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Messenger of Magic Captain
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 Posted: Mon May 07, 2012 12:27 am
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Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2012 10:23 pm
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Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2012 10:29 pm
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_ _ _ ___________________________________________________ _ _
Name: Meridith Banes "Meri"
Color: "Indigo"
Age: 11
Nationality: Mostly of Scandinavian descent, Meridith's blood is predominantly Icelandic from her mother's side and Welsh from her father's side.
Home/Financial Status: A two floor house in Apple District / Average, middle class
School: Teufel Middle School
 Personality:
At first glance, Meridith Banes is a quiet girl, speaking only when spoken to and with the manners of a true prince. How could anyone expect different, though, when she is the daughter of an English Professor and a Coast Guard? She's grown up in a very serious environment, unable to convince her parents to play imagination with her for very long before she realized and accepted the fact that they were both too busy to keep up with her. Meri understood at an early age that she was to take care of herself, but she still can't help trying to appease her parents, which she attempts by emulating them, as if to validate her own adulthood and join them. She appeases her mother by doing her very best in school, which she's proven by skipping a grade and giving herself early entry to Middle School. She excels in spelling and grammar, as well as literature and comprehension, and is known for never backing down from raising her hand in class and providing quiet competition in every field, whether or not she's confident. She's learned to be humble, knowing that her success is attributed only to the hard work she's given, and she never flaunts or brags about her standings except by the posting of her good grades on the refrigerator at home, alongside the bad grades she's earned too. However, this ambitious and quiet way she's undertaken her studies have done little to earn her many friends, and frankly, Meridith doesn't quite notice or care that other students dodge her in the hallways or pick her last in games. She has her Sophie, and Sophie is all the world to Meridith. She doesn't believe that she needs anyone else. So to other students, she comes off as standoffish and snobby, as someone who can't seem to lower her standards. Meridith is aware that she's hard pressed at interacting with her age group, and she finds it much easier to interact with others who are older and others who are younger than herself. When she's not around Sophie, Meridith is quiet and studious, a rather serious little girl, but when she's with other adults, she's eager to impress, although speaking politely and offering her help in order to prove herself is pretty much the extent of her liveliness.
However, Meridith isn't completely devoted towards being a little adult. It's only when she's around Sophie that she completely forgets her demure self and loses herself to the exciting role of a Prince in action, laughing aloud and moving with energy, enjoying the thrill of make believe. She's practically a normal, lively and fun loving girl around Sophie, who brings out the child in her. She has a wealth of imagination, which she draws from old books borrowed from her mother's library. While she adores every book that comes into her possession, Meridith's favorite is shared with Sophie, the world and stories revolving around King Arthur. She adores playing imagination, which was the focus of her young life before she realized her parents would no longer play with her. When her parents were too busy to even watcher her when she came home, she would either go to daycare, where she would read books, or, since Sophie moved in, join Sophie at her house for the evening until her tired parents came home. This is a happy arrangement for Meridith. With Sophie, she's able to jump into the worlds of the books she so admires, she's able to see dragons and play pretend and actually become a Prince (which she is according to Sophie because of her look and dress, the aesthetics, and nothing else besides. Meridith doesn't believe that because she's a girl she has to wear pink dresses and ponytails and she would rather wear what she wants than be pressured into fitting a stereotype, which is again the kind of independence and free thinking encouraged by her mother). There is nothing else that can make Meridith as happy as she is when she's playing pretend with her Princess. It's between these two worlds, of being a child and of being an adult, that Meridith finds herself inextricably torn.
Despite knowing the royal meaning behind it, it's simply coincidence that Meridith's favorite color is purple and every variation of, though she chooses not to wear it as much as she admires tiny objects that she can hide and keep on her person, little trinkets of her favorite color like stones or plastic jewels. Otherwise, Meri chooses neutral and natural tones, especially when it comes to her dress, which she is allowed full control over. Her mom trusts and encourages her to make decisions on her own, which Meri does with the knowledge that by doing so she is being independent, which actually leads to one of the only ways that Meridith expresses anything else but gentility and duty: anger and frustration. Because she is a young and growing adult, Meri collects and accepts all guilt when something goes wrong, blaming it on herself in private tirades she conducts by screaming into her pillow or hiding away in the attic of her house for days. When Meri is accused of being a child or being "too old to play pretend", she takes it very personally, and often stiffens up and throws up a spluttered defense, even when she knows very well that playing pretend is proof of the accusation. On her more daring and frustrating attempts of proving her adulthood, Meridith will make her own lunch, her own emergency kit, and venture out into the suburban wilderness to prove that she can survive on her own in the city, which is another way of saying that she simply runs away. In the end, Meridith realizes that she's not actually proving her adulthood, but proving her childishness, and skulks back home. Despite this epiphany happening several times, Meridith keeps giving into the tactic, under the impression that next time, she won't realize that she's a child because she'll have finally proved herself capable.
