Image Credits: frame Arkane, figure Dark Academia Dress Up

Name: Ingarette Sykorea

Gender/Preference: Female, she/her, sly bi

Age/DOB: 20 in 1855; 1st Day, Month of Earth (born second)

Faction: Independent, Shopkeeper/Cafe owner

Family: Mother deceased during the Rat Plague in early 1837; father recently passed; aunt Kemmarly (father's side) helps run cafe; twin sister Elinora

Height/Build: 5'7" / slender and lithe, surprisingly strong from lifting goods

Hair: charcoal brown-black, straightened from thick wavy, kept up with ribbons or hair ornaments, and goes to mid-back

Eyes: darkly brown, narrower than her sister's, with slightly more makeup to make them smoky, strong epicanthal fold

Appearance: tan skin which has hardly ever seen the light of day and apparently she has a birthmark of some sort that is covered by her long-necked shirts; has a chipper voice, and can call to her sister using an incredibly loud and sharp whistle. Wears red and grey-green outfits and often accents them with other brighter versions in ribbon form

"If they had been but a few years older, the young Empress Emily might have had them as playmates. Instead, they entertained themselves with philosophers and students of the fine arts."

Skills and Occupation: Though well versed with every aspect of running a cafe, Ingarette concentrates her efforts on their 2nd floor shop, which is effectively a 'used book and curio' location fit for students and collectors alike. She knows how to research any subject, file and sort and categorize, and do much more paperwork than her sister, and seems to enjoy the organization of events and handles the finances for The Wren's Nest. She is fond of finding just the right book for a customer, and has read nearly everything in their extensive collection, for good or ill. So if there's a fact you need, she's got it somewhere around here...

Residence: Gristol / Dunwall, Kaldwin's Bridge Midrow Substation, in the third story of The Wren's Nest; her portion of the apartment is kept clean but is still cluttered with daily receipts and piles of new books, maps, and goods she has yet to sort through downstairs. She does most of the accounting in the shared nook, while her sister does assorted cooking or preparation in the kitchen.

Notable Possessions: she and her sister inherited The Wren's Nest building on Kaldwin's Bridge; on the lower floor is the Cafe, serving mostly coffee and ales along with a few finger foods and snacks, catering to the students of the Academy and other locations around the area; on the middle floor is the Bookstore, having a stunning number of higher-end textbooks, research materials, maps, personal journals collected from old adventures, and the like; it does have a few 'very' heretical books and magically endowed items scattered among the texts, but no Overseer has even been through the place in recent memory. On the third floor are their two connected apartments, a common room, a kitchen, and business nook. There is a balcony on each floor that looks over the Wrenhaven River not-quite-due-west, and a rooftop area where the twins and their aunt often spend off time relaxing and feeding the gulls.

Personality: Ingarette is a student at heart, quite smart and nerdy in many ways. But she is easily able to accommodate the needs of a shop in her routine, reading while others browse, or perking up with a conversation about any given subject starts up. She is considerate toward any customer, but treats her regulars with respect and as friends. In this manner, she is able to branch out her customer base as well as education - they will happily help her locate new books, donate their old journals, and even dish out rumors and gossip when the time is right.

Likes and Dislikes: prefers the quiet or more subdued bookstore atmosphere over her sister's cafe noise, but that never stops her from sampling her sister's weird new brews! She is dedicated to their shop, and defends their father's decision to 'let a trio of women' run it. She did grow up in a post-Plague era when women have been more and more invested in the important aspects in Dunwall, but she definitely wants them to take a page from Karnaca or Cullero - maybe Empress Emily will nudge this in the right direction.

Fears or Interruptions: She lost half her family to the rat plague, and during that weird period in 1851 or so when goods coming north sometimes were infested with those terrible bloodflies - that terrified her. What if yet another plague started? Their location is right above the river! Every ship that comes to Dunwall must pass under Kaldwin's Bridge!

History: Their family is from disparate portions of the Isles; mother a native of the far north Wei-Gon islands, and their father from Potterstead in Gristol. He had been selected to attend the Academy of Natural Philosophy in Dunwall, and in the attempt to find an apartment for their new family, discovered an open building along Kaldwin's Bridge, over the Wrenhaven river. When Ora sought to open a book shop and coffee cafe (boldly bucking the trend of yet another tea-house), Renult realized that he was not only happier running the shop than studying at the Academy, he could still learn to his heart's content by listening in to the conversations in the cafe below! By the mid-1830s their family was doubled - not merely by Renult's sister and another cousin who came down from Potterstead, but by having their twins Elinora and Inagrette. Unfortunately at this time too, the Rat Plague began to swarm over Dunwall, and when the twins were barely two, their mother was bitten by an infected rat and died - though she also helped advance Sokolov's research into the disease even in death. The cousin also fell ill, but had the sense to leave the area and not infect the children or their remaining family.

The girls were educated by many of those students who still came through the area; Sokolov was much too busy and important to do so, but some of his own students would stop by the shop and were given books or coffee in trade for tutoring them.