Sovay Lane

[Sovay]

DOSSIER: CIVILIAN

 

"Whatever walks in my heart will walk alone. No love left in me- no eyes to see the Heaven beside me. My time is yet to come, so I'll be forever yours."

BASIC DETAILS

NAME:
Sovay Lane

AGE:
Physically 24, but she can recount for several millenia

GENDER:
Female

NATIONALITY:
American

BIRTHPLACE:
Heaven; came in to existence near Triangle, Virginia

BIRTHDATE:
November 20, 2011

PICTURE:

Spoiler:

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PERSONAL DETAILS

DESCRIPTION:

Like light and shadow shining in the same reflective bowl, Sovay's human form is a graceful contrast within itself. Though her angelic body was beautiful, this human form has its charms and carries the essence of her angelic form in a toned-down way that fits the human world while still carrying an air of something not belonging. Sovay moves with the sort of grace that seems out of place as she walks, even from one room to another, but will simply laugh and either say it just comes naturally or that it's just an old habit to have that kind of posture and movement; while she could easily lie and say it was due to years of theater and dance, Sovay won't. Her accent is unusual, something resembling a mild British tone that seems to have been displaced in America and muddled as she tries to make herself learn a more local American accent, which is annoying since it never dawned on her that she never really had to speak to humans out loud before.

Swan-like, Sovay's skin is very fair, and generally a very creamy pale color with no hue of pinkness that often comes with people who have such fair skin. Flushing only ever seems to grace her cheeks, and occasionally her face if she's upset enough to let something get to her. She is about 5'7" and thin, her body free of blemishes and scars most humans would have accrued by her age, her peers writing it off as Sovay just taking very good care of herself and figuring she must not have ever picked at her scabbed knees as a child like the rest of them did. Her black hair is long and wavy, falling down to her waist with thin highlights of warmer brown tones, and is often left down to frame her face. It's her hazel eyes that stand out the most. Though the colors only generally range between an olive green to a light amber depending on her makeup and clothes, her gaze itself is quite piercing. For eons Sovay used to look those she collected in the eyes to read their souls, and at the time her eyes (like other ethereal beings) were like a calling card that spoke honestly about who and what she was, and most importantly, why she was there. Now human, Sovay lacks this power for reading human hearts and souls, and she tries to catch herself from trying to gaze through people since they often find it a little unsettling and comment that they felt like she was trying to take them apart with her eyes and expose all their secrets.

Erring on the side of conservative, Sovay's style of dress is somewhat dated but very comfy, preferring large tunics and baggy sweaters layered on top of leggins or long skirts rather than more contemporary outfits that would show her body more. Being genuinely female is still very new to her since she rather lacked gender before, and is rather repulsed by how much skin women are encouraged to show. Sovay often wears solid colors and very little jewelry, trying to attract as little attention to herself as possible, and when she's alone Sovay will sit for hours with her knees curled to her chest in her seat as she reads; at first glance, many would write her off as a bookworm. Even her ears are not pierced, Sovay holding up that her body is sacred and not meant to be altered; she pretends to not notice if her friends spin their fingers around their ears when she says things like this.

PERSONALITY:

Quiet and thoughtful, Sovay is a woman who doesn't always outwardly show her emotions, regardless of how moved she is. She has been moved to passion before and seen its tragic outcome, and is now afraid to let herself open Pandora's Box ever again. On Earth Sovay is far less chatty than she once was, finding it difficult to speak openly with humans lest she lose herself and start talking about things beyond their understanding or memory. Having spent so long as an angel of death has given her a somewhat odd view of life, finding beauty in the fleetingness that those who try to be her friends see as slightly morbid. She accepts this as their interpretation of her and appreciates it, finding it interesting if nothing else. Sovay does not rejoice in death, and only once has truly mourned it as one of the first truly human experiences in her new life, followed immediately by the bitter sting of regret.

Sovay often keeps her thoughts to herself and her guard up, afraid to become attached to another human lest she fall in love again. Even those she is friendly with (hesitant to really call them her friends) are kept at an emotionally-safe distance since she knows that love takes many forms and that they are human and as such, will all meet their fate in due time. Now that she's no longer at her post, she doesn't know when that will be for anyone or even herself, and that makes her oddly afraid, not of death, but of the sadness. Eons have been spent with humans in their most frail, tragic moments, those of tenderness and joy left for other angels to monitor over; having felt grief, it is not a feeling she wants to repeat anytime soon, not even allowing herself a pet. This leaves her rather isolated, friends having to really go to great lengths to get Sovay to come out and live with them. Life had always been something she had observed, mostly in its end stages; actually being asked and made to participate can be somewhat overwhelming. She does love it, though, and there are moments when all the walls and fences go down and Sovay remembers why she fell in love with the human world in the first place. Even though she tries to keep her heart at a distance, Sovay does care about her friends very deeply and will go to great lengths to make them happy or find some unconventional way to show she cares. Sovay loves their happiness, and is genuinely very sweet and loving once she opens up a little.

