Character Sheet: Marc Slink Prelude Appearance Journal Entries:
Name: Marc Slink, aka Matt Duncan Player: Matt Duncan E-mail Address: n/a Chronicle: Santa Cruz/Changeling Court: Unseelie Legacies: Riddler/Troubadour House: Seeming: Wilder Kith: Sluagh Household/Motley: ATTRIBUTES: Physical: Strength-1, Dexterity-3, Stamina-2 Social: Charisma-2, Manipulation-4, Appearance-2 Mental: Perception-3, Intelligence-3, Wits-4 ABILITIES: Talents: Alertness (Birthright, can't botch)-3, Athletics-1, Dodge-3, Expression-2, Kenning-1, Subterfuge-3 Skills: Etiquette-1, Stealth (Birthright, can't botch)-4, Security-3, Performance-1 Knowledge: Enigmas-1, Investigation-1, Occult-2 ADVANTAGES: Arts: Chicanery-2, Primal-2 Backgrounds: Dreamers-1, Chimera-1, Greymayre-2, Resources-1 Birthrights: Sharp Senses, Squirm Frailties: Agoraphobic, Must Whisper, Sensitive to Bright Light and Loud Sounds Realms: Actor-3, Fae-1, Prop-3 TEMPERS: Glamour-4 Willpower-4 Banality-3 Appearance: Marc stands 5'5" tall. He usually wears a long-sleeved black turtleneck and some type of black sportscoast or jacket, often finishing the ensemble with a vest. His pants are always black and slightly baggy, and he wears closed-toe Birkenstocks or those cloth shoes with the plastic soles all those alternative vegetarian goth-type kids are prone to wear. His straight, limp black bangs hang over his eyes, which are sunken and dark, small and deep set. His skin is almost unearthly pale. In his Fae seeming he has no teeth and black gums. His features are drawn and he is incredibly thin. His clothing and his hair keep him from looking too out of the ordinary, though. He usually wears small half-lensed sunglasses during daylight hours. Prelude: (to be added) Saturday June 3, 3PM As the 737 taxied away from the terminal, Marc blinked and watched his parents faces fade at the window. He put his sunglasses on, limp black hair hanging in his face. Mother and father had said their tight-lipped goodbyes, and mother had restrained herself from crying. Marc stood stoic through it all. He wouldn't miss them. He would miss his room at home, and his "den," once the playroom. He would miss the kids at the DeadHeadShed in Toledo. He would miss the sewers of Toledo and the few murk-dwellers he'd met there. He would miss Frankie's and Uptown, and Gargoyles, and a few other clubs. But not his parents, and he guessed that they would not miss him too terribly, either. The flight was somewhat tedious, the inflight movie being a tearjerker Meg Ryan film. Luckily, he could curl up in his seat and read, and feel isolated in the plane, away from all the other passengers. Most of the flight, Marc slept. Once on the ground in California, Marc took a taxi to the UCSC campus. The second summer session would be starting soon, and Marc had opted to begin classes early. The cabbie helped him pull his belongings from the trunk, and drove off with a smile at the $10 tip. Marc shouldered his black leather bookbag, and picked up the last milk crate, which was loaded with The Collection. Small plastic legs and arms poked out of the criss-crossing gridwork. The suitcases would wait. Three trips later, he lugged the last of his belongings up the single flight of stairs and down around the corner to the last dorm room on the floor, 250 Fuller Hall (John, I'm faking this...I haven't found out info on dorms yet...I still have to DL the browser...long story). Inside, he set down his load, opened the window wide and looked out. His thin pale hand slid inside his suitcoat to his vest pocket, and he withdrew a pack of Sampoerna's and his Zippo. The acrid clove stench wafted through the room, and Marc licked his lips. He turned to the crates and suitcases and unpacked. Saturday June 3, 6:05 PM The bare wood of the door to Marc's room was marred, scratched and riddled with thumbtack holes. A black postcard had been hung, the only adornment to the door. It read: Mercy? Do you ask for mercy? You will be given a toad and a bucket of salt, and nothing more. Do not ask for more. There is none. --David Castleman Inside, it was dark. Only the desk lamp was on. The shelves above the desk were now crammed with ragged paperback fantasy and horror novels and old action figure toys in profane poses: the Alien Queen stood