Hester Shaw is a fictional character from Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines Quartet who has terrible facial scarring, due to an attack from Thaddeus Valentine when Hester was a child.
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Hester is quite angry and vengeful and obsessed with killing Valentine, who killed her parents. Although she sometimes shows to be kind hearted when she is not looking in the mirror and is with her husband, Tom. In later books her personality is showed to have darkened, the good in her as almost vanished, and she enjoys killing. She only cares about herself and Tom, and doesn't give a thought to others, not even her own daughter, Wren. She coldly abandons Fishcake. When she becomes an assassin she grows even darker, and makes an effort not to care about people.
Her family include her husband and daughter, Tom and Wren Natsworthy. Until Predator's Gold, she believes her parents to be Pandora and David Shaw. Her father, however, is Thaddeus Valentine himself. This makes Katherine Valentine her half-sister. An old friend of Hester's is the Stalker Shrike, which is somewhat unusual, considering Stalkers (resurrected soldiers converted into robot-like creatures) are not supposed to have emotions.
Hester was born on Oak Island, somewhere off the coast of the Great Hunting Ground. There are no Traction Cities there, so Hester grew up as an Anti-Tractionist (in the world of Mortal Engines, someone who believes all cities should stop moving).
When she was around seven years old, Thaddeus Valentine attacked her parents, specifically her mother, in order to obtain MEDUSA, an extremely powerful weapon. Both her mother and the man who she thought was her father (David Shaw) were killed. Hester disturbed Valentine while he was killing her mother. Flustered, Valentine swung around and struck Hester's face with his sword, causing her to fall back down the stairs, and leaving her with scars that would last her entire lifetime. Unable to check whether she was really dead, Valentine grabbed MEDUSA and ran past Hester's body.
When Hester regained consciousness, she tried to get to Dunroamin, a city on Oak Island, to find a doctor for her parents. She attempted to paddle there in a small rowing boat, but once again became unconscious. She woke up on the shores of the Great Hunting Ground.
She spent the rest of her childhood aboard a tiny scavenger-town (a Traction Town that looks for various compatible objects in the mud of the Hunting Ground for fuel), which is where she met Shrike. She left after several years, to try to find and kill Valentine.
After several years of searching, Hester finally made it aboard London, Valentine's hometown, when it ate Salthook (see the Mortal Engines article). When Valentine approached the Salthook residents to see if they had anything for his museum before they resettled in London, Hester tried to stab him. Tom blocked the blow, and she was chased through London's Gut, the area where consumed cities were dismantled, by her future lover Tom. In order to escape London's police, she jumped down a waste-chute leading out of the city. Valentine then pushed Tom after her.
After a few days wandering through the Out-Country, a desolate area entirely inhabited by Traction Cities, Hester and Tom came across Speedwell, a tiny scavenger town. The townspeople offered them food and shelter, only to try to sell them as slaves at a group of small traction towns known as a trading cluster. They escaped onto a neighbouring town, Stayns, and met the airviator (airship pilot) Anna Fang, who helped them escape, and took them to Airhaven, a city in the sky which serves as a meeting point for airviators.
Hester spent the next few weeks fleeing from the Stalker Shrike, who had been ordered to kill her and Tom by the mayor of London. She found her way aboard Turnbridge Wheels, a suburb run by pirates, and then to the Black Island, which was a similar to Oak Island, but more densely populated. On the Black Island, Tom managed to kill Shrike (who was later re-resurrected) And they met up with Anna Fang again, whom they had had to leave to avoid Shrike.
Miss Fang took them the Shan Guo, the leading nation of the Anti-Traction League. While there, Tom and Hester discovered that Valentine and Magnus Crome, the Lord Mayor of London, were planning to use MEDUSA to invade the lands of the Anti-Traction League. This distressed Tom, but didn't seem to bother Hester.
Soon after came an unexpected fight with Valentine in Batmunkh Gompa, a city on the edge of Shan Guo. Valentine killed Miss Fang and burned down Shan Guo's Northern Air fleet, leaving them helpless to stop London. He then escaped in his airship back to London, but Hester and Tom decided to pursue him using Miss Fang's, the Jenny Haniver.
