Sage's Questionnaire

Sage lives on the outskirts of Portland, Oregon. She was raised in the city, in a tiny little condo with her mother and more plants than they had wallspace. After leaving Sage’s father, her mother opened up Mint to Be, an herbalism shop that she practically raised toddler Sage in. Sage had always felt at home within the shop, where she was able to help cultivate a loving group of regulars as well as a wide variety of plants, crystals, candles, and assorted “occult nonsense”. After earning a creative arts degree specializing in poetry, Sage returned home to help her mother take care of the shop, and to stay closer to her mother as she aged in an unforgiving world.

As she and her mother are the only two employees in the shop, she earns half of the profit- which isn’t much, really, there are lots of herbalism shops in Portland and theirs is amongst the “kookier”. It’s enough to get her a little cottage on the outskirts of the city, though, and to pay for all of her plants and tattoos. She especially loves getting new tattoos of plants, and is currently working on a hedge maze piece across her back. She also spends her money on accessories for her bike, weed, nonsense like groceries and utilities, and of course, new books. 

Sage will see the world heal, see it safe, see it clean and loved. Saged, even, by the traditions of those who have always cared for the earth. She will end climate change, and bring peace to the earth and its greenery and its birdsong once more. She will see harmony between the people and the land, the people and the sea, between all of the installations that the people have put upon this beautiful wonderful world.

She would do almost anything for this goal, and if someone had done violence already, she would see it only as justice to bring violence to them. However, she does believe that violence should be done right, when it is the right time to bring a solution immediately afterwards. After all, an eye for an eye won’t make the world go blind if you help people make themselves prosthetic eyes afterwards. 

She would lose herself entirely to the cause if necessary- whether that meant prison, death, or losing her mind. Whatever was needed, when it was her time.

When she was thirteen, her father tried to sue her mother for custody and the chance to come back into Sage’s life. Her mother had left with Sage in the middle of the night when Sage was barely learning to walk, fearing for both of their lives. They had only the clothes on their backs and the few books her mother had been able to shove into a backpack. He had never tried to find them, and it had never been an issue, until they were called to a courtroom hearing. Without proof of prior wrongdoing, he was granted weekend custody, and he began taking Sage to his conferences and courtroom hearings as a climate lawyer. Unfortunately, he is the type of climate lawyer that works for corporations rather than for the earth, and Sage began to understand the true horrors that are out there, for the first time. She also saw true anger, wrath, and destruction for the first time, whenever he lost a case. After a year and a half, she was successfully able to petition to live with her mother full time… but she never forgot the lessons that her father had taught her.

Her mother, Winona, has always been the person that Sage is closest to. Growing up, other children told Sage in fearful whispers that her mother was a witch. It’s certainly true that she looked like a storybook witch at times, with long black hair, too-pale skin, and draped in black fabric. Sage only realized when she was older that the community feared her mother due to the salves, tinctures, and rituals that she raised Sage by. She had an herb, crystal, or oil for everything, and a kind word to say about everyone, and the right answer for every problem Sage came to her with.

Their neighbor, Bob Jones, who believes that the two of them and their herbalism shop is everything wrong with Portland. He has called the fire marshals, the health department, and even the police with whatever small issues he thinks will get them shut down, and Sage is constantly getting into fights with him. Much to her mother’s chagrin.

Zanzibar, the owner of the local health food store, who always gives Sage a very big discount and the offer to go out to coffee sometime. She adores his friendship, and has not found the right time to tell him that she’s asexual.

Sage had a lovely, bright childhood with her mother, who did her best to shield Sage from how little they truly had and how much there was in the world that wanted to cause harm. Her mother filled their life with walks in the woods to learn all the animals inside them, late nights in the garden to learn what healed and what poisoned, and with early mornings in the kitchens learning to bake. All of this supplemented her rather substandard experience in public school, where other children judged her based on... Well, everything about her and her mother, really. Sage's hand-sewn clothes, variety of crystals she carried in her pockets, and odd mannerisms made her the target of quite a few bullies. She made a few friends who also liked to read, but she spent much of her childhood on the outskirts of even those social circles.

When her father came back into her life, she began doing her best to get him out of it. The anger and negative energy he carried with him was like nothing she had seen before, and she quickly became a much more pragmatic person.

Sage has always been in love with the Earth, with the trees and the birds and the river behind her cottage. She knows that true love is the way the wind whistles in the woods late at night, and the way the moon shines off of still water. She feels the Earth's love for her in the colors of an early morning sunrise over the mountains, and in the way street cats curl around her ankles. She tries every day to show the Earth that Sage loves her back, through spreading wildflower seeds in pastures and watering community gardens and collecting rainwater to recycle.

Sage does not know love for humans the way she knows how to love the Earth, but she tries to show them the compassion the Earth shows for them, at the very least.