Post by SKYE MILLIGAN on Nov 27, 2011 18:44:16 GMT -5
| [atrb=border, 0, true][atrb=style, line-height:120%;][atrb=style, width:350px; padding:20px; background:#909090; border-left: 40px solid #505050;] SKYE MILLIGAN "AND I'D DO ANYTHING TO MAKE YOU STAY." THE BASICS, |
Full Name:
Skye Milligan
Nickname:
--
Age:
Seventeen
Face Claim:
Saiorse Ronan
A LITTLE DEEPER,
Alliance:
Straggler
Personality:
Skye's personality has been... substantially altered since the shipwreck. What once was a network of fears and anger and crazed teenage hormones has been torn open and crudely glued back together in some mockery of the girl who went before. Her antisocial behaviour? Now it's a pathological need to be around people. Once, you wouldn't have made friends with her in a year. Now, she's desperate for human contact, for the approval of her peers and her betters and anyone who will give it, anyone who can fill that void. She can rant for hours about her mother and then, when stopped, be unable to remember what she was talking about. Hatred for that single parent has been replaced by, perhaps stronger than her need to be validated by those around her, a thing she calls 'love' and which motivates her above all things. Her mother is now the most important thing in her life-- which is ironic, when you consider that that's all her mother ever wanted.
Whether you prefer carrot or stick, Skye will respond however you wish to either tact, as long as you play your cards right. If you can handle the short attention span, the spaced-out stare, the incessant moodswings and being trailed by a puppy-dog in human form, maybe you can handle Skye. She will afix herself to anyone she deems capable of 'loving' her, and she will never, ever let go.
What is most worrying, I suppose, (aside from this disregard for her own safety in the quest for belonging) is what will happen when she recovers, if she recovers. There was once a girl who talked big, in private, and imagined bigger still. Hers were days of self-loathing that fostered a need to write, in the way that she needs people now. Then, she found calm in the fury that flowed from her pen. She was acerbic, caustic, hard to befriend but secretly sweeter and softer than apple pie. Empathy was as natural as breathing but as easily dealt with as leaving a locked closet. You really need two people for the whole thing, and one of them has to be on the outside looking in. If she can come back to herself, that's the kind of person she has to look forward to being.
Likes:
affection, sunshine, blue, dogs, people
Dislikes:
violence, storms, enclosed spaces, loneliness, dogs
Strengths:
loyalty, kindness, optimism, patience, good at making paper hats and things of that kind.poetry?,empathy
Weaknesses:
anger, physical activity, easily manipulated, relies on first impressions, is emotionally brittle and unstable
ON THE OUTSIDE,
[/size]Appearance:
Blonde hair, eyes blue and shut-out as her mother's, a slight build featuring pale skin and an Irish accent to boot. Maybe that's not a perfect picture of Skye, but it'll do the trick. She has a smooth, gentle face with soft cheekbones and a willing smile that, if it spoke, would scream 'eager to please'. Everything about her is delicate, from her long fingers to the tips of her toes. Perhaps it's something she would hate more about herself if she really cared any more. As is, the only standards on appearance she will set for herself happen to be those rigid ones regarding hygiene that her mother set. 'Hygiene and hair, two of the most important things a woman can take care of.'
THE PAST,
History:
Hi! My name is Skye. I like dogs; do you like dogs? They're so neat! They're always so friendly and loveable and I just love hugging them so much because they're so soft. I had a dog when I was a kid, did you know? His name was Georgie, and he was an Alsatian mix. I loved that dog so much. We used to play in the park and I would throw him a bone, or was it a stick, but when we came home Mom told me he was bad. She said I spent too much time with him and not enough time with my friends. I didn't see Georgie after that... But I did see my friends, because my mother told me to. "I'm always right, Skye," she'd tell me. And she was right, of course. The time she told me not to run out from between parked cars and I forgot, the next day the cat next door got run over. When I didn't do my homework, the milk went sour, and when I didn't stop hanging out with boys, I broke my foot falling out of a treehouse. But as long as I did what she said, everything went OK. I got good grades, and the car went OK, and Mom said I didn't have to watch the news as long as I did OK in school.
There was always awful stuff on the news.
But it's OK-- Mom kept me safe by locking me in my room. She loves me so much, Mom does: she used to tell me so every day. All I have to do now is find her, right?
That's one story, at least. Skye Milligan did have a mother who did indeed love her, but she was... Let's just say that Skye doesn't quite remember the whole story.
She was born into an upper-class household and was an only child raised by a single mother. Her mother, Olivia Milligan, often worked late and worked hard-- too hard, some might say. After losing a husband in a car crash when Skye was young, there slowly developed a cloud over the happy household. Skye got to go to a private school, seeing her mother only as a whirlwind flying out the door every morning and crashing on the sofa at night. As she grew older (if seven can be called 'old') and the pain of a father's death more distant, her mother's job became more stable and mother bought daughter a dog. It was love at first sight. If Skye's friends loved Georgie, then Skye herself was completely smitten. It was the first time in Skye's life where she felt like someone loved her unconditionally-- rather, it was the time when she felt what love could be, the kind only blind faith could give. When her mother was out on weekends, Georgie was still there. He wouldn't leave her. He didn't have to.
