"rooster" (law griffith)
AGE 34 | One of the most feared individuals in Dustbowl and leader of an infamous slaving clan. Born to a clan slowly rising to power, Rooster was raised in a harsh environment where the strong survived and subjugated the weak. Surrounded by slavers who placed a huge emphasis on physical strength and combat abilities, Rooster quickly grew to be a shrewd and powerful individual. After training himself rigorously, he rapidly climbed the hierarchy of the clan, overthrowing the previous leader through a series of ritualized spars and rightfully earning the respect of the rest of the clan. It came to no one's surprise that the clan quickly grew over the following years under his command, gathering a number of powerful fighters and bolstering its reputation as a group to be feared, dominating a solid section of the slave trade market.

Unlike many other slaving clans, Rooster's clan does not deal in personal commissions -- ignoring any of the rich upper class who request the enslavement of specific individuals at ludicrous prices -- on principle, as Rooster believes that the clan has no obligation to deal with those who only wield money as power. Instead, the clan conducts regular raids on farming communities and travelers, as well as establishments at the outskirts of the city, capturing individuals who are then broken and sold to slave auction committees. Though not the wealthiest slaving clan around, Rooster's group is no doubt the most feared, and what it lacks in monetary value, it more than makes up for with reputation.

Though ruthless and cruel towards slaves, Rooster conducts himself on a fairly logical moral code. In his mind, the strong are granted the right to consider themselves superior, while the weak are 'slaves' -- beings lower than humans, deserving to be treated like objects. As merciless as he can be towards slaves, Rooster is quick to accept those who are able to prove themselves strong regardless of gender, appearance or history. It is for this reason that Rooster was enraged to hear that one of his younger brothers had been killed in an anti-slaver raid by a man named Soysauce -- a frail wisp of a man who'd 'only been lucky with a rifle.' The grudge that Rooster holds against Soysauce is one of principles, and Rooster has made it his personal mission to see to it that Soysauce is broken in as the slave he is. Meanwhile, he reigns as the terror of the Dustbowl, cheerfully wrecking havoc on those who are unable to fend for themselves, accompanied by his clan members and loving wife.

ignis
AGE 26 | Ignis is a young fox-faced man with a loose and talkative tongue, a friendly attitude and approachable, easy-going way of treating people. He's also a cold-blooded slaver who assists in the capturing and breaking of slaves. He's especially good at bondage and rope arts, despite having only one arm, and in recent years he's packed a great deal of muscle onto his slim frame, making him a daunting opponent.

Ignis was originally a slave to Rooster himself. Once just a young city-dwelling ruffian on his way to visit family outside Beacon, his bike was attacked en route when he unknowingly intercepted a raid, and he was captured. He fought back with everything he had and gave a lot of smart-mouthed sass when that didn't suffice, which led to the severe punishment of having his left arm removed at the elbow. Numerous other awful tortures were exacted on him by Rooster and his fellow slavers in an effort to break his will, but though they got close, and though Ignis grew more obedient by the day, he eventually managed to escape -- partly due to a slaver's negligence, and partly due to his craftiness.

Unfortunately, the attempts to break him had managed in some strange, roundabout fashion; even if his will remained strong, Ignis found in his release that returning to some quiet, simple life was simply impossible. He had no money to get home, and he had no desire to see his family, or allow them to see their dismembered, branded son; suddenly all those sentimental concepts seemed far away from his dismal reality. All he thought about, day and night, was what he'd experienced in those few months he spent in the slave camp. All he remembered was Rooster's mocking laughter, that reiteration of his twisted law -- if you wound up here, you were too weak to deserve better. Only slaves are this powerless.

Ignis became obsessed with this idea. He became obsessed with ruining Rooster at any cost, as personally and gruesomely as he could -- and in the process, it didn't matter what he had to do, as long as he could show that man that he was wrong. Not in his ethics, but simply where it came to Ignis. Because maybe slavers were powerless and deserved that treatment, but he didn't; he was strong. He deserved to be more than a slave -- and he'd prove it by making Rooster weak, he'd prove it by using his guile, his pleasant demeanour, to rip him to shreds.

Over time, Ignis learned of the former successful raid by an anti-slaver called Soysauce, who Ignis trailed for some time, coming to understand the man's regular haunts, his many talents, his interests. His preferences. Ignis eventually approached Rooster, who hardly remembered him, and he vowed that if he was accepted into the slavers, he would get Soysauce captured, bound, and at his mercy. Rooster laughingly gave his consent to this Highly Entertaining idea, though he clearly expected little to come of it.

