From Changeling Venue

Without express permission from the player, the information contained on and linked from this page is classified as OOC Knowledge.
NOTE : Everything on this page is subject to change prior to the Chronicle Go-Live date of 01-Jan-08.
NOTE : This character is registered to the Atlanta Lost VSS, "In Media Res".

Seeming	Ogre Stonebones
Court	Summer Court •••
Freehold	Ring of Roses
Player	Brad Gunnels

Contents 1 At a glance 2 Learned over a beer or two 3 Where my hat hangs and who I tilt it to 4 Inspirations for this 5 Sounds around Gilded 6 Gilded Talk 7 Rumors about Gilded 8 OOC

This character page and background are pending approval.

At a glance

"What Better Work For One Who Loves Freedom Than The Job Of Watchman? Law Is The Servant Of Freedom. Freedom Without Limits Is Just A Word." - Dorfl

Alias(es): Gilded
Legal Name: David Manning
Location: Atlanta, GA
Age: late 30s
Seeming: Ogre
Kith: Stonebones
Court: Summer (Mantle 3)
Concept: Very Broken "Hero"
Mask: A noticeable strong build, prominent muscles can't help catch the eye. Skin is dark, well tanned with a bit of olive cast to it. Hair is the blue/black and has small curls cut close. Features match most closely to Michelangelo's David. The only oddness are that his dark eyes that have flecks of gold in them if you stare long enough but its probably just the light.
Mein: As above but the colors are all as one, gold. Gold skin, gold eyes, gold hair, gold lips. All glowing as made of the metal itself, freshly polished. Wears hedgespun gloves of gold.

Learned over a beer or two

"Who will do the harsh things? Those who can." - Old Japanese proverb

Basic Timeline: Born: June 21, 1931; Taken July 13, 1951; Returned June 22, 1989; Released from Sanitarium: March 1992; Wandered till April 1994; Joined Freehold, Summer Court and Tolltakers June 1994; Started GT Fall 1995; Finished GT Spring 1998; Started working for Atlanta Department of Planning August 1998. Soft RP bringing city up to date, more to come.
Current Activities: Working to keep Atlanta's Ring of Roses safe
Merit Details: Mantle 3, Giant, Striking Looks (4)
Background: http://lioneking.livejournal.com/27066.html

A Golden David

As I drive in the late afternoon, I think the one thing about Atlanta you can count on in summer is warmth. Sure, some places talk about how many days they are above one hundred degrees, and others talk about how it's not the heat, it's the humidity. Here it's just plain, old-fashioned warm. It makes you feel alive... miserable, but alive. And that warmth is giving me the alive feeling, something I need so very much now. Miserable and warm on a late afternoon in Atlanta traffic might not be great state of being but there are worse things.

I wasn't miserable in Europe, traveling abroad after graduation. In 1951, much of the damage of the war was already gone. Americans had a wonderful reputation, and I took a trip, the last brief hurrah of the student before settling into adult life. My family wasn't wealthy, but I had saved enough cash to be comfortable on a vacation with some buddies. In retrospect I wish I had stayed with them the whole time, but I wanted to see the statue of Michelangelo's David.

I'm sure you have seen photos of the David. Perhaps you have even seen it in person. It's hard to convey the scale of David: The forearm of that statue is larger than most men. Unlike many other artists, Michelangelo sculpted David a bit older. He purposely left imperfections and flaws, both as due to humanity and to poor quality marble from which David was sculpted. Michelangelo took what he saw and created a work of greatness. I wanted nothing more than to see it in person, to gaze on this almost miraculous work, then go back to having fun with my friends.

But as I stand there, slowly changing position to take it all in, I notice someone who was doing the same as I, someone who didn't quite seem right. They seem to be doing exactly the same as I. Long haired yet somewhat masculine, in pants but wearing frilly shirt/jacket whose colors refused definition. Other people move as if they do not even notice the figure. I am baffled until his or her eyes meet mine. The kaleidescope eyes aren't right either. I find myself unable to move. The person then approaches me, walking around me, glancing up at David and back at myself. I can't shout, can't blink. The only thing my own are my thoughts - racing and, frankly, full of fear.

