Cinamon Hadalia
Cinamon Hadalia
Physical Description
General Physical Condition
Cassia is a human-presenting woman, somewhere in her mid 30’s. She’s not particularly tall - 5’6” at the most - and her frame, while a bit slight, seems capable of comfortably bearing her breastplate, which latches at her shoulders. Her hair, long and dark, is bound in a loose braid thrown lazily over a shoulder, long wisps distractedly pushed behind her ears.
She’s attractive, certainly - eyes the color of the sea at dawn, strong hands, a full mouth - but there is no escaping a clear sadness, a heaviness behind her gaze. Difficult to say if her beauty is sharpened or obscured by the scar, but the scar is unmissable. Running from her right temple down across her face, then down her neck before disappearing beneath her plate, the scar is thick, unsettled - the knotted flesh glows with a dull metallic sheen, burnished gold in the low light of the gloaming.
The pendant hanging from her neck occasionally *clinks* against the metal of her breastplate; when she pulls it out, its large face and dark beaded strand is obvious, maybe even ostentatious. In the center of the silver disk is a carefully wrought snowflake, flanked by a waxing and waning moon. Above these symbols stretch two large wings, etched in black, hovering protectively over their charge. To either side of the necklace are strung black beads - pearls? Onyx? Difficult to say - which make the faint sound of a distant bell as they jostle and caress their neighbor.
At her waist, a long, thin dagger rests, rarely used. Its hilt bears the snowflake and moons of her pendant, but there are no wings. Hanging beside it, and quietly ticking, is a latched locket, its lid wholly covered in intricately detailed gears.
Latched to her arm, or thrown on her back, is a most unusual shield: in its center a large, sprawling tree reaches branches upwards, as its roots crawl down; in the center of the trunk, a single eye, now closed. At the base, clusters of mushrooms huddle close.
Stepping close to her, you get the distinct smell of the healthy rot of the forest, a sweetness beneath decay, and, unmistakably, patchouli and salted air.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
Definitely has an air of the religious about her, but you've never seen her pray.
Gender Identity
She/her, but also, quite literally, they/them.
Sexuality
Yes and lots of it.
Education
She probably had some form of education - she's a quick reader, anyway, and good with languages.
Employment
Has certainly had a job or two before; that breastplate looks valuable.
Failures & Embarrassments
Was once shamed for over-packing for a camping trip. Has never lived it down.
Intellectual Characteristics
Resilient, skeptical, resigned. Rueful.
Taboos
Not a big fan of necromancy or its practitioners; believes that the dead should, generally speaking, remain dead. Wishes people would stop fetishizing life.
Personality Characteristics
Motivation
Used to be, she had none. These days, things seem to be changing.
Vices & Personality flaws
Easily loses days in a pleasure house.
Tendency towards skepticism and pessimism.
Grumpy in the mornings.
Hygiene
She smells great and her hair is always just the right amount of disheveled.
For "great," read "a slight warm decaying odor, patchouli, and the ocean."
For "disheveled," read "that braid is a mess."
Social
Contacts & Relations
Gustavo, her closest friend (who doesn't live in her head) and former roommate/landlord.
Religious Views
None of your business.
Sweetheart angel of death, doing her best to stay one soul ahead of her patron.
View Character Profile
Honorary & Occupational Titles
Formerly well-respected devotee in the service of the Lady of the Frozen Night.
These days, a druidic student of medicine, decay, and balance.
Birthplace
Shallow Reach
Children
Current Residence
On The Road, Sorta
Related Reports
Ulrich's Caution
19th of Nubnohine, Waning Gibbous
Everything winnowed down to a single focal point: do what we came here to do, take down Maranth. Everything else can wait. So I told myself, but Ulrich’s words rung unceasingly in my head; “She is the cause of that which she cures.”
That can’t be true in my case, it can’t, it just can’t. He was speaking of massive conflicts, the fall of families and regions, things of a large scope, whereas I - I’m small, just me. It was just us, until it all fell apart, and then Zhi appeared and it was just me. Zhi couldn’t be responsible for it all - why bother with us, just two small people, living a life, out of the way? What happened wasn’t her. It *cannot* have been her. It cannot have been her who tore out my heart and ruined my life.
I forced myself to focus, to clear my mind of the ugliest, most horrid possibility, that all my sorrow and misery and pain was because of her. Focus.
A single focal point: Kill Maranth. Everything else comes after. Everything else tumbles down once we are safe.
Shadow of Vyssuivion
We survived, somehow. More, we won. We succeeded in ending the life of a creature older than I can comprehend, a life extending backwards to the earliest I can trace my name, countless generations; a creature who survived the sundering of the world; a Greatwyrm. Vesuvian, the Corroding Shadow, she called herself, and I can see how, at the height of her powers, that name would be meet, but we were…fortunate…enough to encounter her in the waning of her might. Some corruption, some sickness rotted her from the inside, and in the end, she split like fruit too long in the sun.
I am not thinking about what she did to Greylyn.
Professor Irius Orb’s dry but informative treatise was essential to besting her, in the end. I don’t know how I was able to remember the lengthy section on draconic dispositions and physical characteristics, but there it was, grasped and suddenly understood. A form of magic I don’t love, but it was key: two Orbs, essential to our survival.
