Rebus

From Changeling Venue

Seeming	Darkling Mirrorskin
Court	Winter Court ••••
Freehold	New-New Amsterdam
Player	Ryan Coogan

1 Overview
2 Character Information

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Overview

Alias(es): None

Real Name: Unknown

Seeming: Mirrorskin

Court: Winter

Age: Unknown

Concept: Doppleganger

Entitlement: None

Physical description: Rebus changes both his mien and mask too much for any physical description to be truly relevant. He is everybody and he is nobody. The only consistency in his appearance is a small moniker that he wears somewhere on his person, regardless of his mask. Recently, Rebus has taken to wearing the mien of an unassuming Irishman wearing a long, black overcoat.

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Character Information

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Known History

Current Activities: Rebus has been living in New York for several years. Much of his downtime is spent in an endless procession of nameless, faceless jobs that change day-to-day and hour-to-hour. His schedule is truly maddening, although he seems to know exactly where he ought to be at any given time on any given day. These jobs provide him with access to any number of innocent and eccentric items that help to run the Freehold, as well as money, a precious commodity for the Lost.

Background: (a work in progress)

STORY OF MY LIFE

The details of Rebus' first life are lost, eroded by an ocean of nightmares and delusions. What he does remember comes in vague, dream-like memories that flicker across his conscious before slipping back into darkness. He remembers a small house in a small town. A stone-bricked school with a jungle gym. He has the most indistinct impressions of a family - a father, a mother, a sister. Creatures who's names and personalities seem to be nothing more than two-dimensional sitcom archetypes. True to form, too many memories of his childhood Rebus has later experienced as deja vu while up late watching reruns of Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore, or at the theatre during a performance of Annie.

BALL AND CHAIN

He does not remember being taken. Perhaps because he was taken so young, before his memories of the real world could develop into a coherent view of reality. It seems his life started in Faerie, held captive in a magnificent theatre with draping red curtains lining the walls and thick, plush seats that stretched on forever. The Mistress of All Stages was the gem of theatrics. Her form was mutable, changing to accommodate the central role of her plays and epic performances. Her slaves were her cast, chained beneath the stage in those few moments of reprieve from the endless practices and dress rehearsals.

Opening night was always the worst. The Mistress would let them rest but this was little consolation for her wrath. The Gentry came from far and wide to see the Mistress perform the lead with her captives playing lesser roles. The slightest imperfection in performance was severely punished, lest the Mistress seem anything but the paragon of theatre arts before the many True Fae.

Rebus was a cherished slave. The Mistress demanded perfection. She would not settle for an adult to masquerade as a child, despite the power of her own magic to transform the appearances of herself and others. She demanded an actual child, already possessing all of those subtle simplicities of such a young creature.

However, Rebus continued to grow. The Mistress accommodated these changes, crafting plays that settled less on young families with young children and more on established families with young teenagers and young adults. Rebus quickly and easily adapted to his roles, though at a painful cost. The trauma of his captivity coupled with demands of the Mistress to literally become new characters broke Rebus at an early age. His mind cracked, fragmenting a fragile psyche into a dozen loosely connected shards.

FOOTPRINTS ON MY CEILING

The escape was not planned. Maybe not even wanted. One of the Mistress’s captives – perhaps her favorite – was not secured one night. The chains were left loose and the trap door just slightly askew. The tiny girl slipped loose from her chains and then helped the rest. She undid all of their chains, altered her own appearance to mimic the Mistress, and lead the Changelings from that Realm. Only a handful actually made it.

ANOTHER STATE OF MIND

Rebus reappeared on this side of the Hedge in 1993. Although more than twenty years had passed, it would be impossible for him to truly appreciate how long this was, or to even understand when he had been taken. He resurfaced in his old elementary school, still screaming from the Briarhounds that had been chasing him through the Thorns and rambling incoherently about the Mistress and how he needed to go back. The authorities quickly picked him up

Diagnosis: Paranoid Schizophrenia. A thought disorder characterized by paranoid delusions of persecution and external mind-control. Treatment: Thorazine. For the greater part of two years, Rebus lived in a nearly catatonic stupor. Only mildly aware of his surroundings, he retreated into his imagination, where he continued to perform lavish plays for faceless audiences and where the many fragments of his shattered mind wrestled and fought for dominance. Dreams seemed more real than anything in this world, more familiar perhaps because of their proximity to Arcadia. The line between the Real, the Delusional, and the Faerie blended and merged into an incoherent mass of thoughts, memories, dreams, and delusions.

SO FAR AWAY

While the nurses kept Rebus on a steady diet of psychotropic drugs, every now and agan he still managed to break the shackles of his drug-induced prison. These episodes were characterized by violent outbursts where Rebus threw chairs and attacked orderlies, screaming obscenties and accusing the doctors of controlling his thoughts. On two occassions these episodes were completely self-destructive, resulting in two suicide attempts that left Rebus locked away in isolation.

It was in the isolation ward that Rebus met Eddie, a slim twenty-something that snuck off his own ward and would rap on the chicken-wire window slat to comfort Rebus. The two developed a quiet companionship over the next week, communicating silently through the thick metal door.

If it wasn’t for Eddie, Rebus would still be living in that institution, staring into nothingness, completely overwhelmed by his own delusions. Eddie forced Rebus to focus, refusing to allow him the peace of his own hallucinations and dreams. In those fleeting moments of awareness, Eddie would show Rebus how to stash his medication while pretending to be doped up – lest the staff catch on and medicate him with coerced injections instead. While Rebus shuffled through the hospital, slippers scuffing the linoleum floor, Eddie would track orderlies and shifts in security. He used Rebus as a decoy and an unwitting spy to mastermind his own escape.

Although Eddie never really cared if Rebus escaped, the two patients were inextricably connected. Eddie reluctantly agreed to let Rebus come with him. The borderline patient needed another set of eyes and perhaps some help on the outside as well. Finally, on a crisp winter night, they left…

DOWN HERE (WITH THE REST OF US)

Eddie and Rebus’ friendship took a dark turn after Bellevue. There were always alterior motives and subtle half-truths that Eddie kept from him. While Eddie was sleeping along a warm heating grate, Rebus left him and ventured alone into the dark winter nights.

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