Luna nodded, glad that Persepolis acknowledged her trust. She smiled at Persepolis' words about their friendship, replying in a confidence that matched hers "Same here. You can always trust me and I'll always be here for you." Luna listened to Persepolis talk about her childhood and felt a tension. Maybe she needed to let her emotions spill, speak to someone else about it. With a kind expression, she assured "I'm here to talk about your childhood if you want to." They had no one else to talk to but themselves, and before Luna had had no one, so she valued that friendship and made sure that she was loyal at all times, as if they were family. Perhaps the lack of a childhood family made her like this. And maybe that wasn't bad.
Persepolis took a deep, calm breath. She decided that she would tell Luna about her childhood. "This is hard for me, but I really need to speak about what I experienced growing up in the mansion. It's been constantly battling inside of me, and I want to be able to get it off my chest." She sat down with her knees pulled up to her chest, facing Luna as she spoke, a sign of her complete trust in her. Persepolis only ever let her guard down around those she trusted.
She began telling her story, "First, I need to give a little background about my family's origins. My father is German and my mother is Korean. My father fled Germany in the wake of the second world war. He left by himself, he had nothing when he left and everybody he ever encountered in America was wary of him because of what his country had done during the war. My mother left Korea with her mom during the heart of the Korean war, after the two countries split. Most of her family was locked in North Korea. When my mom was 16, she ran away. She never saw her mother again. My mother was also despised by the Americans because she came from another country that we were at war with. In brief, my family is born of war. Aside from my parents, I had nobody because all of my kin were being held captive or had been killed in battle.
"My parents transformed themselves into Aves because the human society wouldn't accept them. But they didn't have an easy acceptance into the society of the Aves at the mansion, either. When the arrived, they were looked down upon because of both their origins and the fact that they weren't born Aves. They weren't given meals by the others, they had to steal their food which didn't help their reputation. Fast forward a year and I'm born. I inherited the hate and distrust that my parents had. Over the next 4 years, my parents had 3 more children, my brothers. By the time I was 6 they couldn't feed 4 kids anymore. They decided it was better to keep the sons, to carry on their name and because they were stronger. I don't blame them, I was a weak and small child, I never really had much to me.
"And so they abandoned me. No word or anything. In one day I went from being their child to being treated like a stranger, sometimes even a threat to their other children. The other adult Aves in the mansion pounced on my vulnerability. They started chasing me, taunting me, trying to drive me out and forcefully take from me whatever I had. That's why I learned parkour. I had to be able to get away fast and hide because I wasn't big enough to fight.
"I stole food for myself, and every day I risked being caught and killed or expelled. I learned to master my healing ability because when I got hurt nobody would help me. I had to learn every life lesson through trial and error. I had to learn that if I wanted to live I had to do everything myself. I had to learn that I could not rely on anyone but myself. I had a very harsh childhood where everything was learned the hard way and it's made incredibly difficult for me to trust anybody."
She paused, looking Luna in the eyes, "But I trust you. And that is something that will never change."
