Ariel Reed

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Name: Ariel Morgana Skylark Reed

Nickname: Ari, Sky (by her mother), Kid (by Paul), Ri (by Haruka)

Age: 24

Birthday: January 22, 1983

Sexual Orientation: Bisexual

Social status: Dating Travis Collins.

Job: Owner of Samantha's Bakery, Owner and Chef of Skylark Custom Catering

Religion: Pantheism, earth-centered spirituality

Chronic diseases/Other Illness: Cystic fibrosis (CF)

Allergies: None, but she does have to keep herself isolated from irritants like smoke, and she can't be around anyone with the flu.

Smokes: No.

Drinks: No.

Illegal: Has a prescription to grow marijuana, which she uses for purely medicinal purposes. She doesn't smoke it, but she cooks with it (with excellent results).

College: Degree in Culinary Arts, with specialty training in Baking and Pastries.

Glasses or contacts: Reading glasses

Left or right handed: Right

Briggs Meyers Type: INFJ

Whereabouts: Went to the New Haven hospital on November 2 with high fever, back pain, dizzy spells, and jaundice.

Appearance

Ari's most prominent feature is her long dark brown hair, which cascades in loose curls down her back. She is exactly 5'4" and weighs 109 lbs. Her eyes are a soft, warm brown, circled on the outside by a darker brown. The easy curves of her face help to hide how she's on the edge of being too thin. She tends to wear loose fitting clothes to further hide this, usually dressing herself in loose-fitting jeans or slacks, pulled tight with a wide belts, and fun, bright colored t-shirts under vests or hoodies. She sews her own hoodies, piecing them together from parts of many sweatshirts, and they're usually pretty interesting looking. Anytime there's a breeze, a chill, or an A/C working, she wears a handmade gray knit hat and a striped knit scarf.

Favorite Feature: Her hair

Least Favorite Feature: Her wrists

Tattoos: A skylark on cherry blossoms up the right side of her back. The tiny leaves of a vine on the outside of her left wrist.

Piercings: One silver ring in the cartilage of her right ear, with a tiny piece of amethyst dangling from it. One piercing in each lobe, though she doesn’t often wear earrings in them.

Jewelry: *A bloodstone healing amulet at the end of a long silver chain: 

*A wide band of soft brown leather around her right wrist with gemstone beads threaded into it: red jasper, orange aventurine, yellow jade, green aventurine, blue lapis, purple amethyst, and black onyx. It looks like a rainbow, but it’s for chakra balancing: 

*An old gold pocket watch that belonged to her father:

Little facts: Ari's voice is low and husky, from years of coughing and a couple of idiotic years of smoking, considering her condition. She speaks very quietly most of the time. And she always smells faintly of vanilla and lavender.

On 11/1/07:

Personality

Ari is a fun, intellectual girl, with a wry wit and an open heart. She has a strong desire to bring joy into the lives of those around her, be it through a warm meal or a willing ear. She’s a fantastic listener and a soft-spoken counselor when it comes to other people’s personal problems. Unfortunately, because of her soft-spoken nature, she generally gives the impression of being secretive and detached.

She believes in the beauty and unity of all living things and strives in her daily life to do justice to the planet she inhabits. She can go from balancing figures and planning a menu to finding herself stunned to speechlessness by a butterfly taking off. Because of this she sometimes gives the impression of being flighty. But Ari doesn’t allow herself to float along with the gentle flow of life. Instead, she drives herself forward, treating each and every day as though it were her last.

She has little patience for lateness and has occasional fits of depression, which she tempers with activity and organization. When she feels tired or weak, she pushes herself through it with a single-minded stubbornness.

Worst Habit: Passive aggressiveness

Greatest Strength: Loyalty

Biggest Fear: Being a drain on those around her

Most Common Misconception: That she has an eating disorder.

