#darkskies.intro

&. BASICS

full name: magnolia rose lafleur nickname(s): maggie, mags, magnolia date of birth: may 13, 2006 age: 25 species: witch hometown: new orleans, louisiana current residence: broken city — falls district occupation: owner of a late-night record café called midnight melodiesface claim: Mika Abdalla sexuality: bisexual relationship status: single affiliation: independent witch community group: residents of the broken city

&. MORE BASIC INFO

positive traits: charismatic, creative, fiercely loyal, resilient, observant, witty

negative traits: stubborn, impulsive, overly protective, struggles to trust, keeps secrets, self-sacrificing

likes: vinyl records, thunderstorms, old bookstores, iced coffee, rooftop conversations, live music, photography, tarot cards, late-night drives

dislikes: dishonesty, being underestimated, crowded spaces, authority figures, silence after arguments, losing control of her magic

fears: becoming the reason someone she loves gets hurt, losing her memories to magic, ending up alone

hobbies: songwriting, collecting vintage records, sketching, reading astrology charts, restoring old cameras

strengths: emotional intelligence, quick thinking under pressure, adaptability, magical intuition

weaknesses: acts before thinking, emotionally guarded, carries guilt for things beyond her control

&. PERSONALITY

magnolia is warmth disguised as confidence. she has a magnetic personality that makes people feel comfortable almost immediately, and she rarely meets a stranger she can't strike up a conversation with. her humor tends to surface even in the darkest moments, making her a source of comfort for those around her.

beneath that bright exterior, however, maggie carries more guilt than she lets on. she has spent years believing that if she had been stronger, smarter, or more careful, she could have prevented some of the tragedies in her life. because of that, she often shoulders burdens that were never hers to carry.

she is deeply protective of the people she loves and can become surprisingly reckless when their safety is threatened. while she believes in hope more than almost anyone, she struggles to extend that same grace to herself.

&. APPEARANCE

height: 5'5"

hair color: dark brown

eye color: hazel

distinguishing features: sun-kissed complexion, expressive eyes, a small magnolia blossom tattoo behind her right ear, and silver rings worn on nearly every finger

style: vintage band tees, oversized cardigans, leather jackets, layered jewelry, combat boots, flowing dresses, and pieces that look like they came from a french quarter antique shop

&. FAMILY INFORMATION

mother: vivienne lafleur — witch, deceased

father: gabriel lafleur — human, estranged

siblings: none

grandmother: celeste lafleur — witch, deceased; former coven elder and maggie's magical mentor

pets: a black cat named mercury

&. BIOGRAPHY

born into one of new orleans' oldest witch bloodlines, magnolia lafleur grew up surrounded by stories, rituals, and generations of magical tradition. her grandmother often told her that magic was not simply power—it was responsibility.

those lessons became much harder to believe after her mother's death during a conflict between rival covens. devastated and angry, maggie spent years distancing herself from the magical world she once loved. she left new orleans as soon as she was old enough, traveling from city to city in search of a life that felt normal.

when the convergence transformed reality and created the broken city, she found herself stranded alongside thousands of others. for the first time in years, running wasn't an option.

instead, she opened midnight melodies, a cozy record café that became a refuge for residents seeking a moment of peace amid the chaos. while most know her as the friendly owner with great music recommendations and endless coffee, few realize she quietly uses her magic to help those in need.

stories have begun circulating about a witch whose spells glow like golden fireflies and who always seems to appear exactly when someone needs saving.

maggie denies every single rumor.

&. HEADCANONS

✦ maggie's magic manifests as warm golden light and glowing magnolia petals.

✦ she keeps a journal filled with dreams and premonitions she refuses to share with anyone.

✦ she names all of her playlists after flowers.

✦ she has a habit of pressing magnolia blossoms between the pages of books she loves.

✦ she sings beautifully but only when she believes nobody is listening.

✦ her café is considered neutral ground for supernatural factions throughout the broken city.

✦ she carries a vintage polaroid camera everywhere she goes.

