Post by ainsleycaldwell on Jul 17, 2013 22:41:58 GMT -5
AINSLEY BEAUMONT CALDWELL
am i the only one i know, waging my wars behind my face and above my throat. shadows will scream that i'm alone; but i know we've made it this far, kid. .
| [atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellspacing,2px,true] AINSLEY BEAUMONT CALDWELL | ALPHABET, ALPHA |
TWENTY FOUR | FEMALE |
AUGUST EIGHTEENTH | FALLEN |
BISEXUAL | AMERICAN, WELSH |
NEUTRAL | MCGRATH, KATIE |
INFORMATION ANALYST | HEAD OF SECURITY |
PERSONALITY
fatalist. good things happen to bad people, and bad things happen to good people; it isn't her responsibility to understand why this is the case, and she won't pretend to know the final chapter in this book they call life. she isn't fearless, she isn't emotionless, and she isn't collected; she has already accepted the unfortunate and probable chance that this new world order will end in her unplanned and, more likely than not, brutal death. there is a sense of peace in not trying to live past whatever shelf life that has already been granted to her; she thinks of herself as a can of soup, alphabet soup; she can last for years, if untouched, but the second her top was cracked, she only had a matter of hours. when that day comes, she won't be ready, but she'll take it in stride.
guarded. this isn't necessarily a trait someone would readily pin to alphabet's lapel, but she will never directly talk about herself, nothing of relevance, anyway. she knows what damage good information can do, she made a living of ruining lives with just the right set of half-facts, crumbling empires with paper trails and photographs. everything is a story a friend heard from a friend, who was there; but when that person is asked, they heard it from someone else. a line of heresy that leads back to the moment she became the creature she is; untrusting, vengeful and independent. she's a smile with an anecdote, a flippant set of stories that will never paint an accurate picture of who she is.
easy going. smile, laugh and breath. everything rolls of her shoulders like an ocean's tide on an unsuspecting shore; it may wash away the marks that something had been there, but it leaves nothing behind to speak for it either. she feels worries and stress like they've been muffled by years of perspective, she knows they're there, but she isn't crippled by their acknowledgement. she will find more reasons to smile, more reasons to crack an ill-timed joke, and more reasons to seem generally untouched by the decaying world around her. it makes her feel untouchable, even if she knows all these troubles are just piling somewhere in her mind, waiting to throw off that unsteady balance of her psyche.
deadpan. is she serious? or joking? it's hard to tell with her smooth and deadpan delivery; anything from how she used to wrestle dingoes in the outback, to her years spent break dancing for loose change in new york city. it's all said with serious eyes and that infamous half-smile that could mean everything and nothing at the same time. it's never with malicious intent, never with the hard purpose of deceiving, but there is something fascinating about the split second people need to figure out how serious she is being. if asked, she'll assure that every story is absolutely true; she is both the queen of england, and a practitioner of some cult religion based on biscuits shaped like jesus.
capable. flippant, easy going and lacking a serious bone in her body, there is a drive somewhere in her that refuses to let up. a desire to be some person she never thinks herself capable of being, of being the best version of herself, even if she isn't quiet sure she knows who that is yet. she is startlingly capable when she sets her mind to something; she throws herself into projects and jobs so wholeheartedly that it's surprising that she ever comes up for air. the confident and unaffected air she presents is a cover for her crippling fear that if she has nothing to bring to the table, no one will want her around. her confidence is connected directly to her ability to do whatever task she sets her mind to.
clever. that thing you think you're hiding? she sees it. from a young age she's come to understand that she was smarter than most people around her; part of it was her special brand of photographic memory, but the majority came from that deductive reasoning that let her understand those minute ticks in a cheek, or a slight dip in a frown. she has an almost animal instinct to out-smart anything that steps against her; her arrogance is well earned, until the moment it isn't, and she got a taste of that when the outbreak happened. she was in this new world, her mind couldn't couple her understanding with the sudden knowledge that this was a whole new game. she's getting there, she's gaining her ground again; but it'll take time.
dangerous. her danger doesn't come with a mastery of martial arts, or a perfect shot with a pistol; it comes in that wavering line between collected and broken. that line of stability that is so completely unpredictable that the snap would be so quiet it would topple buildings without notice. she's been losing pieces of herself for years, since the moment she witnessed her father's murder; her inability to solve the one thing that matters to her chews at her resolve to be a decent person night by night. she's striving to be her best self, but every nightmare and horrible act makes her doubt what exact end she's looking to accomplish; she's no hero, but neither is she the villain. she's that half-crazed silence between the two extremes that would take only a moment to stick cold steel between the fourth and fifth rib.
guarded. this isn't necessarily a trait someone would readily pin to alphabet's lapel, but she will never directly talk about herself, nothing of relevance, anyway. she knows what damage good information can do, she made a living of ruining lives with just the right set of half-facts, crumbling empires with paper trails and photographs. everything is a story a friend heard from a friend, who was there; but when that person is asked, they heard it from someone else. a line of heresy that leads back to the moment she became the creature she is; untrusting, vengeful and independent. she's a smile with an anecdote, a flippant set of stories that will never paint an accurate picture of who she is.
