ilpromenade application
PLAYER
✧ NAME: Koke
✧ LJ USERNAME: kokanshu
✧ CONTACT (EMAIL, AIM, MSN, PLURK, ETC.): email: kokanshu@gmail.com; aim: galahadfalling; msn: kokanshu@gmail.com; plurk: amaurosis
✧ CURRENT MUSE LIST: dirt_heart
CHARACTER
✧ NAME: Asha de Tisi
✧ SERIES: Original Character, Alternate Universe: Minyga!Verse, Serna Family
Sometime in early 1993, magic began to appear. No one knows where it came from, if it existed previously and died out, been hidden away from the general population, or just suddenly began to take root. All that was known was that children started to display the ability to do extraordinary things, to read minds or the future, to move objects, to create ice or fire, to disappear completely. The only indication that these people were any different to anyone else, aside from the abilities themselves, was a shimmer in their blood - a sheen across the surface of the liquid, much like oil.
The abilities of these children caused a panic in the people, those who called them demons, deformities, dangers. Governments across the world attempted to control the situation as best they could while they decided what to do, but they stalled too long. Vigilante groups began to form, hunting down those with the 'glitter', cutting them as a test before slaughtering them. In defence, the then called 'witches' began to fight back. War broke out. Cities were destroyed, governments fell, chaos reigned for many years.
With the population of witches growing and the Hunters becoming a more organised front, one particularly fierce battleground stretched across France, Germany and Austria, culminating in a huge battle that changed the surface of the planet. A rift was torn in the earth and the sky, shifting continents. The Hunters retreated into the South (contains lower Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia), creating a military organisation known as Prevent, spreading across the land and becoming a totalitarian regime. Forty years after this battle, and the South is a post-apocalyptic landscape, most cities destroyed and those left patrolled by soldiers, with checking gates controlling entry and exit. ID declaring yourself a non-witch is necessary for survival. Witches are hunted down ruthlessly and killed, with sympathisers, spies and rebels treated no better. The North (North America, South America, the upper half of Europe), in contrast, is witch-tolerant, ruled by a series of 'temples', priests and academics. The war is still ongoing, but has reached a stalemate due to the riftzone, and the temples nearer the rift are dedicated to training young witches to become soldiers. Refugees from the South sometimes manage to make it through to the North, but it largely soldiers crossing in from the North to fight.
The technological level of both sides has regressed slightly, with the South most effected. Most utilities, such as water and electricity are still readily available, but travel and communication are incredibly restricted, used by Prevent alone. Most people don't recognise things that we would consider commonplace, such as computers, automobiles, mobile telephones and trains. In the North, the need to rebuild after the initial war led to a focus on industry and a renewal in a sense of community, which subsequently led to less personal and working isolation and alienation by technology.
✧ ABILITIES/POWERS: To understand Asha's history and personality, it is first important to know her abilities. Asha is the daughter of a type of witch known as 'a Mirror' and a dreamchaser, someone granted abilities through the use of a drug called soñando. The combination of abilities is incredibly powerful, but also incredibly unstable and difficult to control.
Inherited from her father's blood:
Connection
All of Acacio's children hold a connection to one another, and have some constant sense of whether their siblings are well or not. For the strongest, this can be as precise and powerful as being able to locate their siblings, and know exactly what they're doing. For the weaker, it's limited to something closer to a gut feeling. The dreamchasers in their number, caught in the drift as they are, are no longer so closely connected to this net, and can be easily lost.
Awareness
An overreaching awareness of the world and people around her. As one of the strongest, Asha can have minor premonitions, as well as display telepathy. She can look at the history of a place, see the lives that passed through it, and any emotional residue left behind. She has an awareness of the abilities of other beings she encounters, and can also tell whether their motivations are good or malevolent.
Manipulation
Asha can manipulate the minds of others (thoughts, emotions, memories), as well as create energy out of the air around her in both attack and defence.
Inherited from her mother:
Reading
Looking inside a person and see everything there freely, be it their thoughts and feelings at that moment, their deeper impulses, their memories, or their abilities.
Reflection
Her power's automatic reaction to looking within another is to emulate them in every way possible. In the most complete form of this, Asha's own personality, thoughts, feelings and abilities are pushed aside. She is essentially no longer herself. Though this should degrade slowly over time, it is incredibly difficult for her to find her way back from this state without outside help.
Vessel
As when fully reflecting another she contains everything about them, she can, with careful concentration, keep parts within herself (example: taking and carrying the entirety of another's memories). She can do this with abilities or powers, too, but as those are usually active things, and there is something of a paradox within the cycle of needing her own abilities to reflect another's, they will degrade and fade over time.
