Sherni
Name: Sherni Kaur
Gender: Female
Species: Half Human, Half Elemental
Store-Bought Item(s): Shifting Gene
Age: 17
Appearance: Hair, darker than starless midnight, spills down her back, reaching just below her waist; unnerving turquoise eyes with a core of gold stare at everyone and everything with an inquisitiveness and intellect far beyond her seventeen years. She has a deceptively slim build, concealing the firm muscles beneath. She is tall, her height being five inches more than six feet. Her skin is golden-brown, tanned from being out in the sun all the time, and three scars from a slaver’s whip mar her back: three lines parallel to each other, running from her shoulders to her hips. Other scars fleck her body from the torment her father inflicted upon her when she was a child and the torture she endured during her captivity at an illegal slave site.
Abilities: Sherni’s shifting gene allows for her to transform into various animals, but her preference is a Vystrian Lion—or anything with fangs or claws. She also has the ability to summon flames that manifest in different colors, the color depending on how much energy she consumes: The more reiatsu she uses, the hotter the flame and more vibrant the color. While she was being trained as a child, the power to manipulate light manifested in Sherni as well. Her teachers mused that she had inherited it from her great-grandmother, who was a master of light energy, but it was never confirmed. She also knows of k’vnaer runes and has memorized every single rune’s pronunciation and appearance from a book she discovered—however, she cannot use them, as some of the letters drain her energy completely. Perhaps, with more training, she will one day be able to utilize them all.
Long ago, Sherni was gifted with a perfect memory; she considers this a curse and not a gift, as her life has been filled with more desolate moments than joyous ones. However, it has an upside: Everything Sherni learns has to be explained to her once and once only, and she recalls it in perfect detail. It is due to her mother’s closest friend, a sorceress, that Sherni has this astounding recollection of everything. She was present at Sherni’s birth and said that she was so charmed by the newborn that she gifted her with an exemplary memory.
History: Until she was four years of age, Sherni lived with her father. He was a good man, but when Sherni’s mother, a charming Fire Elemental, died of a strange sickness at the time Sherni was three, it drove him mad; he went from the kind and loving man he was to a man with a volatile temper and a need to forget the beautiful woman that had waltzed into his life and charmed him so thoroughly that he had fallen for her—forget the gaping void inside himself that Sherni’s mother had left when she died. The fact that Sherni looked exactly like her mother in her contained form did not help her at all—especially when her father was drunk. He would beat Sherni to a bloody pulp if she looked at him with those unnerving turquoise eyes his wife had possessed; when he saw her begin to move with the same grace her mother had, he would carve into her skin with a sizzling knife to prevent her from moving.
Before her father could drive her insane or into ending her own life, Sherni found her salvation in a library. When she’d turned four, she’d discovered it in the forest her house had been built in—her father was drinking himself into a stupor in her house, so she’d decided to go exploring. It was small, having around thirty books, but was a library nonetheless. Sherni stumbled up the steps with her little legs but fell onto the door. The two librarians who worked and lived at the library rushed over to see whom—or what—had made the sound. Instead of some feral animal or sexual predator, they found a little girl, burns and bruises all over her body. With the little healing magic they had, they were able to patch up Sherni’s wounds—but their combined magic was not powerful enough to prevent scars. Scars that she still bears.
After she’d settled herself, the librarians who’d saved her introduced themselves as Cynthia and Tarzin, pairbonded Lyzards who had recently built the library; they’d dreamed of creating it since they were children. When they asked Sherni about her parents, she clammed up, her face blanching with fear. The two Lyzards looked at each other with concern, sensing Sherni’s hesitance to go home. So they hid her in the library, teaching her how to read and write. They were astonished at the rate at which she progressed in her studies; everything she learned had to be explained to her only once, and Sherni recalled every detail. It was due to her mother’s closest friend, a sorceress, that Sherni had an enhanced memory; she was present at Sherni’s birth, and she gifted the newborn with her extraordinary memory.
Six months later, Sherni found herself paging through the books the library contained, some books enlightening her as they spoke of philosophy, explaining to her the best way to think, and others regaling her of tales from faraway lands, weaving stories that took her to places she’d never seen before.
