Jaden Patterson

From Changeling Venue

Seeming	Elemental Snowskin
Court	Winter Court ••
Freehold	Freehold_of_the_Seven_Hills
Player	Tammy Mickelson

1 Overview
2 Character Information

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Overview

Alias(es): Jaden Patterson

Real Name: She ain't saying

Age: Early 20's

Concept: Dancer, wanderer, determined not to go back.

Entitlement:

Physical description: still working on it

Relevant Mechanics:

Character Livejournal:

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Character Information

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Known History

Basic Timeline: Leaving some details open for now as I make connections and such but she arrived in Seattle at some point in 2004 and she probably avoided other Changelings for awhile.

Current Activities: Residing at Driftwood and helping find more Lost. Teaches belly dance to those kids at Driftwood who are interested. Does some teaching out in the human world too. Keeps up her street contacts.

Merit Details:

Background: (revised draft): Third time's the charm. I used to say that a lot. I think my mother used to say it too. Maybe there is some magic in it. I don't say it anymore though - I'm afraid it might bring Her to me - or another one of Them.

My name was Tiffany Bronson. I had lived in up-state New York. I was an only child whose father doted on her. I had been taking dance lessons since I was five. I had danced in some of the local ballet performances - ones where kids were part of it. I'd tried out for the Nutcracker twice before. The third time I got the part. Not just any part either, I got the part of Clara! The times before when I failed I resolved to work harder. It finally paid off. The performances went really well and I was so happy. I dreamt of the day when I would be old enough to audition for other parts. I wanted to be one of the dancing snow flakes most of all.

I had been daydreaming about it on my way home from school. It was January and it was snowing. I loved walking in the snow. Everything was so beautiful and clean looking and full of possibilities. I was cutting through the park. There was a woman sitting on a bench with a thermos. She was bundled up in a lovely fur trimmed coat and hat. She looked rich and I mistook that for "safe". I didn't see her at first. I was lost in my daydream and dancing and leaping in the snow. It maybe wasn't the smartest thing to do. I slipped going down a hill and ended up sliding and rolling down to the bottom. I was okay but cold from where snow had pushed up under my clothes.

The woman came up and asked if I was okay. I laughed and said I was fine. I got up and started shaking snow out of my sleeves and out from under my coat. The rich lady offered me some of her coco to warm me up so I didn't catch a cold. She seemed very nice and I realized I *did* feel very cold when she said it. I gratefully accepted the cup. Suddenly I felt very warm and sleepy. I had trouble thinking; everything seemed to get fuzzy around the edges.

The woman said she thought I may have bumped my head and said she should help me walk home. This seemed very nice and reasonable. I went where she directed me. I wasn't really sure where I was any more and I was getting so, so tired. She said she would show me a short cut. There were all these thorny bushes that caught on my clothes and my hands. The scrapes felt like little lines of fire on my cold skin. I tried to remember what happened to my gloves. she kept telling me it was not much farther. I was so cold and so tired and I just wanted to get home where it was warm.

Along the way she told me she saw me dancing in the Nutcracker. She said she was an instructor of an exclusive private dance school. She said she took in only the best and that her students had to pledge themselves to her and devote themselves to a regimen of hard work and hard practice. She asked me what I wanted to do most with my dancing. I told her I wanted to be one of the dancing snowflakes. She said if I pledged myself to her that she would make me the best dancing snowflake of all. I promised I would do all she asked. She gave me more coco and sent me to bed. By that time I was so grateful to go to sleep in a warm bed I didn't notice I wasn't home.

I was kept busy with lessons and chores. I was told they would help me to increase my strength and discipline. I was praised for hard work and given comfortable and pretty clothes to wear. If the Mistress didn’t think I was working hard enough (or was just in a bad mood), I would be given uncomfortable clothes to wear and was beaten. In either case the clothes were light and I was cold all the time. This was a great motivator to work hard. Every so often I would think to ask of my parents. When I did so, I was given a really arduous and loathsome job to do and then forced to practice until I collapsed with not a word of praise no matter how hard I worked. Over time I thought of and asked about my parents less and less often. Eventually I stopped talking about them altogether and would think of them only rarely.

My dance lessons were…odd. They would always be outside in the snow. It was very hard and cold at first. I was only allowed to wear a dance leotard and dance slippers like I might in a regular dance studio. Over time I seemed to sink into the snow less and be less bothered by the cold. Snowflakes would dance around me and, seemingly, with me. My lessons became a thing of joy and wonder – unless I faltered or made a big mistake. Then I would be frozen like an ice statue for an hour. I was able to see and hear but not move or speak and afterward I would be very stiff for awhile.

One day I was given a beautiful gossamer gown to wear that picked up all the colors of the rainbow in the right light, much like an opal. It primarily looked like a shimmery white material. The Mistress told me there would be a party that night and that I would help to serve the guests and then would dance for them. I was warned that I must dance my very best and not bring shame to my Mistress. I got dressed and another servant was assigned to help put up my hair. I was surprised by my reflection. I had not noticed how pale I had become before and even my hair seemed lighter. The party was mostly held outdoors in a winter wonderland setting. There were ice statues in various places. Some of them were others from the household that I recognized. Some of them I didn’t recognize and later found out they were brought by some of the guests.

I did all that I was told and danced my heart out with snowflakes swirling joyfully around me. I received kind words and was told that as my reward I could keep the dress. My Mistress told me that from now on I would dance for all the parties and would be her "little snowflake". This sparked a memory for me. That night I dreamt of a kind man who called me "his little princess" and watching ballerina’s dance with snow falling. In the morning I remembered the man was my father and I cried and cried because I missed my parents so much. I ran away from my Mistress and tried to find my way home. I did not get far before I was caught. The land was so strange and nothing was familiar. I didn’t know which way to go. I was dragged home and beaten severely. This time I was an ice statue for two full days and the others were encouraged to taunt me and ruin my things in front of me.