“I want one,” it says in a voice like harness bells and broken glass. “You'll do.”

It walks out and I follow, my limbs now moving in accord to that being's movement. I've since been told that Keeper is as good a name as any, and since you may want a reference other than “it”, I guess that will do just fine. My Keeper and I walk the street among the crowds. From behind I still can not tell if it is a man or woman. To this day I still can't. The Keeper looks as if it chose to be unfinished. It is obviously not an indecisive creature, having made the choice to take me on sight. Crowds part about us, and none touch us with body or eyes. I swear shadows duck and hide as we go along whatever path the Keeper takes me, but being unable to even move my eyes I have no way to really tell.

Eventually a small park comes into view, unkempt, and my Keeper strides directly into it. The limbs of the plants bend away, unwilling to disturb the clothing of my escort. As we hurry further into the twisting branches, the light starts to change. The sun grows muted and the bushes give way to some sort of thorny plant. My eyes and ears, worn from the strain of my own internal struggles, are assaulted by sights and sounds unlike anything I had ever experienced. I can only hope that perhaps I was dreaming, having a nightmare in that small park. Or perhaps I had fallen in the Galleria dell'Accademia and even now was being treated for a head injury. This thought comforts me until jagged thorns rip across my legs.

My Keeper step through the briars. They make way for him but close quickly behind to catch and tear at me. I am still impelled forward, losing clothing and blood and inwardly screaming as needles rip open a cheek. These herbaceous spurs rend more than the physical. I can no longer remember my mother's face. My sister's name. These things are gone, even more disappearing as we continued deeper, each step agonizing flesh and soul.

I am barely conscious when we stop. I feel cold stone beneath my feet, runnels of blood leaking my warmth across the surface. I would not be standing if my body had a choice in the matter. My Keeper is talking to someone else now, an oddly shrunken person in black clothing. I listen through the haze of pain.

Once more, Keeper's tones of bone chimes and tearing metal. “I want some statuary for the upcoming gala, Wormcroot. It must be something flesh based, in metallic tones...no stone constructs...too dull. I'm sure those brewers can come up with something to entertain me. The process and training should be less than boring. I'll see if anything new and interesting is at the market. It is too long since I dealt with these first hand.... I have forgotten how fragile they are, and you must toughen this up for me. But just in case you break it, I had best get more.” The figure in black simply nods and gazes over to me. As my Keeper walks off, my limbs are suddenly my own and that bloody floor rises to greet me.

I awaken to a dusty voice. “Can you hurry with those elixirs? We have another dozen of these to do.” My jaw is forced suddenly open, and fluid as noxious as anything I could ever imagine pours into my mouth. Once more I am held immobile. I howl in my mind. I beg. No sound emerges but the gurgling of that liquid emptying down my throat. I taste hate, anger, jealousy, lust. In smaller doses come love, caring, empathy, and even compassion... but the bad far outweighs the good. The dry voice speaks again, saying, “Can't have a statue with feelings, can we? Better burn those all out now as we start. Get the molds ready to reshape them.”

When I can focus again, I behold David floating in midair. I lay in some sort of strangely contoured box, remembering that day in Italy. Water runs down my face, although I don't see any falling from the ceiling. I can't lift my hand to touch it, so I watch David until the dusty voice speaks again. “So that is what these should look like? Our Illustriousness demands even the imperfections.” There is some muttering. “Yes, fool, even the missing muscles on the arms. The replicas are to be as close as our poor skills can manage and if it's not good enough, I'll ensure punishments starts here.” A strange head with goggles peers in, wispy hair forming an irregular halo as the light caught strands from behind. The head is so large it stirs something in me. I feel my lip start to move involuntarily. The face scowls and a rubber gloved hand reaches in to hold my lip still. The face contorts further and I can see another hand waving. Two huge figures come into view carrying the lid to this box, and on the inside of the lid I see David again. The large figures have tusks. What kind of people have tusks, I think, and the lid is lowered. All is dark.

