[hider=The Goddess of Nightmares]Zeus jealous (or simply lustful) of Hades queen Persephone disguised himself as the King of the Underworld in order to lie with her one night. From this union Persephone became pregnant. Once Hades discovered this he was enraged and rent her flesh open but Persephone and her daughter being gods he was unable to kill the unborn Melinoë in this fashion. Therefore before Persephone came to full term he ordered her to the mouth of the River Cocytus so that upon her birth Melinoë could be drowned in the waters of lamentation loud, her cries snuffed out by the rueful stream.

Despite the circumstances of the pregnancy Persephone wished desperately for her child to live. So when the time came for Melinoë to be born Persephone cried out for help from the psychopomp that was shepherding the souls of the dead. She was lucky in that Hermes was stationed to fulfill this role at that moment. Persephone entrusted her daughter to Hermes care. Persephone returned to the palace of the underworld with the body of a child washed ashore of the River Styx. She buried this in the palace garden and Hades who for all his rage did care for his wife kept his distance to allow her to mourn and not until confronted with her deception did he check the grave to confirm Melinoë's death, or rather lack there of.

For the first few years of her life Melinoë was raised by Hermes and when he was recalled to Olypmus she was looked after by Hecate who assumed the position of psychopomp in Hermes stead. As the daughter of the Queen of the Underworld and the Lord of the Skies Melinoë embodied the dichotomy of earth and sky, heaven and hell. As such her godly attributes manifested as nightmare and madness, that which is neither her nor there but in between, that which belongs nowhere and yet everywhere.

Because Melinoë was a product of both the Underworld and the heavens she belonged to neither one. Enraged at having no place to call her home and at her biological and step fathers for rejecting her Melinoë used her godly powers to inflict nightmares and madness on the mortals, both living and dead.

Just as her powers manifest as a reflection of opposites so to does her appearance. Her left side is black, hardened, necrotized flesh, giving it the appearance of a long dead corpse. While her right side is angelic in feature and proportions but almost more frightening than her left as her skin pale and chalky as if she had no blood in her veins. She wears a golden dress and a golden shawl, and her eyes are silver like a mirror which reflects the lookers worse nightmares.

{I took a handful of liberties in the specifics of Melinoë's origin but largely everything is as the myths proclaim, after editing out the ones that contradict each other.}[/hider]

[hider=Lily, Daughter of Melinoë]
[center][h1]Daughter of Nightmares[/h1][/center]
[color=Gray][color=White][h3][u][b]Basic Information[/b][/u][/h3][/color]

[b][color=Black]Name:[/color][/b] 
[indent]Lillian, goes by Lily[/indent]
[b][color=Black]Parent:[/color][/b]
[indent]Melinoë
Daughter of Persephone and Zeus
Goddess of Nightmares and Madness.[/indent]
[b][color=Black]Gender:[/color][/b] 
[indent]Female[/indent]
[b][color=Black]Age:[/color][/b] 
[indent]17[/indent]
[b][color=Black]Likes and Dislikes:[/color][/b] 
[indent][Color=White][i]Likes[/i][/color][list][*]Fear and terror
[*]Books
[*]Acrobatics[/list]
[Color=White][i]Dislikes[/i][/color][list][*]Anything spicy
[*]An unfair playing field
[*]The feel and sound of Styrofoam[/list][/indent]
[b][color=Black]Sentimental Attachment:[/color][/b]
[indent]A diamond pendant set into a silver base on a silver chain. 
A gift from Lily's mother, it was enchanted to protect Lily from her own nightmares and from the worst of the backlash from her powers.
It is only about ninety percent effective but without it Lily is unable to get a full night's sleep.[/indent]
[b][color=Black]Weapons:[/color][/b]
[hider=Appearance][img]https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/54/b4/65/54b465d13608dcb7026fdaf2d2fd98d6.jpg[/img][/hider]
[indent][i]Dream Blades[/i]: Two nine inch blades that Lily keeps strapped to either forearm. As seen above one is emblazoned with gold while the other bears silver. The writing on the silver blade reads [i]"Fear sleep for the nightmares that come."[/i] The gold one reads [i]"Fear to wake for the nightmares are waiting."[/i] In addition to acting as such weapons should these blades also function as scrying tools. Each dagger reflects that which happens in the other, as well with the right words they can show any reflective surface that Lily has carved a specific rune into allowing them to be used for communication for specific mirrors.[/indent]
[b][color=Black]Text Color:[/color][/b]
[indent]Black
[color=Black]000000[/color][/indent]
[b][color=Black]Theme Song:[/color][/b] 
[hider=Come Little Children][YouTube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1t8-_pI1-9Q[/YouTube][/hider][hider=Lyrics]Come, little children
I'll take thee away
Into a land
Of enchantment

