I believe in peace.
I believe in working for and promoting peace.
Only with peace will our people finally unite against our common foe and have a chance to win.

However, times do come when the other cheek simply cannot be turned.
When we must stand strong on our ground and fight back with everything we have.
And to provoke us to finally meet you face to face is to pull out the cork bottling in an inferno of Rage.
-Crystal Peace-of-Tribes

I was born in Oregon State near Salem to a very loving mother and father. My father, Baback, wasn't around very much, and though I didn't understand it then, I now know that it was simply because he was very busy not only fighting the Wyrm, but trying to keep the other tribes in the area from going at each others' throats. My mother took wonderful care of me, and I was very happy throughout my early years. My school life was rather normal as well for the most part. I had more friends with girls than I did with the boys as the boys tended to be a little too violent for the tastes of my younger self. How odd considering some of my closest friends these days. My, how things change. This didn't stop me from interacting with them, however. I was often the one who ended up breaking up fights before they became physical. I simply had a knack for being able to do so. I guess it's just passed right along through the genes. Those who really wanted to fight ended up starting to take their fights off campus. The school I went to was rather happy about this as it kept it from getting in trouble by the parents of those who fought.

The large exception to this happened when I was in the 6th grade. There was a girl in my class named Nicole. She was never very stable mentally as we might say. She would get hysterical about the smallest problems and calming her down was never an easy task. Well she had a boyfriend who she found out was going to break up with her before he did. Her friend told her that her friend who happened to be the boy's best friend had found out about it and passed it along. Don't you love how gossip travels? The sad thing is it always gets mixed up somewhere along the line. Well Nicole, one day, brought a knife to school. She sat right behind her boyfriend and so decided that she would take care of the problem. I suppose she got the idea from recently reading Romeo and Juliet, as she ended up stabbing the boy, named Jimmy, in the back with the knife. Almost everyone got stuck in a stunned silence as he screamed. I, however, suddenly felt like my body was out of my control. I was moving swiftly, and since I was only a few seats away, I got there quickly. Nicole was ready to stab again, yelling out about how she was going to have him no matter what, even if she had to kill them both so they would be together in death. I caught hold of Nicole's arm before she stabbed at him again and wrestled her to the ground. She just stared at me and simply started to scream and cower, and I then noticed that I was having a much easier time holding her thrashing form down than I should have been. I had changed while I was moving to Crinos form and so had gone through my first change. My mind had been so set on stopping Nicole, that I hadn't even noticed. Even then, it didn't register in my mind right away just exactly what was going on. The entire classroom went up in screams, which started to scare me so all I did was get the knife away from Nicole before running out to hide in the bathroom to hide. When I got there, I looked in a mirror and got a perfect view of just what I had become. For a moment, I was scared even more and I simply locked myself away in a stall until I started to calm down and change back to my homid form. It was a very odd experience, but then just about everyone's first change is. I heard the people in the classroom finally moving as now that I was gone, they were able to call an ambulance and get Jimmy and Nicole help. I snuck out of school as now my clothing was rather shredded from being stretched out around my Crinos form and I did well enough to make it home without being noticed.

Well when I got my home, my mother ended up calling my father as I explained to her what happened at school. I was amazed at how quickly my father responded. He was home within an hour, a bright smile on his face as he moved over to give me a hug. I was confused at first, obviously. I had no idea what any of this meant. He quickly explained it to me, however, how I had ended up with the Garou gene, and that only a very few children of the Garou end up with that gene. I was very proud, of course, if not confused. My father ended up taking me quickly to meet the sept. He hadn't let me know about the sept until after he was sure I was Garou. He didn't want me getting caught up in the battles that we were fighting should the Black Spiral Dancers come after kinfolk. The sept was very wonderful with everything, and the Children of Gaia ended up sending me through my Rite of Passage. It wasn't overly difficult for me. I don't mean to sound egotistical or anything, but I've always managed to get along with people very well and help them out. I ended up having to make sure that a couple Garou who were having troubles getting along didn't end up breaking out into any fights for a week. I not only did that, but by the time the week was over that I had to do that for, they were good friends. It turned out to be one of those average male "I hate you" good friends relationships. You know, like Liam and Rafe. There are so many of them out there. And they say we women are confusing.

