DALE, NELL DOE

FULL NAME Nell Doe Shepherd Dale. Her maiden name is Nell Doe Sinclair Fuentes, bearing both her mother and father's names according to Spanish nomenclature. She changed her name to Nell Shepherd -- after shepherd's pie, her favorite food -- when she moved to Canada. Now that she is married, her full name is Nell Doe Shepherd Dale, though she prefers Nell Dale.

NICKNAMES Nelly, Nellers, anything you want to call her. She loves nicknames.

DATE OF BIRTH August 10th, 1993.

AGE Twenty-one.

GRADE/YEAR Junior.

ELEMENT Earth.

SEXUALITY Joshsexual.

MARITAL STATUS Married to Joshua Dale.

CELEBRITY CLAIM Ellen Page.

EYE COLOUR Brown.

HAIR COLOUR Brown.

HEIGHT & WEIGHT 5' 2" & 100 Ibs.

DISTINGUISHING FEATURES Nell has a few scars, some not well healed. Most of them have faded. She has a tattoo on the back of her neck that reads 'we are blessed' in memory of her sister.

CLOTHING STYLE Thrift shops are her favorite places ever. But really, she'll wear anything. Her team's jersey on game day, a nice dress for outings, or a band tee for class. Frugal because of her upbringing, she still likes to mend things and keep them for as long as possible instead of going on shopping sprees.

POSITIVE TRAITS

• SELFLESS. Nell would give away absolutely anything for a stranger in need. She puts others about a mile before herself, making sure that they are comfortable and happy. Her needs very rarely factor into her decisions.
  
• MATERNAL. Life from a young age conditioned her to be this way. All of her relationships up until she was seventeen had been her taking care of the other person. She never had another example of how relationships work.
  
• PASSIONATE. Nell is an intensely spirited person, and has many, many, many passions. From cooking, to building, to caring for other people, she believes that there is nothing more important in life than passion.
  
• SUPPORTIVE. Let's just say Nell enjoys taking the role of "cheerleader" in a person's life. She admires people very easily, and likes to listen to their ambitions and support them in achieving those ambitions.
  
• OPTIMISTIC. She's the annoying kind of person that refuses to see the downside to situations. Even if it's looking bad, she'll be doing her best to raise morale and keep other people's spirits up.
  
• CREATIVE. One of her favorite things is arts and crafts. She enjoys making origami, painting, and simply creating things. Her maze is what she's proudest of, as a matter of fact, something she built all on her own.
  
• PATIENT. She has the capacity to wait ages for anything, whether it's the bus or a raise or a friend's arrival to their meeting place. It's very difficult to ruffle her, so she has an eternal aura of calm.
  
• PACIFISTIC. Nell dislikes any sort of violence and confrontation. If she sees it happening, she will do her best to stop it. She is a mediator, and always tries to find compromises instead of resorting to violence.

NEGATIVE TRAITS

• SELF-ESTEEM. Nell has a very low view of herself. It's safe to say that sometimes, she even hates herself. It's slowly gotten better of the years, in little ways, but she still would rather not think at all about herself.
  
• PASSIVE. She believes this is a good thing, but a lot of times it ends up with her being hurt. Nell rarely even defends herself when it comes to situations where she's in danger. If it's between her being hurt and hurting someone else, she'll choose the former.
  
• ASHAMED. It's not something that she talks about and she rarely thinks about it, either, but taking her mother's life is something she doesn't believe she can ever get over. It haunts her no matter how much she tries to get over it.
  
• IGNORANT. Isolation has made her ignorant to many things in the world. This attributes to her not really getting social norms sometimes, making her "over-friendly" a lot. She tries to keep it in check, and she's not proud of this.
  
• PEOPLE-PLEASER. She's a yes person, so much so that it's easy to do just about anything to her. Manipulators find easy prey in her, since she likes to support other people in their endeavors.
  
• APOLOGETIC. Even if it's a minor thing, expect her to say "I'm sorry" about twenty times over it. If she makes a mistake, she will cling to your leg and beg for forgiveness. She could bump into a chair, and she'll immediately apologize.
  
• PUSHOVER. She's a doormat. You can pretty much walk all over her and she won't do anything about it. Though she may get verbally snarky when cornered, she doesn't back up her bark.
  
• WORRYWORT. If you even imply that there may be something wrong in your life, she will immediately be on alert. She tries not to be overbearing, but that's not to say she doesn't always succeed.
  

LIKES

• PEOPLE. People are awesome and unique and interesting.
  
• JOSH. He's pretty freaking awesome.
  
• OUTDOORS. Wide open spaces are where she feels most comfortable.
  
