Cahalenn's Tale
From Changeling Venue
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(OOC DISCLAIMER: The text on this page is a work in progress, as I attempt to combine the brief factual third-person POV backstory with the rest of Cahalenn's personal and philosophical journey into an IC first person POV set of memoirs. Since I'm incredibly impatient and narcissistic, I will be posting the memoirs in sections as they are written. Therefore, the old crappy document will remain here for the time being. If you just want a glorified timeline of Cahalenn's life, read that. If you are seeking insight and understanding of Cahalenn, read the memoirs as they are posted. If you want me to be your best friend evar, shoot me an email with an idea for interaction (past, present, or future) with your PC. cheerio! ~jenny)
===Part One===
Twenty seven years since my life veered from the ordinary to the extraordinary, and I only now feel that I have achieved the perspective necessary to set my story into words. Well, from an objective point of view it has been twenty two years, and from your point of view time is just as arbitrary, but such discrepancies are of little import.
Although the reason that I have anything memoir-worthy in the first place begins on April 13, 1985, I feel that a bit of the ordinary is necessary first to contextualize the extraordinary. For certainly, the stories I have heard and the things I have witnessed in these twenty seven years make my own adventures seem just a tad mundane, although I would not trade my journey for anyone else’s, thank you very much. My sufferings have been my own, but so also have been my triumphs and joys.
Do you remember what it was like to be happy? I’m not talking about these colossal emotions which we Lost are capable of after experiencing Faerie. I am talking about a contentment with one’s world that is of such simple and limited happiness that it does not even acknowledge that anything greater might exist which could either augment or destroy it, and consequently it is the purest and most innocent of the happiness archetypes. I do remember it, but in a very detached sort of way. I can recall in retrospect that this happiness applied to the ordinary thirteen year old middle-school girl, and I will stubbornly defend this as a fact, although I can not pull that emotion out of the closet to try it on anymore.
Well, Kaitlyn was this sort of happy. She – it is very difficult to write about her in first person, you understand – had loving parents, a twin brother who she adored but fortunately didn’t have to share a bathroom with, a best friend with a seventeen year old sister that could drive them to the mall, a “B” average at Alcott Middle School, and the coolest homeroom teacher in the seventh grade. Sharp eyesight and even teeth excluded her from having to fear those horrific nightmares of junior high students everywhere: glasses and braces. A comfortable middle-class household provided her with the trivial luxuries so prized by teenagers who just want to fit in, and having parents who were college professors meant fun summer vacations to Florida, Alaska, and Hawaii.
She had such a sweet disposition, this girl, such that she was remarkably well-liked by the majority of her peers. Kaitlyn has always had a very easy, warm, and inviting personal charisma. Had she been more bookish, she would have been scorned by the fashionable crowd; had she been more vicious she would have been unwelcome among the geeks, the nerds, and the outcasts. I remember Kaitlyn was very involved in her school’s drama program. She loved it, and it’s safe to say that it loved her back. As a prominent cast member, she was a recognizable face in the hallways of Alcott. Since she was very devoted to a school-sponsored extra-curricular activity, the teachers and staff all knew her and praised her. And as part of the drama club, she was friendly with the art freaks, techie geeks, fledgling goths and punks, and other social misfits associated with the theater crowd.
Such simplicity. Such normality. And yet, is such a blinkered and cloistered existence preferable to one with greater highs and abyssal lows? Innocence is such a relative concept, after all. This Kaitlyn child would have gone to high school, then college, then gotten married and started a family and a career. By the standards of her paradigm of existence, she would not be innocent. By my standards, she is no less innocent than the day she was born. I at least am capable of asking myself “do I wish for her innocent existence, or do I prefer what I have now?” Kaitlyn, and all the other Kaitlyns out there, aren’t even capable of fathoming the need for such a question, much less how to answer it.
Perhaps that is the question I seek to answer through the self-analysis of these memoirs. I know what Is Now. I know what Could Have Been. I suppose this is my glorified list of pros and cons, whereupon judgment will be weighed at the end. Which happiness paradigm is the ideal?
I’ve gotten ahead of myself again. I do tend to ramble. Where were we?