Hester managed to get the airship close to the city by claiming it was London Ship GE47, then parachuted down to London's Top Tier, with the intention of sabotaging MEDUSA. She was soon captured by Magnus Crome's men, and taken inside St. Pauls Cathedral, where MEDUSA was installed. Valentine, terrified of this reminder from his past, tried to stab Hester, but his own daughter Katherine put herself between the sword and Hester. Katherine later died from the wound.
Ms. Valentine stumbled back with shock, accidentally falling on MEDUSA'S keyboard (part of it was like a giant computer). This entered the code that caused MEDUSA to self destruct, destroying the whole of London along with it. Hester managed to escape by reaching the Jenny Haniver, which Tom was still piloting. As they both realised that they had nothing left but their airship, this began the new life they would lead, as air-traders.
Hester is first seen in this book in Airhaven, having returned from a trip around the world, to places such at Nuevo Maya (South America) and Antarictica. At the time, Airhaven was sailing over the southern regions of the Ice Wastes, or Arctic. After meeting representatives from Arkangel, the Ice Wastes' biggest predator, Hester, Tom and their new passenger Pennyroyal, were chased from Airhaven by Green Storm airships. In order to outrun them, they flew far too far North, beyond the slightly warmer regions where the Ice Cities roamed. Giving up hope of finding any other airships of cities, Tom and Hester lay down in each other's arms, expecting to die.
However, upon making one last trip outside the cabin, Hester discovered that one City had come this far North. So they flew down and docked at their saviours' city, which happened to be Anchorage-in-Vineland. Aboard the city, the three new arrivals discovered that Anchorage was heading towards North America, a continent that in the Mortal Engines Quartet is long dead, however Freya Rasmussen, the cities Mayoress, or "Margravine," believed that parts of America were still alive. Days later, Hester discovered that Freya Rasmussen, the cities Mayoress, had started to fall in love with Tom. Later, she sees Tom and Freya kissing. Jealous, believing that she was no match for Freya, Hester fled the city, with a plan to get Tom back.
She planned to sell Anchorage's location to Arkangel, but not for money. As a price, she demanded that they give Tom to her, as he would be aboard Anchorage when Arkangel eats it. The Arkangel representative agreed, thought not without sarcasm towards her unusual price, and Hester searches for somewhere in the city to stay until it eats Anchorage. However, she is captured by an agent of the Green Storm, and taken to their headquarters.
Hester later found herself inside Rouges Roost, the northernmost base of the Green Storm. She was woken by the bases' commander, or subtalern, and later taken to a room known as the Memory Chamber. Inside the Chamber, she found the newly resurrected Stalker Fang, who is admired by the subtalern.
Hester was shocked that Miss Fangs' body had been Resurrected, but Sathya, the subtalern, is convinced that she has actually risen Fang from the dead. Hester gave up trying to convince her otherwise, and found out that Sathya wanted to use Hester and her ship to remind Fang of her previous life. This did not work, but Hester remained a prisoner of the Green Storm for around a month while Sathya continuously tried to re-awaken the new Stalker's memory.
Hester was eventually rescued by Tom, who had reached the Green Storm base with the help of the Lost Boys. The Lost Boys accidentally set off bombs inside the base, unwittingly allowing Hester and Tom to escape. Sathya attempted to kill them on the way out, but was stopped surprisingly by the Resurrected Anna Fang. Tom and Hester recovered the Jenny Haniver, and flew to Anchorage to try to stop Arkangel eating it. Aboard the airship, Tom revealed to Hester that Pennyroyal had lied about America's green places, and that Anchorage was heading towards a dead continent after all.
When they reached Anchorage, Hester sent Tom to Freya Rasmussen's private museum, where she thought he would be safe. Hester then fought against the Huntsmen of Arkangel, the gang of pirates that captured Arkangel's prey and drove it into their city's gut, with Freya and the unwilling help of Pennyroyal. She released the imprisoned townspeople, who overpowered their captors, and personally killed the leader of the Huntsmen, who ironically was the man she sold Anchorage's location to in the first place. During the fight, Pennyroyal slipped away, shot Tom, and stole the Jenny Haniver.
