Name: Erika Cona
Age: 26
Sex: Female
Appearance: Brown hair, drawn into a ponytail, with her bangs parted in the middle and overhanging her brown eyes; wears old clothes; has a long scar going from below her left elbow to above her wrist, with two tattoos (one of the head and shoulders of a shadowy figure, wearing a cloak, and one of a female devil) on her upper left arm, and hides the inside of her right elbow with some cloth bandages. She wears a silver ring on her right fourth finger, marking her as an engineer. (This is standard in Canada. A bridge collapsed, and graduating students receive a ring made of real silver from that bridge.)
Background: As a child, Erika's parents had to leave regularly on business; as a result, from the time she was very young she, her twin brother and her younger sister were left with a babysitter. When Erika was two, her babysitter - a friend of her parent's - would leave her in closets for hours at a time. When she was three, something changed; she and her younger sister, then two, were physically abused by their babysitter. The bandages Erika wears on her arm hide old cigarette burns, but she was also hit and, once, raped, though she never told anyone. Her brother was always spared the abuse.
When Erika was four, she went deaf as a result of abnormal bone growth in her ear. She learned sign language and how to read lips, and spoke regardless. Not long after, her sister contracted TB, and died from it a short time later. It was the start of a TB outbreak, and Erika herself was infected as well. She survived, but only after a lengthy struggle, and she was five by the time she was completely cured. Her mother, happy to realise her daughter was recovering, hugged her - and contracted TB herself, not knowing Erika was still contagious. Erika's mother was the last to die from the TB outbreak. Her father, overcome by grief, threw Erika and her brother out of the house. The two had to go in different directions, but kept in regular contact over the years.
Erika found life on the streets tough, and survived by being equally tough. This earned her the nickname "Devil's Queen", which inspired one of her tattoos; the second was from being known as a mysterious person. When she was fifteen, Erika got surgery to correct the damage to her ears and restore her hearing, and now she speaks and hears normally. A highly intelligent girl with good grades all through school despite having little time to study, she got a degree in engineering, and now has an apartment. She keeps more regular contact with her brother, and lives comfortably. She broke up with a boyfriend just days after her baby's conception, and found he had moved out of country by the time she learned she was pregnant. Frustrated, Erika resigned herself to being a single mother. Now, her daughter Sahara is nearly five, and is beginning to show problems with reading.

((Cool tradition about the ring))

Name: Walter Del Toro.
Age: 26
Appearance: Looks a bit older than he is, mostly because of the brown stubble on his face and his unkempt brown waves of hair. His hair is medium lenght, about 4-5 inches long on the top part, but looks shorter due to its curling. The nape of nis neck is visible. His eyes are almond-shaped, hidden my a pair of square, metal-framed glases. His skin is lightly tanned, but it seems more like remnants of a natural tan in the past. Has hight cheekbones and thin nose, but full lips, indicating mixed heritage.

Usually dresses for the classroom in brown slacks and a short-sleeved button-down shirt of some neutral color, his shoes looking extremely run down. Barely visible are the holes for two earrings on the lobe of each ear.

Background: One of the middle children of quite the large family, he was never given as many duties as the elders, nor attention as the younger siblings, so he grew up being a bit of a rebel. While in middle school, he smoked, drank alcohol and even tried pot. Although quite smart, he didn't come to class enough nor studies enough to get good grades, but did manage to pass at every grade. On his final year of high school, he fell for a straight-laced freshman little girl, the smart kind who was too shy to have many friends. He started hitting on her, and eventually the two began an ill-advised relationship.

Because of passing his aptitude test with flying colors, despite his terrible grades, he managed to get into a good university and began studies in Hispanic Studies. While he was finishing his first year, his sweetheart a sophomore, he found out he'd gotten her pregnant. Despite the killing intent from both families, he stood by her, and even began working part-time and keeping up with his studies, doing his best for once in his life to handle his responsibilities. However, because of weak constitution and too much stres, his wife died when she was seven months in. All dreams of becoming a writer and columnist were put on hold: he needed a stable job and fast. He was now alone, with a daughter to protect and care for, and barely any time in his life. His degree in Hispanic studies turned to a degree in education, and he began working full time as soon as he graduated. By the time he graduated, his daughter was already 2, so he didn't have to leave her with roommates, he would just bring her to class with him. The daughter's name is Fabiola, in honor of her late mother, and she's 5 going on 6.

