(So over a week has passed since I opened the poll and I have just closed it. The votes between whether to make it a mega chapter or multiple chapters was split down the middle. So because of that, I left it to a coin toss to break the tie. Heads= multiple chapters. Tails=mega chapter. I landed on heads. So because of that, the anthology chapter covering Sophia's backstory will be split into multiple chapters. However, do not worry! The work is already done. So this will not- I repeat will not- affect the scheduling for the next chapter release. In fact, the multiple chapters that Sophia's backstory has been broken into will be posted daily because I'm sure we want to get back to the main story already. And anthology chapter 4, (which is now going to be anthology chapter 6) will be posted in about a week from now at least since it's already completed and revised anyway. So with that said, here is the first part of Sophia's backstory and I hope you enjoy.)
Volume I: Ant. Chapter III: Hard Times:
6 Years Earlier:
"I said... stop running... ahead of me...!" A 16-year-old girl cried out with huffs in her breath. She was too tired and slowed to keep up as she watched her two younger siblings run ahead recklessly.
"What was that?" Her little sister of 13 years old, called back. "I can't hear you over your bossiness!"
"Catch us if it's so important to you!" Her 11-year-old brother shouted. "We're gonna eat all the snacks we buy and you won't get any if you don't keep up!"
The boy would then turn and run off with his sister. His name was Lucius. His sisters called him 'Lu'. He hated that name. But they would persist anyway. One time, Lucius would question his first older sister as to why she kept calling him by that name, despite how much it annoyed him. She would simply respond with: 'Because your reactions are adorable, 'Lu!'' She then proceeded to pinch his cheek. Lucius responded by biting her finger. She never pinched his cheek again after that.
As the older girl helplessly yelled for her younger siblings to come back and stay close to her, they disappeared in the distance with no sign of slowing down.
"Lucius! Sophia!" She weakly yelled before bending over to rest her hands on her bare knees. "Why do they always have to do this to me?" She complained.
"Ugh!" She thought to herself as she stands straight up. "Those little sh-... Shit, I'm tired!"
Sophia's older sister was strict and always bossing her siblings around and keeping them out of trouble. The two younger siblings would sometimes band together because of this to mess with their older sister if they thought she was being too bossy. They would drive her crazy. Some of the ways they would do it were by going to places they were specifically prohibited from travelling to, straying too far from her just to make her catch up, and pretending they didn't hear her correctly whenever she'd tell them to do something. Sophia and her brother enjoyed, "Bugging the shit out of her." as Sophia phrased it once. Looking back, however, the girl does feel a hint of remorse for teaming with her brother to give her sister a hard time for trying to be a good older sibling and keep them safe.
As the siblings raced through the streets and alleyways to quickly get to the marketplace, Lucius managed to get ahead of Sophia and turned a corner.
"Hey! Wait u-" Sophia suddenly choked on her words as she saw her little brother quickly backing up. He had a look of fear on his face.
Emerging from the corner was a sleeveless, menacing-looking man. He was much bigger than either of them combined.
"Lucius!" Sophia shouted as she raced up to the two. She would immediately put an arm in front of her brother and move him behind her.
Sophia silently stared up at the man as if she were expecting him to do something. She was naively hoping he would just walk away.
"I take it I don't even need to say it." The man pat his pocket before gesturing to them and stretching out an open palm.
Sophia and Lucius both had lien in their pockets. It was visible as the money poked out slightly.
"B-but we found-..." Lucius muttered as Sophia squeezed his arm as a means to hush him.
"Oh you found it? What a coincidence!" The man responded sarcastically. "I found some lien today, too. Sitting in the pockets of two kids that can't tell when a guy's not fucking around." He suddenly proceeded to draw a knife as he threatened the two children.
Sophia immediately felt her heart pound in concern for her and her brother's safety.
"We should've listened..." She thought to herself, recalling her older sister's words.
"Wanna try this again?" He asked them threateningly.
"Lucius, we're giving him the money." Sophia turned to her brother.
"But we found-"
"They'll find our bodies if we don't!" She said urgently.
Sophia didn't hesitate to place her lien in the man's hand and signaled for her brother to do the same. Lucius would eventually relent and fork over his cash as well as he stuffed it in the man's free hand. The two siblings stared at the man as he stuffed his pocket and put his knife away.
"What? You can go now." The man shooed them off.
With that, the two siblings took a few cautious steps back. Sophia still kept herself between the man and her brother, before they scampered off once they were far enough. As the two ran, they would eventually bump into their older sister near the marketplace, looking for them. She forcefully grabbed their arms and turned them around.
