Cellyndis Holyoak
(SIL-in-dis HOL-ee-oak)

Race: Elf
Role: Co-Proprietor of the Fighting Pits, Former Criminal

Cellyndis Holyoak is a striking figure — pale brown hair usually kept in an immaculate intricate braid, deep emerald green eyes, high cheekbones, and a delicate jawline that gives her an aristocratic air entirely at odds with the fighting arena she co-owns and runs. She wears rings on nearly every finger, a simple silver pendant at her throat, and carries herself with the composed authority of someone who has seen considerably worse than whatever is currently in front of her. Her framed release papers from a prison on the Odran Trax border hang on her office wall — not hidden away, but displayed. She has made her peace with where she came from.

She and her partner Fivic Grimjaw run one of Indurisin’s fighting establishments — no alcohol served, a policy she has maintained from the beginning on the practical grounds that the fights are exciting enough without adding grog to the equation. The arena is loud, gritty, and profitable. Her private office behind the door marked Private is the precise opposite — plush rugs, polished dark wood, the scent of lavender incense, and shelves lined with mementos accumulated over a lifetime. It is her oasis, and she guards it accordingly.

She has left her criminal past behind, and she means it — though she has never pretended that past didn’t happen. She is sharp, sardonic, and possessed of a dry humor that surfaces most reliably when she is tired or dealing with something she finds absurd, which covers considerable ground. Her friendship with Taybrin is built on a shared history and a mutual understanding that neither of them needs to explain themselves to the other.

When something genuinely offends her sense of ethics, her price becomes extremely reasonable.

Interesting Facts:

• Among the mementos on her office shelf is an ornate codpiece that Taybrin has never quite worked up the nerve to ask about. Cellyndis has never volunteered the story. This arrangement suits them both.
• She keeps a bright orange-red flower encased in glass or crystal among her keepsakes — one of the very few highblooms in existence displayed rather than feared. Whether it is a trophy, a warning, or something more personal is not information she has shared.