Tam Fillimore's life started, as far as anyone knew, in a rusted bucket.
Cradled in tin and left at the door of Willem Fillimore, a minor diplomatic adviser to a minor Orlovsky noble in Eagle's Watch, Tam's soon-to-be foster parents took her in only to hand her over to an orphanage. The Orlovskys hated involving themselves in other people's business, and an orphan is nothing if not other people's business.
But Marlyn, Willem's wife, was no match for Tam's round face, wide blue-green mismatched gaze, and infectiously giddy countenance. And having been unable to bear a child of her own, Marlyn saw Tam as a gift, an unexpected answer to a hopeful prayer--not a curse to wrap up and ship away.
Willem put up with fostering Tam at first, caring for the babe until they could find an orphanage that would take her. The telltale signs of a hag's lineage meant Tam was turned away, time and again, until even Willem couldn't bear it anymore and agreed to adopt her.
As Tam grew, the Fillimores traveled Avistan far and wide, drifting in the space between high society and middling bureaucracy. She met dignitaries, learned from tutors far and wide, saw sights at every turn that dazzled her young mind. Her pale skin, hair, and eyes always drew attention to her even from those she found equally exotic, and she often found ways to revel in or deflect it all to her whims.
She grew to be a rambunctious, independent rake of a girl, respectful of the letter of the laws and rules around her but inserting herself into every dispute and quibble she could find. Even then, Tam had her father's touch for bridging differences and negotiating peace. She knew and readily accepted when right didn't have a chance to win over wrong, but she rarely left a debate or fight without scoring a few points or favors for herself that she could use later to turn the tables--or if she got in over her head, she knew how to clock the right person in the back of the head and sneak away.
Then House Rogarvia vanished, and an argument swept Brevoy that no amount of charm or diplomacy could circumvent. The trips abroad ended against Tam's restless spirit and will, and in the doldrums of meetings and discussions and talks and boredom, she started hearing songs in her head, always from the south, louder with each passing month.
Even as chaos brewed around her home, Tam would wake from nightmares to find herself standing far outside the humble home, down a path that would take her far from home; each time she'd return, but the songs grew louder, a maddening dissonant siren of unformed words that only existed in her own mind.
Her body was changing as maturing bodies are wont, but her changes were unusual--fingernails that hardened into claws, a hypnotic air about her that attracted uncharacteristic lapses in boys and men alike, a sudden obsession with a First World deity no Fillimore had ever known.
The warnings of evil origins that accompanied the orphanage matrons' cold stares were coming, against the Fillimores' best hopes, to fruition. Tam was without a doubt a changeling, a hagspawn being driven to seek her mother's fell kind.
When Tam could take no more, she revealed the voices to her mother and begged to be bound and kept under watch, fearing what was drawing her away from parents who loved her so. They did, and Willem and Marlyn suffered through her screams and struggles, her bestial clawing at the cellar door, her ceaseless weeping when she was not spitting enraged curses in alien tongues.
But her Call eventually passed and she emerged weakened but resolute, her childlike glee tempered by the truth of her own flesh.
The songs ceased but seemed to realign her mental compass; she was still drawn south, no longer out of compulsion but out of renewed curiosity. The Stolen Lands beckoned to her, and when the call went out for adventurers, she pleaded to go.
It would be dangerous, and Tam understood. But she knew how dangerous she could be better than anyone--she'd weathered her own extremes. Her claws remained, her constitution was more resilient. She might not have the skills or talents for war and open battle, but the Stolen Lands were no dungeon--they were a kingdom-in-waiting, teeming with life, pioneers, conflicts to resolve and people to unite.
Why stay at home to watch her father's colleagues dither over whether to take action when she could be an agent for peace in a lawless land? And why live in ignorance of what created her when she could investigate it, seek it out, and face it down?
