#prohibau

Sampo Koski - Sam & Sandy(Sandra) twins and singers at the pilot light. Send part of their wages to support their niece Sarah who lives with their mother. (actual sister Sandy was married to Vauche Harrower but both are deceased)

Natasha Harrower - neighborhood nurse and caretaker, runs Wildfire to help financially support their neighborhood. tenuously allied with Mr Sunday of The Family for non-interference though he is attempting to court her and unite their spheres of influence

"Uncle" Franz Oleg - some of the heavy muscle of wildfire, used to run the bar in their restaurant until Volstead shut them down. now works behind the stage at pilot light and helps with supply runs and community work. Hook's Grandpa

Helen "Hook" Oleg - a bright and spirited young girl who is looked after by her grandfather and Miss Natasha while her dad works long hours at the docks. leads the neighborhood kids in lots of games and adventures

Seele Veliona - the bouncer of the pilots light. A severe, no-nonsense young woman of short statue who prefers wearing men's garments. She can drive, fight, and hold her liquor. Her biggest loyalty is to Wildfire and their neighborhood, even though she keeps to herself a lot. (the old ladies want her to be more ladylike, ugh)

Luka Strongarm - a new addition to wildfire, joins the restaurant as a bus boy and Oleg begins teaching him how to bartend before the volstead act passes. After, Oleg helps him get started with wildfire and bartending for PL. Sends part of his wages to his mother who lives in Boulder Town, Illinois. His father is back in Ireland fighting the good fight for self-governance, and Luka and his mother were sent to America for safety.

Mr. Svarog and Clara - a reclusive inventor and his daughter with albinism. She's sensitive to sunlight so has to stay indoors a lot even though Hook always tries to cajole her into playing with the Moles. Svarog sometimes does repairs for Wildfire clients at Natasha's request. Clara likes to go along and will take her sun parasol. She has a surprisingly good foundational knowledge of engineering for a girl of 7, and Svarog seems to encourage and rely on her input. (Svarog exchanges letters with another inventor in the UK by the name of Screwllum)

Cocolia Rand is an internationally famous fashion designer for both men and women. Her line for men, S.G. Rand, is something Seele can only dream about buying for herself. Cocolia and her daughter Bronya visit Penacony during prohibition for business arrangements, leaving Bronya to find some nightlife entertainment on her own (she's escaped the chaperone here and there). Runs into Seele at a shop and accepts her invitation to the pilot light. later they head to the violet room and flirt some more

Elena Kafka - the owner and proprietoress of the Violet Room. her adopted daughter Silvia runs a gambling parlor in the back, and her other adopted daughter is usually reading a book and people-watching from behind the counter. Occasionally Elena teaches her how to make drinks. Calms Ren down when he's upset with Luocha for not letting him beat the shit out of some insulting business fellow they had to deal with. (Lu always comes in some time later looking contrite and worried, and the two of them make up) (Their cat's name is Elio. Sigrid(victory,beloved)/Firefly insists he knows the future, and she's trying to learn to speak cat to find out what it is.)

Lynx is on a bit of a Beatrix Potter thing doing independent biological studies of local flora + samples sent to her by prominent biologist pen pals who think they are writing to a man. their mother is so frustrated with lynx's room full of strange plants, bookshelves full of notes and odd diagrams, etc. But father says leave her to her oddities so mother goes back to her wine

IPC - International Peace Company, a large trading company with fingers in everyone's pies, and plenty of illegal muscle to get what they "deserve" (Aventurine and Topaz are part of the Stonehearts, the real movers and shakers of the backroom deals. considered part mafia, part legitimate company)

Erudite Labs is home to a lot of progressive and some might say futuristic research. It even hires a lot of female scientists which is nearly unheard of. Lynx desires to work here but parents forbid it bc the optics would be terrible and affect Senator Landau's reelection chances 🙄

Herta Einziger and Ruan Mei work here in different departments but often have their lunches together. Veritas Ratio is known to consult with the lab occasionally, but only when necessary as he thinks they're all stuffed up their own backsides. Screwllum writes Herta and Ruan Mei frequently about a project they are planning to work on together.

Cale Estrella wanders back into Kafka's life as an injured amnesiac, prompting her to go to Ratio for help, as he's currently treating a young woman with the same ailment and helping her worried parents (WY+Himeko) Kafka visits as often as she can, feeling bittersweet about the lack of memories as their old relationship was a rollercoaster of highs and lows.

Gepard Landau, middle child of Senator and Mrs Landau, is a police officer serving one of the districts of Penacony. He doesn't have the wherewithal for public speaking and declined to go into politics as his parents desired. He prefers to be hands-on, making sure the streets are safe. Reluctant to enforce Volstead because he knows people will never give up on alcohol just because it's a law. Stresses himself out and overworks.

Secretary Pelegeyna Sergeyevna is a brilliant problem solver but in 1920's Penacony has to be satisfied as a court and police stenographer and dictationist. She secretly writes newspaper articles and mails them to the local editor under a pseudonym. Gepard surreptitiously asks her opinion on cases and evidence etc so she can help without visibly helping.

