JAWDoesArt

she claims to come from the stars themselves. although no one really believes this, they can't exactly prove her wrong.

Aquatic is from a group of slugcats that can breathe underwater (Rivulet's branch of slugcats is actually more land-leaning which explains why they can't breathe underwater)

during her "campaign" she travels out of her group and meets Scholar, who had just undergone the tragic, tragic loss of their lantern (more on that if someone inquires).

Torch comes from a colony of other slugcats like himself in the shade of Fortunate Sorrow's can. he met Charlatan during his mission and they hit it off pretty quick. currently, he still lives with his colony but sometimes goes out to visit Charlatan, who also comes to visit his colony.

Charlatan is another purposed organism, and another messenger. he's from Eight Resonant Times, an iterator in the local group. he was tasked with delivering a blackmail pearl to Fortunate Sorrow shortly after she was saved from collapse; the reason Times sent him instead of just messaging directly is because they wanted to stay anonymous.

obviously, Sorrow didn't take very well to this, so she cut ties with Times, adopted the messenger, and carved a hole through the blackmail pearl (which Charlatan now wears on a necklace).

Fortunate Sorrow is the youngest of the local group's iterators. her puppet is pretty damaged from her near-collapse, plus her cloak was torn almost to bits, so she had Scholar cut it and now wears it as some sort of collar. Sorrow is basically the crazy (slug)cat lady of the local group; both Scholar and Charlatan (i'll draw him later) live with her.

in my headcanon, the ancients never really bothered to give the iterator puppets hands (because they're just puppets anyway) so they're more like paws.