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Jun 19, 2021 10:38AM
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Hazel C. Roussel - Part One(view spoiler)[
Name: Hazel Christina Roussel
Nicknames: Haze
Age: 16
Birthday: June 18
Gender: F
Year: 5
Appearance: Hazel’s red-brown locks of hair fall in natural curls down to her shoulder blades, but she prefers to tie it up in a tight ponytail or messy bun with a few wispies framing her face. If she has the time, she likes to put her hair up in a French twist or experiment with braids. Her eyes are deep, emerald green with miniscule, sepia veins near the centers of the irises. Her skin is pale and creamy, and at one time in the not-so-distant past it was without blemishes, unless you counted the birthmark in the general shape of a fish behind her right shoulder. Now she has a few scars and some bruises, but she always covers them up with as much concealer as possible. She has a heart-shaped face with full, pink lips and a slightly turned up nose splattered with a few freckles. Her cheekbones are high and prominent, and she has small ears, a petite forehead, and gorgeous, long eyelashes. She has a slender frame, and her height is about 5’7. She weighs roughly 103 pounds thanks to her petite build, flat stomach, and regular exercise routines. She has a torso, which has always been exceptionally slim, that is proportional to the rest of her body and a small chest. She’s moderately curvy, and her shoulders and neck are slender. Her hands are small with short fingers and neatly kept nails which are usually painted with bright colors and sparkles or glitter. Her toenails are similarly adorned, though it is sometimes difficult with more intricate designs since her ankles, feet, and toes are unusually small even for someone of her height. She has several ear piercings, including cartilage, and three tattoos. The first one is a single, red rose on the inside of her right ankle, and the second one is a collection of stars on the back of her left shoulder. The third and last one is an angel weeping over an empty cradle with the name ‘Stellaluna’ beneath it in gorgeous script, and it is on her left arm.
Hazel’s favorite color is sky blue, and she can almost always be seen wearing something of that color whether it be a dress, a necklace, or a hairband. She loves glitter, sequins, rhinestones, and anything sparkly, and she loves shoes and sweaters almost as much. She normally wears dresses a little above her knees in bright colors or pastels and either sparkly sandals, ankle boots with a little heel, or nude heels. She also likes to wear delicate blouses with skirts or sometimes jeans for casual things. She is never seen without an abundance of accessories from handbags to earrings to hair combs and clips. She also loves to experiment with cosmetics for all kinds of cool eye makeup. She normally wears sweaters or jackets as well but mostly to hide her arm tattoo from curious eyes. She doesn’t want anyone asking her about it.
Personality: On the outside Hazel seems like a bubbly, extroverted, outgoing girl, but one of her biggest secrets is that it’s mostly an act. She is naturally cheerful and likes to make new friends and meet new people, but she isn’t as confident as she pretends to be. When she is around others, she seems happy and carefree, though a bit quirky at times, and she loves to go out with her friends and spend time with them. A fun-loving girl, she loves exploring and travelling and especially enjoys the nightlife of large cities. She is a bit of a nerd at times, but most of her friends find it cute or endearing. She sometimes spouts random facts, mostly about computers or science, but she just can’t help it. She loves to share the things she find interesting or cool and the new things she learns. This is how Hazel appears to nearly everyone who knows or meets her.
Beneath the overly happy mask she wears, her true personality lies. She still possesses a cheerful nature, but she is happy in a quiet way. Most of her interests are the same: travelling, exploring, reading, and learning, but she lacks confidence. When she is alone, anxiety and depression control her life, and things that happened in her past haunt her every step. Because of this, she prefers to be around her friends whenever she can.
Even when she is not alone, she still feels some anxiety lurking in the back of her mind. This manifests in her being hyper aware of her surroundings. She is always looking for all possible exits, hiding spaces, and anyone acting suspicious or unusual. She will also never go anywhere alone if it is dark out or if she is in an unfamiliar place or area. While she is mistrusting of others, her need for male attention often distorts her better judgment, and her anxiety lessens or is overridden when she is around those she is attracted to. She can be a bit of a flirt when she is interested in someone, but as of late not so much.
She gets frustrated and impatient with herself easily and can forgive almost anyone except herself. Even though she has vowed to be more careful with boys, she knows that nothing will really change, and this causes much agony and self-hatred on her part. Every time she gets hurt, she swears to not to make the same mistakes that put her in that miserable situation, but time and time again her desire for attention wins out in the end. She doesn’t understand how to break the cycle and goes through alternating phases of fierce resistance and resigning herself to her fate.
None of this is helped by the fact that though she tries to be guarded, she is naïve and gullible. With a moderate amount of persistence it is easy to trick her, and her will falters at the sight of a handsome or pretty face. She can be easily pressured into many things except for her few, strong convictions with kind words, a sincere smile, or threat of violence, though she does not yet realize this about herself. Perhaps if she did, it might shed some light on why she always ends up in disastrous relationships.
Hazel is not among the bravest, but she is more courageous than she gives herself credit for. While she has let herself be talked out of many things or pressured into staying silent, there is a quiet courage in her. Moving to attend a new school, doing well in school, and several other big steps she has accomplished all on her own with no kind of outside help from anyone as she does not like to accept charity unless she absolutely has no other choice.
The last important thing to know about Hazel is that she is rarely – if ever – violent. She may be quickly and easily angered or irritated at times, but she also calms down just as easily and swiftly. She would rather hurt herself first than hurt others, and even seeing animals in pain breaks her heart. There are very few times she has done anything with any semblance to violence, but nearly every time it was an act of protection and not defiance. She is a pacifist at heart, but there was once one for whom she would do almost anything to protect.
Likes: The color blue, sparkles, glitter, jewelry, computers, reading, learning, travelling, photography, journaling, doodling, fashion, large cities, loud music, romantic comedies, baby animals, yoga, and having a large friend circle.
Dislikes: Violence, boring clothes, petty friendship drama, cliques, complete silence, being alone, being single, horror movies and books, heavy metal, cigarettes, vaping, dentists, monotony, lying, debates, and herself.
Powers: Hazel can manipulate, heal, and create plants. She can accelerate or slow their growth, but she cannot make them abnormally large or kill them. Additionally, she is immune to witchcraft/dark magic, and any cursed objects touching her turn to flowers.
Family:
Biological parents: Jean and Eliza Ketelsen
Adoptive parents: Elias and Hannah Roussel
History: Hazel grew up as an only child with both, adoptive parents, who sadly were absent for much of her life. Her mother, Hannah, was a big shot physicist at a research lab, and her father, Elias, was the vice president of a major pharmaceuticals company. They both loved Hazel dearly, but their careers kept them busy. Still, they tried their best in her early years to make time for her and hired a full-time nanny to take care of her while they were working. They instilled in her a love of learning and exploring at a young age, and they did their best to be supportive and encouraging in all her pursuits as she grew. Although her adoptive mother was American, Hazel’s father was French, and she spent several of her earliest years in her father’s home country before later emigrating to America. Consequently, she is fluent in both French and English.
Hazel’s nanny was a young woman named Amelia who loved children and travelling. The two of them bonded quickly, and Amelia became one of Hazel’s favorite playmates. Sometimes they would spend much time in Amelia’s room on the second floor (Hazel’s parents gave her room and board in return for her being on call 24/7) admiring all the photos and magazines and posters of different places all over the world with Hazel asking endless questions. Amelia always patiently answered them all to the best of her ability and, as Hazel got older, encouraged her charge to find out the answers to which questions she had no answers for herself. When Hazel was little, the questions were easy: why do birds sing? What is it like in Paris? How far away is the moon? But when she was older, the questions got deeper and more challenging: Why is there so much violence and war and ugliness in the world? How do you know when you’re in love? Does anything have meaning? What am I supposed to do with my life? Who decides what is right and wrong? Amelia answered as best she could, but Hazel started to get the feeling that her friend and nanny was holding something back.
Hazel’s parents were both ardent materialists and raised her with the same values. She was surrounded by family and friends who held to the same opinions and beliefs, and she inherited her parents’ righteous anger and rejection of all religions and anything to do with the supernatural. It was not spoken about much during her younger years, and the subject never came up among her circle of friends. Even as a young child, she easily made friends and collected them like some girls collected dolls. As she grew older she prided herself on both the number and all the different types of friends she had made.
