#nktintro

Name: Elena Noemi Ricci Pronunciation: eh-LAY-nah noh-EH-mee REE-chee Nickname(s): Elle Birthday: October 27th Age: 345 (appears 40) Zodiac Sign: Scorpio Sun, Capricorn Moon, Leo Rising Gender: Cis-Female Pronouns: She/Her Species: Siren Orientation: Bi-Sexual Occupation: Engineering Professor Faceclaim: Monica Bellucci

HEADCANONS

She moved to Northknot on a whim leaving her daughter, mother, and a prestigious engineering job behind.

Her favorite color is blue like the ocean and she loves mozzarella sticks.

Elena has a hidden talent for playing the piano.

She is an avid collector of ancient or rare books.

She has a preference for dark, rich coffee and her to-go liquor is usually absinthe.

Elena is a brilliant strategist who approaches her personal life and career with the same methodical precision she applies to engineering.

She has a soft spot for her daughter and her sister, though she often expresses her care pragmatically rather than overtly emotionally.

While outwardly composed, she harbors a deep fear of stagnation and irrelevance, driving her relentless pursuit of excellence and reinvention.

Elena often indulges in fine dining and high-end fashion, using her love for luxury as both a shield and a statement of power.

Despite her cold and intimidating persona, she occasionally reveals her humorous side, often dry and cutting, but oddly endearing.

She harbors guilt for her darker impulses, though she rationalizes them as necessary for her survival and success.

Elena has an uncanny ability to read people’s motivations, making her an exceptional manipulator, though she reserves her sharpest tactics for those she feels have wronged her.

She often writes detailed journals, blending personal thoughts with technical diagrams and philosophical musings, creating a fascinating insight into her multifaceted mind.

Elena finds solace in the ocean, often visiting its shores at night to think or to connect with her siren heritage.

Her teaching style is firm but engaging; she challenges her students rigorously but has earned their respect through her profound knowledge and quick wit.

APPEARANCE

Elena exudes an air of timeless elegance and enigmatic allure. Her dark, flowing hair frames a face often set in a contemplative expression, embodying her signature resting bitch face with a certain sophisticated grace. Her wardrobe is a masterclass in gothic elegance; luxurious, dark-hued dresses and skirts in shades of midnight blue, rich burgundy, and deep violet. The fabrics drape with an almost fluid grace, echoing her siren nature. Her posture is regal, every movement precise and deliberate, as if she’s gliding through her own realm of refined mystery. The elegance is punctuated by her choice of accessories; subtle yet striking, like darkly ornate jewelry or a sleek, minimalistic watch.

PERSONALITY

Elena is a compelling blend of grace, wit, and danger, embodying both the allure of the sea and its unpredictability. She is sleek and composed, her presence commanding a room without effort, yet there’s an undercurrent of ruthlessness in her that hints at the lengths she will go to achieve her goals. Elena is both charming and calculating, capable of disarming even the most guarded individuals with her sharp intelligence and silver tongue. Her honesty is a double-edged sword: refreshing to some, devastating to others. Beneath her polished exterior lies a creature of instinct and cunning, honed by centuries of survival and ambition. She’s the friend you want at your side in a crisis, but also the opponent you should never cross; Elena plays for keeps, and she always plays to win.

AESTHETIC

Dark Academia - Mystic Elegance - Midnight Blue Velvet Blazers, Tailored Trousers, and Silk Scarves - Harsh Waves Under Cloudy Skies - The Sea at Night - Libraries with Towering Bookshelves - Noir Academia - Thunder Rolling in the Distance - Gothic Romance - Candles Flickering in the Dark, Casting Shadows Over Ancient Tomes and Nautical Charts - Ethereal Gothic - Ornate, Antique Compasses and Sextants on her Desk - Mystic Sea - The Scent of Sea Salt, Aged Paper, and a Hint of Absinthe

CONNECTIONS

Daughter (Mia) The two are very close. It was just her and her mother growing up. Her father wasn't really in the picture. He was the only man her mother didn't kill because she thought he loved her. Turns out it was just a phase.

Mother The two are very close. It was just her, her sister and her mother growing up. Elena watched her mother kill their father and feed off of him as a toddler. The memory stuck with her her entire life.

BIOGRAPHY

tw: death, violence, pregnancy

Born and raised in Italy, Elena lived a pretty normal childhood if you don't count the fact that she watched her mother kill and eat her father at a very young age, right around the time her younger sister was born; the memory stuck with her throughout her life. Other than the occasional murder, life was conventional for the small family of three. Her mother put her in dance classes outside of school and she would attend every recital. Their mother played an active role in her children's lives. That's why they're still so close today.

"Where the roots are deep, there is no reason to fear the wind."

Elena was very popular growing up. She had many friends; most of them were scared of her. She has a very intimidating aura but she has a very giving spirit which her friends loved. She went on to become homecoming queen and prom queen her senior year of high school. She graduated at the top of her class and went to the University of Padua to study engineering. It was there that she met who she thought was the love of her life. It was when she got pregnant by him that he decided he wanted nothing to do with her. He switched schools one day out of the blue and was never heard from again.

"A warrior believes in an end she can’t see and fights for it."

She gave birth to her daughter her junior year of college. Although it was hard, she managed motherhood and school. She still ended up graduating top of her class and went on to work a prestigious engineering job. She worked in the field of engineering for the next three hundred or so years. Elena spent a lot of that time traveling, exploring new countries with her daughter. She’d stay for months at a time because she liked to really get to know her surroundings.

"The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

A E S T H E T I C

dark  scars  on  the  heart  .  thunderstorms  ;  wild  and  chaotic  .  broken  girl  ,  fearless  woman  .  stubborn  heart  .  fire  in  her  eyes  ,  darkness  in  her  soul  .  not  afraid  to  get  her  hands  dirty  .  just  survive  somehow  .  heavy  heart  ,  dark  past  .

Q U O T E S

“  some days i am the flower, some days i am the rain  .   ”   –   pavana. 

“   she is both hellfire and holy water. and the flavour you taste depends on how you treat her  .   ”   –   sneha pal.

“   i wasn’t born soft and quiet. i was born to make the world shatter and shake at my fingertips   .   ”   –   unknown.

M U S I C    P L A Y E R

“   you keep things bottled up inside–- i wish you'd give someone a try. you fell apart a million times.   ”   happy face by tate mcrae. 

“   listen closely ‘cause no one told me, but you deserve to know: that in this world, you are not beholden. you do not owe them your body and your soul.   ”   fall in line by christina aguilera. 

“   i can bleed, i can hurt. knock me down in the dirt. i am strong i’ll show you even when i’m black and blue: i’m bulletproof.   ”   bulletproof by dimante.

“  keep me from the cages, under the control.. running in the dark to find east of eden.  ”  east of eden by zella day

P E R S O N A L I T Y  

+ intelligent, protective, and observant - stubborn, distant, and ‘apathetic’

there is a lot that goes into making alexis who she is. from who her family was, to the trauma she experienced, even to her pack. a little bit of everything lives on in her... alexis ryan king is a bit of a conundrum to be honest. she’s protective yet distant. after losing her family, she doesn’t want to feel that loss again. so she tries to keep her distance, the less people around her, the less people she can hurt over is something happens... but she can’t always help how close she gets and to those that manage to become close to her, she very protective over because, again, she doesn’t want to lose them. the young woman TRIES to be apathetic, hopes that if she can act like she doesn’t care long enough she just won’t... it’s hard not to try to fin way to protect yourself (physically and emotionally). so she tries to focus on school or work. just to keep her mind busy.. but she can’t JUST survive anymore. she wants to live her life... live the life her father made sure she could... she has to do it for him, for all of them. 

H E A D C A N O N S

001. alexis was born to into a family of wolves, she had two older brother and two younger brothers. both of her parents were very in touch with their wolf side, which made alexis and her siblings feel very much the same. they all loved what they were, even if at times they seemed to lose control... the king pack was very in touch with nature and life, so after each kill they had a little goodbye prayer for. tibi gratias ago pro tui sacrificium tuum pugnet ( thank you for your sacrifice, your fight is over ). no kill was taken advantage of or forgotten. the family paid respects to every living thing they killed (human or animal). alexis was never sure if it was their way of honouring kaleb or just the way her parent were. 

002. while most supernatural creatures had started to live in harmony and even had a special location for supernatural only to live, the king family never felt the need to move there. though it was always the plan if things went bad. it was something they talked about since she was a young pup. she never actually thought the time would come.... she especially never thought that she’d have to make the trip solo.

003. a couple of years ago her family was attacked. she had no clue why or what happened, she just remembers that after her and her youngest brother got home from running through the forrest behind their house, she wanted to nap on the floor in the living room. she was asleep when the screaming started but she heard it and started to wake up. by the time she was half awake and trying to process everything, her eldest brother was kneeling next to her and shaking her shoulders. the young girl would never forget the look on his face. wasting no time, the only female child in the king family was up and trying to collect her two younger brothers. “ it’s time to leave. ” her father had told her when he had passed her briefly... but it seemed whomever wanted them dead wasn’t going to allow that. there was fire everywhere, she couldn’t inhale without breathing in smoke. she never understood how it spread so fast. when she found her two younger brothers she remembers instantly falling to her knees and reaching out to try to hold them. their lifeless mangled bodies lay side by side and she couldn’t see past the tears anymore. it was than that her father found her, she could see he was injured and just that look in his eyes... she KNEW no one else survived. her father was yanking on her arm, pulling her away from the scene. he was speaking to her but she couldn’t hear him. it wasn’t till they reach the back of the house that they stopped and her father placed his hands on her shoulders, looked her right in the eye and spoke “ just survive, somehow. ” kissed her forehead and gave her a look that said it all. goodbye. i love you. i’ll hold them off. please survive. i’m sorry. she wanted to scream, scream that he could come with her, or that she’d stay and fight with him... or even die with him. he entire family fell, why did she get to live? but the look he sent her before turning to face the shadows of whoever killed her family told her everything. someone needed to survive this. SHE needed to survive this. so she did.

