Anacostia Quartermain

## Anacostia Quartermaine

**Captain Anacostia Quartermaine**, formerly Sergeant Anacostia Quartermaine, was one of the main characters in *Motherland: Fort Salem*. She was portrayed by Demetria McKinney.

She was a tough, wry, and at times, a humorous sergeant whose chief concern was keeping the young recruits alive through basic training. She later receives a promotion to the rank of captain, heading Fort Salem's intelligence division.

## History

Anacostia's parents died in a car accident due to an icy road while they were on furlough. They were by the book and didn't use work off base. She was then raised at Fort Salem by a variety of people, including General Alder.

At her first Beltane, Anacostia had sex with a boy named Channing Grafton and was very aggressive with him. However, she has trouble remembering him in the present.

## Throughout the Series

### Season 1

Anacostia is the drill sergeant in charge of the new recruits' well being and training. She is strict and demanding and expects nothing but the best from the cadets. After Raelle and Scylla start dating, she grows suspicious of Scylla and her intentions.

Anacostia meets with General Alder to discuss problems with both the cadets and with The Spree. They give each other advice on what to do. Alder told Anacostia she remembers when she was a child.

On the eve of Beltane, Anacostia reminisces with Berryessa Tansey about their first Beltane. In the middle of their conversation, the apples on the trees start to die and they realize that something is wrong with Alder. Anacostia prepares Devon - the new Biddy recruit for her task and congratulates her.

During Beltane, Anacostia and Petra Bellweather check the mirrors at Fort Salem for residue of the Spree's works but find nothing.

Anacostia keeps her eye on Scylla, knowing that she is a bad influence on Raelle. At Charvel Bellweather's wedding, Tally tells Anacostia that she thinks that Scylla is a part of the Spree.

Anacostia assures Tally that an investigation is under way about Scylla, who mysteriously goes missing after the attack. It is later shown that Anacostia, Izadora, and Alder have Scylla under their guard, in chains, where she is being interrogated about the attack.

Anacostia brings an unconscious Raelle to where Scylla is being held in order to lower Scylla's defenses. After this is successful, she puts Raelle back to sleep and enters Scylla's mind where she discovers a Spree armory. She reports back to Alder and states that she sensed a trace of regret within Scylla. Alder dismisses this and says that Anacostia has a soft spot for orphans.

During Citydrop, she's forced, along with her recruits, to operate in a live combat situation: they're tasked to stop two trucks, directed to Boston, in which the Spree hid their weapons and other devices. The first truck is successfully stopped with a unified windstrike. Anacostia sends Raelle to make sure no one escapes the crash and orders Tally to tell her what the Spree are doing inside the second truck. Tally reveals to Anacostia how she sees civilian hostages inside the second truck. Alarmed, the sergeant contacts General Alder and informs her of the situation, but the latter replies to proceed anyway, forcing Anacostia to lie to Tally, saying her that she has been fooled by the enemy. The witches perform a combined windshear on the second truck.

The operation is a pyrrhic victory, because even though they managed to stop the Spree's attack, the destruction of the second truck killed, apart from the hostages, the cadet Libba Swythe, devastating both Anacostia and the cadets.

Back in Fort Salem, General Alder tries to reassure Anacostia about how they did the right thing and how Libba died with honor. Anacostia respectfully leaves the general's office, but it's clear how she's far from persuaded that the deaths of Libba and the hostages were honorable. Anacostia is even more disappointed by what she, along with her equally disappointed recruits, watches on television. Alder communicates to the nation what happened but lying about the dynamics of the facts and claiming that the hostages were executed by the Spree.

At breakfast, Anacostia suggests to Alder that they turn Scylla against the Spree. Alder rejects her idea because she thinks it's not possible. She tells Anacostia to send her to prison.

Scylla and Anacostia talk and Anacostia says that she's going to be sent to prison on Alder's orders. Anacostia says first she wants to know how she became her - why she joined the Spree. Scylla asks to see Raelle one more time in exchange for her life story.

Anacostia talks to Raelle and suggests that she take the opportunity to say goodbye to Scylla. Raelle says "she's dead to me" and walks away. Later, Anacostia brings Raelle to Scylla after Raelle changed her mind.

