Lavanya Shimizu

**Shinkan Reticulum Shimizu Lavanya** -- better known by her current title of "Ms. Minty Repentance" -- is the current public face of Cabina Cups Tea Company and its de facto CEO.

## Traits and Appearance

Layanya Shimizu has red hair, green eyes, and concealed retractable polearm. She is a ruthless negotiator.

People who know her currently generally refuse to comment on her personal life or character traits, except to praise her passion, determination, and compassion.

## Early Life

Ms. Minty Repentance was born as Reticulum Shimizu Lavanya to a local Cabina noble family whom had donated all their wealth to The Church of Humanity, Repentant when her great-grandparents left Aomori for Cabina over a hundred-fifty years ago. People who knew her in her early childhood describe her as ambitious from the moment she took her first steps. Others, who knew her during her teenage years, say she often complained about her family’s lack of foresight in just giving away all their wealth, and that: “the best good is done when the best resources are in the hands of the best people.” People who know her currently generally refuse to comment on her personal life or character traits, except to praise her passion, determination, and compassion. But the characterizations from those who know her in childhood seem to bear out throughout her adult life.

Though her family has strayed considerably from their Aomori roots, like many Cabina Reticulum they still keep some connection with their ancestral culture by sending their children to the Plowshares Academy boarding school in Mugenjishi. This school, founded by some of the original Reticulum nobles who joined the first wave of Repentant settlers on Cabina in the aftermath of the reign of the Blood Eagle, offers a traditional Reticulum education, but modified with greater emphasis on Repentant values such as respect and non-violent conflict resolution where possible. From age four onwards, no more than a little girl, Reticulum Shimizu Lavanya spent the majority of the year away in the academy’s dormitories in arctic Mugenjishi. She would attend the school right up till her graduation, not long after her eighteenth birthday.

Starting around age fourteen, the academy, in standard Reticulum fashion, separates students into their own distinct wielder or crafter education. Reticulum Shimizu Lavanya followed the crafter path. According to her own autobiography this was because it allowed her to take additional extra-curricular classes in tea preparation and traditional Reticulum tea ceremony, but former teachers at the academy say she enthusiastically excelled at all parts of the curriculum.

And that Reticulum Shimizu Lavanya did excel is a fact beyond doubt. Compared to Aomori, the Reticulum community on Cabina is only large and connected enough for the academy to attract just a few Kannushi, whose tutelage is required for a Reticulum to gain the title of Shinkan. Only 20% of academy students graduate with that prestigious title, and the future Ms. Minty Repentance was one of those. When she became Shinkan Reticulum Shimizu Lavanya in a special ceremony, she was the first in her family in two generations to attain the title. But if you’d thought that was enough for her, you didn’t know Shimizu Lavanya well enough.

## A New Frontier: The Ms. Cabina Cups Pageants

*See also: Ms. Cabina Cups Pageant*
The year was 3189, and the War Against the Artificials was reaching its climax. The previous year, the up-till-then most popular Cabina Cups spokesperson, Ms. Synthetic Perfection, had at last been retired. People were calling for Cabina Cups to discontinue the whole business of pageantry and the associated Ms. Cabina Cups programming. But the company persisted. It argued that now more than ever such traditions needed to be kept going. Not in spite of the chaos, but because of the chaos, a new Ms. Cabina Cups pageant was organized that year, same as all the years before.

And that year, after surviving multiple rounds of first human, then Cah-Binn judges, Reticulum Shimizu Lavanya was crowned Ms. Cabina Cups. During that year, she had travelled across Cabina and even to some of the neighboring systems, promoting peace and harmony even as the sector was still in the midst of civil war.

Once crowned, the winners only stay ***the*** Ms. Cabina Cups for one year. However, a company tradition is that they remain ***a*** Ms. Cabina Cups for as long as they want. After the end of their yearly term as ***the*** Ms. Cabina Cups, they crown their successor with the famous Cabina Cups Tiara. But the day after that, their successor then crowns them as with a name taken from one of the company’s many flavors. Though officially the name chosen is based on the matching of person’s personality and the flavors’ unique properties, it is an open secret that those winners considered most exceptional by the company are given the names of their most popular flavors.

When, a year after her victory, Shimizu Lavanya was given the title **Ms. Minty Repentance**, the most popular flavor following the discontinuation of Synthetic Perfection, it was a testament to the company’s confidence, and the work she had put in during her year as Ms. Cabina Cups.

