Revision as of 03:01, 6 March 2017

The Life and Times of Aaron Fletcher (aka The Background)

Spring: Mortal Life

• How was your family life before your abduction? Were your parents kind or cruel? Were you spoiled or impoverished?
• Where did you live? Did you live in Vienna, or did you live elsewhere?
• How were you viewed amongst your peers, both in school(if you went) and in your social life. Were you cited as a bully or ruffian, were you kind and charitable?
• What was your occupation prior to your abduction? How did this play a role in your personality (if it did)?

They say that the Fletcher family line mixed with the Passamoquoddy tribes in the early life of Aleswich. From the research that has been done on the Passamoquoddy tribe, it is said that their history, culture, and rituals are based on oral history, prior to the arrival of European settlers on their land. The richness of an oral history pales in comparison to a written history. Each teller of the history adds their on flavor to the longer tale. And for those that knew the Fletchers of the mid-sized town in Maine, were unsurprised that two children would be gifted with the craft of storytelling.

Born to a lawyer and doctor, Aaron and his sister, Natasha, were good at telling stories. The twins would spend hours telling stories to one another. Entertain each other with weaving words for hours. One of their favorite games was 'Once Upon a Time,' in which the tale would start sometime in the morning and go through until bedtime. Aaron and Sasha (his nickname for his sister) were a talented duo, but their tales were never light or filled with happiness. It was as though Aaron and Sasha channeled the Brothers Grimm-their stories filled with dark tones, muted light, with dark and malevolent shadows. Their parents thought it was morbid their children could take any happy story and twist it into a tragic tale. It was no surprise that upon entering high school, Sasha and Aaron joined circles of artists, writers, thespians. Even though their parents already mapped out their futures as doctors or lawyers, their parents considered it "quaint" that they felt an artist calling--and didn't see any harm in letting such idle entertainment continue through their teenage years.

Early on, Aaron has dubbed three young ladies at his high school as the Wyrd Sisters. They were the "Mean Girls" of Aleswich. Popular. Pretty. Petty. When they would pick on those they saw as not part of their clique, Aaron would tell stories here and there to dethrone them one at a time. When his sister was one of their marks, Aaron decided to raise the stakes and created an elaborate tale so intricate and filled with enough truth and lies, it caused each of the girls to endure humiliation, shame, and a significant plunge in their prestige. Things were fine for a few years.

They say that the fury and scorn of a female is one that you never want to be a target of. Aaron was the target of three, and on a night traveling home after the final curtain of the high school production of 'The Mousetrap' ended, both Sasha and Aaron walked back home (as they always did); but this would be the last time Aleswich would hear of Aaron for some five years. Whispers of kidnapping, running away, or worse: death, would circle the home and community. Eventually, Aaron was found at a 7-11 just outside of town, looking worse for wear. He eventually returned to his family safe and sound.

Now if you thought this was the end of the story, you would be wrong. If you thought this was only the beginning, then my fine friends, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls--get ready for a ride and learn how three girls destroyed five lives all for the slight of one teenage boy.

Summer: Abduction

• How did your former master claim you? What methods did he establish to get you into the Hedge?
• How did your Master treat you during this time? Was he forceful? Or was he friendly?
• Give us a small description of how your character felt upon entering the Hedge, and when he officially captured you?

So there we are, two high school kids traveling back down familiar paths towards their parents home. They had been doing it for months and years. There was a favorite spot in the woods where an old stone bridge connected the two parts of the woods. Under was a simple river that traveled from and to who-knows-where. But that path was a familiar place. Traveling down the back roads to their parents' home was easy. So why was it that on this particular night was it so difficult? Over the bridge, two lefts and a right at the marker stones, then one more left at the oak and we are once again home was the clever poem they would chant to map their way from school to home. But once over the bridge, the marker stones were at a left and two rights. An old oak tree stood in a spot that seemed familiar, but when they turned right for home--home was not there waiting for them.

Things became even more confusing as they continued to walk, as the sky overhead grew darker and darker. Maybe they needed to travel further. Was it three lefts, or two? Wasn't it a right? Of course, it was. Two rights, one left, and over the stone bridge. The poem didn't have the rhythmic beat as before, but it had to be it. As they continued to walk through the labyrinth their familiar forest became, they finally reached a clearing to discover a ramshackle cottage in the woods. This feels very cliche, Aaron turned to say to his twin sister. But alas, his sister was nowhere to be found. Had he lost her? Had she gone to explore another direction? She was right next to me, he said to the forest and himself alike. The door opened to the cottage, just as ice-cold began to fall from above. Wanting to avoid freezing to death by sudden showers, he ran inside to the home--surprised to find that the interior was much larger than the exterior. The home was two, maybe three, or maybe five floors--Aaron couldn't determine as he explored, looking for a telephone, or a way of getting his bearings. A door would open into one room, then another, then he'd see himself leaving into a room that he just recently exited out of. Nothing was making sense. Or everything was making sense depending on who you talked to.