• CARDS. She deals poker and carries around a deck in her bag at all times.
  
• FOOD. Eating or making it or simply being around it. She has a passion for anything nutrition.
  
• HAPPINESS. All those happy endorphins.
  
• CARS. Especially hybrids, what can she say.
  
• CHILDREN. Little people that need love and care and support 24/7? Yes please.
  
• MOVIES. Turns out Nell is a major cinephile.
  
• LIGHTS. Anything bright, and it will hold her attention for a while.
  
• LITERATURE. Her father had always encouraged her to enjoy reading.
  
• SCIENCE. She's only recently embraced the fact that she's a science dork.
  
• PHILOSOPHY. Once upon a time, she had majored in it.
  
• MAZES. She built the one in her backyard. It's kind of a big deal.
  
• EXPERIMENTS. Blowing stuff up? Who wouldn't be into that?
  
• MILK. She believes it's the secret to growing another few inches.
  
• FLOWERS. Especiall sunflowers and tulips and gardenias and hyacinths and...
  
• SPORTS. Especially if she can serve snacks after a game.
  
• EXPLORING. She calls it exploring, most people call it "getting lost."
  

DISLIKES

• HER FAMILY. They kind of almost ruined her life.
  
• ARGUMENTS. Any kind of conflict has her running for the hills.
  
• BEING ALONE. Even for a second.
  
• CHOOSING FAVORITES. She feels bad, even if it's choosing a favorite movie.
  
• STAYING STILL. She has a lot of energy, and she needs to burn it.
  
• COMPLAINING. Never will you hear her whine about anything.
  
• MEDICATION. She doesn't like being medicated.
  
• SICKNESS. She will go to extreme extents to prove she's not sick.
  

STRENGTHS

• FRIENDLY. She's the kind of person to approach a stranger and start talking to them as if they were old friends. Upon meeting, she immediately considers another person her "friend". She likes talking to people and just putting herself out there.
  
• ENTHUSIASTIC. A very passionate person, she approaches every endeavor with vim and vigor. Even mundane tasks like cleaning, Nell finds a way to make it enjoyable.
  
• GENEROUS. Any free time she has, she spends it doing things for other people. And if you don't have lunch? She'll give you hers.
  
• ATHLETIC. Sports are one of her favorite things, football to soccer to hockey. Anything involving a team dynamic and running around makes her a happy camper.
  
• MULTILINGUAL. Nell learned both English and Spanish at the same time, but later learned French from her husband. She's relatively fluent, barring a few mishaps. Notably involving condoms.
  
• DETERMINED. If she tries and fails, she'll try again. And again. She won't stop trying until she does successfully what she's trying to do. This means she procrastinates little and hates putting things off.
  
• INVENTIVE. Nell loves discovering and tinkering and seeing how she can make things work. She is happiest when she's putting her creativity to use.
  

WEAKNESSES

• NAIVE. She goes into every relationship trusting too much. Even though she has been proven wrong multiple times in the past, she believes everyone has good intentions.
  
• HANDLING HER PAST. Even though she has tried therapy before, nothing really works in addressing the trauma she'd been through for over half her life. She really wants to get better since she feels there is something horribly wrong with her, but she doesn't know how.
  
• EASILY MANIPULATED. Now, she isn't stupid or below intelligence. She's just easy to be manipulated if someone wants something out of her.
  
• IMPULSIVE. She is very quick to act, and doesn't tend to think things through. In other words, she's reckless. She's gotten in trouble a lot for this in the past, but she tries her best to behave.
  
• SOCIALLY WEIRD. Spending most of her life away from people, it's taken her a while to adjust to how things work in the real world. And even still, she has some trouble figuring what's appropriate and what's not. So usually, she bypasses social norms.
  
• FICKLE. She had two other majors before settling on psychology. One day blue may be her favorite color, and the next it might be purple. She is never set in her ways, and can come off as a wishy-washy person because of this.
  
• STRUGGLING. There's something wrong with her. She knows this, but doesn't like to think about it. She has a feeling she knows the name for the trauma, but she really does not want to acknowledge that she might be mentally ill in any way.
  

FEARS

• BECOMING LIKE HER MOTHER. There are quite a few linear events that she can find between her and her mother's pasts and they make her uncomfortable. As a matter of fact, in trying to not be like her parents, she's become more like them than she realizes.
  
• TIGHT SPACES/CLOSETS. Nell has pretty intense claustrophobia. Even locked doors make her nervous. She doesn't like being in any place where she doesn't feel like she can breathe right or move easily.
  
