Mariana Cassius Octavius Serva

Mariana's looks are considered exotic by the locals. She's tall and springy, with nimble hands and a light, flushed complexion.

Mariana's eyes are deepset and slightly downturned near the inner side. The irises are of hazel color - brown around the pupil, blue near the rim.

Her hair is thick, slightly wavy and of a light ginger color,often braided or captured in unadorned roman-style hair circlets.

Due to her upbringins she's retained a sense of national identity separate from the romans, and even pride. She knows she has self-worth, no matter how she's treated, and gains strength from the knowledge in times of difficulty.

Mariana's very patient, willing to play the long game and shrug off humiliation to avoid getting sidetracked from her goals. The woman does keep tabs on those who've wronged her and is hard to forgive.

She values loyalty to one's own people over loyalty to one's master, but knows better than to put that philosophy to words. Even so, she does not disapprove of slavery on principle, only of sadism to slaves and the unnecessary hardships and pain that Marcus Fadius brings upon his "property".

The Roman city in the valley was built by the descendants of a legion that had gone missing in Britain around AD108.

The Legion had, at the time, a number of gaelic slaves at their disposal. One of the leading officials, who later became the head of the Marsus domus, claimed possession of a quarry and set up a facility comprised mostly of gaelic slaves.

Stone was always in demand, thus the quarry has been growing for generations, starting up a side-mine as well as the site was discovered to contain ores. Being allowed to stay together and the distancing from their masters kept the gaelic slaves from completely assimilating to the Roman culture, speaking their old language among themselves.

Gwenidh was born in that semi-gaelic slave conclave, about four generations after its' establishment.

She showed an aptitude to music, at an early age, learning all that was left of the gaelic language and folk-songs from her elders.

At that time the conclave, and its' workers, were the property of Julius Fadius Marsus, but passed down to his son Marcus Fadius Marsus upon Julius's death.

Whilst the previous three heads of house had been content to let the gaelic slaves do their thing so long as they gained results Marcus started a more aggressive assimilation campaign, with the intent of increasing production and breaking apart what he viewed as a clump of dangerously prideful and unintegrated slaves. Marcus sold off a large faction of the gaelics for physically fit war-prisoners of greek and chinese descent, then increasing the amount of control exerted upon the day-to-day lives of the quarry workers.

Marcus took Gwenidh to be his house-slave, being struck by her musical abilities and exotic appearance, bestowing her the name "Mariana", or full-name of Mariana Fadius Marcus Serva.

Before she was taken away, however, Gwenidh was approached by a nameless Aos Sidhe, who struck up a deal with the girl. The Aos Sidhe asked Gwenidh to ensure that it continued to have worshippers in the future, and in exchange of her taking up this task lended out its three magic birds for the duration of the rest of Gwenidhs' life. She took to initially keeping the deal secret from all but a few chosen individuals, knowing that Marcus would use the powers to his advantage if he knew of them.

Marcus was a wealthy and important man, but not a kind one, taking particular delight in cruelty to his slaves. Mariana was spared the worst of it, due to being valued for her looks and trade, but witnessed his treatment of the rest of the staff, including her brother who'd been taken in as a more generic house-slave.

Cassius Octavius, a guest and political rival of Marcus, caught her performing magic - specifically using one of the three birds to spy on her master.

Cassius Octavius, realizing that Marcus was unaware of her skills, buys the woman off Marcus and takes her on as his own entertainer, keeping her given name. They realize their shared dislike for Marcus - in Mariana's case caused by his treatment of her people and Cassius's case the prospect of increasing his standing in the Senate if something were to happen to the man - and she makes it known to Cassius that she'd be all but eager to put her powers to use in any plan to remove her previous owner from power.