Post by Faye Stanley on Sept 13, 2012 12:30:26 GMT -5
| [atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 460px; background-image: url(http://i44.tinypic.com/34fb0ns.jpg);-moz-border-radius: 0px 0px 0px 0px; -webkit-border-radius: 0px 0px 0px 0px; border: 4px ridge #9c5f5b, bTable][tr][cs=2] evelyn charlotte devereux. twenty. actress. minka kelly. | |
[rs=2] | Evelyn Charlotte Devereux was fortunate enough to be born into wealth, blessed from her very first appearance in the world - February ninth, 2003, to be exact - with what almost anyone would think would be what anyone could ever ask for; a mother, and a father, three clever, talented older siblings and a positive fortune to the family's name, and the marvellous shopping sprees and high-society balls to come in the future. This, however, was not exactly the case - not all in the Devereux household was peachy-keen, and hadn't been for quite a while before Evelyn was born. Her father, Milton Devereux, was not very much impressed at having a fourth child, particularly a baby, loud and demanding, and spent most of his time away from their home, only deigning to join his family on weekends, and when he did so he rarely spent time with his new daughter, opting instead to go horse-riding with her three older siblings - Arthur, Xavier, and Lucille, dubbed 'Lucette' by her brothers. And despite the fact that her mother, in stark contrast, was generally at their home, Evelyn was not looked after by Billie Devereux, either - she was, instead, handed over to a band of nannies who were paid to tend to the new baby's every need. Due to the fact that neither of her parents had a very profound part in her growing up, she's never had a particularly strong emotional attachment to either of them. Milton and Billie's entire marriage, incidentally, had been something of a mistake - they were most definitely not suited in the slightest and it had not been expected of Milton to marry someone like Billie - plain and poor-mannered and a tad slow and equipped with a thick Northern accent - whatsoever. They met through mutual friends when Milton was on one of his regular trips to England, on a double date, and did not exactly hit it off - Milton was civil to her, of course, and rather nice, due to the circumstances, but there was no particular spark between the pair, Milton deeming Billie rather inferior to him. Unfortunately, however, the mutual friends decided to get engaged and Milton and Billie were both invited out to Vegas to celebrate. And, of course, Milton and Billie managed to pull off a rather cliche performance indeed and got completely sozzled one night and woke up the next morning, to their absolute horror, married. Milton decided, after contemplating the matter for the whole day in the casino, that he would rather go through having Billie as a wife than suffer the humiliation of getting a divorce, and informed Billie of this when he returned to their suite. Billie, of course, agreed, and soon the two were jetting back to Australia, Billie to be introduced to the family when they got there. Billie, of course, was not a hit with Milton's family, especially in comparison to Milton's brother's bride, who was an ideal daughter-in-law for the Devereuxs. Of course, by the time Evelyn was born, their marriage was undoubtedly falling to pieces. Milton would jet off from their home in Darwin, Australia to Sydney during the week and only make an appearance at the weekends, when he would take off with the three older children on their horses. He even, in fact, had two mistresses in Sydney, and even fathered a child with one of them, the boy being only a week older than Evelyn's older sister Lucette and a complete secret to the entire family to this day. And so Evelyn was immediately handed over to the nannies and spent most of her first few years cared for by them. She was a terribly fussy baby, noisier than any of her siblings combined with her constant grizzlings and sudden bursting into tears over the slightest things. Because the nannies spoiled her rotten, she was a terribly selfish child and still retains the selfishness in her adulthood, although she is far less blatantly selfish than she was then. She did rather love her father when she was a baby, and she was always very excited the rare times she did get to spend time with him - mostly, those first few years, it was simply a glimpse every now and then - although in stark contrast she was always very indifferent towards her mother. Her mother was simply a somewhat pathetic figure in the background, someone who would occasionally pick her up, but her attention was taken up, mostly, by those who fed and clothed and handed her back her toys when she chucked them against a wall. Having a set of nannies to look after her, living in the lap of luxury, and having a father who was, despite being absent for the majority of the time, quite decent and very willing to spoil his children, little Evelyn Devereux developed quite a high opinion of herself from quite an early age. By the time she was one she was tentatively walking around and by the time she had reached two she was scampering all over the place and rattling on about this and that to her poor nannies, who had learned when was the right time to nod during the years. Because she was too young for her older siblings to play with, too young to go horse-riding with them, she did not grow particularly close to any of them when she was very young, although the fact that they didn't really play with her did not bother Evelyn Charlotte Devereux in the slightest. Although she hadn't been a particularly pretty baby - she'd simply been a baby, pink and a bit pudgy and demanding attention from all angles - she'd gotten to be quite the adorable toddler, blessed with large, wide brown eyes and long eyelashes and she was always dressed in the sweetest and most expensive baby clothes there were to offer, and she'd adapted so well to getting all of the attention that her siblings stealing the limelight would be totally catastrophic to her. The nannies had an easier time with her when she was a toddler than when she was a baby; although she could still be quite easily brought to tears, as she had been pampered so much in her short life, she was quite happy with playing on her own. While she often recieved dolls as gifts, Evelyn found them clunky and irritating to carry around, far too difficult to use in imaginary games as she had to move them around with required far too much effort in her opinion (however, if anyone threatened to take her dolls away from her - which rarely happened - she would cling to them as though her life depended on it). And so she was very much content with playing games all by herself, although she did frustrate her poor nannies terribly by giving them the slip anytime they tried to hold teddies up in front of her and start the, "this is big ted, this is small ted," regime. Although Evelyn never realised it at the time, she had quite a lonely childhood - she was surrounded by nannies and workers and she had her mother and her three older siblings and her father, occasionally, but yet she had no friends, and didn't have any for quite a few years. In just the space between being a baby and being a toddler she became quite a bit quieter - not neccessarily