Manipulation
The most difficult and powerful of her abilities is in keeping herself pushed into another and directly effecting them from the inside. She can direct someone's thoughts or memories, close down their abilities, or even delve into the depths of their neural system and shut down parts of their body.
As her mother's blood is actually the stronger of the two lines, where these abilities overlap, the instability becomes increased. These powers want to be free, naturally compelled to reflect anyone they come across. It requires a great deal of mental control to keep them contained, even more so just to unleash a tiny part to actually use.
As such, Asha mostly keeps her 'telepathy' shut down, especially in a manipulative sense, but her passive reading is somewhat linked to her 'awareness', and therefore can't be closed off completely.
The 'awareness' gifted by her father's blood is also risky, due to how easy it is to get lost in seeing the world that deeply, and the emotional bleedover possible. She's unable to shut this ability down completely, but usually keeps it wrapped up fairly tightly.
In short, Asha uses none of these abilities lightly.
In playing her in the game, I am quite willing to have her de-powered if the mods see fit. I will also have a permissions post, and will never use her abilities against another character without the player's prior permission. I have no interest in disrupting anyone else's enjoyment and will be as courteous and considerate to my fellow players as possible.
✧ HISTORY: Asha is the daughter of Dominique de Tisi and Acacio Serna, and their history is important to her own.
Born in the South, Dominique lost her family when she was very young, when an attempt to take her across the border to the North had them stopped at by Prevent soldiers. The sudden fear saw Dominique losing control of her abilities, and while she managed to escape with only a few injuries (including a blinded eye), the rest of her family were killed. She lived on the streets for a while, but was eventually found by an organisation known as the House of Masks, where she was taken and trained, both to control her abilities and to be a resistance soldier.
At seventeen, she was assigned a mission to take a message to Acacio Serna, a dreamchaser. Though she never expected to see him again, he came to the temple several days later, and when he left with his lover Desidero Fuentes, Dominique went with them. They travelled together for many years, growing incredibly close, but were caught in an ambush one day, leaving Desidero dead and Acacio lost. Dominique vowed to find Acacio, and travelled in search of him for several years.
Her quest saw her travelling to the North, where she crossed paths with Jackie Bledsoe-Follet. Initially finding the woman interesting, their frequent conversations eventually turned into something more, and Dominique was torn between her promise to find Acacio and her desire to stay with her new lover. The choice was decided for her when Acacio's son, Christopher, found her and offered her a swifter path to find his father. She took it, going to see Acacio one last time, to say goodbye and to return to Jackie. She didn't realise she was pregnant from the encounter until several weeks later.
(At this point in the original universe, Dominique seeks out a way to have the twins' powers 'clipped', and stays with Jackie, the twins being raised by both of them.)
Asha was born approximately three minutes after her twin brother Bowen on September 8th. Their mother had gone to great and painful lengths in preparation for their birth. Knowing exactly how powerful her children were likely to be, and what sort of abilities they would have, Dominique had left behind the woman she loved and moved up into the mountains. Helped by the twins' older half-brother, Christopher, Dominique had purchased a house, tucked away in the shadows of the hills, and furnished it for many long years of isolation.
For the first fourteen years of Asha's life, she saw no one but her mother, her brother, and rare visits from her father and other siblings. They survived off the money Christopher sent their way, as well as the small amounts Dominique earnt from keeping animals and learning various handicrafts that she could sell. Raised in something like a monastery, she had some experience in self-sufficiency, and the twins grew up learning how to look after the various animals, to care for the vegetable plants Dominique kept, and to make or mend their own clothes. Used to a much warmer climate, Dominique would keep them bundled up in layers of sweaters and scarves, some of which were homemade. The twins accepted these things quietly, signs of their mother's care, despite how badly made some of them were.
They were entirely educated by their mother, lessons taken from books and educational DVDs played on a tiny television with crochety old DVD player. Asha loved learning about history and world culture the most - the distant places and people in the world beyond the mountains that framed her horizon. But her notions were not completely idealised. Dominique, being an ex-soldier, also trained them in endurance, stealth, and combat. Most importantly, she trained them in how to control their unstable abilities, to keep their emotions carefully contained and not lose themselves when stretched to the limit.
The majority of their childhood was almost idyllic like this. Days were spent studying, caring for the animals, helping their mother make up goods to sell. Bowen had a good hand for carpentry, but Asha's short-lived attempt at painting was abandoned when it was discovered she had no eye for colour whatsosever. There were occasional and much-looked-forward-to visits from their father, their brother, Christopher, or their sisters Desiree and Mahalia. They brought gifts, and stories from beyond the mountains, and both Asha and Bowen were eager to hear as many as possible, incredibly sad and disappointed whenever it was time for their visitors to leave.
