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testing testing bluh
Jun. 1st, 2013 03:31 pm» PLAYER INFORMATION
Player NAME: LA
Current AGE: supah old
Player TIME ZONE: CST
Personal JOURNAL: possiblyevil [at] dw
IM & SERVICE: hunterofpenghins [at] aim
Player PLURK: angrybears
Current CHARACTERS: Caesar Silverberg (commentboxtroll)
» CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character NAME: Mallory Baines
Character PULL-POINT: After Vivian and Mallory argue over going into the Neon City and Mallory agrees to meet her again once she passes through, not wanting to go through it herself.
Character AGE: 110 (but appears to be in her 30s)
Character ABILITIES:
Being a changeling grants her several useful abilities: shapeshifting, minor reality-bending fear aura (if a house didn't feel haunted before, it sure will after she's stood in it for awhile), and travel via shadows. Being a creature of Faerie, she's also capable of keeping herself up and running off of certain emotions from others. In her case, she feeds off of fear, though a sandwich now and then is okay, too.
In particular, her shapeshifting is her key asset. It's what she fights the best with and what she relies on the most to get by. Her favorite tricks are to shift blades in place of hands or to change into a butt-load of spiders when grabbed. As a changeling, her shifting will never be perfected, so she's limited by her mass. For example, she can split her mass into her weight in, say, rats, but turning into something bigger requires more mass than she has. A workaround for that flaw she's found is that she can take in more mass from outside her body, using items such as her many layers of clothing and theater jewelry, as well as all sorts of random items kept in her pockets. She can also use anything she can grab, really. The bigger it is, the harder it'll be to maintain the shift. The shift then also tends to incorporate the appearances of whatever she's incorporated (think like a dragon that appears to be made out of car parts).
A few other strange notes to her shapeshifting is she cannot change the color of her eyes; they will remain a neon green color no matter what her form is. There's also the oddity of how, if her mass is split, she won't necessarily be killable unless someone gets every single form she's split herself into. That, however, she would prefer to avoid, since she then has to regain mass the hard way (slowly gaining it and going up to slightly bigger and bigger forms over several months).
The fear aura is just an aura she can't turn off. It makes her seem gross and creepy. It can rub off on places and objects if she's around them enough and can skyrocket to terror-inducing levels if she gets very angry. It doesn't really effect the strong-minded, the strong-willed, or people used to her presence.
Shadow-hopping is exactly what it sounds like. Mallory can move between shadows on a whim. They must be within her range of sight.
Character WORLD: The mortal side of Mallory's world is, as far as the majority are concerned, completely normal and realistic apart from the occasional supernatural happening! There is magic, but it is kept under wraps and there are only so many mortals who are capable of it. Otherwise, it follows the same course of history as a normal Earth would, apart from a few additional fairy tales that have popped up here and there. The human side of the world isn't what matters, though, so moving along to where most of Mallory's story takes place: The Land Beyond. The Land Beyond has plenty of names. Faerie, the Land of Mists, the Land Beyond the Hedge, Wonderland, the Summer and Winter Lands, the Courts, and so the list could go on and on. Mallory has a few names for it herself, but they're all incredibly rude. Basically, what we have here is the land of the Fair Folk and many, many other beings who should only exist in stories. There are goblins, vampires, werewolves, dragons, mermaids; all sorts of things that should generally be kept apart from humans.
The Land Beyond sits on the other side of a massive hedge that is just for that exact purpose, keeping the two worlds apart. The hedge itself is usually unreachable by mortals except at certain times, such as equinoxes or via fairy rings or, for the more magically inclined, spells and rituals. The hedge itself is, in fact, more of a massive forest, one which is impossible to measure in length as it keeps changing that. The reason it's called the hedge instead of 'the massive forest between everything' is that there is one giant thorny hedge that grows ABOVE the forest itself and its roots and lower branches reach down low enough to be entangled in the forest growing down under it. It looks much like a great green wall reaching into the sky forever when up close, but one does not ever pass through the hedge, just the forest that grows in the shade of it. The lands on the immortal side of the hedge are the sort out of fairy tales. It ranges from impressive and ancient castles and quaint hillside villages to inexplicable cities of neon lights and endless nights and constant parties. The younger generation being the ones who prefer making their mock human cities, of course, and the older ones more steeped in tradition. In between all of those, there are deadly mazes, incomprehensible tea parties, big bad wolves stalking little piggies, cackling witches with houses that walk, goblin markets, dwarves fighting dragons for treasures, never aging elves who go by lordly titles rather than names, and in the middle of all of this, the changelings.