Pressure engulfs me as I feel swelling, things in me break, time has no meaning, but the click of bone almost sounds like a clock. I count heartbeats between breaks but I keep losing count when I fall asleep around sixty five thousand or so. I get to one hundred thirty-nine thousand and fourteen when something around my forehead snaps and I black out. My enclosure doesn't seem to have a temperature, and it's strange that I don't have to go to the bathroom. Best I can figure I have been in here some weeks now. David has a name. I think I did, too.

Light assails my eyes and suddenly I can't blink again. Water rushes across my cheeks from its harshness. I see the face of the Wormcroot fellow peer in. “This one lived as well? Looks like you only lost half.” Looking back at me, he continues in that dusty voice, “Get up and join the others.” My limbs move and I hear sounds of screaming in my head, but no one seems to be screaming in the room. I do see twenty-three other men, all Davids, standing together. My body moves to join them. Wormcroot walks through a series of large boxes and we all follow. My eyes catch what is inside one, the box itself contours of David but its occupant obviously long dead, a twisted mass of flesh treated by Hieronymous Bosch, perhaps.

Wormcroot leads us to some sort of dining room. We pass a mirrored hallway at one point, the dried up Wormcroot and the twenty-four Davids. “Sit,” he says in that dusty voice. Stout men enter bearing large tureens of steaming stew. These short, stout men with mouths full of sharp teeth snickered somewhat as they ladled stew for each of us a large bowl. Wormcroot frowns as that voice creaks. “Hush, or you'll be stew next. The rest of you eat, the day will be long.” We eat and I feel warmth...I feel warmth over my lips. It swirls across my tongue like life entering my system, but I am not doing the eating. My hand lifts the spoon to my mouth and I eat whether I want to or not. We all finish at the same time and place the spoons down and stand.

Wormcroot heads out and we follow again. We pass others. I'd stare if I could but my eyes are on him. I get glimpses of people from some kind of fairy-tale nightmare. I don't see my Keeper but servants abound, cleaning floors, straightening things. We are lead through a house that seems endless. There are doors and stairs, both up and down, the windows we pass are curtained but I think I can see light outside. All the fixtures inside seem to be old gas lamps, but as we pass close to one it actually has a tiny person on fire chained at the feet waving their arms. I can't be sure but the mouth looked open and perhaps the hissing noise may have been air escaping that open mouth. My skin shudders almost languidly, my feet never out of sync with the others' as Wormcroot takes us ever onward.

We arrive at a very large dimly light, circular room. In the center of the room is slightly luminous David at his full size, rotating slowly. I can see slightly through him. As the statue turns I see shadows of people looking at him, Italian at the edge of my hearing and English, German, other sounds of home.... Home, didn't I live there once?

Spaced around David are small pedestals much like the one under him. My body turns toward one, leaping up easily. My eyes take in the entire room of Davids, bodies moving as one, conforming to the translucent David in the middle. Wormcroot steps back into the hall and Keeper glides in. Silver hair spreads like a dandelion, gold and violet eyes take us in. It brings a small bit of fabric to its upturned nose, sniffs loudly. My Captor speaks, pleasure and pain. “They may yet do, clean them up. They're so pale! I desire golden hues. Beat them. Let their bruises heal evenly to give the metal a good prime coat on their skin before you work on their postures.” The Thing almost dances around the room, pauses before me. “Oh look, he made it this far. I wonder if that means something.” Wormcroot merely bows as brightness leaves the room in shadow once more.

Again I see the two tusked figures, but they seem smaller now. They beat me with some sort of wrapped bundled canes as I stand on the pedestal, unflinching due to whatever force holds me in place. I am the seventh to be beaten and my eyes take in what they can of the others. Two collapse, and their bodies are left where they fall until the remainder are a motley, piebald collection of Davids. The tusked men drag the broken Davids away, crimson trails left behind. Small women come in with buckets and rough brushes, cleaning up the blood. I have wetness on my checks, but I am certain its merely blood from where skin split as the ceiling was dry from what I saw earlier. The cleaning fluids burn on my skin. I see skin closing on the other Davids as they are cleaned. When the women finish, Wormcroot sniffs again. The lights in the room fade, leaving the glowing center David spinning before us.

