........One quiet night in a small town in Europe, a woman hurried between the carriages of a travelling circus that had stopped for the night, carrying a small girl. Leaving her at the step of the ringleader's carriage, she knocked on the door and swiftly ran into the night. Summoned from his sleep by the knock, the ringleader came out to find the girl who, wordlessly, handed him a note saying, 'Please look after my chavi.' At a loss as to what to do, he sent for some of the women of the circus to look after her and, when the time came to leave, no-one had come to claim the child. With little else to do with her, and at the continual begging of the women who had by this time grown quite fond of the girl, they took her with them.
........The child was called simply Chavi by her impromptu family, the gypsy word for 'girl', and grew up to be a quite energetic and lively teenager. She was constantly the center of attention - and trouble - and was very popular with the children of the circus. It was apparent from the outset that something about her was odd, but this was nothing new to the circus members, and she was treated with both love and respect. She eagerly learned her native tongue from the gypsy members of the circus, and was free to roam pretty much where she would.
........But when it came time to sleep, Chavi was on her own. She slept apart from everyone else, and often spent hours into the night running, walking and enjoying her freedom. Somehow, it seemed right to Chavi to roam the countryside of wherever the circus happened to be. Even the circus itself, with its constantly travelling nature, suited her down to the ground.

........Then one night, while travelling about the countryside near a small town, she was attacked from the shadows by three pale looking men. Experiencing something like a sudden revelation, she somehow knew the men were not natural, and a white-hot fury rose up, unbidden, to nearly consume her. Her body twisted and grew, and she found herself slashing at the men desparately with five-inch-long claws, and snapping at them with powerful, wolf-like jaws. But still, they seemed far too fast, much too strong.
........Just when things seemed most desparate and Chavi was truly afraid for her life, a fourth figure appeared from the shadows, moving almost too fast to see. The lean figure twisted and grew in the same manner as Chavi had, a tall and powerfully built werewolf. Together they made short work of the three men, and Chavi collapsed back into her natural form, terrified, confused and exhausted.
........The other werewolf changed back into human form, and introduced himself as Devin Windwatcher. Together they talked far into the night and into the next morning, Devin explaining all he could about the Garou and her tribe, the Silent Striders. He told her of the men who had attacked her, the ghouls of an elder vampire that he labelled a 'Setite'. A powerful Strider himself, Devin sent Chavi back to the circus after binding her wounds and giving her a large coat to hide her nakedness.
........When Chavi arrived at the circus she spoke little, waiting for the right time to slip away with her few belongings - among them some steel bracelets and a knife she had been left by her mother. Found by several Garou soon after who had been sent looking for her by Devin, she was taken to a caern in Romania where she underwent her training as a young Garou. She retained a powerful hatred for vampires, fuelled by her tribe's historical dispute with the undead beings, and the ghouls had given her a long white scar along her left thigh to remember them by. She took to wearing long skirts to hide the scar, and fell to travelling about by herself, living off her skills as a singer and a fortune teller. She also kept with her the knife that had been her great-grandfather's, a 'fang dagger' with a spirit of death bound into it.
........Summoned back to the caern by a young Garou messenger who had been sent to find her, she returned to be told that her Rite of Passage was about to begin. Travelling by car to a Get of Fenris sept in central Europe, she went with a sense of purpose in her heart and an intense desire to prove herself an adult to her Garou family. With her went a powerful need to find out the identity of the vampire who intends her death, and to find out why the undead creature wants her dead.