Meraki
Female
She is about nineteen; exact age unknown.

Because she is quite young, Meraki is a bit soft around the edges but already womanly enough. She is of average height and though not exactly a stunning piece of bipedal beauty, she is not a complete troll either. Generally pale-skinned, can freckle quite easily, dark blonde hair, the sort that grows lighter with exposure to the sun, and dark green eyes.

Other than a crippling fear of everything and slightly crooked teeth, no defects, really.

She is very shy, very meek, and very sweet; with others she tends to be nice and even affectionate. She has, however, has a sort of addiction to fear: she will sometimes put herself in a dangerous situation for the adrenaline rush it brings her, and she isn’t quite afraid of physical pain, but being mean to her breaks her heart. She works on the reverse of the ‘sticks and stones’ adage. For some weird reason, springs makes her... bolder, so to speak, though it doesn't break her tendency for fear and meekness.

Let us just say Meraki has a… complicated past that I shall not divulge just yet because it spoils the fun! She’s completely normal, though, don’t worry (well, in the biological sense?). She comes from a parallel world very much like ‘ancient’ Earth where all mythologies are real (well, all mythical creatures and beasts; the gods may or may not be real, or mythical creatures/beings of great power) and ‘pure’ humans do no exist anymore.

I’m Rae! But you can also call me Dreia, or Dre, or whatever you wish.
I found out about Shaman basically when it was created many moons ago but I never got down to joining it until now.

Le sample:
_________________________________________________

My daughter,

It’s quiet today. It always is, ever since you left me.

I know you blame me, but you shouldn’t; you know I had no choice. How could I? You were only a small, bright thing by my side, something that came out of me. So eager with your bright eyes, wings draped over your back. So pliable you were, so delicate, curling around me at night, snug against the curve of my belly as I sung you lullabies. Do you remember my lullabies, sweet child?

No, I did not think you did.

I dreamed of you yesterday. You were laughing, my child. Your face was so bright it almost glowed, and I felt warm for the first time in ages, when I woke with the remembrance of your shrieking laughter – I remember still how it breaks when you are too breathless with it, though it has been far too long since I heard it from you – in my ears, the sheen of tears in my eyes, and the aching pain of my love for you in my heart, my mouth, my very soul.

Yes, my child, I love you, though I know you do not believe it. I named you as I did because that is what you are: a child made of love, with all my heart. I can only hope someday you can understand it.

I remain,

Your loving mother

*

There are secrets hidden in pools of shallow water, my mother used to say. Look into it and you may see secrets – you may find hidden things, even the future, sometimes, when you are of some age or another and the wind blows through your hair. But in this shallow puddle woven through cracks in worn concrete and asphalt, I see nothing of future, nothing of the past, only what I have become. What, to some level, I always was.

It sounds strange to walk through these deserted streets (and how do I even know what these things are, these relics of mystic-days?). Like they should be full of a life as alien to us as we were to them – animals and beasts across the border of intelligence. The sound of rust echoes in counterpoint to my heart, and I wonder why now, or all days, I feel compelled to rest, to walk and feel instead of glide and forget; but then, I know the answer.

The puddle shatters when I step on it; it soaks into my coat and makes it darker. Seeps deeper, closer to my skin. The image I see in it, or saw before it splinters into colors and sunlight, is not the image I can see superimposed in my mind, back when I was a hopeful child: the twisted horns that adorn my face is the same, the same copper-red the hair that shields and slips over it, the same pale skin, the same brownish eyes.

I am the same and not the same, some paradox; but then, I have always been a simple child, my mother would say. May she rot in Hell, before I forget!

Not that I am likely to, not after what she did to me.

Why then, am I here among these ruins? Perhaps I feel better among them, with the still air and the scent of humidity in the air, and the earth shrugging under my feet in a spring as I walk. I can feel it, needle-pricks against my brain; it’s curious, this, but nonetheless, I go on.

And what do I look for? I can’t quite say. Maybe I have never known; but I am quite young, and, I’m sure, quite careless enough to want to know, whether I do or not. Thus I walk, hiding in the shades of plaster and wood half-rotten and worn and I wonder at my fate, stopping at the shingle-less shade of what once was a quiet house for some long forgotten, long dead family. Around me and under the ruins of older, forgotten days, the earth sings: I smile.

meraki.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.

lineart by julie Bales @ deviantart; painting by me