They spent every spare minute together. Throwing sticks, getting muddy, getting dirty, getting the most out of life: that was something that Skye's mother couldn't handle, and Georgie could with flying colours. Where her mother hated dirt, Georgie shunned baths. Where her mother loved quiet, Georgie had a fine set of lungs. He was the best kind of rebellion: one that her mother had openly condoned and even paid for herself. But Georgie was a hungry dog and expensive to feed. The rows began. "You're never here! He is!" "I would be here if you'd just stop letting that bloody dog get mud on everything! My time is not cheap, Skye, and I'd rather spend it on you than cleaning up after that filthy mutt." "Don't you blame this on him! It's not his fault that you're an awful mother!" Et cetera. Ad finitum.
The fact was, Skye's mother dominated her life (more than Skye ever let on) and her mother had chosen not to like Georgie from the moment it was discovered that he wasn't housebroken. Every time Georgie did something wrong, Skye was punished for not training him properly: everything that was right immediately became wrong as soon as the image of perfection shattered. Skye tried to be a good daughter, she really did, but it was hard when the notion of 'good' was as solid and certain as the fate of a paper bag in a thunderstorm. Her mother had always dressed her, fed her, chosen what events she would go to: her mother continued doing this as Skye hit her teens. Perfect grades, perfect clothing. No bruises from the times her mother came home and mistook her daughter for an intruder. No bite marks from when, not seeing Georgie one dark night, she stood on his tail ('It wasn't his fault! Just let me keep him, please!"). And whenever Skye disobeyed, there was always a slap, a hard word. Anything that Skye did wrong, her mother said, always came back to her. When the car didn't start and she was late, it was because Skye hadn't washed the dishes. When Georgie got into the fridge and raided the food, it was because she hadn't answered when her mother was talking to her. When finally Georgie had to go, Skye locked herself in her room and the bills slowed their endless abuse, something had snapped inside her. She lost the ability to fight her mother: after all, how could she? Henceforth, her life would have to be about love. Wasn't that all either of them had ever wanted? Under her bed, years of poems (some lovingly crafted, some flowers of her hatred) slowly gathered dust. In a world of numbers, probabilities and facts, language was... auxillary. A means, rather than an end.
When Olivia Milligan's hard work finally paid off, Skye had been punished for getting a C on her maths quiz. Locked in her room, she listened as her mother gushed on the phone. "Oh thank-you so much, Mr. Piexoto! It's an honour, reall-- Yes, yes of course! You're sure you'll be able to find someone to manage without me? Oh, you're too kind-- Oh. Of course, but... unfortunately my husband is no longer with us. Oh, yes, I see. No, I'm sure I'll find someone."
And that was how, begrudgingly, Skye was dragged along for her mother's cruise. Loving Skye, good Skye. She had to love her mother now: the bruises told her what happened if she didn't remember that she was loved.
The cruise was supposed to be work, of course-- everything was work. She did her best to smile, trying to avoid another slap as the stress of packing slid ever closer. She did love her mother, truly. Everything was perfect. Perfection, as her mother said, was attainable. And it was worth a little pain.
On the cruise-ship itself, Skye was characterised by not doing much. Being away from her mother made her feel at a loose end, like something was slipping off her face, out of her head-- and since her mother was doing a lot of what she called 'networking', that feeling came around quite a lot.
Then came the night of the storm. If she remembered, she wouldn't be able to imagine how she slept through so much of it. It took the crash of the thunder, the song of the lightning, to wake her, and when it did, well, of course she screamed. One horrible crash ripped her heart in two, and in a moment her mother wrenched open the door, framed by rain and starlight. "Oh my precious little girl, I'm so sorry!"
They hugged, making time even in the middle of broken privacy and shattered sleep.
"Come on, darling, we've got to get out of this." Her mother led the way across the ship, passing hundreds in the mob like a dream, the daughter moving in a slow shuffle, arms around each other.
Skye watched her mother die.
It should have been tied down better, right? No-one deserved to go like that. The crowd had separated mother and daughter and, in the mess of humanity that filled one of the grand lounges, she'd turned, crying out for the mother she was so sure she loved. Two desperate eyes met hers, just as the ship gave a sickening heave and bucked the grand piano right out of its rivets. Award-winning comedy could not have planned it better. After all, it was simply too funny to be real, right? She felt the laughter rising inside her, the radioactive light of histeria in her eyes. And as soon as she'd started, it wouldn't stop. She just stood, staring at a mangled wallsplatter of body parts that used to breathe, and laughed and laughed and laughed. It looked like modern art. It was the kind of thing her mother would hiss about, the decline of a noble form into cheap shock tactics. It simply couldn't be real.