easy going. smile, laugh and breath. everything rolls of her shoulders like an ocean's tide on an unsuspecting shore; it may wash away the marks that something had been there, but it leaves nothing behind to speak for it either. she feels worries and stress like they've been muffled by years of perspective, she knows they're there, but she isn't crippled by their acknowledgement. she will find more reasons to smile, more reasons to crack an ill-timed joke, and more reasons to seem generally untouched by the decaying world around her. it makes her feel untouchable, even if she knows all these troubles are just piling somewhere in her mind, waiting to throw off that unsteady balance of her psyche.
deadpan. is she serious? or joking? it's hard to tell with her smooth and deadpan delivery; anything from how she used to wrestle dingoes in the outback, to her years spent break dancing for loose change in new york city. it's all said with serious eyes and that infamous half-smile that could mean everything and nothing at the same time. it's never with malicious intent, never with the hard purpose of deceiving, but there is something fascinating about the split second people need to figure out how serious she is being. if asked, she'll assure that every story is absolutely true; she is both the queen of england, and a practitioner of some cult religion based on biscuits shaped like jesus.
capable. flippant, easy going and lacking a serious bone in her body, there is a drive somewhere in her that refuses to let up. a desire to be some person she never thinks herself capable of being, of being the best version of herself, even if she isn't quiet sure she knows who that is yet. she is startlingly capable when she sets her mind to something; she throws herself into projects and jobs so wholeheartedly that it's surprising that she ever comes up for air. the confident and unaffected air she presents is a cover for her crippling fear that if she has nothing to bring to the table, no one will want her around. her confidence is connected directly to her ability to do whatever task she sets her mind to.
clever. that thing you think you're hiding? she sees it. from a young age she's come to understand that she was smarter than most people around her; part of it was her special brand of photographic memory, but the majority came from that deductive reasoning that let her understand those minute ticks in a cheek, or a slight dip in a frown. she has an almost animal instinct to out-smart anything that steps against her; her arrogance is well earned, until the moment it isn't, and she got a taste of that when the outbreak happened. she was in this new world, her mind couldn't couple her understanding with the sudden knowledge that this was a whole new game. she's getting there, she's gaining her ground again; but it'll take time.
dangerous. her danger doesn't come with a mastery of martial arts, or a perfect shot with a pistol; it comes in that wavering line between collected and broken. that line of stability that is so completely unpredictable that the snap would be so quiet it would topple buildings without notice. she's been losing pieces of herself for years, since the moment she witnessed her father's murder; her inability to solve the one thing that matters to her chews at her resolve to be a decent person night by night. she's striving to be her best self, but every nightmare and horrible act makes her doubt what exact end she's looking to accomplish; she's no hero, but neither is she the villain. she's that half-crazed silence between the two extremes that would take only a moment to stick cold steel between the fourth and fifth rib.
HISTORY
imagine for a moment a nightmare. the sharp wash of forgotten streetlights far off in the distance, throwing vicious shadows down the street like reaching monsters. a harsh rasp of a man's plea, " -- my daughter...", the profound desperation in his voice, followed by the snap, click, bang of a gunshot. the clink of a shell bounding across pavement, the smoke from a muzzle waved lazily away by a self-satisfied hand. the sudden sound of a bag of groceries hitting the ground, the glossy skin of the orange as it rolled across the uneven pavement and into the pool of blood not twenty feet away. the shiver in small hands, the pain of gasping in lungfuls of january air, the sudden punch in the chest at knowing that the one person who always loved you was now dead.
ainsley beaumont caldwell was the only child of hard working brooklyn detective killian caldwell, a rising star in the tougher districts of new york city. a man who was there to protect, was there to make sure the little guy had a chance. a man who made the mistake of falling in love with a woman who was the devil on his shoulder; she was mixed in with gangs and drugs, she was involved in brawls and deals gone wrong. but he loved her, and somehow that evened out the cosmic scale of who exactly she was. when ainsley was born, the mother vanished out of the hospital room, leaving the detective alone with their daughter; the love of his life.
they understood each other, he coaxed her through her fears of being different, though the trauma of never being able to forget, and made her feel like everything was going to be alright. the 75th precinct was her playground, detectives and uniforms were her playmates; doing homework in the xerox room, and having lunch in the bullpen, it wasn't uncommon to see that small girl bounding between murder investigations and court rooms. she was their promise of a better future; her infectious smile, her lilting laughter and that knowledge that she would love them a little more at the end of the day than she did in the beginning. but that all changed, because little alphabet couldn't pretend anymore.
