From Changeling Venue

Seeming	Elemental Fireheart
Court	Spring Court •••••
Freehold	pending
Player	Selena McDevitt

Contents 1 Burning in the Embers 2 The Hearth-child (Description) 3 The Surging of the Bellows(History) 4 Pink Things (Contacts) 5 Cooking it up(Inspirations) 6 Stoking the Fires to Frenzy (Soundtrack) 7 Burn it to the Ground(Quotes) 8 Flames to the Night's Sky (Rumors) 9 Burning Through Your Soul (OOC Information)

Burning in the Embers

Alias(es): None
Real Name: Unknown
Location: Florida
Seeming: Elemental
Kith: Fireheart
Court: Spring
Virtue: Hope
Vice: Gluttony
Concept: Fire
Keeper: Lord Ashcroft
Fetch Barbie Warburton

The Hearth-child (Description)

Mask: Calliope is short and painfully thin, as if somehow malnurioushed despite the amount of food that she can eat. Her skin is only slightly tanned and lightly freckled, particularly around her small nose. Her hair is long and frizzy, a bright copper that shines like fire in the sun. Her eyes are an expressive blue-grey and wide with long eyelashes. As for age, she appears to be in her mid 20s. Calliope is completely unable to be heard by humans or when showing only her Mask as she is essentially a mute.

Mien: Calliope is living fire in the shape of a buxom female, though no real detail is shown. She is in constant flux, ever changing as she crackles and flickers, sometimes a burning orange, sometimes red; depending upon her moods. Her hair flows in the wind, sending small embers around her. She doesn't really talk, but the crackling sounds of her body makes words that Changelings can hear. Her eyes are the only constant part of her body, which are a bright blue, like the heart of a flame.

Mantle: Calliope brings with her the scent of potpurri wherever she goes as well as the scents of a cookng fire. This is also dependant upon her moods and, like any normal fire, can be quick to change. It is believed that Calliope, like many other fae with such a strong tie to the Spring court, does in fact cause flowers and many spring fruits to bloom, but her intense heat immediately sets them ablaze. This would explain the bright crackles of fire whenever she steps.

Notable Traits: Calliope is stupid, extremely so. Still, she has a firm grasp on common sense due to the stories that she told while in service to her Keeper, Lord Ashcroft. She is quick to change between moods, and usually finds that she is drawn to working for others. As she was a full fire for 25 years, Calliope finds it to be very hard to not use her powers, and believes so strongly that water will put her out, that many people think that there may be some truth in it. Still, rumors have been told that Calliope has been known to draw her fire into herself for a few special people simply to touch them.

Notes: Mantle rating is fully approved. Calliope's age at the time of her kidnapping is pending Approval.

The Surging of the Bellows(History)

Bonfires in the Dark

A Spark...:

We begin not with the fre, but with initial spark that lights the flame. Clarissa was a very stong child. She had to be. Her twin brother, Brogan, was born with Down's Syndrome, her father was an alcoholic, and her mother was on smack. If it wasn't for her, Brogan would have probably died a thousand times over. But of course, that didn't make things any easier on her at home. Being the responsible one usually got her in a lot of trouble, both at school and at home. When he home life suffered, her schooling suffered. And when her school life suffered, her home life suffered. It was a viscious cycle.

Still, she had hope. She did odd chores around the neighborhood in the Bronx with her brother just to get away from her parents, and she managed to hide the money well enough that her parents couldn't find it for their addictions. By the time the twins were 16, she thought that she had enough money to make it on their own. Waiting until both of her parents were passed out, Clarissa and Brogan Marx left their rat infested apartment for something more.

Even an alleyway is something more when you are away from the everyday abuses, but Brogan couldn't really bear such harsh weather, or the gangs that patrolled the areas. Doing the only thing that she really knew how, Clarissa danced for money in off-Broadway musicals with Brogan often standing in the backroom, coloring or playing wih the props.

It was late one night after a performance when he came. Bringing curious roses that had more thorns on them than she had ever seen, the well dressed man flattered her with words, saying that he was a patron of the arts. Assuring her with honeyed words that he would pay her for honest dancing work and her brother could come with her, Lord Ashcroft led both Clarissa and Brogan into the Hedge.

