Sarafa's Character Story

Chapter 1

I have been bound for all of my days.
Bound to a dazzling prison others name a palace.
My elegant fetters are contained in the title of princess.
Only once, in my youth, did I comprehend freedom.
When I was young, I grew tired of my stuffy life
in the palace and impulsively fled.
For the first time, I walked the nighttime streets of the city,
where a fantastical atmosphere welcomed me with open arms.
I walked and walked until I no longer knew where I was.
I couldn't see the palace, or even the mighty spire atop it.
Loneliness overcame me then, causing tears
to tremble in the corners of my eyes.
"Is something troubling you, young lady?" said the
voice of an old woman from somewhere behind me.
Relieved that help had finally arrived, I suddenly burst out weeping.
So loud was my wailing that all those walking the streets stopped to look.
But the old woman gently took my hand and led me away.
She led me to her home—a small domicile
where she told the fortunes of others.
Crystals glowed faintly. Exotic rugs tickled my feet.
I cannot remember the fortune she scried for me...
But I will never forget the shock that pierced my heart in that moment.

Chapter 2

I eventually came to love the night.
One reason—perhaps the most important—was that I
could escape the palace and find new sides of myself.
The day I met the old woman, I made of her a request:
"Please make me your apprentice and teach me to divine futures."
Though she agreed, her teachings were harsh.
"People place their lives in the hands of fortunes," she would say.
Under her strict tutelage, I gleaned the secrets of divination.
Eventually, I began to perform readings for others under her watchful eye.
I was cautious: If ever I saw a bad result,
I worded it in a way that sounded positive.
In the palace, I yearned for night. In the old
woman's house, I divined futures.
For a time, this was my life.
One day, when the old woman was away,
a redheaded couple came to have their fortunes told.
I was overconfident by then, and thought I could do it without her help.
As the crystal ball sparked to life, I witnessed a catastrophic future.
And I found I did not have the words to change it.

Chapter 3

A rumor drew a crowd to the bay.
A man and woman fought over the end of their relationship,
and the woman ended up drowning the man.
The woman had short, striking red hair.
Red hair was unusual in this nation.
I realized at once she was the same woman whose fortune I had told.
That was when I knew:
I had the power to manipulate the lives of others through divination.
To that point, I had nothing in my life save the title of "princess."
But now? Now I had a secret power.
All that awaited me, however, was the old woman's rage.
She blamed me for warping the fates of others through my inexperience.
All my excuses fell on deaf ears, and she threw me from her home.
The last thing she said to me was this:
"You have no right to tell the fortune of another."

Chapter 4

Days later, as the sun dawned on the city, another crowd gathered.
They were a mob, and they ripped the old
woman's house down with their own hands.
They screamed and trampled the remains, destroying everything.
The old woman's prized divination tools were buried beneath the rubble.
And I watched. And I smiled.
I struggled to keep back the laughter bubbling in my throat.
I had used my powers selfishly to unleash the mob.
For even after she sent me away, I continued to foretell the future.
I could not find the strength to stop.
I worked quietly, propped up alone in a dark back alley.
I told fortunes. I turned people into my playthings.
I could never go back.
Because the day I ripped that couple apart, I felt something new.
That realization? That I could change someone's fate?
It was deep. Powerful. Distorted.
It was bliss.

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