Smoke :: Kieran {Criticism Most Humbly Requested} -Approved!

[The Semblance of Unity]

What am I?

you are the night-time fear; you are the morning when it's clear
I am the Messenger and the Killer




Light-winged Smoke, Icarian bird,
Melting thy pinions in thy upward flight,
Lark without song, and messenger of dawn
Circling above the hamlets as they nest;
Or else, departing dream, and shadowy form
Of midnight vision, gathering up thy skirts;
By night star-veiling, and by day
Darkening the light and blotting out the sun;
Go thou my incense upward from this hearth,
And ask the gods to pardon this clear flame.
-Henry David Thoreau

Essence: Smoke
A visible suspension of carbon or other particles in air, typically one emitted from a burning substance.

With a wild wave of smouldering particles, smoke can steal breath and, in an instant, ignite. Smoke greedily sucks the oxygen away from the air, venting forth plumes of flame when more oxygen tentatively reaches towards it. It's a fickle being, burning hot as the flames that birth it. Inhaled, it burns from the inside out, a million tiny particles on fire. A backdraft, a flashover, proof that smoke is not only caused by fire, but can cause fire itself. It's a vicious, deadly cycle. Smoke is a dangerous, twisting thing. Smoke is a killer.

The gentle tendrils of smoke can rise through the air in some lost mode of communication with the gods. The prayers of a thousand people ride on the whorls of incense smoke that drift ever upwards. Leaping through a whirling tantrum of smoke, letting it wreathe everything in its embrace, can protect: a smoky, intangible second skin. Gently breathed in, some smoke can slow the mind, the heart, and induce a trance in which whole other worlds open. Smoke is a messenger.

Smoke has many sides, all twisting and turning about, wreathing everything in a gentle haze, obscuring everything except this: smoke is the messenger and the killer.  

[The Semblance of Unity]

Kieran, the little dark one

you are the silence in between what I thought and what I said

Name: Kieran [meaning 'little dark one']
Nicknames: none as of yet, may gain some through rp
Gender: ultimately female, but extremely androgynous

♙ Appearance: Kieran is very androgynous in looks, neither looking particularly male or female. In such androgyny, there is symmetry; in such symmetry, there is beauty.
Kieran is small in build and height, even as she grows older, never reaching above 5 feet. In fact, Kieran is almost comically small as a child.
Her skin is a sooty grey and as her limbs taper, they become peppered with small black freckles, until her fingers and toes are completely black.On the subject of limbs: Kieran hates wearing shoes. She almost always goes barefoot if she can get away with it and sometimes Eli could swear she just wafts gently above the ground, but maybe his eyes are just playing tricks on him...
Kieran's eye are a type of golden orange shade, much like the flames she is a product of. Oddly enough, she doesn't seem to have much of a pupil or eye whites.
Wispy and light, her hair streams behind her in variegated shades of gray and seems to float up and away from her.
Perhaps, in general, like this? idk orz
[side note: all appearances, especially the bit about pupils and eye whites
are completely up in da air, Do what you will, O ARTISTES]
However, I love drawing this chicka.

show spoilerhide spoiler

♙ Clothing: Kieran prefers unisex clothing that flows around her body and conceals her curves (oh, who is she kidding, even as a teen, she's flat as a pancake!). Nonetheless, she likes to be able to feel air between her body and clothing. In deference to her wish to remain largely unnoticed, Kieran tends to wear pale, mostly neutral tones and grey. Sometimes she will wear a pale green or once in a blue moon, a vibrant fiery orange.

♙ Likes:
-being warm
-running
-romance novels
-happy endings

♙ Dislikes:
-water, phobic of large bodies
-blood
-very loud people
-multitasking

