Zoey Hawthorne

A lover of books who prides herself on being a proper Gilnean, Zoey Hawthorne is the Baronetess of Darel'horth in Southern Gilneas and the Earlessa of Stonesea Isle off the Eastern shore of Gilneas. She currently resides in House Hawthorne's seat of power, Bruckstone, with her husband, Ryshken, and children - Julia, Liam, Charlotte, Thomas, and Lucas.

Appearance
With her long, auburn hair swept neatly to the left in a side-braid, Zoey is likely to be found with her nose in a book. If her heart-shaped face happens to be unhidden, it is her bright and alluring green eyes that catch the attention of those around her. She has a fair complexion with a few light freckles sprinkled across the bridge of her nose. Her thin lips often curl upward in a polite smile as she offers a nod to those who address her. If she chooses to speak, her voice is surprisingly rough, in contrast with her otherwise delicate appearance.

When she stands, she is of average height with a toned body. She walks in a way that exudes confidence, one foot firmly placed in front of the other. She is proud of her appearance and the way she keeps herself well-groomed makes that evident. The way she turns her nose up in disgust at those who don't do the same makes it even more obvious.

Always wearing a dress, her clothing choices are never too revealing and like the rest of her, her entire wardrobe is kept neat and tidy. She keeps her jewelry simple, an stud earring in each ear and a stunning engagement ring and a gold wedding band upon the ring finger of her left hand.

In the off-chance she's seen in her Worgen form, she could be mistaken for any average Worgen - the usual fur, teeth, claws, etc. She is covered in gray fur with white markings around her face, outlining her aforementioned intense, green eyes.

Childhood in Gilneas
Born firmly in the middle-class of Gilneas City, Zoey was the daughter of a shopkeeper and his wife. It was her mother's opinion that an education was a passport to advancement and respectability and Zoey was enrolled in school immediately upon reaching the appropriate age. With near perfect attendance, she eagerly learned all that was taught to her and developed a love of literature. When she wasn't in school, she could be found browsing the shelves of her father's bookshop for something new and exciting to read. A cubby under the staircase had become her hideaway as a child and once the perfect book was found, she hid in there to read without being disturbed, only coming out when she heard a knock and her mother's voice proclaiming that it was time for supper. Even after being told it was time for bed, Zoey would often stay up to read by candlelight, snuffing it out and hiding the book under her pillow the moment she heard the sound of footsteps coming towards her door.

Sometime after her schooling commenced, Zoey's parents heard word from her school mistress that she had been showing a bit of magic potential. While they tried to ignore it at first, their minds changed the day Zoey lit fire to the hair of a girl who had been teasing her. Knowing their daughter's hunger for learning, they knew she would secretly teach herself the ways of magic using merely books. They decided it best that she used magic with proper guidance. While she left her regular school to attend a specialized school for magic, her mother continued to teach her the basics at home. Though she would rather have read books about romance and adventure, her mother required her to read books on household management and etiquette as well. It was important, she was told, to have the proper skills to be a good mother and wife in the future.

Love, Loss, and Family
Boys didn't interest Zoey as a teenager, however. She was more concerned with school and reading. There was a boy who showed interest in her, though; her best friend Samuel. It was an unfortunate moment that day he decided to kiss her and forever changed the friendship the two shared. With few other friends, Zoey spent most of her free time helping in her father’s shop or reading on bridges in the city. On one such evening that she was helping her father, a man stumbled into the door and had obviously been drinking. Zoey couldn't deny feeling drawn to him by both his appearance and something else she couldn't explain. After he asked for a book like a bumbling fool, Zoey's father quickly handed him one and showed him the exit as he'd seen the gaze between the man and his daughter. A chance meeting on a bridge in the city led to an introduction between Zoey and the man, whose name was Thomas Hawthorne. He rushed off with little conversation between them only to return to her father’s shop the next day to ask her out on a date. Able to see that the man had very little to offer, Zoey’s mother was not afraid to express her displeasure with the date when the time came. Nevertheless, Thomas and Zoey went on their date and Zoey couldn’t deny how much she enjoyed the date and his company.

She expected Thomas to call on her again, but time passed and he didn’t come. It wasn’t until she’d heard the rumors about an attack at the wall that she realized he’d gone to fight. He was a soldier, after all. She had little time to fret over it, though, as after an argument one evening, Zoey’s mother passed away. Filled with grief, that day changed her forever.