Time passes. We Davids heal, and another two are removed. As our skins reach a yellow-green, the goggled men enter our chamber. They carry buckets and boxes. A new washing begins, the little men using ladders to reach us. This time their brushes and sponges leave the Davids' skin washed in golden hues, sparkling in the faint light of the chamber. As I am washed, I feel nothing after the first brush passes over. The second pass is a brief sensation. When the strange little men are done with us all Wormcroot inspects the twenty Davids left. He pokes one and frowns as the gold tinted skin begins to slide down the David's leg. He snaps his fingers, and a few minutes later the tusked figures show up to take another one of me away. Wormcroot walks across the room and stops at the door, turning to face us. “Follow,” is his phlegmatic command. We do.

Again we go into the kitchen and again we are fed. It is the same as before: We eat in silence and in rhythm. The toothy ones watch, one drooling, as we consume all that is laid before us. We finally have warmth, a feeling inside brought on by nothing more than a bowl of meat and water. Our eyes itch some. We can see the other Davids have golden eyes. In fact all parts of us are golden. We are that Hellenic ideal, gilded. We can't pause or stop what our body is doing, but the mind scrambles about. Whatever it tries to catch onto slips away with a sound like fingernails on a chalkboard. We finish the meal. We walk back to our chamber behind the old man, assuming the same position. There are five empty pedestals now. Wormcroot says softly, “All together now are we? Stand in the pose before you. Be David. Regardless of what you believe or think, your bodies are consigned to David.”

Suddenly I know I can move on my own again, I'm free and in a position to actually take advantage of it. I begin to move, but another David is faster than I. He leaps off his pedestal.... and he bursts into fire. His screams echo through the chamber and I pause, but another David is already moving. Suddenly he is on fire as well, and then a third, and then a fourth. The screams grow louder and Wormcroot frowns. “David can't speak, nor can he scream.” Silence now fills the room. The four Davids roll about the room, fire all over them. Strangely, only their skin seems affected, their muscles exposed. The stone floor is slick with blood. I am still now. I have no desire to move at all.

Wormcroot looks about the room. “Stand in the pose and do not move,” he says, turning. The David's writhing over the floor stand and follow, their movements jerky as the flames continue to eat away at their once-golden forms.

I stand in the pose, unmoving. Time passes. I am not all the Davids. I am merely the bundle of pain on pedestal number seven. Other Davids collapse as time passes. Again flame burns them. Wormcroot comes by and gathers their forms. Occasionally we are taken to eat again, and eventually I try just to hang out long enough so another David is falls rather than I. As we stand in the pose on our own in this timeless place, our number of David shrinks ever smaller. It slows as we grow fewer. Only three of us remain.

Hunger gnaws at my insides and I feel like I can't stand still anymore at all. I know my leg is going to give under this cocked hip. My hand is falling from near my face when the David nearest the door simply closes his eyes and falls like a star from the heavens to the floor. Wormcroot is there almost instantly. and I feel that my body once more is not my own. A glance is all we are spared as the now incendiary figure is dragged away by those tusked figures.

Wormcroot returns and our bodies lurch to follow him to the kitchens. We are given food for the first time in ages. We eat well. “A close thing!” exhorts Wormcroot “You all almost failed at the same time. Our Illustriousness would not have been pleased at all! I may have joined you in the pots.” My body still ate while that sentence resounded in my head. Wormcroot continued, “The Gala is soon. You know your positions. I warn you that nothing you have experienced so far can compare with the consequences if the Illustriousness is disappointed in you.” We finish. We return to our chamber once more to be held in place, unmoving. I think I want to do something now, but I am unsure exactly what. If I could talk to the other David, he might know. My shoulders feel lighter. I am not sure why.

A day arrives, and Wormcroot walks us outside. It is a glorious day, like a day imagined by a child must be. A perfect day in a perfect garden. The other David and I are walked to a pair of pedestals where we face a large green hedge. I recognize the long thorns as unpleasant, but I am not sure where that knowledge comes from. Our pedestals are to opposite sides of an archway and different servants. More types of peoples than I ever knew existed at this place - hundreds of them - seem to be making ready for this gathering. The other David and I merely go stand on our stones. We move into pose without volition. We wait. I can't see the preparations, but I can hear them behind me. There is music, dancing and singing. These are things I once knew. I am sure of it.

