Author Note: Not canon but still related content. This is an earlier version of the kingdom and Tia's transformation but certainly not the earliest. There are many versions of these events but this is the closest to the canon version. This is also a far more religious and harsh Accia. I wrote this in 2014 for a creative writing class in college (when my writing was honestly a bit more developed). I've left this one most as is aside from proofreading and fixing verb tenses. I did go ahead and alter some of the names that needed it (Liifo was a dumb name for the god of life, so these instances are switched to Luxis. It's hard for me to take the name Liifo seriously now.) Early concepts of Andrea and Martin (Letholdus) are here too. You might notice the magic works a bit differently as well. This isn't canon but I hope you enjoy it anyway!

A stark wind rakes hesitantly between sentinels of trees loosing a hot breath on the broiling encampment. Horses amble along and equipment gnashes sluggishly as a bead of sweat tickles its way down Tia's sour expression. She did not want to be here, she had made that perfectly clear–brandishing Nipponese armor and emblems. Her father remained as obstinate as she, however, and so she pulls through the encampment in an ornery mood as she could muster, cooking in the elaborate folds of silk.

As her horse drags along she can feel the gap between her and those around her, refusing to glance for herself and see. She fancies herself exotic and beyond casual approach. She was adjusted to such treatment, even in Nippon she was initially seen as a foreigner–she was of Accian blood. Here in Accia itself, adorned in her Nipponese apparel, she expected and braced herself for the same. 

"Why is that savage here?" the whisper pierces her facade and she chokes on air. A woman scoffs.

"An illustration? Maybe a cook?" she laughs derisively. Tia forcefully recomposes herself.

"I'm not eating that swill!" the boy nearly shrieks. The girl hushes him desperately, her eyes on Tia's now rigid back. Tia holds herself still in comparison to her searing pulse. "I'm not going to spend the first week ill, I've waited years for this..." the boy whispers on.

Savage? Her heart barrels at the word and her stomach twists with frigid shock. She glances around as casually as she can manage, trying to stifle how frantic she feels. Around her she saw not the respectful awe she was accustomed to or any sort of polite demeanor at all. The fellows surrounding her, bound for the same compulsory training, gaze back at her with reproach, disgust and appraisal. They whisper to each other and blatantly gawk at her. Their piercing chortles ravage her attempt at a facade as panic claws up her body. Her face burns with embarrassment as she trudges forward too slowly.

With her horse in the makeshift stable she follows the trail of Accian youths who wordlessly knew, like buzzards to rotting flesh, in what direction to migrate. She keeps her gaze to herself with the return of her ornery demeanor. As they reach their destination the sudden silence sends a chilling fright down Tia's form. Every chit-chat and chortling laugh hushes into silence; even the breaths of those around her fall into the void of silence as their footsteps patter solemnly. Tia stumbles along, allowing her pearly locks to fall over her now ruffled expression. She gingerly progresses through the columns of people with her lips pressed into a firm line, feet catching on earth, as her gaze desperately rakes the crowd for an empty gap. Her eyes fall upon one and she whisks to it, her eyes downcast, and slips into place with a shivering relief. The girl to her right, escaping Tia's notice, curls her lip at the clumsy display.

After agonizing moments of securing her gaze to a mottled lump of mud, face twitching under forced constraint trying to hold what she assumes is a straight face, her awkward debacle is broken as a stern, sinewy man tediously looms across a platform they all stood before. It wasn't much of a platform, a few crates crammed as closely as manageable on the unrelenting earth below. Yet he wore it well and painted it a grand stage which he towers above and demands the respect of those below. Indeed, even with this delusion of what he stood on, the youths below behold him with such an abundance of what he demanded of them that Tia squirms with alienation. They stand rigid in attention, eyes blank as a mannequin. A few young Accians tremble at the man's astonishing presence. He stands silent, peering out over those before him with a blank yet seemingly omniscient stare.

"Welcome," his voice resonates with a malignant boom, "Welcome and let Luxis bless this day," All those around Tia crash a fist to their chests in a near violent salute, their unity startling her, "Today the journey to discovering your fate will begin." 