Although she saw her extended family often, she neither liked nor got along well with them. Her cousins were all older than her and probably cared less for her than she did for them. They used to tease and scare her when she was younger, and though Amelia told her not to pay them any mind, it still hurt. At the time she didn’t understand how family could act that way towards each other when families were supposed to be kind, encouraging, and safe. Her relationship with her extended family didn’t get any better as she got older. Her cousins and aunts and uncles didn’t understand her, and she didn’t understand them either. She wasn’t athletic, competitive, or anything like her extended family. She was artsy, book smart, nerdy, and girly: the opposite of all her cousins, aunts, and uncles. To their credit, her cousins did mature over the years, but they just didn’t have anything in common with her. Unfortunately, they ended up spending a lot of time together.
In her early teenage years, Hazel was invited to a dungeons and dragons game by one of her friends. She didn’t know much about it, but she never turned down an invitation. To her surprise, she had a very good time and decided to go again. She loved being creative and drawing her characters and so became a regular player for a couple of years. Her cousins didn’t know much about the game and tried to learn a little about it by reading a wikipedia article.
(hide spoiler)]
Hazel C. Roussel - Part Two(view spoiler)[
History cont'd: They asked her questions and then told her she didn’t know much about the game when the play style she described didn’t reflect what they had read online. Hazel still curses wikipedia to this day, though she ended up leaving the group because of some drama between the players and hasn’t played since.
Friends came and went as they do during their teenage years, but Amelia remained a constant friend to Hazel throughout it all. Hazel was still wondering and worrying over what it was that Amelia wasn’t telling her and finally decided she had to know. One morning she caught Amelia journaling in her room, so she sat down next to her on the sun-warmed window seat and began asking questions as usual. She found Amelia’s worldview quite fascinating since it was so different from her own, so she started there. Eventually, Amelia started to hesitate, so Hazel pressed her albeit gently, questioning why she thought the way she did. Her concern grew when Amelia got up, looked up and down the hallway, and closed the door gently before returning to the window seat. In a quiet voice, she informed Hazel that she was never to repeat any of what she was about to say to anyone. Hazel nodded solemnly and promised to remain silent. Amelia told her that her parents had made her employment contingent on her remaining silent about her religious beliefs. Her parents had not wanted her to be corrupted by religious fantasies and fairytales. Amelia revealed her religious beliefs to Hazel and offered to take her out for coffee later. Hazel quickly agreed and spent the rest of the day pondering the things Amelia had told her. Her parents had always encouraged her to learn and grow and think for herself, so why didn’t they trust her to decide what she thought about religion for herself? Now that she thought about it she realized that she knew very little about any religion at all, and she had to believe that was at least partly her parents’ doing. Hazel did not like to be controlled or manipulated, and at that moment that was how she felt.
That evening Amelia took her out to a quiet coffee shop to discuss Hazel’s thoughts and ideas. Hazel ended up enjoying the conversation, and it appeared that Amelia did too. This became a weekly tradition the two of them shared for many years, and they asked questions and explored and grew together. Eventually, Hazel came to share Amelia’s faith, though she never shared it with her parents or anyone else. It has remained a secret she’s never revealed to anyone even to this day.
Hazel entered high school with much anticipation and was overjoyed when she got her first boyfriend. Of course she was just as heartbroken when they broke up, but she was happy to finally know what it felt like to have any sort of male attention. She had drifted further and further away from her parents in recent months, still feeling hurt and betrayed that they hadn’t trusted her to make her own decisions. After all, this was her life, and they couldn’t live it for her. So, she started seeking out more attention and gained a reputation for being a flirt. However, she could never seem to find anyone who was interested enough in her to go out with her more than a couple of times. This led to her getting more desperate for attention and affection, and like the way sharks can smell blood in the water a mile away, boys of questionable character noticed her. Hazel was delighted by the interest they showed in her and was more than happy to be going steady with a boy in the grade above her: Remy Carson.
Remy came from a rich home with career-parents like Hazel, and she admired his rebellious streak, feeling it ignite a spark within her own home life. He introduced her to his own friend group, and she found herself spending more time with them than with her other friends and even Amelia. Sometimes the things they did or said made her uncomfortable, but every instinct in her screamed at her to just go with the flow and act like she was fine with it. When it was just her and Remy, she felt more comfortable and less pressured. Many times when she was around Remy and his friends, they liked to pull off daring pranks and dangerous stunts, coaxing Hazel to join in the fun. Sometimes she enjoyed the rush of adrenaline she felt around them, but other times she felt that she hated herself and them. She didn’t enjoy smoking, but she didn’t like the look Remy got in his eyes when she tried to refuse a cigarette around his friends. She also certainly did not like the way she smelled afterwards nor did she appreciate the taste of alcohol or the way it clouded her thinking. More and more she began to prefer to spend time with Remy alone. When they were alone, he didn’t mind if she didn’t want to smoke or only had a few sips of whatever alcoholic drink he was chugging. On weeknights when his parents worked late, she snuck out and spent the evenings at his house, telling her parents that she was visiting a friend from school (her parents had no knowledge of her boyfriend). She spent as much time with him as possible, and during the long, cold winter nights, she was curled up under heavy blankets in front of a blazing fire with her head leaning on his shoulder until the sky was just starting to lighten for the day. Then she would slip back inside her own house, creeping past Amelia’s silent room. Whenever she spent the night with Remy, she made sure to text Amelia saying that she was staying out late with one of her girlfriends since her former nanny always fell asleep early and would never know what time she came back home.
Hazel’s relationship with Remy was much more physical than any of her previous relationships, but she didn’t mind at all. She liked the affection and attention he gave her, and she loved the way he told her he loved her like it was the easiest thing in the world. She’d never thought that anyone could love her like he claimed to. However, their relationship came to an end right after Christmas.
Hazel could tell that Christmas was a hard time for Remy. His parents were even more absent than hers, and he spent most of the holiday season feeling miserable and lonely. She tried to cheer him up as best she could, but more often than not he preferred alcohol over her. The night after Christmas Day, she let herself into his house to spend time with him as they had planned, and she could immediately tell that he had had too much to drink already. Nevertheless, she stayed and sat down next to him in front of the fireplace. She tried to talk to him, but he was only interested in one thing. And it was most definitely not talking. Hazel discerned what he wanted from the way he kissed her and from the places his hands wandered, and she knew she did not want to do that with him. She told him no and resisted, but this only served to anger him. She managed to escape his grasp and backed away, but he responded by striking her hard across the face. Hazel yelped in pain and fled, thanking her lucky stars that he was too drunk to do anything more than stumble in her vague direction. She never entered his house again and hung out with Amelia for the majority of what remained of the winter break.
The first day of school in the spring she planned to formally break up with him, but she was off-put by the way people were looking at her. Was she just imagining it? Were they whispering about her or was she just being paranoid? When she sat down to lunch with her friends, she could have sworn that they had been talking about her before she arrived. Later, one of her close friends approached her and informed her about the rumors going around about her. Apparently Remy had been telling anyone who would listen that they had been sleeping together, but he had dumped her when he caught her with his best friend over the Christmas break. Hazel gasped at the revelation. None of that was true. She had never slept with him or his best friend. She had met his best friend, Taylor Davorin, and he had always been nice to her. But nothing intimate had ever occurred between them. He had always remained respectful of her, and the two of them had only ever been good friends.
In biology lab, she sat alone, nervous and trying to pretend like she didn’t notice her classmates staring at her and whispering. Remy had been her lab partner last semester, but now she would probably have to work alone. Science had always been one of her best subjects, so she knew she would do just fine without a lab partner. It was just socially the kiss of death. To her surprise, someone sat next to her right as the bell rang. It was Taylor of all people. She must have looked as astonished as she felt because he offered her a sympathetic smile and shrugged. Whatever caused him to sit by her was a mystery to her (and apparently everyone else in the class), but at least she might still have one friend. While her other friends wouldn’t outright ignore her and still let her sit at their lunch table, she could sense the unease, and she noticed how they tried to avoid her.
