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"Mother Earth told me its your turn to do the dishes."

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ROLE

Bystander

NAME

Soleil Aquila Star

soleil (so-lay); as the sixth child, Soleil managed to escape the brunt of her parent's creativity (her eldest sister gets to live with the name Azalea-Cloudjumper), and they went with the tried-and-true hippie method of using language dictionaries at the local library to turn regular words into something that sounded more exotic. Soleil means 'sun' in French, for her 'bright and sunny' disposition, her mom told her. 'But what about sunburns, or photokeratitis?' Soleil would ask, though that always seemed to pull a sigh from her mother- so after a while she decided to just cut corners on the metaphor.

aquila; named after a constellation, as all of her siblings were. Soleil isn't too sure why they chose the Eagle constellation for her, other than they were running out of stars in the sky, but Soleil has always liked it. Eagles have big eyes that can see for miles- and people have always told her she needs to pay better attention, so the Eagle part of her must come in handy in helping her there. She learned from google that Aquila is actually a boy's name, but her mom insists that 'it has strong feminine energy' and Soleil doesn't blame her for being wrong, since google wasn't in its prime yet when she was being named.

star; a family against tradition can only have begun with a wife and husband leaving their own last names behind to choose a new one. Darlene and John fully cut themselves off from their disapproving families with the name change, moving across the country to start a new life on a small farm. They've always loved stars and constellations, and sought to honour the natural world with their name.

*pointing at self*

"This sun is also a star.

...

Haha do you get it?"

NICKNAMES

star-child; a nickname she shares with all of her siblings, which Soleil suspects her parents use whenever they have difficulty remembering which one of their many children she is.

sol; what her siblings typically call her. It's her favourite, too, since it sounds like 'soul' and makes her feel wise.

freak; she suspects this nickname doesn't entirely come from a place of friendship. People snicker when she perks up and responds with a friendly 'yes?' to the name, but that's fine with Soleil- laughter is the best path to happiness, and that's all she wishes for her classmates.

sunny; a fun name her friends would use at the commune, for both her name and her cheery self- and it also had the benefit of making her feel all warm inside when they used it.

aquila the hun; a nickname she gives herself when she's feeling particularly angry or conquer-ish. As a young girl she might've climbed to the top of the playground and yelled down at the other 'plebians' that 'aquila the hun was their overlord now', but these days she keeps it in her head. Unless, of course, she's mad at her brother- then she'll warn him that things aren't looking good for him in particular since Aquila The Hun is on her way (something she finds hilarious since Attila The Hun had historically killed his brother, and it'll often crack her up out of her anger).

AGE

16

GRADE

12

Skipped a grade because of her homeschooling- not that her parents were particularly vigorous in teaching academics, but because Soleil taught herself most of it. Her version of 'sneaking out' had been taking a bus to the library when she was ten, and part of her argument for getting her parents to let her go to high school was that she would do all of the work in getting herself caught up on the material- and in her enthusiasm, may have overshot.

GENDER

Female

APPEARANCE

Big doe-like hazel eyes, big smile, big hair- Soleil takes up space, enough so that people tend to give her a wide berth. She always seems to be smiling at one thing or another, the honesty of it enough to brighten her entire face. She's very expressive, making good use of her thick (but well-manicured- she has five older sisters, after all) eyebrows and sparkling wide eyes, her face sometimes even displaying the direction the thoughts in her mind are going. Her lips are bow-shaped and often dry thanks to her habit of chewing them, and she has black, curly hair that falls into ringlets all the way down her back on a good day, but become a scraggly mess pulled back into a ponytail on a bad one. With a button nose and a petite physique, she's been cooed at for being oh so adorable all her life.

OUTFIT

Flower crowns and hairbands are her favourite accessories, given to her by her older sisters most often. She usually wears the flowy, one-fabric dresses she's always wore, sometimes cinched at the waist by a belt if she's feeling particularly materialistic. If not summer dresses, she wears loose pants paired with a boxy shirt tucked into her belt, and an exciting patterned open cardigan. She prefers busy and colourful patterns, though since all of her clothes are either hand-me-downs or homemade, they tend to be more muted in tone. The brown lace up boots she wears everyday had once been her moms, and then her sister's, and then one of the other child's, and then her other sister's before they were hers. 

