a group of rowdy colts rose to challenge them.

It started with the boys taunting the two and telling them to stop acting like colts.  When that didn't work, it escalated into hurled insults from both parties.  And when that didn't work, one of those colts made the grievous mistake of stealing Mr. Fluffykins right from Alyshia's grasp.

Which, of course, meant war.

The battle was awe-inspiring, with the stakes high and the odds stacked against the two headstrong girls; yet in spite of all of this, it was they who prevailed on the battlefield that day.  The colts were dumbstruck, Kathra triumphant, and Alyshia elated in their successful rescue of Mr. Fluffykins.

Alyshia gleefully thanked her new friend for fighting at her side (to which Kathra gleefully stated that she'd do it again.)

Antinel, upon regaining consciousness, couldn't help admiring the fillies' battle prowess and commended them on their win (Alyshia said thanks and complimented them back.)

Murkos, nursing the torn ear that Kathra had given him, just grunted and sulked behind Antinel (he denied that the whimper was from him.)

Abiola, still on an adrenaline kick, was standing in place breathing too heavily to respond just yet (although he nodded.)

Denvell, aghast at having been defeated by a pair of girls, just told them to piss off (but no one listened.)

From that point onward, Alyshia, Kathra, and the little band of colts (to Denvell's dismay) sought each other out as playmates and got into all sorts of <s>trouble</s> fun together.  Aly didn't know how she'd gained so many friends in so little time, but she was too happy to care or question it; and her father relieved that nothing too terrible had resulted from his daughter's rashness.  Even if he wasn't completely okay with the fact that his sweet little child was sparring with boys, he relaxed a little when Adair promised to crack the skull of the next colt to threaten his sister.

Over the next few years, Aly's circle would expand for even more friendly faces.  Hjordis-- a foal whose family frequently traveled through Skeldr-- also became quick pals with her and Kathra.  There was also Amber, a hesitantly playful kid who also lived in the town; and finally Noelle, a slightly older child who was quieter and gentler than the rest of the crowd, but whose company Aly enjoyed all the same.

Each of them became important to her in their own ways, and all of them equally loved.  When Alyshia thought of home, she didn't just think of her family, but of them.

Her great big wonderful mess of friends, and her total bff for life, Kathra.

But Then The Plot Attacked

And now for angst!

Alyshia's life at home wasn't terrible, but it had grown increasingly... tense.

In the beginning, her parents worked as a team.  Despite Jadis' past as a Chevalier and the ruthless ambition that won Edmond's position as a Stone Circle stallion, both of them saw the value in literacy and showing proper respect for the lore of their lands, and as such, Aly grew up just as educated as she was toughened by the elements.  She became an avid reader from a young age, and soon learned the secret power of words; in time, she mastered the art of kicking peers in the face with scathing insults just as hard as she could with hooves (or bear teeth in her buddy Kathra's case), and she did so with surprising eloquence.  Many a village bully was sent crying from her merciless tongue, and those who weren't thwarted were easily dealt with by none other than Kathra.  (Edmond again tried to tell himself that at least she was applying her lessons to real world problems and... th-that was good, right?)

However, things took a slow but sure downward spiral as soon as religion was thrown into the mix.

Edmond and Jadis were both a tad strange by Onean standards when it came to their spiritualities; sadly, however, this wasn't exactly a bonding point for either of them.  Having descended from the unconventional Mountain Caller clan, Edmond was a somewhat special snowflake in that he was a unicorn who largely gravitated toward the arcane lord, Argus.  Meanwhile, his wife steadfastly held onto her loyalty for the Smoldering Sun.  And while Dad was content to push his biases aside to teach Alyshia world history from a mostly neutral perspective, Mom expected much more from her daughter.  She expected undying fealty to the one true deity, Ignacio the fiery.  Ignacio the great.  Ignacio the Best Like No God Ever Was.

"Who do you worship, Dad?" Alyshia asked one night after studying the gods and their most common blessings.

Dad: "Well, I personally place my faith in Argus, but you are free to support whoever you wish, sweetheart."

Alyshia: "Ooh!  Could you tell me more about Argus?" 

Jadis: "Excuse me, child, but would you like to hear about our lord and savior Ignacio?"

Alyshia: "... Um--"

Dad: "Jadis what are you doing."

Jadis: "Giving our daughter some proper education."

Alyshia: "Actually, I was hoping to know more about Argus..."

Ales: "I like Argus!  He looks like a giant strawberry."

