Name: Unazuki Lapis
Name Meaning: Her first name is Japanese and the Kanji in her name means "Little girl," "safe haven," and "hope." Someone might translate it as "Little girl who is a safe-haven of hope," but that�s a really elaborate stretch... Her family name also has somewhat of a meaning. Her father has four brothers and they are all named after Lapis stones, but at the same time they represent the five elements of air, fire, spirit, earth and water. Lazuli is obviously water.
Age: Four
Date of Birth: 7/1
Astrological Sign: Cancer
Bloodtype: AB
Alignment: Though she is too young to really consider herself a nominal member of either faction, she is very far to the good side of the meter.
Strengths: she�s really quiet and appears to be shy. She is very innocent, and yet she is not naive (what I mean is, though she is not blind or a stranger to the sadness and sin in the world, she has never taken part in it herself) Her strength is a direct connection to God, she is able to utilize his powers and wisdom, but only when he grants it to her. (For those who are very religious, you�ve probably heard of people who are so close to God that he will work or talk directly through them, Unazuki is one such person). She is pretty smart for a little kid, she loves everyone; a person would have to be REALLY bad for her to dislike them (well okay... if they make a habit of harming others then they are abusing the privilege of her grace). She gives everyone a chance to change, and is not judgmental. She has wisdom beyond her years.
Weaknesses: She is very small and not strong at all and is somewhat insecure of herself. She tends to blame every bad thing that happens on herself, as if her inadequacy were somehow the ultimate cause of the suffering of others. As previously mentioned, she has no real physical power of her own, without God working through her.
Likes: She likes the things that four year old girls like... bubbles, glitter, coloring, shiny things, taking care of others. Loving people and trying to get them to see the error of their ways...
Dislikes: Satan, suffering and the pain of others.
Greatest Fear: That someone would die without ever really knowing God. Hell. A person living eternity separated from God their creator, and the idea that someone would willingly reject God.
Motivation: God. Love. Also, she has this strange innate feeling that she ought to try to fix every problem that she comes across. (which is not only impossible but can prove to be rather frustrating...)
Favorite Food: Macaroni and cheese. (She's still really just a little girl, regardless of everything else.)
Least Favorite Food: Meat, she's a vegetarian because she can't stand the thought of destroying life (cheese isn't destroying life so that's kosher).
What grade are they in: Pre-school
Marks: Makes pretty good grades, (yeah... but... then, who doesn't in pre-school?) but she only focuses when she wants to, so her teachers sometimes think that she's lazy, or a daydreamer. (Of course, they could be right.) She is surprisingly good at reading (better than most four year olds, but not to the point that it's incredible) and artistic stuff, she loves science and history, and she is okay at math, (but it tends to be a little taxing on the attention span).
Favorite Class: Science, from biology to astronomy, she is very interested in the universe and how it works. (though... we are talking pre-school here...)
Least Favorite Class: PE (although she likes recess if it isn't an organized activity). It isn't that she's not athletic, it's just that she's not competitive and so therefore isn't very good with contact and team sports. She would rather wander around the field looking at the wild flowers than chasing a ball.
Personality: First of all, here's the facade. She's an average little girl in pre-school, who is quiet and courteous, never causes trouble (but she never backs down on someone being picked on or taken advantage of etc.) On the inside she is caught in the middle of a spiritual struggle, more than ever she sees the destruction that people are causing to themselves and others. She knows that she has to do something to stop the downward spiral of the world in which she lives. She sometimes is frustrated that God doesn't act faster or in a more dramatic way, because she can't stand to see people hurting themselves. To sum it all up, she's a sweet, tough, little girl with a big heart who is willing to risk everything that she has to achieve God's goals of peace and prosperity.
Appearance: As you know, she's four years old. She's short for her age. She is thin, but still has that cute baby face. She has bright red hair (not red like a redhead, red like RED), and big reddish brown eyes (scarily more reddish than brown). She has a cute little nose and freckles. She almost always wears her hair in two braids. She doesn't have tan skin, but she isn't pale either, just normal.
