Work in progress, bulk of the info in comments below because I wordvomited and it's going to break the entry otherwise probably for ease of organization.
Jules's childhood was unremarkable, if not a little easy. His parents were both lawyers, and on the material side of things, he and his two siblings never wanted for anything. On the emotional side of things, Jules was the middle child--he found it difficult to attract his parents' notice over his sister the award-winning tennis player or his brother the violinist. He was always kind of a quiet kid, and he liked computers, which didn't usually provide a lot of parental boasting fodder. After all, a bit of computer code wasn't as easy to show off as a shiny tennis trophy or a recording of a violin recital. Jules didn't mind too much; he preferred to keep to himself and a small circle of friends, and this lack of parental interest in his interests meant a lack of parental supervision. This left Jules free to exercise his talents in all the ways he saw fit--and none of them were good. He took control of peoples' webcams, stole the answers to tests and other sensitive data, left inappropriate messages on electronic road signs, erased all of his absences in the school's computers, and so on and so forth. He had problems with bullies, true, but somehow, long lists of infractions appeared on their records regardless of administrative input. By the time he was in college on a cushy scholarship, he was in control of a small botnet that he could direct towards various enterprises of his choosing. He maintained a lucrative side business trading in stolen Social Security numbers, stolen credit card numbers, offering "assistance" in internet-based classes to his classmates, and selling very good fake IDs to teenagers who only wanted to party.
But all good things must come to an end, and Jules was eventually caught. His status as the son of lawyers didn't help him out the way he might have hoped--his parents were absolutely furious with his behavior--and Jules ended up facing a good deal of jail time for identity theft with a few minor secondary charges of contributing to the delinquency of minors. He'd never handled punishment and actual consequences particularly well, and the thought of prison terrified him. Indeed, it was an unpleasant experience, and it didn't do anything for his nerves. And yet something was about to happen that would wear down his nerves even more.
All of the identity theft and cheating Jules had done managed to attract the attention of the True Fae. He was never sure why, or how. Maybe the Fae had a business interest in the mortal world that Jules had ruined. Maybe he'd stolen the identity of a Fae's loyalist in the mortal world or monkeyed around with the wrong person's webcam. It didn't matter. The Fae came for him in jail, snatching him out of his bunk in the middle of the night and replacing him with a Fetch, a simulacrum made in Jules's likeness so that a prisoner suddenly going missing didn't cause a fuss. The Fetch only needed to hold together for a week, at which point it died in a freak food poisoning incident at the prison. There was a big fuss kicked up regarding the proper way to store industrial-strength cleaning solvents in the state's prisons, and Jules was written off as an unfortunate casualty of improper labeling and safety practices. In reality, he'd been taken somewhere else and was now in the care of a True Fae serving as his Keeper.
Jules's Keeper maintained a vast expanse of a seemingly infinite maze. Within the walls of the maze was some kind of mad carnival, the sort Jules knew he'd never fully understand. There were rides and midway games and all manner of foods, but all of them were twisted somehow. Rides didn't follow any sort of logical sense of physics or progression of time--you might get off before the ride ever started only to find yourself upside-down in the middle of a log flume--and the games often involved some manner of bodily harm. Jules's job was, for the most part, to watch. To keep an eye on all the comings and goings of the carnival, and to make sure none of his Keeper's "guests" ever found their way out of the maze. Yet keeping watch was easier said than done--some of the other beings down in that carnival were positively terrifying, there were other things outside the maze with him, and sometimes, despite his best efforts, he'd find himself swept into the carnival itself, sucked into participating in a midway game or serving as a living prop in some ride. That was never a good thing--the Keeper was adamant that Jules remain part of the scenery, and scenery doesn't participate--despite the fact that it was the Keeper who liked to keep his watchmen on their toes, causing them to get sucked into the carnival.
Jules grew good at parts of his job. He could remain motionless for hours at a time, remaining nothing more than a part of the scenery so long as nothing disturbed him. But when things tried to come at him, swooping down on him from above or suddenly erupting from the maze below, he couldn't handle the terror and would lose his composure. This became a source of amusement for the Keeper, who saw to it that the tail Jules had sprouted in his time there would fall off if Jules became alarmed enough. Scenery, after all, didn't react, and Jules would do well to learn that--lest he start losing other, more important body parts. His orders were often contradictory, wanting him to stay still and be a part of the scenery while at the same time wanting him to act to perform various tasks, like carrying off various targets or preventing anyone from leaving. All this, while things in the maze tried to eat him while the maze itself tried to trap him.
