Cephiro the Rat paladin did come forth into the city of Einweg, the capital of the land of Bermania, set between the Sapphire River and the Moridin Mountains, and whilst there he did take work to quiet the stirring undead within the crypts of the wealthy and powerful, and so he came upon those dark places, and espied a maiden of great beauty and passing strangeness. Tall she was, as tall as his companion Roya he esteemed, and of a light golden colour was her skin, and her eyes, blue as indeed Roya’s were, but slit as a wyrms. She was busy about some task or another, clad as she was in a heavy dark coat, bearing engraved and detailed golden scrollwork, thick and armoured against harm, but open pleasingly at the front, which he liked well as it afforded him a view of strong womanhood to his pleasure, top her head a round and wide brimmed hat bore two horns, although later he was to learn the horns indeed were as a part of her, and merely pierced the hat near the band. Cephiro being of a bold nature pressed forward and declared himself to her, and she bore forth a hammer of peculiar design, her manner of seriousness and efficient demeanor. But as her eyes beheld him, alit behind by torchlight she became overcome with recollection of a foretelling she had been witness to not long ago. The closeness of her doom quickened her actions, and after the two did clear the tombs and set them again to rest and peace, she offered to him her hammer, forged by her hand, it’s head made of her breath. Grave Hammer it was called, and was cold and painful to touch by those it was not made for, it’s head a frozen breath bound with red gold and spells was filled with her futile hopes. “Bear this hence.” She cried, mourning her own fate, “And return it not unto me until the day we are to be wed. Else I shall be without its like until my own cold and lonely end!”

And so Cephiro the Rat Paladin met the woman who was to be one of his wives, lest doom write other plans for him. And he did meet her again several times anon, and he did learn of her, but ever did she keep her race and people’s secret close. Much to his frustration, for to her the pages of the book of his life opened ever for her, and she had to but put forth her hand to receive his secrets and thoughts. Cephira she was named, in the old tongue styled One True King Woman, but as a name to mean Sight of the Monarch. Of her great work she spake, her pledge against the Dark god who’s name must not be told, and his heart warmed as he was pleased to receive her good counsel, for it was wise and considered. And he came to great affection for her, and she for him. So moved by his openness and for such did she esteem him to be good and kind, but strong of will and purpose, she did impart to him, haltingly of her own forbodden desires. She told him of her peoples traditions, of how the role of Mortician, the keepers and conveyors of the dead was the preserve of men, protesting it was her desire to be accounted one of their number, and in her youthful arrogance and bull-headedness had demanded to be so. She told of the humiliation of the memory when she was bade to find the day when the sun would rise in the west, and the day rains would rise to the sky. How foolish she had felt and bore the chief of Morticians a great wrath, now quenched.

It had come to pass, that as she had been given by her father, a distant and powerful leader, to the Morticians to raise, which they ad done in the fashion they knew. She spake of the days she had dedicated herself to two Gods, Tohr god of Justice and Death, having no love for Taxes. She spoke of the learning of the ways and rites only a Mortician may learn, and of her garb, the traditional dress of those men. Here, in the lands she called Lost, none knew of the shameful mode of her dress, of the claims it made that they must not. 

The Third time that her path crossed that of Cephiro the Rat Paladin, she came unto him, eyes filled with tears, and heart tight with worry, “I must bear a confession unto thee, Lord!” She wailed, “I know that thy love for the Musician Roya thou hath confessed unto me in utmost secrecy!”

“Zounds!“He cried upon hearing this,waiting not for her to finish, “Thou didst not reveal that most secret of confessions I vouchsafed with thee? Prithee say ‘tis not so!”

“Nay! Harken unto my confession ere you move to wrath, Lord!” She cried, “For ‘ere since thou confessed thy love for that woman, unto even me who hath given unto you her hammer and that promise it bears, I hath been driven by curiosity, and I wouldst know of this woman who hath snared you so easily to speak of love and such anon. And I didst find myself with here, we both detained most unfairly by this Aldforth, Baron of these lands” The lands being Voldaryn at the time, “And I did seek to pass time in her company, and we didst speak much on all subjects, and it came to pass that I found my heart quickening, and I must confess that I hath grown an impossible love for her, as a man may have for a woman.”

“Ye,” Cephiro spake, “Verily doth she hath an effect such as that!”

“And we hath laid together, and shared intimacy. I fear I hath betrayed your turst!”

But Cephiro passed unresponsive, as though lost in a fuge, his eyes focused on some unknown sight beyond the physical world, and as his lips did pull back in a most familiar leer, he finally spake, “May I bear witness anon?”