Gentry/The Floriographer

The Floriographer

Always male, The Floriographer is a member of the local Gentry, created by Annapurna.

Description

The Floriographer's appearance is rather pointedly unremarkable. While his clothing is simple, never ornate, he simply...fades...into whatever is around him, without ever truly changing colours or semblance. Tall without being too tall, slender without being skeletal, those few unfortunate enough to remember him clearly have described the creature as a mousy-haired, bespectacled young man with vivid, avid eyes.

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.

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.