Chao's adoptive human parents are (or were in the case of her father) immigrants from Wanshou in Tian Xia. Her mother Xue Jin, now in her late eighties, still practices enlightened alchemy. Chao and her mother work together out of their home near Redroof Market in Kintargo.
As for Chao herself, her origin is a mystery. Nearly 50 years ago, her adoptive parents had travelled some ways up river from Kintargo to gather reagents. They did this somewhat regularly. This time while camping on the side of the river, they woke before dawn to hear a crying baby.
The cries lead them to a tiny boat caught in an eddy near their camp. In the bottom of the boat they found an infant gnome, neatly swaddled. She quieted quickly and blinked at them with large, vibrantly green eyes. With pale, freckled skin and bright orange hair, she wore a necklace with an unfamiliar symbol: a single eye with a tear falling from it. No sign of other gnomes or anyone else could be found, and the boat was hardly large enough to hold anyone else besides.
Having been unable to have a child themselves, Xue and her husband were happy to adopt the baby gnome. They named her for Xue's grandmother, and raised her in a loving home.
Real talk: I have no idea who her birth parents are or exactly where she's from. The symbol isn't intended to connect her to anything in particular that I know of. That part of the story is left open, to be used or not. I'm fine with either.
Jumping forward in time--past a happy childhood and through an only-slightly-rebellious-if-protracted-by-human-standards adolescence--we arrive at more recent events in Kintargo. Chao hasn't ever been interested in politics. That is no longer the case.
Some of those absolutely absurd proclamations are causing real harm! The girls from Yolubilis Harbour need night tea, but now we can't sell it to them. And the claims about imbalanced humours! Highly exaggerated! Adverse reactions to night tea are uncommon, almost only ever happening when it's administered in a large dose. And even then, the effects can generally be corrected after careful assessment and prescription.
Chao took a deep breath.
And mint! Don't even start with me about mint! I mean... surely, he's right that the flavour is more than off-putting. It's actually quite wretched in my opinion. But that's no reason not to try it, never mind ban it outright! People must be able to try all sorts of things for themselves, whether they turn out to be pleasant or not. And gnomes especially.
Chao clenched and unclenched her hands as she walked down the street next to her friend, then took another deep breath, exhaling slowly. After a few more breaths, she began to hum.
Do you she'll be there? The man at the bakery said that he'd talked to a busker who knows a seamstress who works for the opera house, and she said that she talked to Shensen herself and that she's going to attend today.
Chao hummed another line.
I guess it's a bit of a stretch. But I need to at least go see.
