Erin (Thief)

Erin is the hidden main antagonist in the 2014 video game reboot Theif, She was Garrett's (former) partner/thief and assassin.

History
Erin is a thief acquainted with Garrett. She is naive and impulsive, and relies heavily on tools such as the clawinstead of keeping a backup plan. Her violent tendencies lead her to frequently kill threats instead of knocking them out, which garners Garrett's disapproval. He also implies that she caused trouble for him in the past, reminding her that that is why they stopped being a team. She is apparently an assassin for hire as well as a thief.

Bio
Erin is a thief-turned-assassin in her early 20s. She is quick-witted, skillful, artistic and rebellious, and has a deep, private affection and respect for Garrett.

Erin came to the city as an 8-year-old orphan stowed aboard a ship from shores unknown. She stole on the streets to get by until she was taken in by an affluent brothel and opium den, the House of Blossoms. Here she worked as a 'petal', sweeping floors and carrying the pipes of the rich and famous.

When Erin came of age she was expected to join the ranks of the prostitutes in the establishment but she killed her first unfortunate client and fled to the city streets. This aggressive, reactive way of dealing with her problems has continued into her later years and remains a signature of her personality still.

Garrett discovered her on the streets shortly after and began training her as a master thief but Erin continued to kill. In opposition to Garrett's way of thinking this put obvious pressure on the relationship leading to an ugly split. Erin turned back to the underworld for an answer.

Now she takes on the darkest and dangerous jobs, the kinds of jobs where killing can be expected. Erin privately considered Garrett as someone she could relate to and trust so her angry disappointment at his perceived abandonment is strong.

Plot
Erin's history prior to her arrival to the City is unknown. She arrived as a stowaway aboard a ship inbounds to the Docks.

Her early time in the City was spent stealing to survive until she was found by the proprietor of the House of Blossoms, Madam Xiao-Xiao. Taken into the brothel, she was made a petal by the name of Primrose. She spent many years cleaning up after various clients. It was here she first met her future fence, Basso, as he made a delivery. Finally reaching the proper age, she was graduated to a blossom and was expected to service the clients who came to the brothel. However, she murdered her first client and ran.

On the streets once again, she went back to stealing to survive. She eventually spotted a shadowy man on a rooftop. Using her natural abilities, she snuck up on the cloaked figure and made a grab for his coin purse. However, she was discovered and the man grabbed her wrist. As a natural reaction she bit the masked man's arm and ran, her pursuer letting her go. This was the first meeting with her future mentor, Garrett.

With nowhere left to go, she sought out Basso and introduced herself once again, this time by her real name of Erin. Basso chose to introduce her to a business associate, thinking the two would do some good for each other. Garrett then crawled through the window, remarking with amusement that they had met previously.

Garrett took the girl under his wing, attempting to teach her all the skills he had amassed during his career. Erin was receptive to most of it, learning how to pick marks, infiltrate, and steal with a great proficiency. Initially the relationship went well, but as time went on there developed friction between the teacher and student. Erin often lacked patience and made careless errors because of it, much to Garrett's chagrin. When the topic of killing would come up Erin would openly question Garrett's stance on never taking a life needlessly, resulting in heated and angry arguments between the two.

These arguments came to a head one evening while on a job for Basso. While stealing some documents, a guard went unnoticed in the residence. As Garrett inspected what they came to find, the guard found Garrett and moved in to kill him. Before Garrett could react, Erin slit the throat of the guard in front of her mentor. Shocked at how casually she could take a life, Garrett chose to cut all ties with Erin. She didn't see Garrett again until one fateful night years later

Hurt by this perceived betrayal by someone she looked up to, Erin set out on her own. She became a proficient thief in her own right, but also became an assassin for hire. It's during this time she invented a mechanical tool she called the Claw, which she used for mobility and a weapon against anyone in her way.

Several years into her career, she was commissioned to do a job by Basso to steal a gem known as the Primal Stone from Northcrest Manor. She waited at a meeting place for another thief; a thief that turned out to be her old mentor Garrett. While the two made their way to the manor across the rooftops, she could barely contain her excitement at first, expressing her joy at being reunited with her teacher. Garrett, by contrast, once again began to see her mistakes and made several disappointed remarks about his former pupil. This finally came to a head when Erin once again killed a guard in front of Garrett with her claw. Angered by this, Garrett chastised Erin angrily for her callous action. The old wounds being reopened, Erin became frustrated and hostile with her partner. Killing another guard, Garrett decided to try and limit her ability to take life by stealing her Claw right from her belt without her knowing.

