Post by Estelle on Jun 25, 2017 0:51:10 GMT -5
♫Stay with me… Possession taking over.♫
♫Should I pull back the veil?♫
Played by:
Cody
♫Seasons change me, but they won’t change my core!♫
Name:
Manushya Hestor Estelle.
Nicknames/aliases:
Estelle.
Monstrous Heart Eater.
♫I count the days that pass me by♫
Age:
~3700. But she appears the age of whatever body she is inhabiting at the time. When she enrolled, she claimed 18.
♫Born and bred the masters of ourselves.♫
Gender:
That depends, but Estelle applied as a female and was originally female, so she often prefers a female form. But she also assumes male forms when it pleases her.
♫Never has the blood in my veins flowed so fiercely♫
Race:
Rakshasi.
♫Would she hold me, if she knew my shame?♫
Sexual Orientation:
That’s complicated. The simple answer is just yes.
♫Better is one day in your house♫
House:
Doran.
♫Sittin’ in the back of my next class nappin’ got up gave a speech and bowed to the clapping.♫
Classes:
Mythology and the Truth; Magical Creatures; Ancient Magic
♫My purpose is so clear!♫
Occupation:
Senior.
♫I wake up every evening with a big smile on my face.♫
Likes:
• Compliments. It makes her feel as if she’s not as terrible as she feels.
• Good food. Of course, what she considers ‘good’ changes frequently with the tide of her souls.
• Flirting. When successful, it makes Estelle feel wanted.
♫When you see my face, I hope it gives you hell!♫
Dislikes:
• Insults. A single insult is not that bad, but when a chorus of thousands repeat it to you in your mind, it’s crushing.
• Rejection. It just increases the certainty that Estelle would be better off dead.
• Violence. She’s caused more violence than most people could ever imagine, not to mention the extra memories of those she’s eaten.
• Lying. It makes her feel dirty inside, but sometimes she does not have a choice.
♫When all you got to keep is strong.♫
Strengths:
• ESP. Well, not exactly, but when you have thousands watching your back, it’s hard to be taken by surprise.
• Numerous powers. Estelle has access to hundreds, if not thousands, of different abilities. When she remembers them.
• Survival Instinct. She will do anything to survive, even if she does not want to; the souls within her force her to go to whatever extent required to live on.
♫When we live fragile lives.♫
Weaknesses:
• Depression. Estelle’s mind is always one step from shattering, endlessly tormented from within to the point that anything from without fractures it.
• Confusion. When you have the memories of more people than you can count, many of which overlap, it is sometimes hard to tell the difference between them.
• Oblivity. Estelle is constantly being talked to by many different voices in her head, sometimes she mistakes them for external voices or mistakes external voices for internal ones. She doesn’t mean to ignore people, she just sometimes does not even realize the said anything.
• Fragility. Estelle’s physical form is extraordinarily weak, much more so than a normal human. Through rare, her flesh has been known to tear open without provocation. Some hypothesize that the cause of this is the souls within trying to escape, but Estelle thinks her body is simply much older than it should be.
• Possession. She sometimes is not herself, in fact, rarely is the girl ever actually ‘Estelle’ because of the many souls fighting for expression.
♫I see the fear growing in their lost eyes!♫
Fears:
• That the souls within her will take over completely one day.
• That the outside world will become as hostile as her inner world.
• That people will find out her true nature and reject her.
• That she will never be able to resist her urges.
• That she will revert to how she was at the beginning of the curse, killing for the fun of it.
♫I’ll keep you, my dirty little secret.♫
Secret:
Estelle’s biggest secret is her unfortunate habit of consuming hearts.
♫He’s a stranger to some and a vision to none.♫
Description:
Estelle’s normal form is small, a couple inches short of five feet. She appears to be frail, almost as if a gentle breeze could carry her off. Her hair frames her face in a light emerald color and behind her, reaches half-way down her back. She takes good care of her hair, making sure it is always brushed and manageable – bad hair days only invite mockery. Her light blue eyes are always filled with sorrow and regret, unless she is actively on the prowl, seeking some nefarious deed.
Of course, Estelle has multiple forms, at least one per souls. Some of the more common ones she adopts are that of a more confident, adult woman with the alias of ‘Sasha’and a devious-looking guy named ‘Kyle’. Of course, she can also assume the form of animals that she has consumed, such as a magical emu called ‘Emmy’.
♫Do you believe in the fantasy?♫
Power(s):
Estelle has a very gruesome power – to gain the form, memory, abilities, and soul of those whose hearts she eats. This is the result of a curse placed upon her and her people, most of which are dead now, by a powerful god. Because of the curse, Estelle is compelled to eat hearts, at least one per year. The consequences if she fails to do so are unknown, she often eats more than one per year, even if she tries not to. Consuming others like this extends Estelle’s life, but by how much is a mystery but is likely to be one year per soul. Those she can consume with her ability has no limit, aside from requiring a heart. This means she can eat humans, animal, magical creatures, anything with a heart.