Her friends would describe Sovay as somewhat aloof, a little morbid, generally sweet, and incredibly smart. As an angel, there was nothing Sovay loved more than learning from the humans all they had learned in life; their lessons, their hopes, dreams, their fears, and she deeply appreciated poets, artists, and philosophers. Sovay muses that in her life, she had met many of the world's greatest teachers and yet had never picked up a book. She makes use of her life as a human now to read as much as she can, and can effortlessly clear a book in a day. Nonfiction fills Sovay in on what happened to the whole of human history from their point of view and she finds it utterly fascinating, if a little inaccurate. Fiction, however, has become something of a secret pleasure that offers the displaced woman both solace and escape, letting her lose herself in the story for a little while and help her forget that she can never go home.

Sovay believes very strongly in things, but fears acting on them lest she ruin them again, doubting her abilities and even her own worth now that she's human, left to wonder what her place is if not in Heaven serving. It's all she's ever known, and without it, she feels lost and is afraid of the sudden rush of human impulses and feelings she can't quite control yet and must fight to swallow down or ignore. There is  some contentment in the curiosity shop, and some peace brought from putting her cherished memories to canvas and paint, but Sorvay is a woman filled with longing for the kind of love she thought was real but now fears no human heart can grant her, the uncertainty that comes from not knowing if she'll ever be allowed to return home, and if now that she's human if she will ever gain a human soul.

HISTORY:

Ages before man's memory and the war in Heaven, Sovay had served as one of the angels of death under the archangel Saraqael command, and often she aspired to be like him. Sovay was loyal, dutiful, and through the ages of man would sweep down, sword in hand, to claim the souls of the dead. She was often told to remain detached from her work, and she was; she felt neither sorrow nor regret as humans died, because that was their lot. They chose knowledge and thus mortality, and because of it wasn't the world so much more interesting? Humans were fascinating to the angel who only got to enjoy the world in fleeting snippets between collections. Humans learned and were resilient, and proved time and time again that they would resist being destroyed as much as they could, even if they were in the wrong. Everything died, and then was reborn in infinite circles that they couldn't see from where they existed. It was wonderful and beautiful, and Sovay pushed the feelings to the back of her mind for centuries.

After the war and so many angels falling at once, Sovay doubled her efforts to contain her curiosity, not daring to voice her interest in the humans and their inner=workings. Life was perfect as it was and as it was intended, and to want more was wrong. The Archangels said so themselves, and she was nobody to question their authority. And so Sovay reaped without question, somewhat numb to the humans' state of emotional suffering during moments of death; to her it was a simple thing and a part of life that should not be taken any differently from the rest of life, but to the humans, it was something else. They saw it as the end, even though more awaited them. Was that just part of how humans had been designed? Sovay admired their tenacity, loving that humans were immortal without realizing it; their bodies died, but their memory lived on through their works and through stories passed to their children. Humans grew, changed, adapted, while angels simply followed orders. Humans were easily corrupted, yes, but their convictions and passions were so strong, and sometimes those feelings were put to great use to do incredible things.

Even though Sovay only really got to interact with humans in their final moments, in those moments she was always able to learn truths about them that even they weren't always aware of. Knowledge was a sacred gift she was willing to share and impart, and greatly loved humans for how willing and eager some were to please and learn. She was an angel who enjoyed what she did, not because she took pleasure in collecting those about to die, but because each human death brought about a moment of utmost truth which allowed her to impart wisdom, and in turn Sovay could see all the human had learned in their lifetime to weigh it. She was not there to judge, but to take all the facts as they were and present them, and would often plead on behalf of some human's soul if they seemed less than worthy. Without knowing it, Sovay had begun to allow herself to be moved to pity.

