EMILIA DOWNS has been in Eden Ros for FOUR MONTHS, and is from DALLAS, TEXAS. She is 29 and works at EAST OF EDEN as a MANAGER & OWNER. Rumor has it, she's a WITCH associated with NO COVEN. She is CHARISMATIC and CONFIDENT, but also MANIPULATIVE (CONTROLLING) and JUDGEMENTAL.
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tw - child sexual assault, parental abuse- neither is written out explicitly in detail but heavily alluded to. as a child, emilia was sexually abused by her father. skip to "AND MONEY, WHILE GREEN, ISN'T ETERNAL." to avoid any mentions of this content. additional trigger warnings for parental absence and murder.
THE ROTTEN APPLE DOESN'T FALL TOO FAR FROM THE SICKLY TREE. but when a baby girl is welcomed into the world, she's beloved. rosy cheeks and granny smith eyes, cradled by the arms that had brought her into this world. " Isn't she perfect? " mother coos. " The apple of my eye. " says father, with a grin sharp enough to cut into the ripe skin of her. they give her the name of her mother- ede, now edie. but not before the influence of her father, naming her firstly after the fruit she resembled so strongly- milia, greek for apple, only altered with a beginning e to tie the baby to the family.
they shut the child they're so proud of away in their home, protecting her from onlooking eyes, green with envy, by the will of an overprotective father. emilia's homeschooled so far as they can keep her, only allowed outside in the privacy of their own backyard, walled in by tall rose bush shrubs that emilia can't reach on her mary-janed tiptoes, thorned to keep the neighbors out, and keep the sweet little girls in. they bring in teachers, nannies, doctors to look after emilia in all the ways a mother and father can't. she'd want for nothing, kept as shiny as a porcelain doll without a single bite taken out of her. a father protects her from the world, so he might keep her all to himself.
even with all these people around, nobody believes emilia's nightmares. not mother, braiding emilia's hair with ribbon and softly chucking. " You know, Edie, your grandmother used to tell stories, too. She got scary, all wrapped up in her own head. Speakin' in tongues and ... awful things like that. Then she went far, far away to a doctor that could help her. One day, we stopped gettin' letters from the doctor, saw on news that the whole building got swept away in a big 'ol storm. They say your grandmother went with them. " it's terribly unnerving for an abused child, the way she shrugs the story off. emilia stopped begging her mother to believe her, after that. she learned to be silent and still when the door of her bedroom began to jiggle, late in the unholy hours of the night. her toes curled, and nausea crept up her stomach, but she hadn't said a word. she hears the home doctors asking her father questions about bruises and special tests that he pays off with big cases of black and green. emilia's beginning to learn that enough money can make people do anything.
" Dad, why can't I go see a real doctor? " He sighs, rubbing his temple as his eyes flicker towards the door. " Milia, we've all gotta' survive. "
AND MONEY, WHILE GREEN, ISN'T ETERNAL. her father takes it all with him when he leaves emilia and her mother behind. his only kindness is leaving them behind an empty husk of a house, filled only with the library books that hadn't gone with them. he's gone in the dead of night, the silence cloaking him as his car tears off into the night. emilia watches from the window, the headlights blaring against a shadow-blanketed neighborhood. she goes to bed that night pretending like she hadn't prayed for this, awaking to the sound of her mother's sobs and screams at the sight of an empty bed.
emilia won't remember a childhood full of her mother's emotional instability, though she knows it's because of the poison that her father's left behind. though he's gone, there isn't a day that emilia doesn't hear about him, or his new family. at her worst, mother shoves the pictures in her face of his new wife, and new daughter. emilia can't help but memorize that little girl's face.
she stops talking, becoming a quiet child, now teenager, knowing that her mother isn't listening, no matter what she says. her reserved personality persists at school, too, though emilia is undeniably different than young children. while they can't afford to homeschool her any longer, emilia learns faster, better, harder than her peers- and she doesn't stop at the materials within the classroom. she makes friends in the pages of books and magazines, devouring each one with a savage need to understand and discover.
the women on the pages of the magazines conjure their own confidence, and while emilia remembers a time when brand names had mattered to their family, she makes ensembles out of whatever she can find. not old, but vintage. not plain, but chic. trends matter to her before emilia builds a style of her own. at the same time as her fashion sense, her vocabulary blossoms, and leads her to parts of the library to find books with her grandmother's name inscribed on the inside of the front cover. her mother is too lost in her own grief to care about whatever strange material emilia had gotten her hands on, and the girl is lost in a world of the occult, alchemy, astrology, and astral projection.