"Found you!" The older sister shouted with an annoyed voice. "I told you not to run off without me! Do you enjoy messing with me and stressing me out?! Do you think this is some kind of game or... something...?"
The older sister quickly changed demeanor as she noticed the lingering fear on her siblings' faces. She wondered why they looked so scared to be caught by her. They've done this before and have been caught multiple times. But they never showed this level of fear before. She saw their pockets and noticed they were empty and she put two and two together.
"Tell me what happened." She told them in a serious tone.
Being the more coherent of the two after what happened, Sophia opted to speak first and explain what happened. Their sister responded by hugging them very tightly, almost like a vice. She then inspected them like fine jewelry from head to toe for any markings or bruises or cuts. Once she was sure they were fine, she asked them to describe the man and where he was. The two complied, believing they were going to report the mugger to authorities. Instead, the older sister sat them near a crowded area by a stall and told them to wait there before disappearing into the direction they said he was.
Many minutes later, Sophia and Lucius saw her return with a broken board in her hand. She had her other hand behind her back, and a victorious smile written across her face.
"Guess what I've gooot~!" She announced to them before revealing a small sack of lien to the children's surprise.
"But how did you-"
"He never saw me coming~" She interrupted Lucius. "Anyway, we should probably go buy our snacks and beat it before he wakes up and tries to find us."
"You're not gonna tell mom and dad, are you?" Sophia asked her sister with slight nervousness.
"Are you gonna run off without me again?" She asked both of them.
"No!" They both immediately shook their heads.
"Then I won't tell. I think the lesson was learned today. So they don't need to know. It'll be our little secret~" She winked.
As bossy as their older sister could be, Sophia and her brother thought she was pretty awesome when she wanted to be.
Sophia and her siblings come from the slums of Mistral. It was a part of the kingdom that was riddled with crime and neglect. Residents in the higher levels of Mistral would even call the area 'Little Vacuo'. As undesired as the conditions the three lived in were, this was their world and all they knew of it.
Everyday, they would head out whenever their parents fought, which was unfortunately a regular thing for them. The elder sister would sometimes accompany them when she could to keep a close eye. Meanwhile, the younger two would scrounge for loose lien to spend. It was easy to find in places like the marketplace and especially in the alleyways near or around stores. This was mainly due to how common muggings and robberies and deals would take place near those sites. Their sister would sometimes help too. And on weekends, they would go on shopping sprees at the markets as the two would usually chew through their snacks. Their older sister, on the other hand, tried to conserve what was on her.
At home, the siblings were almost always at odds, especially Lucius and Sophia. Sophia would like to constantly tease Lucius and this would usually escalate to full arguments. Their older sister was the one usually relied on to keep them from coming to blows in case one of them got fed up and socked the other. However, Sophia's older sister would occasionally like to join in by referring to Lucius as their baby brother no matter how old he was, which would also annoy him.
When it came to relationships, Sophia was always closer to Lucius. Though that is not to say she wasn't close to her older sister at all. With her sister, Sophia also held a good relationship with her. With their parents, they were all very close to their mother, especially the oldest sister, who spent a good amount of her time helping her around the house. They weren't as close to their father though, but that was primarily due to the fact he was usually out working most of the day. The siblings' relationship with their father was still a decent one as he was always happy to see them and vice-versa.
But as to how their parents were to each other, "ugh...!" was the only thing Sophia would bring herself to say when describing it. A sound conveying that of disgust and frustration. As much as their parents cared for them, they could not stand each other. Most of the time they could not exist in the same room without there being a fight. And when there was one, their older sister would simply usher Sophia and her brother to their room until things died down. It was practically routine for them. They'd gotten so accustomed to it that they stopped paying any mind as it just served as background noise for them. Sophia and Lucius tried to turn it into a game once by wagering portions of their dinner or dessert over who would fire the first shot and how long until it started. Their sister would give them an earful for making a game out of the situation when she found out about it and they quickly stopped. It was around this time their sister would take them out as a new means to escape the fighting. Deep down, Sophia believed that her parents did not dislike each other, but rather they were frustrated for being stuck in their position in the slums and they took it out on each other. Sophia wondered why they didn't just split, but she realized that that would essentially sink the whole family and both parents knew that. She loved them, but she also pitied them.
