Meet HENRIETTE VASSEUR. They are ONE HUNDRED and THIRTY-SIX years old and hail from LILLE, FRANCE. Henriette embodies the star, DIPHDA. They use she/her pronouns and are currently employed as an FBI MAGIC LIAISON. Their faceclaim is DAKOTA JOHNSON.
Eridanus reminds me of patterned blazer over a band tshirt, red lipstick, high heels, the sound of ice rattling in an almost empty venti cold brew, an expensive chess set, a New York state of mind, dating older men, a black cat familiar, supplementing magic with technology, fluent in fifteen languages but most apt to just say “shut the fuck up” in response to everything, concluding a long day with a Vodka Tonic and a few rounds of Modern Warfare, knowing you’re lying by a single twitch, total aloofness, Devil’s Advocate, getting caught in the proverbial weeds of a situation, putting hot sauce on everything.
BIOGRAPHY
Although born in France, Henriette has spent very little time in her native country; daughter of a French diplomat, she’s traveled often and large chunks of time in different countries. I won’t bore you with the details of her childhood, as it was mostly just a blur of various boarding schools, pulling the Diplomatic Immunity card, and sneaking bottles of alcohol to get through boring dinners with career politicians and their families. Henry’s formative years had no tragedies, nor any majorly toxic family dynamics aside from a father who worked too much and a mother who liked to complain.
The only thing that stood out was the fact that she was wickedly smart, which likely explains her ridiculous superiority complex. Granted, when she was younger, there was nothing to say that this was tied to her magic; she was in a position where she could have a top tier education and a well rounded cultural experience, something that most of her peers didn’t have access to. Learning always came easy to her, though; she was the kid in class who’d be doodling in the back, not paying attention, but knew the answer anyway, delivered with an insufferable nonchalance. Various aptitude and IQ tests measured her incredible retention abilities and photographic memory. If Henry had ever really applied herself, she probably could’ve done great things; as it stood, she was honestly just bored more than anything else.
Henry could feel Diphda’s effects before she found the constellation just shy of her seventeenth birthday. With her sponsorship, Henriette could walk into a room and recognize the small details; the appearance of a fingerprint in the dust on a windowsill that wasn’t there yesterday, the way her calculus teacher’s gaze flicked to her for a millisecond every time they passed in the halls, the almost imperceptible way her dad’s tone shifted when he lied. It was, at first, an overwhelming sensation; she couldn’t do anything without her senses being bombarded, constantly distracted as her mind tried to sort out each and every situation. It’s still something she struggles with whenever she enters a hectic situation, but time and practice has made her better at weeding out at the more useless pieces of information.
The combination of her father’s job giving her status in both the mortal and magical realms and her sponsorship made her an early recruit for the government. The existence of witches is a well-kept secret amongst those in high power, but it’s also a dangerous balance to keep—tensions can be high and the disruption of these relations can cause a cascading series of problems, so witches are carefully sought after for these somewhat scarce positions. When she accepted the proposition for candidacy, Henry knew she was setting herself up for a difficult, high-pressured, yet lucrative career, and for the first time in her life, she actually… tried. A novel concept, I know.
Automatically given a full ride to study International Relations at Georgetown, Henry spent the next five years of her life in D.C. working alongside other recruits training her magic, martial arts, and weaponry skills. It was an intense program designed to weed out the weaker candidates, but early on in the process Henry recognized that she couldn’t imagine herself doing anything else, so she put her all behind it. After earning her degree, she was offered the opportunity to train at Quantico, followed by training with the magic bureau in Wisconsin. Upon completion, Henriette was offered the opportunity to replace the FBI liaison.
Henriette spends most of her days as a representative of both worlds’ interests, though is primarily brought in on cases when a witch is suspected of putting mortals in danger. Her career is her entire life—it’s all she’s ever been groomed for, the only thing she’s ever wanted to do, and it’s something she knows she’ll spend the rest of her life doing, if she can manage it. Her dedication to said career is what broke up her marriage. (Edward working for Polaris gives her the opportunity to be biased, and she could lose a lot of trust if anyone found out, so the divorce was prompt.)
In a hilarious turn of events, recently her work has prompted a (hopefully temporary) stay at Polaris Village, where she’s been instructed to do damage control after the recent curse disrupted a lot of the good mortal-magic relations between powers. Henriette isn’t thrilled about having to leave New York, but this could be the biggest opportunity she’s had yet, so—needless to say, Henry’s here to fuck shit up.
INCLINATION
Diphda cares not about a witch’s natural element, but rather only their mind; those sponsored by Diphda are naturally intelligent even without the use of their magic, and only after they’ve proven their superiority in that regard do they earn the mark. Diphda gifts the user the ability to notice and quickly analyze small, almost imperceptible details and easily commit them to memory. As a result, however, those sponsored by Diphda often have trouble looking at the big picture, making them somewhat easily susceptible to others’ ideas to give all of those details a higher purpose.
CONNECTIONS
Filling the role of Edward Vaughn’s Ex-Wife.
Filling the role of Irene Chen’s Cheat Codes.
Filling the role of Clarissa Aligheri’s Best Friend.
Penned by Ashley ★