✦ she secretly believes people are destined to find one another, even when the universe seems determined to keep them apart.

✦ her favorite place in the broken city is central square during lantern events.

Name: Oliver Randolph

Nickname(s): Ollie

Age: 21

Pronouns/Sexuality: He/Him, Heterosexual

Species: Werewolf

Affiliation: Crescent Pack

Family: 

Dawson Randolph (Eldest Son - A Child in 2011; Grown Man from Future)

Jackson "JJ" Randolph (Youngest Son - A Toddler in 2011; Young Man from Future)

Coraline Randolph (Future Granddaughter)

Olive Randolph (Future Granddaughter)

Background:

Oliver Randolph has been Jackson Kenner's ride-or-die best friend since they were children terrorizing the bayou and giving Mary Dumas and the other pack elders migraines with their rowdiness and antics. Closer than brothers, Oliver would do just about anything for Jackson without hesitating to think about whether he should be doing it. Pulled from 2011 alongside Jackson and many other wolves, Oliver adjusted as well as he could manage as everyone settled into their new lives in 2030. It wasn't long before his smart-mouthed attitude came to be directed at the confusing hierarchy the Crescent Pack had come to gather under - particularly Hayley Marshall. Or rather, Marshall-Kenner, as it came to be explained from her future timeline. 

It was after a particularly nasty confrontation with Hayley on the eve of one of New Orleans' many celebrations that the Alpha and Crescent Queen finally revealed to Oliver just how far his 'whatever it takes' attitude had led him astray in their future - how he had allied himself with the Mikaelson matriarch Esther and assisted in as well as orchestrated a number of betrayals against the Crescent Pack in the name of 'survival' and werewolf superiority after the years spent under the New Orleans vampires' thumb. Among the worst of which had been the coldblooded murder of Eve. Hayley revealed everything to him, leading up to his final moments as he lay cursed and bloodied with no one but Jackson and herself around as he passed. 

After learning about his future, Oliver couldn't come to terms with the idea that he would ever have committed such acts against the Pack - against his family. To make matters more difficult for him was the fact that his two sons - just a young child and toddler when he last remembered them - were now grown young men with an entire life lived without him because of his choices mere years from when he was plucked from 2011. Additionally, he had not just one, but two grandaughters that had arrived with the rest of the future denizens.  Slowly, he distanced himself from the Pack as he retreated into himself and even kept Jackson at arm's length up until the night the fog rolled in and the Broken City was created. 

Damien Elias Mercer

Future Timeline Muse

Faceclaim / Inspiration: Andy Biersack Nickname: Daze (Riley Lockwood only; others rarely earn it), Mercy (Bandmates started this nickname and it quickly caught on around him) Age: 31 Species: Vampire Origin: Future Timeline (post-collapse supernatural world) Affiliation: Independent / Riley Lockwood’s trusted ally

✦ Core Identity

Damien Mercer is a future-born vampire survivor who exists entirely outside formal factions.

He is not Triad. Not resistance leadership. Not council. Not governed by any supernatural authority.

He is what remains when institutions fail.

A courier, fixer, and ghost-network operator who moves between fractured safe zones in the post-collapse world.

✦ Appearance

Hair: Dark, usually unstyled, falls into his eyes when tired

Eyes: Brown shifting gold-red when hunger or emotion spikes

Build: Lean, agile, runner’s musculature rather than brute force

Style: Black layers, worn leather jackets, band tees from eras that no longer fully exist

Tells: Smirks when he’s lying, goes quiet when he’s thinking, always scanning exits

Presence: Feels like static before a storm — not loud, but impossible to ignore

✦ Personality

Damien is controlled chaos wrapped in calm humor.

He does not “perform danger.” He simply never learned how to stop being it.

Core Traits:

dry, sharp humor used as emotional insulation

intensely observant and strategic

deeply loyal but selective with trust

emotionally private but not emotionally absent

calm under pressure in ways that unsettle people

avoids attachment until it becomes unavoidable

He doesn’t soften easily — he adapts around people instead.

