Israfel, Angel of Song
played by Chickenhound

Name: Ranita (jingling - Hindi) Kerani (holy bells - Hindi)

Nickname: Just Rani for short.

Alias: Israfel

Gender: Female

Age: 15

Birth Date: March 18, which makes her a Pisces.

Birthplace: Haryana, India

Blood Type: AB

Family: Lakshman, her father, Anastasia, her mother, both of which are still living in Haryana, and Kaoru Shima, her cousin, whom she is living with in Japan.

Hair: Ranita gets her straight, thick, ebony hair from her father. There is usually no set style for her, as she had her hair many different lengths over the past ten years, although she has never colored it. At the moment, it just clears her shoulder blades and is layered. She constantly experiments with it, never having the same style two days in a row.

Eyes: Ranita’s wide, clear emerald eyes are received from her mother, who isn’t Indian, and hails from England.

Body: Ranita’s skin tone is best described as caramel. She is too light to be chocolate, and too dark to be olive. She’s a tiny little snippet of a girl, only 5'4" and possesses what’s best described as a dancer’s build, with long, thin limbs. She’s not exactly voluptuous, although she does have a womanly figure. Just not the breasts to go with it.

Marks: If you look very closely, you can see a few scars on her throat.

Clothing: Ranita has an interesting sense of style, to say the least. She accepts all colors of the spectrum (although she prefers the darker, paler, and more earthy shades) and puts different types of clothes together to create something entirely fuc- entirely new. Such as... a slip and a pair of jeans. A pair of pants and a skirt over it. Two layers of skirts, of different lengths. The thing is, however, that nothing she wears grabs people’s attention, that’s not their purpose. She doesn’t waddle around in a fluffy petticoat and a neon pink feather boa, she’s not that outlandish. Her clothes are different, but not that different. Does that make any sense? Probably not... ah, well. She likes peacoats and scarves, boots and soft leather. She also makes a lot of her clothes. And despite the fact that you can barely see her scars, she still feels the need to cover most of her neck with heaps of necklaces.

Most Prized Possession: All of her musical instruments, and her notebooks full of writing.

Hobbies: After her incident, Rani still wanted to be musically talented in some way. So she’s taken up a few instruments. At the moment, she can play the guitar and the keyboard, and she wants to take up the violin and possibly a wind-instrument, although her injury may prevent her from playing one properly. Besides that, Rani also has learned to enjoy the literary world, and has already claimed a few favorite authors. She also writes a bit on the side, mostly poetry and prose.

Occupation: Ranita works part-time at Kaoru’s tiny bookstore, but she’s mostly just a student.

Food: Fried bananas (there’s a name for these, isn’t there?), and since her stay in Japan, she’s developed an unhealthy obsession with sushi and pizza with seafood toppings.

Fears: Rani avoids dogs like the plague. Besides that... her biggest fear has become a reality.

Goals: She used to have big goals, being an enormous singing star, touring the world. But those dreams are gone. Now, Rani feebly hopes to have some of her writing published.

Positive Characteristics: Err... she’s cute? And... ah... sweet... looking, anyway. She’d do [one-fourth of] anything you’d ask her to. Ah, screw it. She’s quiet.

Negative Characteristics: Despite how she appears on the outside, Rani hides a lot of her misery. Although it may seem like she’s not that mopey girl who tried killing herself two years ago, she still feels the pain of a lost dream, and this pain goes untreated, because she never shows it. She also has a tendency to rely on her instinct, and believe you me, there is definitely something wrong with Ranita’s instinct.

Personality: Well... she doesn’t speak too much. She’s ashamed of her voice and goes to great lengths to keep from talking, even as far as learning a bit of sign language and carrying a notepad around wherever she goes so she can write down the things she wants to say to people. She’s become very expressive with her body language as well.
Honest to god, Ranita is trying really hard to be... well, not the person she used to be, but happy again. She gets upset when she still feels depressed about what happened, but she doesn’t want to share her pain, and only covers it up and tries even harder to be happy.
But, really, she’s just this cute, innocent girl who truly believes that sixty-nine is just the number that comes after sixty-eight and before seventy. She’s helpful and sweet until the second or third favor you ask of her, then she turns into a real wench, strained smiles and deliberately dropping hot coffee in your lap and all that. So it’s best to just stand by and observe her cuteness. You keep your ability to have children that way.
So... err... yes, I’m writing this down as it comes. It may or may not make sense by the time I get to the writing sample. @_@
Oh, and yes... I figure she’d be fun for Asmodeus to disturb and confuse and eventually, corrupt. Whee!