She thought nothing of it, but Sovay's growing compassion was not unnoticed to her superiors as she increasingly spent more time with those about to die, even going so far as to manipulate things to make their last moments less pained or frightening. Sovay never would have guessed her acts of kindness and mercy were shading her into a gray and rather slippery slope. Sovay even began to arrive early to her collections, sometimes getting to know the human and their surroundings a bit, whispering to the elderly to call their children just because, or to ask their neighbor to come feed their cat later, nudging artists to sign their work, or dancing unseen as musicians rehearsed not knowing it was their last performance. Innocent, Sovay saw no harm in what she was doing.

One of her greatest pleasures while talking to humans was hearing their testimonies of love. Elderly couples who had remained married for more than sixty years; young couples who had the courage to marry despite one of them about to be deployed for battle; mothers who'd given their lives to save their children, because no gift of love was greater than the gift of the future. Such love was only meant for humans, but it was deeply moving and something the angel became more and more fixated on until new feelings Sovay didn't understand began to well within her: envy and longing.

It had happened innocently enough- Sovay had gone down to collect the soul of a very old man who'd lived a full and rather good life. He'd published many books and spent years teaching, often for free. But when Sovay asked him to share his greatest lessons and examples in human love and goodness, she was surprised when the man nominated his grandson, Jeremy. Jeremy was like him, the old man claimed, and shared many of the same philosophies and skills. Despite the world around them being tainted everywhere, the old man attested that his grandson was a paragon of human goodness and deeper thought, and a young man like him could change the world when he was older. While Sovay wasn't sure that a human teenager could really be as good as claimed, she was beyond curious, and sought the boy. This was the first time she'd ever intruded on humans she wasn't meant to collect, and in her innocence she was unable to feel herself falling more.

While not perfect, Jeremy truly exceeded Sovay's expectations. He was a budding college student, bright, excelled in his classes, and was generally looked to by his peers for insight. He was clean, and unlike most other boys on campus, didn't engage in less than savory things. Sovay wasn't there to collect anyone, and for once, was present to enjoy a moment of human life that didn't result in death. Jeremy was sitting on the lawn  by the dorm, lazily strumming his guitar as he looked over papers for class. Sovay was enthralled. It was just that once. Just once became just twice, and became there again until the angel had unknowingly created a habit of going down to observe just Jeremy. His philosophies on art were breathtaking; baroque music moved him and he loved Mozart, and the way Jeremy spoke of his loved ones with such genuine fondness made the angel sigh. Jeremy was human and therefore imperfect, but to Sovay, he was even better for it. He couldn't see her in the mortal world, but Sovay was not content to let her growing love for the young man go unheard and began to appear to him in his dreams. She would take him far away and share with him the wonders of the universe. All knowledge she had was his if he asked. Jeremy loved the dreams because there was a beautiful woman who inspired new songs and poetry and gave him answers to things he didn't understand; Sovay loved the dreams because that was safe time that she could share with him without hurting him.

Unless she was called to her duties, every night Sovay went to Jeremy. Every night she told him she loved him before she left. He would kiss her and tell her to come back, and told Sovay he loved her as well. What harm was there in saying you loved a woman in your dreams that wasn't real? The angel took this to heart, though, and was beyond jubilant. Jeremy loved her. Sovay's best friend, a watcher angel named Cassadriel, had noticed the change in his friend's behavior and grew more concerned, especially after watching Sovay interact with the human while he was awake. How she would sit by his side, try to brush his cheek, hum just enough to make her presence known to him. Cassadriel warned her to stop and that if she didn't it would be quite hazardous to her well-being; he swallowed his anger and told Sovay he'd pretend he hadn't heard her when she said she loved the human.

Sovay pulled back on how often and how long she visited Jeremy, for a while, until she felt it was safe again to go back to normal. She was happy every night to be kissed and told she was loved. . He was becoming a fine man, and his angel watched over him steadily. Spring Break was normally not anything special, and this trip he was spending at home, all except one night to go out with his friends from high school. It was just one night, and he'd even taken his little brother out with them to celebrate. He wouldn't be asleep for a while, and Sovay had been given her orders- on Route 1 at the base of the hill where the road began to wind. It had been snowing and started to ice, and drivers were advised to go slower at that turn than usual. Sovay went to the scene and waited with a casual patience that came from eons of doing this same routine. The car came down the hill, hit the ice on the road, and picked up speed. The driver turned bard against the turn instead of into it and spun around completely. The blue van missed the guard rails and sailed neatly off the curve of the road and down the hill, into the trees where it came to a jarring, smoking halt. There wasn't time to soften the blow for any of them, and Sovay went to collect.

