Thread:ThisIsXenon/@comment-32273133-20181231004208/@comment-32273133-20190127221804

—Damian sometimes sends Micah flirty/sexy texts like “I want you against a wall and moaning my name”

—But occasionally he’ll send them to the wrong person, i.e.:

Damian:  I want you against a wall and moaning my name

Calidi: uh??????

~

Damian: I want you against a wall and moaning my name

Clay:  have you told Micah about this?

~

Damian:  I want you against a wall and moaning my name

Chan:  I’m flattered? but check who you’re texting

Awkwardness ensues

Stuff about Clay before Hester grabbed him

—he lived with his dad and his aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents in a communal home

—his aunts and uncles kept their distance from Enoch and Clay because Clay was a “heathen child” and a bad influence on their daughters

—those daughters teased him and tripped him when he walked by and generally made him feel terrible

—the male cousins were assholes and were more physical with their bullying

—stealing stuff and kicking him around and beating him up when he tried to hit back and defend himself

—he had a bunch of cousins

—all of their names started with E

—it was a Tambien tradition that Enoch and Sil broke when Clay came along

—so theres Evan and Eric and Edmund and Edward and Eugene and Ernest and Emma and Erin and Equila and Esther and etc.

—Clay and his dad stuck together all the time for Clay’s safety and Enoch’s peace of mind

—they had one room in the communal house that they shared, didn’t stay there during the day often because of noise and lots of interruptions

—like Micah and Melody, they were outsiders

—it’s worth noting that Hester’s fire was enchanted/engineered not to hurt her, and by extension, her family

—this is the only reason Clay survives the fire

—it might seem kind of her, however she only did this because she wanted to kill her family personally

—headcanon that Micah and Damian are trying to find a closet to make out in and the first one they come across is occupied by none other than Clay and Calidi

—everyone but Damian is embarrassed

—Clay’s super flustered and is like “do you mind???”

—Calidi’s scandalised that someone saw them

—Micah slams the door shut without replying and Damian’s trying not to laugh

Ok, so about Hester

—first things first, she is a literal psychopath

—She has antisocial personality disorder (disregard for and violation of the rights of others, not being a recluse), lacks empathy (though she’s good at faking it, see the backstory fic), is calculating, manipulative, and violent

—she has no respect for how society works, and whatever “home training” she retains starts to wear off as soon as she kills her family

—not when she first runs away, not when she starts assassin training, not when she kills her mentor, it’s when she kills her family in the fire that it all really starts

—before her family was kind of a nagging in the back of her head, they were the voice that kept reminding her of morality and dignity and stuff

—once she killed them, it “cleaned” her of their influence and she felt she could live how she wanted

—so she’s doing what she wants more now, but at the same time she knows she’s got to be somewhat empathetic or seem that way in order to gain the trust of her groups, so she does

—this lasts for 3ish years

—Hester’s personality/usual mood went through three stages

—Stage one would be from the first to the fourth [I'm gageing this with Micah’s age because he’s one of the ones who feels the effects of this the most, so from when he was 10 to 13] and this is where she’s semi-normal, trying to gain trust, empathetic, harsh on people about morally bad things, pushing people to train but knowing when to stop, etc.

—Stage two is really revealed around the same time the Bahari assignment happens, and this is where she becomes cold and reclusive and leaves the assassins to mostly their own devices

—it’s year four to year six [Micah 13/14-16]

—big developments happen here—> Cyrus’s eye has finally fully healed, Xerxes gets his leg blown off, JASPER starts being a cyber-focused team, Clay is coming to terms with the fact that he’s very much in love with Micah [something he’s gotten over now] plus he’s come out to Cyrus, Hanoi is trying out drag for the first time, Korin’s abuse is staring, at the tail end of this is when Percy and Trin first meet

—Presumably all this is happening because of Hester’s distance

—Stage three is year six to year eight, and it starts riiiight before the Incident

—[Micah 16-18]

—Hester’s purpose for the Incident was to get Micah back in line because he’d been more autonomous and believed he could do things by himself

—plus she wanted Clay under wraps as well because he’d been influenced by Micah

—[its worth noting that she’s also a sadist—> she gets pleasure from other people’s pain]

—The Incident was never a real assignment, it was a setup to have everything fall into place in order to push Micah back and spirit Clay away

—So the plan was to “subdue rebels” or something equally sketchy [the KGA was actually near schism at this point so maybe it wasn’t super out of the blue]

—Micah and Clay had to swim across a freezing, fast-moving river at midnight, meet a contact, who’d tell them the rest of the info

—Clay felt that something was up but you don’t question something Hester tells you unless you want to die, so when she told him to back off asking questions, he did

—she’s worried he might end up being able to fight off the people she’s using to capture him and separate him from Micah, so she weakens him by putting a light poison in his food the day before that throws him off

—She doesn’t worry about Micah though, not knowing that he genuinely cares about Clay and doesn’t want him to die, so she does nothing to him yet

—Clay’s off-kilter throughout the assignment so that’s why he gets separated from Micah and Micah “loses” him, is “punished” [tortured, really], and used as an example for what not to do

—he’s out of commission [no assignments, no training, no appearances out with Hester] for a month

—the rest of the ennead minus Midori [bc he doesn’t know what to do, he feigns not caring] and Trin [bc they’re with Percy a lot at this point] take care of him

—the whip wounds are deep and no one has access to modern medicine so it takes a really long time for him to heal

—meanwhile, Hester is going through personality change number three

—this is the point where you can tell she’s getting unstable

—before during stage two she was alone a lot and people didn’t see her much, so her instability was well hidden

—But the Incident was the straw that broke the camel’s back and now just by being around her and listening to her talk and react to stuff you can tell something is up

—here’s where I introduce another antagonistic character:  Terran Farrier

—he’s in a group of assassins who get the assignments where an large group of people need to die

—Terran’s both an asshole and a dangerous enemy, and he’s allied himself closely with Hester because he knows that’s how he’ll get power after her inevitable demise.

—nothing can last forever, and Terran’s always happy to speed it up a bit

—so he’s getting close to her:  going on missions with her, organising other missions  and client lists whenever she asks, getting blood money for her to spend on whatever she wants, warming her bed, etc.

—she sees right though him but doesn’t tell him so he thinks he’s clever

—and sure it’s great to her what he’s doing but she knows why he’s doing it and would much rather it be Micah doing it—all of it.

—she’s got this obsession with making Micah completely submissive to her

—maybe because she’s got everyone else exactly where she wants them and he’s the only one out of place

=end part one of this very long thing=