Sailor Mercury

History
Mercurians pride themselves on being fully Mercurian, for that assures that the vaunted Mercurian intellect remains intact within their own people, that no matter what, Mercurians will be prized by the White Regime. There are of course the outliers, those who sully their blood to mate with those outside the planet – Venusian mistresses are acceptable, as is taking pleasure with a Neptunian showman, but never to marry, never to bear children. That is what made Heammawihio an outcast on Mercury: his Neptunian father Tlazopilli, his mother’s long time lover, but never husband. She gave her son Tlazopilli’s last name, yes, but only because the name Kallan appealed to her sensibilities, something highly illogical to the other Mercurians, but understood by her beloved. Logic had no place in the face of love, the Neptunian knew.

So it was a shock when Heammawihio married a Mercurian himself, after all the teasing he had gone through growing up, unable to leave Mercury because of his mother’s high position in the planetary government, and his father’s unwillingness to leave her side. He had fallen head-over-heels with one of the highest ranked interpreters on Mercury, Odahingum Swouit. Odahingum must have seen something in Heammawihio that none of her friends did, since she agreed to the marriage and even changed her name for him, not keeping her own Swouit, despite it being known thorough out the galaxy. Theirs was not a marriage given to many children, even if Odahingum had been found to be particularly fertile. She was not, and it was many years after their marriage that she finally gave birth to Amalia. As it was, the child was sickly and frail, born premature (a near unheard of thing across the galaxy, but especially on Mercury), not expected to live to see her first birthday, or be that dreaded thing on Mercury - disabled. None of that came to pass, the inner strength Amalia maintains secretly, hidden where even she can’t find it keeping her alive, though only luck kept her fully functional. The typical nutritional supplements did not aid her as she grew, balanced as they were for a normal child, not one who should still be consuming the additional fat-content of mother’s milk until some time in her third year of life.

Tlazopilli came to her aid then, having grown in his old age to want some form of real food, not just the nutritional supplements, graciously treating his three year old granddaughter to whatever few true food items he had managed to get delivered to him – sausages and chocolate, packaged cookies and dried meat, fizzy soda and sweet juices. Amalia loved spending time with her grandfather, keeping her out of the already academically-competitive preschool classes her mother had anxiously enrolled her in, wanting to be sure her daughter had the best chance to succeed. Not that she spent all her time with Tlazopilli simply eating and drinking from his precious stores of food. Even at age three, Amalia was getting formal lessons in Neptunian, having already been near fluent vocally by the time she was able to form full sentences, Tlazopilli having spoken only his original native tongue to his granddaughter even when he first saw her. Amalia spoke in sentences that few could understand, substituting in Neptunian words for Mercurian, and Terrestrial (for her mother spoke to her just in that tongue, all dialects) sprinkled in when nothing else seemed appropriate. It was clear she had her mother’s gift with languages, and would put it to good use.

On first entering primary level schooling, Amalia was promptly enrolled in second-level writing, sixth-level reading and arithmetic and was up into eighth-level language courses for Neptunian and Terrestrial. She was a budding genius, and none on Mercury would hold back a genius, only nurture it, even if that came to the point of hindering the child’s social interactions: what did social interactions matter in the face of being the best and learning the most? Though her science and history levels were still at enterance level at that time, the girl had more than enough homework to keep her little five year old self occupied, and thus able to visit with Tlazopilli just to have him sit there and assure she did her work by bribing her with a soda or juice. It wasn’t that she disliked the work, for she was Mercurian, and even at that time understood that she was supposed to do work to become the best of the best, but she was five, knowing something and doing it are two different things, especially when she’d rather just listen to her grandfather tell her stories, or teach her how to play his harp.

That was the best bribe, through the years until Amalia got the full competitive edge that drove Mercurians on to beat eachother intellectually – that she would get daily lessons in harp playing from her grandfather, provided she finish all her homework first. Worked better than any fizzy soda or juice, especially as he came to get fewer and fewer packages. She still liked the treats, but they were just treats, not something that she could spend all her time on, like playing the harp.

By the time she was officially entering secondary schooling, Amalia had run out of courses for Terrestrial and Neptunian, and was well on her way to finishing her last course for Lunarian. She immediately jumped into learning Jovian and Uranian, relishing the challenge of the languages, as even her twelfth-level science courses were starting to seem boring. She graduated secondary schooling with the ability to slip right into her sophmore year of undergraduate study at sixteen. Schooling slowed for her then, if only because the courses actually became somewhat difficult, primarily in biology and chemistry, two of her intended majors. Her other major (Venusian) came easy after all her other language study, and her chosen minors, while interesting, were more for additional intellectual simulation and a chance for a break after her science courses than because she wanted a challenge (though Plutonian proved tougher than she anticipated – Saturnian and Harp were as easy as she wished).

There was no way now to go see Tlazopilli, he having died during her secondary school years. The death had fueled her through those years, but now the thought of it just made her empty – and craving the sodas and real food he had given her, rather than tasteless nutritional supplements and water. Her Harp minor was for him, as she’d gotten plenty good enough at it over the years to major in it, if she had wanted to shock everyone (and had enough time), he having given her the massive behemoth he played, when his will was read.

