Emory is oftentimes quiet and observant, preferring to sit on the sidelines of any given situation rather than stepping in herself. She's not entirely confident in her own abilities, oftentimes causing her to willfully ignore situations where she could be of use out of fear that she'll somehow screw it over. To counterbalance this, she's prone to giving unsolicited life advice, which may or may not actually apply- she thinks of herself simultaneously as a grandiose mentor figure and someone not worth anyone else's time. It takes a lot to actually get her to admit that she does need help, even when it's painfully obvious to the people around her that she's struggling.

Sorry-Not-Sorry.

Emory really doesn't have any noteworthy skills. Really.

An IT consultant from backwoods Michigan working for a law firm with a mean workforce age of 70 (on a good week), Emory's life is was relatively uneventful. Being the only person in a building capable of using a computer gives you an edge. However, due to the sheer uselessness of her position, her job hung in a precarious balance- and her nobodyhood made her a perfect candidate for a certain experimental surgery.

No one would miss her, really- it was almost foolproof. A private medical research firm believed that they'd come into the secret of immortality, and they had all the time in the world to test their theories out on her. However, what was supposed to be a lifetime trial fell to the wayside after their hypotheses proved false, and the project was handed off to a lower-priority team, resulting in Emory's 3 years in isolation being less-than-pleasant.

Anyone would break out of a situation like that. The only problem is getting back on her feet afterwards.

The Meat of It

Emory didn't expect much out of her life. Her endgame was simply living comfortably, a steady job, maybe a wife, maybe a few cats, not having to worry about money. She never wanted fame, and she never would. The idea of being in the spotlight so much bothered her on some deep level, afraid of disappointing a faceless audience with her shortcomings- but she was already quite a quiet person, so it wasn't ever a real concern of hers. Her circle of close friends was limited to around 15 people at any given time, and her family knew not to intrude on her business. Every day was her own to make whatever she wanted of. After a long period of bouncing between jobs, she eventually landed herself an IT position, solely because her coworkers were completely tech-illiterate. She was running on her basic knowledge of how to operate a computer, so she was little help when it came to serverwide errors- something that left the stability of her position rather shaky. It'd be almost trivially easy to replace her, and the thought loomed almost constantly over her head.

It's easy to get lost in your own thoughts when you're in the middle of despair. Unfortunately for Emory, though, she couldn't just ditch- she had her mother and her younger sister to worry about on top of herself, and leaving town just wasn't something you did. It was almost blasphemous to even suggest that you'd dig up your roots and make way for greener pastures when the fields you've been tending all your life are just fine. Her mind was a constant struggle between staying true to her principles and trying to keep her family afloat, and without the luxury of public transportation in her backwoods town, there wasn't much else she could do on her daily commute other than just think.

It's on one of these walks that her memory simply... shorts out. There's a large gap between putting her playlist on shuffle and waking up in a white, sterile room, the only notable features being a two-way mirror and the only thing in the room not the same shade of white as everything else- a barred-off door to a side room, shaking with the violent force of something ramming against it. She never quite got a glimpse at whatever it was, her time in the facility is marred with blank spots where she would have encountered it. The name Linnaeus pops up a few times, but it's unclear whether it's the name of the project or the name of whatever she's been made to room with. The technicians overseeing her, however, knew all too well that it was both. After long, long years of trial-and-error, they'd managed to create what they considered the key to eternal life- an artificial Hellhound. The thing was a nervous wreck, constructed of parts leftover from failed trials and prone to violent outbursts. There were those on the team concerned for what that meant for Emory's wellbeing, but they wouldn't be concerned for long. After all, there are always ways around your shortcomings.