I was quickly accepted into a pack of Gaians then where they started my training. My father paid special attention to me and made sure that I got only the best training. He was fairly high ranked and so had quite a bit of sway. The spirits also tended to favor me. Much of this came and still comes from the fact that my father holds a lot of pure breed, as do I. That is where I get my Middle Eastern features. But even the purest of Children of Gaia these days aren't entirely pure. We've simply mixed and meshed with far too many other tribes. Hence my emerald green eyes. My mother had eyes of the same color as well. She really was quite lovely.

Sadly, Nicole ended up dying from the attack. When I had wrestled her down, I hadn't come to the realization that I was not only stronger, but had claws. The injuries where enough to have finished her. My sept had stepped in quickly enough, however, that they managed to cover the knife in Nicole's own blood and to make the injuries look more like knife marks. Due to the fact that people could think of no other way that Nicole could have been killed due to a lack of clear memories, it was put down as a suicide. Life for many of them went on the same. For me, however, it took a 180 degree turn. Even though no one remembered me taking part in the saving of Jimmy, my old friends, the few times I did see them, started to avoid me, almost as though they were innately scared of me. I couldn't just leave Jimmy alone, however. Now that I had saved him, I felt a little responsible for him and his welfare. What was amazing, at least to me, was the fact that he didn't avoid me. The curse, as my father and the Garou call it, didn't have an effect on him, or at least it didn't seem to. This endured him all the more to my heart. We got to know each other rather well for which I'm very happy. He was really a very wonderful person. When I was seventeen, he finally asked me out. We stayed boyfriend and girlfriend for a long time. It was when I turned 19 that things got a little weird. I had never taken Jimmy to meet my father as my father wasn't home very much and when he was, he was busy teaching me. As it was, I didn't get to see Jimmy all too often because I was at the caern much of the time, learning from my father and being with my pack. Either that, or I was off with them, helping them to protect the forests of the bawn and even farther outside of our caern. Well Jimmy and I, one night we managed to have a date, ended up spending the night together. As fate would have it, I ended up getting pregnant from the occurance. I didn't know what to say when I found out and I was afraid that Jimmy would be angry. He was the first one I told, however, and I was surprised by just how accepting he was of it. It was then that he asked me to marry him. I couldn't decline, I loved him very much. I ended up telling my father a few days after that. My father was a little taken aback, okay, a lot taken aback, but he didn't have any adverse reaction either, especially after I told him that Jimmy had asked me to marry him and planned to help take care of the young one. Well about six or seven months through the pregnancy, my father started to get extremely worried. I was showing far more than I should have, about as much as someone in their final month, and I had a very difficult time with the baby in my Homid form. My father, after having a spontaneous thought, told me to take my Crinos form and remain that way in the caern for the rest of my pregnancy. I didn't know at the time just what was going on, but it wasn't too much later that I found out. What upset me was that fact that I wasn't going to allowed to see Jimmy until my father was sure of what he suspected, that Jimmy was Garou. Giving birth to a Metis child was more painful than every pain I had ever experienced before then all added together. I won't go much into it. We both survived the birth and shortly after I had regenerated fully. I'm only glad my father took notice before something bad happened with the child in my homid form. My lovely daughter, Beatrice, was born with a badly twisted collarbone that made one of her arms almost entirely useless. I was very surprised to say the least about the fact I had just had a Metis child. Jimmy had turned out to be a Ronin...a Garou who was never picked up by a tribe. No one had managed to find him after his first change, and Jimmy had wanted to keep it a complete secret. The sept almost condemned me to exile for having the Metis cub, but when I explained what had happened, they ended up going much easier on me and my daughter. I kept my daughter close to me, not letting those who would pick on her at all anywhere close to her. There were many advantages to being a Child of Gaia. Jimmy went through his Rite of Passage shortly after with the Children of Gaia as well, and I'm happy to say, he too passed with flying colors.

