InsaneJournal

Strengths: Independent, street-wise, loyal, good at keeping secrets, energetic, fast-learner, surprising talent for singing.
Weaknesses: Hot-headed, reckless, vindictive, emotional decision-maker, abrasive, undiagnosed ADHD, problems with authority, slight pyromania

Likes: Spicy food, fire the smell of gunpowder, camping, fireworks, dirty Blues, home-rolled cigarettes, horror movies
Dislikes: Closed spaces (like closets), being cold, being hungry, talking about her family, police

A born scrapper from the oppressive heat of the Louisiana bayou, Stella tends to flirt, fight, and fuck with all the chaotic intensity of a forest fire. Her main occupation in the carnival is general crew, a gopher jack-of-all-trades and master of none, though she's recently been integrated into the scare-fest that is the Haunted House (and she loves it). She likes spicy food and being physical, hates talking about her family and being told what to do.

On more than one occasion, Stella Mercier has been on the receiving end of cautious glares and jealous smirks from across the cafeteria, classroom, and now--the streets of whatever city she happens to be in. She's crass and abrasive, foul mouthed and rebellious--especially if someone catches her on a really bad day. Normally she's a bit dark and standoffish, as well as brutally (sometimes cruelly) honest. If she doesn't like you, you'll know...because she won't forget to inform you as to the reasons why. To these lucky individuals, her smile is hot and obviously false - polite, even while 'sweetly' suggesting they 'go fuck themselves'. The girl holds most people at arm's length, at least, and is quite aware - and happy - with that fact.

Should someone actually be able to bore through Stella's defense mechanisms, they've found a loyal and rather fiercely protective friend and confidante. She keeps secrets better than the Pentagon, and isn't above petty revenge tactics should someone cross her friends (in fact, she tends to enjoy them).

She is the farthest thing from 'shy'. When it comes to attraction, she's usually the first one to approach--often distinguished as bold or even fearless when it comes to the Playing Field. Not exactly flirtatious as she is predatory, some guys find her aggressive personality wonderfully appealing--others find it rather disturbing. Stella doesn't seem to care either way. She's been rejected plenty of times, but it never seemed to phase her.

Stella wasn't born in splendor. The youngest (accidental) child of a baptist mother and her dyed in the wool Cajun husband, Stella grew up around drunken scream fights and outward, bristling animosity--her only reprieve from which was her older brother, Gabriel, who sheltered his baby sister from the screams and distracted her with bad movies and trips to the local Walmart. When things got really bad, he lugged his sister to his aunt, cousin, and paternal grandmother's place. The Mercier witches- the branch of the Cajun family their father rebelled against when he was born without the gift, was Stella's home away from home when the shit really hit the fan, which of course, enraged her father even more and distanced him from his bloodline even further. When he came of age (and Stella was ten), Gabriel became a Baton Rouge fire fighter. Five years later, disaster struck in the form of a warehouse fire. Gabe fell through a structurally unsound floor and was severely injured and lingered in a coma.

Stella was devastated, and so were her (now divorced) parents. Even across distances, the fighting exploded to a new fervor, and now Stella was being pulled back and forth in a pain-driven turf war. With Gabe no longer there to help her to her grandmother's as often, and her cousin Rene already grown up and off somewhere on his own, Stella spiraled into her own self-destruction and dangerous obsessions. A year of that was all the girl could stand. She ran away at age sixteen, when she overheard them scream at each other about pulling Gabriel's plug.

On the road, she hitchhiked across the country and finding the big cities to pickpocket on the street. She shacked up with anyone willing to have her--a dangerous tactic, considering the fact that dangerous animals and monsters were out there--but she'd never actually met any of them, so she didn't worry. On the occasion that she was on the receiving end of danger, it rarely lasted long, considering most creatures (especially most humans) were instantly repelled by her tendency to set things fire.

She was brought back a number of times under truancy and runaway laws, but it never really stuck, but she always made time to see Gabriel- until his body finally gave out regardless of the life-systems keeping his heart and lungs functioning. Her brother's death was the last string tying her to the defunct side of the family, so Stella set out to find the one connection she had left.

She found him working at a carnival.

Of-fucking-course he had to be in Montreal. That was Stella's luck, wasn't it- in the last month, she'd lost her brother, nearly killed her father (twice) after a screaming match at Gabriel's funeral, and spent the last of her legitimate money on a new fuel injector for the hard-top pickup truck she usually called Home- ever since Gabe's roommate handed her the keys when she was sixteen. All just ten miles inside the border- and it's not like she had a passport.

To top it off, it'd been raining for a damn week. The sound of it on the topper made sleeping easier, but the nights this far north- even in the summer- were too chilly for Stella's liking. Dreams about Gabe didn't help, either. Telling herself that he was finally free of that trap of a body barely did the trick, considering she'd hoped for so long he'd just...snap out of it one day. That was her luck, too.

That morning just before the sun brought life to the campers enjoying the holiday week in the RV community she'd parked by, Stella ran a quick raid of every car she could jimmy open, stealing cell phone chargers, GPS devices, and other expensive knacks to pawn for gas and food money. After dropping them off at three different hock-shops, she only tallied $98- barely enough to fill the 350's massive tank twice over. At least it got her over the border, with a little luck and sweet-talking the Patrol. In French. Just a good grandaughter, bringing her family a truck to help with an upcoming move. The US-born guard didn't give much of a fuck about anything anyway.