I was born of peasants, poor but happy farmers living outside a small village I can barely recall. When I was still a small girl, slavers in need of supplies killed my parents and took me bound to there wagons thinking I would be little trouble and that they could make a copper tarks or two. So might my story have ended, but for an odd twist of luck. A man who I remember as tall with a friendly smile, eyes that I never tired of seeing and a five petaled red flower on his crimson tunic killed the slavers and took me many days by tarn back to the city of Tharna.
    Life in Tharna was easy and pleasant. I was taught how a woman should act and I became a scribe. I learned that all men were beasts and not to be trusted or cared for. Inside, way down deep I knew there was one to whom this did not apply, but I kept this too myself. After all, the men I saw, those of the city, and those passing through certainly seemed more beast than human. And what I remembered of my parents death, and knew of other cities only helped confirm it. I was in many ways happy. I lived well and had good friends. And I ignored that small longing I felt within. Then the alarm bells rang...
    I was on the street walking home form a fine meal with a friend when the alarm rose. I will not discuss what happen next, but when I awoke I was naked, my silver mask lay crushed with a heel print in the street, and my friend and I had been left for dead. They were half right. I covered her body with the torn remains of her robes, then heard the sounds of men coming. Naked I hid in the shadows, certain they had come back for me, but they did not even notice my body was gone. Running from shadow to shadow, I made my way the short distants home only to find the tower in which we had lived was being sacked and the women, many of them my friends, lined up in chains. With nowhere to go I flead back into the shadows, tears streaking my face once again. Then I saw him, he was alone, looting the bodies of those that had died. He set his short sword beside him while is struggled to get rings from a blood mase that had once been named Jersia, who's laugh could brighten any room. He did not hear my aproch, nor my lifting his sword, the sound of it passing through the air gave him just enough time to turn and see the swollen face and the bloody bruised body of his naked attacker before the sword struck him.
    My heart died within my chest. I knew now all men were truely beasts fit only for the mines or oars. Revenge bruned in my mind as naked, coverd in my own blood and that of the beast I had slain, I moved through the shadows back to where I had last seen my attackers. They were still there, drinking paga and singing near the covered body that had been my friend. I waited, my body pressed agains the cold stone of a wall as I hide in the shadows. Two Ahn before dawn they were so drunk they could hardly stand. I attacked. To my suprize, I won. I was tall and strong for a woman and the sword had served me well. With a smile I am sure few would find pleasant, I moved of into the night with my sword, and a red tunic to cover myself. There was much more blood before I rode on the back of a hugh gray tarn alone from Tharna in the predawn, but I perferr not to dwell on it.
    With Tharna gone I saw no choice but to guide the great bird to the jungles were it was said women carried arms and were free. The bird to my supprise and joy not only stayed with me, it would return from it's hunts with food to spare. Travelling by night with the bird I had named "Tharna"'s great speed we soon reached the jungles. The clearing I had set down in turned out to be a dancing circle, and it was not long before the Panthers who's circle it was and I found eachother. Most of the marks from my beating had fadded, and confronted with a woman dressed only in a large crimson tunic near a tarn, they jumped to a hasty decision, they thought me a new slave. The girl that had come at me lay dead at my feet. A lucky blow on my part that I likely would not have landed if she had not assumed me helpless. But she was dead, and I found that I was now a panther, one of ten.
    Life in the jungle agreed with me, my skills grew, and I kept the sword. I worked with it buildng my strength repeating the exercizes I saw warriors do at night by there camps...The same warriors we would enslave later in the night. I hated all men, and I was sworn to bettering them all, they were just beasts after all. In time I came to lead, and wishing to take bigger game I incressed our number to 17. What we needed of the beasts called men we took, and I made each pay for the night Tharna fell before we sold them with the heads shaved down the middle. Soon, none travelled near our area, for fear off losing there freedom or life, and are raids went closer and closer to the edge of the jungles. And so it was one fateful day, when we found him.
