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Thalia Milton - Thalia - 07-09-2013
Thalia Averill Milton
Born to privileged parents in DVII some twenty-four years ago.
Her mother often declared she had been born facing backwards; that she was more concerned with antiquity than the brightness of the future. Such an odd child. Thalia remembers those words like a punctuation mark throughout her childhood, but with a faintly nostalgic pleasantness rather than dismay. An odd child indeed, but perhaps only by virtue of her context.
Thalia was not stupid, but she was not a focussed child either; much to the chagrin of parents who valued a tight regimen of schooling, were both successful in their respective fields, and had already been blessed with older daughter, Aylin. Perfect Aylin. Oddly enough, despite their very polar differences, Thalia adored her older sister; her quiet diligence, her precision and care. Her cleverness.
Thalia liked to draw, and to read – though books were not so sacred as to escape the markings of her pencil. She was an idler, a daydreamer; queen of childhood castles and purveyor of fantastical stories. Her parents did not discourage her, exactly, but they did try to impress upon her the importance of education, of hard work, and of success. It wasn’t until years later that Thalia understood why they had been concerned. It isn't something she admits to herself these days.
By the time she reached school, her interests grew to encompass both literature and history, which were academic enough subjects to satisfy her parents. Plus, she quickly found that being discovered with her nose in a textbook left her less likely be disturbed than if she was found drawing. She did not grow out of it, exactly, so much as she learnt to slide herself within the ideals of her parents expectations. Study first, idle later. She kept reams of sketchbooks, but by the time she entered adolescence had stopped trying to garner approval for her scribblings anyway. Truthfully she was not interested in the attention – she did not do it to please an audience; it was a compulsion, an obsession. A necessity.
At university, much to her parents diligently concealed disappointment, she chose to study history. It was something of a compromise, since she didn’t actually want to study for a degree at all. By then Aylin was studying to become a psychiatrist at Moscow State, so it was natural for Thalia to fly the nest in that direction. It seemed a grand adventure, and by the time the plane landed she’d half convinced herself it was what she wanted. Moscow awed her; the mix of new and old, the endless clash of ancient and stark beauty. She supposed she’d been sheltered up to then; not that her parents had been the coddling sort, but there had still been carefully wrought parameters to her freedoms. The sudden breadth of independence barely phased her, even when she became quite lost and almost didn’t make it to the university.
The fairy-tale she painted in her mind didn't end well. Despite a sometimes sharp mind, Thalia was too lacking in discipline to excel in her studies. She would spend hours in libraries, only to emerge without so much as a single written note. Then, when the time came to compose essays, she would instead find herself doodling in the margins of the pages, or staring vacuously at windows. Or walls. The reading interested her, the learning interested her - but only in the way of a collector. She hoarded the knowledge but lacked the motivation to do anything with it. Well, nothing relevant to her degree, anyway, and though she persevered for the sake of her parents (for the money they had plied into her fees, and the strings they had pulled to get her a place) it was no time at all before her grades slipped. Mere months.
And then she got sick.
Well, truth told, it had come and gone over the months since she left DVII, only to culminate severly during her first semester. Four days of absence and ignored phonecalls passed before Aylin banged on the door to Thalia’s dorm room, and found her sweating drowsily in bed, surrounded by dozens of scrumpled up pieces of paper. Flu, Thalia insisted. But Aylin was pale. Especially when she smoothed out a few of those crumpled pages.
Thalia never knew what Aylin told their parents. Drink, maybe. Drugs. Her parents wanted her home, of course, but they trusted their reliable, eternally sensible eldest daughter. It was just as well they did, for Thalia’s sake; because even she realised, somewhere amid her fevered brain, that girls died from the Sickness. And not just some of them; most of them. That or they disappeared. Aylin knew, because she had seen it, and without her intervention Thalia would have numbered among one or other of those fatal statistics – she knew that without even knowing how she knew it.
She survived. Thanks to Aylin, thanks to the screwed up drawings scattered about her bed that day – thanks to a lineage of screwed up drawings, in truth – and thanks to a Russian called Yana who had been coolly convinced Thalia was a demon. Months of fugue followed. Thalia never went back to her course, and used the remaining of her parent’s funding to rent a small studio apartment. She went to great pains to forget the clutches of the Sickness, and to forget the psychiatric unit where Aylin interned. But most of all she forgot the face she had been sketching for years; forgot that, as it turned out, the face belonged to a real woman.
