werebeast ❦ zetsumei, chimitsu m.

“Write.”That is what I was told. Write. Under most circumstances, I would have refused this command; for a while, I did. But I have since come to the realization that the advice given me by old men has rarely, if ever led me wrong, and perhaps it is time, anyway. This story is long overdue for a telling, and it would do me some good besides.

I suppose it would only be appropriate to start at the beginning, as much as I hate it. My family—I use the word as loosely as possible—was a long line of infamous Hunters, the sort in which the Council delighted. Elitist, pure, cruel, and passionate in their work, but above all, obedient; the perfect pet. The man that donated his genetic material to form my being—father implies too much paternal care to be even remotely applicable—was a tyrant, and one of the Council’s most favored. He knew how to work the system, weaseling his way up the hierarchy by sharping, robbing, backstabbing (literal, in many cases) and kissing ass. Power hungry and all the Council ideals personified, it’s a wonder he could have married someone like my mother: an angel in the ground by the time I was five years old. My elder brother was just like him. He must have been so proud.

In their happy little flock, I was what you might call a black sheep. I took after my mother, though you would not know it now. Fragile, pale, small, it is no wonder she gave me a name meaning “delicate.” Unlike my brother, she managed to keep me out of my father’s grasp for the first few years—perhaps all I had—of childhood. She coddled me and raised me like I suppose a normal child would have been raised, but it did not last long. At the time, I had no idea as to why she had died other than my father’s word that she had died of an illness with a name I could not pronounce and do not remember. Now…there is nothing I can do, and there is no relief in letting his old hate ferment any more than it has, but I suspect foul play in my mother’s death. Her husband had no love in his heart for anything other than power, and after bearing him such a disappointment and further weakening the child with tenderness, I do not doubt that he would not hesitate to murder his own wife.

Not a full day after the funeral, my training as a Hunter began.

Raised as I was by my mother, and barely big enough to carry the metal staff that sham of a paternal figure thrust at me, you might imagine I would have several issues with killing. I did. Brother did not; in fact, he delighted in holding my head up by my hair and threatening to rip it out if I didn’t watch as he squeezed the life out of whatever hapless creature had been my prey. In a demonstration of the lack of mercy I was supposed to show even the most innocent creatures, should they get in my way or I be ordered to attack, the very weapon I was to wield became the instrument of my punishment when I failed. It became a sort of game among my blood relations: watch the child fail, place bets, take turns beating her until the blood was caked on so thickly no amount of polishing could ever remove it. Injured or not, every day it was the same until my so-called father began to pit me against more vicious animals so that I was forced to fight. Of course, I could not survive in my state, but he would not intervene unless I tried to put up a fight. Even then, I paid for those interventions with blood and flesh by the pound. I began to grow numb.

Gradually, the animals were replaced with humans, or at least things that paraded as them. I have doubts that genetic ode makes you a human or not, nowadays. Often, I was pitted against my brother, and more often than not, I lost. Father liked training me himself, but it was rare, he said, that he could look at me and not feel disgusted. Perhaps that was why he locked me down in the base dungeon of one of the manor’s towers when he grew tired and deemed me, at last, a failure. How many years spent molding that child, beating her, traumatizing her into the perfect “good girl” he had wanted…and all he did was chain me to the wall and bury me like a memory he could forget. He disowned me and, declaring me dead and never to have existed at all, left me there to starve.

I do not know how long I was in that hell hole. Time, among other factors, has stolen the memories from me. Just as well. All that I remember was the dark, the cold, the smell of vomit and blood…I remember the spinning room, the throbbing at the base of my skull and behind my eyes, the cold, blissful relief of nothing…absolute nothingess.

When I awoke, sunlight burned against my eyelids, birdsong splitting my head in two. Heaven, I thought, couldn’t hurt like this, and if such an afterlife existed, I surely did not belong there. The shadow of a man fell over me soon after I awoke, at which point I discovered a gift from y father to match all the bruises and scars: among other things, I had developed an utter hatred for physical contact, so severe as to become a fear, and the male touch was dreaded most of all. It was of little harm, though, that particular shadow. As I found out, my father had seen a passing Hunter and sold me off as a slave, but this man had only taken me away out of sympathy. His name was Shabak, and I later came to know him as a sort of adoptive older brother.

