Cottoncandy is a slight, quick-moving elf with pale lavender skin, silver-white hair worn in two uneven braids, and bright violet eyes. Her ears are decorated with mismatched brass charms collected from markets and abandoned homes. She wears a well-maintained leather jerkin beneath a faded rose-colored cloak, soft boots suited for rooftop travel, and a collection of hidden pouches. Her smile is mischievous, but her watchful eyes rarely stop scanning exits, hands, and unattended valuables.

Cottoncandy is cheerful, suspicious, and fiercely protective. She makes friends quickly with children, animals, and anyone who has been overlooked by society, but she keeps adults at arm's length until they prove themselves. She enjoys jokes, theatrical disguises, and dramatic entrances, yet becomes intensely serious when someone abuses power.

Cottoncandy was left as a child in the rain outside a crowded city hospice, wrapped in a torn pink blanket and carrying nothing but a silver button engraved with an unfamiliar elven crest. The other street children gave her the name Cottoncandy because of her pale hair and sweet, harmless smile. She survived by sleeping in bell towers, squeezing through drainage tunnels, and learning which shopkeepers left food near their back doors. Her elven senses made her unusually alert, while her small size and quick hands made her an excellent thief, though she preferred taking from cruel merchants and corrupt officials rather than from people who were already struggling. As she grew older, Cottoncandy joined a loose family of abandoned children who used old theater tunnels as their home. When a wealthy magistrate discovered the hideout, he hired thugs to drive them out and burned the tunnels to erase evidence of his own smuggling operation. Cottoncandy escaped with a handful of younger children, but several others vanished in the fire. She now travels as a rogue, searching for the magistrate's network, protecting vulnerable people whenever she can, and trying to discover the origin of the silver button she still keeps sewn inside her cloak. She wants a home, but she is not yet certain she believes a home can survive without someone clever enough to defend it.