Kaida (Kai)
Years passed in the dark and the dirt for Kaida and Ali. They traveled as far as they could get from the blood stained desert that had bound them together. As far away as they could from the hot, dry air that cracked your lips and the small rocks and sand that worked their way in to every fold of your clothes, every gap in your shoes, every strand of your hair. They traveled until they hit the cool shadows of the city, until they could rest against the grime covered stones and rotting wood of the worlds rapidly spreading 'Otherworldly Underworld'.
It was here, amid these creatures of legend - the vampires, the werewolves, the demons, the sorcerers - that the two unlikely sisters managed to carve out a niche.
The sisters were close, almost inseparable. The bonds that had forged them were strong, anyone could see that. Though most outsiders, looking in on their lives, often left confused. It was uncertain to the casual observer weather or not the women loved or hated each other.
But underneath all the violence, the girls did love each other, in a strange way. It was an unspoken rule, that although they were not only allowed but encouraged to fight amongst themselves, no outsider was allowed to lay a finger on one or the other of them.
They defended each other against the world, and at the end of a few years, they were even proud to call the other 'sister'.
Kaida was little more than a child when she and Ali made their grand escape, easily falling short of the 18 year mark, though no one knew for certain just what her real age was. But it was not her body that made her a child, for that had certainly seen its share of the world. No, her youth lay in her mentality, in the way she saw the world.
And it was most apparent in just how impressionable she was.
The longer Kaida stayed with Ali, the more the younger began to reflect the older. Like a mirror image of text - similar, and yet so different. Like echoes of each other, they displayed similar skills, traits, habits.
As Ali's aggression rose, so did Kaida's own, though the source of her aggression lay in her temper, where as Ali's came from a deep well of calm, clinical interest at other peoples reactions. When Ali learned to use knives and claws to defend herself against the advances of a dangerous world, Kaida picked up guns and mastered them just as well as her sister had mastered her choice. When Ali came home one day with a whip wrapped around her waist, Kaida went out and bought one as well, learning as her sister learned to manipulate the unruly weapon into something usable.
The irony of a slave mastering a whip, turning it into their choice weapon, was not lost on either girl.
Kaida watched every move Ali made with the same careful eyes of a younger sister, mimicing each gesture and warping it slightly to make it her own.
However, with time, the adoration of a little sister began to fade, and Kaida found her own personality. As her sister drank whiskey, Kaida chugged rum. As Ali read Poe, Kaida collected dime store smut novels.
And when Ali went out into the world, leaving Kaida behind time after time to explore some long forgotten place, or crawl through some far away jungle, Kaida tended the bar.
She drank, and smoked, and stole and laughed away her hurt feelings at Ali's disappearances.
She became the epitome of a Trickster, reveling in chaos and the adventure found in any dingy, crooked city.
Kaida was like an open book. Her backstory, her base personality, was written down now. Unchangeable, un-editable. But there were many blank pages ahead of her, ready to be written on by anyone who would take up the pen...
