all the ashes in my wake;

Name: Cheryl
Age: 23
Contact: chaoticasphyxia [at] plurk.
Characters Already in Teleios: N/A
Reserve: here

Character Name: Scarlett Langford
Journal: unburies.dreamwidth.org
Age: 19.
Universe: Riftverse
Canon Point: Endgame, but she’s technically been dead over two years.
Debt:

Class A: 0 years.
Class B: 45 years. (numerous instances of assault, theft and burglary/breaking and entering)
Class C: 238 years, 2 months. (instances of bullying, car jacking, disorderly conduct, harassment, indecent exposure, joyriding, property damage, reckless driving, substance abuse, traumatising your loved ones, torture, underage drinking, using abilities to mess with people and vandalism)

• Bullying someone into a fight.
• Psychological torture.

GRAND TOTAL: 283 years, 2 months.

Setting:

If you’re unfortunate to fall through one of the many Rifts into Chicago, you’re thrown into a word of chaos and all those within the city desperately trying to survive for another day. Sometimes it’s people that are spat out the Rift, sometimes items or monsters – something the instabilities of the Rift cause supernatural disasters, devastating the city over and over.

As well as this, Chicago is home to demons and angels – two warring species, the two sides of the coin, good and evil – pitted against one another to fight until the end of time. But these demons and angels were one humans and these days, ‘good’ and ‘evil’ doesn’t seem so straightforward anymore. Demons, angels, werewolves, vampires, supernatural humans and wanderers all fight in an ongoing war, trying to survive, love and live.

Or it did, until the universe imploded and became no more.

History:

Scarlett was born in Northampton, England to a demon father, known as a Glaysa Labolas with the ability to manipulate emotions in others, and a Human mother. She was an only child. Her father was well-trained with his powers and had actually manipulated her mother into loving and marrying him. Things were happy in Scarlett’s life for a long time, she was spoilt and the apple of her father’s eye. That was until her Mother eventually found out about what her husband had been doing to her for so many years due to a chance slip-up and things started to get messy when Scarlett turned thirteen.

It was devastating for Scarlett.

Her parents divorced and her father moved to the States shortly afterwards. Scarlett and her mother moved from their home in a fairly nice middle-class neighbourhood to a poor housing estate. The divorce was largely unpleasant for Scarlett; she would often hear them arguing constantly and there was a long custody battle over her. Her mother thought it would be better if their daughter would remain with her, while her father insisted she would be better off with him – claiming that her mother wouldn’t be able to cope if Scarlett turned out to be a demon when she became sixteen.

It hurt her inside to know that what was a happy home-life was now gone. She became bitter at her parents and grew to hate them both. Scarlett did hear from her Father every now and then – getting presents at Christmas and on her birthday - but their relationship wasn’t the same, strained by the distance between them. In her selfish, unhappy mind – she believed they failed to see what the pair of them were doing to their child, how unhappy they made her feel.

As a means of escape and as a way of sticking two fingers up at her parents, she began to hang around bad crowds. She became nothing more a delinquent: drinking and smoking from the age of fourteen and often dabbling in drugs. Gone were the fairly promising grades in her school career, gone was the happy, well behaved child. She would go to house parties and clubs until the early hours and generally indulging in anti-social behaviour, all for the sake of trying to get back at her parents.

When Scarlett got her wings, she became a Temeluchus, a demon of fear. She now had the ability to tempt fear in others, looking inside their minds and creating illusions to mentally torture others with. With her new-found power, she felt she could get pay-back for everything that had happened, her mother bearing the brunt of her rage. She began using her powers on her and anyone who deserved it. She’d torture her teachers if they’d scold her in class (on the rare occasions she did actually turn up), hurt people if they tried to mess around with her, even target someone who may have looked at her in a way she didn't like. It didn’t always make her feel any better, but she enjoyed doing it. It was as if she finally had some degree of control in her life. She couldn’t control the breakdown of her parents’ marriage, couldn’t control her living situation in near-poverty, but she could control this and use it for her own gain. She liked having that power to hurt others, having the ability to not be the one who was always hurt in life.

And it was true what her father had said. Scarlett’s mother couldn’t cope. After a year of torture and several arguments, she packed her daughter’s bags and sent her off to Chicago to live with her father.

Chicago… was interesting to say the least. Her father enrolled her at Looney High, although Scarlett wasn’t sure if he was following the legal requirement, or if he was just trying to get rid of her. Scarlett has already finished compulsory education back in the UK and didn’t need to study (in her eyes, anyway) but her lack of qualifications probably had something to do with getting back into the education system too.

It was there, in the first week, that she met the one person who would change (and probably fuck up) her life. And it all started over and argument about her smoking. Scarlett maintained an antagonistic relationship with Leon Warner for months; often striving to argue with him and push his buttons, finding some way to manipulate and bully him. It seemed old habits really do die hard.