better behaved, as she never was that, merely quieter, probably because there wasn't really anyone properly there to talk to, the nannies being to Evelyn a bit like furniture and her mother being a bit of a novelty she wasn't particularly interested in. Even when Evelyn was only three, she was terribly bright, and would grow up to be one of the most intelligent people one could come across, not only in academic terms but also in the way she thought and lived. Obviously at three years old she was no genius, and couldn't do much more than another three year old could, but she was bright and good at picking things up and quick to catch on to things. She also seemed different from other three year olds in her mannerisms - perhaps being surrounded by adults had made her seem slightly adult-like in what she did, and every once in a while her nannies would catch a glimpse of the girl she was going to be in years to come, and there was a certain puzzling strength and passion about her even then, although it was kept underneath quite a lot, and when it did show it was only shown in the average manner a three-year-old would show it - she would be pig-headed and stubborn as a mule and throw her heart and soul into her imaginary games. She whiled her days away playing out great fantasy stories in her head, roaming her large house and battling villains at every corner or hosting large and grand parties with imaginary couples waltzing around her. Her vivid imagination allowed her never to be truly and properly lonely, although she often was alone. Much like all the other Devereux children, Evelyn learned how to ride a horse from quite a young age, although she wasn't particularly fond of horses. She neither liked nor disliked them; she had no real want to learn how to ride a horse, initially, although in years to come she could not remember such a thing, horse-riding becoming one of the only things she truly loved when she grew up. However, when she was a child, it was a matter of great indifference to her, although there was something rather terrifying about being hoisted up and plonked on a horse, although the stable-boy helping her made sure she was propped up safely and never let her out of his sight, as he was more afraid of her getting hurt than she was. The initial feeling of terror disappeared, however, when she was up there, and she was instead filled with a different feeling entirely - she wanted, very suddenly, to be able to gallop through the countryside all on her own, she wanted to feel the wind through her hair, she wanted, so very fiercely, to go as fast as one possibly could. She was bright enough to know that it would take work, however, and so she let her fantasy take place in one corner of her mind while she took her lessons. Each time she was brought down from the horse, the excitement would fade, and she'd see only a big, rather ugly-looking creature in her opinion, but the moment she was lifted up onto the horse's back the fantasy would overtake her entire body yet again and she would be tingling with anticipation. Before it was too long, she had mastered how to ride a horse, although the fact that she could ride a horse did not mean that her older siblings deigned to play with her, the fact remaining that she was still not much but a baby. It was when Evelyn was three that her sister Camille was born, the fifth child in the family, which was a matter that perplexed Evelyn slightly. There was something a bit thrilling about it, not being the youngest anymore, having a new addition to the household, and yet the selfish part of her was not impressed by the fact that Camille would get some of the attention Evelyn felt was rightfully hers. Milton was deeply unhappy with the fact that Billie was pregnant yet again, and lost his temper, packing up and deciding to head to England once Camille was born. Arthur was already attending a school in Australia by that time, so Milton decided to bring Xavier and Lucette along to England with him. Evelyn, who had a strong sense of pride, even then, did not ask her father to bring her along, but wept when they left and burrowed under the covers on her bed, refusing her poor nannies and being a terribly fussy child for the next couple of days. It wasn't the fact that she would miss her siblings, or even her father - she did love them, but in a different way than most loved their family members - it was rather the fact that she felt she was missing out on something, which drove her absolutely wild for the first couple of days. Their absence was not really a huge change, however - she was used to not seeing her father much, and her siblings never deigned to let her play with them anyway, so not much had changed in Evelyn's life, and she continued on as she always had, with her imaginary games and selfishness and, ultimately, her loneliness, although it did not feel like loneliness at the time, being the enviroment she grew up in. Her younger sister Camille was another novelty for her, but she found Camille terribly boring after a very short while - she was no use in games, no use in causing trouble, and the only time Evelyn wanted her around was as a prop for one of her games. Probably because of the fact that a good chunk of her family was away, Evelyn's naughty streak became a little more prominent. Whenever she was ordered to do something, she tended to do the exact opposite, but in a quiet, almost sly manner, almost as though she was testing those looking after her, which was a trait that she carried through to teenage and adulthood - she would defy people in the oddest of manners, in a quiet, charming, very polite manner, and so they rarely realised that she had defied them until much later, when she had practically gotten away with the deed. She still was being taught how to horse-ride, although she'd gotten a good grip on it fairly swiftly, and her stable boy was the only person she really listened to, more so because if she didn't it was she who would be in danger and not anyone else than because she liked or respected him (although she did grow to, somewhat, during the years). Those few months without her siblings and her father were not as bad as one would expect; the only part of being left behind Evelyn had been dreading was the sheer embarassment of it all, the fact that there could be something sensational happening on the other side of the world and she would be the one who would miss it. Her heart did not ache in the slightest for Xavier or Lucette or Arthur - the latter of whom had already begun attending the wizarding school in Australia and thus hadn't been brought to England either. Evelyn's father was not sorely missed, either. One could perhaps call her cold-hearted - and many have, throughout her lifetime - but the girl was simply not particularly emotionally attached to any member of her family, something that could be regarded as rather sad if it bothered her in the slightest. And so when her mother became poorly, Evelyn barely noticed. The nannies would hush her if she became particularly noisy on certain days - which, of course, would only prompt Evelyn to become even louder - or remind her with strained looks on their faces that her mother was ill, and they were all duly ignored. Evelyn barely saw her mother as a real person; Billie, to Evelyn, was