This is the longest one, and I wanted to shorten it, but it’s got cultural background I just couldn’t resist putting in from this point of view. Plus, in my head I hear it in Peter Coyote’s voice (the narrator for some of Ken Burns documentaries.)
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It is a hard thing to be mastered by one who does not love you. This is true for politics just as it is in families. The final blow in an indifferently abusive relationship was the Immortal Emperor’s decree that plasmic refinement would center in Lockport, a city that had a ten year legal wrangle among its chiefs to grudgingly allow the first cannery for its fishing fleet.
In less than a year, the city famous for scrimshaw, canny fishing expertise, and white cliffs was overbuilt to five times its size. The original city was a neighborhood, surrounded by massive refineries and military installations. Slippage and accidents released slicks of undying blood still writhing in demonic agony that left people changed; the mist released by refinement sometimes left a twist of deathless misery and rage in the fog. The cliffs turned black.
It was enough to send the Skovs to war. Over two thousand Skov refugees poured into Doskvol, the closest port, during the war. Even more came after Skovlan lost.
One of them was a sixteen year old winsome lass whose uncle (Hutton) ran the Grinders, a Skov gang of Lockport refugees. Her first week in town, an Akorosian thief stabbed her in the gut. Her own people reported her dead as she lay nursing a mortal wound, and when it looked like she might survive, they tried to kill her; mere facts should not defuse an act of war, even if it is only a gang war. She escaped, found the criminals who attacked her uncle and her people, and offered to broker peace. She could manage it because she was Hutton’s niece; in an underworld driven by wealth and relationships, it was the “Niece” part that stuck, and her name was lost behind it.
She survived dislocation and assault, and chose to try and build a new home with diplomacy among dangerous criminals. She had Skov immigrant credentials, and local grievance, and she used that to bolster credibility among Skovs, giving her authority to counter claims she was nothing more than a mouthpiece for the native criminals. She was smart, and tough, and a natural networker. She had an instinct for turning loss into power. Of course she became a target.
From “Roots, Grudges, and Blood: the Skovlan Influx” by Cyriun Talvadge
Oh man, this is quite possibly my favorite, which has a high bar to overcome. There’s so much here!