"Her life was a slow realization that the world was not for her, and that for whatever reason, she would never be happy and honest at the same time. She addressed the world honestly, searching for something deserving of the volumes of love she knew she had within her, but to each she would have to say, I don't love you."
-Jonathan Safran Foer

Soleil opened her eyes and immediately wished she hadn't. She was getting too old for the hangovers and "coyote ugly" bullshit. Granted, the guy in bed next to her wasn't that bad looking, but the pounding in her head wouldn't let her remember what the hell his name was. Mike? Matt?

She tried not to groan as she climbed out from between the cheap motel sheets, and grabbed up her stuff. She changed in the bathroom, just to make sure she wouldn't wake up what's-his-name. Soleil looked longingly at the shower, but couldn't risk it. She wanted to be a hundred miles away before he realized she was gone.

Honesty came with a cup of coffee, a truck and an open road. All her life, she'd felt that the world had never revolved around her. Everything that happened, everything she did, served some higher power. Her mother's institutionalization was a warning not to dabble in things half-way. Her going to Nana's taught her what she needed to know about things that went bump in the night. Her gift had taken her to places she never would have visited otherwise.

At the end of the day, she just wanted to be happy. She wanted the life she hadn't had. She wanted her kids to have a mama and daddy who loved them. But first, she'd have to find Mr. Right, and all she'd had were a bunch of Mr. Right-Nows. They didn't love her any more than she'd loved them. They were just a way to keep her from feeling lonely. She was all she had in this world. Mama had died in that asylum and Nana had been gone for fourteen years.

She didn't feel sorry for herself, not really, not when she'd helped so many others. To her, every time she vanquished another spirit or whatever, she felt a little bit closer to her mother. And every time she stopped, she found someone new. Someone she wanted to love. Someone she wanted to love her back. But then the dreams would start and she'd have to leave again, knowing with brutal honesty that love just wasn't in the cards for her.



Music: Highway Junkie ~ Gary Allan

The late-summer afternoon was sticky, as were most late-summer afternoons in New Orleans. Joliette had sent her thirteen-year-old daughter to the store for some ice cream and Cokes with the promise of making floats when she got home. If Soliel thought it was strange, she said nothing. Instead, she took the ten dollars from her mother and walked the three streets over to the mini-mart.

Soleil knew there was something different about her mother, something off. Ever since she had gone to the Hendersons' one evening six months before, she hadn't been the same. Joliette had begun locking her bedroom door at night, and in the morning, her wrists and ankles were marred with bruises. The scariest thing for Soliel were the noises.

From behind her mother's closed and locked door, she could hear snarling, hissing and screaming. She could hear Joliette crying as well as another voice, a much darker, nastier voice. But Soleil knew her mother was alone in the room. During the day, however, Joliette was almost normal, save for the bruises and dark circles under her eyes from lack of sleep.

More than that, Joliette had begun spending more and more time at church. Sometimes, Soliel went with her. She liked exploring the cathedral while her mother met with the parish priest. She remembered looking at all the stained glass, wondering how the faces were painted onto the different panes. Soliel also found a calming peace about the cavernous interior.

None of that made sense until she was older. She didn't understand anything of what happened with her mother until it was too late.

Soleil would always remember returning from the store and finding four police cars, an ambulance and a fire truck all parked outside the modest house she shared with her mother. She could still feel the bags of soda and ice cream slide out of her fingers and hit the pavement so hard one of the cans exploded. She remembered running, but never seeming to reach the house and the way she had screamed at Father Michaels to let her see her mother.

She remembered crying into his shoulder when he tried to explain that her mother had had an accident, and would be in the hospital for a very long time. She remembered the numb clarity with which she packed a duffel bag because she would never go back to that house again. She remembered passing people with rubber gloves and cameras in the upstairs hall. She remembered looking into her mother's room and seeing the pentacle of unlit candles in the middle of the floor before being ushered to her room by Father Michaels.