Ignis approached Soysauce as a companion for the night, slyly manipulating a man he'd come to understand through many months of quiet observation. As soon as he got him to his home and got him nice and relaxed, he promptly threw him off the bed, down to the ground, and beat him unconscious. This led to several days of non-stop torture -- partly to show Rooster what he could do, partly to prep Soysauce for a much less pleasant fate -- before handing him over.

Ignis is now an accepted slaver, which lets him work on the next step in his little operation -- getting Rooster to trust him, getting to understand his system, and proving that it takes more than pure muscle to make strength -- to be outwitted, to be foolish and naive, is a far greater weakness.

"heron" (heather ward)
AGE 30 | A powerful slaver and wife to Rooster. One of the higher-tier members of Rooster's slaving clan, Heron grew up in a different clan, but left the group at a fairly young age after a fierce, rather violent conflict with another slaver her age. After wandering the desert for some time, raiding unfortunate travelers and trade caravans, she stumbled upon the clan that Rooster had recently become the leader of -- and promptly demanded she be allowed to join them. After handily coming out victorious in all of the spars she was placed in to test her strength, she was accepted as a member of the slaving clan, quickly earning a reputation for her skills with a spear and her ruthless fighting methods. Few were surprised when a few years later, she ended up attracting Rooster's eye; the two remained rivals and sparring partners for a long time before finally having a small, unceremonious and entirely unsentimental wedding, then promptly returning to usual routine.

Like many other slavers, Heron shares the mentality that slaves are beings that are less than humans who deserve whatever harsh treatment may fall upon them. However, she's not above developing soft spots for slaves once in a while, much like a person might keep insects as pets. One such individual who caught her attention was Dylan -- a busty, energetic serving girl at a bar who didn't seem to remember that Heron had been among the raiders to slaughter her family. It was several years that Heron spent making friends with Dylan, playfully protecting her and keeping her company, finding great amusment in the fact that for Dylan "ignorance was bliss." When the fun of the situation eventually wore out, she had Dylan enslaved and sold off to a brothel.

As much as she might be ruthless during raids, Heron tends to be energetic and friendly towards fellow slavers, and even has a soft spot for oblivious, cheerful and weak people who seem happily clueless as to how powerless they are. She does tend to hold violent grudges when people anger her, but she's always willing enough to forgive them after beating the shit out of them.

"peacock" (toyo spencer)
AGE 32 | An aggressive, loud, brash woman and a slaver who works under Rooster's group. All brawn and no brains, she's arrogant about her strength and arrogant about her charm, despite only possessing one of these attributes. She fancies herself something of a Casanova, but her idea of charming women is leaning out of the window of her truck and offering them a ride - oh, and she can give them a lift too! This is where she attains the facetious nickname 'peacock'. Not a particularly sympathetic woman, she's been known to 'play' with female slaves before they're sold, and is quite grossly misogynistic in general.

Her one soft spot is her sister, Sylphie. Sylphie suffers from an autoimmune disease that keeps her confined to her room, and Toyo works as a slaver because it's the most lucrative work to be had, and it helps her pay for her healthcare and ongoing aid. Toyo keeps her slaver lifestyle from her, telling her instead that she's a lumberjack, which keeps her travelling extremely far out of the dustbowl and explains her rare visits.

She has a crush on Lion Duforet, whose name she still hasn't managed to attain. It doesn't stop her trying to charm her or buy her a drink when she passes her in the street.

"vulture" (stephano steele)
AGE 37 | A strong, domineering and manipulative man who specialises in 'breaking' slaves. He has an exceptional talent for prying into vulnerable points physically and psychologically, inciting fresh fear in even the most dead-eyed and defeated slave. He gets his scavenging nickname, 'vulture', from doing so.

His favourite slave to torment is the appointed gardener, Decker. He exerts incredible control over Decker by playing hot and cold games with him, always misleading him into thinking that his actions are in Decker's best interests, and his goal is to protect him. He also causes much torment for Jayne, calling him by numerous feminine J-names - but he finds his overeager desire to please unattractive and farcical, and his greatest pleasure is in making a fool of him. By contrast, he leans away from dealing with Lime, finding her too young for his tastes and the limits Rooster imposes on his freedom to torment her highly restrictive.