The visits would ease their mother's loneliness, too, they knew. While Dominique never truly told them anything of the woman she'd left behind, they saw the letters she wrote, could feel her sadness at times. While as contained and quiet as she had taught them to be, Dominique was not entirely private about her past, and told the twins about her travels with their father and Desidero. She never touched on the subject of Jackie, and because of this, they knew never to ask. Asha snuck a look at one of the letters once, when she was eleven, and the regret she felt for betraying her mother's privacy and seeing the pain in the words and ink had her never attempting it again.
At thirteen, Dominique began to allow them on trips down the mountain with her to buy supplies and sell goods. Their first interactions with other people started in quiet towns, largely unpopulated stores, carefully chosen to gradually build up their levels of exposure. Incredibly curious, Asha would approach anyone she thought interesting and bombard them with questions. She often experienced an intense culture clash at these times, people who thought it strange to be approached so suddenly, parts of life outside the mountain that made no real sense to her. A rare encounter with someone of her own age had her discovering the idea of simply listening to music, as a private thing. She attempted it, for a short while, pestering her mother to buy an old stereo and some CDs. The idea was abandoned when Asha realised how easily music could invoke emotional responses - strong ones, encroaching on her still juvenile control over her abilities. The first and only time she truly lost control was because of a song. Bowen managed to talk her back into herself before their mother returned home, and music was never experimented with again.
Dominique began to teach the twins how to drive with the old truck she kept, hours of practice in the land around the house. The twins learnt quickly, understanding the skill would give them more freedom, and Dominique was soon letting them take trips down to the city on their own.
The twins' eagerness to spend time in the city dissipated harshly when their sister was raped. The attack Fela suffered in the South was closely felt by all of her siblings, but most especially the strongest of their number - Bowen, Asha and Christopher. The twins, never having experienced quite such a painful mix of emotions, retreated into their room and refused to come out for several days. When they eventually did, they had sworn never to seek out people again, deciding instead to continue living in isolation. It took several visits from their father and brother to persuade them to try again, and while their fear and dislike of people wore away, Bowen's protectiveness over his sister, made stronger by the experience, would never fade.
At sixteen, Dominique makes the decision to give the twins one final test - to move down into the city and attempt living there. If they can settle and interact safely within the crowd and noise of the city, then she will feel confident enough to give them as much independence as they choose. If it proves too much for them, then they may have to return to the mountain and live the rest of their days there. Still eager to see all the places in the world that she has, so far, only read about, Asha wants to prove herself strong and capable. But in truth, she isn't entirely sure if she wants to leave her mother - or the mountains.
✧ TIMELINE: Sixteen years old.
✧ PERSONALITY: At first glance, Asha is a quiet, thoughtful sort of girl. She could easily be mistaken for shy, if it weren't for the bold, direct way she looks at people. Asha's quietness is a necessity, rather than any sort of fear. She must keep herself contained at all times - in everything, but most importantly her emotions. Asha's emotions are whole, she experiences the full range of them, and she is aware of them and their effects on her, but she has been taught to keep them soft and muted, and does not display them outwardly as strongly as she might feel them. Strong, passionate emotions are dangerous, and they should not be acted upon or pandered to. Because of this, Asha's expressions are small, sometimes barely noticeable, and her reactions usually seem calm, if not cold.
Asha is not cold, however. Her family being connected together the way they are fosters a deep sense of love and belonging, and Asha cares for her siblings and parents a great deal. She sees the good in the world, sometimes literally, and truly loves the beauty that can be found in any corner. She has a very strong sense of good and bad, has been taught how to fight and what to fight for. Her family's history of tragedy and sacrifice in the face of incredible hardship leaves her very aware of the people around her, that strength should always be used wisely, and that kindness is always the greater gift.
That said, as one of the most powerful of her siblings, Asha can be arrogant. Untested and unmatched, she doesn't really believe that she could be bested, takes her strength and the protection in it for granted despite the pains she knows her siblings still go through. She's naive and ignorant, in this sense, and it also bleeds into recklessness. Her isolation from the world has left her intensely curious about everything, and she does nothing to curb it, will ask any question of any person, will walk into any building or situation she chooses. It's normally Bowen that ends up rescuing her, and despite her frequent apologies to him over it, she takes that safety net for granted and still hasn't learnt her lesson.
