#notpockets

Minei was born in DR to two parents who both worked for the Shining Blade. For the first four years of her life (as far as she can remember, she was of course Very Small), they were happy--and then people came into their house in the middle of the night and attacked the three of them. Minei’s parents put up a hell of a fight, but both were killed. When the remaining assassins then went after Minei to take out that last loose end, this very small child, who was almost entirely untrained in anything to do with magic yet, lashed out in grief and confusion and fear and anger with every bit of power she had—and with zero restraint. She destroyed the assassins, blew apart a decent chunk of the house, and certainly would have killed herself in the process as well if it wasn’t for the blessing Grenth gave her. She actually remembers meeting the god himself, but she questions this years down the line (surely he would have left Tyria by then?). Whatever happened, though, that blessing was enough to keep her alive, and she wakes up three days later in the hospital.

Her parents had no extended family to take care of her, as far as anyone can find out, so Minei ends up in an orphanage. It’s…not a good place. The woman in charge is cruel, and the other children are cruel in turn in a desperate attempt to avoid getting hurt that never works. Minei keeps to herself as much as she can and starts practicing her necromantic magic on her own, just because it’s something that makes her happy and something she knows she’s good at, even if others try to say different. She turns to Grenth in this period of time as almost. like. an imaginary friend? She talks to him because she has no one to talk to, but not because she expects him to save her. Stop her from dying? Maybe, sure. Get her out of a shitty situation? If he could do that, then she wouldn’t be there in the first place.

She runs away from the orphanage when she’s nine and ends up running smack-dab into another nine-year-old girl. Her name’s Petra. She thinks that the fact that Minei just brought a rat “back to life” as a undead little critter is the coolest thing she’s ever seen. Petra brings Minei home with her, in all her nine-year-old-ness of “look Dad this is my new best friend and also she doesn’t have somewhere to stay so can she stay with us please please please”, and her dad is very much “oh boy, okay, um—”. After a while and various shenanigans, Minei does actually end up staying with them, and (eventually) gets officially adopted as Andrew’s daughter and Petra’s sister.

The ensuing five to six years are probably the happiest of Minei’s life. She has family in her life, people who love her and people she can talk to and people she trusts. She goes all in with training her necromancy as much as she can, partially in homage to the god who saved her and partially because it’s something she enjoys and something she’s made hers. She has a pretty good time at school. She slowly starts becoming aware of the way the city works. Jennah is still relatively new to the throne; the Dragonbrand is formed the year she turns ten. The Ministry Guard, as far as she can tell, strut around looking important and don’t do much—except maybe for the ministers, none of whom she knows. The Seraph are fighting the centaurs and holding posts around DR; she sees recruiting posters more and more, has friends who talk excitedly about joining someday. And the Shining Blade is doing mysterious things for the queen, she supposes.

(Sometimes she feels like she’s being watched. I’m sure that’s not related.)

It should be noted that, at this point, she doesn’t know anything about what her parents did for a living. She was way too young when they died to remember details that they might have mentioned offhand, and far too young for them to have ever tried to explain in detail. She has a vague memory of seeing the Shining Blade symbol a long time ago, but she doesn’t connect this to her parents at all.

Her first real encounter with the Seraph, outside of chance/brief interactions, is when she’s out in Queensdale picking up supplies for the inn that her adoptive dad runs. On her way back, she passes by Shaemoor—right as centaurs are attacking. And the Seraph there are struggling, she can tell. And she’s never actually been in combat in her life, but she knows how to make necromantic constructs, and she knows basic defense magic, and she knows the feeling of life force enough to pull it out of someone.

She fights with Logan Thackeray and the Seraph, and they win, and she wakes up in the hospital for the second time in her life. This time, it’s with Andrew and Petra by her side, and with people calling her the Hero of Shaemoor, and a message from Logan asking her to come by the Seraph office when she’s back on her feet. He commends her on her skill and thanks her for her help, and offers her a spot training with the Seraph recruits if she wants it. Minei, who is Very aware that it was her magical skill and not martial training that meant that she could assist at all, and is at this point feeling like learning how to improve her skill isn’t going to hurt (not to mention that if she did end up joining the Seraph afterwards, the additional money would help her family stay above water) says yes.

She does train with them and with Logan, and she does learn. She likes Logan! he’s always friendly to her even when he gets exasperated, and he praises her progress. Most of the recruits look at her in a positive light, if slightly jealous, because she has some combat experience. She feels special, and she starts truly considering joining the Seraph. But she also starts wondering, a bit. Because between the Seraph and everyone else dedicated to keeping DR and the whole of Kryta safe, and all the posters and recruits and everything, if this is really something that’s working and functional, then how has the centaur threat gotten worse? She can’t remember an attack like that on Shaemoor before.

