Sinazo Hlumo

Sinazo Hlumo (a.k.a. Zoey)

The Treasury Secretary

This position is overvalued and over hated. North Sibini has a talented Treasury Secretary in that she is pretty weaselly.

Young Star

Sinazo is young for her position, accepted due to her merchant family lineage. Incredibly resourceful, keen-eyed and thoughtful. She is also one of the most determined money collectors all Sibini has ever seen.

Intelligence

Sinazo is goal-oriented and highly motivated; making her charismatic and quick-witted.

328+

Family Affairs

Sinazo was a smart ass from a young age, having a passive but doting father.

Her mother often was kept at bay by her father, but her mother was so in control of her life, that she’d kill him if he so much as risked disturbing her plans for her oldest daughter. She didn't believe in the usefulness of having multiple kids or Grandkids. One was not meant to make mistakes with their children. “No Jokai could kill a cared-for child”

But as nature was no friend or ally, she did let herself have another child. Though not entirely on purpose and not entirely with her husband or even her own kind, giving birth to a Khetshe child. It caused great tension in the family, despite being pragmatically polyamorous. But this was not consensual, it was cheating.

This lead to the family fracturing but not breaking, her father became more distant. He was old but he was still a viable man, he could still go out and get what women he wanted. It was clear what contract made between her parents had been breached, it was almost surreal to watch. It left a deep impression.

A person’s word meant everything and to be reliable was to be powerful. She didn’t know how she’d achieve the levels of awareness to become a powerful person, but she had to start somewhere.

Honesty had become tangible with real physical impacting consequences that would ripple on into eternity fundamentally changing everything around her and there was nothing she could do about it.
It wasn't an idea, it was hidden in good, useful people, worthy people.

She looked for it, literally travelling from location to location under her mother’s watch from scholar to scholar.

She was determined to learn a way out of the feelings, feeling that they were fading her heart. She’d be struggling to stay motivated.

She'd go up to scholars and ask: ‘how to keep a promise’.

It was a more complicated question than she’d imagined, expecting any answer to be good enough, but the few that came went over her head or didn’t satisfy.

She bumped into a young Thato Ndlovu-Sana with her boyfriend, Khaya Raider. She knew Khaya through her sister who was an Archers player too and a common opponent. Sinazo couldn't care less about sport or even sports politics, so there was no bad blood, only room for playful jabbing and jousting as she enjoyed their company.

She, Thato and Khaya made quick friends, the pair, the sharpest people she’d ever met, Thato a viper, Khaya, the anecdote.
Then the attack hit, Khaya’s entire life nearly thrown into ruin.

338+

Merchants War

Sinazo didn’t know why, but she had to do something and she knew she had to get her family in front of The Ndlovu-Sana. Her mother was indifferent. So she begged her father, all but prostrating herself to him until he agreed. It caused conflict with the other merchants within the guilds and between the family but they had to choose a side.

And that’s when the fire bombing began.

Entire ingrained networks both under and above the ground seemed to spontaneously combust, never the entire thing. Merely pressure points which many, including her family, knew were vulnerable and to make it worse there were multiple Grounds Keepers determined and waiting.

Merchants with too few resources to recover quickly or withstand a storm found themselves in ruin.

But not, the Hlumo family, whose stocks and supply lines weren’t halted. But that had its own risk. The family had to act or the merchants would turn on them and eventually the Grounds Keepers too.

Her mother had to let go of her controlling ways and trust in her kids because they had to act.

First was appeasing the people, the best way was always sponsorships, financially backing a hero of the community, hiring a bard, a soothsayer helped but mostly through Archers.

Archers would be the first way to appease them and by tying both girls to Archers players, not by marriage it would take too long and was too important, but by something called a ring ceremony, a somewhat old ritual that promises the pre-approval of a parent, if the two kids ever wanted to get married.

There was a danger to such a strategy too, after all. The chaos was between the nobles and the merchants and guilds. She and her sister had to think. Both would share rings with two of the most involved merchants there.
The most oblivious being Dumisani Fletcher, the hardcore pretty-boy heartthrob Thato blamed directly for it all people for South Sibini were sent over as protection.
There was real danger within their humble patch of green.

But even if they did get enough of his attention then that meant being on Thato's bad side, which was suicide. There's a difference between being friends and losing everything the family had ever walked for.

So it was all about the secondary merchant, someone connected enough to need to be involved but far removed enough they wouldn't earn Thato's wrath, which again, was absurd.

She was literally one woman, fallible, but not weak. They'd hurt the vaccine and now the viper was striking.

The sisters went for a guild member each. Her sister chose the youngest daughter of one the heads of the weapons guilds and a support structure for weapons merchants, and he was quite the Archers player.

Sinazo would still be happy. She didn't want to be miserable while the chaos was being sorted. She shared a ring with a good friend who'd been playing it neutral the entire time. A leader who supported multiple bombed houses to get them back on their feet, at a cost, eventually, but it was a genuine pleasure to be with them even if their job, more than most, put them at risk of dishonour. They were good people.

It worked.

Participanting in Archers events and courting the girls kept eyes off of the family. Then the rate of bombings exploded, God's Window, The Royal, the Highlands found themselves aflame.

It was chaos. And one of the greatest of mysteries.

But they all knew the first victim, the mastermind but there was no proof. The victim could hardly be questioned. The whole retainership of The Ndlovu-Sana watching every member of the family, proving their innocence.

It was absurd how untouchable the Ndlovu-Sana were, not without starting a war.

But Sinazo, would, as secretly as possible, offer any support as a part of her family and a friend. It was all so 'special', without fear she'd get replies. Thato was, despite fooling the whole world, 'Honest' and reliable. She was weird but cool. Too bad she was also the most dangerous in the world.

Time passed and the fury ended. Thato was moved from The Royal to the Highlands and God's Window.

A comprimise deal.

Despite living closer to Sinazo's family home Thato was further away than ever before. It was surprising but it hurt.

But it wasn't because they'd stopped writing. They'd never stopped.

They'd changed cultures and that was okay. The Hlumo family needed her. Unique styles were what made them famous, but the dye was what made them wealthy.

Social

Contacts & Relations

She’s close friends, proudly so, with a daughter of the noble Ndlovu-Sana house. That being Thato Ndlovu-Sana , not only a lucky find, but the most luck she feels she’s ever had, it still amazes her. But she knows there is a risk with people like Thato.

Those she brags to about her ‘win’, which is what she literally calls it.
It’s something Thato hates, it’s hard to feign idiocy when those around you declare you a genius.

Current Location

North Sibini

Species

The Chui Yetsimbi

Professions

• Treasury Secretary

Year of Birth

328 UA 26 Years old

Gender

Female