Serval Landau is a renowned musician, often off travelling and performing in various famous venues. There are few instruments she can't at least play a little well. She much prefers the mechanics of them, however, tuning and repairing pianos when not performing, restoring old violins she purchases at auctions, etc. When she returns home, she and Lynx often wander around under the guise of 'taking a walk' and 'talk shop' because it's so discouraged at home. Gepard keeps a few things for her to fix when she's around.

Dan Feng - eldest son of Dan Jiahao, poised to take over his father's military clique when the old man retires and expand their influence through conquest and alliance. An accomplished fighter, Rider, and tactician, the apple of his father's eye. Develops a crush on the blacksmith's daughter after discovering it is she, not her father, who makes the most elegant and highest quality weapons for their clique.

Dan Heng - Dan Feng's younger brother, always in his shadow, resentful, and protests he does not care for his father's attention. Resents Jin Yingxing for falling for his golden boy brother and then disrupting the functionality of their clique by running away to kill herself after his brother's death.

"Luocha"/"Louis Chandler"/what the fuck is your real name dude - a herbalist and apothecarist who traveled the world researching leads on human resurrection to no avail. eventually settles back in Penacony with Ren, where they cavort with wildfire, rich elites, organized crime families and more who want use of their connections and concoctions. He also abandoned his name and family because of a significant death and he and Ren grow a deep, ineffable connection.

Jin Yingxing/"Ren"s story needs a rework but she starts out as the blacksmith's daughter, her mother passed when she was a baby so he dotes on her quite a bit. Yingxing knows he's not actually a girl but his work is more important than upsetting the social mores (and Dan Feng loves and accepts all that he is 😌) and secretly builds, maintains and repairs the best weapons for Dan Jiahao and his soldiers in the back of Jin Aiwei's smithy. As for how we get to Penacony from here.... TBA!

Feixiao - a rival warlord to Dan Jiahao. legendary skill in battle, and feared for her "innovative" (some might say insane) tactics and fierce fighting.

Jingluo - Feixiao's spymaster, the one who abducts Yingxing for their own blacksmithing purposes. Does a lot of Feixiao's dirty work and all of her own. Feared for her lethality, ice cold demeanor and sharp insights.

Moze and Jiaoqiu retain their positions as her bodyguard and personal doctor. 👍 haven't done much with them yet but Jiaoqiu is the one Luocha visits to learn from his extensive knowledge of Chinese medicine. (nothing doing for resurrection tho rip) Moze is usually not visible but will appear instantaneously if something threatens his general's safety.

Yingxing bit into the dessert and closed his eyes in satisfaction, letting the sweet and savory flavor play over his tongue. "Thank you," he said eventually, turning his face up to meet Dan Feng's gaze. He loved the way Dan Feng looked at him, like it was only the two of them in the entirety of the cosmos. He extended his hand, and Dan Feng held it in both of his own.

"We'll be leaving early in the morning."

"Mm. I finished Cloud-piercer this afternoon. Check it before you go."

Dan Feng grinned. "Check your work? I hardly feel the need."

Yingxing snorted, and leaned his head against Dan Feng's shoulder. "I know my work is impeccable, but you need to make sure it feels right in your hands again since I made adjustments to the grip."

"Ah, I see, it is I who is lacking."

They dissolved into giggles and then fell into amicable silence.

"Dan Feng..."

"Yes, Starlight?"

Yingxing blushed. He cleared his throat quietly. "If you're to leave early, shouldn't you be asleep instead of meeting with me?"

"Your presence is more restful to me than even the clouds of heaven," Dan Feng murmured, pressing a kiss to his head.

"That's not fair."

Dan Feng pulled away to look at him, confused.

Yingxing gazed at him, trying not to smile. "When you say things like that it makes me want to kiss your face all over."

"Well?" Dan Feng challenged, with an eager look. "Do it then."

Yingxing steeled his nerves and took Dan Feng's face in his hands, nudging him forward to press his lips to his forehead, his temple, eyebrow, cheeks, nose, chin... everywhere but his lips. Dan Feng closed his eyes and bore all of this with a besotted smile.

"Yingxing..."

He drew them together and pressed his lips against Yingxing's, savoring him slowly, as if it were the last time he could.

Yingxing's eyes opened slowly as he pulled away.

He smiled, just a little bit dizzy from Dan Feng's lips, his hands, his presence. "Go to bed, little prince, and dream of me. Dream of us. Come back to me after your campaign, and I will kiss you all you like."

"Now it is impossible for my morale to falter," Dan Feng murmured. He placed a kiss upon Yingxing's forehead and stood, offering him a hand up from the grass. "I will return to you victorious, for my prize."

Yingxing couldn't help a smile. "Go, or you will tarry all night telling me such sweet things."

Metal folded respectfully beneath his careful hands, inlay slotted with perfect balance at his direction; leather lay smooth and perfect beneath his stitches. He inspected the gleam and beauty of each piece as carefully as he inspected its balance and heft. Jin's smithy did not produce substandard weapons, and even repaired weapons of other make left here better than they left their maker's hands. And this sort of art required focus and a lack of interruptions from nosy grit-nosed soldiers.

