Bailey's last assignment had been nothing like "The Broken Scales of Themis."
There was certainly some level of formality to it, but only so much could be managed when half the new recruits were stumbling sideways as waves tipped the ship to and fro. Their commander shouted over the creak of the boat to a small gaggle of newcomers who didn't know the meaning of "sea legs" yet. They'd voiced their understanding of their orders, shaking and wet, while trying to hold down supper and not really understanding much at all.
Even her orientation had felt somehow...less. They'd impressed upon her the importance of what she was to be doing, and there was a good chunk of movement from one place to the next that she simply couldn't remember. She'd learned quickly memories were slippery in organizations built around secrecy. It hadn't killed her excitement, however; she still popped up at the end of orientation with a smile and eagerly accepted her first assignment.
This was different. This was cool eyes watching her movement across the room, a group of strangers all sitting in a circle looking less inclined to introductions and more inclined to simply get down to the brass tacks. On the ship, they'd found time to laugh, to play pranks. Bailey couldn't see that same levity here.
She took her seat, offering a nod to who she assumed was the Commander, and glanced at her fellow teammates. Coworkers? Peers. There was a heaviness to the air that sat on her shoulders, weighing her down into the curve of her seat. She wondered if she could sink right in, wait for the others to finish. But that's not who Bailey Brennan was, and she rolled her shoulders to shake the weight away. This wasn't a hole to get buried in, this was an opportunity. She was so good at grabbing those with both hands. So she sat up straight and held onto the edges of a smile as introductions worked their way around the circle until they made it to her.
"Hiya, I'm Bailey. Urban Myth." Her smile ticked up, just at the edges. She liked the moniker that had been given to her. "I'm a little less Bigfoot," she crooks a thumb towards the one who'd introduced themselves as Loch, "And a little more deep-sea mythology. Think I get more seasick on land than on a boat at this point."
Bailey thought a lot of things, it was sort of a specialty of hers. Think herself silly, think herself into a PhD. Think herself into a foundation that seemed to value her thinking just enough to ship her to the middle of the forest to think on their terms just a little longer. Gosh, she wished she knew just what she was doing, sitting in a room full of people who varied from I shouldn't be here to lighting a cigarette and telling the boss to take five. She just couldn't think herself around that one.
She grins, "Don't think we'll be finding Scylla or Charybdis out here, but I've got you covered, if we do."
𝐍𝐈𝐂𝐊𝐍𝐀𝐌𝐄𝐒: none, really. bailey anne when she's in trouble
𝐅𝐀𝐂𝐄 𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐈𝐌 jenna coleman
𝐃𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐔𝐈𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐅𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐄𝐒
she has dimples when she smiles wide, but only then
𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐎𝐎𝐒 / 𝐏𝐈𝐄𝐑𝐂𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒
two piercings in her ears, one in the lobe and one across the top. the only tattoo she has to speak of is an outline of a mother long-neck and a baby long-neck essentially hugging on her wrist. it's just a black outline, and it's small enough it could reasonably be missed
𝐀𝐆𝐄 / 𝐃.𝐎.𝐁. 35, 7/14/88
𝐙𝐎𝐃𝐈𝐀𝐂
gemini – versatile, adaptive, energetic, quick-witted. bailey is typically good at adjusting to group dynamics, but doesn't lose her positive edge. she's always on her toes.
𝐇𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐓𝐎𝐖𝐍 astoria, oregon
𝐅𝐀𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐘
she has a mother and father, both moved to the east to be with her mother's side of the family after she moved out
𝐇𝐀𝐁𝐈𝐓𝐒
she's been struggling with biting at her nails since she was little. it's something she picked up in school and has been a hard habit to kick. it's gotten better over the years, but it's noticeable when she's nervous, or over-eager. there's also the pen clicking, some of her peers and superiors have been known to take pens away from her.
𝐇𝐎𝐁𝐁𝐈𝐄𝐒
hiking! and sailing. she had a tiny little Hobie her father finally set her free on when he was confident she could manage, about 16 years old. on clear, windy days she'd take it up the Columbia.
𝐏𝐄𝐓𝐒 (𝐋𝐄𝐅𝐓 𝐀𝐓 𝐇𝐎𝐌𝐄)
no pets, but if she had pets she'd be a dog person. she likes to think she could handle a husky, maybe some day she'll put it to the test.
THE FOUNDATION.
𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐅𝐅 𝐓𝐈𝐓𝐋𝐄: MTF Junior Operative, though she would love to be a Researcher, please let her be a researcher, who does she need to pay to be a researcher, Commander hello she would like to apply for a position as–
𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐕𝐈𝐎𝐔𝐒 𝐏𝐎𝐒𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍(𝐒):
Junior Operative with MTF Gamma-6, "Deep Feeders"
𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐓 𝐀𝐒𝐒𝐈𝐆𝐍𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓:
Tracking and capture of instances of SCP-2120
𝐒𝐊𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐒 / 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄𝐒:
Bailey has her PhD in Psychology with a focus on Parapsychology. Her fascination with the unknown and why people believe in it has led to many dog-eared books on her bookshelf and a wealth of knowledge on phenomena that probably aren't even SCPs. Additionally, her time spent at sea both from a young age with her father and as an operative assigned to SCP-2120 has turned her into quite the sailer.