emilia's still far and away alone, not out on a friday night with any other girl friends when she hears a man in her and her mother's house for the first time in years. more than a man, he'd become the monster in emilia's dreams. HER FATHER HAS RETURNED. in the night, perhaps he has come to take something else from them. come to take her mother, come to take what he'd taken away from emilia, come to hurt both of them, just as he'd done before. she watches in horror as her mother pours him a glass of wine, just as she's always done, with a smile that says she's been waiting for this. emilia, sick to her stomach, quickly conducts a plan. the law might say that poison is too pre-meditative to be considered manslaughter- a reduced charge, she knows -but emilia doesn't plan on getting caught.
a clever girl, nearly a woman, now, can get anything if she asks the right way. snake poison is how emilia kills her father, slipping it into the wine bottle that her mother saves especially for him. she isn't there to see his body fall to the floor, though she hears the heavy, satisfying sound of it from her bedroom. she doesn't see him seize, she's not there when he dies, and the downs family has had enough of their women going off the rails. emilia is taken in for questioning, but not without a lawyer. the police never find anything ... but her mother does.
AT 18, EMILIA IS COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY ALONE. turned away and scorned by her mother that doesn't answer a single call, though emilia supposes she's happy to not be arrested. what had her silence done to serve her? what had been the point of making herself invisible, and small? she finds a new passion- a new look as she hands in a job application for a little boutique in town, mustering up a confidence that's entirely artificial, and only becomes natural over time.
she's certain that this is where she's meant to be: surrounded by other women who shine, clothes, and a collective reason to be together like a mock sense of sisterhood. she tends to the shop and her coworkers like a garden of her own. she learns what the others like and becomes someone that they adore. after two years, someone unexpected arrives at their doorstep, a face that emilia knows like the back of her hand. A SISTER OF HER OWN. shared by the poisonous blood of her father, though the man is long dead and all that matters to emilia is that she's here, now. at first, her half-sister takes to her like a house on fire, and in return, she becomes the center of emilia's world. and everything's perfect, a natural, powerful harmony ... until her sister starts asking questions. it's a tattle-tale game of cat and mouse where she dares emilia, poking the bear of infernality with " I'll tell everyone you did it! I know what you did to Dad. " at least, that's what emilia hears- and it's all she hears before her sister's voice is muffled beneath the roaring waves of blood in emilia's ears.
a wild storm comes, UNPREDICTABLE, the weathermen say- washing away the sin of what emilia had done to a half-sister who's tongue was no longer her problem. emilia flees the life she'd come to love at the boutique with a supernatural hunter on her trail. one not so easily charmed as the police had been, the first time- though it opens the floodgates to a world that emilia had been entirely unaware of. the idea that emilia had never fit in, had never wanted to- had all been for the reason that she was something else entirely. a witch. she's a quick learner, explosive in her desire to know more and learn. emilia has a natural talent for alchemy, channeling her divine rage into the fusion of ingredients, bonding by the will of her magic to create something entirely new. she obsesses over every detail in every potion or spell, eventually succeeding with a skill that draws the attention of nataliya petkova. the two of them, stubborn with their trust, find a way to work together. emilia decides quickly that her safety is worth the cost of her pride and whatever magic a hunter might need.
following nataliya's need for a witch in her back pocket lands her in EDEN ROS, across the world from the states but no less ripe for the picking. emilia's eager for a fresh start, and takes it along with the knowledge that she'll need to be around for some vampire hunt. emilia grows a garden of her own with EAST OF EDEN, a boutique to mirror the one she'd fallen in love with before her world caved in for the second time, teaching a young woman a solid lesson about trust. emilia's not committed to sticking around, or even liking it here, but while the circumstances are right, she's interested- and very interested in the supernatural activity that eden ros houses. she feels more powerful than she ever has.
emilia works with a hunter regularly, and has no qualms about it. so long as they don’t hurt her, she doesn’t have a problem with them. everybody’s gotta’ eat, and emilia knows there’s a fair share of monsters out there.
emilia loves fashion. (i take a lot of style inspo from the movie forbidden fruits that her fc is in) her appearance and fashion sense and a sense of put togetherness and Serving CuntTM is high up on her priority list.
emilia’s witch focus is potion-making, she has a natural talent for it, and has learned other skills second to that. she especially loves poisons, and tending to her garden of herbs to use in potions, deadly and otherwise.
FULL NAME emilia edie downs.
NICKNAME(S) milia, edie.
DOB december 23rd, 1996.
AGE 29.
HEIGHT 5'6"
ZODIAC SIGN capricorn sun, gemini moon, scorpio rising.
GENDER IDENTITY cis-female, she/her pronouns.
ORIENTATION lesbian.
SPECIES primal witch.
