TaliPaendrag

The Awakening

Despite the illumination of the full moon hanging slightly behind the old, run-down house on the crest of the little hill, there was an unshakable eerie feeling all around. The wind shaking the leaves of the trees on either side of the dirt road didn't help much either; all it did was cause the shadowy shapes to dance about. After taking a deep breath to calm her nerves and remind herself that the shapes were only shadows, Aidyn looked at her friends around her, briefly wondering if they were upset with her at all. She had been the one to get them into this mess after all. The memory of the event that had led to the current moment was still fresh in her memory.

“You guys think that you're soooo great, doncha?” Richard Slynn snapped, that sneer that seemed a permanent fixture of his face giving him a particularly nasty look. He wasn't pleased to have his “fun” interrupted as she and her group of friends came around the corner of the small candy shop, Carmel's. Of course, his “fun” involved bullying kids that were typically a grade or two younger than he and his cronies. The poor boy who had been unlucky enough to catch Richard's eye took advantage of the momentary distraction to wriggle from the larger boy's grasp and haul off down the street. “I betcha you wouldn't last twenty minutes in Old Man Ferwinkle's house on the hill. Me and my buds have done it tons of times.”

The usual response was to ignore Richard and move on, but he wasn't going to have any of that. “You're all just a bunch of chickens!” he laughed, blocking their path, imitating chicken noises and flapping his arms as if they didn't realize what he was saying. “Probably afraid of the dark and everything! Just like a bunch of babies!” That had been crossing the line for Aidyn, and before she knew it, she was telling him, and his cronies, that they would do better than stay for twenty minutes. They would spend the whole night in the creepy, decrepit house.

“Well? Are you chickens going to go in or are you going to forfeit right now?” Richard said, the sneer practically audible in his voice. As usual, his nasally voice was a pale orange color that felt like a splash of ice cold water, causing her to shiver involuntarily. Hearing all of those words sent cascade of flavor over her tongue as well, changing at every word. Hard, spicy grape to juicy, cold mashed potatoes to hot, rough bubblegum and more. A different taste for every word that came and went as he spoke, the same as what happens during any other conversation. Focusing on those flavors made it a lot easier to ignore Richard's laughter as she readied herself to do what they had come to do.

Looking up at the gate and fence made of black iron, and the dark silhouette of the house, it probably hadn't been her best idea to accept the bet, let alone make it worse. But, Aidyn wasn't one to dwell on the past. Taking another deep breath to steady her nerves, she walked up to a section of the fence near the gate that was loose and stepped through, an action that was really quite simple for her due to her small size. The others, who were all larger than her, would have a bit more trouble, but every one of them would still be able to wriggle through.

Once everyone was through, they went up to the door as a group. Another blast of wind made her jump as a milky brown filled her vision and the sensation of a solid shove centered on her shoulder. Of course, both sensations vanished immediately once the wind died down. She had just been too focused on the door in front of them, and that wind had come from nowhere. That didn't stop the slight blush from appearing on her face as Richard's laugh became audible. Afraid of what she would see, she didn't bother looking at her friends.

As calmly as she could manage, she reached forward with her friends and pushed the door open, the creak filling the night air. Surprisingly enough, the sound was a warm white, though it did send pin-pricks of cold down her back. Once inside the creepy building, Aidyn took her bag off her back and pulled out a battery-powered lantern for herself. She did have an extra in case it was needed, but she didn't wait to see, her curiosity leading her to enter what would have been the living room of the building. The most notable thing in the room was the wooden stand that held an ancient-looking television. Directly across from that were a large couch and recliner, which had several gouges in the cushion covers from animals using the material for nests. The boarded up windows did allow some moonlight into the room, but it was barely enough to see more than dark shapes. With the illumination of the lights, it was possible to see little animal tracks in the dust that covered everything, though only because the dust looked thinner in some places.

A flash of movement out of the corner of her eye made her jump before she realized that it was just the dusty television screen showing her reflection. Her black denim shortalls with white stars and numerous paint stains was rather hard to see in her reflection, which wasn't true of her neon green t-shirt. For once, she was rather glad that her feet were only big enough to fit into shoes designed for younger kids, as the multi-colored shoes she had on had the light-up feature. While not very useful for seeing around her, the pink flashing lights did have a tendency to loosen the atmosphere of the place.