Jadis: "What's that?  You wanted to know more about Ignacio?  Of course, my child!  Let me grab a text book."

After a long and trying lecture on her mother's marvelous fire-lord, Alyshia went to bed thinking nothing of this exchange.  After all, her mother had a habit of inserting Ignacio into most religious conversation, and her father had a habit of getting tired of her sh*t.  It was nothing out of the ordinary and her education would probably resume as normal by morning.

She was wrong.

---

Dad: "Well, since you'd asked, Alyshia... Argus was an exemplary tale of overcoming one's mistakes and doing the right thing in the end."

Mom: "Ignacio's is an awe-inspiring tragedy of how a god got everything unfairly taken away from him but prevailed in his awesome kindness."

Dad, exasperated: "Though as the goddess of our lands, Kaia holds importance to our family, too."

Mom: "Though not so important as the fire that runs through your veins."

Aly: "That sounds painful..."

Mom: "Nonsense!"

Dad, fuming: "... Just remember that all of the gods have their good morals to teach and their uses."

Mom: "So long as you remember that Ignacio's heart must beat loudest in your ears."

Aly: "Gods have hearts?"

Mom: "Well Ignacio must.  I can't say any of the other gods even have brains."

Dad: "FFS, Jadis."

---

It got worse.

Alyshia had inadvertently awoken a beast.  Jadis took her daughter's newfound interest in Hireath's pantheon quite seriously, and set to work on enlightening Alyshia on her Aodhian legacy as thoroughly and extensively as possible.  Ignacio and Eithne's history took front and center for her lessons, while all religious and academic information on Argus, Kaia, and Onea's culture as a whole was set on the proverbial back-burner.  Edmond tried his best to fight the headstrong mare on her biases, wanting only to give his daughter a fair and balanced curriculum, but as time went on these efforts resulted more and more in unwanted conflict; and passive-aggressive jabs soon spiraled downward into explosive spats that left both parties upset (and their child internally traumatized.)

Of course Jadis never intended to embrace a Mommy Dearest lifestyle, but well-meaning as the gypsy vanner was... she was also proud.  This also wasn't a totally bad thing, as it meant that she was never ashamed or apologetic for who she was (and hey, u go, girl) but this also meant that she was hopelessly blind to her backstory-character-flaws.  If something went wrong, it was 99.9% of the time someone else's fault and it was impossible to convince her otherwise.  Thankfully, Dad's only faults were lingering chauvinism and an Achilles-level soft spot for his children.  He noticed his daughter's discomfort and stress long before Jadis even suspected it, and ultimately decided that her well-being was more important than his dignity.

In the end, Edmond agreed to Jadis' obsessive insistence on Aodhian material.  He also relented on dropping Argus and the history of his clan from Alyshia's official education, but on one condition; their daughter should continue learning about Kaia and the general history of Onea's people.  After all, she still lived here; and it was important that she fit into society in at least some way after that colt-fight fiasco that the neighbors still gave her weird looks over.  Jadis was like "fine," and that was the end of the conversation.

So the dilemma of Alyshia's religious teachings was solved, and Aly learned to do away with her curiosity over Argus in favor of more socially (and motherly) acceptable gods.  And she also learned to never question her mother on anything again!  It was better that way.

...Although that didn't mean that the questions, themselves, had stopped.

Regardless of her parents' agreements on anything, Alyshia was still a bookworm, and Dad still had a library in the house.  What questions she had could be answered on her own, so long as she was careful about when she snuck over there.

That being said, the little filly was still keen on not upsetting either of her parents, so she kept her research of Argus and the Mountain Callers to a minimum, sticking mostly to 'acceptable' material.  The union of the clans, noteworthy battles and leaders, and general information on Kaia and Ignacio were all safe bets, so Alyshia stayed on these topics for the most part.  And the more she read, the less she minded these restrictions.  Learning about the struggles and triumphs of her War-Forged heritage gave her a sense of pride that Jadis' distant Aodh herd hadn't, and that sense of pride only grew as she continued to learn about the Earth Mother.  Kaia had molded the world they lived in, made the mountains in Onea more lush and fertile than what was normally found, starred in some pretty badass mythology and folklore, and her blessings had turned the tides for some of the most influential skirmishes in Garok's war.  Aside from that, she was a girl like her, and a unicorn like Dad, which just made her extra cool.  Like, cooler than She already was.  (Alyshia nursed an underlying insecurity over having been born without a horn.)

