Character Info: Liora (Lute) Sterling
Verse: Band AU, Fighting for Redemption Verse Age: 26 (27 When she dies in FFR verse) Birthdate: January 14 (Deathdate in FFR Verse: January 21) Hair Color: Platinum Blonde Eye Color: Amber Brown Height: 5'2" Nationality: French IQ: 237 Sinner Characteristics: Skunk Ears and Tail
Childhood:
Liora Aurélie Risette Sterling was born to Philippe and Bernadette Sterling, wealthy French citizens living in America off her father's inheritance. Their daughter showed signs of high intelligence at an early age, targeted toward musical savantism. Her parents' existing wealth allowed them to foster that natural ability and her skills were rapidly mastered. By the age of 6, she began to compose small piano or violin pieces. By 8 she was composing full movements.
Her parents decided that, with Philippe's inheritance running low, they could capitalize off their daughter's talent and began publishing her work under their names. The child was none the wiser for most of her childhood, only wondering why her father demanded she continue to write and examined her work to either take it or destroy it. Liora grew up in a beautiful mansion, with elegant clothing and food and house staff to tend to her, all paid for by her without ever knowing.
The young composer hardly ever saw her parents, who mostly lived in Paris but would return to the house where Liora resided every few months to check on her work. She was tutored at home and extremely isolated, forbidden from leaving the house unless for approved reasons. She learned English and French as her primary languages but went on to learn the rest of the major operatic languages as she began to compose larger projects, including German, Italian, Spanish, and Russian.
Liora loves music. It is her every waking and dreaming thought, her mind constantly operating in notes and time signatures. It is hard for her to think about anything else. She has learned to play over 100 instruments, either gifted to her from her parents or borrowed from various colleagues of theirs. She only wishes she could branch out into other genres. Her parents are very strict about only playing and writing classical music, for reasons unknown to her.
Adolescence:
When Liora was 13, she came across some mail addressed to her parents, open on the table. It was a letter from their publishers for approval on a new album. Investigating it, she had the horrifying realization that every song listed was hers. There was no credit given to her and by the wording of the letter, it was not the first. This threw the girl into a breakdown, immediately showing it to her tutor, one of the few trusted people that had stayed in her life and demanding he tell her if he knew of it and if he was involved. Neither applied. This outraged the man, and he promised her he would get to the bottom of it, but when he confronted her parents, he was immediately fired, unable to even say goodbye to his student of 7 years. Liora heard nothing about him further; he was simply gone.
Upon finding out that they had isolated her even further, taking away one of the only stable people in her life, she demanded her parents give her freedom, using this newfound knowledge against them. She was the one who made the family money; she had the upper hand. She agreed to continue composing for them if they left her alone and allowed her to socialize and finish her schooling in the local public school. If not, she wouldn't touch another piano for the rest of her life, even if it meant going broke. Her parents, backed into a corner, agreed.
She enrolled there for the following year. In an attempt to fit in and hide her identity, she went by the name Lute and tried her hardest to not stand out, to no avail. Her transcripts were far beyond the courses offered and though she was given classes to participate in, she was not obligated to go to them as long as she passed her tests and took the state tests to raise the school's scores. (It's crazy what they'll do for funding). Along with her elaborate clothing, odd way of speaking, and absolutely zero social knowledge, this put a target on her back from the other students and she was bullied relentlessly. Until she met Atom and GG, two delinquent boys two grades above her.
Atom (Ahab J. Constantine) and GG (Gregg Chapman), two Junior boys known for breaking the rules, getting into fights, bad grades, and all-around tomfoolery, met Lute while skipping class and coming across her outside reading. They sat next to her and proceeded to talk, inviting her into their conversation as if she had been part of their friend group forever. She did not respond. From then on, every time they saw her, they hung around her and included her in their conversations, lunch, and idiocy until she finally responded and officially transformed the duo into a trio.
From then on they were inseparable; she practically lived at Atom's house. GG gave her some of his old clothes so she could look like a normal teenager; they introduced her to rock music and it was then that she decided what she truly wanted. What she desired only for herself. Not to be her parent's ghost composer, their golden goose. She wanted to play rock music. She wanted more than anything to be free and "badass" and play the electric guitar on stage.
In two years, the boys graduated, leaving her to finish her high school experience alone. They made a band together and went off to get famous, while she went to college in NYC, spending six years studying Voice and Composition until she had a master's in the former and a doctorate in the latter. A lot changed in those six years; the boys broke up their band, turning from best friends since preschool to bitter rivals hell-bent on outdoing the other in the music scene. Aside from holidays she occasionally returned for, they had not seen much of Lute during that time, unknowing of an entire life she lived in secret there and adopting a whole new look and a much different personality than when she left.
Current Day:
When she graduated, she took GG's offer to move back home and be the lead guitarist and songwriter of his new band, leaving her old life in New York for a new exciting one in Seattle with her two best friends... at each other's throats and in the same position she was when she left: writing music for someone else. Even if it was GG, not being able to take credit for her work and being stuck in the middle of the two people she loved most wore her down until eventually the partying caught up to her and she found herself with severe depression and a heroin addiction she couldn't let anyone else know about.
How long she can survive under these conditions is a mystery but to everyone looking at her, she's living the dream. A badass rocker, lead guitarist of a real band where she plays on stage every week just like her 15-year-old self always wanted. Holding secrets that eat away at her bit by bit as she hides her true identity from the only people that matter to her. Her parents think she's missing. Her friends don't even know who she is. And her consciousness is filled with music notes and withdrawals until her next high.
Link to Fighting For Redemption Verse Info
