"I’ve known riches, I’ve known ruin, I’ve known the weight of a man’s ring on my finger and the relief of taking it off. Love me or leave me—I’ll survive either way."
🔮
The city raised me cruel // The Scions raised me kind.
Born and bred in Ul’dah, Shashawu Shawu has known only the desert city’s gilded cruelty and dusty alleys. Childhood found her a fast-talking mischief-maker and confidante of Momodi Modi, long before the Quicksand became a refuge for adventurers. But while Momodi found her place in honest work, Shashawu learned the quieter trade—smuggling—and the darker art, trained in secret by the Thaumaturges who taught her the ways of black magic.
Her youth burned reckless and wild until wealth came calling. Gegegu Gegu, a jeweler of means, bought her hand and wrapped her in silk. For ten years she played the dutiful wife in his shopfront, their marriage rocky but gilded enough to last—until it broke. No children, no love, only bitter memories and her vow never to let herself be caged again.
When the shackles of marriage fell away, Shashawu returned to her truest self: smuggler, mage, conspirator. In those days, she crossed paths with Papalymo Totolymo, whose wit and quiet bravery caught her heart. She loved him in silence, never daring to speak before his light was lost to the war. That wound lingers, unhealed but worn with pride, a reminder of what was too fleeting.
Now, Shashawu’s name drifts through Ul’dah’s underbelly and the Scions’ hall alike. She carries herself with the sly warmth of a mother who has buried too much—sharp enough to bite, soft enough to hold. For the lost, the damned, and the wandering, she is a light in the dark: dangerous, comforting, and unwilling to go out.
