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OUT OF CHARACTER

Player Name: Lena
Are you 16 or older: Yes!
Contact: lenainverse this post
Current Characters: N/A
Tag: carol peletier (crau)

IN CHARACTER
Name: Carol Peletier
Canon: The Walking Dead (TV)
Canon Point: S5, episode 1 (also CRAU from Teleios)
Age: early 40's-ish (unspecified in canon)

History: Carol's pre-canon and canon history on The Walking Dead TV wiki. (Although I am providing links, I chose to also write out the history fresh because of this being a CRAU with multiple canon breakoffs, so you can read where she deviates from canon at the start of S5 and also to emphasize particular points of her development and how she changed being in Teleios, where she was for two years. I marked her main diversion from canon with Begin CRAU in case you didn't feel like reading all of it. :) )

Carol, like many people, comes from a very troubled past, but it is also a past which taught her how to be the ultimate survivor. In canon we meet her a few months after a virus has turned most of the population into zombies (referred to most often as walkers), in a quarry where she and a group of strangers have grouped together and are trying to wait out the worst of things. She is married and with a twelve year old daughter, though hardly living a happy family life. Her husband, Ed, is violently and openly abusive, belittling Carol and striking her in front of others and keeping her as apart from the group as possible. Carol is also very aware of the fact that her husband is being sexually inappropriate with their daughter, Sophia, and is seen stepping in to prevent them being alone together. Throughout the seasons, Carol reveals that she got together with Ed because anything was better than being alone, and he had his good moments at first, as well as a good job, but that he never helped her with anything nor did he take any interest in Sophia (until she became a sexual object to him). She describes having to set her own dislocated shoulders to avoid having to lie to the ER nurse a third time about how she became injured. In spite of Ed's domineering personality, Carol is seen to stand up to him repeatedly, typically when her intervention could help someone else. She reaches out to Lori, a woman a bit younger than herself, and Lori's son Carl, who is a bit younger than Sophia but about the same emotional maturity, upon finding them on the road to Atlanta after the initial outbreak of the virus that caused the walkers to rise, so against all odds her belief in people is not entirely gone.

Carol's main role in the group's initial encampment was laundry and helping tutor Sophia and Carl as well as watching them. Of note, however, the first night that Rick Grimes, in full Sheriff gear, stays the night at the camp, Carol is responsible for washing his clothes and takes it upon herself to steal a grenade she finds among his belongings. A timid housewife, this lady is not.

Perhaps very fortunately, Ed dies early on, when a small horde of walkers finally gets to the group's encampment. Carol and Sophia follow Rick and Lori Grimes to the CDC, where the group discovers more about the infection and is offered a chance to die quickly when the CDC's security system ignites the air in the facility. (While in the facility, Carol reveals that she is slightly claustrophobic, a big deal is not made of this but it speaks to the long-term abuse she suffered, likely before she even met Ed.) Carol pleads for her daughter's life and ultimately helps the group escape via the grenade she stole from Rick. Immediately thereafter, the group is trying to get around a traffic jam when a large herd of walkers comes through. The group hides, but one of the walkers spots Sophia and she has to get off the road and down a hill into the woods to escape. Rick follows the little girl and ultimately loses track of her. Carol is devastated, spending her time grieving, praying according to her strong religious faith, and occasionally blaming Rick or lashing out at others (though typically apologizing right away). She is seen in a church praying, admitting that she prayed for her late husband to be punished but asking God to punish her instead of her daughter.

During the long search for Sophia, the group ends up on a farm as Carl accidentally gets shot by a deer hunter and is recuperating. Carol is seen in grief, but also keeping herself busy with sewing, laundry, cooking, and supporting the group as best she can. Her hope is buoyed by Daryl Dixon, a gruff hunter/tracker that ended up with the group seemingly at random and at times seems to want no part of it. Daryl goes all out trying to find Sophia and brings Carol a Cherokee Rose to try and lift her hopes, shortly thereafter nearly getting himself killed during the search. Daryl is the first in the group to acknowledge Carol's grief in a meaningful, rather than patronizing, way and to offer her hope, and in turn she is the first to see in him a truly good person and to tell him so. Their friendship builds slowly, with many hiccups, including when Sophia is found as a walker and Daryl takes the loss extremely hard, trying to drive Carol off when she insists she won't let him just walk away. Daryl even makes a move as if he was preparing to hit her, at which Carol flinches, but at their next meeting she has forgiven him. They eventually become of the utmost importance to each other, and this has been acknowledged many times by others around them as well. As a whole, though they struggle and argue about what to do, the group decides to ask to stay on the farm.

A little while after Sophia is found already turned, and Carol says that in a way she's relieved, because Sophia probably died very early on, without going hungry or crying herself to sleep while wondering where her mommy was. Carol refuses to attend the funeral the group holds for her daughter, and is later seen resenting people who treat her with what she considers kid gloves, insisting that she did not lose her mind when she lost Sophia. Just as it seems the group will be welcome to stay, the farm is overtaken by a huge, wandering herd of walkers and the group is scattered. Carol, still unwilling to fight the walkers herself, is ultimately saved by Daryl as he passes by on his bike, and the group meets up to assess their many losses. Rick admits to the group that he was forced to kill his best friend, Shane, who had become dangerously obsessed with Rick's wife. Hearing this, and feeling as though everyone but Daryl treats her as a burden, Carol tries to get Daryl to leave with her, but Daryl refuses.

Over the next seven months or so, the survivors travel together under the sole direction of Rick, moving from house to house and never finding a safe place to settle. Carol has ceased wearing her gold cross necklace, which speaks to her struggling with her faith. In the Spring they find a prison, overrun with walkers, but they clear the fenced yard and for the first time claim a safe place to sleep. During their time on the run, Carol has learned to shoot quite well and how to defend herself, as have most of the group's surviving members. She also comes to accept Rick's leadership and admits that they couldn't have gotten so far without him. The group finds some prisoners still alive inside the prison and they attempt to negotiate a way to share the space and food, and ultimately the prisoners turn against the group and one ends up opening the gates to allow walkers in, as well as turning on the riot sirens to compel more to arrive. Carol and another group member, T-Dog, end up on the run together and ultimately an already bitten/infected T-Dog sacrifices himself to save Carol, who runs into the labyrinthine jail halls and is thought to be dead.

