Pepper

## Background

Pepper is a Gorgon, first introduced when the Professor and Pretty Baby meet her at her stall in Warren Station. The Professor deems her "Trustworthy. Complicated".

She is hard to see in the dim lighting, and makes her presence known by a hissing noise at first.

As she steps out from the shadows into a small pool of light, the Professor and Pretty Baby see she has a scarf wrapped around her head—if you look at it closely, it's definitely moving under the scarf, but if you're not really paying attention you'd think it was just the flicker of the lights in here—; she is mostly covered in a long, long-sleeved dress and drags a little bit. She has another scarf draped over her shoulder, definitely layered.

Her face is very flat; her nose is not really there at all; she has very snake-like eyes—bright yellow and a little bit more round. Her skin, even in the dim light, has a very clear grayish green pallor to it.

She remains at the edge of the light.

## Ozar

As an Ozar, Pepper doesn't dream. In her words,

> *We're from whatever world it is that the Veil covered. That's our home. The Dream brings you closer to it, but we don't enter the Dream; we are trapped here; whatever life we lived before we no longer live.*
>
>

Being an Ozar means that

> *My existence is precarious, and the Keep wouldn't hesitate to come after me, and I'd rather that not happen.*
>
>

## A deadly power

When meeting Pashmina Myron for the first time, Pepper suddenly starts looking at her very intently. Pashmina, feeling that her fingers and her toes start going a little numb and her limbs feeling a little bit heavy, realizes "Oh, no, don't look!," closes eyes very quickly and looks away. Pepper, who is challenging her, doesn't use her full force because she is not trying to overpower her otherwise

> *I might be turning you to stone.*
>
>

## Feeding

When presented with Purple Eel pies, Pepper takes one and, instead of eating it, tucks it underneath her scarf; there is a hissing sound and a big movement, as the pie slowly travels and then disappears.

Later, as the Professor returns empty-handed, explaining "I didn't have a chance to get you a pie", Pepper offers an alternative:

> *Well, they're hungry. What am I supposed to feed them? I can feed them your fingers.*
>
>

The professor does find a nice big hunk of dried meat in a secret pocket: "it's not the snakes' favorite, but they take it".

> *She takes it. And while looking at you, but this time you don't feel that same pressure; she pulls a part of her scarf back and just a single snake emerges out, and she sort of pets it very gently, and then starts feeding it pieces of meat.*
>
>

## Trade

The random trinkets displayed on tables in her stall is just the stuff she puts out front for the unsuspecting folk and the actual things that she sells are probably somewhere else. Answering the Professor's plea for help finding the person from the Ministry of Rest Pretty Baby is after, she says "I may have some strings I can pull, some contacts I can reach out to."

The more valuable stuff is in the back room: Pepper sells statues of people who annoyed her.

## Notes

1. ↑ Lauren used this word in ep. 6. In ep. 3, her gorgon-like nature is only described.
2. ↑ This is also from ep. 6.
3. ↑ NftE: The whole section comes mostly from my transcript of ep. 3. There is a bit missing before *drags a little bit*.
4. ↑ See ep. 3.
5. ↑ See ep. 6.
6. ↑ Source: ep. 3.
7. ↑ In ep. 6.
8. ↑ See ep. 6.
9. ↑ Pashmina, that is.
10. ↑ A few *like* were edited out of this otherwise exact quote.
11. ↑ Source: ep. 3.
12. ↑ Source: ep. 6.