Amanda Laike

Played by: DJ Malak

INFORMATION

Mortal, Female, 10

Aliases: None known
Nationality: British
Residence: Malak's shop, The Rift
Employer: Myrios LeJean
Function: Shop girl, Conscience, Voice of Reason

• Early Life •

• Her Introduction •

• The Present •

• A Day Off For Malak •

• The Child of the Shop •

• Gallery •

Amanda Laike is a child very much out of time. Once upon a time this was both literal and figurative, but we get ahead of ourselves.

Amanda Laike was born on May 11, 1853. She never knew her parents and spent years in an overcrowded orphanage. Her parents, in truth were Laudanum addicts and were incapable of raising her. The conditions were dirty and lifeless and the cold London streets were much preferable to the severe punishments.

She became a street urchin much as in the Dickens novels. She begged and even stole when things became dire enough. She didnt live well but she had a bit of freedom and friends that helped each other out.

She lived hand to mouth and tried to find warmth and shelter wherever she could. This often led her to huddle in doorways and inside of various shops and establishments until the owners found her and kicked her back out onto the streets.

In November of 1863 she encountered a young woman with an incredibly odd name. Young Amanda assumed it was simply a foreign name as she didnt recognize the woman's accent. The woman gave her a pendant. It was beautiful. It was the prettiest thing that she had ever seen and the woman simply gave it to her.

Amanda put it on immediately and tried to find a window to admire the shiny object. She had no idea that her life would take a turn soon after.

The pendant wasn't anything that solved her problems. No magical Genie to grant her wishes. That sort of magic is reserved for storybooks and even they are embellished greatly.

The symptoms started within days. The coughing and the blood were the worst. The fever and fainting started a week later. By December she was barely able to stand. Her friends kept their distance, abandoning her all together for fear of Tuberculosis.

It wasn't an illness at all. What the young woman had given her was a cursed item. There was no ready reason why, or even thst the illness had anything to do with the item at all. No one looked twice at a dying street urchin.

With very little food she was wasting away and had curled up in an alleyway convinced that she'd die there. And then she noticed the Shop at the end of the alleyway with the large Copperplate lettering above the door. She decided that if she were to die, she'd like to die warm and made her way to the Shop on shaky legs.

She didn't have much hope in anything. She was used to shop owners throwing her out as soon as she walked in. She peeked in through the window and nearly fell over to avoid the swinging door as an enormously corpulent man exited. She felt that was her chance and tried to enter the Shop before the door closed. Perhaps if they thought no one had entered she could get a few minutes out of the weather.

She's lived in that shop for five years. In that time she's never aged a day due to the odd flow, or more precisely rhe non-flowing of Time in the Shop. It's kept the illness in stasis while Myrios LeJean and his "sibling" Mnema Mousias work to rid her of her curse.

Amanda was brought in officially in a story and has stuck around to be Myrios's conscience and voice of reason on several occasions. An excerpt from the story she was introduced in.

He was broken from his brooding by the bell above his door. The sound was soon replaced by a little girl of no more than 10. She was dressed in quite the Victorian style. A waifish, scraggly little thing though. Obviously grown up on the street. He leaned across the counter to look down at her. “So, what can we find for you among all these wonders young lady?” The girl looks up at him with impossibly large green eyes that have seen their share of dirt and sadness and doesn’t say a word to him for long moments. “I’ve got just the thing for you, young lady. Just sit right there and I’ll be right back.”

Her name was Amanda and she was everything that she appeared to be. The girl had grown up on the streets of Victorian London and may have been the subject of a Dickens novel or several. More importantly she was incredibly close to death. The supposition was that stores such as these gave you what you wanted in exchange for a price but with The Rift that simply wasn’t true. It gave you what you needed, which was often vastly different. While you may feel that you want wealth, adoration, and objects, you’ll find that more often than not what you need more than anything is something simple; sentimental. Amanda Laike needed a friend more than she wanted money, clothes, or fancy houses.

