Adelaide was a young, idealistic skydancer who loved her work and her pearlcatcher wife, Tanya.
Childhood friends, Adelaide and Tanya moved into a city apartment together and eventually found themselves in a relationship and loving marriage. Adelaide took on a stable, decently-paying job in a pet shop so that her wife could dabble in the arts.
The two girls lived happily for about six years before Tanya fell sick and passed away. Adelaide was devastated and fell into a deep depression; she cut off all family and friends in favour of locking herself away. She lost her job and, after her savings drained away, her apartment. The only thing she managed to keep was her wife's memory pearl; which she valued over her own life and put herself in danger several times to protect.
She was eventually picked up in a back alley by a group of morally-corrupt spellcasters. For a year and a half she acted as their servant; cleaning their home, cooking their food, and disposing of failed experiements in return for a roof over her head and whatever was left over after their meals.
Then she began to dabble in the dark arts, herself. The group saw her magical potential and her status in the group was elevated. She trained for another year before finding a book on necromancy and, driven by desperation and loneliness, tried to bring her wife back from the dead.
The spell was only half-successful. Adelaide brought back Tanya's spirit, which became bound to the memory-pearl and was very, very weak. Seeing what had become of Adelaide, Tanya's spirit begged her to run away and find somewhere better to live. It took a further six months before Adelaide found the courage to do so, and fled the spellcasters.
She barely got away with her life and was seriously injured. Luckily, after escaping the spellcasters she came upon a mysterious tower full of kind souls that allowed her and Tanya to stay with them. She doesn't remember much from her time in the tower. Only that she was treated gently as her wounds healed, told it would be best to keep Tanya's resurrection a secret, and then guided away by a man named Rat; who appeared from the thick night fog when called and disappeared again without a word once they reached the road.
While travelling the roads she found a ridgeback man painting beautiful landscapes. She stopped to speak with him, and he eyed her with a friendly suspicion before saying that she should come back to the caravan park with him. He told her they were a community who would understand her, though she had no need to explain her past; nobody ever did.
Against her better judgement, Adelaide followed the man back to the park and found herself becoming a part of a friendly, judgement-free community. She could tell that they, just like her, had been through terrible things. But as she was promised nobody ever shared their stories. Nor did they ever pry for hers or ask who they could hear her laughing with when she was supposedly alone in her home.