But the one that intrigued her the most was the tome that lay high upon the shelves, collecting dust—a spell book, the pages filled with everything from k’vnaer runes to elemental magic to the mating rituals of Yorije. She skipped the parts that didn’t interest her, with mating rituals being at the top of that list, and memorized the rest, the k’vnaer runes being the first things she read through. And like called to like—Sherni’s magic began to manifest. It was little things at first: small tendrils of fire licking up her hands, the grass around her smoldering as she played outside, things becoming abnormally hot in her presence.
But the true inferno emerged when she once again faced her father.
Flashback
She was aimlessly wandering through the forest, picking flowers and berries along the way. The clouds hung over the trees, gray and gloomy.
Perhaps Sherni should have taken that as an omen.
She somehow found herself before her old home—had somehow gone back to the place she was born and experienced so many horrors in. Why she didn’t turn tail and run, Sherni did not know. Perhaps she was looking for closure. Or maybe I just have the foolish hope that father will be better now and will love me, no matter how much of mother he sees in me, she thought, trembling with anticipation. Or perhaps the golden threads of their minds were bringing them together for one final meeting, Sherni would muse later. Save for the thistles and weeds that choked the front yard, and the vines and moss that snaked over the house itself, it was exactly as she remembered it: a homely, cherrywood exterior; a tiled roof; and a mahogany door.
Sherni ambled up to the house, careful of the gnarled weeds choking the pathway, and knocked on the door. To her utter surprise, it opened, her father gaunt and weary in the doorway. He seemed to have aged twenty years in the six months Sherni had been away. “What do you want.” His voice . . . it was completely flat. Lifeless. As if Sherni’s leaving had been the last straw and he no longer had the will to live but was too afraid to take his own life. She couldn’t help but feel a twinge of sympathy for him, despite all that he’d done for her.
“May I come in?” she asked softly. Her father stepped aside, and as she took a step into the doorway, the stench of stale alcohol hit her like a punch to the gut, permeating the air. Sherni wrinkled her nose at the smell, breathing through her mouth. She looked around, surveying what had become of her old home.
While it hadn’t been immaculate before she left, it at least had some semblance of cleanliness, but now . . . now, it was a complete mess. As she looked around, she found shattered glass and ripped paintings scattered on the floor of the entrance hallway and walking further into the house, she saw apple cores, moldy bread, potato peels, and empty mugs of ale strewn about the kitchen.
Sherni turned around to face her father, and despite her perfect memory, she could not for the life of her remember what happened next.
She only remembered an insufferable inferno raging through her veins, surging out of her and setting her house alight—and there was her father, screaming in agony and thrashing as fire blazed over him. Over and over and over, he cried out and begged for help, but Sherni could do nothing. She could not move, only watch as the endless flame rolled off of her and burned everything. It seemed to go on forever and ever, no end in sight, with no reprieve from this hell storming around her--
But then there was a voice speaking in head. Sherni, it murmured, the voice soothing and beautiful and haunting. Stop this madness. It was so familiar, like the voice of . . .
Her mother. Her mother was speaking to her.
The book had mentioned that ethers and spirits existed, able to talk to the living, but experiencing . . . it was surreal. Utterly dreamlike. As if a pail of ice-cold water had been dumped over her, Sherni’s flames winked out.That’s better, her mother said, and Sherni could have sworn she felt an invisible hand stroking her face. We do not have much time, but I want to tell you that I love you and . . . and if I could do this all again, I would—just so that things hadn’t gone so wrong.
Sherni tilted her head in confusion, “I don’t understand, mom. Why don’t we have time? What are you talking about?”
You won’t understand now; I hope you never do. But in case Celeste finds you, run like hell and don’t look back.She’ll try to seduce you with promises of anything and everything, but do not listen. She is filled with lies.
What did the sorceress that gifted her with her memory have to do with anything? “Mom, I—”
I’m out of time. I wish we had more of it, but I’ll settle for this. Good-bye, my darling Sherni. I love you. Her mother held her in a phantom embrace.
“Mom! What’s going on? Why—”
But it was too late—Sherni felt it in her very bones.
Her mother was gone.
