Catherine Wheel
From Changeling Venue
| Seeming | Fairest Shadowsoul |
|---|---|
| Court | Winter Court ••••• |
| Freehold | Cincinnati, OH |
| Player | Ifer Biddle |
Contents |
The witty woman is a tragic figure in American life. Wit destroys eroticism and eroticism destroys wit, so women must choose between taking lovers and taking no prisoners.--Florence King
Come a little bit closer
Let me look at you
I gave you the benefit
Of the doubt its true
But keep in mind my darling
Not every saint is a fool-- Control, Poe
The Ice is Thin
Alias(es): Rin, Miss Catherine
Real Name: Catherine Elizabeth Wheeler
Age: Late 20's
Concept: Puppet Princess, Broken Mirror
Entitlement: None
Seeming: Fairest
Kith: Flowering
Virtue: Charity
Vice: Envy
Underneath this Lucid Skin
Mask: Catherine is a pale girl of indeterminate age. She has bright green eyes, if one can see them through her perpetually askew glasses. Her auburn hair is similarly messy, always clipped up and away from her face. She prefers slacks and sweaters in neutral shades, never wearing anything so brightly colored as to make her stand out. She tries to look like any other student on campus and never shies away from her thought that she can do that.
Mein: Catherine is even paler in her faerie mien, her skin almost dead white. Her eyes still flash green, but seem brighter against her icy flesh. Her hair is long, auburn tangled with black, dressed with bits of white rabbit fur, ice, and small, white flowers. Her chosen raiment is restrictive, almost frozen and she becomes the bound woman in blacks and whites.
Mantle: A ice cold barrier of air surrounds Catherine and her skin is always icy smelling of wet air, of soil and flowers under the first frost, When she calls upon her contracts, the soft sound of whispers and sighs can be heard. When she is angry, they turn to the wailing shrieks of ice cold air blasting through empty trees, followed by the cracking of limbs too heavy with ice.
But My Soul is Anchored
Basic Timeline:
Catherine Wheel never knew a life less than perfectly normal. She was a perfect child, a joy to her parents and her friends, and she graduated at the top of her class to immediately delve into the medical program. She was quiet, sweet-natured and soft spoken, pretty enough, and had a handsome boyfriend at her beck and call.
All of this ended one night when she was ripped through the Hedge by Jackson Hunter. He was sent to retrieve her to mete out a contractual agreement between her soon to be Keeper and her many times great grandmother. Catherine saw her world of perfection, of normality, melt before her eyes and it was this first blow that began to destroy her grasp of her sanity.
She suffered greatly at the hands of her Keeper, known only to her as "The Lady". Her punishments and rewards were carefully delivered in order to strip away a little more of the girl that existed before the Hedge. She was kept in the dark for weeks, until she learned that she was alone. Her senses were tortured with absence and cacophony. She was broken down bit by bit until she was the empty vessel her Keeper so desired—the better to rule the real world. Catherine's ancestor sold her first born to be queen, and there is no small irony that it was exactly what the Keeper was making out of Catherine. She was witty. She was shrewd. She was intimidating and vulnerable in the same gesture of a hand. She could instill the need to follow into others, and still seem that they should protect her as she was fragile. She was a leader, blossoming under the pressure of her upbringing and flowering despite the many tortures plied upon her broken body and mind.
She finally escaped on the back of the same creature that took her to her Keeper — Jack. Jack whispered sweet psalms of redemption to her, told her he would save her, told her that she would once again be safe. He took her from her Keeper and it was him she clung to as they traveled through the thorns as she was too fractured to ever find her home again.
Since she returned from the Hedge, she has wanted nothing more than a normal life. She tried to go home to her parents, but her fetch had taken her place. Once it was gone, her parents refused to acknowledge a change, saying she was simply stressed out. Her boyfriend left her, stating she was different than he remembered, less put together. Her friends think she has gone off her rocker. Being normal seemed always to escape her.
Her time in Arcadia shattered her. Catherine has no moral compass and instead seeks to learn about wrong and right from the actions of others. She is prone to wild mood swings. She's brilliant, but mad. She hides everything about her behind antics. Even in her madness, she is beginning to understand a little more each day what happened to her in Faerie and what exactly she was made into.
Current Activities:
Catherine lives in Cincinnati with her Motley, and tries each day to get a little piece of her old life back. She still studies medicine, she still tries to balance her duties, and she still tries to be the perfect daughter despite her insanity. She is dedicated to those around her, to helping them survive each of their personal tragedies while her own life constantly falls apart around her. She works within the Winter Court as a figurehead, the Lady of Ice and Sorrow.
Merit Details:
Striking Looks X4
Themes:
Broken Perspective, a puppeted ruler, the girl that will give you anything you want because she wants everything you have.
