Tag: Thea Winters

A New Home: Chapter 2.12 (Thea)

~ Nerathul ~ Leave a comment

Thea made it to her room carrying her rather substantial baggage, her room was different from others; next to the bed was a large garden bed where she could replenish and meditate. 

Her eyes were drawn to her roommate; a strange girl sitting in a wheelchair by the other bed, looking far too young to be at Ravenhold, her brown skin had an unhealthy gray tint to it. The girl sat quietly with a book in her hands, only the whirling of a mechanical pump breaking the silence.

“Hi, there!” Thea said.

The girl barely looked up, “yeah,” she muttered.

Thea frowned and put down her stuff, “What are you reading?” She asked, hoping to make conversation.

The girl shrugged, lifting the book up slightly so Thea could read the title on the spine, some trashy sci-fi thing Thea had never heard of.

“Never heard of it,” Thea shrugged, she went to the window and looked out it, looking over the house’s backyard. “Hm, not bad sunlight, will be alright for plants.”

The girl finished the tiny book and sighed, tossing it aside without a care. Thea caught her staring at her directly.

“Can I help you?”

Hijack rolled her eyes and shook her head.

Thea shrugged it off, she’d been stared at before. She opened her bags and began sorting things out, organizing what would go in the drawers, what went in the closet, and what would go in the bed compartment.

The girl was still staring.

“Yes, I’m a plant.” 

“I noticed.” the girl answered.

How rude, Thea thought, most had the decency to pretend they weren’t staring.”And you’re staring at me, and it’s uncomfortable.”

“I have eyes, it’s what you do with them.”

“Do you have a problem with me? And how I am?”

“Not particularly.” She shrugged.

Thea threw her hands up, with a loud frustrated sigh, “Whatever.” She went back to her organization. “How old are you anyway? You look way too young to be here.”

“Depends on how you think of age. Could be 4, could be 10 or 11, could be 14 or 15.”

Thea stopped. Had she heard correctly? She tilted her head back at the girl, “Four?”

“Four years ago three ten-to-eleven-years old girls died in the Tzari invasion and then a crazy man stitched them together and brought them to life.” She raised and spread out her hand, indicating her own body.

Thea gave her a good look for once, noticing the many scars, the way her legs were different colors from the rest of her upper body. The tank attached to her chair was actually connected to a metal plate behind her head. 

“The fuck,” was all Thea could answer. What the hell had happened to this girl?

“My thoughts exactly.” She said in a bored tone

Thea went quiet having no idea what to even say to her. She went back to her things, and the girl didn’t seem to care to talk.

“Do you have a name?”

“Hijack.”

“That’s not a name.”

“That’s what they called me.”

Thea nodded. She looked back at Hijack, she was still staring. “Do you have nothing better to do?”

“I finished the book.”

Thea sighed, took out her phone, and gave it to Hijack, “There, play a game or something.” She paused, “If you look at my pictures or DMs I will kill you.” 

There were things in there she didn’t want someone else to see, private things, things Thea wasn’t entirely proud of, but she needed money…

“I’m already dead.” Hijack said, tapping away. 

Thea soon heard the music of Beat Mania so she let Hijack out of her mind. 

The game music played quietly, only to be constantly interrupted by failure noises. Once Hijack ran out of lives in one game, she tried the next, and then the next. 

“You’re out of lives, I’m buying more.”

“I don’t have a credit card.”

Hijack let out a scream of frustration and threw the phone, thankfully it hit the soft mattress of Thea’s bed before harmlessly bouncing to the ground. 

“Hey!” Thea snapped, “That’s my phone, do you have any idea how expensive that is?”

Hijack crossed her arms angrily glaring at the phone. “Stupid game is impossible.” She muttered, rolling out of the room. 

Thea retrieved her phone, the screen protector had held. “Fucking child,” she grumbled

Thea put down her phone and finished unpacking. About ten minutes later Hijack came back, carrying manga she’d retrieved somewhere in the house. Thea stared at her, hoping to maybe shame her into an apology, but Hijack just ignored her. 

So Thea gave up, getting ready for the night, she took off her clothes, feeling no shame. It wasn’t like there was anything to see anymore; Thea no longer had human genitals or breasts. She sat down in the garden bed and closed her eyes.

