Ma'Yeni was born under the city of Athera in a dark cave system.
During an unfortunate event which she barely remembers, her mother had been taken away by a human who destroyed their home and did his very best to seal the caverns up completely. Her father had long before left to serve in the military. Ma'Yeni was left alone.
Trying to follow her mother's scent, she came upon a small ray of light shining through the rock surface. She had found an entrance- or something that once was an entrance. The following decades, Ma'Yeni spent her time crafting primitive tools from rocks, ever so slightly scraping away at the stone that blocked her in so close to the surface, surviving off nothing but lizard eggs and maggots. Ma'Yeni does not remember anything before that time, apart from the occasional haunting impression of the tongues of fire licking away at what once was their home.
It was these hauntings that ultimately saved her life. Deep down in those caverns, Ma'Yeni had found something that many survivors had found the single most useful ressource for survival: All on her own, without any initial instruction, Ma'Yeni discovered how to make a fire. And something about it fascinated her. In fact so much so, that when she noticed the air was getting thin, she only reluctantly extinguished the flames. She learned to nurture the fire like a living thing, like there was something more to it, something wise and old.
When the crack in the surface was big enough, Ma'Yeni squeezed her body through. It was night, but though Ma'Yeni could see just fine, she would find it hard to part ways with the fire that had become something like a friend to her. She kept it alive on the end of a stick and carried it with her. Her path was clear. She had to find a teacher, to sharpen her senses and to learn the way of the flame.
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