a shadow of what a mother should be, even then. And so when it became known to Evelyn that once her mother had regained a bit of her energy they would be joining her father and siblings in England, the main priority to the young girl was not the fact that her mother was ill enough to have to be reunited with her family in England but the fact that she was to cross the world, to journey to another country, to taste life in an entirely different place, and it excited her beyond belief. Selfishly, she wished only for her mother to regain her strength so that they could travel to England immediately, not, as one would think it, because she was in any way worried about the woman. Evelyn was incorrigible for the while after she discovered the news, ordering for her things to be packed and even, for once, helping out herself, cramming her clothes into her suitcase. She had improved greatly in her horse-riding as well and was elated to find out that one of their stable-boys would be accompanying them to England. Once Billie had regained enough strength to make the trip to England, Evelyn, Camille and their mother made the trip to an old manor in the Cotwolds, along with quite a few of the staff in the Devereux household. Evelyn was a tad surprised and immediately quite disappointed by the manor, which she found rather dull, especially in comparison to their lovely mansion back in Australia. The weather, as well, simply did not suit the young girl, and she brought up the climate whenever anyone questioned her about whether or not she liked England. Her siblings were just as unimpressed as she was; up until before Evelyn had joined them, they had been staying in a townhouse located near to an abundance of exciting things, and they had only been dragged out of such a place to the manor because it was near Billie's hometown, where she was staying with her family. There were, of course, other children in the village they were staying in, but they did not take to the Devereux children at all due to their snobby disdain and unusual accents. It was certainly no skin off Evelyn's nose, as she thought far too highly of herself to even imagine consorting with the village children, all of whom she had decided were inferior to her and desperately common. As the Devereux children were left with only each other as playmates, Evelyn was even allowed to take part in Xavier and Lucette's games. While she was not exactly thrilled, she was not displeased by such an invitation, either, and she did join in their games, as Camille was far too young to be any fun and every now and then Evelyn did need someone else, every now and then she liked to thrive in the company of other people instead of constantly be alone, although even when she was playing with Xavier and Lucette she still sometimes craved to be able to sneak off and play her own games, and sneak off she did. The Devereux children were even introduced to their English cousins, children of Billie's sister Annie, but Xavier and Lucette both turned up their nose at the two and Evelyn was quick to follow their example, and would continue to turn up her nose at them in later years. Evelyn slotted them, very easily, into her 'totally unacceptable to consort with' group (although she didn't quite have such words in her vocabulary at that age) and never bothered to look back. Soon enough, when Xavier turned eleven, he set off back to Australia to attend the wizarding school there, much to Evelyn's older sister Lucette's disgust. Evelyn, who had anticipated Xavier going back to Australia, who had thoroughly expected, was not reproachful at all and continued on about her ways, finding herself day by day becoming more and more enchanted with the English countryside. There was something rather captivating about it that offered so much scope for her imagination she thought that she would explode from the sheer amount of ideas it gave her. When Evelyn played imaginary games she became almost locked in them; it was never a chore for her, rather a world created around herself that she found herself truly lost in, and she realised she genuinely didn't need anyone else, growing up with such a gift. During that time her mother was often bedridden, the children seeing even less of her than was usual. Evelyn saw more of their groom, Ben, than she did of her mother, especially seeing as Lucette seemed to take it upon herself to teach her how to ride properly out on the paddock. In actual fact, Evelyn quite enjoyed being taught by her sister and Ben, feeling an odd sense of comradeship towards the both of them. And so it was not much of a huge deal to Evelyn when their parents revealed that their marriage was finished and Billie moved in to stay with her own mother, Evelyn's grandmother. Odd as it may seem, it was not a huge blow to Evelyn, not an ordeal, not something sure to have a great effect on her in later life. It simply was how it was, and to Evelyn, her mother seperating from the family was much like one of her nannies quitting her job; utterly ridiculous to even contemplate being upset about. As is obvious, one could class Evelyn Devereux as rather cold-hearted from her early years. As Evelyn grew from toddler to small child, she grew haughtier, although the haughtiness was not something immediately apparent. Lucette, when she wasn't teaching Evelyn how to ride the horse - and Evelyn picked it up fairly expertly soon enough, being a bright child and a quick learner - was exploring the English countryside, and the two sisters could clash quite a lot. Camille, of course, was still slightly too young to play with properly, and so despite the fact that Evelyn had moved all the way across the world, she was still friendless. She surveyed the other children her age, loud and boisterous and constantly surrounded by friends and thoroughly silly, and she vowed that she'd never be like them. And so the children in the town they were staying in whispered about Evelyn Devereux, the pretty young girl with the beautiful dresses who was constantly snubbing them all and could often be seen alone or on one of the horses the family owned. It was a tad surprising for some people that such a selfish, clever, reserved, haughty little girl looked so utterly innocent, with her wide brown eyes and her dark hair, often plaited to perfection. Evelyn was neat as a pin most of the time, groomed perfectly and appearing as though she was always anticipating a photoshoot of some sort. The only things close to friends to Evelyn were the horse she generally went on and their groom, Ben, who she found herself quite respecting after a while. Lucette never really counted as a friend to Evelyn, a fact sad yet completely true; Xavier and she had never particularly hit it off and while she'd always had a soft spot for her oldest brother Arthur, he had decided to go to school in Australia and she knew even then that he'd hardly deign to spend time with his six-year-old sister. She began to take off exploring as well, although she was always wrapped up in her warmest clothes, coat buttoned tightly and scarf wound around her neck lest any sort of chill would get in. She wandered a bit around the countryside, not exactly enchanted by it but finding herself able to appreciate the beauty of the country, although it wasn't exactly her