Description
Tall and lean, Céline has the austere elegance of a blade drawn under moonlight. Her angular features are made all the sharper by her pale, silvery eyes—keen and unblinking, as though nothing escapes her notice. Her hair, a cascade of silver streaked with ash-brown, is always drawn into a flawless high knot that never loosens, not even in the heat of the ovens. She dresses in charcoal-gray robes trimmed in deep red, garments enchanted to shed flour and sugar as if they never touched her. A single silver ring, shaped like a curled leaf, gleams on her right thumb—subtle, deliberate, enduring. Those who come near her often notice the peculiar fragrance that clings to her: a mingling of orange blossom, warm yeast, and the faint tang of ozone, as if a summer storm had just rolled through her kitchen.
Personality
Céline Aravel carries herself with the cool restraint of someone who has spent centuries measuring out flour and silence in equal measure. Her words are few, clipped, and often laced with a dryness sharp enough to cut through the sweetness of her craft. She does not tolerate nonsense—whether it’s a loud chewer or an ill-considered request for “just a plain muffin”—yet beneath her brusque exterior lies a hidden gentleness. Children, apprentices, and the rare old friend stir in her a fierce protectiveness she would deny to her last breath. She treats both food and magic as sacred, patient disciplines, and her disdain is reserved for those who hurry either. Still, a spark of warmth flickers in her presence when she encounters true competence, especially from those who share her respect for baking, enchantment, or the old elven ways. And while she claims to find Bixby Wizzlethorpe exhausting, her constant toleration of him hints at a fondness she will never confess.
Background
Céline Aravel trained in the culinary halls of Mírelanor, an elven academy once famed for combining arcane study with the culinary arts. Her specialty was edible enchantments—spells you could fold into dough, memories you could suspend in jam. After a… philosophical disagreement with the headmaster (she refers to it only as “the meringue schism”), she left academia and opened The Velvet Crust in Balandel nearly a century ago.
Her pastries are widely considered exquisite, if obtusely priced, and are occasionally rumored to cause pleasant dreams, mild déjà vu, or temporary fluency in forgotten dialects.
Pastry Alternatives for Bixby’s Cocktails
- Tearsweet Tart (for Sorrowfruit Pulp)
- Scorched Petal Croissant (for Pyrelily Petals)
- Resonance Crumb Cake (for Echoing Shard)
- Moonshadow Éclair (for Moonshadow Mushroom)
- Saltwhisper Biscuit (for Whispering Kelp)
- Ashenrise Galette (for Phoenixberry)
- Crimsonvine Mille-Feuille (for Bloodsuckle Nectar)
- Starfall Puff (for Starlit Fern Frond)
- Jitterleaf Macaron (for Chittering Cricket Leg)
- Nullglaze Doughnut (for Voidcap Dust)
- Blinkberry Turnover (for Blinking Toadstool)
- Stormbite Scone (for Thunderpepper Seeds)
- Mirrorflame Strudel (for Glass-Eye Beetle)
- Charcrust Brioche (for Molten Marrow)
- Ivycoil Roll (for Timewarped Ivy)
- Wispveil Meringue (for Chilled Wisp Essence)
- Gravebloom Crumble (for Evermourn Bloom)
- Solstice Sandbar Bar (for Starfire Cactus Juice)
- Stonebark Biscotti (for Ironroot Bark)
- Coralglint Tartlet (for Tidalglass Coral)