as a goddess idol as Hawk, Roadblock, and Shortfuse danced in a tribal pagan dance, and the Time Traveller Micronaut had borrowed Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker's cloak to preside over the ritual sacrifice of Bespin Gown Princess Leia. An arsenal of plastic guns from the 50¢ vending machines at the grocery filled an entire corner of one shelf. Doll heads in various states of mutilation stared from another shelf. But the top of the bookshelves held the prized collection: the original 12" Alien action figure; the Gene Simmons KISS doll; an Eagle Eye G.I. Joe from 1972; a Barbie from 1969 in a miniskirt and blazer with ring, earrings, and shoes intact; a Six-Million-Dollar Man doll with the roll-up rubber skin still intact on his bionic arm; and a foot-tall Boba Fett, still carrying his braided thread "wookie scalps" over one shoulder. Atop the dresser he had placed the stereo, tape deck "A" broken. Coil and Foetus CDs were stacked in haphazard piles along with Hafler Trio tapes and copies of Pain Teens albums. Following a tangle of RCA plugs and wires, one could find a turntable, taking up the rest of the dresser top. The Laibach picture disk of "Sympathy for the Devil" was on the turntable, and Pigface's Gub was in tape deck "B". A plastic milk crate on the floor held the rest of Marc's vinyl albums, which ranged from Dead Can Dance to Kronos Quartet, from "Night on Bald Mountain" by Mussorgski to "With Sympathy" by Ministry, from "We are Whodini" to "Superfreak." Tacked to the walls: an autograph from Vincent Locke, a postcard with a picture of Ivan Bashevis Singer, the lyrics to "Something I Can Never Have" by Nine Inch Nails, a weird piece of metal found in the street one day, a print of the Salvador Dali painting "Maelstrom," a napkin from a coffee shop in Toledo, a promo picture of Christian Death, and a Phantom of the Opera Broadway poster. Marc had also taken a black plastic trash bag, split it at the seams, and duct taped it over the windows. He had called a place mentioned by the RA to order a loft for his bed, and a black silk sheet was neatly folded at the foot of the bunk. Classes started Wednesday. Marc wondered where to get some food, and what there was to do in this city on a Saturday night.... Saturday, June 3rd, 1995 6:29 p.m. In summer, on weekends, the buses ran less frequently and Marc, grew tired of waiting for a ride. The fog started to roll in and the mists started to gather in the evening air. What am I? he thought. Who am I? Dreams, nightmares, whatever the difference might be, they rolled through his mind. Images of the sewers in Toledo. What happened there?. Banality, with a grip of iron, closed in on him then. Fog of mind as well of air collected around him. Drums sounded in the distance. At first, some part of him, some deep inner dark part harkened to them. Then he realized with sadness that they were merely just drums after all. A drum circle, a class in African music, was finishing up near the West Field House and the sounds of their rhythm came up to him on a sea born wind. Around him, all around, the grain of the redwood booth seemed so real, so solid. The swirls of dead years as captured in exposed rings of lumber glared at him, defying his ability to escape their truth. Why would I want to escape? he thought blankly. I am Marc Slink, and I am going to Santa Cruz to see the sights. I shall, I shall? But even thought seemed laborious so Marc just sat there, in the bus stop, waiting. Any bus would do. "Well! HEEELLLOOOOOO!" a voice screamed in his ear. Marc didn't jump out of his skin but he did jump out of his seat. "Fuck!" he screamed his banal oath. But the being before him was hardly banal. The boggan, his shock of green and red hair all curled together like a pinwheel atop his head, bowed low. "Brindle Tweedhopper, at your service sir." Marc just stared dully at the Boggan, trying to figure out what he was. "Are you a Troll?" he asked, meaning not the fell changeling folk, but rather the banal slang for a homeless person. The boggan shook his head in disapproval. "Tsk, tsk tsk. Now what's a young sluagh like yerself a doin callin me a troll. Tis the grip of the mundane I see upon ya lad. It cloaks ya like it twere a garment, and one of poor fit I