Origins: Thira Ravenplume

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Warning: The story below contains graphic depiction of combat. Read at your own discretion.

Four years earlier:
"Thira" Asked the young girl walking next to Thira,
"Yes?"
"Have you ever wondered, why the trees grow?"
Thira sighed. Karian always asked questions like this. It was almost always a trick, somehow or another she would miss understand them, or fail to comprehend where the girl was coming from. Like now, Thira knew that she knew why the trees grew. But it was always something deep with her. I was never this precocious as a child She thought. No, best to play dumb, Karian wouldn't laugh at her then. "I've never thought about it Karian, no."
the young girl tapped her lips and went 'hmm', a very adult gesture that Thira had no idea where she had learned. "You see, a tree hasn't got a mind like you and I. It doesn't think about what its going to have for lunch today, it already knows. Water, sun." Karian grinned up at Thira. "They grow because they want to protect their young saplings! Like you!"
"Like me." Thira said, dubiously.
"Exactly like you big Ra. You grew big and tall to protect this young sapling."
Thira shoved her head playfully. "Whatever, crazy little girl. I'm just here because you need a babysitter."
"I do not!" Karian finally had the indignant look of the child of 8 she was. "I'm a big girl, and you're just here to help me reach tall things!"
Thira rolled both her cold blue eyes "Sure thing short stuff. Does my grown up lady wish me to fetch her dolly from the caravan?"
There was a pregnant pause "Yes." Karian admitted sheepishly.
Thira tossed her the stuffed wolf doll from the back of the wagon.

The road to Arabel from Highmoon was dry and dusty early into the summer. The two had joined the caravan sometime in transit, and had paid the caravan master the appropriate fee. Karian had been tasked by the head druid to see the city, and understand some of its strange ways. This was a good learning experience for her. Thira remembered her own first trip to the city of Arabel. She was about Karian's age, but much more foolish. She had managed to wander off the main roads and get lost in the slums, out of sight of Master Karilliar. He had spent the better part of 8 hours trying to find her. Thira was paranoid about this repeating and had made it a special point to keep both eyes on Karian at all times.
So when Karian dodged between two wagons chasing after a young boy her age who had stolen the wolf doll from her, Thria was quick to follow. As she rounded the wagon, she ran smack into a caravan guard.
"Hey, watch it!" She began, but cut off as she noticed the guard didn't turn around and was staring off into the woods. "what is it?"
"I thought I saw something mo-" An arrow blossomed from his eye.
Thira had her blade out in a moment. For what it was worth, she held the broad side between her and where the arrow came from. Its width wouldn't cover her whole body, but it felt better than sitting there exposed.
"Karian! Bandits! Karian, where are you?" Thira looked around, and saw her standing over the boy who had stolen the doll. The boy had an arrow to the leg and was squeeling like a stuck pig. Karian was muttering a healing incantation over the boy, to very little effect. "Lets go Karian!" Thira snatched the young girl up in her arm.
"But Tobias!" Protested Karian. Thira groaned. She snatched the wounded boy up as well in the same arm, and ducked behind the caravan as two more arrows zipped through the air behind her.
"circle the wagons!" cried the caravan master "We're under attack!" Only a few of the wagons had drivers still standing able to move the wagons. The result was a slightly curved line. Thira dashed for the group, head down, both children tucked under her right arm. Two more near misses made her resolve this was the last time she broke the children from the cover of the wagons. The caravan master had been wounded in the arm,but he was still directing the half a dozen guards and twenty remaining members of the caravan who had survived the initial moments of the ambush.
"Krad, Dina, Louran, grab the crossbow and start laying down some covering fire. Micah, Yairna, Dillo, see if you can't get down to the wagons who can't move and check for survivors." He locked eyes with Thira. "You, I didn't hire you."
"My task is this girl. I'm to protect her with my life."
"Good, listen, if you want to keep her alive, we need to work together. I'm already down half my men, and I need you to help us if we're going to beat them off."
"I'm not going to leave her side."
The gruff old caravan master grabbed Thira's arm "I don't have time to argue. I need your help or everyone, including your girl is going to die. Are you with us?" His offer was punctuated by a roar as a ray of frost took the head off of one of his guardsmen, leaving a partially frozen corpse holding a crossbow leaning up against the wagon in front of Thira.
"Fine." She turned to Karian. "Ria," Thira said, using Karian's pet name "stay here. Don't move, don't shout. If anyone comes close that you don't know, play dead, like a dog!" Karian nodded in terror. Thira transferred her blade to her on hand, and looked back at the caravan master. He was prying the dead man's hands off the crossbow, and loaded another bolt "What do you need me to do?"
"Join up with Michah, Yairna and Dillo, and counter-attack into the woods!"
"Right." Thira tucked her sword behind her arm to keep it from slowing her, then ran at top speed between ruined wagons, and leaping over dead bodies. She met up with Michah and Yairna. Dillo was peppered with arrows half way between them and the last wagon. Thira had the foresight to grab his dropped shield. Yairna was covering Michah as he checked the pulse of one of the dead caravan members.
"She's gone too. Damn. Yairna we have to move!"
"Where?"
Thira interrupted them "Caravan master wants us to counter-attack."
"Thats a great plan! About thirty seconds ago, when Dillo wasn't ventilating through his face! And who the feck are you?!"
"Introductions later Michah. Master Dai is right, we have to counter-attack!"
"I hate it when you're right Yairna! Fine, who ever the hell you are, keep up, and don't stop until we're neck deep in whoever is shooting at us! Charge!"
All three of them burst out of cover with their shields up. Michah lead the way, screaming at the top of his lungs. Thira felt her shield get peppered with a hail of arrow fire. The heads felt like hammers landing onto the oak shield. Suddenly they were on top of bowmen. Thira flung the shield into the first man, and blood spurted from black skin. White hair went down with him like a wild banner flapping in the wind. The great sword came up next, cutting sideways through a bow and into the flesh of another man. The thin leather armor chopped neatly in two, and Thira grinned as she heard bone splinter. The man staggered back, clutching at his arm. Thira finished him with a blow to the head. She turned to see a mage preparing another spell. Thira sliced off his hands with one expert stroke, and then took him through the gut with a second.
"Thats.. All of them." Panted Michah, who was now sporting a slash across his face. Yairna had dropped her shield, a nasty gash on the outside of her arm where an arrow had broken through the oak to bite into the flesh beneath.
Thira looked back at the caravan, just in time to watch one of the wagons explode into flame. The two guards nearby ran screaming, as their flesh roasted. "Karian!" Thira screamed, charging recklessly back towards the wreckage of the caravan. The few survivors were running every direction from the caravan, some burning, some wounded, some leaving their loved ones behind as they fled for their lives. As Thira entered the flaming wreckage of the temporary redoubt she saw the caravan master peppered with arrows from both sides. The boy she had saved now lay eyes wide and dead with an arrow planted deep into his chest. She looked around desperately for Karian. She spotted her. Still clutching the stuffed wolf, hiding behind one of the wagon wheels. Thira started for her, eyes locked on  Karian. She didn't see the blade until it was already too late to dodge it. The world went white, and the left side of her face exploded in red-hot pain. She staggered, and swung in the direction the attack had come from. She connected with something. Then an arrow connected with her chest.
Time slowed. Thira could feel her ragged breathing, and the bubbling as blood flowed into her lungs. I'm dieing. I failed. Oh gods, Karian! Through sheer brute will she opened her right eye. Through the smoke and the flattened grass she could see Karian, crying, clutching the doll Play dead Little Ria... play dead like Big Ra told you to. She blinked, and now Karian was laying on the ground, trying not to move, squeezing the doll so hard its wolf-head was about to pop off its threads.
Then a tall man, with black skin stepped into her vision. He crouched down to the ground. She could see the Drow's white hair, and fearsome black complexion. He reached out, and grabbed Karian by the hair. She screamed, and Thira tried to move, but found that her body wouldn't respond to her mind. She screamed, but the only sound she heard was Karian, and the muffled gurgle of her own blood filling her lungs. She was drowning, and Karian was going to die.
The drow sat her up against the wheel, and pulled a dagger out from his boot. He forced Karian's face to look up at his. Then plunged the dagger through the wolf doll, and into the little girl's frame. Karian shuddered, then her arms fell open, and she went limp. Thira's world was engulfed in darkness.

