We will start when I was born.
I was nothing special, nor will I ever be. I am merely one of a kind, just as the person reading this is. All predators begin as prey.
The world's creatures didn't gather around me nor run away when I was born. The weather didn't grow warmer or colder, calmer or stormier. The seas never parted, dried up, or twinkled any different. Another human born in the flourishing race, the image of her passionate mother and brave father. My personal values are theirs, combined in the vessel known as myself. Waking up in the world was like living in a fantasy. I could touch, I could see, I could live.
I could love.
The utter beauty of it all startled me, as silly as it sounds. But the challenges I was given by this untamed world as an untamed girl were infinate and thrilling. Every day passed like leaves in a violent river. Call me crazy, but I found it all that wonderful.
'Love yourself first, then love another.'
Wise words they often told me. Ones I still try to believe and hold on to as the years go by. Often times I stare at the sky and spend hours pondering on the simple sentiment. But that's for another tale. Let's go to my origins. Four thousand years ago. That's a rough estimate, but it must be close. I do not know the exact date of my birth, though I believe it was in the time frame of fall to spring. Reliable source, I know.
Helsinki, Finland is where I took my first breath, though we didn't call it that. It wouldn't be called Finland for a while. the icy air stuffing into my lungs like frozen cotton candy gusts into tiny balloons of life. I don't remember, like all of us, my first sight. I like to imagine it being my parents, and it very well might have been. It was just like any other childbirth. My tribe, my kin. They were there to greet me into this world of kind words and compassion, and what a shame I would have to bid them adeiu out of it some day. They called me Aeva back then, for the twenty-seven years I spent with them. My first friend Svavarr, or 'Vava' as I called him, were inseperable. No, we had no romantic relationship and had no intentions of persuing in on any. We were brother and sister by some spiritual connection we couldn't explain then, and that even I can't explain now. I genuinely loved him and still do.
All throughout my childhood and early adulthood, I was always finding myself to be in love with.. Well, everything my eyes took hold of. I loved the snow, the trees, the gods and goddesses, the mighty monsters in old tales.. The smallest things became my lovers. Eventually I started to learn from village elders the art of medicines and even, dare I say, the occult that shaped me and would become the dark curtains of my downfall. But if it wasn't for my interest in the strange, I wouldn't be telling this story, now would I?
By the time I could assist my beloved kin with things like hunting and weapon smithing, I had developed into a young woman, ripe and ready to marry in my prime. I wasn't astoundingly striking, but I wasn't gorgeous either. I don't think anyone really was back then. But I was confident in what I looked like, as boys were often boys.
However, my family knew of my yearning to see new things and learn the world's offerings, and thus I was arranged to go meet my groom in some odd Barbarian-rich place South of my homeland. Modern day Switzerland? Hell if I know. Hell if I care. Trouble was I didn't want this. So when I embarked and became known as my current name, I did something I still regret.
I ran away.