Post by kayla on Mar 12, 2010 18:52:17 GMT -5
Kayla Shane Murdough
Steady as a preacher
Free as a weed
Couldn't wait to get goin'
But wasn't quite ready to leave
So innocent, pure and sweet
American honey
Full Name: Kayla Shane Murdough
Nicknames: Kay, K-Bear, La-La
Physical Age: 28
Date of Birth: July 16, 1981
Hometown: Winchester, KY
Current Residence: New Orleans, LA
Occupation: Cafe Owner
Relationship Status: Single
Character Type: Empath/Healer
Affiliations: Good
Gender: Female
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Brown
Height: 5'4
Weight: 105
Body Type:Slender/Willowy/Petite
Best Feature: Her huge smile
Worst Feature: Small chested, Wonder Bra...save me!
Sexuality: Straight as an arrow
Personal Style: Simple gal, she wears Wal-Mart fare; jeans, t-shirts, simple blouses but can dress up real nice when needed. Her cowboy boots are in good shape but have seen actually work, not a fashion statement. At work she's more likely to wear simple, country style dresses that one could find at any Sunday church service.
Face Claim: Amy Acker
Abilities: Epicurean Empathy - Her brand of empathic powers is a special flavor. What I mean is that she is not one to touch and sense emotions or even to just pluck them from the air. Neither can she just push her feelings on others. But...when she cooks, whatever she is feeling will go into the food. It gives the saying 'comfort food' a whole new meaning when you eat her cooking. The degree to which the eater is effected depends on a few variables; how intense her emotion is, the eater's willpower, if it is a surface emotion or something deeper, etc... A good example of this would be her noticing someone come in that is feeling down on their luck or sad and making something for them. In the process of cooking the sympathy and encouragement she would give to the person, the kindness she treats them with would transfer into the food, making the person feel better and give them a little hope when they ate it. It is more of a reflexive thing and she isn't aware of it happening but it doesn't happen -every- time she cooks.
She is also a natural healer. This one she is aware of and has had it since she was little. In theory she might be able to drag someone back from the brink of death but in practice no such drastic things have happened. She doesn't heal a person completely but rather aid their bodies in healing faster and helping themselves heal. Effects vary based on the degree of injury (kissing a scratch and making it heal as opposed to multiple gunshot wounds), and her own level of wellness and strength (stressed out, exhausted, etc..vs. healthy, well, and happy.) prior to attempting the healing. It takes it's toll on her and often she feels the pains of the other person, taking it into herself so that they don't have to have it. Sometimes she even takes on physical attributes of the injuries that she heals. In theory she could bring a person back from the brink of death but it's never come to that before and doing such a thing would risk her own life.
In the lines of more mundane skills and talents they are varied. She is an incredible cook and loves to do it. Kayla is a farm girl, having grown up mucking out stalls, riding horses, slopping hogs, feeding chickens, milking cows, etc..etc.. She's totally at home in a rural setting and is like a rabbit in the woods. She also has a pretty good singing voice if she can get past her shyness to get up and sing. She plays banjo and fiddle and guitar and can actually do those tricks with a lasso. There's some trick riding she can do too but it's not likely that she will get to use in New Orleans. She can hunt (as in furry critters, not supernatural things) and fish with the best of them, and is a darn good shot with a gun. She doesn't carry a gun though she does carry her Grandfather's knife in a sheath on her belt.
Personality: At first glance Kayla is a tiny, little shy thing that is likely to get eat up and spit out by the big bad city. While it's not her element, the girl has a bit stiffer stuff in her spine than it would appear. She keeps her wits in (most) bad situations and can be blunt as a hammer when you least expect it. Yes she's a little naive but not as much as most assume she is. And she doesn't use those big ten cent words often but she knows them. She's smarter than most give her credit for as well.
She's a sweetheart of a person, quick to help out a stranger in need. It's just how she was raised, real salt of the earth types. She's a sucker for a stray dog, crying child, or homeless person often helping others when it isn't safe or in her best interest. Many of the city's homeless come to her cafe not only for the great food but also because they know that she will not charge them and will be sure they are full. She cannot stand to see a person suffering or in pain.
Likes:
• Cooking
• Sunsets
• Animals
• Outdoor Activities(Camping/Hiking/Hunting/Fishing)
• Music (all kinds)
Dislikes:
• Violence
• Meanness
• Liver
• Roaches
• Uppity People
Strengths:
• Quick wit
• Intelligent
• Incredible Cook
• Pretty Voice
• Agile/Fast (within Human bounds)
Weaknesses:
• People in need
• Animals
• Children
• Rugged Men
• Shyness
Mother: Katherine Bailey Murdough
Father: Elijah Seymore Murdough
Siblings: Brother - Connor Seamus Murdough
Others: Grandparents (deceased) Connor Shane Murdough & Lillian Rose Murdough
Bio: From the time she could walk Kayla was helping on the family farm in Winchester, Kentucky, a rather rural community. It had always been in her family, passed from father to son as the generations grew. She was the baby of the family, the little girl but she was always all tomboy. She'd help her mother feed the animals and gather the eggs, pulling weeds in her chubby little toddler hands. And, even from a very young age she was stuck to her brother like glue.
