OC Backstory
Apr. 30th, 2018 11:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
headcaseyCasey Dikawa's parents' marriage was arranged carefully. Her father, Trey Dikawa, was the younger brother of Queen Darla Dikawa of Shaldani. Although he was not in line for the throne--Shaldani's monarchy was matrilineal--any daughters he had might be and, as it was, Darla Dikawa already had three daughters, Aislin, Jacqui, and Becca. Therefore, Trey wasn't married off until late in life, to a much-younger woman named Laura Deavere from a minor noble house. Hopes that he would have no daughters were squashed, since Casey managed to be born. Given that Trey was twice Laura's age and didn't have much o interest in her, it was whispered that he couldn't possibly be the father. All the same, Trey claimed Casey as his own.
Which wasn't to say he was father of the year. He was negligent at best.
Casey's childhood was a relatively isolated one, her parents spending the bulk of their time traveling as diplomats on behalf of her aunt, the queen. Nannies came and went. And Casey outgrew her tutors at an alarming rate. Ultimately, the only constant guiding force in her childhood was her bodyguard, a constable named Gerard. It was largely through Gerard's influence that Casey was exposed to children her own age at all, as Gerard would often bring her to the royal nursery to spend time with her cousins. It was also because of Gerard that Casey was able to find suitable replacements, each time the young genius outpaced one of her tutors.
For all of her loneliness, or perhaps because of it, Casey developed a sharp mind from an early age. She read voraciously, becoming fascinated with the disciplines of chemistry, alchemy, and biology. Although Shaldani was considered something of a "backwater kingdom," it was home to one of the finest scientific academies of the realm and it wasn't long before Casey's books came mostly from The Academy.
At the age of thirteen, Casey was given medical treatments to render her sterile, so as to avoid any confusion in the line of succession. No one asked Casey, or even warned her about what was going to happen. Gerard was deeply opposed to this and resigned in fury. Rather than find a suitable replacement for him, Casey's family elected to send her to The Academy, where she could study under a realm expert in alchemy and pharmacy, Ruth Massie. While Casey enjoyed her studies with Ruth, she found them somewhat limiting, and started trying to find ways to combine what she was learning with other disciplines. Her experiments, often explosive in nature, resulted nevertheless in some sophisticated, traps, barriers, concealments, and locks. She published some treatises, under the name "Casey Deavere."
Aside from the fact that the Dikawa family didn't want her socializing or marrying, Casey developed into a socially awkward creature, more comfortable with her experiments than other people. She had no friends and couldn't carry on conversations in a straightforward, linear fashion most of the time. It made her diplomatically useless. And it was very likely that Casey would have spent the rest of her life in scientific isolation, content to have only her books and potions for company.
Unfortunately, the gods had other plans in mind.
As wars came and went among the other kingdoms of the realm, Shaldani remained a fairly neutral territory, in large part due to the reliance other kingdoms had on Shaldanite grain. Because of this, Shaldani never developed a strong military force, instead emphasizing internal policing with localized constabularies. Perhaps, for this reason, Shaldani became the first (and only) target of an insurgence of extra-dimensional creatures known as "Ebene." Without a warning, the Ebene appeared around Shaldani's borders one day, erecting a magical force field that trapped insiders inside and outsiders outside. The Ebene relied on the "lifeforce" of humanoid creatures to survive. By isolating Shaldani, they effectively created what they hoped would be a chattel that they planned to survive off of for the next hundred years. Unfortunately for them, certain humanoids proved immune to their feeding and quickly started to form a resistance force known as the Phoenix Fighters.
Casey may have been one of the first to recognize this immunity, as she survived an early, direct attack on The Academy. Hoping to identify the cause of her immunity, she traveled Shaldani, intent to head back to Harper Palace where her family was last known to be. But she was distracted along the way.
In a boarding house, a few miles from Harper Palace, Casey met a group of survivors interested in fighting against the Ebene. They took her in and made her the head of their R&D. For a while, she went under her pen-name, trying to hide the fact that she was royalty from them. The truth eventually came out, but it ended up changing nothing. She'd been accepted as part of the family. They began to call themselves the "Phoenix Fighters," and like a phoenix, Casey's life seemed to start again, rising from some miserable ashes.
For the first time, Casey was no longer working alone. She was placed in charge of a small staff which included, among others, a young widower named Shawn Winter. Shawn and Casey were a complete mismatch from the start, but as eager and starved for attention as Casey was, she didn't realize the truth. The two of them eloped within a few months of knowing each other, without telling anyone, afraid that news of their marriage might reach the Dikawa family. From the beginning, their marriage was rocky. Shawn had a wandering eye while Casey desperately needed someone who belonged to her and her alone. Consequently, Shawn cheated on Casey a number of times, most significantly with a woman named Alexandra Sullivan, a member of the Phoenix Fighters with whom Casey had developed a close friendship. Alexandra--known as "Lex"--was intoxicated at the time. She later gave birth to a daughter with Shawn. This more or less estranged Casey from her husband, although it ended up bringing her closer to her friend.