When I was finally released I apologized profusely when told to and I was only too glad to do the worst jobs and practice until I collapsed if only it would bring me favor again. I no longer got to dance for every party. Sometimes I was an ice statue. Sometimes I was given as a servant to a particular guest. From then on, the slightest mistake or misstep or mention of anything from the real world would earn me another beating and an increasingly longer time as an ice statue. Each time I would emerge a little more changed. A little more pale. My hair a little lighter. More solitary. A little stronger. A little more determined.

I had a lot of time to think when I was frozen. Indeed, I could do nothing else. I resolved that I needed to find a way out of this nightmare and I needed to do it in absolute secrecy. Some of the things I got punished for were things I had confided to someone I thought was a friend. The Mistress worked to actively destroy friendships, to keep us weak and suspicious of each other. She had many ways to make you talk. The only privacy or security you had was your own mind and only if you learned to keep your thoughts strictly to yourself and off of your face.

Eventually I was disciplined enough that the Mistress did not find reason to punish me again for a long, long time. That did not stop her from punishing me when she was in a bad mood but I had become so quiet I often avoided her notice. I was sometimes plagued with dreams and nightmares about people I would eventually remember were my parents. After a particularly bad one about my mother I ran away again. This time I was more cautious in my plans to escape and knew more about the area I was in. I got much further than before but they caught up to me just as I reached the Hedge. So close to freedom...

My Mistress was enraged. She beat me nearly to death. She left me as a statue for a year and a day and told all the others in the household not to talk to me, look at me, or interact with me in any way. At first this was horrible. Even bad attention was better than being ignored. For a time I thought I would go mad from the boredom and isolation. To help pass the time I would choreograph dances in my head and watch the wild things around the yard. One of the newer male servants would sometimes sneak out and talk to me when the Mistress was out. He would tell me the gossip and say encouraging things. We might have been friends. One day though another servant ratted on him to the Mistress. I don’t know what she did to him but he would always hurry past me afterward and never looked at me again, even after I was released. After awhile the others of the household seemed to actually forget I was there and would say things to each other near me that they otherwise would have kept secret. I learned the value of silence; of observing, and listening without speaking. Above all I was forced to learn an infinite patience.

When I was finally released from my icy cage I was a very different girl. I seldom spoke. Much of my hair was now silver, blue, and white and my skin had become so pale it was luminously white. I never faltered in my chores or dancing and even my harsh Mistress could rarely find any fault with my behavior or work. Strangely this seemed to irritate the Mistress and sometimes she would punish me for no reason at all. I never complained. I endured quietly. This would only anger the Mistress more. It became an occasional challenge between us: The Mistress would do or have done horrible things to me to try to make me cry and beg and I would fight to endure it in silence.

I was so silent as I went about my tasks around the house that people sometimes forgot I was there. I began very carefully collecting information and hiding small items away that I might need. I bided my time; waiting for the right moment. One day the Mistress left on what she said was a “hunting” trip. I waited until I was sure the Mistress was well gone and made quick my escape while the others were celebrating a rare bit of freedom. I made it to the Hedge and fought my way through. I was finally free! Third time was the charm…

It was hard at first to find my way around and to survive. I didn’t have any ID or a Social Security card to get a job. I befriended other street kids and we helped each other. We would collect things to recycle, do crafts when we could, and dance at public markets and on street corners for change. I slept with other street kids under bridges or in abandoned buildings and sometimes in shelters. When I could I would spend time in the library trying to find my parents. I remembered using a computer before. It didn’t take long to pick it back up. I found out seven years had passed since I was taken. I knew I had been gone a long time but never dreamed it was that long. It was a shock to me to find out that everyone thought I had died - that somehow a little girl that looked just like me had been found frozen to death the day after I had been taken; in a freak blizzard. The worst though was finding out what happened to my parents. The common consensus was that my "death" had destroyed them. A year after I disappeared my father committed suicide. My mother became an alcoholic and died in a car accident two years before I had gotten free of the hedge. I had no family left.

For several days after my discovery I refused to do anything or to eat. My friends were getting really worried. I finally came back to myself and announced that I needed to move on. I spent some days scavenging for things I thought I might need and collecting what money I could. I left in the middle of the night so that my friends wouldn’t follow. I had done a lot of hard thinking and came to the conclusion that, while I would miss them sorely, I was not like them and put them in danger by being with them. My Mistress might come looking for me after all.

I decided to get as far away from the area as I could. Now that I knew how to survive on the streets I would work a place for a week or so and then move on. I was afraid of being pulled back into the Hedge so avoided all contact with others of my kind. If I became aware of others like me in the area I would leave immediately. As the years went on some things became easier. Eventually I was able to get some ID so I could work at odd jobs and find a hostel or cheap motel room to stay in. I arrived in Seattle three years ago. I fell in love with the area and decided I was far enough away from my old home to risk settling down. Several months later I moved into Driftwood.

I keep my ears and eyes open for other lost ones on the streets and in the arts crowds. As you might imagine – Fremont is a favorite neighborhood but certainly there are plenty of other great neighborhoods in Seattle. I spent the first two years in town taking belly dance lessons from various instructors so they would get to know me and to make contacts. Eventually I started dancing on weekends and the occasional week night at various local restaurants. I am seen as aloof and distant but most chalk it up to me being shy. I encourage that belief.

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