Ahrian was born human, the only child of a pair of traveling doctors, moving from back village to back village, generally on a slow rotation but occasionally diverting to respond to urgent needs. back then she had brown hair, green eyes, and a highly curious mind. Although she didn't have the opportunity to go to a proper school, she got to learn to read and write from her parents, and read whatever she could get her hands on, often her parents reference books. The family wasn't well off, but did well enough. Their services were desperately needed, and so many places would help them with simple food and shelter even when work was hard to find or clients unable to pay. Her parents never made clear why they refused to go to more developed areas, leaving that for when she was older, but overall it life was fine.
At one point, the family was informed of a disease spreading in a nearby village. Wanting to get ahead of it before it crippled the community, they immediately set out. Upon arrival they found that the people there were quite reclusive at first, reluctant to speak with outsiders. However when they spoke with community leadership, their attitudes rapidly changed shortly after introducing themselves. They were welcomed with glee, offered free lodging, and shown almost immediately to the patients.
The disease was strange, it seemed to have mild symptoms at first, like a simple cold, but would then abruptly turn dramatically worse, causing breathing problems, blood in patient's stool, extreme fever, fainting, coughing up blood, chills, seizures, and death. This sharp turn, from a easily ignored and highly contagious phase, into a traumaticly lethal one, made the disease as a whole frankly terrifying. Still, they were the only hope the village had, so Ahrian's parents took all the precautions they could, and got to work.
However, something wasn't right. Upon inspecting the patients, all they could find was an ordinary cold. But of course, that was because those who had their case turn worse had died. When asked to be able to inspect the bodies, they were told the bodies had been burned. Still, they did the best they could. But while they worked, their daughter, Ahrian, was approached by the locals, the leaders seeming to be fascinated by her, and making some odd gestures and mutterings towards her, even at one point 'accidently' blowing dust from an antique guitar directly into her face. Ahrian was rather shy however, and retreated to her parents quickly, not wanting to leave their sides even though that greatly increased her risk of infection. And after hearing from her about these incidents, they chose to keep her with them, but not pursure the matter. They were worried as well, but had decided it would be safer to leave quietly in the middle of the night that evening, rather than to make a scene. Sadly, they weren't subtle enough.
That evening, when they went to their room to grab their things, they found a collection of people waiting for them, informing them that they were not free to leave. They didn't take this calmly, and cried out for help, while simultaniously turning and forcing their way back. Better to leave empty-handed than to not be able to leave at all. Though they weren't martially adept, they managed to struggle and create an opening for Ahrian to flee into the woods, leaving behind her the sounds of a violent struggle and beating, her parents just screaming out "RUN! DON'T STOP RUNNING! KEEP RUNNING!" over and over until suddently stopping.
Ahrian's flight through the unfamiliar woods, in the dark, alone, was absolutely terrifying. She ran, and ran, and ran. Completely turned around without knowing where she was, where she was going, what she would do, what was happening to her parents, or why or how things had come to be like this. She felt ill, vomiting up what supper she'd had, and kept going, stumbling through a bog of some kind, being bitten by insects, and hearing the sounds of unknown movement in the brush and water around her, none of which she could clearly see, for it was a new moon night, and starlight only does so much. Still she kept going, and going, her fear driving her onwards despite her mounting exhaustion and pain, until one of the times that she stumbled, she could no longer summon the strength to push herself back to her feet. She scraped herself forwards, and up, and tried, but she just couldn't do it anymore, and unconsiousness took her.
Her rest was turbulent. Though initially being too exhausted to dream, that did not remain true. She relived the events of that evening over and over, the faces of the villagers becoming distorted and twisted in her mind into nightmarish caricatures and demons wearing human skin. They played out horiffic fantasy after fantasy again and again of absolutely awful things being done to her parents. And when she looked at herself she saw hooks within her, attempting to drag and twist her into becoming one of the demons herself. Occasionally she found herself strangely warm, and something was forcing itself into her mouth, shoving its way in and down her throat against her will. It was not a fun time, and it seemed to last an eternity.
But still, eventually, she finally woke up. But she wasn't where she'd fallen down. She was... in a sleeping bag? Glancing around, she found a woman in lightweight leather armor, carrying a shortbow and shortword, seated leaning against a tree, seemingly dozing, and the ashes of a campfire nearby. And she herself felt unbelieveably weak, and the sky was dark. She tried to move, but even tiny motions left her in pain, and the grunt she made upon this discovery woke the person by the tree.
"Hi. Just rest okay? You've had a hard time of it."
Over the following days Ahrian learned that the woman was a hunter, and that she'd stumbled upon her in the bog, collasped and sick, and that she was nursing her back to health after a combination of exhaustion, minor injury, exposure, and a nasty infection. When she asked about her parents and the village though, there was only bad news. Apparently some kind of cult had formed in that village, using people for rituals of some kind, and her parents had been killed. The cult itself had been purged, but her family possessions were likely burned, because the entire village had ended up being burned to the ground.
Additionally though, she found out something else. Her hair had changed color. It was now white. All the way from the roots. And when she finally felt strong enough to move, to take her first shakey steps up and get out of the sleeping bag, she'd acquired something else. Nine something elses. And in the following self-inspection she discovered her ears, teeth, and eyes had changed too. Upon demanding an explanation from the hunter, she said that she'd found her like that, and didn't know it was a change in the first place.
In the weeks that followed the hunter effectively took her in, teaching her not only how to hunt and take care of herself, but also helping her adapt to her new body, and even taught her the fundamentals of how to wield magic. She seemed so capable of this in fact that Ahrian grew to suspect that she wasn't actually just a hunter, but whenever she pressed the issue the hunter denied being anyone special or important. Ahrian also eventually discovered that her eye color had changed to amber too. Yet another quiet way that she'd never be able to be the same after that night.
As the weeks turned into months into a few years, eventually Ahrian had to strike out on her own. She needed to grow and explore, and that wasn't going to happen if all she did was remain in the shelter of another. And so she struck out to rejoin society, and found that with the hunter's reccomendation letter, she was able to make it into the ranks of the canidates to join the pilgrimage to the west, with the goal of attaining sufficient acomplishments that upon her return, she'd be able to get proper answers to her questions about what had really happened to her family, and the resources to make sure it never happened to anyone else ever again. And so now, she's here.