Sayori Kagamisan : Blossoms from Dirt

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Life in Rokushima Taiyoo.  For one who is not born to wealth or an honorable lineage, life is needlessly difficult.  Born to a fishing village and orphaned by a local barbarian raid, Kagami only escaped the confines of Tottorido Prefecture by gaining attention for her singing voice.  Shortly after, other attentions would follow.

She fell into a very dark, addled world.  A world of conmen and tricksters, sellswords and merchants, and worse.  She learned much from her constant exposure to the underworld of Rokuma society.  Many Gokudo families emulated, in a lesser way, the ongoing conflicts plaguing the lands as a whole.  The struggle for power, the need for examples in a changing world, and constant deception carved Kagami from her old life into one she couldn't fathom.

She was now a prostitute.

At the age of seventeen she would do all she could to be noticed as a genuine artist.  But bruise marks and shabby clothing kept her to the scummy quarters of the larger towns her business took her too. Old fat merchants would lie through their yellow teeth, to dress her nicely, to showcase her talent.  But not a single one of them proved trust worthy.

It took several years, with very harsh and hardening times.  But eventually she figured out how to escape her second life.  She had a customer who always returned to her and decided to declare her love for him.  It was a lie, but as she expected he took her away, much to his own endangerment with the local Gokudo family at his heels.  With good fortune, they escaped only to seperate from one another.  When Kagami took her fine clothes from his wagon and took to the forest to elude him, a strange mist crept up around her...

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Travelling through various lands, she came to learn of other cultures.  She was most intrigued by Sri Raji and its odd stories, of Asuras and other power hungry deities creating and destroying the world perpetually.  She began to study language closely and seemed to possess an aptitude for it. Travelling alone for so long she invariably came into harms way, and so placed some time honing her ability with sword-arts.  Having several mentors along the way, none lasting, she still picked up what she needed to get by.

She learned with a little time that investing in herself was the only way to become more than she was before.  She was driven, perhaps even crazy, about never again being some fat misers bed time pleasure.

Coming to Barovia was an odd culture shock.  Many months of difficulty were taken to disect the language.  The natives were not kind to strangers, but it was actually among other "outlanders" that Kagami first gained support.  Women were able to join the guard and militia and could earn rank and honors there. She could become a smith and her wares would sell, despite her being a woman.  And if she ever had to she could work on the Lake in nearly any capacity, with her sailing background from Tottorido Prefecture.  Aside from the weather these conditions weren't all that bad.

This land had some other things hidden from sight, however.  Kagami had never once seen the living dead, until coming to Barovia.  The very concept of such abhorrence was unbearable.  Rokuma people tell tales of snow ghosts and other such things.  But Flesh Eaters?