Poppet Questionnaire
From Changeling Venue
NOTE : Without express permission from the player, the information contained on and linked from this page is classified as OOC Knowledge.
NOTE : This character is registered to the Atlanta Lost VSS, "In Media Res".
AMST Lost Character Development Questionaire for Holly Poppet, Baron Strega the Elder and Holly Carver
Answers provided by Holly's player - Sharon Yarbrough, US2002022447
Pre-Kidnapping
How old are you? What year were you born?
A little more than three decades ago, two sisters were conceived on the night of the Vernal Equinox; though, if truth be told, their parents weren’t knowledgeable about unordinary things and wouldn’t have known. Robert and Jennifer Carver were good Christian people, you see, and, had they understood that particular night to have any sort of pagan significance, they very likely would not have engaged in sexual relations at all.
In a world far away from here but in the reckoning that we call our own, two tiny seeds hitched themselves to the feather of a bird. The bird flew swiftly o’er the land, wings beating strongly and smoothly to carry it along in flight. Over a lush field, where the dirt had been freshly turned and the season for sowing had come, the little bird did land to pluck from the earth a fat juicy worm. When she took flight, one seed jumped loose, having decided that this was the perfect spot to rest and let the sun and the rain and the earth do their great work upon her. The second seed, frightened to go on without her friend, cried out as the bird soared higher and higher. The East Wind, blowing across the land to visit his brother in the north, took pity upon the tiny seed and puffed it loose from the feather. The seed floated down to land in the soft warm earth, right next to the friend she had thought lost to her forever. They rejoiced, then remembering their manners, turned to give thanks. Too late, the East Wind was gone.
The sisters were born on the morning of December 28, 1975. During the night as their mother had labored, a bare sliver of a moon rode the heavens; the final night that Luna’s light would be seen in the sky that year. The first sister came into the world with all the fuss and mess that is expected of these things. She was swaddled quickly and given the name Crystal Renee for, just like many other things that awaited the Carvers’ homecoming at the three-story house in the suburbs, it had been chosen especially for this infant girl many months ago.
The second sister made her way into our world during the few precious moments as the sun crests the horizon when the land where they lived was bathed in half-light. For all the miracle and marvel of modern science, however, the second baby’s arrival was a surprise. Her parents gave her the name Holly Christine, saying later to their relatives and friends that she was their belated Christmas gift from God.
In the same far away world, the sun and rain and earth had done their great work upon the two seeds. Roots probed deeply into the soil, anchoring the tender stalks that lay ready to uncurl their green finery and stretch their way skyward. The first seed straightened her back and lifted her head tall, unfurling young leaves to the warmth of the radiant light. The second seed, try as she might, could not push past a bit of debris that had fallen across where she lay. She had given up hope of ever joining her friend in celebration of the cycle and had started to weep when along came the East Wind, returning from his trip to the north. Tired from the journey and having little patience for weeping seedlings, he gave a great huff and sent the debris swirling off, never to be seen again. The fledgling plant, now free to come out, sprouted up joyously and sang to her friend of her joy before remembering that it wasn’t she that had made it possible. She turned to say thank you. Too late again, the East Wind was gone.
When our story opens as of ICC 2007, Crystal Renee will become thirty-two years old on her birthday in December. She will celebrate her birthday as she has every year since she was nine years old – in the company of a stranger that she believes to be her twin.
Holly will become thirty-two this year, as well, give or take an eternity of fae captivity.
Who were you before you were taken? Who did you want to be? What were your goals and fears? Describe your mortal life in as many details as you can.
As the sisters grew from babies to toddlers to children, there was T-ball, then kindergarten, then Girl scouts and soccer and PTA – Robert and Jennifer Carver encouraged their girls to participate in a variety of activities that would prepare them for a successful future. Through it all, Crystal and Holly were inseparable, the best of friends, as twins often are.
Crystal was a bit of a daredevil tomboy; rough and tumble, always with a band-aid on one knee or the other and loved running barefoot through the grass. Holly was a bright, inquisitive child that loved her dolls and making new friends, but loved her books best of all. She knew the stories in her Little Golden Books by heart before she was old enough to read the words. On whatever adventure Crystal took Holly, Holly always had a storybook with her to read to them at journey’s end, before they made their way back home to mama and a snack.
Crystal and Holly were so fond of the stories in the books that they would even take turns dressing up at night before bed, using an afghan for the train of a pajama-dress or a soft towel for a princess veil, then would huddle close to the center of the bed as daddy read their evening story – careful to never let so much as a pink little toe hang off the edge of the bed for fear of the monsters beneath.
