Martha Marriott

Gray hair gathered into a low bun crowns Martha's tall frame, and her eyes are a clear blue. Her working attire is a black suit over a white shirt, closed with a red bolo tie whose golden clasp takes the shape of a bell stamped with the letters BB, an emblem of the family she serves, along with a pair of round gold earrings.

In youth her hair was light brown and constantly changing: a short bob upon her arrival at Eden Academy, grown out into twin low braids, then shoulder-length in her final school year. Military service brought a soldier's crop that lengthened over her months in uniform, and after the first war she sheared it shorter still to pass as a man on the journey back from Westalis into Ostania. During Becky's preschool years she kept it longer again, tied in a low ponytail.

Quiet dignity governs Martha; she rarely raises her voice even when let down. Decades with the wealthy Blackbells have earned her a familiarity that lets her rein in Byron and Becky when their outsized personalities run wild, and she takes genuine satisfaction in Becky's friendship with Anya Forger, seeing it as good for the girl. Crisis brings out the soldier in her: calm, decisive, strict with anyone acting recklessly, and generous with blunt, thoughtful counsel. Having watched rigid certainty warp people through two wars, she teaches Becky that admitting what you do not understand is part of growing up.

Her younger self was another creature entirely, impulsive and outspoken, quick to confront bullies and to argue with schoolmate Henry Henderson, for whom she quietly carried a torch. Losing her ballet dream and watching the first war erupt fed a fierce patriotism that drove her to enlist, but the battlefield, and an unexpected kindness from an elderly Westalian woman on the enemy side, dissolved her black-and-white worldview. Returning home to find Henry married broke her heart, yet the support of Henry and his wife Lucia helped her rebuild, rediscover purpose, and finally dance ballet on a real stage. She grew to hold Lucia in deep respect and takes pride in Henry's happiness, though talk of romance still leaves her flustered. Beneath the reserve sits a dry wit, sharpest when teasing Henry or skewering foolish behavior.

Now 63, Martha earned her way into Eden Academy on a ballet scholarship, growing skilled enough to enter the high school ballet program and weigh a professional career, and she graduated as an Imperial Scholar. Even then her dance training doubled as a weapon; she once took on three older students, dropping two with pure ballet technique, including a whipping fouetté kick and an extended-arm chop to the face.

When the First East-West War of Unification began, she joined the Women's Defense Auxiliary and later the Women's Combat Battalion, serving through the fighting and returning home changed. She went on to serve in the second war as well before settling into long service with the Blackbell household, where she acts as Becky's caretaker and driver.

Her military conditioning has never faded. Despite her age she moves faster than an average soldier, once leaping to shock the kidnapper Vadim with a taser and catching the falling Anya before the girl could hit the ground. She owns glasses but wears them only on rare occasions, such as trips to the cinema.