SKJEGGESTAD, Ylva Torhild

[ylva torhild skjeggestad]

YLVA TORHILD SKJEGGESTAD

FULL NAME: Ylva Torhild Skjeggestad.
NICKNAMES: None
AGE: Twenty-three
GENDER: Female
SEXUALITY: Straight.
STATUS: Single.
GROUP: Citizen.
GRADE: N/A.
MAJOR: N/A.
JOB OCCUPATION: Writer and Researcher.

HAIR: Blonde, medium long, and straight. She pulls it back when it’s in her way, and wears it down when she fancies dressing it up.
EYES: Blue-Grey.
SCARS/BIRTHMARKS: She has either covered her scars in tattoos, or they’ve faded.
TATTOOS: She has a very bold neck piece that hides some faded scars, the same blackout style ink is on her left arm acting as scar cover ups too. Her right forearm has a decorative piece of ink, too. There’s a flying spectre on her left shoulderblade too, for protection.
PIERCINGS: Snake bites, double nose piercing, lip labret.
PLAY-BY: Teya Salat!

LIKES: Legends and mythology, hiking, collecting elven figurines, tattoos, make-up, knife throwing, Danish pastries, Europe, snowboarding, baths, heavy metal concerts, mosh pits, winter, men’s jumpers, hats, pine scent, binge watching horror movies, crowds, challenging herself, greasy pizza, snakes, flying, emeralds and jades, ravens, the colour black, candles.
DISLIKES: basements, feeling panicked, powercuts, worrying Brynjolf, being trapped, a lack of effort, complaints, classmates, fake tan, sugary drinks, pop music, misplacing her phone, sleeping in late, doing laundry, unpacking, practical jokes, delays, maths problems or puzzles, dripping noises, dirty bed sheets.
FEARS: basements, feeling trapped in, bed bugs.
SECRETS: She was abducted when she was four and held for three years. She’s hidden her scars under tattoos and has done her best to rebuild her life. Ylva even drops her last name for work so people don’t recognise her as the kid plastered on the news all those years ago, and still brought up in documentaries to this day.
PERSONALITY: Despite her shocking past, Ylva is a happy young woman who is very curious about the world around her. Mostly about cultures and their legends and stories. She craves them like an addict craves his next fix. Ylva is an independent girl, who tries not to burden anyone with her troubles, even when she’s having a really rough time. She’d rather tackle them head on and throw herself right into the centre of that nightmare and challenge herself to overcome her fears. Music gets her through life when everything else can’t, and losing herself in a sweaty, wild crowd is her idea of complete freedom. Ylva is a sweetheart who will do just about anything to help out a friend, but she does still have some deeply rooted trust issues that make it hard for her to get close to someone. Typically she’ll let down a wall and then vanish on book research for six weeks almost immediately afterwards. She’s defensive if she has to be, but not typically aggressive. Ylva can use a knife and normally has at least two on her all the time after what life has put her through, but she’s also capable without them. There’s a lot of brute strength in her modest frame. Ylva catches the eye easily enough, but when it comes to love she’s never settled with anyone. Her work keeps her away a lot, and she’s still got those issues and won’t open up about them too easily, which chases a lot of men away. Other than that, she’s confident, flirtatious – but only in Norwegian.

MOTHER: Maven Ingrun Skjeggstad, 59.
FATHER: Aerun Roggi Skjeggestad, 58..
SIBLINGS: Brynjolf Njord Skjeggestad, 32.
OTHERS: Michael Logan Smithers, 60, abducter.
PETS: She travels too much – but spoils her brother’s dogs. She’s their aunt.
HOMETOWN: Trondheim, Norway.
HISTORY: Ylva was the daughter who slowed down time; at least in the sense that she delayed her family from moving stateside when they wanted to. Aerun and Maven had talked about having another child, but it had never happened. They had been busy with their lives, with raising Brynjolf, and then this move to Stearns, Kentucky came up and it was as if they would only ever have their little boy. Then Maven discovered those tell-tale signs and not so long after their baby girl was born. It was a chaotic time of trying to organise a move across the world, and deal with a son who didn’t want to do and was reluctant to do anything at all to help. Then there was Ylva. She was a handful from the moment she was born. She didn’t feed well, then she cried the minute everyone thought she was settled. Once she started walking there was no stopping her, and she got into and onto everything she shouldn’t. She followed Bryn everywhere and wanted to do everything he did, which wasn’t good considering she was a toddler and he was almost a teenage boy.

In Stearns she ran wild. At nursery she wouldn’t settle with the other children, choosing to play alone even when the teachers tried to encourage her. She bit whenever she didn’t like being told what to do. It wasn’t that she was a naughty child, Ylva simply liked her independence and doing things her own way. She might have had no recollection of where she was born, but she felt nothing akin to her classmates.

