Sacred Daughter Cinder Tosi (a.k.a. Cindy)
Sometimes on Inom, miracles happen, birthed by a prayer cast into the sky at nothing in particular. Something powerful likes to intercept those prayers and make them into realities. Cinder is a natural hybrid of Redspawn and sharkfolk, born to Mother Tosi of Inom's Cradles. Taxonomically, she's merfolk, but she's got the ink-spraying tail, cartilage-cleated feet, blocky head, and native access to pheromones that blockheads have, as well as a rich alizarin hue to her sandpapery skin. If she'd come about due to Tosi ingesting blockhead mandrake while pregnant, then Tosi would be part blockhead and so would the other babies born within the following months.
But that's old hat. Mother Tosi's spawned plenty more like little Cinder with all sorts of species. The only attention cast her way recently, now she's grown up, is speculation as to when she'll pick a partner and see if she inherited her mother's gift.
Physical Description
Fortunately, blockhead and human frames are not too disparate, so Cinder is only a little weird to look at.
Her skin is the same somewhat sandpapery texture found on most sharkfolk, though undeniably tinted by her Redspawn heritage. She's got the melded toes and cartilaginous feet of a blockhead, but perfectly human hands. She's got the tail of a shark, but there's a sac of ink and a small nib at the bottom. Her body is without many of the heart shapes that appear all over blockhead bodies.
She's got the face of a blockhead, but only one digestive system, flat teeth, two eyes, and a head of platinum hair.
Being half merfolk and half blockhead sure is an identifying feature.
She's just as colorblind as any true blockhead, and half-deaf on top.
Like the other adults among Inom's Cradle, she wears pink and gold, snug-fitting liverlinen vestments that expose her nethers and breasts, regardless of the usage they expect to receive.
Mental characteristics
It's been a weird life for one of the few legitimately-ethnically-Redspawn merfolk alive. From Cinder's birth, responsibility for her care has been contested between her Redspawn mother and Inom's Cradles, with the longest-lasting terms being that she changes custody every five months (the battle became especially turbulent once Beet-Red relocated the whole tribe to Thriving). But, of course, she's an adult now. She's met Beet-Red in person and turned down countless proposals for intimacy from both strangers and members of Inom's Cradles.
She counts herself fortunate at least that she's not hounded by journalists or anything; she wasn't old enough to talk when attention was on her and all her younger sisters rendered such miraculous hybrids old news by the time she could speak. She's been the subject of some press attention lately, being an adult able to answer some questions had by some members of the public, but it doesn't compare to how much attention Tosi got for birthing her.
In the April of 32 APB, Cinder, though now an adult according to the Idonean Calendar (her current age translates to about 19 in Earthly years) is continuing to follow the five months plan and currently spending time with Inom's Cradles. This is the first time she's not living at the Temple of Fertility, but instead she's renting a nearby inn room.
Despite having grown up surrounded by sex half the time, she doesn't really have any plans on exploring the romantic or sexual sides of herself.
She's been homeschooled; learning math, art, Signlang, and history from the Redspawn half of her family and reading, writing, and agriculture from the Cradles half.
She has not worked for pay a single day in her life, though she has been often put to work on the Temple of Fertility's farms with the offer always available to nibble on some of the mutagens they grow there as reward.
The closest to accomplishment she's ever reached in her short time here was being born.
She hasn't lived long enough to be reeling from a lingering failure.
Her hybridization and the treatment of her custody has left her feeling inadequate both as merfolk and as blockhead.
Personality Characteristics
She wants to feel like a single and whole person rather than two halves of a person, but she doesn't really know how to go about that.
Through her homeschooling, she found that she very much doesn't have the purple thumb of a gardener, nor the mastery of the abstract that a mathematician requires. She mostly flourished when allowed to read or produce art.
Loves: privacy
Likes: the Redspawn, the Beet-Red Mother, reading, history, art
Dislikes: being, math
Mixed feelings: Inom's Cradles, Mother Tosi
Cinder's certainly studious and persistent.
Cinder's also wracked with indecision.
She bathes whenever the opportunity presents itself.
Social
She's single and seems to be largely without friends not from either of her families.
She's both a member of the Redspawn and a daughter of Mother Tosi. These would be powerful ties if Cinder saw them as anything other than family.
She believes her mother to be some divine being or other, but she isn't sold on her being the only deity in existence.
Cinder is an extreme introvert with little confidence in her social skills.
She reads a lot and sometimes plays ink upon paper.
She loses track of her thoughts when she tries to speak to people, leading to a lot of pauses.
History
Cinder is the first hybrid daughter of Mother Tosi, and her whole existence has been the source of much media attention and a lot of stress for Cinder, being split between two species. Tosi does love all her children, though, even if she has so many to keep track of and is often so busy tending to the current ones she's nursing. Cinder's also had a harder time getting immersed in her mother's cult, her custody tossed between the Redspawn and Inom's Cradles every five months.
Relationship Reasoning
One of them gave birth to the other.
Commonalities & Shared Interests
They both have some artistic and design talent.
Legal Status
Though the circumstances which brought Cinder into this world were perfectly fine, Inom's Cradles and the Redspawn had some pitched arguments over who should get Cinder, finally agreeing they'd each have her five months before swapping custody.
Distant Grandmother (Trivial)
Distant Granddaughter (Important)
History
Beet-Red campaigned for quite some time for custody of Cinder once word got to her that the hybrid had been brought into this world. This is standard practice for the Redspawn: doesn't matter who the kid was with; if she's red, she's Redspawn. And Cinder's very red.
Eventually the two sides fighting over Cinder settled on sharing her for five months at a time, and though Cinder never met Beet-Red during her youth, she happily attended the monthly audience with Beet-Red that all mature Redspawn are compelled to attend the moment she was fifteen (18.75 in Earthly years) and one was available.
Cinder found Beet-Red to be fascinating and Beet-Red likewise liked Cinder. Unfortunately, hybrid or not, Beet-Red wishes not to play favorites amongst her descendants, and so Cinder was told the only way she was gonna meet Beet-Red again was if Inom's Cradles were doing bad things to her or something similar critically needed the matriarch's attention.
Relationship Reasoning
They liked each other when they met in person, and Cinder can credit Beet-Red with providing her resources and at least some sense of who she was instead of leaving her to forever question to her blockhead heritage under Inom's Cradles' care.
Commonalities & Shared Interests
They're both Redspawn with an interest in history.
Legal Status
Cinder is kept away from the Redspawn for either five or ten months of the year.
She doesn't have any money to her name besides that which her families give her.
Comments