Role

Chapter 3

Mikatra, the name she affected from a sound escaping the lips
of a guard whose throat she was busily tearing out, was not
a gentle fela. It could be said that she is devious, cunning,
selfish, arrogant, whimsical, crazy, and plenty more. Still,
she doesn't really care for words of reputation, unless it
benefits her in some way.

There is much myth and legend surrounding the birth of Mikatra.
The night she was born in the jungle, there arose the sound
a screaming banshee, followed by ferocious growling and a
horrid deathcry. The headhunters believe a great demon spirit
had awoken. In actuality, nothing so glamorous happened.
Mikatra's mother had been a fugitive running from the lawmen
of Galadon. It also turned out she was pregnant with a single
kit. As she stumbled in labor pain into the entrance of the
jungle, the darkness of night enveloped her. There, among
the thick vegetation, she gave birth to Mikatra. There were
complications, however, and at the end, they killed her,
leaving a newborn fela to fend for herself.

It's always amazing how life seems to find a way. The fela,
cold and alone, crawled up and tore into her dead mother's
flesh, finding warmth and comfort in the lifeless body. When
she was hungry that first few weeks, before the corpse become
too rotted to eat, Mikatra ate the flesh of her mother. Much
of her youth is a blur, but it was mostly spent learning
to survive, to take what was needed and feed when possible.

Flash forward to maturity. Mikatra has become a strong and
wild fela. While anyone else might have lacked the patience
and skills of observation, she learned to speak from the
cries of the guards she tortured. She noticed that they
seemed to be able to communicate with one another with the
sounds coming from her mouth, and that if she mimicked them
just right, they would be foolish enough to come out of their
keep. From hiding, she would surprise them and quickly tear
their throats out. They tried to put up a resistance, but
their pinkish, soft human flesh was no match for the ferocity
of her claws. So, from their various screams and crying and
the twisting of a claw into a wound, keeping them alive
when she wasn't hungry to let their injuries fester with
disease, she learned to speak, or rather, to mimic. She was
fond of her name, however. She liked to think the guard she
was torturing was trying to say "My god!", and found it
ironic that she would take the place of this god by destroying
the guard and feasting on his flesh.

As time dredged forward, Mikatra expanded the territory of
her hunt well beyond the jungle. She came across towns and
villages and even great cities. So much prey, so little time...