Post by Elf on Sept 21, 2012 14:34:36 GMT -5
Name (Nicknames): Elani Copper (Lani, Ellie, Elf, Elfeh, The Elf)
Gender: Female
Date of birth [Age]: October 31 [16]
Appearance: Elani is dainty and slender. She stands at about 4'11 and though she isn't very muscular to look at, neither is she weak. Her slender build, deceptive as it is, brings in a good amount of speculation and wonder as to her origins. She has straight hair that falls to her knees, which she keeps back from her face with a variety of ribbons and braids and clips, letting it hang down her back freely so long as it remains well out of her face. Its color is indescribable with one word, as it's a lovely coppery-red-golden-brown that shines different colors depending on the light hitting it. One moment it will be golden, and another it will be the red of blood-soaked snow.
Elani's eyes are so richly colored blue that they appear to be vividly purple, and her face is slim and elfin in shape with sharp angles and slender, delicate lines. Her ears are slightly longer than normal and taper to a point, although nobody's quite sure if they're natural, false, or just a pokemorph gone wrong. Her skin is a pale, pale tan suggesting that if she were to spend her summer days tanning she would be quite dark by the end of the summer, and nary a blemish can be seen upon her features.
Lani's clothing tends to vary between short shorts and belly shirts and pretty, flowing sundresses. She'll also bundle up in cold weather, but in warm weather her clothing is always light and loose and generally appealing. She wears layers when she has to bundle, most commonly wearing a turtleneck and a feather down vest for the outer layers on top and warm jeans for insulation as the outer layer on bottom. She'll also pull out the long underwear for such times, and so she'll have anywhere from two to four layers of clothing in colder weather. Her vest, which is pale blue, is a match to a fur-lined, feather down parka that she wears when temperatures are particularly cold.
History: From regions largely unknown and untravelled, Elani's background is a mystery to all, including herself. Her earliest memories are of her pre-teen years, living with a foster family that made sure she knew that she was indebted to them. She spent her time not learning taking care of the Pokémon that the family owned. The result was that while Lani can be shy and awkward aroung other humans, she shines when she's talking to a pokemon, even a larger Pokémon that could easily harm her gravely.
Lani spent a great deal of time with trainers who'd come to visit and tell tales of regions around the world. She learned of Pokémon untold, of legendary battles, and of romantic interludes (Well, they weren't exactly discreet, child's ears or no). As she listened to these legends, these tales, and dreamed, Elani Copper as she was called for the unique coloring of her hair, began to dream of her family. Of her past. She began to tell herself stories.
Her mother, she thought, was an artistic Pokémon coordinator. She controlled her pokemon's movements with such grace, such flair, that she was surely world reknowned for the beauty of her routines. And her father...oh. Elani's father was most certainly a trainer. Perhaps the best trainer in the world. Perhaps he was even one of the Elite Four, waiting for her to find him! Did she have brothers and sisters? Certainly, she romanticized. For even if her parents weren't still with each other, surely they'd found other loves since then and given Elani brothers and sisters. A real family waiting for her with love and open arms.
What she found, when she began searching, was that her mother had died. The same accident that had stolen Elani's memory had claimed the life of the woman she'd been travelling with. The woman who looked so much like her - with only the eyes differing them - she couldn't have been anyone but Elani's mother. A coordinator? Nay, lass. A drunken whore, that one. They gave her a picture. It was of the woman who was supposed to be her mother and of Elani herself.
Heartbroken, Elani had sought the only remaining dream left. She sought what she was sure was her destiny. She sought to become a trainer. The best trainer in the world. She sought the Elite Four, where she was sure her dream father was waiting for her.
And her travels brought her to Cheyenne.
Interactions with Pokemon: Elani seems more at home interacting with certain Pokémon than she does with other humans. As a child in a foster home that didn't want her, Elani was harmed far more by other humans than she was by pokemon, and so she seems to have an affinity for the creatures, particularly Growlith and Arcanine. She's spent her entire memory (As she does not remember the first approximately 11 years of her life.) using Pokémon as her safe place. The family growlith - before he passed on - was her best friend and the one creature she could count on not to try to force her to remember when she was placed in the home, concussed and with no memory of who she was or what her past entailed.
Personality:
- Timid/Antisocial/Pathologoically Shy
- Elani spends a lot of time stammering or simply quietly listening to the humans around her speaking. Although when she has a goal in mind, she can speak without the stammer and communicate what she wants or needs, even then she will remain very soft-spoken and difficult to hear. Often, if there's a choice, she will address a trainer's pokemon, not the trainer, until she gets to know the other person. - Daddy Complex
- She's like a Looney Toon baby duck. Every man she comes across who may be old enough, she wonders if they're her father. If there's a higher-than-usual chance that they might have possibly known her mother, she has a tendency to hero-worship them. - Naivety
- Elani knows nothing about anything that may or may not have happened to her before she woke up and was taken to the foster home. She only knows what she has been told about who she was before her foster home, and as a result it makes her very naive and easily fooled by whomever may claim to have known her before she lost her memory.
Elani is quiet and timid until she gets to know the people around her, and then she will relax a bit more and smile and even once in a while participate in conversation un-prodded. She spends a good deal of her time in absolute silence, tilting her head this way and that to listen to the things around her. She seems to have a sharper sense of hearing than most, but usually attributes it to the fact that she will sit in silence and simply listen for hours upon hours a day.
She doesn't waste breath speaking if she doesn't have anything to say, and sometimes she remains infuriatingly quiet when others want her to make an affirmative sound or some other simple gesture to let them know that she's listening and interested. She's awkward in her interactions with other people, and it requires a lot of patience to coax her out of her shell.
Goals in Cheyenne: Elani's top priority will always be finding her father. She will go to any length to make that happen, although what would happen if her lofty goal turned out to be anticlimactic is uncertain. Likely, finding out her father was nothing more than ordinary would break her heart, to say nothing if he was a bandit or some other shady character. She clings to this dream, harder than it seems she should, because it's the last dream she has left. As she journeys, she should grow as a character and gain some self confidence and regenerate her missing sense of self worth, especially as she grows as a trainer and develops bonds with other trainers and her Pokémon.