Origin: Springfield, Massachusetts
Formerly: Low-Level Criminal
Dexterity: Weaponry, Combat, Communications, Engineering + Mechanics
Inability: Botany, Textiles, Techonology
TRIGGER WARNINGS: Death, violence, and a subtle reference to sexual assault.
Fox can’t remember a time in her life that isn’t clouded with violence and tragedy. Though she likes to fantasize about the first four years of her life and fill them with cupcakes, playgrounds, and nursery rhymes, her first real memory is the anxious whisper of her mother’s voice telling her not to come out until she came for her. It’s the feeling of her mother’s blood splattering across her face through the slits in the closet door. It’s the memory of how she stood so quiet and so still for so long that it took the police at the crime scene a full hour to realize she was there. For Fox, her life began the night her mother was killed in a home invasion.
For several years after, things became a shuffle from one foster home to the next. She was introduced into one family and stayed just long enough to be berated and ignored before she was off to the next one. With her bright eyes and thick, curly blonde hair, social services had been confident that she would be adopted right away. But, as it turned out, most families were hesitant to take in a little girl who said her favorite color was blood red because it reminded her of her mother. And as she grew older and bolder with her statements, chances of adoption became slimmer and slimmer.
At 8, Fox met Nikolai. A Russian boy two years her senior, Nikolai was everything that Fox wanted to be. He was charismatic, funny, tough. He had a joke for every occasion and said anything that came to mind. While their foster mother guzzled boxes of wine, Nikolai made sure Fox was always taken care of. And, more importantly, in a neighborhood where even deadbolts couldn’t keep people from breaking in, he taught her to fight for herself. The two became extremely close, thinking of each other as siblings despite their lack of blood relation.
Four years later, the cops were knocking at the door and Nikolai was shoving his old leather jacket into Fox’s hands, telling her everything would be okay. The boy had gotten himself into more trouble than he bargained for and, just like that, he was packaged up in silver handcuffs and swept away in flashing red and blue lights. And Fox was passed along to a new foster home.
With Nikolai in juvie, Fox shrugged into his old leather jacket and decided it was time for her to take care of herself. In a strange way, she adopted many of his personality traits: his humor, his confidence, his need to cause trouble. She developed a survivalist mentality, doing anything she could in order to keep herself afloat. And before long, she became exceedingly good at it; her sandpaper fingertips slipping wallets from pockets and food from food carts with a coy smile and an innocent flash of her bright eyes.
After an incident with one of her foster “fathers”, Fox decided enough was enough. Sixteen years old and with no place to go, she found herself on the front steps of Nikolai’s new flat. The place was a hole-in-the-wall, filled to the brim with sketchy drifters and low-end criminals, but it quickly became her home. She found herself blending in with the misfits that surrounded her. Each of them had a skillset to teach her and, by the time she was legal, Fox had become a jack of all trades – drug dealing, gambling, thievery, hustling, you name it. And, for a while, things seemed to be okay.
When the infection hit, Fox and Nikolai had been on the other coast, checking out a coke supplier in Los Angeles. The first news of it came from the mouth of the supplier as he boarded up his windows and doors and forbade anyone from coming or going. Believing it all to be the ramblings of a drug addict, Nikolai and Fox didn’t take the announcement seriously. The actual realization occurred barely a day later, when one of the addicts dragged itself into Fox’s room and attacked her. And in what had to be purely instinct, Nikolai let off a round of shots into the guy without hesitation.
Not sparing a moment for shock or awe, Fox and Nikolai were in their car and putting as much distance as possible between themselves and LA. The announcement on the radio to head into the big cities was precisely why they knew they couldn’t stay – that was where everyone would be. A few days later, they heard from some other survivors that their intuition had been right and all of the major cities had been bombed. Hopeful that things would be better across the border, the pair decided to make a break for Canada.
Although they had originally planned to keep to themselves, their dwindling food and ammo supply was having them reconsider. They stumbled on a fairly large group of survivors that had taken over a campground in Oregon and decided to lay low there for a while.
After a few weeks, Fox and Nikolai had become figureheads of their small camp. With their looting and weaponry skills, they kept the camp well-stocked and protected. But they were hardly prepared for what came for them. Upon their return from a routine looting mission, Fox and Nikolai came back to find their campground overrun with the infected, the people they had tried to protect torn to shreds. Before they could process the chaos, mutated faces had already turned on them. And by the time they had caught their breath, hours of running later, it was too late. Nikolai held up his arm to reveal a jagged bite mark and both of them knew what had to be done. So Fox shot him.
With her brother gone, Fox knew she needed to find another group to team up with. There had been talk of a safe zone in Washington and, with her brain set to autopilot, she hotwired a car and headed that way. By the time she reached Fall City, Fox was so covered in dirt and blood that she was nearly shot for being an infected. But after she coughed up a snarky “Take me to your leader” and a thorough scan of her body turned up clean, she was officially a Fall City resident.
However, after only a short time in Fall City, Fox went missing. What had started as a wild, reckless goose chase to find sour gummy worms turned into a months-long barricade in a convenience store. With no company except a few rotting corpses and a lot of gas station wine, the isolation wasn’t the best for Fox’s mental health. But in a final suicide run that turned out surprisingly lucky, Fox escaped and returned to Fall City once again.
Siren Lithgow: Back when the world belonged to the living, Fox and Nikolai frequented concerts and local shows in the Boston area. And being the type of people they were, they met quite a few colorful characters – Siren Lithgow among them. Whenever she was in town, Siren was a frequent and valued customer of the pair. So valued, in fact, that Fox often found the musician sprawled out in Nikolai’s bed in the wee hours of the morning.
Cole Corvell: No stranger to the drug and arms dealing world, the name “Corvell” had been familiar to Fox before her arrival in Fall City. Though she keeps her knowledge of Corvo and who he is to herself, she keeps a wary eye on the man whose reputation most definitely precedes him.
Lori Taylor: Before her disappearance from Fall City, Lori had become someone Fox fiercely cared for and wanted to protect. She spent a lot of her time away worrying about the blonde and hoping she would return home and find the girl in one piece and not too angry about Fox’s reckless and stupid behavior.
