Quezacoatle 
Stephan Hart
Healer
Knows how to take
you apart. O.O
Posts: 8
(6/25/07 8:25 am)
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Stephen Hart
His mother was named Natalia. She was a poor pick pocketer and his father was an astute real estate agent. Yes, it was a one night stand, no, she didn't give him back his wallet or watch.
Stephen was named after the singer Stephen Wolf and a deer. Natalia wanted her son to be special and deer are some of the swiftest animals in America. Natalia was home schooled on the gypsy camp or she would probably have known about cheetahs.
Stephen grew up in the camp, comprised of RV's and trailers these days instead of wagons, and was a normal happy child for the most part. He never knew his father, step mother or half brother though his mother kept track of them just in case. Stephen was the camps good luck charm, even though most distrusted him for being a halfbreed.
When his mother died he was just fifteen, not old enough to leave home even by Romani standards. So his Uncle Benny took him in. Benny ran con scams, and Stephen ended up being a faith healer for almost two years, weaseling money out of people in the form of donations. The problem was he actually could heal, and the strain of healing so many once word got out began to take it's toll. He ended up in the hospital and Uncle Benny cut and run.
When Stephen finally got out of the hospital, he was almost worse than when he went in. For a healer, the worst place to be is surrounded by people you can't help, all of them suffering and many within easy reach. Stephen had to learn to keep his hands off people in order to let his on body recover.
Instead of returning to camp, Stephen headed into the worst sections of the city. There he met a run down twenty year old hooker named Mia with a case of herpes and a mean pimp. Mia took him in and he made a deal with her pimp to keep the street girls in the area clean and healthy, as long Stephen caused no trouble and was allowed to stay.
It worked for almost three years. Stephen never went to school but his powers taught him anatomy and biology pretty well. He took care of anyone who asked for help, and in return he never had to work for food or shelter. When Mia had a baby, he ended up babysitting most of the time. It wasn't his, but he liked the tiny girl just the same.
Mia eventually contracted HIV. The virus was beyond Stephen's abilities, and she died of AIDS though he tried his best to keep her healthy and pain free till the end. Mia's death shook Stephen a bit, and he took over caring for her daughter Katalina full time.
Katalina was a beautiful well behaved baby for the most part, but she was a drain on Stephen. She had child leukemia which should have killed her before the year was out but Stephen kept the cancer in remission. He couldn't cure it, and the social services were starting to sniff around. Legally, unless he claimed Katalina as his own, he had no right to the child, and while she deserved a better life than he could provide, if she left his care the cancer could return.
Stephen made a choice. At twenty, he started experimenting with amphetamines. He knew the drugs did nasty things to the body, and that his powers couldn't heal himself, but he needed a way to boost what he had an for a while they seemed to work. Unfortunately, the last shot he took in order to burn out Katalina's cancer completely, also ruptured a vessel in his brain causing a massive stroke and killing him. He'll never know if he was able to cure her or not, and what kind of a home his almost daughter ended up in, if any.
Stephen is a little jaded, a tad cynical, but he views things through the harsh light of the Romani culture. Life goes on, the wheel turns, we all die. There's no reason to make life harder than it has to be, and every reason to have as much fun and do as much as you can while you live.
Stephen died an unsung hero in one of life's little dramas. He finds it all a little amusing.
The wheel turns. -Romani Proverb
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