Alora Holly:"Take me on a hike so I know it's real."
~Quote from her Tinder bioGender: Female
Age: 29
Appearance: Alora stands at a height of five-foot-ten inches tall. While she is not the lithest person, she has a solid muscle foundation that helps project the intimidating aura she has cultivated over the years. They tend to gravitate towards darker-colored clothes that they accessorize with brightly colored and numerous pieces of jewelry. She is typically seen wearing a t-shirt and ripped black jeans. Sometimes she spices up this look with a jean jacket adorned with small pins from the various museums she has visited.
Alora is currently growing her hair back out. She has worn a shaved side and mullet style for the past decade. While she never felt this har was indeed her style, it was aggressive, which was the energy she liked to carry. As a result, her hair has grown out in varying lengths and is often spiked in a messy design.
Personality: {Independant}{Depressed}{Cold}Her friends describe Alora with a cold, unapproachable exterior and a soft, almost vulnerable interior. She likes to keep strangers at arm's length. Her style and outward personality are all a means to this end. To her friends and her chosen family, she tends to gravitate towards being the mom figure of the group. Everyone comes to her when they are struggling or need advice. She does wish she had someone who could return the favor as she has had numerous struggles with her mental health and is currently diagnosed and on a few different medications. She spent the last decade battling a dependency on alcohol, and she has been sober for one year. These factors, combined with traumatic moments from her youth, have caused her to develop into the woman she is today.
History: {College Graduate}{Authentic life}{disowned}{trauma}Alora's early life was a chaotic time in her life. She had begun to show signs of her mental health struggles, and instead of seeking help, her parents pushed her into more rigid systems of control. Instead of speaking to a therapist, she was not allowed to use electronics after seven, be in bed by eight, and awake by five in the morning to do a litany of chores and work around the house. Both of her parents were alcoholics who sought the answers to their lives at the bottom of many a bottle.
As she grew older, she began to rebel against her parents' control. Arguments became a constant occurrence. Her friend group grew with similar misfits joining the fold. While her teenage years were not overly sour the undiagnosed disorders and the abuse of her family situation did leave lasting damage. Eventually, she moved out, went to college across the country in California, and finally got her degree in biology.
She stayed in California and worked as a park ranger. While she tried to keep the interactions with her family to a minimum, eventually, another argument turned so heated that her father told her never to return and to never talk to him again. She became disowned and had not had contact with her parents for five years. Alora rose above this, as she has always done, and built herself a self-made family that has helped push her to be the best version of herself.
A month ago, things began to change. At first, it was the odd happenstances of Alora's day. She could feel a slight breeze all around her out in the park, yet the sensation was not one her body experienced. It was as if she was feeling the slight breeze across the field, all at once. While strange, she chalked it up as a side effect of her medication. As the days dragged on, her power became more apparent. The plants inside her apartment seemed to thrive and would move when she would pass them by. What's more, she could still feel the same out-of-body sensation she felt in the field with these house plants.
Alora had powers. What does one do when they realize they have mystical powers? They train. Alora explored the boundaries of her abilities through trial and error. While the trials proved to be valuable, the errors nearly killed her. It took a week, and a vision-esque dream, for her to come to terms with the fact that she was not losing her mind.
A week ago, Alora received a package with a postcard inviting her to a cabin in the woods and a letter explaining why she was invited. With hesitations front of mind, and uncertainty about the way forward, Alora headed off towards her new future.
Equipment: Medication
iPhone
Charging cables
Two weeks' worth of clothes
Snacks
Magic:Alora's magic allows her to exert control over plant life. Thus far, she can manipulate her green friends to grow at a faster rate, sway on command, and can magically graft one plant onto another. This ability has grown stronger since she was first gifted her powers. At the start, she could only sense the plant life around her. While she can not see through them nor hear, she can get a glimpse of what they feel around them. What scents are in the air, and what grounds have been stepped on. As the weeks turned into a month, Alora noticed that she was becoming in tune with the plant life. She learned how to sway the plants at a whim and command plants to proliferate.
These powers come with downsides, as all do. The more Alora tries to exert her control over plants, the more lost she can become in the networks of green life. There is a near-infinite number of plant life in a forest, from the pedals of grass to the massive mycelium colonies buried deep in the ground and all the pollen in the air. If she spends too long in tune with nature, her mind may as well be lost in it. As well, when she first discovered and started to use her power, she over-exerted herself. Her skin began to harden for a brief moment and appeared like bark. Alora would do well to avoid prolonged use of her powers, as one can not see the forest if one is a tree.