Ondrina Duskflare - Firedancer of Cinderglade

Introduction

Twice a year the plainsrunners build the same bonfire in roughly the same clearing, and both times Ondrina Duskflare dances the same steps into it. On the first night the clans reenact the mythical run of the Flame-Spirit with flaming spears and song, and the fire in her hands is a shout of joy loud enough to carry across the plains. On the second, smaller night, the fire is a held breath — the same footwork, the same ribbons, but slowed and hushed until the flame looks less like celebration and more like a question. Most of Cinderglade cannot tell the two dances apart by the steps alone. Ondrina has never once confused them.

Profile

Name: Ondrina Duskflare
Race: Tiefling (Elemental)
Gender: Female
Alignment: Neutral Good
Role/Class: Firedancer of Cinderglade
Challenge Rating: 1

"The flame doesn't know if it's a festival or a rite. I'm the one who has to."

Appearance: Ondrina is lean and long-limbed, built for the kind of movement that has to look effortless from thirty feet away. Her skin is a deep, banked-coal red that darkens almost to black across her forearms and the backs of her hands, as if she has been standing too close to something hot for most of her life. Her horns curve low and close before sweeping back and up, and she keeps ribbons of fire-treated silk knotted around the base of each one, more habit than ornament at this point. Her eyes are a flat, steady orange with no visible white, and they do not flinch from open flame the way other people's do. She wears little — a wrapped halter and a low, layered skirt cut for kicks and turns, both treated against scorching — and her exposed skin carries the faint, permanent lattice of old burn lines across her forearms and the tops of her feet, pale where the heat has scarred rather than colored her. When she is still, which is rare, she tends to rock her weight slightly from foot to foot, like she's already counting a rhythm no one else has started yet.