Days grew into seasons and seasons turned as years passed by and the little seedlings grew. Twined one about the other, their roots sank deep below the surface of the earth and tender young shoots reached upward for the warmth of the sky. Little leaves uncurled from the ends of tiny branches as the sprouts grew and the outer skin hardened enough so they could, at last, be called saplings. The slender trunks twirled in unison as they shot upward, dancing slowly to the song of the seasons, so by their fourth ring they were mistaken at a distance for a single young tree; by their eighth ring, they were so intertwined and their branches and roots so intermingled that the very life force of the world flowed between them as one.
When asked each passing year by the Lenox Mall Santa what Crystal and Holly wanted to be when they grew up, after they had promised upon their very life long honor that they had been especially good little girls, their answers came in a dizzying stream of suburban normalcy: a mommy, a candy shop girl, a singer, an actress, the president, a ballerina, a secret plane diver (Santa didn’t ask, he just nodded and smiled), a pony trainer, a doctor, a teacher.
There were pets that lived and pets that died and community fairs at which to be neighborly. There were immunizations and carpools. There were all the daily frustrations of living a family life with two bright young children and two caring, driven but quite ordinary parents.
And then came a day when that little word “ordinary”, having been taken for granted far too long and feeling quite unappreciated, packed up and moved right out of the Carvers’ home.
How old were you when your Keeper took you?
It started, as horrible things in modern stories often do, with a telephone call. Holly had fallen from the slide at school and could the Carvers come right away to the emergency room. Holly came home with her parents that night. She had a nasty bump on her head and some bruises that were going to be there for a while, but she seemed, overall, none the worse for wear.
The tap root of the second tree passed through an underground patch where something had grown rotten and died and been taken into the earth. The ground, fouled by the tainted decomposing body from some other world, grew rancid and poisoned the water that passed through the roots into the young tree. Though it continued to appear strong on the outside, its bark grew thin and weak and the woody flesh underneath lost its fibrous strength and began to sag beneath its own weight. Before long, the only thing that kept the young tree upright was how closely its trunk and branches, even its very spirit, was entwined with its friend.
There were more days like this over the coming weeks, times where Holly would grow weak and faint where she stood or she would have dark, angry bruises from the slightest little bump or she would complain of pain deep in her bones. The doctors, concerned for her, ordered many tests over the next few months. Holly always excelled at tests, but it would have made Robert and Jennifer happy for Holly to fail this series of tests and for the nightmare to be firmly behind them. What they got instead were three new words – Acute Myelogenous Leukemia.
The nightmare for the young family deepened. Crystal and Holly could no longer do many of the things they were used to doing together because Holly was too weak, or too sick from the radiation and chemotherapy treatments. Crystal took to her sporting activities with a new aggression, venting her confusion and anger on her team mates and opponents. Jennifer took an extended leave of absence to stay home with the girls once Holly became too sick to attend school. The stress of medical appointments and bills and not being able to make his daughter well drove Robert to late nights at the office with frequent stop offs at a Buckhead bar on his way home.
Holly was eight years old when her parents were given the news that the treatments weren’t working and that, without a bone marrow transplant, she would die. It seemed an even crueler twist that their best hope for a match with the pain-filled procedure was their other daughter, Crystal. Crystal was very brave when they pushed the needles into her tiny hips and the sisters held hands during the procedure, even under anesthesia. The entire world seemed to exist outside a bubble for the Carvers for the two months it took Holly to recover from the ordeal.
But the most cruel twist of all came when the doctors told them the procedure had failed. The social worker assigned to their case knew that Holly’s chances of making it through to her ninth birthday were on the far side of never, so she gave them the contact information for the local chapter of the Make a Wish Foundation at the same time she gave them the number for a local hospice facility that specialized in caring for terminal youths.
Describe your kidnapping.
It had been the most incredibly wondrous night of the young twins lives - dressed in finery that was purchased especially for this night, picked up at the hospice door and driven downtown with their parents and Holly’s night nurse in a chauffeured limousine, then dinner at a historic hotel and box seats for the ballet at a world famous theatre. Crystal and Holly were even taken backstage before the performance to meet the beautiful and talented people that would dance for them upon the stage. Holly was caught up completely in the magical splendor of the show, holding her breath or laughing or shaking with silent awe and anger as the story played out.
After the show, the girls were helped into a horse-drawn carriage for an open-air ride around the hansom’s circuit. The air was crisp with the scent of rapidly approaching snowfall, and the girls laughed in delight as the team of geldings pulled them through the canyons of glass and steel. Holly Carver couldn’t see the other rider in the carriage, the skeletal figure in shadowed cloaks that gently stroked her hair, but perhaps some part of her knew it was there. The rim of the full moon was just creeping over the horizon, promising a night of near-winter brilliance, when Holly turned to hug her sister tightly, too thin arms wrapping around Crystal and pulling her close.