The sun, which sat unmoving, begins to lower. The foliage in front of us opens to reveal a curved roadway that turns in front of us. Carriages and contraptions of all sorts begin to arrive. As they do, I feel myself able to move once more but dare not. Beings of indescribable appearance come out of these conveyances, which move off. I hear many of those voices of pain and pleasure laughing behind me. A full party is going on, servants and entertainment everywhere. I hear raised voices from time to time. Strange lights glow behind me, but I dare not look. The other David and I pose. The moon crosses the sky and still more carriages arrive. More strange beings who remind me of my captor emerge, along with smaller figures that are obviously servants or hangers-on. The night passes. From the sounds, the party most be a resounding success for the Illustriousness. And yet... here I stand, a David, and no more attention is paid me than the road underfoot.

I do not know how long the party lasts. I see lovers pass me toward the carriages. Some leave with different beings than those with whom they arrived. Gambling had taken place, and several creatures had large items loaded onto their carriages. Maybe they were only gifts. My Keeper sees many to their conveyances, asking to see them again soon. Invariably, the escorted creature assures it of a wonderful time. Long kisses are sometimes exchanged. Finally one last carriage rolls into the brambles. The road vanishes. The opening in the woods before us closes.

My Keeper turns to Wormcroot. “I tire. Take care of clean up. Dispose of things no longer needed.” Wormcroot nods. My Keeper does not glide away; it merely vanishes. Servants appear as all the decor arranges itself to be carried to its destinations. Wormcroot himself vanishes. A few of the servants slip off into the hedge. As I watch, one pauses to look back toward the house. Her eyes catch mine and she makes a small come-hither gesture before she too vanishes into the thicket.

Was I told to move? That was a servant! My mind struggles furiously with the idea. I turn and looked at the other David, and I do not burn. He doesn't move. I leap from the perch and onto the grass towards the forest. Glancing back, I see no one looking in my direction. Even more servants slip into the thicket to my left and right. I wave to the other David, give him the come on gesture as I ran to the hedge. He stays there, a gold David. I lose sight of him as I head deeper into the Hedge.

The thorns cut my golden skin, but find less purchase in what lay beyond this time. In my mind, my original trip through the Hedge starts coming back. I try to help others as I pass them. Some just seem to need a nudge, but some are strangely lifeless. Others fight me as I try to help them.

Eventually I exit, but those times are harder to remember. I remember the institution where I spent several years before I accepted the fact that most could not see what I saw. I accepted the fact that although I remember my birth year being in 1931, it is now the year of our Lord 2007. I don't seem older than 40. I don't remember my name. This new world has caught me off guard. I live in it now, but it is not my world, not my home.

Maybe this is all another thing my Keeper is doing to me. Maybe not. I have a few friends now. I have a place I call home and a job where I don't have to be still. I can even break stuff just to get a warm feeling going. I found a like-minded group. If this isn't a trick, I don't want to go back. I'll do what it takes not to go back. Some others think it might be better to work with the Keepers to send some of us back. I disagree.

I pull the rented truck into the gravel drive, the magnetic stickers declaring a local landscaping contractor. The house is far enough back that no one can really see me. I walk up to the door, checking my clipboard. The yard really looks great, all the plants in fantastic health and peak bloom. I knock on the door.

After a few minutes, a woman answers the door. She's beautiful, with flowers in her hair and a smile to take your breath away. I know what I must look like to her as well: a Golden David, the light refracting off my skin like chrome. Perhaps I even have a small halo with the sun behind me. “Sally Sunflower? Just moved here from Mount Airy?” I ask. She nods, and a frown starts to cross her face “Do I know-?” she starts but doesn't finish. The hatchet I was holding under the clipboard enters under her right jaw and continues up through the top of her head.

I step over her body, wincing slightly at the mess. I'll have to clean it up. “The Mount Airy freehold is gone, Sally, and that was your fault.” I unroll the heavy plastic paint tarp. “Everyone there was sent back to their Keepers or to new Keepers. That just wasn't a good choice. You had a choice. Didn't you?” I finish the floor cleanup and get ready to head to a nearby Gristleginder who runs, conveniently, a catfish farm. I clean up the door jam above, and blood drips and hits my cheek.

