(To note, first of all, it should be pronounced something like "see-gei"; the e is not silent.)
As with a number of my alts, she is intended for settings congruent to
Monster_Girls, though by
Solan instead.
The Alps. Quiet, beautiful, arguably the world's most romantic mountains. These tall snowcapped peaks range over hundreds of miles of European countryside, and naturally are home to some of the more rarely seen monstergirls, owing to their special climate needs. Yuki-onna are common, especially on the higher peaks that tempt mountaineers into their deathly white embrace, and rumored sightings of yeti, or sometimes sasquatch on the lower and greener slopes, are a perennial draw for tourists hoping to catch a glimpse of the shy, thick-furred girls. It's no surprise, then, that there are villages dotting the higher slopes, where people eager for contact and commerce used to dwell.
One such village, however, eventually fell into the oldest trap of all human endeavors. Worried about the power of the growing number of monsters in the population, and their perceived ability to do all manner of awful things to the helpless human inhabitants, the human portion of the village eventually abandoned it in favor of constructing a more traditional walled town about a half-day's hike downslope. There they could conduct business with the girls on their own terms, in "safety", leaving their old and disused buildings for the creatures to do with as they like.
Outside of one of these buildings, which always seems to have a lantern in the window, especially on cold nights, there hangs a sign that reads "Tessitore Garofalo". The first part is the name of her trade (tessitore is the Italian for "weaver"); the second, the name her family has had ever since their first contact with humans, a shrewd group of Italian climbers who bridged the gap between the girls and the humans living below, while also encoding a careful warning. For "garofalu" can mean not only the beautiful carnation flower, but also the powerful, dangerous eddies in the straits of the warm Mediterranean far to the south.
Sige is, in fact, the last remaining of that name, her once numerous clan scattered and spent through centuries of misfortune and a particular fear from the humans. As the sign outside her shop suggests, she is indeed a weaver, experienced in turning her own thread, the hardy "highland flax" that the local yeti tend, and the occasional imported bundles of cotton, into silk, linen, and cotton cloth of surpassing quality. In another place and perhaps another species she might be able to become wildly rich; here, she lives in a centuries-old wooden shop with a paraffin stove and a trio of antique lanterns to keep her home warm and cheery.
Sige is, as her profession and picture might indicate, a spidergirl, more specifically what the people living around the Alps call snow spider. Snow spiders have an extreme tolerance for cold, and their soft carapace hair attracts snow into an oddly warm coating around themselves. Because of this, a snow spider can wrap themselves up in white and be easily almost invisible in the mountains they make their homes in. This, combined with their strongly paralytic venom and their decidedly tall bodies, made them especially feared by humans despite their mostly gentle nature. The occasional aggressive, territorial snow spider did little to help matters.
Sige herself understands and accepts this fear. She cannot help being what she is, so powerful and given such gifts by nature, but in her eyes neither can the humans help being fearful of such a being. She continues to provide her services on a commission basis, making the long journey to the city below once a week to drop off anything she has been asked to make and bringing back with her new orders and her payment. Other than a few rare and particularly pretty coins, she mostly disdains currency in favor of bartering what she needs, though she has a particular love for dyes.
Life, to her, is simple and peaceful, walking abroad among the snow for much of the evening to allow the more open-minded souls to leave commissions for her without having to see her frightful form and then weaving quietly by the lantern's light long into the night. The village, though smaller these days and with many homes abandoned to slowly fall apart, still holds plenty of friendly fellow monsters to play with, and of course nothing stops the braver or less prejudiced humans from making the trek up to visit. Life, to Sige, is calm and enjoyable... so it seems to anyone, even her...