Tia quickly takes up the same stance as those around her with a disgruntled expression as his eyes scan once more; the girl to her right again curls her lip and bites down a sneer. He paces from crate to crate in a slow, deliberate manner, "Your place in his highness King Ambrose's army, your place in Accia and your place in Luxis' great Plan," he speaks slowly and his voice trembles with the vehemence of his words, words that befuddle the misplaced Tia, "Common soldier, healer, tactician, mage. Farmer, merchant, priest, artist, bureaucrat. Today you will start on your way to finding your role in Luxis' Plan." Again, another round of salutes resound with a thump and rustle of equipment.

As the man continues, elaborating on Accian culture, values, and of this great plan, she glances at his uniform. A crest on his shoulder displays the crest of Luxis. Her eyes flit about and she sees that those around her, near everyone, bare the crest of Luxis somewhere on their person whether it be on jewelry, bags, or embroidered on their clothes. She had heard Luxis' name only murmured on her father's lips now and again in frustration. Luxis, life itself, was the goddess of reincarnation–she knew only this about the deity from when she had questioned her father about the crest on his uniform. The fervor and utter unity of Accia in regards to Luxis was like nothing she had ever seen. It rattled her to her core in ways she did not understand.

"Your regiment will begin tomorrow at dawn," Tia's attention snaps back as his speech ends, "Fendrel, I leave the details to you." A burly man to the left of the crates nods back to him with a furrowed brow.

"Yes sir, General Letholdus," Fendrel answers. The man, Letholdus, stiffens before the gathering in his own salute, one that is reciprocated. He scans the youths one last time.

"May Luxis bless your eff-" he pauses a moment, his eyes catching on Tia's bone-white hair and silk. A fright leaps up her stomach as his grey eyes catch on her indigo ones. She startles but remains expressionless. Letholdus' eyes blaze with a scowl but he clears his voice, "Efforts," he ends in a deep tone. The man steps off of the creates and pauses by Fendrel. Letholdus leers at Tia with a frigid distaste and Fendrel follows his gaze.

"What is that doing here?" Letholdus' words lash at Tia birthing rage into her features–he had made no attempt to quiet his statement from her perception or anyone else's. Fendrel grumbles, shuffling through parchments Tia assumes held a list of recruits. The man sneers as his eyes caught Tia's last name.

"It's Allen Minx's brood. The louse returned from Nippon because of a war," Fendrel spits. Tia burns with rage. Louse? Her father worked tirelessly in Nippon! 

"You think he'd have more pride than to enlist that mutt into our army," Letholdus scoffs, "He should have stayed in Nippon and finished his job–or better yet died trying. What a disgrace," he mutters the last of it. His eyes narrow before he turns toward Fendrel. "Find someone to keep an eye on her. We can't have her diluting Accian ranks," he whispers with a scowl.

Tia watches as the decidedly detestable man disappears into the intricate folds of the encampment. Fendrel clears his throat and takes his place on the crates in a less than impressive fashion. As the man rambles on in his billowing voice Tia listens with the minimum of attention she could afford–where to go and when, what's to be expected of her, basic rules, etc. The longer he talks, the more her rage bubbles and festers. Savage, mutt, louse. The words stir in her mind. She had never undergone such disrespect in Nippon.

The speeches and instructions draw to a close, much to Tia's relief. She retrieves her packs and makes her way to the part of camp she was assigned. Whispers and disgusting gawking trails after Tia as she makes her way steadily through the encampment. She holds her chin high with a burning leer as she pads her way through, all of their debasement melting away in her quiet fury. She finally reaches her destination and enters the large tent. She is met with a discomfited shriek.

"What is IT doing here? What kind of joke is this?" a shrill voice rakes Tia's ears. When she opens them a sharply featured girl stands before her in a distressed, appalled disposition. She was dressed richly, jewelry jostling on her neck, wrists and ears. It was the same girl that had stood next to her for orientation. Tia meets her with a glare and quietly sets her things onto what she assumes is her side of the ludicrously vast tent. This couldn't possibly be meant for just two people, Tia thinks to herself.

"What, don't you speak? Is our language too arduous for you or did your diffident jest of a father not teach you proper Accian?"

"Would you shut up you ignorant twit!" Tia steams the words out slowly. 