After classes, she ran into Taylor outside the school. She had gone to a coffee shop to get a jump start on her homework as usual when she’d spotted him sitting in a corner doing presumably the same thing she was. Never one to be rude, she smiled politely at him and turned back to her work, not expecting him to take it as an invitation to join her. He sat down on the opposite side of her table with his books and flashed her an awkward grin. The two of them worked in silence until Taylor decided to say something. He told her that Remy had called him after Christmas Day while he was still drunk and had spilled everything in a somewhat unintelligible ramble. However, he had been able to put the pieces together once school started back up after the holidays and once the rumors started circulating through the halls. He went on to tell Hazel that he thought Remy had behaved exceedingly poorly and that he felt bad that none of her friends were being particularly supportive. Hazel thanked him for taking her side when it seemed no one else was willing to even hear her side of things, and then the conversation turned to homework. Taylor, offering her a sheepish smile, asked for help with the biology assignments, knowing that she was one of the better students in the class from spending the whole lab with her. Hazel was more than happy to help, and by the end of the afternoon, both of them had decided to partner up as study buddies. Being much better at literature and history, Taylor could help her in those subjects while she could aid him in math and science. Once the initial awkwardness faded away, they made a pretty good team.
Her friends continued to be distant around her, but now that she had the option of hanging out with Taylor, it didn’t bother her as much anymore. It was still uncomfortable sometimes since they shared classes and some of the same extracurricular activities, but often Taylor was nearby to rescue her from whatever ill-veiled insults they threaded into their words towards her. Clubs she once looked forward to above all else became less enjoyable since she was forced to be around her old friends for long periods of time. She knew they were whispering about her when they thought she wasn’t looking or out of earshot, and it required all her self-control to keep it together and pretend like she hadn’t noticed. They “forgot” to invite her to social events and study groups, and sometimes they even didn’t bother to inform her of club meetings or other club-related occasions. After most meetings, she hid in her room and cried. Some of the other students in the math and science clubs had been her good friends, and now they usually excluded her from nearly everything.
(hide spoiler)]
Hazel C. Roussel - Part Three(view spoiler)[
History cont'd: During one of her study sessions with Taylor after Math Club (in which she had found out that they had neglected to tell her about an extra meeting the previous week), she accidentally let loose a comment about the cattiness that had been going on in the club. Genuinely concerned, he prodded her for more information, and she ended up telling him several of the things that had happened ever since the spring semester started. She could tell he was extremely irritated by all of it, and he started waiting for her to get out of the various clubs she belonged to in order to hang out with her. If it had been an especially bad day, he let her cry and then took her out for coffee and ice cream or bought her some of her favorite candies to help her feel better.
Eventually, Taylor asked her out, and Hazel accepted. He was far more respectful and polite to her than Remy had ever been, and she often wondered why he had been friends with her ex-boyfriend in the first place. Simply put, Remy was a jerk, and Taylor was a gentleman. When she asked him about it, he shrugged and told her that their families were close friends. Something in his voice told Hazel that he didn’t really want to talk about it, so she didn’t ask any further questions. Besides, he was so kind, sweet, and attentive to her that it didn’t matter much. She was also afraid she would mess things up for herself and didn’t want to push him. In reality, there wasn’t actually much of anything she could do that would alter how he treated her or felt about her, but her experiences with Remy lingered in the back of her mind. Sometimes back when she was dating Remy, he would yell at her or threaten to break up with her if she asked him too many questions about things he didn’t want to discuss. And while Taylor had never done that or anything like it, she still had this irrational fear snaking through her subconscious thoughts.
The semester came to an end, and Hazel was pleased to see she’d earned high marks in the majority of her classes. She and Taylor made plans to spend time together over the summer, and she was all too happy to pack her suitcases and head for home in order to obtain some much needed respite from all the school drama. Of course, at home she was mostly left to her own devices since her parents usually worked late, and Amelia had recently moved out. After a week of watching tv, reading her books, and feeling lonely, she decided to pay Amelia a visit. The two of them made arrangements to meet up at one of the coffee shops they used to frequent, and Hazel could hardly stop herself from tackling her longtime friend in excitement. Most of the conversation was light. Amelia wanted to know how Hazel’s semester had been and how she had done in her classes, and Hazel inquired about Amelia’s travel plans. At that point, Amelia regaled her with stories of South Korea, which was where she had spent most of her spring, and Hazel could do nothing but commit every detail to memory in awe and fascination. She still hoped to travel all over the world someday like Amelia had done. After a bit, she decided to talk about Taylor. Amelia was wary at first since she knew that Taylor had been good friends with Remy, but once Hazel finished telling her about how he had been there for her and all the nice things he’d done for her, her friend approved. On that happy note, the hang out came to a close, and Hazel returned home, feeling much better and less lonesome.
Later that week, she received a text from Taylor, who wanted to know if she would be interested in doing something fun. Immediately, she said yes, and he invited her over to his house to watch movies and play games. She took great care in selecting her outfit and styling her hair and decided to walk to his home since he lived very close to her own house. The door swung open before she even had a chance to knock, and a grinning Taylor swept her up in his arms and set her down inside. He introduced her to his younger sister, Olivia, and his two Australian Shepherds, and before she knew it, Hazel had been shown to the couch and handed a plastic bowl of popcorn. Olivia joined them in watching comedies and playing board or card games, but Hazel didn’t mind at all. Being an only child, it was nice to hang out with Taylor and his sister. Even though she had always had Amelia for company growing up, it wasn’t exactly the same as having a younger brother or sister.
When supper loomed near, Hazel started to excuse herself to go back home, but Taylor would have none of it. His father would be home soon, and he was an excellent cook. Taylor was true to his word; his father made the most delicious lasagna she’d ever had. His father seemed to like her and invited her back sometime afterwards, much to her delight. She could never remember a time that either of her parents ever cooked. Usually Amelia had made her meals, and her parents went out to dinner with colleagues and friends.
Taylor insisted on walking her home since it was now dark outside, and he lent her his jacket when he noticed her shivering slightly. Thinking that she would be back before supper, Hazel had only worn a sheer cardigan, and the chilly, night air nipped at her skin. He escorted her up to her doorstep and saw her safely inside before kissing her softly and vanishing into the dark. Hazel nearly had a heart attack, not having expected the kiss, and practically danced all the way up the stairs to her bedroom. She could barely sleep for being so thrilled and wound-up, but once she finally fell into a blissful slumber, she slept soundly until morning.
When she awoke the following morning, the first thing she did was check her cell phone and was more than pleased to see that Taylor had sent her a message. Skipping downstairs to make herself a bowl of cereal, she texted him back and then settled down to read one of her favorite books while she waited for him to reply. Eventually, he did reply, but not quite in the way she expected him to. Instead of texting her back, he called her. She let it ring a moment to collect her composure and then answered it on the third ring. They talked for over an hour about various topics: last night, his dogs, Olivia, Hazel’s cousins, Amelia, movies, books, their other summer plans, and several other things. At the end of the conversation, they made plans to go to dinner tomorrow night, and Hazel was very much looking forward to it. She had never gone on many real dates when she was with Remy. His idea of a good time had been getting into trouble with his friends or hanging out at his house. Even though it was just a casual thing, she was very much filled with eager anticipation, especially since Taylor had suggested one of her favorite places, knowing that she loved to go there. The entire evening felt like a dream to Hazel. Maybe it was just because she had an overactive imagination and had a tendency to remember things in a far grander fashion than they actually happened, but even so, it was one of the best evenings she’d had up until that point. Many other dates and outings followed, and the majority of Hazel’s summer was tremendously happy.
Over time she made a few new friends in her classes and was invited to join a study group in her chemistry class. Her favorite study buddies (besides Taylor, of course) were Melanie Lennon and her twin brother, Hunter. Melanie was so thoughtful and helpful, always bringing homemade snacks to study sessions or letting the group hang out at her house for movies or paintball. Not surprisingly, Hazel was terrible at paintball, but all that mattered to her was having friends again. Hunter struggled the most with chemistry out of the group and served as a frequent distraction, but it at least made homework more entertaining albeit slow. Sometimes Taylor couldn’t join their study groups because of family commitments, but Hunter was always quick to partner up with her in his absence. Even though she had to tell him to focus multiple times, she couldn’t deny that she liked studying with him. He was rather handsome and funny and sometimes playfully teased or complimented her, and she would be lying if she said she didn’t like the attention. Despite already having a boyfriend, she didn’t see anything wrong with a little harmless flirting between friends, though she thought it best to keep Taylor in the dark. Hunter never acted so forwardly when Taylor was around, though he would try his hardest to make Hazel blush furiously everywhere else, even in the middle of the halls at school between periods.
