#( ix. christabel moran )

[theasteriae-arc]

family members ( still accepting! ) / @consultingsister​ said:

❝ ♡ ❞ for BASH to talk about his siblings. 

“August is my brother twice over. Our childhood, despite all appearances, was neither an easy nor a pleasant one, and we relied on each other to get us through it. Me rather more than him, I should think. He covered for me when I needed it, and in return, I told him stories in different languages. Like I said, he did more for me than I did for him. At school, we swapped homework. He would do maths for me, and I would do French for him. Mine was always turned in on time, all neat and correct, and his verb tables were sloppy, half-finished at best. But I did try.

“He had an offer from Oxford to study Military History when he was eighteen, but he gave it up to come to Sandhurst with me when I got kicked out of university for failing my exams. We trained side by side, graduated side by side, and he had my back, and I had his, when we shipped out for the first time a year later.

“I wish we had that same kind of relationship with him now. I was promoted a year ahead of him, and since then, things have been different, strained, between us. I couldn’t talk to him like I used to, joke and jostle around, go to him for advice without running the risk of getting him written up. I always thought he’d make a better captain than me, he was more level-headed, but it wasn’t my choice to make. Again, I did my best, but after the ambush, things only got worse.

“Speaking of which. Leo. Christ. When we were younger, he was the happiest fucking kid you could ever meet. A bit- out of it, maybe—not naïve, just in his own little world. But maybe that’s what protected him. And he was like that even when he came out to the base. Laces trailing. I had to reprimand him. I didn’t want to, but I’d just been made captain and I couldn’t be seen to be favouring him or August or anybody that I’d been close to before. 

“When we lost him- When I lost him- Fuck. Somehow, they knew we were moving that day. I remember people were singing, laughing, joking. Someone was eating chocolate out of their rat pack, right? And I— Let me tell you one thing that always used to piss me off about Leo. For six years, he was the baby, which meant he could do no wrong. My father didn’t change much, wasn’t any more tolerant, but my mother- She doted on him. I was born in Surrey, but I grew up in Lahore and New Delhi. My father wanted me to return to England for school, so I did, alone, when I was ten years old. August came the following year. But when it was Leo’s turn, Mother came with him. Bella had been born by then, but she still loved him the best. Her last son.

“She came to visit us in Southwold. Brought Leo, like she hadn’t brought either of us over, and the baby, too. August wouldn’t come down from his room. I got told off for hiding behind Aunt Kat. I hadn’t seen Leo in four years. He looked different. He looked the same on that day, though; round-faced and scared. I held his hand and promised him everything would be okay. I didn’t tell him the feeling was gone from my fingers. He didn’t tell me it was my fault, even though I felt it was. I couldn’t go to his funeral. August went, and Alex came and sat by my bedside and we watched shitty telly till the whole thing was over.

“My sisters never visited me when I was in the hospital, or after. I know what they are up to, more or less—they make the society papers when they get married or divorced or dump a prince—but we aren’t close. Bella ( Christabel ) is almost eleven years younger than me; she was born the spring before I left for school. She looks the most like me, we both have red hair, but that’s about as far as it goes. Sometimes, she’ll send postcards, but I think she gets on better with August than she gets on with me. Augustine, my youngest sister ( yes, really, my father wasn’t very imaginative when it came to naming his children ), came with Mother and Leo when they came to Southwold. That is the only time I have ever met her, and she cried almost the entire time.

“Still, I believe she has two children of her own now. And she’s on fiancé number four.”

ft. @diabolicaltendencies​, @epiitaphs & @gunmetalgrey​

[theasteriae-arc]

CHRISTABEL MORAN.

FULL NAME: Corporal Christabel Frances Moran

FACE CLAIM: Rebecca Ferguson

BIRTHDAY: June 19, 1990

GENDER & PRONOUNS: Cis female & she / her

ORIENTATION: Bisexual

STATUS: Secondary; Available; Open for Shipping

BIO UNDER THE CUT.

Christabel Frances Moran ( known to family and friends as Bella ) was born on June 19th, 1990, in New Delhi, India, the fourth child and oldest daughter of Sir Augustus Moran, the British High Commissioner to India, and his wife, Vivienne, née Astor. Due to complications with the pregnancy, she was born in hospital, rather than at the consulate, but both mother and baby were able to return to their residence within a few days. Augustus and Vivienne were already parents to Sebastian (aged ten), August (aged nine), who is played by the wonderful @diabolicaltendencies​, and Leopold (aged six). Vivienne chose the name Christabel for her firstborn daughter because her family is distantly related to the Pankhursts, and she was keen to highlight that association. 

