14 YEARS OLD

GIFTED

CIVILIAN

FEMALE

TELEPATH

STUDENT

character overview

positive traits

negative traits

things they like

things they dislike

character description

she once had to be all she could be

Rachel Winters is a worthless human being.

There's no point in denying it, truly - she believes it herself, after all, and that has to make it a fact, correct? She has no talents. She is not physically adept enough to succeed in any sports, has no eye for visual arts, and as much as she'd love to sing like the birds, music is lost on her as well. She is about as far from society's standard for pretty as a bitter fourteen-year-old can come: ache doing its worse, one of the shortest girls in her age group, baggy clothes and baggier eyes. Even her personality is absolute garbage; not a conversation goes by where she doesn't end up spitting verbal poison at someone after stumbling over a solid ten sentences of nonsense. She's angry and melancholy and unskilled and generally worthless. At least: this is what most people would be quick to tell you.

Note that, above wall, that which builds the foundation for Rachel Winters and most everything she does, says, and believes in is a crippling lack of self worth. The rather depressing introductory paragraph above should have provided a nice bit of insight into what she, herself, honestly believes about herself and what worth she has in a world as ruined as the one she lived in. To any outsider looking in, though, it'd be hard to tell right off the bad. If anything, one would imagine her to believe everyone else to have such little meaning and purpose: wastes of space, breath, and her time. Social interaction is not something she engages in frequently, nor does she enjoy the precious few times she's trapped in situations that call for it, and in those aforementioned times, she's almost guaranteed to leave the other party just as huffy about conversing with her as she. Which is to say, she is not a very kind person. Sharp eyes and a sharper tongue – compliments and sympathies are things all but foreign to her lips, and verbal poison is a weapon she wields with deadly precision. You're not going to talk to her without being insulted; often times, a simple “may I ask for the time?” is met with a “it's half past 'you're an idiot, get a watch'.” Elongated interactions are worse, still: the more drawn out time spent with someone she cares little to be around, the more irritable she begins and the more snippy her curt sentences grow. At the same time, while she's likely to call you a raging moron at some point in conversation, manners are not completely lost. You are “sir” or “ma'am” before all else, and likely you are to be called that even once she's learned your name, and “thank you”s and “please”s are common place in her vernacular. She doesn't insult to feel better about herself, though, nor because she enjoys it in anyway. At this point, it's as much a crude habit as it is a defense mechanism. Conversation is an art she was never gifted in, and sounding tough and intimidating is a better card to play than stumbling over words like a buffoon. The ruder she is, as well, the quicker people tend to leave, which then spares their time of dealing with such a waste of space as herself.

Carrying on with negative aspects, you can also find that she likes to make herself out to be quite the apathetic little girl, something that is, in most cases, quite true. The telepath does not care where you had your hair done or how many brothers you had or why your accent is so strange: trivial things are not to be hung up on, especially when one may have as little time as they could in Sanctum's less-than-forgiving environment. At the same time, activities that she does not absolutely fall over herself with joy over do not elicit an ounce of effort from her. All in all, there are more things in life that she simply does not care about than things she likes or hates. In fact, there are more things she cares about than she hates, and the number of the former is startling small for a teenaged girl of her age; so many things that are met with a rather “meh” attitude, so many things that would bring precious wonder and awe to the masses but are lost on her pessimistic mind. Even death holds a fraction of the meaning it once did. Her parents passed away without so much of a tear from their youngest daughter, and the day she meets her maker is one she doesn't mind how close or how far is. Strangely so, though, there are a lot of things she envies in this world – namely a lot of traits upheld by peers, superiors, and those beneath even her lowly status. Personality traits, beauty, skills. You could enjoy the smell of flowers, in fact, and she'd hate you a bit because she can no longer get such joy from... well, much of anything, anymore. Just another thing she keeps to herself, though. Whereas her indifference toward most everything is made incredibly public, her covetous nature is a secret to all but herself.