Arkangel later ran into thin ice and became stuck, allowing Anchorage to escape. The townspeople were then unsure of what to do next, as everyone by then had found out about Pennyroyal's lies. However, Caul, an exiled Lost Boy, boarded the city and showed the town's Steering Committee how to find small green spaces around the western shore of the continent. These green spots the town found, and settled on. During this time Tom recovered from his bullet wound, and Hester discovered that she was pregnant. The two lovers agreed to stay on anchorage for as long as necessary, as they both knew that the Stalker Fang planned to declare war on the Traction Cities.
At the beginning of Infernal Devices, Hester had been living in Anchorage for fifteen years. She was slowly become less trusting of Tom and their young daughter Wren, who had been settling into Anchorage (now called "Anchorage in Vineland") life far better than her. Hester later found a note from Wren, stating that she is going to leave Anchorage-in-Vineland with the lost boys, who evidently had turned up in one of their limpet machines (a type of submarine). Hester, Tom, and many other Anchorage citizens, try to find the limpet, which they do with ease.
Hester panics, and starts shooting. She hits and kills two of the Lost Boys, but the surviving one drags Wren inside the limpet and takes her away against her will. Hester and Tom decide to go after them, and Freya Rasmussen offers to come with them. Caul offers to take them in his own limpet, which he has kept, seemingly for sentimental reasons.
They return to Grimbsy, assuming that the Lost Boy would take Wren there, only to find that Grimbsy has been deserted (the people of Brighton sent out a message, asking the Lost Boys to come to them, saying they were their Mummies and Daddies, so they all went to Brighton, including Wren, and the Lost Boy who captured her, Fishcake) apart from Uncle, who convinces Caul to help him re-build Grimbsy. Caul locks the others up and tricks Uncle into falling asleep so they can escape. Caul and Freya return to Anchorage-in-Vineland to get married, while Tom and Hester go to Brighton to look for Wren.
Tom discovers a slave company, with all the Lost Boys inside, and gets captured by them, while Hester find the Jenny Haniver in a museum about Pennyroyal. She then rescues Tom, and the two of them steal back the Jenny Haniver and fly to Cloud 9 (a floating island, whch the mayor [Pennyroyal]'s palace is). On the way there, they have an argument about Hester's ability to kill people so calmly, and her abandoning Fishcake, who Tom told could come with them. When they find Wren, they discover that Pennyroyal told Wren about how Hester had betrayed Anchorage to Arkangel 16 years ago, and Wren tells everyone. As Cloud 9 comes closer to crashing into the ground, Tom and Wren run onto the Jenny Haniver and fly away, while Hester meets up with Shrike, and he remembers who she is.
Throughout A Darkling Plain Hester spends most of the time with her companion Shrike being both a trader and later assassin-for-hire, earning her the nickname the "Angel Of Death." Her new costume consists mainly of a black leather jacket, boots and the shawl which she has been known to wear in the previous books. It has been some time since Hester has last seen Tom (who is now travelling the Bird Roads with their daughter, Wren Natsworthy) and when they finally meet that same enthusiasm is short-lived, as Tom can now see her ability to be a cold-hearted killer. This is the final book with Hester and Tom, as in the penultimate chapter of the book Tom suddenly has a fatal heart attack which leads to his inevitable death in Hester's arms. Hester, not wanting to live in a world without Tom, embraces him and commits suicide with Fishcake's knife. In the final chapter, Shrike finds Hester and intends to keep his promise of having her turned into a Stalker, although looks closer and realized that she died holding Tom's hand, still gripping tightly. Shrike, realizing that Hester is happy, places Tom and Hester among a hill not far from the wreck of the Jenny Haniver, and begins to hibernate, watching their bodies decay, followed by their skeletons entire, until awakening thousands of years later.
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