He opened a set of doors, that opened into a large valley encircled in stone and lined with several rows of mismatched chairs. In the middle of the valley was a smooth stone surface that contained a menagerie of things. Scattered and tattered costumes, props and other weaponry from stage combats (or real combats) past; and anything else they would need (or his Keeper saw fit to provide them). From above him (hovering? looming?) he heard someone tell a story. Aaron heard the murmurings of words, the tale was that of a prince who fought for love. Aaron was surprised to suddenly find himself dressed in knightly garb and looming in the distance was a tower several stories high and surrounded by goblins of all shapes and sizes. He knew the tale well. Maybe this is all a dream, he considered, and played along. Save the princess, and live happily ever after. Easy peasy. He fought the goblins with some difficulty. Some scrapes and cuts from weapons held by the foe--but what hero is without some wounds to tell the tale later in life? But upon getting to the tower, and traveling up numerous stairs, he began to feel fatigued. His head felt dizzy and his throat dry. Had he traveled so long that he was going to die of dehydration? Thankfully, the door appeared in front of him. Aaron opened it and saw the princess sleeping. As he drew nearer, his stomach grew hungry, his thirst looking to be quenched now. The prince soon learned he had fought a long way for the love not of the princess, but for the blood inside her. Aaron lost himself as he fed on her without question. Suddenly awakening to the horror that he cuased; covered in the blood and gore of a damsel distressed, a voice chittered somewhere "No...this will not due," and Aaron found himself back at the blank stage with an all new set of props, and without much of a pause, transformed into another type of hero on another quest that ended differently than the stories Aaron was familiar with.

The Grand Stage, as it's called, is but one of the places one can find the Gentry known as The Twisted Author. There is also the Magnificent Lorehouse, where countless books both bound and tattered can be found. This is where the Twisted Author goes to write down the tales he's told--chronicling each as they unfold with his "characters," that he's brought from the Mortal Realm. Some help him for their own reasons, and he doesn't mind--as long as he has characters to help explore the stories that he feels "inspired" to write down. The sad truth is this--The Twisted Author has never once written anything original in his timeless existance in Faerie. Indeed, all stories writen and "created" are from the fragmented memories of others. He thinks they are his and his alone to twist and reshape, but a plagiarist is still a plagiarist no matter what they look like. one really understands who is listening to teenagers in the shadows, in the darkness, around the darker corners of daylight. The siblings soon discovered that they were invited to the ever twisting landscape and stage of the King of Tales and Terror. For now, they would entertain him-a lover of stories of all types, even the olden faerie tales spun by Aaron and Sasha. For now, they would be his new characters in his game of storytelling. Day spilled into night, night lasted forever until the breaking of dawn; fall gave way to summer, then came winter. Seasons did not matter, and time was unnecessary on the Taleteller's stage. People, denizens, and creatures came and left at the Taleteller's whim-anything to progress his malevolent story; and it did not matter if you knew where he was in his tale. What mattered was surviving and praying for an ending and a release.

If days and months were a thing in Faerie, then Sasha and Aaron were prisoners and players of the Taleteller for several of them. The only thing that kept them both from total falling into madness and irreparable damage to their sanity was seeing this for what it was: a game of storytelling and tale-spinning. The King of Tales and Terror knew of nothing original, and even in the shadows behind the forests or beyond hills in the valley, he would spy on the siblings to see if he could claim the stories they would be forced to play out in his domain. So in times when they thought the King of Tales and Terror slumbered, the siblings worked on what they did best-telling stories. So the siblings formulated a plan: though their own way of secret communication, though costuming ploys, interactions with other denizens of the Dream Lands, tell a story so dark, even the King would be intrigued-and distracted enough to escape.

The story required more elaborate costumes, much more functional than the ones they would find within the Hedges. Glamour was collected amongst the trees, the ichor of watery bodies, breathed in like air. Aaron and Sasha's bodies were already altered within their time in Faerie, this was more of a welcoming ritual-welcoming all the magic of the Dreaming into themselves. They were treated like pretty nightmares; and pretty nightmares they would both become. The siblings played their part in the Taleteller's story, but the siblings altered it subtly at first, narrating their actions to give the King of Tales and Terror more theatrics and flavor than anything else. Intrigued, and distracted, they made for their final curtain and exiting off the stage. The thorns within the hedge tore at them as they escaped and when the Taleteller discovered the ruse, he sought a way to bring his favored actors back to his stage of nightmares. The siblings found a way out through the hedge-but freedom became more the focus than family; and the siblings were separated. Even today, Aaron still does not know what happened to his sister, but he found himself north of where he use to call home, in Bangor, ME. Aaron was found by a few changelings who helped him readjust, made him aware of a few rules and quickly vanished to avoid the eyes of the Gentry or any Loyalists within the area. Aaron began his new life as member of The Lost.

Autumn: Arcadia and Escape

• What tasks did your Master use you for? (This is an important note for Seeming as well as Kith selection)
• Were other stolen people working with you? How did you view them?
• What urged you to escape?
• How do you view your Master now?