There were worse places to recover than the heart of the new world, and Thalia adapted. With no job and no qualification, it was natural to turn to the one thing she was good at. Her first major sale was the portrait of a woman surrounded by the ethereal glow of sunrise; except, in Thalia’s mind, it was not the sun at all, but the woman. It was bought by a religious zealot, who for obvious reasons believed it a religious painting, and from there her reputation trickled steadily upwards. Six years later her apartment is bigger and she rents a small studio. Thalia’s art sells well and she is rarely without commission, but her income can be erratic. The majority of her sold work consists of paintings, though she still keeps piles of sketchbooks and sometimes does portrait commissions. She specialises in realism, at least in style. Plenty of her work features the abstract and fantastical, and much of it has an ethereal quality that has become her signature.
-*-
Her temperament is full of jagged edges and contradictions, like a thousand souls stuffed in one body. She’s sensory, compelled by beauty and typically indulgent to her own whims. Intuition forms a greater part of her rationale, not that she’s incapable of logical thought so much as she’s learnt the value of trusting her instincts. For the most part she’s laid-back and adapts easily; quite content to watch things unfold naturally and to be swept alongside for the ride. In fact her sense of calm is infectious, or at least the way she is self-assured without the overbearing of arrogance. She’s the kind of person who gives the distinct impression they know what they’re doing, even when out of their depth, though composure should not be confused with being sensible, especially if pushed beyond the bounds of her integrity; a point at which she is often misjudged (despite the similarities in appearance, she is not her level-headed sister).
There are times when cracks mar the surface of the Thalia she recognises as herself; when it feels like a great big thumb presses down on her mind, and the pressure of it is crushing. In these moods she’s either unfathomably distant or grievously short-tempered, hardly like herself at all. Usually it’s the prelude to a project, to clear her head. Even in her best moods it isn’t unusual for Thalia to spend great gaping breaches of time alone, lost in work or study, though she’s not a loner by nature. She doesn’t spend much time socialising with other artists, perhaps because – although it’s an intrinsic part of her life – she does not define herself by it. Otherwise her haunts are as varied as her fleeting interests, and she isn’t especially selective of her company – depending on the whim of the day. Her obsessions sometimes include people, though she tends to form no lasting attachments. It’s a big city, after all.
She's grown to have little true fear – at least for her safety. When her survival depends on it, Thalia finds a way to defend herself. A way that makes her feel like a burning sun, so sweet and alive and dangerous. She side-steps the memory of these moments, just as she side-steps the other anomalies in her life. Thalia hears lots of things; she might be classed as eccentric, but she knows not to advertise some forms of peculiarities.
Desc: Brown hair worn long to the waist, wavy and haloed with frizz. 5'2''. Porcelain pale and on the delicate side of plain. Naturally expressive with wide grey eyes. Fond of jewellery – fond of anything beautiful, really – though she tends to dress simply. A mural of tattoos decorate her back, the main feature of which is a woman in the art nouveau style, surrounded by poppies.