Vulture was part of a normal working class family, when he was still known by the name Stephano Steele. When young, Vulture took great pleasure on pinning his pranks and antics on his brother who, though good, unavoidably took the blame because of his cold, aloof expression and guilty gaze. As they grew up, his recklessness and cruelty became obvious on its own. Eventually, Vulture was disowned by his family and thrown out of the house, following a long string of arguments, threats of violence, and drunken bar fights. Becoming a slaver came naturally to him thereafter.

sawyer "soysauce" sciarrino
AGE 42 | Musician, do-gooder and anti-slaver vigilante. Originally just the son of a humble farming family, Soysauce grew up dreaming of the big city. Without many other children his age nearby to associate with, Soysauce grew up as a rather lonely child -- constantly longing for the hustle and bustle of the busy streets

So it was to be expected that, at age sixteen, he left home to stare a new life in Beacon. Though he'd never had much time for an extensive education, he was always energetic and cheerful and friendly, and managed to make himself a living by working through a wide variety of odd jobs -- starting off as humble bus-boy at a bar-slash-diner. A second job as a mechanic's assistant led to him meeting Lion Duforet, the mechanic's daughter -- a girl ten years his junior that he ended up becoming very close friends with and practically watch growing up. Drifting through a variety of jobs as courier, line cook, bartender, bodyguard, hunter-for-hire, and a short stint as a 'dancer,' Soysauce came to love Beacon with all his heart. Of course, it definitely helped that Soysauce was a sweet and well-meaning person, extremely fond of people in general and a terrible bleeding heart always willing to lend a hand to anyone in need. Good-natured and friendly, Soysuce made friends easily and with great pleasure.

And though he eventually learned to play the saxophone from a dancer friend and settled down as resident saxophone player at a number of bars, his wanderlust never completely fated. After refurbishing himself an old hoverbike, Soysauce took to taking the occasional delivery and messenger job out into the Dustbowl's desert. It wasn't too surprising that he'd eventually run into a farming community in the middle of a slaver raid -- but few would have done what he did, taking up his trusty revolver and sniping off the slavers to kill the leaders and chase the rest away. Though that one act of defiance was more than enough to earn the ire of a huge slaving clan, Soysauce never regretted it. A huge anti-slavery advocate from a younger age, Soysauce took this turning point as a chance to begin conducting small-scale anti-slaver raids, disrupting slaver attacks on travelers and breaking up groups of slaves being herded to auction halls. The people he came to know during this time, the people he'd rescued and befriended -- among them, Lan (a man he'd grow to harbor a deep and unrequited love for), Francis and Victor -- made everything worth it.

Unfortunately, it is that very trusting, friendly nature of his that had bought him so many friends that would end up ruining him. When a friendly young man named Ignis approached him for a night of company, it never occurred to him that a slaver would resort to seduction to capture him -- he ended up being beaten down, captured by Ignis, then given away to Rooster, who had been put out a bounty for his head several years earlier. Although Rooster gave him one chance to prove his physical strength in a one-on-one armed spar, Soysauce's odds were horribly slim at best, and it was absolutely ruthless when Rooster looped a rope collar around his throat and branded him as a slave.

lion duforet
AGE 32 | The owner of a combination hoverbike garage and mechanic's shop at the outskirts of Beacon. Business tends to come and go, but lending out garage space to rich people to store their hoverbikes in tends to pay very well. Lion inherited the garage space from her father, who built the business from the ground up. Taught to handle bikes and other mechanical work from a very young age, Lion has a great love of hoverbikes and machinery.

When Lion was seven, her father hired a part-time assistant to help with menial jobs -- and that young man was Soysauce (still going by the name of Sawyer then), age seventeen. Lion, precocious at the time, bossed Soysauce around quite a bit, and Soysauce good-humoredly played along most of the time. As a result, they came to be fairly good friends, and they view each other like the siblings they never had. Lion was twenty-five when her father was killed in a freak raid of the garage. Lion, away at the time, returned to find her father dead and the garage being plundered by raiders, and promptly retaliated with a double-barreled shotgun. Though she lost an ear in the ensuing gunfight, she managed to kill off the raiders and keep her garage safe. She now fiercely defends her garage in memory of her father, refusing any offers to purchase the area from her regardless of the money she's been offered.