004. she took her time getting to northknot. it was the plan so she knew where she needed to go, but she was never prepared to make the journey alone. her mind just wasn’t in it. her heart wasn’t in surviving, she wanted to be with her family. but as weak as she felt, she knew she had to keep fighting. her heart and soul were broken, she really didn’t think that anyone or anything at northknot would make it better. but upon arriving she met this older woman... another wolf, and when the lady met her gaze alexis just felt like she could read her like an open book. hated it but also welcomed it at the same time. the lady took her in, helped her settle before introducing her to an alpha.. they all seemed patient with her. and eventually as time went on, the moon valley pack reminded her of her family... and while she felt like an outsider for awhile, they ended up becoming like a second family. it never truly fixed her, but it did make things easier.

005. NOW: she still lived with the woman who took her in and has been going to school at the university. bonds have been formed and while she will always miss her family and sometimes dazes off to think of them, she’s started living her life again. she’s happy here, or at least as happy as one can be after everything she went through. 

C O N N E C T I O N S

best friend. could be anyone, pack member or not, but just someone she bonded really well with. someone she can confide in. 

ex. it definitely took her awhile to come out of her shell to even think about dating but this person was her first real relationship since arriving to northknot. relationships like this aren’t always meant to last, so it really came as no surprise that they ended... (if you are willing to play her ex, we can talk about how exactly they ended)

friends. friends from school, work (i picture her working at a coffee shop or bookstore to help her with school), pack members, etc. anything and everything.

Name: Yuna (유나) Ji-an (지안) Seo-ah (서아) Nyxen Pronunciation: YOO-nah JEE-ahn Suh-ah NIX-en Nickname(s): Yu, Nyx, Ghost Birthday: December 12th, 1676 Age: 349 (appears late 20s/early 30s) Zodiac Sign: Sagittarius Sun, Pisces Moon, Virgo Rising Gender: Cis-female Pronouns: She/Her Species: Shadow Elf Orientation: Demisexual, Demiromantic Occupation: Corporate Infiltration Specialist Faceclaim: Chloe Bennet

HEADCANONS

Yuna rarely sleeps deeply. Even at rest, part of her stays alert, like her body never fully forgot how quickly everything can be taken

She prefers sitting with her back to a wall or in corners where she can see every exit. Always. No exceptions

She drinks tea more than anything else, but half the time it goes cold because she gets distracted thinking

Yuna remembers small details about people years after meeting them. Favorite color, how they take their coffee, the exact phrasing of something they said once

She is terrifyingly good at mimicking tone and speech patterns when needed for infiltration

Physical affection is rare for her, but when she initiates it, it means everything. A hand on someone’s shoulder, a quiet hug, subtle but intentional

Yuna has a habit of pausing before answering questions, not because she doesn’t know, but because she’s choosing the most precise truth to give

She keeps multiple identities active at once, each with their own mannerisms, contacts, and routines

She doesn’t raise her voice often. When she does, it’s controlled and sharp enough to cut through a room instantly

She still visits the place where her parents died, but never stays long

Yuna has a collection of small, seemingly insignificant objects tied to memories she refuses to forget

She is extremely hard to surprise, but when someone manages it, her reaction is subtle. Just a flicker in her expression

She doesn’t like being the center of attention, but she knows exactly how to command it if necessary

Her loyalty is quiet but absolute. If Yuna considers you hers, there is very little she wouldn’t do to protect you

She has learned multiple languages over the centuries, some fluently, some just enough to understand what isn’t meant for her ears

Yuna is very good at telling when someone is lying, but she doesn’t always call it out. Sometimes information is more useful when left untouched

She keeps her grief compartmentalized, but certain things still crack through. Specific songs, certain phrases, the way someone laughs

She prefers night over day. It’s quieter, easier to think, easier to exist without being watched

Yuna has a habit of disappearing mid-conversation if something more important catches her attention. She always comes back eventually

Despite everything, there is still a part of her that wants to believe in something better. She just doesn’t say it out loud anymore

APPEARANCE

Yuna’s appearance plays a quiet trick on people. There’s an effortless approachability to her, something warm in the curve of her features that makes strangers underestimate her within seconds. Soft, expressive eyes that seem to hold more than they show, framed by dark hair that falls with an almost deliberate grace, like it’s part of the act. Her expressions are subtle but telling if you know where to look, a slight tilt of her head, the faintest shift in her gaze, like she’s always calculating three steps ahead while appearing completely at ease. She dresses with intention, clean lines, muted tones, nothing that demands attention yet everything placed perfectly. She looks like someone you’d trust without thinking twice. And that’s exactly why she’s dangerous.

PERSONALITY

Yuna’s personality feels like standing in a quiet room and realizing, a second too late, that she’s been there the whole time. She is observant to a near unsettling degree, the kind of person who listens with her whole being and files away every pause, every glance, every inconsistency. She moves through the world with patience instead of urgency, choosing her words carefully because she already knows the weight they’ll carry when they land. There’s a softness to her at first glance, something gentle and almost unassuming, but it’s a veil rather than a vulnerability. Beneath it lives a fierce, unshakable loyalty and a quiet intensity that borders on devotion. She does not give her trust easily, but once she does, it is absolute. Loss has taught her restraint, love has taught her risk, and now she exists somewhere in between, careful with her heart but never careless with the people she’s chosen to protect.

AESTHETIC

midnight office windows reflecting a girl who was never meant to be seen - silk sleeves brushing against polished wood as secrets change hands - the quiet hum of surveillance cameras and the softer sound of someone who knows where they are - shadows stretching just a little too far along the walls - a cup of tea gone cold beside untouched paperwork - the feeling of a storm waiting patiently behind calm eyes - footsteps that never echo yet always arrive exactly when needed - a blade hidden in kindness, in stillness, in the space between one breath and the next

CONNECTIONS

The Quiet Constant They never forced closeness, they just stayed. Through her silences, her distance, her disappearing acts. They understand her without needing explanations and meet her where she is, not where they wish she’d be. One of the only people she trusts without question, and the only one who can make her soften without trying

The Enemy Who Survived One of the very few people who has gone up against Yuna and lived. They don’t fear her the way others do, which makes them dangerous. There’s history there. Unfinished business. Maybe even a strange respect?

The Person Who Chose Her Back Someone who wasn’t originally hers to protect, but chose her just as fiercely as she chose them. Ride or die energy. They’d burn the world for each other, no hesitation

The One Who Looks Like Him Not literally Aurelian… but close enough in presence, energy, or belief to shake her. Maybe they share the same dangerous hope. Maybe they speak like him. Either way, it unsettles her in a way nothing else can

The Slow Burn It starts as nothing. Just proximity, just time. But they don’t leave, and they don’t push. They see her clearly and stay anyway. The tension builds in quiet moments until it becomes something neither of them can ignore. Yuna resists, not because she doesn’t feel it, but because she knows exactly what it could cost

BIOGRAPHY

tw: death, child loss, violence, war, execution, assassination, blood, tragic romance, self-sacrifice

“There is no greater sorrow than to recall happiness in times of misery.”

Yuna Nyxen was born on December 12, 1680, into a household where love and fear had already become indistinguishable. Her parents had once been bright people, hopeful people, until the day the ground swallowed their first daughter. In 1508 their eldest child died at twelve years old, and something delicate inside them never fully mended. The centuries that followed did not soften the loss. If anything, time sharpened it into something permanent. When Yuna was born nearly two hundred years later, she arrived not just as a daughter but as a fragile miracle they were terrified to lose. Her childhood unfolded beneath a canopy of velvet caution. She rarely wandered beyond the reach of a protective hand, often tucked against the folds of her mother’s robes or clutching the sleeve of her father’s coat as though the world beyond their doorstep might dissolve her if she strayed too far.

Her sister’s room had never been packed away. It remained preserved like a shrine to a life interrupted, and when Yuna was small she played with toys that had belonged to someone she had never met, wore carefully mended dresses that had once been sewn for another child, and listened to stories about the sister who “would have loved you so much.” The ghosts in that house were gentle ones, but they were everywhere. Yuna understood early that the hovering was not suffocating cruelty but quiet terror. Her parents were not only protecting her. They were trying to outrun the possibility of burying another daughter.

“The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear.”

She grew into a quiet child because of it. Where other children ran, shouted, and demanded attention, Yuna learned to sit still and listen. Adults often forgot she was present at all, assuming her silence meant absence, but she absorbed everything. She noticed who interrupted conversations, who avoided eye contact when they lied politely, who hesitated before giving answers they wished sounded truer than they were. Her habit of watching people began here, in rooms filled with voices louder than hers. The only person who seemed to recognize that a child could suffocate beneath too much careful love was her aunt, Minji. Minji would take her walking along the quiet edges of Northknot, saying very little as they moved through the forests and fields outside the town. There were no hovering hands out there, no constant reminders to be careful. Just air and silence and the gentle understanding that sometimes a child needed space to breathe. Those walks became the first fragile taste of freedom Yuna ever knew. Then, in 1684, the world cracked open.

The faction attacks came swiftly and without mercy, violent ripples in a conflict that had been simmering for years beneath the surface of supernatural politics. Yuna was only four when her parents were killed. She understood death in the abstract way children sometimes do, aware that something had ended even if the permanence of it had not fully settled into her bones. What shattered her was not simply the loss, but the brutality of it. The violence of their deaths stripped away the illusion that adults were untouchable, that the world followed rules that kept children safe. Something inside her shifted after that day. Yuna stopped crying in front of people. The grief went quiet instead, retreating into midnight hours and small shaking shoulders hidden beneath blankets. More than once Minji found her like that, standing silently in the doorway before finally crossing the room and gathering the child into her arms without a word.

“Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.”

Minji became everything after that. Guardian, mentor, the steady gravity that kept Yuna’s world from drifting apart completely. She raised the girl the way a blade is honed, not through cruelty but through clarity. Very early she taught Yuna the lessons that had kept her alive for centuries: observe before reacting, always plan three exits, and never trust the first version of the truth people offer you. She never forced Yuna to become a weapon as she herself had become, but survival was taught as naturally as breathing. The result was a teenager whose quietness unsettled people more than loud anger ever could. Yuna saw things others missed. Tension between strangers felt as readable to her as ink on paper.

