Entranceway App
Name: Kristi
LJ: bashipforever
E-Mail: writer@allengames.com
IM: rageiscute
Character Name: Schuyler Van Alen
Series: Blue Bloods (books)
Timeline: The second to last chapter of the most recent book ‘The Van Alen Legacy’
Canon Resource Link:
http://www.freewebs.com/bloodofblue/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melissa_de_la_Cruz (the upper half of the page)
Character Background:
Schuyler Van Alen has always been an outcast in the Manhattan society she’s a part of. She lives with a grandmother who is cold and often absent. Her mother, Allegra Van Alen is in a coma in the hospital and has been since Schuyler was a very small child. Schuyler wears thrift store clothing instead of designer dresses. She piles on layers upon layers. She goes to the expensive Duchesne private school with her best friend, Oliver Hazard-Perry. And at 15, she finds out that she’s half vampire, half human. Blue Blood vampires are the angels who fell with Lucifer, condemned to walk the earth forever, being born in a human body, achieving puberty and coming into their vampirism, recovering old memories from their previous lives then growing old and dying only to be born again in a different human body to start the cycle all over. Sky is different. Her mother broke the sacred code of vampires, shunned her mate and instead fell in love with a human-Schuyler’s father. Schuyler was the result of that union and while her existence is improbable it is not impossible. This is Sky’s first cycle and possibly her last. No one knows if she will re-cycle. It is responsible in part for her exclusion from the ‘Blue Blood’ society.
Sky’s vampirism comes in stages. It begins with an elaborate, almost beautiful pattern of blue veins becoming visible in places through her pale translucent skin. She begins craving rare and raw meat. Eventually she needs human blood (from the source) to survive. She falls in love with Jack Force, someone already chosen for another vampire. This makes her the target of Mimi’s Force’s pranks, antagonism and hatred. She becomes a model for the prestigious Farnsworth Agency and the ‘face’ for Stitched for Civilization Jeans. The modeling is a way to earn money she wouldn’t otherwise have. She’s fairly recognizable because of the jeans campaign and her face ends up on a giant billboard in Times Square, not to mention the magazine ads and other billboards throughout the country. Sky’s best friend and conduit (a highly regarded servant) Oliver Hazard-Perry helps her deal with this new stage of her life (the vampire part, not the model part). He eventually becomes her familiar (blood donor).
The vampires of Manhattan are being hunted by the only mortal enemy they have, Silver Bloods. They’re being killed and they’re not being reincarnated. Schuyler is attacked twice, lucky to be alive. Her grandmother is not so lucky. She’s the victim of an attack. This is when she finds out her grandfather, previously thought to be dead is still alive. Lawrence comes to live with her for a time. Cordelia (Schuyler’s grandmother) specified that Schuyler was to be emancipated minor in her will but Charles Force (Mimi and Jack’s father) went to the human courts and that is currently in flux. As Cordelia was dying she told Schuyler that the prophecy said she would be the one to save them. Schuyler doesn’t know what this means nor does anyone else. Or so they say. Schuyler learns this isn’t entirely true but the people who know aren’t talking. Sky and Jack begin a secret affair that has them hiding in penthouses from Mimi and the rest of the Forces. Of course eventually she’s found out. The silver bloods are still out there, trying to release Lucifer, the head honcho fallen angel that the Blue Bloods trapped way back in Rome. They partially succeed in Brazil, allowing Lucifer to possess another silver blood but he’s only at partial power. In the battle to keep him contained, Schuyler’s grandfather, Lawrence was killed and the Blue Blood’s council thinks she did it. This forces Oliver and Sky to go on the run. They travel all over the world, never staying in one place longer than 72 hours. This goes on for a year and Sky is getting sick. She has small seizures, shakes and tremors. Oliver doesn’t know what’s happening to her and there’s no history about it because she’s the only half human/half vampire in existence. At one point the Blue Bloods doctor told her that ascending to her full power could destroy her and there’s some fear that this is what’s happening. Eventually, the council is in tatters, the silver bloods are still out there and Lucifer, though weak, is still plotting. Sky and Oliver return to New York City after she has a particularly bad seizure in an attempt to clear her name and find out what’s going on with her health. She ends up staying in a closet of an apartment in the City, disguising herself and attending public high school (she has all intentions of graduating and going to college eventually). The disguise works for a while. Oliver spends his time trying to figure out how to prove Sky’s innocence and find out what the council is up to. Sky finds out from the doctor that she isn’t dying. It’s a condition that results from a long period of time spent isolated from her kind.