As far as politics go, the different lands are ruled by different lords and ladies of the Fair Folk, with a few exceptions here and there. The two most prominent are the Summer Lands and the Winter Lands. The Summer Lands are ruled by a court with a king and queen, while the Winter Lands are ruled over (at the time of Mallory's story) by the Night Lady. Unlike the other lands, the Night Lady came to power suddenly and brutally. It's said she may very well be a changeling herself, when one considers her ability to quickly change tactics and break oaths easier than a full-blooded Fair Folk, but that has never been officially confirmed. What the immortal world does know about her is she is considered very young for someone with so much power and her powers are mostly involved in sleep, dreams, and darkness, her power coming from the night and as such she is never seen during the day. She uses hobgoblins, other shapeshifters, and similarly nightmarish creatures as her army and made a point to create many changelings to fit into those armies. As of Mallory's pull-point, the Night Lady has kept her conquests to only the Winter Lands, but there have been skirmishes on the mountainous border between those lands and the Summer Lands lately.
Now changelings, which are important in the case of Mallory, who is one, are what they call those who wander in from the mortal realms and end up stuck in the Land Beyond. They range from animals to humans, as anything can end up there. In the case of many humans who end up trapped in the immortal world, they were brought there for the amusement of the immortal races. Lords and ladies of the Fair Folk, the elves, are the worst offenders. To pass the time, they might kidnap children or trick adult humans into making bad deals that get them trapped. Other races are known for stealing humans, too, though most often it is for eating, in those cases, or simply because it's easier to leech off emotions from mortals (as many entities of Faerie can live off of certain emotions as well). Once stuck on the wrong side of the hedge, well, mortal things just can't exist there, so the land takes it upon themselves to change them over time, hence the term 'changeling'. They lose their humanity bit by bit until they fit in better among the immortal races, only they are rarely ever considered equal to them. You are more likely to find changelings roaming as homeless vagabonds, as criminals, or stuck as servants or pets to those who took them (or tricked them) in the first place. When changelings change, they often become something similar to what took them or they are shaped to become a way in particular, provided the one doing that has enough power to do so. The glamours (powers) they gain are wide and varied and it's very rare to find two changelings that are alike.
Character HISTORY:
Once upon a time, as all fairy tales are contractually required to begin, Mallory Baines was human.
She was born and raised in the early part of 20th century America, herself coming from an ordinary enough family. She herself started a family of her sometime around around 1925, marrying a farmer and raising two much loved children, a daughter, Molly, and a son, Jacob. Life wasn't easy, but it was good, in her opinion, up until the 30s and the Dust Bowl hit. The Baines farm was among those caught up in the drought and her good life slowly dried up along with the land. It was during that time that her younger child, her son Jacob, became deathly ill. Already too poor to do more than plead for a local doctor to look at them, there was little they could do but pray. She contented herself with that, as poor as it was, up until her daughter also began showing signs of the same illness. At that point, Mallory became desperate to do something to save them, but she was little more than a farmer's wife and all she could do was despair. It was during that time that she began seeing a tall woman dressed in a black gown in her dreams, telling her to go to the woods if she wished to save her children. It was an insane idea, because it was just a dream! But as Molly and Jacob both grew more and more ill by the day, she figured she was going to go insane anyway and may as well go and see. Once she was sure her husband was away for the day, she told Molly, the only one awake then, that she was going for a walk and would be right back.
She really had meant it. She was going to be right back, she just needed a walk and some fresh air! Her trip to the nearest wooded copse, however, would turn that into nothing but a lie. In the darkest part of the woods, the very center, there really was a woman in black waiting. It was the Night Lady, a beautiful and fearsome creature from Faerie, and she sympathized with poor Mallory. She was there to help her, she said, but she could not simply hand a cure to her; it had to be won, as was the rule all her offers had to follow. Desperate for a way to save her children, Mallory, of course, agreed. The risks would be worth it for a cure, wouldn't it? With her agreeing to the rule, the Night Lady took Mallory away to the Land Beyond the Hedge, Faerie. There, in the middle of the Winter Lands, the Night Lady actually did give her the cure! Only then she told her she had to get back to the mortal world on her own. She had three days. Mallory took off immediately, unaware of the dangers of the vast lands ahead of head. To her, the trip only seemed to take the requisite three days, but the time in the Winter Lands moved according to what the Night Lady wanted. When Mallory finally crossed through the hedge into the mortal world, it wasn't three days that had passed in that world, but three whole years. What she found was a farm, long since abandoned to the winds of Black Sunday and two new gravestones in the nearby family graveyard, her children, and as the sun rose, she discovered one more frightening new reality. The sun burned painfully enough to force her to run back to the empty house, where, upon finding a mirror, she discovered her trip through the immortal world had left her changed forever.