Our journeys together are relatively unimportant in the scheme of things, and admittedly, their impression on my memory is fuzzy at best. More important is what—or where, rather—came next: an island academy for humans and creatures just off the coast of Japan known as Hokkaido Academy. They had some sort of mission to create an environment in which humans and creatures could coexist safely, though they kept human and inhuman students in separate dorms the same as they did students of the opposite sex. I suppose it is worth mentioning that in that time, it was strictly taboo for humans and inhuman students to intermingle. The common belief was that inhuman creatures were, by nature of not being human, subhuman; humans were lead to believe that all creatures, full or half, were dangerous, crude beasts to be feared, and the Hunter Council was there to foster these beliefs and hunt down even the innocents.

Not long before I arrived at the Academy, a war had broken out between humans and creatures—started, many liked to believe, by the very Hunters who were there to keep such a thing from happening. It is important to note that, unlike today, only humans were permitted to be Hunters, and they detested all manner of non-human creatures. At that time in my life, I was not where I am today, in many senses. In the first, I used to be a human, and in the second, I was my father’s child. Shabak had coaxed me into the Hunter profession the way that beast I called father never could, but I lacked much of his compassion and capacity to laze about. When I walked through those Academy gates, I was almost everything a Hunter should have been. Operative word being almost.

There were still the matters of my aversion to the company of the opposite sex and physical contact. Perhaps I was as weak as my father supposed after all. My first day at the Academy, I met a young man named Abel Dawnlan—persistent little half-breed. I was on the beach, and needless to say, very displeased to meet him, and promptly enshrouded myself in a barrier of stone (back then, I held control only over the ground upon which I walked). Whatever he did, he managed his way into my hiding place and damn near terrified me in such close quarters. I could not get him to leave, and I was too tired myself to go anywhere.

Somehow, I managed to fall asleep, but when I awoke to find him there, I left as quickly as I could. Hardly paying attention to where I was walking, I found myself in the teashop of yet another half-breed—they were all over the damned place—where he sat having tea with a vampire. These men, though I didn’t know it just then, would eventually become two of the most important men that I have ever known. Kuro Tadashi was the halfbreed’s name, and Mael de Lioncourt the vampire’s. They took it upon themselves to befriend me, despite the pending war and my obvious aversion to males and creatures, and to help me overcome these fears. I didn’t like them. The vampire possessed what I later came to know as telepathy, as well as a mixture of telekinesis; he had a mind strong enough to affect the minds of others and even the very reality in which he existed. His plan was to reach into my mind and suppress the memories that had traumatized me in the first place. To this day he is the first and only creature I have ever permitted to see those memories first hand—to enter into my mind at all.

His methods worked, and I suppose that was the start of it all. I became entangled in a relationship with Abel and sat passively on the sidelines as both creatures and hunters battled it out on the streets of the Academy. Perhaps sitting on the rooftops was a more accurate description. I used to sit up there with Abel for hours on hours, just watching and feeling content for the first time in a long while. He made me happy, and even became personally involved in my family problems when they came back to haunt me, just to continue doing so. I regret hurting him like I did.

My unwillingness to fight or even work as a hunter, now that Mael had helped me to overcome my paternal issues, did not sit well with many on the Council. I was approached by one of the lead hunters at the Academy, Sakurai, a few times with warnings and beratings against my behavior to that point; all of which I ignored. Becoming a blacklist seemed my destiny from that point on, as I was to repeat the process several times over. She attacked me once, badly—another point I was doomed to revisit just as many times—and I nearly died. Had it not been for a werewolf by the name of Drina Rinma, I would have. She turned me, much to my chagrin, though now I love my lupine self as much as the rest of me. I was stronger, faster, a better tracker, a better warrior. A number of deaths resulted, when I could not control myself, but in time, it became easier, just as it became even easier for the Hunters on campus to hate me now that I was no longer human.

The war was a bloody one—Mael had even lost the love of his life, he told me, before I had arrived—but it was over soon. Many things happened that I would rather not recount any longer. Things I am ashamed of doing, ashamed of letting happen. Suffice to say that no sooner had that ended than more trouble began. My head still aches at these memories, as does my heart. The atrocities that came before could hardly be compared to a child’s pillow fight held up to what happened next.

