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I hope you got your things together.
I hope you are quite prepared to die!
Look's like we're in for nasty weather.
One eye is taken for an eye!
Kalika Ramona Petridis
Born: December 17th, 1994
Taken: April 4th, 2012
Returned: April 4th, 2017
Kalika's mask is that of a girl in her 20s, with dark brown hair that goes a little past her shoulders, and alert green eyes. Her skin has a light olive complexion, and is generally well cared for, despite the occasional bruise. Her clothing usually favors practical over fashionable, and jeans are common.
Her mask doesn't have some of the dramatic alterations that some may have, but are noticeable nonetheless. Around her eyes, dark markings appear, like permanent tribal war paint. Her hair is darker, almost black, and her skin a more pallid tone. Her features in general are a bit sharpened; her nose a bit more upturned, her ears the slightest of points, the edges of her mouth a bit harsher.
 
Kalika's parents took ill when she was very young, and thus was she raised by her grandmother, after whom she was named. Desperate to ensure that the young Kalika had a good life, her grandmother (called "Yaya", a common greek nickname for grandmothers) prayed that she grow up strong and proud, and never want for anything. And so it was; weeks later, Yaya won the local lottery, and she and Kalika were set for the foreseeable future. Yaya knew why this was, for a kindly old woman answered her prayer. The woman seemed to be made of leaves and budding flowers, leaving petals as she walked, and smelling sickly sweet of honey. All Yaya had to do was plant a flower in her backyard, which would grow into a beautiful rosebush. So long as this rosebush was kept healthy, the Petridis family would be cared for.
And so things remained! Kalika's life was wonderful. Her Yaya didn't have to work a single day, always able to keep the house nice and make the most wonderful meals and desserts. Kalika even went to private school through the 8th grade, though eventually pleaded with Yaya to be allowed into public school, where "the kids are more normal". Every now and again, Kalika would come home from school to find rose petals dusting the floor of the house, and Yaya would just say "old auntie Rose came to visit and didn't clean up after herself" with a smile, changing the subject as quickly as possible.
 
One day, after Kalika's 18th birthday, tragedy struck. While away from the home (and the protection of the rosebush), her grandmother was struck by a speeding vehicle. The driver, a young adult who hadn't seen her because he was going too fast, and cried and cried in court, was convicted of a misdemeanor Vehicular Manslaughter and sentenced to serve one year in jail. Rage coursed through Kalika, but there was nothing else to be done. Her grandmother was gone, and she was the only Petridis of her family in the states, the rest back in Greece. She had enough money left after all of the inheritance taxes and funeral bills were accounted for to last for a few months, so she dropped out halfway through her senior year to get a job.
It wasn't a job she'd be at for very long.
While mowing the lawn one breezy Spring afternoon, she spotted the rosebush, full and beautiful, and all of the anger, resentment, and rage that had built up in the months since her Yaya's death focused directly on it. She drove the mower into the bush, pulling it up to mangle the leaves, destroy the flowers. When the twigs and leaves jammed up the mower's motor, she turned it off and began ripping at the base of it, her hands and face bleeding from the thorns. By the evening, she had pulled the bush out by its roots, the dirt stained red with her blood.
She of Thorned Crown and Children Many immediately felt the loss of one of her children on Earth, and came through the Trod that had been connected to the bush and was rapidly dwindling. While Kalika slept at night, She of Thorned Crown and Children Many swept her from her bed, threw her in a gardening sack, and dragged her through just as the trod closed for good. "You tended my child so well for so long, and now, now you kill it! Just when The Ocean King is attacking, just when I need those trods the most! You disgust me, girl!" As they tore through the thorns and deep into the heart of Arcadia, and Thorned Crown's home, she beat the sack, taking her anger out on the girl.
Kalika's punishment was as simple as could be, and quite elegant, if you were to ask She of Thorned Crown and Children Many. "Since you killed something of mine, now you will kill what I direct you to." A short, brutal training process turned Kalika into a warrior, and an assassin, and she was sent against The Ocean King's army of sea monsters and elementals. She was given names and locations of important members of the army, and while the ocean waves crashed up against her keeper's beautiful garden, she'd slip behind enemy lines and take the lives of whoever she was told to kill.
While she performed admirably, eventually she was captured by The Ocean King's forces and tortured for information. She never broke, and was left to rot in her cell. Weeks later, an emergency meeting was called, and all members of The Ocean King's army were to meet. Kalika managed to overhear bits and pieces of the meeting, and learned that the war was coming to an end; Thorned Crown's army had defeated theirs, and they were to retreat. In the process, they left Kalika behind.
She waited.
And waited.
And waited more.
Nobody came for her. Her keeper must not have assumed she survived capture. A long and arduous trek through maze-like islands and quickly drying oceans eventually led her to a familiar sight; endless walls of thorns. She began tearing through them, images of Yaya's home in her mind, and after what felt like months of numbing, painful travel, she emerged, clawing up through root and dirt. She was in her backyard, but it looked ... different somehow. There were new plants, a whole garden, in fact, of what appeared to be vegetables. The old fountain was gone, and in its place patio furniture.
How long had she been gone?
Five years to the day, according to the calendar inside the kitchen; the sliding glass door wasn't locked. It looked like she still lived here. All of the furniture was the same, Yaya's pictures and little angel figures still lined the shelves, and her childhood photographs still adorned the fireplace's mantle. That didn't make any sense. And it made even less sense when she heard someone coming down the stairs, someone who shared her face, but was very different. Beneath the skin, Kalika could see twigs and thorns pushing out. Behind her eyes were rose petals, out of her ears were leaves. She'd heard about these. "Fetches", she'd heard others call them, other's who had been captured, like herself. The keepers left them behind so as not to arouse suspicion. Some of them didn't know what they were.
This one did.
As soon as it saw Kalika, it lept over the railing of the stairs and tackled her to the ground. Kalika was so tired, still bloody and weak from her journey home, but she wouldn't let it end now. After wrestling there for a time, she threw the Fetch off, running into the kitchen. She frantically grabbed for a knife out of the knife block, then ducked out of sight. She was trained for this. She could do it. She knew she could.
The Fetch took one step into the kitchen, carefully, itself now armed with a wrought iron fire poker. Two steps, it looked around, carefully. Three steps, and Kalika dove for it, slashing across its throat, then chest, then arms, once, twice, five times, until the thing lay dead and twitching on the floor. Carefully, calmly, she stood and closed all of the curtains in the house. Then, just as calmly, she walked upstairs, took the first shower she'd taken in five years, then slept on the most comfortable bed in all of creation.
At least her Fetch had the good sense not to get rid of her memory foam.
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