Mallory was now a changeling, a human turned into something more suited for the realms of Faerie. In this case, she had begun changing into the Night Lady's preferred kind of servant, of the hobgoblin variety. For several days, she brooded and despaired in the abandoned farmhouse, but inevitably she did return to the wooded copse to find, again, the Night Lady. The Night Lady, of course, offered her safe haven in her lands and, with nowhere else to go, she accepted and returned to the Land Beyond. Years passed and Mallory, having become temperamental after her loss, would part ways with the Night Lady and her forces, instead retreating back into the dark forests of the hedge. There, she fostered an unhealthy hatred of the Fair Folk who tried to pass through the hedge to visit the mortal world and racked up quite a few murders, which put her in among the ranks of a "most wanted" criminal in the eyes of the ruling class. But she didn't stop there, her bitterness and anger turning her into the proverbial witch in the woods, where she harassed and scared anyone who dared to try passing through the section of the hedge she claimed as her home. She was hardly any kinder to mortals or lesser immortals than she was to the Fair Folk.
It wasn't until a woman from more modern times stumbled into her patch of the hedge that anything changed. Vivian, a young mother in a hideously similar predicament to what Mallory had faced when human, came running in, trying to escape a handful of the Night Lady's outriders. Vivian had recently moved into the same rural area that Mallory had lived in and was seeking her own lost children, a search that had brought her through Mallory's old house where she happened to have pocketed something very important to the changeling: a simple golden locket that, when opened, had two tiny pictures of her children in it. Upon seeing it, she demanded Vivian hand it over, threatening to kill her if she didn't! Vivian, however, had been sent this way with the specific advice to gain the help of whoever she ran into first. That would be Mallory. That in mind, Vivian demanded the changeling's aid in finding her lost children in exchange for the locket, which only threw Mallory into a massive fit of rage. Instead of killing Vivian, she took it out on the outriders who had the poor timing to show up then. After that, she managed to calm down and did agree to help, but only if given the locket there and then.
And true to her word, she did set out from the hedge with Vivian to begin the search. For the most part, it was how highly deals and promises were held in regard that kept her from outright killing the woman there and then, but there was also an inkling of pity. Maybe if she could save two other children...
Unfortunately, Mallory was still a criminal, wanted for murder. When the two reached their first obstacle, the Neon City, a city made to look similar to an ideal 1930s wonderland, only made entirely of beautiful crystal and neon-colored light, they had a disagreement. It would be faster to cut through, Vivian said, but Mallory refused and said she would meet Vivian on the other side.
This is the point where Mallory is pulled from her canon, though there is more after that, involving Mallory inevitably rescuing Vivian from the nonstop party that the Fair Folk ruling the Neon City hold, the continuing journey past the Summer Land mountains to get into the Winter Lands, inevitably discovering they need to confront the Night Lady to save the children, and meeting several other allies and enemies that have yet to make an appearance.
Character PERSONALITY:
Mallory is a foul, mean-spirited, and fairly bitter individual.
Stemming from her fall from humanity, she's, well, lost a lot of it. She's slid from the kind and caring mother she was as a human to something more natural for her new role in life as a nasty goblin, even though she decided she disliked her "own kind" as much as she did the Fair Folk. Her time in the Winter Lands taught her to fight, steal, scare, lie, and cheat, which were all very good things for a hobgoblin to know, but it also helped her foster her bitterness and her growing violent nature towards that world. In the end, she lashed out and fled to the hedge, where all she had for company was herself and whoever had the misfortune of stumbling upon her.
She plays up the foulness and the nastiness as much as she can as a way to keep everyone, all the awful things of that wretched world, away from her. The same with her murders of the Fair Folk and any else who rubbed her the wrong way, attacking as a way to get back at it all. That persona she built up around her from all of that was her lovely shield and, after so many years, with her humanity fading bit by bit, she came to enjoy it for the most part, laughing at the misfortune of others. If she had had to live through such misfortune, why shouldn't everyone else? With that, she justified her actions. Scaring people out of her woods became a big game to her, except for when the Fair Folk came calling. Then it became a vicious hunt. She became the monster in the woods, the scary creature in someone's closet, under their beds, in the basement. That one you told your children not to go out at night because, at least on the side of the world, as she hardly bothered with the mortal realm after her change.