~
After she’d returned from her house—or rather what was left of it—Sherni was filled with more questions than answers. As she trudged toward the library, thoughts swirled and eddied in her mind. What did Celeste have anything to do with this? Could she possibly have played a role in her mother’s death? When she was finally dragging her feet up the steps to the library, exhausted from her large expulsion of energy, Sherni knocked on the library door to ask Cynthia and Tarzin for the books that could provide her with answers. But no one came to greet her. Odd, she thought to herself. They’re usually bustling about at this time of day. The girl nudged the door open, padding into the library. “Cynthia?” she called softly. “Tarzin?”
No reply.
Her heartbeat kicked up a notch, and she walked toward the bedroom the pairbonded couple shared in the back of the library. There were a few bookshelves between Sherni and the doorway, so she couldn’t see what was awaiting her when she arrived:
Cynthia and Tarzin’s mangled bodies.
Their eyes had been ripped out, their limbs twisted at awkward angles. Their tails seemed to have been cut several times, then chopped off. It was as if they’d been . . . tortured. Yes, that was the word. Sherni’d read about spells that could inflict agonizing pain and tear people apart if the caster so wished. She couldn’t stop staring, but she felt like she would vomit if she kept on looking. What had happened to them?
She wouldn’t stay long enough to find out.
Sherni sent a prayer to L’zayn, goddess of healing, to look over the two as they had looked over her, and walked away.
End of Flashback
After the terrible event that had taken Tarzin and Cynthia’s lives, Sherni grabbed the tome filled with spells and what little money that the Lyzards’d had, and set out. She wandered throughout Vystrania and lived on what she could, surviving off of dumpster food and pure luck. However, a Drow caught her trying to steal from him one day; Sherni’d been unable to find anything edible for the past few weeks and was on the edge of starvation. The Drow saw a fire crackling in her eyes that simultaneously unnerved him and entranced him.
So he took Sherni back to his home and trained her.
Sherni discovered that his name was Lorasu; he was an assassin aspiring to one day have his own guild, and he believed Sherni could one day be his heir and trained her as such—even going as far as hiring tutors to teach her history, mathematics, language, and magic.
And Sherni was finally free enough to be reckless and filthy-mouthed and arrogant. Whenever she went out on jobs, she stole valuables to help pay back her debts to Lorasu and even took on a few lovers as an excuse to stay out for a few more nights, but despite the fact that she'd seen him lie, cheat, and manipulate, Sherni found herself falling for the Drow. He was, after all, charming and quite handsome—and he’d shown her such kindness. She planned on confessing her feelings for him on the day of her seventeenth birthday.
But when she turned seventeen, Lorasu bought Sherni a beautiful anklet that won her over completely—she showed him the ancient book she’d taken from Cynthia and Tarzin, her confession forgotten for the moment.
The very next day, while Sherni slept, Lorasu stole the tome. He used the knowledge it held to manipulate, cheat, and threaten his way into power, creating his guild. For a while, Sherni was clueless as to how he did so, but she was happy to work at his side, continuing her training as the person who would one day take over Lorasu's guild.
But then she discovered the tome missing.
She had mastered one spell the ancient book held—creating daggers out of her fire—but when she went to read another way she could use her power, it was gone. The only person she’d told was Lorasu, but instead of jumping to conclusions, she confronted him. It must be some sort of misunderstanding, she kept on telling herself. Lorasu would never do something like this—especially since he knows how much the book means to me. Contrary to what Sherni thought he would do, Lorasu brushed her off, saying that she didn’t understand the workings of the realms yet and he’d stolen the tome for her own good. Sherni would have none of it; she tried to take the book back and leave, but Lorasu overpowered her and knocked her out.
The next day, Sherni found herself with chains all over her body—on her way to a slave camp.
Sherni was heartbroken; she’d thought that there would be one moment in her life when she didn’t experience heartbreak or torture or betrayal, and she’d thought Lorasu would give her that—but he was just as bad as her father and the thing that had killed Cynthia and Tarzin. Worse, even. She began to think that she did not deserve to be happy, that she would ever be able to love or be loved by another. However, before she could begin that downward spiral into madness, Sherni decided that she did not have the luxury to think thoughts such as those—she would not be able to survive if she continued to think that way.
So she kept her chin up when she walked into that slave camp, not yielding an inch to her slavers.
