Cecily the Arsonist (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dishonestea) wrote2022-12-25 11:16 pm
dishonestea) wrote2022-12-25 11:16 pm
Character History
Cecily Greywind is a master spy associated with an anarchist organization that operates under the cover of a mercantile trading group. The Greywind Tea Company operates to supply tea and goods to people living in communities along a disputed border, where access to necessities is periodically compromised because of lordly squabbles that they are not privy too. As such, more than a mere trade company, the Greywind Tea Company serves as a means of rallying and protecting the people, providing resources for everyone to survive comfortably.
Cecily is one of the direct descendants from the founder, and her superiors have tapped her as being a candidate to one day hold the reigns for the organization. For now, however, she is both a spirited and independent spy who was recently given an apprentice-- shy and naive newcomer Lili, to mentor and train. While Honesty would much prefer gathering dirt on the goofy but mysterious Prince she met in the Capital, she knows what she needs to do.
Her assignment takes precedence, and right now it is training the recent wave of newcomers what it is that they need to do to survive in a world where the people with the power to do so aren't looking after them.
However: It quickly becomes apparent to her that Lili is more than the plain and mild mannered girl with an awkward laugh and an odd insight that she portrays to the rest of the world. After all, people don't simply come to one of the riverside tea houses and asks for Abandoned Lighthouse Blend. The code to seek audience was met-- and the young adult asked for an apprenticeship on the grounds of having access to information routes from beyond New Hiberia. While the Company has a multitude of local information routes, none extended as far into the continental North as this girl claimed to maintain a connection with.
They determined it was worth the risk, but placed her with Cecily as a means of challenging both of them.
Unknown to all of them, Lili had latent abilities as a channeler that escaped notice and went untapped because of her lack of potential in other areas of magic. Lili was a Foundling and adopted into the family; no one had a clue about her true identity, origins, or nature. The only hint Cecily got about anything being amiss was Lili's curious commentary about her worries regarding the sun vanishing from the sky-- only hours before she vanished on the eve before an unnatural storm swept through and created a deluge that sank the small town of Rhodes underwater-- this town was the hereditary base of operations for the Tea Company, and the place that Cecily had long considered to be her home.
After this incident, the sky darkened with storm clouds so thick that they blotted out the sun. Cecily couldn't help but recall that conversation she had with Lili weeks later and wonder if it had been more literal than it had seemed.
No one noticed Lili was missing until too late, and it took weeks for people to realize that the strange girl had not gone back to ensure the safety of her family as they had suspected, and that she was among the multitude that were missing or dead. The officials from New Hiberia were unable to come and provide aid from the damage, but officials from across the border into the territories of the Blue Hollow were. The Greywind Tea Company was there as always to assist, but the stronghold of their organization had been within Rhodes. All they had was what people they had and what they could carry. It was a blow to the organization, but they would recover.
They always did.
Assured that her people would be fine, Cecily made finding Lili her primary concern. From there, Cecily reunited with Genya, a boisterous paladin of a Genasi with a big personality and a habit of keeping his personal affairs quiet, while Cecily searched the disaster zone. They had been working on an information gathering assignment as it regarded the political workings of the offshore Sovereignty called Blue Hollow and the land based powers of New Hiberia in relation to the border towns like Rhode together with Lili just before the disaster. Genya, being born of a human mother and being of mixed heritage, had found some relief from his own physical conditions due to Lili's uncanny intuition about people and her knowledge of the natural world. Genya quickly volunteered to help Cecily find Lili amidst the cleanup-- even if it did seem as if he were hiding a few matters of his own.
Along the way south to the Sweetwater Sea, where their intelligence had been leading them with the suggestions of a plot being hatched by unnamed forces within New Hiberia in that region at the time Lili vanished, they were ambushed by rogues from an unknown party. Separated, Cecily and Genya were forced to face different trials by their captors in an effort uncover any information about an entity they were calling 'Flick'-- a name that neither of them had heard before. While the both of them were being interrogated, the manner in which it was done for each of them was very different. With Cecily, it took shape with practical torture instruments that she could not escape. Cecily, despite her posturing and her appearances, is fairly baseline in her capabilities as it regards magic and combat. Genya, meanwhile, was heavily restrained with both physical and magical bindings and forced to watch, with the condition being that his divulging the information they wanted would end Cecily's torment. The both of them were placed under the combined effects of a magic sealing spell and the use of the Zone of Truth spell.
Neither could withstand it.
The combined pressures of the magically induced forced admission of truth and repeated beatings with a variety of instruments broke through Cecily's willpower, and she confessed to a variety of truths that she had sworn to secrecy. Everything, including the identities and locations of key persons and resources to the organization, spilled forth with her inability to resist any longer--
Genya, likewise, divulged that he was the illegitimate son and forgotten prince of the Blue Hollow. Not even revealing himself as a possible tool against an enemy power was enough to end Cecily's torment.
Meanwhile--
Their rescue was forced by the hand of a foreign player-- an entity with black wings and a shock of hair as bright as the sunset, that razed the stronghold where the two were being kept. This was the 'Flick' that the rogues had spoken of during the interrogation. For their singular crime of hurting these two strangers, they were all killed-- even the ones that tried to flee. Only Cecily and Genya remained to lick their wounds.
When the dust cleared, the entity revealed itself as someone familiar, and it was a being bearing Lili's features that had bought them freedom before bidding them to turn back.
"The pact is broken. Go now; there's no stopping her."
Unfortunately, that was impossible now that they were so close.
It is for the results of her torturous trial that Cecily took the name Honesty upon her rescue. In her eyes, her honesty is her greatest mistake and the lives that she endangered, wittingly or not, are a weight that she has to carry. The name is a reminder to her to never be so overconfident again-- just as her presence within the Greywind Tea Company is a reminder to all of them to never use their might for personal gain.