A Necromancer visited the Academy with plans, as all villains have, of placing the area under his control and instating a new order. He worked with a combination of insects and undead slaves, warping the souls from inside out through blood pats and other means. I can still feel the insects crawling beneath my skin and devouring my flesh. Perhaps it is some cruel joke of the afterlife I was cursed with that I remember these memories most of all. Compensation, perhaps, for losing everything before. I was the first of the necromancer’s chosen pets. There were three of us, and each of us lost something precious. For me, I lost half of my face and all of the memories before the moment at which I became his lapdog. Mael was the next. I do not know what happened to him, only that he lost his heart and his compassion. A mutual friend of ours was also taken in, his arm stolen from him. I hear that it still troubles him from time to time.

We were his elite, the core of his army. Our minds, our bodies, our very souls were warped to do his bidding. I am not proud to say it, but the things that I did, I enjoyed them. I killed, human and non-human, innocent and guilty, with pleasure and relished the taste of flesh as I devoured them. Perhaps a dozen fell to me alone, never mind those that my comrades sent on their way to Hades gate. There were some who joined the necromancer of their own free will—my Abel being one of them. I did not know him, though, nor did I want to in that state. I did, however, come to know Mael, and rather intimately so. Whatever had happened to his heart had not affected the rest of him, and some part of him wanted me; some part of me, in turn, wanted him just as badly. It was with Mael that I eventually conceded to die, for the sake of the Academy.

Over time as the Necromancer’s hold began to weaken, his powers deteriorating with his state of mind, the three of us in his elite core began to regain a sense of our former selves. I was the least troubled by the doing, still without my memories of who these former selves were and what they meant, but for Mael…even then, I would do anything for him. We planned to go out, regardless of the Necromancer’s reign coming to an end, to atone for our sins and to tip the odds ever more in favor of the remaining students. It was not without a fight that we went, however. We sought out the strongest adversaries we could: Sakurai, her brother Kukai, and two others who joined in—Kenoo Noki and Daryan Crescend. Four hunters and the two of us. It was a good fight, and my scars ache at the remembrance. I still bear the mark of the killing blow across my collarbone, nearly cleaving my head from my shoulder. That was the first of many deaths for me, and for Mael.

I awoke in what I believe was the dimension many humans would call Hell. Not quite the fire and brimstone of all the nightmares, but the heat was stifling and my throat burned with thirst. I was lying beneath a tree with ash-black bark and leaves of the deepest wine red, surrounded  by a field of dry, golden grass. Not long after awaking, I was approached by a pair of demons, a male and a female of polar opposite appearances that went by the joint name of Liege. They were alike in only three aspects: their tall, lithe forms; their sickly sweet, deceptive simpers; and their ever-changing eyes. After confirming where it was, exactly, that I had found myself, they let it be known that I had indeed lost my soul in my encounter with Hokkaido’s Necromancer—moreover that my soul was now in their possession. I had never taken lightly to being controlled, and I demanded my soul.

Even now, I am not sure that I understand the deal that I made with them in order to win back my soul. They promised to return me to life and, in time, possession of my soul. In return, I would give up the memories of my life before death and serve them dutifully, should they call upon me, until the day that my soul was returned or I should find myself dead once more. It took me many years to even begin to remember myself, and sometimes the memories are still muddled and fuzzy. There is only so much a mind can do to regain what it has lost twofold.

Their resurrection left me at Hokkaido’s gates once more, some few years after my passing. I could hardly remember how to transform between my human form and what was now some sort of demon hound rather than a wolf, and I was hopelessly lost. I found myself in the care of one Alexandre Lionheart, whom I later learned was Mael’s own godson, and son of the original werewolf, Roman Crosse. Crosse and Mael were two ancient friends, and Roman had been of the greatest help to me when I was transitioning into life as a lycan. At the time when I met Alex, he was human and without his sight, but he was patient with my debilitating innocence and often soothed my frequent headaches through the same method as his godfather.

I do not remember who, or why, but perhaps for the same reason as myself, Alex was turned into a werewolf. Though his father was a werewolf, his mother was not, and the clash of their races cancelled out and left him just a human. With the return of at least half of his rightful heritage came his sight, but also a greater power. Like all newborns, he couldn’t control himself. Together we left the Academy with plans to work together on controlling our other halves. His father possessed the ability to travel to different dimensions and universes with the greatest of ease, and even send others by the same power. He sent us to an alternate dimension for ‘rest, relaxation, and rehabilitation,’ as he said. My time with Alex was, as with all my relationships, wonderful in so far as it lasted, but short. I had a need to learn more about who I was before I had met him, a desire which pulled me incessantly towards the Hunter Council. He, of course, did not want me to go, but I had to. I contacted his father—who, for his part, would tell me nothing of my past—and requested that he send me back to the world from which I came so that I could pursue my memories. Alexandre and I parted ways, and it is only recently that I have seen him again.