Personal History

Ari was born in January of 1983 in Durham, North Carolina. Two weeks after being brought home, she was rushed into the ER with effects of malnutrition. She spent the next three months of her life in the hospital. At first, there were threats from the pediatrics nurses that they would have Ari's custody taken away from her parents, until her father explained in painful detail the disease he had. She couldn't absorb the nutrients out of any of the milk she was given, and had to be given IVs of medication and high nutrient level formulas. Eventually, she was stabilized and sent home with a bucketful of medication.

It was a hard childhood, but it was made easier by following in her father's knowing footsteps. She listened and learned from both of her parents with the eager knowledge that no matter what happened to her, she would always be safe with them. They took her on nature hikes, sharing with her their love of the forests and cool brooks around their home. They spent summers with her mother’s mother in a small cottage in Maine. She went to school, learned quickly and easily. Her health continued to improve and she showed signs of being in the top 5th percentile of children with CF. She was only slightly less healthy than the average child.

Then, in 1992, disaster struck when her father contracted pneumonia. Ari was kept away from him as he grew weaker and weaker and finally only allowed to see him a month after he'd been taken into ICU. She'd been wrapped in anti-contagion gear. She looked like a spaceman and her father looked like a corpse. She'd barely been able to recognize him. One week later, he was gone.

Ari went off her medication with a vengeance. To her, all the hope she'd had, all the reason she'd had to believe that this disease wouldn't kill her, had died with her father. She was taken into counseling and her mother began coming to lunch at her school with her every day to watch her swallow the pills that helped her survive. She hated her doctors, snapping at them every month when she came in for checkups. She was a horror to her mother and began acting out in every way possible. She dressed all in black, renounced the loving spiritualism she'd been raised in and claimed that Death was her god. She wrote morbid poetry and did all the wrong things with all the wrong people.

In 1997 (age 14), she and her mother moved to New Haven, CT, to be closer to Yale Medical Center. The new psychologist, Dr. Katherine Daniels, had more affect on Ari than her previous one, and a few months after her sixteenth birthday, Ari finally shed her black shell and opened herself once more to the light in the world. This was partially made possible by the friend she’d made in Haruka Palmer (they met in the fall of 1998), who was attending Yale for computer sciences. This friendship seemed to spur Ari’s educational interest into being and give her a part of the hope she’d been looking for. More hope stemmed from the love she discovered she had for the culinary arts. She finished high school with honors and then went straight to school at the Center for Culinary Arts.

While she was in college, her mother met and began seeing James Torbin. Ari didn't really care for James and she didn't understand what her mother saw in him, but she recognized that Star was happy. And she wasn't too upset with the idea of being Paul's little sister. They'd hit it off the moment they'd met, both of them a little perplexed at their parents whirlwind romance.

At first, Ari was almost removed from her college, not because she had any lack of skills. She had an abundance of them. But because her lung deep cough made teachers concerned that she would infect the very food she was making. Even after she’d explained that the cough was semi-permanent and not at all related to anything contagious, they still expressed “deep concerns”. She’d paid her tuition. She refused to leave. Instead she pulled on a small white mask whenever she entered a kitchen and blew them away with her excessive skill and creativity. Meanwhile, Ari had a romance of her own blooming. Haruka’s visits from Boston became more and more regular, and what had started as a deep friendship gradually became something more and different.

Ari graduated with a degree in Culinary Arts in 2004, then spent a year in upstate New York at the Culinary Institute of the Arts with a focus on Baking and Pastry. After completing her extra training, Ari went to California to stay with her mother there, and a few months later attended her mother's wedding to James at his vineyard in Napa. She inherited a brother who was a year older than her and in law school in Boston.

When the wedding was over, she took her meager belongings, her calico kitten, and moved to Pleasant Port, taking a job at Samantha’s Bakery. This way she would be close to New Haven for her monthly medical trips, have a venue for her culinary creativity, and learn how to take care of herself, by herself. Three months after Ari moved to Pleasant Port, Haruka was given an assignment in Switzerland by her firm. She agreed to go before telling Ari and they ended their relationship on amicable, if a bit strained, terms.

