HBH Application

[impetueux]

PLAYER

Name: Nicole
Personal Journal: angloamericana @ dreamwidth
Plurk: americana
Time Zone: East Coast (United States)

CHARACTER

Name: Cosette Fauchelevent
Canon: Les Misérables
Age: 15
Demigod/Hunter/Satyr/Nymph/Magician: Demigod, Daughter of Apollo
Demigod abilities: Being a child of Apollo, Cosette is a skilled singer songbird anyone? and piano player, in addition to being a proficient novice archer. She also can heal by singing a hymn to her father.

Personality: Calling Cosette a “ball of sunshine”, while mildly groan-worthy, isn’t exactly off the mark. It’s rare to see her in a foul mood; forever an optimist, she lives life with the same sort of compassion and warmth her father instilled in her from an early age. As a natural caregiver, she’s incredibly patient and loving, often helping her older father around their small home in Montreal.

Still, this doesn’t mean she’s a blushing wallflower by any standard. The minute Cosette hit 12 years old and discovered make –up and boys she’s been driving her Papa to an early grave. Inheriting her biological father’s hair, eyes, and generally great looks, she’s had the luck of successfully navigating puberty, something you think would make people hate her if she wasn’t so damn nice. Instead, knowing that she’s cute has instilled a level of confidence in her that really helped her come into her own.

While she’s basically the definition of stereotypical Barbie doll at first glance, Cosette is a consistent honor roll student. While school hasn’t exactly been easy for her, having some learning curves due to her ADHD, whatever difficulties she has in her classes she makes up with ardent dedication. Still, most of her knowledge is either gained intuitively or through books; at 15, Cosette has lived an admittedly sheltered childhood, leaving her almost a little too naïve. She’s often believing in the best case scenario, which her Papa is terrified will hurt her as she gets older.

Sadly for Valjean, Cosette is a little too headstrong for her own good. She’s naturally very curious and playful, which luckily has yet to get her into serious trouble thanks to her watchful Papa. Whether it’s because she’s brave or it just doesn’t occur to her, Cosette has very few fears to speak of, at least not obvious ones. If anything, her biggest fear is being alone in the dark; as a child, she’d cry for hours, curled up in her blankets for fear of something coming out of the darkness to drag her away. Only her nightlight illuminating the room would ever calm her down.
Luckily, Cosette’s grown into a strong girl, despite her youth and inexperience. While she’s the picture of happiness now, her early life wasn’t easy for her. Most of her memories of foster care are distant ones, almost dreamlike, but in some sub-conscious way some of the hardships she experienced while living under the Thernardiers helped shape her growing up. Her father may be heavily reluctant to give her the opportunity, but Cosette is actually incredibly capable and can take more blows than many would give her credit for.

However, she’s hasn’t had to worry about hardships for quite some time. Cosette is the apple of her father’s eye, and as such is treated like a little princess. While far from a brat, Cosette’s longstanding patience can also backfire; she is incredibly stubborn, and can wait or debate until she gets her way, which is more often than she probably should. But as she’s quick to remind her father, assertiveness is a positive trait, and one she’s perfected over the years. Cosette may have been a shy and lonely little girl, but she’s grown into quite the sweet but impetuous teenager.

AU History: To talk about Cosette’s history, one first has to talk about her mother, Fantine. As a loan-ridden undergraduate in New York, Fantine met an incredibly attractive golden-haired Apollo after going out to a few clubs with her roommates. Nine months later, their whirlwind romance was over, Apollo was gone, and in his place was little newborn Cosette. Juggling her baby and full-time classes proved to be too much for Fantine, and she quickly had to leave both her school and the city in favor of a far cheaper lifestyle.

For about two years Fantine work long hours at various odd-end jobs to make ends meet, siphoning off money to pay off the loans from her unfinished degree. The long hours and stress quickly took their toll on the young single mother; what started out as a cold, too small to give up her work shifts for quickly turned into full blown pneumonia. By the time Fantine was taken to emergency care, her illness had progressed, and she quickly succumbed.