At her core, though, Rachel is not a girl built solely on faults. While she puts on an air of anger, a spike shell that keeps the people away, if one sticks around long enough, they've the chance to bare witness to the positive traits she can exhibit. If Little Miss Winters is anything, she is hard-working. Honestly, even if you think she's as prickly on the inside as she looks to be on the out, you've probably seen how hard she pushes herself. Whereas extra curricular activities outside of singing mean nothing to her and she puts little to no effort into them, she takes school work – as well as virtually anything she is expected to do or wishes to do on her own accord – incredibly seriously and gives it as much as she can possibly give every time without fail. She's that kid you see running laps outside in the rain for days one end with no coach in order to get anything better than last place in the upcoming relay race, or that kid who pulls multiple all-nighters a week to study for those tests coming up on that looming Friday. Unfortunately, being rather unskilled in most every area and generally not very book smart, last place and failing grades are still what she can expect. This, however, does not serve to deter her: as persistent as she is hardworking, she probably won't stop putting in one hundred and twenty percent of her effort anytime soon, if ever in her lifetime at all. Despite lacking intelligence in terms of history dates and E=mc^2, though, one would be surprised to find her quite skilled in people smarts. Conversations are something she's poor at, but if you need solid life advice, she's one of the best fourteen-year-olds the world has to offer in terms of dishing such advice out; wise beyond her years in terms of dealing with people and life, although rare to take her own advice and make good decisions where it counts, she definitely won't sugarcoat things, but her advice would be wise to follow. Perhaps this is something she's picked up from month's worth of time spent simply people watching – when your only friends are the birds on the telephone poles and the cats scavenging for food in the alleys, time is often best spent doing as such.

Despite viewing herself as less than the scum of the Earth, the gifted has a startling amount of pride when it comes to bad situations. This isn't to say that she thinks highly of herself in any way, and she definitely won't boast what meager accomplishments she has achieved, but when garbage collides with the metaphorical fan, there's a large part of her that demands she see herself through the darkened tunnel by her lonesome. No aid. No help. No anything aside from her own skills and wits. Admitting to needing help not only inconveniences the person she requires help from, but also serves to show how horrible she is at everything to not only herself, but the world around her. In the rare instances that she can get over such an obstacle and accept the aid of another being, though, one can truly see just how grateful she is for the things that are done for her. She never lets a debt go unpaid, and after the initial rescue, she'll do everything in her power to make up for that inconvenience she forced upon them, regardless of how willing they are to accept it. Whereas she's slow to take offers of help from another person, though, she's certainly not slow to swoop in and attempt to play Batman should she see someone in immediate danger. While she doesn't care much for past dilemmas, there isn't a single thought to be had before she's flinging herself into the fry to cause a dilemma currently going on. This is as much to prove that she's isn't a complete failure to herself as it is to prove it to the other person, and the fact that she could possibly save someone's life – or, at least, keep them from having a sour day – is a nice little bonus to tack onto the end there.

character classification

now she's nothing for no one, nowhere to be seen

Rachel is a telepath. From the word “telepath” alone, most anyone can probably formulate a general idea of what her abilities, then, entail: she is capable of listening in on and influencing the thoughts that pass through the brains of creatures other than herself, albeit with heavier emphasis on the “reading” than “manipulating” portion of this power. She does not, however, have telekesis (ability to influence the physical realm with her mind), nor is she an empath (with the ability to read and influence the emotions). In addition to that, her pool of possible candidates for telepathic powers are rather limited, those candidates being animals or any animal-like creature. She cannot read the minds of humans or most of the gifted population, which may seem like a great hindrance, but she prefers speaking to animals over humans, and this ability is just what she needs to communicate. Being able to read thoughts and project thoughts back and forth with the neighborhood alley cat not only makes for pleasant conversation, but a nice extra pair of eyes around the city.

Her telepathy is further weakened, though, by the fact that it is conditionally temporary. The Winters are a long line of gifted who are blessed or cursed from birth and must complete a destiny-given task in order to keep or lose whatever they were born with respectively. Her “animal whispering” is a great blessing, truly, but in order to maintain it past the age of eighteen, the young girl must kill a certain animal quite close to her. Kenai, an alaskan malamute of approximately two years of age and possibly the best friend she's ever known, is her own personal pet, and should she wish to maintain communication with the only people who would bother to speak with her, she has to put him down herself. No mercy kills. No second-hand murder. It's something she doesn't like to wrap her mind around, being fully aware of what she must do, and thinks she'd prefer losing her friendship with him than tossing away his life.

character biography

abandoned for wreckage, and no one cares

As a child, her grandparents would frequently call her “the flower child”. A fitting name – what Rachel lacked in the beauty of freshly bloomed blossom, she certainly made up for in frailty and insignificance. The younger of twin sisters, Rachel grew up in the shadow of Meghan, just another Winters child who would grow into her nicknames well. Where the former indulged in the simplicity and subtlety of life, the latter lived very much by the phrase “go big or go home”, constantly pushing boundaries, whether it be rules, social standards, or her own limits as a person. And, while being simple and nearly invisible did nothing to necessarily hinder her ability to enjoy life, she certainly wasn't rolling around in a sea of friends and having her name swept through the seas that was the local elementary school. In fact, the only reason why anyone would bother to even know her name or acknowledge her existence was because she was “Meghan's twin sister”.

