Forbes Carlyle

A college friend of Helen Morgendorffer, Forbes Carlyle is the lifetime companion of Paige Turner in The Winters of Those Gone Before and Legion of Lawndale Heroes. The only daughter of the uber-wealthy Spaulding Carlyle and Stepford Carlyle (also the granddaughter of Miranda Carlyle and a descendant of Majel Carlyle), Forbes was a double major (Archaeology and Art History) at Middleton College when she met Paige (also known as Serenity) and they fell in love, becoming a couple almost immediately afterward.

Forbes' friendship with Helen and Jake cooled after their graduation from Middleton (partly because of his slight jealously over Forbes' ability to deal with her family problems in a way he never could, and partly because of the way he refused an offer to work for her family as an entry-level marketing rep in the Carlyle business empire). Currently, Forbes lives with Paige in a supremely affluent surburb of Denver, Colorado, where she also works as an international antiques broker. It is also stated that there has been little said in a negative manner about Forbes and Paige as a couple - mainly because of the family's immense wealth, but also because the Carlyle family has truly accepted Paige as one of them. (In the LLHniverse, Helen simply drifted apart from Forbes and Paige. Jake had no problems with them, and they all became reacquainted at the Middleton College reunion.)

• (In the story notes for 'Winters', as well as the unreleased 'unrated' version, it is revealed that in the summer after Helen's graduation from Middleton, Forbes and Paige accompanied her on her month-long vacation paid for by Helen's mother (as a ruse to try and break her and Jake up). Over the course of their vacation, the three women engaged in many playfully erotic adventures, including a bet dealing with the fourteen graduating seniors at an exclusive boys' academy in Dijon, France, and an intimate encounter between all three on the night before they returned to America. (It is currently unknown if the young Forbes, Paige and Helen of the LLH universe shared the same experiences.)

Forbes is 5'7 and very attractive, with dark scarlet hair, cream-colored skin and blue eyes. (All Carlyle women have dark scarlet hair.) She is the mother of Julia Carlyle, who attends the United States Academy of Extranormal Studies and has a strong familial resemblance (except that Julia has green eyes). She birthed Julia with the help of Deforest Carlyle, a fourth cousin who she had dated during her last year of high school and first year of college (before she met Paige), and they have a close relationship as friends and Julia's parents (along with Paige).

Powers

In the LLH universe, Forbes has the ability to change the color of any substance or form of energy, and can do so with anything and everything within in a one hundred and forty-meter radius. Forbes has perfect control over her changes, which last for one hour or just over four days (about one hundred hours); she can change them back immediately. Color changes do not change the properties of substances or form of energy. Forbes can make a color change permanent; she has to concentrate undisturbed on her target for one minute. While not having anything near the training that her daughter has, Forbes still has long experience in playing with her abilities, and has learned many tricks over her lifetime:

• Forbes has learned how to 'hide' her heat signature and that of others by suppressing the heat signature/changing it to other frequencies of 'light':

• She can change the frequency of the ambient light in an area in order to detect energy signatures of active equipment, living beings, and even radiant energy sources (such as laser grids and spotlights). She can also dampen down, amplify, or shift the frequency (color) as she wants. This allows her to use artificial lights as weapons; she can increase the light to blind attackers, or shift the light entirely to red (or blue-green, if underwater) in order to use the light as a laser.

• She can see inside sealed/locked areas and containers by turning materials transparent.

• She can render laser weapons (or any communications, surveillance/reconnaissance or defensive measures that rely on EM-specrum based energies) inoperable.

• Because of the nature of her powers, Forbes cannot get sunburned or be blinded (accidentally or deliberately) by any form of light, as her body naturally protects her from harmful effects of electromagnetic radiation. This means that Forbes possesses an extreme natural resistance to all effects of dangerous radiation; however, Forbes can allow her body to lessen its resistance for short periods of time (thus allowing her to suntan, have X-rays taken, etc.).