Early years
Maika arrived to the crows as plenty of Antivan children do; starving, without a penny to her name and hoping that this turn of fate wouldn’t get her killed. She wasn’t as good as other crows at the game of charming and seduction but she was deadly enough to survive through her training. It wasn’t that Maika lacked the charms that were needed to seduce but rather that she was one to prefer working in the shadows, favoring methods that involved stealth over persuasion.
She never got too close to her peers, only allowing herself intimacy to a person, Zevran a fellow crow to whom she even told her surname, the only thing that she had left from her old life.
The great escape
The closeness had lead to carelessness and suddenly Zevran and she found themselves in a “problem”. She was pregnant even if luckily no one had noticed it yet. She was young, only seventeen, but old enough to understand that if she remained in the crows the best fate awaiting her was her child being another tool for the crows.
During a mission Maika “died” and fled, promising Zevran that she’d use the name that they had planned together as a way to remind him forever and that someday, when the kid was old enough and only if it was safe, they would try to meet him again. Maika knew that likely it was an empty promise, there was not “safe” when you were in the world of the crows.
A funeral
Maika survived the pregnancy and gave birth to a beautiful girl called Arissa. They lived far away from Antiva, in the Free Marches in hopes of that the crows would never find her. She managed to have a humble but happy life, never forgetting the promise that she made her lover to find him again. Maika never managed to love anyone else besides of Zevran but she was content with it; besides looking after Arissa was her priority.
Time passed, years went by and Maika relaxed.
A mistake. The crows found them and decided that the payment for her insolence was the life of a child.
Moving on
The first three years were agonizing, she felt as if she could never recover from her loss. She wasn’t even angry, she was just empty and survived thanks to the kindness of a neighbor that took her in and nursed her back to health.
After three years grieving she was still devastated but one morning she decided that for Arissa she had to try. For a moment she was tempted into vengeance but what was the point? Who would survive a single handed revenge against the crows? She was supposed to live, and she would hurt but she would move on.
She returned to Antiva, tempting fate perhaps but she refused to be chased away from her own home. She managed to find a job and to start her life again, even if she had lost everything. She even gained a friend, more than a boss, along the way.