[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/BdGt9f9.jpeg[/img]
[h1]Kassandra Keighley-Rey[/h1][/center]
[hider=Kassandra Keighley-Rey]

[U]Appearance[/U]

[indent][I]Kassy is about 5’7 and fat. Her eyes are brown, her hair is black, thick and coily. Usually she wears it braided back in simple cornrows or two strand twists. She has a feminine fashion sense, enjoying skirts, makeup and jewelry. However, what she wears is a little out of style and tends to hide her body rather than accent it. [/I][/indent]

[hr]
[U]Full Name[/U]

[indent][I]Kassandra Eveline Keighley-Rey[/I][/indent]

[U]Age[/U]

[indent][I]18[/I][/indent]

[U]Sex[/U]

[indent][I]Female[/I][/indent]

[U]Sexuality[/U]

[indent][I]Pansexual[/I][/indent]

[U]Birthplace[/U]

[indent][i]Trenchtown, Jamaica [/i][/indent]

[hr]
[U]Characteristics[/U]

[indent][i] Reserved and very polite in public. Tries very hard to be soft and kind and ladylike. Most teachers would consider her a good influence and model student. Most classmates would consider her boring and uptight. 

There’s a more honest and rough young woman beneath the public face. Someone who doesn’t bite her tongue, someone who doesn’t care about what anyone else thinks. Someone truly angry about having to be showed down over and over again, even by herself. That part of Kassandra defended herself, drew blood, got her stuck in community service, and may yet set her free. [/i][/indent]

[U]Goals and aspirations[/U]

[indent][i]Kassandra wants to get out of the UK and go back to Jamaica. While she tells people she just wants to go to university in the country of her birth, she secretly hopes to make something of herself as a singer. She knows it’s a child’s dream, that it’s just as likely to leave her poor and begging on the street than to be successful. But it’s been the only thing she feels is her own desire – not something she’s been told she wants, or should be or should do. [/i][/indent]

[hr]
[U]CV[/U]

[indent][i] She’s had menial jobs, mostly. Babysitting, lifeguarding, working local shops, even tutoring. She’s also written a few papers for other students, but found it too hard to keep up with. [/i][/indent]

[U]Crime[/U]

[indent][i] Assault. 

It was her mother’s birthday and her father was spending the day at work. He had already called to let Kassy know she’d be alone, as if it hadn’t been that way for 4 years. Kassy had been planning to join the amateur night singing contest at the bar for months. But that phone call assuaged the guilt she felt for keeping it a secret.

She chose a lovely, smoky jazz tune that she’d been practicing for months. It was earnest and heartful, with the raw sound of a talent untamed. But it wasn’t quite a legendary triumph.  [url=https://youtu.be/kZGcYUnXhX0?feature=shared]Song[/url]
 
Maybe it was the choice of song, too slow and moody for the location, maybe she rushed a few notes. Maybe the crowd was brought down instead of up. She got second place, a small cash prize, and several coupons for free meals.  First place would have been amazing, but all in all, she was satisfied. 

The trouble didn’t start until afterward. A group of frequent patrons, several beers past drunk, started to jeer and tease Kassy while she waited for the bus outside the bar that evening. Despite her begging to be left alone, one of them reached out for her. To touch her, to hurt her – she’d never know. 

She doesn’t remember consciously choosing to throw a punch, or having a plan for if it failed. But she swung and hit – and then kept hitting in fury and fear. The police arrived to break up the “fight”. Unfortunately, not many people were willing to stand in defense of the young woman with bloodied knuckles. Despite being the victim of harassment, she was considered the instigator of the brawl. The men got a harsh sentence, but Kassy’s record was still marked. [/i][/indent]

[U]Background[/U]

[indent][i]Kassandra was 8 when she and her parents, Neville and Kaya emigrated to the UK. She has warm-tinged memories of sunny school days, Sunday school, plucking fresh mangoes and frog bananas from the trees. Singing in the rain, swimming in the ocean. Staying up too late, listening to her parents argue about money, and children and hold each other tight afterward. 

Moving to the UK felt like some kind of punishment to the young woman. Wet but not warm, cloudy on a good day – and full of strangers. Classmates that teased her for her accent, or being heavy, or anything else they could find. Her parents said the uneasiness would stop, that she’d make friends, that she’d stop being sick and miserable each winter. It happened to her mother, too, every now and again. Just a little winter cough. Maybe a little worse this year.

It was still there in the spring. Allergies? Dust? Too much work – maybe avoid stress? Hard to do with a mortgage and a daughter entering high school in a year.

By the summer, Kaya had begun to lose weight in a way that finally caused doctors alarm. The chemo started in autumn. The excuses started before the snow began again. “...Stage 4... Metastasized-” “Exacerbated by-”  “If we had only caught it earlier…” 

Words that were ultimately empty by the time Kaya passed, leaving behind a devastated husband and an unmoored daughter. The two of them proved to be birds of a feather – but in two separate trees. Neville threw himself into work. Kassy threw herself into school. Neither of them quite knew what to do with the hole of grief in their lives and hearts. 

Their relationship was already strained, but it shattered once Kassy was arrested. They haven’t spoken since her sentencing.
 [/i][/indent]

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[U]Power[/U]

[indent][i] Vivacious Vocals: Kassy’s voice has been given an extraordinary quality of force. If she yells loud enough, she can shatter glass and crack the earth. She can also throw her voice to make her words seem to come from other places, or people. Finally, she can simply make what she’s saying seem ‘important’ – drawing focus like a singer’s spotlight. Borne of a bone-deep desire to stop being ignored, stop being isolated, and to be *seen* for better or worse.  [/i][/indent]

[U]Skills & Abilities[/U]

[indent][i]Singing! Writing papers, disguising handwriting, swimming, fake smiling.[/i][/indent][/hider]