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Twenty-two years ago, Isha was born. Her mother, Suji, was an unexalted patrician of house Nellens, and her father, Yurik, likewise an non-exalted patrician, hailed from house Mnemon. Isha was the third and final child born to her parents. She has two older brothers, both unexalted, who work in the Immaculate Bureaucracy along with her parents.

Isha, like the rest of her family, took to the intricacies of dealing with bureaucracy, but took this aptitude in a slightly different direction. As she grew up, it became clear she was gifted at negotiating and determining the value of goods and items. From a young age, she was sent to attend school at the Golden Ledger, which focuses on accounting, goods and service bureaucracies, and the intricacies of trade. There she met a young girl from house Mnemon named Mixia (mee-sha), who would become and still is a good friend to this day.

In her time there, she also met an insufferable boy named Akiva from house Ragara. He took delight in tormenting her day in and day out, being that she was of unexalted parents and from such a lowly house as Nellens. He teased her lack of breeding, her lack of exaltations, her house's lack of standing, her hair color… it went on and on. The day Akiva exalted (Earth) at age 11, his smugness, and thus tormenting, increased ten-fold. A year later her friend Mixia exalted (Earth) and so was able to help keep Akiva off of her back for their last few years at school together until she exalted herself, at 15, toward the end of their schooling together.

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After her exaltation, her dynamic with Akiva changed significantly. He no longer actively harassed her. He wouldn't say anything nice to her or about her, but what he did say came out more as teasing than insulting and degrading. Mixia began to tease her about him. Isha blew it all off with a smile, and just the next year, they all graduated from The Golden Ledger. Her graduation meant no more Akiva and far less of Mixia, although she did keep in touch with the latter.

Since the time when she'd first joined the school, it had always been planned that she would apprentice with an unexalted merchant sailor of house Nellens named Barrat. This did not change even after her exaltation. So once she completed her schooling, she was off to join Barrat and his ship. But not before her family showered her with all sorts of expensive gifts: white jade artifact armor, a nautical-style white jade daiklave of her very own, and a number of hearthstones they had access to. And then, she left.

In her time with Barrat, she learned the ins and outs of running a ship, its crew, and getting it from point to point. She was taught every job on the ship form navigator to dealing with the rigging. She also learned to fight under the conditions of the instability of the rolling ship deck and cramped quarters of the cabins and other rooms interior to the ship.

It was during this time Isha really came into her own. She found her defining fighting style and worked with it in an environment not particularly suited to one so attuned to Elemental Earth.

She also honed her skills as a merchant, focusing on appraisals and dealing. She learned to bargain like the pros and deal with mountains of bureaucracy not unlike that her parents did on a daily basis. She saw many different lands, and headed inland as far as Nexus to make deliveries and deals. Barrat taught her everything he could, and then her position among his crew changed, and she became more like a partner than an apprentice. He consulted her for various opinions and ran ideas by her. He came to rely on her greatly.

After five years on the ship with Barrat and his crew, she finally returned home to attend to some overdue family duties. She met up with Mixia and Mixia's new husband, Pelleps Carrack, who Mixia only kind of liked. Mixia had a daughter, just less than a year old, named Esperia. Isha had a good time visiting and playing with Esperia.

But this venture home was merely to attend to some obligations. Eventually, she would return to Barrat. He had already told her that in just a few years, he would be retiring and that he had already decided on Isha as his successor, as she had an aptitude for this work that his son did not.

While she was home, though, her family busily shopped her around. She had duties to them and the realm that she knew must be satisfied in the coming years. She knew she had at least one party interested in her, and she was not particularly enthused by it. Fortunately, her family knew they had an interesting one in her, even if her breeding wasn't worth writing home about. But still, they continued to hold off on the offers they had on the table to see just what, precisely, was the best deal they could get with her.

Meanwhile, Isha carried on, choosing to remain ignorant to the results of all the conspiring going on around her until the day when something would be finalized.