Shen Mi

A qiling of unknown origins, Shen Mi prefers to call herself a "numushi" (a pun on both numu (mother) and mushi (priest or clergy). A self-styled priestess of the Huang Fei sect, Shen Mi has long petitioned for a strengthening of laws regulating Turing and Von Neumann practices. The Riastarth Consortium has offered a reward for information about her or for her capture.

Description

Shen Mi is a [qiling], with a blue hide of glittering catfish scales. Her head is more like a pony's than a dragon's; the advance of age has put crow's feet at her eyes and character lines in her face. Her feet are thick flat ox's hooves that somehow fall without a sound; around her left ankle is a bracelet of glittering brown alexandrite. Her lion's tail is weighed down with a brass ring faceted with nephrite, and it does not swish behind her matronly rump. With her shoulders back, she just barely clears five [chi] (166 cm), although the jade horn centered on her pate rises a few hands higher. As a corset, she wears a [chahar-ai-ne] (hinged breastplate), whose color runs from dark green to glittering emerald, veined with the black and green of jadeite. Underneath that is a silk robe in the [li-shu] style, black with a pattern of stars and pheasants on her arms, of waves and dragons on her thighs. Wrapped around her right wrist is a string of [Buddhist prayer beads] of what appears to be pure jade.