Hulda's Questionnaire

Hulda lives in a cabin outside of Traverse City, MI on the Leelanau Peninsula.  She inherited the cabin when she was twenty-two from her Great-Aunt when that august old lady passed, and has lived there ever since.  The cabin itself doesn't fit in well with its neighbors, seeing as most of the homes in the area are multi-million dollar mansions.  Well, that, or hovels, the hovels standing mostly on the Native American reservation.  That basically describes her area: extremes.  Extreme wealth alongside poverty.  Not to mention extreme snow.  Lake Effect snow in the area is no joke, and there have been times her cabin has been completely snowed in.

She lives there for many reasons.  First, the cabin has been in the family for generations, since her great-great-great-great-grandparents built it.  When Northwestern Michigan was a frontier, rather than a tourist destination.  When the neighbors were only those Native Americans.  Though her family isn't native, they have long had a harmonious relationship with the various spirits and otherworldly beings living on the land, and she has long known that she herself wasn't exactly normal.  Mutually beneficial relationship.

Hulda isn't wealthy, per say, but she is comfortable.  Her family has lived in the area since the early 1800s, one of the first white families to settle there.  The family had a tradition of Gifted members, most of whom had some relationship to fire.  That relationship with fire allowed the family to prosper in the mining industry, especially during the industrial revolution when Henry Ford was stripping the land of natural resources for his growing Ford Motor Company.  

The family money is in a trust, and only those Gifted have full access to it, which Hulda is.  The trust it self isn't flush enough to live a 'trust fund baby' lifestyle, by any means.  But her annual draw from it is around $100k a year, and given that her home is paid for, she's comfortable with that and doesn't have to work.

That allows her to spend her time on other things, like studying magic.

Hulda has always known the family secret, even before the Illumination.  After all, it was her favorite bedtime story growing up.  How a fairy had loved her great-grandmother (it was actually more generations back, she isn't quite sure how many, tradition just simplifies it to great).  That she had been gathering herbs in the woods and had done him a great service.  He'd been injured by humans and had escaped, but his wound was from cold iron and he couldn't heal it himself.  Her grandmother had nursed him back to health, and in thanks the fairy had transformed into a horse and told her to pluck some of his tail hairs and braid it into a circle.  When the circle was complete, he told her to put it on her wrist and kiss it. She did, and was transformed into a horse, a nightmare, and for a time she joined his herd. 

After a time, she realized she was with child, and begged the fairy to let her become human again and return home to raise the child since as a nightmare she would be ill-equipped to raise a human child.  The fairy didn't want to let her go, but he did allow her to return home long enough to give birth and leave the child to her sister to raise, along with the hair loop.  The sister put the hair into a silver locket to keep it safe, as it was the child's only birthright, and the mother returned to her herd. 

The child grew, and when she was of age, her aunt told her the truth of her parentage, giving her the locket and telling her to kiss the hair the way she had been told to instruct her niece.  When the girl, now a young woman, kissed the locket, she immediately turned into a horse with a long black mane and eyes that glowed with fire.  Her aunt, though a skilled witch and herbalist, was terrified at the sudden appearance of the nightmare, but quickly realized more of what had truly befallen her sister.

The woman and the girl ended up fleeing to the new world, and eventually the family settled where the cottage now stood.  Hulda now had the locket, and the power that came with it.  Although each generation, the power became less and less as the blood diluted more and more from their fairy forefather.  Hulda's ambition, then, is to rekindle the magic she knows is in her blood already, to find her forefather, and... she doesn't know.  

The night she received the locket from her mother changed her life.  One moment, she was learning herbalism and magic from her mother, and the next, she was able to transform and run faster than she'd ever dreamed of moving.  Her mother had told her more of what she knew that night as well, but how could anything make an impression as strong as turning into a horse!

Once the sheer amazement of her transformation wore off and she returned to her human form, ambition kicked in.  If she was capable of this, what else could she do? What other doors might open for her.  The more she learned of her forefather and the family legend around him, the more she began to wonder what his real identity was.  And if she could find a way to reconnect with that part of her heritage.  

Sam Makwa:

Sam is a member of the local tribe.  He's been her best friend since they were kids as his family had lived relatively close to hers and the families had been friends for generations.  Hulda's grandmother, who had raised her after her mother left to follow her dreams in the big world beyond, and often had Sam and his siblings over to play with her growing up while the adults shared coffee.  Sam was taken to an Indian Boarding School when he was five, and the two lost touch until the school closed in 1986 and he finally got to come home.

Sam wasn't the same as the boy who had gone to the school, even though he had only been away for three years.  8 now, Sam had some healing to do, and it was a long time before he wanted to see anyone who reminded him of the nuns at the school.

The two of them had a brief fling in high school, although like most high school affairs it was more sticky and fumbling than anything.  They quickly realized they were better as friends and have been close friends ever since.  

Her Fairy Forefather:

She knows he's out there and he's probably still alive.  She really wants to track him down and... she doesn't know what.  Beg? Scream?  Both?

Grandma Bridget:

Grandma raised her after her mother left.  She's in her mid-eighties now and is ready for her life to wind down a bit.  Still, she's been Hulda's rock for most of her life.  She's the one that taught her magic, told her the old stories, and gave her life purpose.