Clarissa became a Dancer, entertaining the Prince of Empire's guests on a constant basis that night without break or rest. Meanwhile, Lord Ashcroft warned her that if her brother watched her dance, he would be punished. He said it with such a smile, that she didn't think anything of it. Well, at least not until Brogan came out to watch. Clarissa had to watch as one of her brother's eyes was pecked out by one of the guest's crows. After that, Brogan became a Cyclopian, and things got even worse for Clarissa. She was warned that if she were to ever stumble during a dane routine, then her brother would be shipped off to the Arena.

Even years of practice wasn't able to keep Clarissa from falling one day, and her twin was shipped to the Arena to participate in the Gladitorial games. It was as good as a death sentence. Tht first fight, Lord Ashcroft made Clarissa watch each blow and, while her brother won, he was badly hurt. Clarissa knew that she had to get them out of there. As she trid to figure out how to do it, the crow that had eaten her brother's eye came to her. He was a Beast, and had been told to do upon pain of torture. He told her that he would help her get her brother out of Arcadia by getting her in touch with the right people. In fact, the Wizened in Lord Ashcroft's kitchen named Abby was helping ther Changelings escape.

Abby did help Clarissa free Brogan and escape. Although hardly a season had passed in Arcadia, it had been 3 years in her home. It was a harsh winter night when the twins made it into the alleyways of New York City. However, Lord Ashcroft found them. Clarissa begged him to let them o for her brother's sake, and after some thought, Lord Ashcroft agreed, on one condition. When Clarissa had a child, it was to be given to him. Since Clarissa believed that she could easily keep this Oath, she gave her word, sealing the Oath with their magicks.

But once again the Prince of Empires had everything laid out perfectly. Clarissa forgot the Oath entirely as her memories of Arcadia faded. Clarissa got married to Scott Warburton, a special education teacher, and on January 15, 1991 she gave birth to a little girl: Barbara Lily Warburton. As the baby was taken away to be cleaned, Clarissa died while trying to warn her husband about the baby. In the confusion and panic, no one noticed the swap except for Brogan...

Then a Roaring Inferno...:

Lord Ashcroft had never had a baby before, and so when he had finally made it through the snow, she had nearly frozen to death. The hapless Lord handed the child over to the Wizened known as Abby and she placed the child on the nearly fded embers of the kitchen fire. The baby lit up like pure flame, changing in a mere instant. Abby didn't know what to think, nor did Lord Ashcroft, or so it seemed at first but Abby knew that if he hadn't planned for it to happen, the child would have been left to the elements. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more it seemed that everything had been in place for just such an occurance.

Abby played a big part in Calliope's life, teaching her how to cook and awakening a bright and vivid imagination in the Hearth Child. Lord Ashcroft had many rules for the girl: she was never to go outside unless she was specifically told to, she was to always cook the meals exactly how she was told, without question, she was to entertain his guests with stories when prompted (especially if these stories were about things that she heard when she was outside), and she was never allowed to touch anyone. If Calliope broke one of these rules, she was placed into a heavy steel cage that hung above a large lake that was on the Prince of Empire's lands. At the Fae Lord's behest, the Hearth Child was slowly lowered into the lake by the Mannikin who was attached to the wench. If she was lucky, the Water Nymph wouldn't be ordered to torture her further by causing the water to rise and fall, scaring the poor girl. The pain was somehow less frightening than the sound of her body hissing and sputtering as she was slowly extinguished. But that was the way that the Fae Lord worked. He kept the Changelings from trusting one another by making them participate in ach other's punishments. Calliope was called on several times to help discipline one of her fellow slaves and, although she hated to do it, she had no choice. Still, one of the most horrendous punishments that she recieved was when she pulled the Mirrorskin known as John Doe out of his mirror simply so that they could both learn what touching felt like. She burned him badly, but still managed to pull him out of the melting glass. When this was discovered, she was shut inside the oven without any fuel for 3 full days. When she was finally set free, she was taken out to the lake and submerged nearly completly. The nymph below showed her the pieces of glass at the bottom of the lake, all that remained of her friend.