OCCUPATION manager and owner of east of eden. unofficially- fashion advice-giver to anyone that has the misfortune of crossing her path.
SPOKEN LANGUAGES english, french, latin, though mostly read.
BIRTHPLACE + CURRENT RESIDENCE born and raised in dallas, texas. currently resides in eden ros, scotland as of four months ago .
FAMILY evelyn downs - missing grandmother, likely deceased, edelyn downs - estranged mother, ptolemy downs - deceased father, and half-sister, [redacted].
CHILD(REN) none and for good reason, she could not care less.
PETS none.
RELATIONSHIP STATUS single.
SCENT enchanted apple -
top notes: red apple, black currant, frankincense, cinnamon, cloveheart notes: “black”rose, black tea, tonka bean, roasted vanilla bean, nutmeg, black pepperbase notes: patchouli, cedarwood, labdanum, myrrh, oakmoss, synthetic civet, castoreum & musk accords
ATHLETICS really nothing, however she does weekly pilates and yoga.
BODY TYPE hourglass-leaning figure with soft, rounded hips.
EYES striking, bright green eyes. round and shaped by long eyelashes.
TATTOOS "Soror" in cursive script along the inside of her right arm. "Desire Dedication Devotion Discipline" on her lower-back in the same cursive script, with one word on each line.
PIERCINGS double lobe ear piercings.
SMOKING mainly for ritualistic purposes and with herbal substances. it's not smoking, it's praying! she's not particularly against smoking cigarettes.
DRINKING mainly for ritualistic purposes + socially ... which is sometimes part of the ritual.
HOBBIES being in control :), tending to east of eden, fashion, gardening ( a small herbal garden to use in potions, featuring poisonous flowers and greenery ), and finally, emilia's secret weakness is her hunger for learning, which expands beyond but focuses heavily on witch related knowledge. if you can convince her that you know something that she doesn't, you've got her interest ... so long as the knowledge you're dangling over her head isn't boring.
FAVOURITE COLOUR red, and give it up a little for green, too.
FAVOURITE DRINK hot chestnut praline latte with oat milk.
FAVOURITE FOOD crunchy apple salad w/ bacon, feta, maple-cider vinaigrette, and toasted pecans.
CLOTHING STYLE dramatic and chic with dabbling in dark romantic styles. this makes sense to me. a little "preppy" might also make sense with emilia's love for matching sets- esp matching jackets. prefers cropped clothes, and similarly short bottoms. she loves deep, plunging necklaces and black ribbons. leather and lace, though not always at the same time. one thing about emilia is that she always loves to dress up, and you will never seen her slacking and not in heels or heeled boots. she also loves mini dresses, and wears tights often, and sometimes even knee high socks. there's a strict dress code for east of eden employees, and emilia typically follows it even outside of store hours. i take a lot of style inspo from the movie forbidden fruits that her faceclaim is in, and here is every outfit that she wears in the film, very emilia coded.
FINANCIAL STATUS middle class. she's a saver, goddess bless. her wardrobe boasts a grander wealth than she's worth, but emilia's thrifty!
CRIMINAL RECORD clean ... technically. off the record, she killed her father and half-sister.
VICES her own hubris and a desire for control.
DIAGNOSES nothing formally diagnosed, the section is under construction as i continue to develop her. at the least, emilia has c-ptsd. more potentially tbd.
ALIGNMENT neutral evil.
LIKES mini skirts, matching sets, bolero jackets, heels, magic, poison, apples, spooky shit, anything black, red, or green.
DISLIKES the morality police, anything dull or boring, men … generally, has a distaste for humans so i’ll throw that here too, virgins.
POSITIVE TRAITS charismatic, confident, creative, clever, passionate, perceptive, polished, sophisticated, witty.
NEUTRAL TRAITS ambitious, enigmatic, glamorous, intense, mystical, skeptical, alone.
NEGATIVE TRAITS manipulative, controlling, cruel, emotionally distant/unavailable, critical, obsessive, paranoid, possessive, vindictive.
MBTI entj-a - the commander.
ENNEAGRAM type 8 - the challenger.
PHOBIAS being alone, irrelevant, and fading into obscurity.
THREAT LEVEL medium. emilia can resort to physical violence but it is entirely dependent on her emotional state, and isn’t entirely successful unless her opponent is weaker/smaller than her. emilia’s threat and power resides in her magic and mental ability.
STRENGTHS/ABILITIES potion-making (especially poisons, though not limited to), spellcasting, moderate ability/learning wards & sigils as they pertain to hunters. aspires to learn divination and curses.
WEAKNESSES typical witch weaknesses, and easy to physically overpower with skill if you can get close enough to her.
FACECLAIM lili reinhart, with distinct, deep red hair.