When consuming something, Estelle gains their memories, which often blend into the memories she already has, causing confusion. No matter her assumed form, Estelle possesses the memories of all the souls within her, but the memories of the form she is in become stronger and clearer; though they could still be almost gone due to age, as her own memories from long ago are. She also adopts the personality traits of those she consumes, or rather, the soul gains a place within her and joins the others in a contest of expression, trying to have its personality be dominant. While assuming a form, the soul of that form gains more dominance, so the personality of that soul is expressed more than other personalities. There are still conflicts and some souls are stronger on some days than others, so Estelle never really has the exact same personality type two days in a row and especially not across forms. When Estelle changes forms, so to does anything non-magical on her; clothing with shift into something more appropriate to the form – the soul of a Greek warrior would likely have armor and weapons, while the soul of a college professor would be dressed as such, while in animal forms she appears as a normal animal. Her sole magical possession, her notebook, never changes with her, so she must be careful to hide it away in a safe place if she assumes a form incapable of carrying it.
Estelle is often drawn to creatures of a magical nature by her curse. When she consumes such creatures, she gains their abilities and the knowledge necessary to use them through memories. Great power, thus, is at Estelle’s finger tips, but she rarely uses it. If she ever had to actually fight, she would almost certainly just break down crying or retreat into herself instead. When this happens, the souls fight amongst themselves – the greater the danger, the quicker this goes – to gain control of her now-useless body to defend or flee as necessary. Of course, the individual souls do not have access to Estelle’s abilities, only whatever abilities the soul originally possessed. And, unused to having an actual body for so long, the body becomes almost zombie-like. When not having to fight, however, Estelle has a truly impressive repertoire of abilities – she’s eaten Witches and Wizards, Demons, Angels, elementalists, Shape-Shifters, Vampires, Werewolves, and more. Almost anything possible, Estelle has access to. Of course, with so many different abilities, Estelle often forgets what all she is actually able to do. Furthermore, she rarely uses many powers because if others found out how many different things she could do, they would ask questions she did not want to answer.
♫It’s time to lock-and-load♫
Belongings:
The souls of roughly 100,000 creatures. As far as physical possessions, Estelle has a magical notebook that always has extra pages, which she uses to try to record memories in; this is her most valued possession.
♫This who I am really inside.♫
Personality:
Talk about multiple personalities. Whenever Estelle consumes another’s soul – which she does through their heart, living or dead – she also gains their memories, form, abilities, and personalities. These personalities don’t always fit together very well, often clashing and trying to overcome the others. Some personalities are quiet, some are loud, and Estelle flows with the tides, sometimes quiet and sometimes loud. She is never consistent in most things, always at the mercy of whichever group of personalities manages to express themselves. Very few personality traits stay constant when you are stuck in the middle of a war of souls, all wanting to be dominant. When Estelle takes on a specific form, she is able to better express the personality of the one she stole it from but still struggles with the other souls within her.
A few traits hold common amongst most people, and thus are nearly always expressed in Estelle – if 99% of the souls within her agree on something, they overpower the 1% that does not. One example of this is the survival instinct. While Estelle has doubtlessly consumed some people that either had a death wish or just lacked an instinct to live on, the vast majority of people, and thus those she’s eaten, have the will to live. Estelle, of course, values her life, often determined to survive no matter the cost. It is not a stretch to say that she has the blood of thousands on her hands, each killed to preserve her own life. Of course, her survival had more sinister requirements than most people; she must hearts to maintain her life. When first cursed with this, she had no qualms killing others to prolong her life, in fact, for a long time she did not have issues with murdering and eating the hearts of her victims even when she did not have to. In the past millennium, however, Estelle developed a conscience – or maybe the souls within her forced it upon her – and she began to kill only when necessary. More recently, Estelle began to not even kill; she’d only eat the hearts of those already dead. In the past few decades, she has grown to find the act abhorrent and has tried to stop, but the will to live on, amplified by the souls within her, have prevented Estelle from controlling herself. One of the reasons Estelle has come to this academy is that she hopes they will help her control her urges, or end them along with her.