I am not thinking of Greylyn’s body on the ground, still.
It’s hard to not see Magister Clorid desperately clinging to her neck, sliding around gaping wounds, or Alfredo, stumbling under the weight of a tail, a wing, a claw. It’s hard to not be overwhelmed. How close it all came.
Slogging for hours through acid and blood and mud, the shittest hole in all the Deadlands, misery everywhere and us, slicing through sinew and scale, always on a back foot. Stink of acid in our lungs. Burning eyes, tearing up.
I am not thinking of a still body taking a breath, or the voice behind me.
The Breath Before.
I'm not a jealous person, really, I just don't care for show-offs. Especially when those show-offs make a mockery of death. And that Dari, wow. All showboating. Who can say if there's much substance to her at all? Impossible to tell - though Yia liked her at one time, maybe even loved her, so there *must* be more than what I saw. Certainly Grey and Al saw something they liked...
The Floggers. Phht. What a ridiculous name, I didn't see a single flogger in the whole place.
At least we've been able to strike a deal with the patheric excuse for a governor - pompous man, all grave-robbed goods off the poor corpses that float here, downstream of all of the Deadlands. What a shithole, frankly, but hopefully it'll prove to have enough of what we need, to prepare us for the final push before...before what, exactly, I still don't know. Before we reach Greylyn's former home, The Nest. Funny, the word "nest" used to evoke such warm imagery.
And that dragon - at least we'll profit from its destruction. I have this haunted sense that if we hadn't accepted the bounty, we would still have found that dragon in our path. Something about this place, the bad seems to stick to the bottom of our boot. We've been dogged this whole trip by varieties of darkness I don't care for, at all. Which isn't even to mention what seems to have gone wrong with She of the Lustrous and Bountiful Wing.
-----
I had a dream the other night. I dreamt of all the souls I'd condemned to Zhi. I stood on their corpses, a carpet of skulls and ulnas and spines, not a beautiful ossuary but in heaps like garbage. This place follows me everywhere, even into dreams. I had no choice. I really had no choice, there was no one else who could help, and time was passing and there was so much blood and ruin - I had no choice.
Departing Vetici
17th of Elouhine, 1298 PS - harvest moon in a darkened sky.
We're stepping into something both unknown and awful ; the future is looking grim and unpromising, though I'm doing what I can to remain cheerful and to bolster the group. Hopeful, optimistic Cinamon.
Leaving Port Vetici was like stepping from a dream. The real world caught up with me all at once, and I realized that the idyll we had lived in - Zafira included - had come to an end. My heart broke a little for Al - all that work, the fulfillment of a long-held dream, a quiet and satisfying avocation, and then gone, so quickly. At least she retains control of the business, but I know a part of her risks wilting if her clothes aren't dusted with flour, if the beds of her fingernails aren't encrusted with dried dough. Hopefully, the crude campfires will suffice for quickbreads, enough to tide over the soul of a baker.
And I doubt we'll win over a figure like Garlic where we're going. Or meet as sweet a child as Fiona.
I've been where we're going; it almost killed me. Creatures out of the Shadowfell, roaming undead - and that was decades ago. Nothing's improved since then - Zhi made that clear when last she summoned me to her, after I hastily snatched Zafira's soul. Reminded me that I've twice crossed an unforgiving god.
When we reached Cellis, I felt small again for the first time in months. Vulnerable. Exposed. Leaving Broken Wing with Grey was incredibly hard, in that too-bright city scented by gardens and suffused with strangers and unknown magic. And then the temple - in my nervousness, in my awkwardness, I shared more with a stranger than I should have. But it's been so long since I said the familiar words: Mortis complexus, Mortis dimissio. So long since being near the calming presence of a Doom Guide, a class of acolyte I'd often encounter in my work - I was too open, too trusting, too reminded of a different life. And of course, the long-familiar and comforting presence of a Shadar-kai, his skin as cold as mine. Though there was nothing comforting in what Driel shared with me - bad tidings from Rokkurveldi. Rising fundamentalism among the Krumidara - always already a problem even in Dimmadül - and whispers of something he called Draudur Skuggi (the Raven Queen's follower's were never big on subtlety, that's for sure - imagine the hubris of naming yourself Death's Shadow. I wonder what She thinks of it all, if She even notices - perhaps She's encouraging it...I wonder what my mother would think of all this, if she would even recognize the increasingly distant strain of worship on this continent...I wonder if the shame I've brought to her will ever wash away). Zhi had mentioned that name, too. We're in for trouble, it seems certain. How is Myelo involved in this? What is he getting Greylyn into? She doesn't deserve any of this. Maybe I *should* reach out to Zhi...
How to keep Grey safe? She was scared and angry and overwhelmed last night, and there was so little comfort I could give her. I gave her my promises, every one I could - and I'm terrified I'll fail. Oath-breaker, indeed - I've made and broken these same promises before, to another woman, in another bedroom, in a life long dead. I couldn't have more completely failed then, and I'm terrified I'll fail again. I just have to be stronger, somehow. And can't let her know that I've quailed before, broken a covenant, ruined a love.
Time again to do what I was trained for - to project a calm confidence I don't feel. Be the High Accompanist, even if I am again escorting companions towards death.
Comments