Meet ADAIR ALIGHERI. They are FOUR HUNDRED AND FORTY years old and hail from LONDON, ENGLAND. Adair embodies the star, MERAK. They use she/her pronouns. Their faceclaim is SAOIRSE RONAN.
Merak reminds me of the thankless existence of those without faith. for what hope can there be in the promise of oblivion when the void ( greedy, gaping maw ) is always there, always devouring? the liminal space of the human soul. shoes tilting between death and undeath over the edge of that void, that abyss. an entire wardrobe from primark. the nonchalance that comes with chewing gum. limber fingers playing ‘the tower’ by ludovico einaudi. your song must end soon, but the story never ends. the roll of a camera. a new youth of rental-films and horror novels. dream diaries. must be something in the water, or that you’re your mother’s daughter. .
BIOGRAPHY
Those are the words inked into Adair Alighieri’s skin — at least, that’s her surname this time — and a maxim she has lived by since she was very young indeed.
Her mother updates her, when it changes, but this has been static for some time now. Adair wonders whether that means she has finally found the person she is meant to be — if such a thing exists for her — and if it’s a sign that one day she will find it too.
( Both are, she realises, equally unlikely. )
While Lysandra does not remember her age or where she was born, Adair knows.
She’s four hundred and forty years old, and she was born shortly before an absolutely brilliant escape from the Tower of London after Elizabeth I of England finally caught on to the fact that her mother had been causing mayhem at the court for the past several years.
After all, said mother was quite attached to her head — in more ways than one — and wanted it to stay that way.
Now as one can imagine, Lysandra was never going to be a stellar parent. In fact, she did just about what she was expected to do, paid off a lord handsomely to take in said child, and disappeared before 'Queenie’ could decide to persist in taking off her head.
( Back to the mayhem: counselling the Queen on her relationship with her 'favourite,’ particularly after he got secretly married; encouraging her to banish the earl’s new wife from court in a moment of jealousy, and… sleeping with said Earl herself, just to be dramatic. When Lysandra says she fucked up the Elizabethan court, she means it; and that’s where little Adair came from. )
Lysandra had a well-established habit of corresponding by letter, and this was no such exception; Adair grew up knowing who her mother was, hiding the longer ones with descriptions of wild exploits from those raising her, until she got her mark and her powers.
Unable to control it, the family became plagued by nightmares while Adair soundly slept, and she described these at length. It didn’t take Lysandra particularly long to understand what was up with that and return for her then-sixteen year old daughter, seeing the mark of Merak; after her departure, the lord began spreading rumours of witchcraft, noticing that the nightmares left with the mysterious woman and her daughter.
When she arrived, Lysandra found notebooks in which her daughter had documented the nightmares, and as they travelled — Adair meeting those who wrote, and crafted creatively by means such as plays — she found a habit she’s persisted in to this day: testing out her ideas on people to see if they were sufficiently fear-fuelled.
Whether they travelled together or apart, they’ve definitely always been very aware of the 'like mother like daughter’ nature of their chaos for the last centuries, happy to encounter and re-encounter one another when they separated without much planning.
Both being drawn to chaos seemed to help with that.
It’s never been a typical family relationship, no, but for them it works.
Adair has tested out being young many times, going to university in various countries to take courses in writing & filmmaking and spectating the work of the greats.
Adair found her favourite time from the 70s onwards, back in London where she was born. A lot of things about the self she chose baffles Lysandra: the Primark wardrobe, the Walkman, the ferocity of her musical reviews. But she once said 'music is my Dostoevsky’ and then her mother simply nodded and seemed to get it.
( She tested out acting, sure, to get onto sets with the biggest directing names, but found that writing films was the best way to go. )
The difference between Lysandra and Adair is she doesn’t necessarily relish in destroying what she’s built when she gets bored, and she gets bored far less often.
There are plenty of people, after all, and people have a myriad of fears to mould nightmare-worlds from.
INCLINATION
Merak is known for their abilities in nightmare magic. They can dream walk, yes, but their gifts lie in creating your worst imaginings come to life, at least in your sleep. The current Merak is a little bit too happy to make your worst nightmares come to life. Obviously, they sleep in a single dorm, but you’d better be careful if you decide to have a cat nap on the grounds.
CONNECTIONS
Filling the role of Verena Bahk’s Secret Thing.
Filling the role of Emmett Stephenson’s Jam Session.
Favourite Victim: For some reason, this person draws Adair in; their reactions are particularly vivid, or they just have particularly insane nightmares, or maybe they’re actually a horror movie buff who enjoys what Adair does in a sort of twisted way.
Penned by Shannon ★