The curtain soothed the questions of the simple, and gave him a barrier for his sanctuary of creation.

Most people let it pass unnoticed, assuming it was Jin Aiwei's private studio or office in which to do bookkeeping.

Dan Feng was not most people. Nosy, Yingxing would call him. Big-headed, self-important. He may be Dan Jiahao's son and perfectly poised to take his father's place as the Luofu clique's military leader, but he was still young, with limited experience in battle.

Perhaps he would mellow with age and experience, as Dan Jiahao reportedly had done. Yingxing snorted. Yeah, right.

“Is someone else here?”

Yingxing's head perked up, startled. He'd forgotten Dan Feng was going over weapon needs for his soldiers with his father in the main smithy.

“Oh, no, that may have been my kettle rattling from the boil. I forget it, sometimes.”

Yingxing heard her father's footsteps shuffling towards the curtain. “Oh, please don't bother yourself, my lord--”

Yingxing looked up as the curtain was hauled back. He sat calmly and looked at the little princeling with what he hoped was a neutral face and not annoyance or disgust.

“You?” Dan Feng's bright jade gaze wandered down to the tools in front of him, and the half-finished spear haft. He turned to furrow his brows at Aiwei. “Explain what's going on here.”

Yingxing exchanged awkward glances with her father.

“Dan Feng, this is my daughter Yingxing. She has a brilliant knack for smithing, inlay, leatherwork... if it can be forged, she can make it better even than me. This is how we've been filling repair requests so quickly.”

Dan Feng returned his gaze to Yingxing's defiant face. “And why your other apprentices stay at the other end of the forge, I assume.”

“That's... more a matter of how the smithy is arranged, actually.”

Dan Feng looked down at Yingxing's current work again. “What is it?” he asked.

“The haft of a spear.” Yingxing gritted his teeth. “Would my lord care to inspect it?”

When Dan Feng held his hand out, Yingxing placed the leather grip in his palm. The air in the smithy was heavy, waiting for Dan Feng's assessment.

He turned the handle over, testing the grip, and then inspected the inlay work carefully. “There are masters with grey hairs who do not create such polished beauty,” he murmured. He held out the haft delicately to Yingxing again.

Yingxing accepted it with a small bow. “Thank you for your gracious compliments.”

Dan Feng left them with a curious smile, and Aiwei sighed. “I'm glad he did not become angry,” he said quietly, wiping his sweating face with a handkerchief.

“Hmm...” Yingxing was still contemplating the curious smile Dan Feng had given him, and the curious, almost serene way he inspected the haft.

“Yingxing...Yingxing?”

Yingxing drew her attention back up to her father.

“Yes?”

Aiwei smiled. “That was a wonderful compliment he gave you, no? I'm glad he recognized your work. I wish you could be the most famous smith in the land... maybe one day they will tell the legend of Yingxing, like they do of Mo Ye."

Yingxing couldn't help a grin. “Father... please... I'm satisfied if I like my work, and if they perform as intended in battle.”

“Well, there's no worry in that,” Aiwei said with a little giggle, tucking his handkerchief away and ambling back towards his anvil. “Your weapons never even chip!”

"I'm sorry, my dear," Luocha said tiredly, sitting at their low table across from him. "I'd had no idea he'd be bringing anyone along, much less his… lovely, daughter." There were wrinkles of irritation in his own usually flawless countenance, and Ren noted with some relief that it wasn't just his own regular annoyance with visitors. The two visitors together had been a social nightmare.

They'd made it out alive without either tripping into a marriage arrangement or breaking their trade agreements, but it was a close thing. Luocha rubbed some tension out of his wrist absent-mindedly.

"I didn't come this far out from under my father's thumb just to cave to some drunken troll of a peddler," he murmured.

Ren choked on a gulp of tea, coughed, and began to laugh. Luocha smiled at him fondly. Ren held his gaze and then lowered his own, staring through the table. "There's only one person I'd consider marrying."

Luocha nodded, sobering. His long-ago betrothed, Dan Feng. They should, by now, have been married for some time, had Dan Feng not perished in battle before the wedding. The two living men both carried ghosts, and Luocha could hardly begrudge Ren a torch carried for someone who was no threat to him.

Ren reached across the table, taking Luocha's chilly hands in his own, rubbing some warmth into his palms gently. "What are you thinking of?" Ren murmured.

"I'm grateful to have met you… but if your Dan Feng had lived, I would never have gotten the chance. I suppose I feel guilty for thinking I prefer having met you."

Ren gave a little scoff under his breath. "Things can't be changed by wishing. If they could, I'd be a warlord's wife by now." He held Luocha's hands tighter, and looked at him pointedly. "I like things as they are now."

Luocha smiled again, but faintly. They'd had this conversation several times since Ren had told him of his past.

Ren peered at him carefully, then sighed. "You still don't understand. I wasn't speaking of Dan Feng. I want to marry you, you ridiculous man."

"Oh." Heat gathered in Luocha's cheeks, and his smile widened. "I'd…" He cleared his throat. "I'd like that very much."

"Good." Ren's smile was small, but there was a sparkle in his eye that belied some giddiness. "I will find an auspicious date to make the proposal properly, then."