Axley wasn't usually a particularly touchy person, so when she suddenly found the churchman softly nestled in her own arms, feeling the gentle touch of his own around her, it took a moment of blinking to rightly focus herself. As a bard, she'd entertained drunken souls many a time, and some men were quite...affectionate when inebriated, to say the utmost least. Still, this was different. Snow's touch was surprisingly gentle and even respectful, far removed from the 'hugs' she'd gotten to know. It took a moment for Axley to adjust to the feeling of someone who truly cared to be embracing her, and by the time she had prepared herself to return it, it had already left her. Axley was left with a mildly perplexed look on her face and little else.

As Fergus decided pleasantries were in order, Axley opened her mouth to speak before the barrister immediately jumped into his own background. Axley listened quietly, figuring perhaps she should not be so eager to introduce herself. After all, her own past was quite shady and filled with darkness and embarrassment. Though...she highly doubted Snow would judge her, and if the world was going to shit, it wasn't like family names meant anything beyond connections...of which Axley currently had none. She hadn't shared her past with Cilia or even with Snow; whenever they had spoken of where she came from or why, she would clam up immediately and try to shoo them away in humility. Now...well, it wasn't like there was anything she was holding at stake anymore.

She didn't listen to Cilia or Snow quite as closely as she had Fergus, considering she already knew their backgrounds by and large. She had assumed she was the one of the most prestigious descent, though it seemed Fergus came from a rather pedigreed line of his own. It made her feel a little better...though her family had certainly fallen much further. She waited for Snow's slightly painful recounting of his past to come to a close before she took a glance around. "Guess I'm the only one left." Axley closed her eyes for a moment, sighing and taking a deep breath. She'd never shared what she was about to speak. She wasn't even sure Snow and Cilia knew her last name....

"My name is Axley Crawford. I doubt either of you two recognize that name, but the more politically and financially learned of the four of us might recognize the surname." Axley's eyes flashed to Fergus for a moment; just how much would he know? Her home had been quite some distance from the Imperial Ruins, and her family hadn't had ground-shaking clout, but they were still a well-known and wealthy merchant family before the incident. "I was born your typical lower-ranking noble's girl. Taught to read and write, picked up an appealing hobby, trained in music...you know, what merchants do when they're trying to get their daughters to marry for political gain." Axley had to bite her tongue from saying more; she'd come to many realizations of her father's desire for power and corruption, but those were saved for a later time.

"But the Crawford's fortune was not all...honestly earned. It used to be, back before my birth, so I was told, but once a child rearing was brought into the mix, my father began to grow greedy. He didn't want to have to spend significant funds on raising a child, but having one was [i]oh so good[/i] for his public image." The biting sarcasm in Axley's voice was prominent, though her restraint was noticeable. "The mob got involved. I don't know the details, but it seemed as though whenever my father wished to get a commission, searched for a political foothold, he would always suspiciously have his roadblocks cleared for him. A little blackmailing here, a bit of strongarming there...and one murder." 

Axley tried to gloss over that moment as best she could; she'd managed to track down the family of the man, the barrister, who her father had put a hit on, but couldn't force herself to try and contact them; there was no guarantee they wouldn't seek her arrest by association. "But that one murder had a heavy cost. The mob began to threaten my father, demand more and more of the ill-gotten fortune he'd amassed. And rather than cave to the stronger group's demands, he stood firm. Why, I'll never know...but one day I woke up to my home burning to the ground. I barely managed to make it out with my life and what little I could grab around me. The rest...it was gone. By the time I'd returned after I'd escaped, the place had been looted of any valuables that remained. My parents...didn't make it."

"With no fortune left and an embarrassment of my family and home my only legacy, I decided to start completely new and took the first ship away to new locales...and that's how I ended up here." Snow knew the rest, but she trusted him not to mention her struggles, her poverty before she had met him. She didn't need to demoralize herself any more than the day had already.