Maze Montréal

"I've been here for years wondering where I belong in... not realizing I'm already where I'm supposed to be." -**Maze**'s closing narration, *Epilogue*

## Biolographical Information

### Full Name

Avellana Montréal (birth name)
Mazarine Claremont-Diaz (by adoption)

### Alias(es)

Freak
Mazzie (by Henna)
White-Haired Amnesiac Ghostbuster (by herself)
Roomie/(Jack) Frost (by Danilo)
Auntie Maze (by Danzel and Xavian)

### Occupation

Senior student at Complutense University of Madrid
Bail enforcement agent in the Madrid Police Department (in 2046)

## Physical Information

### Hair Color

Platinum white
Chocolate brown (natural)

## Relationships

### Family

Mauricio Montréal † (father)
Natalia Montréal † (mother)
Avellino Montréal † (younger brother)
Raphael Diaz (adoptive father)
Samuel Claremont-Diaz (adoptive father)
Henna Claremont-Diaz (older adoptive sister)

### Friend(s)

Henna Claremont-Diaz
Danilo Espinoza
Kimahri †
Jacinta Alejandro †
Danzel Espinoza
Xavian Espinoza

### Enemies

Natalia Montréal †
Danilo Espinoza (formerly)

## Production Information

### Inspiration(s)

Belle Bello
Red Ordonia
Hiro Hamada
Mazikeen of the Lilim

Born **Avellana Montréal**, **Mazarine**, or better known as her nickname **Maze**, is the daughter of the late **Natalia** and her husband, **Mauricio Montréal** and the older sister of **Avellino**, being the main protagonist of STRAY and a central character along with the rest of the STR4YS. After being adopted by doctors **Raphael** and **Samuel**, she was renamed **Maze Claremont-Diaz**, having Henna as her adoptive sister and best friend, and being classmates with her and Danilo Espinoza, attending Complutense University of Madrid as seniors. Maze's *vision* allows her to see ghosts like **Jacinta Alejandro** and Kimahri.

Like Red Ordonia from *Beyond Worlds* and Sapphire Chauvera from *The Arcana***, Belle Bello** is the inspiration for Maze.

## **THE FREAK ARC**

#### **NIGHT OF THE STORM**

Maze is born as **Avellana Montréal** to her parents Natalia and **Mauricio** on November 5th, 2004, and just two years after her birth, her younger brother **Avellino** was born. Avellana and her brother had always been close with their father, causing her mother, Natalia, to think that her husband loves their children more than he loves her.

This jealousy quickly escalates, and soon, her mother drowns Avellino in Rio Manzanares while he and Avellana are playing hide-and-seek in the heavy rain outside the **Montréal Manor**. Avellana sees how her mother killed her own son and she tried to escape, but still failed. Natalia drowns her in the same river, though Avellana puts up a fight- causing her hair to slowly turn white from stress and fear.

#### **AFTERMATH**

Doctors **Raphael Diaz** and **Samuel Claremont-Diaz** hike up the mountains to find survivors, and they Avellana washed up by the river after the storm. Unable to find any relatives, they take her into their house and treat her there until she wakes up from a coma three years later. The doctors' daughter, Henna, discovers that she has amnesia and that she could see spirits when a black cat shows himself to Avellana.

At some point, Avellana was adopted by the doctors and renamed her **Maze**, taking the doctors' last names in the process. Maze was given physical and mental exams to help keep her up with the time she'd lost- she was homeschooled for months and eventually becomes Henna and Danilo Espinoza's classmate in a university.

## **PHYSICAL APPEARANCE**

Maze has a petite body figure, with her height being 5'0". Her hair is cropped to the length of her chin, and it's colored platinum white because of her condition- prior to the events of the story, **Austin Dy** imagines her hair color would be chocolate brown. She has russet brown eyes.

She wears a cropped satin-sheen gold button-down with short sleeves over a black turtleneck sweater, and her slacks are pale brown secured with a lighter shade of brown color for her belt. Her sneakers are white Plimsoll sneakers. Around Maze's neck is a necklace with the **Montréal Manor**'s front gate key, although it was unknown who gave it to her or why she has it.

## **RELATIONSHIPS**

#### **Henna Claremont-Diaz**

Since Maze had issues making friends because of people seeing Maze as a "freak", Henna was her first and only friend as she understood Maze more than anyone. She also always had been jealous of Henna and describes her as someone who's the complete opposite of herself: popular and well-liked. Because of this, she's often snarky and sarcastic about Henna's student council president status, as well as her "know-it-all" persona. Following Henna's death, Maze falls into a fit of rage and anger that she eventually overcomes thanks to Danilo, who was there to comfort her.

#### **Danilo Espinoza**

At first, Maze and Danilo gets off to a rocky start since they're not close enough; they're just often in detention together for various reasons, and this is evident by Danilo teasing Maze and calling her "Roomie". Though Maze knows Danilo doesn't mean all the things he tells her as insults, she thinks it's tiring and usually fires back with her own comebacks. They eventually become close when Henna dies, with Danilo having to comfort a raging Maze, blaming herself for Henna's death. Maze's friendship to Danilo is also like Henna's, and views him as her older brother more than anything.