She found her way inside the store through the dusty door in the corner of the alley. She hadn’t noticed the storefront with the large copperplate lettering before but something in her mind told her that it had always been there. It had to have been. Stores don’t just spring up out of nowhere. So she had wandered in looking for a bit of warmth before the store owner inevitably kicked her back out to the cold London winter. She was amazed when she entered at the size of the place. The strangely dressed man leaned down over the counter with the dark glasses covering his eyes. He brought her cookies and a glass a milk and had set her up behind the counter. She kicked her feet while the man seemed to study her. He’d lean in close and tilt his head in a way that reminded her of a confused dog. He’d mumble something under his breath and look at her from a different angle, only to repeat the process again. “Would you like a job?”, he asked.

The agreement was unusual but so were the circumstances. She worked for Myrios, sweeping and doing the odd bit of dusting. He set her up a room in the back of the store. What went unsaid between the two of them was that she was dying. In several months more on the streets of London she would have died of illness. So long as she remained in the store she was locked in a sort of timeless stasis, never aging or growing any more ill. He had brought in the odd citizen of Darkside to provide medicines to help the illness. If she left the shop she could only enter back onto that cold London street at the moment she’d left. So she read, and learned, and helped however she could. She was grateful to the one adult that hadn’t yelled at her and kicked her back out to the streets.

Amanda got Her own short story. Being stuck inside of the shop without being able to go outside was hard on a little girl. Myrios had a present made for her to help. This is also the first appearance of Myrios's "sibling", Mnema

The girl fairly bounced through the shop, dragging a broom behind her. Amanda seemed to be in an amazing mood on this particular morning. She was worried earlier in the morning however as she spied Myrios passed out on the floor of his sitting room. He had almost made it to the couch but had decided to curl up, one boot in the doorway, one still on his foot, his hand so close. She’d shaken her head at him, covered him with a blanket and gone about the morning duties. The tiny blond girl had much to be thankful for since she’d wandered into this shop on that horrible winter’s night. This was the least that she could do to repay his kindness.

She set about sweeping the dust from the corners and from around the counter. How this place could stay perpetually dusty she didn’t know. She swept and dusted every morning but still every night it was as dusty as before. It gave her something to do when she wasn’t reading and learning all that she could. She’d been given an amazing opportunity, and sometimes to Myrios’ chagrine, she had absorbed everything that she’d come across. She watered the plant that Myrios had purchased a few weeks before, though the concept of time in this place left her often wondering if it had really been only that long, or had it been centuries. There was little to no way of telling. So she simply shrugged and carried about her day as always.

Myrios had taken in the tiny blond waif several years before and she’d fully appreciated every moment of her time here. She wasn’t as childish as Myrios seemed to assume and she picked up very quickly on several facts. After she’d arrived, she had a veritable train of people visit her from the surrounding area. The place was known as Darkside in her time as well, but it had been much different. "Well of course it was, that was several centuries ago.“ She’d thought to herself as she tidied up. Myrios hadn’t told her what all the fuss was about, but she’d figured it out before too long. She’d had the coughing, the blood, the fevers and seizures for a long time before she’d sought warmth in the store. The harsh winter would surely have been the end of her, in her condition.

Myrios had given her food and a warm place to sleep and only asked for a bit of help around the shop. She’d noticed that her symptoms had subsided, but she still felt the prick of sickness in her lungs, and the faintness of her head when she exerted herself too much. She couldn’t understand why they couldn’t just fix her problems. She’d heard so many marvelous things about the wonders of the time but there was no cure. Fat George had looked so pitiable as his eyes looked at her sadly for the first few weeks. She shook off the cobwebs of the past and leaned the broom against the counter to check on Myrios.

Myrios had managed to stretch and squirm his way out of the blanket, it now twisted into knots around his legs. His head was now under the couch and he made quiet groaning noises. He would not be up in time to greet his first customer of the morning. She sighed and pulled at the blanket, trying with all of her tiny might to untangle it from him. The effort was ultimately pointless and she kicked his leg playfully before skipping off to the store room to put the day’s inventory out. "I told you. You’re getting too involved again. This doesn’t end well.” She talked to herself quietly as she grabbed the crate and dragged it towards the front of the store.

There weren’t a lot of items in the crate this morning, as if the store knew who would be handling things. Amanda made a mental checklist and began placing items where she felt they could go. To the front counter went a pair of golden rings on a bright chain. She grabbed weatherbeaten book and placed it onto the small table next to the overstuffed reading chair in the corner. It really was surprising how often that chair was used by customers. She’d just placed the beaten and well-loved teddy bear onto a shelf when she heard the bell ring and the young woman entered the store.