But it's also because she's afraid. Afraid of letting anyone know of her failure, of letting the Night Lady find anyone else to steal away from her, or just of the Night Lady herself. It's the easy out, to be a bitter old hermit in a dark forest than to try and build a new life like the one she lost. In her own mind, she was weak and stupid as a human and she refuses to fall into that same trap again, with all the caring and worrying and hope, all things she can attribute to getting close to anyone else again.
All that said, the remnants of the person she once was are still there, if difficult to reach, as much as she denies it. She's never actually killed a child, for instance, for all the chaos she's caused, not even one of the hated Fair Folk, and she takes great offense at the idea that she would. No, she does things like chases them to the way out instead and then vanish back into the darkness. It's also not that hard to convince her to help with general household chores (especially cooking and sewing), since she really can do them better, she suspects, then whoever is failing at them. It's small things, begrudgingly given after much stalling and argument. She isn't necessarily anti-social, either. Her preference may be being on her lonesome, but she still needs people to scare around her to keep up her glamours and, honestly, the best form of entertainment is picking on others.
Although, with the arrival of Vivian in her woods with the locket, the memories of her old life are coming back to the forefront, part of why she was so angry with the woman at first (and still very dismissive of her, even if she is helping her). It's a symbol of the humanity she gave up on as lost and it's kicked off a creeping crawl back towards something akin to a recovery, if only bit by bit. Where that will take her, who knows yet.
» EXSILIUM INFORMATION
Chosen WEAPON: Mallory jokingly chooses her long coat as her weapon. Much to her surprise, it ends up being useful! It will slowly begin to expand how much she can put in the pockets, sort of like a bottomless bag, only with coat pockets. This, in turn, will help her with her mass-based shapeshifting in the long run. It will also do a few other things, like gain a knack for camouflage or become waterproof or extra warm on a whim, things like that.
Character INVENTORY: Her (several layers of) clothing and gaudy jewelry, a big ass fluffy purple feather boat, half a pack of hand-rolled cigarettes, random knick-knacks and bits of strings, the gold heart locket with pictures of her kids in it.
» SAMPLES
First PERSON:
This on? Hello?
[ Mallory's holding the tablet upside-down, as per usual for the technologically disinclined, and is tapping it loudly, obnoxiously even. Bam bam bam. ]
Christ, the light is supposed to mean it's on. It's on, isn't it? [ It's like talking to a bunch of old, plastic stage jewelry, since that's what the camera is aimed at right now. ] Listen. I'm not down for the 'sharing a place' deal, so one of you slack-jawed monkeys give me a few suggestions. There a lot of abandoned buildings in this shithole? Ruins and things, right? 'cause you all blew it the fuck up, yeah?
C'mon. Speak on up. If you don't, you all are really, really gonna regret it. I am literally the worst house guest, just the worst, eheheheh.
Third PERSON:
What the fuck was a tablet?
What the fuck was all this, any of this?
Figured. Mallory had left that stupid girl alone for all of five minutes and then, bam, something awful happened. Another world? Not another land in the Land Beyond? No. It couldn't be, now that she was outside fresh from the greeter to take a look around. No Fair Folk she could imagine would create such a slum-like place, nor would any of them have so many normal humans milling about. They had taste. Awful and gaudy taste, but taste all the same.
But seriously, screw that, she would figure it all out later. If she was going to deal with a sudden mass of unbearable humanity, she would need something to keep the edge off of her nerves. That last thing anyone needed was a freaking out changeling, especially one that could sprout as many blades as she felt like. A light. That was what she need, a light. That was definitely her top priority. Worrying about the situation or Vivian would come second, yes, second for sure. That in mind, she left the doors of the hold and shuffled on out into the marketplace, a creepy-looking woman with luminous green eyes, teeth that look a wee bit too sharp for a human, and lots of old, poor-fitting clothes now off to lurk around in search of someone, anyone, that might have a lighter or a match on their person.
"Hey, sweetheart," she wheedled at the first unfortunate soul that came within sidling range, "Any chance you got a bit of light to spare? I'm absolutely dying here."