One afternoon when she was walking to the school parking lot to catch a ride home with a friend, Hunter appeared out of nowhere. At first the conversation proceeded as normal with Hunter throwing in a few, charming quips in every now and then, but when she had almost reached the mostly empty parking lot, he grabbed both her hands, kissed her, and then ran to his own car on the other side of the lot. Hazel glanced around to check if anyone had seen, but it looked as if the few students in the area had not been looking her way just then. She walked the last several feet to her ride with a spring in her step and floated all the way up to her bedroom, one hand over her lips. Never had she thought that would happen. She knew she and Hunter occasionally flirted, but she thought it was only between friends. Did he actually like her romantically? But wait, she was with Taylor, and she couldn’t ask for a better boyfriend. It shouldn’t matter if Hunter liked her or not; she wasn’t available. But she couldn’t still the nervously elated butterflies fluttering in her stomach until days later.
Finally, the fall semester was about to come to a close. Melanie and some of her other friends had bought their formal dresses together for the winter dance, and as usual, Hazel was going with Taylor. She thought her violet gown with silver and gold beading was one of the prettiest there, and Taylor had gifted her a matching corsage when he picked her up at home. She danced the night away with Taylor and several of her other friends, including Melanie and Olivia, but she could not help searching for Hunter between and during dances, wondering if he had a date and if so, who it was. She shouldn’t be worrying about that. She shouldn’t be jealous. After all, as far as she was concerned she had the perfect, most thoughtful boyfriend in the whole world. Still, her gaze strayed in his direction more times than it should have. She thought Taylor might not have noticed. After all, he hadn’t ever said anything to her about Hunter and her before. But she was mistaken.
After the dance ended, Taylor drove her home and walked her to the doorstep. When she invited him inside for some hot cocoa, he politely declined and asked her about Hunter. Hazel tried to play it down and tell him it was nothing, but he didn’t believe her. He told her he knew that they flirted and that Hunter liked her, but he had ignored it since nothing inappropriate had happened. However, he had heard about the kiss from Melanie and saw how jubilant Hazel had been for days after. He had tried to ignore that too, hoping that it was just a mistake that Hazel wouldn’t repeat. But then at the dance, he couldn’t ignore it any longer. He had to face up to the fact that she liked someone else, and he was going to let her go even though it was going to be difficult. Tears sprung to her eyes, and she tried her best to apologize and assure him that she didn’t want to break up. But Taylor kissed her on the cheek goodbye and handed her a small present wrapped in gold paper with an emerald bow, explaining that it was her Christmas gift. Then he left her alone on the doorstep, although he didn’t drive away until he watched her go inside and lock the door.
Hazel was heartbroken. She placed the gift in her desk, deciding she wouldn’t open it until Christmas.
(hide spoiler)]
Hazel C. Roussel - Part Four(view spoiler)[
History cont'd: It had all seemed so harmless, but she had really messed things up. She should never have encouraged Hunter by letting him flirt with her. She should have broken away from the kiss immediately and told him never to do that again, and she should have been honest with Taylor about what happened instead of trying to hide it. The attention had been so flattering, so intoxicating, and she had let it all go to her head. Now she had lost her boyfriend and probably one of her closest friends. For most of the winter break she was sad and lonely, but Amelia came to stay over for part of the holidays, which cheered her up some.
On Christmas Day, she opened Taylor’s present, eyes widening at the sight of a pair of sky blue drop earrings and a matching necklace. He must have saved up for months to buy this for her, but Hazel knew there was no going back. Tearfully, she put the earrings in and asked Amelia to fasten the necklace around her neck. It complemented her hair and eyes perfectly, and she decided that she wouldn’t take the jewelry off for a long time.
Eventually the spring semester began, and she had to face the dreaded task of going back to school. She had no idea how Taylor would act around her. Would it be awkward? Would he be resentful towards her? Thankfully, Taylor was perfectly civil during the times they did have to interact, and although he made it clear that they were just friends now, at least he didn’t seem to hate her. They were still lab partners in chemistry, and after a couple weeks of working together, things became a little less awkward between them. The study group from the fall had been disbanded for obvious reasons. Taylor didn’t want to be near Hunter and neither did Hazel for the moment. Melanie felt it would be too weird after everything that happened last year, but she was eager to spend time with Hazel, just the two of them.
About a month into the semester, Hunter and Hazel rekindled their friendship and later started dating. Hunter wasn’t as great a boyfriend as Taylor had been, but Hazel was sure there was no one who could perfectly replace him anyway. They did have a great time whenever they hung out, and though Hunter had a somewhat looser morality, he rarely pressured Hazel into doing something she didn’t want to.
Weeks went by in a blur of happiness for Hazel, but it all halted one day when she glimpsed Taylor holding hands with another girl in her class. It shouldn’t have stung so badly to see him moving on. She had already moved on herself, but anytime she saw him after that, a lump formed in her throat. Sometimes she had to excuse herself to the bathroom to let a few, silent tears trickle down her cheeks until she felt a little better. From then on, she did her best to avoid him and hung out with Hunter as much as possible, though she still felt generally miserable no matter who she was with. In her melancholic state she was more susceptible to bad ideas and let herself be talked and pressured into doing things with Hunter that she normally would never have done.
As her second year of high school ended, she was horrified to discover that she was pregnant. For the first few months, she kept it to herself, too frightened to approach her parents or even Amelia. Eventually her mother noticed that she’d been gaining weight (her morning sickness had gone mostly unnoticed since her parents were absent most of the day), and Hazel had to come clean. Her parents were disappointed in her and angry with her, and although Hazel couldn’t fairly be upset with them for the way they reacted, it still hurt. Later she called Amelia to ask her friend’s advice, and her former nanny took her out for lunch the next day. Amelia bought her a few books to read and tried her best to reassure her that everything was going to be okay, but Hazel wasn’t so sure. The books Amelia gifted her were informative and helpful, and at some point she started reading children’s books in the afternoons or at night. The one she read most often (usually aloud, too) was Stellaluna, one of her personal favorites as a small child.
Just when Hazel started to adjust to the idea of being a mother, she miscarried. At one of her ultrasounds the doctor could not detect a heartbeat, and she was greatly grieved at losing her precious baby in the second trimester. The rest of her life fell apart after that. She spent her days listlessly wandering around the house and didn’t want tot talk to any of her friends or do any of the things she used to enjoy. She didn’t shower, comb her hair, or do her laundry for weeks and spent much of her time sleeping to avoid feeling the immense pain she was in. Finally, her parents had enough of her behavior. They sat her down and told her the truth. She had been adopted as a baby, and her birth parents had been the king and queen of a faraway kingdom. Her biological mother was Queen Eliza, who had suffered through countless evil schemes enacted by her stepmother and toiled silently in pain for many days and nights to free her eleven brothers from their stepmother’s curse even when the townspeople tried to burn her because they thought she might be a witch. Upon hearing all this, Hazel was speechless. Her parents decided to send her to the Whimsical Academy, hoping she would be able to make a fresh start there and find some better friends. Before she went, she added a third tattoo to her collection in remembrance of her daughter: an angel weeping over an empty cradle with the name Stellaluna underneath.
Other: Hazel just recently found out who she really is, so she has no idea what her powers are yet.
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Moko C. Pendra - Part One(view spoiler)[
Name: Moko Ciaran Pendra
Nicknames: Mo, Coco
Age: 17
Birthday: May 17
Gender: M
Year: 6
Appearance: (view spoiler)[
(hide spoiler)]Personality: While being pretty friendly and a bit of a prankster, Moko is actually a loner born and bred, and there really is no other lifestyle more suited to him, even if it seems to contradict some of his personality traits. His adventurous spirit makes him a bit of a wanderer, so he never stays in one place for very long, looking for excitement and new discoveries. He’s known for not being able to sit still for more than five minutes, and his attention span is even shorter. The only exception is if it’s something or someone he deeply cares about. He has several little tics he uses to maintain concentration: bouncing his leg, tapping his fingers, biting his nails, etc.
He has serious commitment issues though, and it contributes to his inability to stay in any one place for too long. Even things he loves he’ll eventually abandon. This has made long-term relationships very rare and sparse for him, so he hardly ever attempts to form a friendship more than friendly banter as he knows he’ll leave and never come back again. At heart he wishes he could pursue a more sedentary lifestyle as almost always being on the move makes for an especially lonely one, and having a hand to hold (either figuratively or literally) on dark, chilly nights would bring about a comfort that is in short supply. But he simply cannot bear monotony. Waking up in the same house every day, seeing the same sights and people, and doing the same work day after day bores him until he does something impulsive and just up and disappears in the night without informing anyone as to his intended whereabouts with no plans to ever return in the future. He sincerely believes that consistency and safety dull the mind and degrade creativity and originality to the point of mediocrity and apathetic humdrum. The word settle is not in his vocabulary, and he thinks others shouldn’t have to resign themselves to a prison of languid, pointless routine. Experiences shape a person’s thoughts, actions, and mannerisms, and only the majestic and tremendous events inspire exceptionality. To truly live and make something of yourself, you have to wander aimlessly and experience as many unimaginable, implausible things as possible. That is, in essence, Moko’s philosophy.
