Politics
- "We may have been helping Or's evil plan, but we've also helped the people of The Donut. We can learn from looking back, but we must keep moving forward."
- —Azure, trying to soothe an enraged Gules
Azure the Hawk (real name Melanie Peters) is an Annulus Island police officer and de facto leader of Team Annulus.
Appearance
Azure is a brown Mobian hawk with a golden-yellow beak. When on duty, she wears a dark blue police uniform. When not, she often wears a lighter blue t-shirt and light-wash jeans. She also wears black shoes, white gloves, and a white headband. A gold wedding ring, bracelet, and watch comprise her jewelry.
Personality
Azure is very much the logical and practical sort, but she makes sure love and faith come first in her approach to life. She is deeply dedicated to truth and justice, hence her vocational choice. While calm, quiet and gentle, she is quite..."tenacious", shall we say.
Abilities
As a hawk, she can fly, though she doesn't do so unless needing to get somewhere quickly—whether it be across town or simply out of harm's way. She is a natural-born thinker and, given enough time, can usually find a way out of a predicament.
Weaknesses
Azure would be the first to tell you that she tends to focus on the good in a person, no matter how little there is, and often tries in vain to appeal to that good. When forced to use force, she uses it too conservatively. She is also not particularly strong or nimble.
History
Early life
The Peters family moved to Annulus Island when Azure was young. At this time, the island itself was beginning to transition from an underdeveloped community to the tourist and retiree destination it is today. Azure—then known only as Melanie—grew up with the town, learning the power of the mind from her father and the power of the heart from her mother.
Not long after moving to Annulus, she met young Or the Fox, and the two became good friends. Often, as tweens and teens, they would debate various issues that were really only important to kids their age. Along with her father, it was Or who encouraged her to go into law enforcement.
After attending college on the mainland, she returned to Annulus, secured a job with the Annulus Police Department, and married a local entrepreneur.
The Order of Annulus
Knowing of her experience in crime-fighting and desiring to do a favor for his friend, Or invited Melanie to join the newly-founded vigilante team, The Order of Annulus. Unlike the police, who did not act without concrete reason, this group was dedicated to taking out known criminals both in the act and long before. Not a little curious about his intentions, she accepted.
Taking the name Azure, she served as the team's firearm specialist (a job that more or lesd fell to her by the others' lack of skill rather than her own skill) and air reconnaissance. She would also mentor Gules the Jaguar, helping shape him into a noticably more mature and stable romanticist nut.
The Order divided
Three years, four months after the Order was established, Or met with the team to reveal his plan. He confessed to using them to weaken the area's crime corporations, but only so that he might take over himself. He had hoped that Azure and Gules would assist him still in this newly-revealed goal.
Understandably, Azure was quite upset by this revelation, though in a different way than Gules. The Order of Annulus split—Or on one side, Azure and Gules on the other, both sides considering themselves the true Order.
Azure, seeing the good as well as the bad in what they had done the last few years, suggested that she and Gules should continue the work of the Order, though openly in the name of law and order. Gules agreed, and Azure unofficially became the new team leader.
Trivia
- Azure is the heraldric term for blue, representing truth and loyalty. The hawk represents relentlessness.
- Her last name, Peters, is derived from the term "accipiters". Yes, even this is not safe from nerdiness.
- While she does like and regularly consume coffee and donuts—after all, she lives on an island nicknamed "The Donut"—she does not consume either with the frequency or quantity that is stereotypical of her profession.