she had always wanted to be a detective, use her alarming intelligence and unquestionable memory to guide her to her own gold badge, but at the age of fourteen everything changed. walking home from the store at the end of her father's shift, she lagged behind to pay for a candy bar with her allowance money. just a moment, she'd always tell herself (her memory let her know it had been three minutes and eighteen seconds), and when she walked out, her world flipped. two shadowed figures, a gunshot, and that damn orange dragging her eyes to the sprawled form of her father. detective killian caldwell, of the 75th, was dead. her godfather, the lieutenant of the precinct, claimed custody of the girl and lead the manhunt for her father's killer.
a month turned into a year, that turned into two, and soon it was accepted, even if it was never spoken, that they would probably never catch the killer. that he was somewhere out there, and they just couldn't touch him. she grew distant, pulling back from her afternoons in the bullpen and spent it with the children who probably wouldn't know their parents from the drug dealer on the corner. her godfather, a man who tried so hard for her to love him, didn't know how to pull her back; didn't know how to whisper to her the way her father used to. to promise a brighter tomorrow, a positive spin on everything; she was getting lost in the shuffle of inability and desperation.
graduating high school at sixteen, and applying to study abroad in china, she coaxed signatures from her guardians and took off across the globe. nine months in the hustle and bustle of hong kong, in the foreign world of purpose and knowledge was where she found her market. her ability to hunt information through both virtual and physical means; seeing the small twitch of a lie, the dilation of a false pupil, she was a blood hound who was on a trail that was years old. on the trail, however obscure, of the man who killed her father. when she returned almost a year later she knew what she would be doing.
scamming her way into an interview with one of the highest grossing private security firm, she sat before the executive with a placid smile and a pant suit that made her look younger than her eighteen years, if possible. "i'm sorry, miss ... caldwell; but we're looking for someone with a little more experience than you seem to have." it was the first time she ever openly set her uneven eyes on someone; their unnatural appearance unsettled, no matter what her real intention. pulling a usb drive from her pocket, she placed it on his desk blotter and stood to leave. "thanks for your time, sir. here's an example of my work, if you ever change your mind." and left.
of course, they changed their mind, when it came to light that she had scratched through their files, and their employee's files, like a hunter trained to track ghosts. secrets and skeletons were pulled to light in black and white upon that drive, and it took only until her shoe hit the pavement that her mobile was ringing. she was hired, junior information analyst. she didn't care that the pay was horrible, she didn't care that she would have no social life, and she didn't care that the police didn't smile upon the work they did. screw them; if they couldn't catch her father's killer, they couldn't judge how she did.
she worked there for four years undisturbed; she never made a spectacle of herself, never brought to light her unusual memory or her vicious reasoning. she was fine fading into the wood work; junior analyst, turned information investigator. she put the files together, she hunted through their clients information looking for the red flag that would crumble the empire. she found missing children and coordinated strike teams. she was the voice on the other end of the mic when shit hit the fan, the calm reasonable voice that promised that tomorrow would be better, that they were going to make it through it alright.
when the infection caught like a flame to crumpled paper she was at work; ducked into her brand new office, small and cramped but hers. There was a cacophony vibrating through the floor; filing cabinets smashing through glass walls, screams cut short into gurgles and whimpers. She was grabbing her emergency bag from her closet, her bag that made it possible to escape at any moment, the bag she carried with her everywhere, because nowhere was really home. She found Benjamin Kanst, an operative she had worked with once or twice and she wouldn't leave him once he had gotten her out of the building. terrified behind bangs and hat brims, mind racing and replaying the days that turned to months, she didn't know if she would ever know safety again. and then they found max.
if there was ever a person who alphabet felt she could rely on, it was max, not because she was perfect, not because she was the ideal leader, but because she lead when someone needed to. she put order to chaos and gave alphabet that moment to collect herself and return to the creature she had been before the infection. her experience in organization and operations made it obvious that she should set the island into proper specs, easily pulling up rotational schedules and spec. ops missions from memory, she was a brain trust in tactical information.
"my godfather always said if i kept on my path i'd end up in prison," she murmured around a mouthful of pop tart; sitting in the control hub of the island. alcatraz alive and thriving beyond her security checks, "guess he was right."
ainsley beaumont caldwell was the only child of hard working brooklyn detective killian caldwell, a rising star in the tougher districts of new york city. a man who was there to protect, was there to make sure the little guy had a chance. a man who made the mistake of falling in love with a woman who was the devil on his shoulder; she was mixed in with gangs and drugs, she was involved in brawls and deals gone wrong. but he loved her, and somehow that evened out the cosmic scale of who exactly she was. when ainsley was born, the mother vanished out of the hospital room, leaving the detective alone with their daughter; the love of his life.
they understood each other, he coaxed her through her fears of being different, though the trauma of never being able to forget, and made her feel like everything was going to be alright. the 75th precinct was her playground, detectives and uniforms were her playmates; doing homework in the xerox room, and having lunch in the bullpen, it wasn't uncommon to see that small girl bounding between murder investigations and court rooms. she was their promise of a better future; her infectious smile, her lilting laughter and that knowledge that she would love them a little more at the end of the day than she did in the beginning. but that all changed, because little alphabet couldn't pretend anymore.
