POWER DESCRIPTIONS

While Zen's had his powers for a while now, he has very little control, especially over the later of the two. Dream manipulation is rarely something he actively controls as he is currently unable to keep himself from dreamwalking. But now that he knows what it is and has had a little schooling under his belt for it, he at least knows the way to try and tweak things.  He is far from all-powerful in the dreamscapes of others, but he has the potential to be able to manipulate the fabric of dreams far better than any lucid dreamer in their own dreams. Right now though, he's only able to make subtle changes and shifts.

Dream summoning has only actually happened once, three years ago. It was torn from him in a state of pure panic and he has no idea how to go about repeating the process. Then again, after seeing the crime scene photos of his father's corpse he has no desire to. While the things he summons from dreams could be quite benign, he is afraid to even consider trying. Dream summons are short-lived, lasting mere minutes at best in the corporeal world and he can't draw from his own subconscious but rather from that of those around him.

APPEARANCE

Evzen is built along rather noodly lines, that is to say, he's on the lean and lanky side; long and bony and lacking anything in the way of muscle definition. In fact, he tends to look rather gaunt and drawn, his eyes seemingly perpetually shadowed and skin nearly always tinged an unhealthy grey. Sleep, it seems, does not come easy to him.

His hair is a rats' nest, to be frank.  Not quite straight, not entirely wavy, the closest descriptor would be "frizzy."  No matter what, his hair always looks like an unkempt, shaggy mess of an indeterminate greyed out lavender shade. His eyes are a similar shade; slightly violet but sometimes appearing more or less blue depending on the light. 

Sadly, Zen has no fashion sense.  He spent his childhood living out of ratty donation clothes that never seemed to fit and the years have not improved his taste.  Drab greys, taupes, and muted blues and purples make up the bulk of his admittedly scant wardrobe. 

PERSONALITY

While Zen doesn't always trust his gut, he probably should. He has a certain subconcious knack for reading people, most likely a result of his timultous formative years. Whether or not he listens to his intuition is another thing altogether, especially since he's loathe to make waves of any sort. He may seem to be a laid back sort of kid, but Evzen is seriously a ball of tension. All the hot showers in the world can't relax the tangle of physical, emotional, and mental tension at his core. He copes with it surprisingly well, but he's easy to startle and slow to settle.

BIOGRAPHY

Not everyone gets a charmed life. Some people just have to make due with what cards they're dealt. Zen certainly tries, though his hand is a particularly shitty one. He never knew why his father hated him, but there was no doubt that the man did. He swore up and down that Evzen was no child of his and took his frustrations out on his wife and “her monster child” both. For her part, Zen’s mother swung between trying to protect her son and blaming him for his own conception.

She had some trouble with alcohol, it was true, but she’d swear on pain of death that she hadn’t slept around. Why then, demanded her husband, was the child dark of hair and eye when both of them were fair? If she hadn’t had an affair then the child was a changeling or a demon. It was generally assumed that the man was raving mad but no amount of logic, intervention, or begging seemed capable of changing his mind.

Furthermore, besides the daily burdens of abuse and neglect, Zen rarely slept peacefully. Unbeknownst to him, he had the ability to manipulate dreams through dreamwalking. While he did sleep, he did not truly rest, and the abilities only became stronger as he neared puberty. It was this that pushed the man he thought of as his father over the edge. Zen’s unconscious warping of the dreams of those around him put a keen and lethal edge on the apparent madness the family patriarch was suffering.

He was only 12 when he came home late from the local library to a crime scene. His mother was dead; brutally and messily murdered by her husband; and by the look in the man’s eyes Zen was next on his list. Slipping in his mother’s blood, the boy tried to flee. Slowed down by his bookbag and shock, though, he wasn’t quite successful. He had almost reached the door when a hand wrapped around his throat.

The next thing he knew he was waking up in the hospital, a bit battered but more or less intact. The police had questions. Zen didn’t really have any answers. How was he supposed to explain why it appeared as though Franklin Debray had been ripped apart by savage beasts? All he knew what that his mother was lying dead in a pool of blood with her throat slit.  All he remembered was his father trying to choke the life out of him. In lieu of any other information, the tragedy was on the books as a murder-suicide and the newly orphaned boy was shuffled into the foster care system.

He went from foster home to foster home, never fitting in or settling down with a family. Then he was scouted for Aurora Academy. If it meant one less child to find a temporary home for, the state was more than happy to send him off with nary a backwards glance.

> IB; GARRY <