Their daily routine was to do the morning chores, which the older sister would help mom around the house, and they'd get home schooled by their mother. Then, when their father eventually arrived home, the two would just count the minutes- sometimes even seconds- until they started fighting. Despite what went on, the siblings always tried to find ways to make the most of it. As much as they liked to mess with each other, they all loved each other and would do anything for the other.
The nights, however, were another story. The nights were a free-for-all. The three siblings all had to share a bed that they kept in the corner of their room. Lucius was always paranoid of falling off and would take the side against the wall. Sophia would claim the middle and their sister would be stuck with the far end and constantly be dangerously close to falling off.
Every night was a war: "Your elbow's digging into my ribs, Sophia!" "Sis, get your hair out of my face and get your leg off me too! And 'Lu', you're crushing me!" "For the love of the gods, would you two please give me some room to sleep on and stop hogging the bed? This is the second time I've fallen tonight!"
This was every night for them. The mornings weren't much better either as the three showed no mercy in their brutal races to be first to use the bathroom.
For the siblings, life in the slums wasn't too bad. It was livable. And though things could have been better, they still had two caring parents (putting aside how they felt toward each other). On top of that, they had each other to look out for.
This was their "normal world."
. . .
On August 2nd, the following year, when the siblings were then 17, 14, and 12, their "normal world" would be threatened. On this day, Sophia could recall the exact clothes they wore that day and where they were sitting at the table. This was the day they would learn their mother would fall gravely ill. She was drastically and rapidly weakened, and she could hardly function on her own with everyday tasks. The way the family functioned was permanently altered. Sophia remembers the day very well because it was the day after her birthday where she had just turned 14. Taking into account the position the family were in, their mother's affliction would be almost a death sentence without immediate effective procedures. So the best the family could do was work to pay to treat her and hold it off while also trying to sustain enough lien to pay for the procedure to save her.
Their father would work longer hours to try and make more. He'd return home every day between 2-3 a.m. and leave again for work at 7 a.m. This led to the siblings seeing him much less than usual. But if there was any silver lining, at least the fighting ceased. Sophia couldn't tell whether it was because they were simply not around each other long enough to start one or because they were putting their frustration and friction aside like a truce of sorts.
Despite their father's best efforts though, he still struggled. But luckily, their sister had turned 17 already on May 24th of that year. In Mistral, 17 is when you are considered an adult and you also need to be at least 17 to legally work a paying official job. Strangely enough, that is one of the very few laws that are actually followed in the slums of Mistral. Because of this, Sophia's and Lucius' sister took the opportunity to find a job to help however she could. And though their sister's efforts did help, it was only a little. But it only made a slight dent. And though it helped things progress, it was very slow progress.
As for Lucius and Sophia, there wasn't much they could do. So they would mainly contribute by helping take care of their mother.
In short, it was a struggle for everyone as they all had to endure these difficult moments.
. . .
"4,000,... 4,100,... 4,200,..." The oldest sibling sat at their kitchen table. She was counting her lien as she took each one from her hand and laid it onto the table in a growing stack.
Sophia sat there on the other side of the table. She was hunched over with her chin resting on her folded arms that rested on the worn, wooden surface. Her hazel eyes were focused on the colored strips of currency as her cheeks puffed up before she slowly deflated them out of boredom. Doing so would create a gentle, focused breeze across the table top.
"Can you stop that, please?" Her sister requested.
"Why?"
"I don't want you to blow it off the table and I have to start counting again."
"Fine..." Sophia relented as she laid her head to the side.
As Sophia's sister counted, she the girl could notice a furrowed brow begin to form on her elder's face. Her voice would also shrink as she neared the end of the stack.
"5,800,... 5,900,... 6,000..." Her older sister placed her chin in her now empty hand as she stares at the stack on the table.
"How much is that?" Sophia asked out of curiosity.
"Not a lot..."
Sophia huffed. She got up and sat on the table, facing away from her sister. The girl then rested her feet on the seat of the chair with her chin in her hands.
"What are we gonna do?" She pondered.
"Sophia, get off the table..." Her sister told her with a slight mumble in her voice. She'd have made her get off, but the amount of lien she earned didn't leave her in the mood to.
"None of what we're doing is putting in a dent." Sophia would continue.
"I said get off the table, Sophia..." Her sister put her hand on her back and tried to weakly nudge her off.
"And Lu and I can't do much of anything."
"Are you even listening to me?" Her sister asked as she had become background noise to her sister. Sophia seemed to have just tuned her out as she voiced her own thoughts.
"This is just so frustrating... It feels so helpless..."