• SICKNESS. She rarely gets sick, and she has a good immune system to thank for that. So when she does get sick, she doesn't treat herself well out of refusal to acknowledge the illness. This is the result of her sister dying from a chronic and unidentifiable illness.
  

BEST MEMORY Nell's best memory is her wedding day, as cliche as it might be.

WORST MEMORY A lot. She doesn't like to think of them or pin any one down.

LONG-TERM GOAL Nell has no long-term goals. She lives purely in the moment.

MOTHER Mia Ann Sinclair (36), Unemployed.

FATHER León Trinidad Corteas Fuentes (44), Biochemist.

SIBLINGS Till Rae Sinclair Fuentes (7), Sister.
Rafael Fuentes (16), Half-brother/Thunder student.
Annabel Lynne Dale (15), Sister-in-law.

OTHER Jane Sinclair (41), Aunt; Convict.
Pilar Torres Fuentes (72), Grandfather; District Attorney.
Veronica Ramos Fuentes (76), Grandmother; Physicist.
Joshua Donovan Dale (22), Husband; Medical Assistant.

HISTORY

BIRTH. On August tenth, a set of twins were delivered at Lincoln Hospital in The Bronx, New York. One twin cried as she came into the world, full of life and screaming vitality. The other, however, had been born silently, weak from struggles in the womb. Separated just after being born, the weaker twin was put under a grow bulb while doctors tried to figure out what had gone wrong with her. As the mother cradled the healthy baby in her arms, she named both of them -- Nell Doe and Till Rae.

ONE-FIVE. Till was a lost cause. That's what the doctors said as they prescribed pain medication and León paid to keep his daughter alive so that she could endure a painful existence. They didn't have much to begin with, living in a row home on the southside where crime rates and poverty soared.

It didn't help that Mia had never been healthy. There was something wrong deep down inside her, and no one cared to know that about it. Till's sickness strained her, leaving her paranoid and nervous. She locked all the doors. Her children weren't allowed to leave, they were home-schooled by their father. The only person who came by was Jane, Mia's sister, the woman trying to repair the rift between them. She had run away when the two were younger, leaving Mia to an abusive household, and the only thing she believed she could give was money.

Mia didn't want money. She didn't even want her family, who couldn't care about her because she had not inherited the elemental gene. Not to mention that the wedded couple was a cross-elemental union between Water and Thunder. something their traditionalist families both looked down their nose at. Besides, the Fuentes' were the movers and the shakers, the lawyers and the doctors and the American dream realized in Spanish immigrants who saw opportunity across the Atlantic. The two most powerful families in New York, and the couple had wanted nothing to do with their relatives.

The young Nell had ideas, however. Her father was a scientist in the field of biochemistry and she believed that if she had the resources, she could save her sister. Thus began her campaign, escaping the row house through the fire escape and finding the library on the edge of her street. It wasn't much, but it was enough to keep Nell fervent in her hope. Till did not believe she'd get better, but her sister would find a way, even if it put her in danger. She couldn't just keep folding paper cranes. There had to be more.

SIX. It was morning. Early. Nell helped her father get ready for work. Winter made Till's aches worse, her coughs shallow and dry. Nell asked their father to take the two away, to save them. Two words was all he gave her before he got up and left.

He didn't come home.

Mia had heard the early-morning conversation. It was the little girl's fault that Till had been born sick. And now she had caused her husband to leave her. Her sins were irreparable in Mia's mind.

The following year passed in silence.

SEVEN. Till closed her eyes with a smile, and it was the first time Nell had seen her sister happy in a while.

EIGHT-THIRTEEN. Blank.

FOURTEEN. The books taught Nell things. What to do when shipwrecked. How to preserve water when marooned. She had become a survivalist, practiced it like religion. By her fourteenth birthday she noticed the plants growing outside the window, in the window bed that never bloomed before. It took a while to connect she was the cause. But when she did, sneaking out meant both finding safety and experimenting with this strange knew power. She did not know it meant, but it inspired her. Made her feel in control.

Even still, she didn't leave. She took care of her mother, the woman needed her. And no matter what, she would always love Mia.

FIFTEEN-SIXTEEN. Blank.

SEVENTEEN. In the moments she felt the most like she would die, Nell realized how much she wanted to live. Death was in the way her breathing was shallow, the way it hurt when her chest rose. Mia heard as her daughter tried to escape, knew what she would do as she grabbed the knife. Nell could remember the fear, the pain in her stomach, and the instant when she became something less human and more animal. She never did have proper training with her gift.