She can be harsh, doesn't abide stupidity, and will be dismissive or sarcastic in the face of those she deems ignorant. This generally applies to a lot of people, considering the fact that Asha's abilities let her see a lot more in the world than most others. Having no secondary socialisation outside of her siblings, she doesn't understand many people's views of her behaviour or manner, how she can be viewed as strange or spooky. She blames this on their ignorance, and refuses to change herself to make them comfortable. She does not like her thoughts or beliefs being questioned, at all, and if she had no prior connection to the speaker, would simply walk away from them. That said, she means well, and does have a deep desire to learn - she's just more likely to listen if the person has already proven themselves, in her eyes.
Bowen is the most important person in Asha's life. They are incredibly close, have been tied together through their abilities since birth, and they lean on each other for most everything. She is used to his protection, and being protective in turn, and will feel completely unbalanced without him.
✧ TIME OF ARRIVAL: Day.
✧ MASK DESIGN: Here.
✧ PLACE OF SOLACE: The mountains.
SAMPLES
✧ FIRST PERSON: The people in the city live on top of one another. Lives piled on top of lives, stacked like boxes. You can see it, from the outside, the shapes of the buildings, the windows. At night the lights are different colours. Some turned on, some off. Curtains and blinds drawn or open. Television screens making shadows.
None of them know each other. There are no real neighbours, no communities. There is family, and there is work, and they have technology and noise to fill the time between.
They are no less alone than we were, in the mountains. At least there is more air there, and I miss the quiet. But I want to see all the life, and all the lights. There is so much history seeped into the streets, I wonder how they can walk them so quickly, always hurried, as if they have no time.
There is time. And there will be time to go home.
Additional: One, Two, Three
✧ THIRD PERSON: Their mother keeps a goat by the house, a fairly good-natured doe that one or the other of the twins named Bumble. They aren't entirely sure why their mother keeps her, as they rarely milk her, and despite her otherwise good nature, she still has an annoying tendency to chew through her rope and disappear up into the hills for hours.
They've spent an awful lot of their childhood chasing after that goat. Often something of an adventure, exploring the slopes around their home, sometimes beyond irritating, when it was raining or the wind was fierce enough to cut bone. It would be easy, perhaps, if they opened their minds and sought her out that way, but after years of being taught how to keep everything closed up, sometimes opening simply didn't occur as an idea. Asha climbs up the western ridge, the more softly sloped one, looking back down at the house and outbuildings. Their mother is working on a soup, smoke and steam drifting up from the chimney, and Bowen is startling and offending the chickens by checking that Bumble hasn't wandered into their coup, as she did once last winter. Peaceful, despite the distant squawks of the chickens, and Asha closes her eyes for a moment, breathing in the clean air.
There's a large patch of heather that grows just over the ridge, and Asha is unsurprised to find Bumble there, chewing contentedly on a sprig of purple flowers. She doesn't object to Asha grabbing the collar of rope still around her throat, just carries on munching, and Asha decides to let her for the moment. The city is visible from here, barely, a distant grey shape sprouting up from the centre of a web of roads and suburbs. It's clearer at night, the lights bright and sparkling, beautiful against the dark sky. Seeing it like that, she can understand why people might believe these were the places where dreams came true, where fortunes were made.
Bowen climbs over the ridge behind her, and she glances back to look at him, dishevelled, chicken feathers caught in his sweater and hair. "Why send me after the chickens, if you knew where she was?"
She smiles a little, reaching over to pluck one of the feathers from his sleeve, letting him take Bumble's rope from her. "The chickens love you, and you don't visit them enough."
Bowen's expression is as muted as her own, as their mother's, but she can see the slight frown, the press of his lips, entirely unamused by her sending him in to be pecked and squawked at. Her smile doesn't falter, and he turns away with a slight huff, starting to lead Bumble back down to the house.
Asha turns to follow, but stops, for a moment. She sways, looking back at the city, a sudden thought of slipping the rope of love and responsibility that strung them to their mother, running down and away to those distant lights. The idea of it opens like a space in her chest, and she can't tell if the feeling is fear, or freedom.
Her brother calls her, and the feeling vanishes. He waits for her, a little way down the slope, a softness to his eyes like he saw what she was thinking of. He tucks her into his side without a word, and together they walk back to the house.
✧ ORIGINAL CHARACTER QUESTION: Asha's family has a legacy of dreams, and she will be alarmed at the city and the way it draws people in. She will be intensely curious, both of the city and the people in it, other characters, and will not really curb her desire to ask any questions of anyone. She won't be accepting of the situation, however, will consider people being kept dreaming to be dangerous and potentially harmful, and will be interested in finding any way to help people break free.
