Name: Flick Seren - not a faerie name by any means, but it's the one she was given
Age: 24
Race: Half-faerie, half-human
Description:
Petite, with a heart-shaped face that is pretty, but lacks the ethereal beauty of a full faerie. She has blue eyes and soft blond curls that give her the appearance of angelic innocence, even though once you get to know her she is anything but. She is generously endowed in the chest region, and if she frequented bars she would have people coming on to her the whole time, but she doesn't go into bars as a general rule. She wears floaty skirts and loose tops that only enhance her appearance, although she mistakenly believes that they disguise her curvy figure.
Her clothes come in lots of different colours, because she can change them whenever she likes, but when she is travelling she wears a silvery, shimmering cloak that she picked up when she was in the Unseelie Court and has since been unable to replicate. It is waterproof, and despite its unique and very showy appearance, no one seems to pay any attention to it. It also manages to keep her warm when it is cold, even if it is below freezing. Flick suspects that it may have some degree of magic woven into the fabric, but she has never been able to tell.
She wears comfortable ankle-high boots that are merely practical and have nothing mysterious about them at all.
She looks about twenty-six, twnty-seven-ish, but she has looked that way for about ten years, and expects to for a long while yet.
Carefully hidden away with a glamour, are her wings. The shape of a butterfly's, but with the appearance and texture of a dragonfly's, they are very delicate, and hiding them is safest for their protection as well as to conceal her species.
Possessions:
The cloak described above.
Her basic clothes.
Not a lot else.
Powers or Strengths:
Flight
Her wings enable her to fly. They appear delicate, and are, but she is deceptively light and they easily carry her weight. She can fly at up to fifty miles an hour on an open stretch, but prefers not to. The altitude she can climb to is also limited by the level of oxygen in the air. She cannot carry anything heavy with her when she flies - even clothing slows her down a bit, especially since the things she wears are not designed to make her aerodynamic. She refuses to fly naked, however.
This particular talent is also rusty from lack of use, and she is therefore liable to misjudge her wingspan and bump into things, and changing direction and stopping are difficult for her to do quickly, especially when she is at high speed.
Glamour/Illusion
Flick has the ability to cast glamours on inanimate objects. It takes a while, and a lot of concentration, but takes nothing out of her physically. Except with the glamour she uses on her wings, which physically takes them to 'somewhere else' (she is unsure exactly how it works - they are still on her back, but are invisible and untouchable to the world, and cannot be affected by anything that touches her back i.e. clothing) she cannot actually affect the object, only how it is seen. For example, she has only two of each item of clothing, one to wear and one to wash, but all of these are relatively plain colours. With her glamour, she can change how the colour of each garment looks, or she could make it look like she was wearing earrings.
She can only apply this to things she is touching, and as soon as she stops touching the object she is changing, the glamour fails. She cannot create an illusion out of thin air, she can only change what is already there unless there is a magic on the item preventing her from doing so.
Mind Speech
She can talk with animals, communicating directly with their minds. She has found that it is only worth her while to talk with carnivores and rodents, because herbivores are quite thick. She cannot talk with humans like this, and cannot influence the creatures she talks with. They have complete control over their own minds, so she could ask a rat to nibble through some ropes for her but the rat could easily refuse, if it wanted to.
Stealth
She developed a love for adrenaline, which caused her to go around doing dangerous things, including sneaking around the houses of rich people when they weren't looking.
Minor Skills
She can click her fingers to create sparks - not flames, just sparks. She can light tinder with the sparks, but they are not particularly dangerous.
She can blow a kiss and have someone actually feel it.
She can imbibe copious amounts of alcohol and feel no ill effects, or any effects at all. The same cannot be said for drugs or poisons, although she can normally tell once she has them in her system even though she can't do anything about it. She has no gag reflex, so puking up the dangerous substance is a no-no.
She can mimic most noises, although she can't sing or play any instruments.
Deceit
She is strong-willed, but has no qualms about pretending to be whatever someone wants her to be. She's not bad at it - the fae she spent her time with were masters of disguise, and lying came hand-in-hand with that - but when she is distracted, she can be easily drawn out of her disguise and show who she really is.
Archery
She has no outstanding talent for it, but she can hold a bow, fire an arrow, and hit a target with consistency.
Changing Size
She can shrink to about a foot high, and regain her full height of a little over five foot, with great difficulty that leaves her dizzy and feeling ill. This aids her greatly in hiding from people she would rather avoid, although it annoys her that it takes her longer to get to places, because her legs are shorter.
