Genesis of a Lady

It was Super Bowl Sunday, 1993. The Buffalo Bills versus the Dallas Cowboys. I was in love with a Sham. Shaman to be exact. Future husband of Cyren. Future destroyer of a part of me. I prefer to think of that destruction as an opportunity for other parts of me to thrive. Always the optimist, is me.

I'd quickly discovered that I was attracted to certain names. A name in the tavern was almost like a glance in the coporeal world. You knew things about that person immediately, they might not be true - but certainly they weren't just accidental. Silk-n-Chain was a bold and sensuous woman, Ironfist was most certainly a fiesty male dwarf. Babble-On, with the epithet of +sinner+, was going to be a giddy woman/childlike type.

I'd spent enough time observing the phenomenon of the name game to have a fairly accurate read on what type of bait to put on my hook. So I created "Lady China - fragile". And I sat in the Sword Swamp tavern that Super Bowl Sunday, and sure enough, here came my prey, biting at me. Shaman spent a good hour tossing out his own bait, until I said, "Oh, hold on - my mom's calling me!" And then he asked how old I was, and I told him "14." I was certainly an adult, for the record. Lady China was definately going to live a long and chaotic life after that birth.

The name and character just sort of stuck as a favored toy of mine. Eventually she dropped the "fragile" from her epi. Jokes about being the Tupperware Lady and having a very tight seal were a favorite form of self-mockery. Her favorite form of attack was to appear so harmless that the beasts would ignore her until they were neck deep in a sticky pit she'd laid out for them.

That was her birth. Super Bowl Sunday, 1993.