A Beginning

I am a liar.

The thought was omnipresent, hiding itself within the labyrinth of her memories, lying in wait to ambush her conscious at a moment's notice. Those moments usually occurred as soon as she began to let go and forget her past, either coinciding with patches of brief, amnesiac, unabashed happiness in her life, or perhaps stirring in spite of them. It was nothing more than a thought and she was the only one who thought it, but it served as a red flag, a noisy alarm, an annoying reminder, and an accusing finger pointed to remind her that, indeed, she had started out in life as someone entirely different, and that she had effectively lied to what seemed like the entire universe about who she was. It had never occurred to her that in a way, who she was wasn't so much a lie, that it was really more of a simple omission of facts regarding her origin. In her mind, the exclusion of fact was the equivalent of actually uttering a falsehood. The guilt of it gnawed at her conscience constantly.

Here she was, a marauding stranger, certainly not the first, probably not the last, but somewhere in the middle of a long line of transients who had meandered their way across the lonely expanse of the 'verse. Most, like her, were in search of a little peace, a quiet home where happiness could find them. Because that was ultimately what she sought - a place with no memories, a place in which she could quietly flourish without fearing the soft, slithering sound of pursuit, and without the bitterness of dishonesty tainting her very being.

Had she been right to run away from her previous life? The comfort of the answer was what helped her continue on in her bleak existence. Yes, she had been right to flee from the greedy plans of her family and the unjust clutches of the law, because she believed in every man's God given right to live free, and because she had been innocent of the crime they were determined to blame her for.

She could have been happy there had certain events not taken place. She could have found contentment on Persephone, planet of her birth, of the first community she had known, home to her family and friends and unfortunate love interest, had things gone differently. She could have lived out her life in blissful ignorance of the evils of a corrupt government, never realizing that the Alliance was wrong despite the evidence of it staring her in the face, had she not been on the wrong end of the cane they used to beat humanity into compliant submission. No, running away from the ridiculously calamitous situation had allowed her to live, and having survived it burned away the rose-shaded screen from her childlike eyes, altering forever her perception of everything.

And now, after the years of wandering the deep, black corners of the ‘verse, she had come to Blackburne Downport, a small town on the moon, Blackburne, and for the first time in what seemed like the span of many lifetimes, she found herself wanting to remain in one place. It wasn’t the picturesque, ideal, romantic setting with cowboys and sunsets; Blackburne was abused and coarse, its people suffering the lasting effects of the indignity of Alliance wrath, having to carve their livelihood out of the smoking remains of nuclear fallout, existing in the constant shadow of threat from the wild, mutant things of the uninhabitable waste just beyond the borders of the town, and from the Reavers, which attacked brutally and without prejudice or sympathy. No, Blackburne and her residents were certainly not what most envisioned as being the ideal homestead, but this girl was able to peer through the unsightly layers of the town’s aesthetics to its heart, and what she found was the answer to her silent question. Here was hope: Here was a tightly knit community who looked out for each other, who prospered and struggled together, who fought tooth and nail at every moment of every day to maintain not only their own happiness, but the happiness of their neighbors, who had grown roots that reached so deep into the very essence of the land that they could never be extricated, who refused to submit to the yoke of Alliance control, who took in complete strangers with a warm intimacy generally reserved for none but the closest of friends. These people possessed a deep honor, and it touched her profoundly to be among such naked goodness.

Which was, perhaps, why the bitterness of her shady past haunted her now so much more than it ever had – the residents of Blackburne had picked her up and wrapped her in their warm embrace, never questioning who she was or why she was there, just accepting her as one of them. The fabrication of who she truly was, which she had put so much effort into concocting, rankled her, because here was a community who deserved to know the truth. In fact, she very much wanted to share her story with them, because she knew that they wouldn’t turn away from her. It wasn’t as though she desired to wear this mask – she wore it because it kept everybody safe, and for now, that was enough to warrant keeping the smokescreen in place.

