Anyhow, as a wonderful person has recently agreed to be my partner in crime, I'm going to post the short character descriptions I wrote out last night here.
Dominic Mallory is a handsome young jackanape of twenty-three. Born to a wealthy family in Central City, he enlisted in hopes of eventually climbing to a comfortable administrative position, confident that his family's money would keep him out of any real fighting in the meantime. However, he hadn't accounted for the sheer boredom of a desk job. At loose ends for a considerable amount of time (he was devilishly efficient at paperwork), he chose to wile it away by making as many romantic conquests as possible. All was well (for him, at least, if not for a signifigant number of young ladies) until he seduced the wrong girl. In his defense, he hadn't realized she was the Fuhrer's daughter, but the Fuhrer would have none of his excuses. When he learned of the affair, Dominic barely had time to pack before he was hauled off to Briggs. Still scrambling to grasp the concept that there are problems Papa's money can't solve, he finds himself the object of ridicule for the seasoned members of the garrison, relegated to knocking down icicles "since that's the only job a southerner can handle".
Dominic is an aristocrat, with an aristocrat's sophisticated features. His face is narrow, his cheekbones high, his brown eyes dark and sometimes described as 'soulful'- usually by a girl he's about to dump. His hair is tousled, not crew-cut short but not particularly long, either; it's dark brown with occasional hints of mahogany visible in sunlight. His skin is smooth and tanned a comfortable medium brown. He is of moderate stature, measuring up to just 5'6", and lean but not particularly muscular. He does cut a fine figure in the navy-blue military uniform, helped somewhat by the fact that he had it altered to fit him flawlessly by one of the most expensive tailors in Central.
Vanna Soren is thirty-nine, but looks a lean forty-five. Her near-constant cigar smoking roughens her voice and, in the chilly Briggs air, makes her prone to bouts of coughing. She doesn't care. As long as she still has the ability to shout nearly half the length of the fortress, nothing is wrong. (And subsequent wheezing for breath aside, she still does.) Actually, she's rarely exposed to true cold, since her domain is the lowest and warmest level of Briggs. While she's not chief engineer, everyone knows she'll follow in old Wallace Eberhart's footsteps when he finally retires. She's been his protege for nigh on sixteen years now, as the ranks of the engineers shifted around them.
Briggs requires a speical something, an unquantifiable quality most soldiers don't have. Vanna has whatever it is in spades. In many ways, she's like the fortress: solid, impassable, unflappable, with a toe-to-the-line-and-spit-in-your-face kind of attitude. And woe betide any poor fool who mucks up her precious pipes....
Vanna is one of those women who, as they reach middle age, show only the remnants of potential beauty. That is to say, she's not ugly, but she's far from gorgeous. She's been mucking around in machines since she was ten and hung out at the corner garage watching oil-spattered men fix cars, and she cares far more about things that have gears than about her own appearance. She's also a bit of a scrapper, and the nose crooked from being broken and neglected while healing shows it. Her hair is shoulder-length and a nice golden color, but she rarely pays it any attention; all it needs to be is long enough to be pulled up into a ponytail and short enough not to get in her way. Vanna's eyes are blue-grey, with creases at the corners- not laugh lines, but worry lines.
Physically, she is an imposing woman. Standing at 5'10" and sleekly well-muscled, Vanna gives the clear impression that she could break someone in half if they displeased her. Her hands, however, are nimble and would be almost elegant, if they weren't constantly chapped and cracked. She usually wears grubby overalls over a nondescript black shirt.