One of the most powerful traits common to almost every creature is that of desire. The desire to have food, to be comfortable, to reproduce. All of these exist strongly in Estelle, but she is able to control them for the most part. She does not gorge herself on food, she is willing to do things that make her uncomfortable, and she isn’t a giant slut. Since being at the academy, though, Estelle does panic when she misses a meal at the dining hall, occasionally making herself physically ill over it. She’s also the biggest tease on campus, flirting with any and everyone. Often her favorite prey are those that would otherwise not be interested – the straight girls and gay boys. Of course, being a tease, she generally ever did more than flirt, but it was far from unheard of for her to go on dates with people. And, of course, there were rumors that claimed she did even more than that, but the validity of said rumors is uncertain. One could always ask Estelle if it was true or not, but who wanted to ask something like that to someone that eats hearts for a living? Well, not that anyone other than some of the faculty – only the Headmaster and those he personally trusted enough to keep it a secret and not judge the girl for it.
A trait that is unique to Estelle, not that she’s the only one to ever possess it but it’s actually hers and not someone else’s, is the intense guilt and sorrow she feels. She can hear, worse, feel every soul that resides within her. Animals, men, women, demons, angels, elves, there’s no end to what she has consumed. And they scream at her, hurling terrible accusations. She keeps them from moving on, to progressing to the natural end of life. Many of them she skilled in cold blood, for no reason other than she could. Some of them were about to move on when she fell upon them and snatched them away from the afterlife. No amount of remorse could be enough for what she’s done. Not amount of redemption is enough. Estelle knows this and does not even try to redeem herself; instead, she tries to prevent herself from inflicting the terrible fate upon anyone else. Of course, the souls within her scream at her for this; if they must suffer, shouldn’t others? Why should she stop now, when she didn’t stop for them? No matter how hard she tried to control herself, they wouldn’t let her. She ate again and again, and every time it crushed her. She had planned to end herself many times, but when there are thousands of souls trying to prevent your death, it’s hard to follow through. Her mind is no sanctuary for her, as it is for others; she is never truly alone. No matter where she goes or what she does, Estelle is constantly assaulted by abuse.
Though she often acts confident, Estelle has a very fragile psyche and a single taunt can send her into tears. If someone tells her that she should feel bad, she immediately does. She is a strong person, but nobody could take mental abuse from thousands of different people 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. When she is attacked from the outside as well, no matter how small, she is unable to stand up to it. Her defenses are as strong as a wet tissue, ripping apart at the slightest provocation, even if unintentional. When subjected to actual external harassment, she retreats into herself so thoroughly that even the souls within her seem to be mocking her from the outside. Estelle becomes almost catatonic in this state, sometimes taking hours to come back to the surface. Like this, it’s possible for one of the more powerful souls to take control of Estelle, though their manipulation of her is shaky at best. The girl is almost zombie-like when this occurs, the souls within her unused to controlling a body, much less a foreign one. How the girl may act like this is entirely up to the soul that possesses her, and there are dozens, if not hundreds, capable of it.
Estelle’s memory runs deep, having nearly four millennia of life as herself in addition to the memories of the thousands of people she has consumed. The more recent a memory is, the easier it is to access it; and the more powerful the soul the memory is attached to, the more vivid the memory is. Most memories from over two millennia ago have been lost, while the ones that are extremely taxing to access. Recalling even a minor detail from further back, such as who she actually is, drains her enough to put her into a coma for at least a day. When she adopts the forms of the souls she houses, the memories specific to that soul come to the top, becoming much easier to sort through than the rest. Of course, to adopt a specific persona, Estelle must first find it, which is not as easy as it sounds. Sorting through a thousand different souls might not be so bad, if they weren’t all screaming at you and trying to be the one you pick, going so far as to lie at times. Estelle tried to learn who they all were, but it was impossible; she was not able to hold that many names and faces in her mind on top of everything else. And every time she ate another, there would be yet another name and face to add to the collection. She knew some of them well enough to call upon pretty easily, but the rest could take her hours of sorting to find who she was looking for, and by then, it was often too late.
♫Lie awake in bed at night and think about your life♫
History:
Cambodia isn’t right, I wasn’t the one to die in that conflict and the 1970s was too early. The civil right movement comes to mind next, but that couldn’t be it, no matter how vividly I remember fighting for rights. Maybe…
Rebecca was born to a lower-class family on the outskirts of a small town in the early 1930s. She was the third child among six. As the only girl, she helped her mother with chores around the house while her brothers worked the fields with their father. It was a mediocre life, but it was all she had known. There was nothing special about her or her family. Her life progressed in such a way until she got married and started a household of her own, have three children. She then… no, wait, that’s not the real me, these are not my real memories.
Was I the one being starved? Did I have a number? No, I never suffered in the German camps. Wait, Australia comes to mind. I was born to a loving father, but mother never seemed to care about me. Perhaps she didn’t know I was hers. As I grew, I came to realize I was different than the others. After many moons had passed, they came, with sticks that spat fire and death. With my power, I was able to protect a large number of my fellows from injury and they seemed to give up. But they returned later and caught me by surprise. They managed to kill… wait, no! I’m not an Emu, that’s ridiculous.
