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bylolarai · 3 years

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CHARACTER INFORMATION

CHARACTER NAME: Lola Ophelia Rai GENDER/PRONOUNS: Girl-Flux / She/They DATE OF BIRTH: July 21, 1989 PLACE OF BIRTH: Salem, MA SPECIES/POWER: Witch, Oneirokinesis ELEMENT: Water COVEN POSITION: Member CURRENT RESIDENCE: Brooklyn, New York City OCCUPATION: Creative Director at Kaplan Cosmetics FACECLAIM: Summer Bishil

CHARACTER QUOTE:

❝ The heart is the toughest part of the body. Tenderness is in the hands.❞

PLAYLIST ( under co )

There was no feeling like the autumn crunch of leaves under your boot in Salem, Massachusetts. Lola knew nothing in her life but golden moments, the way the world around her looked as the seasons changed was always fascinating. Some would say as a child she had her head in the clouds and while this wasn’t inaccurate it wasn’t completely true. A young Lola saw the world as infinite, vast, amazing, soaking up every moment she could. On rainy days, she’d watch the rain water trickle down her window for hours and when those same rain drops produced flowers in the spring -- Lola was outside admiring them. Life was beautiful, the witches that raised her were a coven in every sense of the word. The Circle of the Reaping Star. At a young age a strong sense of right and wrong, justice, the opposite of desensitization to the world's injustices was imbued in Lola. Learning and listening to those around her, she idolized her mother Lavanya, amazed that she had come from someone so powerful. Could she be as powerful? Maybe. But her mother would tuck her in every night telling her that she could be anything she wanted to be, power was something that could grow, but her humanity? What tied her to every living thing, every person, the world? That was not something she could ever let go of. So Lola felt everything. Knowing how precious it was, to have the permission to just be and the love and acceptance that came with that brand of freedom? Lola was. It was as simple as that.

Admittedly, Lola was an emotional child. Despite being older than Lysander (she would lord it over them every chance she got, despite the fact that they weren’t that far apart in age), she had moments where many would think it was the opposite. He was everything that she wanted to be, so self assured, so confident once his abilities came in. They studied for hours together, she watched them excel in ways she could never dream of. Many would feel jealousy, envy even, but all Lola felt was the poignant need to protect. To learn. Admire. Love. Oh, how she loved them. She imagined a world in which once their mother stepped down, Lysander would replace her as the Supreme. Lola would be there by their side to advise, to listen, to help guide. But she believed in everything her sibling did and everything they were -- their power was something to learn from. The Sam to their Frodo. If Lola’s purpose was hers and hers alone -- it was to be by Lysander’s side. He was worried that the ancestors would choose him? Lola would do everything in her power to make sure that they did. It may not have been in her control but when it came to Lysander -- they always inspired her to do the impossible. To push herself past what she thought even she was capable of. To be by their side in this journey, to grow on her own congruent with them? That was a life she was content with.

Her own powers were something she became excited to explore. She’d always felt close to the water, always felt at peace with the waves and so when her ability was centered around water? It made complete sense. While she watched Lysander excel and even begin to tap into their ability of astral projection, Lola was still working on figuring out what her secondary ability could even be. Patience was a virtue that Lola did possess then, practicing with Lysander while trying to force them to eat, sleep, and drink some water. She’d tell them that they couldn’t lead their coven one day if they died from dehydration. Don’t you want something much more heroic to take you out than your inability to drink water? Lola would tease as she made sure they had snacks at every now scheduled practice. To redirect them at times, she’d ask them for advice on how to hone her own abilities. Water and fire, she’d say they went hand in hand -- sometimes she’d joke that their abilities would be useless without the other. Fire was untamable without water and water would never know to be still without the presence of fire. To stop moving, bending and become something more than just a source. To be still.

When Lysander was bitten during the summer of solstice of 2004, an almost 15 year old Lola grew up and was faced with questions that she never thought she would ever have to answer.

Are you still a sister if your sibling is nowhere to be found? Are you still a sister if you haven’t hugged them in years, talked to them, laughed, cried? Are you still a sister if they’re more of a ghost than a person in your life?

Lola always believed the answer was yes. It didn’t matter that he would never answer, she could understand why. The anger was directed to their mother, Lola deeply believed in their cause, their coven, but how could she let this happen? Lysander had begged to die rather than leave -- didn’t their mother see how horrible of a decision to make that was? Why should they -- or anyone -- have to be faced with making a decision like that? Her younger sibling. It was a moment like then that Lola was reminded of the fact that she was older than him, while she had technically lived a life without him -- she never remembered it. There was not a time without them in her life.

Until there was.