Jewelry jewelry, she loves necklaces and rings and earrings and everything in between, and she tends to wear far too many all at once. All that Soleil has gotten she's had to either create herself or find cheap at a pawn shop, since her mother's against 'the temptation of vanity', and Sol keeps them in her locker when she leaves to go home. Her mother has yet to realize that her daughter has had her ears pierced. 

She'll usually have a new addition to her outfit after the lunch break in the form of a daisy necklace or bracelet, which she makes herself as she eats her food under the big tree on school grounds. The 'Boho Tree', people call it, though Soleil has an inkling that it wasn't called that before she got there. "Sorry about your new name- I don't think it's a very nice one." She would say, patting its bark. "How would you like another one? You look like a Clara to me. Clara the Chlorophyll Queen." She would laugh as its leaves rustled in acquiescence, unbothered that her conversation with a tree drew stares.

PERSONALITY

distracted; Soleil follows her mind and and heart (and spirit and soul), but they unfortunately don't tend to line up with what other people want from her. Her attention drifts to whatever entertains her, and when the outside world becomes boring, that tends to be her own mind. She daydreams quite often, and the pull a book has on her is so strong that her mother has put a limit of checking out only two a week. Of course, not knowing how many books Soleil has managed to shove in her locker at school won't hurt her. She retreats deeply into her own thoughts and imagination, and is reminded constantly to 'look where you're going!' and 'pay attention', as she can drown so deeply that she won't even notice the pole in front of her face. Sol tries her best, she really does, but if there isn't something new for her to pay attention to, she's uninterested.

outgoing/chatty; When she's comfortable, there is no filter between her mouth and her head- and Soleil is practically always comfortable. She has a confidence in herself that few high schoolers do, and it is yet another thing people tend to find odd about her. She'll pick up a friendly conversation with a stranger as though they'd known each other for years, giving them her thoughts even when they aren't exactly welcome. Sol isn't the best as social cues, and combined with her daydreaming and strange words, people tend to think she's an airhead. She'll commonly give out unsolicited advice or her thoughts on fixing a situation she overhears, which does not make her very popular.

curious; Soleil has an intense curiosity about almost everything she can get her hands on, and she bores easily from routine. She's learned to make her own fun, and that usually consists of exploring where she shouldn't or learning something new. The best way she learns is by reading and doing, not by listening- which her teachers must be well aware of, considering the amount of times she's been caught staring out the window at class, having tuned them out. She's the type of person who dozes in class, doesn't care too much about her grades, then aces the quiz. Yet another thing people didn't really like about her. She wouldn't consider herself a 'prodigy' or 'intellectually-gifted' or any of the other words teachers would throw around during parent-teacher conferences- its just that she finds these things easy to pick up, especially when she's interested in the subject to the point of fixation. The only class she doesn't do to well in is English, since she has very little regard for the rules that govern essays and grammar. Just last week she wrote a persuasive essay opposed to the death penalty that she managed to write three different poems into, one about decay and two about the folly of putting too much power into the hands of man. She's pretty sure her English teacher didn't have quite so much gray hair at the beginning of the semester.

careless; She doesn't really think through the consequences of what she says or does- how was she supposed to know that reminding the captain of the football team that deodorant needed to be reapplied after a game as well would end up with her shoved inside her locker for two periods? That was fine with Soleil though, since dark places made it easier for her imagination to run wild, and she entertained herself by going over what she knew about basket weaving techniques in her mind. She was so preoccupied after the first bell that she hadn't even remembered to politely ask the boy who's locker was next to hers to put in her code for her until the next period. Sol isn't the most sympathetic, she won't know that her words are upsetting to someone unless they tell her- but then once she knows, she'll make gifts and do anything she can to make it up to them.

optimistic/ happy-go-lucky; It can be somewhat of a superpower considering she believes in manifesting positivity, and it's true that she doesn't let too many situations stand in her way- but her endless optimism can backfire when she expects the best from every situation and person, and can lead her into putting too much trust into someone who could hurt her. Being happy is almost a habit at this point, and though she does naturally enjoy most things, Soleil will pretend she isn't upset even when she is, because being bright and happy is part of her identity- it's one of the only things she truly knows about herself that makes her unique from her siblings.