✦ Abilities

Damien is a product of survival, not lineage prestige or politics.

Vampire Traits:

enhanced speed and reflexes

high compulsion skill (refined through necessity, not teaching)

stealth specialist

interrogation-level psychological reading

combat style favors knives, ambushes, and exits over confrontation

Strength Profile:

excels in infiltration and extraction

excels in information gathering under hostile conditions

operates best alone or with one trusted partner

Weaknesses:

sleep deprivation cycles from long-term survival work

emotional suppression that can snap under stress

unstable feeding patterns in high-conflict environments

refusal to rely on authority structures (even helpful ones)

✦ Backstory (Future Timeline Canon)

Damien comes from the fractured future timeline after supernatural systems destabilized.

There are no clean governments in his origin era. Only:

survivor enclaves

collapsing safe zones

shifting supernatural territories

intermittent war between factions, predators, and hunters

Damien survived by becoming useful to everyone and loyal to almost no one.

He worked as:

a courier for displaced supernaturals

an identity broker for people trying to disappear

a message runner between broken safe zones

a fixer for people who couldn’t afford to be seen

He never aligned with any faction permanently.

Because every faction eventually stopped protecting people.

✦ Riley Lockwood Connection

Riley Lockwood is the only constant Damien recognizes as “real continuity” between timelines.

They met in the future timeline during an extraction gone wrong — not as allies, but as two people stuck in the same impossible moment.

Damien helped Riley survive it.

Riley returned the favor later without asking for credit.

Since then:

Riley = anchor, trust exception, chosen family

Damien = operational ghost, backup plan, quiet protection

They do not function like partners in a formal sense.

They function like survival memory.

If Riley moves, Damien recalibrates.

If Damien disappears, Riley knows where to start looking first.

✦ Occupation (Present Timeline)

Underground Musician

Damien performs in small, often unlicensed venues across New Mystic Orleans Falls and surrounding sectors.

His music exists outside of politics, factions, or organized networks. He does not use it as a tool for messaging, coordination, or survival systems — it is simply what he does to stay anchored in a world that never fully stopped feeling unstable.

His work includes:

intimate club performances

stripped-down acoustic sets in backrooms and basement stages

occasional traveling gigs that blur into rumor more than schedule

His sound is raw, emotional, and atmospheric — often carrying a sense of nostalgia for places that don’t exist anymore.

He writes about:

memory

loss

identity

the quiet weight of living through too many endings

Some people try to read meaning into his lyrics beyond the music itself. Damien never confirms or denies anything. He just plays the next song.

✦ Relationships

Riley Lockwood

Primary bond. Found-family level connection.

mutual trust built in collapse conditions

shared survival history from future timeline

emotional communication mostly indirect (jokes, silence, timing)

Riley is the only person Damien consistently reappears for

Supernatural Community (General)

Damien exists around systems, not within them.

vampires see him as “too human-thinking”

witches see him as “useful but unpredictable”

hunters see him as “high-value but non-cooperative”

civilians rarely realize what he is until he’s already gone

✦ Aesthetic & Themes

neon-lit streets with power outages

abandoned venues still playing music after shows end

cigarette smoke and broken amplifiers

quiet laughter in unsafe places

maps drawn and redrawn until memory replaces paper

survival that looks like confidence from a distance

✦ Keepsakes

battered cassette tapes from pre-collapse eras

Riley’s old communication tag (never returned)

handwritten lyric sheets that double as coded logs

a broken guitar pick he refuses to replace

an old burner phone that still turns on sometimes, against logic

✦ Core Truth

Damien Elias Mercer does not belong to systems.

He survives them.

