RAMONE, Mnemosyne Asteria

[mnemosyne asteria ramone]

MNEMOSYNE ASTERIA RAMONE

FULL NAME: Mnemosyne Asteria Ramone.
NICKNAMES: Syn
AGE: twenty-nine
GENDER: female
SEXUALITY: straight
STATUS: single.
GROUP: citizen.
GRADE: N/A.
MAJOR: N/A
JOB OCCUPATION: Chief Analytics Officer for the family trucking company. Also drives for them, much to the chagrin of her parents.

HAIR: Dark brown, almost black in some lights, and worn with a slight wave in it. She prefers it down, but there are times when she can’t stand it and it just has to be up and gone out of her way.
EYES: Blue.
SCARS/BIRTHMARKS: None worth talking about.
TATTOOS: None.
PIERCINGS: Just her ears once.
PLAY-BY: Kate Siegal

LIKES: Being on the road, graphs, eye masks, blueberry pancakes, painting her nails, frogs, whiskey, indoor climbing, collecting masks, making playlists, dancing, blankets, fleeces, working on her bike, yellow roses, visiting old houses, paddle boarding, hot cocoa, late night markets, being a night owl, making her home, fresh apples.
DISLIKES: Late night radio, sleep paralysis, silence at night, crumbling plans, meetings with her father, cats, oversleeping, screaming children in restaurants, waiting in long queues, feeling cooped up, being spoken for, cold fries, things being late, lemon drizzle cake, green smoothies, sugar free gummy bears, sandy beaches.
FEARS: sleep paralysis, the unknown, becoming mute.
SECRETS: Her first crush was on a video game character from a series her brothers played.
PERSONALITY: Mnemosyne is an independent woman who doesn’t enjoy relying on others, regardless of how close they are or how long they’ve been in her life. In the eyes of some people this makes Syn cold, but she has her reasons for being so self-reliant. She just chooses to keep those reasons to herself. She’s meticulous about all that she does, and being organised is one of her quirks; she doesn’t have room for people who are chaos personified and who run late, or always lose things. She’s impatient and comes with something of a short fuse; not many would call her a people person because of this trait, and her intolerance for most people’s bad habits. She’s happiest when she’s on the road, be it in the rig or on her bike. She suffers from a self-diagnosed loud mind, and she believes this is part of her sleep paralysis problem. Being on the road, away from the mundane day-to-day of New York often helps her silence those voices inside and keep the fight in her favour. Mnemosyne is outspoken and strong, and in no way is she the type of person who can be walked over by anyone. In fact, sometimes she’s been known to jump to conclusions before she has all the facts, but Syn is too stubborn to admit when she’s wrong. She loves being by the water, which is when she’s most relaxed and less likely to bite the heads off of other people. No one has really been able to tolerate her secrecy and mood swings long enough to really fall in love with her (although there was one guy in high school who tried desperately to break her walls down). Syn is oddly okay with this though. She’s a bit of a commitment-phobe (although she’ll never admit to it), and she’s happy enough with cheap flings and guys who she’s not interested in calling back.

MOTHER: Nessa Rivia Ramone, 60.
FATHER: Robson Jacob Ramone, 66.
SIBLINGS: Astraeus Aether Ramone, 39.
Lelantos Ares Ramone, 35.
Erebus Perses Ramone, 33.
OTHERS: Laura Ramone, 37 – Astraeus’ wife.
Tina Patricia Ramone, 32, Lelantos’ wife.
Nellie Hestia Ramone, 9, niece.
Jacqueline Paulette Ramone, 5, niece.
PETS: Anakin, a cross breed she rescued. She thinks he’s a lab crossed with a collie, but she thinks there’s something else in there. He’s about five now.
HOMETOWN: Elizabeth, New Jersey.
HISTORY: Robson and Nessa were a strong, passionate couple. Their love was forged in fire (or so they said) and they rebuilt a failing freight and trucking company back to success. It became something of a family business, with Robson’s brothers and cousins all coming aboard as drivers or loaders at some point or another, even if it was just in the short term. Eventually, they had three strong boys and they thought the family would be complete and perfect. Their names came from the Greek Pantheon that Nessa adored, decorating their home with trinkets from the honeymoon to Greece and the anniversary trips they took every few years. No one expected that Nessa’s illness a few years later could be another pregnancy. She had been battling with an extreme case of gastroenteritis during the early stages of the pregnancy, so no one thought about it until a later set of tests by her doctor found out about the news. Robson and Nessa were less than thrilled, but Nessa couldn’t kill the life growing inside of her. She got to the clinic, but couldn’t go through the doors. Still, a sickly little girl was born mid January. Mnemosyne was named so in case she didn’t survive the barrage of problems she had been born with, and complications she was born under, but she did. It was one of those situations where everything sounded plenty scarier than it really was. In the reality, if she pulled through her first two weeks, then she was likely going to be fine. Sure, she was on the small side, looked tiny compared to other children her age, but she – quite literally – grew out of that in her early teens.