Gender: Female
Species: Half Human, Half Elemental
Store-Bought Item(s): Shifting Gene
Age: 17
Appearance: Hair, darker than starless midnight, spills down her back, reaching just below her waist; unnerving turquoise eyes with a core of gold stare at everyone and everything with an inquisitiveness and intellect far beyond her seventeen years. She has a deceptively slim build, concealing the firm muscles beneath. She is tall, her height being five inches more than six feet. Her skin is golden-brown, tanned from being out in the sun all the time, and three scars from a slaver’s whip mar her back: three lines parallel to each other, running from her shoulders to her hips. Other scars fleck her body from the torment her father inflicted upon her when she was a child and the torture she endured during her captivity at an illegal slave site.
Abilities: Sherni’s shifting gene allows for her to transform into various animals, but her preference is a Vystrian Lion—or anything with fangs or claws. She also has the ability to summon flames that manifest in different colors, the color depending on how much energy she consumes: The more reiatsu she uses, the hotter the flame and more vibrant the color. While she was being trained as a child, the power to manipulate light manifested in Sherni as well. Her teachers mused that she had inherited it from her great-grandmother, who was a master of light energy, but it was never confirmed. She also knows of k’vnaer runes and has memorized every single rune’s pronunciation and appearance from a book she discovered—however, she cannot use them, as some of the letters drain her energy completely. Perhaps, with more training, she will one day be able to utilize them all.
Long ago, Sherni was gifted with a perfect memory; she considers this a curse and not a gift, as her life has been filled with more desolate moments than joyous ones. However, it has an upside: Everything Sherni learns has to be explained to her once and once only, and she recalls it in perfect detail. It is due to her mother’s closest friend, a sorceress, that Sherni has this astounding recollection of everything. She was present at Sherni’s birth and said that she was so charmed by the newborn that she gifted her with an exemplary memory.
History: Until she was four years of age, Sherni lived with her father. He was a good man, but when Sherni’s mother, a charming Fire Elemental, died of a strange sickness at the time Sherni was three, it drove him mad; he went from the kind and loving man he was to a man with a volatile temper and a need to forget the beautiful woman that had waltzed into his life and charmed him so thoroughly that he had fallen for her—forget the gaping void inside himself that Sherni’s mother had left when she died. The fact that Sherni looked exactly like her mother in her contained form did not help her at all—especially when her father was drunk. He would beat Sherni to a bloody pulp if she looked at him with those unnerving turquoise eyes his wife had possessed; when he saw her begin to move with the same grace her mother had, he would carve into her skin with a sizzling knife to prevent her from moving.
Before her father could drive her insane or into ending her own life, Sherni found her salvation in a library. When she’d turned four, she’d discovered it in the forest her house had been built in—her father was drinking himself into a stupor in her house, so she’d decided to go exploring. It was small, having around thirty books, but was a library nonetheless. Sherni stumbled up the steps with her little legs but fell onto the door. The two librarians who worked and lived at the library rushed over to see whom—or what—had made the sound. Instead of some feral animal or sexual predator, they found a little girl, burns and bruises all over her body. With the little healing magic they had, they were able to patch up Sherni’s wounds—but their combined magic was not powerful enough to prevent scars. Scars that she still bears.
After she’d settled herself, the librarians who’d saved her introduced themselves as Cynthia and Tarzin, pairbonded Lyzards who had recently built the library; they’d dreamed of creating it since they were children. When they asked Sherni about her parents, she clammed up, her face blanching with fear. The two Lyzards looked at each other with concern, sensing Sherni’s hesitance to go home. So they hid her in the library, teaching her how to read and write. They were astonished at the rate at which she progressed in her studies; everything she learned had to be explained to her only once, and Sherni recalled every detail. It was due to her mother’s closest friend, a sorceress, that Sherni had an enhanced memory; she was present at Sherni’s birth, and she gifted the newborn with her extraordinary memory.
Six months later, Sherni found herself paging through the books the library contained, some books enlightening her as they spoke of philosophy, explaining to her the best way to think, and others regaling her of tales from faraway lands, weaving stories that took her to places she’d never seen before.
