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 Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 9:19 pm
Introduction
Fear has always reigned in Boston. The city was practically built on it - fear of God, fear of crime, fear of violence, fear of wolves in sheep's clothing, fear of outsiders … fear of losing a way of life. Boston Founder John Winthrop understood the usefulness of fear in controlling citizens. Establishing Massachusetts as a Puritan theocracy, he preached against the evils of Quakers, Native Americans, and Satan, and used the principle of original sin to curb human desire. The politics of fear have continued in Boston well into the present day.
As long as there's been a Boston, there have been changelings living there. They dwelled in secret among the settlers; they lived among the native tribes; they roamed the forests and wilds. The settlements early days were perilous for changelings, who would likely be burned at the stake if discovered, but the hotbed of emotions proved too rich to resist. Spring sated itself in the forbidden revels, the indulgence of repressed desires, the wild rebellion of the Boston Tea Party, and the birth cries of a new nation. Summer soaked in the blood of the Boston Massacre and fought with colonial patriots against the British. Even as its Glamour grew, Winter watched with tears as settlers and natives alike died from war, starvation, harsh elements, and disease.
Fear, however, has always reigned in Boston - sometimes simmering under the surface, sometimes threatening to tear the community apart. While Mary Dyer was hanged for daring to be a Quaker in a Puritan settlement, while people were tortured and hanged for witchcraft in the nearby town of Salem, while the future of the colonies hung in uncertainty, while Lizzie Borden took up her axe, the Autumn Court watched in the shadows practicing their dark arts. The seasons come and go the wheel in the sky keeps turning yet from the beginning the Autumn Court has been the strongest. A pattern the current Autumn King, Jack Carroll, has no intention of changing. A powerful Irish Mob boss in his mortal identity, he brings the same ruthless iron will to running the freehold, dominating the other courts through bribery, intimidation, and brutal cruelty.
Of course there are darker and stranger things than changelings in the shadows of the world. Prometheans - reanimated from dead tissue by the divine fire - drift through town, reluctant to stay too long lest their presence poison the land and people around them. Shapeshifters walk among mortals hiding the beast within while Skinchangers look on with envious eyes, seeking the power for themselves. Mortal psychics glimpse the horrors, supernatural and mundane, that lie beneath the surface. Urban legends, some of which began as mere tales spread by the Autumn Court, come to terrifying life. Ancient relics possess the power to alter lives… or destroy them. And everywhere the voices of the departed cry out to be heard.
Fear has always reigned in Boston.
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Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 6:38 am
Changelings
Jacky Carroll, King of the Autumn Court - People say all sorts of things about me. I'm a tyrant. A criminal. A pimp. A drug-dealer. A fear-mongerer. An extortionist. A murderer. Most of it's true, but most of it misses the point. The what, or how, of what I've done is not the point. It's the why that matters.
I paid my dues in Faerie like everyone else in this Freehold. You're a little soft in the head, I understand that, but you gotta realize changelings like us weren't always this way. We all lived out our little mortal lives, and for the most part were completely unawares of what really lay out there - until they came. The Others. The Keepers. The Fae. They stole us - kidnapped is too soft a word, abducted too clinical. They violated us, shattered our illusion of safety.
We all have our scars to bear from our years at the Faes' tender mercies, literally and metaphorically. No one can say mine are any lighter than anyone else's - if they try, I'll give 'em a taste of what the Ninewinged Serpent gave me.
We got out though. I say that with conviction, cause it's best not to dwell on the alternatives. So we made it back to the real world - only most of us found out its not our world anymore. Our fetches, those little automaton cocksuckers dressed to look like us, have been living our lives like nothing ever happened. Mortals, mindless little sheep with no idea how good they have it, don't see us for what we truly are - what Faerie has turned us into. They feel the coldness of a lover's hand, but not the delicate layer of frost that covers it. They look into a son or daughter's eyes, and don't see the catlike slits. The Hedge, which separates the real world from that of our former Keepers, peeks through in odd places, teasing our senses and threatening our sanity. We are alone, except for each other.
When I shake down a business, run drugs, chase c**t, threaten or whack someone in the mortal world, I do it for me. If the sheep want to squander their blessed little lives while the real wolves prowl in the shadows, who am I not to take advantage? When I do the same in the Freehold, I do it for us. Okay, chasing tail is purely for me, but everything else I do to keep us in control of our destinies.
The way I see it, a changeling breaks his bonds, steps through the Hedge back into the real world… That's only the first step. He looks around, sees his life isn't his anymore, that's the second. For the third step, he's got a choice. He lets his history define what he's become, or he makes what he's become define history.
Me, I choose the latter.
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