The tension and anger finally bubbled over when the Rift made Scarlett spill out her darkest and deepest feelings – triggering a fight between her and Leon that ended in a brawl in the park. What Scarlett didn’t know was that Leon was simply using her. The moment a ‘thank you’ slipped out of his lips was the moment Scarlett stopped punching him, realising that he was just as messed up as what she was. She found something in that. Something she couldn’t describe; something that filled her chest with a kind of pressure she didn’t know what to do with. What had started off as such simple fighting and antagonising turned into something so much deeper. Leon became the focal point in her life, her centre. Her feeling toward him scared her off, but she always ended up going back to him. He was the one person she actually began to truly care about. It terrified her.

Chicago taught her a lot of lessons in the two years she lived there. She learned the heavy price of her Calling; how dangerous it was. She learned the devastation it caused when left unchecked. She learned both the annoyance and the dangers of the Rift. The carnage it caused as well as the countless situations it would get her in.

She learned how little her father actually cared for her. He was often out of the city on business, but whenever he came back – the fighting would start. Maybe it was too late for a relationship now. Scarlett had long resented her father for abandoning her, for ruining the family they had. She would often lash out against him. She once tried using her powers on him, and regretted it instantly. Claude Langford was an experience demon and could easily withstand the wild, weak strength of his daughter’s Calling. In return, he hit her. Then, he used his own Calling on her – and continued to do so for a long time afterwards, trying to keep her in check.

This left Scarlett quietly traumatised and she continued on her path of self-destruction. She never spoke about her father’s abuse, only continued to hate him and felt unable to leave his house. She didn’t know if it was her father or the reality – but she knew she had nowhere else to go. She buried everything deep enough, masking it with a drug habit and the heavy boozing. The various disasters she endured in Chicago only added to her trauma. She fell deep, indulging her Calling too much, pushing herself over the edge. She would often fly back home, trying to escape the city and regain some sanity for a while until the city would draw her back once more and the cycle would begin again.

She learned that those she would begin to care about would be quickly taken from her. Ford died, Peter was Rifted – it never stopped.

She had good days in Chicago, though. Some rare times when the Rift wasn’t giving her grief or her Calling wasn’t destroying her. She made connections, made friends – although she would never call them that to their faces. She respected Paz, an older demon who held herself with such control and pride – even if Scarlett didn’t always agree with her opinions on Wanderers. There was Stefan and Jonathan Crane, who saved her arse so many times she couldn’t count. Even in the good day, they were always there with sarcastic quips, floating somewhere in that morally grey area she could related to and find comfort with. Peter, always there with quiet concern in a way that her own father never had for her. He’d buy her cigarettes, even though he didn’t like it.

And then there’s Leon, there’s always Leon. Even they had some rare, brief moments where they could just act like teenagers in a hateful and chaotic world.

The world ended on June 21st 2013. Scarlett used the money Ford had left her after his death, in her panic, to buy a plane ticket for her mother to be brought over from the UK in the fortnight leading up to the impending apocalypse. As if it was some feeble attempt to glue her family back together. She couldn’t face knowing she would leave this world remaining broken, her family still divided. It seemed like it was working, for the best part.

And on that day, when it finally did all come to a close, Scarlett went rushing out onto the streets to find Leon. But the Rift’s destruction got to her first. Her death would have been a slow and painful one had it not been for Paz finding her. In those final moments, Paz offered her more comfort than she’d ever been given for most of her life and offered a mercy no one else had ever spared her – a snapped neck and a quick dispatch into the darkness of death.

Until now.

Personality:

Scarlett’s a mean little piece of work. She’s an embodiment of the sulky, spoilt teenage brat. She’s moody and prone to sulk in a childish way since she’s still an only child, especially in demon years. She’s always been allowed to get away with it in her past – so it’s a habit she’s kept throughout her teen years. Although a little on the selfish side - she doesn’t talk about herself. She doesn’t like to do ‘touchy feely’ unless forced to, or she’s reaching breaking point – and by then it’s obvious. But generally, no one really knows just what she’s thinking or how she feels inside.

She’s a delinquent through and through. Not one for obeying authority, she’s usually found with a cigarette to hand and her foul-mouth is notorious for those who know her. She can’t get through a single sentence without uttering a kind of swearword. She’s reckless, often with little regard for others and herself.

Scarlett gives off the impression that she doesn’t care about people. It’s not quite the truth. To a degree, she doesn’t. Only a few can really get her true concern and friendship. She doesn’t let them in, she struggles to. She finds it hard to trust others because she knows that relationships don’t last and sometimes they’re built on false feelings, false trust. She doesn’t want the heartbreak of losing people and finds it a waste of time to build those relationships. It takes her a long time to build up any real sort of friendship, even if she doesn’t call it a friendship. It’s more like acquaintances. She’s determined not to let anyone get really close, because no one breaks her heart. No one.

But even in the likes of Chicago, it’s hard to remain totally cut off from anyone. She’s learned that she has to build bridges and that she’s had to form relationships. She needs people in her life. Chicago’s a hard city to live alone in. She keeps herself guarded, though. Her care for others remains careful and silent; she expresses it in an awkward, hap-handed way. Her usual harsh and offensive quips soften and it almost borders on pleasant – in an unusual sort of way.

