Garrett

The marriage of his parents, a German engineer and a Tatar noblewoman, was a marriage of convenience, but also a union of two loyal imperial servants. Since childhood, Karl lived at the crossroads of cultures: He spoke German with his father and adopted discipline, precision and love for the exact sciences. From his mother and her relatives he inherited a hot-tempered but easy-going character, steppe endurance and incredible physical strength, so valuable for sapper work. Polish and Russian were also spoken in the house, and he knew a few Ukrainian words from his grandmother’s fairy tales.

The natural path for him, given his mentality and background, was the Engineering School (the direct predecessor of the Main Engineering School, the future Nikolaev Engineering Academy). His mixed blood wasn't a hindrance; the engineering corps valued ability over the "purity" of blood. His German meticulousness made him a brilliant draftsman and calculator, while his Tatar and Slavic heritage provided the resourcefulness and physical strength needed to handle a pickaxe, a log, and gunpowder under fire. After graduating from college, the capable officer was sent to the elite Life Guards Sapper Battalion, formed in 1812. This was the pride of the engineering troops—select specialists responsible for the most complex tasks under the personal command of the emperor. His appearance and character: fair skin, dark hair, and slanted brown eyes, a testament to his Tatar ancestry, combined with a high forehead and regular, almost "Germanic" features. He was taciturn, but his words were never superfluous. In battle, he was cool and decisive. His comrades respected him for his remarkable strength (he could single-handedly carry heavy logs) and absolute reliability in his calculations: if Lieutenant Adlerberg said the tunnel was ready and the charge was set, then so it was.

Appearance: A 20-year-old girl with brunette hair and blue eyes, slim build and about average height for her age (5'5"-5'6"). She has a couple of moles on her face, wide eyes, and a small nose. Her casual clothing is nothing special. This is a long, blue dress. A high collar and a white, pleated insert with buttons at the chest. Long sleeves finish with white lace cuffs. A long skirt, decorated with many frills along the bottom. She also wears gloves so that no one repeats her chemical experiments.

Character: Strong, complex, independent. Raised in Prussian traditions, but with a rebellious streak inherited from her nomadic ancestors and Slavic emotionality. Despite these qualities, she remains kind and compassionate to those in need. the situation is extremely difficult: According to her passport, she is a Prussian subject, forced to obey the pro-French government. Her uniqueness makes her a potential spy, a go-between, or simply a person torn between loyalty to her country of citizenship and sympathies for her “inner” Russia and Austria. At the moment, she is a nurse in the infirmary, resuscitating the wounded and saving the lives of the half-dead.

Garrett's birth was quite ordinary. Her German-French father was a private in a military unit where discipline and order were commonplace. Her mother, a medical student, later became a nurse. Garrett's birth was unexpectedly spontaneous, a chance affair between a soldier and a nurse. But discipline and duty decided to bind their bonds and keep the child. The girl's childhood was spent training and learning etiquette, as well as lectures on how to quickly and efficiently create alcohol. This came back to haunt her during adolescence. After a falling out with her parents, she left home and sailed on a merchant ship to Prussia, where she studied medicine full-time. She later became a nurse.