cup of tea in comparison to Australia, which she still considered her home, and she fought hard to keep her Australian accent, although it did slip from time to time. Exploring in the countryside made it difficult to stay perfect, and every once in a while Evelyn would experience the wildness and the passion that she often kept locked inside of her, the wind whipping her hair around her face madly, beating against her skin. Her fingers and toes would tingle and while she wasn't a child mad on any activity other than horse riding she would find herself running around, arms spread out wide and fingers clutching the cuffs of her sleeves, overcome by inspiration and suddenly completely lost in the maze of her own imagination. She would return to the house, breathing hard, pink-cheeked, and be berated for giving her nannies the slip and going off by herself, but anyone who came near to telling off Evelyn Devereux was duly ignored. Late one night when she found herself unable to sleep, she lay on the floor of her room and began writing down the stories that filled every corner of her imagination. As she was only six, the grammar and spelling were somewhat dodgy and the writing was a tad splotchy, the storylines marginally cliche, but to Evelyn it was as though she was writing something on par with Shakespeare. She solemnly tucked the story into one of the boxes in her room, followed by many more stories. Even into her teenage years and adulthood she would write, but then her scribblings would simply be a sudden thought, caught on a piece of paper, a sentence, something disjointed and meaningless when she returned to her writing later on. Never stories, anymore; she would simply become possessed with the need to write something down, to watch her thoughts spill onto a page. When Evelyn was six, Lucette had turned ten and brought the idea of attending Hogwarts as opposed to the school in Australia, where Xavier and Arthur went, when she was to start wizarding school. Won over easily by his daughter, Milton contacted the Headmistress of Hogwarts and found that all the Devereux students had a place in Hogwarts, as they were of dual nationality and therefore automatically offered a place in both schools. Lucette was somewhat unbearable for a time after that, boasting about going to Hogwarts, but Evelyn found herself completely unsurprised and unimpressed by the fact that her sister was going to Hogwarts. Her brothers admired Lucette's nerve, but little Evelyn Devereux decided that she could go to Hogwarts, just as easily. What, she wondered, would be so difficult about attending a school in England? Evelyn was thoroughly in the mindset that there was nothing she couldn't do, but something about Lucette going to Hogwarts prompted Evelyn to definetely attend the school in Australia. Going to Hogwarts, she decided, would seem rather as though she was following Lucette's footsteps, which she had no intention of doing - Evelyn Devereux followed no one's footsteps, people would follow her footsteps - and ultimately as though she was copying her sister. No, Australia was where Evelyn belonged, and Australia was going to be the school she would pick. She said nothing of this to any of her family, willing to bid her time and wait until it was her turn. And so at eleven Lucette headed off to Hogwarts with an all-new wardrobe of gorgeous clothes purchased - courtesy of their father - and was promptly sorted into Slytherin house there and after the holidays Arthur and Xavier returned to Australia and Evelyn found herself, for the next few years, in the exact same position that she had been in when her father had brought Xavier and Lucette to England without her - she was alone again. For the next few years, aside from the holidays, Camille was her only companion, and Evelyn found Camille too young and boring to play in her games. Evelyn delighted in having complex storylines to her games, wanting to explore the countryside as she did so and dream up romantic thoughts, creating characters in her mind in mere seconds, but she thought Camille would spoil her games and therefore never invited her or allowed her to play in her games. The fact that Evelyn never had any real friends throughout her childhood greatly contributed to the fact that as she grew up she became the most reserved of all the Devereux children. She'd always had a lot of thoughts bouncing around her head and as she grew older she became even cleverer, often finding her mind straying towards very serious, complicated topics, perhaps because she'd been left alone so much and had so much time to contemplate. Despite the fact that Evelyn was quiet, however - a quiet that she'd decided to make herself as opposed to the natural quiet that her brother Xavier possessed - she contradicted herself somewhat, as there was also a part of herself that was fiercely intense and wildly passionate. She did always have a certain taste for adventure and drama, but at the same time she was untouchable, and it was rare to see her showing many signs of affection. Her selfishness was ever-present, but she'd taught herself to lock the selfishness down and be far less blatant about it, although there was no denying the fact that everything she did would eventually benefit her in the end. They also visited Australia the summer after Lucette's first year, and Evelyn was thrilled to be home, realising only then how much she had truly missed Australia. They stayed with their Australian cousins, none of whom Evelyn knew too well, and while Xavier and Arthur bonded quickly with Henry and spent most of their time with him, as the pair went to school with Henry, and Lucette befriended Georgia, Evelyn did not bond quickly with Eliza, the cousin only marginally younger than her. Evelyn was so very caught up in being back in Australia and so used to not having to speak to anyone that she was not very good at bonding whatsoever and instead spent most of her time on horse-back and attending parties and suchlike with her father. That was not to say, however, that she was not nice to her cousins - she was far nicer to them than she was to anyone else, finding them the only people worth her time, and she was not shy in the slightest, being not at all a creature used to being shy, but she felt no need to grow close to them and did not truly know how to. At home, which they returned to after the holidays, she'd practiced her horse-riding until she'd become almost perfect and for those few years before she herself went to boarding school she would rise early every morning, order the help to set out her clothes and plait her hair, and then she would disappear from the house to go riding about the country-side. She'd progressed from seeing horses as rather ugly creatures to seein them as beautiful and majestic and horse-riding quickly became one of her very favourite hobbies, as one could do it by themselves and there was something so very thrilling about horse-riding and feeling the wind running through her hair and as though you were above any other person. The speed, as well, was something that Evelyn craved, and she soon grew bored of being outside if she wasn't on horse-back. Evelyn rarely came into contact with the other local children back in England, although when she did she was never particularly pleasant