"Oh-ho," the girl snaps bitterly, "Did I anger you? Did I offend? I'm sorry miss savage that will never do," the girl quips her words sickeningly sweet, "You know what really won't do?" she hisses with a rage paralleling Tia's. Tia falters a moment at the abruptness of her rage, "What won't do is being forced to be so near to someone so daft, so stroppy and so gauche. For me to share a tent with a savage, me of all people..." she fumes, "There could be no greater jab!"

"Savage this, savage that!" Tia breathes heatedly. The two girls' eyes meet in an inferno, "I have a name!" she trills. The girl before her cackles with a traipsing elegance in her voice.

"What kind of name do boors use then?" she splutters. The unpredictable duality of the girl confounded Tia.

"My name," Tia spits with a glare, "Is Tia, Tia Minx." The girl before her ruffles at the name.

"They gave an honorable Accian name to you?" the girl puffs before snorting, "You don't even look Accian. Clothes aside, that white hair isn't Accian or Nipponese is it?" she croons and the words strke at Tia, "From what I've heard, their hair is an inky black. And I know no Accian has such gaudy locks. What gutter did your mother pull herself out of exactly? Do you even know?" The girl leers at Tia's snowy, billowing hair with disgust. Her words pang through Tia's anger, bringing it to an apex.

"How dare you!" Tia shrills, raising her hand to strike at the loathsome girl. She catches Tia's hand, grasping her shoulder, twisting her about and pinning her to the ground with surprising force. The girl raises her foot and presses it down onto Tia's back, the heel of her boot bruising her and dirtying her cherished kimono. Tia struggles with all her might to free herself of the girl's relentless grip, her tendons burning under the pressure. The girl cackles her trawling laugh once more in derision.

"Did you honestly think you could lay a hand on me, you feral brute? You are so beneath me," she lulls, pressing down harder, "So very much beneath me it's laughable you would even try." 

The girl holds Tia there, in agony and in taut silence, until she is satisfied by Tia's intended inferiority–until she sees every last ounce of anger patter out into desperation. Tia groans with the release as the girl throws herself into her numerous blankets.

"Why don't you go where you belong," the girl hisses.

She glares at Tia with a deadly expression. Tia leers back defiantly, leaving the tent with a huff. Go where she belongs, that's exactly what she'll do. As Tia slips out of the camp with her faithful mount another lurks about in the twilight. The shadow whisks itself to the general's tent.

"What is it?" Letholdus grumbles.

"Sir, the Minx girl..." the general's eyes flit up from his dinner, "She's fled the camp on horseback." A wisp of a smile dusts the general's lips.

Twilight was quickly slipping into dusk as Tia mulls her way through the thick wood. The towering pines hover above, red sunlight still grazing their upper branches. She quivers as the darkness creeps closer, looming ever nearer to her. The foreboding aura chills her to her bones. As she urges her horse on slowly, it suddenly bristles, nickering nervously and stepping backward. 

"What's the matter Enjeru? We've a long way to go," she tries to sooth him, prodding him gently forward. Enjeru sidles forward hesitantly, ready to bolt. Suddenly, a draft winds up Tia's back prickling bumps along its way. She peers at her surroundings, eyes shrouded by the shadows infringing the coils of the wood. She was being watched, stalked even. That much she could feel. Just as her eyes snag on a black form husking between trunks, a bone-chilling sound snatches away her reality. 

"Tia Minx!" Letholdus' voice booms behind her, farther down the mountainside, "You are charged with abandoning His Royal Highness' army, a most foul crime," his voice hammers dread into her being. An unrestrained, crooked smile twists his face with satisfaction, "A treasonous crime punishable by death!"

A shrill, instinctive fright springs through Tia as her face drains and the words settle into her mind, instantly setting her to action. She tears Enjeru back around and kicks hard, sending the steed barreling up the mountainside. The sound of pursuers behind her, heavy hooves tremoring and hammering earth, set fire and ice ablaze in her chest. She brims with panic. Branches grab and tear at her skin as she haphazardly blazes up the mountain. Enjeru teeters unpredictably on the terrain, pushed into a frenzy fed by Tia's terror. It takes everything for her to stay rooted to the saddle with her knees. The two men who had parted from Letholdus and Fendrel go unnoticed by her. 

