Cassandra Delavigne
Prologue - The Setting of the ShowReal Name: Cassandra "Cassie" Delavigne
Stage Name:
Age: 21
Species:Snake-bitten Human
Position at the Circus: The girl with the snakes
Act 1 - The Face on the Outside
Height: 5' 5" (165 cm)
Weight: 115 lb (53 kg)
Physical Description: Cassie is a average height petite girl who on first glance isn't the type that you would think spends the majority of her time hanging out with a bunch of reptiles, namely snakes. She has delicate girlish features with plush pink lips and eyes that seem to very between hazel and green. Her body is slender with soft curves in all the right places, an small amount of muscle is present but they are toned and subtle.
Honey blonde waves fall past her shoulders and fade to a rose gold color towards the ends. There is typically a small amount of make up on her face and tends to be in neutral colors and golds, nothing that stands out too much.
Cassie is almost always dressed warmly in warm jeans, lots of layers and sweaters, even when the weather outside would cause most people to wear much less. The only time this isn't the case is when she is at home in her trailer (which is always kept nice and warm) or when the weather is hot and the sun is shining so that she can be outside in the direct sunlight.
Distinguishing Features: The most notable thing about Cassandra is that fact that she almost always has at least one snake on her person at all times, typically draped over her shoulders or winding up into her hair. Most often it is one of younger members of her collection that she is trying to get accustomed to her and the sounds of the Circus.
There is only one tattoo on her body and it's located on her right wrist and forearm. It features a small snake the wraps around her wrist like a bracelet with its head resting on the side of her thumb. The tattoo is done entirely in black ink.
Right by the head of the snake tattoo there are two small scars, the reminder of the bite that she sustained when she was young. The scars will never fade from the color they are today and will never entirely disappear. They aren't your normal scares either. The shade of them is lighter than that of her skin and they almost seem to glow at times.
Act 2 - The Freak Within
Personality: Cassie is by no means unfriendly or cold, but her introverted nature often leads people to believe that she is. She often spends time alone with her snakes in her trailer where she can stay warm, but is always happy to have company if they can stand being in a room that is filled with more terrariums than her own personal belongings.
However once one can get past the fact that the spends more time talking to snakes than people, one realizes that Cassandra is a really nice girl. The friendships that she makes are strong and she does what she can to maintain them but is sometimes hesitant to enter them due to the judgmental opinions that some people hold. Yet she still craves the connection and the closeness with another human, enjoying the warmth of another's touch.
Species Description: Cassandra was born a regular human and as far as she knows she still is, just with some added perks.
Noteworthy Qualities:
- Serpent Whisperer: While most people would assume that Cassie is communicating with her snakes like people talk to each other, thats not the case at all. She has no idea what her snakes are feeling and can't hold a dialogue with them, although sometimes she will still talk to them like she can. Instead she has the innate ability to bond with the animals and has raised many of them from the moment their egg was laid. Even with the ones that she has come to have later on in their lives, there is something about her that makes the snake feel safe and comfortable, making it so that she very rarely gets bit or injured by one.
- Venom Immunity: Although her presence is comforting to most snakes, she still occasionally is bit by one if it happens to be in a particularly crank mood. Due to the venom in her body, she has an immunity to all venoms. To date she has been bitten by numerous snacks including members of the Viperidae, Elapidae, and Colubridae families, and none have had and effect on her body.
- Cold-Blooded: While the envenomation of Cassie's blood brought about many positive effects like those listed above, it also came with a drawback. Now, just like the snakes that she loves so much, her body relies on the temperature of her environment to stay warm. She isn't a true poikilotherm (cold-blooded) like the snakes, but she also isn't a homeotherm (warm-blooded) like the rest of the human species is. Her body still has its own inner ways to go about thermoregulation, but it no longer is strong or efficient, causing her to be much more sensitive to the cold than she should be.
Act 3 - The Big Finale
Character History: Cassandra Delavinge was born completely normal to completely regular human parents. Growing up there was never any idea that she would turn out the way she is now. How could there be? No parent wants to imagine their little girl, their only daughter being obsessed with snakes to the point where she was bitten, become even more obsessed with them and then run away to join a circus the moment she turned 18.
From the time she could talk, any time anyone asked Cassie what her favorite animal was or what she wanted for her birthday, she never had the typical answers of other little girls like "I want a puppy!" I want a pony!" No, for her the answer was always "I want a python!" and no matter how hard her parents tried to make her act like a normal girl her age it never worked and if anything it only made her more stubborn about her preference for the scaled over the furry.
Any time she aw a snake of any kind she just had to go see it. Usually, this was fine, since mort of them were in tanks at the zoo or were just garter snakes in her yard, but eventually that habit came around to bite her quite literally when she was 5.
It wasn't a particularly special snake, at least not on the outside, but following her usual trend, Cassie was determined to see the snake. Touch it. Try and make it her own. But it wasn't a good idea when she reached out to touch it and instead of finding a gentle non-venomous snake, she was felt with the sharp stabbing of ifs fangs sinking down into her right hand and the burn of its venom as it entered her bloodstream. Her parents rushed her to the hospital, but to the surprise of all the doctors in the emergency room, the venom and the description of the snake matched none that they had on record and even more surprisingly, Cassie seemed to be having no reaction to the venom at all.
From that moment on, Cassie felt an even strong draw to the snakes and once she was old enough she started raising some on her own and worked at local pet shops. As a teenager she started volunteering with the local herpetological society, and the reptile house at the zoo, occasionally did small educational shows on the street with animals from her collection. She planned on eventually going to school and getting a degree in biology so that she could work with and research snakes, but was found by Isabella and Gideon. The offered her a place at the Circus Obscura and as a part of her contract with them she is enrolled in an online school to continue increasing her knowledge for her act and to have something to fall back on if she ever decides to leave.
Your Act: Due to her introverted nature and the niche that her act fills (and her thermoregulation problems), when she performs Cassie puts on her show within the confines of the The House of Oddities and Fabulous Hominems. Her act always comes with a disclaimer saying 'Do not attempt what you are about to see' and includes her interacting with the various snakes that travel with her. She starts things off simple with the smaller non-venomous members of her collection like a corn snake or a king snake and moves on to her pythons and constrictors, starting small with a ball python or some of the babies and eventually getting to her large boa constrictor and reticulated python. After the safe snakes are out of the way however, she moves on to the part of her show that would me deadly to anyone else. Here she interacts with the more deadly members of her little family, often including a cobra and a viper of some sort. While she interacts with all the snakes in her show, she also provides education about the species and allows audience interactions with the non-venomous species, hoping that she will help alleviate some people's fears of the snakes.
References: Cassandra doesn't have an references from before her time she joined the Circus Obscura. She spent her days working at a reptile specialty store and occasionally performed on the street with her snakes. This was where Gideon and Isabella Duvall found her and after learning more about her talents they invited her to join them and she been traveling with them for the 3 years since that day.