In the winter of 2006, she used a portion of her mostly untouched inheritance to begin a small catering business (Skylark Custom Catering) out of her home, offering home-cooked meals (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) and organic, home-blended teas for delivery or pick-up. She also carries a line of her grandmother’s herbal remedies, the proceeds of which are sent back to Morgana.

Job

Owner of Samantha's Bakery

Hours

Mon-Fri: 8-11, 12-5

Saturday: 9-1

Sunday: 8-10, 1-3

(Hours will be posted on the Bakery Door. Deliveries Available.)

Skylark Custom Catering

Custom catering for small dinners, picnics, day sails, clubs and organizations. Call for your unforgettable meal. All ingredients are fresh and organic. (Include instructions for special dietary restrictions.)

 Schedule

Living Situation

Address: 5 Farmer's Avenue, 1A

Lives with...: Her cat, Nova, and her bonsai tree, Elmer.

Lives in town since: December 2005

Transportation

White 1998 Honda Accord EX

Kona Mountain Bike

Family Background

Father- Carl Reed (deceased)

Mother- Star (Reed) Torbin (46), certified sommelier

Grandmother (maternal)– Morgana Stone (70), still makes herbal remedies and sells them by mail order.

Stepfather- James Torbin (50), owner of Pinewood Vineyards in Napa, CA

Stepbrother- Paul Torbin (25), at Harvard Law

Calico cat- Nova (8)

Tree buddy - Elmer (22)

Relationships with other Characters

Scott - Ariel met Scott when he came by to hang out with Travis. She let him into her choosy little world because she trusts Travis' judgment, but she doesn't know him very well yet.

Maddy - Ariel sees Maddy as a little sister. She's always trying to find ways to spare Maddy from going through the things that she went through, and has actually been working on overcoming her lingering issues as a means of being a better 'big sister' and helping hand to her younger friend.

Renea - Ariel met Renea over the design of the fare for the opening night at the Theatre in January of 2006. Slowly, their business relationship opened like a blossoming tea into a lasting, quiet friendship.

Travis - Ariel met Travis when he and Riley moved in across the hall from her at 5 Farmer's Avenue. She brought them a vanilla and cinnamon cake to offer them a warm welcome to the building. After that, she and Travis kept running into each other, and over time Ari grew to trust him as a kind and honest soul. Now he has an open invitation to her home, and she often has him over to feed him full course meals and get his opinions on new recipes she's trying out.

Leland - Leland has ordered a box lunch every day since Skylark catering began. Ariel brings them to him personally and will continue to do so, even after she hires someone for deliveries. He's hired her catering services for guests at the hotel on several occasions and she appreciates the business he brings her, as well as his distinct and artistic personality.

Fionn - Ariel was literally run down by Fionnegan one morning when he was jogging past the bakery as she was carrying things in one morning. She had made an effort to be upset about what she described as a "run by", but his cheerful spirit forced her into a tentative friendship with him instead. Now he helps her load her car for work some mornings and she in turn feeds him and bakes him special goodies.

Samuel - Ariel knows Sam from the catering jobs she's done at the Theatre and through Renea. She likes him for the joy he brings Renea, but she doesn't know him very well.

Fletcher - Ariel knows Fletcher through Travis. He bewildered her a little when, on first meeting, he turned his considerable charm on her, and she's still not entirely sure how she feels about that.

Jenka - Ariel met Jenka at the bakery when Jenka asked her if she could bake flourless cakes. Ariel fell to the request and the challenge and has, since, always kept a little something sweet and flourless at the ready at the bakery. Over time, under the guise of quiet pleasantries, Ariel has grown more and more fond of Jenka and the two have slowly formed a gentle friendship (although that friendship is still a little wet behind the ears).

Relationships with NPCs

Dr. Katharine Daniels - psychologist, in New Haven, CT

Haruka Palmer - Ariel met Haruka when she was in high school. The older girl helped her to pull herself out of her depression, introduced her to the goodness that was hiding inside of her, and eventually after several years showed her what it was like to feel like she belonged to someone. For five years, Ariel rode on the gentle wave of Haruka's love, and then two months after she moved to Pleasant Port, that gentle wave disappeared across the ocean to manage the computer security for a Swiss bank. Ariel was distraught and would have sunk into depression again had it not been for Renea's guiding words, some new friends, and an indecent amount of baking.