All in all, it is that sense of independence that encourages Meridith to take action and to step up to the plate when duty calls, to become the adult in a child's game. She may be soft spoken and distant, but she is a Prince whose task is to defend the weak and protect the innocent, and make her Princess Sophie smile.
Appearance:
While small for her age, Meridith is 11 going on 60, and already looks like quite the adult. Instead of girly clothes, Meri has adopted the proper clothing for a bookworm such as herself, sweater vests and trousers, and button up shirts, which she finds comfortable and reminiscent of her mother's teaching outfit, as well as similar to the clothes her father wears when he's not in uniform. To Meri, the clothes she wears are just as same as having both her parents with her at all times. While Meri is a mommy's girl, she also has an unabashed admiration for her father, who inspired her to cut her thick lavender hair into a short and fluffy bob which has quickly lost it's shape. With all the reading and running around she does with Sophie, it's easier for Meri to take care of her hair when it's short. Not only that, but it does make her look more the part of a prince, a duty she takes very seriously for Princess Sophie, even if she's teased at school by other children who express confusion whenever she steps into the girl's bathroom. Around her shoulders is strapped a leather satchel, given to her by her mother, who acknowledged the fact that Meri was constantly loaning books from her own personal library to take with her and read to Sophie and, at the same time, needed a way to carry them when she was defending the kingdom. She has soulful Indigo eyes, as gentle and as earnest as any fairytale prince, and she hardly ever gives anything more than a soft smile unless she's with her princess, where she's able to laugh and grin without shame.
_ _ _ ___________________________________________________ _ _ |
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Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2012 10:30 pm
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_ _ _ ___________________________________________________ _ _
History:
Elen Olvirsson and Theodore Banes met in a non-conventional way involving a last minute Search and Rescue mission and an overturned kayak. When Theodore pulled Elen up from the waves and first looked into her eyes, he was struck, and Elen, having come face to face with a real life hero, decided that she had ended her search for a potential mate. After the rescue, Theodore kept in touch with Elen, wooing her and inviting her out to dinner on the beach or involving her with his work, always referring to the date as another "Search and Rescue Mission" since he would have to save her from drowning in paperwork from her new position as a teacher at the local college. Their courting went on for a couple years before eventually Theodore proposed from hanging on a helicopter's rope ladder one bright spring evening on the campus lawn after Elen had dragged herself from a late day at the office. Thus began their life together, and not too soon afterwards did Elen give birth to little Meridith, named after her favorite poet and author, George Meredith. With Theodore's salary, they were able to buy a spacious two story home for their new family in the heart of Apple District, which was both near Elen's work, Theodore's work, and close enough for young Meridith to walk to school. There was the added benefit of being close to a park as well, with a playground and swings. As far as the family was concerned, everything was going along perfectly.
