Estella Connaughton

It was on this silent night, this night caressed by no romantic rays of silver moonlight, but by the artificial rays from the miserable street lamps, that I decided to wish upon a star for the first time in a number of years. Life had taken a turn for the worse, and my head had been singing for the past few weeks; it's chemicals were in disarray and I was sure I had lost all ability to care anyway at this point. I was pretty rusty on the whole star wishing thing, though; since I had decided that everything I did was stupid and that I needed to conform into an adult, everything had slowly blurred into nothing but sleeping fog over a motionless creek. Everything from before I was about fourteen had been burned; been thrown into the dungeons in the fiery depths of my twisted mind. This, however, was not breaking that strict wall I had worked so hard to build. This was, at most, giving myself some leeway in a time where I was almost as alone as this lonesome star illuminating just his own sector of the deep navy sky. He and I were more alike than either of us cared to admit, stuck somewhere between alive and dead; at our own drawn baselines but ten points below the local average. Or, perhaps that was just me; half alive but also half dead. Half occupied but mostly lonely. Lonely, of course. Not alone. Being alone was sitting at lunch by yourself, driving to work by yourself, going to the dance solo, watching a movie with no one else, saying goodbye to a good friend. Loneliness, I figured, was the perpetual state of being alone. Perpetually having no one around, perpetually that barely bright dot in a navy ocean of stars yet to break through. This lonesome star and I were alike because we had both attempted to show ourselves to society; reveal our identities. But alas, as this black hole world goes everything turns to nothing. The first to rise are the first to fall, and I do embrace that fall. That fall is what is begging me to make this wish, even though it is a shout into the void; a whisper that no one but perhaps my neighbor's dog will ever hear, but that seems better, somehow.

x NAME
██Her full name is Estella Connaughton, but over all she prefers to be called Estella. She absolutely despises nicknames. (ES • tell • uh)

x GENDER
██Estella is a female wolf.

x AGE
██Although she does not keep track of her years, Estella believes that she is around three years of age at this point.

x APPEARANCE
██Drawn reference here (x) (I prefer drawn references to be used for drawings for the sake of simplicity and for the artist's sanity.)
██Estella, to start, is a gray wolf. She has the trademark gray tail and a traditional gray pelt. The only part of her that separates her from the textbook gray wolf are the brown markings that are scattered about her skin. Draped across the center of her spine is a light, sandy brown spot that somewhat resembles a saddle for a horse. The tip of her tail is tinted with the same muted brown as well as the top of her nose and three of her four paws (the front right paw remains gray). The insides of her ears are the only thing with a different color -- they are rubbed with a gray a little bit lighter than the charcoal of her main pelt.
██Her eyes, however, are another story. Instead of being some normal wolf color (amber, brown, white, gray, or even green), Estella has blue optics. Their blue is distant -- depthy. Staring into those whirlpools is practically a request to drown. Her heritage can't exactly be traced back to a husky or another type of canine with those same eyes, so altogether that gaze is one big mystery.

I stared hard at the confidently glistening body of the lonesome star and shut my eyes, carefully pronouncing the single word "Star," before shaking my head. "This is stupid," I would say, before catching myself. This would be good for me. This would help me release some pressure from the condensed air that was my mind. "I... I need some help," I told him, closing one eye, as that's what I did per nervous habit. A star could not physically understand me, so I had no idea why I was nervous, but my mind had not been talked to in a long time. "I guess... You take wishes?" When I was little, I'd wish for simple things: a pony, a dog; perhaps to make a new friend. My little self would be afraid of my now self. "I'm having some trouble... Growing my flowers."

It was not a garden that I meant to imply, however. It was the flowers inside of me. The flowers that make every human who they are; the flowers that are full of life that we water when we are happy, but really, what is happiness? It's an illusion, and that's why my flowers were wilting. They needed my happiness, but I had nothing but artificial smiles to feed to them. My flowers were dying, and so was my spirit.

"Please help me grow the flowers inside of me," I would whisper into the darkness of night, barely able to hear even my own words but knowing they existed, just as I knew poisonous snakes existed. Just as I knew axe murderers and black widow spiders existed. Just as I knew that some comprehension on the subject of happiness existed; I knew a bunch of things existed but that didn't mean I could harness them.

"Please," I begged, and was surprised by the firmness of my words, "because I can't grow my own anymore."

And briefly it occurred to me, then: how come it was me who was unable to grow my own flowers?

x PERSONALITY
██Estella is eccentric. She does not usually abide by the rules that would otherwise dictate normal lupine behavior and, thus, is often found in heaps of trouble. It is her great persuasion, however, that gets her unstuck from these holes in the ground. With a few well-woven words, she is able to talk her way out of most of the messes she buries herself in. However, she does have neuroses problems. After a certain amount of persuasive speeches are stacked loosely on top of her and she supports them, just barely, for a while, she collapses. She crashes, and goes into periods of severe anxiety that are only fixed by heartfelt conversations. These heartfelt conversations, though, are the very stem of her trust issues because she constantly feels like she is being lied to, as a symptom of the anxiety. In her ind, everyone is lying to her. Everyone is out to get her. Nobody appreciates her; she is nothing in the grand scheme of things. She is nothing. It is that ghost that is imminent over her, and makes her more of an asocial individual. Despite her great ideas and creativity, she is bound by the concept of being useless to society.
██While she usually makes her own rules, life without rules is an impossible idea for Estella to grasp. Rules are what support her and also what keep things in order; order is the only thing that Estella values in a work place. She is a total rule follower on the inside, and it is her own insecurity that causes her to disobey that trait -- she'd rather be rebellious and looked up to than nervous and judgmental. But those traits wouldn't change. Those traits were already founded within her and weren't about to change.
██ Thus, Estella is very professional. Once given a job, she carries it out. It her her sense of order that causes her to abide to any standards given. Even if it is something she is completely scared by or wouldn't usually attempt (i.e. making friends), if she was told by a higher-up to do so, she would. Her job is much more important than any achieved social status, which causes a lot of stress -- invisible stress, as she calls it. Stress that happens through her nervousness but is ignored and pushed to the side, where it piles up and begins the anxiety cycle. Her self management is not the best, but her personal image is the least of her concerns.
██ Because she is so versatile, she is often accidentally selfless. If distracted by a duty, she forgets to be her normal disgraceful, rude, unattractive self. When on a mission, she becomes polite and will do whatever it takes to get whatever she needs. It is perhaps an illusion, but often times she considers that self to be her regular persona and the other one to be her disgruntled, angry, bored self. This thought is perhaps what keeps her sane; believing that she is actually worth something on the inside.