Elleko

Elleko

 

 NICKNAME N/A

 AGE Roughly 15
 BIRTHDAY ?

 SPECIES Aquatic primate
 ETHNICITY ?

 GENDER Female
 SEXUALITY ?

 DORM Pyxis

 POWER As one of a race of aquatic primates, the population of which has drastically dwindled over time to the small family group she was born into, Elleko is quite a strange being. She is designed to survive on land, but thrive in water; due to her gills she can breathe underwater, though she also has lungs and can breathe in the air like a human. Like many aquatic predators her sense of smell is incredible, meant to allow her to track down prey from a great distance, and she is equipped with deadly teeth, spines, and claws. She is, of course, a very strong swimmer and feels most comfortable in water.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Elleko is that over time she has developed a strange ability to manipulate water. Very few of her kind have developed any kind of powers and it is unknown if this is an evolutionary trait developing to help save their dying race or due to gifted human genes being mixed into the population at some point, as they are capable of reproducing with humans, though it is rare. Elleko currently has the ability to manipulate the temperature of water, ranging from boiling to freezing, but must be in contact with it. If she is not concentrating occasionally extreme emotions on her part will cause this to happen—for example, if she happens to be swimming and becomes very angry, the water she is in may heat up without her realizing it. She hopes to learn to control this to avoid hurting or scaring people. Her ability is currently limited to liquid water only and she cannot influence evaporated water or ice, though with much practice and experimentation she will be able to in the future. This means that if she manipulates a temperature to either extreme to the point that the water changes forms—so hot that it evaporates or so cold that it begins to freeze—then she will lose control of it and it will stay in the form it was turned into until it naturally returns to liquid water through melting, condensation, etc. She will, with practice, also be able to bend water to her will, causing waves and storms, but only with bodies of water that she has access to. At the moment she can only bend water in small ways on accident and so far has yet to figure out exactly how to do it. She cannot manipulate other aspects that may affect what happens with the water she bends, such as wind; her powers are limited only to water itself.

 APPEARANCE Elleko is humanoid in appearance but clearly something other than entirely human. She walks on two legs, has two arms, a humanoid face, and so on. She is petite, standing at only about 5’3 with a thin, delicate build that is deceptively strong. Her skin is a very pale gray-blue color, reminiscent both in color and texture to a dolphin or similar animal, very smooth and cool with a somewhat rubbery feel when wet, though it is soft and feels more human when dry. She has no hair aside from that on her head, eyebrows, and eyelashes. Her hair is a deep black, stick-straight, and falls to her waist. Her eyes are a similar deep, dark color, their irises almost indistinguishable from their pupils. If one looks close they can see that they are in fact a dark gray color, but usually look black. Her heart-shaped face would be considered attractive by most if it weren’t for the inhuman aspects; her features are delicate and pretty, though to some they may be marred by her strange teeth. She has four thin, sharp fangs where her upper canines would be, two on either side as opposed to one, and a second row of small, sharp teeth just inside of her molars on either side of both the top and bottom. The sight of these shock most people, and this has made her very self-conscious of them. On either side of her neck are her gills, which closely resemble a shark’s. When she is breathing air they flatten into her skin, becoming almost invisible, but underwater flare out visibly as they work.

While Elleko’s face differs from a human’s only in small ways, the rest of her is a bit more shocking to see. Both her fingers and toes are webbed and rather than fingernails she has black claws. These are normally long, thin, and sharp, but she keeps them filed down into the shape of a normal fingernail both to make people more comfortable with being touched by her and to make handling many everyday things easier. This causes the appearance almost of perpetually-painted fingernails, though the shine and texture of them is still just a bit off. On the outer side of each arm, beginning about an inch back from her wrist and ending about an inch before her elbow, is a series of five backwards-slanted spines connected by the same webbing as her fingers. Each spine is about three inches long, rounded but thin and tapering to a point, and dark gray in color. She has a long, serpent-like tail that ends in a shark-like tailfin. When relaxed it reaches almost to the floor.

Elleko can usually be seen in dresses, as they allow for more room for movement of her tail and such and she finds them more comfortable than pants. Her shy nature means she carries herself cautiously, rarely looking up. Her hair often covers her face and her normal body language makes her shyness and awkwardness clear. Though they are usually hidden, she has several rough scars across her left collarbone, shoulder, and upper arm from an incident with humans as a child. Most are small to medium sized and indistinguishable as far as origin, but one is clearly from a bullet.

 PERSONALITY One can tell immediately upon seeing Elleko that she isn’t a social person. She is very shy, always preferring to be on her own than with other people. She speaks quietly and with a slight stutter, especially when she first meets somebody. As she gets more comfortable with somebody her stutter will usually go away. She tends to wait until she’s approached to talk to people and will otherwise stay in the corner and observe. She’s very intelligent and more observant than most people expect, and has often unintentionally made people uncomfortable by spouting out things she’s noticed about them that they don’t expect her to know. Due to her history she has very little idea of how to properly act in any social situations and so is very socially awkward. She’s self-conscious about this and so often avoids crowds and groups of people. She’s often alright with one or two of them, but beyond that she gets uncomfortable quickly.

Though Elleko is very shy and can take quite some time to become fully comfortable with somebody, once she does she’s loyal to a fault, often overlooking their mistakes and faults. This can sometimes become a problem, as she can be unwilling to accept things about them that don’t paint them in a perfect light. With her friends she’s very playful and happy. Elleko has a sort of childlike wonder and innocence about her, finding joy and amazement in the simplest things, and has a love for natural beauty and learning. She’s a quick learner and soaks up information like a sponge, always craving more. When not swimming, she can often be found with her nose in a book and if she finds somebody she views as experienced or educated in the modern human world will question them endlessly about technology and society.