Weaknesses and Flaws:
Physical Strength
Flick is not built for heavy lifting, carrying heavy objects long distances, or arm wrestling, or anything like that. If she wants something like that done, she has to persuade someone else to do it for her with fluttered eyelashes or something equally abhorrent.
Self-Defense
The general idea is 'run.' And even that she can't do for long before she runs out of breath.
Magic
She lights up like a beacon to anyone who might be looking for a faerie. Her magic has a distinctive tinge to it, and anyone who can sense it being used will know when she is using it from a great distance, and most likely be able to pinpoint her. Even a small gift - like being able to pick it up only when touching people - would be able to sense her from a distance. She is completely unaware of this.
Personality
She is naturally curious, and doesn't care that it can lead her into dangerous situations at the time. She is a peculiar mix of jadedness (if that's even a word - i doubt it) and innocence, because she knows very little about the real world, but the tastes of the faerie Unseelie Court are... corrupting, and Flick has tasted many of them.
She can be goaded into doing anything. And i mean anything. If someone said she would or could never make a carpet fly, somehow or other the carpet would eventually fly. For how long, who knows? She would probably cheat and just throw it at the challenger anyway, but the point is, she can be goaded into doing anything.
She hates losing, and will do almost anything to prevent it...
Blah blah blah. Let's just say she's immoral, not above cheating, easily distracted, takes on all bets, can be quite obnoxious at times, and finds it hard to admit defeat even when she is clearly in the wrong. Friends are few and far between, because they can rarely keep up with her mood swings. She can make friends, but keeping them is another matter entirely.
Money
She has none. Most of the time she resorts to trickery to get it, and what she does get, she tends to gamble away on foolish bets - not on horses or anything, but on 'i can down this pint faster than you' kind of bets.
Sparkly Things
We all love things that glitter (at least i hope it's not just me...) but Flick has a special place in her heart for them. In a bad way. Someone shows her something sparkly, she is immediately transfixed until it is put away, or she encounters pain. She would follow a sparkle into a shark-infested pool of water, and only stop chasing it when the sharks started to bite.
History:
Flick Seren was the daughter of a faerie. After she was born, her mother vanished, leaving her behind to face the persecution of the humans so that the mother could return to the Unseelie Court without being held in shame.
The inhabitants of the village (situated in the mountains just above Thar Shaddin, and relatively isolated) where her mother had left her were a passionate group of people who were not fond of outsiders, or any non-humans. The thin wing membranes fluttering delicately on her back identified her as different, and this was excuse enough for her to be gotten rid of. The child, no more than two weeks old, was tucked into a cradle and placed on top of her funeral pyre, wailing at the top of her lungs.The flames were beginning to take hold when the baby stopped crying.
The watching crowd held their breaths in tense silence, wondering if the child had already died. Some of them were grateful that it would not be painful for her, others were angry that it was over so soon for this abomination. Most started walking away as soon as they thought it was over, cheated of their entertainment.
A wolf howl echoed around the valley.
Another one answered from the other direction, and the people stopped walking. More and more howls joined the first, and if they had been just a bit quieter, the crowd might have heard the child start to stir and wail once again. As the first wolf came into view, the panic set in. Everyone scattered willy-nilly, running for the safety of their homes. Many were chased all the way around the village before they managed to get inside but, strangely, no one was hurt. It seemed like more of a sport for the wolves.
Meanwhile, taking the advantage of the distraction, one man went back to the bonfire and plucked the baby’s cradle out of the flames. He opened the lid, and took out the restless child. She immediately gurgled, and the man took that as a sign of approval.
“C’mon pet,” the man said gruffly. “Can’t stay here for long.” He picked her up and started running as fast as he could into the forest. They were long gone from the village by the time they reached a small cave guarded by a pack of fifteen wolves, nine adults in a protective line in front of their puppies. The man carefully cradled the baby close to his chest, and opened his mind so that he could speak with the wolves.
Thank you, Fast-Runners. Your help was much appreciated.
Our debt is now cancelled. We owe you nothing. The biggest wolf stepped forward several steps, and the line closed behind him. He nudged Flick with his nose and sniffed at her. She is not of your tainted line. Do not claim her as such, or she will be endangered.
I understand. The man dropped his gaze. If he indicated dominance over the other pack in any way, he would be dead in an instant, and Flick too.
