All was well for Marta Maisal's childhood, until a dark secret came to bloom when she was thirteen years old.

Adolescence for any girl is a time of great change, but the changes Marta underwent she felt to be...unnatural, and deeply was she frightened. First it happened to her fingers, which day by day grew until within a month's time they were double their original length. As her fingers were growing, so too did her tailbone grow...and grow and grow until it was no longer a human tailbone but an insectoid tail entirely of its own. Slowly could she feel the change in her back, as soft, smooth flesh became more rigid, and the texture became alien. At last she woke up to a new terror, antennae poking out of her forehead, and such was her scream of fright—for no longer had she the wherewithal to handle it, this the final straw—that her mother Varia came rushing into her room.

Marta had hidden these changes for a long time, but now Varia saw them all in full. But she was not fearful. No, her visage was one of pure empathy and expectation; she knew this day would come. And then, calmly, she sat Marta down and explained: Marta was not human, she was Letai, for Varia had been taken by a Blutjäger Letai and thereby was Marta conceived. But upon her rescue, Varia could not bear the thought of killing the child inside her, and so resolved to carry her daughter to term. Varia held Marta in a tight embrace, tearfully proclaiming that no force on Arethil could ever tarnish her love.

But she then urged Marta to be strong, for before them lay a great struggle.


Clan Maisal commanded immense influence in Gild, being the first clan of Beyars and as well their very name being bestowed of great religious significance, but even so Marta worried. She was a good girl, a faithful Jurist, but she knew how the religion, how her fellow Gildans, felt about shapeshifters—which Letai are.

Varia took Marta to the Temple of the Everburning Flame, and called upon a high priest to enroll her into the ranks of the Penitent. News of this, that a daughter of Clan Maisal was a Letai, a shapeshifter (some even called her a Jin), spread quickly all throughout Gild, and much clamor from thronging crowds was made in the Forum. Great was the division and many were the divides, every Noble or Beyar or Insan seeming to have their own discrete view of the matter. Mercy was suggested, Penitence was suggested, exile was suggested, execution was suggested. Praetors and levied troops eventually had to impose martial order on the increasingly unruly crowds. Still, time was running out for the deliberations of the Church's priesthood.

Then, as if Regel himself endeavored to set all to rights, Marta discovered her anti-magic powers, and thus were they proven by Instructors of the War College. The Church, embroiled in this delicate theological matter, could at last breathe a sigh of relief; for if Marta displayed anti-magic power, then she therefore had been chosen by Regel, in his goodness and in his mercy, and it was his will that she become a Praetor. She had been given the chance to redeem herself of her blasphemous blood by the god of Jura himself.

So the decision was made: Marta, when she came of age, was to enroll into the War College and be made a Praetor. This, however, did not absolve her of the responsibility to not blaspheme by entering her Letai Shifted form. Regel had given her the chance for greatness and virtue, but she herself could potentially squander it if she were not careful.

Marta eagerly accepted the decision of the Church, and threw herself with unparalleled enthusiasm, vigor, and zealotry into her Praetor training. She even engaged in theological studies after her Holy Accolade, becoming an ordained priestess of Jura herself.

To this day, she believes with all her heart in the truth of Jura and the divinity of Regel. And she is especially concerned with the fates of fellow Letai, believing that they, too, can be saved.

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