At nineteen, the fractures in her life widened again. The council executed the parents of the children connected to the faction responsible for the earlier violence. Those children had nowhere to go, and Minji, despite the complicated politics surrounding the situation, took two of them into their home: fifteen-year-old Xorin and eight-year-old Rennyn. The decision ignited a rare storm in Yuna. Her parents had died because of people like them, and now their children were sleeping beneath the same roof. She was not a person prone to shouting, but when she did her anger arrived like a volcanic eruption, sudden and blistering. It took years for that fury to cool. Eventually she saw what Minji had understood from the beginning. Xorin and Rennyn had not chosen the war that orphaned them. They were victims of it, just as Yuna had been. Slowly her resentment softened into something quieter and far stronger. She never became outwardly affectionate, but a fierce loyalty grew in its place. If anyone threatened them, Yuna would already be stepping forward before the danger had even finished speaking.

“The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.”

Where Minji was a blade, Yuna discovered she was something else entirely. She had no desire to become a warrior in the traditional sense. Instead she turned her attention toward the hidden mechanics of power. She studied the architecture of governments, the subtle authority of merchant guilds, the way trade routes and information networks shaped entire societies. By the mid-eighteenth century she had begun working quietly for the town council and various supernatural alliances, slipping through corridors of influence where few realized she had ever been. She listened, she observed, and she learned how power disguised itself inside paperwork and polite conversation. Yuna became frighteningly good at disappearing in plain sight: the assistant no one bothered to remember, the clerk reviewing documents long after everyone else had gone home, the quiet advisor standing just behind someone important enough to be noticed. Information, she discovered, could be sharper than any blade.

Sometime in the early nineteenth century that skill placed her in the orbit of a man named Aurelian, a prince whose bloodline carried influence over several allied supernatural territories. Where Yuna was quiet calculation, Aurelian was sunlight made flesh. Charismatic, idealistic, and brilliant in ways that bordered on dangerous, he believed the fractured world around him could be rebuilt into something better. Yuna was assigned as his shadow guard and strategic advisor, the person responsible for seeing the threats he was too hopeful to notice. She prevented assassination attempts before they happened, untangled political traps laid by rival factions, and quietly eliminated dangers that might have destroyed him long before he ever saw them coming.

“Some things must be endured.”

At first her loyalty was professional. Then it became admiration. Eventually it became something far more complicated. For the first time in her long life, Yuna found herself believing in someone’s vision the way Aurelian did. Love grew slowly but relentlessly between them, deepening until it became something almost sacred. She would have burned entire kingdoms to protect him. He loved her just as fiercely. But Aurelian had been planning something she could not see. As tensions between rival supernatural nations escalated toward catastrophic war, he devised a plan that could force peace where diplomacy had failed. His own death, staged publicly, would unite opposing factions against a common tragedy and dissolve the fragile alliances pushing the world toward bloodshed. He never told Yuna the full truth. He knew she would never allow it. The day the plan unfolded, everything almost worked. Almost.

The assassination meant to be theatrical and reversible became horrifyingly real when one small miscalculation turned staged violence into fatal injury. Yuna reached him as he collapsed, blood spreading beneath her hands while the chaos of the crowd roared around them. Only then did she understand. The sacrifice had never been an illusion. Aurelian had always intended to die. The final moments of his life passed with his head resting against her shoulder, his breath weakening as realization tore through her. The world might be saved by what he had done, but the cost was paid entirely in her arms. Yuna did not scream when he died. The devastation that followed was quieter and far more enduring than any outward display of grief. For decades afterward she withdrew from the possibility of deep attachment. Love, she decided, was a dangerous luxury capable of hollowing out even the strongest person.

“There are far better things ahead than any we leave behind.”

By the twentieth century, the shape of power in the world had changed. Crowns and castles no longer held the same influence they once had. Authority migrated into corporate empires, banking dynasties, energy conglomerates, and emerging technology networks that quietly controlled entire economies. Yuna adapted as seamlessly as she always had. She became something modern intelligence agencies might call an infiltration specialist. Corporate espionage, financial sabotage, dismantling supernatural exploitation hidden inside multinational businesses, she navigated those worlds with the same quiet ease she once applied to royal courts. Identities were crafted and discarded across decades. Empires collapsed because she whispered the right truth into the right ear at precisely the right moment. To most people she appeared gentle and almost disarmingly approachable, but those who truly understood the shadows of power knew better. Entire fortunes had vanished after underestimating her. Eventually she returned to Northknot, the town where her life had begun and broken and rebuilt itself more than once.

Name: Keziah Delphine Marlowe Pronunciation: keh-ZY-ah del-FEEN MAR-loh Nickname(s): Kez, Ziah, Kezzy, Maestra, Song Birthday: November 11th, 1990 Age: 35 Zodiac Sign: Scorpio Sun, Virgo Moon, Leo Rising Gender: Cis-female Pronouns: She/Her Species: Siren Orientation: Bi-curious, Demiromantic Occupation: World Famous Conductor Faceclaim: Margaret Qualley

HEADCANONS

Keziah never conducts with the exact same interpretation twice. Musicians who work with her regularly say every performance feels like a new emotional landscape

She still keeps the hospital bracelet from the day she was discharged in a small velvet box with Jonah’s name written on the inside

When she composes late at night, she often leaves the windows open even in cold weather because the sound of wind reminds her of breathing

She is terrifyingly good at rhythm games, anything with timing, pattern recognition, or beat tracking

Keziah cries very easily during live music but almost never during movies or television.

She hums absentmindedly when she’s thinking, often fragments of symphonies that don’t exist yet

Despite being world famous, she hates celebrity culture and forgets that people recognize her sometimes

She loves cooking but is terrible at following recipes. Everything becomes instinctive improvisation

Her niece and nephew are the only people who can make her drop the composed, elegant persona completely

She instinctively conducts with her hands when listening to music in the car, sometimes without realizing it

Keziah has perfect pitch and can identify a musical note even if it’s played inside a noisy room

She has written several compositions inspired by Jonah, but only one of them has ever been publicly performed

When she’s overwhelmed emotionally, she goes for long night walks near water

She owns dozens of beautiful formal gowns for performances but prefers oversized sweaters and loose pants when she’s off stage

Keziah has a quiet habit of touching her sternum when she’s nervous, like she’s checking whether her heart is still steady.

She secretly funds music programs in children’s hospitals, including the oncology ward she once stayed in

When she’s conducting at her most intense, her voice takes on an almost hypnotic musical quality without her realizing it, something that may be connected to her siren nature

She is incredibly affectionate once she trusts someone, the type to lean against shoulders, link arms, or absentmindedly play with someone’s hair while talking

She still struggles with the idea of planning too far into the future, a lingering habit from when she believed she wouldn’t have one

The only people who have ever seen her truly furious were musicians who treated their craft carelessly

APPEARANCE

Keziah’s presence is soft in a way that still manages to command attention without trying. She has a long, elegant frame shaped by years of gymnastics and discipline, all clean lines and controlled grace that never fully left her body. Her face carries a kind of quiet luminosity, expressive eyes that always look like they’re hearing music no one else can, and features that feel delicate but not fragile. There’s something cinematic about her without it feeling staged, like she just naturally exists in slightly better lighting than everyone else. Her hair falls in soft, lived-in waves that shift between polished and undone depending on how recently she’s been on stage or traveling. If you know what she looks like, you might think of someone with effortless, slightly ethereal screen presence, but translated into someone who seems more at home in concert halls than film frames

PERSONALITY

Keziah feels like she was built out of sound before she was built out of bone. She’s the kind of person who walks through life like she’s always listening to something just beneath the surface of it all. There’s warmth in her, real and immediate, but it’s guarded by instinct now, like she learned early that holding too tightly makes things break faster. She gives herself fully to music, to moments, to people she trusts, but there’s always a quiet restraint in the background of her emotions. Not coldness, exactly. More like she’s constantly aware that anything beautiful can also be temporary, and she’s learned how to live gently with that knowledge without letting it hollow her out completely

AESTHETIC

the hush of an orchestra before the first note - salt air clinging to silk gowns - sheet music scattered across hardwood floors at midnight - candlelight flickering against polished instruments - the echo of applause long after the stage is empty - hospital bracelets tucked into jewelry boxes - wind slipping through open windows during a storm - trembling hands steadying just in time - lullabies hummed to no one and everyone at once - two heartbeats hidden beneath a quiet ribcage - grief folded carefully into velvet - the sound of something beautiful ending too soon

CONNECTIONS

The Doctor Who Knows The one person in Northknot who knows the truth about her diagnosis and pregnancy. Whether they respect her secrecy or push her to tell the people she loves could create a lot of tension

The Musician Who Hears Too Much A local musician who plays with her or around her and starts noticing something… off. The way her conducting feels heavier lately. The way her timing lingers like she’s stretching moments. Maybe they don’t know what’s wrong, but they know something is

The Stranger She Can’t Shake Someone new in town who doesn’t know her reputation, her past, or her fame. They just see her as Keziah. That alone makes them dangerous in a way nothing else is

BIOGRAPHY

tw: cancer, terminal illness, death, hospitalization, depression, pregnancy

“We are all born mad. Some remain so.”

Keziah Delphine Marlowe was born the youngest daughter in a warm, loud, music-filled household. Her parents adored both daughters equally, but the age gap meant the sisters orbited different worlds. By the time Keziah was learning to read, her older sister was already navigating late high school and early adulthood. They loved each other, but they rarely understood each other. Music showed up in Keziah before memory did. At three years old she could reproduce melodies on the piano after hearing them once. At four she corrected a violinist during a children’s orchestra rehearsal her parents had taken her to see. By five she had already developed an eerie instinct for rhythm, phrasing, and musical architecture. Teachers called it talent. Her parents called it a miracle. Then life shifted again.

