OOC - The things I do for the sake of canon crossovers...

[watching_you]

1. Alex was born in... fuck it, even I can't think of a location that'd make sense for this. was born in '86, which made her 14 and a bit when the dragons first attacked. She was a middle child, stuck between a brother two years older and a sister three years younger, so she learned early on how to follow and how to compromise. In the present day she's not sure whether either of her siblings are still alive. Every now and then she thinks of them and cries a bit, though not very much, because the atmosphere she now lives in doesn't really allow for that kind of thing.

2. Even though things were going to hell, Alex's mother insisted that she finish high school. Her mother expressed wishes that Alex carry on and go to college, too (and hinted towards Harvard) but Alex challenged this by going off and joining the armed forces when she turned eighteen. She was secretly glad that she never had to apply to colleges, because she always believed that she wasn't quite bright enough for it. In the end it was probably a good thing that she didn't go, since Harvard burned before she would have had a chance to graduate.

3. She chose the helicopter on the basis that her father had built a model helicopter when Alex had been a girl, and some of her fondest memories involved driving out of the city to an empty field and flying it around. This was all very lovely until one day her brother insisted on joining in, and he crashed the model into a tree. Alex never really forgave him, though on occasion she pictures the poor broken 'copter as a reminder to herself to not fly drunk.

4. On that note, Alex was nicknamed 'Alexei' for a period of two weeks in Basic Training after she won a vodka-drinking contest with a fellow recruit. He had been a sexist, egotistical bastard since the beginning, so everyone had cheered when he'd passed out on the floor. The name faded pretty quickly, since - as Alex will say if you ask her - it's really the kind of thing that's only funny when you're drunk.

5. Alex had a one-night stand with that same sexist, egotistical bastard a few years later, when things had really fallen apart, before she'd met Van Zant. She didn't feel anything for the guy. He was still just as much a bastard as before. But there just weren't that many people left in the world anymore, and not that much to do. He wasn't her first one-night stand, and he wasn't the last - though things certainly faded after the supply of condoms ran low. Eventually Alex just stopped wanting sex much at all.

6. Sometimes, when she's up there, she sees the dragons in the distance and traitorously wishes that she could be one of them. In part it's the way they fly, so smooth, so easy. But it's also that every now and then she can't help but look at them and think of fairy tales she heard as a kid. From time to time she has dreams of beating them single-handedly, Paper Bag Princess style, walking up to the biggest of them all and tricking him into flying around the world a couple hundred times until he's too tired to fight.

7. She can't imagine not following Van Zant. There have been a couple of times when she's been so tired, so frustrated, that she's started to pack up her bags - even to the point that she's started to walk away from it all - but every time she stops. After all, there isn't really anywhere else to go.