Eden Tempest
From Changeling Venue
Alias(es): Eden, Lady Tempest,
Real Name:
Freehold: Dormant Fire, Portland, Oregon.
Motley The one, The only...Menagerie
Apparent Age: Late 20's to 30's..
Seeming: Fairest
Kith: Flamesiren
Court: Winter
Titles: Queen of Dormant Fire Winter Court
Concept: a theatrical performer, a player, a seductress with secrets in her eyes. The wrath of winters storm.
Quote: “There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are messengers of overwhelming grief...and unspeakable love.” -- Washington Irving
Contents |
Mien
Mask
Mantle (Winter ?*****)
Edens Mantle is cold and stark, you feel the onslaught of winter far before you would see it.
When angry or such, it flares into an amazing display of Winter - snowflakes or even thunder-snow.
Her Story
“Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.”
What happens when you're making other plans...
I needed to get away. I needed to be more than this place and this time and this little town. I knew it sounded selfish, but I'd seen the women on the big screen, bigger than life, in black and white, and knew that I belonged there, knew I deserved to be there.
I had done my research. I was leaving this little riverside town and going to New York or Los Angeles. I just had to try find the place I belonged in the world even though I knew everyone around me would disagree. My parents wanted me to get married and play the role of a housewife. Wanted me to play roles that I didn't know if I could actually play in my heart.
And then there was John. He was there even when I was much younger, he a friend of my father who planted himself in my life. I never fought it, because while John was a devoted love, he wasn't going to take me out of here. He wanted to get married, wanted kids, wanted that white-picket-fence sort of life. I knew I needed to find something more.
Then, out of the blue, John invited me to the park. I was suspicious, as my plans were just coming to fruition and I was preparing to leave. And it was a perfect night. I just knew he wanted to ask me to marry him, but...but I knew it wasn't right. I knew tonight was the night I would have to end it.
It was a full moon. A clear, quiet evening, accented only by the lapping of the water by the shore and the cricket-sounds that echoed. The park was green and lush and it felt as though we were the only two persons in the world. I was beautiful, horribly beautiful in recollection. When he fell to one knee to ask, I paused.
I took in the sights around me, the light of the moon falling against my hands, against his happy face. The utter stillness that fell after he whispered to me that I should be his. I gasped with what sounded like pleasure that then ended in a sad quiet sigh, and told him that it was over. I couldn't marry him. I couldn't bear the pain of being confined to this little town and this little place and to him. I needed to be more!
His tears were the only answer to me, as he slowly closed the box over the brilliant stone that must have cost him horribly to acquire. I could nearly hear the sound of his heart breaking and I paused to listen, some part of myself knowing that this moment was precious, even in its sadness.
Then, in a blink of an eye I was mute. Hands held me from behind and pulled me back off the bench. I tried to speak and felt as though I was slipping away. I tried to grab John's hands and mine passed through his. I watched as next to me swirled together a creature out of the debris on the ground. Leaves and dirt and then my hat and scarf and it became my very image in front of me. I screamed and pushed to try to reach out towards John. My image smiled at him, brushed tears from his eyes and told him she was just confused, and she was sorry. I watched them embrace as he put the ring on her finger. The creatures eyes shown with a love for John that I had never possessed, and it stunned me.
Then, the hands on my shoulders behind me began to pull me away. As I tried to twist from their grasp a harsh guttering voice whispered "You want to be more, princess? Start by wanting to live.." I was pushed to my knees as I heard a howl behind me.
I ran.
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought, I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow, For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe, And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, Which I new pay as if not paid before.
Durance
I'm not sure how one can sum up the collective abuse and praise that was heaped upon young Eden's shoulders. For a time she was content to play the lead, take the role that was given to her, attempt to please Mab...for the alternative was too horrific for her to contemplate. Gradually, Mab forced her into other tasks. She knows that the deaths of others do lay upon her hands because of what Mab forced her to do.
She watched friends be passed off to other keepers in trade for favors or 'props'...watched loved ones die. She had those she would always consider friends that managed as she did to not disappoint Mab too terribly. She didn't see any way out, any direction she could turn except to play her role in the story that seemed to play out around her. Indeed, that was the only way she felt she could influence things - for once in Mab's favor, there was the potential to try to influence her.
More than once the shelter of the individual that acted as their guardian or 'stage manager' was felt in Eden's life - promises to Mab of a punishment to be met out that never came due to their kindness was never forgotten by her.
And time passed quite quickly.
On a long trip she began to take on a new role, and met her fellow actor, a young man by the name of (.....). Surprisingly, she fell for him. Eden had been keeping others at arms length, after watching so many of those she had become close with die. No one had ever been intimate with her, outside of roles she had played, and her allowing this was unique. The two of them spent all of their time together while traveling, talking of past experiences, of past roles, of work that Mab had had them do. They became close. They traveled together, playing the role of lovers for other courts with great success, mostly due to the fact that they had become so.
