Time seemed to stop as bright blue eyes watched a long leather whip arc in the air behind her and crack down over the girl's pale brown skin. Her head snapped forward as the thin slicing cord bit into her flesh. Warmth slowly spread over her bare back as blood began seeping from the wound and stained the fringes of the ruined shirt. Her hands gripped at the rusty chains to the cuffs binding her until the dry, cracked palms begin to bleed themselves. Her lip bitten in silent defiance. She would not cry. Her vision blurred a bit but not from tears, no it was a bright light and a blinding pain as is something jagged and sharp were being forced into the wounds at her back yet again, the fourth time over the last few days. A cross that had been carved in her tiny forehead was still bleeding, the crimson liquid trickling in small rivers of blood down the sides of her nose. She panted as the pain finally subsided and her head dropped forward, ringlets of white, ashen curls framing her childish cheeks.
Her silent tormentor watched with satisfaction as she refused to let her emotion show. He could not help but let his chest swell with a puff of pride in the young girl before him. At only 10 years old she was already so strong. What father wouldn't be proud? Striking her back again at least two more times, his hand finally stilled and he slowly wrapped up the leathered whip and hung it for the day, releasing his daughter from her shackles and letting her fall to the floor. Dirt caked her partially unclothed form and began grinding uncomfortably in the wounds at her back.
"You did so well my little Lira... so strong just like your mother"
And that was the last thing she remembered before the world grew dark around her and she slipped slowly from life. Just as she was exhaling her last breath a very curious little ball of light approaching her slowly. The next time she woke Lira was sitting in a comfy cot near a roaring fire in an unknown home, the apparition seated on a nearby sofa and staring out into the distance wistfully.
"I was wondering when you would wake up. It's nice to finally meet you!" The little ghost girl smiled and stuck by Lirael from that day forward.
At least 8 years passed from that moment and during that time Lirael Fellwood [The last name given to her because of the fallen trees she'd made her home in] grew stronger and wiser. At a young age she had shone a knack for trapping and hunting small game and so became the village's lead huntress and tracker. During her growing years her friend the ghost known now as Mirith had been her only talking companion as the others in her village avoided her when possible.
Lirael was strange. Since her arrival in the village she barely spoke.. that is she barely spoke to any living thing. Often times though, even since her first day, they would catch her speaking to the graves or animals she's just killed. Rumors grew wild of her being some demon or other ungodly creature. She had no idea what she was or what precisely her father had done to her with the sharp glowing stones and the slashes on her body. All she knew was speaking to the dead was useful in her tracking and so she used it.
On her 18th birthday Lira decided it was time to venture out from the safety and seclusion of the village and finally answer some of the questions she'd been plagued with all those years. What was she, why did she have this power, and where was her father?
For at least 3 months she took on odd jobs in the places she visited, finding lost treasures, people, pets, anything she was paid to. And always once the job was complete she would leave, never visiting the same place twice and speaking no more than a few sentences in each. And that's when Queen Freiya found her.
Immediately after word had reached this queen of Lira's abilities and Freiya, once known as the great goddess Astarte, decided to make Lirael her newest toy and her greatest weapon.
3 years she stayed shackled when she wasn't being used to suit the Queen's dark purpose, until she made her escape and vowed to find a way to undo what Freiya had been done. And now she roams, searching, waiting, training for the day she will exact her revenge and send Freiya to the deepest depths of hell where she belonged.