    He was wound, a dozen small cuts, and a few that were not so small, but none were so large as the one that had ended the life of the man laying dead at his feet. He was also very tall, a head taller than I who looked most men in the eye. We had surounded him before he knew we were there. I blocked his path, my sword drawn as my girls steped out from the hiding places, each with and arrow trained on him. I smiled seeing him strighten up, bringing his sword up. His shield and helm were gone, his left arm seemed to hang useless at his side, but his eyes...His eyes were fierce, he would not surrender. He was a beast, wounded, and dispite his size I would kill him, but his eyes...there was something about them. I signaled my girls to move further back as I closed on him. He smiled seeing it was going to be a fair fight, fitting for a warrior. The smile made me pause, and the eyes...Why did they seem so familar? His tunic hung in rags about him, drying blood covered the crimson it had been. He took a step closer, his sword held ready, his eyes locked on mine. Then I saw it on his tunic, though cut and covered in blood...a five petaled flower. I dropped my sword as the smile swept over my face, and through all the years somehow he still knew that smile. I held up my arms toward him as he sheathed his sword, and with just one arm he lifted me, just as he had when I was a child.
    I tended his wounds myself, he slept much the first few days in my small hut with our camp. I watched over him, guarding him from my girls who could not understand why he was left alive yet unbound. As he healed many of my girls chose to tend his other needs as well. From their dazed looks as they stumbled to there own furs it left little doubt they recieved more than bargained for. As he healed he had begun to spar with me, and my skill with a sword grew further as he tied the moves I had learn from watching into the actual art of sword fighting. It had been 23 days, and he was again fit for travell. No less than 6 of my girls begged to go with him as he climb up onto Tharna's saddle with me. I could see the love in their eye's as I looked down at them. "I would loose them soon" I thought to myself, for their hearts now knew what it was to love a man. It was well I never went to his furs...I left him within site of a city I had never been in. I looked at him, in the tunic I had cleaned and then carefully sewed back together. He was tall and hansom as he smiled waving at me....Yes, it was good I had never gone to his furs. Circling high with the sun to my back I watched as he entered the city. For the more Ahn I circled there, then I turned Tharna back toward the jungles I called home.
    Seasons came and went, and I lost the six girls I knew I would. It had been two years since he had left, and we now numbered only eleven. Though still feared, my band was fading, for dispite my skill I no longer had the rage that had driven me. I knew now that not all men were beasts, and I could not forget it. Though none said it, I could tell by the look in their eyes as I filled the pack of Tharna's saddle, they knew I was not coming back. When I arrived they had been ten, as I lift they were again.
    I had recut the tunic I had feld my home city in so it now fit me properly, and I drew more than my share of looks as I swung off Tharna's saddle in the midest of the tarn cot. I was in a city again, only the second I had seen in my life. It was where I had last seen him, and so where I now began my search. This city was not like Tharna had been, it's colors, it's people, everythings seemed bright and happy. The girls who seemed to scamper everywhere in slave silks or nothing at all smiled warmly. I had expect this to be just the first step in my search for him, but I was wrong. He had not left the city.
    I sat in the shadows drinking slowly, waiting. I had heard he came here often. I could not stop the smile as he walked in, my heart seeming to beat again for the first time since he had left. But he was not alone. There were girls, naked and smiling, each more lovely than I. They seemed not the least bothered though they wore nothing but a collar showing they belonged to him. I found myself glad he did not see me. Of what interest could I be to him with such as these in his collar. I watched for Ahns as he talked with men and flirted with woman and kajira, all of which seemed intranced by him. Still sitting in the shadows I watched him leave. It was good I had not been seen. What could I offer he did not already have?
    The last serving girl was asleep, I sat alone watching th embers of the fire. I had no place to go, so I sat and watched as the fire died, my heart doing the same within my chest. Then he came through the door once more and walked stright to me. He smiled and held out his arms saying "I wondered when you would come".
    I will leave out the details of that night. All that need be known is I swore all to him, and he has accepted it. My crimson tunic now bares the crest of his house, and I protect all he holds dear. His girls, his house, and the city he calls home.