Come, little children
The time's come to play
Here in my garden
Of shadow

Follow, sweet children
I'll show thee the way
Through all the pain and
The sorrows

Weep not, poor children
For life is this way
Murdering beauty and
Passions

Hush now, dear children
It must be this way
To weary of life and
Deceptions

Rest now, my children
For soon we'll away
Into the calm and
The quiet

Come, little children
I'll take thee away
Into a land
Of enchantment

Come, little children
The time's come to play
Here in my garden
Of shadows[/hider]

[color=White][h3][b][u]Appearance[/u][/b][/h3][/color]

[b][color=Black]Hair Color:[/color][/b]
[indent]Black as Night[/indent] 
[b][color=Black]Eye Color:[/color][/b]
[indent]Brilliant Silver[/indent] 
[b][color=Black]Skin Pigmentation:[/color][/b]
[indent]Pale to the point that she looks almost unhealthy.[/indent]
[b][color=Black]Height:[/color][/b] 
[indent]5'6"[/indent]
[b][color=Black]Weight:[/color][/b] 
[indent]90 Pounds[/indent] 
[b][color=Black]Physical Appearance:[/color][/b]
[hider=Appearance][img]http://static.hypable.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/jemima.jpg[/img][/hider]
[indent]Lily is of average height but a little underweight. This gives her the slightly unhealthy look of someone who does not eat enough and spends too much time away from the sun. As with most demigods she is both extremely fit and quite beautiful though in her case this beauty takes on a rather frightening aspect thanks to the parlor of her skin, much like her mother's right side. Her build is lithe, graceful and well proportioned. There's a sort of steely glint in her eye that gives most the impression she is sizing them up, not unlike the children of Athena. Additionally due in part to her mother's appearance Lily has the ability to completely invert the color scheme of her body. Her dark black hair becomes white as paper, her skin as black as solid shadow, her lips tinged the green of rusted copper. Only her irises remain unaffected, remaining a stark reflective silver. In this form light seems to fall into her making the shadows in proximity seem denser and the lights dimmer. She uses this primarily for intimidation.[/indent]

[color=White][h3][b][u]Personality[/u][/b][/h3][/color]

[b][color=Black]Personality:[/color][/b]
[indent]Lily's father was actually a demigod born to the deity Adrestia, Goddess of Balance. Though Lily inherited none of the godly powers of that branch of her family beyond a slight rise in power born of a stronger bloodline this tie instilled in her a strong sense of the balance of the world which complimented the nature her mother passed on as a dichotomy of opposites. Despite her sickly and slightly sinister appearance Lily is calm and for the most part neutral in matters not concerning her directly. However should she feel she oor one close to her has been slighted she will not hesitate to bring retribution down on the perpetrator. She prefers doing this from the shadows, rather than a direct confrontation as her ability to manipulate dreams is much stronger than any of her other skills. She is willing to give anyone a chance with no questions asked however betrayal she takes very seriously and deals with in the harshest manner she knows.
Lily holds a certain grudge against both Hades and Zeus for abandoning her mother at birth but does not hold this grudge against any of their children. She judges people on their own merits. In most situations Lily is calm and collected, dealing with her own workload and problems but when enraged she becomes as unpredictable as a bad dream. A negative reaction from her came range anywhere from a stern word to a crippling blow. She rarely ever regrets her actions.[/indent] 
[b][color=Black]Power and Abilities:[/color][/b] 
[indent]Lily's abilities are separated into two main veins. Dreamwalking and Perception.
[i]Dreamwalking[/i]: Lily is able to enter and manipulate the dreams of those that are sleeping. Though she can only exist in one dream at a time she can link several people together into a joint dream. While in the dreamscape Lily essentially becomes a god, able to alter the reality of the dream as she sees fit to any extend her imagination can summon up. However physical damage does not translate from dream to reality, in order to kill someone in a dream she must summon up a nightmare so terrifying that the victim's heart stops out of fright. Though this may sound simple it requires detailed knowledge of the victim's psyche in order to push the exact right buttons to cause death. This means it would take an extended amount of time, multiple trips into the dreamscape or intimate knowledge of the person themselves. The only way for the victim to escape the dreamscape and wake is for his dream self to make physical contact with Lily's dream self. Dreamwalking is more useful as a means to extract information as everything is laid bare in the unconscious if the dreamwalking knows how to uncover it. Lily can feed on the energy of fear, panic, and hopelessness that her manipulations cause almost like a vampire. Melinoë's children are the origin of the Mara in many other cultures.

