Evelyn
Legacy Name: Evelyn

Let it burn you – let it burn your soul to ashes. Rise from them, with great beating wings – take to the sky and make it yours. This is the role of a woman, to absorb the pains and evils of this world and grow something from nothing. Evelyn didn’t feel strong, like the great phoenix. She trembled against the heat of the fire, and fought every inch of pain – did her body know something her stubborn spirit would not swallow? How many times had she crawled, screaming and cussing, from that pile of ashes that demanded such stoicism?

She turned away from her home, flames licking the inky stillness of night, knowing that a toxic and deadly dawn lay just hours away. One labored step after another, arms carrying what was left of her previous life as her child struggled to breathe, a mother’s blood leaving pits in the sand along her way. One drop after another, how many would she bleed? Like the ticking of some relic clock, it counted down her strength. “Done, done, done” it beckoned.

All things considered, her long journey to a new life gave her time to think; and to worry. Sand stripped at her skin, buffeted harshly by the cold desert air, and it began to slough away at her resolve. “Done, done, done.” She was a good wife, she had done all a wife ought to do. Children, a home, obeying – and after a young life filled with rowdy rebellion, it was a miracle really. She starved for her family, long cooking scraps to make them edible while she sucked on the bone marrow hoping to keep some life or another growing inside of her illuminated. An ember faintly glowing in the hearth, she made a home out of a shack for him. The looks of neighboring husbands and the accusing glares of their wives should have been enough to make him behave. But as all men do, those glances and haughty bar-room talk had only served to fuel his paranoia. No, she did not accept the flames, nor the ash, she cursed under her breath and continued her trek.

She returned to an old friend, a life before another great burning not too long ago. A dangerous sun had begun to emblazon a bright red warpath across the sky – not much longer now. “Done, done, done.” A weak knock was answered, and the bleeding bird of ashes crumpled; left to the hands of a woman with too many to look after.

Evelyn is a woman of many talents, one of which being running from the law and bringing trouble to the ones that love her. Madame Bea, a dear old friend and former employer, could really use some help – help that Evelyn renders at the Saloon next door in the form of velvety, humble music. Sultry eyes and a beautiful form attract many admirers, but there were plenty of beautiful women for the picking back at Madame’s place. Her days of entertaining men may be long over, after all they only bring trouble. No, she did not burn to ashes – instead, some women make it a habit to fight the flames instead of accepting them to her form. It could be at the cost of being reborn, but as Evelyn could easily admit; who knows to what creature you’d rise from those ashes? Given the clanking, groaning, disastrous monsters that ruled their towns… she was not a woman willing to find out.