Upon their return to Mab's domain Eden was playing a Juliet type role, in a very Shakespearian type play. The scene that all are too familiar with due to high school English came about. The poison her Romeo took should have been fake, should have done nothing to him. But as she 'awoke' from her theatrical sleep she realized that he was all together too still. No breath escaped from his ever so quiet chest.
Something snapped within dear Eden. As she looked down upon her Romeo there was no acting that could have replicated her shock and surprise. Memories flooded over her with the pain of her loss and in that moment that seemed to stretch out timelessly she heard a quiet chuckle. Mab had achieved her moment of perfection that she was looking for.
Eden took the knife in her hand and stabbed it into her heart, expecting it to be a blade of equal sharpness to the poison that had taken her Romeo's life. It was not, the knife crumpled against her chest, and with tears in her eyes she fell to the ground in a mimicry of death, hand reaching out to touch her quiet love.
She went on with the evening, took her curtain call with a smile just as before, curtsied to the gentry and received praise from Mab for her performance. All with a thank you and a smile.
But moment made her change. Where she was afraid before, she was no longer. She began to rally those others in the group with her. She wasn't angry, per say. She was different. She wasn't afraid to die anymore.
The next trip they took, they actually told the keeper they were visiting the real reason why they were there...risking life and limb as well as the wrath of Mab herself if she found out. In anger he threw the troupe into the hedge, in essence, taking away Mab's toys because she was trying to harm his.
Eden arrived in 1997, through the hedge, and alone. No one followed her immediately and she spent many years waiting before others of her what would become Menagerie followed her through.
"I cant find the joy within my soul, It's just sadness takin hold
I wanna come in from the cold, And make myself renewed again
It takes strength to live this way, The same old madness every day
I wanna kick these blues away, I wanna learn to live again..."
Muddled Memories
Eden has very torn memories from her time 'Away'. Like many fairest, vivid memories of pleasure and pain. Feelings of happiness, that moment of applause in front of an audience where your heart nearly skips beating. And then moments of terror, sometimes muted with someone pulling her away, sheltering her from the wrath of Mab. Memories of promised horrors that she was lucky enough to avoid...at times. Watching helplessly while others were torn apart for their failings. The words "let it be an example to you"...
The memories most clear are of those others that she interacted with. Faces, images of the individuals that they were, stayed with her far more than the roles they played, within the play or without. She recognizes the faces of those that were in the play with her, but not always the role they played in her life until she interacts with them. Some she claims she would know instantly, over time and space, forever and always. Sometimes she just believes their story, offering up what little trust she has in an effort to reach out in the world.
She remembers the face of the one that she loved that Mab took from her. In that memory she cradles her sorrow deeply, holding it as a close friend.
Playing the Part
"I am your fairy tale. Your dream.
Your wishes and desires,
and I am your thirst and your hunger and your food and your drink"
It's not easy, being who we are, in the world we live in. For those, like myself, who have lived back in this world for a while, the shocks don't rock your world quite the way that they used to. I had to learn how to slip back into this world, out of the one I lived in before, out of my past and out of the spotlight and down into the shadows until I could find my way.
I work, I find purpose, I go on.
Associations & Associates / Allies and Friends
- The Freehold of Dormant Fire
- Menagerie
- Shebeth Spry Cronin -
- Remy Two-Hands -
- Ogre Motley -
- Favored Sons of Mercury
Seeking background ties of most any kind - see description of motley for better clues!
Quotes
Feel free to add, however I reserve the right to remove anything overly silly
Fact or Fiction
(also known as rumors)
feel free to add relevant or interesting information
- Eden believes that she had her chance at true love, and that she has lost it...
- Eden has a maniacal suicidal vendetta against the Gentry because of something in her durance; she wants to die and is willing to sacrifice the lives of everyone else to make sure her vengeance is as painful to the Gentry as possible. The pleasant calm demeanor is a sly net to get as many changelings in her mad scheme as she can.
- She's way too nice for someone who's both Fairest and Winter. Something else is going on...
- Eden is a natural, but reluctant, leader.
- Eden is reserved, cold and calculating as suits a Winter queen, and it is winters way to let challenges to go unanswered. Hopefully we just don't see the preparations to prevent a coup.
- "For I will raise her statue in pure gold; That while Verona by that name is known, There shall no figure at such rate be set, As that of true and faithful Juliet"
Inspirations
Flim and Stage
Books and Poetry
"A Tempest in her Eyes" by Charles de Lint
Soundtrack
"Dangerous Game" - Jekyll & Hyde
"If I had my way" - Linda Eder, Frank Wildhorn, Jack Murphy
"Facade" - Jekyll & Hyde (erg..the song is attached to a Naruto vid, forgive me.)
"You do something to me" - Sinead O'Connor
Dark Road - Annie Lennox, Songs of Mass Destruction
[1] Linda Eder - Bring on the Men!
OOC Info
Name:Played by:mailto:felineagent@yahoo.comM'lissa Wetherell-Moore
Region: North West Region
Domain: Portland, Oregon "Theatre of Roses"
