Post by Emily on Sept 16, 2015 21:03:13 GMT -8
"we smiled so bright the sun went down / rose above the maddening crowd
we lit the streets with the sweetest glow / we held the globe and made it turn
wandered through the universe / men of science observed through telescopes
all for love, we become / larger than lifesize, wondersome / great in the eyes of someone"
-- A Fine Frenzy, Lifesize
Full name: Hannah Rose Fein
Goes by: Hannah, Han, Obi Han Kenobi, Hannah-Banana, Little Red
DOB, current age: 09/22/1996, 19
Occupation: Student at Shepherd University; first year, fine arts (dance)
Immediate family: Clarence and Leah Fein (parents, deceased); Gideon Fein (brother, deceased); Jude Fein (brother, unavailable)
Face: Hattie Watson
Screen name: Smiled so bright
Webpage, optional: N/A
Story
Her childhood consisted of summers running wild between rows of Napa Valley wine grapes and mild winters separated by the jagged line at which hills of evergreen became grey northern California sky. Hannah was a precocious child, always chasing after older brothers Gideon and Jude with questions like "what are you?" and "why can't I?" She could dance before she could walk and she could read before she could talk, which would make perfect sense to anyone who knows her, now, if her family could have been in London to embarrass her in front of new faces with stories of her distant past. Or at least that's what she's conscious of while she's awake.
They weren't there, of course. They couldn't be.
Their bloodline had adapted for survival as mankind became a dominant species, generation after generation taking careful steps to protect the one that would come after it as magic began to disappear from the world. Living in well-maintained secrecy until the early 17th century, they were inevitably betrayed by a coven of witches in Durham, England.
They fled the country, but the coven pursued, eventually pinning them down on the United States' west coast. There they established a commune and there the Feins' ancestors were held in indentured servitude for centuries. Clarence and Leah died in the family's first attempt to escape it in 2004.
A 15-year-old Gideon had hidden a 10-year-old Hannah's red head in his chest and a 13-year-old Jude had covered her ears so that she couldn't hear her parents' screams as the coven bled them out and tore them apart, tooth by tooth, scale by scale, to be sold on the magic black market. The three children were spared, for lack of a better word.
Dragons are hard to come by in the common era. Troublesome dragons are worth more dead than alive.
It was Gideon, following in his parents' footsteps, who finally got them free in 2014. He hid Jude in Sweden, then hid 17-year-old Hannah at St. Brigid's boarding school in the town where all their bloodline's troubles began. Again, the coven pursued, but they only found him. His death was ruled accidental by the local authorities.
Hannah and Jude found each other via post later that year.
St. Brigid's boarding school turned out to be no safer than the commune was for Hannah, who endured much more than her fair share of trauma and loss at the hands of what dark things lurked in the forest that surrounded it. The boarding school was destroyed and its proprietor found dead in early 2015, leading to her move to London so that she could study at Shepherd University.
More recently, Hannah has found herself pulled into the protection of former St. Brigid's classmate Nero Godwin's arms, where she lives in blissful ignorance of his career in black market crime and violence as business alter-ego Dollarhyde. As far as she's concerned, there is no place safer for her. To the casual observer it might even appear that for the first time in her life, she's in l -- wait, no, don't say the 'l-word.' (And I don't mean 'lesbians,' Scott Pilgrim.) She'll be up and over the nearest hill in no time flat, if you do. The 'l-word' means itself to dragons in ways those with finite lifespans will never understand; it means promises too sacred to be meddled with prematurely or in a fit of passion and pain of the deepest and darkest kind imaginable should those promises be broken. Very few ever keep the promises they make to her. She'll break her own heart and run before she puts the burden of doing it on him.
They weren't there, of course. They couldn't be.
Their bloodline had adapted for survival as mankind became a dominant species, generation after generation taking careful steps to protect the one that would come after it as magic began to disappear from the world. Living in well-maintained secrecy until the early 17th century, they were inevitably betrayed by a coven of witches in Durham, England.
They fled the country, but the coven pursued, eventually pinning them down on the United States' west coast. There they established a commune and there the Feins' ancestors were held in indentured servitude for centuries. Clarence and Leah died in the family's first attempt to escape it in 2004.
A 15-year-old Gideon had hidden a 10-year-old Hannah's red head in his chest and a 13-year-old Jude had covered her ears so that she couldn't hear her parents' screams as the coven bled them out and tore them apart, tooth by tooth, scale by scale, to be sold on the magic black market. The three children were spared, for lack of a better word.
Dragons are hard to come by in the common era. Troublesome dragons are worth more dead than alive.
It was Gideon, following in his parents' footsteps, who finally got them free in 2014. He hid Jude in Sweden, then hid 17-year-old Hannah at St. Brigid's boarding school in the town where all their bloodline's troubles began. Again, the coven pursued, but they only found him. His death was ruled accidental by the local authorities.
Hannah and Jude found each other via post later that year.
St. Brigid's boarding school turned out to be no safer than the commune was for Hannah, who endured much more than her fair share of trauma and loss at the hands of what dark things lurked in the forest that surrounded it. The boarding school was destroyed and its proprietor found dead in early 2015, leading to her move to London so that she could study at Shepherd University.
More recently, Hannah has found herself pulled into the protection of former St. Brigid's classmate Nero Godwin's arms, where she lives in blissful ignorance of his career in black market crime and violence as business alter-ego Dollarhyde. As far as she's concerned, there is no place safer for her. To the casual observer it might even appear that for the first time in her life, she's in l -- wait, no, don't say the 'l-word.' (And I don't mean 'lesbians,' Scott Pilgrim.) She'll be up and over the nearest hill in no time flat, if you do. The 'l-word' means itself to dragons in ways those with finite lifespans will never understand; it means promises too sacred to be meddled with prematurely or in a fit of passion and pain of the deepest and darkest kind imaginable should those promises be broken. Very few ever keep the promises they make to her. She'll break her own heart and run before she puts the burden of doing it on him.
She has also discovered -- to her surprise and consternation -- that she isn't the only Fein in London, anymore. It wasn't exactly the plan they were supposed to have followed. In fact, instead of mirth, Jude's stroll into the city had been greeted with physical abuse and name-calling out of fists and lips that didn't mean it, but were scared for him. For them both. Spirit and storm, together again and this time for good, according to the hurricane half of the equation. You can use the l-word, here. Hannah lesbians the shit out of this guy. Unapologetically, in front of the universe and everyone. "We're better together than we could ever be apart, and don't you forget it," he'd said. His faith in them as a duet wouldn't go unchallenged for long.
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