Saul Pierce
Description:	He's neither tall nor short, fat nor thin, any other extreme nor its opposite. Despite this, he does not blend into the background. His coloring is a throwback to the Eastern Pierce lines; nearly black hair, blue eyes, and fair lightly freckled skin. His hair is worn semi-long, falling untidily and unevenly down to his jawline (haircuts are an occassional thing, done unprofessionally by older cousins). His clothing, when not required to wear school robes, tends toward worn jeans, canvas sneakers, and slogan t-shirts (these range anywhere from "Only YOU can prevent forest fires" to "Equal Opportunity Annoyer").
Personality:	He's an outgoing, energetic sort of kid. He's optimistic, slightly overdramatic (though most of his cousins are worse), and friendly. As he lacks anything approaching muscial talent, he's been learning the tricks of public relations, stage managing, and gambling. Never play poker with him. He's somewhat lax with observing such trivialities as 'personal property'. If he needs to use a writing implement, he'll use the one easiest to get at regardless of whether or not it was in somebody else's hand before he took it. This is as much the fault of his upbringing as any latent kleptomania that might exist in his genes. He was raised in a tent. It's not quite a barn or a cave as far as manners go, but there it is: he was raised in a tent. He has a philosphical objection to veganism: The food tastes bad. Meat good. Tofu yucky. His is not as militantly liberal as most of his family. He suspects this is an affect of his diet. Tofu poisoning has made his relatives insane. This does not mean he is not a liberal. He is still a California Pierce. Republicans are almost as bad as tofu. Not quite though, because tofu is pure evil and Republicans are only mostly evil.
History:	He's a California Pierce. This means he comes from a family nearly as mixed between muggle and wizard as it's possible to be. The family is well-known in wizarding circles as being a bastard and disreputable branch of the more respectable New Hampshire Pierce Family. Technically, however, the California branch existed before the New Hampshire one did. Both were fathered by Derwent Pierce the First. Currently, the Californians are led by Regina Pierce, DP1's eldest daughter and secondborn. Saul is decended from her older half-brother, Jediah, who was killed in the mid-to-late eighteen hundreds when the California Pierce clan was much smaller and did more blantantly illegal things like robbing trains. In the last century or so the family transformed from outlaws to gypsies to hippies to hippie gypsies. That's roughly where the clan is now. They travel around California living in campgrounds while they work at Rennassaince faires and folk festivals. They sing, play instruments, tell fortunes, and gamble. Despite this drifter appearance, the family is quite wealthy and Regina knows how to throw her weight around in wizarding circles. The family is very close knit and acts as a communal group rather than individual nuclear families. Siblings are only nominally closer than cousins and there is no difference between a first cousin and a fourth cousin. Saul, though having no brothers or sisters, has never considered himself an only child. Anyone meeting him would be able to tell pretty quickly he came from a large family even if they knew nothing about the California Pierces. The heirarchal structure of the family is a simple three tiered system. Regina sits at the top. Beneath her are those known as the 'aunts and uncles' which are the people who have had children. Those who have not created progeny sit at the bottom and are called 'the cousins'. The 'aunts and uncles' are in charge of looking after 'the cousins'. Regina is in charge of teaching them. Well, she was, until the State of California started arresting her for educational neglect and lack of a tutoring license. Now, she sends Neil to Salem and Saul to Sonora.
Fear:	Saul's greatest nightmare is being handed a guitar, pushed onto a stage, and told to 'stall until the Unfab Four get over here'. John, Paul, George, and Richard aren't known for their punctuality and it's been known to happen to others of his cousins. Sometimes the stage manager who does the shoving isn't a California Pierce and therefore doesn't know that Saul carries the instruments, he doesn't play them. Sure, he knows the theory. He comes from a family that teaches kids to read music before they recite the alphabet. He just has an unnatural talent to only create horrible sounds of tortured animals when he touches anything but the outside of a case.
Desire:	This year, his dream is to horseback ride all over the West like his family used to do back in the bad old days.
Other Info:	-Saul's cousin is Paul Simon Tellerman, Sonora's groundskeeper. Well, technically, Simon is the great-grandson of the half-sister of Saul's great-great-grandfather. Whatever that makes him. -Saul loves pepperoni pizza. He hates tofu. -Saul's dad, Bo Pierce, is a gambler. He has no musical talent either. He can do magic. -Saul's mom, Loise, is a back-up singer. She's a witch who wasn't scared away from marrying into the family partly because they offered her a singing career and partly because she thought the lifestyle was 'quaint'.
Links:	The Pierce Family's Website

Back