» ADDITIONAL NOTES
purple monkey dishwasher pass it on
Player NAME: LA
Current AGE: supah old
Player TIME ZONE: CST
Personal JOURNAL: possiblyevil [at] dw
IM & SERVICE: hunterofpenghins [at] aim
Player PLURK: angrybears
Current CHARACTERS: Caesar Silverberg (commentboxtroll)
» CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character NAME: Mallory Baines
Character PULL-POINT: After Vivian and Mallory argue over going into the Neon City and Mallory agrees to meet her again once she passes through, not wanting to go through it herself.
Character AGE: 110 (but appears to be in her 30s)
Character ABILITIES:
Being a changeling grants her several useful abilities: shapeshifting, minor reality-bending fear aura (if a house didn't feel haunted before, it sure will after she's stood in it for awhile), and travel via shadows. Being a creature of Faerie, she's also capable of keeping herself up and running off of certain emotions from others. In her case, she feeds off of fear, though a sandwich now and then is okay, too.
In particular, her shapeshifting is her key asset. It's what she fights the best with and what she relies on the most to get by. Her favorite tricks are to shift blades in place of hands or to change into a butt-load of spiders when grabbed. As a changeling, her shifting will never be perfected, so she's limited by her mass. For example, she can split her mass into her weight in, say, rats, but turning into something bigger requires more mass than she has. A workaround for that flaw she's found is that she can take in more mass from outside her body, using items such as her many layers of clothing and theater jewelry, as well as all sorts of random items kept in her pockets. She can also use anything she can grab, really. The bigger it is, the harder it'll be to maintain the shift. The shift then also tends to incorporate the appearances of whatever she's incorporated (think like a dragon that appears to be made out of car parts).
A few other strange notes to her shapeshifting is she cannot change the color of her eyes; they will remain a neon green color no matter what her form is. There's also the oddity of how, if her mass is split, she won't necessarily be killable unless someone gets every single form she's split herself into. That, however, she would prefer to avoid, since she then has to regain mass the hard way (slowly gaining it and going up to slightly bigger and bigger forms over several months).
The fear aura is just an aura she can't turn off. It makes her seem gross and creepy. It can rub off on places and objects if she's around them enough and can skyrocket to terror-inducing levels if she gets very angry. It doesn't really effect the strong-minded, the strong-willed, or people used to her presence.
Shadow-hopping is exactly what it sounds like. Mallory can move between shadows on a whim. They must be within her range of sight.
Character WORLD: The mortal side of Mallory's world is, as far as the majority are concerned, completely normal and realistic apart from the occasional supernatural happening! There is magic, but it is kept under wraps and there are only so many mortals who are capable of it. Otherwise, it follows the same course of history as a normal Earth would, apart from a few additional fairy tales that have popped up here and there. The human side of the world isn't what matters, though, so moving along to where most of Mallory's story takes place: The Land Beyond. The Land Beyond has plenty of names. Faerie, the Land of Mists, the Land Beyond the Hedge, Wonderland, the Summer and Winter Lands, the Courts, and so the list could go on and on. Mallory has a few names for it herself, but they're all incredibly rude. Basically, what we have here is the land of the Fair Folk and many, many other beings who should only exist in stories. There are goblins, vampires, werewolves, dragons, mermaids; all sorts of things that should generally be kept apart from humans.
The Land Beyond sits on the other side of a massive hedge that is just for that exact purpose, keeping the two worlds apart. The hedge itself is usually unreachable by mortals except at certain times, such as equinoxes or via fairy rings or, for the more magically inclined, spells and rituals. The hedge itself is, in fact, more of a massive forest, one which is impossible to measure in length as it keeps changing that. The reason it's called the hedge instead of 'the massive forest between everything' is that there is one giant thorny hedge that grows ABOVE the forest itself and its roots and lower branches reach down low enough to be entangled in the forest growing down under it. It looks much like a great green wall reaching into the sky forever when up close, but one does not ever pass through the hedge, just the forest that grows in the shade of it. The lands on the immortal side of the hedge are the sort out of fairy tales. It ranges from impressive and ancient castles and quaint hillside villages to inexplicable cities of neon lights and endless nights and constant parties. The younger generation being the ones who prefer making their mock human cities, of course, and the older ones more steeped in tradition. In between all of those, there are deadly mazes, incomprehensible tea parties, big bad wolves stalking little piggies, cackling witches with houses that walk, goblin markets, dwarves fighting dragons for treasures, never aging elves who go by lordly titles rather than names, and in the middle of all of this, the changelings.