#### **Kimahri**

Kimahri the cat ghost is one of Maze's first friends along with Henna, and he was the first *Guardian* ghost she'd met and befriended. It was through Kimahri that Maze found out about her *vision* that lead her to research about it more, and came up with hypotheses that turned out to be right. She considers Kimahri as her spirit animal and guide to further understand the world of the spirits and how they work. In turn, Kimahri treats Maze as his closest friend since she is the only one who can see him, and cares for her and her friends.

#### **Jacinta Alejandro**

It was explicitly mentioned by Henna that Maze has a "small" crush on Jacinta, their Literature professor's Guardian younger sister, and they were described to be playfully flirting with each other multiple times. They also appear to be close friends, although like what editor **Stefen Sanchez** mentioned, Maze and Jacinta would definitely end up together if only Jacinta didn't die.

#### **Avellino Montréal**

Since it was only the two of them, Avellino had always been in a tight-knit relationship with his older sister Avellana and like how Maze considers Henna as her best friend, Avellino considers Avellana the same. With their parents always fighting, Avellana needed to always distract Avellino with something else, like games- especially hide-and-seek. When Avellino drowned in the river, he thought his sister had forgotten about him and didn't save him on time that he becomes a *Cursed* waiting to kill Maze when she went to the manor. They resolve their issues as siblings, and Avellino ascends forgiving and thanking Maze for breaking his curse.

#### **Danzel and Xavian Espinoza**

In the epilogue, it's clear that Maze has a close relationship with her godchildren though she would often take them out of their classes, being a bit of a bad influence to them. It's also hinted that Maze might have something to do with Danzel and Xavian being eager to play and mess around with their father's gun and probably also other official police equipment. Maze seemed to be enjoying telling stories to them as much as Danzel and Xavian enjoy listening to her.

## **TRIVIAS**

* Maze's name came from *Mazarin*, which means a deep blue color- following the tradition of **Belle Bello**'s characters having colored names.
	+ Maze mentions that her uncles had named her "Mazarine" because she was found by Rio Manzanares when it was colored deep blue.
	+ Her name is sometimes misspelled as either "Mazareen" or "Mazerine".
* She has the same name as the Italian cardinal, Cardinal Mazarin, who graduated from the Complutense University of Madrid; the same university Maze goes to. Coincidentally, José Rizal is also an alumni of the university.
	+ Maze's nickname is also a reference to Mazikeen of the Lilim, a demon made famous by the TV series Lucifer.
* Originally, Maze is 16 going 17 in the story with the epilogue's date being November 5th, which is Belle Bello's actual birthday and the story's planned release date. This was changed, however, and replaced it with the fact that her actual birthday is not known, but since November 19th is the date when Raphael and Samuel adopted Maze, it's now become her birthday since they don't know her real one. Readers speculate that Maze's real birthday is still November 5th.
* Out of all Belle's characters in previous stories, Maze is:
	+ the only one to have the *Marie Antoinette Syndrome*.
		- Maze's sudden loss of her hair color is triggered by serious distress (or a by a sudden shocking situation) is a real-life condition called *canities subita*, better known as the Marie Antoinette Syndrome. he notable people who were rumored to have the condition are Marie Antoinette and Thomas More- along with anime characters like Kaneki Ken from Tokyo Ghoul, Kaede Manyuda from Kakegurui, and Shion from No. 6.
			* Danilo Espinoza calling Maze "Jack Frost", or more often just "Frost" is because of her white hair, although **Kath Aguinaldo** states that it's also because Maze drowned into a river like Jack Frost from *Rise of the Guardians* did.
	+ the second to have a shade of the color blue as her name- the first is **Sapphire Chauvera** from The Arcana.
	+ She and Henna are the second pair of Belle and Kath Aguinaldo's characters to be siblings- the first is Beyond Worlds' **Red Ordonia** and **Léa Navarro**, although Maze and Henna are only siblings by adoption while Red and Léa are biological sisters**.**
		- Maze would also be the second character to be a younger sibling of Kath's character.
* Maze is the only character who shares the same birth month as the member she was based on; both she and Belle Bello were born on November 2004. Henna was born on June while Kath was born on July, and Danilo was born on January while **Cj Sanchez** was born on August.
* Maze's thalassophobia was added into the story at the last minute. **Austin Dy** figured that it would be reasonable for Maze to have a phobia of the water after being drowned and scared so much that her hair turned white.
* The reason why Maze calls Danilo "Dandildo" is because he usually comes off as a huge dick to people.
* Her birth name, "Avellana", is pronounced "A-veh-yana", as confirmed by Kath Aguinaldo. This is because in Spanish, double Ls are read as a Y.
	+ In turn, her brother Avellino's name is pronounced, "A-veh-yee-no".
* In a version of STRAY's prologue, Maze is caught for skipping classes by a security guard and had to be escorted into detention multiple times which would be the reason why Maze and Danilo knew each other well. A more subtle part of this is included in the final cut, with Danilo calling Maze "Roomie", inferring that they have been in detention a lot of times before and eventually became acquainted.
* Maze has developed a lot of behavioral changes as a result of her traumatic brain injury, which includes (but not limited to): difficulty with self-control, risky behavior as evident by her going to detention a lot of times and cutting classes, verbal outbursts as seen in *Chapter 4* when she got mad at Henna and Danilo, and emotional changes like anxiety and mood swings.