After analyzing her reflection for a few more seconds, she moved towards the television stand to set her lantern on top, thereby illuminating a little more of the room. Curiosity momentarily abated, she turned to her friends in the room with her. “What do you guys want to do now?” she asked, still feeling a little bad about getting them roped into spending the night in the house. Hopefully they weren't too mad about it. She had brought some cards and the like to pass the time if they wanted, though she wouldn't mind exploring either.

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Quick question: Would you guys prefer that our characters learn each others' secrets throughout the roleplay, or already know them?

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Perfect! :D I'll get working on the opening post shortly.

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@Pathfinder: Okay. I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page. :P

@Chezka: If you wouldn't mind, that would be great. :3 But it's up to you. I'm not going to require it.

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@Pathfinder: Looks good! :D Just remember that they are all already friends with one another.

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@Mad Scarlet: Looks good! :D

And that's more of what I meant by secrets: conditions, habits, or quirks that they may not want very many people to know. But the secrets you guys' characters have is fine too. :D

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Name: Aidyn Michelle Belliveau
Age: 12
Gender: Female
Element: Fire (Lightning)
Appearance: Aidyn stands at an impressive height of 4’2” and weighs a whole 53 lbs. Despite her status as the middle child in her family, she’s actually smaller than both of her sisters, which is somewhat embarrassing for her. Her hair is naturally a fiery red that matches her personality and is the primary reason for her name. Her eyes are a bright blue that sometimes appear to be lit up from within. Her mother often fights with her over the state of her clothes, namely jeans, t-shirts, or sweats. Aidyn often just leaves them lay wherever she takes them off, and, even though its usually in her room, it still makes a bit of a mess, especially when her clothes are covered in paint, mud, water, or a combination of the three. It’s quite a hassle on laundry day, and most of her clothes bear telltale signs of her various activities via stains, most of which are faded paint. Of course, these clothes are her ‘play’ clothes, and so don’t matter as much. Her mother just wishes that she didn’t have to pay so much on clothes for someone who hasn’t grown an inch in the past three years. The only part of her appearance that isn’t readily visible would be the protective undergarments that she has to wear- Goodnites. She tends to keep her insulin pump hidden under her shirt, though it’s not as big a deal to her and is usually pretty visible as such.

Personality: Getting used to Aidyn’s… unique personality can be a bit of a chore for those who don’t know her at all. See, she suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder, a condition that handicaps her impulse and emotional control. As such, she often feels the extremes of emotion, i.e. depression rather than disappointment, and for longer periods of time. Because BPD also consists of the pseudo-bulbar effect, or emotional incontinence, it’s not uncommon for her to switch between moods at the slightest provocation, much to the confusion of people around them. Her diminished impulse control also affects her behavior in several, less noticeable ways, primarily her kleptomania.

As a whole, her personality disorder describes quite well why it was, and still is, believed that she has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. For the most part, people who meet her believe her to be an immature, rash, rude, and loud young girl, though she really does try her best to keep from being a bother to others. At her parents’ insistence, she visits a psychologist once a week for treatment, even if her individualistic nature tends to get in the way of that.

Aidyn’s wild emotions, in addition to a natural talent and her Synesthesia, lend themselves quite well to her various artistic hobbies, namely sculpting, music, and painting. She branches out with these of course; those are just the ones she’s stuck to the longest. Most of the time, she seems to lose interest with different mediums and such rather quickly. Her parents also figured that getting her out of the house would help curb her… chaotic tendencies, and so signed her up for Girl Scouts. The camping and other outdoor activities are things that she really enjoys, even if not all of the other kids want to get to know her better.

History: From birth, it was pretty obvious that Aidyn was never going to win any awards for her height, which, in addition to her already-apparent fiery nature, was the basis for her name. Shortly after birth, it became apparent that she had a couple of noticeable conditions: type 1 diabetes. It was a little hard for her parents to hear so soon after birth, but they offered up thanks that it wasn’t something fatal. Everything from that little scare was smooth sailing, at least up until she was about two years old. A kid at the daycare she had been attending had taken a toy she had been playing with. No toddler is going to react in the best of ways to such a catastrophe, but with her personality disorder, her reaction was a bit more… excessive. She grabbed another toy and left the other kid with a black eye, resulting in a ban from that daycare forever. Her parents were a little worried over the incident, but they figured teaching her that it was wrong to react like that was the way to handle the problem and left it at that.