For quite some time, the carnival and the watch were all he knew. He had no memory of his old name or old life, and as far as he was concerned, he was nothing but one of a number of gargoyles bound to that maze for eternity. This all changed when the maze shifted, as it was wont to do, and with it, the wind changed. It brought with it the aroma of normal, fried carnival food--similar enough to the smell of the fish frys his father used to have when he was a child that he remembered that he'd been something else once. His escape was slow and tedious--he made his way out slowly and cautiously, trying to avoid notice--but escape eventually came. As was the case with all Changelings, he didn't remember the entirety of his captivity and was left only with flashes and impressions of bits and pieces of it here and there.
Escaping from the Hedge spit him out in downtown Houston, where he was soon picked up by the local Changeling freehold. Five years had passed since he was taken, though he hadn't aged a day past twenty. Between that and the fact that everyone he'd ever cared about thought he was dead after accidentally ingesting cleaning solvents while in prison, putting together a new life was difficult. He fell in with the Winter Court, the Court of Sorrow, in large part because the Court's ideals of keeping one's head down to avoid notice by the True Fae resonated with him. He started working with the freehold's efforts to create new identities for returned Changelings--identity papers were hard to come by if, like Jules, you were thought to be dead or, if like other Changelings, the Fetch had survived and taken over your life. Jules's computer skills and past forays into the wide world of identity theft assisted him greatly with both creating and maintaining these false identities for other Changelings. Because many in the freehold could see that Jules would stay holed up alone with his computer all the time if they allowed it, he was also given a part-time job as a night watchman at a small private museum that was owned by another Darkling, an Antiquarian who was with the Spring Court. It was something to get Jules out of his apartment and earn his keep in a more honest manner. He still wasn't much better at the guard job despite the fact that it was no longer filled with the terrors of Faerie. He was good at the watching--even better at playing on his cell phone in the bathroom--and not so good at the acting should any trouble arise.
And though Jules had zero interest in Changeling politics and the way the Courts jostled for power, he somehow managed to get swept up as a pawn in that political jostling. He'd been stationed at the job with the Spring Court Antiquarian by the Winter Court in the hopes of using this connection to keep an eye on the doings of the Spring Court. The Winter Court also took to sending him on errands in Faerie, in large part because through some quirk of fate, Jules registered as kin to many of the hobgoblins that prowled the Hedge. It made him ideal to go to Goblin Markets and bargain with the hobgoblins there or to carry out other small errands where hobs might become a problem. It wasn't the sort of thing the easily-spooked Jules would have accomplished on his own, and the Court leadership could see that. They'd send him out with people, and after a few missions here and there with different Changelings, he fell into a motley of other Changelings within his Court. They became the first friends he'd had in quite a while.
There were three other members in his motley: Crystal, Haru, and Francis. Crystal was a Snowskin, the Elemental brains of the outfit. She had a way of hiding her emotions under a cool facade and instilling a chill of terror in others on top of being an ice elemental. Jules didn't really mind all this so long as it wasn't directed at him. He was also fairly certain Crystal wasn't her real name because it was just too perfect with the way she looked like a living ice crystal, but he knew that some Changelings never remembered their real names. He never commented on it. She dealt with Jules in the same cool manner she dealt with everyone else in the motley, and they all came to realize she had designs on the Winter Court throne. At least she seemed like she'd be a better ruler than what they were working with now.
Haru was the Cyclopean muscle, an Ogre Jules wouldn't have wanted to cross. She possessed an overactive sense of humor for a bright red oni, but she was very reliable. She tended to view Jules as her "little friend" (which was appropriate considering that Haru was twice his size) and took it upon herself to fuss over the Lurkglider, seeing to it that he ate and remembered to get off of his computer every once in a while. She also found his freakouts rather endearing in a sort of "watch over the adorable baby animal" kind of way, and she'd try to make sure nothing else menaced her jumpy little buddy. The two of them had a tendency to get into trouble if left to their own devices, despite Jules's best efforts. At least between Jules's talents of stealth and her talents of cracking skulls, they were able to get out of most of said trouble.
