InsaneJournal

Name: Elizabeth Morgan Sullivan
Nickname: Ellie
(will only answer to this name)
Age: 6
Birthday: August 8, 2003
Originally From: Truth or Consequences, NM
Occupation: Elementary school student. Jack Sullivan's moral support.
PB: Mackenzie Foy



Ellie’s grandmother has often told her that she’s like a sudden storm…and though all Ellie takes away from that is the fact that her grandmother is sometimes strange and thinks she’s the weather on different days, the woman is right. Ellie can be full of apparently boundless energy; telling her father and anyone else within a close proximity stories of her day or of her own creation, fidgeting when anyone attempts to get her to sit still for more than a handful of minutes, or running around playing princesses rescuing princes from dragons and other monsters. And then there are the quieter times, the times when Ellie might be whispering to her favorite stuffed dog as she sits tucked away in a cupboard near the bar, flashlight hovering over her most recent picture book.

The little girl is nothing if not incredibly curious and outgoing. The traits, though problematic in school (frustration sets in quickly when Mrs. Aimes won’t call on her to answer every question even though she knows the answer), are an asset to a child growing up in a well-frequented bar. She is certainly neither shy nor quiet. And just as Ellie can tell others stories for hours on end, she can sit enraptured as she listens to others speaking of their lives (or someone else’s life whose stories they’ve stolen) for lengthy amounts of time.

Her environment, however, has possibly prepared the little girl a little too well. And while other children her age might run to their parents at the sound of a house creaking in the night, or the mistaken belief that something is in their closet, Ellie most often runs to investigate. After all, it’s just her and her dad, and someone’s got to protect him from the bad things! So while Ellie might eventually wake her father up in the middle of the night to tell him that she’s heard something, her motivation is more to get him to get her something to protect them with (like her uncle’s old baseball bad that’s too high for her to reach!). And while her father is the focus of her protective efforts, the girl feels only slightly less protective over the boarders at Lucky 72. To that end she’ll sprinkle dried flowers or tap water in front of doors or on windowsills, or do any other strange behaviors required of rumors she’s heard regarding what keeps people ‘safe’ from ‘bad things.’



Ellie was born Elizabeth Morgan Sullivan to a loving father, two doting grandparents, and a mother who felt too tied down to bother staying a constant in her child’s life. It wasn’t that Amanda couldn’t stay, but that she preferred to seek better things out of life. Not that Ellie had ever minded much. Other children in her schools had two parents, but a few had single parents, and certainly her father and the visits to her grandparents were all the child needed to feel perfectly content with life. In fact, it often proved more problematic when her mother came around. The woman would parade her daughter in front of whatever ‘catch’ she’d brought back to her ‘quaint,’ little hometown, and Ellie would come back to silently watch television and hold tight to her father’s hand. No, things were much better without a mother as far as Ellie was concerned.

And though observers might disagree, things were much better for the little girl. Growing up in the Lucky 72 was nothing like the ideal childhood environment written about by parenting magazines, and her teachers had told her father several times that he might consider a different location in which to live, but the little girl loved it. Instead of boring video games and tv watching like they did in the television shows she sometimes watched (although she preferred the shows involving space, dinosaurs, or dragons), Ellie got to see interesting people. She got to help out with big girl things (drying glasses without breaking any…well maybe that one, was very big girl of her!). And, most importantly to the little girl, she got to know how things really worked. Or some things, anyway. Like that there were bad things around, because she was sure she’d much rather know and be able to protect everyone than be a little baby and not know.

Of course, knowing could be problematic. Ellie most certainly knew too much about her father’s time away from the bar; which made it problematic when the little girl was convinced that something was lurking in the dark of the bar and that she needed a weapon to protect them. And she knew far too much about what could lurk in the bar. Generally brave exterior or not, there are still nightmares that were perhaps a bit too vivid, and nights in which it takes an exhausting struggle before the girl would give in and sleep. But these are the rare moments.

Ellie has lived a more or less happy existence to this point…talking almost continuously throughout it, of course.



• sullysullivan; Ellie's father is, as might be expected of a child, the center of her world. She'll spend hours telling him about her day, attempting to convince him to play pretend with her, or narrating her latest story.