funny (to her); She has a sense of humour that isn't often very compatible with others. Soleil is a fan of irony, and her jokes often reference things she isn't aware not everyone knows about. It's almost like she has inside jokes with herself, and when she voices them she thinks it's the funniest thing ever, but no one else is laughing with her.

rebellious; There's always been a little crazy in Soleil, something her calm, peace-loving family has tried to meditate out of her. But she's full of energy, full of ideas, and full of the desire to try new things. She wants to discover, she wants adventure, and her sheltered upbringing wasn't giving her that. Years of begging and schemes and PowerPoint presentations was what it took to finally convince her parents to let her enroll in high school- Soleil was nothing if not determined. The purest form of rebellion must be having the bravery to choose going against the lifestyle and values of those around you- and to Soleil, that was going to high school.

childish/naive; She's somewhat childish and immature, doing what she wants when no one is looking, swinging from stop signs when she's hyped up on energy, laughing at all her own jokes. Practically what you can expect from dropping a raised flower child into the city, it took her awhile to figure out the concept of 'private property' and that taking a shortcut through people's backyards was ill-advised. Even though she wants to learn about everything, she's still somewhat naive about how the world works, and that along with all the good out there, is bad. Soleil has a habit of squishing any bad feelings she has down and away, so she finds it only fair that the world does it too.

LIKES

"The sun, the moon, the stars, the sky in general, oh especially sunsets, but the ground too of course, and Mother Earth, all her creatures even squirmy bugs and those birds that put their eggs in other bird's nests so that someone else will raise them, but that's not really their fault cause its just their biological coding from evolving among..."

Soleil can find a love and appreciation for almost everything, but there are those certain things that she loves even more.

libraries; you can learn about anything you want there, how could it not be her favourite place? She remembers her first time seeing it, a grand palace of marble and columns nestled within the metal and chaos that was overwhelming her- it had been a steady sanctuary that Sol had loved from the first step she took through the oak doors, and visits it so often that she's made friends with the old librarians there.

milkshakes; the best thing you could ever put in your body. Soleil absolutely loves shakes, whether its vanilla, chocolate, strawberry or oreo, she can't get enough. And Sol on a sugar high (her commune is a very fresh-from-nature-no-artificial-sweets place) she's even cheerier and chatty, with the ability to talk for miles a minute. Practically bouncing off the walls.

poems; she considers them chaos and beauty in an art form, and enjoys those most about nature. One of her 'uncles' from the commune is fantastic at poetry, and Soleil used to beg and beg to hear his words. Of course, that was until she saw one of the poems he'd 'come up with on the spot' in a book, under a different author's name. Now she sticks with books to teach her about the beauty of the world, and Sol often tries her own hand at making them- however, they tend to be somewhat nonsensical to everyone but herself.

star-gazing; an activity for her family and hers alone, the only thing they don't share with the rest of the commune. On those clear monthly nights where they all lay down in the meadow with their eyes searching for constellations, her sisters and brother and parents all squished together even though the field is large, Soleil truly feels loved and at peace. She may be somewhat unhappy with the lack of attention she'd always gotten, may tend to distance herself from her family and all that is familiar to her, but those moments feel like home to her.

"The world is so full, and I want a piece of it all!"

DISLIKES

She'll tell people she has none, but that's not exactly true.

the internet; she doesn't entirely get it, and social media scares her. There's conflict and hatred and judgement there, and it turns the world into something far too complex and nuanced for her to deal with. 

war/conflict; though Soleil can stir up trouble at her house, her parents aren't the best at carrying through with punishment, so she can get away from that without any anger or fighting. Soleil wouldn't consider the irritation and occasional bullying that comes her way as conflict- it's only conflict if there are two opposing sides, and Sol usually takes what they give out with a shrug and a smile. But real conflict, where two people are snarling at each other, where the hatred pulsing between them becomes so thick it turns to violence, makes her want to run far, far away.

being ignored or forgotten; she's happy where she is in the school right now, because even though people will make jokes at her expense, or steal her things, or occasionally shove her into lockers, its better than walking through life like she doesn't exist. When she was younger and snuck out, sometimes Soleil would stay in town overnight, hiding in a corner of the library until the lights went out and the staff left, sleeping underneath a table. Because she wanted someone to notice she was gone, she wanted her parents to worry and get mad at her because they missed her and not seeing her scared them. But a lot of the time she would wander back onto the commune the next afternoon, and would only get a 'where have you been? Your little sister needs to be fed, help her into her highchair.'