As far as politics go, the different lands are ruled by different lords and ladies of the Fair Folk, with a few exceptions here and there. The two most prominent are the Summer Lands and the Winter Lands. The Summer Lands are ruled by a court with a king and queen, while the Winter Lands are ruled over (at the time of Mallory's story) by the Night Lady. Unlike the other lands, the Night Lady came to power suddenly and brutally. It's said she may very well be a changeling herself, when one considers her ability to quickly change tactics and break oaths easier than a full-blooded Fair Folk, but that has never been officially confirmed. What the immortal world does know about her is she is considered very young for someone with so much power and her powers are mostly involved in sleep, dreams, and darkness, her power coming from the night and as such she is never seen during the day. She uses hobgoblins, other shapeshifters, and similarly nightmarish creatures as her army and made a point to create many changelings to fit into those armies. As of Mallory's pull-point, the Night Lady has kept her conquests to only the Winter Lands, but there have been skirmishes on the mountainous border between those lands and the Summer Lands lately.
Now changelings, which are important in the case of Mallory, who is one, are what they call those who wander in from the mortal realms and end up stuck in the Land Beyond. They range from animals to humans, as anything can end up there. In the case of many humans who end up trapped in the immortal world, they were brought there for the amusement of the immortal races. Lords and ladies of the Fair Folk, the elves, are the worst offenders. To pass the time, they might kidnap children or trick adult humans into making bad deals that get them trapped. Other races are known for stealing humans, too, though most often it is for eating, in those cases, or simply because it's easier to leech off emotions from mortals (as many entities of Faerie can live off of certain emotions as well). Once stuck on the wrong side of the hedge, well, mortal things just can't exist there, so the land takes it upon themselves to change them over time, hence the term 'changeling'. They lose their humanity bit by bit until they fit in better among the immortal races, only they are rarely ever considered equal to them. You are more likely to find changelings roaming as homeless vagabonds, as criminals, or stuck as servants or pets to those who took them (or tricked them) in the first place. When changelings change, they often become something similar to what took them or they are shaped to become a way in particular, provided the one doing that has enough power to do so. The glamours (powers) they gain are wide and varied and it's very rare to find two changelings that are alike.
Character HISTORY:
Once upon a time, as all fairy tales are contractually required to begin, Mallory Baines was human.
She was born and raised in the early part of 20th century America, herself coming from an ordinary enough family. She herself started a family of her sometime around around 1925, marrying a farmer and raising two much loved children, a daughter, Molly, and a son, Jacob. Life wasn't easy, but it was good, in her opinion, up until the 30s and the Dust Bowl hit. The Baines farm was among those caught up in the drought and her good life slowly dried up along with the land. It was during that time that her younger child, her son Jacob, became deathly ill. Already too poor to do more than plead for a local doctor to look at them, there was little they could do but pray. She contented herself with that, as poor as it was, up until her daughter also began showing signs of the same illness. At that point, Mallory became desperate to do something to save them, but she was little more than a farmer's wife and all she could do was despair. It was during that time that she began seeing a tall woman dressed in a black gown in her dreams, telling her to go to the woods if she wished to save her children. It was an insane idea, because it was just a dream! But as Molly and Jacob both grew more and more ill by the day, she figured she was going to go insane anyway and may as well go and see. Once she was sure her husband was away for the day, she told Molly, the only one awake then, that she was going for a walk and would be right back.
She really had meant it. She was going to be right back, she just needed a walk and some fresh air! Her trip to the nearest wooded copse, however, would turn that into nothing but a lie. In the darkest part of the woods, the very center, there really was a woman in black waiting. It was the Night Lady, a beautiful and fearsome creature from Faerie, and she sympathized with poor Mallory. She was there to help her, she said, but she could not simply hand a cure to her; it had to be won, as was the rule all her offers had to follow. Desperate for a way to save her children, Mallory, of course, agreed. The risks would be worth it for a cure, wouldn't it? With her agreeing to the rule, the Night Lady took Mallory away to the Land Beyond the Hedge, Faerie. There, in the middle of the Winter Lands, the Night Lady actually did give her the cure! Only then she told her she had to get back to the mortal world on her own. She had three days. Mallory took off immediately, unaware of the dangers of the vast lands ahead of head. To her, the trip only seemed to take the requisite three days, but the time in the Winter Lands moved according to what the Night Lady wanted. When Mallory finally crossed through the hedge into the mortal world, it wasn't three days that had passed in that world, but three whole years. What she found was a farm, long since abandoned to the winds of Black Sunday and two new gravestones in the nearby family graveyard, her children, and as the sun rose, she discovered one more frightening new reality. The sun burned painfully enough to force her to run back to the empty house, where, upon finding a mirror, she discovered her trip through the immortal world had left her changed forever.