EXTRAS.
𝐁𝐈𝐎𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐏𝐇𝐘:
Astoria, Oregon perched itself at the mouth of the Columbia River, weather-beaten and spending most of its days in a grey haze. Mostly, it was claims to fame from the 80s, and haggard fishermen pulling the day's catch in with ratty nets and water-logged crab pots. Its houses were ramshackle and its people were tired. The main drag was almost enough to spark life in the summer months, boasting corner shops and kites for windy days, but those months were fleeting in the face of the Pacific Northwest winters.
Bailey Anne Brennan grew up diving between those ramshackle houses. She learned to drive a stick shift up the steep hills, rolling all the way to the bottom every time she stalled. She'd slide belly-first through the muck and mud of the Columbia when the tide was low, throw mud-pies at her friends, rinse off when the tide washed in once more. She knew every crook and cranny, every back alley, which house was the Goonies house, how many steps it took to cross the Astoria-Megler Bridge, how little room there was to dream in a town that only offered boats and tourism.
The ice cream shop was good, they hired high schoolers who dreamed big but always washed up. Bailey didn't want an ice cream shop.
Bailey wanted more. She could remember standing on her tip toes at the bow of her father's pilot boat, little hands clutched around the railing, wind whipping her hair into her face. She could remember looking deep, deep into the channel and wondering what was down there. What lurked in the depths. Astoria was so, so very small, but right at its doorstep a whole world lay hidden. She would stand on the rocks on the jetty and look out to where the sky met the ocean and think there was so much world, why did people choose to stay in a town that could only ever look out and wonder.
The problem was most people didn't wonder at all. Her mother was happy to sit at home and knit, selling most of it to a local tourist trap that didn't pay enough. Her father loved his boat. He would look at Bailey, and she knew he knew. He had a glimmer in his eye, as though he would never steer his boat towards the horizon, but he knew she would. He'd smile just around the edges and tell her to be careful as she tipped just a little too far over the bow. Her mother said be a darling, help Mr. Catalina with his ice cream shop. Her father said dream.
She was seventeen and too big for the little sailboat she'd putter around in when her father took her out for what she thought would be a day guiding barges through the channel. He pointed the bow towards the horizon and gunned it. She could remember laughing as the wind turned from playful to pure force, yelling as the waves broke over the railing.
Astoria was but a thought on the horizon far, far away by the time he killed the engines. It was surreal, the way the sea calmed around them. The waves settled, the wind died down to a breeze. Bailey had always been fascinated by what she couldn't see, always diving into caves with dark corners, always looking over the edge of the pilot boat to catch a glimpse of something, but this? For the first time, Bailey felt a chill run up her spine.
Thoughts of fancy turned into a pit in her stomach, something dark and roiling and exciting all at once. Like when she was small, she stood tip-toes on the prow, and wrapped her hands around the railing. She tipped out and out and stared down. The water turned from grey-blue to deep, endless black. She stared and stared until it felt as though something far, far beneath seemed to take shape.
Her hands gripped tighter and she thought I shouldn't know this and I want to know this and closed her eyes. Behind her, her father smiled that same knowing smile. He knew. Soon, Bailey would leave Astoria, Oregon. She would dream bigger than the coastline, bigger than his little boat and her mother's knitting.
She would leave Astoria, but Astoria wouldn't leave her.
𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒
THE ROLE MODEL – Bailey is trying her absolute best to be her absolute best. She is looking to those around her for guidance, absorbing what they do and how they act, measuring her own actions against those she feel are both much more capable, and much more experienced than she. Maybe your character knows she's looking and is playing into it, maybe they know and genuinely want to help, maybe they know and would like her to stop.
THE CAUTIONARY TALE – So many in this group have been through the ringer once or twice. This would be a character who sees a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed newcomer bouncing into this assignment like everything is going to be just fine, and they want to warn her. Square your shoulders, Bailey Anne. Or get out while you can.
THE PARTNER IN CRIME – Really, at her heart, Bailey wants to enjoy what she's doing. She wants some sense of friendship from her peers, or at least more than straight-faces over coffee. Just because it's all one big secret organization dealing in world ending threats that doesn't mean they can't have a little fun. Listen, if they can slip a package in, they could get one of those fake fire alarms that give the low battery chirp every five minutes and hide it in the Commander's office........
𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑 / 𝐍𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐏𝐄𝐒
idealist, everyman, charmer, dreamer, optimist, doomed by the narrative, fish out of water, wake up call, be careful what you wish for
𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐈𝐍𝐒𝐏𝐈𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒
forgive me these will be a lot of comics characters: Kitty Pryde (Marvel), Stephanie Brown (DC), Ruth Wilder (GLOW), Cassie Lang (Marvel), Cindy Moon (Marvel)
