Editing SOTDL: Devi Vanathys (section)

==Background/Bio==
Devi is '''Corsair'na''' (with significant Druidain ancestry) born the only child of a merchant family with the patronage of House d'Amasku in Bar Kesh. She grew up dreaming of being a star of the stage, and was given some of the best tutelage money could buy in pursuit of dancing success in the high theatre.*

The dancing scene in Bar Kesh is known to be particularly cutthroat, but Devi hadn't expected one of her rivals to goad a hot-blooded noble patron into literally cutting her throat a few days after she got her first big part. She clawed her way back from death, dancing a crimson streak through the Dry Lands, and spent several days at home to recover and figure things out. By the time she returned to the theater she'd been replaced by her understudy of course. Perla fainted straight away on seeing Devi alive, confirming her suspicion as to who had sought her death, but she took her final stipend and left rather than beg for her old position back.

Devi used most of her savings to hire one of Bar Kesh's foremost dueling instructors to seek her revenge. Kal Peris had expected to be giving a tiresome self defense course to yet another rich girl, or even worse being asked to teach stage fighting, but they were both surprised by the level of skill she'd picked up fighting her way back from death (not that she actually told him why). She still had much to learn, especially in how to learn an enemy's style and respond appropriately, but learn she did.

Once confident of her fighting skill - overconfident by any sane assessment, but sane assessments were out the window after she didn't even die properly - she sought out her would-be murderer, Cisco d'Jaala, and publicly challenged him to a duel to the death. Most formal duels in Corsair lands are not to the death, nor do they actually need to be fought by the aggrieved parties, which is why mercenary proxy duelists are a thing. But with such a serious and public challenge, insinuation that she'd already gotten Perla to confess, and the expectation that he was fighting an easy target led Cisco to accept her deadly challenge. She ran her blade through his heart the next morning.

The blood of a d'Jaala on her hands, no matter how justified the duel, made her toxically unemployable in theatrical circles (they command theaters through a quirk of history, as the modern venues originally evolved from side stages in taverns), but that was fine. She had a new job to be passionate about. And it got her skills nice and sharp for when she realized she was called to face the Wraith...

*Prestige dance style in Corsair culture is focused less on things like ballet's light-body, linear style and more like flamenco's mix of tapdancing, whirling, and tightly controlled chaos.

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