As Lola grew up, she stopped being all heart on her sleeve and developed her abilities in charm work quite quickly ( some would say as a coping mechanism ) while neglecting her secondary ability of oneirokinesis. There were nefarious things she could do with something that powerful and she didn’t want it. Astral projection, the mind, that was all Lysander’s speciality not hers. So she repressed it much to her detriment, showing up in dreams when she didn’t want to and further trying to ignore it through her use of illicit substances. To cope, Lola chose a creative route -- makeup. Jewelry. Creation. Adorning herself, tailoring her image to something so curated that the girl that was all heart on her sleeve was delicately hidden beneath layers of a foundation that wasn’t just cosmetic. Lola became anew, the girl she was only saved for herself and a select few. Within her Coven, if people wanted their makeup done? Their jewelry enchanted with spells of protection, self love, sometimes luck if she could spare it? Rings that didn’t just tell current moods but made you believe in whatever mood you wanted to be in? The most important things Lola could contribute were her abilities and her voice. The latter came out most venomously in private with their mother as the years went on.

How could I trust you after what happened with Lysander? It wasn’t fair, Lola knew. To blame her mother for every wrong thing that had happened since Lysander was sent away. It wasn’t fair but it wasn’t fair that he was gone either, was it? Lola knew she didn’t have the power herself to think she was even capable of making a cure -- but Lavanya? It had been a decade and there was little progress. Lola had bided her time playing pretend, playing with makeup and charms. More importantly she had gone to protests, helped forge documents when needed to avoid the authorities watchful eyes. While first born, she’d always been second -- contently so. Lysander would come back, she would dream. He would be chosen. Her place was never at the top where their mother was but why wasn’t Lavanya doing more with the power & prestige? The woman she believed to be all powerful, all knowing, all graceful, couldn’t do the one thing a mother was supposed to do -- protect her children. Lola didn’t talk about how she missed Lysander every day they were apart, how she had to cope through parties, drinking and other various forms of escape to subdue the question that always popped up?

Where was he?

Keeping her distance was hard (especially when your subconscious didn’t control where or when you would pop up in someone’s dreams) but she had gotten the message that they didn’t want to talk. Lola empathized but yearned. She respected but deeply felt his absence like a phantom limb. She did everything in her power to not resent her younger sibling but understand where they were coming from -- if anything it hurt more feeling compassion rather than resentment. It was worth it, the pain, she learned that at a young age. But she couldn’t stay in it -- she had to make something of her life, find a purpose that wasn’t just tied to being someone’s right hand. It was easier that way, to live your own life tied to another, to be on her own was a scary but worth it new adventure. First, she had an ETSY shop of her creations to branch out for fun and next she made a Youtube channel doing makeup looks. Her non magical subscribers were amazed by Lola’s special effects and the magical folk knew better -- as the years went by and Lola amassed a small following -- she reveled in her little corner of the internet. However, she wanted more as she found herself straying away from actually finding her purpose and falling into the world of illusions and charms through makeup, videos, her own skills. Hearing about a coven in New York that had similar ideals to her mothers became a goal of hers. While the idea of a cure to lycanthropy fell to the background of Lola’s mind, it was because she thought of a purpose greater than curing something seen as monstrous. She strived for acceptance. A cure would be helpful to those who wanted it but her thinking shifted from it being a necessity to it being a tool, a medicine for some and a balm of knowledge just by potentially being a reality to others. The day would come when she would see Lysander again, she didn’t want him to think that after all these years she only sought to fix him. If that’s what they wanted, she would abide, but she wished for so much more.

As Lola gained more traction in the online makeup world, job offers from companies started to roll in. A few brand deals and Lola started to become uncomfortable with how large her following started to become. Did she enjoy charm & illusion work? Yes, but only when it came to her work. Not her life. The world of social media itself started to feel like its own non-magical illusion, when it started out as fun. None of this was fun, her own hobby became exhausting and she needed a change. Some called her a sell out for taking the job at Kaplan Cosmetic so easily, going from brand coordinator to Creative director within a year. But Lola had seen it as the perfect opportunity to start a new life and more importantly -- align with what she actually wanted. With who she actually wanted to be. Saying goodbye to the Salem leaves, the waterfront walks, her coven, her mother was hard to come to terms with. Had Ly felt an ounce of this pain? Knowing that they had had no choice in the matter made it worse, Lola imagined. If they could survive doing so, their life ripped away from them without looking back, Lola could do this. Besides -- not many makeup & cosmetic brands sought her out because of her charm work. They either had no knowledge of the supernatural world or simply didn’t exist. Kaplan did. So Kaplan cosmetics it was.

While she still maintains her Etsy store, Lola focused her creative endeavors on Kaplan. The makeup she helps create and name are all enchanted based on emotions, experiences, places, even some smells. Her spellwork was also used to help her new coven in any way possible as she navigated her new life in New York. The transition was hard -- leaving behind everything she knew was one of the hardest decisions she has had to make but she knew it was the right one. Her place was not in that coven, not anymore. Maybe one day she’d come back with Lysander, if they could ever reunite and if they could ever gain their full power back, but until then her life in New York, her place in Brooklyn was what was slowly becoming her new home.

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