Name: Ardelia Zahra
Alias: N/A
Age: 35
Gender: Female
Appearance: 
Ardelia has wavy dark brown hair hair that is usually tied in a high ponytail and pulled away from her face or in a messy braid. On rare occasions, she lets it hang free, the wavelets cascading down her back. Ardelia has lively chocolate-brown eyes and tanned skin. She is rather tall, standing at five feet and eight inches, and weighs about 130 pounds. Ardelia likes to wear make-up; she is rarely seen without at least some mascara on, and she absolutely adores a particular lipstick that goes well with her skin tone and hair color. Ardelia always seems to have a playful smile on her face and prefers to wear bright, eye-popping colors. She frequently experiments with cosmetics and clothing, which doesn't always end so well-but that does nothing to deter Ardelia in the slightest.
Abilities: Ardelia is able to "see" people's emotions in their auras-translucent clouds of color that surround everyone, Ardelia herself included. Certain colors mean certain emotions, and flickers and shifts in the colors of an aura indicate changing emotions or mixed emotions. More often than not, there is also an overall "background" color that signifies what the person's general personality is like. As with actual people, auras can only be seen when some part of the person is visible, despite the fact that Ardelia finds the auras to emit a slight glow. For example, Ardelia would not be able to see the aura of somebody completely covered by a blanket, no matter how thin that blanket is. Although Ardelia technically has no limit to the distance at which she can see auras from besides the limits imposed by her eyesight, they all tend to blur together into one giant blob of moving colors with no meaning whatsoever when she is around large crowds.
Ardelia also can subtly alter the emotions of others by changing the colors in the auras with her mind. The most she can do is intensify or water down an emotion-she cannot change love to hate or anger to sadness, but she can make someone go from happy to ecstatic or slightly scared to terrified. Doing this requires the aura to be visible and can drain energy very quickly.
These abilities, though related to sight, does not come as naturally as sight. Ardelia has to "turn on" the auras, which takes two or three minutes at the very least and a good deal of concentration. Once the ability is activated, it does not require a significant amount of energy to maintain, but after an entire day with the ability turned on Ardelia is usually exhausted. The maximum amount of time she has gone with the ability switched on is sixteen hours. Falling asleep automatically "turns off" the ability.
Skills: *Even without the auras switched on, Ardelia is very perceptive of others' feelings
*Ardelia is a people person and has good social skills
*Ardelia considers herself pretty good with make-up and has, in her opinion, a great taste in fashion
*Sketching from life
*Painting with watercolors-although Ardelia is certainly no professional, she has a knack for it and considers it one of her favorite things to do
*Running in heels and applying make-up while operating a vehicle
*Fashion design-Ardelia has always had an eye for color and composition that just sort of came naturally to her
*Ardelia is able to speak both English and Spanish fluently
Flaws:*Thinking objectively-Ardelia tends to let her emotions get in the way of things
*Ardelia can be flighty and gets distracted often when she doesn't genuinely care about something
*Ardelia can be very, very chatty to the point of being flat-out annoying
*Ardelia is not the best at thinking ahead, as she prefers to live in the present and deal with things as they come
*Ardelia can be unbelievably petty and irrational, even when it is uncalled for (this goes back to the fact that she frequently lets her emotions cloud her judgement)
Background: Ardelia was born to an upper-middle class family in New York City. Both of her parents had moved to New York City from Puerto Rico before she was born. Ardelia has a brother who is three years older than her and a younger sister who is five years younger than her. Growing up, Ardelia led a fairly typical life. She went to school, dated, made friends, and so on. Ardelia was very artistic. She loved playing dress-up as a little girl, and this eventually led to her to begin seriously pursuing fashion design as a career. She had always had a natural eye for the aesthetics and what lip gloss worked with what skirt and the like. Ardelia majored in fashion design in college, and graduated with good grades.
After graduating, Ardelia quickly found a job at a minor clothing company and slowly worked her way up the ladder. Her big break came in 2195, when she was offered a position in a design firm that was partnered with the Lorne Corporation. Ardelia jumped at the chance, but she soon found herself faced with the most difficult decision of her life: whether or not to move to New London, the Martian city that Ardelia had never once in her life even dreamed of setting foot on. If she wanted the job, that was precisely what she had to do-move to New London. Apparently, there was a growing demand for consumer products on Mars, and people like Ardelia would meet the demand perfectly.
Ardelia ultimately decided that she was willing to make the move in order to keep the new job that paid far more than her old one. By 2196, she was settled into a small but comfortable apartment with a well-paying job in New London. Adjusting to New London took a while, but Ardelia soon settled into a familiar rhythm and decided that Mars was not bad at all.
Ardelia didn't think much of the subtle prejudices present in New London-in fact, she didn't even notice them until the UN began to maintain an increased military presence on Mars. Ardelia was not one to stir the pot when the law was concerned. She stayed under the radar and went about her life normally. None of the unrest seemed particularly related to her-she was a fashion designer, for Pete's sake, not a politician. Sure, she read about the protests in the news and everything, but it all seemed sort of...distant.
