User Profile

Name: Erika Wesson
Age: 19 20
Social Class: Mage (from countryfolk)
Birthday: March 8, Pisces
Blood Type: A
Family: Martha (mother); Benjamin (father); Brothers: Horace (25 26), Jasper (23 24), Andrew (10 11), Doug (8 9); Sisters: Heather (21 22), Kylie (15 16), Maria (12 13), Mayella (6 7)
Preferred Element: Wind

Erika was born to the poorest of the poor, the fourth of nine children to a poor farming couple in the countryside of Fairn. Her parents were poor and did their best to raise the large family that they had. The older children quickly learned how to help out on the farm, and so did the younger children, and those even younger than that. Money was hard to come by, and when some years came hard, the children would take turns not eating for one or two nights a week so that the others would have a bit more food.

Erika watched as the testers came every couple of years to test each of her three older siblings. When none of them showed the power that the testers were looking for, Erika came to accept that her family simply wasn't that special.

She kept up her work on the farm, but when her older siblings quickly found areas they were good with -- Horace had a green thumb like none other, Jasper had a talent with handling animals, and Heather was a wonderful cook -- Erika never quite found her own niche. She wasn't good with animals. Anything she tried to cook, she burned. She even messed up when she tried to weed, pulling out vegetables that had only recently been planted. She couldn't even manage to babysit her younger siblings without everything plummeting into chaos. She was scolded, and she tried her best to improve, but she never quite got the hang of it.

So when, on her nineteenth name day, the testers announced that she would report to the Everthorne Academy for its next term, she was not the only one who was shocked. Her family was proud, but at the same time concerned--would they have to pay for her schooling? Poor as she was at some of the tasks of farming, how would they last without a set of extra hands? The testers assured that payment would not be necessary, and soon enough they whisked Erika away after a set of brief farewells to her large family.

Erika passed Everthorne, though admittedly by the skin of her teeth. Since then, she's spent much of her time being even more unsure of what she should do with herself than she was before. Suddenly, she has money, land, holdings, a world entirely different from the one she knew. A chance to prosper and lead her own life. To move away from the farm and the life she could not succeed at.

Yet, she's found herself shying away from the rich mage world and culture. She knew that there had to be jokes being made about her, or snide remarks, or something similar. She locked herself up in her manor (her manor) and tried to figure out what fluke had let her pass her tests at the Academy. Increasingly, her money went toward trips home or just out into the middle of country that no one owned, where she'd stay for a few hours and take the time to breathe -- time she didn't feel like she got much of in her new home.

Erika has been slowly sinking into the same sort of depression that reigned over her life at home, positive that she doesn't belong in the magic world, even more than she didn't belong at home. She's seen few of her friends from her graduating class, which has helped her anxiety little, but she takes no initiative to approach them, sure that either they would not want to see her or, worse, that they would not remember her at all.

Erika thinks of herself as a failure. She could never get the hang of anything at home, and even at Everthorne, she's terrified of failing. She realizes this is her chance to become something great, someone wonderful, and help out her otherwise-poor family, but she's never been good at operating under pressure and is thus anxious about her performance. She constantly second-guesses herself. What if she messes up? What if she fails? She of course knows the answer to the second--if she fails, she goes back home as a disgrace. She's sure that if this happens, her family will never respect her again and will only ever think of her as the failure child, which she's thought of herself since she was young enough to understand that she wasn't special.

Despite this desperate fear of failure, Erika is also sure that she can never succeed. The work is too hard, she's not good enough, she's just a country girl from the middle of nowhere with no common sense and no luck. She has the mindset that the more she wants something, the more inattainable it must be. She wants to be as mage so badly that it hurts; therefore, she can never be a mage, because she wants it too badly. She'll always be just plain, stupid, untalented Erika, no matter what she does, because the Erika she is is the exact thing she doesn't want to be.

She's very shy, and incredibly pessimistic. She tends to have a crushing amount of jealousy, but instead of exhibiting it outwardly, she turns it inward. Of course she's jealous. She's stupid, and plain, and who would ever like her? So, as a result, she's not bitter toward other people. Why do they deserve her anger and hatred? She's the one at fault.

She's also self-demeaning, and has almost entirely convinced herself that her enrollment in Everthorne was a mistake.

She tries very hard to be happy for other people, but inwardly she's almost always sad. She is very meek and soft-spoken, though at heart she's friendly. Just shy.

Erika has dark hair, cropped short so it won't get in the way while she's at work. She has bright blue eyes and pale skin, unusual for a farm girl, even one that stays inside on a regular basis. She tends to be rather shy in her dress as well as in her demeanor, and has a tendency to fidget or toy with things (her hair, her fingers, her pen) when she's speaking.