Wiki Links: Thalia | Nimeda | Lethe
RP History
[*]Scoping for Ink (Rune, Aria, Manix)
[*]A Window to the Past (Michael Vellas)
[*]Home Sweet Home (alone)
[*]Glimmers of Dream - Dream (Nimeda, Jon Lttle Bird, Bear (NPC))
[*]Blood and Ink (Rune, Seth)
[*]Dreams of Fire (Katya, Dane, Jon Little Bird, Drayson)
[*]Chasing Phantoms - Dream (Nimeda, Jon Little Bird, Bear (NPC))
[*]Duelling Dragons (Rune, Aria, Lucas, Sergei (NPC))
[*]Nightmares - Dream (Nimeda, Calvin)
[*]New Beginnings (Calvin)
[*]Shadows for the Shy (Adrik Ivanov, NPC goon)
[*]The Pain of Loss - Dream (Nimeda, Nox)
[*]Somnium (Aylin PPC, Calvin)
[*]Aegri Somnia - Dream (Nimeda, Calvin)
[*]The dark sea - Dream (Nimeda, Mara, Jon Little Bird)
[*]Somnium Evigilantis - (Calvin, Emily)
[*]Depressed (Dane Gregory, Ilesha)
[*]Distindendae - Dream (Nimeda, Mara)
[*]Cabaret and Candy (Raffe, Nox)
[*]A New Page Turned (Aylin PPC)
[*]Imagination Alighting Everywhere (Aylin PPC)
[*]Caerus (almost) - Dream (Nimeda, Grey Lady, Tristan, Mara)
[*]Painted Dreams (Nox)
[*]Astral Dreams (Nox, Carmen NPC)
[*]Luck (Almost) - (Koit and Eha NPCs, Nox via phone/text)
[*]Interlude - Dream (Nimeda, Soren)
[*]Alluvion - Dream (Nimeda, Noctua, Tuuru)
[*]Silvanus (Philip)
[*]Mind Playin' Tricks on Me - Dream (Nimeda, Marcus/Malik)
[*]Soteria - Dream (Nimeda, Tristan)
[*]Interlude II (Philip, Nox (text))
[*]A Solivagant Soul (Nox (phone), Sage (text))
[*]Wanderlust (alone)
[*]Liars (Kemala)
[*]Tiberinus - Dream (Nimeda, Noctua)
[*]Nepenthe - Dream (alone)
[*] Wanderlust (latter half) (Tristan, Sierra)
[*]The Little Jewel - Dream (Auri (npc), Soren)
RE: Thalia Milton - Thalia - 02-13-2019
![[Image: nim.jpg]](http://thefirstage.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/nim.jpg)
Nimeda is Thalia's dream identity. While technically the same person, the two operate autonomously. Wiki page here.
RE: Thalia Milton - Thalia - 06-30-2020
Other Lives
In each Age, she is always born both a Dreamer and a Dreamwalker. Her prophetic abilities usually spill forth into creative endeavours pursued by her Waking self.
1st Age: Thalia Milton. Before her rebirth in the next Age, something invariably happens to release her dream-self from her tie to the Wheel, only to become tethered once more during her next life.
2nd Age: During the Age of Legends, she is a researcher particularly interested in the nature of and connection between souls, dreams and memories. A failed experiment leads to the tethering of her soul to the Dreamworld, where she continues to exist between being reborn. Until this experiment (which kills her Waking self), there is cohesion between her Waking and Dreaming self, and thus she remembers Dreams.
3rd Age: Waking: Born of the Tuatha’an, eventually becoming an Aes Sedai of the White Ajah. Depending on her influences in this life, she may ultimately end up fighting for either the Light or the Shadow. Due to the unknown nature of Dreamwalking for most of this Age, her Waking self invariably suffers the brand of insanity (this being what leads her to the White Ajah, and sometimes the Black). Most often this is also the life in which she actively represses her creative outlets due to not understanding them. Her dream-self is highly susceptible to negative forces in the Dreamworld.
Dreaming: The most dual-natured of her lives, and always the first after her tethering, and thus usually her hardest life. There is a large disconnect between her Waking and Dreaming selves, who often never come to know of the reality of the other. She is highly susceptible to influence in this life, seeking belonging wherever she may in an effort to understand what she is. Often it leads her to the Shadow, particularly if she falls under the wings of one of the Forsaken.
4th Age: None known
5th Age: Waking: Born as a one of the Tārās, though her name is lost to time. Her colour association is in flux between each turning of this Age, and often a combination -- most often Green (regeneration/healing, dynamic/swift aid - overcoming fear), Red (compassion/love, enchantment/magnetism - transformative, attracting positive energy or desire) or Blue (invoked to destroy enemies, fierce liberator, overcoming obstacles, banishing fear of enemies). Her waking self is invariably born a musician, apprenticed to or associated with the goddess Saraswati (patroness of the arts, sciences, music, language, literature, history, poetry & philosophy). Prophecy draws through her in the form of song and poetry in this Age.