might add. Don't ya know me for what I am lad?" The Boggan peered closely into Marc's eye Marc shook his head. A nagging dream pestered at him, grabbing stray thoughts and embroidering them with all sorts of fanciful notions. "Ah, I see a bit of glamour yet, within ya, now," Tweedhopper nodded approvingly. "Come." The boggan took Marc's hand and led him away from the bus stop. There was a sound and slight diesel smell and looking back, Marc espied the city bus coming into view at last. Part of him wanted to run for it, be embraced in it's sweet steel stomach, but the grip of the boggan was strong and as he pulled Marc deeper into the woods, the mist seemed to roll over the both of them, until they disappeared from view. "Do ya remember yerself, lad?" the boggan asked him. "You don't have the look of one who's lost upon ya. But you do seem to have strayed a bit." "I'm Marc Slink," Marc insisted. "I'm a college student at Crown College. I'm studying Theatre and writing. What?" "I didn't say anything." the boggan insisted. "I was just listening to yer chattering nonsense, I was." "I thought I heard something," Marc said absently, looking about the woods. The mist had cleared a bit and something of the day's warmth still radiated in the dry clearing they walked through. Marc heard his feet crunch the dead grasses beneath him but the boggan's steps made no sound at all. They walked for some time, until the sun seemed near setting, lighting the sky with warm colours, a parting farewell of the wandering sun. Finding himself beside a pool of water, crystalline in its liquid abundance, Marc paused, his hand still held by Tweedhopper. His eyes followed ribbons of light as they danced in the wind kissed ripples in the water. The water was so pure he could smell it. "Wash yourself, lad," the boggan urged. "And do it quickly lest the werewolves come upon us. They claim this pool for their own and would rend us if they found us here, sure." Absently, Marc bent down and cupped the water in his hand. It was surprisingly cold. So cold in fact, that it shocked him to the core. He looked around as if seeing the world for the first time. Seeing the boggan, he reacted with fear and pulled away. "You feel the power of the water, it's ability to change you," the queer little man before Marc told him. "Drink and wash of it lad. You're tired, I think and it would do you good to at least quench your thirst." Marc nodded and sipped the water. It was like drinking light and painful brilliance exploded inside him. Without even thinking, he clasped his wet hands to his face, grimacing against the pain, and like old dirt, the world washed away leaving only the Dreaming. "Welcome back, lad," the boggan smiled. "Though I don't know why'd I'd ever bother to help a sluagh, still I couldn't just leave you there ta be swallowed by the normal." Marc, breathing as soon as the brilliant clearness of pain had subsided, laughed aloud. "Thank you, dear little runt," he said. "I had nearly forgotten myself. What did you say your name was? Tweedhopper? How fitting," Marc smiled slyly. "Now, you sound like a sluagh," Brindle shook his head, as if not pleased with the result of his efforts. "Tell me, what happened to me back there?" Marc asked. "And excuse me. I am very grateful for what you did." Marc offered his slim white hand which the boggan, after an examining pause, shook warmly. "That place," the boggan nodded towards the University, "Is strong with the Mundane. There are wizards there who shape it's fabric, capturing all who wander there into their version of understanding. Mostly they're caught up in their worlds of electric fire, but beware their snares. They'd no sooner see you as capture you and convert you into energy and you'd be lost to the Dreaming forever." "Perhaps I should not go back. I could stay here," Marc held his arms around him. "Then wolves would feast on your bones, lad. And I mean that literally. In fact," Brindle cast a cautious eye all around him. "I think we'd best be leaving. I'd not be a wantin to meet a furback anytime soon. They're a most serious creature and seem quite particular about who visits places that they see as theirs." "Lead, Master Tweedhopper. I will be glad to follow." Marc swayed darkly behind the boggan