Emory was small, fragile, even, but her hellhound certainly wasn't. Without magical expertise, each ritual attempt left her on the verge of death- whether due to lack of proper test subjects, disdain for the hippocratic oath, or sheer determination, her captors simply wouldn't let her die. They'd just have to make her more robust- more compatible. Linnaeus was the only successful cellhound they'd produced, and further failures could jeopardize the success of the project. They got it eventually. It took significant genetic tinkering on Emory's end, leaving her unrecognizable from her former self from the waist down (and, possibly, up, if you count general size.), but she and Linnaeus were eventually bound- a quiet-yet-sociable girl made into another monster of science. The entire process is fuzzy in Emory's brain, only a few brief spots of consciousness in between dreamless sleep and horrific nightmares- The next time she woke up, she wasn't at home or surrounded by the color-leeching walls she'd become accustomed to. It was cozy, comfortable, even, but definitely not home. They'd tried their damnedest to make it feel like one, though. Fully furnished, dotted with hanging plants and indoor shrubbery, cable, a sticky note on an old chrome-painted fridge with the wi-fi password- conveniently, with any website that could be used to contact the outside world blocked off. Most importantly, however- something she neglected to notice in her time under careful monitoring- she appeared to be some kind of bird-lizard-thing from the waist down. It only hit her months later that the word she was looking for was, in fact, "dinosaur," but it remains one she can't quite put a name on. She's not a paleontologist, but she's fairly sure the thing never existed to begin with.

The first year or so was uneventful. Occasionally, her captors would pop in to check on her wellbeing, and she was allowed free rein of the place otherwise. As time passed, though, without any significant change on Emory's part, she became less of a priority and more of a curiosity on the technicians' part. At this point, they were willing to do anything for the sake of data- and they didn't hesitate for a moment to take advantage of this. What was once mind-numbingly boring became pure psychological torment, ripping away the little enrichment she'd been provided and taunting her with glimpses of the outside world only to reveal them to be fakes as soon as she'd developed some semblance of hope. It drove her absolutely mad.

Mad enough, some might say, for her hellhound's blind panic to converge with her will to escape one day, leading her to break through a wall and into the night.

It was almost insulting how close they'd put her to her old town. When she arrived home, one thing was painfully obvious- all of the furnishings she'd been provided with had been dramatically upscaled. Whatever they'd done to her to graft her onto an entire frankensteined dinosaur body had left her rather proportionally misplaced, to put it lightly. Her return came without much fanfare- the search for her had been called off years ago, and anyone who was still looking for her certainly wouldn't say it. It was like chasing a fairytale at that point, and being open about any desire to see Emory return home intact was taken not with ridicule, but with a sort of silent pity. Emory, however, was accustomed to the eerie silence, choosing only to make her way out to her old house and settle down in her mother's garage. She'd explain later.

Explaining, however, didn't come as easily as it seemed. While seemingly grateful to have her daughter back, the whole situation seemed too good to be true. After all, can you really rip someone's family away from them at years at a time, return them altered to the point of unrecognizability, and expect everyone to take them back unconditionally? Emory's mother had her doubts, and she chose to let common sense win out over her bleeding heart in the end. She begrudgingly allowed Emory to stay for a period while she looked for other lodgings- after all, who could really believe that whatever had camped out in her garage was really Emory?

She pretends that it didn't hurt her as much as it did. Eventually, she was forced into the same suburbanite lifestyle she'd sought after for so long, moving into yet another renovated garage owned by a high-strung web developer by the name of Terri. They get along just fine, for the most part- if anything, Emory is concerned for her health, seeing just how many all-nighters she pulls working. At the very least, she doesn't seem to mind her presence, and it's as good of an arrangement as any while she tries to get everything back in order.

She knows she can. It'll go great, and everything will go back to normal.

Just give her some time.

Can't stand being called Emmy. It's nothing bad, it's just what her little sister used to call her, and it brings up memories she'd rather not confront.

Her blood aura is mixed with amber, and it tends to harden when she's startled.

Has no idea what magic is, or that it's even real. Does not know what a Spellhound is, either.

Sings to herself while she works.

Bagels with cream cheese are both her favorite food and something she never wants to eat again, due to just how often she had to eat them over the course of her confinement.

god shes so lonely someone please fukcing hold her