L A Y L A
[size=300]B A S I C S
| Full Name |
Layla Alexandria Lethe
| Nickname |
She despises being called Ms Lethe. She prefers Ms Layla, and usually enforces it.
| Age |
22
| Ethnicity |
American. Born in a sleepy town in Oklahoma, Ms Layla has a slight southern drawl, but a pleasant one.
| Gender |
Female
| Teaches |
English 103
| Ability|
Bibliokinesis || The ability the manipulate, animate or figuratively 'jump into' books, comics, scripts etc. She can also correct essays without the need of a pen by using her mind. This does extend to amateur works, such as pieces of writing done by students or even herself, although, if little description is written, this may not work.
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L O O K S
| Hair Color |
Strawberry Blonde
| Eye Color|
Green, with flecks of blue and gold.
| Height |
4"1
| Description |
They say when I was born, I was ugly. They're lying, because in the books I've looked through, none of the babies like me are ever ugly. They are small and twisted and sick, with bones that jut out at the wrong angle and a sickly blue in place of whites in their eyes. None of that matters though, they're still beautiful. They usually don't live, these children. I did, despite the four breaks in my legs and the three cracked ribs I suffered being born. It didn't take long before my infant body was cracked like a jigsaw puzzle - twelve breaks in the first week left my mother clawing for answers.
These days, my frame is not so different to the others. I'm tiny, fragile - unable to run through the grounds for fear of sending jagged bones through the surface of my skin. My hair is fair, my eyes the same shade of green as my elder sister. My cheeks are pale, as though I am in a perpetual state of shock. The sun hasn't had much of a chance to dapple my skin with telltale freckles - signs of a life I will never life. My sclera still flash blue when I break.
Sickness is something that haunted me in the form of injury - bandages are commonplace, bound around my limbs like parasites who never leave my flesh. Nurse says it doesn't matter that I keep breaking, that we'll always be able to fix me back up and move on, but when I look in the mirror I see something so terribly, perpetually breakable and I know this will never go away. This is me - red curls and a shining smile and a habit of crumbling into far too many pieces.
P E R S O N A L I T Y
| Likes |
Outside || Animals || Great Adventure Stories || Travelling || Dancing || Disney || Teaching || Flowers
| Dislikes |
Whispers || Tears || News It's always sad. || Cruelty || Ignorance || Sly Comments
| Fears |
Breaking || Not being accepted
[size=89]| Personality |
Some say I shouldn't be so happy all the time - constantly smiling and laughing, finding joy in almost everything. I think they're wrong - Children laugh about 400 times a day. Adults laugh an average of 15 times a day. This, I find sad. It scares me that as time passes the world begins to press down upon you until you cannot smile as you once did. Pressure builds, and when it does, things snap. Everyone wants to keep me as safe as they can. I know it hurts people when I cry, so I don't, not anymore. I can't really manage to go without hurting, though - it's unavoidable. They want me to stay inside all day, but the wind calls to me and the grounds begs to be explored.
I don't like to think of myself as a liar, but I lie to her. Everything is far too wonderful to miss, and when I take a fall by the street and drag myself to the nurse, I let her believe I tumbled from my bed onto the floor. If they let me fly, I would. They say I'm clever - intelligent and bright even when I was young. My sister liked to say that my mind worked twice as fast as everybody else's to make up for my body being so useless. It's a nice thought, but really I just burn for information and knowledge - Father provided book after book of that I clung to as though they provided support to my weak limbs.
I love being outside and in the garden because it gives me a sense of belonging and being. The garden to me is like a family. They grow bigger and stronger under my care, I treat them and make them happy, they smile, and they cry. I love them like any parent does a child. When a plant flowers It's a child that I have raised. When a bee lands on my plants and drags the pollen across them- it's magic, like the falling pieces of dust from a fairy as it flutters across the flowers and makes me smile.
Nurse said she's proud - that despite everything, my willpower is strong and my resolve fierce. It's true, in a way. If I want something done, I try to make sure that I don't let myself forget I'm human. It would be easily to fall into a pattern of letting people help me. As long as I resist it and continue fighting my own battles, I'm still me. If I give in, I'll lose everything and They will bundle me up and I will probably never break again. Breaking, it seems, is what makes me different to everybody else. It's also what reminds me I'm just the same.
