The "bickering as they go" part, Faite would...kind of fit in with. She's not assertive at all, so she might play off nicely against Kerry, and she might try to inject truth quietly, but find it difficult to penetrate the "noise" of Kerry's assertiveness. Basically she would only be looked to for help when they're in real trouble, the rest of the time she would tag along and add colorful (and frighteningly truthful) commentary about the mess they're in.

The way she sort of becomes a "leader" is not through assertive control, but gently nudging the more assertive members in a direction. It has to work that way for her to fit with the group dynamic, because teenagers usually don't like to be told what to do.

For example, during the part in this story where they're bickering about whether to go to the party, she would insist...once...that it's a kind of trap they haven't encountered before, but nobody would listen to her. She would become frustrated trying to get a word in, and say something like "Fine, don't blame me when we end up in hell." Which is where they eventually end up.

Later on, one of them would remember what she said earlier that no one really paid attention to, and suddenly they would be asking her what to do - but by then it would be too late. Then she might do some nudging in the right direction by telling them they have to find Nats and offer something in exchange for being released. Then they'd go on not really listening to her anymore.

The way she might still be incredibly effective from time to time is if she does finally sense the Juniors are in serious enough jeopardy that she goes off by herself to start solving the problem - i.e. going to talk to Nats by herself while the Juniors continue arguing with the Heckfire Club.

With the Juniors, it's unlikely she'd push her own power to its limits much, because it's "expensive" - there are big consequences to making sudden changes to current reality, and it's usually not worth getting them out of the relatively minor (in her view) scrapes they get themselves into. She might from time to time, but it would be incredibly rare. She'd mostly be there as a compass, to give them direction when they're lost.





A very quiet 15-ish, mostly. The best way to describe her personality relative to the Juniors is that a close friend probably asked her to join up and keep an eye on them, and she doesn't want to let that friend down, but really she'd rather be in her room reading a book.








I agree that there's a thin line here between someone appearing to be unreachable to a former slave, and someone being a role model.

For instance I would think Yuki would send Vespiir being shy instead, because of Yuki's more aggressive nature. It might remind her too much of someone who's far above her status and too frightening to be around, and that she might be punished just for talking to.

But Lara is very friendly and encouraging, not very aggressive at all, but also a notorious rule-breaker. Vespiir might be a little frightened at first by her own fear of punishment because of how easily Lara gets away with stuff, but then it might gradually start to peel away those fears as she's so encouraging about it. Lara is not entirely fearless like Yuki, either; I guess you could say she's adventurous too, but has a stronger sense of self-preservation.

Lara would be the one to take Vespiir along to crash a party neither was invited to, and at first Vespiir might be sure they would both be caught and flogged. Then she'd see that even though they obviously don't belong there, Lara easily fits in and talks to people, and ends up doing so herself after Lara brings her into the conversation. It might change her whole world and what she believes she's capable of.

If you had to draw up a comparison, Yuki would be like Captain Jack Sparrow. Lara would be more like Captain Kirk, only with way less fighting and verbal pauses.