The hood of the van wrapped around the elm tree, dividing the front of the vehicle nearly in half. The driver was dead, his eyes staring blankly into the trees over the steering wheel. The young teenager was dead, his neck broken from the sudden stop. And in the passenger seat, the young man was still fighting for breath as Sovay looked in shock. Her orders said all three in the van were to come with her. She had no idea it would be her Jeremy. Help hadn't arrived yet, and no other angels were around that she could sense. Jeremy couldn't die; Sovay wouldn't allow it! The souls of Jeremy's little brother and best friend were sent up, the angel not taking her usual time to sit and chat with them as he had so many others, and instead stayed with Jeremy as help arrived. There was little she could do physically, but she wouldn't take his soul and as long as she did that, he would live. In the hospital, Jeremy recovered, but was devastated by the losses. Sovay withdrew from Jeremy once more, trying to comfort him only a little but keeping her distance lest any other angels find out what she'd done. Sovay had never spared a human before. She didn't really know it was possible until she did it. But Jeremy was safe, and the world was better for having him, wasn't it?

The eyes of Heaven, however, are ever-watchful and omnipotent, or at least have better surveillance than a single angel does. While Sovay became more attentive to her duties than she had been in a few hundred years and did her best to say nothing that would allude to her love living, Jeremy festered. Grief ate at the poet who ran to the comforts of things he never before would have considered. Women made it easy to forget for a little while, and the drugs changed his songs until they eventually stopped playing. Jeremy stopped caring for the world; why care about the world and fixing it if the people you wanted to fix it for were just going to die? Unaware of the consequences, Sovay continued to keep away from Jeremy, simply assuming he was safe and well since he'd been given a second chance at life that few others were granted. The day Sovay was pulled aside and questioned by the archangels was terrifying and there was no way to hide. They'd found out that a human had not been collected and was overdue, his soul rotting within the living human shell. Sovay pleaded- attested that Jeremy was a wonderful young man whose thoughts and actions could improve the human condition, but how could it do that if he died before he could implement the changes he sought? It was nonsense, and blasphemy, and worse, Sovay had disobeyed orders. She couldn't bring herself to believe them when they said what Jeremy had become- it was nothing like her Jeremy. The conversation was brought to an abrupt half when it slipped out that she loved him, and ended when Sovay declared that all she needed was a chance to prove it.

While the fight hadn't gone well and Sovay expected some kind of punishment, she did not expect in her wildest dreams to wake up on Earth as a human. She was out in the woods, somewhere in Triangle. She recognized the area fairly well, but it looked indifferent from this angle. Everything was different. She had weight, and feeling, and could no longer hear the whispers of Heaven. She called out, but Cassadriel wouldn't come to her aid. Sovay had been banished, and left as a human, which puzzled her greatly, but it was her chance. She could find Jeremy, prove their love, and all would be forgiven. But she was cold and lost, and finding her beloved's home was difficult in the dark. When she finally did find Jeremy, Sovay couldn't believe her eyes- what she'd been told was true. But surely it was just an outlet for grief. He hadn't really gone bad, had he? Sovay tried to reach out to him and tell him she was the angel he had spent so many nights with, but he didn't believe her. She tried to prove it, but had lost all angelic powers, and couldn't. Sovay confessed her love for Jeremy and that it was she who saved his life in the car wreck, and that only made him angry as he struck her, telling her that it was as sick joke and not funny. He didn't know her. He didn't love her. There were two women in his bed waiting for him. Jeremy wanted nothing to do with his Sovay.

Cassadriel was unable to comfort Sovay as she sat alone in the woods, crying out her broken heart. Her hopes had been shattered, and her Jeremy wasn't hers, and never had been. She watched over him anyway, from a distance, and did nothing as she saw him leave with friends who reeked of drugs. She did nothing still as she saw them drive into the parking lot for the 7-Eleven, and felt her heart break further as the gunshots rang out. The clerks were left dead, their car was skidding away, and the police had been called. There was nothing Sovay could say or do, and nobody to comfort her as the police shot Jeremy down when he opened fire on them. Sovay had spared him when she wasn't meant to, and his soul corrupted, and now now he was damned. All because of her. There was nothing left for Sovay in the small backwoods town, and she had been finding that being human had its drawbacks, like being hungry. She began to walk, not knowing where she was going, not knowing Cassadriel was trying his best to guide his friend to somewhere she would be safe.