We continued to fight and raise Beatrice for another 4 years before disaster struck. My then husband was out with some others of the pack of Children when they were ambushed by the Black Spiral Dancers. Sadly, not one of them lived. I was very upset for a few weeks, but my father did what he could to comfort me. After another year, I decided that I was going to leave the state. My father wished me well, and both he and my mother were sad to see me go, but they knew that destiny was calling me. In fact, they knew even better than I did that something was calling me. I'll never forget my father's parting words, especially now. You see, he had always dabbled at least a little bit in prophecy, which is actually somewhat common for Galliards. The caern he helped to protect also happens to be a visions caern. He told me that I wouldn't be alone for the rest of my life and to keep my eyes out for the first child of Stag. Now, as far as I was concerned, that was just my father trying to cheer me up, and I put it out of my mind almost as soon as he had said it. I was done with love as far as I was concerned, but then I was young and naive. The beginnings of my pack and I moved to just outside New York City. This included Martella, Alison, and Beatrice. I had yet to meet the others. We called ourselves the Dream Seekers, mainly because of my goal. You see, we Gaians are given our deed names by visions that we are granted by Unicorn. My visions lead me to New York, and there I knew I would find something that would help to later united the tribes of Garou. From this came my deed name, Peace-of-Tribes. We searched high and low from Wyrmspawn to Wyrmspawn until we came across a unicorn just beyond a lake. When she touched her horn to the lake, I knew what I had to do, and I went into the water and down. The others didn't follow for one reason or another, but I don't blame them. This was, in the end, my quest for the power behind my deed name, and besides the water was damn cold. At the bottom of the lake, after several returns to the surface, I found a wooden box that was still in decent shape despite the water. I took it up and returned to the surface once more, getting to the bank. When I opened the box, I found a fetish that just about took my breath away. There were thirteen bands in that box, each with a symbol of one of the tribes and their totem carved into it. I kept them close to me ever since and even manage to get a box crafted that would host a protection spirit in order to help keep them safe until the time was right to use them.

We finally settled into a caern near New York City. Sadly, I didn't get the chance to meet Albrecht, despite how close I was to him at the time, but ah well. My pack and I were rather quickly accepted in after a few trial test runs. We had to wipe out a few more Wyrmspawn in order to prove that we were true Garou. It does seem sometimes that part of being a Child of Gaia is proving to many of the other tribes that you can fight. It was here I started to form a new idea for a camp in my head, and that was the Seekers of the Lost. You see, I always knew that, to win the Apocalypse, all the tribes would have to work together. But I started to wonder if it went beyond the tribes we had among us, and even beyond the Garou. In New York, I started to speak to other Gaians about starting to work together to try and find the Fera and perhaps even possible ways to bring back the lost tribes. I knew the last was to be a stretch, but even if it was just the Fera, the more allies we had for the Apocalypse, the better, even if most of the Garou Nation didn't agree with me. I was one of the creators of that camp, and it really was quite depressing with True Silverheels called for an end to the camps. In the end, it really didn't end the camps, it just took the names out of it. Those who seek for Fera and the lost tribes might as well still be Seekers. Those who focus on children might as well still be Angels in the Garden. There really was no use to it as far as I could see, and I certainly don't think it brought our tribe closer together. I argued against it at the Grand Moot that was to come, but those who agreed with me and I didn't come out on top. The camps were supposedly abolished.

Back to history, however. When we joined the sept, we ended up making several diplomatic missions, but this wasn't our only job. We are Garou, after all, and so we did do our fair share of fighting. It was during this time that I met the little runt of a wolf that most were busy teasing. Well, we could certainly use an Ahroun in the pack, having two Galliard, a Theurge, Beatrice, and a Philodox, myself. The Garou being scorned had just gone through his first change, and I took him under my wing and sent him through his rite of passage. Little Fury lived quite well up to his name and proved very well that you can't always judge a warrior by his size. After he completed the rite, he joined our pack, and added extra punch to our fighting abilities. Beatrice was raised far better than most other metis in the Garou nation as none of us treated her poorly. She only had to suffer from the snarls from the other packs. She certainly had the spirit to easily get herself past their scorn.