as the latter led him deeper into the Redwood groves. "So, tell me of this place," Marc insisted. "I had hoped to find our folk in these woods. In fact, rumour placed it that these woods were filled with them." Brindle shook his head. "There are places and there are places," the boggan replied enigmatically. "Our kinfolk settled this place more than a hundred of the men's years past. In fact, casting out the dark folk before them, they renamed the hills with the names of their homelands." "Ah, that would explain the prevalence for Scottish names in the mountain towns," Marc nodded. "And is that all? Is there no court to entertain us? No pretentious Sidhe to try and bind our revery? Or are we merely left free to ravage and play amongst the mortals as we choose?" Marc's eyes sparkled with dark delight as he thought about feasting on fields of glamour, unharvested and ripe for the plundering. Brindle shook his head disapprovingly. "You'd best beware lad. Many are the folk who walk these hills. Some like the furbacks and the wizards don't seem kindly to those of us who play with a man's dreams." "Then I shall be cautious, Master Brindle, but feast I will. I can smell the rich dreams even from here." Marc thought a bit, and saying, almost as if an afterthought, "Tell Me, Sir Brindle," Marc teased the boggan with a epithet of nobility, "Tell me of Ador Sanmh." "What do you wish to know?" the boggan asked, munching on a mushroom he had found growing beside a stump. "In talking with folk from the Kingdom of Apples, I heard the name once. It is said that an ancient kingdom lies within these mountains. And yet, you've said that our folk have only but just come here. Which truth is it?" Brindle's eyes squinted as he gazed at the sluagh. "Both." No other word issued forth from the boggan to enlighten Marc further. Tiring of the little man's company, Marc thought to return to the university. Now, with the foreknowledge of the place's power, he thought he would be able to guard himself from it's mundane traps and banal pits. A scream wailed in on the wind, winding itself around the two of them. Tweedhopper jumped to hide within the stump he had leaned against, while Marc stood up, smelling death in the air. "What was that?" he asked. "Oh, pay it no heed," Brindle urgently suggested. "It's merely something that you should play no part in if you know what's good for you." "A nightmare should not be wasted, even a dying one," Marc countered, and seeing the boggan make no movement, he headed for where the sound had come from. The boggan followed reluctantly, muttering misgivings under his breath. The red sky, ever darkening, captured the world in a twilight ephemerality where existence paused, caught for but a moment between light and darkness. As one gave and the dark victor advanced, Marc's lithe body glided through the woods, Brindle struggling to keep pace behind him. Bursting through the trees, Marc found himself beside a brook. It's water tripped over algae covered rocks and under the moss covered bark of fallen trees. A sidhe warrior stood glowering over a pair of redcaps, who having felt the bite of her silvery sword, ran muttering fearful obscenities back into the woods. Marc regarded the sidhe as she stood there. Though unmarred by wounds, the obvious victor in whatever contest had occured, she stood there swaying, as if her life force was slowly draining out of her. "What's wrong with her," Marc asked, looking down at Brindle, who panted beside him. "She's withering," Brindle told him. "She's from Ador Sanmh and she's caught in the world. Time is sucking her dry, poor thing. She's been more than half a year away from her folk and from the looks of her, I doubt she'll last a fortnight more." "Withering?" Marc asked. Brindle didn't answer so Marc turned back to regard the Sidhe. She had seen the two of them. Thinking them more enemies, she stood there brandishing her sword. It seemed made of silver fire and its pommel was set with emeralds. Holding it aloft, she challenged Marc. Marc looked into her eyes and felt his spirit crushed by the power he saw there. He knew fear as he had never known it but then, the sidhe collapsed to her knees as if weakened and then, even as they watched, she fell over and lay still. Brindle