Aurora Greene, known as Rory to her family, was born in the summer of 1825, in Tennessee. Shortly after her 18th birthday, her parents decided to pack up the family -- consisting of her and her two younger sisters and her baby brother -- and their belongings and head west on what was to be known as The Great Migration of 1843. While her mother seemed to fret constantly on their journey, Rory found the whole thing thrilling. Guiding their herd of cattle through vast territory, sleeping out under the stars, hunting when it was needed, crossing raging rivers, falling in love and marrying one of the hired cowboys. To her, that far outweighed the bad…the sicknesses, the accidents, and the people too discouraged to go on. It was all a culmination of a great adventure that would end with laying her eyes on the Oregon coast and its ocean for the first time in her life. Only neither she or her family would make it.
The wagon train made it as far as Wyoming when it was attacked by cattle thieves pretending to be natives. Rory was shot clean through with an arrow and passed out. When she came to, the thieves were gone. So were their cattle and all the horses. Some of the wagons were still burning. Bodies — including those of her parents, siblings and her husband, Ennis — were strewn all across the plain. Never one to give up, Rory began to walk, hoping that she would come upon help eventually. She wasn't sure how long she walked for, but just as she was starting to feel weak from the fever she could feel setting in, a Cherokee hunting party found her. Aurora didn’t know what they were saying as they removed the arrow and did what they could for her. She understood from their faces though, that she was dying. Resigned to her death, she managed to communicate that she wanted to go outside of the tipi they had been caring for her in. She wanted to look up at the blue sky and out over the country once more before she died.
Only Rory woke from her death, startling those that had been preparing her body for burial. The shock did not last, though, as the tribal elders spoke of a ghost they’d heard stories of, one who had risen from death to protect the people and the lands, and they decided that Rory, too, must be like this ghost. They called her Nûñnë'hï, meaning "The People Who Live Anywhere,” translated into English as “The People Who Live Forever.”
Shortly after her death Nûñnë'hï married one of the tribe's warriors, a man who spoke enough English that he had taken the name of the white man who slaughtered his family, Sam. Sam was killed in the spring of 1846 when their village was attacked by Pawnee raiders. In the fall of that same year, a scouting party returned to their village with a white man who not only knew their language, but had healed from a wound that should have killed him. The man's name was Wanagi, and her people believed that they were bound together by the lightning that healed their wounds. Nûñnë'hï, still grieving the loss of her husband, wanted nothing to do with Wanagi at first and wouldn’t even look at him, let alone speak to him. Over time, though, they developed a friendship and grew close and eventually became lovers.
In 1865 the military, aided by the Pawnee, attacked their village and Nûñnë'hï and Wanagi fled in search of a new home. It was a difficult task, as the westward expansion of the white man threatened the peoples and land they’d known and made it hard to hide what they were. In 1868 they found themselves in Arizona, where they found a home with the Hualapai people who welcomed them, having heard of the legend of the two who could not die. Nûñnë'hï remained there with Wanagi, now going by Elan Hotah, a name given to him by the Hualapai, and their people until 1902, when her desire for freedom and adventure finally became too great to hide any longer. She wanted to finish the journey her family had started and see the Oregon Coast after all these years. She tried to convince Wanagi to go with her, begged him even, but he was resolute in his sacred duty to remain with the Hualapai. While she understood his decision, she was also frustrated with it. Their parting was emotional and harsh words were spoken by them both.
In Oregon, Rory met a man like her, Kol'Tek, who explained that she was an Immortal. He taught her about the Game, and how to fight with a sword. When Kol’Tek felt he taught her all she needed, she considered returning to Arizona and finding Elan to share this new information with him, but her stubbornness and the guilt over her parting words kept her from doing so. Instead she traveled east, finding herself in Chicago in 1919 just as the 18th Amendment was passed. She met and married a young man that was quickly rising in the ranks of racketeer Johnny Torrio’s gang. She left Chicago when her husband was killed in a gangland slaying in 1923.
By 1936, Aurora was an actress living in Los Angeles, California. When World War 2 broke out, her husband, a pilot in the Air Force, was sent overseas. He was killed in action in Germany in 1944. Her career as a Hollywood starlet ended shortly after when she was blacklisted for fighting for the rights of Native Americans. She left the country at that time, traveling first to Canada, and later to South America, not returning to live in the US in the mid 1990’s.
When Captain Trips hit in 2002, Rory was in New Mexico at the reservation near Shiprock, where she lived with her fiancé and his family on a small farm. The sickness spread quickly, and soon only Rory was left.