When she was four, Ylva wandered off from the picnic she was having with her family. She was playing not far away from them when she grew bored with the colouring book she had and decided to go and see if there were any animals near the trees on the edge of the park. It was there that a man grabbed her. Michael Smithers suffered from mental health problems and learning disabilities, and had a bulky six foot four frame. He was the type who locals thought harmless because he lived with his parents his whole life and sometimes mowed the lawns for his neighbours and helped his mother carry the groceries. He was as polite as could be, but had always wanted a sister. Due to the amount of care he required his parents had no more children, but Michael would have a doll that he pretended was his sister. The doll had broken, so he set out to find another. Then he had seen Ylva, who was blonde and had eyes like the doll. He had decided she was his sister. So he took her.

Ylva had screamed, but the noise in the park that day was full of screaming children on one of those travelling fairs. No one noticed Michael slipping back through the trees, and it was only when Bryn came back from one of the rides minutes later did anyone notice Ylva was gone.

Michael took Ylva to the basement of the quiet home where he lived. His elderly parents had granted him the space when he became an adult, since they knew he wouldn’t ever have his own real independence. They kitted it out like an apartment for him, even though he preferred to sleep in his childhood room upstairs. Still, they respected that it was his space, and Michael would often use the basement to watch television or play with the trains he had collected over the years. It was where he kept Ylva. She was frightened, and beaten by Michael when she wouldn’t play with him, and he kept her in the same cupboard he had kept his old ‘sister’ in, not understanding that Ylva wasn’t a doll like her. Ylva got out when he left to get water from the sink down there, and ate scraps from his forgotten plates, or the mush he forcefed her like a baby, but she cried as he put her in the doll’s clothes and kept her prisoner there. She heard other voices in the house, but she was scared of Michael and frightened of what these other people might do to her. She was too short to reach the tiny basement windows, and eventually she became resigned to her life. She had the tea parties, and cried herself to sleep in the cupboard, sat on the couch or napped on the bed when he told her to. She hated it all, scrounged for life, but she didn’t know the time, or the day. It was all lost to her. All she knew was that the doll clothes cut in eventually, the dresses were too short, and her hair grew to beyond her waist.

Freedom came when a surge of determination hit her. She coated the stairs one night in water, and waited. When Michael came in the morning, he slipped on the laminated surface and fell, tumbling down them all. His mother rushed to see what had happened, and upon finding her son at the bottom of the wet staircase, carefully made her way down to check on him. It was the first time she had been in the basement in over a decade, and Ylva rushed at her. She decided a little old lady could do her no harm, and she was right. The instant Mrs Smithers saw her she gasped and asked Michael what he had done. She cried as she called the emergency services; the police for Ylva, and the paramedics for her son, and to check the little girl was okay.

It took time before anyone would let Ylva go home. She was allowed to see her family again, but with three years having gone by, the doctors needed to check on her, to make sure her body was okay. They kept her in hospital for a little while, letting her parents visit daily, but also making sure psychiatrists spoke to her as well as the police. Michael was in a psychiatric hospital receiving treatment pending his charges and trial – he had been hurt badly in his fall – and his mother was shocked and heartbroken by what had happened. They lived in the town over, and never flagged up as a suspect or concern in her case. Ylva was left with scars and nightmares, but she was going to be okay. Her parents chose to homeschool her for two years to help her catch up while she readjusted to life, and attended therapy to ensure she was completely okay as she could be. Ylva buried what had happened, moved on from it, and leaned on her brother as best as she could. Even when he left for college he was still there with daily phonecalls, gifts sent home, and regular visits. He even brought her up to New York a few times, or picked her up and took her out on camping trips and mountain adventures. Brynjolf was her best friend. Like him, she didn’t feel like she belonged in their small Kentucky town. She might have embraced a bit of the country lifestyle, but she had a teenage face of acne and metal, and had been through something that made the kids in her class whisper about her. She came to hate her classmates for their gossip and the way they’d try to be her friends just in the hope that she might talk about it. Rumours flew around because of how she was. She was living her life so there was something wrong with her. They expected her to be broken, to be this hollow, haunted creature, but Ylva kept her demons locked away and when they broke out she knew how to fight them. She was strong and she was capable of handling her own battles. It was apparently a crime in Stearns.

When she was old enough she made a run for New York. She missed Bryn, and wanted to be near him. She crashed in his spare room for a few weeks until she found her own place and a job as a waitress, but then she was golden. She wasn’t interested in college and more people who could make their judgements; in fact she went out and got an artist to cover her remaining scars with bold, black ink. It was a proud statement of pain and art and she loved it. A short freelance writing gig for an online blog landed her an offer to travel and soon she was writing her first book on Cultural Superstitions. Ylva had no idea how she got there, but she’d always held a keen interest and had spent many a teenage night down that rabbit hole on the internet, but now she was paid to go out into the world, see unique places and speak to people about these things. Her first book was a modest success, and she was quickly asked to go back out and do another. She coupled her second trip into demonology around the world with a travel vlog that garnered even more attraction and popularity for her second book. She’s just got back into New York to write up her third book; this time on the Origins of European Legends.

YOUR ALIAS: Kim.
RULE WORDS: kidnappedbykim.
WHERE YOU FOUND US: Camp Crystal Lake.
SAMPLE:

KI KI KI MA MA MA!

[kim]