Sisters of the Shadows

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Karia was born Elizabeth Peters, the fourth child of the Peters-Shaw bandit clan. Her mother, Katherine “Kitty” Shaw, was the unfortunate daughter of Franklin Shaw and a captive colonial girl named Karah, who was sold by her father to Jebediah Peters, the leader of the Jesup Gang. Jeb was a conflicted man who came from a cruel, sadistic family; on the one hand, he did try to show his own children some affection and leniency when it came to training the boys to lead and fight, and the girls to be obedient. On the other, his affection towards his children teetered into inappropriate territory more often than not. He had no problem turning the other cheek whenever his barbaric younger brother, Clyde, took his perverse aggression out on Kitty or the kids, particularly Lori.

The two main clans in the Jesup Gang–the culmination of all bandits in the eastern continental states–are the Shaws and the Peters.

It is worth noting that the above tables show members of the prominent two families that are directly related to Lizzie’s upbringing; Clyde was Jeb’s second-in-command, taking over to train his nieces and nephews whenever Jeb was busy. The Peters kids only met their Uncle Jermaine once as children, but they will meet again in the future. Mel, Jordy, and Marteese are kept secret from their father’s family and are not raised the same way. Clyde’s first two children did not live past infancy, and his surviving kids have been brought up just like the main Peters clan.

As is the bandit standard, Lizzie’s training primarily revolved around learning how to be obedient to her future husband. (Bandits do not get married or host ceremonies–the men choose their bride, and she becomes his wife after he’s “broken her in.”) She lived with Kitty and her sisters in the family district of Jesup; her brothers had to remain in the men’s district but were allowed to visit their mother whenever they gave birth to a new child. This manipulation tactic was meant to assuage a wife’s postpartum depression while encouraging her to continue having children, as seeing her other children forced her maternal instincts to kick in. After Lizzie was born, Clint convinced his father to let him visit the family district more often in hopes of “enticing Mama to give me more brothers” and “teaching my sisters how to act right.” It was a ploy on the little boy’s part to play a more active role in his siblings’ lives–and, as luck would have it, Kitty’s next delivery gave Jeb a pair of boys, which deluded the clan head into believing that his son’s plan was working.

Clint used his limited time at the family home to train Lizzie and her sisters in combat. Kitty, by this point, had realized what her eldest child was doing, and joined him in manipulating Jeb into training their daughters to fight. Though she loathed to admit it, Jebediah Peters loved her and treated her better than his brother, so she used this knowledge to her advantage. She convinced Jeb that Clyde wanted to steal what was his, resulting in a strained relationship between the clan head and his lieutenant, which subsequently led to Clyde being sent off on missions in Jeb’s stead so as to keep him away from the home. At the same time, Jeb accomplished his own tasks closer to Jesup, making him his family’s primary abuser. Leanne, their sister and Clyde’s wife, had begun giving Clyde children that survived past infancy, which also granted the main Peters clan a reprieve.

Aside from combat training with Clint, learning obedience from her mother and elder sisters, and the unfortunate abuse she was dealt at the hands of her father, Lizzie also learned how to read, write, and perform basic mathematics with the help of her elder brother. Since their time together was limited, he could only teach her the basics of each; it is for this reason that her reading level is so low at the start of Lizzie’s Diary. She was also adaptable, learning far more quickly than her other siblings. Clint tasked her with training their sisters whenever he and the twins were not allowed to visit, which she obliged.

When Lizzie was nine years old–which placed her siblings at ages 14 (Clint), 12 (Maggie), 10 (Lori), 7 (Hank and Tuck), and 6 (Addy)–Lizzie began joining her older siblings in tagging along for raids. Her father would lead the charge as they ambushed travelers, murdered traders for their supplies, and pillaged colonies of their saleable goods, particularly recruits and slaves. The recruits were males ranging from adolescents to young adults who appeared well enough to fight, and they were tortured for days (sometimes weeks) on end until they gave in and joined the bandits. The slaves were women and orphaned children sold to other bandit men for whatever purpose they saw fit; most children were wrenched from their mother’s arms and, if old enough, were treated as recruits or slaves in their own right. Most infants and toddlers were killed on sight, and they were the lucky ones.