By this time, so much time had passed that even the rigid Council had begun to renege on its rules. Hokkaido Academy had been a sort of testing zone for a few radical members, but following the Hunter – Creature war in which I took part, their studies began to gain more credibility. Eager creatures could become Hunters if they so truly desired as the Council began to lean more towards policing the world (still with an iron fist); many of them filtered into divisions that hunted only specific species groups. I am sure that when I approached with my request to join their ranks that there were none left who remembered me, or my family, though I felt eyes on me at all times in such a way that my hackles were all but permanently raised.

Perhaps some part of me was destined to be a Hunter after all. I rose through the ranks quickly in their new order and garnered a number of medals for my work. Under their watchful eyes, I received my latest weapon and underwent training as a swordswoman as well as staff handler. I trained with many weapons while they were within my grasp, both as tests of my capabilities and out of sheer boredom, now leaving me with the ability to wield most any type of weapon that does not require special training. Immortality leaves you a long time to play around with your options. Something about the staff felt right, however, and I continued with Jisatsu as my primary weapon.

For years on end, I stayed with the Hunters, carrying through my days with a sort of bleak apathy. New Hunters, like they presumed I was, were passed through a series of basic training regimens designed to filter recruits into the divisions best suited for them, though some stayed floaters even after that. The Tracking Division snapped me up as soon as possible once they found that not only was I a werebeast with natural tracking senses, but I also had the rare ability of true Pathfinding. I rose through the ranks quickly and found myself as a top-ranking Captain within a matter of years. Many immortals did the same, given their degree of durability and longevity compared to the other Hunters, and I found myself bumping shoulders with many such as one Lyonus Hawkeye frequently. I suppose that if I had stayed, I would have found myself at the top of it all one day, but watching the Organization crumble and decay from within, I had no interest in climbing a leaning tower of cards.

I stayed and observed the corruption corroding the Council every day and felt again that burning in the back of my throat that hinted at some piece of my past. As bits and pieces of my memories began to return and the oh so pleasant Organization breathed its rank breath down my neck, I grew tired of their sick little games and left. It was easy, too, and quite amusing. I was in the middle of training a few recruits when, as I watched them  scrap it out (quite poorly I’ll say), I simply stood from my seat and walked out. The other captains asked what I was doing, and I told them: I was leaving. Simple as that.

Life as a blacklist was interesting; avoiding the Council was like playing a game of cat and mouse. I amused myself for a few years by letting them tail me, then I disappeared. They could not find me if I didn’t want them to, and at that time, I didn’t want them to. Of course, tease the wolf and you get the fangs. What found me next was much worse, to some extent. His name was Ranger Seriogin Balakirev, and what happened next was a one-night stand that lasted three months too long.

It was somewhere in a little bar in Russia, our first meeting. I had been working as a bounty hunter and mercenary, doing odd jobs for kicks as my memories came back piece by piece. To make a long and painful story short, we ended up in bed that night, and the next night, and the next night, and so on. He was a bounty hunter too, or so he told me, and after taking on one job together, we continued to do the same. It was like a drug, sometimes—one taste, and then we wanted more. I’m not proud to admit it, but he convinced me that he loved me in those three months, or that he at least wanted to make something more out of our relationship than killing and fucking. “We could run away,” he told me, “run away and end this all.” And I believed him; fell for it hook, line, and sinker. To this day, I couldn’t tell you why, or what possessed me to meet him that night when every part of me was telling me not to, but I did and I’ll regret it until the day I die and stay dead (third time’s the charm, they say).

You see, there was one thing about Ranger I did not find out until it was too late. Of all the things that he lied about, Ranger did tell me the truth at least once: he was a bounty hunter, but, as he neglected to tell me, he worked for the Hunter Council, and I was his mark. He had been hired to bring me in, and what better way to do so than to bind someone with emotions? I hope the pay was worth it, because if I ever see his face again I’m going to rip it off his body. Ah…but now I stray from the story. I’m beginning to feel better; perhaps there is something to this writing thing after all.