Social Status: Her family isn't rich, but they aren't poor either, probably on the lower end of the middle-class scale. Her dad manages and runs a restaurant, which he founded... it isn't really fancy, it is not a chain restaurant, just one of those family owned places. (In pre-school no one really cares, but sometimes her older sisters have been given a hard time about the somewhat unglamorous work that her father does.)
Love Life: She has a crush on this guy who is way older than her... Unazuto is about 18, quiet and thin and blonde with brown eyes, and he plays the flute very well. He is somewhat small for his age. He's 5'6" and somewhat lanky... and spends a lot of his time in the sanctuary of an empty church practicing his flute. He is an orphan who has been raised by an (obese) abusive woman, who took him in when he was very young and he spends his time doing her odd jobs in return for a place to stay (cooking, cleaning groceries... a.k.a. everything). He has been there for as long as he can remember. Unazuki heard him playing the music and wandered into the sanctuary one day... and now they visit one another there every day, he thinks of her as a little sister, but she secretly loves him because he is so gentle and empathetic, not even the least bit bitter about his circumstances. If you want to know, he is leaning towards the good side as well...
Family, Friends:
Lazuli Lapis- Unazuki's dad. It would really be said Lapis Lazuli because he moved to Eden from Japan. He moved to Japan with his wife from "somewhere else" before his children were born. He has long hair that is really pale and almost white, his eyes are also really light and are a bluish green color, his skin is slightly on the pale side. He is 36 years old but looks more like he's26, he's of average height, maybe around 5'10". He owns a restaurant called 'The Lapis' which he not only manages but he also works at, doing whatever needs to be done (table waiting/host/cashier/cook you know the drill). Unazuki probably gets her even temperament from her father; it is a rarity to see him truly angry about anything, he is usually in a good mood. Some people think of him as slightly aloof, but when he is in an atmosphere that he is comfortable with he is outgoing and often witty. (BD-1/1/? SGN-___ BT-___)
Zaion Lapis- She is Unazuki's mother, and Lapis Lazuli's wife. She has long red hair with blonde highlights, and big reddish eyes, much like Unazuki's. She is 32 years old and is a little on the tall side for a woman, 5'9"-ish. She helps her husband in the restaurant. She is perky and outgoing, she enjoys the company of others and doesn't really like to be alone. However, she has a somewhat regal bearing about her, in the way that she holds herself. I would call it gracefully-confident. (BD-7/29/? SGN-Leo BT-___)
Hotaru Lapis- This is Unazuki's older sister. She is 16 years old and in the 10th grade. She has shoulder length strawberry-blonde hair and the same eyes as her mother and sister. Her hair is straight, like the rest of her family's, but she curls it out at the ends. She is somewhat quiet, but not really shy, the daydreamer type, she was probably a lot like Unazuki when she was a kid. She is just an average teenage girl, she takes part in social events and (much to the chagrin of her father) has a boyfriend who is a senior in high school. (He is your average guy too... soccer player, black hair and purple eyes average height. His name is Allyn Saph; he has a tendency to be easily manipulated to the 'bad side') (BD-2/8/? SGN-Aquarius BT-__)
Kyan Lapis- She has long brown hair that she usually wears in a high ponytail. Her eyes are the bluish-green of her father's and she is 13. She is spunky and outgoing, slightly a tomboy. She is somewhat aggressive when it comes to guys that she likes, she isn't the least bit shy about it at all. She is very self confident and often even selfish. She overlooks other people's problems, and though she doesn't really have the personality to feel sorry for herself she does think that she deserves a lot of special treatment. Sometimes she does feel as though she doesn't fit into her family, she feels left out and ignored. She is particularly jealous of Hotaru, whom she thinks is her parent's favorite. If any of the family has a weakness for turning to 'the dark side' it is probably her; she could probably be convinced fairly easily that there was a good reason for it. (BD-12/17/? SGN-__ BT__)
Birthplace: In a hospital near where she lives now. When she was born, her family had just recently moved to Eden from Japan and were living in a small apartment near her father's restaurant.