But the one that intrigued her the most was the tome that lay high upon the shelves, collecting dust—a spell book, the pages filled with everything from k’vnaer runes to elemental magic to the mating rituals of Yorije. She skipped the parts that didn’t interest her, with mating rituals being at the top of that list, and memorized the rest, the k’vnaer runes being the first things she read through. And like called to like—Sherni’s magic began to manifest. It was little things at first: small tendrils of fire licking up her hands, the grass around her smoldering as she played outside, things becoming abnormally hot in her presence.
But the true inferno emerged when she once again faced her father.
Flashback
She was aimlessly wandering through the forest, picking flowers and berries along the way. The clouds hung over the trees, gray and gloomy.
Perhaps Sherni should have taken that as an omen.
She somehow found herself before her old home—had somehow gone back to the place she was born and experienced so many horrors in. Why she didn’t turn tail and run, Sherni did not know. Perhaps she was looking for closure. Or maybe I just have the foolish hope that father will be better now and will love me, no matter how much of mother he sees in me, she thought, trembling with anticipation. Or perhaps the golden threads of their minds were bringing them together for one final meeting, Sherni would muse later. Save for the thistles and weeds that choked the front yard, and the vines and moss that snaked over the house itself, it was exactly as she remembered it: a homely, cherrywood exterior; a tiled roof; and a mahogany door.
Sherni ambled up to the house, careful of the gnarled weeds choking the pathway, and knocked on the door. To her utter surprise, it opened, her father gaunt and weary in the doorway. He seemed to have aged twenty years in the six months Sherni had been away. “What do you want.” His voice . . . it was completely flat. Lifeless. As if Sherni’s leaving had been the last straw and he no longer had the will to live but was too afraid to take his own life. She couldn’t help but feel a twinge of sympathy for him, despite all that he’d done for her.
“May I come in?” she asked softly. Her father stepped aside, and as she took a step into the doorway, the stench of stale alcohol hit her like a punch to the gut, permeating the air. Sherni wrinkled her nose at the smell, breathing through her mouth. She looked around, surveying what had become of her old home.
While it hadn’t been immaculate before she left, it at least had some semblance of cleanliness, but now . . . now, it was a complete mess. As she looked around, she found shattered glass and ripped paintings scattered on the floor of the entrance hallway and walking further into the house, she saw apple cores, moldy bread, potato peels, and empty mugs of ale strewn about the kitchen.
Sherni turned around to face her father, and despite her perfect memory, she could not for the life of her remember what happened next.
She only remembered an insufferable inferno raging through her veins, surging out of her and setting her house alight—and there was her father, screaming in agony and thrashing as fire blazed over him. Over and over and over, he cried out and begged for help, but Sherni could do nothing. She could not move, only watch as the endless flame rolled off of her and burned everything. It seemed to go on forever and ever, no end in sight, with no reprieve from this hell storming around her--
But then there was a voice speaking in head. Sherni, it murmured, the voice soothing and beautiful and haunting. Stop this madness. It was so familiar, like the voice of . . .
Her mother. Her mother was speaking to her.
The book had mentioned that ethers and spirits existed, able to talk to the living, but experiencing . . . it was surreal. Utterly dreamlike. As if a pail of ice-cold water had been dumped over her, Sherni’s flames winked out.That’s better, her mother said, and Sherni could have sworn she felt an invisible hand stroking her face. We do not have much time, but I want to tell you that I love you and . . . and if I could do this all again, I would—just so that things hadn’t gone so wrong.
Sherni tilted her head in confusion, “I don’t understand, mom. Why don’t we have time? What are you talking about?”
You won’t understand now; I hope you never do. But in case Celeste finds you, run like hell and don’t look back.She’ll try to seduce you with promises of anything and everything, but do not listen. She is filled with lies.
What did the sorceress that gifted her with her memory have to do with anything? “Mom, I—”
I’m out of time. I wish we had more of it, but I’ll settle for this. Good-bye, my darling Sherni. I love you. Her mother held her in a phantom embrace.
“Mom! What’s going on? Why—”
But it was too late—Sherni felt it in her very bones.
Her mother was gone.
