Changeling Story

27: Clarity 0 Wizened, no court, no touchstones, doesn’t understand the world outside Arcadia and tends to shut down when put in a new situation. Very good at making things and understands objects better than people; obeys any orders he’s given, since that was his role in Arcadia. Has a Fae title in place of his heart and may secretly be a Huntsman abandoned when his creator was attacked and destroyed.

Emilie: Winter Darkling Nightsinger who detests Arcadia and all it stands for, tends to disappear when people are around, stays in the real world and only touches the Hedge when she absolutely has to. Her Durance involved watching her mortal life pass by without her so that her sorrow could be distilled into Arcadian Tears, a valuable Token; when she escaped, shards of the mirror she watched through embedded in her heart, and she used Winter magic to freeze it over and make it less painful.

The two of them end up interacting when 27 offers to repair Emilie’s violin with a bit of magic. She was hesitant but agreed, and this eventually led to him taking her to a place in the Hedge where time flowed strangely and channeling a millennium of concentrated Glamour into an entirely new Contract for her. In return she played music for him, using Fortifying Presence and restoring a bit of Clarity to him for the first time. For the first time he gained a sense of self, and she became his only Touchstone.

Over time they end up romantically involved, through a very sweet arc with lots of Hedge-adventures. Eventually when they’re both drunk on goblin fruit she tells him that she loves him. For the first time since Arcadia her heart thaws, the fragments of glass inside tear through it, and she starts bleeding to death. The last thing she sees is him trying desperately to stabilize her.

…then she wakes up, with the pain gone, and a strange sense of undirected purpose. She finds him lying on the ground a few feet away, not breathing, with his chest torn open. He gave her the Fae Title that was keeping him alive in order to save her.

In desperation she ends up making a deal with that same Fae Title, promising to find a proper Name for it and restore it to power in Arcadia if it gives her the ability to save him. And that’s the current plotline: figuring out *how the hell do you repay that?* Because if she can’t do it within one year, both of them are bound to go back to Arcadia.