History:
Past - Israfel, the angel who had the most skilled hand with the lute and the most beautiful voice in Heaven. She played something like a nightingale for God, soothing Him with her voice, assisting the many others in keeping His insanity at bay. That was basically her job, to sing for and love God. But eventually, Israfel’s voice and love found the want of another. God’s jealousy was unparalleled, and Israfel’s lover found a horrible punishment, although Israfel was not harmed herself. The next time she tried to find happiness, the same thing happened. Israfel came to the realization that God would not share her, and continued her existence miserably loyal to Him.
Upon the rebellion, Israfel had driven herself into such a state where she blindly accepted dealing out God’s vengeance. Her songs, too, had lost all meaning and beauty, but God was simply too far gone by then to notice.

Present - Ranita was born to an English woman and an Indian man. She grew up Haryana, but in a more English household. Her English is better than her Hindi, and she isn’t as familiar with Indian customs as with American and British ones. In any case, from the cradle and up, Ranita has always been singing. And holy cheezits, could she sing. Often, it was eerie that such a strong, beautiful voice came from a girl so small. She dreamed of her talent being discovered, and someday becoming famous with her songs. Well, you know... misery loves company.
Three years ago, Ranita was attacked by a rabid dog. Some people were able to rip the dog off before it killed her, but the animal had gone straight for her throat and done some serious damage there. Obviously, she survived it, but her voice was ruined. It’s not like she can’t speak at all; her voice is just crackly and hoarse and gurgly and most definitely not the kind of voice you want to hear trying to belt out a note better than Whitney Houston.
It all just goes downhill from here. Being that Rani’s life mostly relied on her voice, she felt that she had nothing to live for, and attempted to commit suicide. Upon catching her doing so once, her parents decided that she needed a change, since everybody knew what happened and she got pity everywhere she went. So, a year after the incident, Ranita flew from India to Japan to live with her mother’s cousin. After living there for two years, Rani has gotten better. She’s picked up an interest in writing, and spends a lot of her time studying Japanese. Most of the time, she can’t fit slitting her wrists into her schedule.

Writing Sample: Ranita scribbled down the last few characters of her homework, then shut the book with a satisfied slam. She flexed her sore fingers for a moment, looking woefully at the guitar propped up in a corner of her room. Her fingers were stiff, and felt slow; she couldn’t play the instrument properly with tingly fingers. Oh well... it’s a nice day. I think I’ll go out.

After taking a moment to pack up her books and stowing them on the trunk at the bottom of her bed, Rani turned the lights off and slipped out of her bedroom, shutting the door behind her. As she walked past the living room, Kaoru looked up from her book. “Oh, Rani! Are you going out?” The girl’s raven-haired head nodded immediately; she understand Japanese very well now, and no longer hesitated to answer questions, like she did when she had first arrived to live with her mother’s cousin.

“Then... can you go to the store and get this for me?” Kaoru put her book to the side and picked up a pad, scribbling down a few items before ripping the paper off and handing it to Ranita. The green-eyed adolescent walked forward to accept it with a strained smile. She really didn’t have anything to do, but she felt like relaxing when she went out, not running errands.

She walked back to the front door and slid open the closet. Pulled on a pair of tall leather boots, a shade of tan that went nicely with her green knit leggings and brownish-skirt. She looked like a walking leaf. After the boots came a shawl of the same color, loosely knit and honestly not doing much of anything but looking pretty. It wasn’t very cold anyway. The little shopping list nestled in between a worn, wirebound notebook and a Japanese issue of A Tale of Two Cities in Ranita’s shoulderbag. Once she made she had money for the train, she slinked out of the house. The heels of her boots hit the concrete of the sidewalk with a quiet tap, and she breathed in deeply the fall air, the turning leaves, so crisp and sharp, cool but still warm as it filled her lungs. Yes, today was a very nice day.

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