Eventually Lucifer’s host is found out, Schuyler’s innocence is proven, the council begins to rebuild and Allegra, Sky’s mother wakes up. Allegra sends Sky on a mission to find out about the Van Alen Legacy; the prophecy that says Schuyler will save them. Allegra is only awake for a few hours before she leaves Sky again in search of Michael, the archangel who was lost in the final battle against Lucifer. Allegra is also the vampiric manifestation of the archangel Gabriel (Gabriella). When Lucifer and the others fell, Gabriella and Michael remained true to God but vowed to follow the fallen, take their journey on earth with them in hopes of redeeming them. Schuyler and Oliver make plans again to take up the mission Allegra gave them. They’re heading to France. Sky meets Oliver at the airport**. Once she arrives she finds that Oliver has arranged for Jack Force to go with her instead because he knows Sky would never leave him of her own accord and Jack can protect her better. Jack is also the one she loves.
Blue Blood vampires are the upper crust of society. Historically, they’re responsible for most of the museums and cultural organizations throughout the world. That is the way they’re going to redeem themselves, by bringing culture and art to humanity. They are able to inspire those with talent but not direct, sort of like a muse. Often Blue Bloods are the run way models you see, the artists, the actors-all the beautiful people because in general they are more beautiful, more perfect, more symmetrical. Their metabolism is crazy and they can eat whatever they like. The council forbids Blue Bloods from killing humans and until the silver bloods returned, it was something that hadn’t happened for decades. The council also puts the responsibility of the well being of familiars on the vampire who takes them. They are to make certain they don’t abuse the familiar, take too much blood or too much too often. The feeding feels to humans like all the best parts of sex. It fosters an obsessive, romantic feeling (a bit like the first blooms of love) in the familiar and if the vampire continues to feed from this familiar, those feelings will become real as opposed to something put onto the familiar in order to ensure the vampire’s survival. As for the vampire’s part in the deal, while feeding they know the familiar’s feelings and surface thoughts/memories.
In general, Sky is shy and a bit quiet. She likes books, art, music, poetry and dancing and tends to gravitate toward angst. It’s all she’s really known in her life and she’s comfortable inside of it. In some ways she is very much a teenage girl. She’s learned to have a bit of backbone and now she’ll snark back when snarked to. She doesn’t roll over the way she once did and she supposes she has Mimi to thank for that.
[**This is the point I’m taking Sky from, before Jack shows up and when she’s resigned to go on the run with Ollie again.]
Abilites/Special Powers:
Sky has several abilities and immunities because of what she is. Those abilities are:
*Limited mind control over humans (she can’t convince them to hurt themselves but she can convince them to let her in a club that’s over 21 or an apartment building that doesn’t allow visitors. Eventually, when she comes into full power, it is believed she will be able to control the minds of humans and vampires.
*Blur Speed-She can move fast enough that she’s invisible to the human eye, most cameras and some alarm systems. (standard BB power)
*Enhanced Strength-She’s not lifting any cars but she’s stronger than your average 100 lb teenage girl (Standard BB power)
*Telekinesis-canonically only able to use this in defense. (standard Blue Blood Power)
*Ability to morph her features so that she appears to be someone else. Most vampires can morph into an animal body. Sky can’t.
*By tasting someone’s blood, she can see into their memories more clearly than other vampires and can tell if they’re telling the truth. This is a power as most vampires can only see what humans don’t mind showing them.
*telepathy BETWEEN vampires and her familiar (standard Blue Blood power)
*Her blood is actually bright blue. She is hardier than a human. She doesn’t get sick (at least not with usual human diseases). She can only be killed via burning, beheading or bleeding out completely.
*Alcohol has no effect on her regardless of how much she drinks but she likes the taste of whiskey.
*The ability to cloud the memory of any human she feeds on. She can’t erase the memory but she can blur the details and fill them in with false ones such as ‘We had a really good time tonight but I think you had too much to drink and you passed out for a while’.
*Her healing is slightly accelerated but not instant because of her half human status. However, she feeds the healing gets kicked up several notches from a few days to a few hours.
All of these powers, including the standard ones, take their toll on Sky. The more she uses her powers the more often she’ll have to feed. In general she only feeds every week and a half to two weeks, depending on how often she’s using her powers. However, she feeds less than most vampires because she has issues with just feeding on anyone. She thinks it’s an intimate, close relationship instead of just eating dinner. Hence the reason she only has Ollie as a familiar when most vampires have four or five familiars so they can eat every other day or so. The more they eat the better they feel. Since Sky doesn’t feed as often, she’s prone to several symptoms that come with scarce feeding. She gets weaker as she goes longer with feeding. She sleeps more and loses weight. Her temperature rises. 115 is perfectly safe for her and common when she really needs to feed. 120 is dangerous. She will pass out for various periods of time and eventually if she does not eat, she will go into a coma, like her mother. (That’s exactly how and why Allegra was in the coma). Even when she’s ravenous, she’s in no danger of attacking or killing someone. She can go out in the sun without any danger. She can eat garlic, touch crosses and dip her fingers in holy water. She prefers to eat her meat very rare.