Mallory was now a changeling, a human turned into something more suited for the realms of Faerie. In this case, she had begun changing into the Night Lady's preferred kind of servant, of the hobgoblin variety. For several days, she brooded and despaired in the abandoned farmhouse, but inevitably she did return to the wooded copse to find, again, the Night Lady. The Night Lady, of course, offered her safe haven in her lands and, with nowhere else to go, she accepted and returned to the Land Beyond. Years passed and Mallory, having become temperamental after her loss, would part ways with the Night Lady and her forces, instead retreating back into the dark forests of the hedge. There, she fostered an unhealthy hatred of the Fair Folk who tried to pass through the hedge to visit the mortal world and racked up quite a few murders, which put her in among the ranks of a "most wanted" criminal in the eyes of the ruling class. But she didn't stop there, her bitterness and anger turning her into the proverbial witch in the woods, where she harassed and scared anyone who dared to try passing through the section of the hedge she claimed as her home. She was hardly any kinder to mortals or lesser immortals than she was to the Fair Folk.
It wasn't until a woman from more modern times stumbled into her patch of the hedge that anything changed. Vivian, a young mother in a hideously similar predicament to what Mallory had faced when human, came running in, trying to escape a handful of the Night Lady's outriders. Vivian had recently moved into the same rural area that Mallory had lived in and was seeking her own lost children, a search that had brought her through Mallory's old house where she happened to have pocketed something very important to the changeling: a simple golden locket that, when opened, had two tiny pictures of her children in it. Upon seeing it, she demanded Vivian hand it over, threatening to kill her if she didn't! Vivian, however, had been sent this way with the specific advice to gain the help of whoever she ran into first. That would be Mallory. That in mind, Vivian demanded the changeling's aid in finding her lost children in exchange for the locket, which only threw Mallory into a massive fit of rage. Instead of killing Vivian, she took it out on the outriders who had the poor timing to show up then. After that, she managed to calm down and did agree to help, but only if given the locket there and then.
And true to her word, she did set out from the hedge with Vivian to begin the search. For the most part, it was how highly deals and promises were held in regard that kept her from outright killing the woman there and then, but there was also an inkling of pity. Maybe if she could save two other children...
Unfortunately, Mallory was still a criminal, wanted for murder. When the two reached their first obstacle, the Neon City, a city made to look similar to an ideal 1930s wonderland, only made entirely of beautiful crystal and neon-colored light, they had a disagreement. It would be faster to cut through, Vivian said, but Mallory refused and said she would meet Vivian on the other side.
This is the point where Mallory is pulled from her canon, though there is more after that, involving Mallory inevitably rescuing Vivian from the nonstop party that the Fair Folk ruling the Neon City hold, the continuing journey past the Summer Land mountains to get into the Winter Lands, inevitably discovering they need to confront the Night Lady to save the children, and meeting several other allies and enemies that have yet to make an appearance.
Character PERSONALITY:
Mallory is a foul, mean-spirited, and fairly bitter individual.
Stemming from her fall from humanity, she's, well, lost a lot of it. She's slid from the kind and caring mother she was as a human to something more natural for her new role in life as a nasty goblin, even though she decided she disliked her "own kind" as much as she did the Fair Folk. Her time in the Winter Lands taught her to fight, steal, scare, lie, and cheat, which were all very good things for a hobgoblin to know, but it also helped her foster her bitterness and her growing violent nature towards that world. In the end, she lashed out and fled to the hedge, where all she had for company was herself and whoever had the misfortune of stumbling upon her.
She plays up the foulness and the nastiness as much as she can as a way to keep everyone, all the awful things of that wretched world, away from her. The same with her murders of the Fair Folk and any else who rubbed her the wrong way, attacking as a way to get back at it all. That persona she built up around her from all of that was her lovely shield and, after so many years, with her humanity fading bit by bit, she came to enjoy it for the most part, laughing at the misfortune of others. If she had had to live through such misfortune, why shouldn't everyone else? With that, she justified her actions. Scaring people out of her woods became a big game to her, except for when the Fair Folk came calling. Then it became a vicious hunt. She became the monster in the woods, the scary creature in someone's closet, under their beds, in the basement. That one you told your children not to go out at night because, at least on the side of the world, as she hardly bothered with the mortal realm after her change.