A few months before Keziah’s 6th birthday, her sister gave birth to Hollis and then Ashtin barely a year later. Irish twins who grew up practically as Keziah’s shadow. She helped bottle-feed them, carried them on her hip, played piano while they napped in the living room. In many ways they felt more like siblings than nieces and nephews. And somewhere in those years, Keziah fell in love with movement. Gymnastics became the second language of her body. Where music lived in her mind, gymnastics lived in her bones. Coaches noticed something strange about the way she performed. Her routines looked choreographed to music that wasn’t even playing. Every flip, landing, and extension flowed like choreography inside a symphony only she could hear. She dominated competitions. Undefeated since the movement she first stepped on the mat. Local meets became regional wins. Regional meets turned national. Judges talked about her “musicality in motion.” By fourteen she was already on the radar for the U.S. Olympic development pipeline, with real discussions about a possible Olympic appearance at sixteen. Then pain arrived.

“The wound is the place where the light enters you.”

It started small. An ache in her leg that stretching didn’t solve. A tightness that grew sharper over weeks. Coaches assumed it was overtraining. Rehab didn’t help. Neither did rest. Doctors eventually ran deeper scans. Ewing sarcoma. She was fifteen. Her world shrank overnight from gymnasiums and orchestras to fluorescent hospital hallways and quiet rooms filled with machines that hummed through the night. The pediatric oncology ward had an unspoken rule: the kids who stayed the longest were usually the ones who were running out of time. Keziah quickly became one of the oldest patients there. Most teenagers her age came and went quickly. Not because they recovered. Because they didn’t. Depression followed like a shadow that refused to leave. Music, the thing that once lit up her world, became painful to think about. Gymnastics was gone entirely. Then she met another patient, Jonah Keller, in the pediatric oncology ward. He was one of the only other patients close to her age, which made him stand out immediately in a place where most of the teenagers didn’t stay long. Just as stubborn. Just as aware of the clock ticking over their heads. They made a quiet pact together: if they were going to die young, they were at least going to live loudly until the end.

They started as late night conversation partners, passing time with bad hospital food and whispered jokes after curfew. Over weeks that turned into something deeper. Both of them knew the statistics. Both of them knew that their futures were short. Instead of pretending otherwise, they made a quiet pact to live as fully as they could with whatever time they had left. Somewhere between watching old movie recordings and sneaking out into the stairwell to escape the smell of antiseptic, they fell in love. Their first kiss happened in that stairwell. And even though most of their nights together were spent watching movies online, listening to symphonies, laughing too loudly during visiting hours, making lists of ridiculous things they wished they could still do; months later, when the floor was quiet and the nurses thought everyone was asleep, they lost their virginity to each other in his hospital room. It was awkward, tender, and frighteningly real for two people who had been told they might not have much time left to grow up. Keziah discovered conducting during this time too. She became obsessed with videos circulating online of Marin Alsop, one of the first women ever to break through the historically male fortress of top-tier orchestral conducting. Alsop had also won the MacArthur Fellowship, something Keziah found both hilarious and fitting. A genius award for someone who literally commanded orchestras like storms.

“Where there is great love, there are always miracles.”

And then, a miracle felt like it’s happening. Jonah started improving. He was the first one whose doctors started whispering about remission. Hope crept carefully back into the ward. Then one morning his condition suddenly collapsed without warning. Jonah died before Keziah could say goodbye. Losing him shattered something in Keziah that chemotherapy never could. For a while she stopped talking entirely. But the pact lingered in the back of her mind like a melody she couldn’t forget. So when Make-A-Wish Foundation eventually came by her room and asked what she wanted, she didn’t ask for a trip or celebrity visit. She said she wanted to conduct a real orchestra. A massive one. Not a small hospital performance. The real thing. The request somehow reached *Marin Alsop* herself. Instead of sending a polite decline, Marin flew to meet the girl and officially ask her to conduct. She planned to tutor Keziah for a week before allowing her to guest conduct a piece during a concert. By the second rehearsal, Marin realized something unsettling. The girl didn’t need teaching. Keziah understood phrasing, timing, and emotional architecture instinctively. She could hear balance issues before musicians even finished playing a passage. At one point she suggested a tempo shift that made the entire orchestra sound fuller. Marin later admitted she had never seen anything like it. The concert happened in Carnegie Hall in New York City after Keziah was, very carefully, flown out to the states under heavy medical supervision. The audience knew they were witnessing something fragile and fleeting. A dying teenager standing in front of a full orchestra, baton trembling slightly in her hand. She dedicated her first performance to Jonah. His loss had carved something permanent into her. Even now, some of her most emotional performances have been quietly dedicated to him, even if the audience never knows his name.

The performance was breathtaking. Then something stranger happened. A few weeks later, after her 16th birthday, Keziah’s cancer began responding to treatment. Remission followed slowly, cautiously, like dawn creeping across a horizon no one dared trust yet. When she was finally strong enough to leave the hospital, Marin Alsop invited her to study under her directly. Keziah finished high school online while traveling with orchestras, rehearsing backstage, absorbing music like oxygen. What began as mentorship evolved into partnership. Within a decade she had become one of the most talked-about conductors in the world. Her style is emotional, theatrical, and hypnotic. Musicians often say performing under her feels less like following a conductor and more like being swept into a current. She composes as well. Massive orchestral pieces. Film and musical scores. Experimental neo-classical works that blend classical traditions with cinematic scale.

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”

Keziah’s life after remission moved quickly in ways most people her age never experienced. By the time many of her peers were applying to college, she was already traveling the world with orchestras twice her age. Her friendships formed in rehearsal halls, backstage corridors, and hotel lobbies rather than classrooms. Because of that, her social circle has always been small but intense. The musicians who know her well describe her as fiercely loyal, deeply empathetic, and unexpectedly funny once she relaxes. But there is also a distance about her that never fully disappears, a quiet instinct to keep part of herself protected. Romantically, Keziah generally considers herself straight, though the fluid emotional environment of the arts has made her open-minded about attraction. She has occasionally questioned whether her feelings could extend beyond men, but most of her relationships have been with men she met through music, film, or other creative spaces. She has fallen in love since Jonah, but never with the same reckless openness she had at fifteen. Losing someone that young changed the way she attaches to people. Even in her happiest relationships, some part of her seems to hold the door half closed. And through it all, she kept returning home, and eventually to Northknot once they moved, every so often. To see Hollis and Ashtin. To breathe. To remember who she was before the world started clapping. Sometimes even staying for months to work on small projects with the locals.

Name: Dakota Zinnia Dumont Pronunciation: duh-KOH-tuh ZIN-ee-uh doo-MONT Nickname(s): Kota, Miss D, River Birthday: April 28th, 2002 Age: 23 Zodiac Sign: Taurus Sun, Scorpio Moon, Pisces Rising Gender: Cis-female Pronouns: She/Her Species: River Elf/River Fairy Hybrid Orientation: Straight, Demiromantic Occupation: Elementary School Teacher Faceclaim: Morgan Holmstrom

HEADCANONS

Dakota keeps a stash of granola bars, fruit snacks, and emergency stickers in her bag at all times

Her classroom smells faintly like lavender and clean paper

She cries at kids’ drawings… like actually tears up over a crooked heart and stick figures

Dakota cannot stand when people litter, especially near water. will absolutely call you out

She hums without realizing it when she’s focused

She learned how to braid hair because her students kept asking her to fix theirs

Her anger is quiet at first… then very precise. she doesn’t yell, she corrects

Dakota has a habit of saying “hey, we’re not doing that” in the same tone to both kids and grown adults

She keeps every thank-you note she’s ever gotten in a box under her bed

She swims like it’s second nature, like the river still recognizes her

Dakota will absolutely show up at 2am if someone calls her… but is learning to hesitate before saying yes

She drinks tea more than coffee, but keeps coffee around for survival days

Her love language is acts of service to a fault

She hates asking for help. like physically struggles with it

Dakota has a soft spot for people who are a little rough around the edges (hi lux)

Kids who are labeled “difficult” tend to attach to her the fastest

She journals, but only when she’s overwhelmed. the entries are messy and honest

Dakota still goes to the river when she needs to think. sits there, shoes off, letting the water touch her feet

Her laugh is bright but not loud. the kind that makes other people smile without knowing why

She forgives easily… but when she finally doesn’t, that’s when it’s really over

APPEARANCE

Dakota's appearance carries that same quiet magnetism, like sunlight caught on moving water. There’s a softness to her features that reads as approachable, but it’s balanced by a gaze that feels grounded, observant, like she’s always taking in more than she lets on. Her beauty isn’t loud, it lingers. Warm-toned skin that seems to glow in natural light, dark hair that falls with an easy, lived-in grace, and eyes that feel both kind and knowing at once. She dresses simply, comfortably, but there’s always something thoughtful in it, like she expects to move, to kneel beside a child’s desk, to step into the river if she needs to. Nothing about her feels accidental

PERSONALITY

Dakota moves through the world like steady water, soft at first glance but impossible to ignore once you feel the current. She is deeply nurturing, the kind of person who remembers the small things and shows up without being asked, but there’s steel threaded through all that warmth. She doesn’t bend just to keep the peace. She chooses her kindness, and she chooses her boundaries just as carefully. Dakota believes in people almost stubbornly, even when they make it difficult, even when it costs her. The only catch is she gives like it’s instinct, like breathing, and sometimes forgets she’s allowed to be held too

AESTHETIC

sunlight catching on slow-moving river water - damp hems of dresses from wading too far in - golden hour sunshine through classroom windows - handwritten reminders in careful ink - chipped mugs filled with tea gone cold - the soft scratch of pencils on paper - wildflowers tucked behind ears - the hush of a town that knows your name - rain tapping gently against glass - worn sneakers by the door - laughter echoing down school hallways - a stack of children’s drawings held together with a rubber band - the quiet ache of almosts - wind moving through tall grass like a secret

CONNECTIONS

The One Who Stepped Up Dakota’s older brother, three years ahead and quietly protective. When their dad got hurt, Lucky just… filled the gaps. Rides, check-ins, always there without making it a big thing. He’s more grounded than Dakota, sees risks where she sees potential, and isn’t afraid to call her out when she’s giving too much. Their bond is solid, teasing, and loyal to the core… even if they butt heads sometimes

The Friend Who Worries They love Dakota, but they see how much she gives and how little she keeps for herself. They’re constantly trying to get her to set boundaries, rest, choose herself for once

The One Who Sees Through Her Her best friend. They clock immediately that Dakota’s “I’m fine” is not always true. They don’t let her hide behind being the dependable one

The Almost Mistake A brief fling or emotional almost-relationship after Lux. It didn’t fully happen… but it complicated things. Maybe they still linger in that “what was that?” space

BIOGRAPHY

tw: serious injury, chronic illness, toxic relationship, pregnancy scare

Dakota was born and raised in Northknot Town to Mariana, a pediatric nurse, and Théo Dumont, an environmental surveyor who spent long stretches working along river system, and their three year old son, Lucky. Her family lived near the river on the quieter edge of town. Dakota grew up basically half feral in the best way. Riverbanks, skipping rocks, scraped knees, dragonflies landing on her fingers like she was some Disney princess with muddy sneakers. Her childhood looked like barefoot summers, river water in her hair, community potlucks, and her mom knowing half the town from the clinic. She was the kid teachers adored. The one who helped pass out papers without being asked. The one who shared snacks. But life wasn’t completely gentle. When Dakota was nine, her dad was involved in a river survey accident. A flash flood pinned the small work boat against a fallen tree. He survived, but barely. Months of hospital stays. Chronic pain after. It changed the family rhythm. Her mom started working extra shifts at the hospital because her dad had lasting injuries that meant less fieldwork. Lucky stepped up a lot after that. Not in a dramatic “we’re raising ourselves” way, just that quiet older sibling energy. He drove her places once he got his license. Showed up to her school stuff. Made sure she didn’t feel the weight their parents were carrying. Dakota internalized something from that period: reliability is love.