Reaching the skylight of Northcrest Manor, the two watched a strange ritual below being conducted, led by Baron Elias Northcrest himself. Spotting the Primal Stone below, Erin moved to steal the object. Garrett refused, deciding to call off the job and walk away due to too many unknown factors making the situation dangerous. Erin, defiant, intended to go forward with the heist until Garrett revealed he had stolen her Claw. As the ritual began below, Erin jumped at Garrett in an attempt to steal her weapon back from him. The Claw was knocked from Garrett's hand onto the center of the skylight, and Erin followed to retrieve it. Just as she reached the center the ritual below let out a burst of energy, causing the glass to shatter and her to fall.

Garrett leapt and caught Erin by the wrist. She begged Garrett for the Claw, and her mentor reached for it. As he reached her grip slipped and she plummeted below into the center of the ritual. Hitting the flow of energy, she was suspended in air as energy surged into her. The impact sent out another pulse causing the entire chamber to collapse.

Erin became infused with the energy of the Primal from the ritual. By having the Primal inside her, she was tapped directly into the City's population. Her emotional state feeding directly into everyone's subconscious, it slowly began to drive the citizens of the City insane. This insanity became known as the Gloom. Believing he could still use her, Elias Northcrest had her sent to Moira Asylum where he continued to experiment with her while she was heavily sedated. However her prolonged presence in the asylum twisted the minds and bodies of several inmates and doctors at a more rapid rate, finally resulting in a bloody riot in which resulted in several inmates escaping and the asylum abandoned. Erin seemed to disappear here.

A year later from the Northcrest Manor, Garrett believed his old apprentice to have died when he awakened from his coma. However, as time went on Garrett began to see visions of his apprentice. These images were in actually Erin reaching out to the Master Thief through his Primal infused eye, attempting to lead him to her.

Erin was in fact being held by the leader of the Graven Dawn, Orion. He was in actuality Elias Northcrest's half-brother, Aldous, and was imprisoned at Moira by Northcrest. While there, he eventually found out about Erin presence there and escaped with her during the riots. Knowing of the Primal in Erin, Orion sought to use her blood to cure the Gloom in his followers and eventually the entire City. However, he unwittingly was corrupting them with Erin's Primal fueled blood into monsters. As he was conducting his ritual, Garrett stole the ritual book needed. The two argued until the Thief-Taker General interrupted, with Orion retreating to his ship the Dawn's Light with Erin in tow. It's aboard this ship that Erin finally stirred from her coma.

Finally lucid, Erin was angered about being used by Orion. Erin turned the Primal energy onto her captor, corrupting him too rapidly and killing him, before turning her rage to Garrett and attempting to do the same to her former mentor for abandoning her. Attempting to reason with his apprentice, Garrett reassembled the Primal stone as Erin let loose multiple bursts of Primal light. This energy expenditure exhausted her rapidly, giving Garrett the opportunity to use the stone. However, when he finally closed the gap Erin let loose a final burst of energy, destroying the wall of the ship. Erin fell off the newly created cliff and Garrett grabbed her wrist to prevent her from plummeting, mirroring the night one year ago at Northcrest Manor. Erin begged Garrett for the claw while he reached to start the channeling of the Primal. He succeeded in unlocking the book with the ring on Orion's corpse, but Erin slipped. In a final act before passing out, Garrett threw the claw to Erin as the Primal reached for its host.

When Garrett was awoken by the sunrise, the claw was embedded in the wood post next to him with some wet and bare footprints on the ground, implying Erin survived.

Trivia

 * Erin is similar to Zaya, the female protagonist from the unofficial expansion of Thief 2: Shadows of the Metal Age, Erin like Zaya is a young skilled thief and is determined in rob the most valuable objects.
 * Erin appears to be loosely inspired by the girl at the end of Thief: Deadly Shadows. In the Dark Horse Comic, one image cell appears to even be a directly based on the scene with Garrett grabbing Erin's hand as she attempted to pick pocket him.
 * In the filenames in The Companion App Erin's images are listed as "ariel".