Memas Rosethorn had always loved horses. As a child her late mother had taught her all about how to ride and take care of them. And then her mother died and her father remarried, and then there were several years she did not want to think about, and -
Now she worked in a stable for a way-station - when government officials or very rich people needed to get somewhere fast, they could check out a horse, ride it hard for an hour or two, and trade it in for a fresh horse at the next way-station. It could double or triple one's speed compared to the usual way with one's own horse: not only were the horses not ridden past the point of exhaustion, but the rider did not also need to maintain the horse afterwards.
For example, she wasn't sure exactly why Julius Goldburn had been in such a desperate hurry to get to Integreco, but when he got to the station he showed them his Knight-Captain's insignia and gave them his exhausted horse to lead away. Then he used the facilities inside the way-station to relieve himself and shovel some food in his mouth, and then Memas brought him a fresh horse who she had already warmed up by walking it for several minutes. He had thanked her, and then shot off towards the next station.
And then she had spent an hour letting that horse drink and eat while currying and rubbing him down, and finally she led him into a stall in the stables where he could rest.
On another day, another official stated that she looked familiar, and asked who she was.
"Memas." When he looked expectantly at her, she figured she had little choice but to expand upon her answer. "Memas Rosethorn."
"You're a Rosethorn?" he said. "How did you get here?"
That was several questions, really. The Rosethorns were an aristocratic family from the other end of the continent. Why was she so far from home? Why was she working as a common servant? And where did he recognize her from, really?
She shrugged. "It's a long story," she said, and led his horse away.
Only, as soon as she got out of eyesight she collapsed against the side of a shed and began to cry.
The question stirred up things Memas had been trying not to think about. Memas' stepmother took delight in making her gray: gaslighting her so she didn't know what to believe, causing her pain until she made statements she knew were lies. Before long, Memas' once prodigious Integrity magic had faded to bare cantrips, and the only thing left she could hold onto was her and her stepmother's mutual certainty that she wasn't worth treating as a person. Not anymore.
She kept the name Rosethorn because it was the last thing she had left of her mother - and because she couldn't be bothered to hide it. She was tall in the way that only someone well-fed in childhood could be tall; she was going to be read as being of aristocratic descent regardless. Who knows, maybe someone would be interested enough to figure out what had happened to her. Whatever.
She was entirely out of place with the rough-mannered stablehands she worked alongside. But she really didn't have another choice. Her magic had never properly recovered, and she was too broken by fear to take a job "proper" to her breeding. So here she was, mucking out stables. A failure. Good for nothing. Useless -
There was something wet nudging at her. All at once she snapped back to reality - a horse, trying to get to the apples she kept in her apron pockets.
She led the horse to a water trough, took a comb out of another pocket, and began to brush the dirt and sweat off the horse's hide.
Memas Rosethorn had always loved horses. And that was why the blue of Integrity still glimmered, however weakly, in her hair.