Not only did Lizzie have to witness all of these atrocities at a young age, but due to her upbringing and status within the clan as one of Jeb’s kids, she was encouraged to take part. A few raids later, she killed her first victim. After a year, she had wracked up a kill count that was dangerously close to triple digits. Her education took a dive as her combat training increased at the behest of her father, who had come to see her as his favorite child after Clint, his proposed successor. Unfortunately, this also led to more unwanted attention from Jeb; Clint was constantly reminding Lizzie that their father’s toxic affection was not love but in fact abuse, as the groomed child was becoming consumed by Jeb’s darkness.

When Lizzie was eleven, she began to see strange colors emanating from the people around her. The members of their clan always seemed to sport dark, murky colors, particularly red, brown, and black. It wasn’t long after that she noticed Clint’s colors shift to lighter shades, indicating a change in the older teen. A lot was occurring around that time: Jeb, frustrated with being stuck between Kitty and Clyde, became violent towards her and experienced random aggressive outbursts; Maggie was sold to Ford Nichols, a bandit that lived in Jesup, and it wasn’t long after until Lori was sold to Cyrus Cox, a bandit that managed Waycross, a nearby camp. Even worse was Clyde’s newfound fascination with Addy, who was only eight years old.

Life for the tumultuous Peters clan was stagnant for a few years there–Jeb insisted that Clint choose his first bride, but his eldest son always gave an excuse as to why he refused the young girls presented to him–before it was time for Lizzie to be sold to her future husband. Jeb already had a suitor lined up; a young man they recruited more than a decade prior, who had become one of the strongest, most ruthless bandits in the gang. Lizzie had no choice but to accept, and on the night that she was successfully sold to him, her husband revealed that he was actually colluding with Clint. Lizzie did not realize what the man meant until explosions began to rock Jesup, causing a commotion that allowed her husband to sneak her to the outskirts of the city. Clint was waiting there with his pickup truck, and he drove off into the night, taking her from the man who had helped to rescue her. This all occurred when she was fourteen years old, on the night she met Monty. He found her, had her healed by Kris, and offered her a home with him and Mona.

To learn what happened in detail on the night that Lizzie met Monty, read Monty's Memories.

Lizzie was living with the Alagona twins for two months before Monty moved out on his and Mona’s eighteenth birthday; this abrupt change devastated the young teenager, as she had grown attached to both of her guardians. Lizzie would later come to realize that she was not only projecting the pain of being abandoned by Clint onto Monty, but she had also come to see him as more than a friend and roommate. This made his move simultaneously difficult and a relief for the child, as she did not want to deal with another man’s desires for a long time. The two would be reunited years later and enter a romantic relationship.

Right after the two began to date, Lizzie opened a halfway house for the abused and neglected youth of Savannah while studying to become a border scout. She passed her exam and juggled defending her colony and caring for her adopted children, all while enjoying her free time with the love of her life. Five months into the relationship, Monty discovered that Lizzie’s family–specifically Kitty and the kids, save for Clint–had entered their territory, and the former bandit was reunited with her mother and siblings. Tuck had sustained injuries from the journey and passed away before Kris could be summoned, but the rest of the family moved into the halfway house. Kitty began working at the power plant and entered a romantic relationship with Tawni and Benji’s mom, Ainslie; Maggie, Lori, and Hank were all helping out at the halfway house while studying for their scouting exam. Addy was the only one who seemed to have trouble acclimating to her new environment; she grew attached to a few halfway house tenants, particularly Tyler Moss, and the two began dating in secret sometime after she enrolled in the colonial school.

To learn more about the events that took place during Lizzie's final year in Savannah, read Lizzie's Diary.

Towards the tail-end of 2140, Savannah experienced an increase in colonists as refugees from Fayetteville and Washington, two northern colonies that Savannah relied on for trade, sought new homes following a series of bandit raids. Lizzie convinced the Council of Elders to send Monty to meet with the Semes Tribe in hopes of requesting their help, which Chief Dane offered in exchange for land and the assistance of a few angels. The demons he sent to help them were Benji, Tawni, Koji, and Gabby, the tribe’s psychic, and the four moved into the halfway house for the duration of their stay in Savannah. By that point, Lizzie’s elder sisters and younger brother had passed the scout exam and joined her on the front line, eager to protect their new home.

Will the bandits be defeated with the combined efforts of the Iuppiter Court, the Semes Tribe, and the Savannah scouts? Only time will tell as Lizzie’s story plays out in Lizzie’s Diary.

This bio will be updated following the completion of Lizzie’s Diary & Monty’s Memories.

Art by Nadia Syada–show her some love!