I'm not usually jealous. I try to be fair and kind, to brighten people's day with things they never knew before. Perhaps if I can impart enough knowledge on those around me, they'll know enough to understand that what I want more than anything is to run and jump and skip and fly. We have a habit of wanting what we can never have. Ever since I was little, I've wanted to be perfect.
H I S T O R Y
| History |
Mama and Father grew up together - they spent days playing in the treehouse by the creek and running through the Hob at each other's side. They were inseparable, the children of two farmers, and when they married everybody said they knew it was going to happen. They were perfect, and when Mama fell pregnant with a baby girl and gave birth to Meela their family was complete. Father got a job in a farm and Mama went out to sell what she could at the markets. When she gave birth again, everything changed.
Within my first year, I'd suffered countless breaks and endless nights of crying. (Babies are born with three hundred to three hundred and fifty bones.) Mama dropped everything to rush to my side each time, and Meela was left alone frequently as I was carried to the doctor for yet another bandage or splint. There wasn't much they could do for me other than piece me back together each time I feel apart. I found the diagnosis of Osteogenesis Imperfecta in one of Father's old books when I was five years old. Everything was different - no perfect house with roses down the walls greeted my father when he returned home at night.
Instead, he would more often than not find the house deserted for hours on end before we returned. He loved me, I knew that from the way he worried each time I' d snap, splinter or split. When I was four years old, the money ran out. Mama went back to work, filled with reluctance, and left me to read. I did read - filled my mind with every morsel of information I could manage, scanning page after page of text until I could almost quote the dictionary.
Meela waited home with me, instructed to care for me and make sure I wasn't hurt. I didn't want her to fail - but staying still hurt me almost as much as a break, and I begged her to let me play. When she did, the inevitable happened and we lied together - it didn't take a lot to convince our parents that a fractured arm was the result of a slightly overzealous collision with the furniture rather than a tree. I hated myself for tearing apart their happy family, for intruding with my illness and sickness. Mama and Father promised it wasn't my fault, that they loved me regardless. Meela didn't look so sure
My power was discovered when I was around thirteen, at a story time. I'd never read aloud before, and it was disastrous- the book was one about all these different sorts of farm animals- pigs, cows and chickens were running all over the place. Coincidentally, one of the children was the child of an ex-Silhouette student. He knew I had a power, and talked to my mother about Silhouette, the only school at the time.
My mother told my father about it, and they decided to send me to the school in a few years. They told me it would do me good, to be away, but I think they were relieved to get me out of their hands. The stress was too much and my parents never noticed my sister.
So I went to France. Silhouette was supposed to be a safe haven, but really there was a bully problem of sorts. Midget, cripple, weakling. It made me more curious as well, and I suffered many a break. But I adore the place, and I'd never leave. So I became a teacher here... And the rest is history.
M E D I C I N E | D A U G H T E R
Pick it up, pick it all up.
And start again.
You've got a second chance,
you could go home.
Escape it all.
It's just irrelevant.
It's just medicine.
It's just medicine.
You could still be,
what you want to,
What you said you were,
when I met you.
You've got a warm heart,
you've got a beautiful brain.
But it's disintegrating,
from all the medicine.
from all the medicine.
from all the medicine.
Medicine.
You could still be,
what you want to be,
What you said you were,
when you met me.
You could still be,
what you want to.
What you said you were,
when I met you.
when you met me.
when I met you.
Ooooooooo...
Ooooooooo...
Pick it up, pick it all up.
And start again.
You've got a second chance,
you could go home.
Escape it all.
It's just irrelevant.
It's just medicine.
It's just medicine.
You could still be,
what you want to,
What you said you were,
when I met you.
You've got a warm heart,
you've got a beautiful brain.
But it's disintegrating,
from all the medicine.
from all the medicine.
from all the medicine.
Medicine.
You could still be,
what you want to be,
What you said you were,
when you met me.
You could still be,
what you want to.
What you said you were,
when I met you.
when you met me.
when I met you.
Ooooooooo...
Ooooooooo...