But when Ignacio and the kirins popped up in Onean lore, she was... startled.

To be fair, Alyshia still hadn't warmed up to Ignacio (hah) in spite of her mother's valiant efforts.  She'd tried, for her parents' sake mostly, but this was difficult when she had grown to associate him with Mom's stressfully overbearing presence and, y'know, the feeling of stress in general.  Besides that, she'd found it weird that her mother's account of the kirins and her father's had stark differences.  According to Mom, the Smoldering Sun was a kind and benevolent deity whose perfect race was destroyed by the other gods out of sheer murderous jealousy.  And from what little information Dad had shared of his clan before Mom threw a fit, the kirins were the ones who'd destroyed Argus' kingdom and sent so many horses finding refuge in Aaron Mountain Caller's land.  Edmond-- to his credit-- tried to explain this away by reminding Alyshia that many centuries had passed since the kirins went extinct, and that time had a way of polarizing stories from so long ago.  And for a while, she'd accepted this as a reasonable explanation and thought nothing more of it.

... But all that changed when she stumbled upon the glorious tales of the War Forged warriors of old, and how they valiantly kicked those kirins' asses when they tried to invade Onea.

If Ignacio really was the innocent victim her mother claimed him to be, then why did two different peoples have far nastier writings of him and his fiery reindeer wannabes?  Even more perplexing, if Ignacio was such a nice person, then why was her mother such an asshole over anything to do with him?  <s>She had to get that from somewhere, right?</s>

However, Alyshia knew better than to bring these questions up while living under this roof, so she continued to keep them, and her growing fondness for Kaia, and her waning trust of Ignacio, to herself.  She had a habit of internalizing things anyway, and she wasn't about to kick that habit now.  She was perfectly fine letting her inner turmoil bottle up until she started getting recurring nightmares of Ignacio shriveling Mr. Fluffikins in flames as punishment for not being her favorite god (she could still hear his agonized, cotton-fluffed screams...), or spending nights lying in bed wondering which of the three deities involved in her parents' lives would 'get' to her first once she died, or if they'd all just stick her on trial to figure that out and watch her squirm as she begged to not have anything to do with the imposing firelord who just wanted to char her soul to a crisp and call it a night already.  Really, it was fine.  Half of her mental state was occupied with nothing but spiritual anxiety now, but it was fine.

It was totally fine.

She kept all of this from everyone.  From Mom, from Dad, from her older brother, from Kathra.  Everyone.  This went on for years, lingering in the back of her mind as she sat and smiled through all her mother's antics.  And it was fine^TM. 

Thankfully, not even her mother's religious craze could last forever.  As Onea's springs rolled by, adulthood loomed, and the subject of her future was brought to the forefront, Alyshia discovered that Ignacio wasn't the only thing Jadis liked talking about.  And she only made this known once Edmond lightly made a joke about having to start playing matchmaker for their daughter, because how dare he.

And that was when things stopped being about "did you make your daily offering to the shrine in my room" and started focusing more on "hey sweetie, you up for some combat lessons?"

Having been a Chevalier before taking up the more exciting and independent lifestyle of a dual merchant/bodyguard, the headstrong Jadis-- as blind as she was to her daughter's aversion to half of her literal ancestry-- saw the warrior's spirit lurking within Alyshia.  She saw how the filly would spar playfully with her friend Kathra, the mostly harmless rivalry they shared with the neighborhood colts, how her daughter would create tales of epic battles and wars with her horsey dolls rather than the more domestic plotlines her peers normally went for.  She saw the soldier within the child, waiting to be awoken and nurtured, and gladly embraced this side of her daughter.  Sparring lessons became a regular part of Alyshia's time with her mother, and at night Jadis continued to fuel that fire.  Believing Alyshia's religious education had reached proper completion, she swapped out stories of Ignacio's greatness with tales of her own days in the Aodh herd, keeping peace in the streets, chasing down bandits, and waging battles against even the most fearsome of intruding Vagabonds.  These last couple of years were easily the happiest days Aly had with her Mom.  Finally, there was something they had in common; something that made their relationship feel kind of actually normal!

So naturally, as is typical in a good old fashioned angstridden backtory, something had to happen for it all to go to hell.

Now, Jadis most certainly didn't forget what kind of society her family currently lived in.  Hira may have been warlord for some time now, but few in the herd had embraced her ideals, and prejudice against mares was still fairly the norm.  It wasn't a kingdom where fillies like Alyshia could truly grow into their potential, and her mother knew this.