With it also came a goal: find the people whose lives she endangered and find a way to make it right, however that looks.
After she finds Lili and determines what her fate is.
Cecily is one of the direct descendants from the founder, and her superiors have tapped her as being a candidate to one day hold the reigns for the organization. For now, however, she is both a spirited and independent spy who was recently given an apprentice-- shy and naive newcomer Lili, to mentor and train. While Honesty would much prefer gathering dirt on the goofy but mysterious Prince she met in the Capital, she knows what she needs to do.
Her assignment takes precedence, and right now it is training the recent wave of newcomers what it is that they need to do to survive in a world where the people with the power to do so aren't looking after them.
However: It quickly becomes apparent to her that Lili is more than the plain and mild mannered girl with an awkward laugh and an odd insight that she portrays to the rest of the world. After all, people don't simply come to one of the riverside tea houses and asks for Abandoned Lighthouse Blend. The code to seek audience was met-- and the young adult asked for an apprenticeship on the grounds of having access to information routes from beyond New Hiberia. While the Company has a multitude of local information routes, none extended as far into the continental North as this girl claimed to maintain a connection with.
They determined it was worth the risk, but placed her with Cecily as a means of challenging both of them.
Unknown to all of them, Lili had latent abilities as a channeler that escaped notice and went untapped because of her lack of potential in other areas of magic. Lili was a Foundling and adopted into the family; no one had a clue about her true identity, origins, or nature. The only hint Cecily got about anything being amiss was Lili's curious commentary about her worries regarding the sun vanishing from the sky-- only hours before she vanished on the eve before an unnatural storm swept through and created a deluge that sank the small town of Rhodes underwater-- this town was the hereditary base of operations for the Tea Company, and the place that Cecily had long considered to be her home.
After this incident, the sky darkened with storm clouds so thick that they blotted out the sun. Cecily couldn't help but recall that conversation she had with Lili weeks later and wonder if it had been more literal than it had seemed.
No one noticed Lili was missing until too late, and it took weeks for people to realize that the strange girl had not gone back to ensure the safety of her family as they had suspected, and that she was among the multitude that were missing or dead. The officials from New Hiberia were unable to come and provide aid from the damage, but officials from across the border into the territories of the Blue Hollow were. The Greywind Tea Company was there as always to assist, but the stronghold of their organization had been within Rhodes. All they had was what people they had and what they could carry. It was a blow to the organization, but they would recover.
They always did.
Assured that her people would be fine, Cecily made finding Lili her primary concern. From there, Cecily reunited with Genya, a boisterous paladin of a Genasi with a big personality and a habit of keeping his personal affairs quiet, while Cecily searched the disaster zone. They had been working on an information gathering assignment as it regarded the political workings of the offshore Sovereignty called Blue Hollow and the land based powers of New Hiberia in relation to the border towns like Rhode together with Lili just before the disaster. Genya, being born of a human mother and being of mixed heritage, had found some relief from his own physical conditions due to Lili's uncanny intuition about people and her knowledge of the natural world. Genya quickly volunteered to help Cecily find Lili amidst the cleanup-- even if it did seem as if he were hiding a few matters of his own.
Along the way south to the Sweetwater Sea, where their intelligence had been leading them with the suggestions of a plot being hatched by unnamed forces within New Hiberia in that region at the time Lili vanished, they were ambushed by rogues from an unknown party. Separated, Cecily and Genya were forced to face different trials by their captors in an effort uncover any information about an entity they were calling 'Flick'-- a name that neither of them had heard before. While the both of them were being interrogated, the manner in which it was done for each of them was very different. With Cecily, it took shape with practical torture instruments that she could not escape. Cecily, despite her posturing and her appearances, is fairly baseline in her capabilities as it regards magic and combat. Genya, meanwhile, was heavily restrained with both physical and magical bindings and forced to watch, with the condition being that his divulging the information they wanted would end Cecily's torment. The both of them were placed under the combined effects of a magic sealing spell and the use of the Zone of Truth spell.
Neither could withstand it.
The combined pressures of the magically induced forced admission of truth and repeated beatings with a variety of instruments broke through Cecily's willpower, and she confessed to a variety of truths that she had sworn to secrecy. Everything, including the identities and locations of key persons and resources to the organization, spilled forth with her inability to resist any longer--
Genya, likewise, divulged that he was the illegitimate son and forgotten prince of the Blue Hollow. Not even revealing himself as a possible tool against an enemy power was enough to end Cecily's torment.
Meanwhile--
Their rescue was forced by the hand of a foreign player-- an entity with black wings and a shock of hair as bright as the sunset, that razed the stronghold where the two were being kept. This was the 'Flick' that the rogues had spoken of during the interrogation. For their singular crime of hurting these two strangers, they were all killed-- even the ones that tried to flee. Only Cecily and Genya remained to lick their wounds.
When the dust cleared, the entity revealed itself as someone familiar, and it was a being bearing Lili's features that had bought them freedom before bidding them to turn back.
"The pact is broken. Go now; there's no stopping her."
Unfortunately, that was impossible now that they were so close.
It is for the results of her torturous trial that Cecily took the name Honesty upon her rescue. In her eyes, her honesty is her greatest mistake and the lives that she endangered, wittingly or not, are a weight that she has to carry. The name is a reminder to her to never be so overconfident again-- just as her presence within the Greywind Tea Company is a reminder to all of them to never use their might for personal gain.
With it also came a goal: find the people whose lives she endangered and find a way to make it right, however that looks.
After she finds Lili and determines what her fate is.