Young Meridith, however, was having a bit of a problem getting accustomed to elementary school. She didn't have the greatest of health when she was growing up, often getting sick or suffering for weeks from chicken pox, or collecting every other ailment known to afflict young children, which meant that Meridith was often away from school. Instead of developing friendships, Meridith was developing relationships with books, her constant companions. Her appetite for textbooks and storybooks, novels especially, was not only encouraged by her parents, but advanced by them when they took turns taking days off from work to watch over her, which meant that Meridith had an easy time at school since her parents worked that much harder at making sure she passed despite her horrible attendance. While they had money enough to provide for a caretaker, Theodore preferred that, as parents, he and his wife should be the ones to take care of their ailing daughter instead of some stranger. In order to accomplish this, they made the appropriate sacrifices when Meridith was younger in order to make sure that Meridith had a parent with her when she was ill. Though, this way of thinking kind of backfired because it was also then, during those days when her parents were there for her, that they really wouldn't be there, distracted and hard at work, and Meridith soon learned to be independent. Since her parents would pull overtime or bring their work home in order to watch over her when she was ill, they were often glued to their work at a table while Meri laid bundled in a couch nearby with a Kleenex box within reach. This was no trouble to Meridith, though. She knew what she had to do. Guilty from her poor health, Meridith took it upon herself to take her own medicine, discover what she was ill with according to textbooks(making her into a young hypochondriac, for in the near future, she would always anticipate and dread being ill and often found any little sneeze or hiccup an excuse to worry and obsess over the onset of illness), and take the proper measures to ensure her health, as well as make her own dinner and organize a schedule for her day. Thankfully, Meridith grew out of the infections and the sicknesses, allowing her to attend school in a regular fashion come second grade and join the other students, but by then, Meridith had become so independent, that she completely forgot about making friends. She had her books, and when she was asked or spoken to, she would speak politely and earnestly and leave it at that. Her energy went completely to imagining the worlds of her stories.
It was in the third grade that her mother noticed her daughter's lack of friends and decided to take her along to introduce Meridith to the new next door neighbors and their young daughter. At first, Meridith was simply polite and unassuming, aching to return back to home to read up on the Lady of the Lake, when she overheard Sophie introducing herself as a princess. This caught Meri's attention. Asking her about her interest in princesses, Meridith soon discovered that Sophie had only a basic working knowledge of the realm of fantasy and majesty. Determined to shed light on the wonderful worlds in her books, Meri took it upon herself to read aloud every one of her favorite books to Sophie, who was more than eager to listen. Of course, it was Sophie who took it one step further, when she introduced her to the realm of imagination and crowned Meridith as the Prince of the land. From the point that Meridith was able to see Sophie as the princess she pretended to be, no, the princess she was, she was convinced that Sophie and her would be together as friends forever, just like in the storybooks. Together, they walked to school, played with one another at break and recess, and walked back home, spending their free time together whenever they conceivably could. Meri would help Sophie with her homework, making it her duty to help improve Sophie's spelling and grammar, and in return she would receive drawings from Sophie depicting them in their magical kingdom, also known as the park playground, which Meridith has organized on cork boards in her bedroom, prizing each drawing as a masterpiece. Their activities together ranged from blanket forts to cardboard box villages and capes made out of towels and safety pins. Imagination reigned supreme.
Prince Meridith and Princess Sophie, from that point on, became the best of friends, inseparable, happy, and lost in their world of imagination.
...Until the night that Theodore and Elen began screaming at one another behind closed doors.
It started happening during the end of fifth grade, just when Meridith was finishing her applications for advanced placement in her classes and skipping a grade into Middle School. There was yelling from downstairs late in the night when Theodore returned from a hard day at work. Even though she was sitting on the stairwell, hidden from the view of the kitchen, she could just barely make out the gist of the conversation. Her parents didn't love each other anymore. Her father blamed her mother for loving her work more than she did him and her mother blamed him for seemingly have only pretended to love her for the past five years. It was all fake between them, someone was lying, someone was playing pretend. Meri hoped that the argument would stop there, that they would say sorry and forget about it the next day, but these tense arguments would crop up from that point on as her parents made snarky comments at each other, as they brought artifacts from their loving past to one another and demand more solid proof than just these objects. Meridith once tried to get herself involved between her parents, to stop them from yelling at one another, but her presence soon became a way to blame and belittle the other parent, thinking that Meridith was being used by the other parent to garner pity or blame. Meridith learned quickly that she was not to get involved and she hid herself away in her house, staining her book pages with tears whenever the screaming escalated into slamming doors and roaring cars. Elen took to weeping with her friend, and Sophie's mom, Chloe, begging her to take care of Meridith the nights that something was happening back at the Banes' home. Meridith enjoyed the reprieve, but she still couldn't help but dwell on the fact that she was there with Sophie because she couldn't do anything for her parents. Meridith's father wouldn't come home for longer and longer periods of time. Eventually, he didn't come back home at all, and Meridith sat with her mother at her desk as she wept. The divorce papers had gone through. Now it was just Meridith and her mother, and Meridith took it upon herself to become the adult of the house, washing dishes, doing laundry, cleaning the house, and even making dinner for her mom (which consisted of meals easy enough for her to attempt, like macaroni and cheese and pancakes). Elen became just as involved with her work as she was before, straining to pull the weight of the family now that she was a single mom. At school, Meridith became even more quiet and antisocial, choosing to be by herself with a book in some remote part of the campus, especially now that she was at the Middle School and away from Sophie's help. Even when she was with Sophie, there was no helping, because Meridith was still distracted and hurt by the events at home, haunted by the illusion of love between her parents and the hurt that it caused between them. It was also then, on one fateful day when she hoped to escape away to their kingdom of make believe, that Meridith realized she could no longer see the shining castle, nor could she see her princess. She lost the ability to pretend, gave up in it, once she discovered it to be the cause of the rift between her parents. For Sophie's sake, she tried her hardest to pretend playing pretend, but even that couldn't last for long. Sophie could tell that her Prince was suffering and that she had lost the ability to see their world of imagination, and Meridith was terrified of pretending with Sophie like her parents pretended with one another.