she had always wanted to be a detective, use her alarming intelligence and unquestionable memory to guide her to her own gold badge, but at the age of fourteen everything changed. walking home from the store at the end of her father's shift, she lagged behind to pay for a candy bar with her allowance money. just a moment, she'd always tell herself (her memory let her know it had been three minutes and eighteen seconds), and when she walked out, her world flipped. two shadowed figures, a gunshot, and that damn orange dragging her eyes to the sprawled form of her father. detective killian caldwell, of the 75th, was dead. her godfather, the lieutenant of the precinct, claimed custody of the girl and lead the manhunt for her father's killer.
a month turned into a year, that turned into two, and soon it was accepted, even if it was never spoken, that they would probably never catch the killer. that he was somewhere out there, and they just couldn't touch him. she grew distant, pulling back from her afternoons in the bullpen and spent it with the children who probably wouldn't know their parents from the drug dealer on the corner. her godfather, a man who tried so hard for her to love him, didn't know how to pull her back; didn't know how to whisper to her the way her father used to. to promise a brighter tomorrow, a positive spin on everything; she was getting lost in the shuffle of inability and desperation.
graduating high school at sixteen, and applying to study abroad in china, she coaxed signatures from her guardians and took off across the globe. nine months in the hustle and bustle of hong kong, in the foreign world of purpose and knowledge was where she found her market. her ability to hunt information through both virtual and physical means; seeing the small twitch of a lie, the dilation of a false pupil, she was a blood hound who was on a trail that was years old. on the trail, however obscure, of the man who killed her father. when she returned almost a year later she knew what she would be doing.
scamming her way into an interview with one of the highest grossing private security firm, she sat before the executive with a placid smile and a pant suit that made her look younger than her eighteen years, if possible. "i'm sorry, miss ... caldwell; but we're looking for someone with a little more experience than you seem to have." it was the first time she ever openly set her uneven eyes on someone; their unnatural appearance unsettled, no matter what her real intention. pulling a usb drive from her pocket, she placed it on his desk blotter and stood to leave. "thanks for your time, sir. here's an example of my work, if you ever change your mind." and left.
of course, they changed their mind, when it came to light that she had scratched through their files, and their employee's files, like a hunter trained to track ghosts. secrets and skeletons were pulled to light in black and white upon that drive, and it took only until her shoe hit the pavement that her mobile was ringing. she was hired, junior information analyst. she didn't care that the pay was horrible, she didn't care that she would have no social life, and she didn't care that the police didn't smile upon the work they did. screw them; if they couldn't catch her father's killer, they couldn't judge how she did.
she worked there for four years undisturbed; she never made a spectacle of herself, never brought to light her unusual memory or her vicious reasoning. she was fine fading into the wood work; junior analyst, turned information investigator. she put the files together, she hunted through their clients information looking for the red flag that would crumble the empire. she found missing children and coordinated strike teams. she was the voice on the other end of the mic when shit hit the fan, the calm reasonable voice that promised that tomorrow would be better, that they were going to make it through it alright.
when the infection caught like a flame to crumpled paper she was at work; ducked into her brand new office, small and cramped but hers. There was a cacophony vibrating through the floor; filing cabinets smashing through glass walls, screams cut short into gurgles and whimpers. She was grabbing her emergency bag from her closet, her bag that made it possible to escape at any moment, the bag she carried with her everywhere, because nowhere was really home. She found Benjamin Kanst, an operative she had worked with once or twice and she wouldn't leave him once he had gotten her out of the building. terrified behind bangs and hat brims, mind racing and replaying the days that turned to months, she didn't know if she would ever know safety again. and then they found max.
if there was ever a person who alphabet felt she could rely on, it was max, not because she was perfect, not because she was the ideal leader, but because she lead when someone needed to. she put order to chaos and gave alphabet that moment to collect herself and return to the creature she had been before the infection. her experience in organization and operations made it obvious that she should set the island into proper specs, easily pulling up rotational schedules and spec. ops missions from memory, she was a brain trust in tactical information.
"my godfather always said if i kept on my path i'd end up in prison," she murmured around a mouthful of pop tart; sitting in the control hub of the island. alcatraz alive and thriving beyond her security checks, "guess he was right."
INVENTORY
ka-bar knife. all those nights in front of a computer screen really racked up her credit card with the amount of hours she spent on amazon. who doesn't want a 50th anniversary ka-bar knife commemorating the korean war. it was just one of those things she purchased and thought she'd never need. something to leave out on the coffee table to start conversation. needless to say in her flight through san francisco, she's had to stab hilt deep into a danger or two. she's grown comfortable with the weapon, it's quick to her hand, and quicker into someone's gut. if, of course, she doesn't stab herself first. fifty fifty odds.
walther pp. this was her father's ankle pistol, his throw away, and when he died she went through the channels to gain it as a sports pistol. at twenty one, she contacted her godfather to remove it from his pistol license and to transfer it to her newly acquired californian permit. small, delicate and almost dismissively sleek, it seems perfectly fit into her small hands. she's never fired a shot, outside a gun range, and she doesn't look forward to the day that she has to. she isn't a violent person by nature, but there is the shivering anticipation that lurks just waiting for the moment to snap.
g-shock watch. small wrist encircled by a five hundred dollar watch. tides, moon phases, atomic time and water proof. it was the type of gadget that she was almost proud to display, but now she swears by it. she isn't sure if the atomic clock in colorado is still ticking, but every night when her watch makes the symbol that it is connecting to correct that tenth of a millisecond that is lost every day, she feels like there's other people out in the world. someone on the other side of the signal maybe realizing that they aren't alone either; that there was a watch in california that needed the right time.