Using her powers to extend roots into the earth, her body drawing in nutrients and sending its waste into the soil, Thea’s mind slowed down, when she was rooted she went into a trance of sorts, not too different to how she once slept as a human.

She was vaguely aware of Hijack putting down the manga after a time, closing the lights and going to bed, the strange tank of black fluid still connected to her. 

Hijack was going to be a problem, Thea knew, but also maybe she needed a friendly hand? 

A New Home: Chapter 2.11 (Luciana)

~ Nerathul ~ Leave a comment

Class 4 Living Room Chaos

Lucy came into the house, Mr. Kibbles was bouncing with excitement. “House!” He rushed on ahead, sniffing everything and everyone, Lucy following and apologizing. When he came into the living room there was a tall gray furry paramorph figure standing there inspecting books from a shelf.

Mr. K went to sniff them, “What’s that?” He signed to Lucy.

“I don’t know,” Luciana answered vocally, “Hi?”

The strange-looking being cocked her head, “what don’t know?” She said with an unplaceable accent.

“Sorry, my dog wanted to know what you are, are you a mutant paramorph?” Luciana asked, “Sorry, don’t mean to be rude or anything.”

“Son’ma is Ver. Not srom Ears.” Son’ma stared at Mr. Kibble, looking confused, “Sat is dog?”

“He’s a special kind of dog.” Luciana asked. “What’s a Ver?”

“Not human. Srom Ver planet.”

“More aliens?” A tall tan Latino with a black leather collar around his neck walked in. He made a little bit of a face at Son’ma but it quickly went back to an easy, cocky smile. 

“What’s this about aliens?” A tall plant girl came in next, 

Luciana looks at her wide-eyed, “Woah, you’re like a salad.”

The Salad-girl gave her a look. 

“Salad?” Son’ma asks confused, “Is type os human? Or alien?”

“I’m a mutant,” Plant-girl said, “a paramorph.”

Son’ma nodded as if she understood.

Mr. K loudly breathed with excitement, coming to greet everyone in turn. 

“What’s with your dog?” The Latino boy asked Lucy.

“I mutantized him,” Luciana shrugs, “Oh, does anyone want cupcakes? I made them myself!” Lucy opened a bag and took out some uniced cupcakes “I got some icing too, but figured it’d get all squashed up.”

“Ooo I’ll take one,” the Latino boy held out his hand, 

Son’ma looks at them curiously, “what is a cupcake? Sood? Does not look eat-able to Son’ma.”

“It’s a small cake? It’s sweet?” Luciana said. Did they not have cupcakes on Ver? If so, what a shame! 

“Can’t eat cake anymore,” Thea said, “They do look nice.”

The alien took one of the cupcakes and touched it to a long, strange dangling appendage under her arms. “Not good sor Ver eating.”

“What do you eat?” Luciana asked.

“I like your dangly things,” Thea said sitting down, “You’re very pretty.”

“Meat!” Son’ma answered, baring her sharp carnivore teeth, “Tae.” Son’ma said, wiggling her tae and pointing at the appendages, “Sank you.” she then said to Thea.

“So does that mean you’re from space?” Luciana asked. She gave one to the boy along with an icing tube, and took one for herself.

“Yes and no.” Son’ma answers, “oser space.”

Another person stepped into the living room. He was pink head to toe with axolotl gills on the side of his head and dragging an axolotl tail that peaked out of the knee-length floral skirt he wore.

“Oser space?” Lucy asks. She saw the newcomer, “Hi, woah, you’re pink! Do you want a cupcake?”

Son’ma frowns, “oser space aaaa…. oser… dimension space?” She said the word dimension somewhat haltingly

“Ooh, parallel dimension?” Luciana says, “That’s cool.”

“Papa says I shouldn’t eat sugary foods.” the pink axolotl kid said.

“Well, your dad isn’t here so a cupcake won’t hurt anything.” The Latino boy said, taking a bite of his own cupcake.

The Axolotl boy shook his head, “I’ve got to listen to Papa even when he’s not here.”

The Latino boy frowned, “what’s your name, kid?”