So she did the logical thing, and quietly plotted to bring her ten year old daughter on a one-way journey to Valore, where she could find a future in the Chevaliers just like her good old mama.

"So you guys are off on a trip?" Dad asked his wife when she shared the news.

"Oh.  Yeah.  We're just gonna visit Gran and make sure she's still taking her meds," Mom replied.

"Oh, alright then.  You two have fun!"

And so, the next morning, mother and daughter set out onto War Lord's road with a few raiders for protection.  With a few exchanged heartfelt goodbyes they were off, enjoying nothing but camp-worthy scenery for the next two weeks.  

---

"I can't wait to meet Gran!" Alyshia cheerfully declared as they walked through the gradually warming woods, the shining city of Valore just a few days away now.

"Oh," her mother replied nonchalantly.  "Gran's dead.  I'm taking you to get an apprenticeship with the chevaliers."

"I... what?"

As far as Jadis was concerned, the long stretch of silence that followed suit for the next few hours was one of contentment.  Her poor daughter must be weak with relief right now, the revelation of her newfound freedom finally sinking in to her sweet, stifled brain.  What joy she must feel in this moment, liberated from the clutches of that wimpy strawberry magician and that tree-hugging knock-off of her antlered lord.  Surely her daughter wasn't writhing in internal agony over the realization that she wasn't coming back home, that her father and siblings had no idea about it, that she wouldn't get to play with Kathra and the others ever again, or already frantically planning out the letters she would write.  That would be stupid, after all.

And when the group stopped to give Alyshia a potty break, Jadis fully believed that her daughter had a need to go Number One.  After all, it wasn't like she had a reason to go run off somewhere private to cry quietly without being judged or anything.  Her daughter was better than that.

Tears were already stinging Aly's eyes by the time she'd found a secluded enough spot, but as soon as she was alone she allowed them to flow freely.  However, the little filly's bad day was only about to get worse, for no sooner than she curled up in the most comfortable pile of leaves available-- pulling Mr. Fluffikins out of her bag for a much needed hug-- did she find herself ambushed by a band of Cultists who'd been in the mood for some angst-ridden conflict, and decided that this family could use a little more.  And they were quite generous about it.

Aly's uncharacteristic shriek immediately caught the attention of her mother and their accompanying escorts, but it was pretty clear from early on that there were a lot more vagabonds than anyone may have been expecting, and that everyone was, for lack of any other better terms, f*cked.  By the time all bodyguards had been sufficiently beaten down and all in the traveling party were rounded up, Alyshia could see that things proooobably weren't going to go as her mother (who was now letting out an unceremonius slew of swear words in the background) had planned.  They were then promptly hurried out of the area, to a place where aspiring Chevaliers certainly weren't supposed to go.

More would have been elaborated on, but Alyshia doesn't like talking about that traumatic experience at all, and tries not to remember much of it.  

I mean... most of it was in a burlap sack anyway, so...

But in any case, as fate and the great deity of just-in-time convenience would have it, Aly's psychologically scarring event was shortlived.  Later that night, a large party of Aodhian travelers intercepted the Cultists on their trip to the creepy shrine they'd been bragging about all day, and with the combined strength of their rescuers and their own renewed resolve, Jadis and the Raiders (whose prides were all officially wounded and pissed after this whole experience) managed to subdue a good handful of the evil-doers and chase off the rest.  Those that had been knocked out were promptly taken prisoner by the Chevaliers in the party.

"Wow, you guys sure had a rough day!" one of them stated with their great sense of perception as Alyshia recovered poor Fluffikins from the aftermath of the skirmish.

"It's good to see you again Jadis, but is your daughter alright?" another, more sensible equine asked.

... To which Jadis responded with a "oh yeah she's fine" after giving her traumatized foal a quick lookover.  "We were heading to Eithne anyway so this works out pretty well."

"Splendid!  We'll get you there," replied another, and that seemed to be the end of that.

Aly's mother tried her best to comfort her daughter as the two put as much distance between themselves and the Road of Nightmares as possible.  And by that, I mean she consoled her with not much more than a "Don't fret, my dear, it was just a troublesome setback."

"A... setback?" Alyshia echoed incredulously.

"Yes," said her mother, ignorant bliss returning to her features.  "A minor inconvenience, but no matter.  We have a handful of Chevalier stallions and mares to speak to about your apprenticeship!  I've been writing them regularly and a few of them are very excited to--"

"After I was held hostage for a whole day?"

