Aphrodisias, half-smiles at Urash, "I'm flesh and blood Acadian, but no I'm no Pict, nor a 'witch.' Well at least, not what passes for a witch out here. It's all a long story and maybe not all that interesting, but I'll tell you what I can."
She sits back in her chair and heaves a sigh, "Koren found me long ago in Commorium when I was little more than a girl. He told me I had a rare gift; the sight. It had always been just some 'trick' I'd used to scrape out a living: tell sailors if their voyage would be beset by storms, the goodwife if her husband was true, if a beloved would return one's affections, and that sort of thing. But then one day, here was this looming, Hyperborean lord ducking his head in my tent and telling me that he could teach me -- help me truly understand. My parents were upset, until he loaded them down with enough Drakes to keep them fat and happy for the rest of their lives. Bought and sold! At first I was terrified, but Koren was kind. Nothing like what you'd expect of the Eld; all those stories about demon-worship and baby-eating and so forth."
She smiles and pauses while deep in thought. "Anyway, he did teach me -- Guided me. In time I even grew to love him too and willingly became his consort. Those were good days, travelling all over the Imperium, always in search of some scrap of esoterica, some bit of lost knowledge. We even went to Kor in Acadia and Kheshatta in Stygia before the war, and all of the nonsense that accompanies such things made it too difficult. But he always seemed draw people to him where ever he went." She puts her finger to her chin and remarks off-handedly, "Kheshatta was where he picked up Djivan you know?"
Aphrodisias snaps out of her reverie and looks around the room with a slightly embarrassed expression, "I'm sorry. I'm rambling aren't I? It's been awhile since I've had anybody to talk to. Not really since Ymae passed on. You asked me who I am and what I am. As much as I loved Koren, in the end I was nothing but a simple pawn to be played in his great game. Tychon, Djivan, Ali too I'd wager? He put something in my head, that made me forget, but also made me believe something false; that I'd die under an assassins blade if I didn't flee, and I had this overwhelming urge to 'go north' like a mantra. I remembered Crannógmere from our travels together and the witch-woman Ymae he'd come to find. She was extremely kind to me and there was that repeating voice in my head saying 'go north.' So I fled Odessos without even really knowing why. Reaching this village was no small trick let me tell you, but I did meet a young Kelt warrior in Garstag and used the sight on him to suss out his trustworthiness. He was a very gallant lad." She smiles as if remembering a pleasing, long-forgotten memory, "Sadly, I had to abandon him at Lurien's Ford and make my way here on my own, under the guise of an itinerant Drune."She looks at Mab pointedly.
"When I finally got to the moors outside the village, Ymae intercepted me as if she had been expecting me. She didn't say a word about it, but she knew somehow I'd come looking for her. That was ten years ago. Before she died two years later, she only said that fate is a funny thing. That a darkness was coming to Crannógmere and that I'd play a part and she was sorry. When I woke the next day I realized that she'd bound me her somehow. Anytime I tried to leave the village I'd get as far as I could, inevitably fall asleep, and find myself awake the next morning in her hut. Six months ago is when I "woke up" and remembered Koren, and his horrid spell and the book I'd been carrying around for all this time without even realizing it."
