Claudia Moore
She/Her
25 years old
Violent
50 kg
Personality
She was always different, ever since being a little kid. Where empathy and understanding other people's emotions comes naturally to others, Claudia had to put a lot of conscious effort to find ways to work around this. She might lack remorse, but that doesn't make her uncompassionate person, even if her compassion stems from logical thinking rather than innate empathy.
Violence is something she sees no point in, unless pushed to it in desperation. She is fully aware that she won't stand a chance in physical conflict and aims to avoid it whenever it is even slightly possible. It's not that she sees it as strictly wrong, just the cons usually outweigh the benefits.
Most of the time she aims to fly under the radar and her naturally flat affect only helps with it. She has absolutely no qualms about lying or manipulating people, nor does she shy away from petty crime. She can come off as drowsy or restless, calm or anxious, euphoric or depressed, all depending on when she got her last fix and how much she tries to hide her addiction.
Art is one of the things that brightens her personality and true passion shines through it. It is one of the things that helps her understand herself, the world and others, and connect with them in a way she is otherwise unable to.
She wants to help people, not cause some it brings her satisfaction or cause some innate goodness, but because people and society value useful people and she is more than aware that she will need all the help and support she can get in this new lawless world.
Appearance
Claudia had always somewhat boyish figure, but it only got worse in recent years as she now squarely got into the malnourished or underweight category. The little curves she had had all practically disappear, leaving her with a very "heroin chic" look. She falls just bellow the average height, with a small frame. It is also clear that she's lacking in physical strength, even if she attempts to hide it.
Her hair is very dark brown and wavy, but seems black a lot of the time. Her eyes are steel gray with pin point or blown pupils a lot of the time. She doesn't as good care of her appearance as she should, mostly for the lack of opportunity. She has so called slavic stare, when not putting on conscious effort.
She has collected few tattoos over the years as she hang out with bikers, even if she had to hide them for the other parts of her life. The most prominent or meaningful to her would be phases of the moon going along her collarbones and Prague skyline along her left bicep/shoulder.
Background
Claudia Moore was a young preschool teacher, barely reaching her 30s, when she decided to make a trip to Europe from Kentucky, USA. There was nothing extraordinary about her trip, up until she made a stop in Malmo, Sweden. It's unclear what led her to go into that back alley, to brave the darkness, but it was the last mistake she made.
Claudia Moore was murdered in that back alley on the 4th of March 1993. And yet she boarded the plane back to America two days later.
Claudia's family was waiting for her at the airport, but when she didn't show, they made a ruckus with the staff and that's how the world actually found out It was someone else on the plane. They've alerted the authorities and Claudia's name and photo made it to the news, with the story.
On the 8th of March, another photo and name would join Claudia's - Valentina Pokorná, a washed out medicine student from Sweden, with uncanny resemblance to Claudia, despite being years younger. She was now the prime suspect with the murder and identity theft.
Valentina's life was marked by a series of unlucky events and facts - from her being born in Czechoslovakia just few years before the tanks rolled in and occupation started, to the motorcycle accident that left her fighting for her life and dependent on opioids.
Her father Josef was an avid soviet and a StB agent, while her mother Božena was a nurse. It was a shotgun marriage and little Valentina didn't really make things easier. It took whole 5 years of both parents trying to mould the little girl to their image of a perfect daughter, before Josef's secret occupation came to light in the marriage. It was the last straw for Božena and one winter morning, she simply took her daughter and some necessities and escaped to Sweden.
Valentina wasn't like the other children and it was clear to her mother from a very young age. Where empathy and compassion came naturally to others, Valentina had to compensate with her reasoning and Božena made sure to always lead her daughter towards it, even to the point that Valentina wanted to study medicine.
Life continued as usual for young Valentina, besides having to learn a whole new language now. She was still young enough for it to not be too much of an issue, as she went through school, even when English was added into the mix right during the elementary school level. It delayed her understanding of many of the subjects, but Božena took it upon herself to tutor her in everything, but the languages.
Valentina was always a hard worker, especially when she saw how much her mother struggled with the language and soon enough, she was the one to translate for her, even when all three languages mangled together. It was a struggle, but they both learned over the years, even to the point of fluency.
As Valentina approached high school level of education, she finally had time to focus on more things - art, violin, friends and simply enjoying the life. But even then she hasn't let go off the grind, spending her evenings over anatomy books and filling her sketchbook with medicine related sketches.
At university she studied medicine, with the aim to become a doctor, more than gently influenced by her mother. It was also during that time that she got her first boyfriend and life was looking simply perfect.
It was during the clinical stage of her med degree that she and her boyfriend Felix were flung off the bike at high speed. They both were brought to the hospital, fighting for their lives, but only Valentina won that battle.
She has developed an opioid dependency during her stay in the hospital, which was not something she really had the will to fight, when it brought such a relief from both the physical and emotional pain.
That marked the beginning of her downwards spiral. Drugs, alcohol, crime... She did everything for the next fix, including stealing meds from the hospital where she had her practice, which led to her being kicked out of school. It didn't help with the addiction, despite all her mother's efforts, and Valentina simply spiralled further and further into crime.
It was mostly small things, pickpocketing and shoplifting, but as her addiction and debts grew, she was pushed into more and more desperate measures. The last of which was robbing a lady in a dark alley.
She didn't want to hurt her, but as she saw her bleeding out on the floor, she simply panicked and run away, instead of stopping to save her.
In Claudia's bag she found the key to her hotel room and once the panic fell off, she snuck in there. The flight ticket felt like a miracle, an escape from all her troubles and all it took was a little courage and makeup to pass for the real Claudia.
She didn't intend to stick with the stolen name, but with each interaction, she simply dug herself deeper and deeper, all the way to getting to Knox.
The rifts were terrifying to her, all the way through, but she followed that strange pull, that call of safety, taking shelter in any basement she could find.