to them. They found her snobby and vain - which, of course, she was - because she rarely, if ever, talked, and yet walked in a manner which suggested that she was better than the lot of them, but when any of them ever made any rude comments to her, they were instantly rebuffed, and rather maliciously. On one particular occasion she even managed to make a little girl burst into tears and had her mother march over to her furiously, although Evelyn, very calmly, insisted that she had said no such thing to her daughter and informed the woman that her daughter was being over-sensitive before she turned and walked away, eyes sparkling mischievously. However, there was something rather charming about the young girl, perhaps due to the fact that she contradicted herself so beautifully - she came across so reserved and pristine and yet at the same time you could almost sense another, wilder side of her bubbling just underneath the surface, and she could even be rather likable every now and again. The loneliness of her childhood had made her rather sharp around the edges but every now and then, when she returned from a day out on her horse, she would be so breathless and fuelled from the day of adventure that she would appear so heart-breakingly lovely people couldn't help but warm to her, with her curls askew and her cheeks flushed pink and a rare, true smile on her face. It was perhaps a sad fact that people liked Evelyn more than Evelyn liked other people - not out of nastiness or cruelness, but it was rather how her brain worked; she had never been treated extra-affectionately and therefore did not display much affection towards other people. She wasn't apathetic, nor was she utterly cold-hearted, but she was truly untouchable, as though a force-field was constantly set up around her. Evelyn Devereux was more than enough on her own to need other people; she burned bright enough by herself. It soon came to the time when Evelyn was to go to boarding school, and she went straight to her father's study, knocked on the door, entered, and told him that she was going to school in Australia, with her brothers. Evelyn had a very funny logic indeed for attending the school in Australia as opposed to Hogwarts; she felt that going to Hogwarts would be almost expected of her, and that the action would seem neither bold nor surprising, seeing as Lucette had done it first, and that she would simply be following Lucette's footsteps, and caught in Lucette's shadow. Of course, Evelyn, for not one minute, was under the impression that if she went to Hogwarts she would be overshadowed by her sister, but she still believed that it would seem as though she was simply trying to copy her older sister. Plus, Evelyn still counted Australia as her home, England being far too cold and still quite foreign to Evelyn. Lucette seemed positively disgusted by Evelyn's decision and didn't speak to her for quite a long time, and the sisters' relationship suffered because of this. Evelyn, being just as stubborn as her sister at times, tossed her head and refused to speak to Lucette, either, although with Evelyn it was perhaps slightly less noticable because she'd made a conscious decision at around the age of seven to be reserved and had stuck with it until then. Since Evelyn decided to go to school in Australia, however, she and Lucette got in more fights than usual, which often ended with their brothers forcing them apart, and resulted in the pair not being very close in their teenage years, as although Evelyn could be quiet generally, in a fight she could be as wild as an alley-cat. And so the year Lucette was heading into her fourth year at Hogwarts, Evelyn packed all of her belongings into three large suitcases which were so heavy they each had to be lifted by two people and once and was flown over to Australia. She declined her father's offer to accompany her to Australia - she knew he'd rather stay in England, and anyway, she didn't need him to come with her - and instead was brought to the airport by one of the help, and flew over all by herself, not in the slightest cowed by the fact that she was on a plane all by herself at eleven. She had heard through the grapevine that her cousin Eliza, who was also to start school that year, had not been pleased at all by the fact that Evelyn was to attend the school in Australia as well, and at first Evelyn had been affronted, but once she realised that this was mostly because Eliza felt threatened, Evelyn had felt almost flattered by Eliza's throwing a tantrum at the fact that Evelyn was to join her in Australia. And so the day Evelyn went over to Australia, she'd ordered the help to leave out her best clothes and to fix her hair up to perfection, even persuading them to curl her eyelashes for her. She wasn't sure why - perhaps it was only malicious intent - but she wanted to look extra-good to her cousins, and, of course, to the others in the school, as first impressions were of extreme importance. Much to Evelyn's surprise, however, she and Eliza suddenly got on like a house on fire, sitting together on the train and chatting away easily. Evelyn had never experienced making a friend before - for Eliza was her first, true friend - and it gave her such a rush that during the journey she forgot to be especially snobby, although she didn't deign to pay much attention to anyone other than her cousins. This, however, was less of a conscious choice and more out of habit. Evelyn was simply not used to talking to other people much - it wasn't as though she was shy, but it was not in her nature to go out of her way to chat to people, and the conscious choice of general reservedness also made sure that she was not one of those annoying type of girls that rushed around and got right into peoples' faces, blabbering on about this and that in high-pitched voices and trying too hard to shine and be extraordinary when they were so ordinary it almost hurt Evelyn to pay too much attention to them. The Devereux family were already quite well-known throughout the school, due to the fact that Xavier and Arthur and Henry and Georgia had already started and their talent and good looks and riches had made them already quite infamous. For many eleven year old girls, this would be seen as an enormous pressure to have to be just as good as their family in all respects, but Evelyn did not see it that way in the slightest. She entered her new school with her head held high, settling in quickly and feeling not exactly at home, but rather comfortable with her surroundings. Initially, one or two of her classmates suspected her to be shy, but after a week or so every single one of them had realised that she most definitely wasn't shy. She was simply quiet, and yet very clever and if you got her talking she would talk so quickly and in such an adult-like manner it would be quite intimidating. She wasn't immediately liked by all because she could be incredibly haughty and patronising. Her shocking sense of self-worth and supreme confidence was also a source of irritation for many of the older years, as she spoke to them as though she was the same age or even older than them a lot of the time. And yet something remained rather charming about Evelyn Devereux, and quite a lot of people liked and admired her despite it all. Not only