Jonathan was born during the middle of a bloody war in 1864. His father never came back from the war and his mother died shortly after he was born, leaving his care to his elder siblings, a brother and sister. In the years that followed, the three suffered a hard lot in life, and his brother died while trying to earn money, forcing the remaining siblings to turn to crime to survive. Within a year, his sister was dead and Jonathan in prison. He would rot there in all likelihood, having nobody that cared about him. No, that’s not right either. I need to go further back.
There was the potato famine, I remember that, but was that me? I don’t think so. I delivered messages for Queen Victoria, right? No, that is someone else, I was not a courtier. I remember my people being taken by the White Men as slaves, leaving my tribe broken. No, I was not an African chief.
Patricia was a young girl when she made the deal. Magic powers in exchange for a single favor later? Of course she would do that! Her young mind had no idea how terrible that favor would turn out to be, or how much she would come to enjoy carrying it out. When the time came, all the serpent asked was for Patricia to frame people in her town of Salem. It was easy to do, and several people were burned. Patricia enjoyed the revenge she got on the people who had bullied her as a child, but when suspicion fell upon her, she could not escape her fate. She was convicted of being a witch and… no, that’s not my true self. That’s not who I am.
I sought to master my desire, and, in doing so, master myself and be free from the cycle. This was the reason I practice the Shaolin way. No, I wasn’t a monk. I was a proud warrior that caught death from the white invaders. My mighty Algonquin tribe would fall to the sickness brought to us. No, I’m still alive, I couldn’t have died. Was I the girl in the village on the island? Everyone started to vanish, and I knew that Roanoke was doomed, but I couldn’t leave, I was… no, not her. I was not her. Who was I, then?
Francesca was born to unknown parents but adopted by wealthy nobles. She was doted on to the extent that she had her own private tutor, something not common in 1500s Florence. She was intelligent and wanted to use her intelligence, but her family only had her educated so she would be a more appealing bride for a wealthy suitor. Being pressured into marriage when she actually preferred women, the girl fled her home and boarded a boat bound for Egypt, where she met… no, this isn’t right either. This is getting hard.
Wounded soldiers came to my care and I had to patch them up. My commander said that this war would last a hundred years at this rate; I hoped not, I hated seeing people hurt, which was the reason I became a field medic, to… no, I wasn’t him. My parents died from the plague. Some said it was God’s wrath, that we had to repent to be saved. But even those that repented died. It did not matter, nobody cared about a small girl who had already caught her death. No, I am still alive. I wasn’t a courtier for the English queen, but maybe for a Russian tsar? No, that doesn’t sound right, and there’s something beneath that. I discovered the new world with the leader of the voyage, Lief, son of Erik. We then… no, I was not a Viking, no way. Perhaps….
Kasiya grew up in Egypt during the 9th century, amidst the rebellion against Abbasid rule. She lost several friends in the riots, dead or captured she did not know. She begged Allah to grant peace, but when it came, she was not ready to pay the price. It started when… when… no, this isn’t mine. I… have to go deeper.
Jezebel was born to middle-class parents in Carthage in the 4th century. As she grew older, he parents decided that she was not suited for marriage – too headstrong, disobedient. She was to be sent to join a convent and dedicate her life to God, but on the way, she fled and found a young man by the name of Augustine, whom she had a brief relationship with before he lost interest in her and abandoned her and her unborn child. Shortly before the time to give birth arrive, Jezebel… no, this isn’t far enough back. It hurts.
I fought in the Colosseum, famed for my ability to emerge unscathed from every battle. Famed, not liked, because the audience enjoyed the bloodshed. They gave me more and more battles, hoping I would lose; but my God protected me. I think they began to grow suspicious of my faith, though, but I knew He would never abandon me. I… no, I was not him. Was I the harem girl, a caretaker to Cleopatra? I remember it, but it’s fuzzy, so that probably wasn’t me. I don’t want to go deeper, it’s getting to painful.
I… I was originally… it hurts, I don’t want to continue. I… think I was an Aryan, but… I wasn’t normal. Please let it end, I can’t…. I was cursed by a god, maybe? Was it… Vishnu? He made me what I am, what we are. The Rakshasa he called us. What did we do to deserve this fate? I… I don’t remember. I can’t. It hurts. I….
The ‘girl’ woke up days later, the strain of remembering so far back, sifting through so much, too great for her. The recruiter must have accepted her application, because she was in the castle she sought refuge at. She would start mid-semester at the Academy, but maybe they would be able to help her. At the very least, they were probably confident they could stop her.
♫No secret deceptions for these would stare us down.♫
Other:
Estelle has many colorful voices in her head with their own personalities. Also Emmy!