✧ NAME: Koke
✧ LJ USERNAME: kokanshu
✧ CONTACT (EMAIL, AIM, MSN, PLURK, ETC.): email: kokanshu@gmail.com; aim: galahadfalling; msn: kokanshu@gmail.com; plurk: amaurosis
✧ CURRENT MUSE LIST: dirt_heart
CHARACTER
✧ NAME: Asha de Tisi
✧ SERIES: Original Character, Alternate Universe: Minyga!Verse, Serna Family
Sometime in early 1993, magic began to appear. No one knows where it came from, if it existed previously and died out, been hidden away from the general population, or just suddenly began to take root. All that was known was that children started to display the ability to do extraordinary things, to read minds or the future, to move objects, to create ice or fire, to disappear completely. The only indication that these people were any different to anyone else, aside from the abilities themselves, was a shimmer in their blood - a sheen across the surface of the liquid, much like oil.
The abilities of these children caused a panic in the people, those who called them demons, deformities, dangers. Governments across the world attempted to control the situation as best they could while they decided what to do, but they stalled too long. Vigilante groups began to form, hunting down those with the 'glitter', cutting them as a test before slaughtering them. In defence, the then called 'witches' began to fight back. War broke out. Cities were destroyed, governments fell, chaos reigned for many years.
With the population of witches growing and the Hunters becoming a more organised front, one particularly fierce battleground stretched across France, Germany and Austria, culminating in a huge battle that changed the surface of the planet. A rift was torn in the earth and the sky, shifting continents. The Hunters retreated into the South (contains lower Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia), creating a military organisation known as Prevent, spreading across the land and becoming a totalitarian regime. Forty years after this battle, and the South is a post-apocalyptic landscape, most cities destroyed and those left patrolled by soldiers, with checking gates controlling entry and exit. ID declaring yourself a non-witch is necessary for survival. Witches are hunted down ruthlessly and killed, with sympathisers, spies and rebels treated no better. The North (North America, South America, the upper half of Europe), in contrast, is witch-tolerant, ruled by a series of 'temples', priests and academics. The war is still ongoing, but has reached a stalemate due to the riftzone, and the temples nearer the rift are dedicated to training young witches to become soldiers. Refugees from the South sometimes manage to make it through to the North, but it largely soldiers crossing in from the North to fight.
The technological level of both sides has regressed slightly, with the South most effected. Most utilities, such as water and electricity are still readily available, but travel and communication are incredibly restricted, used by Prevent alone. Most people don't recognise things that we would consider commonplace, such as computers, automobiles, mobile telephones and trains. In the North, the need to rebuild after the initial war led to a focus on industry and a renewal in a sense of community, which subsequently led to less personal and working isolation and alienation by technology.
✧ ABILITIES/POWERS: To understand Asha's history and personality, it is first important to know her abilities. Asha is the daughter of a type of witch known as 'a Mirror' and a dreamchaser, someone granted abilities through the use of a drug called soñando. The combination of abilities is incredibly powerful, but also incredibly unstable and difficult to control.
Inherited from her father's blood:
Connection
All of Acacio's children hold a connection to one another, and have some constant sense of whether their siblings are well or not. For the strongest, this can be as precise and powerful as being able to locate their siblings, and know exactly what they're doing. For the weaker, it's limited to something closer to a gut feeling. The dreamchasers in their number, caught in the drift as they are, are no longer so closely connected to this net, and can be easily lost.
Awareness
An overreaching awareness of the world and people around her. As one of the strongest, Asha can have minor premonitions, as well as display telepathy. She can look at the history of a place, see the lives that passed through it, and any emotional residue left behind. She has an awareness of the abilities of other beings she encounters, and can also tell whether their motivations are good or malevolent.
Manipulation
Asha can manipulate the minds of others (thoughts, emotions, memories), as well as create energy out of the air around her in both attack and defence.
Inherited from her mother:
Reading
Looking inside a person and see everything there freely, be it their thoughts and feelings at that moment, their deeper impulses, their memories, or their abilities.
Reflection
Her power's automatic reaction to looking within another is to emulate them in every way possible. In the most complete form of this, Asha's own personality, thoughts, feelings and abilities are pushed aside. She is essentially no longer herself. Though this should degrade slowly over time, it is incredibly difficult for her to find her way back from this state without outside help.
Vessel
As when fully reflecting another she contains everything about them, she can, with careful concentration, keep parts within herself (example: taking and carrying the entirety of another's memories). She can do this with abilities or powers, too, but as those are usually active things, and there is something of a paradox within the cycle of needing her own abilities to reflect another's, they will degrade and fade over time.