She dimly remembered the drive to the church and the sofa in his office he had made up for her with sheets and blankets. Then, there was the drive to Cocodrie. She didn't say a word, just looked out the window as the trees dripping with spanish moss rolled by. It had been years since she had seen Nana, but the old woman was the only family she had left. Soliel's father had bailed on them before she was ever born. She had no other siblings, no aunts, uncles or cousins that she knew about. She was thirteen and if her grandmother hadn't still been alive, Soliel would have had no other place to turn.

---

It was May. Soleil had just turned twenty-seven. It had been fourteen years since she had been back to New Orleans, and time had not been kind. The house she had once called home was a condemned ruin, just another victim of Katrina. The bank had long since foreclosed on it, and with the amount of work it needed, not to mention the economy, it would probably fall in on itself before someone bought it.

A blue '85 Ford 150 rumbled down the street in front of the once-white, two-story house with its screened-in front porch and green storm shutters. Windows were boarded up and weeds taller than she was had taken over the postage-stamp front lawn. She wasn't sure what she was supposed to feel. It was strange seeing it again. She wanted to think of only the good memories, but it was the not-so-good ones that had brought her back.

She wanted answers. She had been a Hunter since Nana had passed almost eight years ago. Thanks to the old woman's teachings, Soliel could pretty well hold her own. She had traveled from one small town to the next, hoping to escape her past, but it always seemed to haunt her. Literally.

Seemed like everywhere she went, she came across something: werewolves in Witchita, poltergeists in Philly, and even a banshee in Billings. Thing was, she was the only one around who knew how to deal with those problems. And rather than answer squicky questions, Soleil just packed her truck and hit the road. Most of the time, she didn't have any set destination in mind, just went where the road took her.

But something always bothered her: no one would ever tell her the truth of what happened with her mother. Her grandmother had always changed the subject, and she hadn't seen or heard from Father Michaels since that road trip to the bayous. It was time to change all that. She wanted answers, now.

CHARACTER NAME: Soleil Benoit
CHARACTER SERIES: Supernatural (OC)

[OOC]
This is the permissions list for OOC (out of character), activity.
Answer the following questions with "yes" or "no", as well as additional information if desired.

Backtagging: Absolutely! I tend to keep threads going for weeks.

Preferred style: I'm a word whore. I love writing paragraph/prose. It's not uncommon for my tags to be over 200 words long. That being said, one or two sentence tags, while quick, leave me cold. I'll use [bracket] form only if there's no other choice.

Fourthwalling: Unless you're playing Deadpool, an omniscient or telepathic character, please don't. At least not before talking about it OOCly first.

Offensive subjects (elaborate): I'm pretty hard to trigger, but let's keep the uber-skeezy stuff (bloodplay, rape, torture of any kind, domestic violence, physical/verbal abuse) at the door. And please, no trying to break my character without my consent/permission. Okay? Okay.



[IC]
This is the permissions list for IC (in-character), activity.
Answer the following questions with "yes" or "no", as well as additional information if desired. With IC permissions, it's a good idea to elaborate on what other players can expect from your character if they choose to do any of the following:



Hugging this character: She's good with that
Kissing this character: Guys only, please. (Sorry, ladies)
Flirting with this character: Oh, hell yeah. Be prepared for her to dish it right back.
Fighting with this character: Only if contacted OOC first, but she's usually up for a good bar brawl.
Injuring this character (include limits and severity): She's 100% human (as far as I know). Broken bones, stabbing, etc are open, but only if contacted OOC first.
Killing this character: I'd really rather not.
Using telepathy/mind reading abilities on this character: Only if you want to piss her off. Otherwise, you're likely to find a very independent spirit who tends to kick ass and take names because she can, she wants to & she feels like it.

Warnings: There's likely to be talk of alcohol since her preferred occupation is a bartender. Discussion about guns, ammo (iron, salt, and silver shot, etc), weapons, country music, and generally trying to write her dialogue with a Southern accent will happen. If phonetic writing bugs you, please don't tag.


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