But it's also because she's afraid. Afraid of letting anyone know of her failure, of letting the Night Lady find anyone else to steal away from her, or just of the Night Lady herself. It's the easy out, to be a bitter old hermit in a dark forest than to try and build a new life like the one she lost. In her own mind, she was weak and stupid as a human and she refuses to fall into that same trap again, with all the caring and worrying and hope, all things she can attribute to getting close to anyone else again.
All that said, the remnants of the person she once was are still there, if difficult to reach, as much as she denies it. She's never actually killed a child, for instance, for all the chaos she's caused, not even one of the hated Fair Folk, and she takes great offense at the idea that she would. No, she does things like chases them to the way out instead and then vanish back into the darkness. It's also not that hard to convince her to help with general household chores (especially cooking and sewing), since she really can do them better, she suspects, then whoever is failing at them. It's small things, begrudgingly given after much stalling and argument. She isn't necessarily anti-social, either. Her preference may be being on her lonesome, but she still needs people to scare around her to keep up her glamours and, honestly, the best form of entertainment is picking on others.
Although, with the arrival of Vivian in her woods with the locket, the memories of her old life are coming back to the forefront, part of why she was so angry with the woman at first (and still very dismissive of her, even if she is helping her). It's a symbol of the humanity she gave up on as lost and it's kicked off a creeping crawl back towards something akin to a recovery, if only bit by bit. Where that will take her, who knows yet.
» EXSILIUM INFORMATION
Chosen WEAPON: Mallory jokingly chooses her long coat as her weapon. Much to her surprise, it ends up being useful! It will slowly begin to expand how much she can put in the pockets, sort of like a bottomless bag, only with coat pockets. This, in turn, will help her with her mass-based shapeshifting in the long run. It will also do a few other things, like gain a knack for camouflage or become waterproof or extra warm on a whim, things like that.
Character INVENTORY: Her (several layers of) clothing and gaudy jewelry, a big ass fluffy purple feather boat, half a pack of hand-rolled cigarettes, random knick-knacks and bits of strings, the gold heart locket with pictures of her kids in it.
» SAMPLES
First PERSON:
This on? Hello?
[ Mallory's holding the tablet upside-down, as per usual for the technologically disinclined, and is tapping it loudly, obnoxiously even. Bam bam bam. ]
Christ, the light is supposed to mean it's on. It's on, isn't it? [ It's like talking to a bunch of old, plastic stage jewelry, since that's what the camera is aimed at right now. ] Listen. I'm not down for the 'sharing a place' deal, so one of you slack-jawed monkeys give me a few suggestions. There a lot of abandoned buildings in this shithole? Ruins and things, right? 'cause you all blew it the fuck up, yeah?
C'mon. Speak on up. If you don't, you all are really, really gonna regret it. I am literally the worst house guest, just the worst, eheheheh.
Third PERSON:
What the fuck was a tablet?
What the fuck was all this, any of this?
Figured. Mallory had left that stupid girl alone for all of five minutes and then, bam, something awful happened. Another world? Not another land in the Land Beyond? No. It couldn't be, now that she was outside fresh from the greeter to take a look around. No Fair Folk she could imagine would create such a slum-like place, nor would any of them have so many normal humans milling about. They had taste. Awful and gaudy taste, but taste all the same.
But seriously, screw that, she would figure it all out later. If she was going to deal with a sudden mass of unbearable humanity, she would need something to keep the edge off of her nerves. That last thing anyone needed was a freaking out changeling, especially one that could sprout as many blades as she felt like. A light. That was what she need, a light. That was definitely her top priority. Worrying about the situation or Vivian would come second, yes, second for sure. That in mind, she left the doors of the hold and shuffled on out into the marketplace, a creepy-looking woman with luminous green eyes, teeth that look a wee bit too sharp for a human, and lots of old, poor-fitting clothes now off to lurk around in search of someone, anyone, that might have a lighter or a match on their person.
"Hey, sweetheart," she wheedled at the first unfortunate soul that came within sidling range, "Any chance you got a bit of light to spare? I'm absolutely dying here."
» ADDITIONAL NOTES
purple monkey dishwasher pass it on
