Cynis Shairre

Cynis Shairre was, unfortunately, born to House Cynis in a time where it was not quite the best place to grow up. She received the basic schooling that every Dynast did in a variety of subjects, from etiquette and command to riding and archery, and she did adequately enough in those fields. She was, like all children of the Great Houses, prepared for her assumed future as one of the Realm's walking demigods. Her family waited, and waited, and waited...until she had long passed 14, and showed no improvement. Though her bloodline was strong, Shairre herself did not Exalt.

Being discarded from those she had grown up with, combined with her general distaste for the hedonistic and debauched Cynis lifestyle, led Shairre to defect to the Cloister of Wisdom. Shaving her gorgeous green hair and taking vows of poverty, chastity, and devotion to the Immaculate Philosophy, she studied martial arts and religion with the other mortal acolytes. Free from the politics and endless distractions of her family, she could finally achieve some measure of peace. Her family didn't seem to miss the blood of a patrician incapable of Exalting, either. Everything worked just fine in her favor.

For years, in fact. Her generally likable attitude and easy adoption of celibacy and temperance led her to be quite the favorite of the actual Dragon-Blooded monks, and her "friends" noticed. Tired of being overlooked in favor of a Cynis refugee, a group of maybe a dozen of them ambushed her and broke every bone they could reach. She managed to maul two of them horribly before succumbing to her wounds, after which she was nonchalantly tossed off the side of a cliff and towards the coast below. Somehow...she survived. She survived for two days.

On the third, malnourished and crippled, she looked out to the night sky to eye the full moon. Every night it had risen to mock her, and now, as she lay dying, it was stronger than ever. Shairre couldn't help herself; she puffed up her lungs with whatever oxygen was left in them and let out a mighty roar. Far more mighty than she had expected, actually. By the time she had finished, she felt her strength return, and the faint silver glow of power that would become familiar to her filled the air around her for the first time. She still had to struggle to get to her feet, but as she stumbled, she found something she did not expect.

A silver hand, armored in a vambrace and possessing all of the strength of the tides, reached down to help her up. Shairre's eyes looked up before her body followed, and she bore witness to the most magnificent woman she'd ever seen. Handsome, covered in armor, carrying a bow that would put Cynis archers to shame. Her expression looked sullen for a moment before settling on a terse smile, and as Shairre stood to her broken legs, she felt a presence she hasn't yet encountered again. The presence of a real, physical god. An Incarnae.

No words were exchanged. The woman turned and left, fading into moonlight, and Cynis Shairre was alone. She could easily have left the Blessed Isle at that point, had several important, powerful figures not been alerted of the explosion of Essence which had come from her Exaltation. She was set upon by agents of the All-Seeing Eye within minutes, and though her Immaculate training amplified by her new Celestial power was potent, it wasn't enough to prevent her capture. She was very confused why that word wasn't "death."

She awoke hours or days later in the depths of a prison cell, and the moment she saw one of her captors, she knew very well it belonged to House Mnemon. Why would Mnemon want an Anathema alive? Demonic rituals? Other sorcerous study? Or were those ridiculous rumors that milled about Cynis' courtesans every once in a while truer than anyone had feared to believe? Whatever it was, Shairre couldn't contemplate on it for long, or terribly deeply. She was in far too much agony.

Torture, it seemed, was the order of the day, and Shairre faced it for what seemed like ages unending. Her body was cut open and "examined," her screams echoed down the halls, and eventually Mnemon herself came to see the cut and weeping wolf-woman. It was even less pleasant than she had experienced up until that point. She had tiny artifacts forcibly embedded into her flesh to monitor her Essence and her body, was generally smashed and sliced to hell and back to "test her durability," and even faced Mnemon's overbearing psychological torments to gauge the mind of the beast. There was no way out.

Once again, she refused to give up. And once again, she was provided her chance for life. Shairre tore her way out of her restraints by tapping deeper into her Essence than she knew she could, taking the skin of a great wolf-monster as she was being transported off of the Blessed Isle. Thirty men, at least laid dead on the road, and the Lunar was free once again to flee and lick her wounds. Fortunately, this time she was within the range of the Silver Pact, who sent a pickup team. The Pack of Falling Blades managed to scoop Shairre's mangled body up and return her to health by the time they reunited with the Silver Pact.

Shairre received a minor crash course on all that was wrong with her beliefs, which she took to very quickly, due to her experiences on the Isle. She was given her Trials, and unsurprisingly became one of Luna's warriors. With a Full Moon Caste Mark solidified on her forehead and her body covered in tattoos to prevent any further damage, Shairre was truly a member of the Chosen of the Moon now.

She spent a few months studying under an old wolf of a woman named Liu Shi Lesi, one of the pack that had recovered her broken body from the shores of the Blessed Isle. Her life in the mid-East looked relatively set, until she received an extremely powerful dream-vision of a sun rising in the South. That, as a Sun King Seneschal explained, was her mate awakening as a Solar. That was all the information Shairre needed. She didn't ask permission or let anyone know where she was going, though the Seneschals had a pretty good idea of it. Journey to the desert. Find your sunrise. Keep them safe.

And the rest is history...or, possibly, the flames of deadly revolution in a hotbed of social transition and riches.