Maili Na'Kevin took her first breath when her mother took her last. Her father never quite recovered from the sudden loss of his mate and the gain of a wailing child, and turned to the drink. His benign neglect coupled with occasional bouts of Inish temper forged young Maili into a hard, pragmatic child, so often forced to care for her parent and make excuses for his behavior. She heard the bards' tales of chivalry and knighthood, and assumed those were luxuries for richer families and kinder fathers.
When she was cursed with puberty, and her father had lost another job, he tried to sell his daughter's company to passing strangers. Maili broke his nose and ran away. She took menial jobs and lived off the land as best she could, and found a Swordsmen's Guild. She snuck in, trying to emulate the students with a stick and a ratty blanket, but was chased away. Whenever she set her hunger at bay, she returned--maybe because she saw they had coin, or meat to eat, or maybe she wanted to believe the bard songs just a little bit.
The swordsmen eventually got tired of chasing the girl away, and began to teach her. Years passed. She learned a code of conduct, and tried to keep to it. More importantly, she learned to defend herself and make a respectable living. Thus armored in self-worth, she returned to her father's home. He wept and hugged her, then toddled off to drink himself unconscious. She stayed to care for him, but her resentment grew.
While out running errands one evening, she came across a sidhe [details undecided]. Maili was infatuated. She was enthralled. She was lost. She suspected the sidhe didn't really love her, but that didn't seem to matter. (Sidhe Lover, 1)
Her father, a little more sober than usual, followed her one night. He saw who his daughter was meeting, and for the first time tried to protect her. He tried to slay the sidhe. Maili struck him down. With her father's lifeblood red on her blade, she dropped it. The sidhe gave her his sword, bade her to flee, and bade her also to return it to him one day. Terrified, aggrieved, and confused, she took the blade and ran from Innismore before her crime could catch her.
Maili needs to know she is no longer the woman who would kill her own kin. She needs to be the chivalrous knight who eschews wealth and glory for the sake of doing good in a world which nearly made her a villain. She does not think she deserves to be happy with her lover, but she does have a sword to return, and swordsmen keep their promises.