Puddleopedia | Entry / Polanna

My childhood was a time of terror in a eugenics laboratory of the Empire. At puberty, inexplicably, I developed characteristics of several races--throat sacs, fur, pointed ears. When these changes did not disappear, I was considered a failed experiment. Knowing my eventual fate, I resolved to escape. On the day of my removal, I feigned weakness--then twisted out, ran, plunged into a swift river, went under, lost consciousness....

And awoke in a tunnel, the far end of a cave system. For months, I wandered the dark passages, surviving on rats and trickles of earth-tasting water from above before finally finding a way out.

Weeks later. Stumbling out of a forest. Waking in a monastery cot. The land of E'uri. A brief but wonderful time, where I learned of love, trust, kindness--all things I had never known before. I made friends, learned their language, their customs, their lives. A family: Belail, Typ'pa, Savat'ya. A name finally: Polanna Hyu'ko.

Alas, it did not last.

One day, Savat'ya, her heart ripped out. A tracker had finally found me. Her offer: return compliantly, and my village would be spared.

...and I assented. Gods help me, but I assented.

Back at the compound, the tests were more cruel, perverse, and arbitrary than ever. Belail and Typ'pa were brought too, tested and tortured till they died. I broke then, falling catatonic for two full zodiacs.

I was to be sold into slavery. Handed off to a slaveowner, I subsequently strangled him with the chain linking my wrists. In the guise of a dockside whore, I then easily boarded a ship. Any ship to take me away, to anywhere. I begged to be dropped off as soon as the ship docked, and I was--at the Lok'Groton isles.

As much as I would like to say that I began anew and made for myself a new and healthy life, that is only a half truth, if that. But I have joined the Puddleby citizenry and have begun to make my life.

My own life, finally.