Hannibal

From Changeling Venue

Seeming	Elemental Snowskin
Court	Winter Court
Freehold
Player	David Bounds

1 Overview
2 History
3 Associations & Associates
4 Character Inspirations
5 Soundtrack
6 Quotes
7 Rumors
8 OOC Information

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Overview

Alias(es): Bastard, Vizier
Real Name: Evan Reed
Location: Constantly changing
Age: 28
Seeming: Elemental
Kith: Snowskin
Court: Winter
Virtue: Temperance
Vice: Greed
Concept: Icy Manipulator
Physical description:
Relevant Mechanics:
Character Livejournal:

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History

Basic Timeline:
1985 - Character Born in England to an absent mother and an ambassador father.
2002 - Taken from Greenland by the Gentry known as The Queen Of Frost
2006 - Returns and finds his parents and the fetch that has replaced him
2006 - Spent time at Driftwood leaning about culture and the Winter Court
2007 - Meets Francis Hudson and forms the motley, furthers his understanding of Changeling society

Current Activities:
Nomadic - Looking for a suitable freehold

Merit Details:
Mantle * * * *
Autumn Court Goodwill *

Background: Most of the time in movies, snowfall is silent. You see the flakes fall from the sky and settle gently on the ground, but there is no sound at all. Rarely is there a gentle snowstorm and never is it silent. Sometimes, if the world is still, you can hear the flakes fall to the ground, a millions voices whispering, “shhh…”.

I couldn’t focus on anything other than the sound of the fat snowflakes hitting the ground and the feel of steam that rose from the blood at my feet, still warm from my body.

I couldn’t bear to open my eyes, terrified in a very real, very visceral, very immediate way. I couldn’t face what I would see, what the world would look like to me now. Choking back the bile and blood from my throat I straightened, the stabbing pain receding in my skull to be replaced with wounds both very fresh and years old.

I stood straight for the first time in countless years and my mind wandered, wondering what sort of world would allow me to find myself here in the Hedge, running from a being more terrifying than any nightmare, stronger than any dream, and more real than the flesh on my own bones. I remembered another person, in another world, a very long time ago…

I remember the scenery blurring by as I looked out the window of the passenger train. My family moved constantly, so I made up games to pass the time from one station to the next. My eyes would track the shape of the hills and trees as we sped by and I would imagine running alongside the train, leaping over obstacles. I imagined being free.

Most of my childhood was filled with attempting to get in as much trouble as I could without actually getting noticed for causing trouble. My father worked at embassies all around the world and, on average, we moved once a year or two. Needless to say, I didn’t keep friends long if at all. When we moved, I would move on to my new temporary friends and forget about the ones I had left behind. I never knew my extended family. This lifestyle had several effects: one, it made my grossly independent, so much so that I have difficulty forming lasting relationships to this day. Secondly, it made me a very accomplished liar. I honed my craft at every stop, constantly reforming who I was and my made-up world of who I always wanted to be. Each new place was a new opportunity to refine, improve, and retell the imaginary life I dreamed up.

I could spend days wading through the psychology of a compulsive liar. Perhaps my father being gone constantly did not provide a suitable father figure in my life. Perhaps seeing my mother naked as a child forever altered my perception of a nurturing relationship. Regardless of the basic reasons, I was already a being of imaginary tales and fantasy adventures before I moved to Greenland.

Originally Greenland was named so to entice settlers and workers there. If they had named it “So Fucking Cold You’ll Freeze Your Balls Off Land” the population might have been much smaller. The embassy there had a need for an interpreter, so off my family went to live there for a few years while my father worked with different dignitaries on legal matters.

This left me with an almost infinite amount of time to amuse myself, which, of course, meant getting into as much trouble as I could without getting caught. For the first year, I think I caused a few legends of terrible goblins or cruel ice pixies as I gleefully disconnected gas lines, iced walkways, and slashed tires.

The next year she appeared to me for the first time. She wasn’t taller than normal, or breathtaking, but her eyes had such force, such depth to them that when I first saw her I just stopped and stared. She spoke to a man there, giving instructions, I think. Her words slid by me unnoticed. She simply seemed more real that everything else around her, as if she where outlined in a comic book or something.

I saw her a few times over the next few months. She was never doing anything startling, but she stood out from the background nonetheless. I found myself finding reasons to go out just in the hopes that I would stumble across her. I began to work her into my imaginary world. She was my mother, my sister, my caretaker. From there it was only a short amount of time until I started to follow her to see where she lived, to see how a goddess lived.

You see? She never even spoke to me. She never even looked at me and she already owned me. She was already my goddess.

Finally I succeeded. I followed her through a swirling snowstorm riding on the edge of a blizzard. Forcing my way through the blinding storm, I followed her form through dark, confusing shapes, through brilliant light and creeping darkness. As the storm faded around me and I could actually see where I was I immediately knew I was in trouble. The immaculate ice spires were nothing that could have existed in reality. I couldn’t see her anymore, but I could see the brutish, pale blue wolves bounding towards me.

I was seventeen years old when I had my first lesson in pain.

Sensory deprivation is by far the most horrible type of torture ever imagined. Your mind plays tricks on you, stretching time out into the infinite and conjuring sounds, smells, and sights that aren’t there. There is no physical agony that can compare to a mind that waits in anticipation of the possibility of future pain. Like a perfectly crafted dance, she was always there just before I broke, just this side of madness. She would whisper in my ear that she loved me. She would promise to take me away from this world once she could get me away from my captors. She was the only thing that was not pain in my world.