Your Angels Speak with Jilted Tongues
Christian – Jann Arden, "Insensitive"
So many are sent to Jack to learn their lessons. I would say he was one of his most successful students. Perhaps far too successful considering how quickly he was sent on his merry, philandering way. I never quite enjoyed someone not keeping their hands to themselves so much.
Uriel de Lenormand – Sisters of Mercy, "More"
The most dangerous man is the one who can tally the price of any given action in his head without a second of hesitation. Fear Uriel. It is the wisest course of action.
Dominic Jackson Hunter – Nine Inch Nails, "The Hand that Feeds",
Savior. Father. Brother. God. I fear what I am without him. I am terrified of what I am with him.
Noman- Loreena McKennett, "Ce He Mise le Ulaingt?"
One perpetually lost in his nightmares and one as fractured at his core as I am.
Virginia Wolfe – Garbage "Sex Never Goes Out of Fashion"
Forgive me father, for she is every sin I wish I could be.
Elvis O'Connor- Garth Brooks, "I'd Rather Have Nothing"
He's always just passing through. Somedays, I wish for him to pause just a moment longer, and on others I realize the quick glimpses and half-second moments define everything I care for in him.
Aaron - Eagles, "I Wish You Peace"
I think the insane, more acutely than most, realize how very broken they are. He helped me also realize that how broken I am cannot always define me, that it will not always define me.
Valentine Church-
Anyone leaving in the night hurts. No note hurts a little more. Not even getting a chance to work up a real heartbreak—the biggest pain of all.
Horace "Race" Ardent—Beth Orton "Couldn't Cause me Harm"
Regret. It's this bitter creature that can appear to be so many other things when you haven't figured it out. I've shown him anger. I've been cruel. One day, I'll show him that I really do know that none of this was his fault.
Pyotr Koud Hart-
We must all learn one thing from someone else. While the lessons were not kind, they were well taught.
Clockwork- Septic Flesh, "Mechanical Babylon"
Brilliant. Just brilliant. To say more, makes him less.
Nathaniel Fellows -
We are creatures of grand displays, fantastic dreams, and awe-inspiring circumstances. It's lovely, to be reminded once in a while by him, that we are also the small moments built of simple perfection.
Malic Stitch -
I was commenting on his latest work. What did you think we were discussing?
Lady Garnet -
Each time the Icebound approach me, they send someone more lovely to do the talking. She's proof positive they have some clue of what they're doing.
Fortunato - Sarah Mchlachlan, "Black and White"
Fortunato... Simon... One or the other. This or that. We are either so broken that we live in a world of mutable grey or in a place where the contrast of pitch black and blinding white becomes too much to bear. His passion frightens me, but even I envy the wounds and scars it leaves, proof that there is life and not merely existence.
I Don't Like Your Tragic Sighs
Ice: Sarah McLachlan [1]
Heavy: Collective Soul [2]
Winter: Tori Amos [3]
Gasoline: Jann Arden
Suicide Alley: Shawn Colvin
Walking in My Shoes: Depeche Mode [4]
Haunted: Poe [5]
Prospero's Speech: Loreena McKennitt [6]
Figlio Perduto: Sarah Brightman [7]
Eighteen Over Me: Garrison Starr
Wicked Game: Him (Video is not safe for work)[8]
Wishing You Were Here: Pink Floyd [9]
Overweight: Blue October [10]
A Lie Upon Your Lips
Open to Edit
" I will never be normal again. In all it's relativity, that will never belong to me like it once did. I'll seek it. I'll find bits and pieces of it, incorporating it back into the creature that I have become. I will have lucid moments when I'll know who Katherine was, I'll be that shining beacon so many admired, and I'll create from the dust a vision of myself, but I'll not last. She'll not last. Normal will fade into the darkness and there will just be me, flawed and broken with only brief flashes of repair."
"This must remain a secret. I cannot protect you from his wraith if we were found out."
"Some would say she is broken, as delicate as a spider's web in the wind. Yet many forget the strength of the web, twice as strong as steel and infinitely more flexible. Many great things can come from the seed yet to sprout from Sorrow's soil." ~ Nathaniel Fellows
My Secret Heart...Forbidden
Open to Edit
The reason Catherine cannot maintain any relationship with her suitors is Jack keeps her for his own personal amusement.
Catherine shows more than few traits of the keeper she escaped, especially when her anger is riled to the point that she loses control.
Catherine is one of the few people who can terrify Dominic Jackson Hunter, even though he will never admit to it.
Catherine has dallied with some of the most influential men in her court, but none of them got past her icy exterior.
Catherine is the pet project of nearly every Duchy member east of the Mississippi and half the ones to the west.
Catherine's relationship with Noman is quite possibly closer than the one she has with Jack. How far that relationship goes is a matter of some speculation.
Christian broke Catherine's heart, which is why the one time she curses, it will always be to say "Goddamned Duchy".
Christian didn't actually break Catherine's heart, which is why they play a game with each other that not even the Duchy will get involved in. There days Christian and Catherine doubt they even know the rules anymore.