Days later, Daryl happens to find Carol, dehydrated and weak, in one of the cells (it is implied that he went down there to kill her walker) and he brings her up to the cellblock the group has set aside for themselves. Carol reunites with the group, but discovers that Lori died in childbirth while she was lost. Devastated, Carol assumes care of the newborn baby along with teenager Beth Greene, taking a mostly behind the scenes role in the group. However, from time to time, her blunt and direct way of talking to people has them rethinking what type of woman she really is. She proves herself to have grown substantially since the death of her husband and daughter, and is willing to go to any lengths to protect her new family. Carol is seen doling out quite Machiavellian advice a couple of times, once threatening to kill Daryl's ne'er-do-well but much loved brother in his sleep if he messes things up for Daryl (in the same breath as she offers him food and tells him to enjoy it), and another time suggesting similar advice to a woman formerly with their group who has taken up with an unhinged man known as The Governor who wants their group dead -- Carol tells her to show The Governor the night of his life and then kill him in his sleep. This shows that she is aware of how precarious their situation is, how dangerous people can be in this world, and that she will do what needs doing to make sure she and her group survive, and that includes newcomers to their group. Many of these are from the settlement of Woodury, which was led and ultimately betrayed by The Governor who went crazy with power and ideations of revenge, who ultimately targeted Rick and his entire group and killed several of them, including Daryl's brother.

Eight months or so later, Carol has become a leadership fixture at the prison. Not only is she on the Council, a small group that determines decisions for the prison (after Rick abdicated his responsibilities in the wake of Lori's death and the subsequent events with The Governor), but she demonstrates that she is willing to go to many dangerous lengths if it will help the people living in the prison. She is seen leading what seem to be "story time" groups with the children that are a cover for teaching the kids about using weapons to protect themselves, which she purposefully does not tell Rick about. She also ends up adopting two girls, age ten and twelve, when their father dies, promising him that she will take care of them. That dedication culminates in a double murder that Carol commits: two people were sick with a fast-spreading and deadly disease that was going to run rampant through the enclosed prison. In order to try and prevent others from becoming sick, Carol killed (mercifully) and burned the bodies of two near-dead individuals who were ill with the disease. Carol keeps this a secret until Rick asks her first if she would do anything for the people there, and then if she killed the two burned disease victims. Carol answers yes to both questions, and walks away.

The audience is shown glimpses of Carol's grief over what she has done, but she does not show Rick any of those feelings, calling back to when she was married and pushed down her feelings to do what needed doing, to protect herself and her child. Instead of showing her devastation, she tells Rick that it had to be done despite her not liking it, and that he has to step up once again and be a leader. On the basis of what he sees as Carol's indifference, Rick banishes her from the prison, giving her some food and supplies. Carol ends up at an office in a strip mall overnight, but the next morning she sees smoke coming from the direction of the prison and races off to see what happened. By the time she arrives, the prison has been destroyed thanks to a tank the Governor brought along with some new, naive followers he convinced to help him, and the survivors have scattered. Most of the survivors come separately upon signs that tell them to follow the train tracks to Terminus, a place that promises sanctuary.

Carol abandons her car and takes to the woods, finding her two adopted daughters who have ended up with Tyreese, the lover of one of the sick people that Carol killed, as well as Rick's infant daughter, Judith. Carol is shocked that Tyreese hugs her; he was not told about what she did before the attack scattered everyone. Her adopted girls, Lizzy and Mika, are trying to figure out how to survive out in the dangerous world for the first time, having been sheltered at Woodbury and then by the prison walls. It turns out that Mika is too kind to kill even a deer -- as Carol puts it, just like her dead daughter Sophia, Mika doesn't have a mean bone in her body. And Lizzy has developed a strange view of the walkers; she believes that there is still a functioning person inside the walkers, despite Carol's attempts to talk her out of this view. Carol has come to believe that being strong would have saved Sophia, and so she tries hard to teach the girls this philosophy so they can protect themselves

While following the train tracks toward Terminus, Carol and Tyreese and the children come upon a pecan grove and a little farmhouse that has been abandoned but otherwise untouched by the horrors that have overtaken the rest of the world. They stop there, taking several days to rest and recuperate. Carol begins to try and show the girls a more normal life, teaching them how to roast pecans. Lizzy continues to try and "play" with the walkers, trying to talk the others out of killing them. Carol almost tells Tyreese about her murdering his lover, but can never seem to get the words out. Eventually, Tyreese begins to try and convince Carol to settle in the pecan grove and raise the children.

Things immediately come to a head, as Carol and Tyreese return from gathering food to find that Lizzy has killed her sister Mika, and says that she was about to do the same to baby Judith when the others returned. She states that she did this to show Carol and Tyreese that Mika will come back from the dead and be fine, and she holds and gun on Carol and Tyreese to prevent their interference. Carol convinces Lizzy to give up the gun, and Tyreese takes Judith away. Devastated, Carol offers to take Lizzy and leave so that she won't hurt Tyreese and the baby, but soon realizes that Lizzy would only kill her too, and that Lizzy can't be around anyone else without putting them at risk because growing up in this world has made her ill. She makes the very difficult choice to take Lizzy out and kill her as quickly as possible, while also trying to comfort her. Later that night, after burying Lizzy and Mika, Carol hands Tyreese her gun and tearfully confesses to the murders of Tyreese's lover and the other sick prison resident. Tyreese is angry, but controls himself, asking if they suffered. Carol says that they didn't, and tells Tyreese to do whatever he needs to do with the gun. Tyreese chooses to forgive Carol, having seen what she did with Lizzy and realizing that those murders are a part of her now. The next day, they leave the pecan grove with the baby and continue on toward Terminus, where they assume the rest of their group is also headed.