Third-Person Sample:
She’s numb on the way to the airport. Jack is leaving her again and this time, she knows its forever. Once the bonding is done, he won’t love her. He won’t care about the nights they spent cuddled up in the penthouse, hidden away from the whole world. He won’t care about the kiss in the catacombs under Paris. His entire world will be Mimi and Schuyler will be left alone.
These are the times she wants a mother to curl up with. Someone that will pat her back and tell her everything is going to be alright. There will be other boys; boys without duties and destinies. She wants someone to give her a lot of ice cream and watch girl movies with. Allegra has never been that. Her birthdays, Christmas’ and heartaches were spent in a hospital by her mother’s bed. It’s not the same pouring your heart out when the person you’re pouring it out to isn’t listening. Allegra was always an idea to Sky, never really solid but she had such hopes when her mother woke up. In the few minutes it took for her to get across town to the hospital, Schuyler had imagined an entire life of mother-daughter moments and none of them ever materialized. Allegra gave her a duty, a mission, a destiny and left her all alone.
Just like Jack.
Except she’s not alone, she reminds herself as the taxi pulls up to the airport. She’s not alone because she has Oliver and she always will. At least as long as a human life span stretches. She forces a smile to her face as she pays the driver and picks up her carry on. Oliver deserves that much. He’s given his whole life to her; she can smile for him even if he knows her well enough to realize it’s forced. He’s already there, looking so handsome but grim. She supposes he should be. They’re on the run again and they’ve done this before. They’ve walked this path and neither of them likes where it goes. That brings her thoughts back to Jack and Mimi.
Maybe that’s what destiny is. A path one has to walk and nobody likes it but they walk it anyway.
***I wanted to go ahead and submit an older, second piece that really sort of takes place during the second book because this one is all introspectivey and I wanted ya’ll to have some dialogue and action from her as well but her thought process/state of mind/etc will be more in line with the first piece when she comes in:
It’s the end of a long night, a function coordinated by the Council and required for all the young Blue Bloods. Schuyler took Oliver because she couldn’t go alone and there was no one else to go with. By default, Mimi got Jack and even if she hadn’t, Council Events are far too public for them to ever been seen doing more than dancing a couple of times or chatting when they pass each other in the room. Mimi had made sure they were seated on opposite sides and Oliver was the perfect escort but he wasn’t the man she wanted to be dancing with.
She hears the key turn in the lock before the door opens and she knows its Jack. He’s the only other one with a key even though Oliver has been after her to give him one for awhile. She’s just slipped out of her heels and lit some candles as he walks up behind her and presses a kiss to the back of her neck. He undoes her hair and his hand slides across her bare upper back. She knows she’s warm to the touch because she hasn’t fed in days and her temperature has spiked up as a result.
“You looked beautiful tonight,” he whispers into her hair and she smiles.
{as beautiful as her as beautiful as Mimi as beautiful as someone was ever actually an angel}
“I caught you watching a couple of times,” she smiles, her head still bowed. She holds perfectly still, as if by not moving she can capture this moment and shut it away. Sometimes he looks at her and her breath catches from all the way across the room. Sometimes she feels like he’s the only one in the entire room that really sees her.
“I wanted to strangle him. The way he touches you…” Jack says and there’s a growl in his voice that makes Schuyler want to do a little ‘he’s jealous he’s jealous’ dance.
“He’s just my familiar and you’re…” she lets it trail off because there isn’t a definition for what she and Jack are. Sometimes that hurts and sometimes she thinks its better that way.
His hand drifts to the buttons on the back of her dress and his fingers are nimble as they flit over them, unlooping them. Her arms come up to cross over her chest, holding the dress close to her body as his fingers glide down her spine. He stops at her shoulder blades, hand skipping up and losing contact with her skin for just a moment. Then the tips of his fingers are slipping over her shoulder blades and everything inside of her aches. This is where her wings would be, the wings she never had, the wings she never will and this is what separates her from everyone else. This is why they hide in her apartment and tuck into dark corners.
His lips brush against her skin as his whisper lingers there. “Mine.”
And with that one word, it doesn’t matter that she never had angel wings. It doesn’t matter that she never will and she doesn’t care that she’s half human. She’s Jack’s angel. It’s the only angel she wants to be.
First-Person Sample:
Wait a minute…you’ve dropped me-
[Schuyler’s words stop abruptly when she sees the taxi she just stepped out of isn’t there. She’s not at the airport either and Oliver…]
Oliver?
Ollie?
[The second exclamation is a bit panicked. She whirls back around, entire body tense and on the defense. At least she can see this time]
Jack!
[She’s not asking if he’s there, she’s screaming for his help because bonded to Mimi or not, she knows he’ll always come to save her]