The mountain drops drastically on the other side. As she begins her descent on the crest of the mountain, forced to a slower pace, the navigable terrain narrows into a worn passage. The sides of the zipping trail drops steeply into an unknown abyss below. She urges Enjeru down the path as quickly as the horse could bear. Her chest tightens at the urgency of her escape, where will she even flee? As she drops farther into the ravine, the sound of rushing water -a river- at the bottom of the decline has her brimming with anxious relief. If she could just reach the shore, she thinks to herself. The tension devours her senses. 

The reassuring sound of rapids grows, but so does another frightful sound. How can their horses bear galloping down this path without tumbling down the mountainside? The logic escapes her and she urges Enjeru forward faster. His legs quiver under the pressure. Then, suddenly, the truth of the sound exposes itself as the missing two riders reappear around the bend of the path. One of the soldiers looses an arrow as she forces Enjeru to stop. The arrow embeds itself squarely in her left shoulder, delving into the space between the socket in the cartilage and tendons. The yell is on her lips, guttural and wordless, before she feels the pain. Her fright, however, cuts through the pain and she tears her reigns back, forcing Enjeru into a desperate turn in the other direction. Her left arm hangs powerless and numb at her side as she flees back up the mountain at full speed. As she meets the upward left switchback up the mountain she is again confronted, this time by Fendrel. He swings a sword at her face and she barely avoids it, pulling Enjeru to the side and leaning backwards. A line of blood bubbles up from the new line in her chin. 

"Hold!" Letholdus' unwelcome voice calls.

The three men remain to corral her to her doom but withhold themselves from the deed itself. A numbness reminiscent to that in her arm creeps into her expression as her eyes meet those of the general.

"Did you honestly think you could escape us in our own mountains?" he sneers as one of his soldiers rips the reigns from her hands.

She remains silent, reminded bitterly of the futility not by his words or the narrow path or even by the men surrounding her but by the sound of the river -her hope- she was never permitted to see through the dark haze of this night. 

The blood drips from her chin freely as Letholdus navigates his horse closer to hers. Tia grasps her lifeless shoulder, her pulse racing with the slight glimmering chance before her. He looms in close like a snake ready to poison its prey. Tia rips the arrow out of her shoulder with a scream, ligament caught on the edge and pulled to the surface through her skin, and swipes the point at his throat. He catches her wrist and twists it until she drops the arrow. Letholdus bellows, leaving Tia bewildered by the misplaced laughter.

"You believe you can still escape!" he hoots and Tia rips her good arm out of his grasp, "Listen here girl," he barks. Tia's eyes flit to his grey ones with fire, "You cling to life admirably, truly. Even to the point of stupidity," he spits, "A fine trait for an Accian. I'll give you a chance," the men around the general shift uncomfortably, "If you forget about the heathens and devote the rest of your miserable life to Accia -to Luxis herself- then I will grant this new life reborn to you. We'll forget this and say you lost yourself in the woods, took a tumble, eh?" His eyes bare down on her as he dangles life before her. A life of submission, however. Tia spits in his face. 

"I would die before I forget Nippon, nor would I ever," Tia seethes, "Follow a goddess the likes of yours whose followers spit on lives not of Accia. A peaceful goddess? Let her lies be damned!"

Letholdus' face wrenches with fury as he brings back his hand. He strikes her with such overwhelming force it throws her frail body from Enjeru. She curls her body in the mud clutching her face, a tooth embedded in her cheek rather than her gums. She scrambles to her feet, spitting the bloody mess into the abyssal drop below and meeting Letholdus' domineering rage with her own glare. 

"I'm sure they've already forgotten you," Letholdus rumbles as he rubs his hand, "May you rot with all the heathens in Azryth's bowels then." 

As he says this, the air vibrates with a primal energy, trembling with heat. Her goosebumps are pricked by the overwhelming alarm rising in her and Enjeru flees as the rest of the horses jostle from the rising magic. A deep rumble quakes Letholdus' voice as he speaks, "Burn!"