When the threat at the wall seemed to no longer be an issue, Thomas returned to the city and sought out the Wilkinson household to see Zoey. He learned of her mother’s passing and Zoey found comfort in his arms. He promised her that he’d get a promotion, get a house, and make her happy. A few months later, on a date to the location of their first date, Thomas Hawthorne proposed and several months after that, the pair was married in Light’s Dawn in the city. They moved into a home of their own where they shortly after began their family with a daughter, Julia Hawthorne. Zoey had her second child just two years later; a boy named after the son of the King of Gilneas. Liam Hawthorne. The foursome lived happily in their small, two-bedroom home until news of something rampaging through Gilneas became more and more prevalent.

Worgen Outbreak
Thomas came home one day and told Zoey he’d heard that the threat had been identified… Worgen. Their height, strength, and speed was unmatched by any Gilnean or anything they’d ever seen before. For a time, small hunting parties were able to subdue them from becoming a threat to Gilneas, but as their numbers grew at a rapid rate, it became harder and harder. As the city grew more and more unsafe and Thomas was given orders to patrol through the woods to hunt down the beasts and kill them, he knew he needed to do something to keep his family safe. After taking down a few walls within the home, he used the boards to seal up every window and door, leaving only a small exit out of the back that Zoey and the children could crawl out of by removing a loose board should they need to. They had tried to convince Zoey’s father to do the same, Thomas even offering to help him, but James wouldn’t listen. Much to Zoey’s dismay, her father was determined to ride it out. Thomas and Zoey spent their last night together before Thomas set off to protect Gilneas from a new threat. Neither of them knew it would be the last time they saw each other for far longer than they’d anticipated.

For a month, Zoey cared for her two children alone inside the closed up house. It wasn’t easy and she struggled to handle the pair on her own, but she did what she had to do. Eventually, word made it around that the Gilnean army was in tatters and Zoey heard talk of it from inside her home. She thought the worst for her husband and though she tried to stay strong for her children, her heart ached as it did when she'd lost her mother.

Upon finding her cat missing, Julia Hawthorne took it upon herself to venture out of the safety of the Hawthorne house and into the street of Gilneas. When Zoey discovered her daughter was missing, she took her son out of the home to search for her. The pair of them were attacked by a Worgen before escaping to the countryside with the rest of those evacuated from the city, Zoey waited patiently and kept a watchful eye out for her daughter or her father. She couldn’t ignore the bite from the beast, however, and could not deny that it seemed to be getting worse and affecting her health. And if she was bad, Liam was worse. Eventually, it would all become too much for them and the pair would pass out, a change taking over them. For who knows how long, the pair would wander about in a form they’d never known before. Their minds lost as they performed acts they had never dreamed off.

Duskhaven
When Zoey woke one day, she found herself in Duskhaven and in a stockade with her wrists and neck bound. After identifying both herself and her now Worgen son, Zoey was released from her bindings. As she brought her hands together to rub at her wrists, it became all too clear what she had become. Fur covered her arms, claws where her fingers used to be, and as she reached up to her face, she found a snout.

Refugee homes had been set up for those that had been left homeless in the form of tents and quickly crafted together houses and though the Worgen threat had mostly been quelled there were still plenty out there to act as a threat, and so things were kept close with Guards set up for protection. In one such tent, Zoey and Liam found a home… if you could call it that. With no money and no job, they had very little. Eventually, the pair both learned to return to their human form and Zoey swore she’d never use the form of the beast again. She prayed every night that Julia would be found and brought to her. Instead, it was her own husband who found her and with Julia at his side. The pair of them were Worgen as well and Thomas decided that he would no longer be known as Thomas, but as Ryshken instead. And just as Thomas had made a good soldier, Ryshken made an even better one as a Worgen. Zoey was apprehensive when he told her that he’d be joining a newly created force known as The Knights of the Black Rose, but she knew her husband and she knew when he put his mind to something, there was no changing it.

Fall of Gilneas
And then one day... Gilneas was shattered. Duskhaven was lost completely, the water sucking it in, causing the death of countless Gilneans. But the most devastating was the massive crumbling of the wall’s gates. Cracked open, what was outside of Gilneas was now allowed in. Unaware of the damage to the wall, all who were able were dispatched to the remnants of Duskhaven in search of survivors while others were sent all throughout Gilneas. Ryshken, and The Knights of the Black Rose, were sent to the Headlands to check on the towns residing there. When Ryshken returned home, the news wasn't good. Eventually, the Forsaken made their way to the city and the fight began. Ryshken rushed his wife and children out of the city to hide in the manor until it was all over, but it didn't end. Gilneas was lost and everyone was evacuated from the city to Darnassus. Zoey and the children left first and waited for Ryshken to join them, which he eventually did after fighting with the Gilnean Liberation Front for a year.