550 survival bracelet. "you know, in case i fall off a cliff while mountain climbing." she used to mutter while defending her amazon purchases, thumbing through computer monitor sales and graphics cards that were the new and improved items she needed. she bought those survival items on the self-promise that she would see more of the wilderness; she would hike the californian mountains, she would backpack into the forest and learn some skill that would change her life. the thirty feet of 550 cord, 2" loop ended knife and 1" piece of flint is a piece of mind that she wasn't completely unprepared for this chaos. even if she was.
father's badge. her beacon of hope, her reminder that she's supposed to be a good person, even if she isn't sure that's who she is anymore. she's chewed up with guilt because she can't just remember a ghost; she remembers clearly all the times he made a mistake, all the times he wasn't the person she wanted him to be, but she knew, despite her perfect memory of human errors, he was a good man. a person she should strive to be like. she wears the badge around her neck because she never got her own, she crumbled under the hard hatred of someone who couldn't forget a slight.
walther pp. this was her father's ankle pistol, his throw away, and when he died she went through the channels to gain it as a sports pistol. at twenty one, she contacted her godfather to remove it from his pistol license and to transfer it to her newly acquired californian permit. small, delicate and almost dismissively sleek, it seems perfectly fit into her small hands. she's never fired a shot, outside a gun range, and she doesn't look forward to the day that she has to. she isn't a violent person by nature, but there is the shivering anticipation that lurks just waiting for the moment to snap.
g-shock watch. small wrist encircled by a five hundred dollar watch. tides, moon phases, atomic time and water proof. it was the type of gadget that she was almost proud to display, but now she swears by it. she isn't sure if the atomic clock in colorado is still ticking, but every night when her watch makes the symbol that it is connecting to correct that tenth of a millisecond that is lost every day, she feels like there's other people out in the world. someone on the other side of the signal maybe realizing that they aren't alone either; that there was a watch in california that needed the right time.
550 survival bracelet. "you know, in case i fall off a cliff while mountain climbing." she used to mutter while defending her amazon purchases, thumbing through computer monitor sales and graphics cards that were the new and improved items she needed. she bought those survival items on the self-promise that she would see more of the wilderness; she would hike the californian mountains, she would backpack into the forest and learn some skill that would change her life. the thirty feet of 550 cord, 2" loop ended knife and 1" piece of flint is a piece of mind that she wasn't completely unprepared for this chaos. even if she was.
father's badge. her beacon of hope, her reminder that she's supposed to be a good person, even if she isn't sure that's who she is anymore. she's chewed up with guilt because she can't just remember a ghost; she remembers clearly all the times he made a mistake, all the times he wasn't the person she wanted him to be, but she knew, despite her perfect memory of human errors, he was a good man. a person she should strive to be like. she wears the badge around her neck because she never got her own, she crumbled under the hard hatred of someone who couldn't forget a slight.
OTHER
hyperthymesia. a form of photographic memory that is specific to a person's life; they can recall every day of their lives in perfect, clear detail. it is based heavily on dates; it is an unconscious and innate ability to those afflicted, but also something that can be willingly called upon to recall a specific range of personal history. she can recall information as readily as if she was reading it from a page in front of her face; she remembers that comment you said two years ago at nine fifteen at night. however, she isn't very forthcoming about this affliction; she usually pawns it off as just a good memory, nothing special, nothing unusual, because she remembered the look her father sometimes got when she'd parrot words he said years ago back to him. what do you do with someone who never forgot? and sometimes couldn't forget.
complete heterochromia. she tries to hide them as much as possible, with sunglasses and shadows, with bangs and hats; but if you look at her for more than a brief glance, it's easy to notice the uneven eyes. one bright blue, lacking all that melatonin, and one amber-brown. originally thought to be some form of harrowing disease, it was determined that while unsettling, it was just a luck of the draw in genetic code. her blue right eye has poor vision, which used to play with her depth perception, but she's since adjusted to the slight favoring of eyes; she has glasses that she carries around with her, but very rarely wears them in favor of her cheap dime store sunglasses. she doesn't want black frames drawing attention to her eyes.
complete heterochromia. she tries to hide them as much as possible, with sunglasses and shadows, with bangs and hats; but if you look at her for more than a brief glance, it's easy to notice the uneven eyes. one bright blue, lacking all that melatonin, and one amber-brown. originally thought to be some form of harrowing disease, it was determined that while unsettling, it was just a luck of the draw in genetic code. her blue right eye has poor vision, which used to play with her depth perception, but she's since adjusted to the slight favoring of eyes; she has glasses that she carries around with her, but very rarely wears them in favor of her cheap dime store sunglasses. she doesn't want black frames drawing attention to her eyes.
