Notes before you read (maybe):

The Ai Sisterhood is something I made up (obviously) because all of my Guild Wars characters have the last name 'Ai' even though they're so diverse. It was originally to identify me to my guild, but I ran with it. It's a group of women (all my toons are girls) who were originally thrown together trekking through Prophecies, so the story goes, and after the Lich was destroyed, they settled into Lion's Arch making a name for themselves by taking young promising girls in and training them, allowing them to bear the name Ai after they have proven themselves. To fund this venture, they started completing quests and the like for a fee.

There are 10 or 15 'main' Ai's - previous characters I deleted but still liked, and the 10 I currently have. Each of the girls have a backstory, a way they came to join the Ai Sisterhood. Drifter's is probably my favorite, which is why I got enough of it done to post.

I'll probably be writing at least one shots for all of the Ai's at one time or another, but don't expect to see them soon.

Ok, I'm done!

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All great stories contain loss, almost always great loss; the loss of a parent, the loss of a lover, the loss of a friend.

I am ashamed to say that my story contains nothing so great. I am not a poor unfortunate orphan, nor am I blind, deaf or mute and I am certainly not beaten. I am not saved by a knight in shining armor, although he is rather dashing in a roguish way, I suppose. I am a simple girl who started out lowly and didn't much mind. I’m short - Greer laughs because my head doesn't reach his chin - and not a great beauty. Some people strive to attain perfection with their looks, and I’ve met many women prettier than I. I must say that it was a blessing I wasn't a vain creature in that aspect. In my line of work, a beauty is sometime more a curse than a boon. Being too beautiful or too ugly attracts attention, attention not needed unless controlled.

I’m not skilled in much – I positively cannot carry a tune in a leak-proof bucket, a cat can sew better than I, and I make people cry with my cooking. Not in a good way, either. There is one thing I’m good at; I can worm my way into almost anywhere, by any means necessary. I can usually get to my target without being detected and I have a 60 percent success rate with terminating them cleanly and without fuss.

I was once the second in command of the Rahju, one of Cantha’s best kept secrets.

My name is Drifter. Yes, I know – no need to make a face. It’s a terrible name, especially for the heroine of the story. But then, who said I was a heroine? I am, quite frankly, a coward of the highest degree. I make my home in shadows, killing people who have done nothing directly wrong to me. I deal in secrecy, lies and deceit, learned at the knee of my mentor, whose esteem I held above all others. I am an Assassin, and thus I deserve no lauds in my favor, for we are the lowest of the low, bottom feeders that may roll in riches and demand glorification, but whose souls are blacker than pitch.

I was born into the Rahju. My mother was the daughter of the leader; a shy girl, and clumsy, with bright blonde hair and blue eyes. She was an oddity in a nation of chiefly dark haired, dark eyes people. After it became obvious that her hair would stay the shining blonde, she was exempted from training and relegated to homelier pastimes – cooking and sewing, healing and cleaning. She met my father in a whirlwind encounter at the local marketplace. He too was an Assassin, of a small clan out of Luxon territory. Suffice to say, they had one night together and my mother birthed me in disgrace. Not to say that was a bad thing – she had no rank to be stripped of and her child threw true. I was born with dark red hair and grey eyes that made my mother cry with memory of my absent father. It was decided that I would continue on my family’s bloodline as a Rahju Assassin.

I was induced into training at the tender age of 5, little more than a toddler with a bad attitude. I was always so overconfident, and I still am, to a point. I was arrogant, too proud in my blood and the teachers quickly singled me out for special training. Like the other trainees – there were 3 of them, two girls and a boy - I was deconstructed. Everything that had been taught to me beforehand was stripped away and they started over. They aimed to make me the perfect Assassin, but everyone knows little girls can be stubborn, and few are more stubborn than I.

I fought them.

I ran, and when they would find me, I hid. I would find the most unlikely of hiding places and crouch there for hours as the foremost human predators tracked me. I dare say that was what made me what I am. Not their training. No… Rather, it was my fighting. I learned to think on my feet in those 5 years, to anticipate and calculate. They always caught me, of course, but I still learned, whether I realized it or not.

After I turned 10, I was put into more specialized training. The making of poisons, caltrops, and other things were pounded into my head. The others were there as well, and I can remember the burning fury when the boy excelled in poisons, my weak point. I vowed that I would be the top student and studied harder. But, my failing was my failing and no matter how hard I studied there was an instinct to selecting and using poisons that I didn’t possess. I look back on that year of training with nostalgia. After a year of poisons and other accoutrements, we were sent to apprentice with people that seemed to suit our weak points. I was given to a grave old man who gathered information for the clan and I dare say I learned somewhat from him. He was hypnotically unobtrusive, seeming to fade into the back of your notice with little effort, gathering precious tips and rumors like one would catch fragile butterflies. Another skill I didn’t quite pick up.

At 16, I was sent to my first mission and came back a bloody mess, but victorious. It was not one that required stealth and cunning. A man had gone back on his word to one of our biggest clients and our client wanted him in several small pieces in the sea, preferably out far enough to spare the area guards getting involved. I was paired off with the boy from my class, the one who did so well in poisoning. He had apprenticed with a fisherman who was once a part of the clan, now retired and had learned a bit about small fishing boats. It was easy to get onto the boat the man owned, wait until it was far enough out and kill him. It gave me some satisfaction to find out the boy had a queasy stomach at the sight of blood. The Rahju were paid handsomely for our work and we were graduated to other assignments.

By 19, I had completed some 70 missions, and most were done what the Rahju termed ‘successfully’ – that is, terminated the target without bringing attention to the fact it was an intentional death.

When I was 25 years old, 20 years after my training had begun, I was given my most important task yet; gain access to the Imperial Palace and lay the groundwork for the Emperor’s assassination.

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AN: Something that's been clanging in my head for DAYS. It wasn't supposed to be a Guild Wars fic... It was supposed to be some weird AU for the Spirited Away area, but my sin Drifter somehow got twisted up in it and this is what came out. That's how life goes, ne?