Li'asil Zenobia Damasso

### Aliases

Li'asil Zenobia Damasso, Zen, Zee, ZiZi, Bia, Nia, Noa, Little Scorpion, Little Viper

## Appearance

Zenobia has brown skin, dark brown, almost black, and long, black, wavy hair that she usually keeps in braids or tightly bound in a braided coil. She is lithe and muscular, and a bit taller than average height, about 5’8.

### Clothes

Zenobia generally wears diaphanous dresses made of breathable linen or vibrant Desert silks, with sturdy riding pants and boots underneath. She almost always wears trousers, even under gowns and skirts.

Her usual outfit for formal events or court functions a diaphanous dress made of light turquoise silk, hand-painted with intricate gold patterns, with a deceptively simple shape, the dress falling straight down from the shoulders and gathered in by a wide, golden filigree belt and breastplate-like gold filigree corset. It has matching golden filigree shoulder plates, with cape-like pieces hanging from the back of the shoulder pieces. Hanging from the belt are two chains of jewels, polished beads of precious stones and glass, ending in two large golden pendants in the shape of scorpions, studded with tiny black diamonds and yellow topazes. Underneath the dress, she wears her sturdy leather riding pants and boots.

Her usual, everyday outfit is similar to her formalwear, but simpler and more practical. She expands the design of the large golden filigree belt into a large, golden metal chest piece and gorget, extending around her shoulders much like actual armour.

Sometimes, she shifts to wearing more leather armour, covering the same areas, back to a more practical, simple look and away from the elegant metal filigree look. She also switches from wearing a woman's gown on the lower half of her outfit to wearing leather pants, specifically going back to the leather riding chaps of the remote Desert tribes.

Zenobia has numerous gold piercings with jewels in her ears, and often wears gold jewelry and priceless jewels of some kind. Sometimes, she wears a gold nose ring. She carries her weapons everywhere with her. Most of her jewelry and accessories are hiding weapons of some sort, most prominently being her golden blade necklace. It looks like a sliver of moon, but there's a break in that moon-like shape. It's really two blades and a pair of feathered wings.

### Weapons

Her necklace blades. Daggers, knives, and throwing stars dipped with the venom of deathstalker scorpions, false fingernails, looking like fashionably long acrylic nails, but that are actually cleverly-designed non-ferrous ceramic blades, irresponsibly sharp, sometimes with tiny poisoned needles under them so the tip just barely protrudes. Rings with hidden blades, poison compartments, and poisoned needles. A belt that is secretly a flexible whip-sword. A bracelet that is actually a garrotte wire. A thick white linen cloak with knives sewn inside. Literal trained scorpions and occasionally snakes. Anything and everything she can get her hands on. If Zenobia is wearing it, it is likely a weapon of some kind or something she can use to kill you.

## Personality

Zenobia is staunchly loyal to her people and the future of the Desert Kingdom. She is a formidable and somewhat ruthless warrior, exhibiting several traits that suggest that not only can she defeat the worthiest of opponents, but she enjoys watching them suffer for a while before finishing them off, whether or not her adversary has a chance to defend themselves. She is ambitious, stubborn, and vindictive, and is capable of being extremely mean and disagreeable. Despite her prickly demeanour and her sharp tongue, Zenobia is intelligent, hardworking, and deeply loyal to the Desert Kingdom.

Zenobia is a very dirty fighter if the situation calls for it, and isn’t afraid to use any means necessary in order to achieve her goals. Despite her flaws, she is brave, strong-willed, and willing to sacrifice everything for her friends, family, and kingdom. She has a soft spot for the poor, disadvantaged, and children. With those who have won her trust, love, and loyalty, she is affectionate and much more relaxed.

### Weaknesses/Flaws

Vindictive, ruthless, harsh, prickly, capable of being extremely mean and disagreeable, caustic nature, trust issues, arrogant, and has a bit of a violent streak.

Zenobia is a human, lacking the advantages of the other races such as enhanced senses or strength or speed due to being a shapeshift, or having inhumanly good eyesight and aim and wings like an Agell, or any of the other abilities or advantages the other nonhuman races have. While this wouldn’t trouble most humans in day-to-day life, within Zenobia’s field of work it provides several large disadvantages when going up against fellow assassins who have trained to make any and all natural advantages (claws, teeth, fangs, venom, enhanced senses, etc) into lethal weapons.

And while she's been trained to wield almost any weapon she can get her hands on, that doesn't mean she's \*good\* at it. While Zenobia's aim is swift and true, she struggles with archery and crossbows and longbows, much better at her \*throwing\* aim with knives or daggers or throwing stars as opposed to long-range weapons where she must \*shoot\* the projectile/weapon.

Also, Zenobia relies more on speed, agility, fighting dirty, and the element of surprise as opposed to sheer raw strength, which she somewhat lacks.

And she has an old injury on her left arm, which she sustained during her very first mission, which left a very nasty scar where all three bones in her left arm were broken. Though the break healed and she's regained full use of her left arm, and has worked to adapt hinderances into her fighting style, prolonged use can leave a dull ache that gradually increases into a sharp, stabbing pain where her old injury is, and she usually has to wear a brace of some kind on her left arm for extra support. A direct hit to her left arm in a fight would be devastating, though she does her best to keep this weakness hush hush.

## History

Zenobia is the illegitimate daughter of Nadiya Damasso, who is Azahara Damasso’s sister, making Zenobia one of Millie’s cousins and Azahara and Jalal’s niece. She has been trained as an assassin since before she could walk, carrying out various assassinations on behalf of the Damasso family and eliminating their enemies, rivals, and potential threats. She is also a Desert Kingdom revolutionary, with ambitions to help reunite the entirety of the Desert Kingdom into the Sun Empire and retake the Summer-and-Autumn-controlled parts of the Desert back. She herself is not the leader of this revolutionary movement within the Desert Kingdom, but she is a passionate voice in support of it.

Her mother, Nadiya Damasso, is the Maharani of Palmyra, and rules her own city-state but not her own kingdom. Her favourite husband and royal consort, Prince Bodhi, comes from another powerful aristocratic family of neighbouring city-states. Prince Bodhi is Zenobia’s stepfather, but he is the only father she has ever known and the pair have an incredibly close bond. Nadiya is also one of the deadliest crime lords and assassins the Desert Kingdom's seen in centuries. Her and Zenobia’s relationship is a rocky, complicated one.