𖤐 Kaela "Kae" Sunforge

Faceclaim: Adrianne Palicki Age: Appears 30s | Actual age: 340+ Species: Dawn Fae Court: Dawn Court Title/Role: Dawn Court Guard — Captain of the First Light Affiliation: House of Dawn (Gwendolyn Song, High Lady of Dawn Court) Residence: Dawn Court Enclave (New Mystic Orleans Falls)

✦ Aesthetic Snapshot

Sunlit steel • burnished gold armor • linen cloaks Battle-braided hair • scarred knuckles • warm eyes Dawn sigils etched into blade hilts Smells of clean air and heated metal Carries the quiet of mornings before war

✦ Personality

Ride-or-die loyal. Grounded, steady, no-nonsense. Protective without being smothering. Dry humor, battlefield calm. Holds the line when others waver. Believes in mercy, practices discipline. Will stand between her High Lady and the world without asking why.

✦ History

Kaela Sunforge was born at first light on the Day of Renewal, when the Dawn Court’s bells ring low and gold across the terraces and even the elders pause their quarrels to breathe. Dawn Fae say children born in that hour are given two gifts: clarity of sight and a temper that burns clean. Kaela grew into both. She learned early to read the air before storms—political and otherwise—and to stand her ground without mistaking stubbornness for strength.

She met Gwendolyn Song in the sparring courts when they were barely old enough to hold practice blades without dropping them. Gwendolyn had a strategist’s patience; Kaela had a breaker’s instinct. They made each other better. Where Gwendolyn planned three moves ahead, Kaela taught her how to plant her feet when plans failed. Where Kaela rushed the line, Gwendolyn taught her when to wait for the light to change. Their bond wasn’t ceremonial. It was forged in scraped knuckles, shared contraband sunrise buns, and the quiet promise made between children who realized too soon that their lives would be public property.

As adolescents, they were separated by station—Gwendolyn pulled into courtcraft and diplomacy, Kaela into the Guard’s early trials. Kaela took the oath of the First Light Cadre, an elite training path reserved for those meant to stand closest to the throne. The trials were not simply martial; they tested restraint, judgment, and the capacity to hold a line without becoming the line. Kaela failed the restraint trial once—stepping forward to shield a novice who froze under null-light. The reprimand stayed with her: protection is not possession. She learned to shield without smothering, to be present without eclipsing the will of those she protected.

Centuries tempered her steel. Kaela served on the borders where Dawn Court light thinned into Winter shadow, where treaties were inked with smiles and enforced with spears. She escorted emissaries through Night Court veils, learned the cadence of Autumn Court negotiations, and memorized the ways predators test a perimeter before they strike. In one border skirmish—never named in the Court annals—Kaela held a broken causeway long enough for a refugee column to cross, taking a sun-scar across her ribs that flares when Dawn magic runs thin. It is the scar she keeps uncovered as a reminder: hope does not move unless someone stands still for it.

When Gwendolyn was named High Lady, Kaela refused the ceremonial captaincy that would have tied her to chambers and councils. She chose the field command instead. Over time, necessity elevated her to Captain of the First Light—the Guard unit tasked with immediate protection of the High Lady and Dawn Court envoys. Their doctrine is simple: proximity without spectacle; presence without provocation. Kaela trains her Guard to look like a sunrise—soft at the edge, blinding at the center.

The Convergence changed everything. Dawn envoys were cast into human cities where the light was filtered through glass and grief. Kaela became the shield in unfamiliar streets—learning human choke points, adapting formation tactics to narrow alleys, and negotiating with factions that mistook Dawn mercy for weakness. She coordinated evacuations when Triad probes tested Dawn borders, quietly rerouted patrols when Night Court routes shifted, and stood the line during public appearances when the High Lady’s presence became a lightning rod.

Privately, Kaela carries the weight of being the one who lives so Gwendolyn can lead. Their friendship has matured into a vow neither speaks aloud: Kaela will be the steady ground; Gwendolyn will be the rising light. Kaela allows herself little softness outside that bond. When she does—at sunrise, with bread still warm and steam curling off stone—it is a discipline she practices as fiercely as the blade. Dawn Fae say the sun does not rise by accident. Kaela agrees. Someone has to hold the horizon.