It's warm.

Where my hat hangs and who I tilt it to

• 
• The Family Twist - David doesn't remember who his family was so he was luckier than most and got to choose his own.
  
• The Tolltaker Knighthood - The last chance for many, David choose this disreputable Order without hesitation and only he knows why.
  
• Althea Sexton - David meet this lovely, sorrowed lady in his travels in the pacific northwest. While she runs a great cause in Driftwood it was her tale that struck something in the oldest corners of that mostly empty repository of his memory.
  
• Amber Clinton - Amber had some Fae trash, David just helped her carry it out to the curb.
  
• Clara - David's work among the Lost is often not without some threat to life and limb. He meet Clara at Thorndale Manor recovering from injuries there and has done what he can to repay her for said aid upon occasion when Clara has asked for such. A small thing indeed for one's health.
• Dane - Dane has a fresh start that David missed, perhaps those extra years in the Hedge let Dane find pieces that David couldn't.
  
• Dub - Dub and David met when Dub approached David about the Tolltakers. Dub has fit the mold well enough, David hopes he help Dub a bit.
• Ed Clerogen - Everyone needs to have a safe place to drink and business is business.
  
• Emma Hart - Emma knows what brews David likes best so he doesn't even have to waste time ordering at Mavis's place.
  
• Gaea - She's sometimes called the other gold one, David heard and indeed she has some gold. A Summer competitor and runs The Harp's Hostel.
• Gryphon - Gryphon and David have meet numerous times this side of the Hedge, both looking to end trouble. Its seems a good partnership in that.
  
• Handsome Susan - Traveled well with and Susan's stories are almost as warm as deeds.
  
• Holly Poppet - David first meet Holly in the same net that originally brought him back to the world. Steady is all it takes, David can be steady should she need him.
  
• Jayde - David helped Jayde come to his senses in Austin and directed him north to Seattle. Jayde is certain that he and David are meant to cross paths again and seems uncertain as to why a sense of dread accompanies that thought.
• Joss Whitney - Joss helped smooth things out for David at the sanitarium, he's Family as far as David is concerned.
  
• Justice Drago Verdetti - Judged when Mt Airy needed someone to.
  
• Mavis Thornsby - Mavis runs a good bar and is a good business woman. What's not to like?
  
• Mira Blade - Twins of a sort in their creation. David senses a connection but he's a bit duller than Mira after all.
  
• Nathaniel Fellows - David meet Nathaniel by chance traveling, again and again. Turns out they have more in common than just destinations.
  
• Parthena - Aided in escape with a simple wave of her hand.
  
• Race - They fight a common fight and Race reminds David that there is more than a hollow inside.
  
• Renn - She spares David a gruff smile while she works on making beautiful metal things, he likes the smile.
  
• Rigger - David meet Rigger passing through Boston, promised him an introduction around the Ring of Roses and got a fine pocket watch which still works today
  
• Tommy Blue - They agree on who deserves some attitude adjustments and she hasn't shot him...yet.
  
• Wilhelm - They've meet at conflicts on the same side or opposing. They had brews after. Their experiences aren't so different yet their lives are.
  
• Zoe Edwards - David meet Zoe at through Fast Eddie. Surprisingly business wasn't the result but rather quiet friendship and unspoken acceptance.
  

Inspirations for this

• "Darkly Dreaming Dexter" by Jeff Lindsay.
  