She awoke gasping for air. It hurt beyond imagining, but the sensation was invigorating regardless. Michah was in view, standing over her. He was covered in blood, but it must not have been his own. Or at least most of it must not have been. He didn't seem too badly wounded beyond the cut to his face.
"Easy lady, easy. You're alive... I won't say you're alright though, you look like shit."
He helped her sit up slightly, stuffing a bundle of rags behind her to prop her up.
"You're lucky to be alive. The Drow fucked up your face something awful, and you were about drowned by the time I managed to drain your throat and get you breathing again. The arrow tip is still in you. I'm afraid to move it until we get some priests here. They left you for dead. Frankly, I would have too... but they nabbed Yairna. And everyone else was dead. It seemed... fitting to at least try to keep them from killing you."
"Ria..."
"Don't! Don't even try to talk. Too much effort could easily rip those wounds open and you'd bleed out here and now. You're damned lucky you haven't yet. I figured out who they were though. Slavers. Drow slavers. Damn bastards jumped our caravan, looking for som easy pickings. At least we took a few of them down with us." Michah disappeared from Thira's vision for a moment. He returned a minuite later and pressed something cold and hard into Thira's hands. "This is your blade. You may not think it now, but you saved my life back there. I'm grateful for that at least. You did the best anyone could expect of you. Drow are nasty sort. We're lucky to be alive, Tymora's grace. You doubly so." Thira reached out and grabbed the man by the collar, gritting through the pain "Karian. Little girl. Little wolf doll."
Michah shook his head. "Everyone else is dead or caught by the slavers. I didn't see your little girl in the lineup. Then again, I don't see her here. They took some of the bodies. I have no idea why, but she might have been one of them... as for the doll..." Michah pointed at the ground. The doll lay there, on its back, four legs pointing in the air, playing dead. Thira dropped Michah, and low-crawled with one arm over to the place where it lay. Blinding pain shot down her entire body, as she slowly tugged at the dirt wth claw-like fingers. Finally she made it over to the doll. She scooped the bloodstained little cotton wolf into her arms, and cried, blood and tears mixing as they fell to the forest floor.