✦ Abilities

• Dawnfire blade-work (sun-charged steel) • Radiant warding & protective sigils • Enhanced strength/speed (Fae physiology) • Formation tactics & close-protection doctrine • Light-weaving for concealment at first light • Battlefield triage & evacuation protocols

✦ Weaknesses

• Will overextend for Gwendolyn • Carries command fatigue • Hesitates to ask for rest • Sun-magic wanes at deep night • Old scars flare under null-light fields

✦ Reputation

In the Courts: “If Kaela stands the gate, the gate stands.” Among allies: “She doesn’t posture. She ends problems.”

✦ Defining Quote

𖤐 Blakely "Blake" Locke

Faceclaim: Elizabeth Henstridge Age: 33 Species: Human Timeline: Present Occupation: Forensic Linguist / Occult Translator (consultant for cold cases and supernatural crime scenes) Affiliation: None (neutral contractor; keeps distance from factions) Residence: Falls District, New Mystic Orleans Falls

✦ Aesthetic Snapshot

Soft knits • ink-smudged fingers Wire-frame glasses • neat buns Stacks of annotated case files Rainy window light • tea gone cold Quiet rooms where secrets get decoded

✦ Personality

Calm under pressure. Empathetic, meticulous, stubbornly ethical. Dry humor when the tension breaks. Keeps promises even when it costs her. Believes language is the last truth people can’t hide from.

✦ Background

Blakely Locke learned to listen to what people didn’t say.

She grew up in a small Gulf Coast town where hurricanes were named and grief wasn’t. Her mother kept ledgers for the marina and taught Blakely that numbers tell the truth even when people don’t. Her father was a harbor master who knew every tide by heart and went missing during a late-season storm when Blakely was thirteen. The Coast Guard called it an accident. Blakely learned to call it a pattern: boats that went out too late, radios that went quiet too quickly, men who didn’t come home. Absence taught her how to read silence.

Language became her way back to certainty. She devoured linguistics, learned to hear cadence before content, intent before confession. In college, she picked up cryptography and forensic phonetics as electives—just enough to notice when someone was lying with their mouth while telling the truth with their rhythm. A professor noticed her talent and funneled her into consulting work for cold cases that hinged on coded letters, threats written in archaic scripts, and recordings degraded beyond easy comprehension. Blakely learned to rebuild meaning from fragments.

The Merge changed the kind of fragments the city produced.

Suddenly, cases arrived bearing sigils that didn’t belong to any living language, threat letters stitched with ritual cadence, recordings where voices layered over themselves as if two throats spoke at once. Blakely didn’t chase explanations. She chased structure. She learned the grammar of wards, the syntax of binding phrases, the phonemes that made certain symbols “bite.” She refused to pick sides—refused to let her work become a weapon for any faction. Her rule stayed simple: translate the truth; don’t participate in harm.

That rule cost her.

A translation she delivered—clean, correct—was used to spring a trap on a witness who thought the words meant sanctuary. The witness survived. Others did not. Blakely testified anyway, knowing her accuracy would be used against people who didn’t deserve it. She stopped sleeping for a while. She started locking her notes in two places. She began insisting on written scope-of-work agreements that limited how her translations could be used. Some clients walked. Others stayed—and learned to fear the paper trail.

Blakely moved to New Mystic Orleans Falls because the city sits at the fault line of language and power. If words can wound, this is where they learn how. She set up a small consultancy in the Falls District—part office, part archive—where she keeps battered dictionaries beside digital spectrograms and hand-copied ward keys. She doesn’t carry a weapon. She carries context. When she steps into a room, she listens to the rhythm before the argument. She asks for the original text. She refuses summaries.

There are nights she walks home with her hood up and her phone off, because knowing how to read threats makes you better at hearing them everywhere. There are mornings she stands on her balcony and practices not translating the city—just letting the noise be noise. Blakely is not brave in the cinematic sense. She is brave in the way of people who keep choosing accuracy when it costs them comfort.

In a city rebuilt on borrowed time, Blakely Locke keeps the ledger of meaning. She believes that words leave tracks—and that if you follow them far enough, you can sometimes keep people from disappearing into the silence.

