Asha
T H E F I N E R D E T A I L S
G o a l
Asha's young life was focused purely on survival and so she never knew freedom and what choices she had were often driven by a need to eat, drink or find somewhere safe to sleep. As a ghoul she had even less choices and followed the rules given by her sire. After the embrace she believed herself free even as she served the Ivory Tower. It was only when the Gangrel left the Camarilla on mass that she had a taste of true freedom. As sweet as fresh blood it soothed her. She saw the uncountable neonates and fledglings that were still enslaved to the rigidity of the Camarilla rules and laws and grew angry. She joined the Anarch's and supports them as she can to secure a future for kindred that does not require they lick the boots of the paranoid and fearful elders in order to be spared the true death.
P e r s o n a l i t y
Asha has transitioned through the years without a great deal of weathering or dimming of personality. She has however become much less brash and fool hardy, that is not to say she is commonly calm and forward thinking however. Like most of her clan she enjoys the closeness to the beast within, thriving on its touch as she leaps across roof tops, scales dazzlingly high buildings or at the feeling of tearing flesh and snapping bones. She enjoys a fight when the odds are stacked in her favour and is not above removing herslef from sticky situations. Asha finds a dark pleasure in being able to infiltrate secure locations and releive the wealthy of their ungained spoils, especially when she can share it amongst kindred who actually need it to survive in the cold nights.
Asha tries to get along with other kindred but gets easily frustrated by the etiquette and wasted time for haughty titles and riches. Time spent praising or giving backhanded compliments could be spent running through the city and enjoying their unlives. It is also a personal shame that she never learned to read or write beyond the most basic of levels and her ignorance is only made clearer when amongst 'civilised' kindred. Where possible she tries to be direct and honest with those around her and struggles to not poke fun at the Camarilla's stuffy customs and traditions.
She finds herself distrusted amongst the sects though the Anarch's are much more welcoming by comparison. She has a dislike for the elders of the Camarilla but accepts that not all are as bad as each other and so far has not found shadowholds to be as oppressive as others she had served.
Asha follows the rules of the masquerade whereever possible so as to draw as little attention to herself or her fellow kindred as possible, an prooblem that some memebr sof her clan struggle with.
H i s t o r y
For the longest of times Asha had no name, no parents and only the other orphaned street rats to call family. Even then they would each drop any of the others at the first sign of trouble. A few seemed to have noble hearts and were charitable or kind. Asha soon discovered that those types either had ulterior motives or simply didn't last long on the streets. As a young girl Asha had no awareness of the tensions and political shifts in her country, in fact the concept of religion was limited to the words spoken being lucky and something watching them from afar. The concept that Asha and her band of street rats wer ebeing protected or guided was laughable even to her young mind. The only benefit she had found of repeating the words was that occasionally people would give food or money if she spoke them in the street.
When she was 8 years old war broke out in the city and indeed the country itself. Everyone was tense and the street rats began moving by night to avoid attention or to loot any empty houses that had been left behind. It was profitable year though one fraught with danger with high tensions and armed men roaming the streets. One night she happened to stumble across a curious man, his clothes were well worn but expensive looking with several rips in his trousers and he wore his shoes slung around his neck, laces tied together. Even stranger was that he wore sunglasses in the dark yet appeared to be reading a book without difficulty. He seemed so engrossed that Asha believed he would be an easy mark.
The sound of the city at night was loud enough to muffle her careful tread as she approached. She had held her breath and grabbed the wallet from his pocket before darting through several small buildings and into one of her favourite hiding spots, a half collapsed building with plenty of spaces just large enough for her to squeeze through before the space opened up a little under a leaning wall that failed to crumble. Safe inside she counted her spoils and was shocked to find the wallet filled with large bills. More money than she had ever seen before. She buried the wallet in the dry dirt and slept.
The next few nights she had a strange feeling of being watched and the hair on her neck seemed constantly up yet she could see nothing out of the ordinary. She returned to the wallet a few times but dared not take anymore money from it. When she had produced the note to the others they had grown vicious and violent with each other as they decided how the spoils were to be divided. As usual Asha and the other two girls were not given their fair share but when the older boys made decisions with their fists there was little to be done. The eldest girl, Laila had her own way of gaining favour and influence over the older boys though if mentioned she would strike them with a stick, including the boys. Young as they were they vaguely understood what Laila meant when she returned from meeting with a 'friend'.