When in water, Elleko seems almost to become a different person. Rather than shy and clumsy she becomes confident and graceful. She adores being in the water more than anything and much of her free time is spent swimming. She feels most comfortable in the water and it’s something of an escape for her; when stressed, overwhelmed, or upset, it’s the first place she goes. She much prefers to swim alone and will go out of her way to find somewhere suitable to swim where nobody else is, and so being shown this side of her should be viewed as a rare and special gift and her way of telling you she thinks very highly of you. However, one should never forget that above all she is a predator, and when swimming she reflects that: quiet, quick, and fierce. She of course has no desire to hurt others, but when caught up in enjoying the water may be dangerous if surprised, as her entire build is designed to kill.

If Elleko has an unexpected quirk, it is that she loves good food, particularly meat—and if it’s fish, all the better. She herself is a terrible cook but wishes she could get the hang of it and admires those who can cook well.

 WEAKNESSES Elleko’s most obvious weakness is the lack of control she has over her power; not only can she not tap into the full potential of her power at the moment but her emotions very strongly influence it currently and extreme ones will cause her power to get out of hand. As she trains and learns this will be reduced, but her emotions will always affect her power to some extent. Aside from this, she is a rather naïve and innocent individual, making it very easy for her to be taken advantage of. Her strange appearance often makes others hesitant to her, worsening her social anxiety and awkwardness and making her even more trusting in an effort to make people not afraid of her. It doesn’t take much for her to fully trust someone other than for them to be relatively nice to her, and because of her lack of social skills she isn’t the best judge of character. This, of course, can easily get her into trouble. She is also very clumsy and awkward when out of water, seeming to lose all of the grace and agility she has when swimming.

 STRENGTHS Despite her lack of training and control Elleko has quite a bit of potential in her power and with proper work can become a force to be reckoned with. Her water manipulation at its full potential can be useful in many different ways, from everyday life to combat, and if combined with her natural ability in water she can become a deadly enemy. Her determination to learn further advances this. On the topic of learning, her thirst for knowledge and relentless pursuit of furthering herself means she will go to every length for the sake of learning and is never afraid of whatever hard work or obstacles it may come with. And, of course, being what she is, she is beyond nearly any human in terms of speed, agility, and ferocity when in the water. She is built to hunt and kill, and reflects this.

 HISTORY Elleko was born somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. She doesn't know where, as the first nine years of her life were spent primarily following her small family group around and occasionally hunting, and of course it is quite difficult to pinpoint exact location in a way humans can understand when you live underwater with no language. Being a dying race, the group she was born into consisted of her parents, twin brother, and four females she calls her "aunts", though she has no idea of her blood relation to them. They often watched over she and her brother when they were very young, and when she later learned English that was the best comparison she could make. Her mother had watched humans for many years and knew a few bits of English, and so when Elleko was young once called her a "little echo", referring to her being the younger of twins. This was the only English Elleko was exposed to for the first nine years of her life; her race had no spoken language, communicating instead through scent and body language.

As a child Elleko was very different from how she is now. She was brave and adventurous, often straying away from her family to explore or hunt on her own or with her brother. She got into trouble constantly, angering sharks and such, but never allowed her brother to step in and help her. She and her brother were very close and went everywhere together, but Elleko has not seen him in six years. When they were about nine years old, one calm evening he pair went to the surface of the ocean to see the sunset, which Elleko was very fond of. They went unaccompanied, which was not unusual, but happened into bad luck that particular night. They were spotted by humans, who immediately thought them to be sea monsters. Out of fear they attacked, injuring both of the twins and catching Elleko's brother. This was the last Elleko saw of him, and she assumes he is dead. Badly injured and terrified, Elleko herself hurriedly tried to return to her family but fell unconscious before she could. She woke washed up on a Florida beach, barely alive, and this was when she joined the human world.

Elleko was incredibly lucky to have stumbled across one of the few humans in the world who would not have left her for dead, reacted to the sight of her violently, or turned her over to the government for study. His name was Dr. Jeremy Carmichael, a single father who had taken his four young children to the beach and who expertly calmed them when they stumbled across Elleko and rather than fearing her took her in and nursed her back to health. He taught her English, to read and write, and about human society. When asked her name she had none to give, having no language under the sea, and after learning to write she attempted to put into writing the closest thing to a name she had ever heard--"little echo", which turned into "elleko". This has been her name since and she's become very attached to it. For six years she lived happily with Dr. Carmichael and his four children, who became like younger siblings to her. She was particularly close to his only daughter, Callie, who adored Elleko and followed her everywhere. She was happy with them, despite being hidden away to avoid possible consequences of people seeing such a strange being walking around in the open, but a part of her was always homesick. She longed to return to the ocean, but a social creature like her was not meant to survive alone and she had no idea where her family could have gone, or if there were others like her in the ocean. Beginning about six months ago she began to grow distant towards her surrogate family, sneaking away to swim in the ocean and hunt, though always returning. A month ago, during one of these trips, she was unaware of the fact that Callie followed her, and while focusing on hunting reacted only to the movement she felt in the water, believing herself to be far away from any humans. Callie was badly hurt, though luckily caught only by Elleko's claws and not her teeth, and Elleko has not allowed herself to swim even in sight of humans since. After the incident Dr. Carmichael began searching for a way for Elleko to find what she has been craving--a safe place where she can both be herself and be as involved in human society as she would like, but without the risk of hurting others or cutting herself off from them--and came across Foresta Academy.

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Accepted into Pyxis!

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