Moko’s skin is rather tough. Insults, cruel jokes, and malicious pranks don’t really get to him since he honestly cares little for what anyone else thinks of him. He never plans on running into the same people more than once anyway, and as he does not form attachments to most people, it seems to him that other people who taunt him are really just wasting their own time. He would have to care about others in the first place to be hurt by their mockery and slanderous attacks, but purposely keeping people at arm’s length prevents this qualification from being met.
Meeting plenty of unsavory and deceitful characters through his wanderings has caused him to adopt a distrustful and cynical approach to new and unfamiliar situations. He always makes sure he has some form of insurance for himself, which has saved his hide on more than one occasion in his past travels. Though he generally has a laid back attitude, he is by no means slow, lazy, or dim-witted. In fact, it’s rather the opposite, and he is one of the sneakiest and wiliest people in existence. He has the most annoying habit of unearthing secrets other people would prefer stay hidden if he sticks around long enough, and the vast variety of people he’s encountered has taught him how to read others exceptionally well. From simple conversations he can discern any number of things about a person, including their wants, fears, attachments, personality traits, and more. Usually he only cares about whether or not someone poses a threat to him, but if he intends on remaining nearby for long enough he’ll analyze anyone he encounters more seriously.
Likes:
Roaming aimlessly
Adventure
Magic
Anything new or undiscovered
Camping
Stars
Cartography
Cooking
Pranks
Riddles
Thunderstorms
Dislikes:
Routines
Small or enclosed spaces
Sitting still
Safety
Burnt or bland food
People with no sense of humor
Commitments
Spiders
Bossy people
Stubbornness
Restrictive clothing
Powers: Absolutely none.
Family:
Father: Ahab Pendra
Mother: Nia Pendra
History: Moko’s parents were Ahab and Nia Pendra, two airheads whose marriage was an enigma. Neither of them could ever be depended on to do even the simplest of tasks, like showing up for work on time or hanging the laundry out to dry. None of their neighbors understood why they were married, and whenever Moko asked around, no one could remember exactly how they came to be so. There had been no real courtship or even anything resembling one beforehand. Ahab and Nia had known each other for a while as they had grown up together in the same neighborhood, and one day when they had barely reached adulthood a couple years prior, they suddenly returned from their respective family vacations and announced their engagement. A whirlwind of wedding preparations commenced immediately after, and they were married only months later. According to the neighbors, they had never been well matched, and the first year of their marriage consisted of many late nights and shouting matches. About a year and a half after his parents had said their vows at the altar, Moko was born, and his only contribution to his parents’ evening arguments was to cry in distress. When he got older, his parents took to fighting when he wasn’t around after he asked them what he had done to make them hate each other so as a young child.
Moko’s mother stayed home while he grew up, but in truth, it would have made little difference if she hadn’t. Nia was irresponsible and impatient, and her housekeeping skills were lacking, which was evident as the state of the house was always messy, like a tornado had just whipped through it. As Moko got older, most – actually, all – of the household chores fell to him. He learned to cook from a neighbor after he nearly burnt the house down trying to make himself something for dinner, and he taught himself how to dust, clean, and organize, which wasn’t terribly difficult. The three girls next door let him come over to visit or do schoolwork with them, though sometimes he did it alone as the youngest of the girls, Corela, ceaselessly batted her eyes at him and ruffled his hair whenever he was near. The other two, Rosalie the elder sister and Dahlia their cousin, were much more relaxed and typically better company, even if Rosalie did sometimes tease him for silly things. He was uncertain why Dahlia lived with the sisters and their parents instead of her own, but after both sisters gave him a threatening glare when he tried to broach the subject one afternoon, he never brought it up again.
While Moko was going to school and keeping the house in decent shape, Nia did… whatever it was she did. Moko honestly had no idea what she did with her abundance of leisure time, but when he finally did find out, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise given how flighty his mother was. Apparently, his parent’s marriage had always been so unhappy and fraught with fights that his mother had sought comfort in the arms of one of their neighbors. It started out innocent, but in the last couple of years it had turned into an affair. When Moko’s father found out, he was livid, and Moko took refuge next door with Dahlia, Rosalie, and Corela, though his parents’ voices carried to the girls’ porch where they were lounging in the rocking chairs with snacks and glasses of chilled tea.
In the following months, Moko spent most of his time with the neighbors, often heading directly next door with the girls right after school to avoid the near-tangible tension in the air of his own home. Sometimes he helped out the elders in his neighborhood for spare pocket change, and most evenings he was sprawled out on a rocking chair or just lying down on the porch with a plate of whatever Dahlia had baked for dessert, watching Corela pick flowers or chase after moths in the yard while Rosalie perused through a book or hummed a tune softly. Every so often, the oldest sister could be persuaded to serenade them with a song, and after the echoes of the last note faded into silence, she would blush madly despite Moko and Dahlia’s enthusiastic applause and ask if there was any dessert leftover, scampering into the house to check before anyone could answer. Moko’s favorite dessert was Dahlia’s dump cake since she usually let him help or, rather, pester her into letting him pick the fruit for the filling. As there was really no way to mess up a dump cake, Dahlia allowed him to pour in the fruit while she mixed the rest of the ingredients and sliced the butter into small squares for the crust, and sometimes when she wasn’t looking, he snuck a piece of fruit in his mouth instead of putting it in the cake pan. Sadly, she caught him a few times and made him weed the garden with Rosalie, who was fortunately better company. While Dahlia was stern and practical, Rosalie was more carefree, content to imagine the adventures she wanted to have someday, and that was one of the things Moko liked best about her, though her angelic singing was not to be underappreciated either. Being nearly the same age, Moko liked mapping out where they should go once they finished school. Of course, Dahlia and Corela were welcome to come along too, but somehow he doubted they’d want to. Rosalie obliged him, adding her own preferences to the map, and eventually they had a solid roadmap sketched out. But events transpired that put a dent in their plans.
Things between Moko’s parents got worse and worse until his father accepted a job promotion that placed him in another city. However, he would not allow either Nia or Moko to accompany him. Not able to take it anymore, Moko’s mother ran off with their adulterous neighbor a couple months later, and Moko was left alone. After a week of going to school and carrying on as normal, he realized there was no reason for him to stay. No real obstacles to keep him from embarking on his adventure existed, and he elatedly packed the essential supplies and a few other things he couldn’t bear to part with and threw pebbles at Rosalie’s window that night until she climbed down the tree near the side of the house. He had been so sure that she would spontaneously agree to go with him that he was unprepared when she said no. She hadn’t finished school, but even if she had, she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she left in the middle of the night without giving Dahlia, Corela, and her parents a proper goodbye. Moko grabbed her hand as she turned to leave and embraced her tightly, only releasing her to peck her on the lips in farewell. He left, disappointed, but promised himself that he would return for her in a year or two, cementing the picture of her astounded face when he kissed her in his memory.
His travels took him far away and all over the continent, but every adventure he had ultimately reminded him of Rosalie at some point. So not long after he left, he returned to visit Rosalie, Dahlia, and Corela. Dahlia, being the oldest of the three, was married now and happily scraping by in another part of town. Corela was still in school, but Rosalie was working. Smart as she was, Moko assumed she had finished her schooling early. Come to find out, that was not the case. Rosalie and Corela’s parents had died in an accident, forcing the older of the sisters to drop out of school and work.
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Moko C. Pendra - Part Two(view spoiler)[
History cont'd: Moko waited on the porch in a rocking chair for her to come home one evening with every intention of bringing her along on his next journey, but she refused, her voice and eyes lifeless compared to how they had been before he left. There were too many responsibilities, and she had to care for Corela. Dahlia couldn’t afford it, and it wouldn’t be right to leave her little sister now. She requested to hear some of his adventures and travels, and he indulged her, pleased with the sparks of excitement temporarily returning to her eyes. Before departing again, he kissed her to say goodbye, giving her his word that he would be back again someday to visit.
