Post by tara on May 13, 2010 5:23:41 GMT -7
First Name: Tara
Last Name: Maclay
Middle Name: Constance
Age: 21 (should be 27 and as far as the government are concerned she is, but she’s been dead for six years and returned to her 21 year old body)
Height/Weight: 5’5, 117
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Blonde
Character description/personality: Tara has a slender, almost doll like figure, that is accentuated with blouses and floor length gypsy skirts. Her hair is blonde and her eyes are blue, though she is much sharper than the stereotype of girls with those qualities. She is quite shy at times, having had an upbringing that was very much be seen and not heard due to her biblebelt right wing father spinning stories of demons to control his witchy wife and daughter. She has several tattoos with protective charms upon her body, one of these giving her a slight danger sense.
Persuasion: (good evil neutral) Good
Type of Creature: Witch/wiccan
Powers: Tara is a practitioner of white magic, meaning that her focus in terms of magic leans towards balance and nature, this was what had set her so at odds with her girlfriend, Willow, when she had slipped into dark magic, as the two are diametrically opposed. Her main schools of magic are healing and protection, though she has a general grasp on locater spells, telekinetic magic and the occasional more powerful spell such as the spell she and Willow used to teleport Glorificus high above Sunnydale (though their only control over location had been away from them). She has been touched by death, and indeed had been dead for six years, this along with her magic has enabled her to see spirits and feel, through lingering emotions, where spirits gather. Effectively she is a medium, able to help lost spirits move on. It seems that this is a gift given to her when through sheer force of will she took herself from heaven into the form that she left behind.
Weaknesses: Tara is very shy in nature due to the upbringing she received from her family. She is able to assert herself around friends but by herself, she stutters and tends to hide away if she is able to. She is not all that physically strong and caught unaware and unable to cast, she is as squishy as any other human. As she can sense spirits’ emotions, sometimes they war with her own and she has to assert control over her own mind, something that is a touchy subject in any case given the attacks upon it by hellgods and Leethe’s bramble.
History: Tara Maclay did not have the easiest upbringing to say the least. She was under the thumb of a borderline abusive father, the holier than thou attitude of her cousins and her bullying lout of brother, Donny. The one bright ray for her in terms of her family was her mother who was a witch and sensed the signs of such in her daughter. While her mother did what she could for Tara while she lived, introducing her to the idea of balance, the wiccan rede and the threefold law, there was little that she could do under her husband’s thumb.
Scared by stories of demons, Tara simply endured the life that she was left in when her mother left the mortal coil, though she strove to find her way out, looking ahead to college. She managed to attain a place at Sunnydale University, and while it was not prestigious to say the very least, it was away from her father and that was the most attractive thing, other than her course on mythology, about it. While at the university, she joined the local ‘coven’ if one could call it that and was disappointed to find that it was full of girls who frankly, were not witches of any flavour. She had just about decided that she had had her fill of trying to bring to the group just what wicca was, something that had not been at all helped by being an introvert around dominant personalities, when she met Willow Rosenberg, as it so happened just in time for the two of them to protect each other during Sunnydale’s scare of the week…yes, it was on a Tuesday.
She and Willow began to develop their relationship, seemingly in a whirlwind progression from friends to lovers. After a while, Tara began to meet Willow’s friends and sit in on Scooby stuff where Tara would take to Dawn who, like her, was an outsider, late to the party, looking in. The key turnabout in her life came when her family visited Sunnydale in an effort to bring her home and under their control. Believing herself to be a demon, Tara cast a charm, possibly her one selfish use of magic, to prevent her friends from seeing demons, something that tied in with an assassination attempt upon the Slayer and very nearly killed them all. When her father tried to force her to return home, spinning his story of demons, Tara had been so afraid that Buffy would, possibly rightfully so, give her over to him, Buffy instead said sure, take her, only you have to go through me. With the others speaking on her behalf, a standoff developed until Spike, hearing the conflab about demons, punched Tara in the nose, setting off his chip and proving the lie in her father’s words. None of the scoobies were going to let her go back to that and it was distinguished just what they all were, when her father that he was Tara’s bloodkin and asked who the hell the others were to her, receiving the answer, the label that he himself should have used, her family. She grew into her power that year as the gang had to fight off the attentions of a hellgod, Glorificus, and for a while, Tara lost her mind as Glory fed upon her memories and her sense of will, something that Willow took back in the final battle with her.