One night she noticed a large rat had taken residence in her hiding spot and whilst wary at first it didn't seem to have any desire to attack her. It would just sit and stare at her without moving. Asha offered it a few crumbs but even that did not make it budge. Eventually she began talking to the curious little rat and it would cock its head to the side as though listening. She told it made up stories and things she had done in her day. She found its odd company rather enjoyable yet it never appeared during the day and occasionally not during the night. Sometimes she would returned bloodied and sore from a beating, either because she hadn't found money or because she had been caught trying to steal. She tried not to let herself cry in the open. She didn't want to look weaker than she was, victims did not last long in her world. She would cry quietly and cradle her wounds before sleep eventually came.
On one such night she returned with a limp, a split lip and bloody teeth. One of Laila's 'friends' had come looking and decided he didn't want to leave unsatisfied when he found Laila was gone. Asha fought back and earned a beating for her trouble before biting a chunk from the mans hand and fled. Not far from her hideout she came face to face with an overlarge Canaan dog. In her surprise she hesitated and the dog leaped at her dragging her to the ground. It's teeth dug into her arm and she tried to wrestle it off to no avail. In desperation she flung sandy dirt in its face and tried striking its face with her free hand. Her flailing had little effect and she let out a scream of frustration, pain and anger as she tried to bite into the dogs throat. She felt an impact to her stomach like a fist and doubled over as the world faded to black.
She awoke some time after to find the same oddly dressed man she had robbed sitting patiently nearby and staring at her with a feral smile on his face and blood around his mouth. He introduced himself as Amit and told her he had been seeking potential members of his clan. Asha looked around for the dog that had attacked her and noticed her wounds had been bandaged. Amit apparently found her worry amusing and asked her if she wanted the strength to be free from her life, the strength to never be afraid of men or boys simply because they were bigger. Asha reluctantly stated that she did, something about his smile was more terrifying than Laila's friend and the dog. His eyes reflected the low light oddly giving him a bestial appearance. Amit chuckled and set her a task, find the man that attacked her and kill him. In return Amit would teach her to be strong but warned that if she had not killed him in two nights then her life would be forfeit. He explained that he had no use for the weak and would end her life and those of the street rats she lived with. The next night day she followed Laila and waited until they had finished their meeting before sneaking in and cutting his throat whilst he rested amid acrid effluence. Asha hadn't expected their to be quite so much blood and she recoiled for amoent at the swelling feeling of power and elation she felt as the mans hands grasped ineffectively at his gurgling neck.
Her second offcial meeting with Amit set her path for years to come. She completed each task given, endured pain, humiliation and terror. Most importantly she survived and grew tougher and stronger. She learned to hone the skills she was good at, using her speed, stealth and size to her advantage. What she lacked in strength she made up for in sped and cunning with comfort in the knowledge that she could kill a stronger foe with ease if she picked the right moment. The few other corrupting influences steadily and abruptly disappeared in the night until she was old enough to remove them herself. She spent the next 10 years running around the city learning and looking out for oddities and supernatural elements that she had been blind to previously. The longest stretch of time Amit had been gone was the final 4 years. On his return she was offered his blood to drink and left the city and the tumultuous country behind as she ventured into the night.
They travelled through the middle east and across asia until nearly 10 years of faithful service and the survival of gruelling tests and trials against other Gangrel ghouls she was rewarded with the embrace. She returned home and joined the Camarilla as instructed and served as a faithful neonate. Years passed with little change, for the kindred at least. Technology improved by leaps and bounds yet Asha cared little for it except for the tools of her trade. Gadgets invented to save time was meaningless to her who was immortal and the tools that made life easier she viewed as anathema, struggling for survival was what made her strong and she actively rejected the comfotrs she could so easily afford to indulge in. She would never be content to remain weak and soft again.
Her Sire warned her of an increasing number of Elders arriving in their city and bade her go to America where the dangers were balanced with possible rewards and where the air was buzzing with a desire for revolution. Asha felt there was some other danger that Amit refused to speak off but Asha knew better than to question his commands.
Asha set up with the local Anarchs in Shadowhold, Michigan as directed by her sire who she has not heard from since. Asha's shared bloodline with Xavier coupled with her willingness to take risks for the Anarchs has earned her respect amongst the local gangrel clan members. Asha is rarely seen without her famulus Baxter, a highly trained german shepherd. Despite standing with the Anarchs she has occasionally taken on work from or worked with kindred from the Camarilla when their goals align or when their is no danger of it impacting the Anarch movement and tries to keep things professional.