The Hunters who so gratefully took charge of me pending Ranger’s departure escorted me off to the highest security prison they had—reserved for the traitors and the most dangerous of criminals. In all honesty, it was an entire prison full of death row inmates. I had to laugh when they threw me in my cell, arms bound behind my back and legs shackled after they branded me with their barcode. It was just like my childhood, and as I lay on the floor for days on end staring at the ceiling dripping its fetid water down, memories I would rather forget would come flitting back, gnawing at my conscience like mice. Maybe it was their locking me up that did it, and if so I have to thank the Council, but for however many days I spent alone with nothing to do but think, I regained just as many memories until I sat seething beneath their feet with all of the lives I had lived—and destroyed—returned to me.

I broke out the day of my pending execution, working on their (shoddy) bindings the whole of the night to weaken them. When my guards came to collect the bedraggled captain, they met instead with a massive hellhound that could hardly fit its shoulders below the ceiling. It seemed that my trip to hell and return as a servant of the Devil had done more than strip me of my soul; Leige did tell me that a soul was exchange for a great power. Despite my large size, I made my exit rather easily, crashing through the stones. Of course, I could have escaped at night, and I could have done so less dramatically, but there was no fun in that. I wanted them to know that I had escaped them again, to let them know that even their best couldn’t hold me.

However, I was growing tired of the world by that time. Days after my adrenaline had cooled and I sat watching the sunset in Greece from the domed roof of a church, I found that there was very little that I had not already seen. Even with my memories, my age escaped me, but I had seen the rise and fall of many empires, and the school that I once called home lay in ruins. I suppose that I had hit that point in every immortal’s life where you literally have been there, done that, a thousand times. I was bored with eluding the Council—too easy a task—and I was growing bored with living. Maybe, I thought to myself, it would have been better if I had let the execution take place.

I determined, then, that after one last vacation I would not run any more. I did not bother to cover my tracks as I made my way back to where it all began, for me. Hokkaido Academy seemed to have died out following the Necromancer’s attacks on its citizens, and it was nigh a ghost town when I returned, just another ghost passing through. The Necropolis still stood at the edge of town, throwing its decaying shadow down over the decrepit buildings, and all was silent as I entered. That night seemed a night for reminiscing, as I found an old friend there with the same idea that I had had: to return to our darkest moments. We sat and talked for a while, and soon another two familiar signatures approached. Mael entered with the Huntress Sakurai on his arm; it seemed that I was not the only one who had been given a second chance.  

He told me that he had been a cofounder of the Hunter Council in his youth—there is a reason why I call him an old man—and that he had regained his title as Council President some five years prior. I wanted to ask him why he had not called off the manhunt sooner than now, but logical questions like that have no place when it comes to the Council’s doings and I let it lie. What I did ask, however, was if he had come for me. If there was anyone I could not run from, anyone who could be the death of me for once and for all, it was Mael. Truthfully, I would have been happy to have him take my life. He did not answer me, however, but in the course of our talking he continued to mention a plan. World-weary as I was, and so entrenched in friendship with this man—to his day I feel he is the only true friend I had, though there are acquaintances that have grown on me—when he asked if I would trust him, I did. Of course, you would think by now that I would have learned not to trust even those I hold most dear. He had his Huntress run me through with her sword.

Yes, yes, I’m being somewhat dramatic. I had been sitting there, waiting for someone from the Council to kill me and get the damned job over with, and Mael was right—the life I was living was really no life at all. Why am I complaining? Maybe it’s just that I didn’t like that Huntress mate of his.

Regardless, whatever she had done to her blade, this was no ordinary death. A sudden, cold numbness spread to every limb and muscle in my body, and for the briefest of moments I was back in the stone cavern with the tree. Alexandre was there too, I thought, but before I could catch a glimpse I was shocked back into my body and the world of the living, a heavy pain in my chest. Realizing what had happened, I barked out a weak laugh just in time to be stolen away to another world, hidden from all others. In killing me, Mael had broken the deal with Liege. His godson, with his affinity for spiritual work, had gone into hell to retrieve my soul, and Roman had stolen me away to the dimension where they had all been hiding.

