Growing up on the estate in Southgate Farms, Solanacea had a fairly sheltered childhood. Most of her nearby age-mates were sons and daughters of farmers, and thus less likely to be free to play. Not that her parents, Dauces & Preasica, would allow for much mingling with the, to them, lower classes of society anyway. Solanacea was taught to behave, and more importantly, to be silent unless spoken to.

The estate and its lands had a view of Greyskull Keep, the fortress formerly belonging to the heroes of Vox Machina, which her parents never failed to mention to guests. Naturally, the people that her parents DID mingle with, were either of similar (perceived) importance or of a higher standing in Emon as a whole. With at least one ball or social call a month, sometimes lasting for several days, Solanacea spent several days left to her own devices, save for the servants, whom she was cordially friendly with, whenever her parents were not around.

During one of such stints, she would dress in the darkest clothes available, and sneak out of the hours of darkness had settled over Southgate, surely there would be some other noble estate, where someone of her own age-like state of mind would reside, and maybe they could talk. She, admittedly, had not thought the next steps fully through, as the nightly venture had been the main focus of her planning. Observing the routes of the night watchmen and their dogs, noting down the faces of the moon, and even the usual bedtimes and sleeping patterns of the more important members of the estate’s staff.

Moving closer to the city walls of inner Emon, she finally saw a house that looked both sufficiently large, as well as sufficiently dark and silent. Even though she hadn’t had previous stints of running away, her parents had her room door closed and shut with a lock and key. And in the late hours of her years, she had practiced with hair pins, combs, writing quills, and other utensils to jimmy the lock open. As such, the kitchen entry way to this estate was not much hassle to open. She carefully snuck up to the private chambers, finding them unlocked and unoccupied, she began searching through for signs of someone like herself. If her stint was succesful, she had planned on revisiting some other time, in hopes of getting in contact with said youth.

The estate that she had chosen however, was one of a pair of heirless nobles, no children, young or adult, was present here. Instead a secondary bedroom had been turned into a study, with books, ledgers, list of purchases and other records. A locked drawer in a desk intrigued her, yielding it’s contents with some work of the lock. It was a love-letter from another noble, clearly one of the estate’s inhabitants was having an affair. Memorizing the contents of the letter, she decided to head home for the night, as the sun would soon set, and her parents might come home, come morning.

Perhaps it was the adrenaline of her nightly stint that was still in her, but she decided to tell her parents about the letter, she caught herself thinking she was in trouble, but the smirks on her parents faces, told of a different outcome. Instead of a stern talking, her parents now become overly sweet, but very much still controlling. Her father took her on shopping trips for clothing in the city, specifically pointing out which noble lived where. At first she didn’t understand exactly why this sudden change of personality in her parents came to be, but it was better than being a show-piece at home. It was first much, much later that she realized the truth of the matter; her parents was using her in order to blackmail other nobles, and she could do nothing about it.

The thought of the scale of her deed made her stomach cramp up, she was an accomplice, and every time, the arrogant smirks of her parents would haunt her in her trances. She had the means to run, it would be easy in fact, but where would she go? She knew basically no-one in the city, and certainly not outside of it either. Her parents had severed connections to both their families, and she had never once been able to assert why, except for one time when her mother had hummed a tune of tribute, dedicated to someone named “Riskel Daxio”, but Solanacea was not familiar with the name.

Finally, after having revisited one of her previous break-ins, Solanacea saw the effects of the blackmail. The estate was cold, despite the long nights of winter approaching with steadfast gales, there was no joy in this building, but the tension and anxiety was palpable, she even saw a member of staff, sleep-deprived and paranoid. The realization made her almost reveal herself, as a sickening dry-heave forced its way out from her throat; she was the cause of this. She couldn’t take it anymore, how many households had been destroyed because of secrets she had uncovered? How many lives ruined? It was unbearable. She would return home only once more, to collect all the gear that her parents had bought for her, prober tools and armor. And that would be that, never to return. If possible.

A new life was waiting somewhere else in the city, hopefully, far, far way from the manacles of her family.