Anya was the child of a local kaufmann, a merchant who sold fish and fine foods in Heidelberg, Germany. It was the 1470's, and she was somewhat alone. She never knew her mother, who she was told died in childbirth. With only her grieving father in the loft above the shoppe, there was no time for a baby.

Her father never married, and there were no other employees to help him. He was preoccupied with business, and Anya was passed to Mutter Olga at every opportunity. While Olga was no relation, she was a poor woman in need of food for her many children, and was willing to wetnurse in trade. She was the only mother Anya knew, and Olga's children were as good as siblings.

Anya's brooding father never found success in his shoppe, and when she was about twelve, a sickness struck the local lakes. The fishing grew poor, and the business declined further. As they say, "one man's failure is another's opportunity," and groups of foreign merchants had come to the castle at Heidelberg to provide for the local thrones. In a fit of sorrow and impulse, her father decided to close up shop and join the band of merchants, taking Anya in tow, and agreeing to work their way.

Over the next few years, they followed the group across Europe. In Scotland, a teenaged Anya buried her father, and was then quite completely, alone. Seeing the lovely lass in mourning, the MacNeil Clan came to her aid. They took her in, and by and by, she met many other local groups. The MacLeods and the MacGregors, not often mentioned in one sentence, come to know her well. Through visiting these clans one evening, she happened upon a party in the woods. A group of rowdies was clambering around a vat of sweet wine, elbow deep in bobbing fruit. She chanced an introduction for a tankard of the stuff, and that one glass has cost her dearly. (Ultimately she became a member of ArgentLupe.) These days, she can be found baking trays of goodies for hungry wolves, watering the troops, or stitching up a storm with the ladies of ArgentLupe.