Inner Self's Name: Zhaleh the Inquisitor
Type of Dreamer: Normal
Age: Real self is 22; Inner self's age is unnecessary to her; appears young-ish (no way to know how old or young this creature is)
Gender: Female
Appearance:
Zhaleh has a very alien appearance in comparison to her real-life counterpart. While very much humanesque in shape, Zhaleh looks anything but. The most striking feature about her is her grayish-blue completely hairless skin, almost as if she was a creature of living ice instead of flesh and blood. Atop her head are a multitude of tendrils that emulate hair almost like a set of dreadlocks. Large black eyes almost seem to draw attention away from two pairs of gills--one on her cheeks, the other located further down on her neck. Long slender arms culminate in hands with elongated fingers, translucent webbing between each one. Her legs are much longer than an average human's, with her toes elongated in the same manner as her fingers. This makes walking on dry land rather difficult for her, but these features help to facilitate swimming, something at which she is extremely adept at. If she is left out of water for too long, her body begins to secrete a mucus that covers her from head to toe--this is to ensure that she does not wither and dry out.The most unexpected feature she has, surprisingly, is her mouth; inside her head are two rows of razor-sharp teeth which are used to rip and tear through flesh. If teeth are lost in any manner, Zhaleh is able to produce more over the span of a few days to replace those that are lost.
Theme Song: Abyssopelagic II: Signals of Anxiety
Personality
Zhaleh calls herself an Inquisitor of the Depths--no one but her quite knows what the Depths are or where they might be found, but judging from her appearance and powers, one might be willing to say that she comes from an aquatic environment. This would explain her curiosity and her fear of anything that may not be completely be submerged in water. When near, around, or completely submerged in water, Zhaleh feels a sense of security; however, take that away from her and she will become extremely agitated and hostile to the point of actually attacking whoever might be around.
Much like the sea itself, Zhaleh is extremely volatile when it comes to emotional stability. There are moments where she is lucid and is rather pleasant to converse with, especially when there are others that are able to breathe water as she can. However, she can also erupt with the rage of a tsunami if angered, turning into an almost feral creature. In states of pure rage, she is absolutely ferocious and completely uncontrollable. She cares not for self-preservation nor the safety of would-be allies--only that the target of her anger is dealt with accordingly.
Zhaleh is rather superstitious as well, believing otherwise mundane events to be signs and portents from the Depths. She acknowledges this entity almost as a god and believes that she has been blessed with the power necessary to carry out its will. To further her alien deity's 'ambitions', as she refers to them, she believes that she must find sacrifices for it so it is able to feed and grow stronger. This is mostly done by taking small land-dwelling creatures--rodents, water fowl, things of that nature--and drowning them before consuming them whole. Zhaleh believes that as the hands and mouth of her deity, any essence that is consumed through her will be transferred directly to the Depths.
Being a self-proclaimed Inquisitor of the Depths, Zhaleh is constantly searching for those that would swear fealty to her cause. She believes that she has the power to confer bits of her power (and therefore that of the Depths) to believers and followers. Unfortunately for her, she has yet to convert someone to her beliefs, so she has not been able to prove this theory. If she is able to find someone and successfully prove her theory, she believes that the Depths' influence will spread like wildfire--or a flash flood, as the case may be. Because of this belief, she may attempt to preach in the name of the Depths in order to attract potential believers to her cause, even if she comes across as mad when she speaks of the 'embrace of the water' and 'rise of the dwellers', who-or-whatever they may be.
In short, most would find Zhaleh rather unstable, but she would deny that claim while telling you that the depths of your soul cry out in vanquish for the wet embrace of the Depths.
Abilities
Zhaleh's sphere is that of water; more specifically, she is able to manipulate it and seemingly conjure it out of thin air. Due to her aquatic nature, she mostly uses this to conjure a sphere of water around her person so she may manuever around in non-aquatic environments (which actually happens more often than not nowadays). She can also use water to manipulate objects, attack enemies (or heretics), surprise passersby--almost anything you could think of with water, she is able to do. In a pinch, Zhaleh is able to even condense water vapor into a liquid form, although this takes a tremendous amount of energy on her part.
Miranda Nelson was a child of the water. Growing up on the coast, she and her family were very much acclamated with the ocean--swimming, boating, fishing. She was extremely interested in swimming competitively and began at a young age, excelling for a while before dropping that in order to pursue other interests, namely marine biology. There was something about the life in the sea that entranced her, and she wished to learn more about these creatures.
After graduating high school, Miranda began studying marine biology, taking it up in university and even going out for an internship with a local research station. She loved every minute of it, especially going out into the field. She would often be asked to accompany the crew out to research, helping out in any way she could. One particular session, she was asked to assist in chumming the waters for research on sharks. A particularly nasty wave managed to not only knock the young woman overboard, but she scraped her leg on the metallic edge of the boat, causing a gash to appear. The combination of the chum and the bleeding Miranda attracted a shark--that's all she remembers before blacking out in the water.
When she woke up next, Miranda was in the hospital, confined to a bed and feeling somewhat different than she ever had before. From what she had been told, after she had fallen over the boat, the shark had grabbed a hold of her legs and torn most of the flesh and muscle from them. After fishing Miranda out of the water, the team was forced to turn back and make sure she received proper medical treatment. Unfortunately for her, the young woman did not have the money necessary to facilitate physical therapy or prosthetics; she was forced to now move around in a wheelchair. This lack of mobility really affected her, but moreso with the lack of being able to manuever in the water. This caused Miranda to become rather withdrawn and sullen, and soon after she fell into a state of depression, doing nothing but staring at the water from the confines of her wheelchair.
Even in her dreams, though, Miranda was haunted by images of the ocean depths and a mysterious figure attempting to draw her into the water. The few times she had not found herself in the ocean, though, this same figure continued to stalk her, encased in a bubble of water and beckoning to join with its cause. Eventually, she relented, feeling herself transform into something more than human... Something complete like she had been before the accident.
There was a calling after that, something that begged for more in the world of dreams. The other people away from the water, they would not join her... The Depths, however, wanted to expand, swallow the coasts, drown the non-believers. Zhaleh, as this new creature called herself, would be the new hands of the Depths, able to convert those like she had been.