------------- Tales of the Raptors – Margarita

She had everything going against her. Born in Maeceyea, she was still crawling on all fours when she was taken and sold to the Viridians. She grew up in a ludus, serving the lanista as a household slave. By the time she reached puberty and her true nature and powers began to manifest, she had already been raped a dozen times, and beaten a hundred more. She had nothing and was nothing. But Margarite Longeusse refused to accept that as her fate.

Her secret, which she managed to keep from everyone, was that she wasn’t what she appeared. As well as being exceptionally brilliant and possessed of nearly superhuman dexterity, she was one of the True Hermaphrodites, sexual shapeshifters of the eastern seas. How she came to be that would remain a mystery. The answers no doubt died with the parents she had never known. But her natural talents were not for seduction and erotic magic. She was a natural born thief, an acrobat, possessed of an insatiable curiosity and an uncanny gift for all things scientific. Of course, if she had stayed where they told her to stay, did what she was told to do, conformed to what everyone around her wished, she would have stayed a slave her whole life. But she refused.

Margarite used her shapechanging abilities to organize a slave revolt and break out of the ludus. She escaped with dozens of gladiators and other house slaves. They crossed the border back in Maeceyea, but she wouldn’t stop there. She went back again and again, creating an underground of ex-Viridian slaves until the revolt had both countries tied up in quelling it. But her unique abilities, her talents, got her into trouble with her own people. None would trust her. They considered her a freak, an outcast, and so she was. She robbed a merchant in Kandevari blind and stowed away on a ship heading west.

Months later, she found herself on the lofty slopes of Syvasmyr, using the money she’d stolen to fund her entrance and pay for her five years of school at Kar’Dhaer. Her genius and dedication put her at the top of her class. She graduated with honors in Paratechnology from the School of Science & Technology. And never did she accept what people told her she should be. Having spent the last several years of her life as a thief, and still wanted on the other side of the continent for assorted crimes, she swore to abide by the law and respect the customs of her new home. She swore to fight against her own darker impulses. At times that seemed like it would not be enough. At times she was cold and alone and had lost all hope. And then she wandered into Sanctuum Menea on Mid-Winter’s Eve and met Erelae Linit’sur, the Drow High WarPriestess of Eilistraee. She was never one for religion. What had the Gods ever done for her? But a friend, someone to understand and accept her for what she was,… maybe she wasn’t nothing after all.

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