Nice profile. I tend to prefer our characters being the same age, though. Little quirk of mine. I can make Erika younger if you'd rather keep Walter the same age. Should I start us up?

Due to his backstory and the rush in every aspect of his life, if we want to keep the kids in the same age, I can't change his age, but if you want to change hers, I wont mind. Please do, I'm not the best starting off >.< I tend to mirror my partner in length and depth. Thanks!

All right ^^ I think I'll start off with our character's kids meeting, or at least playing together. Fabiola could come over to play, I guess, if you think that's what she'd do.

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It was free time before snack, and the kindergarteners had twenty minutes to enjoy themselves before eating a cookie, going to gym, and going home at noon. For her part, Sahara Cona was in the sandbox, digging a hole, and patting the extracted sand into a little mound next to it. A little plastic zebra lay on its side in the sand beside her.

Sahara was a spitting image of her mother, except that her eyes were green. Her hair was still short - she was too active to have it very long - but that didn't help much to keep it neat. It and her clothes were already full of sand, but she didn't notice or care. Fortunately for her, she and her classmates were too young to notice her clothes were second-hand, and the hole in one knee of her jeans wasn't too out of place considering her age.

She soon abandoned the small plastic trowel she was using in favour of her hands. She took a handful and sprinkled it lightly on her knee, the one with the hole in it, and giggled.

Near the sandbox, not daring to go in, was a smaller girl. Although Fabiola was roughly the same age, she had a smaller constitution, and was behind the rest of the kids in height. She had bright red hair, silk smooth and tied into two high pigtails, and dressed in boyish pants and a rocker shirt, tiny boots on her feet. Despite this "fearsome" clothing, she seemed quite timid.

Looking at Sahara with huge blue eyes, she whispered, "Do you... want to...?" As she said this, she showed her a pair of dolls, both with their hair messed up in attempts at giving them haircuts, their clothes handmade.

Sahara looked up at the whisper. She knew Fabiola - she was the one with the funny name (naturally, Sahara didn't think of her own name as "funny"). She also thought of Fabiola as a friend, though at their age almost everybody was friends. She smiled. 'Sure!' She picked up her zebra and held it up. 'This is Zed! He's my zebra. He can play with us, too!'

She stood up as she spoke and came over, the hole forgotten. She hadn't actually played with Fabiola before this, but that was no reason not to.

Fabiola looked at the little zebra with a little awkward smile. She found nothing wrong with the zebra, she just wasn't particularly good expressing emotions. "Zed... this is Mesopotamia... and this is Babilonia..." she whispered, showing each of her dolls in turn. "Please treat them nicely..."

With a slight grimace, she said to Sahara, "You can play with Mesopotamia if you want to... But you have to be careful, she is really sensitive..."

'Okay!' Sahara said happily. She reached out for the doll. 'Does she like playing in sand?'

"Only if her hair doesn't get sandy..." Fabiola responded, looking up, as if reminiscing. "You have to take really good care of her hair, she had it cut so she looks so pretty like that. Its fine if its the clothes, because she has other ones."

'Okay!' Sahara said. She skipped back to the sandbox and sat down in front of the hole.

(She talks a lot more like a nine or ten year old than a five year old.)

((She probably has slight Asperger, hence the awkward facial expressions and such))

Fabiola looked at the sandbox, walking around its perimeter, until she found just the right spot to climb into it. She made a little clearing of the sand, sitting down meticulously. Once again, she smiled awkwardly at Sahara, showing the doll. "Can we play house? Mesopotamia and Babilonia can be the mommies and Zed can be their baby."

(All right.)

Sahara laughed. 'People don't have zebra babies! People have zebra friends!' Naturally, "pet" wouldn't do. Pets were dogs, fish, cats, or the like, as far as Sahara knew.

"But he's adopted of course!" she said, as if the whole world could understand the complex world that was racing through her mind. "Like in Superman, except with two moms!" Fabiola didn't like being contradicting, everything in her world made perfect sense according to her.

'But he's mine,' Sahara said, apparently confused. 'He can't be adopted if he's mine.'

“But you’re playing Mesopotamia, so its fine,” Fabiola reasoned. “He’ll still be yours, so long as you play Mesopotamia.”

Sahara thought about it for a moment, then shook her head. 'No. He's their friend.'