Further complicating the marriage was the arrival of a foreigner named Quinn. At first, his arrival at the Phoenix House was treated as simply a matter of course. He was another refugee to be smuggled out of the kingdom. Before too long, however, Quinn revealed himself to be far more than he seemed. He was a Shadow Man, a member of a mysterious and powerful race from the Niflheim dimension. Once during their life, a Shadow Man may travel to the world and seek out a mate. Once he selects his mate, he can choose no other. The prospective mate has the option of staying home or coming with the Shadow Man. If this mate chooses to go with the Shadow Man, the memories of those who knew them would be altered to forget they ever existed. To everyone's surprise, Quinn had chosen Casey as his mate. And he went to some extreme measures to try to convince her go with him.
Ultimately, Casey out-smarted Quinn and managed to drive him away from the kingdom for a time, but Quinn was nothing if not a persistent suitor. His desperate need to win over Casey brought him back to the Phoenix Fighters again and again At times he was straightforward, hoping to woo her with gifts or offerings. At other times, he try to resort to trickery. Once, he used a cursed deck of playing cards that, when played with, would transform Casey bit by bit into a Niflheim each time someone lost a hand. All his plans fell through, in one way or another. But he kept coming back. And he even managed to save Casey's life a few times. Soon he, along with his cousin Tristan, had become something of unofficial helpers to the Phoenix Fighters. For the first time, Casey was able to view Quinn in a new light, not as a pest, but as someone capable of great change.
The two of them grew closer and Casey learned more about him. Quinn was an outcast, who'd lost the great love of his life and gone against the laws of his people to fulfill his deathbed promise to her that he would find love again. When he saw Casey the first time, he knew that she was the one he'd been waiting for. Casey was astonished by his devotion--such a stark contrast to what had happened with Shawn--but she was reluctant to engage with Quinn. He had tried to kidnap and manipulate her, after all. Finally, Quinn learned to respect her choice and the two became something closer to friends.
But Casey's heart belonged with the Phoenix Fighters. And the feeling was mutual. So mutual, in fact, that when Casey was severely wounded in an Ebene attack, her friends were so desperate to save her that they used Quinn's old, cursed deck of cards to transform her into a Niflheim, to prevent her from dying. It was better, they decided, to forget all about her than to lose her. But the plan only half-worked. The cards did transform Casey, but they didn't complete the ritual, leaving her somewhat unhinged and utterly incapable of dealing with her sudden emergence of supernatural abilities. For the first time, she could slip through shadows from one location to the next. She could create tangible, solid illusions that worked like ordinary objects. And she could hear the thoughts of everyone around her.
Unfortunately, she couldn't not hear those thoughts.
The invasive voices in her heads threatened to drive her crazy. Left without any other options, her friends gave her over to Quinn's custody. He took her to a plane between worlds in the multiverse, in order to recover. Once again, Casey was back in isolation, facing a crisis of immortality and identity.
Which wasn't to say he was father of the year. He was negligent at best.
Casey's childhood was a relatively isolated one, her parents spending the bulk of their time traveling as diplomats on behalf of her aunt, the queen. Nannies came and went. And Casey outgrew her tutors at an alarming rate. Ultimately, the only constant guiding force in her childhood was her bodyguard, a constable named Gerard. It was largely through Gerard's influence that Casey was exposed to children her own age at all, as Gerard would often bring her to the royal nursery to spend time with her cousins. It was also because of Gerard that Casey was able to find suitable replacements, each time the young genius outpaced one of her tutors.
For all of her loneliness, or perhaps because of it, Casey developed a sharp mind from an early age. She read voraciously, becoming fascinated with the disciplines of chemistry, alchemy, and biology. Although Shaldani was considered something of a "backwater kingdom," it was home to one of the finest scientific academies of the realm and it wasn't long before Casey's books came mostly from The Academy.
At the age of thirteen, Casey was given medical treatments to render her sterile, so as to avoid any confusion in the line of succession. No one asked Casey, or even warned her about what was going to happen. Gerard was deeply opposed to this and resigned in fury. Rather than find a suitable replacement for him, Casey's family elected to send her to The Academy, where she could study under a realm expert in alchemy and pharmacy, Ruth Massie. While Casey enjoyed her studies with Ruth, she found them somewhat limiting, and started trying to find ways to combine what she was learning with other disciplines. Her experiments, often explosive in nature, resulted nevertheless in some sophisticated, traps, barriers, concealments, and locks. She published some treatises, under the name "Casey Deavere."
Aside from the fact that the Dikawa family didn't want her socializing or marrying, Casey developed into a socially awkward creature, more comfortable with her experiments than other people. She had no friends and couldn't carry on conversations in a straightforward, linear fashion most of the time. It made her diplomatically useless. And it was very likely that Casey would have spent the rest of her life in scientific isolation, content to have only her books and potions for company.
Unfortunately, the gods had other plans in mind.