Settling in Darel'horth
A time later, word began to spread in Darnassus of a man named Ferenold Stormshend who was gathering Gilneans that wished to return home and begin a new settlement. Traveling with the group, Zoey eventually found herself in her beloved homeland, though it was quite different than when she'd left it. No matter, it felt good to return and she was excited to start over exactly where she belonged. It was her hope that maybe her parents had never left Gilneas and would hear of the establishment and come find her.

Zoey became quite attached to the small town of Darel'horth and worked hard to see that it prospered in every way possible. She was a voice heard at every town meeting, albeit sometimes she was in opposition with the majority of citizens. She stood up for what she believed and voted against that which she felt was unacceptable. When Ferenold Stormshend felt he no longer wished to run the small town, ownership of the land of Darel'horth was transferred to Zoey and with Ryshken at her side, the pair saw the town prosper.

A Noble Notification
While sitting at home with her family one afternoon, a letter arrived from a man Zoey had never heard of before, a Lord Benjamin Whitlock. The letter informed her that her mother was previously a member of the Whitlock family, though upon her marriage, she removed herself from the line and broke all ties with the family itself. The letter went on to explain that the family was a long-standing noble house of Gilneas with land by the name of Bruckstone and implored her to make sure that the work that Lord Whitlock had put into restoring it did not go to waste.

Though shocked at first as her mother had never spoken of her family, Zoey quickly sought the advice and aid of Berenal Grayblade in petitioning for the land of Bruckstone to be given to her by right of blood. Upon the approval of her petition, the House of Hawthorne was born and Zoey took control of the Barony of Bruckstone.

Julia
While her eyes are the bright, alluring green of her mother’s, much of her makes her easily identifiable as Ryshken’s daughter. She was a difficult baby and that topped with Zoey’s postpartum depression made it hard for Zoey to have much of a bond with her newborn daughter. Ryshken, however, never had an issue connecting with Julia. He fell in love with her instantly, anyone nearby able to see the admiration and pride written on his face the moment he set his eyes on her little face. It was soon obvious that Julia wouldn’t be the little lady Zoey had been expecting to have. As soon as she could crawl, Julia tended to get into any trouble she could find and she was frequently found in the small closet under the stairs where Thomas had kept his weapons. She had some odd fascination with weapons and while it made Ryshken proud, it drove a bit of a wedge between Zoey and her daughter. W ith a love of pie that matches her father's, Julia is a fiesty little thing who can find trouble anywhere.

Liam
Just as Thomas had formed an instant bond with Julia, so had Zoey with their second child, a son named Liam. The spitting image of his father with eyes full of wonder and curiosity, it was obvious from birth that he’d grow up to be something. Something big. The future Earl of Stonesea Isle, Liam is the gentleman that his mother has raised him to be, well-behaved and well-mannered, while still the good little soldier that his father would like as well.

The Twins: Charlotte and Thomas
Charlotte is a three foot, four inch tall version of Zoey. With auburn hair and bright green eyes like her mother, she is nothing short of beautiful. Typically wearing a dress with her hair in a braid, she is a little lady. She is a very polite and friendly girl. Unlike her mother, she is a bit softer and less judging (at least now while she’s young). She loves to dress up and is always happy to show off a new dress to anyone who will ask about it. Her twin brother Thomas isn’t like his other brothers and sisters; a pale skinned boy with red hair and green eyes, he is short for his age at just over three feet. He’s rather scrawny and clearly not built to be the soldier his older brother will become. A clumsy little thing, he’s often shy. He lacks the confidence of his older brother, though he is prone to outbursts at times when frustrated or angry. He tends to be in his twin sister’s shadow, keeping close to her. He’s definitely aware that he’s different and does try hard at times to please his father, though he usually fails.

Lucas
Lucas is a black haired boy of about three and a half feet, Lucas has bright green eyes like his mother. He’s a bit tall for his age and it’s likely he’ll grow up to look like a perfect mix of his mother and father. Lucas has quite the personality for a four year old. He’s very friendly and talkative when you catch him alone. When around his oldest siblings, he usually lets them do the talking and it’s obvious that he idolizes Liam and Julia. At just four years old, he has already showed great skill in the use of magic.