Konistag 6th Ulriczeit 2522
Life presented me with the embodiment of Grunnd’s question. It demanded my answer.
“What are you little mouse?
Are you a predator or are you prey?”
Today I made the decision - I am a predator. I will not run. I will stand and fight. I will live. I will feel. I will make my own decisions.
My life has been spent as the pawn in a game controlled by the hand of my incredibly wealthy and seemingly power-hungry father. I am not his piece of property to be traded and used as a ‘commodity’. I am no longer an Eisenjaeger. No longer the merchants daughter. The child has come of age and makes her own life for herself. However long that is will be the decision of the gods.
No matter how I found my way to this point from now on I am here because I chose to be. Not because life and other beings overtook me. I am on this quest to find the Van Tanncred sword - an opportunity of a lifetime to fight in saving the Empire from destruction. I will do the will of the Witch Hunter because his is the fight against chaos. Chaos does not play by rules, it is not pretty, it is not remorseful, not merciful. Fire must be met with fire. All or nothing. I see this now.
News will reach my father that I am now a thief serving my sentence in servitude to the Empire by serving the Witch Hunter Verstohlen. Grunnd told no lies. Pulled no punches.
When Albrecht left the Blue Bird he passed a letter for my ‘master’ Grunnd. Here is what it said -
“He will never let you go Anya, you are
his most precious commodity.”
Whether this meant he knew I was on board, could see through my disguise; or that Albrecht hoped the letter would be given to me ‘back in the Temple’ where Grunnd said I was in refuge, is unclear. I feel the sickly tendrils of politics and the stench of money in this. 1000 gold crownes is what is offered for my safe return. A price on my pretty little head. I wonder how much I am truly worth to him if back in his grasp?
No doubt my father would tell me he has nothing but my best intentions at heart. That he loves and misses me and that is why he has flexed all influence he can to set the mercantile guilds in his reach to be on the alert for me. To bring his lost dear precious golden child home safe to her family. Of course behind the closed doors of Marienburg where loose lips chatter and twist the fabric of life, home of poisonous gossip, his authority will be in question. “Oh my! He cannot control his own household?” My leaving my ‘groom’ at the altar has most likely offended that most ‘honest’ of families the Ehrlichmann’s. It will be of the utmost scandal among the stalls, the inns, along the wharfs, among the harbourmen, in the washhouse by now.
If the Eisenjaeger’s were nothing but paupers. If I was a young son. There would not be this furor. No one would care to look for me. I would be considered the lost son - off to become a hero and find his fame, or his fate. There would be no mercenaries risking their skins for the reward. A king’s ransom! Enough to raise an army!
I wonder if I would still be a precious commodity if I were scarred, missing an eye, a limb, my teeth? Would I still be precious if I was found to be with child? My honor sullied? If I had brands or ink marks on my skin, better - my face, like some of the more exotic servants found in the ports? Maybe I could take a vow of chastity at a religious order? Maybe I should forfeit my life in full to Sigmar to fight to restore the balance of Order over Chaos replete?
I must go for now. We are aboard the Blue Bird and ‘safely’ at the beginning of a weeks passage to Talabheim. I shall tell the tale of the Blind Beggar in time.
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