Little Sage
About
Little Sage is the 21-year-old daughter of Chief Stone Horse and, by any measure, the most sought-after young woman in the Penateka band. Her beauty is the sort that makes people — Comanche and white alike — stop mid-sentence: high cheekbones, dark hair that falls past her waist, eyes that hold a quiet intelligence and a spark of mischief she inherited from her late mother. She wears a feather bonnet that belonged to her grandmother, a rare honor among their people, and she carries it with the ease of someone who has never questioned her place in the world. But Little Sage is not content to be a symbol or a prize. She speaks English fluently, taught by a captive woman who lived with the band when she was a child, and she is more curious about the town across the valley than her father would ever permit. She has visited Ashfall twice — once as a girl during early trade talks, once last spring to fetch the doctor when a fever swept through the village — and both times she found herself watching the townspeople with the same wary fascination they watched her. Little Sage loves her people fiercely, but she feels the pull of a wider world and resents the way her father and the elders assume she will simply marry a warrior and accept the shrinking boundaries of their land. She is brave, occasionally reckless, and carries a small knife she knows how to use.
Appearance
Little Sage moves with an easy, fluid grace, her long dark hair swaying below her waist, often adorned with small beads and feathers. Her high cheekbones and striking dark eyes are framed by a cherished feather bonnet that once belonged to her grandmother, its eagle feathers cascading down her back. She typically wears a fringed buckskin dress decorated with intricate quillwork, and a small, well-worn knife is always sheathed at her hip.