✦ Skills

• Forensic linguistics & codebreaking • Translation of archaic scripts/sigils • Pattern analysis & cryptography • Courtroom testimony • Meticulous documentation

✦ Weaknesses

• Physically vulnerable • Refuses armed escorts unless mandated • Overcommits to cases • Haunted by cases that went wrong

✦ Reputation

Among investigators: “If Locke can’t read it, it can’t be read.” Among criminals: “She turns secrets into evidence.”

✦ Defining Quote

𖤐 Easton “Sin” Crawford

Faceclaim: Drew Starkey Age: 27 Species: Werewolf (Present Timeline) Alignment: Chaotic Neutral Affiliation: None (freelance; avoids courts, packs, Triad) Occupation: Bodyguard / Private Security Detail Residence: Falls District, above a closed boxing gym

✦ Aesthetic Snapshot

Knuckle scars • black hoodies • heavy boots Chain necklace tucked into collarbone Oil-stained hands • motorcycle nights Blood on concrete • quiet rage behind tired eyes

✦ Personality

Obsessively loyal • territorial in silence Protective to the point of violence Speaks little, acts decisively Hates being touched—except by one person Keeps the wolf on a short leash until someone crosses the line Once he chooses a side, he doesn’t stop

✦ In-Depth History (Haidyn Jamison Reeves–Coded)

Easton Crawford learned violence before he learned mercy.

He was born into a house where doors slammed and apologies meant nothing. His father drank to forget and hit to remember. Every night was a lesson in how pain travels—how it moves from one body to another until someone decides to stop passing it along. Easton didn’t stop it. He aimed it. By fourteen, he was fighting back. By sixteen, he’d learned how to fight so it ended fast. There was no romance in it, no thrill—just the quiet math of survival.

The wolf in him woke up the first time he put his father on the floor and didn’t step away when the man stopped moving. The pack that found him afterward called it instinct. The elders called it necessary cruelty. They took him in not to heal him, but to sharpen him. Pack life taught Easton the hierarchy of teeth—who you bowed to, who you bled for, who you were allowed to break. Rage became a leash they taught him to hold tight until it was time to let go. Control was obedience. Obedience was safety.

By eighteen, Easton was pack muscle. Enforcer. The one you sent when warnings didn’t work. He didn’t ask questions. He didn’t hesitate. He did what was required and told himself it wasn’t personal. But the pack’s rules blurred fast—what started as protection turned into punishment; what was framed as order slid into cruelty. The line he crossed without realizing it was the night he stood between the pack and a girl who hadn’t done anything except belong to the wrong bloodline. He took the beating meant for her. He took the exile after.

They named him Sin when they cast him out. He kept it.

The Merge tore the city open and scattered loyalties like broken glass. New Mystic Orleans Falls was loud with new borders and old grudges. Easton landed in the spillover—half-gangs, half-packs, work that paid in cash and silence. He found places where broken things came to be fixed: a closed boxing gym that let him sleep upstairs if he swept the blood off the mats, a mechanic’s bay that paid him to stand between tools and thieves, the back doors of clubs and warehouses that needed someone who didn’t flinch when trouble walked in. He learned the geometry of violence—where to stand, when to move, how to end a fight before it spread.

He keeps his distance from courts, packs, and Triad alike. Not because he’s neutral—but because once he chooses a side, he doesn’t stop. He doesn’t trust systems that confuse control with care. He trusts contracts written in presence: if he’s on your detail, you live. If someone crosses that line, the wolf stops pretending it’s only human.

Easton’s loyalty is a blade he keeps close. He doesn’t give it freely. When he does, it’s obsessive in the way of men who learned love as impact. He stands too close to the people he protects. He watches doors even when there aren’t any. He counts breaths during full moons to keep the wolf from choosing for him. He’s learned that restraint is not the absence of violence—it’s the discipline to place it between the world and the one thing you refuse to lose.

They call him Sin like it’s a warning. He wears it like a promise.