"Oh Crystal! It was so beautiful! The Nutcracker Prince and the girl that got to dance with him and the fight with the Mouse King? It’s just like the stories in our books… I miss our books, Crystal. I miss all of it so much. We’ll never get to run to the creek and read them again, will we? I wish, oh I wish… ”
As the words Holly needed to tell her sister poured forth, a brisk breeze swirled past them, speeding through the corridors of the great city, shuddering through the grates and over the hidden waterways, bearing along the debris and sounds and snippets caught along the way, as is the charge of the lesser winds.
“I wish that tonight would go on and on and I could be the girl in the stories forever…”
The wishing well burbled pleasantly. The Visitor had admired it many times before on his excursions to this particular Patron, a keeper and judge of the rules of their kind. The craftsmanship was remarkable in that the changeling still lived as the Arcadian water washed through its veins. The plaintive cries and shallow pleadings heard as each bubble popped at the well’s edge never failed to amuse the Patron or his Visitor.
The Visitor cocked his head as the sounds from one bubble reached his ears. He knew that voice; it had given him a moment’s passing entertainment often enough – and there was no mistaking the sincerity or purity of the emotion that conveyed the wish. Trailing on the sounds came an entreating breeze, bringing with it the stench of pestilence. The Patron regarded his Visitor’s expression knowingly, saying …
“The wish was made by the Law. The call must be answered. She stands at the thresholds of life and death, of day and night, and rides at the Edge of crystalline rain. She belongs now to The Twilight King, though - if you should reach her first - Death will not stop you from claiming the Banished King's due.”
… and then offered up his own chariot for the Being that was known to the humans as The East Wind.
The Wind traveled swiftly to our world. On his way he paused at a meadow at the edge of his brother’s lands, remembering one that had insulted him twice before without apology and would now make recompense in service to his needs. The young tree was ripped from the embrace of its friend with cyclonic force, the gale spinning it about and reshaping its bark and limbs into flesh and skin and bone.
The skeletal figure in shadowed cloaks nodded as wood and meat were exchanged, granting its ownership of the child to the claimant; then it quit the carriage entirely, for there was no more sickness within young human limbs to keep it there.
The offspring of The East Wind ripped the screams from the child’s mouth as their Lord carried her across the worlds and home to his Eyrie. They laughed at her and pulled at her hair and clothing, ripping at the finery until it was nothing more than tattered rags and leaving her hair a nest of tangles. They taunted her with the words she cried, even the very words of the heartfelt wish that had drawn the attention of their lord.
As they flew with their master and his prize, they found other words to hurl at her, too. Spiraling upward and swirling into their path came the books from a thousand and one libraries on a hundred and ten worlds. Covers were torn away and the sheets ripped loose by the force of the spiteful and capricious winds. The shredded edges cut viciously at Holly’s skin; each wound welling with diseased blood and spilling into the clouds as they passed.
At long last, they alighted on the ramparts of a great keep. Weak from the thin air and loss of blood, Holly teetered on the stones beneath her feet, striking out feebly at anything that came near her. In response, the minions of the great demon bound five silken cords to each wrist and ankle, with the last knotted inextricably in the child’s hair, and pushed her mercilessly this way and that until she lost her balance and fell from the wall.
Holly flailed to catch hold of anything to break her fall and screamed until her throat was raw. The winds through which she fell ripped again at her flesh, tearing the wounds further as she plummeted toward the ground miles below. As the jagged tips of the quartz pillars at the base of the mountain started to pierce her through, Holly found herself caught up by the winds once more and then dumped kneeling on the ramparts at the feet of the great and fearsome demon. Terrified, Holly begged to be taken back to her parents and her sister.
In response to her pleas, Baron Strega the Elder, Fallen Lord of the East Wind, lifted his hand. The ends of the silken cords flew up to wrap thrice around what passed for fingertips, and Holly felt her body lift from the ground to dangle in mid-air. From his pocket the great demon drew a book. The pages of the book were blank, though there was something written upon them as though the nib had not been dipped in ink. Words were intoned in a thunderously inaudible raspy voice that drove the warmth from her body and the world of men from Holly’s young mind.
“It was your wish, Holly Carver. In serving my Purpose, your request is fulfilled.”
The pages were soft as she was laid upon them and, on a pillow of unwritten words, Holly Poppet slept.
Across the Hedge
How many days/month/years were you in Faerie in Earth time?
Holly was with her Keeper in Faerie for ten years and nine days. She was lost in the Hedge for three years more.
How long were you in Faerie in Arcadia time?
If Faerie clocks and calendars ran as did ours, Holly was kept in Arcadia for one thousand years and nine months. She was lost in the Hedge for three years more.