(And a small piece of her says: if they’re as good at their jobs as they say, then what happened to my parents?)

A month goes by.

A group ends up in the bar at the inn. Bandits, probably, but at first they’re no worse than most regular customers. Then they start getting rowdy, and Andrew cuts them off.

Things get bad.

Andrew’s stabbed, badly, with a dagger, and Minei (and Petra, with her bat) deal with the group on their own as best they can. A few patrons run and try to find Seraph in the area and end up pulling the Ministry Guard first. Commander Serentine sweeps in and blindly asserts that everyone there is under arrest, which only doesn’t happen because Logan shows up—and because he knows Minei. That personal relationship is the only reason that there’s no arrest, and the only reason that Minei and Petra even get a chance at getting the medicine their father needs to survive, which is too expensive for them to acquire otherwise. And that is suddenly and abruptly clear to Minei. What is just as clear is that she can’t afford not to take advantage of the system if she wants a chance at saving her father’s life in that moment, so she calls in her marker with Logan and goes after the medicine. It’s not close enough and not easy enough to get, even with everything else, and the wound is worse than originally anticipated. Andrew doesn’t survive.

Minei helps Logan figure out what’s up with the bandits and the Ministry Guard, because that at least is something she can do to get some kind of revenge*, and she finishes the level 10 personal story grieving the second time she’s lost her parent(s) and incredibly angry. She still comes to training, but she’s asking questions now, of Logan and of any books she can find and of instructors she trusts at school. When you were talking about a “higher class of criminal”, do you usually only arrest people who aren’t higher class? Are there any forms of accountability for the Ministry Guard or the Seraph—or the Shining Blade—without having someone go entirely off the rails in a way that's impossible to ignore? Why is medicine so expensive? Why are the Seraph spread out so widely? Have you considered any of this before?

Another month goes by, and Minei has another throwback. Assassins: Two! She gets the letter with the second half of her amulet and goes to meet the informant alone (though Petra tries to accompany her). She’s attacked by the informant and rescued by the Shining Blade, who tell her a story about the White Mantle being the ones to want her dead, thanks to things her parents were involved in (also with the Blade). And that the Mantle were the ones responsible for her parents’ deaths--to which her immediate response is something along the lines of so you’re saying it’s your job to stop them and you didn’t, then.

They deflect a bit and ask her if she wants to come help them take out the Mantle cell who tried to take her out, and Minei doesn’t fully trust them but she wants to hit back at someone so badly. And so she does--she goes with them, and they take out a Mantle cell. She doesn’t see the informant who escaped back in DR, and the exemplars promise they’ll track him down. She says something about being glad the cell is gone at least, and one of the exemplars cautions her about becoming too embroiled in her anger.

As Countess Anise often reminds us, vengeance makes a fine leash.

That makes Minei stop short, because yes, it is. And it’s the leash that they just pulled to get her to do what they wanted.

She asks the exemplars if she can accompany them to visit Anise, who appears frustrated with them for pulling Minei into their business. At the same time, the countess seems slightly taken aback that Minei’s only request is for the Blade to show her where her parents are buried. They do, and that’s the end of that, for the moment.

Minei pulls back from official Seraph training and tries her best to stay under the radar. She feels eyes on her more than ever, but she spends time with Petra, and they both do their best to maintain the inn/tavern with the help of a few extended family members. She goes back to practicing on her own on a regular basis, this time both with necromancy and swordplay. She teaches her sister the latter.

She stays in touch with Logan, who’s worried about her, but doesn’t go to see him. The next time she does see him face-to-face is when she’s called to act as the Advocate of the Crown and help manage the orders of Tyria, who can’t agree on what to do about the Risen. (She supposes she was tapped for the position because of her persistent reputation, but doesn’t know what she’s ever done to give the impression that she’s good at being a leader.)

The bickering gets on her nerves, but they listen to her. And she talks to Crusader Hiroki--a lot.

Minei knows she can fight. She knows she’s powerful. She knows that she has some sort of status, now, too. She knows that the Seraph would love to make use of that skillset**, and maybe so would the Shining Blade. But the Vigil pays well enough for her to help Petra, too, and she’d much rather fight the elder dragons than end up any more of a pawn in whatever is going on in DR than she already has been.

So she fulfills her duties as Advocate and protects the queen from Kellach and the Risen, and she leaves. It means leaving Petra, too, but they can send letters and she can come home to visit, and this is the best route that she can see going forward, and she’ll hopefully be doing something that will actually help people.

She's fifteen years old (and lying about it) when she joins the Vigil.