The axolotl boy stared at Mr. Kibbles, “I’m Gabriel.” He answered not taking his eyes of Mr. Kibbles

“I’m Luciana, but everyone calls me Lucy,” Mr. Kibbles let out a soft bark, “I was getting to you, this is Mr. Kibbles, he’s the world’s best service dog.”

The plant girl spoke up next, “I’m Thea Winters, I know Winter/plant, it’s ironic or something.”

“Mitch Garcia.” the latino boy introduced himself, “These cupcakes are pretty good!” Mitch said, finishing one-off

“Son’ma is Son’ma.”

“Thanks, I bake a lot, and Mr. K is the perfect assistant,” Lucy said. “He even helps make his biscuit,” She took one out of a small bag with a biscuit print and gave it to him. Mr K. eating the biscuit happily.

“The dog helped make these?” Mitch made a face, “how good is he at washing his paws?”

“Very good,” Lucy said, she took a second dog biscuit and bit into it. “Anyone wants one?” 

Thea paused, looking at her. “What, did you just eat a dog biscuit?” 

“What? They’re beef and peanut butter.” Lucy laughed.

Mitch laughed, “I’ll pass,” 

Son’ma looks at the dog biscuit, “meat?”

Lucy offers one, “kinda? try it?”

Son’ma took it with her hand, the tae wrapping around it at the same time, after a moment she tossed it in her mouth whole and chewed, “good.”

“We’ve got approval!” Lucy smiled, “If you want more just ask.”

“They’re my biscuits!” Mr. K protested.

“Puppy you can share.”

“So what makes an alien wanna be an Earth superhero…. especially an alien that doesn’t have a bunch of their kind running around here?” Mitch asked Son’ma

“Son’ma’s likes humans.” 

“I’ve never even heard of Ver,” Lucy said. She knew a lot of aliens; Itharii, Gimelians, Venusians, Shivats, Tzari, or Chts, but never had she heard of a ver. 

“Not come to sis Ears.”

“Ears? Oh Earth?”

“Well Son’ma did say they were from another dimension, are there lots of Ver there?”

Son’ma nodded, “Ver have ears.”

“Are you okay?” Thea said, seeing Gabriel had gone quiet.

“I’m fine!” Gabriel smiled, “Why do you ask?”

“You’ve just gone quiet,” she said, “just making sure.”

Gabriel’s eyes were wide and innocent, “I’m not supposed to talk.”

“Who said that?” Thea demanded.

“Papa. He says I shouldn’t speak until spoken to.”

Thea’s foliage wilted at the words, “Well, he’s not here, and here you can speak as much as you want.”

Gabriel frowned, his brow furrowing, “… I don’t know….”

Mitch patted Gabriel on the back, “relax a little, do what you wanna do.”

“Yeah, we’re here to have fun!” Lucy said with a smile, “I personally plan to Vlog my superhero journey!”

“Vlog?” Son’ma asked and Gabriel looked equally confused.

“It’s a video journal kind of thing,” she explains, “I do a lot of Youtube stuff.”

They both continued to look at her with complete confusion.

“You make a video about stuff in your life?” She tries to explain. 

“People see?” Son’ma asked.

“Wait, of course you don’t know what Youtube is,” she said, taking her phone. “It’s like a place where people put videos and music,” she puts on a pop song, her phone is quite loud.

Son’ma looks at Lucy’s phone, “How much videos?”

“More than you could ever watch,” Lucy answered, she clicked on something else; a movie trailer, “you can watch trailers, music videos, life blogs, documentaries, just about anything you can think of, well I guess you can’t watch naughty stuff.”

Mitch laughed, “I’m sure you could find some if you looked hard enough.”

Son’ma frowned, “Sree?” She asked.

“Sree?” Luciana blinked.

“No money?”

“You don’t need money, just the internet,” Luciana said, passing her the phone.

Son’ma’s eyes, well one pair of them it looked like she might have a second set that was closed, sparkled as she clicked around on Youtube, “humans are creative.”

“I guess we are,” Luciana says. Mr. Kibble signed at Lucy, asking to tell them about his art. “Yes, puppy you’re a great artist too.”

“Artist puppy?” Thea asked, “I’d like to see that.”

“Even dog can be artist?” Son’ma asked, “amazing.”