Well, reality is now the last of Skye's concerns. Even if remembering were an option, she wouldn't remember the hands who dragged her away, who whispered calming words into her ears and who held against her struggles even when screaming and biting were an option. It just went from bad to worse after they got her into one of the boats. It was overturned by the storm and Skye, being an atrocious swimmer at the best of times, clung to it like her favourite jeans were going out of fashion. In the midst of a storm, all she could do was let the current carry her, and the currents were merciful. At least, as merciful as a deadly maelstrom can be.
Now, Skye has been left alone with only her distorted version of reality to go on. She walked from the shore, searching for a mother that she's never going to find.
Family?:
Olivia Milligan, professional something-or-other; part-time mother.
THE ROLEPLAYER,
Name: Fallen
Age: Sixteen, but not for much longer!
RP Experience: Four years
Other Characters: --
How You Found Us: Seafeather!
Age: Sixteen, but not for much longer!
RP Experience: Four years
Other Characters: --
How You Found Us: Seafeather!
Sample:
It felt like skipping. That was really the only way to describe it. Paradiso... It was everything they'd told her it would be. Look at the grass peeking through the concrete, as if they wanted to grow just for joy; even the early dawn seemed less miserable and grey than usual. Buildings pressed themselves against the skyline like ducklings nestled beneath their downy-soft mother.
With more than the usual amount of bounce in her step, Emma peered out from the alleyway, her blue eyes wide as the morning. She didn't seem to notice that she'd managed to stroll into the darker (if that was even possible) side of town, co-incidentally the part in which she'd spent the night. But Emma was, of course, entirely unaware of how her life might be in danger-- and if you'd told her, she still wouldn't understand. People were basically good, after all, and Emma had nothing if not faith in human nature. She'd spent a week on her own with no-one to talk to; conversation was the first thing she was looking for. That week without her mother? Now that was murder.
The entire trip had been the very definition of topsy-turvy. The first day she'd barely been able to move-- the 'what-ifs', the where and how and why and when all collapsing in on her until she'd spent a full day too frightened to go forward and too headstrong to go back. That had been the day she'd found an empty warehouse, shook the owner's hand and filled her backpack with as much of his food as she could carry. Another day, her mother had been the only thing on her mind-- the next minute she'd realised Freddie was following her and fell on his neck, entirely forgetting why she was going to Paradiso. Grief did crazy things to a person.
And why was she going to this glorious, grey city? Well, everyone else seemed to be. Her hometown... There must be something wrong with it, because she had to come here. Here was where her mother would be. The second they'd lost each other somehow, she must have found someone else going this way. It was the largest city still standing or something, according to the man who'd traded a Cadbury bar for a map.
Hey, what was that?!
Something shiny! Something really, really shiny caught her eye. Immediately, Emma's full attention was given to the piece of glass that temporarily blinded her. The shininess, the beautiful glittering thing, like the glint of laughter in a parent's eyes, like the shining of a diamond on a wedding band. It was so pretty!
As the light was blocked by an approaching figure, she watched the pair of boots responsible come scrunch, scrunch, scrunching closer and closer, until something clicked in her brain and she glanced up, shocked by how rapidly the person was approaching. She was a pretty woman, dressed in jeans and with lovely dark hair that you almost wanted to reach out and touch... But of course she wouldn't! 'Self control, Emma.' And her mother's warning tone reminded her why she was here.
Stepping into the woman's path, Emma held out her right hand in a 'stop' gesture, glancing apologetically her way for a second before rummaging in her pocket and retrieving a much-sullied, torn and crumbled sheet of folded paper. Her heart hammered in her chest as, with shaking fingers, she unfolded the photograph. She had to take that photograph with her: like her back-pack, like the torn jeans she was wearing and the now brown-stained white shirt, she just wouldn't have felt ready to go without it. Besides -and she brushed some dirt from the picture's cheek- her mother didn't look much like her; how could she ask people if they'd seen her if she couldn't show them?
Oh, but of course: her first interviewee was waiting. Probably. Clearing her throat, she put on her best winning smile and held out the photograph in front of her.
"Please, ma'am, have you seen this woman?"
If Emma had had a mirror handy, she certainly wouldn't have had the courage to step forth and ask these questions. Wide-eyed and her hair a wild bird's nest of dirt and muck, her mother would have had a fit if she'd seen her now. Mind you, her mother would probably have had a fit anyway.
Replace 'Emma' with 'Skye', and this is her previous incarnation c: I hope off-site samples are OK!
I realise it wasn't explicitly mentioned, but as extra information I feel the need to mention that the warehouse owner was a corpse at the time. Fun factoid for ya!
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