Begin CRAU. At this canon point, Carol is sent to Teleios for the first time. She wakes up on the floor of a huge, extravagant hall inside an even larger temple with a group of others, and they are all told that this is a world run by gods and that they are here to work off their crimes, that they will live here until it is determined whether they can move on to Utopia. Carol learns that many of the people she knew from the prison are already in Teleios: Rick, Shane, and Daryl; Glenn, Glenn's wife Maggie who was the daughter of the now-deceased owner of the farm which they stayed on while looking for Sophia, and soon Maggie's sister Beth also joins them.

Teleios is a strange land of magic and gods, but though there are other dangers, there are no walkers. The entire year is one long day: Spring is a season-long dawn, Summer is constant sunlight and brutal heat, Fall is three months of sunset, and Winter is a long three months of total darkness and huge, dangerous blizzards. Carol arrives in May, and finds that her group has taken up housing in an old B&B outside the Temple. Having just come from killing Lizzy and having planned on leaving again after helping Tyreese and Judith reach Terminus, Carol was very reluctant to rejoin her group. No one else has any memory of the events Carol lived, that she killed two sick people, or that the prison fell. Rather than explain to them her situation and having no idea where to begin, she reluctantly takes a room at the B&B. She is assigned work in the kitchen which allows her many hours to herself, and she is distant from the rest of her group.

Two months into her stay, there comes a strange day when the entire city is afflicted with a magical compulsion to tell the truth. Literally unable to keep the truth to herself, Carol ends up tearfully telling some of her group, notably Daryl and Glenn, that she killed two people -- fortunately the conversation shifts before she can tell them about Lizzy. (She also tells a few random strangers, to her chagrin.) Without their own memories to challenge her viewpoint, Daryl and Glenn reluctantly accept Carol's version of events. Not long after this, a particularly cheeky person decides to give out flowers that compel people to kiss others. Unaware of the effect, Carol ends up accidentally compelling Daryl to kiss her, with many apologies. After tossing the flower away Daryl chooses to try kissing her again, as both of them are confused by what happened and unsure if it was the way they wanted things to head. It's a transition that they handle, over the next weeks, with a strange combination of awkwardness and growing closeness and comfort. They never explicitly discuss this change, except for Carol asking Daryl not to be careful with her, because she wouldn't be able to take it if he treated her with anything less than honesty. Despite still feeling guilty, her closer relationship with Daryl makes staying with the group a little easier.

Very shortly after, Rick vanishes from Teleios. Unaware that he will soon return, Daryl takes the loss hard and puts his fist through a wall. Carol treats his hand and comforts him, continuing to tentatively grow closer. Rick soon returns with new memories from home, but before he and Carol can react to his new memories, Carol herself is sent home. Having no memory of Teleios or anything that happened there, she continued on with Tyreese and Judith on the way to Terminus.

Upon nearing Terminus, Carol tells Tyreese that she will get him and the baby there safely and then she plans to leave. However, they hear gunshots ahead and become suspicious, and they also see a large herd of walkers moving toward Terminus thanks to the gunshots. They come upon a Terminus resident with a walkie talkie at a little cottage outside the walls, discussing which pieces of clothing and weaponry from the former prison residents he wants to claim once they're dead. He was intending to set off fireworks to divert the walker herd. Carol and Tyreese tie him up and Carol says she is going to stop the people of Terminus from killing her friends, leaving Tyreese and Judith to keep watch over the tied up man.

Carol covers herself in walker guts so she can blend in with the herd without being attacked, then uses the fireworks the man in the cottage was preparing to set off as well as a rifle to blow up a huge propane tank, which blows a hole in Terminus's fences. Under cover of the herd, Carol breaks in to Terminus, hoping to create enough confusion and kill enough sentries to help her friends escape. Coming across a room that stores supplies stolen from the prisoners, Carol grabs Rick's watch and Daryl's crossbow to take with her, hoping to meet up with the group despite having no intention of staying with them, so she can reunite Rick and Carl with baby Judith and Tyreese with his sister, Sasha. She finds a woman in a room filled with candles who explains that the signs promising sanctuary at Terminus were once real, but a group took advantage, raped and tortured them, and convinced them that they must imprison, kill, and eat all people who come to Terminus in order to save themselves. Carol shoots the woman after a scuffle and allows walkers into the room, leaving her for dead. She plans to reunite with her group temporarily, despite being nervous about how she'll be received.

Before she can make it to the group, she is pulled into Teleios for the second time. Three months have passed in Teleios despite it being only a day or two for Carol, and it is now November, very nearly Winter, which the group must spend in the Temple due to the dangerous conditions in the rest of Teleios when the blizzards come. Daryl and Glenn accept Carol easily, though can tell that she has faced new trauma. Rick, having been imprisoned at Terminus when he returned to Teleios and having been allowed to bring his infant daughter to live in Teleios with him, accepts Carol immediately, which she is extremely guilty about as she never intended to stay with him again. She tells Rick about Lizzy eventually, fearing that if she refuses to tell him then another magical coercion will remove the choice from her. Because she can't hide her feelings about what she's done, Rick sees that Carol is not indifferent to what she did at the prison and accepts her. She also tells Daryl, afraid that he is too quick to let her back in without knowing the full story, and through both men's acceptance, she chooses not to leave the group.

Things are not so rosy with Maggie and Beth Greene, however. They have both refused to accept that Carol killed two people at the prison, something she blames neither of them for. The women are tentative around one another which further stalls any progress. Things are further complicated when the girls ask for their father's farm as a "gift" from the Agents, gifts that are requested during dreams. (As her gift, Carol receives a trunk full of objects; the first thing she sees when she opens it is her dead child's doll, and she slams it shut. The trunk comes into play much later in her story.) The group plans to move into the farm after winter, and Carol is left without certainty as to whether the girls will invite her. Maggie and Glenn have also been allowed to plan a real wedding, and that will happen before winter. Carol considers not attending, but ultimately accepts Daryl's invitation to accompany him. She stitches a quilt for the couple as a gift.