Though generally tough and no-nonsense, Lion still enjoys life and enjoys other people. Well-liked by others around and in the city, Lion is known for her reliability and trustworthiness. Like her namesake, she tends to be a bit reckless and quick to anger at times, but rarely for no reason. Good friends with most other residents of Beacon's outer skirts, she maintains good relationships with Francis, Victor, Dylan -- as well as often bumping into a strange young lady who often wolfwhistles at her.

Having known each other for over twenty years, Lion is the closest thing Soysauce has to a best friend, and vice versa. She proposed to Lan about two years ago, after knowing him for four years, and the two have been happily married since.

lan faulkner
AGE 38 | A doctor who operates a small clinic near the outer edge of Beacon. Though his clinic is small and isn't equipped with the best technology, the rates are reasonable, and thus it tends to draw in people who require medical attention but are unable to pay for treatment at the more expensive clinics.

Lan was originally from a farming community outside of the city, the son of a family who ran the local clinic. When he was a teenager finishing learning the ropes of managing a clinic and performing most basic surgeries, the farming community was hit by slavers -- those who weren't killed were taken in as slaves, and the farm itself was plundered and burned to the ground. Lan thus grew up as a slave, serving as the slavers' attendant and surgeon. Surviving in relative safety due to his shrewd nature and usefulness as a medic, Lan worked to save as many slaves as he could -- taking a young slave girl, Lime, under his wing as his protege in hopes that she would also be able to avoid the worst of the damage that other slaves underwent. Over the years, he trained her as a medic, even taking the fall for one of her mistakes, the punishment for which was having his nose burnt off.

It was about six years ago that Lan was rescued. Dragged off to a small offshoot camp as the slavers there prepared for a particularly violent raid, Lan was preparing to serve as emergency surgeon when the camp attacked by one man on a hoverbike -- Soysauce, who'd stumbled upon the camp and successfully managed to kill the slavers there. However, he also sustained some serious injuries during the fight when a stray bullet blew one of his hoverbike's impellers and sent it crashing into the side of a wooden building. While most of the slaves kept at that offshoot camp, fearful for their lives, immediately fled towards the city, Lan stayed behind to make sure Soysauce hadn't been killed. He felt somewhat obliged to care for the severe concussion and shattered leg that Soysauce had acquired, and it was over the next few weeks that he and Soysauce ended up becoming good friends.

Growing up in slavery has made Lan a cautious person, and he's slow to really trust people despite his friendly act. Somewhat sarcastic and dry, he usually plays the straight man. Beneath all of that, though, Lan is a gentle person who truly cares for his friends' wellbeing. He married Lion about two years ago, and they've been happy together since.

dylan
AGE 30 | A smart, cheerful, mouthy girl who works as a barmaid under Francis. She's a sharp tongue and a surprisingly quick wit, but she prefers warm conversation when she can get it, and is quick to get companionable and intimate with all kinds of people. While her famously large bust and her open, liberal attitude about dating and sex can lead to harrassment and hecklers, Dylan has never had an issue like that which lasted long. She always keeps a rifle under the bar, which she finds helps.

Her family were killed by slavers many years ago, and she moved to what she hoped to be a more peaceful town. For some years she owned her own bar and enjoyed a regular flow of patrons, amongst which were a kind couple called Rooster and Heron, who she got on with very favourably. She was especially close to Heron who she treated as her girlfriend, exchanging stories while she served. Heron allowed this relationship to go on more for amusement's sake than anything, even pulling slavers in under the guise of being 'nearby miners' when Dylan was fretting about the bills.

But the amusement eventually wore off, and it was late at night when the bar was closing when Heron came to speak to her alone, informing her bluntly that not only was she a slaver, she was the slaver responsible for killing her family; maybe Dylan didn't recognise them, but they recognised her. Dylan sought to defend herself, but Heron overpowered her easily, and she was enslaved, trained, and sent out to a brothel in double time. Once there, her attitude damaged business so quickly that she was eventually sold off, rather than retrained. She landed in the hands of a private owner, a frightening-looking man who bathed, clothed, fed -- and unexpectedly, freed her.