With Fantine having no real family to speak of, little Cosette, not even three years old at the time, was placed in foster care with the Thenardier family. Whatever money sent by the state for Cosette’s care was quickly used up by the family, with Cosette living in what seemed to be even worse conditions than before. It quickly altered the young girl’s personality; while things had been tough under her mother, the toddler had been a bright and happy child. Now under the Thenardier’s care, she grew quiet and easily frightened. Her undiagnosed ADHD and learning difficulties in elementary school often made her the object or Mrs. Thenardier’s rages, making the girl exceedingly skittish.

About a year after Fantine’s death, her will surfaced out of a small legal office, naming a former “family friend”, Jean Valjean, as Cosette’s guardian. The dubious nature of the will’s surfacing, Valjean’s surprisingly lengthy prison stay, and his current residency in Quebec bogged down attempts to recover the young girl for years. It wasn’t until Cosette was about seven years old that the courts finally allowed Valjean to take Cosette out of foster care and back to Canada with him.

Once settled in his small home outside of Montreal, Valjean enrolled Cosette in a girls-only Catholic private school. Once away from the Thenardiers and in a safe environment with Valjean, Cosette was slowly brought out of her shell. While school was still difficult, even more so now that she was required to learn French in addition to English, Valjean’s support at home and a paid tutor helped Cosette improve her grades and academic performance. She started to grow more confident in school, and started to make fast friends of some of the girls in her classes.

Where Cosette still had some difficulties in her core classes, she excelled in her music courses. With the minor pressuring of her teacher, her father got her private voice lessons, which later expanded out to piano lessons as she quickly proved herself a prodigy. Her life developed a sense of normalcy; with no knowledge of her parentage, Cosette grew up to be a normal teenage girl, hanging out with friends, finding sudden interest in boys, and turning Valjean’s hair grey.
She was about 12 years old when a strange, unfamiliar blonde man came to one her recitals, insistent on speaking with her. After being coaxed aside, he tried to explain he was the god Apollo and even moreover her father (with some really unnecessary insistence that she took after him the music skills department), something so absurd it initially made her want to laugh. Still, as he went on to explain, it felt more and more real. While she couldn’t reconcile the fact that this man, or god?, had left her for so long, she was relieved, if only for a sense of identity it gave her by finally knowing part of parentage. After it was explained to Valjean the danger she was in, being an unprotected demigod, he reluctantly agreed to send her to Half Blood on the condition that she returned home for occasional visits.

While Cosette was still fairly young and inexperienced by the time of the Olympian War, she joined her half-siblings on the Williamsburg Bridge. Most of her assistance was through healing and using what archery skills she had developed while at camp.

Counselor: That’s all Enjolras she’ll just be over here only half-respecting his authority.

SAMPLES

Iris Message: [By the time the IM starts, Cosette is not quite looking into it, her eyes cast off to the side as the twirls the end of her hair.]

So…I might have a confession to make.

[She bites her lip, looking mildly ashamed.]

You know that moment when you have a sense of clarity? You can be in a screaming crowd, music blaring, but then…you see him. And even better, he sees you. You two lock eyes, and you know, you just know you’ve had a moment. This summer, I had that moment. And it beautiful, perfect, magical…

[She trails off, blushing slightly.]

What I’m basically getting at is I’m in love with Harry Styles. And I’m 90% sure we’re getting married.

Third Person Log: There was a scraping against the floor of the cabin as Cosette shoved her over-sized pink suitcase over to her bed. It was almost a good sixty pounds, stuffed to the brim with everything from sweaters to rain boots to first aid kits.

At first the luggage’s contents had been reasonable; then her father had stepped in. She’d only just barely kept him from trying to toss in a flare kit, and that was only with her promising to keep the shake-powered flashlight. It’s hard convincing a man that a bag is too heavy when he can lift nearly double your weight.

Catching her breath, she sat down on the nearly bursting bag. As she leaned back on her hands she heard a horrid crunching noise, causing her to leap up. “Oh god oh god oh god…” Cautiously she zipped open the suit case, pulling a few pairs of jeans out of the way to find a now-crushed framed picture of her and her father, almost obviously snuck in at the last minute.

Oh.

Now she felt bad. Cradling the crunched frame, Cosette made a mental note to write her father as soon as she got settled.

…Wait, did she pack any stationary?