Being generally ignored by peers was something the platinum blonde could deal with. Social interaction was something she was never particularly good at, and as long as they didn't bother her while she was playing with the animals – how funny it was that no one ever knew just how good of friends she'd made in those animals – all was good and fun. Rather than the indifference she faced in public, however, her home environment was filled with a crippling atmosphere of disappointment. Yes, Mother and Father never specifically outright said anything that would work to tear down the self confidence of their youngest child, but even at a young age, she could just tell from the faces they made, the look in their eyes when they said, “A seventy-four percent on your test? I'm sorry, honey. Just keep trying, you'll get better in no time.” Such things certainly painted a much different picture than the warm smiles, the pats on the back, the way they beamed with pride whenever their oldest gained just another achievement.

While she certainly wasn't happy about the whole ordeal, Rachel never really cared too much about being a failure in the eyes of her parents. It wasn't until these sentiments were put into words that she could physically hear that her attitude toward her own insignificance and life as a whole began to turn sour. It started so plainly: a group project with her twin, one she honestly tried her hardest on, but her short comings blew that all right out of the water. “Why are you so useless? Can't you do anything right?” Meghan had spat, and as the whole class turned and laughed, the nine-year-old wondered, “Why am I so useless?” The question burned itself into her mind, growing and mutating as days, months, even years ticked by. “Useless” became “useless and dumb and pointless and a failure and the scum of the Earth”. As self hatred burned in the depths of her soul, hatred for the outside world, envy toward their worth in the grand scheme of things escalated, as well. She stopped speaking to the animals as much. She started skipping out on classes in fourth grade of all things, dropped off at school by her parents, entering the building, and quickly hightailing it to the nearest city park. By the time the Demon Tide was sweeping across the world, she had such a little opinion on the well being of herself and everything around her that, when her parents were both taken by fiendish monsters, she didn't even spare their deaths a frown.

Her twin viewed her as a monster by the time they were being rounded up into Sanctum; they were orphans, and any mention of their late parents only elicited a bitter smile or laugh from the younger of the two rather than the “normal” grief any child without mother and father should have been exhibiting. When the two were split up, neither were shaken up about it. In fact, her sister called out as bad of profanities as a ten-year-old could when she was on her way, reminding Rachel that all of her “little animal friends” would get to die alone outside of city walls just like Mom and Dad. During the four years since, the two have occasionally crossed paths in the Institute, but neither bothers to so much as look the other way – the Winters family is dead, and they've no interest in bringing it back together.

Painfully aware that her task involved killing the first animal she, herself, owned, throughout most of her life, the white-haired girl had been adamant of never keeping pets. Family pets, as well; even if she didn't get attached, she'd have to kill it, and the putting down of an animal was not something she was mentally strong enough to do. It was only once she happened upon a small pup while talking to the animals inside one of the city's pet stores that she knew, absolutely knew that she couldn't go without a pet any longer. Having lost all of cats, dogs, birds, and toads from her home town by being locked away in this “safe haven,” she'd been without a quality friend for some time. The local strays were always skittish, and while she had nice, friendly conversations from time to time, few ever came back for round two. This one, though, this precious little malamute was calling her name. Literally. She'd stick her hand through his kennel, and he'd rub up against like he'd die if he didn't. When she left empty-handed the first time, he whined and whined, begging her to return. And return she did. Every day, in fact, for the better portion of a month – he speak about not remembering his family and all of the great dogs he'd get to meet before they left, and she'd get to talk about all of the animal friends that were trapped outside the city. It didn't matter how strange of looks the owner threw her way, really, so long as she had the chance to speak to this lovable bundle of joy. She never made a move on him until she learned that he was about to be sold away to a rich, gifted couple quite a ways from the institute, and when such a bomb was dropped, there was absolutely no hesitation: she stuffed that dog under her coat and made a mad run for it.

Goodness only knew how she got away with nabbing such an expensive breed. Whatever deity was grinning down on her, though, Rachel was quite thankful.

Almost two years have passed since, and the gifted's life has been surprisingly dull. She follows the Institution's rules, avoids her sister like the plague, and keeps her beloved Kenai hidden where no one but he, her, and the rest of the city's animals could possibly find him. She works hard at everything she does, and while she's still no Mary Poppins – practically perfect in every way? Quite the opposite – her self confidence is a little better than it had been the year her parents passed away. And I have no idea how to close this up. Here you go, take this relatively short history.