Marsha

Marsha is a large slug girl, standing just under one hundred feet tall with a slug body well over two hundred feet in length.  She has an oval face with faint oriental hints, brown eyes, and short eye stalks that are nearly always in motion.  Her black hair is very short and slightly unkempt.  Though most who see her refer her as a "classic beauty," the image Marsha sees of herself is dull and boring because of her ruddy brown slug hide.  Many other slug girls she has encountered have pretty patterns and coloration; next to them, she feels rather plain. Unlike most slug girls, Marsha is highly active and loves nothing more than briskly (for her) strolling through her territory, enjoying the sights and smells. One strange characteristic truly sets her apart from the rest of her kind - she has no sleep cycle and thus never needs to sleep. Though Marsha was not born there, she has made her home in the eastern section of the Ixtapal marshes.  The wet environment makes it more comfortable for her to slither around and she has no trouble scaling giant trees or squeezing under roots in the deeper swamp regions.

Marsha tends to over-analyze decisions she needs to make.  This can make her appear indecisive while she takes her time, sorting through the various outcomes she considers.  She is not a quick thinker, can become flustered when things happen too swiftly, and  doesn't like surprises very much. However she is known for taking decisions on a whim sometimes, and she is rather stubborn once she has made up her mind about something. For most of her life in the marsh, she stayed alone by choice.  Marsha tends to be unfriendly around other giant predators and is far more sociable with individuals she perceives as no threat.  To those few she calls friends, she is almost motherly - worrying about their safety, whether they are eating right, and missing them fiercely when they are away.  She will move heaven and earth if she feels they need her help.

===Hunting habits===
Marsha is not a fussy eater, consuming any prey that becomes stuck in her slime trails or draws near enough for her to spit a glob of saliva.  Her species' slime is an incredible adhesive, far stronger than a typical slug girl's.  Because of that, it can and does catch other slug girls, much to their dismay.  She is not particularly voracious, though she occasionally overindulges if she finds something tasty.  She has strong control over both her hunger and predatory instincts, rarely letting them dictate her actions.  She enjoys good conversations, even from potential prey, and it is not an insurmountable task to talk one's way out of being eaten by her.  It can be lonely in the marsh and food is plentiful, so she considers it no great loss to forego eating interesting individuals.  That being said, she does not react well to perceived insults.  If she is even the slightest bit hungry, an unkind word can have unfortunate consequences. If there is a dark side to Marsha, it manifests itself in her attitude towards nagas.  Due to an incident of severe betrayal in her past, she prefers to hunt nagas above all other prey and will almost never give up once she is on the trail of one.  Because of this, her territory is nearly devoid of the creatures.  Those few who remain are too big for her to consume, or are extremely careful to avoid her and her slime trails.  For the unlucky ones who are caught, Marsha will often gulp air to keep them alive longer in her stomach.  She has convinced herself that she does so simply because she enjoys their prolonged struggles and not out of desire for revenge, but only nagas are treated thus.

===Backstory===
Recently, after making a long journey to the Vorchek homestead to meet Felecia, her childhood friend, Marsha came away with a renewed desire for companionship.  She saw the easy manner in which the smaller slug girl interacted with her many tomthumb friends, the tinies even referring to Felecia as their queen.  On the way back home, Marsh decided on a whim that she would attempt to become a queen herself.  She had absolutely no idea what being a queen meant, other than what she learned from Felecia.  Nevertheless, she knew she wanted to become one.  As fate would have it, she encountered a human from another world named Nicholas, who as it turned out was a royal guard.  She was fascinated by his tales of life inside a palace protecting his queen.  So taken by his politeness, eloquent manner of speaking, and sense of duty, she hastily agreed to stop eating humans in order for him to stay with her.

During the course of their travel, the pair inadvertently ran across a group of slavers intent on capturing the same neko tribe Marsha had set her sights on as queen.  After saving the nekos with the assistance of two other giant slug girls named Normeda and Maasma, the odd group formed a close friendship.  With Nicholas' help, Marsha's dream came true - the neko tribe accepted her as their queen.  She sees Normeda and Maasma as the little sisters she lost track of long ago, happily teaching them her survival and hunting tricks.  Nicholas is easily her closest friend and her feelings for him have only deepened since they first met.  The nekos she treats more as family than subjects and she takes her duty to protect them very seriously.

==Stories featuring Marsha==
\* "Long Live Queen Marsha?"
\* "The Making of a Queen"
\* "In the Belly of the Beast"

* Marsha belongs to Timing2. Contact

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