By that time her bar had long been shut down and sold off by the slavers for a little extra profit, and though she sought to have Heron and Rooster's name blacklisted around town, the story was the same everywhere; trying to resist slavers was a death sentence. Ultimately she came to Francis, the first person to agree -- slavers had no place in her bar. Utterly relieved, Dylan begged for a job, explained her situation, and the rest is history.

francis baskerville
AGE 21 | The deadpan, somewhat androgynous owner-slash-bartender of the Houndstooth Bar. She and her fraternal twin brother, Victor, were enslaved in the raid of a farming community at the very far outskirts of Dustbowl at a young age. However, before the slavers managed to complete the weeks-long trek back to Beacon with their catch of newly-procured slaves, the slaver gang was broken up by a fierce attack carried out by a lone gunman -- Soysauce, who had just begun his anti-slavery activities.

Many of the other, older slaves were set free to return home or take refuge in the city, but due to their young age, Francis and Victor opted to remain under Soysauce's care for some time. Despite his busy schedule, Soysauce managed to find his new companions temporary jobs at establishments he was familiar with and otherwise took care of them until they were old enough to be independant.

Upon leaving Soysauce's care, Francis and Victor worked small jobs for several years before combining the money they'd saved up from their work and the money that Soysauce had generously given them to wish them luck, and purchasing a small bar at the outskirts of Beacon. Sharing ownership of the establishment, they built up the bar's reputation as a small safe haven with a cozy atmosphere free of slavers.

Though her short stint in slavery has taught Francis to be suspicious of people, she's generally friendly and accepting of most individuals -- even if her deadpan demeanor and sharp tongue might make her seem otherwise. Extremely protective of both her employees and patrons, Francis is a far warmer person than she comes across as.

victor baskerville
AGE 21 | The highly deadpan, difficult-to-read owner-slash-bouncer of the houndstooth bar. As Francis' fraternal twin brother, Victor shares much of his history with her -- a short stint of slavery as a child before being saved by Soysauce and growing up under his protection for several years. Like Francis, he considers Soysauce something close to an older brother or father figure, and has a great respect for him despite treating him much like he would with any other individual -- that is to say, bluntly and quietly.

Though he often comes across as aloof or mysterious, especially because of his solid physique, Victor is much shyer than his sister and tends to balk from intimate conversation. Though he's noticed that the server at the Houndstooth bar, Dylan, seems to like leaning close to him, he's a little too shy to say anything about it.

Years of manual labor have made Victor a solidly-built young man, and he serves well as the bouncer of the Houndstooth bar, using a combination of boxing skills and a double-bore shotgun to keep it free of slavers. (The fact that the Houndstooth is a more quiet bar at the outskirts of the city -- and Francis' deadly aim with throwing martini glasses at unruly patients -- also probably helps keep it off the slavers' radar.)

celie gray
AGE 29 | A hardened, violent anti-slaver with a massive axe to grind and a lot of tools to do it with. Once little more than a modest, small-time bounty hunter, her interests changed over her years in the dustbowl; she met many people whose bounties amounted to little more than a slaver grudge, trying to eliminate competition or get back at those who sought to bring them down. The more she saw of what slavers left in their wake, the more focused and intense her distaste for them, which came to a head on the day she fended off a slaver raid and earned herself her facial disfigurement -- her face has been shredded, exposing her teeth to the elements, which has also led to partial facial paralysis from muscle damage. However, she was able to get the responsible slaver back in equal measure, subduing him during the raid, and carving his face apart, leaving it open to the elements and hanging him from a pole in anticipation of the coming dust storm. Always a woman who enjoyed a little carnage, she found she could get used to this whole dealing-with-slavers thing, particularly as it permitted her to work somewhat outside the law without suffering more than a wrist slap or gentle warning from local authorities. As her reputation for torture grew, even that stopped.

Her means haven't gotten any less personal or vicious since then, and she's started taking the thumbs of any slaver she interrogates, leaving them functionally worthless to their groups and at a severe disadvantage seeking work anywhere else -- as everyone will recognise it as the sign of a former slaver.

She considers herself nothing more than extreme justice in action, and as terrible and tyrannical as slavers are, she has made a name for herself by torturing slavers to near-death getting information out of them. Many say she's no better than any of the slavers, but she would argue that her skill set is certainly better.


She fell into working with a man called Galleon Steele after she made a raid on his mansion, only to find that the slaves he kept were actually free women and men who simply wanted to stay by the side of the man who rescued them. After a little questioning, she found him a noble, interesting guy, and they now form a partnership wherein Galleon purchases slaves to free, and Celie treats him as an informant.