When Calliope was ordered to go outside, she was often told to go to a firepit or campfire where she would listen to the stories of the Changelings there. She would listen to the tales and come back to her Lord and perform the stories while using her own flame to create shapes in the air out of fire or shadows against the sheet covered wall made for these moments. More often than not, she would perform during banquets or balls in front of hundreds of other Fae and their slaves. What Calliope did not understand was that sometimes she was telling not just epic adventures, but secret escape plans. Many Changelings were caught and punished because of her, and she was completely unawares. To Calliope, she was just telling a story. A few Changelings found this out and somehow were able to bribe her with far more "interesting" stories, but they were very few in number compared to the ones that got caught.

Other times that Calliope was allowed outside was when Lord Ashcroft needed something to light his way during the night. He would take a log from the fire and instruct the living flame to remain on the log like a torch. Then, he would go to one clandestne meeting or another, placing the "torch" in a sconce outside of the door before going behind closed doors. These trysts had her meeting quite a number of people as she watched over the door or just sat there flickering.

Lord Ashcroft had a weakness for beautiful, predictable, and cruel women, so it was no surprise when he tried to gain the favor of Lady Violet. However, the Prince of Empires also made certain that she thought of him as a complete fop, which completely turned her off. Perhaps that was his real intention. In order to shut him up, Lady Violet poisoned him. Needing a special cure, the Fae Lord sent his fire to the Masked Lord...

With the Cracklings of the Logs..:

The Masked Lord required more time in order to find the antidote to the poison that was used against the Prince of Empires, but Calliope had been told not to return without the vial. After her curiosity boiled away far too many precious experiments, the Masked Lord sent the Hearth Child into the basement so as not to spoil any more mixtures. Becoming a light in the darkness, she found Touchtone Madwise who was tied to a table. After long and confusing half-insane ramblings on both of their parts, Calliope found a hunger within her to finally touch someone. Knowing that she was doing wrong, and yet also knowing that no one could see her here, the Living Flame purposefully made herself nothing more than a wisp of warmth so that she touch the captive Fairest. Unable to feel with merely a pass of the hand, Calliope imitated what she had seen other Fae and Changelings do in front of roaring fireplaces in bedrooms. Although she could feel very little due to her form as little more than a heat shimmer, she did connect with him deeply and intimately as somehow his pleasure awakened her human need to love others.

Calliope returned nearly every day after that for the next few weeks, either due to orders or fom sneaking out; and each time the two of them laid together. She wanted to free him from his bonds, just as she had done with John Doe, but the thought of her friend shattered on the bottom of the lake prevented her from doing so. Still, Madwise knew that sooner or later they were going to be caught, and then Calliope would be put out permanently. Calliope was the catalyst that drove the Gutter King to seek freedom, bringing her with him whether she was ready to go or not.

At dawn, before Calliope would normally sneak back into the Castle, the two Changelings ran for it. Though they got lost in the forests, they soon made it to the edge of the Hedge. But they already heard the sounds of the Beast Hounds braying and horse hooves in the distance. They fled inside the thorny wall, the brambles tearing at their skin. The vines refused to burn away, and for the first time, Calliope felt some sort of pain. Still, they pressed onwards, knowing that they had hit a point of no return. The Keepers were hot on their heels, and even though they were at the end, the Gentry would easily be able to overtake them. In an act of courage and despiration, Madwise pushed Calliope through the Hedge into the world beyond.

It was pitch black when she stumbled out of the trees and onto black, hard soil. She could smell the green around her, and the scent of burning flowers. As she looked around for Madwise, she saw two lights in the distance coming towards her. As she stood there, trying to find out if the lights were friends or if she should run, a huge goose honked at her! She clapped her hands over her ears, and then, with the lights blinding her, a giant metal monster attacked her...

Until the Flames Die Down to a Dull Glow...:

When Calliope finally woke, she was in a white room that was very cold. She was lying on some sort of cushy altar and water was being pumped into her. Fearing that both she and Madwise had been recaptured and she had been condemned to a slow death, Calliope found the strength and resolve to fight against the inevitable to find Madwise again. She plled at the strange devices hooked up to her, but before she could get away, ladies in white came in and fought against her. After getting a few others to help, they strapped her to the altar once again and hooked her up to the strange beeping device. They asked her questions like what her name was and, although she answered them, they didn't seem to hear her responses. They prattled on and on about having a fever, even though it was cold in the room and she was only a small, yellowish-white blaze, and they finally told her that they were calling in another doctor.