Troubled by the weight that caused Rosalie’s shoulders to droop, he decided to walk to one of the bigger cities nearby where he hoped to find his father. On the way there, bandits attacked him, and since he had almost nothing of value to give them, they beat him to a pulp and left him by the side of the road. Somehow he managed to drag himself little by little down the road, and when he was about a mile from the city, a group of traveling musicians passing by took pity on him and dressed his wounds. Since they were also going to the city, they offered to let him travel with them, and he gladly accepted. During the last mile they entertained him with song after song, and his favorite one was a story about a young banker’s son. The banker’s son wasted all the money his father had given him, so when his trunk of belongings was empty, he locked himself in it. However, the trunk began to fly, and he landed in a rich kingdom. Up in a castle tower there was a beautiful princess, so the banker’s son flew up in his trunk to visit her. The princess mistook him for a wizard and said she would marry him if her parents approved. The banker’s son told the king and queen the most elaborate, exciting story he could think of, and they agreed to let him marry the princess. Joyfully, the “wizard” bought armfuls of firecrackers and set them off from his flying trunk for everyone in the city to enjoy, but the next day when he went to climb inside to fly up and marry the princess, he discovered that the trunk had caught fire because of the firecrackers and burned. Now he could no longer see the princess, and she waited and waited for him forever.
At the city gates, Moko waved goodbye to the musicians and after asking around, found his father’s new home. His father was astounded when he suddenly showed up on his doorstep, but after Moko explained that his mother had left him and that bandits had robbed and beaten him, his father allowed him to come inside. The inside of his father’s new house was peculiar. Rows and rows of completed and unfinished trunks lined the walls of nearly every room, and a miniature portrait of an unfamiliar woman was on display atop the fireplace mantel. Upon hearing that he had dropped out of school, his father ‘tsked’ and sat him down on the rug. He informed Moko that he would be finishing his school whether he liked it or not and that he would use some of the money he had saved up to send him to a new school he had heard of while living in the city, Whimsical Academy. Moko snorted, thinking this was an absurd idea. He had also heard mention of the school and knew it wasn’t for ordinary people like him, but despite having no special abilities, his father assured him that he would be able to go. When Moko asked why they would accept him into the school, his father told him about his own past, the same story that the musicians had sang earlier that day. His father had changed his name after being unable to pose as a wizard anymore and tried to settle down with someone else. However, it hadn’t worked out, and now he was saving money and trying to recreate his old flying trunk. Now that Moko was convinced he could attend the school, he thought he might like it. It would be new and different, and there would be all sorts of people there that he might never be able to meet otherwise. Happy enough to attend for a while, Moko packed up his few belongings and some of his father’s money and made the journey to Whimsical Academy.
Other: Probably the most goofy person ever.
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Ajax J. Allen - Part One (view spoiler)[
Name: Ajax Jael Allen
Nicknames: AJ, Jax
Age: 16
Birthday: July 18
Gender: M
Year: 5
Appearance: Ajax has shaggy, black-brown hair that is usually unkempt and reaches down to a little past his chin. He sometimes smooths it all back into a small braid when he feels like it, but usually he just lets it do whatever it wants. His eyes are a murky black with a few gold flecks near the pupils, and sometimes you can see shadows dancing in his eyes. It’s rumored that they even tell stories of mystical lore from the past, but no one knows for sure. His height is about 5’10 and a half, and he has a strong, muscular build. He has well-muscled arms, abs, and legs and has large hands and feet as well. His skin is evenly tanned, and he almost has a more ruddy complexion, his skin actually being closer in tone to olive though. He’s a bit more stockily built with lean, muscular legs and a proportional torso and legs. His bottom lip is slightly bigger than his top one, and he has high cheekbones and sharp facial features. He also has a slightly chiseled jaw and long, dark eyelashes that any girl would envy. Most of his skin is rough and calloused, but the skin on his face and lower back is actually very soft and gentle, like running your fingers through the silky fur of a cat. However, he does have a bit of stubble around his chin, and he normally only shaves it when it gets bad. His body is marred with scars all over, especially on his upper back, chest, abs, and shoulders. He has a small scar above his left eyebrow and another one near the right corner of his mouth. Two, large scars crisscross on his back, and a multitude of shorter ones reside in the skin over his abs and stomach. In flowing script, he has the phrase ‘Semper Fi’ (always faithful) tattooed on the inside of his right forearm, and the word ‘Umbra’ tattooed in cursive on his lower back. His third tattoo is a black lightning bolt on the back of his left shoulder, and his fourth and last tattoo is a crescent moon on the back of his right shoulder with the words ‘Lunae lumen’ (moonlight) in gorgeous script beneath the tattoo.
Ajax much prefers to wear comfy and maneuverable clothing, his favorites being sweatpants and loose T-shirts or tank tops that show off his well-muscled arms, since he can be a bit of a show-off. His favorite shirt is a worn, gray T-shirt that looks more than a little rag-tag with patches of different cloths mending the parts where holes have been ripped in it and a blue and gray plaid, flannel shirt over it that also looks a little worn with mismatched and missing buttons on the front. He usually wears either tennis shoes or a heavy pair of black combat boots with gray fur linings and brass buckles with his outfits. He also has his left ear pierced and always wears a small, silver hoop earring through it. The only other pieces of jewelry he wears are a silver band ring with little onyxes set into it around his right middle finger, a silver chain around his neck with a gold dream-catcher charm with blue, black, gold, and gray feathers, and black skull ring on his left index finger.
Personality: AJ’s defining characteristics are his moodiness, stubbornness, and mysteriousness. He’s prone to random and sudden mood swings for no apparent reason but is normally in quiet, defensive moods. He almost always has a huge ‘don’t talk to me’ sign on his forehead and gives out bad vibes to anyone nearby. He’s even more stubborn than he is moody, and his pride hinders him from admitting his mistakes even when proved wrong. He doesn’t like other people very much and consequently has developed an air of mystery surrounding him. He doesn’t talk much and is the master of the monosyllable, preferring to be left alone in his thoughts. His antisocial behaviors have certainly not made him any friends, and he usually ends up remaining a loner in any new situations he may find himself in. However, he prefers it that way, and because of his cynical outlook on life, would rather be alone than surrounded by human stupidity. He’s slightly depressed and on his especially low days, has taken to cutting on his wrists or stomach, the only thing stopping him at times being Chloe.
Chloe, his childhood friend, is the one of the only people he’s ever allowed himself to get close to, and his constant worries for her leaves little space for his loneliness and depression to steep. To those whom he allows to get close to, he’ll talk more and be more open, but he still is very monosyllabic, preferring to express his feelings with actions, not with words. Once someone has managed to befriend him, they’ve made a friend for life. Ajax will never leave his friends, unless they leave him, and is a loyal and fierce protector until the end. He’ll do anything for those close to him but frequently worries about said friends, wanting to do anything and everything to help them. He’s not particularly good with words, so he expresses his affection by performing acts of service. Even around people he likes, he doesn’t like physical contact much, the only person he ever really touched being Chloe since neither of them were much for physical touch, and Chloe needed the stimulation every now and then to be able to calm down when she was having one of her temper tantrums.
AJ is always wary of strangers and doesn’t trust easily, but if he can sense no ill will from someone, he’ll gladly help them out a bit. He’s not a particularly cruel person when it comes down to it, but he has no qualms about killing someone who he thinks deserves it. He operates by his own moral code, something that he hopes will rub off on others, and can at best be described as a both a vigilante and a villain. His methods are highly questionable, especially when his ex is involved, but he doesn’t kill just for the sake of killing. He won’t take jobs that are outright inhumane, but he has little problem being employed by drug cartels or gangs as long as the tasks don’t involve him killing off innocent people.
Though it’s rare that it comes out, AJ has an extremely soft side, especially for nature, baby animals, and Chloe. He keeps it mostly to himself, only ever showing it to Chloe who was the one person he cared for unconditionally, and enjoys tending to nature and frolicking with his forest friends through the trees. He has a bit of a nurturing side to him, but again, he conceals this aspect of himself and saves it for a few, certain people he feels have earned it. He can be extremely gentle and patient when needed, but around most other people, he loses his temper fairly quickly.