"Table. Off. Now." Her sister continued to try and get her off the table.
"But... I think I have an idea...!" Sophia picked her head up as she finally hopped off the table.
"Thank you..." Her sister quietly thanked her. She then laid her head down and kept her gaze on the lien on the table.
"I'm gonna go grab Lu. We'll be back later, okay?"
"Fine. I'll take care of mom in the meantime." Sophia's sister began putting her lien into a small sack.
Sophia then ran into the living room. Once entering, she intercepted Lucius, who had been heading downstairs.
"Lu!" She called. "Just who I was looking for. You're coming with me!" Sophia grabbed her brother's hand and started dragging him to the front door.
"W-wait, slow down! Where are we even going?"
"We'll talk on the way. We're running outta daylight." Lucius didn't put up much of a fight as he was pulled out the front door. He knew better considering this was Sophia. Once her mind was set on something, it was futile to resist.
The two siblings made their way down their porch and began to cross their yard. Judging from how it looked outside, they had about ninety minutes of daylight.
"So where are we-"
"Watch your step!" Sophia put her arm in front of her brother and maneuvered him around whatever she was warning him of.
Lucius, slightly confused, looked down directly behind him and noticed what Sophia was trying to get him to avoid. It was a small hill of dog feces.
"Oh, uh... thanks." Lu said.
"Your big sister's gotta keep you safe, you know~" She smiled like she accomplished something. "And I will keep you safe no matter what, from any harm or threat~!"
She would then pull her younger brother into a protective bear-like hug.
"Ah! Would you let go?! Sophia, you're gonna break me in half!" Lucius struggled out of his sister's grip. "Jeez! It's just dog poop, Sophia. It's not that big of a deal."
"Oh, so you don't mind having to deal with shit on the bottom of your shoe all day?"
"I mean it wouldn't be as bad as the time our sister tricked you into hopping into some?" Lucius laughed.
"That's not funny, Lu!" Sophia complained.
"You deserved it though. You wouldn't stop hopping into the leaf piles when she was trying to rake them no matter how many times she told you to stop. Who knew all she had to do was rake a pile to cover the pile of dog poo the stray dog she likes to feed left behind and leave it alone. That got you outta that phase fast."
"I know what happened. You don't have to tell me."
"I know. But it's funny to talk about." Lucius chuckled. "It was all over the back of your shorts and thigh and there were leaves stuck to you."
"Hey, at least I'm not a dumpster diver!"
"I didn't dive!" Lucius defended himself. "I fell into that dumpster when I slipped off that roof we were hopping across! What happened to you was worse by comparison."
"Tell that to mom and dad. They wouldn't let you in the house, so I hosed you outside."
"Well, I'd rather be hosed off for accidentally falling in a smelly dumpster than be the girl who got baited into jumping into dog crap."
"I didn't know!"
"Doesn't change what happened~" He teased her with another laugh. "You put yourself in that situation."
"You do realize you're within arm's length of me, right?"
Lucius then immediately stopped laughing as Sophia's remark got him to change his demeanor.
"That's better~"
There was a slight moment of awkward silence between the two siblings as they exited their yard and began to make their way down the street.
"So uh, where are we going?" He awkwardly changed the subject.
"We are gonna find some money!" She said almost gallantly.
"Where?"
"Anywhere, Lu! We're gonna go scrounge for some like we used to way back."
"What do you mean 'way back'? Last time we did that was like three months ago. And besides, do you think it'll make a difference?"
"Of course it will." She said with confidence. "Besides, dad and sis are struggling and we've been sitting on our hinds the whole time. They need all the help they can get. So we should make ourselves useful. They'll appreciate it."
"Alright, if you say so." A gentle wind started to blow, pushing Lucius' hair in his face and he tried to move it aside.
"Your hair's getting long."
"I can see that." He kept trying to move it out of his face.
"I'm surprised you can see at all." Sophia laughed as the hair kept getting in his eyes. "You know, I might have to start cutting your hair soon~"
"No!" Lucius shouted abruptly.
"Oh come on. It won't be that bad."
"Implying that it'll be some level of bad..." Her brother replied. "I'd rather have mom do it like she does with all of us."
"You know that's not an option right now." Sophia shut down his suggestion.
"Then I'll just wait for dad to do it."
"Dad's out all the time."
"Then I'll just ask our si-"
"Nope! She can't either. With her out working, I'm your only option." She gave a cheeky grin.
