Zenirith

Zenirith (a.k.a. Zeni)

Description You can often smell Zenirith before you see her, as there does seem to be an aura (odour) of the sea and fish. She wears basic gear but adorns herself with as many pieces of jewellery as possible which, in turn, makes her quite overwhelming to all the senses. Her upper body is covered in intricate and spiralling purple tattoos which adorn her orange skinned 19 year old body. Zenirith also has two bright orange horns that darken towards the tip, however, the horn that protrudes out of her stark white hair on the left side of her head, is merely a stump. Broken when she was very young, the horn could not regrow after the trauma and left her with an interesting appearance, even in Tiefling eyes. The last thing you notice about her is the book she carries with her. Zen keeps it close to her person at all times and rarely puts it down. It has a crust of salt over the hard leather cover and appears to be quite water damaged. When Zen does turn to her book, she does so with the greatest of care, as if it was made of the finest material money could buy.
Backstory Beginnings Zenirith was raised in a small fishing village on the coastline of Wildemount but was too young to remember the name or the whereabouts of the village. She does remember her parents, although their faces are blurred in her mind's eye, taking her to the beach at the end of a long Summer's day to watch the sun fade behind the horizon. As to why she cannot remember such significant yet ordinary pieces of her life is due to her being captured and enslaved by Captain Drakar and his crew aboard the Wildehammer. The pirates were raiding and pillaging around Wildemount and captured the locals in small villages, particularly focusing on children as they had the most 'potential' for profit or at the very least dog's bodies aboard the ship. She was captured but after travelling from Port to Port, they could not shift her onto any potential buyers, partly due to her being a bright orange tiefling girl. As time went on and with Zen growing quickly from young infant to pre-pubescent girl, Captain Drakar gave up on selling her on and began to use her more and more around the ship. From running errands from dawn til dusk and then to lugging all sorts of treasure, armour, weapons and miscellaneous objects, Zen's existence took a turn downhill. With no escape in sight in the form of potential buyers, she accepted her fate and it didn't take long for her to become a part of the crew. Seeing Zenirith struggling with her lot and the lack of parental figures in her life, the ship's cook, Pallius took her under his wing. He got her to help him prepare the food on the ship and as time went on, he started to train her in cooking on the ocean with a particular specialty in fish, unsurprisingly. However, he was not merely an old ship's cook, he was also attuned to the arcane arts and seeing some potential in Zeni, commenced the teaching of minor magic. He first spotted her affinity for the arcane when he saw her opening and closing a porthole on the ship in the attempt to scare some of the other children in the stocks. As Zeni spent more and more time with Pallius, their bond grew stronger and stronger until they were nearly inseparable.
Sabali On one such raid, the Wildehammer captured a young Tabaxi child by the name of Sabali. He was incredibly young and needed a lot of care still but Drakar saw the potential returns that a Tabaxi could fetch considering they are so incredibly difficult to capture. Drakar gave Zeni the most challenging of all challenges. To ensure that this child stayed fit and healthy and was ready to be sold. Drakar realised to fetch the amounts he was looking for, keeping him locked up in the stocks with the others would lead to a scraggly, ill and thin asset which certainly would not do his chances of making any money any good. So Zenirith was made the charge of the young tabaxi which was aptly named Sabali by Pallius for the patience that was needed to rear such a young child. Over the next couple of years, Zenirith mothered the child and gave her a purpose and a reprieve from some of the more taxing chores that Drakar would normally send her way. When Sabali was taken ill, Pallius (who seemed to be a Jack of all trades) would instruct Zeni in how to treat her charge. Sabali would grow up fit and strong and had made a special bond with Zenirith until which time the young tabaxi was ready to be sold on. Captain Drakar made a pretty penny that day and it broke Zeni's heart to see her young friend, almost son, be stripped from her to be sold to what looked like a rather nasty new owner. This was the last time that Zenirith and Sabali saw each other.
The breakaway As Pallius was a popular man, being the chef's cook and rather eccentric, he had garnered a close group of friends which riled Drakar. Drakar was a jealous captain and saw this as the beginning of a mutiny and believed that nipping it in the bud would be the best course of action. He dragged Pallius to the top deck and Zenirith watched on as he was dumped unceremoniously overboard off the Eastern coast of Tal'dorei. To Zeni's distress, she didn't see the old man's body resurface and broke down to the deck as her mentor and father figure's life was extinguished before her eyes. Captain Drakar turned to the rest of the crew extolled the importance of following your captain and threatened anyone who would dare put a foot out of line with the same fate as Pallius. That day and throughout the night, Zeni mulled over her options and came to the conclusion that it was time to rid herself of Captain Drakar and the Wildehammer. She collected her belongings including her book of spells, parchment, ink and anything else she could put in her sack. She saw Pallius' gnarled old quarterstaff laying up against the side of the boat in his quarters and decided that she wanted to keep a piece of him with her. So she crept topside and using her innate ability of thaumaturgy, she distracted the guards by unfurling the main sail which sent them chasing around trying to tie it back up before the Captain heard the commotion. She jumped in one of the small boats and quickly lowered it into the water and began to quietly sail off into the darkness towards the looming hills and mountains of the continent of Tal'dorei.
Making land As she got closer to land and as the Sun started to rise in front of her eyes, she could see over her shoulder the makings of a marshy, swampy dark land in front of her. Rather than spend more time and energy sailing around the coast line, possibly in view of the Wildehammer once they had realised she had stolen her escape on one of Drakar's boats, she decided to hit land and take her chances through this area. She made her way through the marshland at a reasonable pace, not stopping to sleep and continued to trudge through the 20 miles of swamp, occasionally having to fend off or hide from the local inhabitants. The magic that Pallius had taught her was coming in handy and she eventually made it to the end of the marshlands after two days of hard travel. As she reached the edge of a huge lake (which she would soon find out was Mooren Lake on the edge of Rootgarden Marsh) she collapsed. The last few days had taken it out of her physically, mentally, emotionally and mystically and she laid face down in the sandy dirt whilst her feet were lapped by the small tide around the lake.
She woke up to see the sky moving above her and the feeling of wheels upon ground through her back. Zeni sat up to find herself in the back of a cart being pulled by a couple of horses. She noticed the smell around her for the first time which invaded her nostrils but also gave her a sense of 'home'. There were a few bags of fish in the back of the cart with her and a barrel of some sort of liquid. The person steering this cart was handsome young human who went by the name of Rebur Eaglewood who owned the tavern in Drynna named The Eagle's Landing. In exchange for saving her life, Rebur offered her the chance to work off the debt in the kitchen at the tavern.

Alignment

Chaotic Neutral