VERSTRAETEN, Mireille Manon

[Mireille Manon Verstraeten]

MIREILLE MANON VERSTRAETEN

FULL NAME: Mireille Manon Verstraeten
NICKNAMES: Rae
AGE: Twenty Three
GENDER: female
SEXUALITY: Straight
STATUS: Single
GROUP: Citizen
GRADE: N/A
MAJOR: N/A.
JOB OCCUPATION: Apprentice at Three Kings.

HAIR: Originally light brown, Mireille has been bleaching her hair to an almost white for as long as she can remember. More recently over the last couple of years, she's started shaving the side of her head. Call her cliché, she likes it.
EYES: Blue
SCARS/BIRTHMARKS: None.
TATTOOS: Mandalas on both hands, the words "Lost Soul" and "true love" across her knuckles, "Agnus Dei" with a banner saying "Show No Mercy" in Latin, "Misanthropic" across her collarbone along with a neck piece that is her own take on the Eye of Providence with anatomical wings spread out and the quote "The night is darkest before the dawn". "Fear NO Evil" along the inside of her left bicep, "We are one in Hell as we were above" along the outside of both hands. "To thy own self be true" on her right side. Her right thigh holds the quote "Long is the way. And hard, that out of Hell leads up to Light." from Paradise Lost by English Poet John Milton. Her left shin has the quote "Destruction comes; and they shall seek peace, and there shall be none.". Her feet are covered in very personal tattoos that she doesn't talk about. There's also two Victorian ornaments, one of which is a Griffin, Death (skeleton) on a pale horse, Saint Michael, Adam and Eve with the Tree of Knowledge as Death, The Whore of Babylon, The Papist Devil, Vlad the Impaler, a tooth, A crest for her grandmother (who inspired her to find her own path) and a pair of wings on her back.
PIERCINGS: Stretchers in her ears.
PLAY-BY: Sara Fabel!

LIKES: Tattoos, alternative hairstyles, winged eyeliner, strong role models, reading, exploring, social media, video games, scented candles, the smell of ink, dance music, sweet coffee, late nights out, karaoke, simple accessories, plaid, the show The Magicians, talking with her gran, scruffy men covered in tattoos, watercolours.
DISLIKES: being woken up, being late, slow songs, stories with sad endings, soap operas, going out without her eyeliner done, cold tea, waiting forever in a line, wimps, misplacing her glasses, messy eyebrows.
FEARS: Her grandmother dying, going blind, being shot.
SECRETS: Tattoos started out as a form of defiance that quickly turned into an obsession.
PERSONALITY: Mireille has been paving her own course since she was able to walk. Nothing had ever been the easy way for her because that meant she wasn't strong enough. With as strict a father as she had, she took every opportunity to go against his wishes. She was just as stubborn as her father, if not more so since he tended to cave a hell of a lot faster than Mireille ever did. She was what he would have called a difficult child if she hadn't been his own. He saw in her what he saw when he looked in the mirror. She was quite proud of the intellectual person she'd become and there was no one on the planet that could tell her she wasn't a fighter. She took the hard road at every chance, just to prove to herself and everyone else that she could do it. She took the toughest classes, the ones where girl's weren't exactly welcomed and pushed herself so hard to be the best of the class. It helped that she was pretty damn adorable and could crack a crude joke along with the guys. For all the drive she had, she didn't take herself seriously. She was just as laidback as she was determined to succeed. She stole hearts wherever she went because she was just so open about who she was and what she was after. And even though she was able to be read like a book, she was one of those that had twists and turns so you never quite knew what you were getting. She had a damn good poker face and used it often, especially when she was tossing out bullshit to get something she was after. Despite her tattoos, she looked too damn honest that people believed her. If she wasn't so determined to do things a certain way, she could have easily come an excellent conman.

MOTHER: Isabella Verstraeten & Fifty.
FATHER: Stefan Verstraeten & Fifty two.
SIBLINGS: Rhett Verstraeten & twenty six
Brecht Verstraeten & twenty four.
OTHERS: Manon Pieters & seventy two & maternal grandmother.
PETS: None at the moment!
HOMETOWN: Brussels, Belgium.
HISTORY: Mireille Manon Verstraeten was born into the lap of luxury and was the third child of Stefan and Isabella Verstraeten, a Duke and Duchess, still only double digit seats from the throne, though Mireille honestly couldn't say a specific number. They would never see the throne and only one of them cared about that; Stefan, though he was of no royal blood. Isabella was the Duchess and dedicated her life to charity work around the country. Her mother had long since given up her extensive duties and instead chose to care for her only child's children. She was a sweet old woman who told the three siblings tales of grand adventures of princes and princess and far away lands filled with dragons and monsters of terrifying power. Manon loved the children and was so blessed when Mireille was born and her loving daughter bestowed the sweet angel with her name. Manon taught the children that their bloodline didn't mean anything, that though there would always be money, they needed to work for it, show they deserved it and do good in the world.