Due to her desire to be away from the group, Carol makes some new friends. Most notably are Cinna, the fashion designer from The Hunger Games. The two instantly connect when Carol goes to his shop to look for attire to wear to the wedding. They end up sharing their stories with each other and Cinna becomes someone who Carol trusts to understand her. Doctor Helen Magnus (Sanctuary) also befriends Carol, earning her trust because she admits that Rick confided in her about the walker virus they carry. Helen offers Carol a job in her clinic to learn more about medicine, which Carol accepts. Through that job she meets Doctor Beverly Crusher, who eventually Carol comes to trust implicitly, and from whom she learns medicine, technology, and the Klingon meditative/fighting stances of Mok'bara, which Carol begins to practice frequently. She makes some other friends as well, a younger man who teaches her knife throwing which she takes up, a werewolf and others with superhuman powers, as well as Cinna's dear friends from his home, children that Cinna cares for. The children prove especially complicated, as Carol is hesitant to get close to any lest she suffer another loss.

During this time, Carol and Daryl become something of a romantic item, though the transition is difficult for them to pinpoint because they avoid speaking about it. When the group takes up rooms in the Temple - 2 rooms for the 8 group members - Daryl opts to wordlessly declare to the others how things are between them by opting to share one of the beds rather than sleep apart. It's more symbolic than anything given the lack of privacy, but in not too long their desire not to talk about things between them leads to some problems.

Doctor Magnus, who has been researching the walker virus that the group carries, has created a serum that may cure it. Daryl volunteers to be the test subject, and after initially looking promising the serum activates the virus and he begins to turn. Thanks to the medical technology Doctor Crusher brought into Teleios, they barely manage to save him, and as it turned out Carol had to assist the doctors in doing so. The experience leaves her shaken and so she distances herself from Daryl rather than cope with her feelings. After a misunderstanding leads to a brief argument, she ends up promising to be less standoffish and more honest. There is also tension with Rick around this time, as he assumes Carol will blame him for Daryl's near-death (because he is the one who encouraged Helen to find a cure but then didn't take on the risk of being the test subject himself). They too are able to talk through things and mostly resolve their issues. Rick and the group are clear with Doctor Magnus that she is to stop hunting for a cure, as it's too dangerous. Having learned about Helen's history of testing serums on herself during the course of their friendship, Carol guesses that Helen is going to test another attempt on herself, and she warns Helen that such actions would result in Carol never trusting her again. During this time, Carol is "gifted" with the ability to put healing and energy-boosting magic in her cooking, but using the power (she has no choice but to use it if she cooks, she can only control how much) leaves her feeling exhausted. Initially alarmed by her sudden fatigue, it is Helen that helps Carol determine that this power exists and how to use it. Carol begins practicing using this power and tailoring her cooking to heal specific injuries.

As Winter is ending, Maggie and Carol finally have a long overdue chat in which Maggie tells Carol that she can't accept what Carol did at the prison by killing the two sick people without talking to the rest of them, but that it would be easiest if Carol joins the rest of the group at the farm come Spring. Carol doesn't feel like she can turn down this olive branch, and as Spring melts the feet of snow outside, she moves into the farmhouse with everyone else.

In May, Daryl and Glenn both vanish from Teleios. Carol, upset and worried but having accepted disappearances as a matter of normalcy in the strange environment, goes with Cinna to visit a new addition to the city -- a tattoo parlor. She is amused by the idea of getting one, as it's something she never would have guessed she'd do. In addition, Daryl has several tattoos and the idea of getting one as a reminder of him, if he doesn't return to Teleios, appeals to her. Cinna, already having several tattoos of his own, encourages her, and she ends up selecting a design of three Cherokee roses in honor both of Daryl and the three daughters she lost, along with a spray of blue forget-me-nots. She has the artist place the design on her right side, just above her hip.

On June 1st, Daryl and Glenn return to Teleios, but Glenn has a fresh gunshot and Daryl is incredibly traumatized by events back home. They both remember their previous stays in Teleios, but it's difficult to sort through over a year of conflicting memories from home and their previous time in Teleios. Daryl being distant is difficult for Carol given how close they were before he left, so she decides to pull back and give him space unless he were to indicate that he wants to resume whatever their relationship in Teleios was before he left.

Unfortunately, those concerns take an immediate backseat as things very quickly start happening just hours after Daryl and Glenn's re-arrival. Helen Magnus, as Carol guessed, decides to test a new serum on herself, but in order to test it she first has to give herself the walker virus. After infecting herself, Helen is near to turning and unable to reach the syringe containing the cure. Carol, who goes to the infirmary after meeting with Daryl because she needs time to think, happens upon a nearly-turned Helen on the floor. Carol manages to inject Helen with the cure and it works, but she is shocked and upset by the breech of trust. She calls one of Helen's dearest friends, also a doctor, to care for her, and then tells Rick what happened. Carol and Rick make the decision to get Glenn out of the infirmary where Helen works (where he had been taken to treat his gunshot wound) along with all of their files, as they feel Helen can no longer be trusted since she chose to keep investigating the virus after they asked her to stop. Carol, having been trained in the infirmary for almost a year, agrees to assume care of Glenn at the farmhouse. Carol stands guard as Rick gets Glenn out of bed, and there is confronted by Beverly Crusher, who disagrees with their choice to take Glenn out of the medical facility, but fails to convince Carol to change her mind and ends up giving her medkit to Carol to help with Glenn's care. Carol embraces Beverly, believing it will be the last time they speak because she doesn't feel as though anyone aside from their group can be trusted anymore.