“I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.”

Northknot High Dakota was basically the town’s golden girl. High school Dakota was peak girl-next-door energy. She was on honor roll every year, volunteered tutoring younger kids, was on student council, and ran a small river clean-up club. She was every teacher’s favorite but not in an annoying way. She was well liked because she never acted superior about it. She just helped people. But she also had that firm boundary energy even then. If someone bullied a kid or talked reckless to teacher, Dakota would absolutely call them out. That “sweet but don’t push it” energy. But there were cracks beneath the sunshine. She was the responsible one in every group. The friend who drove people home. The one who broke up arguments. The one who listened to everyone’s problems at 2am. People leaned on her a lot. Sometimes too much. Her biggest heartbreak in high school wasn’t romantic. It was watching her dad struggle with chronic pain and eventually take a less active job. The man who once danced in rivers now walked carefully along them. That planted something in Dakota’s brain: protect joy while you can. Senior year she decided she wanted to teach elementary school. Kids deserved someone steady.

“Too much sanity may be madness.”

Dakota attended Santa Clara University in California. She thrived at first. Dorm life. Coffee shops. Study groups. She was the girl everyone trusted with spare keys and emotional breakdowns. Then she met Lux Dupuis. Lux walked into her life like a summer thunderstorm in designer shoes. He was the opposite of her world. Wealthy. Reckless. Magnetic. The kind of guy who laughed loud and lived louder. Frat parties, rooftop views, midnight drives. They meet at a party Dakota almost didn’t attend because she had a practicum early the next morning. Lux clocks her immediately because she’s not impressed by any of it. She clocks him because he’s a walking red flag wrapped in charisma. Dakota told herself it was just fun. And for a while, it was. Lux loves that Dakota grounds him. Dakota secretly loves that Lux made her feel spontaneous instead of responsible all the time. But the imbalance eventually starts hurting them both. Chaos has gravity. Their relationship slowly turned volatile.

“He was my North, my South, my East and West…”

Arguments that burned hot. Lux disappearing for nights. Dakota forgiving faster than she should because she saw the good in him. There was one moment that shook everything. A pregnancy scare during junior year. For two weeks Dakota lived in quiet panic. Not because she didn’t love kids. She did. But she suddenly realized how unstable their world together actually was. It shakes Dakota hard and Lux didn’t react too well. It forces her to think about the future in a way Lux isn’t ready for. It planted the first real fracture. They didn’t break up then. But something changed. Senior year they tried to stabilize things. Lux toned down the frat chaos. Dakota tried to stop mothering him. They loved each other, but they spoke completely different emotional languages. Right after graduation the final blow happened. Something small on the surface, probably a fight about priorities, but really it was years of pressure cracking. They broke up. Not dramatically. Not explosively. Just painfully. The kind where both people still care but know they’re hurting each other.

“It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”

Name: Spencer Aster Ellis Stokes, M.D., D.A.B.Path, F.A.M.E. Pronunciation: SPEN-sur AS-tur EL-iss STOHKS Nickname(s): Spooky, Spook, Spence Birthday: April 8th, 1629 Age: 397 (appears late 20s/early 30s) Zodiac Sign: Aries Sun, Scorpio Moon, Virgo Rising Gender: Non-binary Pronouns: They/Them Species: Phoenix Orientation: Lesbian, Demiromantic Occupation: Forensic Pathologist Faceclaim: E.R. Fightmaster

HEADCANONS

Spencer keeps a collection of old journals spanning centuries, but writes in them sparingly, only when something actually matters

They prefer night shifts at the morgue, not because they’re edgy, but because it’s quieter and people stop asking questions

Their office is oddly warm for someone who works with the dead

Spencer has near-perfect handwriting, unchanged across hundreds of years

They don’t drink coffee often, but when they do it’s black and strong enough to concern people

They remember small details about people no one expects them to notice

Spooky is terrifyingly good at reading lies, but rarely call them out unless it’s called for

They have died for someone before and would do it again without hesitation

They are very physically gentle with people they care about, almost instinctively careful

They don’t raise their voice often, but when they do it’s enough to stop a room

Spencer is the sibling most likely to show up unannounced when something is wrong… and leave just as quietly

They are more sentimental than they let on, but it’s hidden in small, intentional actions

They prefer old music, old books, old anything that feels like it has memory in it

Spence surprisingly funny, but only when they choose to be

They don’t fear death, but they respect it deeply

They fall in love slowly, and then all at once, like a match catching after being struck too many times

Spooky texts their siblings on birthdays at exactly midnight. never misses

They have a habit of tilting their head slightly when listening, like they’re dissecting your words

They read poetry but would rather combust than admit it first

Spence has a soft spot for stray animals. they always seem to follow them.

They will let people assume they’re detached if it means avoiding a vulnerable conversation

They tend to stand slightly behind others in group settings, even when they don’t have to

Spencer is very good at staying still. Like… unnervingly still

APPEARANCE

Spencer carries a kind of effortless magnetism that is difficult to define but impossible to ignore. Their features are striking in a way that feels both sharp and soft at once, balanced between clean lines and something more fluid, giving them an androgynous beauty that shifts depending on the light. Their eyes tend to linger, not in a way that feels invasive, but intentional, as though they are always seeing a little more than they let on. There is a natural stillness to them, a composure that makes even small movements feel deliberate. They favor understated clothing, often in darker tones, with textures that feel lived-in rather than polished. Nothing about their appearance is overly loud, yet people notice them anyway, drawn in by something they can’t quite name. Up close, there’s a faint warmth beneath it all, something softer that only reveals itself when they allow it

PERSONALITY

Spencer moves through the world with a quiet kind of gravity, the kind that doesn’t demand attention but inevitably gathers it anyway. They are observant to a fault, the type to notice the smallest shifts in tone, posture, or silence and file them away without comment. Where others react, Spencer considers. Where others speak, they listen. This doesn’t come from indifference, but from depth. They feel everything with an intensity they rarely allow to surface, choosing instead to process emotion privately, carefully, like something fragile that could break if handled too quickly. To most, they read as composed, mysterious, even distant. But beneath that restraint is a steady, unwavering loyalty and a capacity for devotion that borders on self-sacrificial. When Spencer loves, it is quiet but absolute, expressed in actions rather than words, in presence rather than promises

AESTHETIC

low laughter in dim rooms - candlelit autopsy tables at 3 a.m. - smoke clinging to skin after the fire is gone - dog-eared poetry hidden between medical texts - steady hands where others would tremble - a name spoken softly like it matters - ash drifting through open windows - the quiet hum of fluorescent lights - love letters folded and unfolded a hundred times - a secret kept in a locked box

CONNECTIONS

Friend of Their Late Love They knew Ruth well. Maybe even remind Spencer of her. Maybe they don’t, and that’s worse. Could be a best friend, sibling, etc.

The Sibling-Like Bond Not blood, but close enough. Spencer's best friend. They see through their quiet. They don’t always like what they find though

The One Who Pushes Them They don’t let Spencer retreat into silence. They challenge them. It annoys Spencer... So it works. For once, Spencer doesn’t have the upper hand. They’re unpredictable. It unsettles them

The Old Soul Connection They’ve known each other across lifetimes. Not always in the same roles. Always orbiting though. There's no pressure between them. No expectations. Just someone they can exist around without performing

BIOGRAPHY

tw: death, terminal illness

Spencer “Spooky” Stokes was born on April 8, 1629, to Cyrus and Aithne Stokes in Prince Edward Island. By the time Spencer entered the world, the Stokes household already carried the quiet weight of grief. Their father had lost his first wife years earlier, their eldest sister’s, Kira, mother, and though Spencer never knew her, the absence lingered in the corners of the home. They grew up surrounded by fragments of that history: the way their father sometimes stared too long into a fire, the careful gentleness Aithne carried as she stepped into a life shaped by someone who came before her, and the way Kira carried old grief in her bones.

“We inherit not the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.”

From an early age Spencer became the quiet observer of the family. Where Kira took on a nurturing role and Uriel sharpened himself into discipline and certainty, Spencer listened. They were the child lingering in doorways, absorbing conversations meant for adults, watching the subtle emotional tides of their household. Their mother encouraged their curiosity, often finding them tucked in kitchens or by candlelight with books well beyond their years. That thoughtful patience would become one of Spencer’s defining traits. They rarely spoke without thinking first, but when they did, their words tended to land with quiet precision.

Their first death came young. Like many phoenix children, Spencer learned the limits of their fire the hard way. What began as reckless curiosity ended in flames that burned too hot to control. When they resurrected, they woke to the sight of their siblings still crying over the ashes they had left behind. That moment stayed with them. Instead of making them fearless, it made them careful. Spencer became fascinated with the fragile space between life and death, asking questions about the body, about injury, about what truly causes life to end. Over the centuries, that fascination grew into study. Spencer gravitated toward medicine long before it resembled the modern field it would become.

“Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it.”

During the industrial era, surrounded by factory accidents, fires, and the mounting cost of rapid human progress, they leaned deeper into the science of mortality. At one point they served as a battlefield medic, where the permanence of human death struck them in a way it never had before. Watching mortals die knowing they would not return left an impression that never fully faded. Despite their thoughtful nature, Spencer spent long stretches of their life moving lightly through romance. Immortality made permanence feel impossible, and for a time they wore the reputation of a charming but noncommittal lover easily. It was simpler that way. Most lives passed in the span of a phoenix’s blink, and Spencer learned early that loving too deeply often meant watching someone disappear long before they ever would. That changed in the early twentieth century.

In the 1910s, while living under another name and working in a small coastal city hospital, Spencer met a woman, Ruth, who unraveled every careful emotional boundary they had built over the centuries. She was brilliant, stubbornly compassionate, and far less impressed by Spencer’s quiet charm than most people were. What began as an unlikely friendship grew into something far deeper than Spencer had ever allowed themselves to experience. For the first time in their long life, they stopped thinking in temporary terms. They imagined years together. Decades, even. A life that might actually feel stable. Then, in 1918, the influenza pandemic reached their city. Hospitals filled faster than anyone could manage. Beds lined hallways, makeshift wards appeared in schools and churches, and the staff worked until exhaustion blurred the line between one day and the next.

“We loved with a love that was more than love.”

Spencer had lived through wars and disasters before, but nothing like the speed of the illness sweeping through the population. Their partner refused to step away from the hospital despite the danger. Ruth treated patients day and night, refusing to abandon people who had no one else to care for them. Spencer argued with her more than once, knowing exactly how vulnerable humans were to the virus and exactly how little medicine could do to stop it. In the end, she caught it. At first the symptoms were mild. Fever, fatigue, the same signs they had seen in hundreds of others. Spencer stayed with her constantly as the illness progressed, refusing to leave her side. But within days her condition worsened. The fever spiked higher. Her breathing grew shallow and labored as pneumonia set into her lungs.

Spencer understood exactly what was happening. They knew every stage of the disease. They knew when the lungs began to fill with fluid, when oxygen deprivation would begin to take hold, when the body would finally give out. For someone who had spent centuries studying death, the knowledge was unbearable. They could do nothing but watch. Ruth died in the early hours of the morning with Spencer beside her, her hand still in theirs. In the quiet that followed, surrounded by the distant sounds of a hospital overwhelmed by the same tragedy repeating in room after room, Spencer felt the full cruelty of immortality for the first time. They would return. She would not. The loss left a mark that never fully faded.

“Absence is a house so vast that inside you will pass through its walls.”

For years afterward Spencer buried themselves in their work, carrying the memory of those final hours with them. The charming, casually romantic figure people once knew slowly disappeared. Love, Spencer realized, was not something they could treat lightly anymore. If they ever gave their heart again, it would be with the full understanding of what losing it might cost. The early 2000s brought a different kind of turning point. When Cyrus and Aithne chose not to resurrect after their next deaths, each sibling reacted differently. Kira closed herself off in quiet grief. Lumina distanced themselves from the family entirely. Spencer, however, became very still.

What unsettled them most was not simply the loss of their parents, but the realization that immortality was not an obligation. It was a choice. In truth, Spencer had been the most outwardly accepting of their parents’ decision. They listened when Cyrus and Aithne explained their reasoning and even found themselves quietly curious about it, wanting to understand what it meant to reach a point where a life felt complete. But seeing how deeply the choice affected their siblings shifted something in them. For the first time, Spencer had to confront the possibility that one day they might choose final death themselves. That thought unsettled them more than they ever admitted.

“To die will be an awfully big adventure.”

Haunted by the memory of their first resurrection and the pain it caused their siblings, Spencer knew they could never leave them that way. Yet the idea that the choice existed lingered in the back of their mind. Instead of confronting the fracture forming in the family, and unsure how to reconcile their own thoughts without causing more pain, they quietly stepped away from it. They spent the following years traveling and immersing themselves fully in their work, eventually becoming a forensic pathologist known for calm precision and a near unsettling composure around death. From the outside, Spencer developed a reputation for being mysterious, detached, even a little nonchalant. In truth, they never fully disconnected from their family. They visited when they could, called to check in, and kept in touch in quiet, steady ways.

Spencer often spoke little about their own life, instead encouraging their siblings to talk about theirs, listening closely to every detail. They knew when Kira changed positions at the hospital, when Lumina won major cases, when Uriel’s work shifted directions. Their presence lingered at the edges of the family even when they were far away. The distance was never emotional so much as physical. Spencer was overwhelmed by how deeply their parents’ final choice had shaken the family, and it hurt to watch Lumina pull away while Kira pretended she was fine. At the same time, Spencer was wrestling privately with the unsettling realization that one day they might face that same choice themselves. Not wanting to burden their siblings with those thoughts or cause them more pain, Spencer kept some space while they sorted through their own.

“And still, after all this time, the sun never says to the earth, ‘You owe me’.”

Name: Karson Amaris Lyric Hale Pronunciation: KAHR-sun AM-uh-riss LEER-ik HAYL Nickname(s): Sonny, Kars, Sun (by siblings only), K. Hale (an alias), Hale Storm (around the industry) Birthday: April 3rd, 1972 Age: 53 (appears mid-20s) Zodiac Sign: Aries Sun, Sagittarius Moon, Virgo Rising Gender: Cis-Female Pronouns: She/Her Species: Dragon Orientation: Pansexual, Demiromantic Occupation: Music Producer Faceclaim: Natalie Alyn Lind

HEADCANONS

Karson cannot fall asleep without some kind of background noise, usually old vinyl static or city ambience

She keeps every voicemail her siblings have ever sent her, even the chaotic ones

She stress-cleans kitchens at 2 a.m.

Karson has a small scar on her wrist from the hunter attack and traces it when she’s thinking

She prefers producing music at night because the world feels quieter and less expectant

She writes songs she never intends to release and stores them under fake filenames

Karson is irrationally competitive at board games

She has a very specific tea she drinks when she feels overstimulated

She still instinctively positions herself between her siblings and any perceived threat in public spaces

She keeps her late husband’s old flannel folded in a drawer and has not washed it in years

Karson hates hospitals. The smell alone makes her chest tighten

She learned basic sign language during her time in New York just because she wanted to communicate with a studio engineer’s kid

She is deeply good with children but pretends she’s awkward about it

Karson hums unconsciously when she’s concentrating

She still owns a notebook filled with names she considered for the baby she never got to meet

She pretends she doesn’t care about awards but keeps them in perfect alignment on a shelf

Karson once punched a producer who tried to take credit for her work. No regrets

She loves thunderstorms but cannot stand fireworks? Strange woman

When she actually laughs without restraint, it is loud and bright and startling, like the version of her that used to exist still lives just beneath the surface, waiting for permission

APPEARANCE

Karson carries a kind of luminous sharpness. Pale gold hair that falls in soft, natural waves, often worn loose but perpetually one restless hand away from being tucked behind her ear. Her eyes are light, almost storm-glass blue, bright but steady, the kind that look through someone before they look at them. High cheekbones, a straight nose, lips that curve easily but rarely without thought. There’s something almost ethereal about her at first glance, but it’s tempered by grounded posture and an intensity that makes people sit up straighter when she enters a room. She favors clean silhouettes: dark jeans, structured coats, boots that look like they’ve walked through things. Minimal jewelry except for her wedding band, which she still wears on a chain beneath her shirt. When she sings, something shifts. Her jaw softens, her shoulders drop, and her entire face opens like a window unlatched after winter

PERSONALITY

Karson moves through the world like someone who has survived both the blaze and the aftermath. She is observant before she is reactive, quiet until she chooses not to be. Her warmth is real, but selective now, offered with intention instead of instinct. She listens more than she speaks, cataloging tone shifts and breathing patterns the way other people check the weather. Her humor is dry and precise, a scalpel wrapped in velvet. She does not tolerate emotional cowardice, least of all in herself. Crowded rooms drain her; intimate conversations restore her. She is fiercely loyal, but she no longer throws herself in front of danger without calculating the cost. When she loves, it is deliberate. When she protects, it is strategic. When she snaps, it is rare and volcanic, a reminder that the fire was never extinguished, only disciplined. She is softer than she lets on, sharper than most expect, and still trying to relearn how to want things without bracing for loss

AESTHETIC

vinyl static bleeding into sunrise - thrifted leather jackets that still smell like cologne - sheet music annotated in restless handwriting - kitchen tiles cool against bare feet at dawn - voicemail confessions sent at 3:17am - gold chains warmed by skin - thunder rolling over city skylines - coffee gone cold beside a mixing board - old scars traced absentmindedly during hard conversations - rooftop weddings with cheap champagne - studio doors locking with a quiet click - harmonies hummed under breath - postcards never mailed - stage lights flickering like distant fire - grief folded neatly into black denim

CONNECTIONS

The Almost Confession A childhood friend who once almost told her they loved her before she left in the 90s. They never said it. Now they’re both older, more scarred, and that unfinished sentence still exists

The Neighbor Who Hears Her Sing Someone in Northknot who accidentally hears her practicing late at night. They don’t know who she is. They just know that voice sounds like someone trying to find their way back

The Hunter Who Hesitated One of the hunters from the Hale siblings teenage attack who recognized what she was about to do and faltered. Now older. Now regretful. Now complicated

The Slow-Burn Love Interest Steady. Emotionally literate. Not intimidated by her intensity. Someone who doesn’t chase her but doesn’t retreat either. Patient enough to let her come forward on her own terms

The Fan Who Doesn’t Know A local who adores the music “K. Hale” produces but has no idea K. Hale is Karson and that she’s living in town. Imagine the moment of realization

The One Who Forgives Her First Can be romantic or platonic, that person will shift the entire trajectory of her healing. Because Sonny does not need more admiration. She needs someone who sees the worst choice she made and still says, stay

BIOGRAPHY

tw: premature birth, parental neglect, violent attack, near-death experience, chronic illness, death, pregnancy, miscarriage

Karson Amaris Lyric Hale was born prematurely on April 3, 1972, arriving at barely six and a half months and fighting for breath before she ever learned how to use her fire. In the early days, her flame burned weak and uncertain, and she spent her first weeks in a controlled heat chamber, too small and too fragile for the world waiting outside. She grew slowly at first, small and easily winded, until one day she simply… didn’t. By adolescence, she had caught up, though the memory of being fragile never fully left her. The middle sibling, with Sullivan just ahead of her and Valensia close behind, Sonny grew up in a household where their parents were more absence than presence. Whatever the reason, the result was the same: the Hale children raised one another. They were messy, loyal, loud, and inseparable. Sully fixed what broke. Sia burned bright. Sonny softened the edges and filled every room with warmth.