This is how things lasted for years upon years, and I also found Belinda and Grant during this time. We happily combated the Wyrm, though when she was 20, Beatrice ended up dying in a very fierce battle. Even the Get of Fenris paid their respects at the funeral when they had heard how she died. She was faced down by three Dancers and had managed to kill all three of them even though the blows they gave had been fatal to her. Through this, she had protected the deeply guarded secret as to the whereabouts of our powerful caern. The Dancers had come just a little too close when many of us were gone following a wild goose chase up north, and Beatrice went out herself to lead them off the trail, the other Guardians having needed to stay at the caern just in case things went wrong. I am very proud of my little Beatrice, and I hope her soul has found or at least will find a deserving body. After the mourning, we continued on with our lives. It wasn't until years later that the next big change of events struck us. We heard of Heinrich taking over...and we heard of his march towards Washington. I was paying special attention... enough to notice that everyone who had served the government in some form or another in New Orleans had turned to him when he took over. I didn't know what it was, but something didn't smell right. A few of those people I knew were kinfolk, us having a few throughout the US government, and I knew that none of them would turn around to someone like Heinrich and just accept him. We were lucky...we managed to get many of our kin out of the United Nations before he completed his taking over of America and, unlike many of their coworkers, they didn't turn to working for the new dictator. I lead the saving of our kinfolk and others, having been the one to sense that it was coming, and because of this, I ended up being accepted by Unicorn as a Legend of the Gaians. It was at this point that I took my pack and we moved to New Orleans, Heinrich's captial city as you well know. With me being a Legend, I was quickly accepted into the New Orleans sept as I am rather well known among the Garou. At that time, there had been another pack headed by a Child of Gaia in the area. I can understand why so many Garou were attracted to New Orleans. The whole area surges with an earthly power, even the city. I've never known a city that did that. Well, with all the caerns taken, and not a single Healing caern to be found, I knew that I had my work cut out for me. I first met Carmichael in this little...project of mine, as we needed the extra help to guard the future position of my caern. I found a location that I somehow knew to be special. There I put many Garou through Rites of Cleansing in preparation for the Rite of Caern Building. Usually only Theurges dare to take on the rite, but due to the loss of my daughter, and the fact she had been quite young throughout her years with us, I had trained quite hard under a Theurge friend of mine to learns rites and rituals so that I might be able to help cover the lack of a Theurge until we came to a point where we could gain one. Now, it could be wondered why there weren't that many Dancers in New Orleans when we came to be known. Carmichael would happily tell you that tale in all it's gory detail, I'm sure. Even though I was there, I was the focus of the ritual, and so I really know nothing that went on beyond what happened with the ritual itself. I can't begin to describe the feeling one gets when they feel the very power of Gaia run through their veins. I called that power from the ground, and with the help of the other Garou participating in the Ritual, we sacrificed enough Gnosis to build the Caern. I never knew how I managed it, and I would have never guessed that I would create a caern as powerful as I did. A fifth level healing caern came to be in that spot with four sister spirits as the totem of the caern. You cannot demand a type of caern to create, but I did pray for a healing one, and I am all too thankful that that prayer was answered. The healing caern came to be desparately needed. During the ritual at some point, when the spirit was pulling closer to the physical realm and the Gauntlet was unravelling slowly, they say that my horn of light, a blessing of Unicorn since my birth, which is normally only visible in the Umbra, appeared on my forehead in the physical realm. Perhaps it was a sign of some sort. All I know is that I now have a very slight marking on my forehead. It's in the shape of a star, but you really can't see it unless you know what to look for. After the ritual, I found I don't know how many Dancer bodies around the newly formed caern and some very happy Fianna. There was a mighty party that night, especially after we found out that nearly every Dancer had showed up to try and stop the formation of the powerful caern.