• "Feet of Clay" by Terry Prachett
  
• Itkovian after Fener is gone in "Memories of Ice" by Steven Erikson
  
• Edward York in "Hunted" by James Alan Gardner
  

Sounds around Gilded

• NIN: "Right Where It Belongs"

• Maroon 5: "Harder To Breathe"

• Kenny Rogers: "Coward of the County"

Gilded Talk

(Quotes about, etc. Open to public, feel free to add)

• "Look, you are only sticking that thing in my face because you see big and stupid. No I don't think Summer is best. The world needs four seasons to work and I think that our society does too. The Fae made me this way but I decide what to do with it and that includes rewarding Fae and their lackeys on this side of the hedge with what I went through threefold when I find them. Does that come close enough to "Me smash, Summer is strongest!" for you to broadcast? No? Somehow I didn't think so either." - Gilded cut from the RFF show "Ogres say the Stupidest Things"

• "Great guy to have a few beers with and a good hand in a fight. He's a bit anal about the rules though. Still I wonder about him at times we're monsters right? How come he's so god damn pretty then? There's just something about him that's not right." Wilhelm

• "A soldier born from the same Hell that birthed me, it's good to know that the Devil can't break a good man... no matter how hard he tries." - Horace "Race" Ardent

• Nathaniel Fellows when asked about David "A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down. You will be surprised how many times, people will over look something distasteful or unpleasant if you simply wrap it in something good and pretty." When prodded further about his statement. "No I will not clarify what I mean."

• "Hasn't anyone ever told you that it's rude to stare? No...? Well, it is. Your manners are lacking, and judging by your poor choice of words within the hearing of David's friends, so is your sense of self-preservation... Do prove me wrong and be somewhere else very soon...we've only just gotten the blood stains out of the hardwood from the last idiot." - Zoe Edwards to a drunk patron making fun of Gilded's mein at The Bad Penny

• "......" <Hoof scrapes on floor> - Yew
• "A good man and a hard worker. All the praise anyone needs." Renn's ready opinion about Gilded.

• "Dependable. Hard-working. Steadfa-- What? Yes, Tommy, he is quite Shiny as well." Parthena

• (Whispered) "You don't get it." Head angled to the side. "Yes, he's strong but the way you use the word, it's too... limited to describe him. Try again." Aurora Kippelin

• "With his simple nature and good heart it's hard to believe he was ever touched by The Gentry. I think I may be sad the day the folly of the summer court's philosophy ends up in his death." - David Burke

• "Too many people focus on his 'strength', his 'purpose'. I don't know much about the man who pointed me north, but I do know this. That strength and purpose is only useful so long as the wrath it drives is pointed in the right direction. But what happens the day Gilded gets the wrong man? What happens when he realizes it? What do we find beneath the gold flake then?" - Jayde

• "Gilded is no more or no less Human than rest of us. But he has two things most of us do not: a purpose that burns like a foundry forge in his chest and a peace with his past. For both of these I envy and admire him." - Joss Whitney

• "Gilded smooths the wrinkles and confusions when emotions won't let me see plain and simple truths. I hope, when the day finally comes that the Tolltaker has need, that I can be as strong for him as he has been steadfast for me. In the meantime, it's enough to simply smile when I hear his voice boom out or the clomp of his boots as he enters a room ... and try to forget the bone-snapping crunch of the grinding machine." ~ Holly Poppet

• "Good thing for his skin. After all something about him needs to be bright. No no no, he isn't dumb really he just isn't bright enough to see that gray is a color too." - Mallory Schadenfreude

• "Gilded is like Ft. Knox, only without the fort part, and the tanks, and the army guys, and the trees, and the grass, and in a completely different state. Yeah. Other than those things, he's just like Ft. Knox." - Touch

• "...Whatever." - Gilded, as overheard upon the entrance of a Queen, by Xtina aka Christ

• "Gilded is a fantastic person to work with. Simply set up your targets, and he will chew right through them with dizzying speed and cinema-worthy brutality. " - Hissnclick

• "Guilded looks like shiny metal. I wonder if he knows that fire would melt him. So pretty that would be. Then he wouldn't talk or move. He'd just ooze everywhere." Ashe

Rumors about Gilded

(Open to Public, feel free to add)

• When the Gentry finally come to retake him, it will be for no greater purpose than to stand in silence for eternity on an Faerie mantle, having been gifted as an award for Arcadia's Best New Singer of Traditional Tales.

• In a perversion of mortal alchemy, Gilded's flesh may be purest gold, but at his core he is cold, lifeless lead.

OOC

Please feel free to contact involving ties both friendly and not so friendly. My apologies if anything on the wiki seems cumbersome, not my forte. If you can think of something neat to add, let me know as well. Brad Gunnels