She found out about the gift she had as a young girl, when her dog had been hit on the road and limped home. She hugged the animal and cried over him as she cleaned him up and doctored his wounds. Her father knew there was no point in taking him to the vet. The animal would die most likely and allowed her to stay in the barn with him over the night so she could be with him. Imagine their surprise when the morning came and the dog, still living and looking a lot better was there wagging his tail as he guarded over his young charge but seeing a very ill Kayla in the straw on the floor by him, looking deathly pale and ill.
Her grandfather recognized it immediately as he stood there with his son. She had inherited his gift. From then on he helped her, guided her, and taught her all that had been passed down to him and his grandfather before him and so on and so forth since the times before written word when the family hailed from Ireland's hills. She learned to better focus and control it and learned the limits she should place on what she could do so as not to risk ehr life.
As she grew older she learned to do other things, driving the tractor or the old farm truck around to the pastures, pitchin hay, mucking stalls, hard work but she always loved it. It was simply her way of life, all she knew. She was no stranger to riding horses, camping in the rough (no RVs here!) , hunting, field dressing the kill, roping cattle, sheering sheep, swimming in the creek, all those prosaic farm life activities that they took for granted.
But manual labor wasn't the only thing she learned. She also learned at her mother and grandmother's apron strings how to cook with the best of them. Her mother always said the secret was to put a little love into your cooking and it will show. And so she did, little knowing that she was truly passing on a bit of herself in her cooking.
As with most others in the little community she attended church regularly, Sunday morning and night as well as Wednesday night. All the pot luck dinners and lock-ins were normal and looked forward to. She even sang in the choir though she was shy when asked to sing a solo. She had a lovely voice but something about being up in front of all those people and seeing them looking back at her made her stage shy.
She was a bright student, always on the honor roll and took part in the usual activities that were common at her school, 4-H, FFA, and others. Every year she showed goats in the county fair and participated in the barrel racing and calf roping. She was just a tiny little slip of a thing but she had heart and determination, not to mention a sunny personality that endeared her to those that knew her. She was the quintessential girl next door with a strong tomboy streak.
At thirteen her grandfather gave her a special present; his old knife. It was a special knife, he said, had saved his life more than once. He'd found it in WWII when he and his unit were over in Europe fight Nazi's. He told her the story of how they'd come across the nearly destroyed church (in reality it was more of a monastery) and most of the building had been reduced to rubble. But the blade glinted in the light of the moon, half buried in the rubble near the altar. It was a beautiful piece; stag's horn handle with intricate designs carved into the horn and polished, the blade made of iron and sharp.He said he'd never had to sharpen it much over the years though, good craftsmanship he claimed.
From that day on she took to wearing it everywhere on her belt in a sheath. It became a staple of her wardrobe and that wasn't so unusual given where she lived. Everyone carried knives and had gun racks in the back windows of their pickups. She took it everywhere with her except for church. The brown leather belt didn't really go with her dresses, her mother had told her gently.
At sixteen she got her first job, working as a cashier at the Piggly Wiggly. She was a natural, friendly and chatty and made friends with everyone that came through, learning and using their names. Often the little old ladies that were regular customers would bring her a slice of homemade pie or some fresh banana bread they'd made to have with her lunch.
Graduation came and went and she did not go off to college despite having the grades for it. It just cost too much and her folks needed her help on the farm now that her brother was gone away to college. She continued working both at the Piggly Wiggly and on the farm, no stranger to hard work.
At twenty-one she went to work at the local watering hole, Cooter Browns, more honky tonk than pub.It was great fun, the music, the crowds. She was good at handling those touchy feely customers and deflecting their advances and propositions smoothly without causing drama. She was attentive and able to sweet talk men out of fights that would break up the bar and would cause the evening (and the tips) to go south. Those drunks that tried to leave with their car keys in their hands were smoothly taken care of, either a cab called or sometimes she even drove them home herself to make sure they got there safe. It was the kind of town where everybody knew everybody. At times the band would pull her up on stage to play with them or sing. She was pretty good with a guitar or a banjo or a even the fiddle. It was easier to perform up there with the crowd in darkness and the lights in her eyes but there was still some shyness about it.
Time passed and there were the normal life things; boyfriends, break-ups, weddings attended, funerals too. The hardest of them all was the funeral of her grandparents. They were killed by a drunk driver on their way home from what they called their date night, the two still so in love that they made a point to have one night a week to just enjoy their time together.
In the reading of the will she was surprised to find that they had owned a small cafe called The Sip and Nibble in New Orleans. It was a place they'd opened back just after World War II and never had the heart to sell even though they moved back to Kentucky. The building had sat vacant for years. She was even more surprised to find that they had left it to her as well as a chunk of money to fix it up and reopen it. Her grandfather wanted her to see the world and more than just her own back porch. A small piece of property came with it too, a living area above the cafe for her to live, the grounds out back enough to have a small garden and a small swimming pool.
She loaded up her old pickup and headed out, kissing her family and among the smiles and tearful goodbyes struck out on her own, armed with faith, hope, and her grandmother's recipe book to try to make a life for herself in the Big Easy.
The place was a wreck when she found it and it took a lot of work. But her sweetness and sunny disposition helped encourage the contractors that worked on it, not to mention the free food she always fixed them for lunch.
Within the last two years she's managed to make it a quaint little place with flowers out front and a striped awning. The little green space out back is well tended and the pool was even fixed up. She isn't on any tourist brochure but her cafe is known with the locals and the homeless in the area know where to come for a free hot meal. She turns no one away. Not even the stray animals that come sniffing for food at the side alley dumpster. Slowly she's making her way in the big city, trying to make her grans proud.
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