She's recently come into Soysauce's area seeking Rooster's bounty, where her reputation precedes her and causes Soysauce much. Anxiety.

vito dahling
AGE 41 | A rough-and-tumble weapons dealer catering mostly to anti-slaver fighters. Vito is actually not a native to the Dustbowl region. His family ran away from a distant city when he was very young, fleeing from a dangerous police state by smuggling onto a long-distance trade zeppelin, and scraping together a living in the dangerous slums of Beacon. His parents, previously very powerful merchants who'd rubbed the city's government the wrong way, managed to establish a small trade business in the slums, slowly building up a reputation through sheer hard work and grit.

Having grown up learning the ins and outs of running a business from his parents, Vito left his parents' home at the age of seventeen and, with their blessings, set up a small weapons shop of his own. And while the weapons shops flourished a little bit at a time, Vito's parents' store expanded far too quickly. It drew the attention of a slaving clan and, while Vito's parents defended themselves fiercely when a group of slavers came to raid their store, they were killed in the ensuing fight.

Since then Vito has kept his business increasingly friendly towards anti-slavers. And while his store, Quicksilver, is too well-known, and Vito would most certainly be killed if he were to reject slavers as customers, he does offer a great number of off-the-book discounts and saves his best stock of anti-slaver fighters. And of course, included in his list of VIP clientele are Celie and Soysauce. (Another thing kept off the books is his on-and-off friends-with-benefits relationship with Soysauce, though that doesn't necessarily buy Soysauce any special discounts to the store.)

galleon steele
AGE 35 | A hugely successful entrepreneur and a member of the obscenely wealthy Beacon upper-class. Galleon is generally known as the "antisocial millionaire." Recognized mostly for his permanent scowl and signs of wealth from head to toe, Galleon's reputation precedes him wherever he goes.

However, the public knows only of his business ventures -- his risky dealings into newly blossoming industries that often pay off massively -- and little of his personal life. Originally from a working-class family, Galleon grew up alongside a tough, confrontational elder brother, Stephano, who took great pleasure in causing trouble then pinning it on him. After his parents finally kicked his brother out, Galleon ended up leaving home to earn a living as an entrepreneur, clawing his way up the financial ladder through sheer luck and wits.

What the public also doesn't know is that Galleon spends a significant portion of his fortune on slaves -- more specifically, slaves that he frees soon after purchasing. Galleon frequently disguises his identity to attend slave auctions, purchasing several slaves at a time that he'll either release with no strings attached, or employ as paid helpers around his mansion to give them a foot to stand on. The truth is that Galleon spent much of his younger years in love with a kind slave girl that he later purchased, freed and married. After she passed away from a disease she'd contracted during her slavery, Galleon naturally made it his mission to free as many slaves as possible.

sylphie spencer
AGE 18 | A young, highly academic, book-loving girl of ill health. Sweet and shy-seeming, she's somewhat mousy in appearance and apparently in her nature, and spends much of her time in bed absorbing the books her adoring sister, Toyo, periodically brings for her. She's very smiley, very sweet, and very prone to lying.

Sylphie knows Toyo thinks the world of her. She also knows Toyo is keeping the secret of her slaver lifestyle away from her, because her sister is the kind of idiot who thinks she wouldn't see the signs -- and Sylphie is quite happy to play along with this delusion, acting always as the adorable, naive little sister. As long as Toyo pays for her care and visits her often, she doesn't really give a damn one way or another just what her sister does to get paid. She's not as moral or as conscientious or as caring as she seems, and quite enjoys misleading others by playing the innocent. She has little power in her position, but enjoys what she can get by manipulating those around her -- particularly her nurse, a young man who is very clearly smitten with her. She gets a lot of entertainment out of making him help dress her in the morning, or feel her bones when she falls out of bed.

Due to her ailment she's rarely able to go outside and never unaccompanied, so most of her life has been spent socialising only with the same handful of people. Sylphie has very few memories of her parents, as her sister ran away with her when she was still very young, and Toyo doesn't talk about it -- but she's never particularly been troubled by the loss, since the way she sees it, depending only on the oft-absent Toyo gives her far greater freedom than to have any domineering adults around her. She does in fact love her sister greatly, but it's not a healthy kind of love; entirely dependent on her, she yearns for her and thinks of her all the time. If she were aware of her sister's flirtatious and highly sociable, riotous nature beyond her bedroom, she would undoubtedly go ballistic.