It wasn't long after I got here about three years ago, that I happened to come across a black girl of about twelve years being chased down by some the supposed police force of New Orleans, the Strikers. The girl was scared as it was and I didn't have time to use my gifts to get her out. Besides the fact that I didn't want to chance alerting Gary Rosner to the presense of Garou quite yet. I ended up taking the girl into the Umbra to get her entirely out of harm's way. Yes yes, a breech of the Litany, but sometimes rules need to be bent or broken. Besides, keeping the veil is one of the worst points when it comes to the Children of Gaia. It's one of the things that most other Garou have problems with us about. Anyway, it saved the girl's life and now I've taken her under my wing and she stays with us at the caern. It turns out that the Strikers had killed her parents for violating some law or some such thing and she had ran off only to be chased after. Now at least she has a home again. Her name is Tykera.

After this, when I was wandering the bawn of my caern, I was met with quite a surprise. I found a young girl wandering the forest and I about fell down from shock, which doesn't happen very often. I don't care what anyone else tells you, it just doesn't. I could sense her pure breed, and I had no idea how it could be possible. But right there before me was a young Garou who should have been a Dancer but wasn't. She was full of White Howler pure blood. Next to her was Lion himself, her familiar spirit. I quickly brought her into the caern, which many would say I was a fool for doing, but who was I to argue with Lion? He told me her past for the most part except how she came to be, which I still don't know to this very day, though I have my guesses. I had her go through her Rite of Passage to become a Child of Gaia by the name of Fragile Hope and then proceeded to keep her as the greatest secret of my pack, until I came across another lost soul who desperately needed help.

I found him on the run looking rather upset and abandoned. Even when he told me he was on the run from the Shadow Lords and being hunted, I took him back to my caern. Again, most would question my wisdom, but I had to help the poor dear. Another Rite of Passage later, Speed Demon was with us, and so came to be our next greatest secret. Speed Demon had suffered panic attacks that were not his fault, and I couldn't risk the Shadow Lords finding out about him, so I didn't tell anyone. Oddly enough, he too was high in pure breed, Fianna pure breed. I later found out that he was Lugh's son and I was struck speechless for the first time ever, honestly.

Well many of the packs in New Orleans started to get closer, including the Dream Seekers and the Free Spirits, Carmichael's pack, though we had been pretty close since I had created my caern. The problem of vampiric Garou and kinfolk brought us right to the fore of the war against Heinrich and the Wyrm itself. We managed slowly to come to terms with the vampires, as they have proved time and again that they still have our true ideals at heart. Unicorn even accepted them by offering Heart Guides to those who needed assistance. It wasn't long after all of this, however, that the very alphas of tribes themselves started to arrive. It all started with Bloodeye, the alpha of the Red Talons, though it quickly escalated as Hard Knocks, Hrosskel, Sikari, Charity, my own alpha, and the Righ of the United States, Robert, started to show up along with others. Robert was enough of a pain in the ass, and so unlike the Fianna, that I have no idea how he managed to attain the rank he did. But I can't really say that I can complain all that much. If he had been competant, then Liam might never have needed to come himself. Wait, he's the Ard Righ Fianna; he would have shown. Silly me. But it would have taken him longer, and that would have been unacceptable.

In fact, that takes us to when Liam arrived. By that time, things were quite the mess and we were fighting to keep our people out of Malfeas at any given time. Many Garou had been turned into vampires by this time, and Carmichael had dropped out of the Fianna because of Robert. Liam certainly had a hard time getting behind some of our acceptances. Of course, the Beast-of-War wasn't helpful, but he ended up at the Glass Walker caern due to the lack of metis and vampires there. It wasn't long after this that I was captured along with several other Garou and taken to Malfeas. I know we were all stressed, and everything, and I know that Silvio had been having a difficult time, but I've never seen Silvio in quite the same light since one day in Malfeas. I was brought in after having just been raped by one of the Dancers to have him pissy at me for not telling him about Fragile Hope, Speed Demon, and Daekwon, one who is under Charity's protection. I asked him to let it wait because I wasn't in any position to think all that clearly, and when the Defiler himself whispered in his ear, he listened to the Defiler. That act of betrayal hurt me more than just about anything ever has. Someday I may be able to fully forgive Silvio for it, but I'm not sure.