did Evelyn have an odd charm about her - a charm that was full of the certain intensity and passion and selfishness inside her, a charm that somehow made all of her worst points attractive - but she was also incredibly intelligent, not only in an academic manner but also in a way not often found in eleven-year-old girls, and a manner that her Professors noticed when reading her essays, which were often alarmingly thought-provoking and passionate and raw. The Professors were all divided as to how they thought of her, however; some viewed her only as a spoilt, selfish, haughty, cold-hearted Princess, while others saw her as a thoroughly intriguing child, despite the fact that they acknowledged all of her faults. Evelyn also recognised the fact that Eliza, her only true friend in the world, although she did have a band of classmates who considered themselves her friends and whom she humoured, was not entirely happy whatsoever. She did not comment on it much, and was not particularly good at making Eliza feel better, as she was still defrosting after years lacking in friendship, but she was a good friend to her cousin. First year passed very quickly, with Evelyn getting some of the very highest grades in her year, by far outstripping the rest of her family in terms of academics already and deciding that she was most definitely the best-dressed girl in her year. She did make one more true friend, a boy with shaggy black hair who had just as much money as the Devereuxs and was clever enough for Evelyn to take to him. Unlike Evelyn, he was very blatant about his wildness and was often the absolute centre of attention. Evelyn could always possess the attention of people, but not in the manner he did - Evelyn could make an entire class full of people turn to look at her and want to take care of her (before, of course, they came to their sentences and remembered that she was terribly selfish and haughty and cold, underneath the pretty curls and the perfect dresses) but this boy could have an entire room rapt in admiration as he told extremely fabricated stories of things that had happened to him, or have an entire group of people in absolute stitches at a joke he'd just told. At the same time, however, he was as contemptuous as a lot of people as Evelyn was, and they made a fine team, becoming almost inseperable at one stage and at night would often roam the school together, causing trouble. While it would seem to any outsider that the boy would be the worse-behaved out of the pair, it was always Evelyn who pushed them to go further, to be in more danger of trouble. Underneath the prim and proper and the fact that she didn't speak much, Evelyn Devereux liked to live on the edge of danger, a fact that was somewhat mind-boggling. And so first year ended with Evelyn having a very odd place in the social aspect of school indeed, and having half of the Professors disliking her intensely while the other half were avid fans of hers, although she did recieve the best grades in the entire first year, as she did, contrary to what people may have thought, study very hard. She returned home that summer only to find out that their father was packing them all off to horse-camp, something that horrified Evelyn when she heard it and, although she said nothing to her father, told the helpers around the house that she was under no circumstances going to go, very quietly and gently, although there was a certain look in her eye that suggested she was not to be protested against. However, there was simply no choice in the matter - all of the Devereux children were shoved into horse camp, although Arthur bunked off pretty quickly and started working in his father's company (which had been part of their father's cunning plan) and then Xavier bunked off. Lucette, however, had a marvellous time in horse camp, although she refused to associate with any of the people there. Evelyn found it irritating to have to go horse-riding with other people, of all things - she liked the solace of horse-riding, and when it was with many other people who were not of the same class as her she found it terribly dull, although she still adored the horses themselves. She had a couple of girls striking up conversations with her, probably because they admired her clothes and wished to borrow them themselves, and although she was not the warmest one could be, she humoured them, and they became sort of a band of admirers, at least in Evelyn's eyes - they were far too silly for her to ever count as friends, or even halfway towards being friends. Second year was much the same as first, except for the fact that Evelyn had taken it upon herself to organise a drama group, of sorts. One of the workers at the house had suggested it to her, just in passing, a day or two before she came back to school, and the idea stuck. Evelyn spent the night she returned to school, much to the surprise of the girls in her dormitory, writing a full preposition as to why starting a drama group in the school would be such a good idea and then taking it along to her favourite Professor the next morning, who recieved her idea eagerly, as he found her a most charming and perplexing child, and at once granted her permission to start the group. She'd partly picked him, as well, because of his knowledge of muggle and wizarding theatre, and the group was formed, first only with a select few of Evelyn's friends, and then grew slightly larger, although it was always quite small, more so because Evelyn wanted it to be only those serious about acting to join it. Her friend whom she'd often gotten into trouble with attempted, many times, to drag her away from the meetings she held, but she outright refused, creating quite a rift between them. Evelyn adored acting in front of the others, primarily because she was the best of them all and she knew it, but also because she was given such rapt attention when she acted; hearing her deliver a monologue was odd for many as it was rare to hear Evelyn speak so much, and she utterly captivated everyone watching her act. Many of the girls in the group seemed to assume that they were Evelyn's friends after a few weeks of it, and she did treat them as though they were friends, but never good friends - she never confided a secret in any of them, or was particularly interested in their secrets. Many were disappointed to find out that Evelyn Devereux was colder than she seemed, hidden underneath the warmth of the different parts she acted, and her disarming prettiness. The summer after her second year passed, which was spent with her family, although she still opted for being by herself quite a lot as the eldest three siblings tended to band together. Third year came, and Evelyn returned to school and discovered she had an odd sort of popularity; she was perhaps not quite as high-profile as the truly popular girls in her year, the ones Evelyn saw as too silly for words and yet humoured because she couldn't think why not to, and yet she retained a sort of fame throughout her year, a fame that was simultaneously for bad and good reasons. Going to school for two years previously had softened her a tad, however, and gotten her far more used to interacting with other children, and she gathered a group of friends that at first were simply allowed to hang around with her because