"Now now, child, it wasn't that bad."

"Mom," Alyshia said not in so many words, but in the watery eyes of a traumatized child, "what part of 'I was nearly turned into a kidnapping victim' don't you understand?"

"Really, there's no need to worry.  The bad horses we took with us are probably going to become slaves or something anyways and they'll never bother you again."

Previously having chalked this up to mere rumors and tall tales from her rowdier peers, the filly couldn't help exclaiming, "Aodh has slaves?!"

"I know, isn't it great?!" said the highly perceptive horse from before, as Alyshia's nightmare fuel material only continued to fill her fluttering heart.

"Bu-- But that's terri--"

"Look, let's just get a nice hotel room and give you a night to think things over," Mom grudgingly compromised.

(Spoilers: the extra night didn't do much for Alyshia's newly made decision to have nothing to do with Eithne ever again.  Her long-abided mantra of "just do whatever mom wants and you'll be okay" had betrayed her in her darkest hour.  Her mind was made up.)

And so it was, that less than a goddamn month later, Alyshia was dragged back to Skeldr Town by her gravely disappointed mother and their tired-as-all-hell escorts.  And as one can imagine, Edmond was not at all pleased to hear that his precious baby had nearly become a dead baby, and especially peeved to learn that his wife had been plotting to make their daughter a long term exchange student without so much as talking things over with him.

And this was all WITHOUT the added eye-twitching fact that oh right HIS ELDEST DAUGHTER ALMOST DIED.

Needless to say, family life was somewhat rocky from that point on.  

Still sore over the whole ordeal, Mom and Alyshia weren't quite as close as they used to be, and things were even stiffer between the two parents, although Edmond did his best to forgive and forget for their daughter's sake, and for the sake of their foal.  Alyshia was relieved to be back in the company of her friends, and they in hers (they learned that asking Alyshia about her trip to Valore would only ever invoke an unsettling thousand-yard-stare, so they returned to the regular old schedule of childhood antics without another word.)  She and Kathra resumed their usual vigilante work in Skeldr, advocating for girl power among their neighborhood peers and eventually taking another town filly-- Addeva-- under their wings and friendship.  The months went by, and eventually her brother Ales' own education resumed.  The family was united by the steady blooming of this little cinnamon roll, and things regained a vague sense of normalcy after a while; despite the fact that Alyshia never could fully repair things with her mom.

Aaannnd apparently the marriage was never fully repaired either, because a few years after the traveling mishap-- and after a final heated exchange of verbal blows with Dad-- Mom finally ragequit on everything, declared that their relationship was overdue for a break, and made to storm out of War-Forged lands.  But not before trying one last time to convince Alyshia, a young teenager now, to come with her.

"You may not have been the perfect daughter," Jadis snorted, still riled up over the fallout with Edmond.  "But I'm willing to let bygones burn if you're willing to give your life a serious chance."

"Is that your actual attempt at an apology?" replied the incredulous Alyshia.

"You have no future, here!  You would with my herd, but now I see that you're not in the least fazed by that at all; clearly, your father has gotten to you."

And it was here that over a decade of frustration had calcified into a hard-earned backbone.

"I have my family, and I have my friends.  I can figure out a future for myself, Mom."

"...Okay, then.  F-ck you, too."

You know, for a child of Ignacio, Jadis sure was one hell of an ice queen.

She returned to Eithne and resumed her old duties as a chevalier.

And that was the last time Edmond or any of his children ever saw her, again.

No one knows exactly how long that "break" was supposed to be, or if things could have ever been amended with the headstrong mare.  And it would seem as though no one ever was going to find out, either (remember that thing I mentioned about awful parents having a habit of dying out of country?)

Within that same year, the family received word that Jadis and a traveling party of Aodh equines had been ambushed and killed by Vindicators.

Edmond took the loss especially hard, because in spite of their messy divorce and damning disagreements, he wasn't a cold blooded monster and had still cared about Jadis after everything they'd been through together.  He closed himself off from many of his friends and peers, having only enough strength to take care of Council responsibilities and be present for his children (as well as the newly adopted Addeva, who'd sadly lost her own parents in that same terrible year but they were nice people who'd died within the country, as previously established); and even then, Alyshia and Adair could still see the pain in their father's eyes.

