Real name: Taelynn Dandelion Roberts
Occupation: Want to be Student, Riffraff otherwise.
Identity: Tae (Someone give me a codename)
Legal status: Runaway. No police record other than that.
Legal citizen of the U.S.
Other aliases: Dandy, Tate
Place of birth: Unknown
Marital status: Single
Known relatives: No known relatives
Group affiliation: None. Yet.
Base of operations:
First appearance: January, 2002
History:
Albert and Judith Roberts lived through the counter-culture revolution of the 60s with a passion. They imbibed large quantities of just about every illegal substance they could, attached themselves to every cause, were free and easy with their sexual favors, and generally lived up to both the best and worst stereotypes of the 60's Hippie. They became married only by common law in the latter part of the 70's. From relatively harmless counterculture they moved on to more extreme areas of culture. From cults to satanic rituals they stuck close to the steamy underside of life.
When, in the latter part of 1985, Judith discovered she was pregnant she attempted to rid herself of the child. All of the methods she tried, she did not have enough money for a proper abortion, failed and Judith went through with the birth of her child. The child, a girl promptly cursed with the name Taelynn, was born in early spring. At no time, neither during pregnancy nor breastfeeding, did Judith quit using drugs and living her normal life. Despite that fact, or perhaps because of it, Taelynn was born with a very intelligent mind. She also suffered from several deficiencies related to the drug exposure, when born she was subject to withdrawal symptoms. A mild heart murmur persists to date, her glasses are because of an eye defect she was born with, born weighing only 6 pounds, and an entire month early she was considered an at risk child.
During her early years, before the age of four, Tae was kept separate from her family. She stayed in a little room, locked in from the outside, and only saw others during the times she was allowed to eat. Sometimes she was allowed out but only if she were dressed properly. During her times out of the room she was expected to be on her best behavior. One small infraction on the code of her parents would garner her beatings that left her entire body swollen and blue.
One morning, when Tae was nearly three, a man came by the house. Tae was dressed into her best dress, cleaned up and gleefully unmarked, and taken down to meet him. Her innocent dark haired beauty struck a chord with the man, her parents called him Jay; he insisted that her parents bring her to the next 'meeting.' Three days went by without beatings and she was allowed out of her room for much longer stretches of time. The three day reprieve ended with a nighttime ride in the car. As they rode down a narrow dirt road Judith talked to Taelynn from the front seat, using threats and intimidation to garner the best behavior from her child.
At the end of that road was a large open space, a bonfire danced in the center and people in robes gathered around. Tae was stripped of her dress and put in a muslin robe that made her skin itch. The night passed in a blur of drugged wine and revelry for the girl. Midnight came and she was brought to the center, tied to an altar that had been brought out and set up on two saw horses. The ropes were tight and her hands went numb, the plywood altar scraped into her back. As the satanic ritual continued her screams faded into silence, violated in every way an adult could imagine for a child she was left on the alter shuddering. The robed figures went off to do similar things to each other and the rest of the night passed with a bleeding child tied to an altar of horrors.
These episodes continued; a hedonistic orgy of power for her parents, a terrible burden for a four year old to bear. What happened under the light of the moon in those deserted patches of New York left the child without anything to latch onto, as such she ventured into herself, withdrawing from her parents into a semi-autistic world. The abuse continued month after month, year after long year, with ever cultist ritual she drew further and further into the tiny fraction of herself where she could be quasi-safe.
When Tae was eight her parents were first introduced to David, he was a charming man that lured her parents away from their current cult and into his own. As time passed her parents, convinced they were saved by David, moved from New York; they followed him to Texas. The night before they left Tae threw food at her father and earned herself a beating that was worse than any she'd had before. By the time he was finished with her, her face was so swollen her eyes wouldn't open all the way. Screaming pain echoed across her right cheek. Blood dripped from her nose and dribbled into her eye from a cut above it. It was either simple oversight or pure cruelty that had them leaving her behind in New York.
She awoke the next morning to the sounds of an empty house, banging on the door she tried to awaken her parents. Pain filled her from her face and her hands as they cracked and bled with the continued rapping on the door. It was three days later that a real estate agent came through the house to inspect it. He heard the banging and called the police thinking it was a burglar, a poor one at that. When the police burst into the room they found a scarred, naked child sitting in the corner rocking. When questioned as to her name Tae responded with a wordless cry.
When the policeman reached for her she screamed and flung her hands up to cover her face. Social Services were called to take the child until her parents could be found. It was believed that she had been kidnapped, if only it were true. The people from Social Services eventually gained her name, her birth date, and vital statistics from a record of her one chance of school. Kindergarten. The plastic surgery to repair her broken cheekbone was far too expensive and the bone was left to heal on its own. Though one of the social workers took interest in Tae enough to see that she learned how to speak and was transferred to a well papered foster home, it was not enough. Her withdrawn nature slipped through the cracks, preventing true help. In her first foster home she learned to play. Though her idea of play was to attempt to act out the rituals she had learned with the other children in the foster home.
Removed from that foster home Tae was then inserted into a string of others, molested repeatedly, beaten, and generally kept in situations not terribly better than her home life. At the age of thirteen two distressing things occurred in her life: She was shifted from foster care into a special facility in the country, one for mentally challenged or behaviorally disordered children. The second event happened just after she was moved. Her roommate, a deeply troubled girl of seventeen, smuggled a lighter into the room. She held it lit until it heated and pressed it onto her skin to burn herself (A common 'cutting' alternative). Tae was rocketed from sleep as she felt the lighter, as though it were burning her own flesh. She felt the other girl's anguish as she crawled from the bed to peer up at the top bunk. Reaching out she laid a hand on the other girl's arm, as soon as flesh touched flesh the lighter burn moved from the girl's arm to Tae's. The feel of that burn shocked Tae enough that she broke contact and fell back to land on her butt. Looking up at the other girl Tae saw her mouth 'Freak' before she jumped from the bed and ran down the hall. The next morning the girl was found dead, hanging over one of the pool tables in the recreation room by a belt, with no evidence of the lighter burn on her arm.
Tae kept the mutations carefully from everyone, withdrawing from touch whenever possible and avoiding personal contact with anyone else at the facility. She remained at the 'gifted' school for two and a half more years, running away shortly before she reached the age of sixteen. The 'home' in the country was only about three hours drive from New York City. What better place for her to lose herself?
Height: 5'2" Weight: 110 lbs
Eyes: Pale Blue Hair: Black
Unusual physical characteristics: It looks like someone took
a sledgehammer to her face.
Strength level: Normal for one her size.
Known superhuman powers: None known to the public.
Other abilities: Knitting, Cooking, Sewing, Car Repair.
Weapons and paraphernalia: She likely carries a knife but
wouldn't use it.
Other notes: