The Doctor will see you now...
Dr. Annika Bystrom
Alias: Changeling
Female
32
Female
32
"Believe it or not, she actually cleans up nicely"
The thing that stands out most about Annika is here intensely pale green eyes. The deep green ring around the outside of her iris gives them an other worldly quality that some find a bit unnerving.
Once you get past that her features are almost comforting. Her high cheekbones and defined jaw are padded enough to give her face a soft look and when she smiles the warmth quells the intensity in her eyes.
Her sturdy frame stretches 5’9” and her limbs are considered lanky even for such height. If extremely active woman ever had a ‘body image’ issue that would very well be it. In fact if she put time into it Annika could clean up into a bombshell. With such a busy schedule the doctor keeps her long brown hair pulled back and out of the way and is almost always in scrubs. Makeup takes too much time and is in her opinion quite pointless she has the same feelings about Fashion.
As such when she isn't at the hospital she is in active wear, though she does have a single black dress that is dusted off for functions she is forced to attend.
"Sometimes you are like a mixture of a teddy bear and a cactus."
Annika is very closed off in a non professional setting. While she is at work she can perfectly pull off the caring bedside manner expected of her as a doctor and she is always respectful of her fellow staff. That sadly is the end of it. She keeps things courteous and short, she has no interest in forming personal relationships with people.
The drive for efficiency has taken a strong hold in her life and everything from her apartment to her car reflects this. Everything is put in it’s place immediately after use, nothing is out of place, everything runs smoothly. In short she is a bit of a control freak. This however is a fairly common trait among successful surgeons, in order for a surgery everything must be controlled or the patient could easily die from a number of infections even after they have left the operating room. This type of strict protocol has helped Annika control and in some ways eliminate her emotions completely.
"I don't care about where you came from, only that you are here with me now."
As a small child Annika was found wandering around in the woods outside of her remote village of Bystrom. She was perfectly fit, but didn't speak until over a year after she was taken in. All through her childhood she was brutalized and teased as she was a "Changeling". A child of faeries, demons, trolls or whatever nasty creature name they wanted to scream at her as they kicked her. She took the beatings without ever fighting back because with some effort she could just heal herself. This lead to heavier beatings and eventually she stopped healing. This caused the beatings to stop, the bruises and bandages were satisfaction enough. Thankfully the children grew tired of beating her and just took to ignoring her or yelling insults at her. The loneliness was a relief at that point.
As far as Annika her history began the day that she left her home to attend college. While she didn’t hate her quaint village of origin, what happened there was best forgotten. Here she fabricated a new life story for herself and kept her nose slammed into the books for the next four years. That paid off landing her in the best medical school in her country, where she kept to herself and her studies again. Finding that social interactions with her peers was difficult and she felt that outside of study groups socializing served no purpose in trying to achieve her goal. This approach paid off and after giving her valedictorian speech she took her folder of recommendation letters and headed to the most coveted Surgical internship/Residency in the country.
As with all interns this meant long hours, sleepless nights and even more studying to stay on top of the others. Annika had no qualms with things playing out like this, she infact had come to prefer her solitude outside of work. This all changed with Sarah a transfer in the second year. She had all the skill and knowledge that Annika did but her personality was polar opposite. Always bubbling and social Sarah’s personality grated at the dedicated woman. This however never registered with her as Sarah seemed to gravitate to Annika. Through much persistence on Sarah’s part her walls broke down.
The two became an inseparable team in all aspects of their life. As well as the envy and bane of many. No one expected the bubbly beautiful redhead to take to the Icy Annika but the two were a perfect balance together. They were united in their dedication to their work and their utter devotion to each other. She felt normal and for a while forgot completely about what she really was.
On the night of Annika’s 30th birthday, when the pair were particularly drunk on wine, Sarah tripped breaking her fall with her wine glass in her right hand. Compelled by the hysterical cries of her lover about a surgery the next day Annika carefully drew the glass from the wound. Deep cuts covered Sarah’s palm and it would definitely put her out of work for sometime. Taking her partner’s hand and a deep breath Annika took down a wall letting out the thing she tried so hard to hide.
The blood stopped and the hand had neatly pulled itself back together as if nothing had happened. Fearfully Annika looked to Sarah who looked utterly shocked. The longest moments of her life passed before a Sarah smiled and laughed.
“Now I know why you are always better in surgery than me.”
Some walls aren't meant to be torn down.
1.5 years later
Ignorance breeds hate, hate breeds violence, and that violence was staring down Annika and Sarah. The man hadn't taken too well to having been 'exposed to their kind' at the bar that night and he was probably mentally disturbed but none of that mattered in the moment. The knife had been met with her side as she shielded Sarah and that’s when it happened.
With light there is darkness, and it tore through the man like a rabid animal.
“Oh my God!”
“Sarah, I-”
“No! S-stay back murderous monster!”
“Sarah, I-”
“No! S-stay back murderous monster!”
Sarah left, disappeared off the map almost. There wasn't much for the police to investigate, not that Annika stuck around that long. She left the country and landed a job at the best hospital in Fortitude City mostly thanks to her astonishing ‘no death’ record from her surgical residency. Alongside of work she spends many nights trying to test out and find the depth of her innate abilities she had kept long locked away. Unfortunately the deeper she delves the more Sarah’s words feel true.