Mistake
Played by Rin Garnett
Description
Mistake is a red-skinned tiefling with all-silver eyes. She's all of 5 feet and 2 inches tall, not including her horns. She often ties her long black hair back to keep it out of her face, and wears fingerless gloves to hide the scars on the backs of her hands. When she's nervous, which is anytime the wrong people pay attention to her, she involuntarily coils her tail, frequently wrapping it around her ankle. Her life history has taught her she should never be involved with anything important. Most of her big plans go catastrophically awry, either due to unexpected events or her own poor judgement. She's since given up on being anything other than a mistake, and has reveled in her chosen role of trickster, playing pranks on her friends or taking more malicious action against those who harm her community. Being part of the F Squad at Strixhaven, and contributing to accomplishments that have saved lives, has resulted in an identity crisis for her. How can she be the mistake she knows she is, and still be involved in something that big?Classes
Year 1
Year 2
Backstory
Show/HideThe caravan rattled on through their second day of travel. Mistake flexed her toes, not used to sitting in one place for so long. No amount of stretching was as good as being able to stand.
Across from her sat the only other passenger: a purple tiefling named Lady Nehiri Zekine, owner of Zakine Trading & Caravans. Her caravan took contracts from Strixhaven University to cart students between their homes and the nearest airship port.
As a Strixhaven alumna herself, she was glad to help. She didn’t usually accompany such trips herself, but volunteered for this particular one.
Her all-black eyes watched Mistake with interest. “Tell me dearie, as I’m dreadfully curious, how is it that you’ve come to Strixhaven? From what I hear of Redfell, it can’t have been easy.”
Mistake was braced for the question. She wasn’t sure how much people would know of her hometown, having never left it herself, but she knew what they said about tieflings. She couldn’t prove them right.
“A professor saw me studying magic books in the library and told me about the school. He offered to sponsor me if I passed the exam.”
“Mhmm. Want to try again without the lie?” Lady Zakine said with a polite smile. “I may not be from Redfell, but I know they don’t let tieflings into the library. Or have you already forgotten I disguised myself as a human to get you out safely?”
Mistake cringed. Without Lady Zakine’s intervention at the gates, the guards would have imprisoned Mistake for ‘attempted theft’ (translation: ‘existing while tiefling’). She’d hoped her lie would be believable despite that.
She leaned her shoulder against the side of the carriage and watched trees pass through the window. Trusting a human got her this far, surely she could trust a tiefling with the same truth.
“Do you know of Americus Emmeraund?” she asked before the silence grew too comfortable.
“Emmeraund,” Lady Zakine tapped a long nail against her leg, “of Emmeraund Holdings? Does storage and shipping logistics, has uncomfortable requirements about who’s allowed to work with him? We always refuse his contracts. He operates out of Redfell, I assume?”
Mistake nodded. “He only hires humans, unless he’s desperate for laborers to haul crates around. A friend of mine took the job despite the pay being as garbage as the boss.”
“That’s…bold.”
“He’s like that,” she said with a smile. There was a reason he was her best friend. “The first few days were fine as long as he allowed them to search him. Then Americus took offense to a tiefling naming himself ‘King’ and sent my friend home with a black eye and broken jaw. Our healers fixed him up, but he never went back. Didn’t get paid for that day, either.”
“I’m sorry he went through that. The news out of that area is always…troubling. Though I’m not sure I follow how his misfortune brings you here?”
“Because the best way to get back at someone like Americus is to take some of his power away.” Mistake fought to keep the mischievous grin off her face. “Like by proving his ‘secure’ storage isn’t all that secure.”
Lady Zakine’s face lit up. “The book the good professor saw you reading was stolen from Americus.”
“Technically, I stole it from the professor. It was in Americus’ storage awaiting shipment. I should have stolen something expensive, but I saw this book and knew I needed to have it.” Just like the last dozen books she’d “acquired”.
“It wouldn’t take long for a wizard to scry his own belongings.” She let out a hearty laugh. “Imagine his confusion, expecting a thieves’ den and seeing a studious tiefling!”
“I thought he’d have me arrested, or worse. Instead, he gave me a different book to study and offered to sponsor me if the university accepted me.”
“I can see why. Your parents must be proud of you.”
She shifted her gaze back to the window. “It’d be nice, wouldn’t it,” she muttered.
Her unwilling progenitors were more concerned this was a scam, or would bring Redfell wrath upon the community. Though Rezzy did hand her the coin purse of collected donations to her schooling. And Joy did give her this travel cloak she hadn’t taken off since…
They’d always been kind to her, and took care of her when she needed it, but a child knows when they weren’t wanted. When they were a mistake. Her existence seemed only to stress and worry them, and her decisions were always the wrong ones to them.
But maybe, if she went to school, she could come back and make Redfell better for tieflings. And maybe, along the way, her parents would finally be glad they brought her into this world. However accidental it was.
Basics
Mistake's Notes
Children
At Strixhaven
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