Imrhien Fargis had not started out in life deceitful, nor was it her intention to be at what would ultimately be the commencement of her protracted journey. Imrhien wasn’t even her real name. It was a name given to her, not by her parents at birth, but by those who had befriended her from the beginning of her exodus from the past, by those who had effectively given birth to a new person, one already grown, yet still new to the world – at least, to the reality of it rather than the ignorant façade of it as seen through the eyes of an innocent child. In that, she at least felt absolved of some of the guilt of the falsehood of her name, because Imrhien was who she had become, rather like growing entirely new skin instead of just donning the kenning like a piece of clothing. She was no longer that girl on Persephone, because she had grown, matured, and transformed into the adult version of herself, obliterating entirely everything about who she once was simply by opening herself to a new perception of the universe. Some qualities of the child remained throughout the transformation, but they were those quiet beliefs, morals, and abilities which made up part of her core – her faith in God, her belief in free will, her ability to recognize and experience profound beauty, her desire to love with her entire being. The rest of her, though, consisted of new qualities and faults, new beliefs, morals, and abilities, most having developed on their own rather than having been given to her, as her name had been.

She still clung to the archaic edifice of Catholicism, which her kindhearted mother had bestowed upon the entire household, with varying results. Religion had been important to the child who would become Imrhien in her early years, the ancient traditions at its foundation allowing her a vestigial connection to Earth That Was, the archaic rituals of prayer, sacrament, and sacrifice giving her a soothing method of meditation and introspection. Her pious nature was one that she concealed from the world at large, praying the Rosary in solitude, venturing to the sanctuary of the Catholic Church for the sacraments of reconciliation and the Eucharist only when it was not obvious to those she was close to. It wasn’t that she was ashamed of it – it was more that she regarded religion as something very private, cherishing it because it was the only part of her family, or rather, of her mother, that she was able to bring with her when she left her home.

As for the idea of love in its passionate, starry-eyed form, she almost entirely dismissed it from her abridged list of aspirations. She had been shown at eighteen, tragically early in her life, that to love another in that way was intolerably painful, and she harbored no intentions of seeking that which would ultimately, in her mind, bring about such a powerful sense of vicious grief and agonizing despair. The fanciful, naïve girl who had been so ecstatically in love with the man she was to marry was gone, metamorphosized into a jaded spinster; she was not so much bitter as she was disillusioned and doubtful of romance. The moment she had discovered the betrayal of her beloved betrothed, inadvertently catching him in the arms of another woman, her heart had hardened even as it howled in anguish. To her, love was permanent, indestructible, sacrificial, and always faithful, not this inconsistent, insubstantial, selfish and adulterous behavior that stood bared in its contemptible glory before her. Yet, while she had vowed to safeguard her heart against all pretenses of romance, she still allowed herself to love. She had readily embraced those deserving individual people in her life with the same ardor that she would have expended on a lover or spouse. She cherished her friendships, not out of the absence of romance, but because that was the only way she knew how to love.

Ironically, the discovery of her fiancé’s infidelity was where the trouble in her life began. Her father, a poor farmer and unsuccessful businessman, had treated her hand in marriage as an object to be sold to help support the family rather than as holy sacrament. Therefore, when the arrangement with her fiancé came to an abrupt and very public end, he faced a crisis, as the money he had been depending on to bail his family out of financial trouble was suddenly vanished, as was the virtue of his merchandise. The girl had, of course, given herself to her betrothed, and even if she hadn’t, her chastity would still be suspect – the girl was damaged goods that could not be salvaged for the sake of marrying her off. So, her father, who had not taken so easily to his wife’s religion as his offspring had, began making arrangements to sell his oldest child into slavery. As soon as his intent became apparent to his wife, she sent the girl away with some supplies and enough money to barter passage off of Persephone to avoid being apprehended and forced into a grueling existence in servitude and abuse.

As is usually the case in life-altering catastrophes, coincidence, resonating to some universal imperative for complication, reared its ugly head and convoluted matters further for her. Upon reaching the Eavesdown Docks, the closest spaceport, hub of most regional businesses and the local government, news of the attempted murder of her estranged fiancé found its way to her ears, fortunately before the news of her arrival in the city reached the ears of the Alliance. The perpetrator had managed to remain anonymous, even to him who had been shot in the back, and so the investigating officers quickly surmised, based solely on assumption, since his ex-fiancé not only had the motive to seek revenge, but whom had also disappeared from her home in the dead of night, that she had obviously been the culprit. The bulletins seemed to line her path through the city, but no one seemed to notice the waifish urchin wending her way around the docking area, seeking the least conspicuous ship to throw her lot in with.