Despite liking Toyo, she also likes cute things.

lime blossom, "mole"
AGE 17 | A young, quietly caustic slave with a solemn disposition, Lime is the primary medic for the slavers. Once just a girl meant to be sold to auction, the previous doctor and slave, a man called Lan, coaxed Rooster into keeping her based on her competent assistance in his work. He took her under his wing, kept her protected and taught her everything he could, taking the blame for her mistakes every step of the way - even when that meant the horrific and permanent facial disfigurement Rooster gave him for her incompetence. Lan is the one who gave her her name, naming her after the beautiful blossom, though she doesn't know the significance. However, in the presence of the slavers, she is simply 'mole'.

Lan was eventually rescued while being held at a smaller offshoot camp, the slavers killed by Soysauce in a brief but fierce gunfight. At the time Lan was everything to her, and her seeming abandonment struck a painful blow. However, in his absence she became the slavers' primary medic, which granted her all manner of physical protections she otherwise wouldn't have.

Lime is an incredibly quiet person, and while it's easy to misinterpret this as weakness and subservience, she has incredibly strong will and a blunt and simple way of looking at things. She's someone who doesn't know how to talk to people very well, and struggles to respond to difficult questions or raise her voice beyond mumbling. She spends much time with Decker, the two of them a similarly quiet, solitude-loving pair.

Lime is older than she seems at 17, but malnutrition and her short stature lead to a very childlike appearance.

decker jones, "rat"
AGE 32 | An unfortunate man whose entire life has swung between mediocrity and misery. Decker grew up in a small farming community in a rural region of Dustbowl, and expected to spend the rest of his life as a farmer. However, his quiet, uneventful lifestyle was completely uprooted by a violent slave raid. Any farmers who attempted to resist were slaughtered, and the rest captured. It was sheer bad luck that Decker was badly injured in the raid -- in an attempt to dodge a stray spear, he backed into the blades of a heavy farming machine, which promptly shredded the muscles of his right leg.

It was several days later that he regained consciousness in the slave tent in Rooster's compound, a brand decorating his shoulder. Though he hadn't died of blood loss, the damage to his leg meant he walked with a horrible limp -- something which made him virtually worthless at a slave auction. Thus, he ended up a permanent fixture of Rooster's compound, put to work tending to the compound's miniature vegetable-and-fruit garden.

Originally a quiet, mild-mannered man, a decade of slavery has only made Decker even more of a doormat. Having long since resigned himself to life as a slave-farmer, Decker focuses mostly on trying not to piss off the slavers, tending to his precious garden, and watching out for the few other permanent slaves he shares his tent with.

jayne glass, "weasel"
AGE 25 | An up-and-coming actor unfortunate enough to be enslaved for good. Originally from a humble farming community, Jayne left for the city of Beacon as soon as he could -- dreaming of a career as an actor for the flashy theaters in the city. However, fame and success did not come as quickly as he would have hoped. Though he had talent and his pretty face bought him some supporters, the competition for top acting jobs in Beacon's theaters was fierce and Jayne was forced to take an additional job as the cook for a small diner at the outskirts of Beacon to support himself.

However, as luck would have it, the diner ended up being one of several establishments hit by a fierce slave raid, and Jayne was quickly taken in as a prospective slave. However, as he was put through the gauntlet to be "broken in" as a slave, the slavers quickly realized that -- between his disagreeble and stubborn nature making him a hard sell, his servicable cooking abilities and the fact that their own cook had recently been killed for attempting an escape, it would be easier to simply keep Jayne around as a permanent slave.

It's been several years since then that Jayne's been kept at Rooster's slave compound as resident cook. Though his job grants him some level of protection, and slavers wouldn't break his arms lest they're forced to get by on awful, self-cooked food for weeks, the life of a slave is still miserable. As much as Jayne tries to present himself as pandering and docile to avoid punishments, this innocent facade barely hides the sheer hatred he harbors towards everyone. Furious about his plight, Jayne loathes everyone, especially a slaver who seems to enjoy tormenting him, Vulture, and his fellow permanent slaves -- Lime (for being a medic, and thus even better protected than him) and Decker (for seemingly being pampered by Vulture). It's not rare that Jayne takes his rage out on Lime, Decker, or any other slave unwilling to fight back against him, letting out his anger so that he may more easily present a smiling facade to the slavers.