Willow and Tara looked after Dawn as the youth lost first her mother and then her sister, becoming surrogate mothers to the teen. Buffy was brought back, unknowingly ripped from heaven, but this and Willow’s growing addiction to dark magic put a strain upon their relationship that caused Tara to leave Willow. Eventually, Tara and Willow would reunite but by a cruel twist of fate, a bullet meant for Buffy was shot wildly and tore through Tara’s heart.
In heaven, Tara observed small bits of her friends’ lives, smiling as Dawn matured and she and her sister formed a tighter bond, feeling peace about the fact that Willow had been able to not only bring herself back to the light but move on into a relationship as she knew that there would be room for she and Willow, and for Willow and Kennedy, when they all moved on. Some years after Willow’s using the scythe to empower all Slayers, however, Tara ached to be with her love, it was a feeling that disturbed her peace, but she knew that she was going to be needed, and that she needed Willow. Her body was long gone with Sunnydale as a whole, but something between sheer will and her wiccan abilities had her wake up in her own body in a Los Angeles alley, with a sprig of Leethe’s bramble in her hand. Though she rebelled against the idea, she took every memory of heaven from her mind, leaving enough to know that she had given up something, the memory of it, and all at her own choosing. Also, that it was worth it, and that she would gain it back in the right time. Since she has woken up, she has found herself with the added power to sense and commune with spirits, something that she puts down to the fact that she must have been one given that she had died and been dead for a long period of time.
Canon or Original?: Canon
Character is from (series, book, creator, or author, if it applies): Buffy the Vampire Slayer
It was…odd. She was in Heaven, she knew that. She should be at peace, she should know…
But part of her knew that this was not ok. And she felt selfish, Buffy had been dragged from this place. She had suffered, Tara should stay here and wait. It was the purpose of this place, to bring family and extended family together in peace. To know, as long as they were down there, they were safe. They were alive, they were happy, they could move on and live.
That was the point though. Tara had met her mother, she was content, she knew that the others had been through an ordeal, through many ordeals since she had died. But they had come through it, and her Willowtree was pure again. That was why she was restless, when she should know no such thing. Her Willow was down there, and there was always another darkness to come, something that might push her love into the darkness once more.
Tara had always been able to see just a little ahead of herself when it came to time, and now…she had to be down there. That was the issue, there was no way to be other than a ghost, her body had long gone. But Tara had been a white wiccan, there was still some power there. And it was when she realised this that she became decisive. She was going back. There is a certain force of will, something that can tap into whatever primal force is within one, and when that one was a witch, things happen.
A girl, lying in an alley in Los Angeles, barely stirred. Her clothes were tattered, her blonde hair tangled as it fell over her eyes. A warm breeze blew over her, it fluttered in the hole in her shirt, one that might resemble that which may be left behind by a bullet. A moment ago, the girl had not been there, now she was. There was no tension about her, she seemed to be…at peace.
That force of will had brought Tara here, an alley. She knew her Willow was nearby, so while it was cold and a little uncomfortable, she was content. But she knew that she could not remain so, not if she remembered…that place. Her hand twitched open, and she knew without opening her eyes, Leethe’s Bramble. That had caused this whole mess…it had been the catalyst. Her mind rebelled, she had had so many memories messed around with…
The girl’s mouth moved, she almost whispered a sentence and a herb in her hand simply disappeared.
She had forgotten…something, she didn’t know what but it didn’t matter. She knew that she had been dead. She knew that she was living. She knew that she had to find her Willow…
The blonde’s eyes opened to reveal pale blue orbs that saw something no one else could fathom. A man bent down, a look of concern on his face, “Are you ok, ma’am?”
Tara raised her head and dipped it, momentarily hiding her face behind her hair, “I’m o…ok.” She still had that stutter, she was nervous. She had the idea that she had given up something, she didn’t know what but she had to find the only reason she could have done. She stood and smoothed out her skirt, “I’m fine, really.” She knew, as she said that, that she was, but she would not quite believe it until she had found what she came for, “Do you know the way to the Hyperion?” She knew that that was where she needed to be, it was instinctual, as a flower would open towards the sun, it was simply there in her mind.
“The Hyperion? It’s right there.”
The gentleman pointed out of the alley and Tara gave a shy smile, “Thank you.” And with that, she moved past him, what would be would be, she knew that. She gave an internal prayer to Thespia and entered the front lobby, just looking around as she sought a sign of one of her friends.