The doctor was just as brown and wrinkled and old as Abby, and he could hear and understand Calliope's peculiar way of vocalizing. He explained this his name ws Caudecus, and she was in the "real world". She had been hit by a car and was in a coma for 3 weeks, and it was April 20th, 2007. Calliope didn't understand why that was important, but tried to answer all of his questions. When he handed her a meal all to herself, she found herself confused when he told her that sticking her hand in the mashed potatoes and burning it for fuel wouldn't be acceptable here. Realizing that he needed to find someplace to rehabilitate this Elemental, Caudecus called in a friend. Bandy spent long enough to teach her how to eat properly before bringing her to his home for "runaways".

...Until it Can Be Rekindled Anew.(Current activities):
Calliope is most often found in the Florida area, especially during the winter months, where it is warmer. She can usually be found causing fires at Pelinor's Home for Lost Runaways much to Bandy's frustrations.

• October 20, 2007 - Nashville, TN : Calliope travels with Bandabras for a night of experiments with the new manners she has been learning under his instruction. Taking with her a bag of bark, she somehow managed to get nearly everyone that she offered it to to take a piece, even the giant tree Hawthorne. When the Gentry attacked the Hunt, Race gave her the task of burning the place to the ground to create a diversion as soon as he gave her the word; a plan that Calliope really loved. However, before it was Go Time, while she was talking with Patrick "Pat" MacRoche, someone gave her Heroin, causing the fire to act more loopy than usual. Bandy quickly gave her Methadone to counteract the drug, but Calliope managed to hand out several pills to other people before he could stop her. Still, Touchstone Madwise and Calliope were reunited during this time, as well as one other that was also one of Ashcroft's slaves. Calliope is still waiting to find out if it is Go Time or not.
  

• October 29, 2007 - Bad Penny : Calliope must have gotten lost as she wandered back to Florida from Nashville, and so ended up here. Taking with her some chocolate chip and walnut cookies that she baked herself, Calliope managed to get to this bar near closing time. There was a strange reunion between herself and John Doe as she found out that he wasn't broken. She aslo met several new friends, the mannikin CZ-3, Jim Darque, and Brand. Her very presence scared CZ-3, and Calliope tried her best to show that she was a very good and polite fire, even though she remembered having to torture the rusted metal man that lowered her into the lake on many occasions. Perhaps that was why she was so gentle with him. Either way, it earned her the respect of others, and she was last seen walking home with John Doe and Brand.
  

Pink Things (Contacts)

• Bandabras Pelinor - "Bandy was there for me after I woke up strapped to the slab after the metal monster attack. He taught me how to eat mashed potatoes like a pink thing. I live at his house now....and I'm sorry I blew up the backyard..."
  
• Bianca Snow - "Bianca is very pretty. She asks me to make things for her sometimes, and I like doing that."
  
• Brand - "What noble heart and mind. I imagine him not on the back of a white steed, but atop a mighty dragon. What stories I could tell about him! I only hope that he doesn't fall when the dragon is killed by yet another knight in shining armor..."
  
• CZ-3 - "What horrible things could have been done to him in order for him to fear me so? How could I possibly know if he can't tell me? I mean, I'm nothing but a fire."
  
• Evie Greene - "She's the one that convinced me to become a part of the Harvest Syndicate. We make a pretty good team when we work together. She gets me the ingredients, and I get to cooking."
  
• Hawthorne - "What a nice tree. I have to be really, really careful not to taste him though. I bet he would taste pretty good, but I don't want to totally eat him..."
  
• James Daniels
  
• Jim Darque - "He thinks that I am human. I don't understand. Is it not part of a fire's nature to be warm and comforting as well as hot and dangerous? If you believe the stories, the ones that are truly scary are the humans."
• John Doe - "I just wanted to help him. Why did Lord Ashcroft have to break him?"
  
• Magistrate Waxman - "I don't understand why he was so sharp with me. I just wanted to burn the place to the ground."
  
• Patrick "Pat" MacRoche - "What delights a fire more than someone who will eat anything that she cooks?"
  
• Race - "Race, Race, Race, Race...so rigid, so stony, so alone in a crowd. I want to see his eyes light up just once, even if it is just the reflection of the fire in front of him."
  
• Splatter - "He was so scary and broken before. Now all I want to do is keep him from being hurt more."
  