That leads to my fall in rank back to Athro. When we did escape Malfeas, I was taken to trial by Silvio. In the end, I lost renown, which caused my fall back to Athro, due to my auspise and the loss of wisdom renown. It hurt a little, yes, but not nearly as much as the betrayal in Malfeas had. On top of that, the Defiler had decided that he would take the...little bit of lust I had felt towards Liam to rather large heights and make it permanent. That bothered me as well, especially since it had effectively locked me out of the Free Spirit caern. I was also pregnant and so moody. All in all, it wasn't a great few months...then Christmas time rolled along

Now I have a special fondness for the Christmas Elves. Silver Bells is the one who really got me of the funk I was in. She convinced me to actually go see Liam and talk to him about actually overcoming the problem the Defiler had given us. Well, the only way to overcome it was to accept it. His reaction was quite priceless, though, and it was a wonderful feeling when we did come to terms with that. A whole weight came off of my shoulders then, and I spent the rest of the time much happier. It wasn't long after this that I gave birth to my second daughter, Janetta. She's Ragabash and, somehow, gained Rafe as a mentor, which I find to be highly unfair. The things with which I have to put up. Poor me. You don't look very sympathetic, Aliza.

I think that takes us up to the present, really. My daughter is growing wonderfully, and the Elves came by again to tell me that I was on Eldamar's list. Mistletoe always manages to find ways to get couples together, doesn't she. While Liam and I had accepted being a couple, we really hadn't gone beyond that. I did, however manage to get Rafe and Najya married. That was really rather amusing. Ever since then, Rafe has been trying to get Liam and I married. However, now that Beini and Hippolyte are getting married, they can be the Garou that are married by Gaia. That takes that little leverage away from Rafe. After all, Liam and I don't need to get married to have José work his wonderful magic on us. I'm sure we'll eventually get married, but I don't know when. Oh yes, that reminds me, I did pull out that fetish I found as well and distributed them to some of the powerful Garou of New Orleans. And I guess that leads me to my last bit of news, but certainly not least. I was very recently informed by my Heart Guide that I'm pregnant again; this time the father is Liam. Now I'm getting excited all over again. I do love having children.

Hopefully we will be able to get New Orleans and the world back into the proper order. Though I must admit, under Heinrich the world has been more peaceful and cleaner. Sad isn't it, that it takes such a horrible thing to make the world more peaceful? Of course, I do not find it worth it... Especially with these Strikers as the police of New Orleans. I will fight for Gaia and help out those of you who need it in anyway possible. I hope I didn't keep you too long, Liza. I do tend to talk quite a bit when I get the chance to do so. Though I must admit, I could never live up to the standard of probably any Fianna. But at least I try, and I'm not even a Galliard. And with everything starting to look up as it is, I can't help but be optimistic about the future. Yes, we may well be on the brink of the Apocalypse, but so many pure miracles have been happening to us lately, that my faith in Gaia will not falter in the slightest no matter what is thrown at me. Even we Children of Gaia need signs every now and then to keep our spirits up, no matter how much of a rep as eternal and blind optimists we get from most other Garou. I do honestly believe we will win, though. I really do. I hope we find ways to save many of those who have been corrupted, however. But even if nothing else good comes to pass, I do know one thing. I found my first child of Stag. I found my Ard Righ. I do hope you enjoy your day, and I'm sure I will see you again sometime in the near future. Do take care until then and may Unicorn bless all of your travels.

All of us who served in one war or another know very well that all wars are the glory and the agony of the young.
-Gerald R. Ford

But peace does not rest in the charters and convenants alone. It lies in the hearts and minds of all people. So let us not rest all our hopes on parchment and on paper, let us strive to build peace, a desire for peace, a willingness to work for peace in the hearts and minds of all of our people. I believe that we can. I believe the problems of human destiny are not beyond the reach of human beings.
-John F. Kennedy