“Mr. K is special,” Lucy shrugged.

Mitch reached out to pet Mr. Kibbles’s head, “Show us some of your art buddy?”

Lucy asked for her phone back, and then quickly flipped to her Instagram, showing some pictures of Mr. Kibble’s art, it was all rather childish, but she dared any naysayer to have their dogs do better. “Such an artist, the canine Picasso.” she teased. Mr. K, meanwhile, looked very proud.

“Very talented!” Mitch praised, scratching Mr. Kibbles behind the ears.

Mr. Kibbles gratefully accepted the scratches, looking as smug as a dog can. 

Lucy’s phone buzzed with an alarm, reminding her to take her meds. “Aw man, have you seen the time?” she said, “Should unpack.”

Mitch checks his phone, “shit you’re right. See you guys tomorrow!”

“Bye!” Luciana said, grabbing her bags. 

The others filtered out with goodbyes, Gabriel was the last to leave, zoning out a bit in the middle of the living room before finally heading upstairs.

Profile: Thea Winters

~ Nerathul ~ Leave a comment

Personal Data

Thea made using Hunbloom’s character creator.

Name: Thea Analise Winters
Gender: Cis Female
Pronouns: She/Her
Age: 16 years old
Birthday: March 15th
Ethnicity: White American
Nationality: American
Species: Human, Paramophic-Mutant
Sexuality: Questioning

Family: Thea is the only child of her family, her parents are unemployed, struggle with alcoholism and their relationship with their daughter is strained.

Strengths: Sociable, loyal, protective of others, empathic
Weaknesses: Secretly insecure, subject to peer pressure

Appearance and Style: Thea changes her appearance quite frequently as the mood fits her, she is a 5’10” female-appearing plant humanoid with green skin. Her hair is actually a variety of flowers she changes almost daily, she has birch bark in some areas like the arms and lower legs.

Superhero Data

Supranym: Hamadryad
Status: Alive, Active

Metahuman Type: Mutant
Abilities: Her body has been transformed into a plant-humanoid form, ability to accomplish minor shapeshifting and create plant parts.

Ravenhold Data

Acceptance to Ravenhold: Application

Class: Four
Power Category: Scrapper
Roommate: Hijack

Backstory

Thea was an ordinary girl just two years ago, living in Anchorage Alaska with her dysfunctional family, parents who struggled with alcoholism and were verbally abusive. Thea was the local ‘ugly girl’ overweight, with bad eyes requiring terrible glasses and misaligned teeth that her family couldn’t afford to get fixed. A mixture of peer and parental abuse and bullying. Thea was a miserable girl, and she developed anorexia as a result.

Thea’s life was set on a disaster course but during a particularly bad bullying incident her mind snapped and the stress of the event caused her mutant powers to manifest. Her old body was gone, transformed into some strange alien plant creature. While many would struggle to adapt to this new form for Thea it was the slightly twisted answer to all of her prayers.

Almost overnight Thea reinvented herself, she learned to control her new form and shape herself to be as beautiful as she always wanted. But her family life remained, so she looked for an exit strategy, one she found at Ravenhold. She applied and by some miracle, she was chosen over thousands of people.

Misc Information

  • Thea’s hometown is Anchorage, Alaska where she lives in a trailer park outlying the city.
  • Thea is very skilled at applying makeup, she wants to be a professional makeup artist and costumer for Hollywood.
  • Thea’s family is very poor, she makes money on the side by growing marijuana buds and selling them around the park.
  • Thea is a fashionista but her family finances mean that she gets most of her things from thrift stores
  • Thea’s transformation means she takes most of her nutrients from water, air and soil like a plant, but require additional carbohydrates she take from plant sap and sugar water. She likes to joke this makes her a plant vampire.
  • Thea once had a boyfriend briefly for a while, liking to be desirable for once but the novelty quickly wore off and she found the relationship annoying.
  • Thea is uncertain of her romantic and sexual orientation, she used to dream of wanting to be desired by boys, loved even, but she is no longer sure this is what she wants. Her transformation has also altered her hormones and she no longer feels sexual arousal.
  • Thea’s favorite school subject is Social Sciences
  • Thea loves animals but never had a dedicated pet as her mother hates animals.
  • Thea sleeps in a special garden bed where she can grow roots and processes nutrients from the soil.