♙ Personality:
non-confrontational | meddlesome | hopeful | dichotomous

Kieran's personality often sways in the favor of anybody she happens to talk to, in order to reflect what she would think they would find likable. She can come off as either genuinely likable or an aloof, flighty girl. Instead of rushing into play with others, Kieran is the one who ghosts around the edges, sizing everything up before gently inserting herself in. However, she can seem too aloof when she stands back to observe. She's a seamless kind of dust, non-confrontational yet always somehow in everyone's business. At the first sign of an upset, she retreats, blowing away like smoke in the wind.
She only wishes for everyone to be peaceful and protected.
Although clumsily in the beginning, Kieran learns to tweak situations so they turn out favorably for all involved. Unfortunately, Kieran never developed a sense of when to leave things alone. While her constant shifting and attempted tweaking of situations can be nice, it can backfire wildly.
And if someone is on Kieran's awful person list, Aevah save them, they're gonna need it. Kieran won't confront them directly but they might find their life going wrong in little ways: all their chickens set free, the shutters loosened so they fall off during a storm. Luckily, getting on that list is fairly difficult and usually involves harming one of Kieran's loved ones.
Speaking of Kieran's loved ones, there are among them a select few that Kieran sees no need to please. Mainly Eli. Eli is Eli; he has been, he will be. When Kieran does things for him, it's not to get on his good side or to better his life, it's because she wants to. With him, she tends to be just one self instead of a thousand wisps of smoke helping everyone. He is her respite.
While Kieran strives to please everyone, she tries not to engage in others' fights. Regardless of whether she believes one person is more right than the other, an actual fight is too much to handle for the non-confrontational girl. Sometimes Kieran's desire to tweak things can become dangerous: she can go too far in order to make something better. She will grit her teeth and do something she dislikes or even put herself in harm's way if she views it as justifiable.
Because of her predilection for meddling helping others, she often carries around small things that might be useful. For instance, she's never without matches or a bit of twine.
Since she finds herself meddling with others so often, she admires Sojo greatly. His impartiality is what she strives for (and fails to achieve). Kieran believes that if the gods had just viewed things as Sojo had, observing only, there would be no need for Dust to exist. Humanity would remain as it ever had, as it should, unmolested.
Despite her admiration for impartiality and letting things progress naturally, she's never been able to just let something be if she can see a way to gently improve it. Sometimes she hates herself for not letting things run just as they will be, but she justifies it as her existence's purpose. But sometimes those are just pretty words and Kieran wonders if this world wouldn't be better off if herself and all other Dusts didn't exist at all.
The funny thing is that even as she tries to subtly change the people around her (for their own good, of course), she doesn't notice how they change her.

♙ Hobbies:

"She had always suffered from a vague restlessness, a longing for adventure that had come from reading too many novels as a child. She grew up and she learned to ignore that restlessness. She wondered if anyone else had ever felt this impatience of spirit and how it was they came to live with themselves."

Of course, Kieran loves people watching. She can sit in the town square and watch the bits of their lives that she can see and speculate on what's not visible. Why does the milkmaid always get a discount on bread? Maybe it's because she has five children and the baker is kind... or she is blackmailing the baker because he is secretly a spy! Kieran likes making up outlandish stories for the people around her, even though she knows they aren't true.
When Kieran's not mucking around with people, she often finds pleasure worlds away: in books. It started when she wandered into Eli's book-room late one night. She found a finely tooled leather volume. Inside, Eli's old diary. Fascinated, she read the few entries and realized something: everyone is a story. Not all stories have happy endings, even though Kieran would prefer if they did. She soon devoured novel upon novel, mainly romance novels. Those were a guaranteed happy ending for all. Kieran's not unaware that happy endings don't often happen, but she likes her books where they all ride off into the sunset together, happy. She's determined to create her own happy endings; to channel her enthusiasm about helping others into this purpose.
Sometimes, in the evenings, Eli and Kieran sit quietly and listen to classical music. Eli enjoys the numbers of it, Kieran, the romance. And she suspects a part of Eli secretly enjoys the romance too.
When Eli becomes inundated with numbers and Kieran's left to her own devices, she likes to make a cup of tea, sit in front of the hearth, and watch the steam rise from it. Somehow watching steam or an open flame comforts her. The malleability of it is like a shawl she wears when she's cold. It's likely that she likes it because it's a sort of reflection of herself; it's probably not as deep as that, though. Steam is pretty and Kieran likes pretty things.
Other than that, Kieran enjoys running. She's fast; her feet fly as she runs past Siren's Shore (she never goes too close, water is... it's own being, frightening). She could run all the way to the Whi Forest or to the capital city, it only it weren't surround by water. With the sun beating down on her face, Kieran's never happier. She feels free when running, like nothing ties her to this world and she could slip the leash of being if she ran fast enough. But she doesn't run to escape her life.  