Oh yes. 1985. Norman, Oklahoma. Home to Kaitlyn Stella Harker, her twin brother Keith, and their parents Stephen and Meredith. Yes, my parents insisted on giving their identical twins names that started with the same letter. A bit over the top, if you ask me, but at least they didn’t rhyme. Our family dentist’s daughters were named Marilyn and Carolyn. I shudder to imagine such a wretched fate. Or rather, Kaitlyn used to. I know now that there are far worse fates out there, and that names are whatever you want them to be.
And Now For The Boring Efficient Version
Kaitlyn Stella Harker was born on November 1, 1973, in the wee hours of the morning. Her twin brother Keith was born in the last minutes of October 31, 1973. Though her birthday falls on the Feast of All Saints, and his on All Hallow's Eve, he is older than her by less than an hour. Their parents are Stephen and Meredith Harker, the former a physics professor at University of Oklahoma and the latter an English teacher and drama coach at Norman High School. Kaitlyn and Keith grew up in the ordinary, middle-class, suburbia of 3bedroom, 2.5bathroom, 2car garage, brick homes. At Alcott Middle School, Kaitlyn was very involved in the drama program, and excelled in English class. She was well-liked by her classmates, being pretty, mischevious, and friendly, but Kaitlyn was too sweet and lacked the vicious ambition to be part of the popular clique.
April 13, 1985 began as an ordinary Saturday in middle America. The Medieval Fair was in town that weekend, and Kaitlyn cut play practice early to meet Keith and sneak out to the fair. They'd been to the fair every year since they were young, but always under strict parental supervision. Being all grown up now at the old and wise age of twelve, the twins decided that this year they certainly weren't going to waste their time clinging to mummy and daddy's hands and looking at boring imitation medieval cooking pots.
Several hours later, an unobtrusive merchant tent caught the twins' eyes, barely noticeable through a suddenly foggy twilight. A little man with a hawkish nose, shrewd eyes, and an oily smile beckoned the two curious children over to examine his wares. Weapons, books, masks, apparel, jewelry, armour, and an infinte array of nicknacks...and it all appeared so genuine, so authentic, and yet so very out of place. Kaitlyn's eyes were soon drawn to [object Blah, to be determined]. Her brother was eyeing [object Blah Prime, also to be determined]. The odd little shopkeeper noticed their longing gazes, but named a price too high for their modest allowances to cover. He offered an alternative: pointing to a clock above his head, he said that if they stayed for one hour and helped him work, he would give them the coveted items at the end of the hour. Upon hearing their eager consent, his eyes flashed brightly for a moment, the air around them rippled and shuddered, and Kaitlyn and Keith found themselves standing in a surreal, fantastical, and anachronistic medieval marketplace. They were in Arcadia, where they would be sold into service by the little old man, who now appeard to them as a goblin-esque creature out of a fairy tale. But this was no simple fairy tale with a convenient happily-ever-after, as the bewildered twins would soon find out...
[Herein shall eventually be detailed an account of Kaitlyn's durance in Faerie, from her purchased servitude to Amara, the Patroness up to her release and journey back to the mortal realm. I am eager to establish all sorts of PC connections from this time period.]]
Kaitlyn and Keith spent five years in Arcadia. They did not escape, they were released when their contractual obligation had been fulfilled. Kaitlyn bears more resentment and hatred for the little old man who lured them to Arcadia than she does for the True Fae to whom she and her brother were enslaved. They were released and made their way through the Hedge and back to the mundane world, where of course, exactly one hour had passed. Now seventeen and so physically and mentally altered, they could not possibly return to their lives as ordinary twelve year old children. No fetches were ever sent to replace the twins, since only one hour had passed in the mortal realm, and the Fae care naught for the problems their chronological discrepancies can cause.
Since they could not remain in such a small town as Norman, yet could not bear to move too far away from their family (even knowing they could never go back and visit them), the twins moved to Stillwater practically as soon as they returned from Arcadia. It was not mere chance that compelled them to Stillwater: upon emerging from the goblin's tent one hour later, they were met by Baron Ichabod Gramora, who took the young changelings under his wing and back to the relative safety of Stillwater. Through the assistance of various Lost [actual PC connections still in the works; if you're interested please email me!], the twins were able to be set up with new identities.
TBC...