OUT OF CHARACTER
| [atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellspacing,2px,true] MICKEY | TEN-ISH |
23& FEMALE | NONE, YET |
ROLE PLAY SAMPLE
space was endless, there were stars upon stars floating out in the infinite black of existence. Some had wandered far enough to see nothing, and never return. What passes through a man’s mind when he stares out into that nothing, and realizes how small he is? How insignificant? Everything is put into context, everything is squared away. That vast nothing has been known to drive men crazy. But she was no man, she wasn’t even human. She had ventured far enough to miss the sparkle of stars, the hum of planets and the sputtering propulsion of shuttles. She had searched infinite emptiness for some conclusion, but she had been left unsatisfied. She didn’t understand the implications of endless nothing. Was she supposed to feel something? She hadn’t. Avaria had returned from the edge of space, and had learned nothing new about herself. It was both astonishing and pathetic. There was no obvious step in self discovery left for her, there was no greater epiphany, there was no sudden moment of realization just over the horizon. She was stagnate, there was no question about it, there was no denying it. Everything about her demanded closure, but there would be none. There was nothing left to be said.
“Thruster cord, crossed to the…,” words were muffled by the destroyed console of the space shuttle. Wires and sockets were tossed across the cock-pit, no specific order and no designated task to anything. There was a open manual on the pilot’s chair, pages smudged with greasy finger prints and a few speckles of blood. Juliet was a trashcan of a union ship. It had been disbanded a few years ago, and she had been able to pick it up cheap from a junk-yard dealer. It had taken a while to scrap together a dignified vessel, but she had managed. When she took on a endeavor, she took it on seriously, she lived her existence like she was the person she was pretending to be. Pushing out from under the dash, she slouched forward against her knees, arms tossed casually over and grasped at the fingers. Blonde hair was a mess, parts were unrecognizable behind black grease and other sections were tangled and knotted. She had definitely seen better days; if any capiate was to stumble upon her, they would never be able to recognize her as one of their own. Her thin arms, slight frame and disheveled demeanor said something. And it was that this woman was painfully human.
Avaria hadn’t been allowed to be herself in months. Six months. She hadn’t laid eyes upon her own kind of over half a human year, she hadn’t been called by her given name in over one-hundred and eighty days. She was living the life of a woman who was merely a fabrication of her mind. Sometimes her mind had to remind her that she didn’t like tea, or that she wasn’t raised in Luna’s red-light district. All of these details are at the front of her mind, able to be recalled with the quickest of notice. But her own existence was further back, lost to her as inconsequential information. She wasn’t herself, she hadn’t been for so long. Looking at grease stained hands, there were bruises on her knuckles, busted open from a brawl yesterday. She had already healed most of the damage, her species much more able-bodied than that of the human she was portraying. Avaria wasn’t a fighter, not by nature, she wasn’t confrontational in the primal sense of her race. She didn’t often get into fist fights. But the human she was portraying? She thrived on conflict, she lived for brawls and had no problem getting into someone’s face. The personality she adopted had caused more bruises and broken bones than should honestly be necessary to accomplish what she had.
For the last few months, she was Kameryn Hansen, captain of the hailstorm class transport shuttle Juliet, originally created as a pair, Romeo was nowhere to be found. She had even had a small crew for a stance of two months for a few of the jobs she had been handed by a few less then savory characters. The name Kam Hansen had since become synonyms for ‘suicide’, the captain was known for dangerous trysts with capiate destroyers and getting away with hardly a plasma leak to speak of it. This entire persona could be traced back to one person, one human who’s mannerisms she had peeled apart to understand better. And that human was Ridley Tannin. The grinning little explosive bug who had passed out on the floor of her own space shuttle, with a gaping whole in her leg and a grin on her lips. Avaria had spent the rest of that night pulling apart specific mannerisms; that almost begrudging side-comment when Avaria made a generally valid point, that crooked grin coupled with a high-pitched laughter. She was fascinated by that special brand of devil may care attitude that she had tried it on for size herself; Kameryn had already been a daring soul, but now she had even more depth. More human characteristics that made people seem to almost understand where she was coming from; they seemed almost silent in their acceptance. Kameryn Hansen was one of them, she was just another human, stuck in a bad situation, making the best of what she had. A wandering lost soul.