What Other Characters Say About Ari

Fionnegan Gallagher: "That girl can cook! And I've found entirely new levels in several bad movies thanks to her brownies... She's a little on the tentative side, but she's a good kid."

Renea Cauldwell: "There's an amazing beauty that surrounds Ari. A quiet dignity that calms and soothes. I love that girl."

Scott Archer: "She is so sweet. She reminds me of a crystal shaped like a bird. You have to be careful, because she's fragile and you don't want to break her. If you break her, she'll fly off and you may never have another chance to hold her."

Travis Collins: "She cooks for me a lot, which I'm really thankful for. I would try to cook for her to pay her back, but I don't think that'd really be a good payback."

Fletcher Montgomery: "She is extremely hot and fun to flirt with. However, it's even cooler that she's a friend of Maddy's and takes good care of her."

Life

Activities: Riding bikes, hiking, horseback riding. Reading. Playing guitar and piano. Yoga and meditation. Inventing in her kitchen.

Likes: Nature, country music, cooking, suspense movies, Court TV, and bad B-rated horror films.

Dislikes: Her medication, lateness, people who are undependable.

Favorite film: "La Placard", "Metropolis", "The Trouble with Harry"

Favorite song: "City", by Sara Bareilles; "The Fairy Round", played by Goran Sollscher

Favorite quote: "People living deeply have no fear of death." -Anais Nin

"We cannot command nature except by obeying her." -Francis Bacon

Favorite meal: Garlic bread, extra cheese lasagna, and Welch's grape juice; followed by orange creme cake and a caramel macchiato with extra caramel.

Favorite color: Azure

Favorite book: History of Faeries, Kane and Abel, The Absolute Sandman

Favorite actor: Vincent D'Onofrio

Love Life

Status: Dating Travis Collins.

Crush: Travis Collins, Haruka Palmer.

First Kiss: When she was five, on the school bus.

Longest relationship: 5 years.

Ever had a broken heart: Yes, but not the way you think.

If you want to win her heart, you have to be: a little sweet and a little crazy. Hungry doesn't hurt either.

3 things she can't stand in guys or girls: closed-mindedness, tardiness, hypocrisy.

Does she believe in love at first sight? No. She believes in lust at first sight. Love has to grow.

For her, love is: hope.

Questionnaire

What makes her...

...Joyfully smile? The smell of freshly baked lemon loaf.

...Laugh quietly? A breeze, a smile, a day without pain.

...Get on the dancefloor? A gun to her head.

...Hide in the corner? A coughing fit.

...Cry her eyes out? Temporary insanity in the form of hopelessness.

...Lick her lips? A sun-warmed bar of chocolate.

Favorite…?

Snack: Red Velvet cupcakes, fresh cherries.

Beverage: Pepsi

Ice cream flavour: Cookie dough

Chocolate: with marshmallows and graham crackers.

Flower: Orchid- Laelia crispa.

TV show: Monk

Fast Food Restaurant: Wendy’s

Holiday: Fourth of July.

Sleeping position: Twisted up in the sheets.

What is/are...

Your biggest accomplishment: Going three years without a stay in the hospital.

The first thing you do in the morning? Put on my bloodstone amulet.

The worst thing you did as a child? Too many things to list.

The best advice you have ever received? Love yourself first. The rest will come later.

The best yet worst thing about you? My sense of mortality.

Ari's Theme Song

Things Ari Likes

Ari took the free ColorQuiz.com personality test! "Her need to feel more causative and to have a wide..."   Click here to read the rest of the results.

From 1993-1999, Ariel courted death, taking any drugs she could get her hands on, smoking constantly, and being taken in and out of the hospital almost constantly.
Ariel tends to have a hard time expressing herself verbally because she's always wary of being misunderstood. Instead, she offers food and silent companionship.

Celebrity used: Michelle Branch