In fair Verona, our tale begins with LORETTA DELLUCI, who is THIRTY-THREE years old. She is often called LADY ANNE and are NEUTRAL. She uses SHE/HER pronouns.
The genesis of Loretta was BIBLICAL. Her mother had been cast out from her household, abandoned by the one who she had thought would be her love, and was forced to bear her child in an empty church before the eyes of God with no one to hear her agony and rages against the world. The child’s first breath of life was one that she cursed, for a child born into rotten circumstances would likely grow up to have a rotten soul. With these words she would wake her child and to these words the poor, bright young thing would fall asleep – tears in her ears and anger stewing in her heart to prove the woman who gave birth to her wrong. And just when she thought there was no more cruelty to be subjected to, her mother did worse. At the age of thirteen she was turned over to the caring hands of nuns and the devoted of GOD. This was where she was reborn and given new life, but not without the price of becoming a ghost of the girl she used to be. Rulers and venomous words, worse than what her mother could even come by, managed to tame the the fire and rage, turning it instead into complacency and obedience.However, the company of children just as miserable as she something that she learned to treasure. But nothing good ever lasted for her and this would be no exception, for just as soon as she thought she had her family – CHOSEN, TRIED, andTRUE – they were ripped away. Some were given to wholesome families, but the majority were not so fortunate; the people who had shouldered the burden of the world with her were never heard from again.
She was beaten and she was bruised but Loretta had been born before the eyes of God and she was determined to make him watch her raise hell upon this earth. With the help of a pure-hearted nun, a novitiate who was determined to right the wrongs the children of the orphanage had been subjected to, she managed to escape with other children, determined to live life on the streets than suffer another night of POISONOUS words. Sister Anne Joseph sent them what little money she could at the end of every week and the rag-tag group of miscreants managed to stretch the meager funds they had – that is, until Loretta managed to con enough people to support them all. They were all petty cons of course, guided by a masterful woman who took potential from the street urchins and used them to her advantage – some of them were simple pick-pocketing, others as sophisticated as hacking phones to procure credit card information. Her name was Maria and it was the only one that she would give. Her smile was deceiving, her wits sharp, and her ambition was left no room for a notion as flawed as mercy. Under her tutelage she learned the most valuable lesson a young, abandoned child could ever learn: the most important family was the one forged by will, not the one tied by blood. It was far easier to do when people were looking at your cheerful smile to slip their phone from their pocket or purse – and Loretta had a rather winning one. With the dirty money she made, she managed to afford herself, and her family, an education that would mark her as a PRODIGY. One that would allow her to write her name in something as pivotal as the stars: coding.
There are those who might say that it was by God’s grace she managed to commandeer the field, but it wasn’t by anyone’s GRACE but her own. It was her own fortitude that allowed her to turn her skill into a craft, the fire in her heart into a rage that could scorch the earth, and an intellect that could put the greatest of philosophers to shame. Coding was a language that she spoke fluently, spoke gracefully, and created poetry with – poetry that could decimate whole countries and build them without her so much as rising from her couch in the morning. But, for all her glory and grandeur, there was the fickle, unsolvable PUZZLE of her heart. For, despite the abuses she suffered, she wanted to find her mother and show her what she had built for herself. An American empire, where she reigned supreme and was sought after – not for her pretty face, or charming tongue, but for herself. For her crystalline mind and the power that she held at her fingertips. The child born before the eyes of God, marked at her conception as a creature meant for destitution and depravity. She knew she was in Italy, so when the nights became too much for her to bear, she bought a first class plane ticket – a rather humble choice, considering purchasing her own plane was quite within her means – to the country where an GODS had once roamed and an empire began. And that was how her journey to Verona began.
It was odd how the city had ensnared her heart. It seemed to breathe as she did, with turmoil, hardships, and scars – but above all, a loyalty to a family that was chosen rather than one burdened by the obligation of blood. But the war that she had once deemed stagnant – passive, even – began to reach its crescendo, and she had never been so embarrassed as to think that the quiet could be lasting, for, as soon as she believed that there could be peace, it was shattered with the hammer of CALAMITY . A pattern so inescapable that history shows how such things deceived even the most intuitive of souls. All of Verona held its breath when the body of Alvise Vernon was discovered and Loretta was no exception because she knew what everyone else was too foolish to see: there was only ever two sides in war and the only way to survive was to arm one’s self and choose. But, until that time came, she would bide her time and consider all the cards in her hand. It was rather unfair to everyone else though, because Loretta Delluci always made sure that she had a good hand to play. Whether or not it was due to the fact she was always hiding more up her sleeve is no one’s business but her own.
