the personality

likes • routine, knowing what comes next, fresh air, dogs, gaming, relaxing on the beach, jogging, rock climbing, army fitness courses, proving people wrong, strong liquor, comedy movies, horror movies, pineapple on pizza.
dislikes • cats, surprises, romance movies, people taking her photo, flashing lights, christmas time, sunburn, rough surfaces.
strengths • her animal affinity, her steadiness.
weaknesses • christmas, gin.
dreams • to open her own K9 training center.
fears • loving someone.
overall personality • larkyn long ago discovered that she understood dogs a lot better than she could ever understand humans. she has always struggled to connect with other people because she holds so tightly onto the belief that she'll loose them so she has never tried to let herself let people in. the only person she lets herself feel love for is her mother. she is cynical and she's not what you would call an optimist. she plans for the worst and expects slightly better. she doesn't let her hopes get up because reality is always worse than expectations. she's a strong believer in the fact that people will let you down and then they'll leave you so she doesn't give them the chance. she's much happier putting her faith in the animals she owns and trains because with them, they give what they can and expect even less in return.

the history

father • ellis garrett, deceased, soldier.
mother • emily garrett nee swanson, 53, baker.
siblings • none.
important people • none.
hometown • hickstead, england.
overall history • there has never really been anything spectacular about the life larkyn was born into. she was the only child of ellis and emily garrett and while they loved her they were very focused on their own lives and careers. her father was a soldier in the army, travelling from place to place while his family stayed situated in hickstead because it was where her mother ran her bakery from. so her childhood was full of goodbyes and hellos and gifts from far off places but she didn't really have a connection to her father. her mother was present but not really there and while they knew she was lonely they couldn't tear themselves away from their own lives to focus on her. so they did the next best thing, they got her a dog. finally she had the connection she'd been craving. her dog milo quickly became her best friend and she took him everywhere with her. she got every book on dog training out of the library she could and watched hours upon hours of videos on the internet so she could teach him all the tricks she could.

there was one time of year she looked forward to most of all, that was christmas. it was the one time of year that her parents made the effort to be there, in her twelve years she couldn't remember a christmas that her father hadn't taken leave and her mother wasn't there. the house was decorated from top to bottom, the smell of cookies and treats filled the house from the start of december till the end of janurary and it was just the time of year she loved the most. she'll never forger the week before her thirteenth christmas though, her father was due home any day and she'd gone through the trouble of making milo a christmas collar so everyone in the house could look festive. then it came, the doorbell sounding through the house, her mother's anguished cries as the two men in uniform delivered the news they'd never expected to hear. her father had been killed in action. it was as if christmas died with him. there was no more decorations, no more life in the house and there was no more love in the kitchen. life eventually went on but there was always something missing. the waiting for a phone call that would never come, the gifts that he'd never give and the hugs she'd never get again.

the years passed and she grew up. she lost milo the year she graduated and it was like losing her father all over again. he'd been the one being to get her through and now she was facing life without him. she did the only thing she could think of. she left hickstead and joined the army just like her father had done. she thought if she could connect with the job he did she might be able to connect with him but that connection never came. what it did give her though was the ability to learn and train dogs to an even higher level than she could before. she became a dog handler, she trained bomb dogs, search dogs and the dogs that kept the peace on the military bases. she stayed for the next eight years, serving her country and training the dogs that kept the soldiers safe but she decided not to renew her contract and she bid the army goodbye. it had been an easy choice for her because they'd wanted to move her to a different division and she'd lose her connection to the dogs. she hadn't made connections with the people so without the canines she had no reason to stay.

so she came home. she took her savings and brought a house on the outskirts of town where she could have a small bit of land so she could have space for any dogs she got in the future to run. she used her qualifications from the army to start a small dog training business, she trains from basic commands to attack dogs and she loves any and all dogs she comes into contact. there isn't such a thing as a bad dog, what there is is bad handling. that's her motto and she sticks by it. she's slowly added to her canine family and no one thinks it's strange when suddenly there's a new dog in her yard. she's recently joined the army reserves, because she missed the routine that the army gave her and she's hoping it helps her get that sense back but it still gives her time to do what she loves, which is train the canines of hickstead.

the role player

alias • what you'd like us to call you
age • if you'd like
other characters • if any