Current Residence: In a two story house, it has a lot of rooms, but they aren't very big... the only big room is the kitchen, which is because of Lapis Lazuli's love of cooking (he owns a restaurant... go figure). The kitchen has one of those islands with barstools, there are bay windows looking out into the backyard where you have perfect view of Lapis Lazuli's fancy grill (booya!). There are three bedrooms and one master bedroom. Unazuki's and Kyan's rooms are linked by a small bathroom. Hotaru's room is the biggest out of three sister's rooms, her bedroom is also the only bedroom in the upstairs of the house. (it isn't really a two story house, it has one of those lofts that is only about half as big as the house, you know, with the balcony type rail that you can look down on the living room from...) There is a waist high stone/brick type wall that encircles the backyard and the left side of the house Tthere is an arched entranceway in the front. There is a garden with a little walkway in the gated area on the left side of the house, (that's the side that the master bedroom is on, so there is a door from the bedroom straight to the garden.) Hah hah... In the master bathroom there is a whirlpool tub (I hadda add that didn't I?). There is also a small balcony that is accessible from the upstairs (Hotaru often uses this as a method to sneak out to be with her boyfriend). There is a two car garage, with two cars. A light-shiny-blue Toyota Corolla and and a red minivan.
History: Lazuli and Zaion eloped to Japan about 16 years ago (she was 18 and he was 21) then they had two children, Hotaru and Kyan. They weren't having much luck with financial status in Japan, so finally they decided to move to Eden, it seemed like a dream come true. After the move, Zaion discovered a surprise... she was pregnant again! They were having trouble getting the restaurant started and they were living in a tiny apartment that could never be a suitable home for a family of five. They struggled through the financial difficulties, with a lot of hard work and even more luck. When Unazuki was born, her mother couldn't take much time off to look after her so she was often left with her sisters to look after her. However, it ended up that her sisters were either at school, or helping out with the restaurant with their parents so Unazuki was often set in her baby carrier at the restaurant while her family frantically bustled about. This has engrained a strange sense of independence on each of three children. They have a new respect for family and doing their part, but they are also used to having to look out for themselves. Unazuki was a source of wonder to everyone who came in contact with her, she just laid quietly beside the cash register, in corner, in the kitchen, wherever she could be safe and out of the way, and watched everything going on around her, she never once cried or caused a fuss. That's how her independence was formed, to this day, she respects what her family was doing. It was probably the largest act of love that she had ever witnessed, those people, working hard everyday, never giving up even when it seemed like the hard work would all be for naught. She noticed that no matter how tired and frustrated the members of her family were, they would always keep at it, with smiles on their weary faces, and they were doing it not only for themselves, but for her. The restaurant eventually flourished, and with the money that the family had saved, they were able to build their dream house sooo... Unazuki remembered visiting the house once a week with her family to watch the progress. A dream built on hard work and hope was materializing before her eyes. This is when she realized that faith, hope and love were the keys to life. Living in Eden was like... living in Eden! Unazuki has always been allowed to wander around wherever she chooses to, there was never any reason to worry about anything bad happening to her... until recently... but Unazuki's parents don't really notice the decline of morals in their utopian dream. One day while Unazuki was wandering, she heard a beautiful sound and followed it into an old abandoned sanctuary, and that's where she met Unazuto.
Writing Sample:
Outside the day is warm, the air is stagnant threatening a storm, and rays of sun filter through the few stray clouds dotting the pale sky. Walking nonchalantly down the sidewalk is a little girl, her two red braids swinging slightly as she walks. Looking around her, no detail escapes the voracity of her big, and uncanny, red eyes. She is now making her way through the entrance of a park, trees line the walkway and birds can be heard twittering away in the trees. An old man waves to her from a bench and she smiles and waves back. Everyone seems to know her, of course, that is probably because she takes this route at least once a week. However, not only the people seem to recognize her, but the birds overhead seem to know her, the squirrels seem to know her, the trees and flowers in which they alight seem to know her, the ground knows her and even the air itself seems to be greeting her return.
