“Body doubles, death soldiers, poison tasters, even some relatively less important retainers like pages and valets might well be considered to be living their lives solely for the sake of their lords. I can’t help but wonder, what it felt like to live for another to such an extent like that?” - Pontius Abraxas, Philosopher from Knallzog, circa 101 FP.
Life for Grünhildr Sigvaldi, eldest child of Daleeni Sigvaldi, captain of the guards for the mansion of Viscount Bernd Adenauer of Aldenburg, had been relatively predetermined soon after she was born.
By happenstance, she was born just a little over half a month after the Viscount’s own seventh daughter, Salicia. As was commonplace in the Clangeddin Empire, young nobles were often raised with other children around their own age, who would grow up to be their most trusted and loyal retainers, serving them for life. Given their close birth dates, Grünhildr was marked for such purposes as well.
Certainly, such a life couldn’t be called a bad one in the Empire. As a close and trusted associate to a noble, the people raised with them would in turn get to enjoy many of the advantages said nobles enjoyed in life. Her own mother, a former adventurer who later found work in the mansion, had no objections about it, as it meant that Grünhildr would be guaranteed a more stable life than what she herself experienced.
As things were, life for people of mixed heritages could at times be difficult, especially if those mixed heritages were prominently visible. Grünhildr’s mother Daleeni was a half-orc with a quarter dwarvish blood, so there was no hiding what she was. The Clangeddin Empire was a nation that accepted all races in principle, but underneath that veneer, there remained prejudice and discrimination against some, especially those of mixed heritages.
It was after a relatively difficult career as an adventurer that Daleeni eventually settled down as a retainer to Viscount Derek Adenauer, the then-patriarch of the noble house, Bernd’s father and the Viscount before him. She found that the family was one of the few with truly no prejudices against those of mixed heritages, partly because they themselves were such, the lineage possessing a notable amount of elvish blood that went back generations.
A stable career with a reasonable employer was far better a living than the uncertainty of adventuring life, indeed.
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Grünhildr never really knew her father. Officially, the man who claimed to be her father was a second cousin of Viscount Bernd Adenauer, who happened to be visiting and had a tryst with Daleeni. There were rumors that it might well be none other than the Viscount himself who had sired her, however. What was certain was that the girl was born with not only orcish and dwarven, but also elvish blood in her veins.
In some ways she was more fortunate than most other mixed-breeds, as she could easily pass as a human, albeit a rather broad-shouldered and stocky one. None of her heritages showed up particularly strongly on her features, though if one were to pay close attention when she opened her mouth they might notice that her lower canine teeth were longer than normal.
Since she was young, her mother had started her training, as she was intended to be Salicia’s retainer and guard, even if the two girls were far more friendly than that, as close to each other as sisters even. Grünhildr was an active child, and took to the training like a fish to water, further helped by how her non-human heritage bestowed her strength and stamina that was superior to a normal human by a good bit.
When she was seven years of age, Grünhildr also awoke her affinity to magic. She was born with the rare – and often dreaded – Void affinity, but the household had been prepared for her awakening. As a result, she survived the often volatile experience – it was often a touchy thing even for those with less dangerous affinities, much less for ones like her whose magic would annihilate anything it came into contact with – with only a few injuries, the scars of which she kept to remind herself of the dangers that came with power.
As she refined her control and usage over her rare affinity of magic over the years that followed, her value as a guard naturally increased by leap and bounds, though her relationship with Salicia never changed. The two young girls remained the best of friends throughout their childhood, a far closer bond than what most noble children would have had with their retainer.
Things changed when she and Salicia were sent away by the Viscount as part of a contingency to ensure that some part of the family survived the social upheaval anyone in their right mind could see was building up in the Empire at that time. Grünhildr and Salicia were sent to Knallzog, partly because Grünhildr’s dwarven great-grandfather still lived there and after some exchange of letters, had agreed to shelter them and help them find some way to make a living there.
The two of them made it safely to their destination, and with the help of great-grandfather Abeldt, a retired mercenary formerly with the Free Lances Company, they quickly found work in the same line of business with his connections helping smooth out their path. The two worked together seamlessly in that line of work, and soon after found a third partner they grew to trust and befriend.
It was also during those years that Grünhildr learned that she viewed Salicia – in some ways, her master yet also her friend – as more than just that. She gathered her courage to admit those feelings bluntly, only to find that Salicia shared similar feelings. Their relationship changed from that day, from master and retainers who were friends at first, into lovers.
That was when Grünhildr Sigvaldi realized that living a life for the sake of another could indeed be quite a pleasing and fulfilling existence, after all.