Winter: Lost

• How much time has passed since your abduction and return from the Hedge?
• Are you just stepping out of the Hedge into Vienna, or coming from elsewhere?
• If you are in a Court, how did you get brought in?
• Does your character have a fetch? Where are they? Does your character have their old life back? What is the status of their identity?

The Historian of Fabrication (aka: The Chronicler of Lies, The Vivisectionist of Memories, The Twisted Author)

The Historian is a member of the Gentry, created by Aaron Fletcher.

Description

He never blinks.

Many a victim has thought herself alone, only to find the gentle, yet inexorable strength of too many hands drawing her down to be composted for her sins.

Realm

The Herbarium is never truly dark. The realm possesses seemingly endless space, fields upon fields of flowers, formerly human and not, and yet, there is no day. There is no night. There are no shadows, unless the master wills it so.

Not physical shadows.

The shadow of their master's displeasure lies over all who dwell within the Fae's domain, and for those souls whose beauty isn't up to par, the filthsome, rotting, reeking heap of 'compost' more than makes up for the rest. It is never in the same place twice, rumours abounding as to how, or what, or who, is tasked with its silently unlovely relocations.

Perhaps most horrifying of all, however, is the herbarium chamber itself. Every blossom has spent hours within it, forced to gaze upon her/his own potential future. Pressed between glass, a thumb's width wide yet still alive, still beautiful, are the Floriographer's most perfect specimens, his pride, his joy, left unable to move, to speak, to interact at all -- but still able to feel.

The punishment for their release is unspeakable.

Methodology

Victims are chosen for their beauty, their innate loveliness, their grace, their elocution. He does not choose average. He chooses the high school beauty queens, the dancers at the pinnacle of physical fitness and health, the winners of contests, and he chooses them himself.

The Floriographer prefers his blooms hand-picked.

Perhaps you saw his eyes observing you through mirrors, perhaps you saw him trailing you through crowds, quiet and intense. Escapees often remember scattered, dream-hazed moments in the night, eyes in the light of a streetlamp, reflections of a man who isn't there.

He is gentle, but utterly ruthless in his pruning of excesses from his blossoms' lives. Too chatty? He will steal your voice and keep it, or train it before he gives it back, to behave as HE wishes it to do. His victims are physically shaped and trimmed, groomed to emulate particular blossoms, made to study them, endless hours of attempting to be them, to behave as they behave.

Those chosen to be flowers in his garden are groomed toward the emotions and meanings their particular blossom once represented. A Flowering whose form was sculpted into a Chamomile might be forced into difficult situations, given hardships to persevere through -- or to fail, and be unworthy -- as Chamomile's meaning is Energy in Adversity. One sculpted as Basil might be treated cruelly indeed, manipulated into terrible thoughts and actions, as Basil's meaning is Hate. Or, perhaps, a lovely woman he intends to sculpt into a Red Rose (Love) persistently becomes a thistle (LEAVE ME ALONE, defiance), all on her own. It is this war of wills which most commonly creates hybrid blossoms (a.k.a. Dual Kith).

See the Flower Language for help in choosing your particular role in his bouquet.

Suggested Themes for Escapees

The vast majority of the Floriographer's escapees are those who were flawed in some way or another, or simply not quite good enough to merit his especial attentions (read: not beautiful enough to belong in the herbarium -- yet...).

• Few Beast kiths are suitable for his realm. Those that are, are predators, carrion-eaters, those forced to survive by consuming the formerly-human 'compost' of the heap where truly flawed beauty is summarily discarded. Many an escapee was chased by hungry Beasts.
• Darklings are almost unheard of, but the occasional kith crops up in those nocturnal predators or mimics who attend the compost and guard the gardens. Who guards the guardians? Beasts are just that: Beasts.
• Elemental Woodbloods are fairly common, though the Floriographer has been known to trade flawed creations for other kiths if his garden requires them. Elementals would most often have been forced to do or behave in certain ways toward growing blossoms, to "encourage" them in directions this Keeper wanted, if they were not blossoms themselves.
• Fairest Flowerings are, far and beyond, the single most likely kith for this Keeper to produce. It is not unknown for Flowerings to deliberately mar themselves, be it a cut to the face or more severe changes, in order to be sent to the compost and take their chances with the beasts which guard the charnel reek of its confines. As Beauty is a major theme of the Floriographer, arguments could be made for many combinations of Fairest kiths.
• Ogres do not typically exist. A player would need to make an excellent case to justify one. See below RE: physical appearance. Their roles, too, would be as aggressors and manipulators, whether or not they realized what their actions caused. Need a blossom to learn humility? Have an Ogre eat her friend for disobedience. They are most often traded for with other Keepers, as they are unlovely and of little interest to his obsession.
• Wizened exist only in the capacity of managing the Beasts and doing chores the Floriographer would rather leave to others' time. If they are aesthetically appealing, they are more likely to please him and be his direct go-betweens. If they are hideous or twisted, they are less likely to have direct contact, their constant slavery and his impossible demands what causes them to change, rather than deliberate Fae intervention. These, too, are often adopted from other Keepers.