[The Semblance of Unity]

How can I protect what matters most?

just a thousand foot high, way into the sky, was a pillar of smoke full of song

POWERS - mainly support/defensive
Smokescreen: Kieran can produce a substantial amount of smoke and outwardly 'push' it from herself. This reduces visibility drastically and can cause respiratory distress in those who stay too long in the smoke. However, the larger the area Kieran tries to cover, the thinner the smoke-cloud becomes.
Tar Baby: Kieran can manifest the tar used to fuel burning tar pits in small beads across her skin. These drops spread to cover her entirely, creating a protective barrier that slows weapons and reduces damage to her.
Ash Breath: When Kieran is wounded, she can breathe a small burst of heated smoky air onto the wound which burns away any foreign objects or infections. This power works on no one else. NOTE: It does -not- actually heal the wounds, merely get rid of anything in the wound that is not of her original nature.
Flashover: A thick wave of smoke is produced and centers directly around the target. With just a spark, the entire mass ignites briefly, causing burns to the targeted area. (Kieran cannot produce that spark except by using a match, etc.)
[Course, this is alllll up to chrysi and bp, yo dawgs]








TRAITS
Oxidization: Kieran tends to leave small traces of soot on everything she touches. Luckily, these trace-marks disappear after about an hour.
Smoke-ring: She can produce and manipulate small amounts of smoke. Usually, this only annoys those she's with.
Smoulder: Kieran always smells of smoke. Good, lovely, woodsmoke, but smoke nonetheless. Oddly enough, she also gives off faint smoke as well. Not much, but the smoke is definitely present.
Vaporize: Kieran becomes intangible, like smoke, when over-set by strong emotions or by concentrating rather fiercely. However, becoming fully intangible cause seizures when she is a child. (May lessen as Kieran grows older into perhaps bad migraines?)


[requesting suggestions/crits about traits as well~]  

[The Semblance of Unity]

Oooh you touch my guardian

my ding ding dong

Name: Eli Haddock
Age: 32
Birthday: September 23
Gender: Male

☆ Occupation: Accountant (he doesn't really need the money, but he gets bored without work. Currently: part-time at a few different shops. Ex: he goes to pick up the week's paperwork once a week, takes it home to sort and returns it all corrected and neat when he picks up the next week's bills and papers. Ventures out fairly regularly four times a week. Offers math tutoring to anybody who wants to learn. He just wants everyone to love numbers too! (also teaches wood carving? thoughts, anyone?)

☆ Appearance: Eli pretty much towers over most people. He's 6'5" with a big, slightly lopsided grin to go with his lopsided nose (broken, once, his only tavern fight). He tries to slick back his black hair but it keeps wildly going on and at least one bit of hair will always fall forward over his bushy brows. When his hair gets a little long, it curls right at his collar and aggravates him immensely. His ale-brown eyes have a bit of a hawkish squint to them, possibly because he stares at numbers all day long. Despite this, he doesn't wear glasses. He thinks he doesn't really need them anyway.
Even though he has a fairly sedentary job, Eli is not flabby. He walks and jogs near (but not too awful close) the woods or on the beach quite often. He has lean muscles from where his father used to make him help with house expansions back home. {and boy, oh boy, his father never got tired of adding to the family home)
Eli, while he might never be considered on the edge of fashion, is a rather well-dressed gentleman when he's working or venturing outside. He prefers green clothing and vests with a white, high collared shirt underneath. Outside of that, he just lounges around in whatever is comfy and clean. He dislikes wearing a shirt while at home.
[x?]
[x?]

show spoilerhide spoiler

UH IDEK MAYBE WIP LOL MANGA STYLEEEE

☆ Personality:
gregarious | organized | distracted

Eli is a very sociable man. He likes talking with anyone who comes by and often seeks out interaction. Humans are fickle creatures, Eli knows this, and he hates that fickleness, that lack of steadfastness. Why isn't there someone out there like a number: never-changing, constant? When Eli gets downhearted by the people around him or lack thereof, numbers are there. 2 + 2 is always four, and sometimes he clings to that truth like it's his only rock against the world.
His heart's been broken so many times; Eli likes to believe he's built an impenetrable wall around it, but he's weak. There's no wall. Eli is as open to hurting as he ever was, but perhaps slightly more cynical about it. He's a very open man in general, and finds it difficult to keep secrets or build barriers between him and others.
As such, he finds it very easy to make friends, but not keep them. Keeping friends and lovers is an effort he's still unfamiliar with. If someone had ever drawn him in like his work did, then maybe. But it's so easy to put people by the wayside until he needs them again. He's as much a hypocrite as anyone.
But with Kieran involved, sometimes he finds himself making an effort. It's confusing. Kieran is the epitome of the things he's despised in so many, that fickle, swaying type of person who is only a reflection of someone else. But as Kieran shifts and sways herself to mold around the people around her, sometimes Eli fancies that he can see the core of her, still remaining the same, like a number around which different algorithms float gracefully. Despite that, sometimes he wishes she wasn't there. It's a lot of work to have someone relying on you and he's never been good at it. But his resentment is small and although it's hard for him to adjust, he's trying. And maybe Kieran is just the thing he needs to become a better person.

