History:Miryam Zhanna Cohen was born to loving parents in the heart of Tel Aviv twenty six years ago. Abandoned by her birth parents, she was raised in a happy household, her adopted family possessing a great love of music and kind hearts. They were a devout family, Toviyah and Rivkah Cohen with their sons. Her adopted father was a rabbi; quick with a smile, gentle, and known as a bit of a liberal when it came to the strict regulations of the Hasidics. Her mother was a quiet woman, blind but beautiful and kind, having lost her eyes in a terrorist attack ages ago. Still, she had a sort of stern bent in her own way. Her back was always ramrod straight, and she moved with almost mechanical precision in the daily tasks she insisted she took care of. She was kind to the children, but there was something else there. More than that, sweet as she seemed, there was always something distant about Rivkah to Miryam, as though she was trying to avoid her daughter. It was never explicit, but there was always an… unease, between them. When she heard Miryam’s voice, she would twitch slightly, like someone had caught her doing something she wasn’t supposed to be doing. Despite this, Toviyah delighted in his daughter as much as his sons, Michael and Josef. Neither one of her older brothers resembled her much at all, but they accepted her completely, rough housing often and bringing her on adventures through their neighborhood. All in all, they had their quirks like anyone else, but they were a family.

As time went on, the two became fiercely protective of their younger sister, intimidating her suitor’s all throughout school and generally trying to keep her out of trouble. Though the two could be overbearing at times, Miryam was happy. She wasn’t the most outspoken girl, but she was athletic, and between academics, athletics, and her family, she had a constant group of friends. Between activities, Toviyah ensured that his daughter was educated in all matters of the Torah and Talmud, even as much as her brothers. Her mother, on the other hand, insisted she learned how to use her hands to cook and clean and sew “like a proper wife.” Miryam disliked the work, but did so in order to please her mother. More often than not, however, her brothers swept her away from her chores in order to travel around the neighborhood and cause trouble.

Soon after she entered high school, however, trouble reared its head. Michael and Josef joined the Israeli Defense Forces, leaving home to protect the homefront and get that sweet, sweet prepaid college education. In their absence, Toviyah and Rivkah turned their attention to bear even harder on Miryam. The girl reacted well to the pressure, redoubling her efforts in education, sports, and all the tasks set in front of her by her family. Her brothers were gone, and she had to keep doing the family honor so that they could be proud of her when they returned. On a personal note, she turned more closely to the faith, praying for their safety in practically every moment of peace she had. Before, she had gone to synagogue every Sabbath and prayed daily, but then it was to satisfy her parents. Now, it was to protect her family. Every time one of the brothers called or visited, she considered it a private victory. G-d protected her family, and things went on differently than they had, but as long as her siblings were safe, things would be alright.

Then, one day when Michael was visiting on leave, Miryam and her middle brother went to see a movie. Afterwards, Michael waited for his sister outside of the theater, twirling his keys and whistling to himself when the IED went off. He died with shrapnel in his lungs, bleeding into a dusty gutter while civilians ran screaming. Six more were wounded, three were dead. Miryam was untouched.

The death hit the whole family hard. Her father’s cheerful demeanor was changed, a somber darkness overtaking him as he desperately searched for meaning in his son’s death. Rivkah tried to keep moving like nothing had happened, but her hard shell was a brittle one, and Michael’s departure had left her empty. Josef started drinking. He kept at it, despite his family’s attempts to dissuade him from self-medication, and stormed out one night after a pitched fight with Toviyah. All things considered, it shouldn’t have been a surprise when the family received a phone call that night. It shouldn’t have been a surprise to find Josef lying on a hospital bed downtown, getting his stomach pumped. It shouldn’t even have been a surprise that he died that night, drugs and alcohol getting the best of him. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, but it was.

It all but destroyed them.

Rivkah and Toviyah aged decades in those few months, their hair going grey, sleep coming sparingly. They fought often, Rivkah blaming Miryam for all of this. She claimed that their daughter was cursed, that they never should’ve taken her in, that her parentage had doomed their family for years. Toviyah rebuked Rivkah for this, and the constant screaming matches, near abuse by Rivkah, and incessant guilt pushed Miryam to the edge. She buried her head in her studies, avoided home whenever possible, and raged against the world in her heart of hearts. She had prayed and prayed, her entire family was faithful, Michael and Josef wouldn’t have hurt a fly, but they had both died meaningless deaths and Miryam couldn’t understand it. She couldn’t see how a benevolent god would ever allow it. All she could do was endure, and look for answers where she could find them. Life was painful, for a time.