That certainly changed after the quake of 2200. Ardelia had been on her home from work when suddenly, there were flashing colors surrounding the people on the streets. The colors were versatile and variegated, flowing fluidly in their own little bubbles or writhing desperately, surging with energy or stagnant and lifeless. Ardelia thought she was hallucinating and took a nap. When she woke up, the colors were gone. But a couple hours later, they were back, and Ardelia began to become more and more confused. She noticed that there were colors that surrounded her as well, and watched in awe as the swirling shades of green and orange that indicated confusion changed to energetic waves of bright blue and shimmering gold. Ardelia seemed to instinctively know what the colors represented-the bright blue and gold, for instance, indicated fascination. Ardelia started to secretly experiment with the auras, finding that she could even manipulate the auras of others, to some degree. She has not told anyone about the colors for the fear of being labelled as crazy or insane, and the news of the UN imprisoning people who had exhibited superhuman abilities has reinforced Ardelia's promise to herself to keep the auras secret.
Personality-wise, Ardelia is bubbly and outgoing. Her friendly, cheerful disposition is well-liked by her peers, and Ardelia has never had a lack of friends. Ardelia is optimistic and a tad impulsive, with an "everything will be alright" attitude towards life. Ardelia relies more on her heart than her brain and frequently has no other explanation other than "it feels right". She can talk about anything and everything for hours on end. Some tend to find this incessant chatter exceedingly irritating, which Ardelia is not always the most aware of. She is a kind and sweet person at heart, though her more mean-spirited side can get the best of her at times.
If Ardelia is not always aware of how much she talks, she
is aware of the feelings and thoughts of others. Ardelia is naturally "people-smart" and is good at picking up subtle hints that indicate shifts in emotions in others. Ardelia also is somewhat of a risk-taker, at least when it comes to her fashion choices. She is always boldly trying something new when it comes to her hair, make-up, or outfit.
Sample Post: It was no ordinary day at work. Representatives from the Lorne Corporation would be coming to pick out designs to mass-produce. Ardelia stood anxiously by the rack of clothing that she had designed herself. She glanced down at her hands-a nervous turquoise danced a frantic Irish jig with vomit-green. Ardelia took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down, and she watched as streaks of ocean blue shot through the vomit-green. Out of the corner of her eye, Ardelia glimpsed the stern-looking representatives from the Lorne Corporation walking her way, and she straightened up, smoothing out her skirt and plastering a smile onto her face.
Curious yellow-orange surged through the aura of the more relaxed representative, while a bored light gray filled that of the second representative. The third had a slight tinge of vivid magenta moving languidly through his otherwise dark blue aura.
Would it be wrong to...you know...right now? she wondered to herself. Ardelia looked on as the curious yellow-orange became infused with a subtle gold.
I suppose it wouldn't hurt, she thought a tad mischievously. Ardelia concentrated on the gold, willing it to intensify. After a couple moments, the gold seemed to explode out all at once, "droplets" of it landing all throughout the representative's aura.
Ardelia felt a sense of excitement as the first representative turned to her. "You are the designer?" she asked. Ardelia noted that the representative was rather young-looking, despite the fact that Ardelia knew the woman was in her fifties.
Ardelia grinned. "Yes, I am," she said politely, giving the representative a dazzling smile.
"What's your name?" the representative questioned, and Ardelia didn't need the auras to know that she was entranced by Ardelia's designs.
"Ardelia Zahra," she replied, doing her best to hide her excitement.
The representative beamed. "Well, Ms. Zahra, I have to say that your work is the best that I have seen in years now. David, could you please write this down..." the representative trailed off, motioning for the second representative-the one with the bored light grey aura. Ardelia detected a flicker of orange surprise that materialized in the aura.
"I can't believe that no one has thought of this before," the first representative continued, gesturing toward the eye-catching floral print skirts and lacy tops. "It's a blast from the past, to be sure, but retro is all the rage nowadays. I'll definitely be in touch!" And with that, the representatives were off and on their way, examining the work of Ardelia's colleagues.
A low whistle sounded from behind Ardelia. She spun around, only to come face-to-face with Anya, one of her co-workers. Dark-haired Anya wore chunky earrings and big bangles and burgundy lipstick. "That one really liked your stuff, huh?" Anya asked, chuckling.
Ardelia felt a slight twinge of guilt.
Doing this isn't fair to the others, she thought. However, Ardelia did not voice her concerns, simply smiling at Anya. "Yeah. Whoa, I was totally not expecting that, and I honestly have no idea what to make of it," she replied. "How's everything going with you? Did any of them say something?" she questioned, changing the subject to Anya's designs.
Anya nodded happily, her eyes twinkling. "Granted, they weren't as enthusiastic as they were with you, but I think that I've got a deal coming through," she answered.
"Oh my gosh! That's amazing!" Ardelia gushed, genuinely ecstatic for her friend. Ardelia could tell that Anya was overjoyed as well-her aura was enveloped in a sunny yellow-gold. She was quite literally glowing.
Ardelia lowered her voice as she caught sight of a few stern looks being shot her way. It probably was not the best idea to be loudly congratulating a friend while the representatives were still in earshot, now that Ardelia thought about it. "Listen. After all of this is done, let's go out and get lunch?" Ardelia said.
Anya nodded, letting a cheeky grin slide onto her face. "That sounds wonderful," she responded, giving Ardelia a playful wink before walking away. Ardelia let her gaze fall down to her hands-bubblegum pink and daffodil yellow popped like firecrackers in her aura. She sighed contentedly. Life was good.
Infinite Cosmos,
Altered Tundra