Tell me about your Keeper. Who was s/he? Did he or she (or it?) treat you kindly? Cruelly? Capriciously? How did your Keeper interact with the other Fae.
Holly’s Keeper was a renowned entertainer by the name of Baron Strega the Elder. He didn’t think of her; she was a possession, a doll to be flung upon his stage to dance out her role, then closed into a magical book and tossed into his traveling chest at the end of the night.
What about your time in Faerie? What were your days like? Were you a hunter or a servant? Maybe a court fool? Describe an average, nothing special sort of day.
While Holly was in Faerie, she was used by a great entertainer (that was sometimes known as the East Wind) to tell stories. They traveled to many great halls and parlors, to many townships all over Arcadia, and he would waken her from where she slept in his enchanted book and dangle her from her strings upon his enchanted stage. The stories would come to life around her, literally. All the great tales that have ever been told and even those put to paper as nightmares - stories by Grimm and King and tellers of tales before and after and in-between - the stories were her life, her exultation, her terror, and her death - night after night after endless night - upon the little enchanted stage. When the story was done, he would lift what was left, brush the strings across the pages and fold his book closed then spend the rest of his evening carousing with his patron of the week.
Is your seeming similar to your Keeper’s, or does it reflect your environment? Were you shaped for a specific purpose?
Holly wasn’t changed much; strings were attached and she became almost doll-like of visage and manner of movement, but her form wasn’t resculpted as it served her Keeper’s purpose as it was.
Being Lost
How did you escape? Did you have help?
Holly was taken from Arcadia by a PC called Tommy Blue (Kat S.). Tommy didn’t know there was a changeling in the book she’d stolen, only that it might hold a secret to defeating the power of the East Wind. As Tommy’s journey took her through the Hedge, Holly underwent a similar journey, only from within the pages of the book.
Holly was released from the book once Tommy came through the other side, on the night on March 22, 1997. She was discovered during a street party celebrating the Comet Hale-Bopp’s closest approach to the planet.
Tell me about your Fetch. Are they alive? Dead? If they are alive, do they appear younger or older than you do? Are they happy? Does it matter?
Holly’s Fetch is very much alive and has earned the love of Holly’s family as the daughter they never realized they’d lost. It would tear at the hearts of Holly’s family if something ever happened to this “person”. “Holly Carver” is a wonderful person, a kindergarten teacher and fiancée to a kind and intelligent peer. They are hoping to get pregnant within the next year so they can share their boundless love for each other with a child of their mutual making.
Holly will protect her Fetch, because it means protecting the happiness of her family.
Do you want your old life back? Why? Why not?
Yes. Holly wants her life back more than any other wish she could ever think to make. It was her life, even if she nearly died as a child … it was *HER* life. Her conflict will come where her family has come to love this other being, but Holly can’t bring herself to do anything to hurt them, even if they can’t see the lie they are living.
How old do you appear to be? Younger or older than you should be?
Holly appears to be in her early to mid thirties, just as her Fetch has aged. Holly’s time in the Baron’s enchanted book kept her from aging through the centuries of captivity.
What do you look like? What color is your hair? How do you dress? Do you have distinguishing marks? What does your seeming look like?
Holly seems mostly human. There is an air about her of something extraordinary, and she dresses to fit in with whatever situation she has scheduled for that day. She looks much like her player (coincidentally enough), and pictures will be posted on the PC wiki as soon as they are available.
Holly’s mien is more like a porcelain doll with strings attached to her head, ankles and wrists.
How do you react to changeling society? Are you looking to create a new life as a changeling?
Holly returned about ten years ago, enough time to get it together and not be a total fruit basket by now. She owns a building or something, details on that aren't firm yet, and that's how she makes the money she needs to help out others. She also is extremely good at arranging an emotional fix when other Changelings need it.
Archetypal characters might get a sense of familiarity, a sense of something shared - a wisp of dream or a choked off death rattle only half remembered. Other characters might feel as if they've seen her somewhere before - for surely most of them had during the centuries of Faerie time her Keeper traveled with her across the breadth of that strange land.
Do you wish to be “cured?” What are your current goals in life? Do you have a motley? A position in the local Freehold?
Holly fears the insanity to which she was lost for a time, fears on the level of being willing to force other changelings to seek psychiatric help. I’m still working on her goals and personal contacts. I want her to have a position in the local Freehold, though not one of up front power.
Due Credit
- NPC Keeper "The Twilight King" is used with the permission of fellow player, Christopher J. Williams (US2002021540)
- According to the Strega Mythos beliefs regarding the Grigori Watchers, Aldebaran is the Fallen Lord of the East; this being came to be known as the East Wind and is the entity that marked the Vernal Equinox [ref. http://www.steliart.com/angelology_fallen_watchers_grigori.html])