A couple of weeks after Christabel was born, Sebastian left for England to go to school. August and Leo followed on a year and four laters respectively, but Christabel remained in India with both her parents, and her younger sister, Augustine (b. 1993), until she was fourteen years old.

In 2003, the family was hit by a double tragedy; Sebastian and Leo, who were both serving as officers in the British Army, were involved in an accident that injured the first brother and claimed the life of the second. Leo’s funeral was held in Surrey, in June, three days before Bella’s thirteenth birthday. After the death of her youngest son, and most beloved child, Vivienne decided to stay in the house there with her daughters, while Augustus returned to the consulate in New Delhi alone. Before this, Christabel had only been to England once, in the summer of 1994, and she remembered nothing of it. 

The hard times for the family did not cease. By 2006, Sebastian had recovered from the physical injuries he sustained in the blast, but not the mental aftershocks, and he was halfway through a nine-month prison sentence for aggravated assault, exacerbated by the effects of untreated PTSD. Later the same year, Augustus, who returned to the UK in early 2005 to take up a position in the House of Lords, died of an underlying heart condition, though not before he’d disowned his eldest son, adding to his troubles. 

Out of all her siblings, Bella looks the most like Bash, but she’s closest to her middle brother, August. All the Moran children seem to have inherited a certain sense of wanderlust—but these two lack Sebastian’s Romantic spirit, which makes it easier for them to fit in when they have to. 

As such, Christabel, after finishing school, went on to attend university, although her chosen subject baffled her mother slightly: Mechanical Engineering at Imperial College, London. Isn’t that for boys, dear? Bella sighed and very patiently explained, the world has changed, Mama. She much preferred the freedom and diversity of the metropolis to the academic stuffiness of Oxford, which was the alma mater of almost all her family. 

And after graduating, she made another very unexpected turn; she joined the army in May, 2012, as an Armoured Calvary Crewman. (Woman.) This put her right on the front line, driving and repairing armoured vehicles and carrying out offensive missions over enemy lines. At the time, she enlisted at a private. Since then, she has been promoted twice, to Lance Corporal, and then Corporal. 

As of 2021, Christabel is still serving with the British Army, but when she reaches her ten year anniversary next May, she’s planning to take retirement and transition into a role in private security with help from August, who has many connections in this industry. 

[theasteriae-arc]

mother’s day meme ( accepting! ) / @consultingsister​ said:

❝ ! ❞ ( for LEO to talk about VIVIENNE )

“He doesn’t talk about her much, does he? No. That’s what I thought. Well, I can tell you a little bit, but what I have to say probably won’t be the same as what Bash would say, just so you know. She doesn’t have the same relationship with him or August that she does with me, and she’s different again with the girls. I think that’s a gender thing, though. She has no bloody idea what to do with Bella, but that’s another story.

“I don’t know what changed, is the simple answer. We don’t talk about that kind of thing. We don’t talk about a lot of things, actually. If you’re wondering where Bash gets it from… It’s a family trait. Dad because he’s, you know, stiff upper lip, no sex please we’re British ( Dad, you’ve got five kids, we all know what you’ve been up to ), but Mum, I think it’s because she just can’t face it.

“She won’t speak about my face, for a start. Even when she came to visit me in the hospital, all she said was, ‘You used to be so handsome’. It’s all right, Mum, I’ve still got it. But anyway, yeah, she’s very delicate, Dad completely overpowers her, and I don’t know, it’s not his fault, but I can’t help but wonder if she’d have been better with Bash if she hadn’t had August so soon after him.

“Mum gets tired and sick really easily. I don’t know what she was like when it was just Bash, obviously, but he was born here, and when it was just him, it’d have been less work. But they moved out to Islamabad pretty soon after that, and with the change and the heat and the second pregnancy … Well, who knows, I guess? Because I was born out there too.

“She’s as good with me as I think she’s capable of, for whatever reason, and our relationship is—it’s fine. But is she particularly maternal? No. And she does play favourites. Which he’s taken particularly hard.”