Welcome to Gaia! ::

Personality:: Much about Sophia is soft-spoken and gentle, yet there is a firm base to her personality. She longs for security and solidity, which she hopes to gain through her intellectual and few ambitious pursuits. Sophia is quiet and reserved, but there is a determined passion beneath the cool exterior. She can be quite expressive through her writings, though no one has seen much of it. Sophia has shown some of her writings to Headmistress Price, but she never plans to let the public hear her innermost thoughts. Though she relies on the opinions of others to keep her in high spirits (which invariably caused her to consider the adults' opinions first), Sophia has never allowed self-doubt to rule her.

With a life filled with tragic beginnings and progressing on a hopeful note, Sophia guards her past. She remains an enigma to the rest of the student body. She is clever, cunning, stubborn, and secretive above all. Sophia is a person of contradicting extremes, which appear to mellow to some medium. Sophia is sensitive and desirous of attachment, though she also values her solitude. She is intense in her emotions, feeling both love and hate at their strongest. She can hold epic grudges. However, Sophia believes in change and loves the challenge of transforming herself and others.

Despite her inactive lifestyle, Sophia also thirsts for thrill and adventure. Sophia is energetic and impulsive, though she exerts careful control over her impulses. She prefers to plan (if rather slowly) before taking serious action. Her ideas can be forceful and dramatic, but Sophia has the mind to twist her whimsical ideas into a practical plan. Sophia has a gift for observation and loves to investigate. She is keenly interested in creative arts. Sophia also feels connected to nature and sometimes claims to know the emotions connected with it. She believes that humans (magical and nonmagical) have untapped powers of the mind waiting for exploration.

No matter how much she tries to control herself, Sophia's hotheaded nature will emerge from the shadows at times. Her passion can create for colorful encounters and biting sarcasm. Sophia wears a lot of masks in her relationships with people. Some few will find strong emotions to be catalytic for removing her masks. Even with her best efforts to distance herself, Sophia can become too attached to people—an unlucky side effect of her strong and quickly developing emotions.

History:: Sophia Stephens spent the first years of her life in a convent. The nuns cared for Little Sophia until the eve of her fifth birthday. A robin dropped her letter from the Institute right onto the grounds, and the nuns became panicked in the realization that there was a witch in their convent. In order to calm her nuns, Mother Superior led Sophia out of the convent grounds and explained how she came to reside at the convent. Her mother was a religious woman, named Elizabeth, who went insane the moment she held baby Elizabeth in her arms. "A witch, a witch," Elizabeth exclaimed madly. The nurses rushed to her aid and pulled Sophia away from her. As she was dragged to Bedlam, Elizabeth begged and pleaded for the nurses to kill the child, disclaiming the "evil, retched thing." Instead of acqueising to the insane woman's request, the head nurse contacted Mother Superior, told her the entire story, and dropped Sophia off at the convent. Little Sophia, as young as she was, understood all of it and asked Mother Superior where she was supposed to live now.

Despite how comfortable she was with the concept of magic, Mother Superior promised to take Little Sophia to the Merryweather Institute. When she arrived at her new home, Little Sophia was introduced to Meredith Price, the current headmistress, and placed into her private care. Sophia enrolled into the small children's classes and started her learning process. She was an understanding and bright girl who never caused trouble with the teachers. Sophia caught onto new lessons quickly and, through her hard work and determination, achieved the highest levels in her class. When she graduated to the second level of learning, and after lessons were over for the day, Sophia would visit one of her earlier classes and would often engage the professors in philosophical discussions that lasted well into the night; the professors soon recognized this pattern and rearranged their schedules in order to fit in their discussions.

As she graduated to the each next levels, Sophia became more entranced in her studies, especially those of strange phenomena. Most of her friends included the professors who taught her. The students glared and sneered at her quiet solitude, whispering small lies that became huge rumours. Despite her bad relations with the other students, Sophia has maintained good communications with the teachers and often accompanies the President and Vice President on important meetings with them; she relates well with adults, and the members of the Student Council understand that. She has also assumed her position as the Executive Reporter on the Student Newspaper, due to her observational skills and interest in journalistic writing. (Though her interests in journalistic writings extend more towards revealing all of those unsolved mysteries of the universe.) Sophia joined the Literary Society earlier in her time at the Merryweather Institute, because she is an avid reader, devouring each book she can find.

Headmistress Price, Sophia's best friend and confidante, could never spend enough time with Sophia for her comfort; therefore, the headmistress bought Sophia a new friend—a small kitten named Persia. Persia is an affectionate, male Turkish Angora that will curl up at Sophia's feet while she is sleeping and jump into her lap as she is studying. This little kitten is just about the only thing that can distract Sophia from her studies—and Sophia believes that's the reason Headmistress Price gave him to her. She also has a small turtle named Myrtle.

Appearance:: Sophia has been called a beautiful girl, but she knows that she has some extra weight to lose. Being the tallest girl in most of her years at five feet and nine inches (and even taller than some of the boys until their later years), Sophia has resented her height as well. Sophia believes her looks are average despite her height and weight. With light brown hair and blue eyes, Sophia smiles upon her face, which she believes is her one saving grace. (Then she berates herself for vanity, because Sophia never likes to be self-centered and egotistical.) She wears a small amount of pink lipstick to accentuate her lips. Sophia's hair is down most of the time, unless she is working in the gardens or she is attending some special occasion.

Most of Sophia's clothes are modest and matched to her down-to-earth looks. She loves to match brown and green outfits. Cotton and polyester are her usual fabric preferences, because Sophia likes their comfortable nature. She also likes for her dress to be loosely fitted and showing little to no skin. Though she can be persuaded out of her normal zone, Sophia refuses to dress up for fun and will mostly only agree for Headmistress Price. She wears two pieces of jewelry: a cross necklace from Mother Superior, and two pearl earrings from the headmistress.