Snake Charm
Born of an Indian mother and a skyrish (Scottish/Irish) father, Amber lived a comfortable life in India from the day she was born till the day she was forced out. But growing up comfortably doesn't mean growing up 'normally'. Amber was a serpent therianthrope, more specifically she was a King Cobra shape shifter. Her species was quite rare, although the fact she was a serpent was not, and her life was markedly different for it. Had she been born a simple venomous or constrictor snake she might have avoided the disaster that shattered her world at the age of eighteen.
Unlike their Western or European counterparts, the serpent shifters did not have 'packs' that they lived in. Nor did they live in herds or colonies, rather they lived in an area, aware of each other but distant. No one person or group had power over the others in any major sense. No one ruled with iron will, dictated how life should be lived, or enforced any special rules upon the groups. Everyone knew the risks and kept to themselves, apart from humanity but living near or within the civilization. Most hid within plain sight, taking upon themselves the role of spiritualists and doctors.
In this way they lived peacefully, using their gifts to remain hidden and survive in the society that had forgotten about them, placing their history into legend and myth. But as with all things, time had a way of taking apart such carefully constructed utopias and grinding them to dust. As the world became a bigger place and other cultures, mainly Western and European, started to immigrate into the Asian lands, change came with it.
Well organized and destructive groups known as Lycanthropes entered into the lands and began to demand order or obedience from the natives. They wished to enforce rules and control onto the serpents. Forcing them to live in close nit communities that allowed little to no freedom, rigidly controlled. And they succeeded.
Weakened by years of peace and harmony, the serpents were unable to withstand the advances of the well organized, practiced, and ruthless wolves. Any rebellion or questioning of authority was immediately put down with extreme violence and prejudice. And so the serpents' utopia was destroyed by the Western and European culture, forced into a servitude that modeled them after the wolves in all their arrogance. But as with all arrogant cultures, mistakes happened and retaliation was swift.
Forced to return to their old ways, the serpents became cunning and swift, subtle and silent as venom coursing through the veins. Forced to model themselves after the cruel brutality of the wolves, they learned to kill without remorse, revoking their peaceful ways. With masterful knowledge of medicine and poison, as well as anatomy, the serpents began to spread dissent, rumors, poison, and death through the ranks of the wolves. By the time it was noticed, it was too late, and the serpents once again ruled their own lands. The leaders of the rebellion were the King Cobras, cunning and regal, they unified the serpents and stood proudly before the now wary wolves with distain.
Cloaking themselves in arrogance, distain, and cruelty, they were able to negotiate with the wolves and other shifters of the world. Through threats and manipulation the new power of the Asian Serpent Alliance grew and spread. But this was not a cause for celebration, but a sign of how things were to continue changing. For one cannot use something without also becoming corrupted by it as well. The cloaks they wore to spread fear among the mammals soon became a real part of their personality. The serpents did not return to their peaceful and kind ways, but continued to amass power and information networks around the world. As the years went on less and less of the old ways were remembered and the new ways were accepted as the only ways.
Because of this, the serpents now live in rigid class systems that made them stronger, but also colder. Cobras ruled the upper echelon while other serpents took their place in the hierarchy by power. Most of the more venomous serpents rule the upper classes while the constrictors hold lesser positions that are more public. But not everyone accepted the new ways, some small colonies remained outside of civilization and enjoyed the peace once known by all the serpent shifters.
It was from one of these colonies that Amber was born into. One of the few King Cobra families that had not taken a position of power and authority. But like much of history, time forced things to be repeated by those who would not learn. A small but powerful group of Saw-Scaled Vipers saw the peaceful ways of the colony as a means to an end. Due to the non-violent ways of the cobra colony, the Saw-Scaled Vipers thought they could subdue them and force an interbreeding. If they could inject a King Cobra shifter gene into their family, they could easily raise their status up!
However this was not the case, and also the end of the repetition of history, for the colony. The cobras fought back, desperately seeking to avoid the fate they saw their species sinking into. If they let themselves be forced into the society of snake shifters, then they would become no better than the Wolves who had once subjugated them! So they hatched a desperate plan to preserve their way of life. It was obviously impossible to remain within the new Serpent Kingdom and live out a free life, but there was one place in the world they could hide. One place their enemies would never think to look for them.
The West, land of their sworn enemies and the entire cause of all their problems. Now this might seem like a farfetched plan, as putting themselves from the frying pan into the fire wasn't really 'escaping'. But there was one variable that gave them hope, the Americas. Home to the new order of Wolves and a mixing pot of cultures, it was the perfect place to hide without fear of standing out. It also had a much more tolerant breed of shifters, created by the strange mentality of the nation, that made it perfect for their people to get lost in the crowd and return to their peaceful ways of life.