"Sophia, don't take this the wrong way, but you're the last person I'd trust with my hair."
"Well it's a good thing I'm the last person available you can trust then~"
"No, Sophia!"
"Why?" She said in a complaining voice.
"Because you'd be too careless and mess something up. Plus, you'd probably shave a swear word or a body part in my hair just for laughs."
"Lu! You know me better than that." She sounded offended. "Show some trust in your sister."
Lucius looked unconvinced.
"Tell you what, how about I take some lessons from our 'proxy barber' when she's available?"
"Did you just call our sister a proxy barber?"
"I mean in this regard, I'm technically not wrong."
Lucius had no response ready.
"Anyway, she'll give me lessons and maybe she'll let me experiment on her a bit. And then I'll graduate to you and you can be my new guinea pig- under her supervision of course. And then I can start cutting your hair for real on my own when she thinks I'm ready. Will that work?"
After some thinking and consideration, Lucius let out a relenting sigh.
"I guess so... fine..." He muttered.
"Yes!" Sophia cheered. "I promise that every strand of hair on your little head will be safe under my care. And don't worry. I won't do anything too crazy with your hair. I'm a simple girl. Look at me for example. I just do a low-hanging ponytail and call it a day. So I won't go overboard. I promise."
"I'll remember that."
"Anyway, let's go find some money."
From that point on, every day, the two siblings would head out into the slums and spend all the free time they had looking for lien lying around and would return home with their pockets filled to the brim and stash it away. Every little bit counted. But all they could find each day totaled to just a fraction of what their father and sister made. It barely made a difference. It would eventually start to get frustrating to them to the point it sometimes felt like a waste of time.
Over time, Sophia's frustration would grow more and more. It seemed to her no matter what they did, it just was not working. She was tired of constantly feeling like this. As if no matter how hard she and her family tried with what they could do, it would never make a difference. As if she and her family were among many people the world was setting up to fail and be forgotten about. Her mind was a whirlwind of thoughts at the moment to try and make a bigger difference that would finally turn things around. But she knew her options were getting low and she didn't like any of them. But she had already made her choice. So in early October, Sophia would do something she had never done before. It would soon become a regular thing for her on days they wouldn't find much.
"Hey, Lu, how much do you have?" Sophia would call to her brother.
"About 1,000." He answered.
"Damn!" Sophia kicked a can at a wall. "I have about as much."
"Do you wanna call it a day?" Lucius approached.
"Uhh... no... No." Sophia responded. "Well, I don't wanna call it at least."
"What do you mean?" He cocked his head to the side.
"You-... You head home, Lu. I'll go look around some more. See if I can find anything extra."
"Sophia, I don't feel comfortable leaving you alone..." Lucius protested as it was starting to get dark.
"Lu." Sophia tightly gripped his shoulders. "I'll be fine. I know when to get home and what routes to take to get there. I'll be fine. Just give me an extra hour."
Lucius didn't want to go, but he knew better than to argue with her.
"You have one hour. You better be home by then." He took a step back and reluctantly headed off.
"One hour." His sister repeated with a reassuring smile.
As he disappeared, Sophia began to head off in her own direction. She was moving toward the crowded market and began looking around. She hadn't noticed it until the moment of, but her heart was beating fast in her chest. Her surroundings seemingly whirled around her as she tried to calm herself under the rapidly darkening sky. With how sneaky she could be, Sophia was confident she'd be able to pull it off. But she wasn't calm enough to do it. She needed a distraction.
To get a better vantage point, Sophia would circle to a bar that overlooked the market to see what she could do.
"Let's see..." She thought to herself. "I'll grab a small rock and beam it at one of the stalls' pillars. That should work."
Sophia then picked up a small rock. She started to scope out the area to find a good enough target and settled on a stall selling cloths and blankets and pillowcases. Sophia closed one eye as she reared her arm back and with one move, she hurled the rock as hard as she could. She hit the precise spot she wanted as the rock ricocheted off the pillar. As it bounced off, the impact caused the small overhanging awning over the stall shielding the cloths to collapse.
The sound turned everyone's head in the direction of the noise. The vendor working the stall was throwing all kinds of swears as he tried to recover his merchandise. Some vendors and customers would also go out of their way to help as the market was still gripped by surprise in the brief moment. As everyone's attention was diverted, Sophia took the moment as she leapt from the top of the bar in what was a relatively short drop. Once landing, she made her move. Sophia stopped behind a man nearby and hesitated for a moment.