His temper is nothing to sneeze at, for when he’s worked up into a real rage, he doesn’t know what’s up and what’s down, only those close enough to him being able to calm him back down. It’s rare that he reaches that point, and it’s tough to make him lose his temper at all. However, it is very easy to irritate him and test his patience, but he won’t lose his temper yet; he’ll just become more moody and will sulk for a while. When he does lose his temper, he doesn’t shout much but mainly takes his anger out physically on the closest thing, even if that thing happens to be another person. He can’t stand hurting his friends either intentionally or unintentionally and falls into a deep depression anytime that happens. Since he’s used to teaching his friends’ tormentors a lesson, he takes his anger out on himself when he is at fault for causing any harm or hurt to come to those close to him. It’s very hard to get him out of his self-deprecating phases as he is caught in a vicious cycle of punishing himself both mentally and physically.
Likes:
Reading
Carpentry
Running
Hiking
Canoeing
Mountains
Silence
Classical music
Grunge
Traveling
Baby animals
Seafood
Dislikes:
Nosy people
Laziness
Loud places
Texting
Polo shirts
Losing his temper
Hyphenated last names
Paper straws
Dressing up
The color pink
Doctors
Medicine
Powers: Ajax can create and control shadows, travel via shadows, and make parts or all of him become shadows. He can move objects telekinetically by moving their shadows, or he can manipulate shadows without affecting the object the shadow is of. He can also make them three-dimensional, bringing them off walls or other surfaces.
Family:
Father: Seth
Mother: Claudia Zabat Allen
Half-brother: Robin Allen
Uncle: Aleksandre Allen
Aunt: Iliana Argyris Allen
Cousins: Apollo, Jess, and Toria Allen
Warning: history contains somewhat disturbing Lovecraftian themes.
History: Ajax was born to Seth, the Egyptian god of darkness, chaos, and confusion, and a mortal woman. His mother, Claudia, was already married and a mother to a small boy when Seth seduced her in order to create a demigod of his own. Ajax would never know why Seth chose his mother. Maybe the god was simply acting out of anger at the infidelity of his own wife, Nephthys, and chose the first suitable woman he saw, or perhaps he truly did like Claudia. No matter what the reason was, Ajax was born, and shortly after, Seth whisked him away to raise him. Seth had no other children besides him, so Ajax’s early childhood was mostly a lonely one. The god Anubis was the closest thing he had to a brother, being the result of Nephthys’s affair, but since the majority of the gods and mortals despised Seth for killing Osiris, Ajax was ostracized, mocked, and hated. Not even Anubis would speak to him, and Seth kept him as far away as possible from Nephthys as well as Osiris, Isis, Hathor, and Horus. His father taught him to wield his powers of darkness with precision and potency when he was still young, and though Ajax excelled under his father’s instruction, he detested the hateful glares and malicious whispers that surrounded him everywhere he went. The few times Seth permitted his mother to visit him were some of the only happy moments he knew.
Sometimes Ajax wandered to the Underworld to see his stepbrother at work or to watch the hearts of the deceased be weighed against the goddess Ma’at’s feather. Anytime Anubis caught him lurking around, he shooed him away and sent him back to Seth, but on one occasion, the demon Ammut caught him crying alone because Anubis and the other deities were so cold towards him. As another being who wasn’t exactly loved herself, Ammut took pity on him and allowed him to stay and talk with her for a short while whenever she wasn’t busy devouring the souls of those whose hearts failed to pass the test against Ma’at’s feather. Sometimes Seth found out about his trips to the Underworld and delivered harsh lectures about staying away from there, especially some of the other gods who had work there. He didn’t want to risk any of his enemies hurting or killing his only child, and though Ajax could sort of understand that his father was looking out for his safety, he didn’t want to stop visiting the only friend he had managed to make. He was torn between obeying his father and having a friend, so he only snuck out to see Ammut when he was so miserable and alone that he didn’t know what else to do.
Eventually Claudia pleaded with Seth to let Ajax come and live with her. Her son was too young to be so inconsolably sad and lonely, and she knew that she could raise him well and return him when he was older. Reluctantly, Seth agreed, promising that he would come after Claudia and her entire family if she did not give Ajax back when he became an adult. Not knowing what to expect, Ajax hesitantly left with his mother after saying goodbye to both his father and Ammut. He was excited to see her every day, but he was uncertain if the rest of her family would accept him. Being used to being treated with contempt and disdain by his father’s family, he was surprised when his mother’s husband kindly welcomed him into the family.
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Ajax J. Allen - Part Two(view spoiler)[
History cont'd: Even his older, mortal, half-brother was nice to him, and so were his uncle, aunt, and three, younger cousins. After a period of adjustment, Ajax came to enjoy living with them much more than staying with Seth.
His mortal family moved around a lot, so he was able to experience a multitude of different places, people, and languages. His mother helped him learn English, and he was able to pick up enough of the various languages they were around to get by wherever his family was currently living after a while. While they were traveling, Ajax and his family met another family like theirs. The Darkwoodes were also a mix of mortals and demigods, and they too moved from place to place. The two families became close enough friends that they decided to stick together for a bit, and so Ajax considered them part of his extended family. The youngest of the Darkwoodes, Chloe, could be particularly insufferable at times since she always had a million questions on her mind, but Ajax learned not to mind and was glad to finally meet a demigod who wanted to be his friend. He didn’t know who her real father was, but apparently it was a touchy subject for her family. So he learned fairly early on not to bring it up or inquire further.
The Darkwoode family had eleven members total. The eldest three, Cat, Leif, and Jay, were siblings, though they were all getting on in years. The oldest two were unmarried, but Jay’s wife, Sela, was still alive and with them. Jay and Sela’s children, Tanner and McKenna, and Tanner’s wife, Grace, stayed with their parents and aunt and uncle to take care of them, and the youngest four members of the family were Tanner and Grace’s children, Catsyn, Rowan, Torstyn, and Chloe. Aunt Cat and Uncle Leif were enjoyable to spend time with despite their old ages, and sometimes Ajax, Chloe, and his cousin Apollo would idle away the evenings or afternoons playing card games together or learning useful skills like whittling, navigation, or new languages. Jay and Sela were especially odd, so Ajax mostly kept away from them, slightly unnerved by the inconsistency of Jay’s personality and Sela’s cultish dabblings. Tanner and McKenna were perfectly pleasant, but he wasn’t granted the privilege of spending much time with either of them since they were usually preoccupied with other matters like work or preparing to move again. Grace mostly shied away from him and his family and kept to herself, although Ajax got the feeling that she didn’t particularly care for her husband’s family very much either. However, Grace’s children were more than happy to become his friends. Catsyn was older than all the other kids, so naturally she was typically left in charge of looking after them. She was kind and sweet and always had candy stashed away if anyone got a scrape or bruise or wasn’t being included. Rowan was the scholarly one of the bunch, always interested in how their powers worked and applying the scientific method in his pursuits. He was a nice enough boy, but Ajax wasn’t super interested in being his friend’s study subject. Seth had already taught him most of what he needed to know to control his powers. Torstyn (or Tory for short) had the shortest attention span Ajax had ever encountered. Even though he was rather bright, Tory couldn’t focus on much of anything besides computers for more than a few minutes at a time, so Ajax, who preferred to move somewhat slower, typically only came to him if he needed help fixing his laptop or phone when they were older. And of course Chloe was his most frequent companion whether he liked it or not. She was always dragging him into trouble, depending on him to find a way to fix things for her if necessary. For a long time he detested being her favorite friend, but over the years he learned to tolerate it better, deciding to take it as a compliment instead of viewing it as another chore.
Sometimes Ajax and Chloe sparred together using their respective magics, his insatiable shadows against her temperamental lightning. He never tried to seriously injure her, though he would tease her to try and force a reaction out of her. Chloe did not particularly care for being taunted, but she found small ways to get back at him, like putting a frog in his bed or snatching his dessert when he wasn’t paying attention. Unfortunately, she tended to build up a lot of static electricity rather quickly, so anytime they were on carpet she tried to deliver somewhat painful shocks to him. Probably one of the things Ajax liked most about her was one of her little parlor tricks. She could make her skin glow dimly if she conserved her energy, and though Ajax had better vision in the dark than most, her little light came in handy when they were outdoors at night. Plus, all the moths and other bugs were attracted to her glow, so he always found it funny how they annoyed her until she started zapping them to death with mini surges of electricity. He supposed that was another advantage of being near her at night. Any mosquitos usually got fried before they could bite him.