Amanda eyed the door to the back rooms and decided against doing anything but climbing the stool behind the counter and smiled brightly. "Welcome to the Rift! Let me know if there’s anything you’re looking for!“ she said so incredibly cheerfully but she appraised the young women as she spoke.

She was a tall girl, probably no older than seventeen. Tall and thin, built almost like a stork with fiery red, wild hair flowing in every direction. The type of hair that people would call "impossible to tame”. The girl had a sadness to her that Amanda could tell that she tried to hide, but was incredibly horrible at it. Her bright blue eyes were tired looking; tired and sad.

“You’re not who I was expecting.” The girl stated, glancing around the shop. She eyed Amanda, sizing her up much as Amanda had. She inspected the small Victorian waif and leaned on the counter. "I really need to speak to Myrios. We had an appointment this morning.“

"I’m sorry, but he’s unavailable.” Amanda stated matter of factly to the strange woman. There was something about her that put Amanda on edge. She made herself taller on the stool, thinking that the extra inch could possibly make her statement any more definite. The woman grinned at the girl’s bravado before breaking into a chuckle.

“Well, tell Myrios that Mnema is here and that I’ve finished that thing for him, if he wants to collect it, he’ll have to meet with me.” The woman sounded matter of fact, the sad tone to her voice and mannerisms replaced with a directness as she looked at the young girl again more closely. "I’m his sister, you could say.“ "I’m not lying!” Amanda blurted out, fully embracing her age for just a moment. She stared the woman down, not liking her one bit. The woman for her part looked amused at the outburst, a familiar sort of grin crossing her face.

“I didn’t think you were, little one. It’s just that I know my brother. Is he in the back?” Mnema glanced at the worn, dark oak of the door leading to the back and arches a fiery eyebrow. She takes several steps towards the door and turns the handle. Surprisingly the door opens for her and she glances back to Amanda. "You coming, little one?“

"HEY! You can’t just go back there! It’s against the rules! Says so on the door!” Amanda leapt off of the stool and tore away after her, catching up to her as she looked down at Myrios, his body now half hidden beneath the couch. He’d managed to kick one of his boots into the fire in the time that Amanda had been gone. She shook her head in resignation and cleaned up as best she could.

“What’ve you gotten yourself into this time, little brother?” Mnema asked to herself before grabbing his feet and pulling him out from under the couch. She looked to Amanda and glanced down at Myrios inquiringly. "What’s he gotten into now?“

Amanda glanced about the room and found the empty bottle that had rolled under one of the chairs. "Some’ve this stuff. He’s been bringing some with him a lot lately. I think ‘e’s experimenting with humanity again.” Amanda walked the bottle over to Mnema, who sniffed the opening of the bottle before nodding and setting it on an end table.

“I think you’re right. He’s been into the Soma so he’s trying to get drunk. It’s a nasty thing for our kind. His brain’ll be mush for a while.” She looked down to Amanda who, for her part, was still standing defiantly before the woman. "You can stand down little one. I’m not here to hurt anyone. I’m here to deliver something he’d asked me to make.“ Mnema looked down at the quietly snoring Myrios and shook her head. "I don’t know why he does this to himself. Get the blanket, I’ll put him on the couch.” True to her word she lifts Myrios easily and places him on the couch. Amanda covered him back up and they both looked at him, each from radically different heights.

The woman looked down to Amanda and seemed to have an idea come to her, a sort of startling realization. "You know, there may be something you can do for me. Come with me.“ Mnema took a package from her pocket and motioned for Amanda to follow her. "He asked me to make this for him for someone. You see, Myrios is good, but I’m much better at a lot of things. I don’t distract myself with silly things like bubble wrap and..” The woman shudders before she utters the next words. “..corndogs. But I supposed he doesn’t have to, does he? He has me, and I’m going to guess that he has you. And I’ll guess you’re who this is for. Let’s get it set up.”

Amanda seemed confused. He had promised that he had something for her, but not where it was coming from, or what it was. She’d assumed it was some new, silly thing or perhaps one of the things she’d found on the internet that she had been fixated on. The woman walked down the halls of the shop like she’d known them for Ages, which she may well have. Amanda followed her through the library, her little shoes clicking on the marble tile of the massive room, needing to take almost fives steps to Mnema’s one long stride.