“You can make a home out of a thousand borrowed rooms, but you can never forget the first one.”

Before the hunters came, she was sunlight in motion. Grass-stained knees. A joke ready before tension could bloom. Playful, chaotic in a harmless way, certain that love would always catch her if she leapt. The hunter attack in their mid-to-late teens shattered that certainty. When Sullivan, already gravely injured, ordered his sisters to run and hide, they listened for once. But when he caught up to them barely standing, it became clear they would not make it far. Sonny saw what Valensia did not: they would not survive together. So she told Sia to take Sully and run. She promised she was right behind them. She was not. She intended to stay and sacrifice herself to buy them time. Sullivan, perceptive even through fading consciousness, realized what she was doing. He tried to stop her, but he was too weak to explain the truth to Sia. Against all odds, they all survived.

Survival did not mean peace, though. In the aftermath, tension coiled tight between the siblings. Sullivan, furious and shaken, confronted her for attempting to sacrifice herself. Sonny shot back that he was a hypocrite, that he had always been the stereotypical protector willing to throw himself into danger without hesitation. Their anger burned hot but brief, two mirrors reflecting the same instinct. The deeper fracture settled between Sonny and Valensia. When Sia realized the truth, that Sonny had never intended to meet them, that she had stolen the chance for a final goodbye, something quieter and heavier took root. They argued often in those first years. Words sharpened by fear and love and unfinished terror. Sullivan tried to mediate, but as usual, neither sister listened.

“The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It’s the loneliness of it.”

In the space that followed, Sonny grew more guarded. Her humor turned edged with sarcasm. Chaos, once something she danced inside, began to overwhelm her. Noise pressed too close. Conflict sparked too fast. The girl who had once filled rooms with light started learning how to dim herself instead. Sonny does not regret being willing to die for them. She would make the same choice again. What haunts her is the lie. The stolen goodbye. The knowledge that she did not give her sister the chance to choose her one last time. After the attack, something in her shifted. She grew sharper. Quieter. Still capable of laughter, but measured. Conflict unsettled her, especially as she watched the stress weigh on Sullivan, whose mirror-touch synesthesia and Addison’s disease made emotional chaos physically dangerous. She swallowed her own storms to protect him. Until she could not. When she snaps, it is volcanic. Rare. Terrifying. Always followed by guilt.

In the mid-1990s, she left Northknot. She told her siblings she needed space. She did not say it would become decades. She moved to New York City and started at the bottom of the music industry as a studio intern. Coffee runs. Cable wrapping. Couch surfing. She refused to be rescued. Pride burned hotter than homesickness. Sonny can sing. Not casually. Not sweetly. She possesses a voice that quiets rooms. Her siblings knew it when they overheard her in the shower as children. Before the attack, she nearly pursued it. Afterward, she could not. Singing required exposure. Producing offered distance. Behind the glass, she could shape sound without offering herself. She climbed slowly through a ruthless industry that underestimated and dismissed her. She learned to be colder than she felt. Learned to dull softness into efficiency.

“There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”

Karson fell in love with an artist she worked with. He saw through her defenses and coaxed her into singing again in an empty studio at two in the morning. For a time, she was happy. She began imagining a life beyond survival. They married quietly. Not a giant industry wedding. Not paparazzi. Something intimate. A tiny rooftop ceremony with two friends and a bottle of cheap champagne. They kept it mostly private because Sonny had already learned the world eats what it sees. He died suddenly almost two years later.

They were in the kitchen, cooking breakfast together, singing and dancing to their favorite song when he collapsed out of nowhere. Brain aneurysm. Something that feels random and cruel. No villain. No warning. Just the universe pulling the rug. Karson sat beside his bed in a fluorescent-lit hospital in New York City. She sang to him softly because he was the only one who could get her to sing. He died anyway. While grieving him, she discovered she was pregnant. For a brief, fragile moment, she considered returning to Northknot to raise the child near her siblings. She even began looking at homes. Then she miscarried. Quietly. Alone. And instead of running toward home, she ran away from it again. Because coming home empty felt worse than never coming at all. So, she told no one. Not her family. Not her friends. The loss carved into her in ways she still cannot name.

“It is strange how we hold on to the pieces of someone after they are gone.”

In her grief, she poured herself into mentoring a teenage artist, fiercely protective to the point of suffocation. When that artist moved on, the loss reopened every wound. She left New York in the mid-2010s for Los Angeles, then eventually disappeared overseas, drifting between cities and underground music scenes. Reinventing herself every few years. Sometimes credited simply as “K. Hale.” She became respected. Awarded. Successful. And emotionally muted. Throughout those years, she would resurface in Northknot without warning. Five-hour phone calls to her siblings. Three-hour voicemails. Postcards that read like confessions. Then silence again. She answered Sullivan’s calls more often than anyone else’s. With Valensia, the distance remained heavier. Not anger, but ache.

Sometime in the 2020s, she began listening to her old recordings and realized she did not recognize herself. Karson had achieved everything she once thought would fix her, and still felt hollow. In an attempt to feel something real again, for the first time, she sang publicly under a false name at a small venue. Afterward, someone in the audience told her she sounded like she was coming home. She realized she no longer knew where home was.

“Where you are is where the world should begin.”

Name: Flint Solaris Eleni Pyre-Sparks (née Ignis) Pronunciation: FLINT so-LAR-iss eh-LEN-ee PIRE-sparks (IG-niss) Nickname(s): The Quiet Flame, Sol (by those closest to her only), My Spark (by her late husband, Inti, only) Birthday: April 9th, 1940 Age: 86 (appears mid-30s) Zodiac Sign: Aries Sun Gender: Cis-Female Pronouns: She/Her Species: Fire Elf Orientation: Bisexual, Demiromantic Occupation: Editor, Owner of The Second Flame (bookstore), & Fire Clan Leader Faceclaim: Simona Brown

HEADCANONS

Flint rarely raises her voice. When she does, it’s worse than shouting. It means something has crossed a line she does not redraw

She drinks her tea nearly scalding. She says it tastes better that way. It’s really about feeling heat that doesn’t burn out of control

She alphabetized her bookstore shelves three different ways in her head before choosing the “official” system. Control soothes her

She keeps every old ledger she’s ever started. Even the messy ones. Especially the messy ones

Flint has never thrown away Inti’s coat. It still hangs in the back of her closet

She struggles with physical affection but initiates it in subtle ways, like adjusting a collar or brushing ash off someone’s sleeve

She memorizes escape routes in every building she enters

She prefers really early mornings. The hour before the world wakes feels honest

She has a terrifyingly calm interrogation presence. Silence is her weapon of choice

Flint reads crime and political theory more than fantasy. She wants to understand systems, not escape them

She cannot stand unfinished sentences. Closure matters to her in everything

She calls her children every night before going to bed. Ensuring they are safe is the only way she can fall asleep at night

She keeps a hidden journal separate from her official records. That one is not logic, not in the slightest. It’s grief

Flint does not cry in front of others, except for her twin and even then it’s a rare occurrence. The last time she did, she was nineteen

She hates being surprised. Not because she dislikes spontaneity, but because unpredictability once cost her everything

She smells faintly of smoke and old paper at all times

Flint wears rings even when she’s working her fire magic. The weight grounds her

She remembers insults from decades ago but chooses not to retaliate until it matters

She believes in second chances for others far more than she grants them to herself

Flint does not fear death. She fears failing to prevent it

APPEARANCE

Flint carries herself with composed intensity, the kind that makes a room subtly recalibrate when she enters it. Her skin is deep and luminous, warm-toned like embers beneath ash. Her eyes are dark and steady, almost black at first glance, but lit from within when she is thinking, as though firelight lives behind them. She has high, defined cheekbones and a sculpted jaw softened only by the rare curve of her smile. Her hair is thick and dark, often worn in natural curls or pulled back in protective styles that keep it controlled but powerful, framing her face with quiet authority. She favors structured silhouettes—tailored coats, high collars, fitted trousers—clothing that feels deliberate rather than ornamental. Even at rest, she stands tall, shoulders squared, spine straight, like someone who refuses to bend unless she chooses to. There is something unmistakably elemental about her presence: grounded, controlled heat contained beneath elegance

PERSONALITY

Flint is disciplined before she is anything else. She does not erupt; she calculates. Years of loss carved precision into her, and now she moves through the world like someone who has already studied every possible fracture point. She is observant to an almost unnerving degree, remembering details others forget and patterns others miss. Where Leon burns outward, Flint burns inward, steady and controlled. She loves through structure, through safeguards, through making sure the doors are locked and the wards are reinforced. If she gives you rules, it is because she intends for you to survive. If she watches you closely, it is because she has already imagined losing you. She is not cold, though many mistake her restraint for it. Her warmth exists in deliberate acts: perfectly curated shelves in her bookstore, a hand lingering briefly at a shoulder, the quiet way she checks that her children are home before she sleeps. She does not forgive easily, least of all herself. But she is not bitter. She is patient. She is enduring. And beneath all that control lives a woman who is still, quietly, looking for the truth

AESTHETIC

quiet bookstores hiding dangerous truths - smoke curling from a teacup at midnight - ink-stained hands and firelight eyes - frost creeping along a windowpane - ledgers filled with names no one else remembers - a gold wedding band worn thin - heavy wool coats in winter air - candlewax on dark wood - silence that listens back - twin shadows cast against stone walls - embers refusing to die

