Sofiyah’s Description
Sofiyah, daughter of Maryam, is not a pretty girl. Nor is she ugly: she is plain, unremarkable, not the sort of woman that draws men’s eyes. She is thin, her limbs too long for her body, her hands and feet large and puppy-awkward. When she comes into her full growth – she has seen only sixteen years – she might be tall. For now, she stands four inches over five feet. Like most Sayd, she has dark brown skin and darker brown eyes. Her hair, black as a vulture’s wing, has been cut as short as a young boy’s, no more than an inch long all over and tapered in the back. It’s out of her eyes, cool, and much lower-maintenance than the traditional mass of thin braids. There is a small scar in the middle of her forehead: just a thin line a little more than an inch long about an inch above the bridge of her nose.
She also has the extensive tattoos the Sayd are known for. At the back of her neck (clearly visible now that her hair’s out of the way), a nine-pointed star inside a circle with the names of the Nine inscribed at each point. Rial and Kial, gods of magic, are uppermost. The backs of her hands and feet are covered with abstractions, patterns of curves, circles, spirals, and dots as unique and ornate as her fingerprints. Her nails are short and painted with a black lacquer. She smells of dust and patchouli.
There are likely more tattoos under her clothes. Her dress is dusty black homespun, not much more than a shift, and frayed at the hem where it drags on the ground. She doesn’t bother with sandals; the soles of her feet have thick, hard calluses that protect her just fine.
Sofiya’s familiar, a spectacular beaded lizard with red, orange, and black reticulated markings, can often be found riding her left shoulder, her fat tail curled around her throat. The lizard, called Felicitation, does not act like a normal lizard would; she’s affectionate (to her witch), almost cuddly, mammalian. The two are very rarely separated.