Manipulation
The most difficult and powerful of her abilities is in keeping herself pushed into another and directly effecting them from the inside. She can direct someone's thoughts or memories, close down their abilities, or even delve into the depths of their neural system and shut down parts of their body.
As her mother's blood is actually the stronger of the two lines, where these abilities overlap, the instability becomes increased. These powers want to be free, naturally compelled to reflect anyone they come across. It requires a great deal of mental control to keep them contained, even more so just to unleash a tiny part to actually use.
As such, Asha mostly keeps her 'telepathy' shut down, especially in a manipulative sense, but her passive reading is somewhat linked to her 'awareness', and therefore can't be closed off completely.
The 'awareness' gifted by her father's blood is also risky, due to how easy it is to get lost in seeing the world that deeply, and the emotional bleedover possible. She's unable to shut this ability down completely, but usually keeps it wrapped up fairly tightly.
In short, Asha uses none of these abilities lightly.
In playing her in the game, I am quite willing to have her de-powered if the mods see fit. I will also have a permissions post, and will never use her abilities against another character without the player's prior permission. I have no interest in disrupting anyone else's enjoyment and will be as courteous and considerate to my fellow players as possible.
✧ HISTORY: Asha is the daughter of Dominique de Tisi and Acacio Serna, and their history is important to her own.
Born in the South, Dominique lost her family when she was very young, when an attempt to take her across the border to the North had them stopped at by Prevent soldiers. The sudden fear saw Dominique losing control of her abilities, and while she managed to escape with only a few injuries (including a blinded eye), the rest of her family were killed. She lived on the streets for a while, but was eventually found by an organisation known as the House of Masks, where she was taken and trained, both to control her abilities and to be a resistance soldier.
At seventeen, she was assigned a mission to take a message to Acacio Serna, a dreamchaser. Though she never expected to see him again, he came to the temple several days later, and when he left with his lover Desidero Fuentes, Dominique went with them. They travelled together for many years, growing incredibly close, but were caught in an ambush one day, leaving Desidero dead and Acacio lost. Dominique vowed to find Acacio, and travelled in search of him for several years.
Her quest saw her travelling to the North, where she crossed paths with Jackie Bledsoe-Follet. Initially finding the woman interesting, their frequent conversations eventually turned into something more, and Dominique was torn between her promise to find Acacio and her desire to stay with her new lover. The choice was decided for her when Acacio's son, Christopher, found her and offered her a swifter path to find his father. She took it, going to see Acacio one last time, to say goodbye and to return to Jackie. She didn't realise she was pregnant from the encounter until several weeks later.
(At this point in the original universe, Dominique seeks out a way to have the twins' powers 'clipped', and stays with Jackie, the twins being raised by both of them.)
Asha was born approximately three minutes after her twin brother Bowen on September 8th. Their mother had gone to great and painful lengths in preparation for their birth. Knowing exactly how powerful her children were likely to be, and what sort of abilities they would have, Dominique had left behind the woman she loved and moved up into the mountains. Helped by the twins' older half-brother, Christopher, Dominique had purchased a house, tucked away in the shadows of the hills, and furnished it for many long years of isolation.
For the first fourteen years of Asha's life, she saw no one but her mother, her brother, and rare visits from her father and other siblings. They survived off the money Christopher sent their way, as well as the small amounts Dominique earnt from keeping animals and learning various handicrafts that she could sell. Raised in something like a monastery, she had some experience in self-sufficiency, and the twins grew up learning how to look after the various animals, to care for the vegetable plants Dominique kept, and to make or mend their own clothes. Used to a much warmer climate, Dominique would keep them bundled up in layers of sweaters and scarves, some of which were homemade. The twins accepted these things quietly, signs of their mother's care, despite how badly made some of them were.
They were entirely educated by their mother, lessons taken from books and educational DVDs played on a tiny television with crochety old DVD player. Asha loved learning about history and world culture the most - the distant places and people in the world beyond the mountains that framed her horizon. But her notions were not completely idealised. Dominique, being an ex-soldier, also trained them in endurance, stealth, and combat. Most importantly, she trained them in how to control their unstable abilities, to keep their emotions carefully contained and not lose themselves when stretched to the limit.
The majority of their childhood was almost idyllic like this. Days were spent studying, caring for the animals, helping their mother make up goods to sell. Bowen had a good hand for carpentry, but Asha's short-lived attempt at painting was abandoned when it was discovered she had no eye for colour whatsosever. There were occasional and much-looked-forward-to visits from their father, their brother, Christopher, or their sisters Desiree and Mahalia. They brought gifts, and stories from beyond the mountains, and both Asha and Bowen were eager to hear as many as possible, incredibly sad and disappointed whenever it was time for their visitors to leave.