Somewhere in the suburbs of D.C., Sovay stopped. After days of walking, something had nudged Sovay to this little area full of shops and sidewalks. She was exhausted and beyond hungry, and had emotionally entered a state of numbness to try and keep from falling apart. The old man who'd caught her loitering outside the store window at first planned to shoo her off, and then decided not to, something urging his heart to pity instead. She was brought inside the shop that smelled like must and ancient wooden things that were held together by dust. The girl had a certain newness about her that the old man couldn't understand but was amused by, and the way she talked and moved were strange. Everything about her was strange, down to the way she'd turn her head and hold perfectly still. She had no last name, no address, no I.D. She was simply Sovay. He'd begun to wonder if she had escaped a hospital of some kind but thought better of it; she seemed sane enough, and maybe she was just trying to get away from a bad situation.

The store was filled from floor to ceiling with stuff, and the vast collection of antiques and books delighted the fallen angel. Sovay had never seen such a collection, and as she began to read from a book so old it was printed in Latin, the old man had an idea. He'd wanted to retire, but not sell his shop. This girl apparently needed somewhere to stay and something to do. He decided she could stay there at the shop and learn to run it. For all the years Sovay had loved listening to stories of human kindness, she never thought she'd come to depend on it herself. Sovay has been living quietly under the radar, documents fudged to keep her from getting into trouble as she gets by, trying to learn what it is to be human without falling even further from grace.

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FACTION:
-Despite her status, she's still on Heaven's side

SKILLS:\
-She has a natural skill for painting, and uses that money to support herself and the shop
-Sovay is still driven by compassion, and if she senses someone is near death, even as a human she will still do what she can to ease their discomfort.
-Though limited by her human body, Sovay is still a strong opponent to fight and very good with a sword... or stick, if a sword isn't handy.
-Sovay does not seek conflict, but she will stand her ground, especially if it means protecting another human from harm.
-She hasn't been told to, but Sovay does want to make amends for what she did and does seek forgiveness, and will do what she feels is right in hopes of attonement.

WEAKNESSES:
-Sovay hasn't been human for a full year yet, and as such, there's still a lot she's learning about being human
-Sovay does not lie, and as such holds the expectation that those around her won't, which tends to be a problem given humankind's duplicitous nature since she can't feel out a human's heart anymore
-The almost magical ability to burn nearly any food, possibly while still frozen
-Sovay is homesick and often dreams of going back to Heaven and seeing Cassadriel again
-She forgets she's human and will try to do things as an angel would. Her friends really do question her sanity, especially when she slips and starts speaking Enochian out loud.

COLOURS:
English
Enochian
Latin

TRIVIA:
-Don't ask Sovay to cook anything more complicated than what can be microwaved, and even then, use caution and choose carefully.
-The curiosity shop is little more than a glorified junk shop that is filled from floor to ceiling with stuff; you could easily go in and find something new each time.
-Sovay is an excellent painter, and loves to paint memories of the world as it was or her memories of Heaven. Her paintings are becoming quite popular and are seen in a lot of other bookshops and coffee houses in the area, but very few galleries.
-Most slang, pop, and cultural references will soar over her head like a 747 Boeing.
-Sovay never has and still will not lie.
-She regularly visits Jeremy's grave to bring him flowers and say she's sorry, but always goes when she knows his own family won't see her to avoid inconvenient questions.
-If you've never felt the need to pray to God before, get in the car and let her drive.
-Sovay loves listening to music, particularly classical, and on vinyl. However if the opportunity presents itself, she enjoys listening to several songs at the same time, finding it easier to concentrate with ten going on at once.
-The one thing Sovay can manage to make quite well and without putting anyone in danger is tea.
-Sovay loves all kinds of birds, and if she sits still they will often sit with her or perch on her. Sometimes this is cute. In large numbers it's annoying and similar to something from Alfred Hitchcock.
-She loves nature, especially the woods, and anywhere with lots of flowers. Flowers make her very happy.
-High places calm her down since she misses looking down from them. Climbing trees has become quite fun, and she's teased that she should just build a nest.

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USER DETAILS

ALIAS:
The powerful, the pleasurable, the indestructable Shu!

OTHER CHARACTERS:
None

ROLEPLAY HISTORY:
Honestly? About.... 14 years of online forums, and then another 4 prior to that with tabletop and simplified LARP games pre-Internet.

CUSTOM RANK:
Forever Yours

[Lazarus Carter]

APPROVED

Sovay, the Not-Angel.