Using her healing magic and medical skills, Carol is successfully able to treat Glenn, though the process leaves her too tired for almost anything else. A handful of days have passed by the time things settle enough for her to finally get to talk to Daryl on anything more than a passing level. His reactions are fairly discouraging, but she tells herself that she doesn't care as long as he's alive and relatively safe. Around this time, Maggie and Beth vanish, and then fail to return on the next mass-arrival day. Carol, upset that she failed to mend things properly before they left, has renewed faith in her need to be with "her people," pulling away from all others. Cinna and Beverly take this especially hard. Carol and Rick are also closer than ever, being on the same page with not trusting "outsiders". Rick tells Carol more about an event that occurred before Carol and the others from their world arrived in Teleios: a god called Loki who took over Teleios (Loki from Norse mythology, not from the Marvel Universes), bringing an army of the dead to fight for him. Rick was disturbed by the events and warns Carol to watch out for Loki and others like him.

It takes a good deal of time, but Carol mends some fences. First and most importantly, with Daryl and Glenn, the latter of whom is reeling after losing his wife and sister-in-law. After Daryl notices Carol's relatively new tattoo that she got while he was away, the two decide to get other ones: Daryl a phoenix on his shoulder in honor of Carol (based on a conversation in canon which is further along than her memories), and Carol an arrow that goes most of the way down her back. They each consider this act as a cementing of their desire to be together no matter what.

During one of Teleios's magic disruptions, Carol finds herself faced with the ghost of her late husband, Ed. Carol initially agrees to speak with him so that she can tell him what happened to their daughter, but things escalate quickly when Ed seems to have no interest in asking where their daughter is or what happened to her. Enraged that Ed hasn't even bothered to mention Sophia but is overly interested in what Carol's doing with other men, Carol loses her temper and that causes Ed, made corporeal thanks to an item from the Agents, to hit her. But this time rather than take it, she hits him back and knocks him down. Daryl is there observing (Carol asked him to be there just in case of something violent breaking out, she didn't trust herself not to take drastic action if Ed did anything stupid) and gets between them just as Ed makes a dismissive remark indicating he couldn't care less what happened to his child. Carol very nearly goes at him in a rage. Thankfully, her loss of control is temporary, and she and Daryl leave Ed's ghost to his impotent anger. Initially she acts eerily calm and impassive, though before long she breaks down and lets Daryl comfort her. This has the immediate and longer-term affect of Carol deciding that she has to stop hiding from Daryl and from others, no matter how hard it is for her to tell the truth and be open and vulnerable. It's not easy, and not always a smooth road, but she knows that she has to try because if she lets her past control her then she'll end up miserable and bitter and alone, just like Ed's ghost.

After that, she is able to start tentatively reaching out to other people again. Carol also is able to talk to Beverly, spurred on both by some medical concerns and by their mutual dear friend, Cinna, vanishing. Carol is still incredibly angry at Helen, however, and they end up having a very upsetting argument in which Carol, out of hurt and misguided attempts to help Helen recognize the severity of what she did, says things that she immediately regrets. She apologizes to Helen shortly thereafter, and in the process realizes that she needs Teleios to be a home, not a place where she stubbornly holds herself back for fear of being hurt.

Around this time, a few significant events occur. First, Carol decides to play the Agent's offering-gifts-during-dreams game and is able to gain a large penthouse in the Temple for their group's exclusive use. The penthouse has a magic, unbreachable door and adds new rooms as more people come to live there (again, magically) so there will always be enough room for anyone they invite to live there. There is also a kitchen and bathrooms and enough storage that they could pack the place with supplies and sustain themselves for months on end if they wanted, and it is the first place Carol has ever felt truly safe and comfortable. The other occurrence is that Loki returns to Teleios and once again threatens to take over, and also offers certain people "gifts" which allows him to control them. In addition, Rick vanishes from Teleios. Spurred on by her recent epiphany that she wants to continue to be a part of Teleios and make a home here, Carol finally opens the trunk that she received soon after her second arrival in Teleios. In it she finds not only Sophia's doll, but other items from the people in her life that have died or gone missing. She concludes that this gift was not the Agents' attempt to torment her, but rather a message that those people are still a part of her life. In addition, she has just learned more about the people Loki is controlling and finds that she cannot abide him taking people's free will away. With this new information, she decides that she wants to help do something to get rid of Loki and restore Teleios to the Agents, since she no longer believes they are out to "get" those brought to Teleios.

Coincidentally, right around this time Carol is selected for a tournament run by the God/Agent Ares for the Ides of March. Glenn had participated last year; the event historically has been a tournament in which the participants fight each other and the victor gets a reward. Carol, assuming this is what she's headed into, says her goodbyes and arms herself. However, once there, Ares tells the participants that they were called in order to help the Agents oust Loki. After conversing with Ares and his Goddess daughter, Hippolyta, Carol is given a scroll that will allow her to message her new patron gods. However, she is concerned that if she returns to Teleios from what was supposed to be a fight to the near-death without any injuries, she'll arouse suspicion. As a result, she asks Natalia Romanov (who Carol had previously met as a close friend of Rick's) to injure her purposefully before she's sent back. Having endured her late husband's severe abuse and also believing that she needs to pass herself off as a helpless housewife, Carol ends up injuring herself far more than she should, and is sent back to Teleios with two gunshots (carefully placed), a significant stab wound, and some electrical burns.

Upon her return, she contacts Daryl who rushes her to the infirmary. However, he's not the only one there to greet her. A huge, horse-sized wardog was also waiting for her. In her unfocused state, Carol at first things she's hallucinating, and Daryl mistakes the dog as Glenn's, as he also received an identical wardog as a "gift" from the Agents. The dog is vicious and deadly but is devoted to Carol and follows her every order; she ends up naming him Eddie, initially as a joke. With Doctor Crusher's technology, Carol's wounds are tended and she remains in the infirmary to finish healing up.

However, as it turns out, the rest of Teleios ends up caught in a sleep spell. Carol remained unaffected because the Temple, where the infirmary is located, is protected from magical attacks. Once she notices that the usual people have not come to see her, and she is unable to reach them, Carol sets off in search. After locating her people, all asleep and unable to be roused, she begins looking for others who are awake. She ends up stumbling into a bar, where Loki -- the same one who took over Teleios -- is laying unconscious, with a stranger standing over him.

