OOC: Ok folks it's been a month as of tomorrow that Starshine has been in this thing of ours.  To celebrate such a boring achievement, I have decided to write an equally boring and long winded account of how she came to be in the mafia.  Enjoy!

Starshine sat in the abandoned coffee shop.  There was one person working the counter and another person sitting in the corner reading the chronicle.  New Orleans just wasn't the same any more and the toll that had been taken upon the Elegido coffee shoppe was clear.  She sighed and took another sip of her now tepid earl gray tea before placing a bill on the table and walking out into the steamy midsummer air.  As she walked along the quiet streets, she saw other buildings that were now abandoned.  Her uncles ice cream and soda shoppe was boarded up, the night club that many former members had frequented had been turned into a pet shop and a few lonely puppies whimpered in the window.  She pulled out a rumpled letter from her handbag and read through it again for the eightieth time since she had arrived and found a home in New York.  She was finally going to collect the last of her uncles belongings, which had been stored in the abandoned HQ.  

A few months ago she never would have thought about living the life of crime.  In fact her sainted parents would have forbidden it.  She had grown up roaming the European countries as the daughter of a missionary.  Often times they lived in the filth and squalor of the villages that her father ministered to.  Her mother was a nurse, and took care of ailing children and parents while her father tried to work on the spiritual aspect of their "healing" as he termed it.  She always noticed that her parents had just enough each night to get by.  They often lived off of the paltry vegetables that the villagers offered as payment.  Meat was even more rare on their supper table, but her father always had something to be thankful about.  Starshine started helping out when she was eleven.  She had learned how to play various instruments so she could accompany her father as he sang hymns to the small crowds.  Her favorite though, was a violin she had bought after saving up for a year.  A peddler had come by with his cart and she had spotted the beautiful dark wood under a pile of second hand clothing.  She had traded her best shoes and all the money she had for it but it was enough.  The peddler, being nice even gave her extra strings for it.  She took to it quickly and soon started playing in the streets by the pubs to earn a few extra coins.  Her father disapproved but her mother said it would do her some good.  Instead of taking the money, her mother made her save it.  Her intention was for Star to leave Europe and go to live with her well to do Uncle in New Orleans.  A few weeks before her twentieth birthday, her parents fell ill.  They had come down with influenza.  At that time her parents told her that they had been writing to her uncle, Marc, and he had agreed to house her until she got her feet on the ground.  They handed her the tickets for the boat and told her she would be leaving within the week.  As she was packing, she found the envelope filled with the letters that her uncle had written.  His sense of humor made even the dullest day seem funny.  He told about a girl named Pickles, a guy named Duke, and someone really weird named Jono.  He had extended the invitation to come and help out in the ice cream parlour he owned.  She packed the letters along with her tickets and her violin.  A few days before she was to leave, her parents died.  A fire had broken out in the hovel where her parents had been confined, due to the coals not being raked up properly.  Starshine now had nothing to go back to.  She had buried her parents in the small parish graveyard in the hills of Ireland before setting off to travel the seas.  

A month later she arrived on the shores of New York.  After many long hours getting registered, and finally being approved to settle in America, she had taken a long train ride to Louisiana, and a ferry ride over to New Orleans.  When she had arrived the entire city was in chaos.  Before even making her way to the address that her uncle had left for her, she had been grabbed by the wrist by someone claiming to be from the Elegido corp and put onto a train to Detroit.  On her arrival to the motor city she walked around lost for hours.  A kindly man named Rover took her in and after a whirlwind courtship, and a few libations, they had wound up married.  After their heads had cleared enough, they parted ways amicably and went their separate ways, vowing to remain friends.  After that she hopped on a train back to New York and found a small apartment to take up residence.  She started looking for work and had been offered a job at a nightclub as a performer after she had seen a sign asking for entertainment.  It was there that Deimne found her and offered her a place to stay as part of the family.  He took her in and gave her her chance.  She found out that shortly before she had arrived in New Orleans, her uncle had been shot in New York.  She couldn't bear to visit the grave right away but now, after a month, she felt ready.  

Starshine stood on the platform waiting for her train to arrive.  The whistle finally blew and pulled into the station.  She boarded the train in the first class compartment and stared out the window.  Pulling out the envelope she sorted through the stacks of letters, reading each one over and over again, laughing at some parts, crying over others.  She would never see her uncle in this live again but his humor and memory would help her through her visit to New Orleans.   

Walking into the HQ she could still see the typewriter, half buried in the floor where Duke had dropped it while moving out, into his new home with Pickles.  All of the stories her uncle had written to her parents seemed to jump off the wrinkled pages as her footsteps echoed in the hallways.  She sat down in a dusty chair and stared at the tiny dust motes swimming in the golden sunlight that streamed in through the broken and boarded up windows.   She finally stood up and walked over to the strong box that was hidden under a portrait of Jono's left nipple.  She slid it back and pulled out a small silver key.  She unlocked the box and found a stack of papers, keys, and money with a note on the top.  She picked up the note, brushed it off and read what was written in Marc's scrawled handwriting.

"Starshine, if you're reading this, then of course, I'm dead.  Don't look in the past, just take my car keys and go.  Here is everything you need including my custom made Browning pistol, the keys to my Ford roadster, and a pair of boots I stole from Brick Pollitt.  Good luck in your new familglia and remember the code.

all my love, 

Uncle Marc."

Starshine grabbed the papers and keys, stuffed them in her purse with the money, and walked out of the building, taking the picture with her.  She was sure that nipple would come in handy some day.  She went out the back way and found, in the garage, Elegido's vehicles sitting, abandoned, waiting for their new owners.  She put the picture in the back, jumped in the drivers seat, and drove away into the dusk that was settling over the Big Easy.

Good story.

Congratulations on not dying.

I want a picture of my left nipple hanging somewhere, I'm making a petition to DK about this.

Telkin listens to the story while puffing on a rather old cigar, polluting the air with thick smoke. Wearing his normal dark business-like attire, he steps out to shake Starshine's hand.

"It's always a good thing when someone in this thing of ours can remember their roots. One of these days I'll have to get out into the streets and tell the story of how I got into the mob... I might actually start brainstorming my speech tonight. Thank you for the idea Starshine. Good day to you."

Star smiles and shakes Telkin's hand back.  I would love to hear it good Sir.

Yess good story.