Charity

Charity was born in the city of Sunacre to her human parents who were eagerly awaiting the arrival of their beautiful child. However, to say they were shocked to find their darling little girl was born with a squirming tail and a pair of dark horns jutting out of her head would vastly understate the sheer chaos that erupted at her mother's bedside. Such features signified an infernal corruption within one's bloodline, a devilish taint, and such a revelation horrified the child's parents.

Kept under rudimentary care and under close scrutiny overnight, the tiefling's parents considered their options; some more... severe than others. 

 

The next morning, the newborn girl's fate was decided. The child was left anonymously on the doorstep of a local temple within the city--an act not uncommon among desperate families, historically. When she was discovered by the clergy, they took her in as they would any orphan, though this one was certainly not of the ordinary sort. The temple in question was dedicated to the reverence and the teachings of Saint Cuthbert, the patron deity of Retribution, Zeal, Strict Discipline, and Sensibility. Unlike the humble tranquility usually assumed by other religions, Saint Cuthbert's clergy are far more militaristic. They are stern folk who speak their minds plainly and refuse to suffer weakness of mind, body, nor faith.

 

Working in accordance to their doctrine concerning orphaned babes, the clergy named the girl after one of the virtues, Charity, and raised her as one of their own. Once she came of age to be taught, the clergy shared with her the teachings and scripture of Saint Cuthbert, of which she happily followed under their guidance. As she grew, however, so did the features of her demonic heritage... as did the inherent distrust such features are wont to impose upon others. Even amongst common society, most folk found it difficult to break bread with those who looked so clearly corrupted by hellish forces--nevermind the amongst the devout that saw them as their mortal enemies. Mistrust followed the young girl like a shadow.

As of her seventh summer, Charity was introduced into the more militant aspects of the church. She was taught not only how to read, write, and pray but also how to train and fight. The priests of Saint Cuthbert traded their aspergillums for warhammers, and were more akin to drill sergeants in their demeanor than kindly holy-men. As difficult as all the training was for each acolyte, Charity was plagued further by her abyssal appearance. She found her punishments to be more frequent and more severe, often serving as an example for the others. Saint Cuthbert teaches that disobedience and poor discipline were the marks of the sinful, and it was not with holy water nor prayer that his devout excised evil from the world. They beat it with a mace.

 

Charity certainly did not take this treatment without complaint, but in her young and impressionable mind, the temple's teachings were all she knew. And so she did her best to follow along as a proper, faithful servant to her saint, believing she could improve her situation and changed how the others saw her. But it was all futile. She was kept distant from the other child acolytes and any parental guidance she received was distant and indifferent. Hers was a lonely upbringing, fraught with difficulty and confusion. 

 

In Charity's mind, the situation only got worse as time went on. Stretching into her early teens, she began to realize that the way she was being treated was much different from the other acolytes. Her desire for self-expression and building sense of independence chaffed against the temple's strict discipline and procedures, often leading to more punishments and further loss of privileges. At this point, there was little else besides basic needs that the temple provided her. They kept her alive, but they also kept her from living.

 As the fog of her naivety evaporated, Charity's faith in the clergy's teachings waned, and the embers of rebellion took root in their place. This lead into a dangerous downward spiral of lashing out of spite toward her punishments, only to receive more as a result.

By her fifteenth winter, Charity had enough.

 

On the night of a new moon while most of the temple's usual keepers were away on business abroad, Charity slipped from her chambers with a handful of belongings with determined intentions to flee into the city ...but not before vandalizing anything she could get her hands on as she made her way out. She had come to the conclusion that if the priests and acolytes were so convinced they must treat her like a fiend to be beaten and cleansed, she had no reason not to act like one on her way out. Holy symbols were smashed, old texts were ripped to shreds, profane words were splattered onto the walls in red paint, and more than one valuable trinket went missing overnight, as the tiefling fled from the chaos into the night. By the next morning, she was already on a merchant's carriage to the next city over--paid for with her ill-gotten gains--and never to be seen by the clergy again.

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From then on, life hardly improved as a street urchin, but for the first time in her life, Charity felt free. Cut free from the temple's ropes that ounce bound her, she was going to live for herself and herself alone, completely abandoning her faith like a broken shackle. To get by each day, Charity entertained the occasional odd job or two for enough copper to buy bread with, but quickly found it was much faster and easier to steal the bread when no one was looking instead. She honed her sticky-fingered skills through time and trial-and-error, and though she was not necessarily to the greatest thief who ever lived, she more than made up for it by being quick on her feet and an even quicker liar. 

 

Despite the change of scenery, Charity still struggled with making friends over the years (unless they had something worth stealing). Gangs were hardly the amicable sort and she avoided them like a plague, and the harsh reality of living on the streets was that trust was short supply amongst the desperate and destitute. 

But one early morning, the sudden snap of a barely held-together rat-trap woke Charity from her slumber. Eager to find a breakfast that came to her for once, the tiefling sprang to her feet, shiv in hand, and raced over to find her captured prey. Instead of a big hairy rat, however, Charity discovered a tiny white-furred, red-eyed field mouse with its tail caught in the trap and a moldy piece of cheese in its mouth. She couldn't help but to admire the poor thing. Like her, it was an odd-looking creature lost and alone within the dizzying city, relying on its quick wits to scrounge by on scraps. So Charity freed the mouse from the trap, offering it what little food and shelter she could provide for it as a way of expressing her understanding for its little lot in life before it scurried off

And besides, the tiny mouse would've hardly been a meal, anyway.

To Charity's surprise, however, the mouse came back the next morning, this time successfully stealing the cheese from the trap before burrowing itself into her belongings to hide. From that point on, she decided to adopt the little mouse, and went out of her way to continue to earn its trust. Eventually, she was able to bandage its broken tail, marking a pivotal moment in their shared bond--a moment which she celebrated by giving her first true friend a name: Squeakers. And though it was simply a tiny mouse, the fact that Squeakers didn't seem to mind that she had horns was more than she could say about any other person she's interacted with.
 

So as time went on, Charity and Squeakers tackled each day hoping to scrounge up enough food and shelter to last through the next, building her skills and her knowledge of the city's shortcuts and hiding-places as she went. Thieves lived by their wits and tricks, and for each one she learned, she taught one to Squeakers as well. As the tiefling's talents grew, so too did her ambitions, and soon she was looking out for bigger prizes to pilfer.

And now, with a combination of luck, skill, and a pinch of eavesdropping, Charity might have very well stumbled upon the chance of a lifetime...