<div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="floatleft">(https://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/c/cc/CatMoore01.jpeg)</div><strong>NAME:</strong> Melody Fairchild-Harrow<br/><strong>WEARING:</strong> As pictured<br/><strong>LOCATION:</strong> The Vancouver Institute<br/><strong>TIME:</strong> Late morning<br/><strong>CONTENT:</strong> Curiosity and embarrassment<br/><strong>TAGGING:</strong> Kaspian, Kaleigh, Open<br/><hr/><br/>Melody almost always approached first encounters with more than a small dose of trepidation: Shadowhunters and Downworlders alike tended to have a <em>reaction</em> to her surname, once they figured out what it was.  True, the hyphenation her parents had bestowed upon their children granted a degree of protection, but dealing with inferences and connotations was all too common a feature of her life.  She had grown up with it, of course, but what people thought it <em>meant</em> had rather substantially changed over time.<br/><br/>That Kaleigh put a positive - or at least prestigious - spin on it was welcome, if embarrassing.  The happily curious smile she had worn while listening to the other two froze, a blush colouring her pale cheeks.<br/><br/>"Ahh, err, hrr-hrrm.  Umm.  <em>Royalty</em> is definitely putting it strongly.  And we're a very, umm, distant branch of the family.  We only occasionally got invited to the main mansion...."  She hesitated, realising that she might be digging herself a rather deeper hole than she had started with.<br/><br/>"But, ahh, yes.  It, err, had an impact on my childhood.  We travelled a <em>lot</em>.  My parents... diplomats, I suppose might be a way of describing it.  In theory, every Institute works smoothly as a component part of a greater whole.  In practice, there are tensions and disputes - from simple disagreements over conclusions reached or approaches taken, to more personal and petty ones.  Or disputes over status and recognition.  Inside the Institutes, and with some of the Downworlder organisations, too.  Mum or Dad going off to neet Warlocks or Vampires - or to chase a demon, of course - was just part of growing up, for me."<br/><br/>"You see, having an, err, Fairchild or two to send along to have a word - quiet or stern or whatever - to try to smooth things over... that appealed to quite a lot of Insitute Directors, over the years.  So my family moved around a lot.  It's how I picked up just enough Russian to be marginally useful on the ship: we spent enough time there for me to learn enough to get by.  We didn't really put down roots anywhere, but I got to study in a lot of places, and see a lot of sights... but I've never really felt I had the sort of <em>home city</em> I read about in books, you know?  So, ahh, having a local restaurant where I can count the staff as friends... that's never something I've experienced, myself."<br/><br/></div>