♫Should I pull back the veil?♫
Played by:
Cody
♫Seasons change me, but they won’t change my core!♫
Name:
Manushya Hestor Estelle.
Nicknames/aliases:
Estelle.
Monstrous Heart Eater.
♫I count the days that pass me by♫
Age:
~3700. But she appears the age of whatever body she is inhabiting at the time. When she enrolled, she claimed 18.
♫Born and bred the masters of ourselves.♫
Gender:
That depends, but Estelle applied as a female and was originally female, so she often prefers a female form. But she also assumes male forms when it pleases her.
♫Never has the blood in my veins flowed so fiercely♫
Race:
Rakshasi.
♫Would she hold me, if she knew my shame?♫
Sexual Orientation:
That’s complicated. The simple answer is just yes.
♫Better is one day in your house♫
House:
Doran.
♫Sittin’ in the back of my next class nappin’ got up gave a speech and bowed to the clapping.♫
Classes:
Mythology and the Truth; Magical Creatures; Ancient Magic
♫My purpose is so clear!♫
Occupation:
Senior.
♫I wake up every evening with a big smile on my face.♫
Likes:
• Compliments. It makes her feel as if she’s not as terrible as she feels.
• Good food. Of course, what she considers ‘good’ changes frequently with the tide of her souls.
• Flirting. When successful, it makes Estelle feel wanted.
♫When you see my face, I hope it gives you hell!♫
Dislikes:
• Insults. A single insult is not that bad, but when a chorus of thousands repeat it to you in your mind, it’s crushing.
• Rejection. It just increases the certainty that Estelle would be better off dead.
• Violence. She’s caused more violence than most people could ever imagine, not to mention the extra memories of those she’s eaten.
• Lying. It makes her feel dirty inside, but sometimes she does not have a choice.
♫When all you got to keep is strong.♫
Strengths:
• ESP. Well, not exactly, but when you have thousands watching your back, it’s hard to be taken by surprise.
• Numerous powers. Estelle has access to hundreds, if not thousands, of different abilities. When she remembers them.
• Survival Instinct. She will do anything to survive, even if she does not want to; the souls within her force her to go to whatever extent required to live on.
♫When we live fragile lives.♫
Weaknesses:
• Depression. Estelle’s mind is always one step from shattering, endlessly tormented from within to the point that anything from without fractures it.
• Confusion. When you have the memories of more people than you can count, many of which overlap, it is sometimes hard to tell the difference between them.
• Oblivity. Estelle is constantly being talked to by many different voices in her head, sometimes she mistakes them for external voices or mistakes external voices for internal ones. She doesn’t mean to ignore people, she just sometimes does not even realize the said anything.
• Fragility. Estelle’s physical form is extraordinarily weak, much more so than a normal human. Through rare, her flesh has been known to tear open without provocation. Some hypothesize that the cause of this is the souls within trying to escape, but Estelle thinks her body is simply much older than it should be.
• Possession. She sometimes is not herself, in fact, rarely is the girl ever actually ‘Estelle’ because of the many souls fighting for expression.
♫I see the fear growing in their lost eyes!♫
Fears:
• That the souls within her will take over completely one day.
• That the outside world will become as hostile as her inner world.
• That people will find out her true nature and reject her.
• That she will never be able to resist her urges.
• That she will revert to how she was at the beginning of the curse, killing for the fun of it.
♫I’ll keep you, my dirty little secret.♫
Secret:
Estelle’s biggest secret is her unfortunate habit of consuming hearts.
♫He’s a stranger to some and a vision to none.♫
Description:
Estelle’s normal form is small, a couple inches short of five feet. She appears to be frail, almost as if a gentle breeze could carry her off. Her hair frames her face in a light emerald color and behind her, reaches half-way down her back. She takes good care of her hair, making sure it is always brushed and manageable – bad hair days only invite mockery. Her light blue eyes are always filled with sorrow and regret, unless she is actively on the prowl, seeking some nefarious deed.
Of course, Estelle has multiple forms, at least one per souls. Some of the more common ones she adopts are that of a more confident, adult woman with the alias of ‘Sasha’and a devious-looking guy named ‘Kyle’. Of course, she can also assume the form of animals that she has consumed, such as a magical emu called ‘Emmy’.
♫Do you believe in the fantasy?♫
Power(s):
Estelle has a very gruesome power – to gain the form, memory, abilities, and soul of those whose hearts she eats. This is the result of a curse placed upon her and her people, most of which are dead now, by a powerful god. Because of the curse, Estelle is compelled to eat hearts, at least one per year. The consequences if she fails to do so are unknown, she often eats more than one per year, even if she tries not to. Consuming others like this extends Estelle’s life, but by how much is a mystery but is likely to be one year per soul. Those she can consume with her ability has no limit, aside from requiring a heart. This means she can eat humans, animal, magical creatures, anything with a heart.
