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[attr="id","cerberuscol"]MIRIN

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[attr="id","cerberuscol"]THE FUTURE IS MINE, SHAPE IT BY MY WILL

The world is a tough place.
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You learned that lesson young, every letter beaten into your bones. Nothing came easy to a pair of orphans in the most raggedy orphanage the Vale had to offer. You were lucky to have a place to stay, but anything else? Tough luck. There wasn't enough money to go around - some kids would have to do without. You and your sister just happened to be those kids every time.
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So the crass old ladies wouldn't give you enough food or clothes to get by. That was fine. You could easily make up for their faults if you tried. In those parts of the Vale, everyone was a beggar and a thief. The deciding factor was how good of a thief you were, and you were one of the best. You were small enough to get away with taking a piece of bread or two, and quick enough that no one noticed anything was gone until it was too late.
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Best part was, no one even had a name to put to your face. Your identity in the orphanage was nothing more than girl, twins if your sister was nearby. Those other nasty names - thief, rat, bastard - they didn't hurt that much. They were true, but it wasn't like you had any other choice. You had to live somehow.
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Eventually, you got your big break. As big of a break as someone born and bred from the dirt of the Vale could. You had a familiar now, and with magic came more opportunities. A girl like you was too young to fight daemons, but a girl like you with magic - that was a different story. It meant risking your life, but the rewards were way better than anything you could get from stealing.
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Except, things never went to plan. Daemon hunting may have been the most lucrative thing your part of the Vale had to offer, but everyone else was just as poor as you. The rewards weren't anything to call home about, and the money you did take home was partially taken away by the ladies running the place. They had to pay for upkeep somehow, because they all knew the new democracy wouldn't.
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You were risking your life for pennies and barely getting to use any of it. It pissed you off, but what could you do? This was the best the world could offer you. It was way more honest than stealing. The only hope you had at this point was your sister, because she was smart. Far smarter than you, who didn't have the patience for any education. If she could just get into a real school instead of the books you brought home, maybe, just maybe, she could bring you both into a decent life. But no, things never worked out for the two of you. There was no school that would take a girl with no official documentation, no parents, no previous education. Intelligence wasn't enough, even though it should have been. In the end, they didn't even bother hearing your sister out.
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Right when you thought you were doomed to stay in the slums, a family found you. The orphanage had received a large donation, one that could lift them from their poverty - in return for a life or two. Saviors from Delphi, the ladies running the orphanage said. And everyone wanted to be the lucky child who got to leave for a better land.
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Honestly, you weren't interested at first. You could make a better life for yourself, if you didn't die to a daemon first. A few more years and you wouldn't be forced to stay at the orphanage anymore - it would be easy from there, you thought.
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Turned out you thought wrong. Ultimately, you had no choice but to beg the Tremerie family to take you and your sister in. Your sister had always been sick, but around that time it had taken a turn for worse. There was no extra money to have her seen by a doctor. You begged, you cried, you promised all the things you didn't have. Whatever it took to save your sister. The lady who would take you in didn't seem impressed, but she saw something in the two of you nonetheless. You were so, so grateful.
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It didn't matter that you were in a strange, claustrophobic place with uptight customs and clothes spun from gold. As long as your sister was safe and healthy, you were more than happy to do whatever was asked of you, even if it was wildly different from who you really were. So off you went - to join Cerberus and make the Tremeries proud.