The hospital she had been born in was the hospital to treat her wounds. Malnourished, broken rib, internal bleeding. and yet the press still believed it when her family said that she had killed her mother in cold blood. She was a problem child, she picked fights, her mother was only trying to help her. Nell had just tried to make it look like self-defense by stabbing herself. And her aunt, the woman who she hadn't seen in thirteen years, collaborated with her paternal grandparents in establishing this fact. Nell had no power. After all, why would her own family lie about that?

So she ran, hitched rides and took trains and begged money off of strangers so she could get away. It took weeks. Eventually, she arrived in Canada where the scouts pinned her down. It was time to go to the Academy. With a new name and new papers, everything about her was a lie.

EIGHTEEN. Just when she believed the Academy may have been the best thing for her, the past caught up, and it caught up in the way of her father returning, her aunt coming to Canada, and her standing a trial that left her emotionally and mentally taxed. Getting off on justifiable homicide, she ended up with a diagnosis of clinical depression and the weight of regret on her shoulders. Though she was free, it came with a price. Despite the verdict, she would never escape the stigma of being a murderer. When someone spoke to her, that's what they would think of, nothing more.

NINETEEN. After dealing with her depression and moving in with her fiance, she had come a long way. Though she still couldn't decide on a major and got into more trouble than she bargained for, she had it pretty good her sophomore year. Then her aunt moved to Canada to be with her daughter who attended the academy. She had been imprisoned before before Nell's trial, but a mistrial worked in her favor.

Nell thought that would be all she had to worry about. And then her half-brother, Rafael, showed up out of thin air, the product of an affair her father had with a woman named Alicia. Not only did this cause friction between Nell and her father, but when Rafael gave Nell a black eye, Josh took matters into his own hands and stabbed her brother. The Thunder student held the imminent threat of Josh's arrest over Nell's head. When this information became privy to Josh's brother, Bryce, he blackmailed the couple into letting him move in after being kicked out of the dorms.

When Nell got evidence against Rafael and his drug dealing in the form of a video, she forced him to back down, which in turned forced Bryce out of the house.

TWENTY. Things looked up for Nell after the issues with her brother. She finally married Joshua Dale. She got a job at the casino in Maple Hollow. She decided to major in psychology. She felt like she was finally forming something good, felt like her life had permanently stabilized.

Not long after the wedding was Josh attacked by some thugs, who turned out to be working for the crime boss, Jane Sinclair. It had been Jane's warning for Nell, who had been working steadily in the investigation against her. It also assisted in her incarceration, a risky movie that ended up with her getting twenty-five.

TWENTY-ONE. Without her aunt to worry about, things have been looking up. Still working at the casino, she's been focused on school, hoping to end her senior year with a bang.

YOUR NAME Stark.

YOUR AGE 17, baby.

RP EXPERIENCE Quite a bit.

HOW'D YOU FIND US? A SPARKLING CANADIAN VISITED ME IN A DREAM.

SECRET WORD Correct.

RP SAMPLE

When she approached, the prince gave her a smile and she was more-than-relieved to see that expression on his face. At his words, she tilted her head and sighed softly. ”You really think I’d do that without seeing you in person first?” When she slipped away from the castle for the first time without word, it was before she had been friends with Joshua, really. At that time, she still feared him. And Bryce had put it in her head that the royal family didn’t care for her presence. But now it was different. Now she had Joshua to worry about, and she wasn’t about to skip town before talking to him and making absolutely sure he was all right. ”I know I haven’t the best track record, but…I had to make sure I talked to you before going anywhere.” She sometimes thought she had nowhere to go, but in truth she had everywhere to go. But that could wait if it meant checking up on a friend’s welfare.

“Eh, that was my fault, actually,” she said, scratching her cheek when the prince spoke of his servant not giving her directions (and she’d gotten used to the whole ‘servant’ thing to where she didn’t really pay attention to it anymore). “I didn’t want to bother him with asking directions. Or anyone else, for that matter. Sometimes pride gets in the way, you know.” She was much too embarrassed to admit she’d gotten lost in a castle, like she was some sort of imbecile. Which played a part in the fact she tended to get lost in towns quite easily. Nell didn’t want to burden anyone with her stupidity. ”Even if he’d told me, I would have still gotten lost. Heck, I'd even get lost with signs. So scratch that.” She finished the last sentence with a light laugh. It seemed that it didn’t matter much to Joshua anyway, which was good. Everything was looking good.

