In her earliest memories Arie Oluwé sees her father smiling. The smell of sea salt made Arie’s nose crinkle when he swept her up in his arms. He was a sailor, and always had a tale of foreign lands to delight his daughter. When Arie's mother took her to market she saw other children and wondered where their parents were. Arie’s mother told her that their parents worked in the jungle and would be back soon, and not to worry. They looked hungry, so Arie made a game of sneaking food from home to share with them when her mother wasn’t looking. The game came to a somber end when one of the beggar children was caught stealing from a nearby merchant and was dragged kicking and screaming from the market. After returning home Arie’s mother hugged her and told her that bad children were taken in by the Consortium and taught to be good. Arie’s mother stopped taking her to the market after that.
Arie started school, where she learned about all of the good that the Aspis Consortium did for Bloodcove and the Mwangi Expanse. They gave people jobs, they donated money to the city for civic projects, they kept order, they turned the raw resources of the Expanse into the fine things that Arie’s mother had and that her father carried to far away lands.
As Arie grew older she saw that the Aspis Consortium did more than that. They enslaved people, they bribed government officials, they quashed any sign of resistance to their will, and they stripped the Expanse of its wealth for the benefit of foreign interests. Arie grew determined to free her people from the yoke of Aspis oppression in any way she could.