His words spark the air around them, hurling tendrils of flame at Tia's body. Instinct rises in her -pure desperation- and her own primal energy pulses through her body. Her flesh ripples and bubbles before seemingly, water glazes over her skin. Her fingertips fade into transparency and are quickly followed by hand and arm. Starting from fingers and toes and the crown of her head, her body melts into pure water lit only by an incandescent glow in the place of her eyes and in her chest and by the harsh golden glint of fire barreling at her. Her body ripples and flows from her chest but somehow, mystically, retains form. Flesh has morphed completely into water as the first licks of flames meet her. The flames still burn, evaporating parts of her into steam, but tame the fire nonetheless. As she feels herself evaporating away, she morphs back to flesh and the force of the magic sends her flying backwards to tumble down the mountainside. Her body falls into numbness as she falls. Letholdus sits on his mount, baffled.

"She was a water nymph," Fendrel whispers, the words slipping from his lips in a hushed, somber awe. An unsettling foreboding settles into Letholdus. 

"Find the body!" he barks.

Pain. That was the first sensation Tia feels as awareness returns to her. As she peels her eyes open, moonlight wavering on a small surface greets her.

"Water!" she croaks desperately.

She tries to sit up regardless of the reluctance of her muscles and the searing of burnt skin. The adrenaline that numbed her injuries, that sweet drug, had subsided. Her body pulses with agony. She examines what is left of her. Patches of flesh and even bone lay exposed to the cruel air where skin and muscle had evaporated. Her ligament is also exposed, torn and pulled out by her shoulder to lie on the skin; her arm itself lay motionless to her side, alien to her. As she sits up, her leg jolts with pain, a nub of bone peeking through skin. Lacerations dust her body, the blood painting her kimono and the ends of her hair red. Blood drips from her skull slowly and her breath is labored by the stabbing ribs in her side. She wonders to herself why most of the wounds were void of blood, perhaps the transformation itself? If she could just get to the water she could heal herself she thinks desperately. 

Then a noise becomes apparent to her, something beyond the pool of water. A steady panting. She squints into the darkness beyond the blessed pool and what little breath she has dies away. Placid eyes reflect the moonlight at her and white fangs glimmer in the mouth which pants. A wolf as black as the night enclosing her stalks forward slowly as if relishing in her cryptic fate. Defeat washes over her features, she was beyond dread. The grim creature closes in between her and the small pool before her ever so slowly.

"So this is how I die...?" she whispers to herself listlessly. She lets her eyes all on the moon reflected in the water. It's soft glimmer reminded her of her mother's voice. 'I want you to be free'  her mother would say to her. How powerless she felt to find that freedom now. The world had snatched it from her. A scowl grows on her face. The wolf draws closer with a snarl.

"No," she mutters, "No!" Tia shouts, causing the wolf to pause. With every ounce she has left, she forces herself to her feet, leaning heavily on her good leg. Her body grudgingly, tremoring and radiating with pain, moves for her as she stands with a shout. Her vision blackens at the edges, the shadows about her thickening. She keeps her focus on the pool brimming with moonlight. 

The wolf's snarl drops away, unnoticed by Tia. A sentient glimmer shines in his eyes. It watches her, broken and bleeding. As she forces herself up, blood spews out of her mouth in a cough, rupturing from her gut. With death at her door, it makes its decision. It leaps at her and she brings up her good arm in defense protecting her throat from the beast's fangs. It bites instead down onto her already torn shoulder and collapses her back onto the hard stone beneath. The air leaves her body, blood splattering her face as she coughs.

When she opens her eyes again the wolf stares down at her, calm and knowing. She sees the intelligence in its eyes and, for an instant, looks back with awe. That is until a deep, searing sting pulses through her veins. It belittles the pain she had felt already. 

"P-poison...?" Tia chokes as the darkness overwhelms her. 

"General, look!" a soldier shouts. Letholdus follows the man's gesture to a ridge below. His breath hitches in his throat. On a stone ledge protruding from the mountain, two forms lay together. Dark stones rise around the ledge and in the center a small pool of water–an ancient landmark sacred in eras past. There, near the water, lay a black wolf. Its green eyes bore into his grimly and fear rises in him. He slowly, reluctantly, lowers his gaze to examine the form it curls itself about. There, still unconscious, lay Tia. Her body, whole and unharmed, lay there with the moonlight glinting off her snow-white hair and untattered skin.

"General, what do we do with her?" Fendrel grates out, uncertainty lacing his words. The general's face loses all color as he stares at the pair but his words come out grim and unfaltering.

"Bring her back to camp. She's beyond our power now."