"Am I really about to do this?" She thought. "Yeah. I need to. We need this. Nothing else is working and I'm low on options."
Sophia quickly put her thoughts aside and she carefully reached her hand inside the distracted man's pocket and fished around. In a split moment, she sneakily pulled a decently sized wad of lien and pocketed it. She would repeat the process on at least two or three more individuals and stopped by a stall on her way out that was vacant due to the worker helping the owner of the other stall. She stole a portion of the stall's earnings before making off back home.
This was the first time Sophia had ever done something like this. Even though she didn't run that fast on her way home, she couldn't help but feel short of breath when she arrived. She did not like the idea of stealing from others, but she also disliked the idea of allowing her and her family's practically stagnant situation to continue even more. And due to her growing frustration, Sophia was growing desperate.
**Chapter End**
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Hey, everyone!
Good news! As of Saturday, I have officially graduated! Now, it's time for the real world... I believe this is what we call "Out of the frying pan, into the fire..."
Anyway, what that means is that I now have a lot more free time to work on my writing... (among other things)
So I know I stated this earlier at the top, but I'll say it again. After being open for a little over a week, I closed the poll. When I did, the votes were split with one vote for each category. Because of that, I put it to a coin toss. And as a result, Sophia's backstory will be split into multiple chapters. But you don't have to worry about this holding anything up. The backstory is already done! So all I have to do is just divide it and post it with some simple edits. Simple as that!
The plan is to have all of Sophia's backstory posted within this week and have anthology chapter 4 (which is now going to be anthology chapter 6 likely) posted very, very soon after. The next part of Sophia's backstory will be posted either tomorrow or Thursday. I don't want to hold things up too much, so I want to post these next few chapters quickly. And since they're already done, the wait won't be long at all.
Anyway, let's talk about this chapter!
So for starters, you're probably wondering why am I bothering giving my side character a backstory. My main reasons are the following:
1. I don't want the side characters in the story to just exist. I want them to actually have some depth to them and I want them to be more than just a body or an extra to fill the space and fluff the roster. So because of that, that is one of the reasons Sophia is getting a backstory.
2. Another reason is because Sophia is related to a relatively major oc in this fanfiction. And because of that, Sophia's backstory heavily ties into that oc's backstory as it essentially serves as the context to that other character's backstory. Meanwhile, it also serves as part of Sophia's own arc.
3. Another reason is because in a future volume (waaay in the future), there will be an arc that takes place in Mistral and this is basically me just planting the seeds very early on.
4. The last reason is to tease two other characters that will debut in the future.
In this chapter, I basically lay out the groundwork for what Sophia's life is like as we start to explore the Mistral slums and get to know her siblings and her relationship with them. And over time, we see how Sophia basically became who she is as we study the steps she took and the mistakes she made along the way that created her situation and how it affected her home environment. In the present, as she tells this story to Vernal, Sophia telling her entire backstory is her opening up and coming to terms with what she did and who she is now. On top of that, it's her addressing and acknowledging her mistakes and owning up to them as she pledges to work on trying to salvage whatever she has left. Everything that happened to Sophia regarding Simin yelling at her and her getting attacked by a beowolf prior to her telling her backstory was a huge wake-up call for her and she's reflecting on her life here.
So with that in mind, just know that there is a lot of foreshadowing in this chapter regarding her backstory.
Last thing I want to bring up, I'm sure you all noticed that Sophia and Lucius' older sister is not named at all throughout this chapter. Sophia's older sister will not be named throughout this backstory to preserve her identity. I know it probably reads a little awkwardly with her being the only sibling that's not named, and the fact Sophia and Lucius will not be calling her by name throughout this backstory. She does have a name, but I don't know any better way to hide her name without the narrative reading awkwardly. So if any of you have any suggestions for me, I would greatly appreciate it!
Anyway, with that said, you should be expecting the next part of her backstory very soon. So in the meantime, here's fun fact #19:
Fun fact #19: Sophia originally was not supposed to exist as a character. In chapter 11, where we first meet Sophia when she says hi to Vernal as she is taking Simin to Raven, that was supposed to be it. She didn't even have a name or an appearance in the original draft. But I liked the small interaction so much and how she seemingly had more personality than a good amount of the other bandits, I just decided on the spot to make a whole character out of that little interaction and that's how Sophia was born. After making her, I was originally going to just make her a minor side character along with Jeremiah with no purpose other than to show up and be there. But I felt I could do more with them and I wanted to push myself a little. And that's basically how we got here with her.