Now she is sitting in the grass with her back against a giant old oak tree, to an onlooker, the branches seem to cave over her head like the arms of a protective grandfather. The whole world is being swallowed up into the spheres of her eyes, every minute detail seems to enthrall her and she is at peace with the world. As she closes her eyes and takes in a deep breath, her ears perk up at a faint sound. It is a sound that she has never heard before while in this area, so she strains to listen. At first, she thinks that it may be a bird, with a beautiful voice that dipped and swayed gracefully like water in a stream bouncing over rocks and down waterfalls, but as she listens she realizes that it isn't a bird, but some type of musical instrument. She stands up, almost as though she is being lifted towards the music, she closes her eyes and wanders towards where she thinks the sound to be coming from. This takes her down the path of the park and out into the street on the side opposite to where she had entered. Before her stands a beautiful gothic church, wedged between two drab, grey buildings, it is like a miniature cathedral. She walks slowly up the steps towards the two giant pillars that seem to her to go up for eternity. She pulls the handle on one of the large double doors, and with much effort manages to open it wide enough to slip through before it closes shut again. As the door closes behind her, she finds herself in the most enchanting place that she has ever seen. The narthex of the church is very wide, with a staircase spiraling up the right side of the room, there was a identical staircase on the left side of the room. Actually almost the entire room is symmetric, down to the gold patterns on the royal blue carpet. The only things that are slightly different on each side are the stained glass windows, no two are alike that she can see. Beautiful pictures, shimmering in bold colors, there is one with a tree with snake wrapped around the trunk.
"T-ree of li-fe," She reads aloud to herself with slight difficulty. Another windo features a golden goblet, gilded with colorful jewels. This one holds no inscription. The rest are simply pictures of people doing strange things that she can't comprehend, a man up to his waist in water, a man in a boat in what seems to be a storm, both arms outstretched. Then there is the same man, sitting on a large stone, giving people what looks like food. There is one that stands out in her mind, a man, arms spread horizontally on either side of him, he appears to be suffering a great deal, there is blood dripping from his hands, feet, side and from the abrasions caused by a crown of thorns on top of his head and she can't bring herself to look at the picture any longer. She moves forward through an open door, and she knows that the music is coming from that room. What she sees upon entering amazes her, a ceiling higher than any she has ever seen, in a room larger than any she has ever been in. Elegant columns line each side of the room, and there is an enormous stained glass window in the back, on it is a man in gleaming white who seems to be drifting towards clouds, up to heaven, down below there are dim and grunge colored men reaching up to him from below in what seems to be despair and yearning. On the walls of the room are long pipes of varying height and width, some narrow and short, in the back some are thick, reaching almost all the way to the ceiling. The sight reminds the girl of great silver wings unfurling, there is a long table in the front that holds the inscription "This do in remembrance of me" on it in gold lettering, behind that is the pulpit, but of course, the girl has no idea what this is, it just looks to her like a small tower. Behind her are balconies soaring above her head, and spectacular banners with cryptic pictures and hidden meanings all hung from all the walls between the dazzling colored glass. However, the thing that initially brought her into this room in the first place is by no means any less dazzling.
Down the aisle in front of her sits the most beautiful by far of all the things she witnesses in the sanctuary. On the steps to the platform is a young man, with glittering pale hair. His eyes are closed and he is playing haunting tunes on a long wooden flute. The girl had noticed him, but was content not to upset this magical, surreal setting. That is, until the music comes to an abrupt stop, then her head jerks up and there she sees him, looking directly at her.
"Well, hello there." He says in an amicable voice, his mouth breaking into a wide grin. The girl does not answer, she starts to glance nervously around, perhaps, he is talking to someone else. "Come on then," he says, motioning for her to come closer, "I won't bite or anything." She just stares at him. "Keep playing..." The girl whispers almost inaudibly.
"What's that?" Asks the boy, cupping a hand over one ear as if to hear her better. Instead of repeating herself, the girl walks down the aisle to where the boy is sitting.
"That's more like it!" He starts to say, but he is taken aback by the gleam in her eyes. "What's your name?" He asks.
"Unazuki," she answers quietly.
"Hah, that's funny!" He says with a congenial laugh, Unazuki is a little surprised, and begins to wonder what is so funny about her name, when he says, "My name is Unazuto, see, our names are very similar." Unazuki's heart begins to melt as he lifts her into his lap and once again the ethereal music begins to emanate from the sanctuary.
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