Despite her slowdown in studies initially, Amalia barreled her way through to graduate with ease, helped by the fact that beyond playing the harp and reading non-classroom books, she had nothing to do but study. She’d never been one for any televids or anything like that, and Mercurians weren’t known for making a multitude of friends. In fact at this point, Amalia had none. Her only friend had been Tlazopilli. Everyone else saw her as the one to beat, and no one near her age wanted to be friends with her, even if she tried, like she had during primary years. The teasing had hurt, so she just kept to herself now.

Directly after graduating from undergraduate studies at nineteen, Amalia began working on her Masters programs, Biology and Venusian, using her free time to take courses to elevate her Jovian- and Uranian-language knowledge up to being minors in undergraduate level work and the four courses needed to get her Saturnian and Plutonian up to major-level credits. In truth she began crafting a quiet hope to become a doctor, able to travel to any planet save Mars and speak directly to the people there without an interpreter, knowing their customs and different dialects as she did. She knew her knowledge wasn’t perfect (only really living in a place can give one that), but her knowledge would assure her ability to help people.

Unfortunately for her, she was still young enough to listen to her mother. Odahingum wanted her daughter, if not to be an interpreter like her (Amalia just didn’t have the personality for it, Odahingum believed), then a professor somewhere. Someplace safe, where she could keep learning as she wished to and not get into any danger. So upon obtaining her Masters degrees (and her new majors/minors), Amalia didn’t apply to medical school, but instead went on for her PhD in biology, so she could teach. During her PhD-level courses Amalia also took courses to bring her Jovian and Uranian minors up to majors, and began working on officially having Lunarian, Terrestrial and Neptunian minors (despite her writing and verbal fluency in all three languages, it wasn’t official that she knew them, according to the way higher education works).

Now equipped with a PhD in biology and majors/minors in every language in the galaxy except for Martian, Amalia was sent to Earth to teach at the large Earth college, assigned to the Biology 101 and 201 courses. Simply teaching is giving her more than enough time to make all (including Harp) of her minors into majors, and she looks the most forward to learning some Martian from her fellow professors. Perhaps, she likes to dream, she might even make a friend or two. Not that she expects to out of her students, since she’s the professor and all… but at only twenty-four, and away from her parents for the first time, who knows what will happen.

Personality
By placing her in classes where she would actually be challenged, her parents doomed her. Not that such a thing is particularly uncommon on Mercury – the drive is to be the best, the smartest, and parents will routinely live through their children, especially if their dreams were high academics, and they never obtained what their children would obtain. However inaccurate that part is when talking about Amalia (Odahingam was more than intelligent herself, and Himmawihio had enough Neptunian in him that his interests were more in art and its functions in academia than in actual academia: made him enough of a novelty on Mercury for him to be in a high position himself), her parents did still live through her, in a skewed way. They did for her what they would have wanted at her age, with her intelligence, not what they shouldhave done, balancing her intelligence against her mental maturity level. For a pair of Mercurians, this could be conceived of as bad planning. Really it was just bad parenting, coupled with pressure from the whole planet to see how much the little five year old could achieve. Someone, it is said, may have pushed Odahingam and Himmawihio to place her in the classes they did, as a test. The Regime always needs to think of replacements for the Eye in the Sky.

So little Amalia went through life as the quiet one in the front, too small in most of her classes to be the quiet one in the back, taking notes and answering questions when asked, but not interacting. She’d tried, up through her eighth birthday celebration, to make friends, asking the people that were “nice” (smiled at her, didn’t outright tease her) to join her at a party. But the younger children thought she was stuck up, and the older children wouldn’t stoop to befriending the girl who was getting better grades than them. Her parties consisted of her parents and grandparents having a formal reading of children’s books – Tlazopilli tried to make them fun by doing different voices for the characters, but it was nothing compared to what she wanted. It was, unfortunately, all she got.

She knows intellectually about parties and games and first loves and kisses and sex – never let it be said that Odahingam let her daughter be sheltered from the mysteries of life – and all the other things that make life enjoyable to the common person outside Mercury. She’s just never experienced any of them, but the most fleeting of crushes. She knows about whatshould go into making friends and having friends and keeping friends, but has never been able to even really get to the first stage. It’s too bad, really.

Amalia is painfully shy (who wouldn’t be, after being shunned so many times?), but underneath that, she bears all the trademarks of being a stellar friend. She will respond to the world around her as any person should, but she can and will figure out what’s wrong with the person faster than most others, her mind calculating what all their ticks and gestures and vocal intonations add up to, and find a way to make things better. She hates to see someone she knows in pain, and if that person happened to bear the title ‘friend’, well… just because ice kills slowly doesn’t make you any less dead. Her intelligence provides her with a quick wit, and if allowed the chance to speak, she will be found to have quite a “smart” mouth, making the turn of phrase both classy and pointedly sharp.

