Zephyr's Characters ~ Profiles and Backstory

[zephyr]

Name: Brona Brennan
Gender: female
Age: 26
Companion to: n/a
Magic Affinity/Skills: water/empathy

Background/world/era from: Both she and her sister are Irish-Americans, from modern America

Physical Description: She has the frame of a sturdy girl - tall, with large hands, wide hips and shoulders, and a long face with a squared, strong jaw, but her long invalid state has left her thin, almost gaunt. Her muscles are thin and atrophied; she's not very feminine, almost horsey-faced. Before the accident she was muscular as her twin, majoring in equestrian studies, until a riding accident went sour and left her paralyzed. She has freckles to match her twin, though they've faded in the artificial light of her hospital room. Her hair is a non-descript mousy brown, shoulder length and fine, with a tendency to collect static. Her 'redeeming feature', often overlooked, is her eyes - simply defined as hazel. More complexly, they were woodland eyes - a ring of warm amber, blending into the green of a shaded forest near the pupil. They were framed by her most feminine feature - thick, long, and naturally curling lashes.

Personality: While she's never had the passion of her sister, she had one overwhelming passion: riding horses. Outside the ring, however, she is quiet and bookish, unsure and awkward with her large frame and large hands. Books are an easy and convenient way to hide. She is - was - sensitive to distress in others, but everything changed when her horse slipped and rolled - with her still on her back, and she felt something snap. When she realised she was paralysed - would never ride again, she didn't fight to stay concious. She let herself sink into a dreamy, detatched, apathetic state. She tries hard to not think about Neely.

Brief Bio: As children, Brona and Neely were raised by a hard-working single mother. When they were 20, she died from an unexpected complication in what should have been a relatively simple medical procedure. The twins were in college at the time; Neely dropped out and started working, so Brona could finish her degree in Equestrian studies. A month before Brona was to graduate, though, her horse slipped and rolled/fell on her, and left her a paraplegic. She was briefly conscious before bruising in her cranium sunk her into a coma. Ever since, she floats in a dream state, longing to be something more than a broken body, but after all this time she's pretty much given up. Then her spirit-self finds her way to a world where unicorns roam, but she thinks she's still dreaming.

[zephyr]

Name: Niala 'Neely' Brennan
Gender: female
Age: 26
Companion to: n/a
Magic Affinity/Skills: Eventually, water/healing. She has a deep desire to heal, from watching her sister wither without a cure for years.

Background/world/era from: Both she and her sister are Irish-Americans, from modern America

Physical Description: Study built, tall, with large hands, wide hips and shoulders, and a long face with a squared, strong jaw, she's not very feminine, almost horsey-faced. She's muscular and spends as much time as she can spare out-of-doors, adding to the freckles spread over her cheeks and nose. Her hair is a non-descript mousy brown, shoulder length and fine, with a tendency to collect static. Her 'redeeming feature', often overlooked, is her eyes - simply defined as hazel. More complexly, they were woodland eyes - a ring of warm amber, blending into the green of a shaded forest near the pupil. They were framed by her most feminine feature - thick, long, and naturally curling lashes.

Personality: Neely is courage and passion, not reckless - simply not afraid. Afraid for herself, that is. She'd suffer anything for her sister's sake, and chafes that she can't allieviate her sister's condition in any way. She prefers being outdoors, but if she has a goal and a reason, she'll lock herself and study like mad. It's her normal inclination to take things head on - but she also knows life isn't that easy. She's not cynical - she refuses to give up on her sister - but she's learned the hard way that sometimes the best you can do isn't enough.

Brief Bio: As children, Brona and Neely were raised by a hard-working single mother. When they were 20, she died from an unexpected complication in what should have been a relatively simple medical procedure. The twins were in college at the time; Neely dropped out and started working, so her twin could keep attending university. A month before Brona was to graduate, though, she was involved in an accident that left her a paraplegic. She was briefly conscious before bruising in her cranium sunk her into a coma. Ever since, Neely has struggled to believe her sister will wake up again someday, and tries to visit her every day after work, helping the nurses care for her in any way she can. Someday, she'd like to go to med school, so she can help her sister and others like it, but she knows she can't afford it.

[zephyr]

Lost in dreams, I heard my name -
Summoned by the one called Rhaine
Why am I called to Kalidore?
Given hope, whence none before -
But is there magic enough in the world
To heal a lost and broken girl?

Wind caresses, Fire can warm -
Earth my flesh, water my harm.
The Daiga has set me to a test -
To love, with no heart in my chest.
To feel, without the sense of touch -
How can numbness ache so much?

Now here I am, far from home,
Reft of touch and made of loam;
No heart within, no skin without,
I harbor a deep, consuming doubt -
Am I human? Am I ghoul?
Do I still possess a soul?

Beep.....Beep.....Beeep.....

The hospital room was noisy, filled with the mechanical sounds of the various monitors and life support machines. The girl hooked up to them was large and gangly, her thin arms and legs with their large hands and feet a testament to lack of weight and muscle tone. Her face seemed bruised, the freckled skin stretched over a strong, square, almost horsy face; her nose was faintly snubbed, and long dark lashes brushed her cheeks. Her hair was a non-descript mousy brown; were she standing it would brush her shoulders, just long enough to be tied back, but now it was spread across the pillow. It was smooth and untangled; she never moved to disturb it.

Her lips were slack around a breathing pipe that kept her chest lifting in completely mechanised timing. Beneath her translucent lids, her eyes were unmoving as if to say that though she appeared sleeping, she never dreamed.

A nurse bustled in to check the machines and to renew the IV hanging next to the bed, retrieving the clipboard hanging at the foot of the patient's bed. She chattered as she marked off different boxes, monitoring things like weight, heart rate and blood pressure, and brain activity. "Well Brona, it looks like you've lost another pound - you're officially supermodel-skinny now. We'll have to get some weight back on you, though!"

Another nurse joined the first, rolling her eyes the first's chatter. "She's a vegetable, she can't hear you. She hasn't had any brain activity - they should just unhook her and let her go. There are plenty of people with a chance of recovering who could use that bed."

"Why are you even a nurse if that's how you talk about your patients?" The new voice, hot with suppressed anger, might have well been a 'what if' of the girl on the bed - she was the pink of health, with matching mousy brown hair and identical face, and long lashes framing hazel eyes that were a duplicate of the girl's in the bed.

"My patients," the second nurse ground out, "are those who are actually alive."

"Get out!" Her fists clenched with uncontrolled emotion and she actually trembled. "My twin is NOT DEAD. She's alive somewhere in there, I know it. I'd feel it if she was actually gone. I'd.....I'd know it, for sure." Her voice went from a shout to a hoarse whisper, and she moved over to the bed, where she pushed her sister's covering blanket aside and began assisting the first nurse with slowly manipulating the patient's limbs in a war against atrophy.

But her eyes still snapped fire and rage. "Leave. I don't trust my sister in your - care." Her tone made it extremely clear what she thought of her 'care'.

Shrugging, the second nurse left, leaving the two sisters and the first nurse. They shared a glance, a spark of determination, and then focused on their work, chattering about everyday life, the sort that the girl in the bed had been incapable of experiencing for the past 4 years.


Beep.....Beep.....Beep.....

Brona's heart struggled weakly to set its own rhythm against the machine - unknowingly trying to match the one strongly beating in the chest of her sister, Neela. Neela was right, she was still in there - somewhere, but her mind was roaming, escaping the medical prison of her own body - escaping to dreams. Dreams of stars, and flowers, - and beautiful, proud, intelligent unicorns.