Francis was a Wizened Chirurgeon. Like Jules, he knew the value of hanging around in the background. Unlike Jules, he had an actual work ethic and knew how to get things done. Jules suspected that Francis might actually be older than him, but the Wizened's general demeanor was such that he tended to treat Jules like an irresponsible young punk. (Which really wasn't too far off the mark, all things considered.) Francis was a doctor, albeit one with...questionable...methods. He patched Jules up a few times here and there, and Jules does not like to dwell on the experience. It didn't help that Francis looked very much like one of the big-headed, big-eyed grey aliens that are so prevalent in popular culture, and that Jules had seen one too many science fiction movies in his time.
Together with his motley, Jules started to navigate the new world in which he'd found himself, for better or for worse.
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momijizukamori
History
Date: 2015-12-04 04:39 am (UTC)But all good things must come to an end, and Jules was eventually caught. His status as the son of lawyers didn't help him out the way he might have hoped--his parents were absolutely furious with his behavior--and Jules ended up facing a good deal of jail time for identity theft with a few minor secondary charges of contributing to the delinquency of minors. He'd never handled punishment and actual consequences particularly well, and the thought of prison terrified him. Indeed, it was an unpleasant experience, and it didn't do anything for his nerves. And yet something was about to happen that would wear down his nerves even more.
All of the identity theft and cheating Jules had done managed to attract the attention of the True Fae. He was never sure why, or how. Maybe the Fae had a business interest in the mortal world that Jules had ruined. Maybe he'd stolen the identity of a Fae's loyalist in the mortal world or monkeyed around with the wrong person's webcam. It didn't matter. The Fae came for him in jail, snatching him out of his bunk in the middle of the night and replacing him with a Fetch, a simulacrum made in Jules's likeness so that a prisoner suddenly going missing didn't cause a fuss. The Fetch only needed to hold together for a week, at which point it died in a freak food poisoning incident at the prison. There was a big fuss kicked up regarding the proper way to store industrial-strength cleaning solvents in the state's prisons, and Jules was written off as an unfortunate casualty of improper labeling and safety practices. In reality, he'd been taken somewhere else and was now in the care of a True Fae serving as his Keeper.
Jules's Keeper maintained a vast expanse of a seemingly infinite maze. Within the walls of the maze was some kind of mad carnival, the sort Jules knew he'd never fully understand. There were rides and midway games and all manner of foods, but all of them were twisted somehow. Rides didn't follow any sort of logical sense of physics or progression of time--you might get off before the ride ever started only to find yourself upside-down in the middle of a log flume--and the games often involved some manner of bodily harm. Jules's job was, for the most part, to watch. To keep an eye on all the comings and goings of the carnival, and to make sure none of his Keeper's "guests" ever found their way out of the maze. Yet keeping watch was easier said than done--some of the other beings down in that carnival were positively terrifying, there were other things outside the maze with him, and sometimes, despite his best efforts, he'd find himself swept into the carnival itself, sucked into participating in a midway game or serving as a living prop in some ride. That was never a good thing--the Keeper was adamant that Jules remain part of the scenery, and scenery doesn't participate--despite the fact that it was the Keeper who liked to keep his watchmen on their toes, causing them to get sucked into the carnival.
Jules grew good at parts of his job. He could remain motionless for hours at a time, remaining nothing more than a part of the scenery so long as nothing disturbed him. But when things tried to come at him, swooping down on him from above or suddenly erupting from the maze below, he couldn't handle the terror and would lose his composure. This became a source of amusement for the Keeper, who saw to it that the tail Jules had sprouted in his time there would fall off if Jules became alarmed enough. Scenery, after all, didn't react, and Jules would do well to learn that--lest he start losing other, more important body parts. His orders were often contradictory, wanting him to stay still and be a part of the scenery while at the same time wanting him to act to perform various tasks, like carrying off various targets or preventing anyone from leaving. All this, while things in the maze tried to eat him while the maze itself tried to trap him.
For quite some time, the carnival and the watch were all he knew. He had no memory of his old name or old life, and as far as he was concerned, he was nothing but one of a number of gargoyles bound to that maze for eternity. This all changed when the maze shifted, as it was wont to do, and with it, the wind changed. It brought with it the aroma of normal, fried carnival food--similar enough to the smell of the fish frys his father used to have when he was a child that he remembered that he'd been something else once. His escape was slow and tedious--he made his way out slowly and cautiously, trying to avoid notice--but escape eventually came. As was the case with all Changelings, he didn't remember the entirety of his captivity and was left only with flashes and impressions of bits and pieces of it here and there.