Roman explained it all to me in detail when I awoke, and Mael joined us there a few days later. I was flattered, really. The old man had said he was building a platoon of elite hunters he called the Reaper Division (Hunter-Hunters, he also liked to say), and he had seen fight to invite me to join their ranks. I conceded to keep my covert Hunter status as a personal Tracker for Mael and Mael alone; I have not given it up, even to this day. Sakurai had returned to the Council with word of my death (it wasn’t a lie, really), and so far as they are concerned I have been dead for some time now. How long, I couldn’t say. The dimension to which Roman transported me had the distinct effect of time alteration that differed depending on the person leaving and entering, so there was no standard by which to judge my own experiences.

I stayed at the Reaper base, training with the others and running missions for Mael until the day that Mael disappeared. At first, no one thought anything of it. He took off on his own quite often, and I was more than happy to let him go, understanding the need to do so myself. Time stretched on, however, and still he did not return. Eventually, Roman approached me with the request to locate our friend and see what had kept him. I did so, and he sent me to the world where Mael had found himself—this one, to be exact. It seemed that our wise old friend had connections everywhere, even here, where he was a king, albeit a melancholy one. His mental and emotional state were deteriorating quickly, but it was good to see my old friend again.

He passed his kingdom on to me, much to my surprise, and so here I sit writing, below the castle that is now mine. While Mael went off to find his happily ever after with the little angel he had lost at the Academy so long ago, I stayed to rule his forest. On this planet I found many old friends and a few new ones, by proxy of the old. I learned new tricks, as well, picking up two new elements and learning to play with an ‘upgraded’ version of my first: the very forest over which I ruled. I even found relationships I could stomach, here.

This one’s name was Lucifer, a vampire from the Vatican. Apparently this planet had a habit of picking up creatures from different time periods and planets by wormhole or other means and dropping them here; even the Hunters had a base. When I first met Lucifer, we tried to kill each other. I was entranced by his power and his capacity for dominance, and to be quite honest, I was lonely. Though I should have know better, I let myself have a one night stand with the man; or, at least, what I thought was a one night stand. Really, I ought to have known better, and even now I sigh at the thought. At least I do not regret this one. I was happy with Lucifer—I honestly was. He was kind, he knew how to treat me, and I enjoyed his company.

There was only one other whose company I enjoyed as much—more so—than his.


It still pains me to think of him. My instructions were to write about the things that cause me pain, so I suppose I should stop to pay this attention, though I doubt anything will come of it. In the course of my stay on this planet, Mael has died, for good. There will be no resurrection this time. I heard that he went out happily, with his angel, but his death has hit me terribly hard and I can hardly stand to think about him anymore for all the pain that it causes me. He was the dearest friend that I had, the closest thing to a father, and the most loyal lover. Even years after his death, I will admit that I have not escaped the memory; he haunts me, in more ways than one, and as I watch the boy run around the castle with my daughter, my heart aches.

Ah. Yes. I’m getting ahead of myself. I believe Mael’s death to be attributed to a certain pirate who visited our planet bent on relieving it of some precious resource. I fought in the battle against he and his hoard, and of course, the planet still stands, so there is no need to talk of our victory. I was left in charge of something precious Mael left behind, and not long after I received my own something precious to take care of: a daughter by the name of Persephone. She has Lucifer’s eyes but bears my species, and she is the most wonderful thing I could have asked for these past sixteen years.

Her father left us before she was born. I have caught word that he was intending on using me as a diversion for a past that had come back to haunt him, but his conscience must have caught up to him upon the knowledge that I was pregnant. I knew that he was going to leave the night he came into my room, kissed my forehead, kissed my stomach, and told me he was going for a walk. He never came back, and though at first I was heartbroken, I have since steeled my nerves against the sting of betrayal. Persephone, darling, if you ever read this—you are in a mound of trouble, first of all—and secondly, don’t fall in love; it hurts too much.

I suppose that is the end of it, then. Time and ink have caught up to me, and the journal is full. A good thing, too. I am tired of writing. I suppose now it is time to begin living again.

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Following the pirate invasion, Chimitsu, as did many Reapers, took up Mael’s mission of rooting out the corruption in Hunter Nests in a variety of continents, worlds, and dimensions. Most importantly, she began the reformation of the Nest located on this planet, altering its structure into that of a Guild and performing many new alterations in the process. Rumor has it that prior to leaving, this stoic soloist just might have found a man she can keep…