You know that girl in the fifth grade that had the magical horse shirt, counted her fruit snacks and put them in to color/shape piles at snack time? The one that was overly excited when she got picked to do the bells for the Christmas music lesson? The one that nobody really knew how to talk to for a long time? Yep, that was Dor. She could recite all the lines from The Lion King if someone asked or said the right word at the right time, she always, always wanted to participate in clubs and after school functions. She carried the whole prom committee more or less by herself and then wrapped herself up in the crepe paper after the fact.

Dorean (Dor, Rean, Dora, D, Reenie, hey you, etc) was born on the very last day of January to two lovely people who felt like their combined genes would do well in the world - she had a really lovely upbringing, truth be told. Her father was a chemistry teacher while going to school and her mother worked in miniatures and went around to conventions, she put together small parts of things to make larger small things. Eventually turning the whole thing into a cute, niche-y boutique. They took family picnics to the beach every other weekend, there were trips to Michigan for Christmas to see the grandparents - and then there was the change, as there is in most stories. Middle school, if anyone would ask her now, was arguably the worst time in her life. This was when the teasing happened, when she wasn't sure of herself. The time she got a bruise from stepping into the door the wrong way after assembly. Dorean tried, and trying was never going to be cool.

Eventually she grew into herself, at least a little. In high school, her parents moved due to the job her father got as a professor and had to, obviously, be closer to the campus he worked at. There were new people and less to worry about, as the names that followed her around for three years didn't really carry over. Except her weird teeth, she still got called squirrely and bucky beaver one too many times for her liking, but these things happened. Generally making honor roll- though she would periodically skip her study period to go hide out in the theatre where she had a secret hide-y hole above the stage where she could just sit and study, plan and not worry about anything else. (Though, she didn't have a whole lot to worry about beyond what school her dad wanted her to go to.) This was, of course, around the time that she maybe thought about possibly having a boyfriend. But that didn't pan out - there had been a guy, and it almost happened, but at the end of the day she was neither interested or cool enough to keep trying, she had more important things to worry about than getting one singular person to like her for things that were not strictly 'her'. That seemed dumb. So, that experiment was tossed out before senior prom, where she went with herself and her friends from the Drama club- had a much better time, she was pretty sure.

After high school, she took an odd job at an ice cream parlor, she subbed in at her mom's doll house place and so on, her father got a little antsy and took it upon himself to get her an application to the university he was teaching at. And it actually worked - she got in fairly easily (using her mother's name because who wants to get in because of their dad being on the staff ever come on no. not even going to chance that) and opted to major in computer science (where she also found her very best friend and her new love of cats). This lasted about two years before Dor had decided that while higher learning was incredibly important, she just did not have the head at that moment for the things she was trying to learn. This was because she felt she needed more life experience - and with her mother's blessing ...maybe not so much her dad's, maybe that was more like acceptance, she opted to move to New York at the end of that semester. She stayed there for.. three years, winding up through a series of weird events, being a nanny to a little girl who had been the absolute light of her life (she loved the mom and dad, too). They did everything together from park walks, playdates, sock puppets and trips to the zoo and karate lessons. She was the best and it was awesome.

After a time, the family she was employed by had to relocate and much to her chagrin, Dor couldn't really go where they were headed to. Of course, they all expected each other to keep in touch - and she was expected back every other summer, but it was time for their family to be small again and Dorean understood that. Taking it as her cue those years later to wander a little. She found she had a real knack of keeping people's things together, like. Way more than her own life (possibly because it was more interesting? Maybe.) And began to excel in that particular area of life, there were all sorts of people in the world. Some were the doers, some where the laze about kind, Dor found that she was great at making sure important pieces were in place for bigger pieces, not that she wasn't one herself, mind. Just.. she was really good at that. And in that, she got back in touch with one of her old professors who knew somebody who needed somebody to do just that, but she'd have to move to Boston. The suggestion did sort of make her nose go up. But it was so cold there - not that New York was any ray of permanent sunshine, of course. But. After being told the person she was going to work for was ...Well, and all of the good things that were happening within the company and the confines therein, she couldn't say no. There was no way she could say no.