Adrianna and Drake

All right, I've already changed Adrianna to Arianna to match my Javor naming conventions, but I'm posting these as written. Adri/Adrianna/Arianna and Drake are not blood related, but they do have a sibling mindset. Also, I'm not sure what the deal is with the spirit horses. I think they were an idea that didn't last.


Adri grew up with animals, from the spirit horses to the dogs and even her brother’s reptile collection. She learned early on how to handle spiders and snakes and never thought twice about cleaning up after them. Life on a farm was good for teaching children responsibility, and if her brothers and sisters had been noisy, opinionated and obnoxious, the animals had been patient and quiet when she had needed to escape. It occasionally surprises her that she is now considered one of the loud ones, given that she had been the quietest member of her family before the Gemini.

Despite what her family thought, the Gemini had never been Adrianna’s dream. She always pictured herself having a small farm in a rural community or maybe being a teacher. It wasn’t until Drake had crashed in the back pasture that fateful afternoon that Adrianna had even begun to think about living somewhere other than Javor. She had certainly never pictured herself on the forefront of an intergalactic battleground utilizing technology that had as much of a chance of destroying her as destroying the enemy. She never told her mother the truth, because the Gemini weren’t her dream, they were real.

Drake doesn’t have a lot of memories warmth. He grew up in an environment that was conducive to performance and perfection, but never praise. His first squad had introduced him to warmth but it had been difficult for him to understand that he had the right to be a part of that. He regrets now that he can’t repay them for their kindness. Instead, he tries to honor their memory by paying it forward to his new team. It amuses him when other people refer to him as cold and a bastard, because his team will defend him without thought.

The Gemini are like watermelon for Drake, they are sweet and often overflow with their emotions, and there are parts of them that are hard to swallow and must be spat out, all of which is hidden behind their hard yet fragile shell. Although they look impenetrable, a hit in the right place will cause them to fracture. Drake knows he can never share the analogy, but he cannot forget it, and he prays that the apparent fragility of their shell is only an illusion. He hopes that when things are at their toughest and worse, they will not shatter.