Carol talks to the stranger and ends up sharing what happened with Ares, that she is working with them to help wrestle control back from Loki. The stranger, Graham (from Once Upon A Time), shares that he is one who is under Loki's control, however with Loki unconscious he is currently free. He reveals, along with Emma (also from Once Upon A Time) that they are part of a group working to free the people under Loki's control, and the sleep spell that affected most of Teleios is the means for that -- the spell got out of control, it was only intended to affect a few people. Carol, after using her scroll to speak with Hippolyta, agrees to use her wardog to keep Loki captive at the Teleios police station, which they arrange before the sleeping residents awaken. For several weeks, she and others hold him there. While guarding him, Carol has a few conversations with Loki, and he tells her that the people brought to Teleios have more power than they think; this is why the Gods/Agents are always courting their favor.

In mid-May, Loki somehow enacts a spell that controls all plant life in Teleios, and uses this power to break into the police station and escape. Carol, feeling guilty for allowing Loki's escape, decides to take more of a background role in fighting him, knowing that she's outmatched. However, she states her intent to fight for those who trusted in her, no matter what.

Not long after, with the help of some powerful people in Teleios, the Agents wrestle control back from Loki, and offer those in Teleios a choice: they can stay there, or return to their respective worlds and lose all memories of Teleios. Glenn immediately returns home to be with his wife, and baby Judith leaves to be with her father. Carol and Daryl also make the choice to return, even knowing that they won't remember Teleios or the two years they spent there, because they feel as though they need to help their people, their family, in any way they can.**

Instead, however, they end up abroad the Moira.

(**Teleios is still technically going on, but the mod has informed us of what endgame will entail and my castmates/CR and I have discussed what our character's choices will be and how things will go. I feel confident that the events in the final few days of gameplay would not greatly impact how her character is played in a new game. If preferred, I would be happy to take her from before the final fight with Loki, and I don't believe that would impact her greatly either as she knows from her brief trip back to Earth that leaving Teleios usually means losing one's memories of it.)

Personality: Carol Peletier always considered herself primarily a mother and protector, roles she took to incredibly well. Prior to the outbreak that essentially caused the end of civilization and the reanimation of the dead as walkers, Carol was trapped in an abusive marriage to a man who demeaned and controlled her and their daughter, Sophia. Both in spite of and due to her circumstance, Carol found herself constantly looking out for others, be it her innocent daughter and herself, or strangers they meet on the road while trying to seek shelter in Atlanta after the outbreak. Upon meeting Carl and Lori, Carol offers a hungry Carl some of the MREs that her husband, Ed, packed in their car for survival; even after Ed cruelly refuses to allow it, Carol tries to find other ways to assist her new friends.

Once finding her family among a small band of survivors taking shelter in a quarry outside Atlanta, Carol took on a role of caregiver and helper to the group. She helped Lori watch Carl and also is a makeshift tutor for the children as there is no longer formal schooling for them to attend. Even after losing her only daughter first to disappearance and then to walkers, Carol gave her life new meaning by protecting others and becoming a den mother to the survivors. She was able to see past her own grief and help prepare a thank you dinner for Hershel Greene and his family for allowing the group to stay at the farm, and continued to care for and look after others once they move to the prison. She eventually takes it upon herself to teach the children in the prison to use knives and weapons in the hopes that they will learn to protect themselves rather than be victims to the unsafe world in which they lived. Carol learned that weakness gets you killed, and so one must never be weak. Even children. To that end, she tended to take the hardest, most emotionally wrenching tasks on herself and then push her own feelings and humanity down to avoid the fallout of what she'd done and endured.

It was only after living in Teleios, after being several months removed from her trauma, that Carol began to realize who she is as a person and woman, and that was not without its pitfalls. Playing to her strengths, she helped to make a home for those she knew from before Teleios and spent a good deal of time in the clinic learning more about first aid and medical care, but more importantly she established new friendships that meant a lot to her and made efforts to mend fences when things went wrong. Though initially struggling with paranoia regarding the Agents -- the Gods in charge of Teleios -- she eventually came around to stop presuming the worst and take an active role in helping them wrestle control back from Loki. Though she can still be hard on herself and on others, she is learning how to achieve relationships that are emotionally fulfilling without feeling as though she needs to keep things to herself. She was even able to reach out to some children despite her own grief and bad experiences. There are times when she's feeling vulnerable that she will still pull back and fall on old habits, but those are becoming less and less.

Carol's protective nature extends to extreme lengths, and that includes protecting herself. When an illness broke out among the close quarters of the prison Carol took it upon herself to kill and burn the corpses of the two infected individuals in hopes that the illness would not spread. She failed in her goal and regrets that it came to such drastic action on her part, but Carol feels justified in the killings because it was what she felt had to happen in order to save the rest of them. Carol also tearfully kills the young girl to whom she had taken on the role of surrogate mother when it became clear that Lizzy was too deluded and dangerous to be around others. She put it off as long as she could, however -- Carol knew something wasn't right about Lizzy, but it wasn't until Lizzy killed her little sister that Carol accepted what had to be done and convinced Tyreese that she was right. Although she prefers and attempts to seek other avenues, Carol believes in taking action to protect those she loves, even if they themselves may not understand her reasons; she spent too much of her life before Sophia died wishing she did more to help her situation, and so she has come to prefer action over inaction, even if it is drastic and makes her less of a good person. She will do what she feels needs to be done to protect those she cares about, whatever that makes her. However, as she came to accept life in Teleios she tries to rely on extreme measures less and is more willing to attempt compromise, such as holding Loki prisoner instead of trying to kill him right off (though, she did consider it).