## Taking Charge of Cabina Cups

Along with the title of a Ms. Cabina Cups always comes a position within the Cabina Cups company. Though many past pageant winners had used such a position as a couchy retirement fund, only coming out in public when asked to cameo on that year’s pageant, Ms. Minty Perfection saw her new position as only the beginning. And in the decade since her release of the crown, Ms. Minty Repentance has been at the forefront of a veritable revolution inside Cabina Cups, consolidating control of the company under the herself and her proteges and wresting it away from the control of the Church of Humanity, Repentant.

Ms. Minty’s first undertaking was to gain control over the human pageant judges, in particular those responsible for the pre-auditions that selected candidates before they ever saw a Cah-Binn judge. Whereas before pre-selection had tried to focus on a candidate’s entertainment value and marketability, now Ms. Minty changed the process to focus solely on the talent and drive of the candidates. Fans immediately noticed the difference, even if they did not know what caused it, and critics have praised the ambition, tenacity, and passion of the contestants and especially the winners over the past decade.

The second step was to ensure that the pageant winners did not see their drive and ambition stifled by dead-end jobs in trivial parts of the company. Using her popularity and ever-expanding corporate connections, Ms. Minty ensured that with every year the positions given to the latest Ms. Cabina Cups grew more and more vital. This hit its peak in 3198, when the newly crowned Ms. Smoky Sunburn was placed straight onto the Cabina Cups company board.

Whatever long term plans Ms. Minty had for tea in the sector, they were clearly put into overdrive following the dissolution of The Church of Humanity, Repentant and the company’s declaration of independence (Twitter link). Since its independence, the board of the company has quietly been replaced with former Ms. Cabina Cups winners, and the misses are now in full control of the company. Their former overseers of the defunct Department of Charity have largely been bought out, and now work for the company instead of controlling it. And Ms. Minty Repentance stands at the top of hierarchy, with her pageant proteges as her eyes, ears, and right hands.

## Mentions in the News

* BREAKING NEWS: Cabina Cups Goes Rogue??! (Twitter link)
	+ Led by Ms. Minty Repentance, Cabina Cups Tea Company declares its independence from the CHR in response to the unrest. It takes control of various assets and starts hiring individuals from the CHR bureaucracy who had formerly overseen it.
* BREAKING NEWS: Caffine Wars Hit Their Boiling Point?! (Twitter link)
	+ Cabina Cups Tea Company and Ankhayat Coffee unify many settlements and homesteads on the Cabina Frontier into power blocs that will support their respective interests.
* BREAKING NEWS: Psi-ball Team Seeks New Sponsor (Twitter link)
	+ Ms. Minty makes the pitch to send the Vardome into space.
* BREAKING NEWS: Welcome Center Wars! (Twitter link)
	+ Cabina Cups makes its pitch for turning CHR Welcome and Outreach Centers sectorwide into tea shops.
* SPECIAL REPORT: Who are the Ms. Cabina Cups? The Elite Pageant Winners now Running the Show! (Twitter link)
	+ Ms. Minty's biography, most of which is summarized above.
* BREAKING NEWS: Trilliant Ring Announces Joint Venture with Cabina Cups! (Twitter link)
	+ Cabina Cups Tea Company makes a move to expand its shipping and influence.
* BREAKING NEWS: Caffeine Wars About to Burst? Conflict Boils Over into Street Brawls! (Twitter link)
	+ Cabina Cups Tea blockades coffee shipments! Ankhayat Coffee seizes marketing drones! Riots in the streets!
* BREAKING NEWS: Piping Hot Love?? (Twitter link)
	+ It turns out the lead negotiators for Cabina Cups and Ankhayat Coffee have been making love, not war. Ms. Minty is none too pleased with her protegé, Ms. Alyssa's "James" Bloom.
* BREAKING NEWS: Caffeine Conflict Concluded! (Twitter link)
	+ Cabinan charities, the new Cabinan governor, and the caffeinated lovebirds force Ms. Minty Repentance and Kirsten Ankhayat to sit down and reach a resolution. Ms. Minty pulls out her polearm at one point. Locked in a room together, however, the founding entities of SERAPH eventually devise and sign the agreements and compromises that create SERAPH.