Calla and human Mira

[Milly]

Hey Jose and everyone!
I was reading Bound to me and let me say i LOVEED it:) it was so awesome i love Valerio even more than i did before; i was thinking the Mira from this novella is still young and a bit immature, loosing her temper and stuff like that, so i'm having a bit of a hard time imagining her as a mother, centuries before Bound to me is set, so can you tell us a bit more about her life back then? Her relationship with her husband and stuff like that? mostly Calla, whom i always wanted to know more about and any other background info you want to share...
thanks a lot!! i really love the series and i'm anxiously waiting for the asylum tales:)

[Jocelynn Drake]

Great question! I promise to circle back to that later today.

[Jocelynn Drake]

Sorry it has taken me a while to circle back to this question as I needed a little time to pull my thoughts together.

Let's see if I can pull together a somewhat concise description of Mira's past.

When Mira’s father dropped her off on the mainland of Greece, she was still young, but mature and intelligent enough to take care of herself. She walked for a long time until she came to a farm. The older farmer lost his wife and was left to care for the farm with only his older son. Mira was taken in as something of a servant to help with the farm and the tending of the house, in exchange for a place to sleep and food. It seemed only natural that she later married the son (who was only a couple years older than her) when she reached a proper age, which was about late teens for Mira. It wasn’t a love match in any way, but he was a good man. He was fair, kind, patient, and treated her well. This life was better than anything she could have hoped for while living on Crete with her parents, and she was happy. A couple years into her marriage, Mira gave birth to Calla. Mira was a great, loving mother. Calla looked very much like her father, and Mira had high hopes that her daughter had not inherited her gift (which she almost never used since coming to the mainland). The life with her new family was hard, but it was a good, happy life.

In 1401, when Mira was in her early 20s, Sadira kidnapped Mira, threatening to kill her daughter if she didn’t cooperate. Mira left and spent the next four years living with Sadira and her “family” as something of a plaything and weapon. Sadira encouraged her to use her gift to defend herself, but Sadira always had tight control over Mira’s mind. It was a living hell, but at least Mira no longer felt that she was hiding what/who she was. In 1405, while the Black Plague was still sweeping through Europe, Mira got sick. Fearing that Mira had finally caught the plague, Sadira offers to make into a nightwalker. Not wanting to die and longing to have some control over her life, Mira agrees.

Fast forward, Mira spent the next century as Sadira’s plaything and weapon, but the abuse and torture was more severe, crushing much of her remaining humanity so that she becomes a cold, hard, compassionless thing. She’s then kidnapped by the naturi and tortured some more. Then rescued by Jabari, who she spends a century with recovering. This is more of a time of learning for her.

It is at the end of the century with Jabari that she starts spending a little time with Valerio. After more than 200 years of life, Mira hasn’t had what you call fun. She hasn’t had an extremely light, carefree, or happy life. Valerio represents all this for her. She’s now a powerful being, forever trapped in the body of a twenty-something woman. So when Valerio starts taking her out, he starts introducing her to his type of “fun.” It is immature and reckless and heartless in many ways, but after the horrible life that she’s led (with the brief exception of the time on her husband’s farm), I think she finally lets loose. She starts to embrace the lifestyle she has with Valerio because it’s freeing and because it helps her block out much of her past.

In the century after Bound to Me, things happen that cause Mira to grow up again, which is why you see a more responsible, hardened Mira throughout the Dark Days series. The playfulness is still there, but it’s been tempered by life.

I hope that helps!