Patron Saints/Red Diamond
From Greenthings
Red Diamond was truly her namesake in the rough of Chiaroscuro. Her paintings and glass figurines could take one's breath away, and sailors would refuse to look at her depictions of storms for fear of drowning... If anyone ever got to see her art, that is.
Red Diamond was a pack rat. Her art was made for art's sake, and she kept everything for herself. Even the smallest doodles were locked away in the basement of the crystal pyramid a friend had helped her build for her house. Red Diamond felt that others had no appreciation for her talent or the emotions that she expressed in her work, and thus kept her heart as hidden as her crafts, only exposing it to a few trusted members of Chiaroscuro's Council for the Glass City's Beautification (CGCB).
Well, until one day she spotted the exotic-looking Westerner downtown. A freak accident caused a shard of glass from one of Chiaroscuro's old towers to plummet into the main square, skewering a couple that was there to shop. Immediately recognized a beautiful event when she saw it, Red Diamond whipped out her treasured silver brush and an ever-present piece of canvas. She sketched the people with dull browns and purples, contrasted by the bright yellow and green of the glass and bursting crimson of their blood. Before she could finish, though, someone emerged from the crowd of onlookers to whip them into action. The Westerner called for help, and began to staunch the victims' bleeding. His action and impassioned face further inspired Red Diamond, and her first picture of him is something that she treasured above all else.
Her courtship of him was not traditional, to say the least. She suspected that he was surprised and confused when he began to receive glass figurines of traditional origami (a fad of the Realm that she found out he so adored), beautifully woven silk shirts, kimonos, and pants. She liked to think that his biggest shock was when he found the huge mural painted across the side of his parents' home, in which a beautiful island scene was depicted.
When Cho finally caught up with her, though, she was speechless. Not only from the confidence and masculinity that she'd always admired from afar, but because her humiliating speech impediment made her so. After he lavished compliment upon compliment on her, though, she managed to stutter out an embarrassing ten-second attempt at "Thank-you." Horrified about what he would think of her, she hid for days until he found her again and courted her in return. She was in love with the man who could look past what she saw as a depressing flaw, and expressed that love by dedicating her art and her life to him.
Cho's social ease also brought Red Diamond out into the world. Cho spoke with a few members of the CGCB and they in turn persuaded Red Diamond and the rest of the coalition to work with Dragon-blooded representatives of the Realm to restore Chiaroscuro. Their most prominent work is a sparkling crystalline fountain that dominates Chiaroscuro's main square, the same one where Red first saw Cho.
Red Diamond was the beauty of her art incarnate. Her cheekbones were high and regal, her skin always smooth and flawless, and her hair was just that right amount of thickness that she could either curl it or wear it straight as she desired. Her hair was a bright, shocking red that set her deep brown pools of mystery (what most people call eyes) with a frame of enticing fire that begged to bet touched, held, and stroked. Her voice, though... It grated the ears, and trying to decipher her words was a torture in and of itself, or at least that's how she thought of herself.
When she heard of Namhwa's infidelity, though... That wounded her deeply. She spent days agonizing over it, tearing at her hair and clawing at her face. Her friends tried to comfort her, but her despair and rage combined to make her presence terrifying until at the end of the week she completely lost control, though a professional might say that she was trying to get it back.
Red Diamond spent the next two days breaking and defacing everything that she had ever made, with particular attention paid to the pieces that she made for Cho. Red broke all the glass figurines into tiny pieces, then melted them into one gigantic piece that appeared to be a deformed phallus.
The paintings were all defaced with a horrid phallic and Wood-Dragon associated images, flowers dripping poison, and other depressing or artistically hurtful images.
Her final alteration was to the mural that she had made to Cho. She repainted the entire wall, showing Namhwa (rendered in pains-taking detail) walking away from the bright sun that many in the South revere as a mighty being and into a horrible city of debauchery (presumably the Realm), filled with people drawn into caricatures of Dragon-bloods with diseased sexual organs in prominent display, all beckoning Cho with glasses of wine, pipes of opium, and commoners downtrodden beneath their floors.
Red Diamond was last seen walking into a deserted portion of Chiaroscuro. Her friends are sure that she climbed to one of the glass towers that she so admired to dive from it and into oblivion.
