Life is difficult on the excessively violent world of Eshan, where communication is best held in the grip of an iron fist. Hanabea, like many other children born into Echani families on a strictly traditional society, faced immense challenge in mandatory conflict; the journey to being accepted by her peers. Fiercely matriarchal, greater things were expected of girls bloodied within this brutal way of being, and the harsh reality was reflected in the scraped skin and caked blood that frequently rested underneath Hanabea’s nails from those she would come to consider friends and enemies.
The firstborn of the Petipay family had become known to be savage and embrace a brutality in her movements that spoke of cruelty that intimidated her peers. Further, as she would inevitably march towards adulthood, her tongue began to cut harsher than any knife given to her. But the worst was yet to come as for when she matured, that which would sour the reputation of even the most respected of Echani took root; it was revealed that she was force sensitive. Her words already cutting deep with insights beyond even what a choice stance offered, her peers began to replace imminent acceptance with fear. A ‘witch’ they whispered, as those that once called her friend started to think that she could read their thoughts.
The challenges issued became more desperate, and the expectations rose ever higher intent on flying beyond her reach. Most Echani force sensitives were quietly removed, as it was simple to do so, but for Hanabea it was too difficult. Seemingly intentful on not doing more than predicting her opponent’s every move, her talent as a strategist extended far beyond any projection those senior of her years could ever expect. Without the tattletale signs of a force afflicted mad-woman drunk on power, what could they do?
While honor was important to the integrity of those that would lord their prowess over the fledgling Echani warrioress, they began to agree that it was better to assure failure for the one that would ‘dishonorably’ use the force to excel beyond all others in a state they considered unnatural, and it was concluded that it was better to be rid of her before she became a threat to the council of the Echani Command itself, regardless of any lack of intent she had shown to threaten social tradition, nor those that had rightfully fought to where they would serve Eshan best.
Hanabea’s downfall was wrought in a final confrontation; a challenge of wills against an outsider. To the discomfort of all, and in a breach of tradition unlike all others, a force user wielding the dark arts was brought to face against the Echani Warrioress to be. A Sorcerer versus a Witch, all the rules were lifted, and the Sorcerer took to the field with a cruel blade in one hand and terrifying ‘magicks’ in the other. With honor broken, the unprecedented occured; A fully armed Echani took the field, sporting a heavy breastplate shimmering with a personal shield unit.
Expecting a betrayal of the old ways, Hanabea set aside her honor to face a vile foe with a blaster rifle in hand, and a belt filled with packaged stimulants. The onlookers frowned in disdain, but not more than the intense fear directed to the Sorcerer’s vile defilement of reality as he did not even offer a bow before launching a barrage of thunderous lightning upon the Echani Warrioress. Bringing herself to a state of relentless and bloody rage, Hanabea set herself upon the Sorcerer with her rifle in hand, using its superior range to suppress for her approach. Pushed beyond all of her pain and limits with prepared stimulants, the attending crowd watched in horror as the laughing woman applied the stock of her rifle against the Dark Sorcerer’s face, reducing him into nothing and ultimate defeat, robbing him of life in a brutal display of unexpected prowess.
Forced into compliance, her home recognised her capabilities, and for once in her entire history as a Witchling, the elders took to the field in a show of absolute honor. Displaying their fear and intimidation in their experience, Hanabea came to understand that there could never be acceptance for her within her home. Even the greatest among her peers bowed their heads in submission, something that had brought a foul thought within her mind. Her kin were similarly fearful of the Dark Sorcerer’s ‘magicks’, and she could not come to bear the truth that her gift of sensitivity damns her always in the old ways of her people.
Finding solace in assignments off-world under the direction of the Echani Command, she eventually faded into obsurity, holding only the moniker of ‘The Witch’ to those that chose to remember.
Settling into the rough life of the underworld, the Echani Warrioress roamed the galaxy until she finally found herself stranded upon Viscara, the crew of smugglers she had travelled with deciding to take her cut of the last job to run before they too would have their faces collapsed by the angry woman’s indignance.