Claire Nova bg

Background: Claire Nova is the first in her family's history to be worthy of joining the Time-Space Administration Bureau's magically armed forces. A native to Mid-Childa, she was born the oldest child of three. Her parents instilled--or tried to, at least--a sense of civic responsibility in all their children, as the both of them were emergency responders for a good chunk of their adult lives. Her father, Horace Nova, worked in the medical field, both as an ambulance driver/pilot and as an EMT. Her mother, Celise, meanwhile, was police, starting as the Mid equivalent to a "beat cop" and moving up to becoming a detective. Claire herself was a hardheaded kid; each parent liked to claim she got it from the other, but really it was a combination. Her parents also insisted on training her sense of humor, as both of them tended to experience too much of the worst parts of life, and were firm believers in the notion that humor was the most effective way to prevent their work from becoming overwhelming.

Unfortunately, she took it too far.

Claire's proclivity for jokes moved from the verbal to the physical, and once in high school she began to really act out. She was never close to deliberately crossing any lines, though she got in trouble at least once a quarter when some elaborately constructed prank either went overboard or targeted the wrong person. Disciplinary action the third time it happened resulted in testing, which is when she found out her Linker Core was sufficiently powerful to warrant consideration for Bureau forces. Her parents were overjoyed; neither of them had the talent, and they could serve better in their "ordinary" positions instead of in the Bureau, which they were happy with. But now, at last, the Nova family name could be added to the ranks of famous mages!

Claire herself was slightly less than thrilled, although the prospect was still an exciting one. It just meant her jokes were going to be harder to pull off. Thus it was with a fiendish bent that she set to crafting her most masterful pranks before finishing high school: a magically-charged carton of powder that, two minutes after the first member entered the showers, blew up and turned three quarters of the school's student athletes orange--everywhere--for two days; causing every AR window in an entire wing of classrooms to open to hilariously embarrassing videos of human failures when first accessed; and levitating an entire biology classroom's supply of animal corpses for dissection to the ceiling before the class began, so that when it came time there was a literal, if temporary, rain of frogs.

Claire remains excited about joining the Bureau, though uncertain about a number of things: where she'll be placed, where she might be used, what branch she might join (she really hopes not Research), whether they have any appreciation for comedy the way her parents did, and just how good they are at keeping people from doing what she does best--namely, sneaking around and setting up simple traps for the hours of entertainment they provide.

Family

Claire has a living mother and father--Celise and Horace, respectively--who are both the babies of their respective families. They married young and barely waited to start a family. As a result, her mother is all of 35, and her father 37. Both are still deeply in love with one another, and aren't afraid to show it. The kids are only moderately embarrassed by their parental PDAs, given their constant exposure.  Barring tragedy striking, the family looks to be solid for a good, long time.

Claire is the oldest child.

She has two younger siblings, both brothers. One, Dev, is three years younger than she, and so is early in his own high school career, where they are watching him with bated breath to see if he's going to be as much a terror as his older sister. He, too, exhibits some magical talent, though his bookish nature suggests a less field-oriented career, should he join the Bureau. The youngest, Elmont, is shaping up to be a whiz kid, though possessed of almost the same sense of humor as his sister. He is seven years younger than she.

Claire also has eight cousins, all but two of whom are younger. The older pair are significantly older, nearly her parents' ages, and they belong to her mother's oldest brother. None of her cousins have demonstrated anything beyond the usual Mid-Childan native's magical proclivities. Both are also engineers, and unmarried.

Non-Family

Claire had three good friends in high school, all of whom were in on her jokes. Unfortunately, out of the group, only Claire exhibited the requisite talent for TSAB magic instruction, a point that she feels terribly about, as they can't stick together anymore. But, proving that they are true friends, Alicot M. Cooper, Sereh Opel, and Patience Virtue (who was sick of her parents) were sources of nonstop encouragement while Claire deliberated whether to actually enlist or not. They promised to follow her, perhaps in a background role in the organization. She has yet to hear from them, and the weeks of silence lead Claire to believe that her friends are plotting some sort of super-embarrassing surprise or another.

Claire didn't have enemies, per se, at her high school, but there were several people who didn't care for how she expressed herself. Chief among them was the school's main disciplinarian, a fifty-two-year-old battleaxe named Eliese Parsel, who had a confusing (to Claire, at least) relationship with the girl: at times she seemed the relentless taskmaster, while other times she almost seemed to soften up and almost be friendly. (Really, she saw Claire's potential and wanted to try to prepare her for where she's going now, but the hefty generation gap--and Claire's own flippancy--prevented that from being easy.)

Final notes

Claire knows full well that where she's headed isn't going to be much like how school has been. She's willing to be responsible, most of the time, and is quite capable of following orders and respecting authority--while it's watching her.