Character History

[guylining]

Nathaniel Hawthorne is the third and youngest child of the Hawthorne family. He was born into distinct privilege, his family being one of the oldest and wealthiest in England. More important than that, the Hawthornes are the prominent witching family in the region, having achieved that prominence through a long and powerful lineage of strong, innately talented witches. It's a legacy that has shaped Nate's life and development, as he has grown to understand the heritage he's gained, and the responsibilities that are expected of him in return.

His life was governed by a myriad of rules. Nate's parents expected him to learn magic from his tutors, staying largely apart from the human world. He was taught that, like his elder brother and sister, he would one day have a marriage arranged to a woman from a respectably appropriate witching family, and would produce his own children to be raised in the exact same way. With witches being matriarchal, he would also one day follow the rule of his sister.

It was a life he found stifling. As he grew up, Nate increasingly found his large house a lonely place. His parents were distant and formal, with his mother, the head of the family, strictly enforcing what magic he could use, what people he could see, what he could do every day, and even what he would wear. His older brother Theodore was a picture of family obedience, always toeing the line, and his parents expected Nate to follow suit. Theo himself was as cool and distant with Nate as his parents, and only with his sister Gwendolyn did Nate experience a truly loving relationship. Both of them found their family's expectations difficult to meet, yet both of them handled it in different ways. Where Doe searched for secret outlets for her frustrations, Nate grew increasingly rebellious. As he got older, and had more ability to buy his own clothes, he replaced his expensive suits with vintage jackets and heavy boots. His hair grew long and unkempt, he pierced his ears and tattooed his body.

More than that, he began to spend time with humans. He met them first in secret, and then more openly, drawing criticism from his witching peers and attracting punishment from his family. He didn't care; he kept pushing at his boundaries, growing increasingly excited by his experiences outside the confines of his house. At the same time, his relationships with his parents and brother deteriorated, and he compensated by seeking out a different kind of affection. There were multiple girls, and some boys. Most of them were human. Others were hedge witches, people with some magical ability, but lacking the pedigree of a witching family. He grew further and further distanced from his family, remaining close only to his sister - in Nate's mind, the only person who'd ever really loved him without condition. The rest of his family saw him as a loose cannon, and his reputation as a black sheep slowly grew.

In secret, however, he was nurturing a building obsession with his magic. It began with a desire to discover to stray beyond the tight lines in which his parents had kept his education. There were forbidden magics into which he decided to dip his toes, and he started to study in secret. Into the darkest reaches of his family's oldest library he went, and when he could learn more from that, he sought stranger, more arcane sources. Over time, his interest developed from a simple desire to rebel, into a genuine and heartfelt interest in what he was learning. He loved the power of it coursing through his skin. He'd uncovered a hunger that he could never quite satisfy, and he always sought more. The obsession spread into his relationships, as he dealt with hedge witches and learned what they knew. He shared his own knowledge, too, something strictly forbidden by his family's magical laws. Eventually, Nate began to use his reputation to his advantage; the piercings in his ears were really charmed gemstones, and his tattoos were the symbols and runes he used in his most unusual rituals. His obsession was hidden in plain sight, concealed behind the trappings of what his parents called 'acting out'. He was happy to play the part.

Then, while working in the older, quiet, disused areas of his family's mansion, he came across something else; the whispers of ghosts, trying to reach out to them. Nate used magic to contact them, and eventually befriended some of them, even allowing them to possess his body so that they could experience life for short periods. It was a dangerous risk to take, and of course he told no one, but he found that he liked watching how someone else made his body behave. Despite resenting the control other people exerted on his life, he discovered a bizarre liking for being out of control. His experiments with it stretched further into danger, as he decided to try for an even more dangerous form of possession; he decided to contact a demon.

His first attempts were failures; he summoned hellfire, accidentally setting an entire curtain set ablaze. Then he got hold of a small plague demon, which he trapped, but it lacked the power to possess him. Finally, he succeeded in inviting full body possession, and experienced a night of sin unfettered, with the demon in control of his actions. It left Nate with a craving for the same darkness, the same hedonistic sense of pleasure. He wanted more, and though he knew it was dangerous, he had no regrets.

At the same time, he'd begun a relationship of his own; the first he'd ever been in, after years of little more than casual encounters. Nate's brother Theo had also gotten engaged, to a woman from another witching family. This, too, had been arranged, and it was through that arrangement that Nate met her brother, Xavier. He knew that Xavier was different from the start, and was attracted to him, despite ordinarily refusing to get involved with others from witching families. He discovered that Xavier was gay, but very much closeted, and after a couple of false starts, they began an illicit, secret relationship. Nate slowly grew in his feelings for Xavier, which should have been a healthy relationship - but the secretive nature of it left Nate certain there could be no true future for them.

Once he turned eighteen, he knew that his own time would come soon; his parents will expect him to leave his rebellion behind, and once his siblings are married, they will undoubtedly expect the same of Nate. It's something that he dreaded, and so he planned to escape before it could happen. Behind the scenes, he made plans to escape his family and move to London, where he could practice magic in public and make a living on his own merit. That was his dream, and he made all the preparations. The trust fund that was supposed to give him a college education was used instead as a down payment on a penthouse apartment in London, all ready for Nate to flee to. Still, he knew that the moment he did would be the moment his parents would cut him off. He'd be disowned, and it would likely be difficult to see his siblings again. Nate told himself that once he could use magic to teleport, and so get away cleanly, he would do it.

For months, he tried to teleport, and found himself unable. It was the only spell that ever gave him trouble, and he couldn't understand it. What could he be holding onto? But then an argument with his brother turned violent; it wasn't the first time, but it was serious, with Theo pinning Nate to a wall and priming to hit him. Without overthinking it, he teleported on instinct, and realised that there was nothing else holding him back. He made two stops before he left - his sister Doe, and his boyfriend Xavier. He asked both of them to come with him, and in turn, they both refused. It was the moment Nate had dreaded; love was always temporary. If he wanted to stay with them, he would have to give up on his London dream, and he just couldn't do that. So he left, to start a new life under his own power. That's the point at which he would enter the game, newly free of his family's leash, and having left his old life behind.