Caden Smith

Caden Smith
IC Information
Nicknames:	Cae
Race:	Human
Gender/Sexuality:	Female/Lesbian
Age:	22
Sign:	Sagittarius
Birthplace:	Outside of New Orleans, Louisiana
Height:	5'3"-5'4"
Hair Color:	Brown
Eye Color:	Dark Brown
Residence:	Wherever she chooses to set up her tent
Romantic Status:	Single
Preferences
Hobbies:	Hiking, rock climbing, singing, card-tricks
Likes:	Mythology, stargazing, getting to know new people
Dislikes:	Swimming, cruelty, people not respecting her personal space

Caden Smith is a nomad who spent the past six years of her life traveling.

Appearance

Description

Caden is a petite young woman of about 21 or 22 years, her height falling somewhere between 5'3" and 5'4". Her face is angular, with chin length chestnut hair that is usually pulled back into a tiny bob of a pony tail. Two locks of hair frame her face on either side, and bangs that constantly fall into her dark brown eyes cover her forehead and a scar that runs vertically through the outside edge of her left eyebrow. She has three small silver hoops in both ear lobes as well as a piercing in the cartilage of her right ear. Caden is slim and muscular, with the long sinewy build of a runner. Her shoulders are broad for her size but her waist is slender, giving her an almost boyish look. Her pale skin, lightly dusted with freckles and the sun-streaks in her hair makes it clear that she spends almost all of her time outside.

Clothing

Having spent the last six years hiking Caden is limited to owning only what can carry. Accordingly, her clothes are worn, faded and mended countless times. When the weather is cold she wears a faded pair of green hiking pants, and an equally faded navy-blue vest with many pockets over a long sleeved white shirt. For particularly nasty weather, she has a warm all-weather brown jacket and knitted brown hat. When the weather is warm, her pants are replaced by a pair of longer brown hiking shorts, a white t-shirt and the same faded blue vest. No matter the time of the year she wears a pair of hiking boots and black, fingerless leather gloves. Caden's boots are quite worn and scuffed and the soles are much thinner than when she purchased them. The gloves can't quite hide a network of scars covering the backs of her hands and knuckles. Occasionally, if it's not tucked into her shirt, you can see a pendant made out of silver, worked into an intricate design hanging around her neck off of a black leather cord.

Items of Note

Caden always has a green pack close to hand, either carelessly slung over her shoulders or set on down somewhere near her. The pack looks quite heavy, but she caries it easily, clearly used to it. The pack itself is oiled canvas, designed for recruits in the military or sometimes sold to outdoor enthusiasts. It looks quite full, with a sleeping bag fastened to it as well as trekking poles. Inside is a tent, a camp cooking set, fishing tackle, a survival knife, first aid kit, change of clothes, a tarp and personal items.

Personality

Caden is quiet, shy, and out of practice dealing with people on a day-to-day basis. She has spent as much of the last six years as she could wandering through the wilderness of different countries. Her only encounters with other people were on a professional basis, either doing odd jobs for them to earn a bit of money or when she bought supplies from them. As a result, Caden's interpersonal skills are somewhat lacking. That is not to say she is rude or uncaring, but she can be rather blunt sometimes, and is apt to commit a faux pas without quite realizing she's done it. She doesn't speak quite as much as other people, instead choosing to listen to them and communicate non-verbally.

Despite her shyness she is quite sweet with a genuine love for and interest in other people. After some rather traumatic experiences at home, traveling has been a way for her to reconnect with and believe in the goodness of the world again. She likes to listen to people talk about their lives and the things they have learned. She likes to hear the stories that make people who they are. If pressed, she will tell stories in return, but she would much rather just listen to people instead.

Caden is very wise for her age, but also very childish at the same time. She understands what it means to have to battle one's own demons. She was forced to confront herself and her life at a young age and fights with the aftermath of that every day. Because of this, she is quite compassionate to other people's struggles, and is always willing to be a shoulder to cry on or a source of advice. She has a wide variety of experiences in her life to draw upon when she does advise people, and is very good at listening to their troubles and helping them with them. Despite this wealth of experience and wisdom, she is still almost childlike about some things. She is an idealist to a fault, believing in the goodness of almost every person no matter how they wrong her. Her constant exuberance for life reminds those who are more weary of how they behaved when they were young. Her inquisitive and silly nature enhance this effect.

Once she begins to warm up to a person, Caden can be quite mischievous and funny. She likes to amuse people with silly things like card tricks and bad puns.

The longer she is on the Island, the more comfortable Caden is around people. She seems at peace here, and this reflects in her day to day interactions.

Biography

OOC Notes

Caden speaks very rarely about her past. Most of this information would be unknown to all but her best of friends. Unless she has specifically told your character something, assume that you know she grew up in the south, left home when she was 17, and will talk about her mother and siblings but not her father.