Grease laced fingers wrapped around the murky bottle of liquid that was placed on the floor just beside her hip. Lifting it to her lips, she poured a considerable amount of the liquid down her throat. It should have burned, but the capiate operative had been living with a diet that was founded around the alcoholic beverage. She had been able to function under this persona in the past much easier in intervals, considering the heavy amount of toxic beverage required. But after half a human year, her sharp blue eyes had established a consistent glassy look. They looked close to being unfocused, but never unaware. The toxin ran through her system heavily this evening, having just gotten back from a gathering of humans that thought they had something in common. The bartender seemed determined to keep her glass full, and her companions were determined to attempt to drink the blonde under the table. It was impossible, her superior anatomy filtered the alcohol much quicker, which meant more and more was poured down her throat. After returning to the trashcan of a ship, she endeavored to fix the craft, somehow she didn’t think it was possible. The pieces were falling off more frequently, and she wasn’t an engineer in human technology. Had this been a capiate shuttle, she would have been able to do something.
“Haven’t much hope, do I, Juliet?” The indifferent capiate softly spoke to the shuttle like it was something worth talking to. Her hand moved to grab something, and nearly knocked over a video-pad because of it. Catching it with lightening reflexes before it hit the ground, she looked at the schematic of Luna. Each building perfectly labeled and various little dots snarled at her from the screen. All the human resistance fighters who dared to enter capiate space. Anyone else wouldn’t have been able to tell the dots apart, they were minute differences in the shade of white to grey. But she knew each individual one by name, origin and any piece of information she had gathered. One dot was particularly lacking in information, a dot she hadn’t paid much mind to in over half a human year. The dot for Ridley Tannin. The same human who her current persona was based on; the dot had been stumbling around aimlessly for much of the last two days, and she only now stopped to really notice. “Ridley Tannin.” Empty glassy blue eyes seemed to find themselves focused on the little insignificant speck of white, like it actually meant something. And before she could really comprehend, she was out of her shuttle and into the mess of Luna.
She was dressed how any rebellion daredevil should, shoulders laced with worn leather knuckled at the collar with off-white fur, it tickled her neck and cheek but she had long since learned to ignore it. The lackluster grey tank-top had seen better days, and the dark brown cargoes had definitely seen better years. Suspenders kept everything fastened to her narrow frame, with her head ducked behind a curtain of scrubbed blonde hair, and hands shoved into the pockets of pitiful pants. The silent video-pad was lifted for confirmation that she was in the right place, and she went about business as a capiate operative should. The building was atrocious, but this was how human’s lived. Getting into the building wasn’t the problem, it was locating one tiny human that seemed to be holding her nerves, but eventually she found her. Sprawled on a mattress on the floor, asleep from what her heightened senses were telling her. Glassy blue voids focused on Ridley Tannin, her head tipped slightly to one side as she approached, steps absolutely silent, even in the hushed nothing of the building. She was professional, after all. She didn’t sit on the bed, it looked like it would have made noise.
“Half a human year, and you look so much older, Ridley Tannin.” Humans wore their years so much heavier than capiates. Fingers raised to touch Ridley’s face, almost as if she could trace every single day in the worn expression of the freshly twenty-one year old. Humans fascinated her in their existence, they were so trivial and yet so resistant, it was astounding and annoying all the same. Her finger was light, as if it wasn’t there at all, but she continued to move gently, unnatural blue eyes focused on the human like there was actually something to learn. Could she train herself to look like Ridley Tannin when she slept? She didn’t know. Did she look like a capiate when she closed her eyes? Maybe. Maybe. ..
[/div][/center]“Thruster cord, crossed to the…,” words were muffled by the destroyed console of the space shuttle. Wires and sockets were tossed across the cock-pit, no specific order and no designated task to anything. There was a open manual on the pilot’s chair, pages smudged with greasy finger prints and a few speckles of blood. Juliet was a trashcan of a union ship. It had been disbanded a few years ago, and she had been able to pick it up cheap from a junk-yard dealer. It had taken a while to scrap together a dignified vessel, but she had managed. When she took on a endeavor, she took it on seriously, she lived her existence like she was the person she was pretending to be. Pushing out from under the dash, she slouched forward against her knees, arms tossed casually over and grasped at the fingers. Blonde hair was a mess, parts were unrecognizable behind black grease and other sections were tangled and knotted. She had definitely seen better days; if any capiate was to stumble upon her, they would never be able to recognize her as one of their own. Her thin arms, slight frame and disheveled demeanor said something. And it was that this woman was painfully human.
Avaria hadn’t been allowed to be herself in months. Six months. She hadn’t laid eyes upon her own kind of over half a human year, she hadn’t been called by her given name in over one-hundred and eighty days. She was living the life of a woman who was merely a fabrication of her mind. Sometimes her mind had to remind her that she didn’t like tea, or that she wasn’t raised in Luna’s red-light district. All of these details are at the front of her mind, able to be recalled with the quickest of notice. But her own existence was further back, lost to her as inconsequential information. She wasn’t herself, she hadn’t been for so long. Looking at grease stained hands, there were bruises on her knuckles, busted open from a brawl yesterday. She had already healed most of the damage, her species much more able-bodied than that of the human she was portraying. Avaria wasn’t a fighter, not by nature, she wasn’t confrontational in the primal sense of her race. She didn’t often get into fist fights. But the human she was portraying? She thrived on conflict, she lived for brawls and had no problem getting into someone’s face. The personality she adopted had caused more bruises and broken bones than should honestly be necessary to accomplish what she had.
