Sigil: City of Doors

Basic Information
Name: Mina Firran
Gender: Female
Race: Moon Elf
Age: Young Adult
Profession: Odd jobs; scavenging
Languages: Elven, Sylvan, Draconic
Accent: Her voice is rarely raised to much more than a husky whisper, and normally has a faint tremor in it.

Physical Information
Height: 5' even
Weight: 95 lbs.
Body build: Lean and slim, but surprisingly well-muscled
Hair style: Long and disheveled
Scars: None visible
Colouring:

[b]Hair:[/b] Dark gold with streaks of midnight-black [b]Eyes:[/b] Amber [b]Skin:[/b] Lightly tanned [/li]

Mental Information
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Philosophy: Joy is fleeting; darkness always comes.
Deity/Beliefs: Former worshipper of an unknown god; currently none
Personality:

[u]Timid[/u] [i]Tends to flinch and startle often, and rarely makes eye contact for long[/i] [u]Pessimistic[/u] [i]Always certain that something bad is going to happen[/i] [/li]

Additional Information
Clothing: She generally seems unconcerned with the state of her clothing, aside from thick bands around her left bicep and right wrist, the metal etched with alien script
Habbits/hobbies: Only drinks water and grain liquors
General Health: She seems healthy and in the prime of life, despite her dark outlook
Weaknesses: An almost debilitating fear of non-celestial outsiders, especially Tanar'ri

Someone offered to kill me yesterday.

Two months ago, perhaps even two weeks ago, I'd have taken them up on it. Perhaps the darkness has lifted somewhat by a bit of daring on my part, and compassion on the part of others. Two days.. but with more actual meaning than the two months previous. But do I deserve to have the light shine upon me?

The night terrors still come, still plague my attempts at reverie. Memories of the screams. The screams of my people. The screams of those I loved. My own screams. Often I wake and wonder if this is the dream, and that the reality still.

Last night, the terrors were absent. I'm uncertain how to view this: am I lifting the veil and allowing myself to believe in goodness again, or am I simply allowing the things I have seen to pass from me? If I am willing to forget, willing to move on from the death and devastation.. might that not make me like the Tanar'ri whose faces still haunt me?

Four fellow elves. That's all it took, three elves. Walking away from the perceived safety and anonymity of the Hive and finding myself in the bustle of the bazaar. Instant fright, at seeing a fiendish beast standing and conversing at the outdoor bar, and an almost thoughtless dash to this place, the Foul Olde Spirit.

Cam was the first. His true name was longer, something more common to most of the elves I've met here in the Cage, but I remember that which he asked to be called. I know that what he felt was pity, but I could not help but accept his gifts, both of jink and of compassion. Almost a reminder of home, home before the Pale mage opened the door to the end. An offer of murder to shock me from my depression.. He gave me the courage to face the bar again.

"Siren" was the second. Drawing me into her group at the bar, shocking me with her banter with the efreet tender, nearly drawing a laugh from me. How long has it been since I truly laughed?

Lastly, the two dark-skinned elves, the so-called "drow," Aktasha and the one called "Spirit". Their like did not exist on my world except in ancient, fearful legend, yet they struck me as little different from any others. Again, kindness was found, a willingness to seek out friendship and gift it in return. A chance to talk with some who were not seeking advantage. I like to think it was entering reverie with the black-skinned maidens beside me that held the terrors at bay; still, I woke before them, and slipped from their room before they woke. I'll not be a burden.

Still. Feelings I had not felt since my crazed dash at an open portal, the agonized crawl through lands of fire and fear that brought me to Sigil. Or even a month further, back to a time before I knew the touch of sinuous coils or clawed fingers, before ashes and blood replaced the world I thought I knew.

It would be nice to smile again.

Perhaps someday I shall.

A Tanar'ri tried to take me yesterday.

More precisely, one of the mixed-blood fiends they call "tieflings". I do not think she came from my world, or knew me.. yet somehow she sensed my fear, and seemed to wish to use it for dark purposes. Thought fled and terror took over as I stared into her crimson eyes, yet somehow a part of me remembered how to run, else I doubt I'd be writing this now.

I don't remember my flight, only coming to again in the room of the drowesses, Aktasha slowly coaxing me to calmness. And an odd human man, who seemed to think her the cause of my distress. I could not help but appreciate someone taking an interest, even if my new drow friend had to have him forcibly removed.

And something else. According to Aktasha, evidently now I live there.. here. Writing this as I sit at a sturdy table, surrounded by light and books.. but I will have to wait to see the response this gets from her roommate.

The memories of my dark time, of the pain and horror, will never leave me. But perhaps here I might remember the part of me from before. I awakened this morning, and it took some time to realize that the warm leg across my own and the arm about my waist were not the coils of a Marilith, pulling me back into that living nightmare.

I shall see.

It happenned half a world away.

I've thought that perhaps writing of the bad times might help me face them. I forced myself to speak to one of these "tieflings" yesterday, a strangely compelling girl named Mael, and found that if I'm willing to not focus on such things has horns and red-glowing eyes, they are little different from the other races in Sigil despite their fiendish blood. Hard to imagine that I might have befriended one, yet it would seem to be so.

Much different from the time half a year and yet a lifetime ago. The humans had lived in harmony with use since time immemorial, simply a shorter-lived minority race that legend says came to us from elsewhere. They did not seek to rule or usurp, and simply seemed like another sort of elf except for one thing: their magic. Rather than venerating the great spirits of sky and earth, forest and field, and accreting power thereby as my people did, they tapped into a different source of power. Had we only known what directions this could lead..

Half a world away, a human mage took that wrong turn. He was well-known, even we had heard of this man, "The Pale". And when word came that in some horrible mistake, he'd caused his home city to be destroyed, we shook our heads sadly and mourned those whose lives had been lost, not ever believing that this would only be the first blow.

But as city after city, nation after nation crumbled and word of the unnatural beings whose coming presaged death and destruction reached us, it seemed beyond belief. The cities of seventy towers were safe, the great groves and wild forests would surely stand forever. But eventually, as the skies darkened and plants withered, the day came.

Some attempted to fight. But even element-blessed blades and bows were of little use against creatures with skin like iron, or massive beasts who could destroy a building with a kick. Horrid creatures on leathery wings, apelike beasts who leapt through the treetops and fell upon our warriors, even burrowers and swimmers, made that fight short, brutal, and meaningless.

Others of us thought surrender to be a safer course.. those of us who lived all learned that that those who fell in battle were the lucky ones. I believe I was already beginning to believe that as the manacle of control was fastened upon my wrist, and the Cambion procurers led me towards my new life in service to the Marilith, Abher'yxleth.

I can write no longer of this today. The memories are.. too much.