Arrival: Chapter 1.4 (Thea)

~ Nerathul ~ 2 Comments

As students lined up for the buses, one drew many gazes; a teenage girl with deep green skin, rich with chlorophyll, and gentle layers of birch-like bark that covered her exposed arms and part of her neck. Instead of hair she had strands of lavender flowers falling down onto her shoulders.

She was used to strangers staring at her, she’d learned to carry herself with confidence ever since her powers had awakened, transforming her into what she liked to call a Dryad.

“Name?” A security guard asked.

“Thea Winters,” she gave him her papers.

“Winters?”

“I know, plant, winters, it’s ironic or something.” If she could she would have rolled her eyes, but they were now a solid black.

“Bus two.”

She went there, dragging her suitcase, climbing onto the bus, and looking around. A kid, perhaps two or three years younger, drew her attention. They were tall and lanky, dark-skinned with a huge cloud of pastel pink afro hair that fell past their shoulders. They wore overalls made of many kinds of different colored jeans with colorful patches sewn in and mismatched clasps over what looked to be at least two shirts, the top shirt a knit sweater with smiley face patches on the elbows. They had a Hello Kitty bandaid on their chin and a couple of clips with clay animals in their hair, she liked their sense of color and style.

“Is this seat taken?” She asked.

The kid looked up, a little wide and bright-eyed at her, and then smiled wide and bright, a gap between their teeth. 

“No, go ahead!” The kid said, speaking in a British accent. Their voice was high pitched, Thea wasn’t sure what to peg them as in terms of gender, being so strongly androgynous.

Thea sat down and offered a hand. “I’m Thea.”

“I’m Riley!” 

They took her hand, and then whispered something to themself, patting the air above their shoulder. Thea raised a brow but didn’t inquire. 

“Pleased to meet you, I love your hair,” Thea said.

“Thanks! I like the hair, uh, flowers? Very pretty.”

“Thanks, I felt like Lavender this morning. What’s your favorite flower?”

“I love red spider lilies! But all flowers are pretty in their own way I think.” 

An uncommon answer, but still Thea put a hand to her forehead and focused on her powers, commanding her arboreal flesh to change its shape. She took it away and a red spider lily had grown. “Like this?”

Riley clapped, “Amazing! Is that what your powers are? Can you make any plants?”

“Something like that, a bit of shapeshifting into anything in the kingdom of plants,” Thea explained. “I meticulously crafted my new body to suit me.” 

“Crafting your own body sounds like a dream come true!” 

She took a moment to gauge Riley further. Perhaps they were trans. 

“Tell me about it,” she smirked, “it’s kind of how I became a mutant, although, between you and I, boobs are very difficult.” Some paramorphs were ashamed or distressed about their transformation but for Thea, it has been a liberation, a rebirth from the prison of flesh she’d been born in. 

Riley snorts out a pure sounding laugh, “oh! Would you like a cookie?” A vortex of swirling darkness appeared next to them and they stuck a hand into it, emerging with a Tupperware tub filled with homemade cookies.  “Chocolate chips? I have other kinds too!”

“I don’t eat human food anymore,”  Thea answered, “But thanks for the offer.”

“Aw okay,” Riley put the tub back from where it had come from. 

“That is a cool power, what else do you have in there?” 

“All sorts of things! And I can use them to teleport too.”

“That is pretty cool,” Thea paused, “If you can teleport, why do you need to take the bus then?”

Riley pursed their lips, evidently not having thought of that. “I… guess I don’t need to…. but if I didn’t take the bus I couldn’t have met you!”

“Fair enough.” Thea took a metal thermos out from her bag. “Birch syrup, I don’t think you’d like a try?”

“What’s it taste like?”

“Pure sugar,” She took a sip through the built-in straw. “I get my other nutrients from the air and soil, but I need sugars from food and drinks.”

Riley nodded but did not ask to try.

“I like your clothes, did you make them yourself?” Thea asked, she knew they were obviously homemade.

“Yep! Most of my clothes are either made by me or at least altered by me.”

“Okay, that is pretty cool, do you have a sewing machine in there?”

