<div class="floatright">(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/2/22/Anime_Witch_by_saphire_soul_17.jpg)</div><strong>Rhidna the Wind's Kiss</strong><br/><br/>http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=792611<br/><br/>Rinda is the daughter of Rinaldi—a magewrite carpenter—and his wife Mili.  Her older brother, Donal, is her father's heir and shares his profession.  Her younger sister, Kimimi, is the darling of the family.  Like many middle children, Rinda was almost as ignored as she felt.<br/><br/>Around age 11, she brought home a pretty black cat—little more than a kitten—with sleek black fur and beautiful purple eyes.  Though her parents were sometimes concerned that she seemed to think the cat answered her when she talked to it, they were too pleased to see Rinda happy and occupied to worry.  They were doubly pleased to find she was studying—something?  Whatever it was, she was working hard—at both her private projects and her chores.  She gathered odd herbs, studied rare books,  and nursed wounded animals back to health.  They were a bit more concerned by some of her other projects.  After all, the practice of medicine was often a step away from the practice of alchemy at best!  Still, she managed not to start any major fires.  Tables could be replaced.  And really, the girl was so careful with her reagents, she probably just did it to get attention.  We shouldn't encourage that kind of behavior.<br/><br/>By the age of fifteen, Rinda was quietly in business for herself. She had found a patron in the House of Healing, from whom she acquired reagents and for whom she manufactured healing potions.  She also began acquiring clients for whom she made aphrodisiacs, love potions, medicines, and every other manner of convenient products of magic and alchemy.  Though she reinvested or saved most of her proceeds, she also began buying and making her own clothing.  Given that she had few friends beside her cat, and that her family largely ignored her—even when she caught fire to the dinner table!--and that she found herself suddenly developing an extremely pleasing physique, Rinda took to wearing the most outrageous and revealing fashions she could get away with!<br/><br/>This finally got her parent's attention, but it was a bit late.  Rinda was entirely too frustrated with her family to stay anywhere near them, and the scandalized looks and furious lectures she would have once savored now only angered her.  On her seventeenth birthday, she donned her most outragous outfit, packed a few bags, and walked calmly into the living room.<br/><br/>“I'm a witch,” she announced.  “I don't think anyone noticed.  If you ever miss me, I own my own shop, and I'll be living there from now on.”<br/><br/>Distinctly pleased with their slack jawed expressions, Rinda calmly walked out of the house and never looked back, her cat purring with pride as she followed.<br/><br/>Over the next year, Rinda made a tidy profit offering spell casting services, healing, and alchemy.  By the time she was eighteen, the house of healing was starting to look at her askance for cutting into their profits. It was rather petty, in truth.  The business she took from them was as a drop of water in the ocean, but her patron received orders from higher up to stop doing business with her.  Understanding how the dragonmarked houses worked, he strongly cautioned Rinda against aggravating them.  After some weeks of defiance, the young witch finally decided that her pride wasn't worth the censure she was receiving.  Even if they never sent assassins after her, Rinda knew full well that her magic was still young, and being denied the services of the house could ultimately be just as lethal.  Untreated consumption could kill as surely as an assassin, and take longer to do it!<br/><br/>So she closed the doors to her shop, putting up a sign that in the future she would only work on commission and would soon announce which three hours a week she would be open.  She took a job with the city watch to earn a living, and—though she did continue to supplement her income with her trade—the house of healing was satisfied and lifted their sanctions.<br/>