☆ Likes:
-puns
-true love (though he said he's stopped believing in it)
-walks
-classical music
-numbers & statistics (your odds of dying from your nightie catching fire and melting are 1 in 592,829, by the way)
-rain
-carpentry/carving

☆ Dislikes:
-trains (the odds of dying in transport are 1 in 77!)
-really sunny days
-his most recent ex
-dogs

☆ History:
Born and raised there, Eli will always remember Faleen with fondness. He had a fairly uneventful childhood, although his parents (Henry and Stasia) despaired that he never had an aptitude for anything but numbers and woodwork. Eli's parents were loving and attentive to their children. Although they had an arranged marriage, his mother and father actually fell in love. Despite trying for years, they only had one other child, Angharad. His family had become quite well known in Faleen, so Eli's father insisted both children learn to use a short staff effectively. Eli often skipped lessons to work on numbers; as a result, he is out of practice. It didn't help that Eli's father often pulled him away from his lovely numbers to help build on the ever expanding house. However, when Eli grew, he joined his father's company as an accountant.
As soon as Eli was old enough to look at girls, his mother began thrusting girl after girl at him. She only wanted the best for him, though. And if her and her husband had found love, why shouldn't Eli? He was more likely to find that love if he had a lot of options, right?
Girlfriend count: 2
When Eli turned 25, his mother contrived to have him sent to her homeland, Helena. Ah, Helena, where everyone can find true love. His father aided his mother in moving him out by transferring him to the company branch in Helena. Henry could never resist his pretty little wife.
In Helena, Eli lived an average life, picking up carving and whittling as a hobby. He continued to pursue girls, both a habit ingrained in him by his mother and.. well, Eli really did want the happiness his parents had. His height and outgoing personality made it easy for him to find girls, but he could never keep them. Often, he would become engrossed in work and ignore his lover of the moment for so long that she dumped him. His last relationship had lasted for a year before Eli discovered her perfidious ways: she was cheating on him with his co-worker. When confronted, she claimed he would have noticed long before if he'd only taken his eyes off of his numbers to look at her. Disgusted with both himself and his ex, Eli decided it was time to move on.
Girlfriend count: 11
He chose Aimes almost on a whim. While in Helena, he missed the sound of the sea and the towering forests. Here, he could have both and live the rest of his life alone, like he deserved. Eli settled in a nice cottage along Siren's Shore, not far from the Deith forest. He easily found a job working for a few shops in Aimes doing the bookkeeping. When he's not working, he whittles and makes furniture.
After his move, Eli decided to swear off women forever (lol good luck with that), but he can't quite give up the idea of the ultimate happiness shared by two people. Dejected and lonely, he debated getting a fish for some company at least. Fortunately for him, he found Kieran first.


☆ Family:

Henry - (58) Married Stasia when he was 24 in an arranged marriage. Henry's father held much train stock and owned the largest train-wheel manufacturing company. This was all passed down to Henry when he was 30, when his father passed, leaving him without blood relatives. Since Eli showed no interest (Angharad no aptitude) for taking over the business, Aralbeth and Lissar are currently Henry's heirs to the company. However, if he were to pass, both of his children would retain the majority of stock in the company.

Stasia - (50) Her family hails from Helena and are grain transporters. In exchange for her hand, the Haddock family bequeathed Stasia's father with some of their train stock. Stasia took Eli and Angharad occasionally to Helena to visit her family.

Angharad - (20) Eli's little sister is very bright and was sent to the northern island of Faleen at the age of 6 to study. She's a bit tomboyish, but Stasia hoped school would instill some ladylike qualities. Eli sometimes writes Angharad letters, generally if she writes one first.