Mireille's brothers listened and learned and followed in the footsteps of everyone else. They took up all the "royal" sports and activities and attended all the best schools, were on all sorts of teams and were a point of pride for Stefan. Mireille wasn't exactly like that. Yes, she attended the best schools, she joined the teams and dominated. She spoke four languages, all three spoken in Belgium as well as English and as the only girl, she spent quite a bit of time taking part in charitable causes. But she also loved to paint and draw and became quite obsessed quite young in art, architecture and the histories of both. Knowing the history of the country, the family and all of that was acceptable but Mireille knew so much more than that. She was smitten with the knowledge and her dear Gran always said "knowledge is power" and Mireille took that to heart.

Her father didn't like that his daughter was stubborn and inquisitive and always out exploring. He wanted a demure daughter, a girl who didn't speak unless she was spoken to and one was some sort of wallflower. Manon and Isabella had known their headstrong girl would not relent against her father and quietly, or in Manon's case, quite vocally rally in Mireille's corner. Manon was the one who took Mireille to get her first tattoo, a quote from a tale Manon herself had read to her granddaughter a dozen or more times throughout the years. Her father threw a fit when he found out, though they'd been able to hide it for quite some time and from there, the women of the family would rally together, sneak away and return hours later with shopping bags full of clothing, shoes and accessories as if they'd spent the whole day moving from shop to shop instead of sitting around a very clean, beautifully decorated sterile tattoo parlour, watching the teenager amongst them as she sat chatting away with them and the artist whilst he put another piece of art on her skin.

Mireille was a bright student, top of her class and already knew what she was going to attend school for. She applied to all the best schools all over the world, with her mother and grandmother's blessing. Her father was not impressed and yelled and attempted to punish his only daughter. His threats fell on deaf ears. Mireille was not the young child she'd once been, her father's threats and promises meant little to the wild royal, living the life her mother and gran wished they'd had the courage to live. At eighteen, Mireille ran to New York to study, as far away from Brussels as she could get. It didn't hurt that she'd gotten into NYU and that her trust had specific money set aside for school; she paid for all four years in one fell swoop. Growing up in one of the most beautiful places in the world gave Mireille a love for all things art so at least to her, and her grandmother, majoring in art history seemed an obvious choice. Her father, as always opposed her choices, decisions and plans and demanded she do something realistic with her life, saying that art was just a hobby and that no one made any money with it. It was a comical side of the argument to bring up since she could live three lifetimes comfortably with her trust without ever finding out what hard work, or work in general was like; and that was the flashy, party girl, try to spend the inheritance in one go sort of lifestyle. Her school trust included money to buy an apartment to live in whilst attending classes in a secure building with an entry code and doorman. There was no way in hell a royal, no matter how not royal she was, was going to be staying in some dingy dorm with roommates; even if it was all part of the experience of college.

She graduated four years later with a bachelor's degree in art history and a place in the Master's programme. She was chasing her dreams. But becoming a teacher wasn't what Mireille wanted. She'd gone into Three Kings during that first week she'd touched down in New York. She had actually stumbled across the shop whilst looking for a shop to furnish her apartment. She was not one to pass by a tattoo parlour that caught her eye and she went right in and booked an appointment on the spot. She of course, had dozens of ideas and she only had three on her at that point. She was a constant during those first two years when she wasn't in class. And then shortly before she started her junior, it was brought up that they had an opening for an apprentice and Mireille was intrigued. She would have jumped through hoops to get that gig but she thankfully, didn't have to go quite so far. After an interview and a look at her own artwork, she was offered the apprenticeship and Mireille hasn't looked back since. At twenty three, she's about to tackle the final half of her Masters and after that, she's genuinely not sure what she's going to do with it; probably just hang it on her wall and watch it collect dust! All she knows is that she wants to continue tattooing and making the women in her family proud.

YOUR ALIAS: Cali.
RULE WORDS: Cali has these.
WHERE YOU FOUND US: Across the river, in a clock tower.
SAMPLE:

…Nahhh!

 

[Cali]