Years ago, Rikela was, well. More normal than she is now, at least. An engineer's daughter, in a border town. And then a strange woman came along looking to buy things for her caravan - a pale woman, too thin, and far younger than one would expect for the fact that she ran one. A woman who met her many times, in the course of the weeks she was there.

Not that there was anything strange in that. She always met travelers. She was a friendly girl, after all. And they often needed something from her father's workshops - or her to fix something, for she was mechanically adept, had learned everything her father had had time to teach her about mechanics, and had plenty of time to tinker with things; she was just as likely to be pressed into service (or, more accurately, volunteer to have an excuse to hear their stories and talk to people who were willing to brave the world outside the city walls) as anyone else.

This one was different. Not just because of how she looked, though that was odd, especially with her position but unlike most, she got close. In those few weeks she was there, people started to whisper about the 'vanner and the engineer's daughter. Whispers that were true - at first they were simply walking in the thin little strip of park in the middle of town, sitting together under the trees, but soon enough, there was less talking than kissing, and towards the end of the month she was spending there, the two fell into bed together.

So it was that when the caravan left, it did so with one more person than it had arrived with; the months passed quickly (as might have been expected) after that, and they went from town to town, Rikela keeping the guns and wagons in working order, and slowly learning more about her new companions. Including her lover.

Which was why, when they left another town, far past the first, Rikela was screaming in the back of a wagon. Her lover was a vampire, and now she was to become one too - only it didn't work out that way. Something went wrong, and the new girl was a new thing too, some black abomination that sucked life itself.

Still. Was that too much worse than a vampire? Who cared, since she was still her, still loved the caravan leader, still cared for her new friends, laughed and drank with them, once the last of the change-sickness wore off?

So more months passed, her feeding on willing volunteers, carefully drawing out just enough to keep her alive. She thought, as did everyone else, that she knew how to keep her abilities under her control, to weather the frenzied storms of hunger that sometimes came over her.

And then, after so long, carefully away just in case (with people watching by her own request and ready to drag her off of anyone she touched if they must), she helped fend off an attack by monster, confident enough in her own powers now to test them that way, not just sit back and shoot; afterwards, she was declared ready to rejoin normal company. She chose to start in joyous celebration, as anyone would have -  so long without her touch, she ended that celebration in the arms of her lover, for the first time since she had become what she now was.

It was a mistake. That much emotion, paired with how close they were physically, the hunger built up from the battle, and the lowered defenses from the act itself? She rode herself out upon a feast of her lover's life, leaving nothing but an empty husk beneath her in the bed.

She screamed, of course. People came in and found her, and only barely stopped her from killing herself on the spot, taking her lover's gun and putting a bullet through her head - only did stop her because it was so clearly not intended, for she was hysterical, mad with grief and self-hatred over what she'd done.

Eventually, things eased, a little. It wasn't her fault, they said, after they'd managed to calm her enough to get the story out of her. It was an accident. An emotionally charged situation, all sorts of instincts kicking in, things to distract her, make her not realize some of her pleasure came not from her lover, but from the life she was drawing. And she clearly had never meant for any of this.

it was true. She knew that. But it didn't help much. And she certainly couldn't stay here, not when she'd killed the leader - no matter how much they knew she wasn't responsible, that would hang over her head for however long she lived, and that was, if she was anything like a vampire in that respect too, likely to be a very long time.

But maybe she hadn't. She could feel something, inside her, locked behind her skin. Something that felt like her lover. And just possibly she could do something to fix this, before they burned her lover's body. She'd killed her, true, but they were [i]monsters[/i] so who was to say that meant she had to be dead?

So she went to the body - unmarked, unrotting, so like she had been in life. And weren't vampires supposed to be undead anyway? If she had the ghost in her, that meant she could just undo what she'd done, right? -, drew on the life she could feel burning away inside her, then pushed. Sent the thing in her heart out into the body.

It didn't work. Oh, it got up. It talked, if it was spoken to. But it wasn't [i]her[/i]. It didn't laugh, didn't cry. Didn't sing, or care - not really. It was devoted, but not in a way she'd ever wanted; it barely had a mind of its own, and her every question could be rendered a command just by a careless turn of phrase, a command that it couldn't refuse, or even tell her if it wanted to.

Her being dead was bad. That was worse. Couldn't die, couldn't live; never moving on, trapped inside a shell obeying the commands of someone she loved, and only hurt by her very existence, but who wouldn't let her go because that would hurt her too. Or was she just a husk, now, truly what she seemed? Nothing there, inside of her, and not just an overlay of magic hiding it. Either way, it wasn't what she wanted, not for someone she loved.

So she tried something else. Not putting it in a body, but making it come out into the world - and then letting go, setting the shade free. She thinks that she heard a whispered thanks, and saw it wave. Or at least, that's what she makes herself remember, now. But she doesn't really know if it went on to anything, or if it's gone away, or if it even knew it was free.

After that, well. There was nothing for her there, nothing but fear and pity. So, she left. Which was, eventually, how she found her way here.