Anacostia's trust of Alder continues to fade when she catches Alder puppeting the President's speech - making the President give Alder unlimited support and power, instead of announcing that she was being demoted. Anacostia finds out that Raelle, Tally, and Abigail had approached Petra Bellweather with the information that Alder let the Spree infiltrate Fort Salem via Scylla. Petra went to the President, which triggered the President's move to fire Alder. Anacostia warns the girls that if Alder finds out that they were the reason she was going to be replaced, that they'd be in grave danger.

Anacostia meets with Scylla to try to get information from her and more importantly, to understand how someone gets to the point where they join the Spree. Scylla is able to show that she is not a monster, and that maybe there is a possibility that more people in the Spree aren't monsters. Anacostia tells her that she knows nothing about her and storms out.

Anacostia visits Scylla and brings her a photo of her dead parents. Scylla explains how they died. She explains that they were on the run and her parents were caught and surrendered, but were killed anyway. Scylla was hiding and got away and vowed to fight for them ever since. Anacostia explains that her parents also died tragically in a car accident. Scylla says that she hopes their sacrifice was appreciated and that they were wearing collars and chains and didn't know it. Scylla thanks Anacostia for being kinder to her than she needed to be.

She decides to free Scylla and tells her to "hold on to the part of you that's good". She gives her a lighter and tells her to make the escape look "good". Scylla knocks out Anacostia and disguises herself as Anacostia and walks out.

Later on, when Scylla escapes and goes directly to a Spree refuge house, Anacostia appears in the distance in her running clothes, implying she had an ulterior motive for letting Scylla escape.

## Relationships

Sarah Alder - Fostermother

Channing Grafton - First Beltane conquest

Sterling Woodlot - romantic

## Physical Appearance

Anacostia has curly black hair, that she often wears on top of her head in a bun. She is tall and has big brown eyes.

## Powers and Abilities

### Powers

**Witch Physiology:** As a witch, Anacostia possesses enhanced vocal chords that are capable of creating change in the physical world by singing different seed sounds and songs, as well as enhanced ears -- as stated in *Up is Down:* eardrums with "five mallea", compared to a regular human's one, that are capable of sensing subsonic and ultrasonic frequencies far beyond the capabilities of normal humans. She teaches basic training at Fort Salem and is now the Head of Intel.

* **Weather Manipulation:** Dubbed "weatherwork" by the witches at Fort Salem, users of which are known as Blasters.
	+ **Windshear:** This early-taught work is a site-specific, rapid conjuration, impact-absorbing shield made from the air around a witch. Anacostia taught this to the cadets at Fort Salem in *Say The Words*. Anacostia and the cadets in basic training used this ability during their mission against the Spree in Boston, destroying their truck full of munitions and, unfortunately, civilian hostages.
		- **Windburn**: In *Happy Yule!*, after Vera pushes Sterling to stab himself several times in the gut, Anacostia lets out this sound of pure emotion that creates such a strong wind-force that Vera is killed almost instantly, as well as having her face taken off.
	+ **Windstrike:** Propulsive bursts of air that can be used defensively and offensively. Anacostia taught this to to the cadets at Fort Salem in *Say The Words*. Anacostia and the cadets in basic training used this ability during their mission against the Spree in Boston, creating so much pressure that the first truck driving by a member of the Spree's leadership collided with it and crashed severely, causing it to flip over and roll into the nearby field. In *Happy Yule!*,, once unveiled behind the witch-holding cells at the Camarilla's Yule party, Anacostia attempts to "give them something to look at" by windstriking her way out, however the glass was built to be work-proof which sends the strike back at her.
* **Ferrokinesis:** In *Say The Words*, after Raelle is caught ditching training with Scylla and returns to Anacostia with a demerit, she manipulated the former’s medal in such a way as to erase the “D” engraved onto it. In addition, through the use of a seed, she repaired the damage done to a large piece of metal by the cadets’ windstrikes.
* **Life-Force Manipulation:** In *Say The Words*, Sergeant Quartermaine slowly and quietly drained the life-force out of Scylla in the infirmary in hopes of frightening the young witch out of negatively influencing Raelle. She even tells her to stay far away from Raelle, as if her “life depended on it.”