~
After she’d returned from her house—or rather what was left of it—Sherni was filled with more questions than answers. As she trudged toward the library, thoughts swirled and eddied in her mind. What did Celeste have anything to do with this? Could she possibly have played a role in her mother’s death? When she was finally dragging her feet up the steps to the library, exhausted from her large expulsion of energy, Sherni knocked on the library door to ask Cynthia and Tarzin for the books that could provide her with answers. But no one came to greet her. Odd, she thought to herself. They’re usually bustling about at this time of day. The girl nudged the door open, padding into the library. “Cynthia?” she called softly. “Tarzin?”
No reply.
Her heartbeat kicked up a notch, and she walked toward the bedroom the pairbonded couple shared in the back of the library. There were a few bookshelves between Sherni and the doorway, so she couldn’t see what was awaiting her when she arrived:
Cynthia and Tarzin’s mangled bodies.
Their eyes had been ripped out, their limbs twisted at awkward angles. Their tails seemed to have been cut several times, then chopped off. It was as if they’d been . . . tortured. Yes, that was the word. Sherni’d read about spells that could inflict agonizing pain and tear people apart if the caster so wished. She couldn’t stop staring, but she felt like she would vomit if she kept on looking. What had happened to them?
She wouldn’t stay long enough to find out.
Sherni sent a prayer to L’zayn, goddess of healing, to look over the two as they had looked over her, and walked away.
End of Flashback
After the terrible event that had taken Tarzin and Cynthia’s lives, Sherni grabbed the tome filled with spells and what little money that the Lyzards’d had, and set out. She wandered throughout Vystrania and lived on what she could, surviving off of dumpster food and pure luck. However, a Drow caught her trying to steal from him one day; Sherni’d been unable to find anything edible for the past few weeks and was on the edge of starvation. The Drow saw a fire crackling in her eyes that simultaneously unnerved him and entranced him.
So he took Sherni back to his home and trained her.
Sherni discovered that his name was Lorasu; he was an assassin aspiring to one day have his own guild, and he believed Sherni could one day be his heir and trained her as such—even going as far as hiring tutors to teach her history, mathematics, language, and magic.
And Sherni was finally free enough to be reckless and filthy-mouthed and arrogant. Whenever she went out on jobs, she stole valuables to help pay back her debts to Lorasu and even took on a few lovers as an excuse to stay out for a few more nights, but despite the fact that she'd seen him lie, cheat, and manipulate, Sherni found herself falling for the Drow. He was, after all, charming and quite handsome—and he’d shown her such kindness. She planned on confessing her feelings for him on the day of her seventeenth birthday.
But when she turned seventeen, Lorasu bought Sherni a beautiful anklet that won her over completely—she showed him the ancient book she’d taken from Cynthia and Tarzin, her confession forgotten for the moment.
The very next day, while Sherni slept, Lorasu stole the tome. He used the knowledge it held to manipulate, cheat, and threaten his way into power, creating his guild. For a while, Sherni was clueless as to how he did so, but she was happy to work at his side, continuing her training as the person who would one day take over Lorasu's guild.
But then she discovered the tome missing.
She had mastered one spell the ancient book held—creating daggers out of her fire—but when she went to read another way she could use her power, it was gone. The only person she’d told was Lorasu, but instead of jumping to conclusions, she confronted him. It must be some sort of misunderstanding, she kept on telling herself. Lorasu would never do something like this—especially since he knows how much the book means to me. Contrary to what Sherni thought he would do, Lorasu brushed her off, saying that she didn’t understand the workings of the realms yet and he’d stolen the tome for her own good. Sherni would have none of it; she tried to take the book back and leave, but Lorasu overpowered her and knocked her out.
The next day, Sherni found herself with chains all over her body—on her way to a slave camp.
Sherni was heartbroken; she’d thought that there would be one moment in her life when she didn’t experience heartbreak or torture or betrayal, and she’d thought Lorasu would give her that—but he was just as bad as her father and the thing that had killed Cynthia and Tarzin. Worse, even. She began to think that she did not deserve to be happy, that she would ever be able to love or be loved by another. However, before she could begin that downward spiral into madness, Sherni decided that she did not have the luxury to think thoughts such as those—she would not be able to survive if she continued to think that way.
So she kept her chin up when she walked into that slave camp, not yielding an inch to her slavers.