For this reason, when Miryam left dead-eyed to take up her mandatory time in the military, it was like a breath of fresh air. She left her parents behind, taking to the training like a fish in water. She worked harder than anyone else, pushing herself to her absolute limits every day she could. The more she exhausted herself, the less time and energy she had to grieve and doubt. If the emotions never had the chance to invade, she never had to deal with them.

Multiple instructors told her that she should join their ranks, but Miryam had her eyes on combat duty. After the death of both of her brothers, she wouldn’t allow herself to stop moving, and few concepts appealed more than putting a bullet between the eyes of those who were responsible for Michael’s death. Miryam was placed in a light infantry unit, patrolling by Syria, praying daily that the bastards responsible for destroying her life would try to finish the job. Eventually, her squad got caught up in an exchange of fire with a group of smugglers carrying arms across the border. It was satisfying, and the roar of adrenaline in her ears and gunfire exploding in the air felt like home. She killed three men, and looked upon their bodies with an odd combination of triumph and the hollow echo of her own life.

She wondered if they had any sisters.

Months later, after a rise in violence along the border and a short break of leave, Miryam returned home, changed. She found Toviyah and Rivkah at home, white as sheets, her father clutching at her and sobbing incoherently about heritage and truth, protection and fratricide. Miryam was confused and concerned, trying to convince her parents to speak clearly, when there was a knock at the door and the world froze. Not metaphorically, her parents literally stopped moving and the temperature around the house dropped by about fifty degrees. Knife pulled from the kitchen, the soldier answered the door, slowly. Past her bags and clutching the blade close to her, Miryam found an incredibly handsome, well-scarred man, pale as new fallen snow, with a silvered walking stick and a strip of cloth bound around his eyes. He towered over her, his well-muscled body filling out his suit, and introduced himself in a deep, slow voice, like a glacier falling into the sea. He seemed… familiar. Over the course of that night, Miryam learned as much about herself and her family as she had known over the rest of her life, knuckles white against the kitchen knife. Her birth-mother hadn’t abandoned her; she died in active duty. Her father had been watching her over the course of her life, unable to interfere with her mortal activities. He was proud. Proud of her military career, proud of her persistence and proud as one warrior to another. More than anything else, he was proud of her for surviving. She doubted this man, just like she doubted everything else, but everything he said had a grain of truth to it. He believed it, if nothing else, and his words resonated with her. As far as Hodr knew, there wasn’t a single, caring G-d. Just the splintered fractions of Scions, desperately contending to keep the Titans who created the world at bay. In that moment, with her family frozen behind her and the power exuding from this individual, the blood on her hands and the deaths of her brothers weighing heavily on her mind… The world had made her doubts solid, brought them forth in the form of her father. What could she do but believe him? As the sun rose and the darkness receded from Tel Aviv, he reached up to his head, untied his blindfold, and handed it to her. His eyes, though clouded, were the same piercing blue that Miryam had always possessed. The world thawed, and Miryam saw the land with new eyes.

That morning, Miryam held her parents close, and wept. She wept for Michael, she wept for Josef, she wept for innocence lost and the destruction of her family. She wept for guilt, for failing to push forward. She wept for what she was about to do, and begged her parents to forgive her, clutched desperately at the words to make them understand how much she cared and how sorry she was that things had turned out how they had. She wept for what she had to do.

The following day, Miryam left her childhood home for the last time. She looked up every myth she could find, every story of the Aesir, every tale, every prophecy. Finally, she understood Rivkah’s removal. She knew why Toviyah had sought to protect her, why there was always the distance between her parents when it came to her. It hurt, but it all made sense. And in this understanding, her constant, guttural flame of anger crystallized in her chest. The world was inherently unfair, plain and simple. But now… she had power. She could change things. She would change things. And maybe, if the Aesir existed, created by the Titans… something had made the Titans.

With newfound purpose and the burden of a divine spark pushing her ever onward, Miryam finished her service time as the model of the perfect soldier. She countered ambushes with supernatural skill, keen of mind and quick in body, and received more than one award for marksmanship in the process. Once her service was done, Miryam set out. She left Israel, not telling her kin where she was going. They were safer not knowing, and the knowledge that they would stay far away from her, safe, left her at ease. With them out of the picture, Miryam could seek knowledge and power without fear for others’ lives. Furious at the world and filled with determination to make things right, Miryam now travels on a journey to find out the truth about divinity, titans, scions, and her own faith while causing as much trouble for the Titans as possible. G-d may not exist, but heavens help those who stand in her way. Because he might not, but if G-d does exist, Miryam is going to find Him and get her answers, come Hel or high water.