Those who get to that level of friendship with her earn an ally, one who can be vicious and violent to anyone who hurts or threatens them. In Scarlett’s eyes, only she’s allowed to mess with these people – no one else. She can brutal when people cross her, and she doesn’t necessarily need her Calling to do that either.

Her indifferent and mean front she puts up is all just a mask, though. She’s a broken and scared little girl deep down. What she makes up in street-smarts, she lacks in academia and responsibility and she knows deep down she doesn’t have much of a future or how she’s going to turn out in the end. She craves the family love and stability she once had, but she’s scared that if she ever gets it again – she’ll lost it all over like she did last time.

Powers/Abilities: As a Temeluchus demon, Scarlett has the ability to read a person’s mind and find and replicate that person’s deepest, darkest fears – creating them in the form of an illusion that only that person can see. The goal here is the psychologically/mentally torture using that fear, but never kill them. Due to the nature of her Calling, Scarlett also has some protection from other psychic-related abilities/powers.

Scarlett is also faster and stronger than the average human and she can identify others by species, with the exception of angels – who will only appear human unless she has her wings out. Since demons do not require as much oxygen, she can also hold her breath for up to 30 minutes.

Not necessarily a power, but more of the demon physiology - Scarlett ages much slower than mundane humans; her skin is hot to the touch and her skin is an oily black in colour when spilt.

Appearance: Scarlett’s petite and looks a little on the skinny side. A lifestyle alcohol and drug binges has already done some damage on her body, making her weedy at times. It doesn’t stop the fact that she appears intimidating to others. It’s all on the way she holds herself: shoulders pulled back and a silent glare. She always looks like she’s thinking, judging, working others out – looking inside to see what they’re really like, what they fear inside.

She has long, dark-brown hair that looks reasonably well tamed in its loosely curled style. Her eyes are blue in colour and are emphasized with dark eye makeup. She used to keep it extremely heavy, making her look harsh and dramatic but she keeps it a bit more refined these days. Maybe it’s her growing up a little. Clothing wise, she likes to stay in the trends. She’ll wear whatever’s fashionable and stylish.

While she is back from the dead, the scars of her life (and death) remain etched on her skin. Prominent scars cover the right side of her abdomen, as well as smaller, less noticeable ones which cover her right arm and legs. She also has a thin, neat scar line which circles her throat. Scarlett will not be quick to talk about it.

Her wings are of the colourings of a Shrike, with a wingspan of around three feet. When hidden, there is a small tattoo of a pair of tribal-style wings across her shoulder blades.


Samples:

Actionspam Sample:

[There's a static sound, a face appears into view. A brow drawn down into a harsh frown, eyes red and bleary. She looks like she's been crying, but more than anything, there's a look of rage in her eyes. As she speaks, each word spat through gritted teeth, she tries to keep the sound of grief hidden - it isn't going to well.]

If this is someone's idea of a sick fucking joke, well ha-fucking-ha, you got your fucking giggles. I'm not fucking playing here. I won't--I'm not doing it.

[She takes a short breath, shaking slightly.]

I don't want to be here. Put me fucking back. Or--or, I swear to fucking god, I'm gonna kick your fucking skull in, lar. Got it?

[She blinks back the tears, pulls into another breath.]

I just wanted to stay dead. Not this fucking shithole. Let me be dead.

Prose Sample:

Scarlett closes her eyes at the touch, tries to smile. She wants to say goodbye and thank you, but the words won't come out. They trickle down her throat and gather down with the blood seeping into her lungs. She hopes Paz knows it anyway.

She feels cold; cold and clammy and her heart still trembles in her chest, but she knows it's just panicking and nothing it can do can save her now. Her eyes open, she thinks about her parents, Peter, Stefan, Alek, Dr. Crane... that old demon she met a few times. Raff. Whatever happened to him?

And Leon. That stupid angel boy.

She hears the murmur of goodbye and she promises herself not to close her eyes again. She doesn't know why; there's just some part of her that can't bear to die in the dark. She wants to see the sky, she wants to see Paz, she wants to see the world one last time before it's all gone. It doesn't matter if the world's ending, she doesn't care if she hates this horrible fucking city. She just wants to be able to see something in the end.

She takes a breath, imagines Leon's lips pressed against hers, hears him mutter her name. His too-cold skin and her too-hot hands gripping his face.

And then Paz moves. She feels her head and neck move and th--

Gone.

The light that was fading in her eyes dulls quickly, as if something turned her off with a switch. The blood seeping from her slows, her heart stops, body freezes. She didn't even make it to twenty. She's gone. She lies motionless, lips parted, eye lids half-closed and staring into nothing, the fear and pain gone from her face. There's nothing left but a blank and vacant stare.

She doesn't even look like Scarlett Langford any more.

She's gone.