Born to Orlesian Princess Evangeline and General Lord Vincent Callier , Tallulah always had a penchant for magic. As she grew older, that penchant turned into a talent and before long her parents knew they couldn't hide her anymore. While trying to teach her how to use other weapons, like a crossbow crafted just for her, they tried to teach her to conceal her magic. At the time she was born, mages weren't allowed to live free. They were locked away, and even culled, to keep the normal populace safe from abominations, demons, and the terror mages could inflict upon others. Her family was loved by many people, especially by her aunt Empress Celene. Being the only niece of the Empress involved a lot of attention and pretty dresses. Tali, as her parents nicknamed her, didn't mind, but she had always wanted to be more like her older brothers, fighting with wooden weapons instead of sewing or dancing, as was expected of all girls of nobility. Because of her magic her parents decided to employ a chantry sister to teach her at home, rather than to send her away as a ward. When the Sister's teachings weren't taking up her time, her father would indulge her desire to learn to fight, and asked one of the guards to teach her how to wield a sword. It wasn't easy at first, but after a lot of work, sweat and tears, (Mostly her mother's tears over her daughter's bruises) she finally managed to win a fight against one of her older brothers.
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She was living the life a lot of young girls wanted to live. She had older brothers who protected her, a stable home, a rich family, she was related to the Empress and she was going to marry a rich young man from a noble family. But most of the time she wanted to be normal. She had heard tales of young princesses or even low born girls fighting for their life, honor and family. Of course she didn't want her family to be harmed, but she wanted to be the one who would fight for her family.
Every summer her family and the few servants they had went to their summer residence at Lake Celestine. Because of her mother's high title and relation to the Empress, they had a grand castle on the most desirable plot of land overlooking the lake. Though they shared it with the Empress, the castle belonged to them. There, Tali was forced to wear dresses and pretend to be the perfect lady her parents had wished her to be. She wasn't allowed to use magic, nor was she allowed to spend time with sword fighting. But the older she became, the more she tried to rebel against being forced to act like a proper little lady. While her brothers were allowed to ride horses, play with swords and the war dogs, she was forced to stay inside, read books and learn how to eat without offending anyone. One fateful day, when she was fifteen years old, Tallulah and her family were making their way to their summer residence to spend some time with the Empress. They had been silent for most of the journey, but to cheer their younger sister up, her brothers had decided to sing her the song that their swordsmaster taught them.
"Mockingbird, mockingbird, quiet and still, what do you see from the top of that hill? Can you see up? Can you see down? Can you see the dead things all about town?"
They stopped singing when their carriage came to a sudden halt. Annoyed at the unscheduled stop and the fact that they were already late, Tali's father left the carriage and turned to the driver. He didn't notice the men standing at the rear of the carriage. It was only when he saw the slit throat of the driver that he turned around. He tried to tell his family to run, but only a garbled scream passed his lips before he fell to the floor, a man standing before him with daggers coated in warm, scarlet blood. Tali and her family could hear their father drop to the floor, and her mother held them tightly as they fell deathly silent. It was for not. Just a few seconds later the carriage doors burst open and they were being dragged out of the carriage by their feet. Tali was shaking, her mind racing and her heart pounding as she tried to think of a way to escape. But even her brothers weren't able to free themselves from the grasps of their assailants. They were trained, but didn't put up much of a fight before they were slain as well. When Tallulah turned to her mother, she could see a man standing behind her, glaring at all of them. She stared right into his eyes, before he pulled his dagger across her mother's throat. Tali tried to remember the healing spell the chantry sister taught her. She could save her family if they let her go. But they didn't. Leaving any of the family members alive wasn't an option for them. A knife sank into her chest, as though she were made of little more than creamed butter. The knife felt cold, yet warm at the same time. The pain was numb, mostly because she had already felt the pain of witnessing the murder of her entire family in less than a minute. Tallulah dropped to the floor and felt the soldiers going through her things and looting the corpses of her family. She knew she wouldn't be able to survive, so she closed her eyes, pressing her hand to the stab wound in her chest. She prayed to the maker to help her, and soon heard the soldiers riding off. After a few moments she managed to heal the wound in her chest. She looked to her brothers, crawling painfully over to them, tugging at their arms and fervently trying to heal them. She was too late, they were dead. She screamed out, wrapping her arms around the lifeless bodies of her brothers, before crawling over to her mother's body. There was nothing she could do for them.
Soon after, she heard voices and feared that the men who killed her family were going to come back. She rose to her feet very shakily, soaked in blood and tears, and ran into the woods, her dress tearing apart on thorn bushes and stray branches, leaving her in her riding pants and a dark blouse. Her legs began to bleed, and yet she kept running, trying to desperately put distance between her and the voices. Before long she made her way to a small village, she begged for people to help her, but instead found a boat in the harbor, as the source of her fruition.