You may not call on us. We wish to never see you again. You understand why.
I understand, and I am grateful for your assistance. He looked down determinedly at the floor and tried to resist his instincts. They were telling him to fight these wolves, but endangering Flick was out of the question.
They want you dead, Wolf-Slayer. How long it will take I do not know, but when they come for you, you will not live for the next sunrise. This much is certain.
He kept his gaze down until he was sure the wolves had all left, then carried the faerie child into the cave and put her on the bed. The man provided her with a bit of old leather to suck on while he lit the lamps he had installed around the cramped space from a candle he had left burning.
When the room was light again, he sat down next to the happily gurgling baby. “What’re we going to do now kiddo? Life’s hardly going to be normal, with me a hedge-witch with enemies, and you half-faerie. You're lucky enough the wolves can't smell your humanity under you're faerieness. I'm Hal, by the way. Your father.”
Flick didn’t seem bothered. She dropped the piece of leather and tried to get her fist in her mouth, but it wouldn’t go. The man replaced the leather strip and continued talking, essentially to himself.
“I’ll even go as far as to say life will be interesting. And to lots of people, that’s a curse. A dire one. You’d better not be one of those people, though. Not with a start like this in life, and not with what your life is going to turn out like. It’s going to be crazy. Violent. Probably scary a lot of the time. I'm going to help you deal with that, I hope, because if you don’t you’ll be dead and then what would the point of today have been, huh?”
Flick started to cry, and no amount of handing her the leather stopped that.
“What? What did I do wrong? Are you cold? No, you're kind don’t get cold. So what, are you overheating? In this weather? Are you crazy? Wait, are you hungry? You’re hungry. Great. Where am I going to get milk for a baby faerie-hedge-witch? This is crazy!”
Eventually Hal managed to get hold of something that Flick could live off of. Cow's milk and pureed vegetables seemed to do the trick until she was old enough to start eating solids. He bought most of their necesseties from nearby towns, all located in the mountain region, and scavenged from the surrounding land when he could. When Flick turned eight, she had developed enough to be able to help without bringing danger down on herself. Hal had taught her the basics of communicating with animals, and she was small enough that hiding wasn't an issue, should a human come along.
But after a while, Flick came home with a small, foot-high full-blooded faerie in tow and asked if she could visit where the other girl lived. Hal saw no harm in it, but, knowing the fae, told Flick to stay as long as she liked and to come home eventually. He had suspected that at some point her heritage would catch up with her, and now was later than he would have expected, despite the fae not perceiving the passing of time in the same way as humans.
He probably hadn’t expected the next eight years to pass without seeing her. The Unseelie Court was like a different world entirely, cut off from reality by magic and secrets. Darkness shadowed over it, and there was a decadent quality to the people that Flick was scared of. She grew up fast, because she had no choice, and although she gave in to the dangerous desires of that world on occasion, she was able to keep her feet grounded in reality most of the time. She learned through trial and error what came to the other fae so naturally - glamour, deceit, and illusion. She kept away from the Seelie Court with their two-faced politeness, and found that compared with the complex politics, she vastly preferred the Unseelie fae, who left their dangers easily seen in the open.
It was towards the end of her stay that she learned who her mother was and decided to pay her a visit. She was driven away with the barest courtesies. A half-human embarassment should not have even attempted to speak with one of the gentry.
It was then that she chose to leave the faerie world. She left the same way that she came, through a doorway that was invisible to most of the outside world, and remembered fleeting years from when she was younger, of a man who had loved and cared for her, who she had called 'Father.'
She was almost ashamed to return, because she had completely forgotten the man who had raised her while in the enticingly wicked Unseelie Court, but Hal welcomed her back with open arms. Life had changed since she had left, and a bandit camp had been set up, but Flick could cast a glamour so well that her wings were to all intents and purposes gone. She was in no danger of appearing as anything other than a human, so that impedence to her life was well and truly gone. She had also, inadvertently, become more attuned to the world around her in a defense mechanism, and although she couldn't fight - she was physically weak, and knew no offensive magic - she was well able to hide. Being able to change her size was an advantage to that end as well.
Hal was uncomfortable with her lack of defense should she come across someone she couldn't hide from, and tried to teach her how to use various weapons, but the only one she ever came to grips with was the longbow, not the up-close weapon he would have preferred. However, they were content living as they had before Flick had gone, and it wasn't difficult to settle into an easy rhythm.