• Thorn - "Little feathered softling, pink thing. You look at the open air with longing and scratch at the ground like a chicken. Even a rooster will beat his wings from time to time."
• Touchstone Madwise - "You can smell him on me, I can still taste him...that lingering musky floral scent flickers through my body. I want to engulf him, wrap myself around him until we're both under the same light. But I don't dare. Unlike me, he was never meant to burn completely, and sometimes I worry that I have already burned too much of him away."
  
• Vayne Cruxis
  
• Malic Stitch - "Buisness" ascociate and maybe more?

Looking for ties of many kinds, please feel free to contact me with ideas.

Cooking it up(Inspirations)

• Calcipher from Howl's Moving Castle
  
• Anthony "Tiger" Macedo - He told me that all of my characters were smart. Whereas he meant it as a compliment, and I did take it as such, it made me want to play a stupid character.

Stoking the Fires to Frenzy (Soundtrack)

• Ashes to Ashes - Damage Control
  
• Be Our Guest - from Beauty and the Beast
  
• Beauty on the Fire - Natalie Imbruglia
  
• Brokenhearted Saviour - Big Head Todd and the Monsters
  
• Bless the Child - Nightwish
  
• Burn - The Cure
  
• Cabaret Aspirateur - Les Triplettes Del Belleville
  
• Candle on the Water - Helen Reddy
• Can't Take it All In - Imogen Heap
  
• Castles Burning - Savatage
  
• The Dreams of Candlelight - Trans-Siberian Orchestra
  
• Ever Dream - Nightwish
  
• Faraway - Apopalyptica
  
• Flame - Cruxshadows
  
• Hide and Seek - Imogen Heap
  
• Human Behaviour - Bjork
  
• I Wish I Was the Moon Tonight - Neko Case
  
• In the House of Stone and Light - Martin Page
  
• Light My Fire - The Doors
  
• Shine - Mr. Big
  
• Soul on Fire - HIM
  
• Watching in Silence - Circle II Circle
  

Burn it to the Ground(Quotes)

Please feel free to add a quote, either about Calliope, your own PC, or simply reflections on being Lost.

• "So then the evil King Hoover of America was killed by King Roosevelt, and the people of America were saved."
  
• "No Miss, It would not be better to burn the place down." - Magistrate_Waxman Refusing Calliope's offer to help.
  
• "Now 'ere we got a firey one, Rick. Whach out for 'em. They are fun til the bed catches fire... even little after... but when ya wake up in da morning it'll burn when ya pee." - Pat MacRoche talking to Rick after meeting Calliope
• "Simple. Human. Compassion. In the form of a beautiful nymph of flame." -Jim Darque
• "This one unnerves me in a way I'll never put to words...the only mother she knows is fire, ever hungry, ever consuming, ravenous fire. Taken too young, and made of the elements...will she ever understand what she was? What she's lost? I think maybe...the saving grace is that she won't, because she can't, so it'll never hurt her quite the way it does some of us." - Thorn
• "Yeah, umm, the heroin thing. I feel really bad about that. I was just trying to be nice but I wasn't on one of my clear days. Hopefully the methodone I gave her friend to give to her helped." - David Burke

• "Red's one of the best friends that a boy like me could have. She freed me. She made me feel warm. Not the brightest torch of the bunch, but certainly one of the prettiest." -John Doe

Flames to the Night's Sky (Rumors)

• Calliope got hit by a car as soon as she stepped out of the hedge.
• Calliope has no clue about technology, and because of that has blown up a good section of Bandy's backyard.
• Calliope has been rumored to be able to cook justabout anything, including Goblin Fruits.
• Calliope has no sense of touch at all, and is completely unable to keep anything that she tries to touch from bursting into flames.
• Calliope isn't as stupid as she seems. She was working with Lord Ashcroft in ratting out other Changelings before they could escape.
• No, Calliope really is that stupid. She's just an easy tool.
• Calliope blew a hole in Bandy's backyard because someone told her to go cook on a propane grill.
• Calliope can't tell the difference between people, so she bites them instead to get their flavor.
• Calliope was the reason why Bandabras had to escape from Arcadia before he had intended.

Burning Through Your Soul (OOC Information)

Played By: Selena McDevitt (US2002023264)
Livejournal: The Dark Mother