Alicia Background

From Ars Magica

Alicia Vach

Manfred The Bear, follower of Bjornaer, thought there was something odd about the young girl he found in the woods. He traced her back to a charcoal burner's hut, but the man and woman there were dead, mauled by the same wounded bear that Manfred had been tracking, it seemed. After dealing with the bear, Manfred returned to Spiritus Draconis bringing the girl with him. His conviction that she was odd was cemented when one night on the trip, a wolf howled and the startled girl leapt for cover, but it was a young doe who reached it.

Manfred took the girl under his wing and began testing her to see if she would make a suitable apprentice, but he determined after a fruitless eighteen months that her innate shapechanging ability was not compatible with Hermetic theory or the Bjornaer heartbeast. In the process however, Manfred's tests cursed the child with <something or other>.

The girl stayed at Covenant, though, having no other family, and proved herself useful in several ways, mostly by wrangling the other children - the magi would sometimes find her setting up "schools" to teach the young children what she had picked up the day before by eavesdropping or sitting in on the classes the actual apprentices were taking. Since this was, in fact, useful to the magi they let her continue on with both practices, and Manfred felt a little responsible for her anyway. Astartia of Tytalus, however, felt the girl's presence was an affront and took every opporuntity to make Alicia's life difficult, if Manfred had not been there to protect her, her life woul d gave been hard indeed.

When Ambrosius and Llewys arrived, Alicia was 11 years old, precocious and already somewhat established as a teacher and minder of the younger children. She took Llewys into her care and the young boy quickly became attached to the girl who was the sister and mother he never had. At first Ambrosius had little time for the girl, being involved as he was with his studies but eventually he and Alicia became friends, bound by affection for Llewys and a natural sympathy.

The year before Ambrosius was to take his gauntlet, Manfred went into the woods and did not return. When the second season passed without word of his fate, Astartia began to heap indignities upon Alica, and without Manfred to protect her the petty tyrannies grew in number and severity. Alicia spent more time with Ambrosius in those sad days, hiding from the wrath and spitefullness of Astartia. She did not leave the Covenant, for she had no place to go, though Ambrosius and Llewys both felt she was working her nerve up for some effort, perhaps an attempt to live in the wild in one or the other of her shape-shifted forms.

Then Ambrosius passed his gauntlet and was contacted by Mnemosyne. When he discussed the maga's offer with Alicia, she saw a way out and begged him to take her with him.

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