Mnema stopped and pivoted. She seemed to be looking for something. A sly smile crosses her face as she seemed to have found it. Amanda looked puzzled as she finds the object of Mnema’s interest. She’d never seen that door there. When did Myrios make that room? She hoped it hadn’t been last night. Who knows what that room would look like. Mnema crossed the massive room and opened the door, stepping in and glancing about. Amanda followed as quickly as she could and was both surprised and relieved that it was simply an empty, dimly lit room.

“Now, watch this, little one.” Mnema unwrapped the package and placed the item in the middle of the room. The item was the size of a decently sized book, cast in what looked like silver and some sort of golden metal that subtly glowed. There were green, glossy shafts of metal knotted and wound through the entire item. The woman turned and walked to the door, placing her hand on Amanda’s back to usher her out. She quietly closed the door and touched her hand to the new oak. Her hand started to glow, energy flowed into the door in soft golden waves. She smiled and knocked on the door, shaking the energy from her hand before she looked down to Amanda. "I think you should do the honors.“

Amanda was still unsure about the woman, but hadn’t heard Myrios mention her name, so she was either a stranger or one of the ones he didn’t mind so much. Myrios had talked from time to time about the other shopkeepers but her name hadn’t come up. Hesitantly she opens the door and squinted in the suddenly blinding light. She rubbed at her eyes and slowly they adjusted. She took the whole scene in and gasped, her face lighting up immensely and she looked up at Mnema as if she was asking permission. The tall woman simply nodded and Amanda burst into the room.

Only it was no longer a room, per se. Brilliantly warm and bright, the sunlight filtered through the thick glass of the greenhouse that the room had become. There was a garden in the middle, complete with small green sprouts and flowers. She could smell the scent of the flowers that had bloomed and felt the warmth of the sun on her skin for the first time in years. She nearly cried as she ran around, smelling everything and lifting her face up to soak in the sun as if she were a hungry flower herself.

Mnema simply smiled and left Amanda to her own devices. The girl would probably be in there for hours. The sad smile turned warmer as she walked back to the sitting room where she looked at Myrios, still slumbering on the couch. She crossed the room, looking around with a sort of amusement. Even through the rooms that separated the two she could hear the squeals of delight from Amanda and the distinct splashing sounds that must mean that she’d found the small pond that she’d included.

She stood, looking down at Myrios and smiled before bending down and placing a kiss on his forehead, golden light flowing from her lips for the briefest of moments. "I get it little brother. But, I don’t know why you do it. They only live so long. Why get attached?”, she mused quietly to herself before she stood again. She smiled for just a moment longer before she turned to leave. She looked around as she leaves as if she’s critiquing the store. "Take care of him" She seemed to the store. The sound of the bell indicated that she’d left, the store stood silent except for the sounds of Amanda in her new garden.

Myrios awoke moments after Mnema had left, putting his hand to his forehead and feeling around it gingerly. A weary smile crossed his face and he moved to stand stiffly from the couch. He frowned as he noticed the charred remains of his boot in the fireplace. He glances about, hearing the sounds of Amanda from far away. He wandered in the direction of childhood wonder with a weak smile on his face. He stopped only in the kitchen for a cup of tea to help sort his head out. He touched his forehead gingerly as he walked, tea cup in hand, into the library. He could see the sunlight streaming out from the open door and he smiles warmly to himself.

His steps were the uneasy shuffles of a person who is far too hungover to be awake at such a beastly hour, but he makes the trip and leaned on the door frame. He watched Amanda play in the sunlight and he smiled to himself, taking a sip of his tea. He’d promised her a garden. He could give her that much at least, even if he couldn’t give her an adulthood at least something could grow in this place.

Another story that she's in. It doesnt feature her except for a note. Amanda and Myrios take care of each other.

Malak scratched his head as he looked down at the empty crate. He frowned and circled the crate another time or two. He even nudged it with his foot to confirm that the crate was possibly an illusion. He left the store room at the back of his shop and returned momentarily with a broom and began to poke at the crate, poke by poke sliding the crate across the floor. Dropping the broom he squatted down next to it, peering down closer at the emptiness that the crate embodied. Giving a final scoff at the sheer laziness of the crate he stood and walked into the store room itself and looked around.

