Name: Harper Yates
Nicknames: Red
Apparent Age: 28
DOB: May 4th, 1889
Race: Phoenix
Hometown: Europe, possibly England. Exact location forgotten
Gender: Female
Sexuality: Heterosexual
Occupation: Baker,
Residence: A nice house on Howel Road
God she follows: The Raven (but routinely pays tribute to all the gods)
Family:
Immediate family long forgotten.
She may have decedents from her children with Victor if they survived WWII.
She does have 2 children out there who think she’s dead (and vice versa).
She has 2 spouses, both deceased.
Appearance
Height: 5’4 1/2″
Hair Color: Red
Eye Color: Green
Harper enjoys wearing what’s comfortable to work in. This tends to be t-shirts and jeans. However, when needing to be work professional she tends to dress what can only be classified as bohemian-nerd. She tends to keep her hair long, to medium and will frequently pull it up and out of the way while she works in a chaotic little bun under a hair net. She wears contacts but will sometimes wear her glasses if she’s in a hurry. She doesn’t wear a lot of jewelry typically and barely wears make up.
Her bird form is that of a mighty red and orange bird the size of a large eagle. It’s body appears to be on fire, but the only part of her that is flames is her tail, whose individual plumage is it’s own flame of yellow, gold, red, orange and white all appearing as one big bonfire.
Personality
Wise beyond her years, she’d been called in the past… of course this person was unaware of exactly how old she was. Harper doesn’t like to advertise what she is as it tends to draw more questions than she’s comfortable with. Also, in the past she’d found herself hunted for her feathers or resurrection ash, which is said to be very valuable as a spell component. Her tail feathers will continue to burn indefinitely, which is also a draw. So, she tends to only reveal what she is to those who have earned her trust.
Harper had lived many a life over the years and reinvention seems to be the name of the game. The Harper currently residing in Little Bear is a cheerful nerd who has a penchant for baking. It was something she’d never done before and had years to practice and learn. She enjoys all things pop culture, even if sometimes she tends to reference things that are a bit ‘old’ pop culture. As someone who read the original Captain America comics, some likes she just can’t shake, no matter how many years pass.
She makes friends easily, knowing that the time she’ll have with some are fleeting. This sometimes does tend to have her drawn to more long living races over normal humans, but she doesn’t like to discriminate. She’s loved a few times over the decades, and twice even had a family. War separated her from them each time, but she’s tried to research them in the past, find out what happened to her children and if they had children of their own. Despite the pain she’d felt losing those she’s loved in the past, she doesn’t shy away from it in the future. Love is like a flame in your heart and if you try to keep it extinguished then you just get cold and dead inside. As someone who is reborn by flames, cold and dead is not a particularly pleasant idea.
Being a Phoenix, she has all the powers associated with one. On her birthday every year she regenerates, which keeps her young and immortal. When she is killed she resurrects (which she has done four times over her life). She has control over her tail feather fire and has one in her house in a box for emergencies. Fire also doesn’t burn her (except for when she’s being reborn). And of course, there is her human form.
She has had multiple jobs over the years, from waitress to seamstress to spy. Harper’s been a teacher in the past and an activist. A lot of what she’s been she only remembers in bits, and some things she’d have to relearn if she decided to attempt them again. But currently her skills lie in baking.
She does still speak a few different languages. A few she’s out of practice, but conversationally she’d follow. French, German, Italian, Spanish and of course, English.
Strengths: Picks things up quickly, is actually a pretty good baker, has invested wisely.
Weaknesses: Can come off flighty at times, has a bit of a temper when riled up, while accepting of most; she does judge people quickly and it’s hard to get a second chance with her.
History
Much of her early life has been forgotten. She was born in 1889, somewhere in Europe. She doesn’t remember her parents or if she had any siblings, or even if she had parents. Harper’s first solid memories come from the 1910s, she was working as a seamstress in London and fell in love for the first time with a man named Victor. They had three children together and he knew what she was, protected her during her regenerations and they loved each other dearly. Twenty years later and England had entered World War 2. Their sons all decided to join the war effort and while they were deployed, Victor and Harper were killed in The Blitz. Harper was resurrected, but came back with memories of her sons missing. She could remember having them, bits of their lives together, but where they’d gone to she was at a loss. She was rescued a few days later, once she’d fully resurrected and France to help in the war effort, working for the resistance.
After the war, Harper traveled all over Europe, occasionally she’d settle down for a bit. Many of the details are lost thanks to two more deaths that happened during this time. One was in a train crash, the other she was shot while trying help someone cross the wall in the sixties in Berlin. If she focuses she can tell you stories of events that happened, but nothing was truly impactful, not until 1974 when she met Colin.
Colin was a sweet man who worked as a University professor of art history. They fell madly in love. They married and had two children. Then, in 1985, on a family vacation in Colorado, they were hit by a semi. She died instantly upon impact. When she came too, in a junk yard three days later, she found herself in the burned out husk of a car. Apparently the semi had been carrying propane and the two cars went up in flames. The newspaper article she found said all occupants had been killed upon impact. She wasn’t mentioned as they must have associated her pile of ash with that of the fire. Little does Harper know, both her children were saved before the fire went up. But they were young and had no way of comprehending what she was yet. They were put into foster care, their only real remembrance of their parents a ‘family heirloom’… one of her feathers.
In the early nineties, Harper bought a house in Little Bear, liking the small town vibe. She had grieved the loss of her second family enough and needed to do something different. New house, new city seemed the best way to start. Thanks to smart investing over the years, Harper had a nice nest egg and after a couple years of trying to figure out what she wanted to do, in 1995 she opened a bakery called Hot Cross Buns. Granted, in the beginning the pastries were… okay, but over the two decade’s she’s been running the shop the quality has greatly improved and she’s got many regular customers. She’s gained a new sense of family in Little Bear, putting down roots again for the first time in a while felt good.