she thought they were pretty and clever and well-turned out and interesting (not to an extent that she was, but nobody else could be Evelyn Devereux, in her eyes) but ended up genuinely liking quite a few of them, although it was rare when she showed any affection towards them, still being quite the self-serving lady, and rather icy-hearted. It was odd, the amount of people that seemed to like her, that seemed to adore her, that seemed to find her colourful and interesting, because although she could be all of those things she could also be sharp and cruel and totally apathetic. The Professor that had helped her form the drama group was one of the Professors who thought that she was simply marvellous and a thoroughly engaging child and often invited her to tea in his study. This was a source of discomfort and jealousy for many of her peers, and Evelyn's best friend, the wild boy who was called Heath, announced that he thought that the Professor was a "sly old perv", but the Professor was the furthest thing from it. He was merely incredibly intelligent, sharp, and upfront, and had no trouble with favouritism whatsoever, which he displayed often throughout the years, opting for Evelyn's side over others. Third year was another year of academic brilliance for Evelyn; she recieved some of the highest grades in her year, not only well-studied but also truly thoughtful and delightfully clever, something that not even the Professors who outright detested the girl for her selfish iciness could deny. The night before the final day of third year, she and Heath managed to get out of the school and roam around until the late hours, totally sober and totally quiet, simply looking for something that the four walls of their school couldn't give them. Their relationship was always slightly lopsided, never seeming quite a friendship, and yet not fitting into any other sort of category. They did not share secrets, nor have long conversations, and often they could spend days or weeks without even being near the other, but they understood each other to a certain extent and enjoyed the other's presence. During the summer before fourth year, Evelyn began looking more like a young lady than ever; her breasts and curves had begun developing at an alarming rate, and she looked far older than fourteen with her curvy body, high cheekbones and somewhat regal features. She dressed in simple, yet very expensive clothes, always bold colours, and wore only the barest minimum of make-up, coming across as the height of sophistication already, at only fourteen. Evelyn knew, very well, that she was pretty; she had never really suffered from the insecurities that other girls had. She spent her summer at the family home, although she did not spend much time with her family, other than Arthur, when he was around. She'd always had a liking for Arthur, finding him charming and handsome and really rather impressive and good conversation. Otherwise, she kept to herself, and for days she wouldn't even utter a word. She would spend hours out riding on her horse, appearing back at the dinner table with flushed cheeks, her dark curls ever so slightly messy, that sparkle of adventure in her eye, and then disappear for the night, sometimes off on her horse again but sometimes holed up in her room reading long passages from books or plays. She picked the characters she played very carefully, always opting for the passionate, explosive characters, the epic characters, although every now and then she would deign to try out a different sort of character, just to prove that she could master any one. The summer before fourth year was quite the change for her cousin Eliza as well; she bleached her already-blonde hair even blonder and changed her style entirely, and by the time they returned for fourth year Eliza was dubbed Lizzie and became the wildest girl in their year. Evelyn treated the entire affair very detachedly. She knew of all of Eliza's antics and never gave any sort of inclination of whether or not she condoned or disagreed with them. Sometimes she would accompany Eliza to the parties she was attending, but Evelyn was never the sort of party animal that Eliza was. She would sort of float to the middle of the dancefloor and dance completely on her own, eyes lifted up to the ceiling, never deigning to dance with any of the guys eyeing her up hopefully. She drank in moderation, and only tried smoking a couple of times, enjoying exhaling the smoke but disliking the way it hurt her throat because she wasn't used to it whatsoever. Her favourite thing by that stage was being out very late at night; just walking around, in the town or in the countryside, under a pitch-black sky. It's a love that has stayed with Evelyn all of her life, but being outside very late when everything was quiet was always her favourite part of any night out. The next year, Eliza came to Evelyn with a confession; that she was pregnant, that the father was in Georgia's year, and that she was going to get an abortion. Evelyn hadn't said anything, had simply looked at Eliza sharply for half a minute before nodding, slowly. Evelyn never judged her cousin for getting pregnant or getting an abortion, but her reaction was possibly inadequate. The fact that there was another person in her cousin was deeply unsettling for Evelyn, and that night was a sleepless night for her. Eventually she rolled out of bed and began wandering the halls, running through everything in her brain again and again and again, mind jumping from topic to topic. She very fiercely hated the boy that had gotten her cousin pregnant and then dumped her, and for a wild moment Evelyn wanted to wake Heath up and convince him to help her tear the boy to pieces. During her roaming, however, she ran into another a boy, a boy in the year above who she'd spoken about two words to beforehand, a boy who, like her, didn't talk much, and a boy who, like her, was still popular despite it. He attempted to strike up a conversation with Evelyn, but she was mostly unresponsive; not exactly rude, but she was so used to being reserved and silent that it rather came across as rude. They went about their way, the both of them, but the next morning, as Evelyn was buttering her toast, sitting on the fringes of the gaggle of girls and boys she spent time with, the boy slid over to the bench across from her and struck up another conversation. It took Evelyn a while, but she finally decided that he was vaguely interesting. The more they got to know each other, the more they fought, and the more they liked each other, and eventually they became girlfriend and boyfriend, although Evelyn was not impressed by such a term and rarely referred to him as her boyfriend - it sounded so immature, so teenager. He was rich enough to be suitable for her, clever enough to engage in intelligent conversation and gorgeous enough to die for, but also a bit of a trouble-maker. They spent their weekends out in the village, or further out into the countryside, doing whatever they fancied whenever they fancied and sort of exiling themselves from other people. Evelyn lost her virginity to him during the Christmas holidays that year - he held a Christmas party while his parents were away and they had sex in his bedroom, and it had not gone smoothly, nor was it very