“I have two! One of them is kinda broken tho.”

“How much do you carry in there?” Thea asked, “I wish I could carry a whole wardrobe with me.”

“Most of my stuff is ‘in there!’”

“Where exactly is ‘in there?” 

“A little private corner of hell!” Riley said their tone as cheerful as usual.

Thea blinked. “Hell? Like that town in Michigan?”

“Hell-hell!”

Was this kid serious? They had to be mistaken, hell wasn’t real, no matter what her mom and preacher liked to guilt her over… Right? 

“Like Bible hell? Dante’s with the nine layers and all that?”

“I suppose? Hell’s hell isn’t it?”

“Right.” Riley was one of those who believed their powers came from magic or other supernatural nonsense. Which was silly, mutant superpowers had a scientific explanation; it was the Aldaar’s interference with the human genome or something.

“I’m not lying…” Riley bemoaned, seeing Thea’s disbelief.

“I’m not saying you are, but it’s a bit of a long one to buy?” Thea answered, after all, there was an infinite variety of other dimensions, Riley was surely just accessing one of those? “Are you sure it’s hell-hell and not just a place that looks like it?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s hell-hell there are a whole bunch of demons there… Like Peanut! she’s my friend!”

Demons? “What’s a peanut?”

Riley conjured another portal and reached into it with both hands, this time emerging with a thing that could only be described as a demonic puppy; dark maroon in color with a mane of fire, and glowing eyes and mouth! 

Thea stared wide eyes at the thing. Surely there was a scientific explanation for this, yes.

“People can never see my friends. Teddy has been on my shoulder hissing out at you the whole time and you didn’t see him so maybe you can’t see Peanut either.”

“Ugh, that’s a dog on fire…” Thea babbled.

“Oh! So it’s just Teddy people can’t see!” They look to their shoulder, “why is that?”

“You tell me?” 

Riley shrugged, clearly not seeing the weirdness of the situation, “Wanna hold Peanut? she’s very sweet.” Riley kissed the dog-thing’s head, only for it to roll out a terrifying spiked tongue.

“She doesn’t burn? I may be slightly flammable.”

“She’s just warm.”

Thea very hesitantly reached out and picked the devil dog, thankfully not immediately combusting into flames.

“Okay, yeah…”

‘Peanut’ sat down giving puppy-eyes to Thea who very carefully ran a hand over its back.

“She’s a very good… hell puppy?” Thea said. “Today has been so weird…”

“Well, we are on our way to Ravenhold. I’m sure “weird and new things are on the schedule every day for the next few weeks.” Riley said with a big smile.

“Yeah, but I thought maybe dipping my toes, this is diving right into maximum weird.”

“Too much?” Riley asked nervously, a frown coming over their expression. They reached to take Peanut.

“Well, I’m already neck-deep in it,” Thea shrugged and very cautiously gave Peanut a scratch, “And I guess I’m going to church first thing this Sunday,” it had been a few years since her last visit, but for the first time Thea was feeling very worried about the prospect of hell being very real…

“I think demons get a bad rap. They didn’t choose where they were born any more than we did,” Riley whispered, recalling Peanut who crawled back to their lap.

“I admit I kind of zoned out a lot during Sunday school, but something about turning against God and being cast out?”

Riley cuddled Peanut and rubbed their face against her head, “But Peanut is such a good girl.” Riley devolved into baby talk about how good a puppy Peanut was. 

“Right.” Thea sat there for a moment re-evaluating everything in her life, perhaps going through the slightest crisis of faith. 

“Do you have any pets?” Riley asked.

“Not exactly, but I was always a friend to the local stray cats, gave them water and food when I could?”  

Thea’s mother didn’t like animals, even if they had been able to afford one. So Thea would give them water and table scraps to the strays around the trailer park she called home. 

“That’s sweet.”

“I guess, I mean they didn’t choose to become strays, someone has to love them.”. 

“I agree!”

Riley and Thea kept talking, Riley excitedly jumping from one topic to the next, ever so full of energy; pets, clothing, music, hobbies. And for a moment it helped Thea stay distracted from the talk of hell and religion… 

She’d been certain about things just a few hours ago, but now nothing seemed so certain…

Previous Chapter

Next Chapter