[i]Perception[/i]: Lily is capable of manipulating of perception of the waking but this requires a much more precise touch. Unlike dreamwalking which feeds Lily manipulating perception greatly drains her of energy, the larger the changes and the more people viewing them the more energy it requires. The other element to this skill is belief. Whoever's perception she has altered feeds the changes she has made. If she alters their perception to make them view the baseball bat she is holding as a sword and they wholehearted believe it to be a sword the weapon will be capable of cutting them in half. If they do not believe then it is like an illusion, superficial. This applies to larger perceptions too. Say she were to create a monster. The more people believe it to be real, the more solid and capable of anything the real thing could do it becomes. Conversely the more that doubt it to be reality cause the perception to waste away to a mere shadow.

Lastly Lily is capable of inflicting a PTSDesque terror into those she makes physical skin to skin contact with. This lasts only as long as she touches them, in addition to whatever time they need to recover from such a shock. Inducing this terror has an added benefit and drawback. It allows Lily to see the persons greatest terrors but at the cost that she sees them through the person's eyes, experiencing them with every bit as much panic as her subject. Though she cannot put someone to sleep once they've fallen asleep of their own accord she can prevent them from waking up.[/indent]
[b][color=Black]History:[/color][/b]
[indent]Melinoë as the Goddess of Nightmares took to meeting mortals in their nightmares. She was drawn to those who's nightmares where horrible even without her intervention. As such she found Lily's father Thomas. Thomas was a demigod born to the goddess of balance Adrestia. Though he knew nothing of his godly heritage as his father had died only a few years after his birth. Despite his ignorance Thomas was driven by the virtue of balance that his mother had passed on. To this end he joined the mortal armed forces in an effort to bring balance to the world. The things he saw left him deeply scared even after his discharge and the nightmares born of his time in the army drew Melinoe to him. For many nights she visited him in his dreams. For several days she watched him, for several more she spoke to him and then one night she appeared to him physically. Believing himself to still be dreaming Thomas lay with Melinoe. After that night he stopped dreaming of her and his nightmares returned.

He held onto the memory of her, it helped to keep his own terrible memories at bay. Then nearly a month later a basket arrived on his doorstep housing a baby girl. There was a note atop the baby blanket. [i]"I hope this brings you some comfort in your days from your terrors at night." - The Girl of your Dreams[/i]. Thomas did not know what to make of this but as any decent human would he took the baby girl down to the hospital. A paternity test confirmed she was indeed his daughter though he never quite understood how that was possible.

He kept her and as she grew up he told her stories of her mother, the girl of dreams. When Lily was eleven on her birthday she seemed to wake in the middle of the night to the silhouette of a woman, shrouded in shadow sitting at the foot of her bed. For some reason Lily did not feel any fear. The woman was singing, a haunting yet beautiful melody that for a reason Lily could not explain made her happy beyond imagining. [i]"Come, little children. The time's come to play. Here in my garden. Of shadows..."[/i] When the song was finished Lily seemed to wake from a dream and their was no one else in her room. Still she felt sure the woman had been there. Every year after that on her birthday Lily heard that song in her dreams, though she never saw the shadow again.

Lily grew up on the mortal world but her childhood was not exactly normal. Though her father was relieved that she grew into beauty she never looked quite healthy. She ate properly, better than most kids her age and exorcised regularly in an effort to correct the problem but her sickly chalk white skin did not change, nor did it seem she was capable of tanning. Thomas took her to several doctors but their only explanation was that it must be some form of genetic defect, as far as they could tell she was perfectly healthy, good diet, fine circulation, there was nothing to suggest that her appearance was a health concern.

Despite this however it separated her from anyone she might become friends with. She heard the whispers of "anorexic" and "bulimic" and other such things behind her back. It didn't bother her all that much but it prevented her from forming any real ties with anyone in her age group.

When Lily was sixteen her father suffered a heart attack, though they got him to the hospital quickly in the end it only bought him time.
He died some days later. That night as Lily slept fitfully with visions of her father dancing in her mind she heard the song again.
[i]"Come, little children. I'll take thee away. Into a land. Of enchantment"[/i] Lily kept her eyes closed till the song ended before she opened them and looked to the end of her bed. This time however the woman cloaked in shadows did not vanish.