When she has friends, Amalia will clearly be regarded as the quiet one, no question about that, but the quiet one who listens and offers advice. Even for not knowing a lot about life inreality, she can easily take what she knows about the hypothetical and apply it to the real world, so that her advice is solid and makes sense, down to the point of using examples that the friend she is talking to will understand. Her joy is a quiet thing, given by small smiles and glowing eyes, not jumping and shrieking for happiness.

Normally with the “quiet” ones, people worry about their anger, thinking that rage is just bottled up underneath the surface, waiting to come out. To a point, this is true with Amalia. No one can clearly state they’ve seen her angry, but no one has broken through the shell she’s put up around herself to make her get mad. It is hard to get her mad, but if ever anyone managed it, they’d be remarkably surprised. It’s more likely that Amalia would begin not by raging and going off on a tear insulting people left, right and center in all ten galactic languages, but by crying. Yes, Amalia would get so mad that she would cry, at least the first time, as much in shock at feeling the emotion than with the need to cry. She would later go to ranting and raving without crying, but pushed past a certain level, even when more well adjusted, and be faced with a tearful hellion who may just learn to freeze her tears and use them as projectiles. In a way that makes her all the more dangerous, for if she doesn’t freeze her tears, whomever angered her would feel the need to comfort her (or attack, be it a nere-do-well) and then find themselves with much more than they bargained for.

Her most secret desire, untold to any but Tlazopilli is to eat real food all the time. That is what made her choose Earth for her teaching position, when she could have easily gone to Jupiter or Venus or Neptune or Uranus. All have real food, but Earth, that meltingpot of all the galaxy’s cultures, has the most variety, would allow her to mix and match the food she eats so that she doesn’t have to eat the same thing twice unless she really wants to. Her office refrigerator is full of juice and soda and milk (the last a brand new treat that she most heartily enjoys – so creamy!), and one of her drawers in her desk is devoted to all manner of non-perishable treats, most decidedly on the sweet side of one’s tastebuds, but a few particularly salty ones are in there as well (dark chocolate covered pretzels… bliss in a bag). Should she get over her shyness, or at least relax somewhat, Amalia could easily become the most beloved professor on campus for her snack-filled office alone, let alone her teaching.

The young woman would actually do quite well teaching in any of the languages she knows. Though they came to her with the ease of sliding across silk sheets, she understands them and their nuances to a point beyond the native speaker, thus able to explain the differences between them in a manner able to be understood, unlike many professors with degrees in one field but teaching in another – one they understand so well they do not know where the student went wrong, and thus cannot help them. This is not the truth with Amalia: she can figure it out and help them make it right, be it in one of her languages or in her actualcourses for biology. She demands the best out of her students, but unlike many Mercurian professors, doesn’t look down on them for not getting it – that would be hypocritical of her, when she knows that her intelligence is so far above so many of her fellow Mercurians, and she never looked down on them. Why should she then look down on those she is trying to help obtain their highest level of education? That would just be cruel.

It is cruel how she denies herself. Not just does she deny herself the chance to interact with others, but she denies herself the one true thing she has ever wanted in the galaxy, beyond a single friend. She denies herself what she would truthfully want to do with her life. She denies herself the ability to heal, the ability to help others beyond words and beyond assisting in that little part of their lives she is part of. It helps her to know that she can do this, but what she wants is to be able to heal their bones, sew up their cuts, assure that those in physical pain are given succor. Amalia wants with all her might to be a doctor. Though she has read all she can get her hands on of medical text books, both for the current way of teaching and the old ways – herbal pouches, poltices, potions, the natural remedies – she has her PhD. Not her MD. She cannot heal the way she wants officially. Unofficially she is like as not as good as a real doctor, if not in a life-or-death emergency. Reading can help in a calm situation, and for all her hands would not shake in a crisis and her mind would be steady, not racing, she likes to think, that is not practical. In the adrenaline-rush of a true emergency, Amalia may very well be at least partly useless. Certain things she could still do: CPR, staunching bleeding, but she would not be calm enough to use a knife, a blow-torch and the hollow tube of a pen to cut into someone’s trachea.

Her loves currently lie in those things she knows best: books and the harp. Give her a book, any book and she will spend the day curled up reading it, absorbing all that it has to tell her. Books are her window into the galaxy when people look up at her for her intelligence and don’t want to make even attempts to get to know her, fearing she will be biting and cruel because she knows so much. Her music soothes her, when being so alone gets to be too much, the gentle ripple of strings reverberating through the air providing almost as much comfort as a hug from Tlazopilli when he was alive. Books and the harp are what keep her grounded and sane when she walks through the halls of the college and none of her colleagues stop her to say hello, and students avoid her office even when she puts out a sign that she has free food. There is a strength to her, hidden deep inside where she cannot grasp it, one that allows her to keep going, even when she starts to wonder if her life is worth anything. Above everything, above perhaps her want to, she will live. She has hope: hope that she will make friends, hope that she will come a true person, rather than this near robot she has come to feel she is. She just hopes that she will be given the chance to show her worth as a friend, rather than just as a genius.