strict rules; Soleil wants room to be adventurous and creative, and is unused to the unwavering rules society imposes. She grudgingly adheres to deadlines at school because she doesn't want to flunk out after she tried so hard to get herself in, but that's the limit of what she'll do without complaint. Why are white lines on the pavement supposed to dictate where she can step, as though the ground beneath their feet didn't belong to them all? Why would a bathroom, which it right there and not in use, be withheld from someone if they don't pay for something at its store? It may seem to the casual observer that Soleil was simply unaware of these rules (and sometimes that was true) but she also just didn't follow the ones she deemed useless.

WHY THE BUS

Soleil was on her way out of school like she was everyday, and had missed her bus because she'd stayed after school for a bit to fix one of her necklaces in the school library. She figured she'd have to walk back again that day, and entertained herself by balancing homogeneous chemical reactions in her head as she got started. Soleil suddenly spotted yellow out of the corner of her eye, and saw a school bus parked further around the bend from its normal spot. Sol mentally patted herself on the back for her Aquila-blessed observation (it was a good thing she was paying attention today, she never usually would've caught that) and got on the bus without noticing that the boy in the bus driver's seat was one of her classmates.

WHAT DID THEY BRING

All she has is her backpack- some calculus homework, pencil case, her notes, an English textbook, a lunchbox with empty Tupperware in it, and 'Sedimentary Secrets', a book she took out from the library about geology.

REPUTATION AT SCHOOL

Not that great- it's her second year at school now, and she still doesn't have any real friends. She doesn't really know how to make them, seeing as all other friends she's had she's grown up with, and the technique of 'talk to them like you've known them since forever' doesn't seem to work all that well. Soleil strikes people as a goody-two-shoes since she isn't one to start trouble even to fight back, and a naive air-head who bullies occasionally try to take advantage of. One boy on the football team used to sit with her a while ago, saying nice things to her, telling her he was her friend- then after a few days asked her to do something for him, something involving a locker and a cigarette. Because Soleil never did anything she didn't want to do, she had only given him a chipper 'no thanks!', at that was the end of that friendship.

She's known as 'the hippie weirdo from that nearby commune' and people generally don't want to be associated with her. Occasionally some older popular kids will try to 'take her under their wing' and are all friendly to her so they can tote her around as the new oddity in town, but her tendency to zone out and the brutal honesty of her unfiltered thoughts usually wear off the novelty real quickly, and Soleil finds herself alone again. She's never complained, though- never given up and headed back home- because her eternal persistent optimism has her believing it can only get better, and that any day now she'd make a real friend.

BACKSTORY

The hippie movement may have been born in the late 60's only to face a quick death a decade later, but Darlene Donner and John Lakedon had found the appeal of an anti-capitalist, anti-society lifestyle as the former was laughed out of interviews in which she presented her own list on how the company could improve, and the latter after spending five soul-sucking years in a cubicle. 

Hippie culture wasn't as popular after all the 'cult' mishaps decades ago, but Darlene and John nevertheless managed to find a commune in the 90's to move to with their first child, on a farm among like-minded people who didn't find the name Azalea-Cloudjumper Cassiopeia Star that odd of a name at all. It was here where Soleil grew up, among sheep and dozens of other children, a good portion of which she was related to. Their homeschooling composed more of yoga and meditation than math and science, husbandry and botany with only the bare minimum of English or Geography. The children remained isolated within their little paradise, and Soleil had known very little about the outside world until she grew old enough to act on her curiosity.

Walking on the acres of land of their commune had never been dangerous for her before, so six year old Sol found no issue in wandering beyond its borders, adept enough at knowing where true north was to be confident that she wouldn't get lost- after all, all she needed to do was follow the road to get into 'town', as the adults would sometimes say. She didn't expect the road to branch so much, of course, but had already wrestled her courage and determination, so she continued on. The sun had dipped below the horizon by the time Soleil had stumbled into town, where she saw amazing things- new people, old people, and even those with different skin colours, building upon buildings, so big and tall so that they could hold all those people, and smells and sounds she'd never known before.