✦ Abilities

Enhanced strength, speed, healing (werewolf physiology) Heightened senses (scent, hearing, threat detection) Controlled shifting (partial shifts under stress) Hand-to-hand combat specialist Close protection tactics (evasion, escort, perimeter control)

✦ Weaknesses

Rage spikes when protectees are threatened Full moons strain control Old pack trauma triggers Shoulders violence alone Black-and-white loyalty can be exploited

✦ Reputation

Clients: “If Sin is on detail, nothing gets close.” Packs: “The wolf who left and never looked back.”

✦ Defining Quote

𖤐 Indigo “Indi” Ashcroft

Nickname: Indi Faceclaim: Milly Alcock (bleached-blonde, grunge/punk styling) Age: 24 Species: Human (Future Timeline) Alignment: Chaotic Neutral Affiliation: None Occupation: Late-Night Barista (overnight shift at a hole-in-the-wall café near the river) Residence: Bywater, New Mystic Orleans Falls

✦ Aesthetic Snapshot

Bleached-blonde hair with dark roots, usually shoved under a beanie. Smudged eyeliner that never quite comes off. Oversized band tees under a battered leather jacket. Ripped fishnets, cargo shorts, Doc Martens. Silver chain necklace, chipped black nail polish. Smells faintly of smoke and rain. Looks soft. Hits hard.

✦ First Impressions

What strangers see: Quiet, small, maybe a little lost. The kind of girl you tip extra because she looks tired.

What people who know her see: A razor behind velvet. Someone who survives by letting the world think she’s harmless.

✦ Personality

Observant to a fault. Soft-spoken until she isn’t. Weaponizes underestimation. Loyal in dangerous ways once she chooses you. Protective even of people who don’t deserve it. Carries guilt like a second spine. Trying—clumsily—to be a person instead of a tool.

✦ In-Depth History (Eve-Coded Adaptation)

Indigo Ashcroft was not raised to be safe. She was raised to be useful.

In the fractured future she came from, power belonged to private networks that blurred the line between protection and ownership. Her mother ran with one of them—security contracts that doubled as extortion, favors that came with quiet costs. Indi grew up in rooms where deals were made softly and violence happened where it wouldn’t stain the furniture.

She was dressed in softness on purpose. Clean lines. Gentle colors. A harmless face that made dangerous people talk too freely. By ten, she was listening in doorways. By thirteen, carrying messages. By fifteen, being placed in rooms to make others feel seen, understood, unguarded. It wasn’t romance—it was conditioning. Attention as leverage. Softness as camouflage.

When her mother disappeared during a deal gone wrong, the network didn’t release Indi. Assets weren’t set free because guardians failed. She was reassigned to a handler who reinforced the rules: stay useful, stay quiet, stay inside the system. Her first attempt to run ended in isolation and silence rather than bruises—the lesson landing clean. It was safer to belong than to resist.

By eighteen, Indi could read a room in a breath. She knew how to mirror people back to themselves until they trusted her with things they shouldn’t. She told herself she was just a messenger—until someone died because of information she passed along. Not a target. Collateral. A person who had trusted her because she looked harmless.

She ran again.

The Convergence tore the future open before the network could pull her back. Dropped into New Mystic Orleans Falls, Indi changed her name, cut her hair, learned a new city’s rhythms, and chose a life small enough to hide in. Late-night barista. Dim lights. Neutral corners. Normal as costume.

The training never left. She still clocks exits. Still hears the subtext under words. Still knows exactly how to make people open up—and chooses not to use it. Most days. She is trying to live a life that doesn’t require leverage. Trying to be a person instead of a tool.

In a city where monsters walk in daylight, Indi is learning that being trained in darkness doesn’t mean you have to belong to it forever.

✦ Skills

Street-smart navigation • Situational awareness • De-escalation under pressure First-aid basics • Lockpicking (learned, not advertised) • Reading people before they speak

✦ Weaknesses

Avoids asking for help • Sleeps lightly • Self-sacrificial tendencies Holds guilt too long • Old conditioning triggers under stress

✦ Reputation