I'm super curious about Antoine and Paloma's deals since I can't remember seeing much of anything about them. I'm mostly curious how they met the Frosts/January and Jasper?
Don't worry you're not misremembering I haven't made content for them yet skskkss that's part of the reason I put out feelers so I could get the motivation to actually do stuff with em
I could totally answer this for you though!
His parents Khenan and Tashelle Hill are scientists! Specifically cryptozoology, you have to remember that in this universe that's an actual justifiable field and not pseudoscience. Despite how many mainstream academics feel they're both qualified and fully trained. This isn't about them so I'll say more in the future but let's just say they raised him with a very open and adventurous mind.
Antoine is less of a scientist and more of an athlete with a scientific persuasion. He's usually a very rational person but his fun-loving side gave him the crazy idea of going into cave-diving. The ocean is a terrifying and demanding mistress but he'd love her til the day he died. He's a very compassionate person but not the type to let his emotions override logic. His level head allows Antoine to successfully be a diver who retrieves the bodies of his fallen peers. Ant is fully aware of how dangerous his profession is and he does his best to be careful, it'd eat away at him on the other side to know he left his parents to grieve. He's very much a homebody so despite needing to be near an ocean a lot of the time he still travels with his parents for their research.
This was how he met January.
His parents were looking for the Colorado Slide-Rock Bolter so he had the time to go swimming and diving in lakes he had never been in before. January often went back to visit the asylum that Juniper and Jane took over since it had the largest lake nearby. Coincidentally, the pair often crossed paths.
Well...more like January used her advanced swimming skill to stalk him like she usually did with humans while he went about his business. Yet she found she could never bring herself to devour him. She had plenty of opportunities to do so but January learned she'd rather watch him swim around like a kid with a goldfish.
Then one fateful day as Antoine swam he made a rookie mistake, he was too far down to swim back up quickly enough, his breathing tube was cut on a rock.
He was quickly losing oxygen and the last thing he saw before he lost consciousness was an apparition. She was so pale her skin was nearly clear, with eyes as black as the deepest parts of the sea.
Antoine imagined that this was his brain playing tricks on him while he was still able to form thoughts.
Yet he awoke on the ground coughing up water about half an hour later. He was definitely terrified of January once he got a real look at her but, in addition to saving his life, Ant had to admit something about her was hauntingly alluring.
The pair got to know eachother all night long, one of the things they had in common was wandering out by themselves to explore after all.
January was enamoured that a human could be as brave and strong as he was, despite being clearly scared of her the way he spoke about his life experiences showed that he had reverence and respect for "people" like her. Antoine was excited to hear her perspective. She could swim anywhere she wanted without having to worry about coming up for air. Not to mention her usual overly-serious way of wording things matched the way he felt about the water, it's majesty, it's power.
Antoine would still have to move along but January would follow and the pair would meet up at the closest body of water. She even made the rescue missions he would embark on a whole lot safer, it's not like any of them were alive, she was doing it for her man she didn't mind. They realized they would have to tell their families eventually, and they would but that's for another time.
please remember this is a horror universe i am not promising im writing perfect healthy relationships with perfect healthy beginnings lmao this one requires more context
Jasper is not the best at talking to people. His love story takes place many many years in the future and he's in the middle of his 20s
Paloma worked at a GameStop that Jasper would frequent using his cryo-invisibility, he was there to steal games to play tbh but getting to see her and learn more about her from the conversations she would have with her co-workers was a huge plus.
It was amazing! So far he knew that she was soft spoken like he was, an introvert, yet she always knew how to talk someone into buying a new game or some dlc. It made his heart flutter the way she saw nuances in Warhammer or Skyrim that he thought only he could....even if he did have a bit of an "um achtually" complex about them. He paid attention to when she would go on her breaks and began to leave her things he felt might brighten her day. Candies and cakes, even a small figurine once or twice, he didn't want to make her feel like she was stealing from anyone. Paloma just seemed so sad. So tired all the time and he had no clue why. Yes he's a bit of a creeper but he never thought he would get the courage or the opportunity to actually talk to her, if he knew she was so open minded at the time he would have.
Before the unfortunate circumstances of their true meeting.
This all took place at the time the Frosts had moved to their home at The North Pole. Since there are no permanent human populations there they often have to leave to eat. Sometimes Santa will take them but the sleigh is VERY obvious so most times they either use a hell portal or just...swim, it's their element after all. For this same reason they no longer picked off a few people at a time but whole families.
When they went back to their very first stomping grounds, the neighborhoods you could find wandering away from the asylum, Paloma's family was chosen. Some were killed before they left some weren't it didn't really matter but Paloma was left alive.
She was incredibly shaken but managed to hide herself in a corner. She wasn't forgotten about but at the very least while the rest of her living family was being picked off these monsters weren't focused on her.
Jasper of course came up to see what his parents had brought home for dinner and instantly was put through a rollercoaster of emotions. One second he was thinking about how horrible it was that a girl like her would meet a fate like this, then another he tried to convince himself that there'd be other girls, only to go back and (rightfully) beat himself up inside for thinking like that. So acting on impulse he went invisible and dragged her down the basement.
After a long period of eerie silence he brought her as many blankets and pillows as he could find. He asked her her name and she reluctantly gave it to him.
When she soon found out that he was the one who had been making her days for so long she got even more upset. This was what made her go off on him, she aleady assumed he brought her down here to get her all to himself and now it seemed as though he planned this all for weeks.
Her happiness was a lie and now the closest opportunity she had to freedom was her death.
Despite tucking his tail between his legs so to speak Jasper did choke up the courage to ask her what she meant by this. She wasn't in the mood to explain and just turned away from him. He urged her to at least listen to what he was about to say next and explained that the reason he had done what he did didn't matter now (he didn't want to make her feel like she owed him) and that now he just wanted to make sure she was safe.
She opened up a little more but mostly just to poke holes in his plan. How was he going to get her there? How was she gonna survive in the mean time? Most importantly, how the fuck was she going to live on her own once she got back.
The other questions would have to be answered later, Jasper held up a claw to ask for a second before leaving the room. Paloma took the time he spent upstairs to inspect, finding the tiniest silver lining in the familiarity of her surroundings. He left his computer open and Paloma, not giving much of a shit about manners during her kidnapping, was going through his games when he returned.
He explained that he told his family he ate her all on his own, yeah they were pretty pissed at him but nobody would be looking for her.
To make a long story short Paloma did open up to him more. He wondered why her reaction to what she had seen was more self centered than anything and he found out they had more in common than he thought. Neither of their families really understood their interests. Jaspers family at least tried to be supportive but Palomas family saw her as something to be ashamed of, she was embarassing and not living up to what they wanted from her. That was why she took so many shifts at work, it was the closest thing she got to being in a place she was comfortable with people who liked her for who she was even if she wasn't allowed to keep the money she had earned.
It was decided she would have to stay there for a while but the more her and Jasper hung out the less she minded. He tried not to get in her space, he truly wanted her to be able to get out and live her own life, but they couldn't exactly ignore eachother.
She was envious of the stories he would tell her about his family. Despite how much she was enjoying spending time with him being cooped up caused a lot of animosity too. Jasper reacted immaturely at first but he came to understand her perspective, he could go anywhere he wanted and the best she could do was walking around the basement and only if he was around to hide her.
Jasper knew it was finally time to take their chances no matter what he had to do.