IVAN RAHAL: Plague. She has been keeping track of a coder in Verona who goes by the moniker the Plague. It wasn’t difficult really, to keep tabs on whoever this might be what with the glaring scarcity of suspects to go by. From the whispers and threads she had followed, she thought it would be someone worth her tutelage – imagine the disappointment when he wasnot. Perhaps it was a blemish on Italy’s rather long list of errs and misfortunes, but the rather obvious oversights they made with their technology was one that hurt them deeply. It didn’t take long before she discovered who he was, but she was mindful to cover her tracks and watch her digital step. Despite the fact that she knew such caution was wasted – the ineptitude that she witnesses in his security processes. Those who have suffered from his breaches have whispered about him, mumbling his moniker: The Plague. The mastermind that purportedly fells people with a swift keystroke. As is consistent with Italians, their understanding and philosophies are as dated as their technological advances. Plagues are no longer the worry in this day and age – what with vaccines and modern medicine – no, cybernetic warfare is. Should he ever earn her ire, she would have no problem showing him why. She might just show him why to truly remind him of the weakness of those who think themselves untouchable gods.
RONAN IVARSSON: Mark. She loathes people who have far too much money, far too much power and do nothing with it but remind those who don’t of how weak they are. That is why Ronan is the next villain who will be felled by her coded blade. He throws his weight around without regard, robbing people of their housing before anyone can so much as raise their voice to stop it. The Ivarsson name is a grand one, a formidable one, whose record is impeccable only because it is too blood stained to read the multiplicity of crimes listed there. But Loretta is smart and, above all, she’s patient. She’s waiting for the misstep that will allow her to sharpen her blade, then the next one that will inevitably follow and allow her to press it against his throat. Then she will gut him and bleed him out as soon as he is incriminated in the eyes of all of Verona. Money will pour from him like water from a dam and she will see the sun rise on a day without Ronan Ivarsson. For she knows that on that day the world will certainly be a better place. Her mother had always made sure to remind her of how bleak the world was when she was born into it. But it will be a little less bleak the day Ronan Ivarsson is buried in the grave of his own sins.
HALCYON SANTOS: Fascination. It wasn’t meant to be something enjoyable because, due to the overarching theme in her life, figures in authority positions were detestable to her. But when she had walked into the police station, putting names to faces under the guise of looking for her “birth mother” who she just recently discovered, Halcyon had been there to help her. Perhaps it was due to the scarcity of crime committed in Verona – that could actually be convicted, at least – but Halcyon seemed to make it an objective in her life to help Loretta by whatever means necessary. They would meet over coffee, the officer’s computer in hand, and go over the missing people or any recent bodies found at the morgue. Now, Loretta could have done this quite easily herself of course, but the company was appreciated and Halcyon’s genuine kindness and concern in this manner was rather…touching, in a manner of speaking. When she spoke, daisies seemed to turn her way, and when she smiled one could almost mistake it for being something genuine and true. Loretta spends so much time looking at the darkness of a screen that she forgets how fond she is of the light reflected in someone’s eyes.
LUCIEN: Counsel. He’s a rather enigmatic man. He says the right thing at the right time, is always at the wrong place at the right time or vice versa. Regardless, he has been an inescapable presence in her life, this man from across the hall who happened to be there the moment someone tried to break into her humble apartment. Again, she was truly being humble because she was quite capable of affording a penthouse to herself. But he had felled her foe quickly and had only accepted her invitation for a drink when he realized she wouldn’t take no for an answer – or perhaps it was what he had intended on doing all along. It was difficult for her to discern, but Lucien himself was a difficult man to grasp. He was as elusive as a ghost, but as present as a shadow. But he provided the sage wisdom of a man who knew skeletons and knew them well, a man who had lived long enough to see the weariness of a world repeating its mistakes. It was difficult for her to call people in her life a friend – there were either as close as family or as distant as those who you brushed shoulders against while walking across the street – but Lucien was her counsel. Lucien was her one – and only – friend.
Loretta is portrayed by MARQUITA PRING and was written by ROSEY. She is currently OPEN.