But this was not to be, for the Saw-Scaled Vipers learned of their plans and took steps to intervene. Passports were compromised, information lost, and doors closed at every turn and any non-native non-king cobra shifter in the clan was deported on false charges. In a final act of pure desperation, using the last of their money, they smuggled out six of their youths to the Americas. Amber was one of these children. Her only gift on the day of her eighteenth birthday was a blanket and rations to help her survive the journey in a crate to the American continent.
But something had gone wrong and Amber's crate had been separated from the others! As she snuck of the ship in a growing panic, she found herself in a cold place with no friends, no family, no money, food or passport. She had only the clothes and blankets upon her back to survive. After a few hours of wandering in a daze, she began to feel the normal sluggish sensation of the cold affecting her. Looking around she found only one place that looked like it would welcome someone into it's warm depths. A bar with the name "The Nest" and a sign showing a birds nest with a snake and hawk laying together inside it.
Entering the bar, for it was quickly recognizable as such, she sought to soak up as much heat as possible. Moving to the bar, she snuggled down in the press of bodies and shivered, wrapped in her blanket. As the night wore on she sifted through the memories where her father had told her stories about his wild days of drinking in the pubs back in Scotland. Looking around she recognized some similarities, but ultimately found this place to be very different.
The small bar ran a naval theme with ship steering wheels, anchors, ropes, and even paintings of ships at sea. It could hold a hundred to two hundred people at most and smelled strongly of alcohol and the sea itself. However the pungent and acrid smell of vomit was distinctly missing from the bar, or even from directly outside of the bar. The patrons themselves added a feel of comfort to the place, for they were not drinking wildly or acting rowdy. They were sailors, dock workers, lost tourists, and locals alike that came to meet up with friends or spend a pay check on good drinks.
After a time a male ordered her a drink and split his meal with her. Touched by his kindness, Amber spent the rest of the night chatting with him until they were kicked out at closing time. At this point they split ways, mostly because she needed to go get some rest, and so began her life in America. Unable to find a place to sleep for the night, she returned to the Bar and slipped into the alley next to it. It was dirty and smelly, but it was out of the wind and close to the warmth that the Bar would provide the next day. She spent a little time to clean it up enough that she wasn't sleeping in trash, and wrapped up in her blanket to sleep.
And so it went for the next four months, sleeping in the alley, slipping into the bar the second it opened and going to the bathroom so she could wash her skin with soap, clean water, and dry off with towels. Then she would linger around the bar to stay warm while hoping for the kindness of others. And ultimately she survived this way off of the strange behavior of the bar goers. Men, and sometimes women, would often buy her a drink or meal and talk with her. She never understood why but she never questioned it. After a while she had memorized ever drink in the bar, how it was made and what went in it.
This was thanks to her serpentine gift with her tongue and her father's love of the drink. Since he couldn't get drunk, her father spent much of his time enjoying the flavor of various drinks and sharing stories about them with his daughter. As such she had quite an extensive knowledge of alcohols. Eventually it became known in the bar that she was able to recognize any drink no matter what! Which led to her inadvertently scamming many people with a game they proposed.
Blindfolded, she would sit at the bar and be given a drink. If she could name the drink, what was in it, and how much of each ingredient was in the drink, they paid for the drink. It wasn't the best life, as living in the alley was quite unpleasant, but she made it work. And any time someone came snooping around and tried to make her leave, she used her serpent's hypnosis to implant a suggestion that she wasn't there anymore and that they wanted to leave. For the most part this worked very well, except for one person.
One female, by the name of Karisa, only seemed half affected by her hypnotic suggestion! She would later find out it was because the female was wearing contact lenses, but until then it was the most frustrating thing ever! Karisa worked at the bar inside and always took too much of an interest, which ultimately turned out to be Amber's salvation. For as the months dragged on and the days got colder, she began to start freezing, which made her enter a death like state of comatose hibernation.
It was Karisa that found her after she didn't come in one day, sleeping. Thinking her dead, Karisa rushed over to check for a pulse, already starting to dial 911. As Karisa did all the things explained to her by the operator, her body heat began to wake Amber up. As Amber groggily woke up, Karisa peppered her with questions, to which Amber could only answer, "To cold...sleepy..."
Shaking her head Karisa took Amber inside and made up a story about her being mugged and left to die. Taking Amber to the employee back room, she helped warm her up and told her that she would be staying with Karisa from there on out. She even managed to convince the boss that they should hire Amber as a tender! When it became apparent Amber didn't have a degree for it, they lent her a laptop and signed her up for a class, giving her a loan to get started.
Two months later she had a home, a job, and was on the way to getting certified as a tender. Life is starting to turn around for her, and her only hope is that she doesn't lose this home. If it comes down to it, she's willing to fight for her home this time, tired of being scared all the time. Maybe it's the good old American mentality affecting her, but she feels more confident now that she has something worth defending and a place that might be able to support that desire.