Dreaming: Her dream self is a formidable force, owing to cohesion discovered through the Tārās’s practices. Though of course no memories are shared between her Waking and Dreaming selves, they are usually aware of the other in this life. Depending on her life experience and those she befriends, she might take on healing or wrathful aspects, but even in her vengeance she is usually a force for good, owing to the positive influences of Buddhist teachings. She is particularly skilled at protecting against nightmares and bad omens found in dreams during this life. As per the teachings of the Tārās’s boundless compassion, she is drawn to the Needs of others, a trait Nimeda still strongly retains. As per the tenets of her soul, she is most drawn to those outcast. Thus her name in this life never lasts into myth.
6th Age: Lethe
7th Age: None known
RE: Thalia Milton - Thalia - 07-05-2020
Other Notes:
The woman known as “Yana” in Thalia's bio was in fact a Yakṣaṇī, who responded to Nimeda’s distress in the Dream when Thalia was suffering channeling Sickness. She appeared as a patient in the Guardian mental institute (where Thalia’s sister worked), having been recognised by Aylin in Thalia’s drawings. Thalia mostly interprets this early strange episode of her life as something of a fairy tale, and while it saved her she misremembers it completely. The tattoo on her back is of the creature. There is no woman called Yana at the Guardian now. It is likely the Yakṣaṇī responded out of some recognition or fondness for Thalia’s soul, for they do not usually dwell in this world.
CORE SOUL:
Thalia/Nimeda is possessed of a soul that blossoms bright under the right influences, but can be easily twisted to something darker.
She is always born inherently curious and highly compassionate, and with an enthusiasm often mistaken for a child-like nature. Naturally she is always a little odd, perhaps owing to her longevity and the nature of her memories. She trusts easily and quickly, and revels in the company of those around her. Loyalty is staunch, but does not dissuade her from pursuing friendships among those considered enemies. Hers is never a spirit easily contained, or kept out of places she is not meant to be.
A profound loneliness leads her to seek connections where she may, and this can in turn lead her to dark places, for she will accept love from any source. Thus she may be easily exploited, manipulated, and influenced by those for whom she has affection. In addition, she does not judge those who seek her aid or her friendship, and is naturally drawn to those most outcast and outwardly monstrous.
Compassion forms the core of her soul, and she is compelled to answer the Need of others in all lives. This may take many forms, from the oblivion of Lethe, to the sensuality of Red Tārā, to the innocent charm of Nimeda. No sense of morality drives her; it's a primordial desire to bring transformative change to the heart of inner conflict. She is the balm on new beginnings, in all their forms, thus she might as easily soothe the guilt of a murderer as ease the pain of a grieving spouse.
Though physically she appears different through the Ages, she is always born into a body marked for its innocence; large eyes, delicate features, diminutive stature.
Water runs a motif through all her lives, greatly symbolic of the nature of her soul.
LETHE: The sweet waters of oblivion, found at the boundary between the Underworld and Elysium. Still, slow moving, and perilously deep. A comfort to the pain of change, and a succour for the past's ills, offering the promise of fresh beginnings.
GREEN TARA: Deeply regenerative, falling with the swift plunge of a waterfall. Dynamic and fast flowing, sweeping away fear with youthful vigour, and encouraging the onward journey in a playful and compelling manner. Associated with verdancy and growth.
BLUE TARA: Ferocious, wrathful water which patiently erodes at obstacles. The persistent lap of her waves removes fear of enemies (internal and external), and eases the burden of inner conflict. Associated with navigation to new shores via the Sirius Star (the brightest in the night sky).
RED TARA: The intoxicating taste of enchantment, transforming raw desire into a taste of compassion and love. The seductive caress of the river over rocks, flush with the heat of a hot spring. A magnetising energy attracting the positive and bestowing acceptance. Reputed to have the power to change a life dramatically in a single moment.
BLACK TARA: The perversion that occurs under the Shadow's influence, and may also twist her to a smaller degree when under less savoury (but not necessarily evil) influences. These are the waters of stagnation. Lethe's oblivion may drown, or rid joy as carelessly as pain; Red Tārā's enthral might inebriate like a siren's call to the rocks; Green Tārā's waterfall plunge may be the sweet descent to madness; or Blue Tārā's erosion might wear a soul down to nothing.