at once crossed the stream and gazed down at her. Poor Boggans, Marc thought. They are so caught up in their need to aid another. Still, he had to admit that he was intrigued and so he crossed the stream himself and soon was gazing at the unconscious sidhe knight. One thing Marc had to admit, she was one of the most beautiful beings Marc had ever seen, of either Faerie or Mortal. She was tall and noble and her golden hair seemed unblemished by the "withering" that Brindle had spoken of. Her hair and face seemed to glow with a lustrous radiance that Marc had never imagined. "Why did the redcaps attack her?" Marc asked. "For that," Brindle pointed at the sword. "It is made of Moonfire and there are many who would seek to have it, despite its costs." "What costs?" Marc said, quickly drawing his hand back from touching the radiant sword. He had thought to claim it with the knight unable to use it. "That is a blade of Ador Sanmh. Do not think that those who forged it will not seek it out again when the veil is rent." "I wish you would stop speaking in riddles," Marc sighed. He was a sluagh and it was embarrassing for him to be kept ignorant. His people prided themselves on being the keepers themselves of all secrets. He would have to seek others of his kind out, he decided. Marc again reached for the sword. Before Brindle could protest, the sidhe's arm reached out, though so quickly that Marc didn't see it, and suddenly the sluagh found himself with the blade pointed at his throat. "Sluagh!" the sidhe spat. "I hate sluagh! They are hardly better than redcaps!" Brindle rolled backwards. "Please now fair one, the boyo meant no harm," he said. "I'll be the judge of that!" the knight said, her blue eyed scowl regarding Marc with the rage of battle. "Please, put the sword down," Marc suggested. "I meant you no harm, as the boggan said. I was just admiring your sword." A shudder of pain passed over the knight's face. "The withering," Brindle gasped. Once again, the knight had fainted. "This is the most stupid thing I've ever done," Marc protested as he and Brindle dragged the unconscious knight's body back to the radiant pool of the werewolves. "I'm a sluagh! An unseelie sluagh at that! Why in the name of Arcadia am I helping a sidhe knight?!" "Come now lad," Brindle chided Marc, "this might be her only chance to live. She's not like us. Sidhe don't come back when they die but are lost forever. Show a bit of compassion!" Marc growled, hopeful that no report of this unseemly kindness would ever reach others of his kind. At the pool, Brindle worked to remove the chimerical armour of the knight from her body while Marc bathed her soft skin with the gentle waters from the pool. He expected her to react with pain, as he had done, but instead the pool seemed kinder to her. The knight's frail form seemed to grow stronger and she smiled as Marc's cold hands touched her skin. Reaching upward, her own hands explored his face and smiling, she caressed him back. Her hands were warm and Marc thought they smelled like honeysuckle in summertime. Where her long hair touched him, it shocked him with it's silky feel. He longed to spread his fingers and comb them through her hair. Though the sidhe were known for their loveliness, never had Marc seen such a one that had been quite so lovely. The knight opened her eyes and shocked, pushed Marc away. "What is happening?!" she demanded. "The boggan saved your life," Marc pointed at Brindle, wishing no credit for having helped her. "We saved your life," Brindle corrected him. "Fair lady, you were weak and we knew of this pool here." She regarded the pool with wonder. "The resourcefulness of you commoners never ceases to amaze me," she said. "Would that I had known of this pool on our last foray. Many lives might have been saved." "Use of this pool carries much danger," Brindle informed her. "In fact, if I may suggest, perhaps we should leave at once lest we be found here." Marc hated how Brindle seemed to lower himself before her. Damn all sidhe, he thought, feeling more than a little guilty for the way he had liked her touch. Though the sun had set, still something of a faerie glow seemed to hover around the waters of the pool. "My lady!" Brindle insisted, perhaps sensing something in the