Jack of Harts

Kathleen Reynolds was a blonde bombshell of a cheerleader from an Iowa farm town when she was young. She had flower and butterfly tattoos all over her body, and the round curves of a girl just beginning to mature into a woman. She was still in high school, you see. Maybe first year of college. Her stories from back then are a little fluid on time frames, probably to protect the guilty. She was living life to the fullest, and proving to everyone that blondes really did have more fun. She traveled all over Earth and beyond, from Mercury to Pluto. She was on a mission to see and do everything she could. She loves to tell the stories of her wild youth to everyone. But she told me the why. She had a condition that Earth’s most advanced medicines had no cure for. She was literally living like she was dying, because she knew tomorrow would never come and she wanted to leave no regrets behind when the time came.

History always repeats itself. Drew Keawe knows this with all the deep-seated understanding the heir of any Star Kingdom should have. Her own people were displaced by history for the better part of a century, so it has a personal meaning to her. And now that her people are back in charge of their own destinies, Drew intends to see it help her people the next time it comes around. That is why she has built so many alliances for her people in the decades after War’s End. I am one of them. We share a special friend, you see. Jasmine. She is the very best friend in all the worlds. She keeps us close, no matter how far away we travel. So there is always a Jack hanging around when Drew makes a public appearance. She is way too important to risk without the very best people in all the worlds at her side. I happen to think I’m one of them, and I will deal with anyone who hurts her. Not a threat. A promise.

Drew Keawe came out of the closet after War’s End. Her death had been widely known, her life a deep secret, and the things she did belonged to another name entirely. But she came home after War’s End and she returned to her old duties as a princess of the Star Kingdom of Hawaii. A genuine war hero, she had come back from the dead and everything. There were parades in her honor. Grown men and women threw themselves at her feet. There were even serious marriage proposals from a dozen Families. She turned them all down. I heartily approved of that. She was way better than any of them deserved. In my totally biased opinion of course. She helped lead Hawaii into a whole new world of possibilities in the decades that followed. Many of which most of us never dreamed of. She has changed the fortunes of entire worlds for the better. She’s pretty amazing like that.