The visits would ease their mother's loneliness, too, they knew. While Dominique never truly told them anything of the woman she'd left behind, they saw the letters she wrote, could feel her sadness at times. While as contained and quiet as she had taught them to be, Dominique was not entirely private about her past, and told the twins about her travels with their father and Desidero. She never touched on the subject of Jackie, and because of this, they knew never to ask. Asha snuck a look at one of the letters once, when she was eleven, and the regret she felt for betraying her mother's privacy and seeing the pain in the words and ink had her never attempting it again.
At thirteen, Dominique began to allow them on trips down the mountain with her to buy supplies and sell goods. Their first interactions with other people started in quiet towns, largely unpopulated stores, carefully chosen to gradually build up their levels of exposure. Incredibly curious, Asha would approach anyone she thought interesting and bombard them with questions. She often experienced an intense culture clash at these times, people who thought it strange to be approached so suddenly, parts of life outside the mountain that made no real sense to her. A rare encounter with someone of her own age had her discovering the idea of simply listening to music, as a private thing. She attempted it, for a short while, pestering her mother to buy an old stereo and some CDs. The idea was abandoned when Asha realised how easily music could invoke emotional responses - strong ones, encroaching on her still juvenile control over her abilities. The first and only time she truly lost control was because of a song. Bowen managed to talk her back into herself before their mother returned home, and music was never experimented with again.
Dominique began to teach the twins how to drive with the old truck she kept, hours of practice in the land around the house. The twins learnt quickly, understanding the skill would give them more freedom, and Dominique was soon letting them take trips down to the city on their own.
The twins' eagerness to spend time in the city dissipated harshly when their sister was raped. The attack Fela suffered in the South was closely felt by all of her siblings, but most especially the strongest of their number - Bowen, Asha and Christopher. The twins, never having experienced quite such a painful mix of emotions, retreated into their room and refused to come out for several days. When they eventually did, they had sworn never to seek out people again, deciding instead to continue living in isolation. It took several visits from their father and brother to persuade them to try again, and while their fear and dislike of people wore away, Bowen's protectiveness over his sister, made stronger by the experience, would never fade.
At sixteen, Dominique makes the decision to give the twins one final test - to move down into the city and attempt living there. If they can settle and interact safely within the crowd and noise of the city, then she will feel confident enough to give them as much independence as they choose. If it proves too much for them, then they may have to return to the mountain and live the rest of their days there. Still eager to see all the places in the world that she has, so far, only read about, Asha wants to prove herself strong and capable. But in truth, she isn't entirely sure if she wants to leave her mother - or the mountains.
✧ TIMELINE: Sixteen years old.
✧ PERSONALITY: At first glance, Asha is a quiet, thoughtful sort of girl. She could easily be mistaken for shy, if it weren't for the bold, direct way she looks at people. Asha's quietness is a necessity, rather than any sort of fear. She must keep herself contained at all times - in everything, but most importantly her emotions. Asha's emotions are whole, she experiences the full range of them, and she is aware of them and their effects on her, but she has been taught to keep them soft and muted, and does not display them outwardly as strongly as she might feel them. Strong, passionate emotions are dangerous, and they should not be acted upon or pandered to. Because of this, Asha's expressions are small, sometimes barely noticeable, and her reactions usually seem calm, if not cold.
Asha is not cold, however. Her family being connected together the way they are fosters a deep sense of love and belonging, and Asha cares for her siblings and parents a great deal. She sees the good in the world, sometimes literally, and truly loves the beauty that can be found in any corner. She has a very strong sense of good and bad, has been taught how to fight and what to fight for. Her family's history of tragedy and sacrifice in the face of incredible hardship leaves her very aware of the people around her, that strength should always be used wisely, and that kindness is always the greater gift.
That said, as one of the most powerful of her siblings, Asha can be arrogant. Untested and unmatched, she doesn't really believe that she could be bested, takes her strength and the protection in it for granted despite the pains she knows her siblings still go through. She's naive and ignorant, in this sense, and it also bleeds into recklessness. Her isolation from the world has left her intensely curious about everything, and she does nothing to curb it, will ask any question of any person, will walk into any building or situation she chooses. It's normally Bowen that ends up rescuing her, and despite her frequent apologies to him over it, she takes that safety net for granted and still hasn't learnt her lesson.
