Alimah grew up with a Sleeper father and a Lucid mother. Her father had always been very patient with his wife and daughter's unusual quirks, and her mother fostered a very strong sense of Lucid identity in Alimah. Both her parents ran a small music shop within the Inner City and taught Alimah to run the shop along side them. She developed a head for business and sales and learned how to handle her responsibilities well.

At the age of twenty-three, Thomas Bellamy walked into her family's humble music shop in search of a new piano. The two saw each other almost every day thereafter and married three years later. What Alimah had fallen in love with was the potential she saw in him...a potential she constantly tried to build him up towards, and one he constantly failed to meet. What started off as annoyance quickly became resentment as time and time again, Alimah's rosy assessments of her husband and efforts to push him forward out of his comfort zone were brushed off or largely ignored by him. In turn, she began to ignore him, and spent more and more time away from home and out with friends.

Putting a larger space between her and her husband allowed her to focus on other things. Most notabley, she scored herself a seat in the City's orchestra, and began taking up activism against the corrupt systems that plagued Lucid and Dreamer live within the Inner City. Her social and work life boomed, but at the end of the day, she found herself dreading her return home. While she thrived, Thomas seemed to stagnate and fall more and more off the path of shining potential she had first seen in him. She hated to regard him as a mental burden, but increasingly he felt like a weight that she was forced to drag around. It wasn't supposed to be this way. He was supposed to grow and florish with her and she provided every opprotunity she could but he rebuffed every single one.

Mae's adoption was, perhaps, the straw that broke the camel's back.

She had warned him that neither of them were ready to accept the responsibility of a twelve year old child. But, like all times before, Thomas capitulated to the demands and expectations of aquaintences over the honesty and concerns of his wife.
Alimah was right, he was not ready.
Mae was a troubled and bullheaded child and Alimah found herself woefully playing the role of "strict and uncompromising" parent, while Thomas continued on his trend of being unable to say "no". At the very least, Alimah had (and continues to hold) Mae's respect. Thomas? Not so much...

The wedge placed between them had become impossible to ignore. Yet, Thomas remained incapable of discussing it with her despite her best efforts.
Alimah finally threw in the towel after Thomas accepted a top administrative position within the Checkered Court following the mysterious disappearance of his predecessor. She had urged him not to take the job without knowing all the facts surrounding the circumstances. She was genuinely worried for his safety, but it seemed he didn't care. The numerous voices of strangers and aquaintences weighed out over her own, and shortly after, Alimah requested a divorce. At long last, she had Thomas's full attention but by then, it was much too late.

Ongoing Story

Alimah is enjoying her newfound freedom and weightlessness following her divorce. Her relationship with Mae has ammended tremendously, now that she doesn't have to play the counterweight to Tom's poor parenting choices, and she's proud to be a positive rolemodel in her adopted daughter's life. On top of this, she has found more energy to partake in the activities she loves and help champion causes that have sparked her passion.

That's not to say her break with Thomas has been completely clean. Her thoughts still have the tendency to drift towards worrying about how he's fairing with the whole ordeal. On the rare and exceptionally vulnerable occassion, she has found herself spending clandestine nights with him in the nostalgic pursuit of a simpler time ...Less and less now that she's aware of the impact it's had on him.

Personality

Ali takes herself seriously and is easily consumed by the pursuit of her own goals. Because her mind is so often focused on the next thing she is going to do, she can appear standoffish or aloof to the desires of others. However, as much as she can become over focused on tasks, she can become easily as focused on individuals who are important to her. When this is the case, she has the tendency to pick up on personality flaws and push for positive change. She loves people and helping people, but her approach to friends and family as "improvement projects" has seen the rapid erosion of more than just one close relationship in her life. Her heart is always in the right place, however. It just takes some honest communication and she'll never disrepect the personal boundries that have been laid out to her.

Sleepers, Dreamers, and Lucids (oh my!)

In this world, there are three kinds of people. Sleepers are those who preceive the world as it is intended to be seen. They see nothing peculiar, nothing "out of the ordinary". Dreamers, on the other hand, see a great deal more. They are often dismissed as having an "overactive imagination" at best, or as "crazy" and "paranoid" at worst. They see things for which there is no "real world" explaination...and often try to find an explaination themselves. "Ghosts", "aliens", "demons" and some wide assortment of conspiracy theories are often the work of a dreamer trying to make sense of the largely unpreceived world around them. What they don't know is that these inexplicable, almost tangible distortions of reality are the work of Lucids.

Lucids make up a small fraction of the human population. They are innately capable of producing convincing illustions, distorting the world around them to their liking. For the most part, these illusions, while convincing, have no effect on the physical world. There are...exceptions...rare exceptions. The extent of physical manefestations seems to be very limited and to a Sleeper observer, may appear as small telekentic feats. You know the sort; bending a spoon, lighting a candle, filling the air with hair-raising static... little more than that. To a Dreamer (as well as to fellow Lucids), the illusions produced by a Lucid can appear so convincingly real that, even though it cannot cause physical harm, it can still pose as a significant psychological and emotional threat. And so, in cities like Nevers where Lucids tend to congregate, a secret governing system is established between them. Exceptionally potent Lucids are assigned roles as Matriarchs and Patriarchs of allocated districts and are granted administrative powers over a localized infastructure designed to police the activities of the Lucids living under their jurisdiction.

All Lucids manifest a perminant, illusionary extention of themselves. These are called Avatars, and will often take on a form that is psychologically significant to its respective Lucid. When a Lucid becomes a Matriarch or Patriarch, it is expected that they "extend" their Avatar to blanket their district. The result being that every district under the watch of a Matriarch or Patriarch will have an appearance unique to the style of its specific overseer.

Alimah's Avatar

Bubbling up from any surface, "Legion" boils and bursts into the shape of countless, sizable ladybugs. Upon closer inspection, these little bugs sport music notes rather than black polkadots. Their harmonious humming and buzzing is a symphony of its own, and while that's all well and pleasant, watching them blister up from your own flesh is unnerving at best.