Ales didn't understand why he couldn't see his mom again, despite everyone's best efforts to answer that repeated question in the gentlest and simplest ways possible; naturally, they couldn't exactly tell him that his mother was an overbearing asshole who'd chosen her own fate, and thus, much of what he knew about his mother was somewhat sugarcoated, and would remain that way for a long time.

And as rough as things had been between them, Alyshia's heart continued to clenched over the loss of her mother long after the news of her death.  For a long time, she blamed her own perceived incompetence and failures for Jadis' untimely end.  Her fears of letting her mom down and disappointing her had come true, after all.  And maybe if they hadn't, Jadis would still be here... even if that meant that Alyshia couldn't be with her father, or her brothers, or the closest friends she'd ever had, or she would've been forced to become some flaming overpowered war priest of Ignacio.  Maybe she'd been wrong to turn away so vehemently from her mother's heritage.

Even worse... maybe she'd been selfish.  These thoughts were mostly kept to herself, though, out of fear of being a burden to her loved ones, and out of a greater sense of obligation to her once-friend and now-sister, Addy; who needed as much love and support as she could get after losing both her mother and father to a deadly avalanche.  Wasn't that way worse?  Right then.  Back into the bottle her feelings went.

But the moment that bottle so much as fizzled-- its cap growing a little weaker as the months went by and feelings started bubbling out-- Alyshia was (affectionately) flat out attacked by her friends and family.    

Her father made it clear that he blamed her for nothing, and still loved her dearly.  Adair was as gentle and supportive of everyone as ever.  Ales didn't know too much about what was going on, but was sure to remind his sister that he loved her, too, through plenty of brotherly cuddles as well as kisses from Mr. Fluffikins (whom Alyshia had given to him as a birthday present.)  Addeva looked up to her new big sister and heartily agreed with Ales.  And Kathra?  Well, Kathra was always quick to kick the self-pity out of her best friend before it could fully consume her.  Sometimes literally.

With the combined powers of love and friendship, <s>Captain Planet</s> managed to save her from the soul-crushing guilt she had placed upon herself.

And so the filly and her family found themselves on the slow, but steady, path to healing.  

The years passed, and as they did, Kath and Addy and Aly's friendship with each other grew stronger.  They supported one another through the good times and bad, and continued to train and spar and dream of bigger things than becoming mere wives and child-bearers for a stallion; things that mares weren't encouraged to dream of, but that didn't stop them.  The three had already made a reputation for themselves among the neighborhood peers, and had even won the respect of some of the adults who'd sneered at them all those years ago.  Once the pride of a warrior was won, it was not easy to let go of.  It became obvious that in spite of it all, Alyshia's mother had been right about one thing-- her daughter had the heart of a fighter, and over time, her determination to make something out of her life only grew and flourished into a mountain of its own.

Epic Conclusion

And just in time, too!  It wasn't long before Hira brought about the formation of the Valkyries, an all-mare army that would work alongside the raiders and scouts of the herd.  Kathra, Alyshia and Addeva didn't need to talk anything over with each other; their decision to jump at this chance was unamimous, and while Kathra was the first to be chosen out of the many who'd offered their services, Aly and Addy's acceptances quickly followed suit.  Their families were the first to know of it, and their friends the second.

Antinel, now a young Raider in training, couldn't be happier for them.

Murkos, having chosen the Scout's path, grunted out a congrats as he brushed off his begrudged envy at their guts.

Abiola, also a Raider, now, insisted that they all hold a rematch sometime to see how their new skills held up.

And Denvell, having not changed in the slightest, bit his tongue before the 'go f*ck yourself' could escape.

It wasn't long before Alyshia learned that Amber and Hjordis, equally familiar faces, had also been declared as a part of Hira's new force.  Their gentle older friend, Noelle, had also caught Hira's attentions but ultimately chose the life of a scout instead, having realized that she had too soft a heart for any Amazon Warrior lifestyle.  But she took care to congratulate the saddened Alyshia on her resolve and reassure her that she would still be around to cheer them all on.

Most importantly, Alyshia would remember as her heart swelled... Noelle was proud of her.

Just as she'd promised, Alyshia had found a future for herself against all odds.  Her chance to become the soldier, the fighter, the protector she'd dreamed of being all her life had finally arrived.  And she wouldn't need to leave home to follow her dreams, after all.

Things could only go up from here.  And there was no way she was ever going to have to deal with plot angst again, right?

... Right?

And what happens after that?  Well, legends speak of a creator who actually bothered to consistently update her character's backstory with any rp events that took place afterward, but there is high doubt you will ever see her in your lifetime.