* **Nullification:**In *Say The Words*, Drill Sergeant Quartermaine and other higher-ranking witches used a high screeching seed sound to counteract the maelstrom that Abigail, Tally, and Raelle created when they performed The Seed of Reversal in one harmonics session.
* **Scrying:** With the use of a reflective surface to project the images to, a witch can remotely see in places outside their typical field of vision. Anacostia taught this to the cadets at Fort Salem. In *A Biddy's Life*, Anacostia is shown teaching it to the girls.
	+ **Remote Viewing**: In *Homo Cantus*, while sitting on a couch with sterling, the two utilize scrying to spy on Vice President Silver and Kara Hearst's plans. Alban Hearst arrives shortly thereafter, who is recognized by Sterling as someone who was on base the night of the attack.
* **Linking**: Linking is the touchstone of fixing, and is often life and death.
	+ **Sleep Induction:** In *Mother Mycelium*, Anacostia and a few other witches were shown "sleeping" the Bellweather unit in order to use Raelle to weaken Scylla enough for Anacostia to read her memories. Once she is properly unnerved, Raelle is promptly put to sleep and returned to her room.
	+ **Memory Reading:**A type of advanced Linking, that allows the user to read and view the memories of others. In *Mother Mycelium*, Anacostia used this ability to enter Scylla's mind after using Raelle to lower her defenses. She later used this ability to communicate with Izadora while at *Citydrop*.
	+ **Healing**: In *Happy Yule!*, after Sterling is injured, Anacosta links with him to attempt to heal his injury and save his life.
* **Levitation:**By using Salva, Anacostia can levitate several feet off the ground and perform combat drops, first shown in *Citydrop*
* **Telepathy**: Dubbed "Farspeech" by the witches at Fort Salem. In *Citydrop*, Anacostia is seen communicating long-distance with Alder, receiving order directly. In *Homo Cantus*, to communicate with Sterling from Fort Salem, as well as to listen into the building where the Camarilla are holding a meeting, in which M was infiltrating with her at the time. In *Oh Elayne...*, at the Whitehouse Anacostia uses Farspeech to keep in contact with Sterling and M.
* **Detection:** Anacostia was able to detect the Biddies' seed sounds while Alder was puppeting President Wade in *Coup*.
* **Ultra/Infrasound Alarm**: Witches are able to create sound waves that are both vastly above and below the range of human hearing. In many cases, they will use these sounds -- which humans are unable to hear -- as alarms in order to alert each other without alerting humans. This is seen in *Mother of All, Mother of None*, when Anacostia is alerted to the base's infiltration, she sounds an alarm to warn the rest of base.
* **Warding**: In *Revolution, Part 1*, Anacostia is seen warding a door behind her and Alder after the latter is severely wounded -- the paint on the door peels away where the symbol she uses to ward is drawn.
* **Fetch Planting**: In *Of the Blood*, Anacostia is seen controlling a Fetch that she planted in a wooden board above the porch of the Spree hideout where Scylla ran away to.
* **Pushing**: Pushing work allows her to manipulate people’s actions through her voice, putting them in a trance-like state where they are open to her suggestions.
	+ **Lethal Hallucinations**: By lacing her intentions into the soundwaves she creates, Anacostia can push powerfully compelling hallucinations onto her victims, making them hallucinate being attacked, when in reality they are hurting themselves or others around them. In *Cession in Session*, while strapped to a table alongside Sterling -- being held captive by the Camarilla -- a masked surgeon attempts to cut out Anacostia's throat, however she pushes him to cut one of her restraints, allowing her to undo the rest while she continues to push him to attack the other Camarilla surgeon; the two kill each other allowing for them to escape. She notes that she "picked up a thing or two from [her] time working with Scylla".
* **Pyro-Shapeshifting**: She de-transforms Nicte in *Delusional*, revealing her face by burning Tally's face off of her. In *Cession in Session*, after freeing Sterling and herself, she steals the face of the male Camarilla surgeon to be able to lower the guard of another Camarilla operative with the password to get them out.

## Equipment

* **Scourge:**At some point during her time at Fort Salem, Anacostia started using a scourge in battle when not using her powers.
* **Salva:** During her time at Fort Salem, Anacostia started to use Salva to levitate in battle.

## Quotes

> "Stop blowing it."
>
> Anacostia to Raelle in Say the Words