---------------------------------------------------Surka
-------------------------------------------------------|
------------------------------------------------------m------------Lissar
-------------------------------------------------------|
------------------------------------|--------------Aralbeth
Mirasol-----------------------------|
-----|------------------------------|
-----|------------------------------|-------------Tor (deceased)
----m------------------------------|
-----|------------------------------|
-----|------------------------------|--------------Galanna
Corlath (deceased)-----------------|
------------------------------------|---------------Stasia
--------------------------------------------------------|------------|------------Angharad
-------------------------------------------------------m------------|
--------------------------------------------------------|------------|-------- Eli
----------------------------------------------------Henry  

[The Semblance of Unity]

Extra bits? Yay!

extraextra extra crunchy bit

RP IDEAS/NOTES OF INTEREST
❶ Bottle Finding solos
in the old chimney flue of Eli's not-so-new cottage. He cleans it after it smokes up his house. It bonks him on the head.
It was one of those clear,sharp.mustless days
that summer and man delight in

❷ Kieran's Self-Worth see 'vague coherent plotting' section solos
multiple rps where Kieran doubts herself and her self-assigned 'purpose' of helping
suicidal tendencies in that direction, as she's not meant to exist by her standards of belief

❸ Eli's Side Jobs other players needed for this plot
side jobs = math tutor
but don't forget, he goes into town a lot for his accounting job too

❹ Eli isdumb and Ladies other players needed for this plot solos
Eli's still dumb and hits on new ladies, but rather despondently
engage in flirtations with other guardians, etc
Kieran's reaction to that

❺ Kieran's Appearance other players needed for this plot solos
Kieran does not look natural. How do people react to her? It must be very lonely; the people of Aimes are not truly ready for dusts.
Bad reaction from normal people - Kieran still wants to help everyone.
But will they let her?
first appearance of intangible ability!


❻ ❼ ❽ ❾
VAGUE COHERENT PLOTTING- please read at least the beginning note under the spoiler tag. NOW EVEN MORE COHERENT!

show spoilerhide spoiler

PLEASE NOTE: suicide is something Kieran thinks about, but never truly acts on. As much as she questions her right to live, she likes living. The struggle is her justifying her own life when she truly believes she should not exist.

Kieran would have a vague knowledge of her purpose from the beginning - born as she is, in basic essence, a type of air entity, anything whispered through the years could have been instilled in her. While young, she would not truly understand what this meant. But gradually the knowledge would surface, perhaps in recurring nightmares, triggering her to begin violently questioning herself and her natural inclination to help humans.
Not full knowledge, not specifics of Ozara's demons, but that Dusts were created for the purpose of helping humans for some greater objective.
If not born with it, Kieran does become a bit religious fairly quickly. In this case, she could find some texts and hear rumors over time and begin to piece together the reality of what she is. (I do prefer her to realize partial knowledge within herself, rather than have it from an outlying source.)

However, this leads to Kieran thinking that she shouldn't even exist because she is 'created' for the purpose of assisting humans. In that, while no one should create demons to destroy, no one should create Dusts to help.

In the end, I was planning on her reconciling herself that as long as demons do exist, she must exist. But as if the demons were to ever leave or be eradicated, then she should be as well.
But before she can reconcile that however, severe self-doubt and suicidal tendencies appear, especially during the period where Kieran does not really know of the demons' existence. Why were Dusts created to help the humans? Everything should progress naturally. Yet while she thinks this, she has difficulty because it is her natural urge to help and make things better for humans and she cannot figure out why.

The feeling of not having a true right to exist can be intense.
but it does not define Kieran.
It's not the main issue of the dust, but a catalyst to becoming who she will be. And yes, grow and rise above it, while still keeping the core of 'when the work is done, the demons gone, I should be gone as well'.

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(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
┬─┬ ノ( ゜-゜ノ)
(　-_･)σ - - - - - - - - ･
ε=ε=ε=ε=ε=ε=┌(;￣◇￣)┘
♒((⇀‸↼))♒
♪(´ε｀ )
ლ(´ڡ`ლ)
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(｡´ ‿｀♡)
¯(º_o)/¯

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

Enscribe your travels, your trials, your blood

I know it don't matter but Imma keepin' track 8V


[ORP] - Open RolePlay || [PRP] - Private RolePlay || [SOLO] - Journal Solo
[prog] - In Progress || [FIN] - Complete || [ina] - Inactive
[Brown] - Required || [Orange] - Meta
oldest roleplays at bottom

『 〄 Pre-Bottle 』
xxxxx☞ [ORP]/[FIN] The Wintertide Festival 〆Nolan, Tesla, Odell, Magnolia

Eli attends his first festival in Aimes. Tesla helps him uncover more about the dusts.

xxxxx☞ [PRP]/[prog] Myths and Legends 〆Friday & Lemon

Eli literally runs in Friday at the library. He first learns of Dusts.