[hider=Wilhelmina Wistmore]

[b]Name/Alias:[/b] actual-Mina Willow Brown, alias-Wilhelmina "Willa" Wistmore

[b]Age:[/b] 55 (turned into a vampire at age 31, living as a vampire for 24 years)

[b]Physical Description/Picture:[/b]

Willa/Mina has always been somewhat scrawny due to her family's financial hardships. She stands at a mere five feet and two inches, and there was always something fragile-looking about her-like a strong gust of wind could blow her away. She has wavy, warm chocolate-brown hair ending just under her shoulder blades that's usually pulled back from her face in a messy bun. Her eyes are the same brown of her hair, she has a pale complexion and an oval-shaped face. Willa has a frail, diminutive stature and has frequently been described as "bird-like". After being turned into a vampire, Willa has become unhealthily thin and gaunt, her skin stretched tightly over her bones. She has also become much paler, even for a vampire's standards. Her expression always appears to be nervous and anxious, and her eyes flit around the room erratically, filled with wariness and a thinly veiled fear. There is a haggard air to her, and Willa looks like she barely has the energy to stay on her feet. She walks with a heavy limp.

[b]Strengths:[/b]

[u]Pain Manipulation: [/u] The vampires of Willa's bloodline can sense and manipulate pain as if it were a physical thing like water or fire. Similar to fire and water, you can't just conjure it up out of nowhere. Vampires with this ability must draw their pain from [i]somewhere[/i], be it the guy with a migraine next to you on the bus or a stranger from halfway across the globe being crushed to death by a building toppling over. The more skilled a vampire is, the greater the distance they can draw pain from. The only way to cause a difference in the amount of pain someone is feeling is by transferring the pain to a separate 'vessel'. Newer vampires have no way to transfer pain to anywhere but into themselves, although older vampires can transfer pain quite easily to other people. The way this works is that they channel the pain through themselves then to some other 'vessel', but newer vampires haven't developed the ability to channel pain to another 'vessel'. Willa has rarely ever used this power before, and therefore she has little control over it.

[b]Weaknesses:[/b]

There is some degree of pain felt by the vampire transferring pain from one 'vessel' to another, even if they transfer the pain to someone else (basically, they can't get away with manipulating pain scot-free). Granted, the older vampires and the Baroness will be used to the pain involved in transferring it and the amount that affects them decreases with time. The only thing that Willa can do in regards to this ability is transfer pain to herself or transfer her own pain to a human in close proximity (she finds that transferring pain to vampires is infinitely more difficult than transferring it to a human).

[b]Motivations:[/b] 

First and foremost, Willa wants to be free of her sire. Years and years of physical abuse bordering on torture have left her fearful and resentful of her. Sometimes Willa entertains private thoughts of revenge, but deep in her heart she knows that getting revenge for all her suffering would be impossible-Willa has no idea how to go about doing so in terms of physical acts, and her sire is much more powerful than she is. 

Willa wants to be with her family again, not necessarily because she holds a great love for them after being a vampire for twenty years, but more of because her life was stable and easier when she lived with them. Money is another major factor-growing up in poverty has left her always looking to get money into her hands in the easiest way possible, though she wouldn't risk illegal activities like stealing or selling drugs. Nowadays, however, much has changed, and Willa is willing to risk getting into trouble with the law if it means she can live out the rest of her life as a vampire in relative comfort and isolated from all the power struggles that are inherent within the vampiric community.

[b]History:[/b] 

Mina Willow Brown was born in 1961. She was raised in a small town in the middle of nowhere in South Carolina, about a seven to eight hours' drive from Charleston. Her family had always been struggling to make ends meet, especially since her father could never seem to keep a job. With both parents working full-time and being the oldest out of three children (she had a younger brother named Jason and a younger sister named Elizabeth, nicknamed Lizzy), Mina grew up memorizing vocabulary words while doing the laundry and reciting her multiplication tables while scrubbing the floors and making dinner for her siblings. As she grew older, her family's economic situation worsened because her mother lost her job, and Mina began working as a waitress in the local run-down diner to help make ends meet. She dropped out of high school halfway through her junior year to begin working full-time. 

After a few years of ten-hour work shifts six days a week at a crummy diner in the middle of nowhere, Mina's friend from high school-a blonde, peppy woman who had gone to college around the same time Mina dropped out of high school named Caroline-invited Mina to become a roommate of hers in Charleston. After carefully considering the offer, Mina accepted. It was the first time in her entire life that she'd left the town that she was born in. Mina got a job working as a barista in the poorer part of the city during the night and continued working as a waitress during the day. 

The next five or six years were filled with the constant struggle to survive. With virtually no opportunities to get a job that paid above minimum wage, Mina soon found herself unable to contribute as much to the rent for the apartment she shared with Caroline, and the two women had a hard time getting on their feet. After a couple of years, Caroline landed a job that paid fairly well, and began to take over most of the financial responsibilities despite Mina's protests. This went on for a year or so before Caroline grew resentful that she was paying for everything and decided to look for housing somewhere else. Caroline offered to let Mina live with her again, but Mina knew fully well how Caroline felt and declined. 