He seemed sheepish about his hair, blushing and turning his head away. She quirked an eyebrow. ”I like it, Prince Joshua,” she said enthusiastically since it seemed to affect it so. ”Don’t fix it yet. It makes you seem more…easygoing.” Even though Joshua probably didn’t want to be seen as ‘easygoing’ and he certainly wasn’t an ‘easygoing’ person, she wanted at least this moment to be stress-free for him without any worry about appearances or all that had to be done in his kingdom. Besides, she wasn’t one to talk about hair what with Orestes using it as a chew toy. She didn’t care much for it, just pinned it up each day and was done with it.

Nell’s smiled was impossibly bright when he spoke of his father. She was relieved herself, but in a different way. She could see how it tore Joshua up when he thought the king had been dead, the way he had to hold back his emotions whenever speaking of the man. Nell placed a reassuring hand on his arm when he caught his breath, and said, ”All that is over now. Your father's not going anywhere. Your family is together again." She had no doubt of Joshua’s leadership skills, and like everyone else who followed him in the rebellion she’d have stepped into a snake pit had he commanded it. But he still felt like he had a lot to learn, and he wasn’t ready yet to face leading a kingdom alone. And that was all right.

Nell blinked. Icarus as an Archer? She wanted to give the awkwardly adorable boy a pat on the back and to congratulate him. She chuckled. ”How did he respond to that?” Nell didn’t know the boy too well, but he was nice and incredibly shy, especially around Joshua. And now the same prince asked him to be an archer? ”I’m sure he’ll be a good addition. He responded quite firmly and quickly when you were almost killed—“ She still hated to think about those days, waiting for him to wake up and fearing the worst. ”—and it was admirable, really. I didn’t really expect that from him.” Joshua must have seen potential in him, and Nell couldn’t doubt his judgment. Icarus truly was an upstanding guy, which is why the prince wanted him in his faction of soldiers.

She gave a half-smile. ”You’re welcome, Prince Joshua,” she said in return. She wasn’t necessarily loyal to Lunara, but she was loyal to Joshua. And even in her darkest times, she’d offered herself to be a part of his group—and that had been when she still thought him to be dead. When she believed there to be no hope left. Even when it looked like everything had been lost, she still joined just to make sure no one else got hurt. And that was for the best. Had she not joined and saw Prince Joshua then, there was no telling what would have happened to her. ”Even though I didn’t go in with the best mind-set…” She tried not to think of it. ”I still couldn’t bear see people suffer. It was more of an honor than anything to assist you. No need to thank me for doing what was right.”

He reassured her of her help, and she turned her focused gaze into a soft one. She sighed. ”I hate to think what Patrick could have done—“ She stopped herself. It calmed her to know that Joshua was unharmed, and she wouldn’t bring that down by thinking of ‘what could have been’s. Nell was doing her best to look toward the future, even if that meant repressing things she really shouldn’t. ”All that matters is that you’re all right now.” She nodded as if to reaffirm this, looking him up and down once more before letting herself completely relax. And he actually had to ask after her own welfare? She almost snorted. She wasn’t the one facing the big bad, after all.

"I knew what I was getting into," Nell said when he talked of fighting. She'd gotten only minor injuries that didn't even bother her anymore. She quickly recovered from most injuries, and she wondered whether it had something to do with her magic or the fact that she had been almost too healthy since birth. She never got sick, either, and so she rarely had to worry about herself. Injuries? Any she’d gotten were well-hidden underneath her clothes. Besides, she was quick, more effective in dodging than anything but she always had her twin blades handy. ”And I was ready to fight and protect when the time came. So any of my injuries are minor and healing quickly, trust me. Honestly, I was more concerned with those who were not so lucky rather than treating my own wounds.” She knitted her eyebrows together thinking about those she had helped, some terrible wounds that she viewed so clinically, but quickly smiled again. ”But everything’s getting back to normal, thank Astra.” Slowly and surely, the Lunarians would recover and there may be scars but they didn’t matter. Patrick didn’t matter anymore. He was gone, and for good.

Nell almost told him that she wouldn’t be able to stay long out of habit. But then she remembered. There was no more running. She was truly and completely free. She could stay in one place for a little bit and it wouldn’t hurt her at all. Besides, she wanted to stay with Joshua, even for just a little bit. ”Certainly,” she replied in an easy tone. ”There’s still a lot of people I need to help here, more so than other countries I should think. And I don’t have to run anymore.” She was a nomad at heart, but since Joshua had asked her, and there was nothing left for her to fear, she’d stay right there next to him. ”I’ll have to make sure you don’t work yourself too hard, after all,” she said this lightly, but she meant it. Of course, Joshua was more than capable of handling himself. It didn’t stop her from fretting, though. ”And I’m always here for you. Even when I’m not physically here, you’ve got my support.” Sure, she was a wanderer but should Joshua want anything from her she’d be right there in an instant.