She can be harsh, doesn't abide stupidity, and will be dismissive or sarcastic in the face of those she deems ignorant. This generally applies to a lot of people, considering the fact that Asha's abilities let her see a lot more in the world than most others. Having no secondary socialisation outside of her siblings, she doesn't understand many people's views of her behaviour or manner, how she can be viewed as strange or spooky. She blames this on their ignorance, and refuses to change herself to make them comfortable. She does not like her thoughts or beliefs being questioned, at all, and if she had no prior connection to the speaker, would simply walk away from them. That said, she means well, and does have a deep desire to learn - she's just more likely to listen if the person has already proven themselves, in her eyes.
Bowen is the most important person in Asha's life. They are incredibly close, have been tied together through their abilities since birth, and they lean on each other for most everything. She is used to his protection, and being protective in turn, and will feel completely unbalanced without him.
✧ TIME OF ARRIVAL: Day.
✧ MASK DESIGN: Here.
✧ PLACE OF SOLACE: The mountains.
SAMPLES
✧ FIRST PERSON: The people in the city live on top of one another. Lives piled on top of lives, stacked like boxes. You can see it, from the outside, the shapes of the buildings, the windows. At night the lights are different colours. Some turned on, some off. Curtains and blinds drawn or open. Television screens making shadows.
None of them know each other. There are no real neighbours, no communities. There is family, and there is work, and they have technology and noise to fill the time between.
They are no less alone than we were, in the mountains. At least there is more air there, and I miss the quiet. But I want to see all the life, and all the lights. There is so much history seeped into the streets, I wonder how they can walk them so quickly, always hurried, as if they have no time.
There is time. And there will be time to go home.
Additional: One, Two, Three
✧ THIRD PERSON: Their mother keeps a goat by the house, a fairly good-natured doe that one or the other of the twins named Bumble. They aren't entirely sure why their mother keeps her, as they rarely milk her, and despite her otherwise good nature, she still has an annoying tendency to chew through her rope and disappear up into the hills for hours.
They've spent an awful lot of their childhood chasing after that goat. Often something of an adventure, exploring the slopes around their home, sometimes beyond irritating, when it was raining or the wind was fierce enough to cut bone. It would be easy, perhaps, if they opened their minds and sought her out that way, but after years of being taught how to keep everything closed up, sometimes opening simply didn't occur as an idea. Asha climbs up the western ridge, the more softly sloped one, looking back down at the house and outbuildings. Their mother is working on a soup, smoke and steam drifting up from the chimney, and Bowen is startling and offending the chickens by checking that Bumble hasn't wandered into their coup, as she did once last winter. Peaceful, despite the distant squawks of the chickens, and Asha closes her eyes for a moment, breathing in the clean air.
There's a large patch of heather that grows just over the ridge, and Asha is unsurprised to find Bumble there, chewing contentedly on a sprig of purple flowers. She doesn't object to Asha grabbing the collar of rope still around her throat, just carries on munching, and Asha decides to let her for the moment. The city is visible from here, barely, a distant grey shape sprouting up from the centre of a web of roads and suburbs. It's clearer at night, the lights bright and sparkling, beautiful against the dark sky. Seeing it like that, she can understand why people might believe these were the places where dreams came true, where fortunes were made.
Bowen climbs over the ridge behind her, and she glances back to look at him, dishevelled, chicken feathers caught in his sweater and hair. "Why send me after the chickens, if you knew where she was?"
She smiles a little, reaching over to pluck one of the feathers from his sleeve, letting him take Bumble's rope from her. "The chickens love you, and you don't visit them enough."
Bowen's expression is as muted as her own, as their mother's, but she can see the slight frown, the press of his lips, entirely unamused by her sending him in to be pecked and squawked at. Her smile doesn't falter, and he turns away with a slight huff, starting to lead Bumble back down to the house.
Asha turns to follow, but stops, for a moment. She sways, looking back at the city, a sudden thought of slipping the rope of love and responsibility that strung them to their mother, running down and away to those distant lights. The idea of it opens like a space in her chest, and she can't tell if the feeling is fear, or freedom.
Her brother calls her, and the feeling vanishes. He waits for her, a little way down the slope, a softness to his eyes like he saw what she was thinking of. He tucks her into his side without a word, and together they walk back to the house.
✧ ORIGINAL CHARACTER QUESTION: Asha's family has a legacy of dreams, and she will be alarmed at the city and the way it draws people in. She will be intensely curious, both of the city and the people in it, other characters, and will not really curb her desire to ask any questions of anyone. She won't be accepting of the situation, however, will consider people being kept dreaming to be dangerous and potentially harmful, and will be interested in finding any way to help people break free.