Welcome to Gaia! ::

Meli, bless her heart, has not a malicious spark in her. She has the strong desire to take care of people, but has yet to gain the emotional strength or maturity. Still, she tries, nothing can stop her from trying.

Oddly sensible, she sees things as they are and accepts that, having no need to ask “why.”

Sometimes it's even like she sees right into people hearts, seeing where they are broken and taking a needle and thread to fix it. She's clumsy though, and sometimes she stumbles and breaks things more than she can mend them. Nothing hurts her more.

She has a short attention span--perhaps the main reason she messes up trying to fix people--and flits away, halfway through her projects, to the next thing that catches her interest.

Perhaps “Palace” or “Castle” are better words to describe the Dejonkeer Family's place of residence. Intricately gothic architecture and spacious rooms set the consistent theme throughout the several-tree home hidden far from Lamp Town.

The grandiose entryway leads into a giant, nearly uninhabited room with two dramatic stairways up to an open second floor hallway, a piano against one wall and several doors to other rooms. Navigation looks forbidding itself, such a giant place.



Allete's room itself, located on the highest level, is more of an attic, and the consistent gothic theme is forgotten. Two things about Allete can be confirmed simply by walking into the room; one that she is terrified of the dark and two that she is spoiled rotten.

She has far more pillows then anyone ever needs, far more lights, far more couches and chairs, far more dressers and far more rugs. She loves all of it. Or so she claimed when she demanded that her Nanny bring it in from the storage room for her.


Allete's Nanny's room, across the hall from Allete's, is clearly an hobbled together add-on. Having originally kept to the gothic theme, wallpaper was thrown up and left-over furniture was put in. Nanny doesn't complain, she doesn't spend much time in there anyway.

The Sewing parlor is one of the only other rooms Allete spends any time in regularly, being forced to go there for no less than an hour every day. It is the only time she has contact with her Grandmother, and is among her least favorite activities, although she does dedicate herself to the embroidery. Maybe one day it will be good enough for her Grandmother?

The Sewing parlor is lighter then most of the other rooms in the mansion, having more windows and being more open, although still dark and gothic. It has pile upon pile of folded fabric, and several baskets of sewing supplies, along with four sofas, twelve chairs and three tables. Two sewing machines are kept in the corner.

Charisse Dejonkeer is Allete's Grandmother, a woman in her mid eighties.

She is a jaded, cynical old woman for whom no one is good enough. She picks at the tiniest flaws until someone is near breaking point, then keeps picking. When they finally do break she just gives them that disapproving look and chides them for childishness.

Wrinkled, the woman has taken on a weak, flesh and bones look with age. She dresses with the same sensibilities as Allete--those of the 1860 France, the family seems trapped back in time. Cold blue eyes and a permanent expression of scorn across her face. Her gray hair, always pulled back into a tight bun, only adds to the snooty air the woman already possesses.

Charisse has lost all of her children, and children-in-law. It doesn't matter though. They were never good enough for her, anyway. Slutty or just bad eggs, none of her children seemed to tern out right. Why her? Couldn't she get just one good child?

A widow just past being “middle aged,” Bernadette Cassidy Brooks had originally taken the job of a maid in the Dejonkeer residence. A simple job that offered her a roof over her head and food in her gut. But Allete took a liking to her, and since the eight(then seven)-year-olds' previous Nanny had just declined from the position(run away screaming for mercy) Bernadette Brooks quickly became “Nanny Brooks”.
The formerly composed and sensible woman has since taken on a frazzled, stressed and tired appearance. It's only been a year, but the time has aged her twenty.

An aging butler who Allete took a special liking to, and he has a liking for Miss Brooks, so he puts up with the brat.
Allete finds him utterly fascinating(and has discovered the joys of playing Match Maker), and will talk to him for hours on end without a single complaint. So although he is far from useful as a butler any longer he is kept around, to read to Allete and keep her busy if nothing else.
He keeps a calm demeanor and is formal around all but Allete, and even she is “Miss” to him. He's short, too, which Allete finds even more fascinating, always being surrounded by “giants.”