Over the course of the series and her time in Teleios, Carol finds her strength and independence. While at first she is relatively isolated because Ed prevents her from becoming too friendly with the rest of the group, following Sophia's disappearance she is forced to rely on others. Initially she sticks to the other women, specifically Lori whom she relates to as a fellow mother, but she quickly develops a kinship with Daryl, perhaps the least likely person of the group one might expect. Daryl never loses hope that they will find Sophia, providing Carol with a sense of hope. Although her hopes are eventually dashed when they find that Sophia was long ago turned undead, Carol never forgets Daryl's wholehearted attempts at finding Sophia, even at nearly the cost of his own life. That's part of what makes her want to learn to protect herself and others, though sometimes her protectiveness can be abrasive or even cruel. In canon and in Teleios there were several occasions where she was hurt and angry and said things she regretted, for which she apologized. Her experiences with violence and cruelty, both in her life before canon begins and once she is forced to become a killer for the sake of protecting her group, tend to leave her struggling for a balance between strong and abusive, between weak and open/vulnerable. She refuses to accept being a victim, but came to realize that sacrificing the people in her life would make her no better than her late husband or the people she's protecting her group from.

Carol's bond with Daryl extends far beyond the search for Sophia. When Daryl briefly chooses to leave the group upon finding his brother alive, Carol understands and forgives this action (as Daryl said she would). She knows how men like Daryl's brother, men like her husband, can draw you in and make you feel like there's no other way. And she respects Daryl for choosing the only family he has left, Carol knows that's a quality that their bleak world needs. In Teleios their relationship evolved significantly, not only in the romantic sense but in the sense of Carol opening up and allowing herself to be honest without being blunt and hurtful, which has always been difficult for her. She came to understand how much her pulling back from Daryl or not taking care of herself hurts him, and that helps convince her to work on the problem. Her success, of course, varies by circumstance, but at the least she is upfront and willing to let him know what's going on with her.

Opening up to Daryl and listening to his views on how they need to work with and help people enables Carol to become more trusting of others. Rick and Glenn and Beverly Crusher accepting her despite her choices also went a long way toward this. She is still careful and tends to overthink, but at least she gives new people a chance rather than avoiding them altogether. Trusting Graham and Emma enough to share with them her role in helping to get rid of Loki was a big step, and one which paid off, though she was left feeling guilty once Loki broke free.

One aspect of Carol that has been evident since the very beginning of canon is her sense of humor. It tends to veer toward dark or "taboo" subjects (like sex and her long history of domestic violence) and can be morbid and incredibly dry; though Carol only tends to share this playful side with people she trusts, she has also used it as a diversion or defense mechanism.

Another of her strengths is her ability to read people and create a persona for herself that will get her an "in" with those people. She's aware that this is a morally gray area and since being in Teleios tries not to do it as a matter of course, though sometimes she'll slip into the role out of discomfort or trying to feel things out. She will use her skills such as cooking to make people feel more comfortable, and her intentions can run the gamut from innocently trying to get to know someone, to attempting to manipulate them. Much as she doesn't want to lie anymore, she knows that sometimes it might prove necessary. That said, she is willing to come clean and genuinely help people when they need it, assuming she deems any threat to her safety or that of her loved ones to be at an acceptable level.

Carol has evolving feelings toward those that take over leadership of her in whatever way, likely leftover from Ed's domineering nature and likely some family of origin issues, and those feelings extend to the Teleios leadership. At times she questions the direction Rick takes the group in, even blaming him for Sophia's disappearance. Soon after losing Sophia for good Carol struggles with making difficult decisions, telling Shane and Rick to make a decision about whether to kill a possibly dangerous captive while leaving her out of it. She adopts a more pragmatic, world-wise attitude in the harsh winter that follows, in which she not only accepts Rick's leadership but embraces an active role in the group, taking part in killing walkers and protecting the others. She is able to see that in the post-apocalyptic world sacrifices are necessary and comes to respect Rick's decisions, and Rick in turn trusts Carol with his daughter in Teleios. Eventually she takes on her own leadership role, quietly and consistently doing whatever needs doing for her new "family," whether that be laundry, babysitting, fortifying their encampment or even killing walkers or other people as necessary. As she admits, there is absolutely nothing she would not do for the good of their group. Those feelings can include those outside their group that she has come to care for or allied herself with, though it does take time for them to earn her trust and she is not quick to forgive if that trust is betrayed.

Her attitude over the course of the series becomes somewhat jaded as a consequence of the losses she has suffered. Carol came to believe that being weak and pacifistic in the wake of the reality they face was nothing but a quick path to getting killed and went to various lengths to convince Lizzy and Mika, the surrogate daughters she adopts, that they needed to be ruthless when it comes to killing walkers. Carol stated that her daughter Sophia died because "she didn't have a mean bone in her body," implying that she believes some degree of detachment and ruthlessness is necessary to survive. Since arriving in Teleios this view has softened somewhat in that she is more likely to attempt other methods first and believes drastic measures should be a last resort, but she is willing to do so if necessary.

That is not to say that she takes pleasure in such acts. Carol is clearly emotional over the deaths she has caused and was ready for Tyreese to kill her for what she had done, if he deemed it appropriate, and the guilt of her failures in Teleios sometimes has her pulling back from those she's closest to. She feels the sting of loss keenly, but has been forced to accept it as a reality of this new world she's living in and is getting better at leaning on the people she loves rather than hiding and using their safety as the convenient excuse she now knows it to be. And she does intend to continue surviving as long as possible. It's all she can really do anymore.

Contracts: Despite her tendency toward mistrust and her confusion about being suddenly on a spaceship, having just come from Teleios Carol won't hesitate to sign the contract. (She wouldn't have hesitated if she were direct from canon either, because raging against people in charge before you know the score isn't conducive to survival; going with the flow and ingratiating herself to her hosts is far more likely to result in a favorable outcome for her.) Beyond simply complying, she would make a point to be as helpful and grateful as possible, even suggesting ways in which she might contribute such as cooking, cleaning, or working in the medical facilities, essentially trying to get on the good side of whoever may be watching and listening. It would be less than entirely genuine, but having come full circle from her deep mistrust of the Agents who ran Teleios to actually believing the Agents were out for the residents' own good and helping them win control of the city back, she would at least avoid snap judgments until she can get a proper idea of how things are on the Moira. Not to mention, the alternative of being left on the nearest planet is far from an appealing option. But, she would certainly give the Moira a chance. For all she knows, it could become as much a home as Teleios was.