For the last few months, she was Kameryn Hansen, captain of the hailstorm class transport shuttle Juliet, originally created as a pair, Romeo was nowhere to be found. She had even had a small crew for a stance of two months for a few of the jobs she had been handed by a few less then savory characters. The name Kam Hansen had since become synonyms for ‘suicide’, the captain was known for dangerous trysts with capiate destroyers and getting away with hardly a plasma leak to speak of it. This entire persona could be traced back to one person, one human who’s mannerisms she had peeled apart to understand better. And that human was Ridley Tannin. The grinning little explosive bug who had passed out on the floor of her own space shuttle, with a gaping whole in her leg and a grin on her lips. Avaria had spent the rest of that night pulling apart specific mannerisms; that almost begrudging side-comment when Avaria made a generally valid point, that crooked grin coupled with a high-pitched laughter. She was fascinated by that special brand of devil may care attitude that she had tried it on for size herself; Kameryn had already been a daring soul, but now she had even more depth. More human characteristics that made people seem to almost understand where she was coming from; they seemed almost silent in their acceptance. Kameryn Hansen was one of them, she was just another human, stuck in a bad situation, making the best of what she had. A wandering lost soul.
Grease laced fingers wrapped around the murky bottle of liquid that was placed on the floor just beside her hip. Lifting it to her lips, she poured a considerable amount of the liquid down her throat. It should have burned, but the capiate operative had been living with a diet that was founded around the alcoholic beverage. She had been able to function under this persona in the past much easier in intervals, considering the heavy amount of toxic beverage required. But after half a human year, her sharp blue eyes had established a consistent glassy look. They looked close to being unfocused, but never unaware. The toxin ran through her system heavily this evening, having just gotten back from a gathering of humans that thought they had something in common. The bartender seemed determined to keep her glass full, and her companions were determined to attempt to drink the blonde under the table. It was impossible, her superior anatomy filtered the alcohol much quicker, which meant more and more was poured down her throat. After returning to the trashcan of a ship, she endeavored to fix the craft, somehow she didn’t think it was possible. The pieces were falling off more frequently, and she wasn’t an engineer in human technology. Had this been a capiate shuttle, she would have been able to do something.
“Haven’t much hope, do I, Juliet?” The indifferent capiate softly spoke to the shuttle like it was something worth talking to. Her hand moved to grab something, and nearly knocked over a video-pad because of it. Catching it with lightening reflexes before it hit the ground, she looked at the schematic of Luna. Each building perfectly labeled and various little dots snarled at her from the screen. All the human resistance fighters who dared to enter capiate space. Anyone else wouldn’t have been able to tell the dots apart, they were minute differences in the shade of white to grey. But she knew each individual one by name, origin and any piece of information she had gathered. One dot was particularly lacking in information, a dot she hadn’t paid much mind to in over half a human year. The dot for Ridley Tannin. The same human who her current persona was based on; the dot had been stumbling around aimlessly for much of the last two days, and she only now stopped to really notice. “Ridley Tannin.” Empty glassy blue eyes seemed to find themselves focused on the little insignificant speck of white, like it actually meant something. And before she could really comprehend, she was out of her shuttle and into the mess of Luna.
She was dressed how any rebellion daredevil should, shoulders laced with worn leather knuckled at the collar with off-white fur, it tickled her neck and cheek but she had long since learned to ignore it. The lackluster grey tank-top had seen better days, and the dark brown cargoes had definitely seen better years. Suspenders kept everything fastened to her narrow frame, with her head ducked behind a curtain of scrubbed blonde hair, and hands shoved into the pockets of pitiful pants. The silent video-pad was lifted for confirmation that she was in the right place, and she went about business as a capiate operative should. The building was atrocious, but this was how human’s lived. Getting into the building wasn’t the problem, it was locating one tiny human that seemed to be holding her nerves, but eventually she found her. Sprawled on a mattress on the floor, asleep from what her heightened senses were telling her. Glassy blue voids focused on Ridley Tannin, her head tipped slightly to one side as she approached, steps absolutely silent, even in the hushed nothing of the building. She was professional, after all. She didn’t sit on the bed, it looked like it would have made noise.
“Half a human year, and you look so much older, Ridley Tannin.” Humans wore their years so much heavier than capiates. Fingers raised to touch Ridley’s face, almost as if she could trace every single day in the worn expression of the freshly twenty-one year old. Humans fascinated her in their existence, they were so trivial and yet so resistant, it was astounding and annoying all the same. Her finger was light, as if it wasn’t there at all, but she continued to move gently, unnatural blue eyes focused on the human like there was actually something to learn. Could she train herself to look like Ridley Tannin when she slept? She didn’t know. Did she look like a capiate when she closed her eyes? Maybe. Maybe. ..
