_Chickadee

Born on a cold night just outside of  Senntisten, capital of the Apostolic Kingdom of Marna, Marlene was the child bore from the line of gypsy merchants. Though mainly traveling between the Heartlander towns and cities, she was exposed to a number of places around Atlas, from the northern Mesas to the southern tundras. Though identifying primarily as followers of The True Faith, and though faithful, generations of her nomadic family adopted a strange computational worship that also includes plants, fungi and several types of gems, often offering these via fire.  Her early childhood wasn't bad, she was exposed to places such as the Jade Peaks and the Evergreen, and hundreds of beautiful landscapes near and far in between and learned to sew and do other domestic duties for the traveling caravan, including care for the two large horses that pulled it.

When she was around the age of 5, however, having fallen on hard times for the family, her father sold her for a few horses worth of Mina, and a few small gems. Marlene went to live with a noble man, unmarried and without kin of his own, but sitting on almost a literal mountain of wealth. She was clean and fed, but the child spent her days cleaning fireplaces and helping the kitchen-maids. Just before her 6th birthday, the noble man declined in health, eventually passing. The child eventually found herself wandering the streets, cold and hungry. Barefoot in the street, and staring through a shop window at a painting of The Last Hope, she was found by a man by the name of Achranack L'araignee, who would take the dirty, but bright eyed child. She spent the remainder of her youth with Achranack L'araignee, who became a father to her, teaching her to read among other important skills until reaching the proper age of 18.