When consuming something, Estelle gains their memories, which often blend into the memories she already has, causing confusion. No matter her assumed form, Estelle possesses the memories of all the souls within her, but the memories of the form she is in become stronger and clearer; though they could still be almost gone due to age, as her own memories from long ago are. She also adopts the personality traits of those she consumes, or rather, the soul gains a place within her and joins the others in a contest of expression, trying to have its personality be dominant. While assuming a form, the soul of that form gains more dominance, so the personality of that soul is expressed more than other personalities. There are still conflicts and some souls are stronger on some days than others, so Estelle never really has the exact same personality type two days in a row and especially not across forms. When Estelle changes forms, so to does anything non-magical on her; clothing with shift into something more appropriate to the form – the soul of a Greek warrior would likely have armor and weapons, while the soul of a college professor would be dressed as such, while in animal forms she appears as a normal animal. Her sole magical possession, her notebook, never changes with her, so she must be careful to hide it away in a safe place if she assumes a form incapable of carrying it.
Estelle is often drawn to creatures of a magical nature by her curse. When she consumes such creatures, she gains their abilities and the knowledge necessary to use them through memories. Great power, thus, is at Estelle’s finger tips, but she rarely uses it. If she ever had to actually fight, she would almost certainly just break down crying or retreat into herself instead. When this happens, the souls fight amongst themselves – the greater the danger, the quicker this goes – to gain control of her now-useless body to defend or flee as necessary. Of course, the individual souls do not have access to Estelle’s abilities, only whatever abilities the soul originally possessed. And, unused to having an actual body for so long, the body becomes almost zombie-like. When not having to fight, however, Estelle has a truly impressive repertoire of abilities – she’s eaten Witches and Wizards, Demons, Angels, elementalists, Shape-Shifters, Vampires, Werewolves, and more. Almost anything possible, Estelle has access to. Of course, with so many different abilities, Estelle often forgets what all she is actually able to do. Furthermore, she rarely uses many powers because if others found out how many different things she could do, they would ask questions she did not want to answer.
♫It’s time to lock-and-load♫
Belongings:
The souls of roughly 100,000 creatures. As far as physical possessions, Estelle has a magical notebook that always has extra pages, which she uses to try to record memories in; this is her most valued possession.
♫This who I am really inside.♫
Personality:
Talk about multiple personalities. Whenever Estelle consumes another’s soul – which she does through their heart, living or dead – she also gains their memories, form, abilities, and personalities. These personalities don’t always fit together very well, often clashing and trying to overcome the others. Some personalities are quiet, some are loud, and Estelle flows with the tides, sometimes quiet and sometimes loud. She is never consistent in most things, always at the mercy of whichever group of personalities manages to express themselves. Very few personality traits stay constant when you are stuck in the middle of a war of souls, all wanting to be dominant. When Estelle takes on a specific form, she is able to better express the personality of the one she stole it from but still struggles with the other souls within her.
A few traits hold common amongst most people, and thus are nearly always expressed in Estelle – if 99% of the souls within her agree on something, they overpower the 1% that does not. One example of this is the survival instinct. While Estelle has doubtlessly consumed some people that either had a death wish or just lacked an instinct to live on, the vast majority of people, and thus those she’s eaten, have the will to live. Estelle, of course, values her life, often determined to survive no matter the cost. It is not a stretch to say that she has the blood of thousands on her hands, each killed to preserve her own life. Of course, her survival had more sinister requirements than most people; she must hearts to maintain her life. When first cursed with this, she had no qualms killing others to prolong her life, in fact, for a long time she did not have issues with murdering and eating the hearts of her victims even when she did not have to. In the past millennium, however, Estelle developed a conscience – or maybe the souls within her forced it upon her – and she began to kill only when necessary. More recently, Estelle began to not even kill; she’d only eat the hearts of those already dead. In the past few decades, she has grown to find the act abhorrent and has tried to stop, but the will to live on, amplified by the souls within her, have prevented Estelle from controlling herself. One of the reasons Estelle has come to this academy is that she hopes they will help her control her urges, or end them along with her.