She chose a firefly class freighter named The Lone Reverie. Whether it was keen perception on her part or plain luck, she chose well for herself. The Reverie’s crew were a ragtag bunch of marauding thieves and scoundrels, working their way from one end of the ‘verse to the other, taking on whatever jobs they could acquire, legal or not. Just reputable enough to still be flying, yet low enough in the pecking order to flow below the Alliance radar, The Lone Reverie was the perfect escape, save that her captain didn’t stay in business by being easily bamboozled. Shortly after departure from Persephone, Domonic Card cornered the skittish stray, demanding the truth from the girl, and then advising that her cover story was so weak a gentle wind could wreck it. He took pity on her, though, having known hardship, and because of his acidic abhorrence for the Alliance and their skewed view of law. He offered her the opportunity to prove herself a competent hand on the boat with the promise of allowing her to stay on with the crew if she could shoulder some of the labor.

Much as he surmised, the girl wasn’t a shirker – she toiled as hard as the rest of his crew, making up for her lack of strength with her ability to learn quickly and her willingness to try her hand at anything. The Reverie and her den of thieves warmed to her almost immediately, taking turns tutoring her in a large array of subjects, anywhere from winning at Cripple Mister Onion to the proper care of firearms to basic mechanics. Most importantly, each took part in breaking her of a lifetime of debutante habits. She learned to cuss and spit, to slouch, to talk tough, and to shoot. As the weeks turned to months, she was no longer recognizable as the girl from Persephone. Between her own body filling itself out into the shape of a woman and hard labor toning and building her muscles, she didn’t look a thing like the waif who had slipped on board with a fistful of money and even less nerve.

As the transformation took place, the captain began calling her “little butterfly,” and the name stuck. The Reverie’s mechanic, Bran MacAbier, who had been raised in a richly Scottish society, dredged up the Gaelic word for butterfly, and the girl became “Imrhien” to the crew and everyone else she met. Some months later, she was treated to her first tattoo – the captain had sketched a tribal butterfly, and the crew demanded it go on her back, not only as protection against stealthy attacks, but as a reminder of them. The boat’s doctor, with his steady hand and talent for drawing, painstakingly inked her namesake into her flesh.

Imrhien was at peace on The Lone Reverie. She felt camaraderie with the crew, she felt safe in their midst, even in the middle of gunfights. She picked up various uncouth habits from each of them out of admiration for their tough spirit. Everything she had learned, everything they had given her, she embraced like a lover. Not only did she adopt their habits, however, but their attitudes. Between the abundant gunfights she eagerly engaged in and the tense situations her captain seemed to drag them all into, where simply appearing dangerous could do the trick, she developed a take-no-shit-or-prisoners posture that ended up being applied to her entire personality, the result of which made her seem rather rough and rude. Having seen, firsthand, more worlds than she could remember, she also espoused the crew’s harsh hatred of the Alliance, because she now understood precisely what the scheming regime was doing to humanity.

Years went by, somewhere in the neighborhood of four and change, and the time came for Imrhien to part ways with The Lone Reverie. A few too many run-ins with the Alliance made up her mind to move on, both for her own safety, and to protect those she cared about. It would have been a dreadful show of gratitude to have her friends incarcerated for harboring her, a known fugitive. So she left, bitter over the parting, but determined to throw the Alliance hounds off of her scent, and began crisscrossing the ‘verse on various transports, sometimes able to work for her fare, sometimes able to barter for it, and sometimes forced to sell her own body for passage. It was a few years and millions of miles of wandering the various corners of space before her trail ran entirely cold.

When it did, she decided to search out a place to settle down for a while. The loneliness of space travel, never with a crew long enough to develop friendships, never on one planet long enough to get to know people, had plunged her into a cavernous melancholy, and she had a profound pining for human interaction on a level much more meaningful than the ephemeral exchanges that had defined her life for far too long. It didn’t take her much time to happen upon her haven of humanity. She landed on Blackburne, a small moon on the rim, hoping to pick up a transport elsewhere, but quite inadvertently discovered that the jade-tinged town of Blackburne Downport was exactly what she was searching for, in all its radioactive, perilous glory. It was her avowed hope that some day, she would able to share who she truly was with the people she had come to care so deeply for, because there was so very much to tell, and the lie of omission would never cease gnawing at her until she exposed herself.