Escaping from the Hedge spit him out in downtown Houston, where he was soon picked up by the local Changeling freehold. Five years had passed since he was taken, though he hadn't aged a day past twenty. Between that and the fact that everyone he'd ever cared about thought he was dead after accidentally ingesting cleaning solvents while in prison, putting together a new life was difficult. He fell in with the Winter Court, the Court of Sorrow, in large part because the Court's ideals of keeping one's head down to avoid notice by the True Fae resonated with him. He started working with the freehold's efforts to create new identities for returned Changelings--identity papers were hard to come by if, like Jules, you were thought to be dead or, if like other Changelings, the Fetch had survived and taken over your life. Jules's computer skills and past forays into the wide world of identity theft assisted him greatly with both creating and maintaining these false identities for other Changelings. Because many in the freehold could see that Jules would stay holed up alone with his computer all the time if they allowed it, he was also given a part-time job as a night watchman at a small private museum that was owned by another Darkling, an Antiquarian who was with the Spring Court. It was something to get Jules out of his apartment and earn his keep in a more honest manner. He still wasn't much better at the guard job despite the fact that it was no longer filled with the terrors of Faerie. He was good at the watching--even better at playing on his cell phone in the bathroom--and not so good at the acting should any trouble arise.
And though Jules had zero interest in Changeling politics and the way the Courts jostled for power, he somehow managed to get swept up as a pawn in that political jostling. He'd been stationed at the job with the Spring Court Antiquarian by the Winter Court in the hopes of using this connection to keep an eye on the doings of the Spring Court. The Winter Court also took to sending him on errands in Faerie, in large part because through some quirk of fate, Jules registered as kin to many of the hobgoblins that prowled the Hedge. It made him ideal to go to Goblin Markets and bargain with the hobgoblins there or to carry out other small errands where hobs might become a problem. It wasn't the sort of thing the easily-spooked Jules would have accomplished on his own, and the Court leadership could see that. They'd send him out with people, and after a few missions here and there with different Changelings, he fell into a motley of other Changelings within his Court. They became the first friends he'd had in quite a while.
There were three other members in his motley: Crystal, Haru, and Francis. Crystal was a Snowskin, the Elemental brains of the outfit. She had a way of hiding her emotions under a cool facade and instilling a chill of terror in others on top of being an ice elemental. Jules didn't really mind all this so long as it wasn't directed at him. He was also fairly certain Crystal wasn't her real name because it was just too perfect with the way she looked like a living ice crystal, but he knew that some Changelings never remembered their real names. He never commented on it. She dealt with Jules in the same cool manner she dealt with everyone else in the motley, and they all came to realize she had designs on the Winter Court throne. At least she seemed like she'd be a better ruler than what they were working with now.
Haru was the Cyclopean muscle, an Ogre Jules wouldn't have wanted to cross. She possessed an overactive sense of humor for a bright red oni, but she was very reliable. She tended to view Jules as her "little friend" (which was appropriate considering that Haru was twice his size) and took it upon herself to fuss over the Lurkglider, seeing to it that he ate and remembered to get off of his computer every once in a while. She also found his freakouts rather endearing in a sort of "watch over the adorable baby animal" kind of way, and she'd try to make sure nothing else menaced her jumpy little buddy. The two of them had a tendency to get into trouble if left to their own devices, despite Jules's best efforts. At least between Jules's talents of stealth and her talents of cracking skulls, they were able to get out of most of said trouble.
Francis was a Wizened Chirurgeon. Like Jules, he knew the value of hanging around in the background. Unlike Jules, he had an actual work ethic and knew how to get things done. Jules suspected that Francis might actually be older than him, but the Wizened's general demeanor was such that he tended to treat Jules like an irresponsible young punk. (Which really wasn't too far off the mark, all things considered.) Francis was a doctor, albeit one with...questionable...methods. He patched Jules up a few times here and there, and Jules does not like to dwell on the experience. It didn't help that Francis looked very much like one of the big-headed, big-eyed grey aliens that are so prevalent in popular culture, and that Jules had seen one too many science fiction movies in his time.
Together with his motley, Jules started to navigate the new world in which he'd found himself, for better or for worse.