Once more, everything went rather smoothly for the next year or so. This lasted until she was about five years old and ready to join kindergarten. Everything was all ready to go except for one little issue: Aidyn was seemingly incapable of keeping her training pants dry. Her parents had just figured that she was a slow learner, much like their first child had been and were content to leave it at that until it became evident that there was a problem, upon which they took her to the hospital for some tests. It was quite a pain getting her to keep still long enough for the machine to finish the scan, but, once it was done, the scan showed that an infection had done significant damage to the muscles of her bladder. Once again, her parents rolled with the punches, keeping her in training pants until she outgrew them before moving onto other youth diapers.

Aidyn did end up getting into trouble at school several times due to her Synesthesia. While it's not much of a disability, she certainly doesn't mind it, it has caused some issues when she tried to explain her work to a teacher or when she refused to say or read certain words because they put a bad taste in her mouth. These situations come about because her sense become 'confused', which means that she can experience a stimuli using more than one sense. Take a d-sharp note for example. To her, the note has a color associated with it, as well as physical feeling. Usually these sensations cause no problems, but whenever they are unpleasant, she often refuses to experience them, even if a teacher orders her to do what would produce that unpleasant sensation. Because they can't understand it, they often chalk it up to her being stubborn or defiant and end up writing her up. It doesn't happen all that frequently, but that kind of makes it worse when it does happen.

Due to the long span of time between noteworthy events, apart from a few fights and her trouble with teachers caused by her Synesthesia here or there in school, in young Aidyn’s life, it seemed that her parents were in the clear, which was perfect considering that they had another child to look after in addition to Aidyn and her older sister, Maria. Foolishly, they breathed a sigh of relief. Aidyn seemed to have outgrown all of the phases of note, though she was still just as rambunctious, hyper, and chaotic as ever. By then though, they had grown used to it. Unfortunately, the universe is a sadistic character that enjoys taking the harmony of life and shattering it like glass. They got a phone call towards the middle of her fifth grade year from the principal of the school asking them to come down. They arrived to the office to see their daughter sitting in front of the massive mahogany desk, staring at her feet as they dangled off the edge of the chair. The principal informed them that Aidyn had gotten into a serious fight, as in one that resulted in a kid having a black eye and several other bruises, after a series of events that started with her being teased over getting a lower grade on a test that most and ended with Billy Manson dropping glitter on her project. She was suspended, and her parents were forced to pay for the window. But, while she was suspended, her parents figured that enough was enough and took her to a psychologist to see what was up. It took a few sessions due to her stony silence and inability to focus all that well on what he was saying before he was able to conclude that she had BPD, and not ADHD or anything else her teachers had claimed. From then on, everything has, once again, been relatively normal, except for the weekly meeting with Dr. Thompson.
Secret: She has urinary incontinence
Other:
Listing of conditions:
Borderline Personality Disorder
Synesthesia (Grapheme-Color, Chromesthesia, Spacial Sequence, Auditory-Tactile, Lexical-Gustatory, and Number Form)
Type I Diabetes
Urinary Incontinence
Kleptomania

Trivia:
She can speak fluent French.
Because of her family's ties to France, they eat a lot of French cuisine. Her favorite meal is Bouillabaisse, a seafood stew made using different kinds of fish.
She can play the flute, the guitar, and the piano, as well as being able to sing well. Part of this is because her Synesthesia gives her perfect pitch.
She’s pretty handy with knot-tying and lighting fires from Scouts.
A couple of her pieces of art have been put on display in a novice gallery in a nearby city.
She has trouble holding onto money, so she often hands her money over to one of her friends to keep her from spending it all.
Due to her BPD, she doesn’t really have a favorite animal or color, though birds and cats and warm colors seem to be recurring themes with her.
She loves all animals and can often be distracted really easily by them.
Her older sister, Marie, is 15 years old, while her younger sister, Codette, is 10 years old.

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@Rarity: Looks good! :D I was wondering if anyone would do that with the secret. :P

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@Soul: It looks good! :3

@Chezka: Nope, you are good to take it. :D

Just a couple of ideas

Before I forget, I got the OOC up! :D You can find it here!