air. A terrible growl was heard from the far side of the pool. "Too late," Marc cursed. Rippling dark muscles cloaked in fur rose up before them. Eyes like fire burnt them while claws that shone as brightly as the sidhe's sword distended to catch the glow of the pool. A werewolf had come. "I don't suppose it would help to say we were just leaving?" Brindle asked hopefully. The werewolf growled. While Marc and Brindle carefully backed away, the sidhe went about her business, gathering her items and then finally grasping her sword. "My lady!" Brindle hissed, pointing frantically at the werewolf. "I see him," the sidhe said, as if annoyed. "I don't see what all the fuss is about." She looked up at the werewolf, who stood towering over her by at least three feet. "If you know what's good for you, you'll behave yourself," she warned the werewolf. Enraged, it launched itself at her but she sidestepped the creature as it charged, laughing as it's claws bit into the bark of a redwood. Mockingly, she slapped it's rear with the flat of her sword. The werewolf wheeled and slashed at her, catching her arm with its claw. The knight grimaced in pain but refused to yield. Rather, her own bite, in the form of the sword's edge, caught the werewolf's arm. She had cut it deeply and it fell backward, shocked at the pain she had inflicted upon it. "You may be used to picking on boggans and pookas and such," she said addressing the lupine, "but I am a Knight of Ador Sanmh. I do not run from any fight!" The werewolf growled and looked at her menacingly, but it made no movement toward her nor against Marc and the boggan. "Come, we shall go," she said calmly, even turning her back on the werewolf, as if daring it to attack. It merely watched them depart with baleful eyes. "Thank you, my Lady," Brindle said, all over himself with obsequiousness. "To you I am Gwynyth," she said, smiling at the boggan. "So Gwynyth," Marc said, joining in the conversation. "Tell me, what's your story?" "YOU," the sidhe scowled at Marc, "will call me Lady Marchaine." I hate sidhe, Marc thought. Sunday, June 4th, 1995 12:19 a.m. The crowd at Klub Kulture rocked to the rhythm of the punk band ripping the stage. All manner of goths, punks, bull dykes and butch queens hammered and rocked down in the pit. Marc returned, smiling from his feast of gleaned glamour. He had not ravaged. In fact, he had not dared to with the sidhe bitch present. Brindle's mundane self was a badly dressed midget. Marc couldn't decide which was more comical. Gwynyth Marchaine for some reason seemed to lack another semblance. Fortunately, the crowd, hardly mainstream themselves, easily ignored her pointed ears. Brindle seemed to take this fact of her in stride. Obviously, her being from Ador Sanmh was strange. Marc would have to find out more about it. Seeing Gwynyth fending off the advances of lecherous leather clad young men, Marc felt a slight twinge of something he couldn't put a finger on. Still, though beautiful, she was as caustic as acid and about as approachable as several bruised goths and dykes found out to their discomfort. Marc dropped down to their table and produced three beers with skull and crossbone labels affixed to them. Brindle sniffed his warily while Gwynyth ignored Marc and his offerings altogether. "Isn't this place great!" Marc yelled, trying to be heard over the roar of the crowd. "I love it here!" Brindle smiled weakly as if to say, happy for you. Gwynyth just scowled. "Hey! You grabbed our last Black Deaths!" two punks walked up to the table. They were unhappy that Marc had bought the last three of their favorite beers. Marc blinked. They were redcaps. "Hey, guys! Let's be friends. I don't want a fight here," he tried to smile, but somehow the smile of sluagh never seemed to be much of a smile. The redcaps however smiled and Marc decided that he wished that they hadn't. "How `bout we drink your blood?" one of them said, picking Marc up by his collar. Marc looked around for help. Brindle had disappeared under the table but Gwynyth relaxed in full view. She seemed to be enjoying the show and offered no semblance of help. As the redcaps jerked him over to the pit, Marc decided that he really hated that sidhe.
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