With Caroline gone, Mina had no hopes of keeping up with the rent payments. She was evicted from the derelict apartment building and found herself homeless. At the same time, she was let go from both of her jobs due to the establishments suffering from financial difficulties. Desperate, Mina began to seek out whatever odd jobs she could find-anything to keep her from starving. She considered going home to her parents, but when she found out that her dad died of a sudden heart attack and her mother was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, Mina decided to remain in Charleston since she didn't want to become an added burden to her already struggling family members. She eventually fell out of touch with the rest of her family, as she rarely had access to a post office or a telephone-and a payphone was out of question, considering that she barely could get enough money to pay for food. 

Mina learned of her younger brother's death due to a drunk driver three months after his funeral from an obituary published in a newspaper in the garbage that she'd noticed by chance. Fraught with worry and concern, Mina managed to scrape up a few dollars to call her mother, although it was Lizzy who answered. Mina learned that their mother was "going insane", according to Lizzy, and that Lizzy barely earned enough money to take care of both herself and their mother. That was the last time Mina had any contact with her family. 

A little after her thirty-first birthday, Mina was settling down in her usual spot for the night after a day of foraging and looking for a job. The chances of Mina landing [i]any[/i] job at all at this point were extremely slim, but she kept searching despite the odds. Mina had just closed her eyes, anticipating another sleepless night, when out of nowhere she felt herself being lifted into the air and then slammed against the concrete wall behind her. She barely had time to open her eyes before a rough hand covered her mouth and a searing pain flared up the side of her neck, knocking her unconscious.

Mina woke up a few hours later with her hands and feet bound together in a dark, stuffy room. Her head was spinning, and she found that she could see surprisingly well despite the darkness. Frightened and confused, she remained in the same position for about an hour before a powerful and influential enforcer named Stella Havisham entered the room.

In terms of appearance, Stella was, well, perfect. She had a porcelain complexion, emerald green eyes, and thick inky-black hair that cascaded down her back like a shimmering ebony waterfall. Mina was immediately intimidated by her forceful presence and the aura of authority that Stella exuded. But she soon learned that Stella was as cruel as she was flawless. Stella did nothing other than to inform Mina that she was now Wilhelmina Wistmore and give Mina-now Willa-her first taste of human blood. After that, she left Willa alone in the darkness.

It was a week later when Stella came back. She beat Willa bloody before leaving her in solitude again. Over the next month or so, Willa noticed that the initial pain gradually faded until nothing was left. It was odd to wake up every day (though Willa had no inkling of the passage of time) and see lacerations covering her skin, blood staining the ground and her clothing, yet feeling no pain. When Stella next paid her a visit, Willa was so starved for blood that she could barely stand. Stella permitted Willa to go out and feed, and Willa did just that-she drank from the first human being she could find, who happened to be a homeless old man. Afterwards, she felt an immense sense of guilt, still not fully coming to terms with her new status as a vampire. When Willa returned, she was forced back into the closet-like room, and the same cycle continued on.

From her infrequent trips to the outside world and sporadic contact with other vampires over the years, Willa managed to learn about the power of pain manipulation and the way that vampire society in Charleston was structured. With the information she gathered, Willa concluded that Stella was using her as a tool by taking pain previously inflicted by her on Willa and transferring it to whomever she was fighting. Stella was the favored assassin of some Baroness, which was the source of her apparent wealth, although Willa could not say which Baroness it was. Willa also inferred that Stella had chosen her because nobody would even notice her disappearance after being plucked off of the streets in the middle of the night. 

A lingering sense of hopelessness has permeated the core of Willa's being, and the constant pain has taken its toll on her as well. Willa walks with a heavy limp from a broken leg that was never properly healed. After the first ten years, Stella gave Willa her own room in Stella's luxurious residence and permitted Willa to leave her "home" as she pleased, although Stella still uses Willa for her own purposes fairly often. Willa has experimented with pain manipulation, but she finds it to be very difficult. Willa rarely has the energy needed in order to effectively use the ability and she has a hard time concentrating. Sick and tired of being treated as merely somewhere to "store" pain, there is nothing more that Willa wants than to be free of her sire.

[b]Connections: [/b] 

Stella Havisham (sire)-An enforcer of one of the Baronesses of Charleston, Stella is notorious for her ways of disabling her targets with a crippling pain in order to kill them. She is cold, calculating, and ruthless, yet ferociously loyal to the Baroness she serves, though for what reason, no one can say. She has straight black hair that falls about halfway down her back and mechanical green eyes. Stella is a little over one hundred years old and was originally from France.

[b]Personality (extra):[/b] 

As a little kid and a teenager, Willa was never particularly shy-she loved to laugh and loved to live. Despite her hardships, she remained optimistic and tried to be kind to everyone. During her adult years Willa was more wary and less trusting of complete strangers, partly because of her transition from a tiny town in the middle of nowhere to a large, bustling city. She retained some of her characteristic kindness after becoming homeless, but she grew less and less optimistic with each passing day. 

That all changed when she became a vampire and the property of her sire. Willa has become skittish and afraid, jumping at the slightest sounds and as timid as a mouse. She has begun to unconsciously try to shrink into the corners and make herself appear small and insignificant in order to avoid confrontation. 

[/hider]