I loved her more than my very breath. If I could spill a gallon of my blood to save a drop of hers, I would have done so without hesitation.

It wasn’t all torture. There were long periods where I would wait in my cell, wondering what would be next. Would it be another long lesson in pain or would I get another fleeting moment with my Goddess? Sometimes I would be taken to the yard and given meaningless tasks. Sometimes these would be physical, such as breaking down a massive ice-porcelain statue in the middle of a field. Some of the time, I saw and watched meetings between individuals and was asked to repeat the items that were said verbatim. If I got even a single word out of place, I would get another lesson in pain. Sometimes I would be forced to hunt others - new people that came across the Hedge. They were like I was - confused and alone. I never wanted them to see me, but it was during these hunts that I realized I was no longer human at all. My skin had become icy and rigid. My breath carried the early chill of winter. I remember desperately wanting the warmth of a fireplace in terms of another life, long ago, almost seeming like it was another person.

And then I found out the truth. The hunt that day was particularly brutal. There were three humans running scared as I called on the winter's cold to slow their path so that the wolves could catch up and finish the job. As usual, I fell behind so that they wouldn't see my face, know that it was another human that had betrayed them when I heard a familiar voice. My Goddess was somewhere out here, in the cold. Desperate to find and help her I followed her voice to a small glade surrounded by a magnificent frozen lake. There I heard her talking to another about the best process to break the spirit of a human and ensure the "fruit" was ripe as possible. I listened to her describe the very tactics she used on me, every twist of emotion, even inflection of illusory care.

I remember feeling rage and hatred, but instead of being heated, instead of being burning hot, filled with burning fire, they were cold. Ice filed my thoughts and I became truly cold - at one with the almost blinding winter around me. I knew the only thing that would quiet the chilling rage flowing through my veins would be for her to feel even the slightest fraction of the pain she had inflicted upon me. I waited until she started back to her castle and called the winter snow to hide my presence from her. I savored the hunt, anticipated the pain I could cause her.

When I struck, she was waiting for me. I realized how foolish I was to think I could use the cold to mask my approach, but I was committed now. We fought, I with my dagger and she with her impossibly sharp fingernails. There was only one possible outcome, regardless of how passionate I might have been, she had always been the master. Steaming red mixed with the white snow and I was slowing, actually shivering from loss of blood and frustration that I had barely scratched her. I heard her chuckle softly and walk towards where I crouched, unable to stand. She picked me up by the neck and, to my horror, began to dig out my left eye. Panicked and desperate, I did the only thing I could think of - I took hers in return. Plunging my dagger into the soft tissue right next to the eye, I felt hers give way and plop into my hand just as her razor nails finished tearing mine out and the agony washed over me.

Unable to think clearly I stumbled away, not really realizing where I was going or what i was going to do now. I don't know how long I stumbled aimlessly, practically blind, mind filled with pain and frustration. When I did finally sink to my knees the cold slimy thing in my hand still squired as though trying to see and the thought that it might actually be doing just that frightened me more than I would have liked to admit.

I am still unsure why i thought to do what I did next, but it seemed like the most natural thing in the world. She had taken my eye an I had taken hers. It simply made sense that I use hers in place of the one she had destroyed. I lifted the cold, squirming thing to my face and it surged forward and wrapped its tendrils into my socket, into my brain. The pain was greater than any lesson I had before just when it abated and I could see clearly again. The difference this time as that I could see everything. Every hidden place, every wash of glamour, even the path into and through the hedge that lay nearby. I knew I was seeing what she saw - everything. I stumbled into the hedge and out of the place that had made me who I was.

Time passed and I healed. The only thing that remained the same were new scars and the night black eye that now rested in my left socket. When I concentrated it still seemed to be able to show me everything around me. I even found my parents again and even found myself - or at least who i was. I met me fetch, face to face and I even think thing thing that replaced me knew who (or what) I was, but my parents did not.

I might still be myself, but I am nothing like the little boy who was taken years ago. I might have left that place of eternal winter, but now the winter is inside me. I will never go back there, I will never subject myself to that servitude again, even if it means death. I know she will come for me and her eye sooner or later, so I will prepare. I will surround myself with those who are stronger, faster, more capable. I will be ready for when she returns and I will not be fooled again.

Never again.

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Associations & Associates

Static - Hannibal met him very soon after coming out of the Hedge. They never really trusted each other but had an unspoken agreement not to inquire of the other too deeply.
Francis Hudson - Met with Hannibal after he came back and helped him become accustomed to Changeling life.
Nyx - A kindred spirit who also knows the value of getting done what needs to get done - no matter the cost. A fellow manipulator and like minded Changeling.
Laurel Thorn - Worked for her once. Not quite sure what to make of her.
Althea Sexton - Mentored into the Winter Court and continues to give guidance. Stayed with her at Driftwood for a time after returning.
C.J. - Like minded person who Hannibal worked with in the past.
Dominic Jackson Hunter - Right bastard (in the best possible meaning) who Hannibal has a careful understanding.
Hart - Ally? They share something more...

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Character Inspirations

Mr. Freeze - Batman
The Marquis De Carabas - Neverwhere
Randall Flagg - Stephen King (Assorted Novels)
John Milton - The Devil's Advocate

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Soundtrack

Carmina Burana - O Fortuna
Finger Eleven - Paralyzer
Javier Navarrete (Pan's Labyrinth) - Long, Long Time Ago
Moby - Extreme Ways
Nine Inch Nails - Mr. Self Destruct

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