She had been corrupted by living with the fae. When she had left, at age sixteen, she had done things that most people had never even dreamed of. Her fae blood had ensured she grew up quickly, and she looked like she was in her mid-twenties throughout her teenage years and beyond, but she retained a need for danger that was lacking in her current life. She began to take things, do things against the rules, deliberately nearly getting caught so that she could feel the adrenaline. She made sure Hal never found out, but the rush was addictive.
Then, after she had honed her stealthy skills to a fine point, it began to get boring again. She found a new hobby - magic. She taught herself to create sparks every time she clicked her fingers, and other paltry tricks, and attempted on several occasions to turn herself invisible, which never worked. She experimented, rarely getting far before she moved on to another ridiculous idea.
But it ended badly. During one of her experiments, while she was too deeply engrossed to be aware of anything else going on around her, a pack of wolves came onto the land. It wasn't the pack who had helped Hal rescue Flick, but another one from further afield.
Four days after Flick’s twenty-fourth birthday, Hal was torn apart by the pack. Flick was incensed and chased after them, tearing off her glamour so that she could use her wings (she hadn't used them since she returned from the Court) to give chase, wheeling between the trees and gaining ground until one stopped and turned to face her. In the way of speaking that wolves have, he sent her images and sensations as well as words, which meant that it was impossible for him to lie about what he said without her knowing it.
Thirty years ago, Wolf-Slayer came to our pack. He killed many of us, and our cubs, on the orders of Village-Near-The-Willow-River who believed we were taking their livestock. He did not speak with us, as he could have done, before the slaughter. He did not ask us to stop, although it was not we who were doing it. Those-Without-Clan – Flick managed to translate this as ‘outlaws’ – were stealing for food. Wolf-Slayer stopped only when a littermate of the then-alpha shouted out these truths. We vowed revenge, and have waited for it for many seasons through generations, Fae-child. You would have done the same.
In shock, Flick froze while the wolf made his escape, and slowly made her way back to the cave, where Hal was still lying, dead. He hadn’t even gone cold. She dug a pit as quickly as she could and buried him before too many flies could settle, and buried him late that night. She couldn’t stop thinking about how she had seen Hal through the wolf’s eyes – cold, hard and mercenary. And mercenary was exactly right. From speculation, she could gather that he had been a sword for hire, which explained his actions towards the wolf pack even though it didn’t excuse them.
She didn’t understand why he hadn’t told her any of this, but she supposed he hadn’t wanted to bring up something quite unsavoury about himself that was, admittedly, in the past. So with that settled in her mind, she began trying to rebuild her world to something resembling what it had been before Hal had been killed.
For a few months, she found herself tearful and unable to think straight, but her head eventually straightened out and she could think about Hal without tears or regrets. Life went back to normal, or as normal as it could be when her home was empty of half its previous population. She hunted, she ate, she slept, she existed.
It wasn’t enough. An existence without a purpose was worth precisely nothing.
She set out the day after she came to this revelation with no particular purpose in mind. She would take whatever work came her way, be it legal or not. She didn't care. At some point, she would have to face reality and try to build up her life again, but for now, that could wait.
Flick
Re: Flick
I like this character. Eight strengths are somewhat of a lot for a first character but with her weaknesses I don't think that she is really overpowered. I think that maybe her flying skills should be a little rusty from years of not using her wings though.
As far as her ability to talk to animal using her mind, I don't see why she wouldn't be able to talk to herbivores or people but if you want to keep it the way you have it, it's fine.
I would like to see mentioned where this cave is but otherwise I think you did a good job on this app.
As far as her ability to talk to animal using her mind, I don't see why she wouldn't be able to talk to herbivores or people but if you want to keep it the way you have it, it's fine.
I would like to see mentioned where this cave is but otherwise I think you did a good job on this app.
Killer of Squirrels
Re: Flick
I've made the changes, although i think i'll stick with not wanting to talk with herbivores and not being able to talk with humans.
I put in that the village where she was is in the mountains north of Thar Shaddin, so that she could easily get to TS, and i saw the mountains on the map. On the other hand, if they were placed there to make the map look pretty and don't actually exist, just shout and i'll edit that.
I put in that the village where she was is in the mountains north of Thar Shaddin, so that she could easily get to TS, and i saw the mountains on the map. On the other hand, if they were placed there to make the map look pretty and don't actually exist, just shout and i'll edit that.