AN: This is the backstory of Thalia, to help with the understanding of my very erratic murder mystery, Masqued. Any questions, click on 'fili' and read what's on my main page.

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Thalia crept into the Temple in the late evening. Most of the females had gone to bed already, and she savored the silence. She folded her legs underneath her and cleared her mind.

She was a young woman when the easterners invaded. Most of her girlhood had been spent dedicated to the Goddess, training in history, rites, rituals, and healing. Her family had quite willingly given her up; not so much because she was female as she was the youngest of thirteen children. Her family was a farming one; they could only support so many.

She hadn’t minded much. The priestesses were kind, especially as Thalia was the youngest dedicate, and then the youngest priestess. The families that had feared for their daughters ever since the rumors of invasion had began finally sent the girls away to relatives either deeper in the country or to the capital. Very few peasants trusted the women of the Temple-- it wasn’t that they weren’t adored, the peasants were just more practical when it came to the protection of their daughters.

The Imperial army marched in. The peasants didn’t resist: their loyalty was to their land, not to their nation. Their sons were needed to farm, and if any army wanted to eat, they would have to let the boys live. The daughters were gone, and the priestesses served the village as best they could, using Thalia as a messenger. She soon became a common sight in the village, bringing herbal remedies, delivering messages and giving blessings. The army had brought priestesses with their healers—stern women, determined to spread the goddess’ word. Thalia had been told by her High Priestess to fetch their foreign sisters, and she had been leading them on a path through the woods when they were attacked by angry men in red. She had been knocked out, and woken alone in the woods to see dead bodies about her. She had run screaming down the path to the Temple, where she was met by an inferno. The Temple had been torched, the priestesses massacred inside.

She remembered lying, feverish, hearing angry voices fought above her. The young Captain of the healers quarreled with the village elders over her—the villagers wanted her to stay. The Captain had argued that they had failed in protecting her, and that the Imperial army would now, and send clergy to the village as soon as they were able. The village council had acquiesced, and she was adopted by the healers’ regiment.

The men had marched out the next day. Thalia had helped them in treating the minor bumps and bruises common in a traveling army, and in turn, they all kept a close eye on her. They were kind, gentle men when healing, and around her. They knew, and Thalia knew that they knew, that she was innocent for her age, and a great deal of this experience was for her brand new life lessons. But above and beyond that went their Captain, the one who had argued for her initially, Captain Shan. Thalia noted with amusement, and with not a little bit of exasperation, that he had appointed himself her personal bodyguard, acting as her shadow whenever he was off duty, and teaching her self-defense with knives as soon as either had a moment to spare.

Thalia, who had always pinned her hair up with two sticks, replaced the sticks with sharp golden stakes. They looked reasonably innocent holding up most of her thick, curly brown hair, excepting two thick locks that hung down either side of her face, but they were fine weapons against over-amorous men. And she had a few experiences with those.

Then, the country conquered and submissive, the army returned to the Imperial capital, Old Haven. Thalia’s regiment personally escorted her to the Sun Temple’s grounds, and bade her a tearful (though they’d deny it forever) farewell.

Thalia had felt awkward right away. Yes, these women were her contemporaries, but these were also foreigners to her—Gydians to her Gishan, with their slanted eyes, pale skin, and dark hair bleached blonde to signify their dedication to their calling. She was a dark skinned, dark haired stranger, barley fluent in their language, dressed not in a flowing white robe, but in a tattered tunic, gray from overuse, and deep blue breeches, ‘borrowed’ moon-cycles ago from Captain Shan. Shifting barefoot before the High Priestess, she was assigned to teach the Initiates healing as well as the caring of the Gardens. Thalia was disgusted to learn that these simpering, retiring city girls had little to no grasp of the healing herbs that grew on their grounds. So she hid in her gardens, teaching out in the Sun, venturing out only for services, to raid the library, or to accept the ever more infrequent visits of Captain Shan.

AN: Don’t you all feel special. Yes, first author’s note, yes, eighth chapter. So. Is anyone reading this? Is anyone confused? What do I need to explain? Is there enough potential romance to make you all sick? Enough gory murder scenes? Could I at least get a flame?

Yeah. At this point, I’d take anything. I mean, c’mon, I’ve cleared 15,000 words.