_ _ _ ___________________________________________________ _ _ |
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Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2012 10:31 pm
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_ _ _ ___________________________________________________ _ _ _
Home/Financial Status: A two floor house in Apple District / Average, middle class
This is Meri's castle, her kingdom. Her room is in the attic, which has been converted into a bright room for her, complete with four sky lights, and a kid sized bed, surrounded by book shelves. At the other side of her room is a desk, which she spends most of her time when she's not curled up in a hammock for reading. On her walls are pinned many drawings and pictures by herself and Sophie, tributes to their glorious reign. She climbs up and down to her room by the way of a rope ladder, which she can tie up and keep to herself should she desire solitude. She also has a walkie talkie stationed near her bed on one of the book shelves, directly connected with Sophie.
_ _ _ ___________________________________________________ _ _ _
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Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2012 10:37 pm
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_ _ _ ___________________________________________________ _ _ _
Family: Mother - Elen Banes - 38 - College English Professor Color - VioletFor Elen, up until the divorce, she had achieved everything she wanted in life. She had not only a good looking husband, but a man who could keep up with her dizzying intellect, and a smart little girl, whose boundless imagination proceeded her intelligence. She loves her job, finding nothing better than inspiring young adults to think in new ways about literature. She maintains the house and does the chores, on top of grading papers and keeping up with school work, which has left her weary and irritable, though she's able to keep herself sane by talking with her close friend and neighbor Chloe. When she has the time, she likes to take trips to the coast, and her favorite hobby is kayaking at sea. Father - Theodore Banes - 41 - United States Coast Guard (Search and Rescue) Color - PurpleA hardworking man dedicated to his job, Theodore has a hard time separating his work from his life. He is built and ruggedly handsome, a fact that he takes pride in. He looks like he jumped out of the movie Top Gun in his younger years. Once upon a time, he was able to love both his family and his work, coming home to talk jovially with his wife and cuddle with her while they took turns reading from their favorite book. He used to play pretend with his daughter, crawling about on his hands and knees as the sea dragon Meri defended her blanket castle from. However, with his recent promotion, he's become more involved with work, leaving very little time for his family, who he feels doesn't understand the sacrifices he's making in order to support them. _ _ _ ___________________________________________________ _ _ _
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Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2012 10:44 pm
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_ _ _ ___________________________________________________ _ _ _
Weapon: Rapier Type of Magic: Illusion based magic, meant to protect, divert, or defend, Meridith would use her magic like she would use her imagination, calling forth literary figures, places, events, and objects into being within her sight and for varying degrees of time. (Basically, something like Schmendrick the Magician's magic, i.e. the Robin Hood parade in the forest). Her strength would lie in her Magic attributes rather than her Physical ones, though she would have enough to be able to hold her own and defend her Princess should the need arise. Of her physical attributes, she would be more quick and dexterous than anything else, combined with her intelligence, a strategist before a fighter, though sheer strength would be hard to ask of her. _ _ _ ___________________________________________________ _ _ _
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Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2012 10:51 pm
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