However, Syn was always the odd one out. Her brothers could ride along in the rig with her father, but she had to stay at the office and play with her dolls; dolls she didn’t even enjoy the blank stares of. She wanted to change their faces, move their smiles so they could be sad, but it never happened. She wanted to compete with her older brothers, but they shut her out and she was always told that ‘boys will be boys’. Mnemosyne didn’t think it at all fair, and would always try and prove herself better than the boys who came before her. More often than not it got her told off by her parents and laughed at by her older brothers, but it never, ever deterred her.

As she grew older, Syn saw that the boys in the family were spoilt. They were allowed to act how they pleased and get away with so many things. Didn’t do their homework? Well it’s fine because they had a football match to think of. Syn on the other hand was definitely the black sheep of the family. She could win a prize for her writing in school, but she had a C on a maths test so it didn’t matter. She wasn’t one of the precious boys so what was the point?

Her sleep paralysis started when she was fourteen. She didn’t seek any kind of treatment until her college years though. She simply grew used to being tired, and avoided sleep as much as possible. She would creep down to the basement and play her brother’s video games at 3am, and read on the porch during the long summer nights. It was during all of this that she started speaking with NAME. He was friends with her brother, but he always stumbled upon Syn when she couldn’t sleep and kept her company whether she wanted it or not. She never told him why she was awake, but always made up little white lies to keep from admitting the truth. The days were long and tiring when she stayed awake, but it was worth it. Nothing scared her more than those episodes in the darkest of night.

Mnemosyne went to college in New York, which was where she settled. It wasn’t a long commute to the family office in New Jersey where she worked as a clerical administrator to help pay her way through school. She waited on tables in a bar too, just for something fresh and different. She sailed through college much the same as she did high school; sleeping only when she had to, keeping friends at arms length, ready to toss them aside when she felt them getting too close. It was over so quickly for her, and soon she was doing Data Analysis for the company. She worked her way to the position of chief officer, all the while watching her brothers slack off and get away with it, when other people suffered the consequences.

That was how she ended up hauling cross country with one of the rigs. Erebus hadn’t shown one night for his shift (it had been an apparent ‘surprise’ bachelor party for Astraeus – “Yes, another one!”), and there was no one else to drive. Syn was there late, avoiding her too quiet apartment. She snapped, deciding that enough was enough and that she’d take the rig herself across to Utah. She had learnt to drive one a few years back, trying to challenge her brothers to a delivery run. They had laughed in her face, but she had done it anyway, proving that her route was more efficient. No one ever told her outright, but she noticed it programmed into the system. This time she took it, and when her father called her to ask what the hell she was doing, she ranted about her irresponsible brothers, his attitude towards their ‘whatever’ behaviour, and exclaimed that they were going to run the company into the ground if they ever got control of it.
He never actually responded to her about any of that. He just called her a stubborn, foolish girl who had never seen beyond herself. Syn called that ironic and hung up.

However, she discovered that she liked making the delivery runs. She enjoyed the escape from life on them. Sure, she got odd looks at the truck stops when she climbed out of the rig, but she was a tough thing after all these years and she knew how to look after herself. She took on more jobs like that, despite her brothers and dad grumbling. She learnt the routes – better routes - took her dog with her for company, and it helped her sleep paralysis; she rarely had an episode when she was sleeping in the rig. Syn liked being on the open road, and when she was back in the city for the time she still spent working the data at the office, she rode a motorbike so she didn’t feel so confined.

That was three years ago, and since then she’s fallen into a comfortable routine. There’s still a lot she wishes would change about her family, and there’s even more she hates about them. However, Syn can’t abandon what they worked hard for – the company – because it’s a part of her as it is anyone else’s. She just keeps trucking to keep herself sane, and enjoys New York City the rest of the time.

YOUR ALIAS: Kim.
RULE WORDS: kidnappedbykim.
WHERE YOU FOUND US: In the Witch Elm.
SAMPLE:

No!

[kim]