Growing Up

Caden was born in the bayous of Louisiana to her mother, a waitress, and her father, a career military NCO. Caden was the first born of three children, with a little sister 8 years her junior and a little brother 16 years younger. She was the typical oldest child, always trying to be responsible and do the right thing. She was a good student and a well-behaved, dutiful daughter whom no one could speak ill of. She was popular, had friends, had a boyfriend or two but never let herself "get carried away" with any of them. Adults considered her sensible, believed that she knew her education and responsibilities should come before "some boy". She was always active, tromping around the land behind their house and learning, both from her father and through experience, how to live off of what nature provided. Caden played sports all through middle and high school and was in junior ROTC. She planned to go to one of the military academies, if she could get in, or to do ROTC to pay for her college

When Caden was 12 her father was deployed to fight in Afghanistan, then Iraq. He seemed fine at first, writing his family cheerful letters about his plans for when he returned. Each time he visited home on leave however, it became more and more apparent that he was changing. After two years he finally returned home for good after completing his last tour. He was no longer the cheerful, loving father Caden remembered but instead a loud, angry man given to bursts of violent temper and nerves. In an effort to quell the ghosts of his dead friends and foes alike he turned to alcohol. Caden's family quickly learned not to cross the man who had been a loving father and husband.

When Caden was a 17 year old senior, she decided to help build a set for the play that her school's theater department was putting on, mostly in an effort to escape from her house for as long as possible. During those three months of stage production she fell madly in love with one of the girls in the theater and suddenly realized why she had never been interested in those boys that had tried to date her. As the school year wound down, Caden decided she had to tell Mary how she felt so that she wouldn't spend her life wondering if Mary had felt the same. Unfortunately, not only did Mary not share her feelings but she also took it upon herself to tell her parents what Caden had said. Mary's parents in turn told Caden's parents.

What happened next was a nightmare Caden still dreams of sometimes. Her mother was unable or unwilling to save her from her father's wrath. After screaming about how disgusting and disappointing a failure she was he beat her severely, leaving her with the fine network of scars on the backs of her hands and the scar running through the outside edge of her eyebrow. He physically threw her out of the house and down the stairs leading to the porch and told her he'd kill her if she ever tried to come back or contact her family. It was the last time she saw any of them.

With nothing but the pack her father had thrown after her, Caden walked to her principal's house, asked to finish out the two weeks of the term sleeping on his couch, graduated from high school and left her small town forever. With no money to go to college and unwilling to become a part of the military that had turned her father into a monster, Caden began her life as a nomad.

Traveling

Hitchhiking

Caden spent the first couple of months after being thrown out hitchhiking through the southern part of the US, her heart and spirit both broken. She didn't really care where she wound up, just knew instinctively that she needed to keep traveling. She was depressed enough that she did nothing to care for herself, and it was really just the kindness of strangers that kept her safe, fed and sheltered. She slept in several churches along the way, the parishioners feeding her and allowing her to sleep on the pews. One kind family offered her a place to live, but she didn't feel worthy enough to accept. Eventually a friendly truck driver named Dan picked her up and made sure she had a safe ride all the way to wherever she was going. Not knowing where this was, she stayed with him for a while before finally finding herself in Georgia, at the start of the Appalachian Trail. As soon as she saw it, she knew it was where she was meant to be. She said goodbye to Dan, left the truck and found her way onto the trail and began to walk.

The AT

Caden began her hike on the trail alone, hiking hard enough to allow herself to sink into an exhausted stupor at the end of each day. When she was crossing through Virginia she met a group of three other hikers. They walked together that day then set up camp together that night, and one of them managed to break through Caden's defenses. The woman and Caden struck up a fast friendship, eventually becoming lovers. Caden finished out the trail with them, then followed the woman to the west coast. They parted eventually, and Caden continued to travel.

Yuriba

After six years of hiking, earning her way from place to place and never being somewhere for longer than a month, Caden found Yuriba. Or perhaps Yurbia found Caden. She was working on a fishing boat, earning her passage to explore Japan when suddenly she was filled with an overpowering urge to get into a lifeboat and begin rowing. After several minutes she found herself ashore in Yuriba. As soon as she stepped out of the lifeboat it sailed back towards the fishing boat, leaving her on a beach, unsure of what to expect.

Relationships

Caden has had no relationships on the Island. As anyone who has tried to get close to her will tell you, it's a very difficult process. After six years in the wilderness she has a hard time with the most minor of physical contact. Even something as simple as a friendly hug will make her uncomfortable. Unexpected physical contact frightens her badly enough that she has been known to literally bolt from a room.

It takes a lot for Caden to feel comfortable enough with someone to progress to anything resembling romance. Most people lack the endurance to maintain interest long enough to get to that point. Until she deals with her own personal problems concerning getting close to another person, it is probably for the best.