Mitică Iancu Shrike

Born a bit earlier than expected in Iași Romania, Mitică Iancu Floarea was off to an unfortunate start. While his parents were loving enough they were often on the verge of death due to an unidentified sickness. The young man had a hard time just existing. A few days after his second birthday, which was spent ill as per usual, his sister Cătălina was born much healthier than he ever had been. To this day he is still a little bitter about this. As soon as he was able to read he spent most of his time doing that. Their parents didn't have a ton of books so he ended up rereading the same ones over and over again. One of these was a newer textbook about the human mind he didn't understand in the slightest, but he developed a fixation on regardless.

They started getting sick much less frequently as time went on. Around this time he started becoming fixated on keeping themselves clean to avoid said sickness. Which luckily worked more times than not. Another thing that became clear is that he is very small and probably gonna stay that way. His father, Dragoş , took it on himself to teach Mitică self defense since the tiny kid would be easy to push around otherwise. Boxing in particular ended up being a main focus as they both enjoyed it. Due to a personal connection his father had he was able to go to college rather easily. He had to move all the way to Wales which stressed the young lad out, but he was very determined to give it a shot. Said connection, Prof. Barland ended up being his favorite teacher and they ended up becoming good friends. In college he became something of a hot commodity much to their surprise. Older people were charmed by their youngness and how well he did in classes, his peers by how well, charming he was. Mitică began to develop a bit of an ego about this. .

On his 18th birthday Mitică got his brass knuckles in the mail from his father. Along with a note encouraging them to keep up with their studies and not to get rusty at self defense as he could need it at any time.They decide to take both pieces of advice to heart, getting into underground boxing in their spare time. Which he ended up having a ball with. At one of those matches (in which he won) they caught the eyes of a young woman he hadn't met before.She seemed very interested in having a chat so he offered to go have a drink with her, which was of course agreed to. Apparently her name is Josephine and she was a part of the circus going through town at the moment. At first Mitică was worried that he was being recruited when that information was revealed, circuses don't tend to treat people like him well. However as the conversation went on it became clear that this wasn't business. She was honest to god flirting with him. Him? While women didn't always dislike him per say, he definitely isn't most’s type. Hm. They ended up becoming a couple quickly. Keeping up with his studies also went pretty well. They genuinely enjoyed the work (most of the time) and have thought through what he'd do after school. Psychology, while not the most stable career choice, fascinated him. During one of his classes he noted that a real tall guy was staring at them and tried chatting with him after said class. Unfortunately the guy, Deadman, seemed a bit in a rush that day. The day after too. If they keep trying to talk to him, surely he'll be available at some point. There's some interesting rumors going around about Deadman but he seems nice enough from what little he's said. Those people are probably just making stuff up. Eventually they started studying together which was pleasant. Well it was more like Shrike was explaining their studying to him, he seemed to be having a hard time lately. Meanwhile his ongoing relationship with Josephine escalated extremely a couple months in. She was expecting! Fuck! When the two of them puzzled this out they got married as soon as possible. They also pooled their funds into moving in together, couldn't afford a great house but it worked. While Josephine had to quit her job, Mitică continued his studies. Which began to open a rift between them the two newlyweds. This rift only grew once their daughter (Zazel) was born. He was not ready to be a father by any means, emotionally and financially. While they did at least bring in some cash from the boxing he did on the side it wasn't ideal. So not ideal in fact that after another year of the same Josephine picked up and left to return to that circus again, as it had just popped back up nearby. Mitică was deeply bitter over this. He had promised that he'd be able to get an actual job as soon as he'd finished school, they had been making enough to survive. Why couldn't she hold out for him? Soon afterwards they finished up school and abandoned the house to move in with Deadman off in britain. His letters had been a highlight even when he wasn't around, it would be nice to spend time with their good friend. He'd finally opened up that funeral home he'd been talking about; offering Mitică a position doing taxes alongside other things. They of course said yes. During this process they somehow convinced themselves that they needed to have a last name that matches the job like Deadman has. Floarea, while fine enough, didn't fit at all. Eventually he came to the name Shrike. For the first couple years after Josephine left, he would come to visit whenever his family was nearby. This didn't keep happening long term. While he loved what little they saw of their daughter it was just too much for him. Besides, she had her mother anyway. She'll be fine.

Shrike avoided the draft. His history of illness and extreme shortness came in handy for once. Unfortunately his father had neither of those things on his side and went to war. Dying only a few months much to his dismay. Shrike disappeared without telling anyone for a few weeks to find comfort with their family. He considered telling Deadman about this before dipping but just couldn't bring himself to, especially since there wasn't a body for him to fuss about. Unfortunately they lost an eye while trying to help bury and identify the extremely high amount of bodies that had to be processed during the Spanish flu. Apparently using a scalpel for the first time outside of school in a high stress scenario doesn't do you much good.

Shrike moved to America with Deadman in early 1919. They've honestly wanted to move there for awhile, much easier to get a (real) job as a psychologist in America at the time compared to Britain, but he would have felt odd going without his closest friend. And get a job he does! Only a few months after moving into Boston in the middle of that year, they were able to make enough connections to get into working with local physicians to help out with patients fairly regularly. This was the happiest he's felt in years. Finally they can use that degree that's been gathering dust. While he could definitely move out on his own at this point they still would feel weird living by themselves. Deadman refused to let him pay for housing anyway so he wouldn't be finding a better deal anyway. So it's reasonable of him to stay.

Game starts in late 1922. I'll update this when im feeling very inspired or he dies!