CONNECTIONS

The Council Skeptic A fire clan council member who thinks Flint is becoming too paranoid. They clash over security, over secrecy, over how much fear should shape policy

The Anchor Flint’s closest friend outside of Leon. The one person who knew her before leadership calcified her. They sit comfortably in her silence. They’ve seen her laugh. They’ve seen her cry once. They treat her like a person. They stand beside her as her equal. They are fiercely loyal but not blindly so, will call her out without disrespect. If Flint ever loses herself in obsession, this is the person who grabs her shoulders and says, “Enough,” and Flint actually listens. They are not soft. They are steady

The Soft Place (Celaena) This begins as proximity, not romance. A council liaison, historian, security consultant, bookstore regular who refuses to flinch around her, etc. They do not try to soften her or fix her. They simply stand beside her without fear. The realization hits Flint suddenly one day: she trusts them. And then, more dangerously, she wants them there. The slow burn is not denial of feeling, but fear of what loving again costs. Late nights in the bookstore. Shared glances in council. Almost-confessions interrupted by duty. Guilt creeping in when she thinks about her late husband. Pulling back. Stepping closer. They respect Inti’s memory instead of competing with it. And eventually, when Flint stops retreating, the choice will be deliberate. Not wildfire. A hearth built slowly, brick by brick

The Woman Declared Dead Officially, Solana vanished during an expedition gone wrong. No body was recovered. The case was closed. Flint states plainly that both of her parents are dead. Leon has never fully accepted that. Whether Solana truly died, survived in silence, or was forced into disappearance is unknown. If she lives, she has allowed her children to believe she did not come back. If she died, there are still too many questions about how. The tension lies in belief. If the truth ever surfaces, it will not just reopen old wounds. It will redefine them

The Quiet Rival Another leader from a neighboring clan, possibly, who respects Flint deeply but competes with her influence. Mutual recognition. Mutual caution

BIOGRAPHY

tw: violence, torture, murder, blood, disappearance, parental death

In the 1300s, before Northknot was formalized, before councils, borders, or recorded law, the fire elves and snow elves were already divided. Not by open war, but by belief. There was a stretch of contested land where fire and frost magic overlapped unnaturally—a convergence site, where opposing elements did not cancel but amplified one another. It was not an artifact. It did not think. But it magnified whatever touched it. In steady hands, it could reinforce wards, strengthen barriers, stabilize fragile magic. In desperate hands, it could become something far worse.

The snow elves believed the site should be sealed entirely, locked in ice and forgotten. The fire elves believed suffocating it would destabilize the land over time. Eventually, a quiet accord was reached. Not peace—containment. The site would not be claimed. It would not be weaponized. Access paths would be obscured. Both sides would pretend it was simply another scar in the wilderness.

What the fire elves never knew was that among certain snow elf circles, an older warning survived—passed only through oral tradition, never written, never formally acknowledged by their leadership. A line remembered in frost-scarred whispers:

“Where frost first kissed flame, memory lingers. In balance, it is mercy. In hunger, it devours. Beware the mirrored soul. When twin flame births twin flame, the seam thins.”

“The old that is strong does not wither.”

Flint Solaris Eleni Ignis was born on April 9, 1940—an Aries, fire-bound, and one half of a rare phenomenon known as simultaneous twins. She and Leon were born at the exact same moment. No first. No second. Two halves of a single ignition. Among the fire clan, twins were not simply siblings—they were balance incarnate. One flame split into mirrored forms. Where one burned outward, the other burned inward. Together, they were considered whole. Leon was passion and heat. Loud emotion. A quick temper. The kind of child who would throw himself into fights to defend others without thinking twice. Flint was a colder fire—measured, calculating, deliberate. She thought first. Watched longer. Chose when to burn. She was also the only one who could calm him. Born during a rare double-sun convergence, the twins were marked by omen and expectation from the start. Twins meant destiny. Destiny meant leadership. The fire clan’s Twin Flame philosophy held that only twins could truly lead—only mirrored souls could keep the clan from consuming itself.

Their parents, Nyambe and Solana, were respected, influential, and quietly controversial. Calm voices in council chambers. Trusted—but never entirely embraced. They were also inseparable from a close-knit group of other fire elves, all of whom had children around the same age. Flint and Leon grew up warm, if never soft. Surrounded by family. Surrounded by eyes. Outside their circle, harassment came early. Cinder-brats. Future tyrants. Two-headed flame. The adults pretended not to hear. Flint noticed. She learned fast: emotions made you visible. Logic made you untouchable. Their parents taught them this above all else: Fire is not rage. Fire is control. And snow elves do not hate fire elves. They fear what fire remembers. Flint would remember that line forever.

“Memory is the diary that we all carry about with us.”

When Flint and Leon were barely (nineteen to twenty-one), Nyambe and Solana left on an expedition. They never returned. Flint assumed the worst almost immediately. Abandonment. Choice. Silence that felt intentional. Leon refused to believe it. The argument escalated until Leon’s voice rose—sharp, furious, fueled by grief and loyalty. He accused Flint of betrayal for even thinking it. His temper flared, uncontained, blinding him. Then he caught his reflection. Saw his own eyes—wild, unrecognizable. They flicked to Flint. He thought he saw fear there. What he actually saw was shock. Flint had never seen that anger turned on her. Leon froze. Rage collapsed inward, replaced by fear—of himself, of what he was capable of. Flint realized then that he had frightened himself more than he had frightened her. She felt guilty. She let the argument drop. Let the subject change. Let herself become the anchor again—cooling him, steadying him, restoring balance the way she always had.

What they didn’t know was that when tension between clans rose again, their parents, along with their close circle of friends, were involved in quietly reinforcing the convergence site’s seal. Not moving it. Not claiming it. Simply ensuring no extremist group could exploit it. A rogue snow elf group, operating without clan sanction, believed the fire elves were preparing to use the site. They abducted Nyambe and Solana off record to demand access points and names. Nyambe refused. He was frozen and left to die. Solana broke when their children were threatened. She gave partial truths—names, locations, fragments—enough for the rogue group to hunt down the rest of their circle. The snow and fire clan leadership never connected the deaths. The rogue group and their actions still remain unknown. And the warning about twin flame births remained buried in rumor.

“Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.”

When the fire clan sent out a search party a week after Nyambe and Solana’s scheduled return, Flint and Leon went with them. They found Nyambe frozen solid—tortured, entombed in ice, left alone to die. Solana was gone. No body. No trail. No answers. It shattered something final in Flint. Whatever doubt remained hardened into certainty. If Solana was alive, she had chosen not to come back. If she was dead, she hadn’t fought hard enough to survive for them. Flint never said it aloud again. But she believed it. Not long after, the deaths began. Nyambe and Solana’s entire friend group died suddenly, violently—always ice- or snow-related. No official connections were drawn. No culprits named. The clan spoke carefully. Avoidantly. Flint noticed.

The children left behind—Flint and Leon’s lifelong friends, all between seventeen and twenty-two—found one another at funerals, vigils, grief circles. Eventually, it became clear they were all that remained. They chose each other. They became family. Flint avoided grief by logic. Leon drowned in his. Flint reasoned herself into believing her parents had kept secrets, had failed them, had chosen something else over their children. She dropped the Ignis name and took Pyre, the name their found family created together. Leon hyphenated his. None of them knew—then or now—that any of it was connected to the snow elves or the ancient feud.

“We survive on hope, but we live on connection.”

About a year or two after the found family formed—after grief had settled into something livable—Flint fell in love with Inti Sparks, another fire elf. It was not sudden, nor reckless. It was quiet, built on understanding and shared loss, on the kind of steadiness Flint trusted. About a year or so later, Flint and Leon were formally called into leadership. The transition was heavy with expectation, but inevitable. They stepped into their roles still carrying unhealed grief, still unsure how much of their lives truly belonged to them anymore. A year into leadership, Flint married Inti. Another year later, she became pregnant. The village knew she was expecting—but only Flint, Leon, Inti, and a single council member knew the truth. She was carrying twins.

When Cole and twin (WC) were born, their existence was kept secret. They were raised in a second home just outside the village with their father, while Flint split her time between leadership and motherhood, between duty and a life she was terrified to lose. For four years, the world held. Word had spread far enough that one of the twin Fire clan leaders had given birth to twins of her own, and some old fears resurfaced in dangerous corners. To those who still believed the seam thinned with symmetry, the existence of her children was not innocent. It was alignment. And extremists, once convinced they are preventing disaster, rarely wait for proof.

“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”

Flint had only left home for an hour to pick up groceries. She returned to sirens, police tape, nosy neighbors, and the metallic scent of blood. Her stomach dropped to her feet and she rushed pass the emergency personnel on her front lawn. She saw the destruction inside her home. Saw Inti’s body—drained of blood—only for a heartbeat before Leon shielded her from it. Her twins survived. They had hidden in a closet, watching through the slats as their father died protecting them. Flint did not heal. She hardened.

She didn’t scream. She didn’t collapse. Flint went cold—clinical, surgical. Leon grieved loudly enough for both of them. Flint let him. She took the twins back to the main house. Locked their world down. Wards. Guards. No unsupervised magic. Protection so tight it bordered on suffocation. Cole and twin (WC) grew up knowing their mother loved them—and knowing she was terrified of losing them. In the months that followed, Flint stepped away from visible leadership—not renouncing her role, but just to survive. She bought a building for a bookstore, one with a small apartment above it, and lived there alone for eleven weeks while she worked to open it. No council. No twins. No Leon. Just quiet, ash settling, and the chance to breathe without being watched. The isolation reset her.

“You have to carry the fire.”

When Flint returned home, she stepped back into visible leadership beside Leon. If anything, she was sharper than before—less patient with ceremony, more deliberate with decisions. She began keeping meticulous records. Names. Timelines. Patterns. She didn’t know what she was looking for yet—only that the deaths, the disappearances, and the attack on her family did not line up as coincidence. She earned a degree in literature, opened the bookstore, and later took an editing job at a local firm. She rented out the apartment above the shop to one of her employees. The store became a quiet fixture in Northknot—warm, unassuming, and far more observant than it appeared.