One of the most powerful traits common to almost every creature is that of desire. The desire to have food, to be comfortable, to reproduce. All of these exist strongly in Estelle, but she is able to control them for the most part. She does not gorge herself on food, she is willing to do things that make her uncomfortable, and she isn’t a giant slut. Since being at the academy, though, Estelle does panic when she misses a meal at the dining hall, occasionally making herself physically ill over it. She’s also the biggest tease on campus, flirting with any and everyone. Often her favorite prey are those that would otherwise not be interested – the straight girls and gay boys. Of course, being a tease, she generally ever did more than flirt, but it was far from unheard of for her to go on dates with people. And, of course, there were rumors that claimed she did even more than that, but the validity of said rumors is uncertain. One could always ask Estelle if it was true or not, but who wanted to ask something like that to someone that eats hearts for a living? Well, not that anyone other than some of the faculty – only the Headmaster and those he personally trusted enough to keep it a secret and not judge the girl for it.
A trait that is unique to Estelle, not that she’s the only one to ever possess it but it’s actually hers and not someone else’s, is the intense guilt and sorrow she feels. She can hear, worse, feel every soul that resides within her. Animals, men, women, demons, angels, elves, there’s no end to what she has consumed. And they scream at her, hurling terrible accusations. She keeps them from moving on, to progressing to the natural end of life. Many of them she skilled in cold blood, for no reason other than she could. Some of them were about to move on when she fell upon them and snatched them away from the afterlife. No amount of remorse could be enough for what she’s done. Not amount of redemption is enough. Estelle knows this and does not even try to redeem herself; instead, she tries to prevent herself from inflicting the terrible fate upon anyone else. Of course, the souls within her scream at her for this; if they must suffer, shouldn’t others? Why should she stop now, when she didn’t stop for them? No matter how hard she tried to control herself, they wouldn’t let her. She ate again and again, and every time it crushed her. She had planned to end herself many times, but when there are thousands of souls trying to prevent your death, it’s hard to follow through. Her mind is no sanctuary for her, as it is for others; she is never truly alone. No matter where she goes or what she does, Estelle is constantly assaulted by abuse.
Though she often acts confident, Estelle has a very fragile psyche and a single taunt can send her into tears. If someone tells her that she should feel bad, she immediately does. She is a strong person, but nobody could take mental abuse from thousands of different people 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. When she is attacked from the outside as well, no matter how small, she is unable to stand up to it. Her defenses are as strong as a wet tissue, ripping apart at the slightest provocation, even if unintentional. When subjected to actual external harassment, she retreats into herself so thoroughly that even the souls within her seem to be mocking her from the outside. Estelle becomes almost catatonic in this state, sometimes taking hours to come back to the surface. Like this, it’s possible for one of the more powerful souls to take control of Estelle, though their manipulation of her is shaky at best. The girl is almost zombie-like when this occurs, the souls within her unused to controlling a body, much less a foreign one. How the girl may act like this is entirely up to the soul that possesses her, and there are dozens, if not hundreds, capable of it.
Estelle’s memory runs deep, having nearly four millennia of life as herself in addition to the memories of the thousands of people she has consumed. The more recent a memory is, the easier it is to access it; and the more powerful the soul the memory is attached to, the more vivid the memory is. Most memories from over two millennia ago have been lost, while the ones that are extremely taxing to access. Recalling even a minor detail from further back, such as who she actually is, drains her enough to put her into a coma for at least a day. When she adopts the forms of the souls she houses, the memories specific to that soul come to the top, becoming much easier to sort through than the rest. Of course, to adopt a specific persona, Estelle must first find it, which is not as easy as it sounds. Sorting through a thousand different souls might not be so bad, if they weren’t all screaming at you and trying to be the one you pick, going so far as to lie at times. Estelle tried to learn who they all were, but it was impossible; she was not able to hold that many names and faces in her mind on top of everything else. And every time she ate another, there would be yet another name and face to add to the collection. She knew some of them well enough to call upon pretty easily, but the rest could take her hours of sorting to find who she was looking for, and by then, it was often too late.
♫Lie awake in bed at night and think about your life♫
History:
Cambodia isn’t right, I wasn’t the one to die in that conflict and the 1970s was too early. The civil right movement comes to mind next, but that couldn’t be it, no matter how vividly I remember fighting for rights. Maybe…
Rebecca was born to a lower-class family on the outskirts of a small town in the early 1930s. She was the third child among six. As the only girl, she helped her mother with chores around the house while her brothers worked the fields with their father. It was a mediocre life, but it was all she had known. There was nothing special about her or her family. Her life progressed in such a way until she got married and started a household of her own, have three children. She then… no, wait, that’s not the real me, these are not my real memories.
Was I the one being starved? Did I have a number? No, I never suffered in the German camps. Wait, Australia comes to mind. I was born to a loving father, but mother never seemed to care about me. Perhaps she didn’t know I was hers. As I grew, I came to realize I was different than the others. After many moons had passed, they came, with sticks that spat fire and death. With my power, I was able to protect a large number of my fellows from injury and they seemed to give up. But they returned later and caught me by surprise. They managed to kill… wait, no! I’m not an Emu, that’s ridiculous.