special, but there was something sort of beautiful about it, although it hurt. They were so used to each other that it wasn't awkward in the slightest and over the Christmas holidays they became used to having sex, and Evelyn found herself enjoying it more and more each time. She began to properly study plays and theatre and acting and whenever she could she would watch muggle films, generally really old ones, loving how totally gorgeous they could be, how films could make you cry and laugh and change your outlook and how it wasn't just the acting - although that was an enormous part - but it was also the way it was shot and where it was shot and the screenplay and absolutely every component. When she visited one of her Professors to discuss her career prospects and she told him she wanted to be an actress, he had stared at her blankly. He was one of the staff who had not been captured by the Evelyn Devereux charm and did not have a notion of being particularly nice to her, cutting right to the quick and demanding why a girl with such high grades would want to be an actress. The way he eyed her made it clear he thought her fanciful and foolish, and so Evelyn told him, quite plainly, that he was an arse, got up from her seat and left the room, ignoring his furious protests, and went straight to her favourite Professor's study. She paced up and down in front of him, saying very little but when she did she managed to say very much in a sentence or two. Eventually the original Professor tracked her down. As she'd had time to cool down, Evelyn turned towards him and apologised absolutely beautifully and totally insincerely, sounding very much as though she was making fun of him and making it very difficult for her favourite Professor not to laugh. Because of the fact that she had her boyfriend - who went by the name of Klaus - and had been in school for five years, Evelyn had softened slightly and had made quite a lot of connections, ending up with a bigger circle of friends than anyone could suspect a girl like herself to have. She and Klaus still spent most of their time together, but she compensated for not being very close to her family by having many friends outside the family. Heath, who had been her first true friend outside of her family, left the school during their fifth year, as his father had decided that he was not concentrating on his studies enough and was shipping him off to Beauxbatons. The night before he left he kissed Evelyn, a parting kiss, a kiss that she knew he didn't mean in the slightest, and so she retaliated with a slap, and then after that a hug, one of the only hugs she had ever rewarded anyone. Heath did not seem in the slightest bothered by the fact that his kiss had been met with a slap, and they both ignored the fact that he had kissed her, instead thinking back over the years they had known each other, although not getting sentimental as they were not like that at all. They lost contact soon after he left, although he wrote once or twice, reporting that France was excellent and that he'd found a couple of French friends and that he'd hopped into bed with multiple girls and it was all positively brilliant and his father was an idiot to think that he would settle down. After that letter, he and Evelyn were never in contact again, and although Evelyn never forgot about him, she soon forgot to miss him much. She and Klaus were together for the rest of her fifth year and his sixth, and although she never fell in love with him she did adore him rather intensely, even sometimes skipping classes to see him, spending hours talking to him. Those were the times when she talked the most, when she was the most animated, although she was still quite reserved, even with Klaus, having gotten used to being quiet throughout the years, although she enjoyed giving him a taste of what was on her mind. Towards the end of fifth year, however, a friend came to her, crying. The girl confessed that for the past couple of weeks she and Klaus had been fooling around, and Evelyn had frozen, becoming completely still, face expressionless. The girl looked positively terrified. Evelyn commanded the girl to get out of her sight, and the girl - a rather shy, weak creature - did as Evelyn said. Instead of going to confront Klaus Evelyn sat on her bed for most of the day, dazed and confused by what had happened. How could someone cheat on her? How could Klaus cheat on her? Finally, she got up from her bed and made her way down to where she was going to meet Klaus, head held high. She then demanded how, exactly, he thought he was going to get away with it and broke up with him on the spot. He tried many times after that to speak to her and he was duly ignored, and after that Evelyn had no more boyfriends during her school career, something that was speculated about by many, as she was asked out by lots of boys, from the best and the brightest to the complete opposite. But since that disastrous first relationship Evelyn Devereux became even more untouchable than she had been before, the sort of girl that no one ever truly knew and that boys found terribly difficult to ask out because she was so unapproachable. Once again, she finished her year with absolutely perfect grades and went back over to England for her summer. Her sister Camille had started in Hogwarts when Evelyn was in third year and Evelyn had found herself almost glad that Camille wasn't coming to school in Australia with her - she'd never been particularly close to Camille and it'd almost be as though she would have been obliged to be close to her if they went to the same school. Since they went to different schools, however, Evelyn did enjoy seeing Camille during the holidays as it was so rare when they saw each other, although Evelyn still didn't spend much time with any of her siblings or her father. She loved Eliza to bits and quite liked her other Australian cousins, and she'd heard stories about her English cousins and had no intention of meeting them. Even though she was more untouchable and less approachable than ever, she kept more in contact with her friends that summer, even deigning to refer to some of them as friends, which she never had before. Klaus wrote to her at one point, and out of sheer curiousity she ripped open the envelope and read the letter, but found that it was such drivel she ended up laughing at herself for even liking the silly, uppity, pretentious boy in the first place, and she chucked it away knowing that she was not to effected by him any more in the future, although she did continue to feel quite delicate, as opposed to when she was younger, when she felt strong and passionate, and it took her a while to get all of that back, which was perfectly normal, of course, for someone after they had been cheated on by someone they truly adored. She returned to school for sixth year looking properly like a woman, tall and elegant and appearing far older than most of the girls in her year and looking even prettier than she had before, the sort of pretty that was effortless and striking and that she was terribly vain about. Whenever anyone complimented her on her looks, she would nod once, obviously agreeing with them - |
ella. seventeen. three. timezone. |
ROLEPLAY SAMPLE HERE. DO NOT FORGET.
image credit to RADIOSTAR @ caution 2.0
