Summer Sinclair
summer03.jpg
Maelstrom
Real Name: Summer Sinclair
Age: 17
Identity: Secret
Birthplace: St. Petersburg, FL
Date of Birth: June 21st
Known Relatives: Sarah Sinclair (mother), ???
Height: 5'9"
Weight: 140lb (ish?)
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Blonde
Grade: 12
Dorm: Baldwin Hall

Background

Seventeen Years Ago…

"I'm going to keep her." There was defiance in the teen's voice, a certain angry tilt of her chin and set of her jaw speaking volumes for her determination. "I have every right to, and she's /mine/." She faced her aunt and uncle square-on, though her voice remained at a low volume in deference to the blanket-wrapped bundle in the crook of her arm.

"But you don't even know who her father is, Sarah! How are you going to support yourselves? You still have high school to finish." Her aunt reached out tentatively, then pulled back her hand as the teen turned away to shelter her baby. "You don't know how much work it is to take care of a child. How much money."

The teen looked at her aunt and uncle. "Then if you're really my family, you'll help me. You've been practically my parents … I'm /not/ giving up my daughter to someone I don't even know. I'll work as hard as it takes to keep her with me. I don't want to look at every girl of the right age and wonder if that's my daughter and what she's like or if she's happy."

"There's ope-" Her aunt shushed her uncle with a gesture. He closed his eyes and nodded. "We'll help you as much as we can. May we see our grand… daughter now?"

The teen visibly softened at the closer claim, and turned back to the pair of adults. "Her name is Summer." Summer yawned and opened her eyes, still baby-blue, and stuffed her fist into her mouth. Outside, the skies cleared of cloud.

Three Years Ago…

"All successful pirates have a touch of the weather about 'em. A gift of the seas, a gift of the gods — no-one really knows. But the old tales of the captain bein' the ship, and feelin' the tiniest shift in the sails? That's the start of it." The scent of pipe smoke tinged the air on the docks, the waves lapping against the shore behind. Were it not for the far-off glow of sodium lights and the noise of the city, lost in the distant background, the speaker could have hailed from years past, as timeless as he seemed. "Enough to draw a favorable wind even in the doldrums, or a storm to send pursuers fleeing. Or, if they'd turned to the good and were hunting their own… the seas and skies could boil with their fights, and many people went to the Dutchman in the wake of /those/."

Another wisp of pipe smoke blended in with the fog that had been rolling in from the ocean, further muffling the noise of present-day. The listener shivered, whether at mention of the sailors' fate, or something more intangible. Her toes dangled idly in the water below, and her gaze seemed lost out in the nothingness of the fog. "I think I understand how that could be."

"Y'might, at that." The storyteller puffed on his pipe, regarding his audience from beneath the shadow of a battered old hat. "Th'gift faded when pirates began to disappear. Those who wiped 'em out didn't want anything uncanny left behind, so's even th'ones who had it in their blood ignored it, let it rot. Weren't space for romance or adventure in 'progress', y'know." He tapped out his pipe. The ashes hissed as they hit the water, then died into black once more. "I'm thinkin' y'might know a bit about that?" He was cleaning out his pipe rather than look at her, studiously brushing the final ashes from the bowl and into the water.

The fog settled in around the storyteller and his audience of one, narrowing the world to two people alone. "Only a little bit. The old stories make a bit more sense now. But what do /I/ have to do with it?"

The storyteller folded a soft cloth around his pipe and tucked it away, looking through the fog out to the ocean once again. "I think y'know the answer to that."

Everything seemed to freeze for a moment, the fog shattering into diamond-sharp crystals that vanished into nothingness. The world rolled back in with the sounds of cars, distant freight ships, and sodium lights. The harsh lights leached the colour from the listener, casting her face into sharp relief. "I do." She turned her hand palm-up to the skies, and the fog rolled back in, shrouding them both. "All that I can say is that I'll try."

"That's all your da can ask for," the storyteller said, pushing to his feet with a crackle and groan of old bones, leaning over to pat his listener's head. His voice, when he spoke next, was younger and richer, the years seeming to melt away from him for a moment, making him seem taller and broader than any man ought to be. "Mebbe you're not meant to be a sailor, Summer, but you're made t'be remembered."

His listener turned to look at him, but he was already gone. Summer looked down at the crumpled letter in one hand and tossed it onto the waves, pushing to her feet. The admissions letter sank out of sight.

November 2009

"… Hurricane Ida has lost speed and is dissipating towards the Atlantic; readings from an oil platform place the winds at under gale-force in an unprecedented—" A thump from upstairs had the woman switching off the television and heading to check on her daughter. "Summer?" The only response was another thump.

She pushed open the door to Summer's room, ignoring the roll of thunder right overhead. The lights were off, the curtains fluttering in the wind and half-illuminated by the flash of lightning. She looked for her daughter, supposedly trying to sleep through the remnants of the tropical storm, and found the bed empty, but the floor next to it not. Her daughter was sprawled there on the floor, drenched with rain and seemingly unconscious. "Summer!" She reached out to turn Summer to her side, and yanked her hand back immediately thereafter. The spark had been visible.

"Mom?" Summer's voice was hoarse. "I stopped it. Promised I'd try." The teen shifted again, and her mother noted the grey outfit her daughter was wearing. "But ow. Haha. I know wha' Dorothy fel' like now." She cracked open an eye with another shimmer of sparks and looked up at her mother. Awareness returned with the next crack of thunder, making her bolt upright and groan, clutching her head.

Sarah Sinclair pulled her daughter to her chest. This time, she didn't get shocked. "Oh, honey. You could've told me." She bit her tongue on the half-accusation of 'Didn't you trust me enough?' "What did you stop?"

"The hurricane."


Summer squirmed uncomfortably as she looked at her friends through a curtain if soaked blonde hair. Their practice had been interrupted by a miserable drizzle, just enough to get everyone cold and wet without washing away any sweat. "It's just a scholarship. For volleyball. You know. And I can't really pass up a scholarship." It was about as close to a reference to how she and her mother squeaked by each month as she'd get. "Mom's making me go, anyway. I've got to go for the summer orientation, too."

"Summer school?" One of her friends paused and snickered. "That's harsh. You must've really pissed off your Mom somehow."

Summer slumped. "You have /no/ idea."

Personality

Stubborn, determined, reliable? Those are some of the positive things about Summer. She's bright, she's outgoing, she's a go-getter who tries to drag people into new experiences (sometimes whether they like them or not), but at the same time, she can be as stubborn as a mule, on a short fuse, and rather possessive of the people and things in her life. Having grown up on the thin edge of poverty, she can be pretty tetchy about money — a spendthrift, really — but she's generous with her time and energy. Her temper can be a problem: faced with wilful stupidity or cruelty, or just pure snark, she tends to snap back. Thankfully, along with the short fuse is a small explosion rather than a drawn-out one: her temper burns out quickly.

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