The process and the system was simple. It had stood a solid policy for Ages. Malak, always one to argue with a good policy, and perhaps even yell in the general direction of a bad one, had made his peace with this policy a long time ago. He walks down the crowded shelves, stretching up, dozens of feet into the air. Ages of various items, lost to history but not forgotten, stood on those shelves as he walked down the aisles between them. He found an old ball sticking out conspicuously from a shelf and immediately picked it up and started bouncing it in time with each footstep. “This doesn’t make up for THAT” he says, gesturing in the direction of the empty crate. Plog, Plog, Plog follows the sound of each footstep and the accompanying echo as the sound of the ball comes back to greet him.

He walks further. He know exactly where he’s going and he scans the shelves as he makes his way to the marvelous miracle at the center of the store room. He pauses at an intersection between sections of shelves and he hangs his head and shakes it. He throws the ball at the end of a shelf at a poster seemingly taped in place. The ball whips back on the rebound, catching him in the head and knocking him off his feet onto the floor, a small bit of dust kicked up in his landing. “You really think that’s funny?” He calls out to seemingly no one in particular. The Poster depicted a harried cartoon cat hanging onto a bookshelf, surrounded by the words ‘Hang in there! There’s always tomorrow!’ in a fanciful comic font. He stood up and dusted himself off. He casually scanned around for where the ball had disappeared to. He had words for his small rubber attacker and they weren’t kind. Giving up on his search he decided to turn a corner and try down another aisle.

The crate couldn’t be empty. It had never been empty before in all the time he’d been the shopkeeper. That was the rule. He goes to the stockroom and items would be there to stock for the day. He stocks those items and then people buy them. “That’s the way this works!”, he calls out again. He finds an old rapier and doing his best Edmond Dantes thrusts and ripostes, tossing out a hearty “HA!” every now and then. He grins and sets the sword back onto another shelf knowing that it’d be in it’s proper place most likely before he made his way back to the front. He resumes his stalking towards the end.

What could have been minutes or hours pass as he continues walking. Time doesn’t have much to say about this part of the store room and the path has slowly become darkened. The physical shelves start to fade from view, replaced by the darkness that creeps in. It’s partially for effect but mostly to keep people from wandering further who shouldn’t be here. Several more steps, or dozens more and it comes into view. The heart of the store room, the densely contained Singularity at the heart of the store. He smiles at the bright white light that radiates only a few inches from the containment field. Wonderful technology from the cradle of creation housing the universe’s largest collection of items in one place.

He circles the sphere, leaning in to inspect the surface. He flicks it with his finger and turns his head to hear the sound better. It makes absolutely no sound and he seems entirely satisfied with the results. He begins the walk back, finding the ball in his travels as his foot nudges it. He bends to pick it up and continue. Plog, plog, plog goes the ball as he walks back. Somewhere in the distance the sound of Concorde, Lancelot’s squire from Monty Python and the Holy Grail declare, “Message for you Sir!” moments before a paper airplane comes sailing into view. He snatches it out of the air, crushing it in his fist. “What cute bit of nonsense is this? I’m still mad at you! You know what you did!” He grudgingly un-crumples the airplane and finds a note written in incredibly flowery script inside.

“Dear Myrios, I’ve taken the liberty of putting the stock out for today. I know you don’t sleep but I thought you could go out and do something. See some things for me. Bring me back some candy floss. I’ll watch the shop today. Have a day off, Amanda.”

His irritation deflated almost instantly and he grinned a little bit down at the note, feeling bad for having handled it so roughly. He turns back around in the direction of the Singularity and says begrudgingly, “You’re off the hook this time, but I’m keeping my eye on you!” The rest of the day was his.

Amanda Laike has spent more time in the Shop than any other human. Ever. Beyond that dark wooden door from the front of the shop lies the storeroom and the living area.

She's spent, now a full third of her life bathing in the dimensional energies from the heart of the shop. This has changed her in unforeseen ways which have been passed down to her children and grandchildren and even her great, great granddaughter.

Amanda has recently had issues perceiving the timeline. Shes found herself remembering her future in vague feelings and flashes.

If you want to add more sections, just copy this block and change the title/text to whatever you want! But please don't edit below this line!