Once Ajax and the other children were old enough, they were expected to obtain small, part-time jobs in whatever town or city they were currently living in to help pitch in. Ajax’s mother, Aunt Iliana, and Grace homeschooled him and the other children, so their schedules were very flexible. His favorite jobs allowed him to work in harbors where he could watch all the magnificent vessels coming and going to and from distant places, and it helped that he knew bits and pieces of various languages, which allowed him to talk to some of the sailors on occasion. However, Chloe tried to tag along with him every so often, so sometimes he was too preoccupied herding her away from trouble to look for any of the friends he’d made. Once, Ajax, his older brother, and his oldest cousin got jobs on a fishing boat for a while, and although it wasn’t easy work, he still learned some valuable skills at sea. He also worked as a cook, a lifeguard, a groom, a farmhand, a builder, and a pool cleaner. However, the large, extended family he enjoyed for many years was not to last forever. Like all good things that came his way, tragedy inevitably tore it apart.
First, Aunt Cat and Uncle Leif passed away. Everyone knew it was going to happen sooner rather than later as they were getting older and had started gaining some health issues, but it was still a hard blow. Even though they weren’t blood related, Ajax had come to think of them as highly as he did his own family, and he sorely missed the evenings they spent together. Of course, Chloe was beyond crushed at their passing, but at least no one was alone in their grief. Time marched on, and invisible wounds began to heal. The families gradually filled the holes that Cat and Leif had left behind, coming closer together but remaining ever unaware that this was only preparing them for the next ill-fated event coming their way.
Jay and Sela decided to leave on their own. Now that Jay was the only one of his siblings still living he wanted to visit the western portion of Europe again before he died, and Sela wanted to visit some of her remaining relatives who were in the area since she had not seen much of her family since marrying Jay. Apparently her family was half Jewish, and they had ceased speaking to her when she refused to marry the man they thought was a better choice. But now that she was aging more rapidly, she wanted to see them again, make amends, and tell them how wonderful her life had ended up and how happy she was with her children and grandchildren. They wrote letters and sent postcards to the rest of the family, but either they passed away or lost the address that the rest of the family had moved to because one day the letters stopped arriving. That was only the next, tiny splinter in the split that was slowly but steadily coming for them.
McKenna was the next to leave. Perhaps she sensed the storm that was brewing and thought it best to depart while things were still amicable between everyone. She said she missed their time in Australia too much and that she wanted to return, so because no one else wanted to go back, she went on her own. However, she never made it there. The plane she was on crashed, and no survivors were found. Catsyn immediately flipped off the television after the initial report to spare the youngest members of the family additional pain, though Ajax, Robin, Apollo, and Chloe wanted to continue watching the coverage. Ajax couldn’t fault Catsyn for her reasoning, however. He agreed that that the young ones like Chloe, Jess, and Toria shouldn’t be watching such a grisly report, even though he was curious to know the details.
Not long after, the chaotic forces determined to wreak havoc on them struck again. Grace succumbed to madness, or rather, whatever had driven her to the brink of insanity allowed her mental state to become obvious to the remaining family members. For reasons Ajax couldn’t understand, the Darkwoodes were sure that some, otherworldly force was responsible for Grace’s descent into madness. Something had made the woman despise her own children and husband, and while she had never been the most stable person to begin with, this was somehow different. The dramatic unveiling had begun with Ajax taking notice of a few unusual bruises and scrapes on his best friend. Chloe shrugged off his concern, not wanting him to think she couldn’t take care of herself, but after enough persistence and a great deal of patience on his part, he eventually got the truth out of her. Grace had been responsible for some of them in brief moments of sudden and inexplicable anger. Ajax sensed that she knew or at least had a theory explaining why Grace was acting out of character, but even he could not shake it out of her. She would only say that chaos had marked them. Even without Chloe’s cryptic remark, eventually Ajax came to the same conclusion that something not of the mortal world was tormenting their family. Being the son of the god of darkness and chaos, he should have known better than most what was going on, at least vaguely. But now that his eyes had been opened, he had a sinking suspicion that the Darkwoode family had been set on the path to absolute destruction even before he met them. For such terrifying power to go unnoticed for so long, whatever supernatural being or beings responsible must have been at work for quite a while.
Grace’s torment ended when Chloe accidentally dropped a radio into her mother’s bath after slipping on the wet tile. Chloe’s mother died because of her youngest daughter’s clumsiness, and though he never breathed a word about it, Ajax didn’t believe that radio was what killed Grace. He thought those events had been orchestrated by something else in order to take a little piece out of his friend. There had simply been too many freak accidents in one family for that to be just another bit of bad luck. It seemed the plot had worked too, because Chloe was never truly the same afterwards. There was something missing from his little friend, and it killed him that it was beyond his power to fix her this time. Maybe if he had been luckier in his godly parent there might have been something he could have done to help her more, but there was little a demigod of darkness could do to ease his friend’s anguish.
After so much tragedy in short a time, Ajax’s family made the decision to part ways with the remaining Darkwoodes. They felt bad for leaving after being friends for so long, but they didn’t want to be dragged into whatever their friends had tangled themselves up in. But Ajax knew that he couldn’t leave them, not when he knew what they were dealing with better than most. Tearfully, his mother made him promise to come and find her when everything was over.
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Ajax J. Allen - Part Three(view spoiler)[
History cont'd: She knew no one could force him to leave if he really didn’t want to, and if it came down to it, Seth would protect his only child from whatever forces haunted the Darkwoodes’ every step and cursed their every breath.
Ajax didn’t have to wait long for the next horrific thing to happen. Something dark claimed Catsyn one night, leaving her lifeless with her arms crossed over her chest as if she was lying in a coffin instead of the living room carpet. Not a scratch marred her skin, and after a thorough physical examination, they could find no potential cause of death. It was as if she had just fallen into a deep slumber, but when a mirror was placed against her mouth and nose, the last remnant of hope was quickly dissolved. With one of the major, stabilizing forces in the family abruptly taken from them, things got even more chaotic. Ajax, Tanner, Rowan, Tory, and Chloe lived in constant fear, not knowing if – or rather, when – this dark force would take another of them.
One, rainy night, Ajax awoke sometime after midnight for reasons he couldn’t explain. Taking a flashlight from his nightstand, he decided to see if Chloe was still up, but to his horror, she was nowhere to be found in the house. He hurriedly shook both Rowan and Tory awake, and their fear only grew when they discovered that Tanner was gone as well. The three of them each took a flashlight out in the rain and searched for hours before they finally found the two missing members of the family. In an alley not too far from their home, Chloe was huddled on the ground, staring at the lifeless body of Tanner next to her. She looked so fragile covered from head to toe in blood that Ajax could do nothing else but sweep her up off the ground and wrap her in the raincoat he had brought for her. She remembered nothing about her father’s death. She couldn’t even remember how she came to be in the alley. Of course, Rowan and Tory suspected she had something to do with Tanner’s death even if she wasn’t responsible (she had been involved in her mother’s death after all, though it was an accident), but try as she might, nothing about that night would come to her. They buried Tanner next to Grace and immediately after, packed their few belongings and ran.
They decided it would be best to split up after a short time since sticking together certainly hadn’t worked out well for them. Rowan seemed certain that he would be alright, saying something about chaos sparing him, so he took Tory with him and left Ajax to look after Chloe. Ajax decided they would travel to a larger city in hopes that they would be more hidden there. He didn’t doubt that his father would make sure he was safe, but after all the horrendous things he’d witnessed, he didn’t want to take any chances, especially not when he had someone else to take care of.
In the city, he and Chloe took whatever jobs they could find in order to put dinner on the table, even if not every job was perfectly legal. Ajax preferred not to get caught up in anything too dangerous, but Chloe did not feel as strongly about it as he did. As time passed, she had gotten involved with some terrible people, and it took all he had to pull her out of there even though she wasn’t completely willing. Wanting to protect her, he knew they couldn’t just move to another city where she would inevitably get herself into another mess like this one. There had to be another option. In a rare stroke of luck, he wrote to his mother, and he received her reply about a week later. She had known about a school for people like him for some time now, but she hadn’t wanted him to go because she wanted to keep him by her side for as long as possible before she had to give him back to Seth. But since they had been apart for a while now with no indication that he could return to her, she wasn’t so opposed to him attending. He wrote back to her, telling her that he would go and bring Chloe with him if she would help him pay for the school. Claudia agreed to take the entire, financial burden herself as long as he wrote regularly to her and tried his hardest. So, he packed his bags, dragged Chloe along with him, and enrolled the both of them at Whimsical Academy.
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