It wasn't until night had fallen and the cold set in that Soleil had noticed that she was lost. Thankfully a kind cop had found her squinting up at the stars in the streets, and had immediately recognized from her clothes that she must've been one of the commune kids. Soleil took his hand when he offered it, and drove her back home where her parents scolded and fussed over her more than they had in years. As the sixth child of now thirteen siblings (all girls but one) Soleil was the middle child of all middle children, and often found herself forgotten about.

It might have bothered her when she was younger and got snapped at for tugging at Darlene's skirts while she was nursing twins, might've made her wonder who exactly she was and how she fit in the world when there were dozens of kids around her just the same as she was, but Soleil taught herself independence instead of thinking too hard on it. She loved her sisters and brother and the other children who were practically her cousins, but sometimes being around that many people (especially annoying toddlers) got to be too much even for Soleil. When she was there she had to do chores on the farm and take care of her younger siblings, and do the same yoga poses she's already done hundreds of times, so Soleil would head into town instead, taking the half-hour trek down dirt roads until they turned into pavement, then just wandering through town and learning what she could by going into stores and talking to strangers.

By the time she was eight it was a regular outing for her that she would go on once a week, one that she had no idea how dangerous it was. Sometimes a stranger would crouch down to her level, asking softly where her parents were- and Soleil would simply point behind her to any other random adult nearby, big innocent eyes convincing them that this was the truth. Thankfully it was a good part of town and nothing really happened to her, but even as naive as Soleil was now, she realized that wasn't the best call.

Soleil had formed her own clubhouse around that time where she sat all the younger kids down and began sharing all the exciting things she'd learned in her 'Outside-school', all the things that the adults had never told them about. Things that the commune didn't exactly want their children knowing- they had decided on their way to live, and didn't want 'the poison and greed of societal living' to affect their children. 

It didn't last a week before one of the kids told their parents about it, and suddenly all the adults were looking her way- with anger. And her own parents- with fear and horror. Soleil didn't find her independent thinking as horrific as her parents seemed to, and found it quite ironic when she'd gotten in trouble for doing something different and new when that was what all the adults of the commune had done in the first place. Soleil never really regretted it, even when she was given dung-duty for a month in punishment. Her parents paid a little more attention her way after that- or, at least, they told her older sisters to watch her.

But Soleil had had a taste of the outside life now, and she wouldn't be giving up so easily. She snuck out more occasionally over the years, unabashedly talking to the younger kids about what cooking meat smelled like and the explosions in the sky that were called fireworks, and would get heavily punished any time she spoke of the outside. And yet it didn't deter her.

She was thirteen and desperate to see more than just the commune, and had taken to the impossible task of convincing her parents to let her go to a regular school out in the world where she could be learning all kinds of ideologies. Soleil convinced them with a combination of; promising she would tell them what she learned everyday (they got too busy and stopped asking after the second week), proving that she could keep up with her chores (her siblings sometimes helped her out when she was exhausted from a rough school day), and that she could keep up with the school's material and represent their commune well (well she did the first, but wouldn't call her reputation and that of her family stellar). Though she didn't say it out loud, Soleil thought the tipping point might've been that she wouldn't be around the other children as much, and so wouldn't infect them with her outside-yearning.

She was enrolled and began high school last year, and has been thrilled ever since.

OTHER

- has a really good memory when it comes to facts she's learned and things that people have said to her, often being able to quote people's words back to them months or years later

- she's tried to learn another language (particularly French because of her name) on and off for years, but she just doesn't have the patience for it, and its one of the only things she's ever struggled to learn

- has a special bond with ladybugs- they always land on her, and her father says they're her spirit animal

A comprehensive list of her siblings;

Azalea-Cloudjumper Cassiopeia Star (21)

Juniper-Day Aquarius Star (20)

Amber Draco Star (19)

Echo Ursa Star (19)

Aloe Andromeda Star (18)

Luna Ara Star (14)

Bohdi-Blue Orion Star (14)

Amethyst Pegasus Star (14)

Aspen Lyra Star (10)

Karma Apus Star (8)

River-Rae Libra Star (5)

Gaia Antlia Star (2)

"If the cosmos want me here so badly, they'll bring me back once I'm done exploring."

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