Abilities/Skills: From canon, she has adapted to survive in a post-apocalyptic world by gaining skills in shooting and blade-wielding. Carol has also been shown to have some first-aid skills. She is able to hunt and scavenge materials for basic survival. In Teleios, she received over a year of training in the infirmary from Doctor Beverly Crusher (Star Trek: The Next Generation) and Doctor Helen Magnus (Sanctuary), in which she greatly expanded her knowledge of medical practices to include life-saving trauma procedures (such as intubation and wound suturing), as well as advanced medical technology and a basic understanding of supernatural entities, specifically how medical treatment may vary in those not-human or superhuman.

While in Teleios, she was taught to throw knives and spent two years honing this skill. She's not practiced at doing it in battle per se, but when it comes to still targets she does some pretty impressive parlor tricks and she would be pretty dangerous with it if things came down to a fight, especially as the first strike at someone who wasn't moving quickly. She also learned Mok'bara, Klingon meditative/fighting stances, from Dr. Crusher, which she also spent nearly two years working on, and as a result has greatly increased balance and knows about a dozen ways to take down someone bigger than she is.

Additionally, as a gift from the Agents in Teleios she was granted the ability to place healing magic or energy magic into her cooking. She spent about 18 months honing this ability. If she doesn't put thought into it while cooking, her food will give anyone who eats it a minor energy lift, she has described it as "like coffee without the crash." People who eat her cooking long-term are more resistant to illness and heal quicker from injury. She has learned to focus this power, and if she cooks while properly concentrating she can pack a wallop of healing and/or energy into a dish, even focus on specific injuries to help them heal. This process exhausts her, sometimes to the point of passing out, and she must take several hours/overnight to recover. However, if an injured person eats food that she exhausted herself tailoring to their specific injury, they will heal a good deal faster than they normally would. It is not an instant process, there is no magical sewing up of wounds or reversal of fatal injuries, but it's a useful power. It was established in Teleios that this power does ping magical tests and technological diagnostics meant to search for such, and anyone who can detect magic would know that there is something not quite normal about this otherwise very normal human woman.

Strengths/Weaknesses: Her strengths include: cooking, cleaning, laundry, sewing and knitting, all stereotypical homemaker skills. Very nurturing and protective, it's impossible not to notice that she was a mother. She is well trained in first aid in trauma situations as well as more complicated medical technology. Excellent at using firearms and blades in combat, and passable at knife throwing in non-combat situations. She puts on a very convincing show as a "people person" when necessary, if asked about her skills she would say something to that effect but if it's knowledge obtained without her input then it would probably not be included. She is an exceptionally convincing liar and good at figuring people out. Once she cares for someone, she will do anything it takes to keep them safe.

Weaknesses include being genuine and honest with people she doesn't know, dealing with children (emotionally speaking), handling anything technical that's not medicine-related (she could learn, but there would be a curve), and being idle for any period of time. She also has a tendency to be overly blunt sometimes and her sense of humor can tend toward the dark and dry and could be offensive. She also can jump to conclusions when she feels her safety or, more dramatically, that of those she cares about, is in danger and has tended to make snap decisions. When upset she has been known to lash out at people who hurt her or just whoever is nearby, though she typically will apologize. Incredibly bad at talking about her feelings and properly addressing them, she can get distant and cold when something upsets her on a deep level.

Items: Other than her worn clothing (a tank top and jacket, cargo pants, and black boots), Carol will be wearing her trademark Bowie Knife on her belt and a set of professionally made throwing knives wrapped in a protective cloth which she keeps under her jacket. She is carrying a backpack that contains two loaded pistols and several rounds of ammunition for each, a change of clothes plus a long black sweater which is wrapped around a china teacup to protect it, a small first aid kit, a water canteen, several food items well-packed for travel including a few home-canned jars labeled with things like "gunshot", "fever", and "stab wound"; an old iPod with a charger and headphones, a digital camera and three memory cards with a charger, a worn paperback copy of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, a small metal key on a string, and a bag of homemade dog biscuits that are excessively oversized.

SAMPLES
Network Sample: ((OOC: Just noting that given her experiences in canon and in Teleios, it is very unlikely that Carol would use the network for any kind of mass communication, unless in an emergency capacity, for quite some time after arriving, as she would consider it a safety hazard (aka paranoia is a thing). However, after becoming more comfortable the would be far more likely to utilize it, and this sample is intended to be set at such a time. She would still be moderately uncomfortable with the prospect, but view it as a way to acclimate to this new environment, and also she has her natural lying/acting abilities to fall back on. Just wanted to explain why this extremely paranoid and private character might not seem so be so paranoid or private in this sample!))

[The camera is a bit unsteady, shifting about before settling on the image of three pies sitting on one of the counters in the galley, still steaming-fresh. The point of view spins to include the face of a middle-aged woman with a smile that is just as you'd expect from someone who just spent several hours baking pies: kind and perhaps a bit flighty. Just like a mom, and certainly not like someone who has a set of throwing knives under her cardigan.]

I found some fruit that was going to go bad, if they weren't apples then I couldn't tell the difference. If anyone wants some pie, it's first come, first served.

[She pauses, walking along with the camera over to one of the freezers, which she peeks into before grinning again.] Looks like there's ice cream, too. I'll wrap some up for anyone who asks, but I'll be here awhile. [She doesn't go so far as to ask for company, since that may as well invite trouble she doesn't want to fall into again, but she's wearing that smile again. Read into it what you will.]

Prose/Action Sample: Link from June test drive meme.