Once upon a time in the distant land of New York City, there was a young girl. The girl had a brother, a mother and a father, and many more distant family members who made their home a cheery place to be in the winter season, which was when they all came to visit. The girl's mother taught ballet, and the girl's father taught literature at a local university. The girl's brother was older by a few years, and he went off to college, and later graduated, and even later became a quite fashionable photographer. Later, the girl also went to college, but she found herself more aimless than the rest of her family. Not knowing what to do with her life and on the cusp of graduation, she took her spring break alone in Washington D.C.
When she came back, she wasn't quite the same. Something had changed in her. She was colder, harder, more driven. Ambitious. The man she'd been dating noticed the change and found it attractive; it would be a useful trait for a politician's wife. She'd found the cherry trees of D.C. pleasant, though there'd been a strange cold snap when she visited and the place looked very nearly ethereal-- a temporary thing, no doubt. It would not be a bad place to work and live.
A year went by, and another, and another. The girl was no longer a girl, but a woman, and she went about her daily life with her husband, toiling toward doing good in the world. They clawed their way up through the ranks, one year after the next. The woman was barely recognizable from the girl she'd once been.
Then, after ten years, during the winter when her parents' house became merry... another girl appeared close to her family's home in New York, the spitting image of the woman as she'd been in her college years. A long lost cousin, perhaps? No. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong... but she never made it to the front door. A few others appeared and whisked her away, but not before the woman caught a glimpse of her. Her mother's favorite mirror shattered that day in a strange accident, and the woman changed again, just a little. She learned to use a gun, and she began taking late night jaunts around her own home in Washington D.C., looking for something. She would not say what, not even to her husband.
Refugee
Aneira is a member of the Sun Court and arrived in the local vicinity sometime last year. She was previously part of a freehold in the Boston area and made a reasonable reputation for herself as an outrider and occasional mercenary who ran with a group that patrolled the border between worlds in that area. Some time last winter, however, a tragedy struck her motley: the Wyrd's hold on grew too strong for one of her brothers-in-arms, and in his madness he killed, wounded and kidnapped in true Gentry form. Aneira speaks little of this herself, but it's no secret to anyone who might have visited Boston in the last year.
Steel and Paper
Aneira is a member of the Harvestmen as well as the Custodians.
Unrested
Aneira rarely shows her emotions in an easily interpretable way; her face is as frozen as the rest of her, and she doesn't often express them verbally. When emotionally off-balance, she's far more likely to push too hard, to try to keep going when it's wiser to turn back, and when truly upset, a walk around the block to clear her head isn't enough— she'd rather go wander the Hedge.
Traveler
Not that she's established much of a local reputation, but for anyone who might pay attention to such things: Aneira often leaves the area to travel. There's often a small ripple somewhere on the internet on those weekends citing freak storms or references to having seen a ghost, or a moving statue, or a pale lady on the eve of some personal disaster, when the disaster is sometimes averted.. and sometimes not.
These are things that one might find out if really looking into Aneira's history, but she's gone through a lot of trouble to hide her past. Hidden Life 2, New Identity 2, Inconspicuous 4 (Entitlement).
Looking for an ST for PRPs regarding anything in this section.
Self-Proclaimed Heroine
Aneira belongs to the Lost Pantheon, but she's been (so far) careful to keep Vahca, the ice valkyrie, separate from Aneira, the self she presents to the Freehold. A glance over her history might explain this: the incident with her motley looms as a reminder of what happens when one's clarity slips, not just to herself but to others who might find her hobby less than amenable.
Aneira believes she has been called to a higher purpose and that her time in Arcadia was akin to passing through the (frozen) fires of Hell. Perhaps she doesn't quite believe in a Christian God, but she certainly believes she was stripped of her humanity and that her aspect is meaningful in some way.
Her hidden self (or true one, depending on how you look at things) proclaims herself as a demigoddess of winter storms and crystalline light, a measured hand that metes out justice, and a protector of those she perceives as weak, particularly of women appearing to be being abused by men. The abusers often find themselves soundly beaten down by a blindingly bright crystalline figure and the women dispensed advice to extricate themselves from their situations. She drinks shame from them both and sometimes escorts the transgressors to another Pantheon counterpart to be dealt with.
Mirror Image
Aneira's fetch is her Enemy.
Her fetch is fairly powerful in the mortal world. Having stolen the life Aneira had before she was Taken, the fetch holds Aneira's true name, Clara Mueller née Stahl. 'Clara' married an up-and-coming lawyer with political aspirations who works now for the Department of Justice in Washington D.C. The Muellers, now middle-aged, are only prominent to those who understand the inner workings of that side of things, but they are very well-connected. The fetch knows Aneira escaped and will kill or return her to her master given the opportunity; the fetch is no friend to changelings in general, and works actively to change identification laws to make their lives harder. It also handles something of a local neighborhood watch aspect.
The Sculptor of Frozen Roses
Another thing Aneira never speaks of: her Keeper, the Sculptor of Frozen Roses. A Bluebeard-esque figure, he had a habit of taking wives and instituting a number of rules that had to be followed. Difficult to please as he was, each wife would eventually fail his tests and be transformed into statues. Despite that her time in Arcadia is becoming increasingly clear in her memory, she knows little about this figure other than what she herself experienced and, as is common enough for changelings, fears nothing more than him finding her.
The Sculptor's domain is a land of sharp edges and frozen beauty. Nothing grows there, and there is a stillness to it that might be mistaken for peace or serenity. Objects that resemble trees or flowers are in fact carved from sharp, hard crystals and gemstones. Furniture has no cushions, only cutting edges. The ground is composed of diamond shards that will cut the feet of the unprepared. In this land are statues of beautiful women: ice, marble, alabaster, granite, blue gemstone. Those who suffer his attentions are liable to find themselves painfully reshaped when his temper strikes.