[i]"Hello my child. I am not acquainted with the pain you are feeling but the quality of your nightmares gives me some indication."[/i]

Lily sat up frozen in shock. The woman in shadow waited for a moment evidently expecting her to speak when she did not the woman continued.

[i]"My name is Melinoë. I am the Goddess of Nightmares and Madness. I am also your mother."[/i]

This time Lily found her voice. "The woman in his dreams." she said stunned "Dad spoke of you."

Melinoë smiled ever so slightly. [i]"He was an interesting one,"[/i] she sighed with a hint of satafaction. [i]"Dreams of such horror."[/i]
her smile grew. [i]"I could not resist touch his mind."[/i] The smile faded somewhat. [i]"I did not come to speak of your father, once I leave here I will guide him to the underworld. He will be judged fairly. I am here to speak of you. To the gods you are a woman more than capable of looking after your own. However the laws of this new world make that rather difficult. Till you come of age by their standards you require a place to house you, to feed, cloth and bandage your wounds."[/i]

Lily was having trouble processing all of this 'Goddess of Nightmares'. The one thing that was evident though was that her long lost mother was about to ship her off somewhere. "Can't I stay with you?"

Melinoë looked sad as she shook her head. [i]"No, visitation by the gods is strictly on a basis of necessity. Zeus does not like us interfering in the affairs of our mortal children anymore than necessary. Because of my 'special' brand of power I can bend those rules a little more than most but the elder gods would never allow one of my children to lie with me full time. I am sorry Lillian."[/i]

Lily looked down at the ground a lump forming in her throat. The divine aspect of this conversation had yet to completely sink in, all she knew at this point was that right after the death of her father her mother was abandoning her. "So you're just going to dump me somewhere?" she said, the cold steel in her voice more aggressive than fire.

[i]"It is better than the fate my stepfather had planned for me. Lillian I know this is hard but there is a place for one such as yourself. An academy for demigods and other part celestials. You will have care and training there but I can do no more than guide from afar. This is the way it is, as it has always been. A representative of the school will come by tomorrow to give you more details. Before I go I have a gift for you."[/i] she took a small velvet box typically used for storing jewelry from within her shawl. She set it on the dresser by the door. [i]"Open it tomorrow, for now I must go, I have stayed too long."[/i]

She rose from the bed and turned towards the door, almost like a real mother after telling her child a bedtime story. "Wait!" Lily shouted.

Melinoë turned back to her. [i]"Yes?"[/i]

Without thinking Lily flicked on her lamp throwing Melinoë grisly appearance into sharp relief in the light. Far from being disgusted or frightened by it though Lily felt a strange sort of relief. Suddenly a half dozen things about her life made an eerie amount of sense. Melinoë did not recoil from the light instead she simply looked at Lily and shook her head. [i]"Nature was not as kind to me as it was to you daughter. Goodnight."[/i]

She exited through the door, closing it behind her with a click that struck Lily as weirdly ungodlike. Perhaps she was trying to minimize the impact on Lily, or perhaps she was a fraud. [i]Or maybe,[/i] said a doubtful part of her mind as she drifted back to sleep, [i]it was all a dream.[/i]

This idea was quashed the next morning when saw the small velvet box still sitting on the dresser. She opened it and found a pendant on a silver chain within. The pendant was a pure diamond set into a small silver base. Along with it was a note: [i]"It will help you control your nightmares."[/i] Lily took it from the box and fastened it around her neck. Whether it had powers or not it was still a gift from her mother.

Later that day a representative of "Olympus Academy" showed up at her house to inform her of the specifics of her enrollment and the opportunities the school presented. That was one year ago. Lily has been living at the school and honing her nightmare abilities, not to mention her physical ones ever since.
[/indent]

[color=White][h3][u][b]Relationships[/b][/u][/h3][/color]

[indent][color=White][h3]| [b]Thomas[/b] |[/h3] | [b]Father[/b] | [i]Deceased[/i] |[/color]
[indent]Before his death Lily and Thomas had very good relationship. Almost more like close cousins than father and daughter. He would tease her about being asked out and she would poke at him in return. Though he was always there for her when she needed help.[/indent][/indent]

[b][u][color=Black]Other:[/color][/u][/b] 
[indent][list][*]Lily sings quite proficiently. Though she can sing decently in a variety of genres she prefers haunting and disturbing melodies like that which her mother sang for her.
[*]Lily knows a modest amount of American Sign Language. She is far from proficient but prior to her father's death she was taking classes in ASL to use as her second language on college applications.
[/list][/indent][/color]
[/hider]