Jonathan was born during the middle of a bloody war in 1864. His father never came back from the war and his mother died shortly after he was born, leaving his care to his elder siblings, a brother and sister. In the years that followed, the three suffered a hard lot in life, and his brother died while trying to earn money, forcing the remaining siblings to turn to crime to survive. Within a year, his sister was dead and Jonathan in prison. He would rot there in all likelihood, having nobody that cared about him. No, that’s not right either. I need to go further back.
There was the potato famine, I remember that, but was that me? I don’t think so. I delivered messages for Queen Victoria, right? No, that is someone else, I was not a courtier. I remember my people being taken by the White Men as slaves, leaving my tribe broken. No, I was not an African chief.
Patricia was a young girl when she made the deal. Magic powers in exchange for a single favor later? Of course she would do that! Her young mind had no idea how terrible that favor would turn out to be, or how much she would come to enjoy carrying it out. When the time came, all the serpent asked was for Patricia to frame people in her town of Salem. It was easy to do, and several people were burned. Patricia enjoyed the revenge she got on the people who had bullied her as a child, but when suspicion fell upon her, she could not escape her fate. She was convicted of being a witch and… no, that’s not my true self. That’s not who I am.
I sought to master my desire, and, in doing so, master myself and be free from the cycle. This was the reason I practice the Shaolin way. No, I wasn’t a monk. I was a proud warrior that caught death from the white invaders. My mighty Algonquin tribe would fall to the sickness brought to us. No, I’m still alive, I couldn’t have died. Was I the girl in the village on the island? Everyone started to vanish, and I knew that Roanoke was doomed, but I couldn’t leave, I was… no, not her. I was not her. Who was I, then?
Francesca was born to unknown parents but adopted by wealthy nobles. She was doted on to the extent that she had her own private tutor, something not common in 1500s Florence. She was intelligent and wanted to use her intelligence, but her family only had her educated so she would be a more appealing bride for a wealthy suitor. Being pressured into marriage when she actually preferred women, the girl fled her home and boarded a boat bound for Egypt, where she met… no, this isn’t right either. This is getting hard.
Wounded soldiers came to my care and I had to patch them up. My commander said that this war would last a hundred years at this rate; I hoped not, I hated seeing people hurt, which was the reason I became a field medic, to… no, I wasn’t him. My parents died from the plague. Some said it was God’s wrath, that we had to repent to be saved. But even those that repented died. It did not matter, nobody cared about a small girl who had already caught her death. No, I am still alive. I wasn’t a courtier for the English queen, but maybe for a Russian tsar? No, that doesn’t sound right, and there’s something beneath that. I discovered the new world with the leader of the voyage, Lief, son of Erik. We then… no, I was not a Viking, no way. Perhaps….
Kasiya grew up in Egypt during the 9th century, amidst the rebellion against Abbasid rule. She lost several friends in the riots, dead or captured she did not know. She begged Allah to grant peace, but when it came, she was not ready to pay the price. It started when… when… no, this isn’t mine. I… have to go deeper.
Jezebel was born to middle-class parents in Carthage in the 4th century. As she grew older, he parents decided that she was not suited for marriage – too headstrong, disobedient. She was to be sent to join a convent and dedicate her life to God, but on the way, she fled and found a young man by the name of Augustine, whom she had a brief relationship with before he lost interest in her and abandoned her and her unborn child. Shortly before the time to give birth arrive, Jezebel… no, this isn’t far enough back. It hurts.
I fought in the Colosseum, famed for my ability to emerge unscathed from every battle. Famed, not liked, because the audience enjoyed the bloodshed. They gave me more and more battles, hoping I would lose; but my God protected me. I think they began to grow suspicious of my faith, though, but I knew He would never abandon me. I… no, I was not him. Was I the harem girl, a caretaker to Cleopatra? I remember it, but it’s fuzzy, so that probably wasn’t me. I don’t want to go deeper, it’s getting to painful.
I… I was originally… it hurts, I don’t want to continue. I… think I was an Aryan, but… I wasn’t normal. Please let it end, I can’t…. I was cursed by a god, maybe? Was it… Vishnu? He made me what I am, what we are. The Rakshasa he called us. What did we do to deserve this fate? I… I don’t remember. I can’t. It hurts. I….
The ‘girl’ woke up days later, the strain of remembering so far back, sifting through so much, too great for her. The recruiter must have accepted her application, because she was in the castle she sought refuge at. She would start mid-semester at the Academy, but maybe they would be able to help her. At the very least, they were probably confident they could stop her.
♫No secret deceptions for these would stare us down.♫
Other:
Estelle has many colorful voices in her head with their own personalities. Also Emmy!