As wars came and went among the other kingdoms of the realm, Shaldani remained a fairly neutral territory, in large part due to the reliance other kingdoms had on Shaldanite grain. Because of this, Shaldani never developed a strong military force, instead emphasizing internal policing with localized constabularies. Perhaps, for this reason, Shaldani became the first (and only) target of an insurgence of extra-dimensional creatures known as "Ebene." Without a warning, the Ebene appeared around Shaldani's borders one day, erecting a magical force field that trapped insiders inside and outsiders outside. The Ebene relied on the "lifeforce" of humanoid creatures to survive. By isolating Shaldani, they effectively created what they hoped would be a chattel that they planned to survive off of for the next hundred years. Unfortunately for them, certain humanoids proved immune to their feeding and quickly started to form a resistance force known as the Phoenix Fighters.
Casey may have been one of the first to recognize this immunity, as she survived an early, direct attack on The Academy. Hoping to identify the cause of her immunity, she traveled Shaldani, intent to head back to Harper Palace where her family was last known to be. But she was distracted along the way.
In a boarding house, a few miles from Harper Palace, Casey met a group of survivors interested in fighting against the Ebene. They took her in and made her the head of their R&D. For a while, she went under her pen-name, trying to hide the fact that she was royalty from them. The truth eventually came out, but it ended up changing nothing. She'd been accepted as part of the family. They began to call themselves the "Phoenix Fighters," and like a phoenix, Casey's life seemed to start again, rising from some miserable ashes.
For the first time, Casey was no longer working alone. She was placed in charge of a small staff which included, among others, a young widower named Shawn Winter. Shawn and Casey were a complete mismatch from the start, but as eager and starved for attention as Casey was, she didn't realize the truth. The two of them eloped within a few months of knowing each other, without telling anyone, afraid that news of their marriage might reach the Dikawa family. From the beginning, their marriage was rocky. Shawn had a wandering eye while Casey desperately needed someone who belonged to her and her alone. Consequently, Shawn cheated on Casey a number of times, most significantly with a woman named Alexandra Sullivan, a member of the Phoenix Fighters with whom Casey had developed a close friendship. Alexandra--known as "Lex"--was intoxicated at the time. She later gave birth to a daughter with Shawn. This more or less estranged Casey from her husband, although it ended up bringing her closer to her friend.
Further complicating the marriage was the arrival of a foreigner named Quinn. At first, his arrival at the Phoenix House was treated as simply a matter of course. He was another refugee to be smuggled out of the kingdom. Before too long, however, Quinn revealed himself to be far more than he seemed. He was a Shadow Man, a member of a mysterious and powerful race from the Niflheim dimension. Once during their life, a Shadow Man may travel to the world and seek out a mate. Once he selects his mate, he can choose no other. The prospective mate has the option of staying home or coming with the Shadow Man. If this mate chooses to go with the Shadow Man, the memories of those who knew them would be altered to forget they ever existed. To everyone's surprise, Quinn had chosen Casey as his mate. And he went to some extreme measures to try to convince her go with him.
Ultimately, Casey out-smarted Quinn and managed to drive him away from the kingdom for a time, but Quinn was nothing if not a persistent suitor. His desperate need to win over Casey brought him back to the Phoenix Fighters again and again At times he was straightforward, hoping to woo her with gifts or offerings. At other times, he try to resort to trickery. Once, he used a cursed deck of playing cards that, when played with, would transform Casey bit by bit into a Niflheim each time someone lost a hand. All his plans fell through, in one way or another. But he kept coming back. And he even managed to save Casey's life a few times. Soon he, along with his cousin Tristan, had become something of unofficial helpers to the Phoenix Fighters. For the first time, Casey was able to view Quinn in a new light, not as a pest, but as someone capable of great change.
The two of them grew closer and Casey learned more about him. Quinn was an outcast, who'd lost the great love of his life and gone against the laws of his people to fulfill his deathbed promise to her that he would find love again. When he saw Casey the first time, he knew that she was the one he'd been waiting for. Casey was astonished by his devotion--such a stark contrast to what had happened with Shawn--but she was reluctant to engage with Quinn. He had tried to kidnap and manipulate her, after all. Finally, Quinn learned to respect her choice and the two became something closer to friends.
But Casey's heart belonged with the Phoenix Fighters. And the feeling was mutual. So mutual, in fact, that when Casey was severely wounded in an Ebene attack, her friends were so desperate to save her that they used Quinn's old, cursed deck of cards to transform her into a Niflheim, to prevent her from dying. It was better, they decided, to forget all about her than to lose her. But the plan only half-worked. The cards did transform Casey, but they didn't complete the ritual, leaving her somewhat unhinged and utterly incapable of dealing with her sudden emergence of supernatural abilities. For the first time, she could slip through shadows from one location to the next. She could create tangible, solid illusions that worked like ordinary objects. And she could hear the thoughts of everyone around her.
Unfortunately, she couldn't not hear those thoughts.
The invasive voices in her heads threatened to drive her crazy. Left without any other options, her friends gave her over to Quinn's custody. He took her to a plane between worlds in the multiverse, in order to recover. Once again, Casey was back in isolation, facing a crisis of immortality and identity.
