Lost Butterfly Maiden
From Lynnesheets
[edit] and in the shadows she finds a way;
Age: 19
Birthdate: Calibration, RY 749
Birthplace: The Imperial City
Hair: Red
Eyes: Green
Skin: Ghostly pale
Height: 5' 11"
Weight: 130 lbs (including hair).
Image Song: Tori Amos, Girl
[edit] she's been everyone else's girl;
He was never quite good enough. Small and fragile, wide-eyed and too pretty for his own good, Sarien was never particularly good at anything as a child. Except, that is, for warming his elder brother Jalide's bed: his sadistic, manipulative sorcerer of an elder brother took a fancy to him, and took what he wanted, bending and breaking his younger brother to his will, shattering his self-esteem and self-worth, and to this day, that is part of how Sarien defines himself. To add to this, despite his impeccable breeding, despite the fact that every single other one of his siblings Exalted, Sarien was a child that not even the Dragons could love: he was never touched by the Dragons, never Exalted, remained a mortal. A crazy, broken, lost little mortal child, whose mental weakness, whose inability to be strong and stand up to his brother had made him remain merely mortal, without even the minor protection that the Exaltation would have given him from his brother.
The family knew.
And no one, no one with any power to stop Jalide, intervened. Because a broken mortal child meant nothing, nothing at all.
But mortal and insane as he was, Sarien was still, nonetheless, a very intelligent child. And so he could have had some use (other then being his brother's de facto concubine). Sarien was, therefore, sent to the House of Bells in hopes that he would somehow turn out worth something, that his death would bring the honor that his life didn't, knowing the entire time that he was a child that not even the Dragons could love. Ironically, his greatest gift, his extraordinary gift for tactics, was discovered, purely by accident. He understood tactics as easily as a fish swam in water. But it did not matter: he was merely mortal, no chance to prove himself.
During his time at the House of Bells, he was befriended by a boy about two years older, a fellow mortal Dynast by the name of Cathak Gaius Gan Ning, who had gained admission in a similar fashion as Sarien, with a combination of bribes, passing the tests, and his tactical genius. The two were close friends during those years, fellow outcasts: Sarien being both unExalted and insane, though less crazy then during his childhood, and Gan Ning being unExalted, who kicked ass with their collective tactical genius. Gan Ning was the first person Sarien slept with other then Jalide, the first who showed him pleasure instead of pain, one of the few people who truly loved him: however, while Gan Ning suspected a great deal about Sarien's past, he got no straight answer out of the younger boy.
Unfortunately, Gan Ning was later sent to Greyfalls post-graduation from the House of Bells through the machinations of an unknown party but who was most likely Jalide, where he fought lots of evil things...and apparently died fighting an insane Anathema known as the God-King. His body was not found, while the Anathema was found with a separated head, decapitated with a broken straight sword. The news sent Sarien, whose new semi-sanity was only tenous, back into a downward spiral from which he never recovered, retreating back into madness. With nothing left to hold onto. Nothing left to keep him.
It was the last loss in a life of losses and pain, a life that did nothing but take and take and take and take without giving back anything, that the one time he did have something bright and beautiful it was taken from him, and it was this last loss that finally sent him over. He held on for most of a year, broken and lost, faraway in a drifting dream, slipping further and further away as time went on.
On his nineteenth birthday-Calibration, RY 768-Sarien attempted suicide, while temporarily away from the Blessed Isle, in the Scavenger Lands. For his 19th birthday gift to himself, Sarien attempted to drown himself. But the chance for death, too, was taken from him, when he Exalted as a Daybreak Caste, one of the Psychopomps, and a passing Abyssal, Bearer of Myrrh-Touched Blessings, on his way to Sijan fished him out of the river. He accepted this new fate like he had come to accept everything else, with a sweet empty smile, went through the training, and took up his duties.
The Lessons of Shadowlands Circle Necromancy came easily to him, for the lessons of stasis and melancholy had been the patterns of his mortal life, had learned them as a child, he dreamed of his memories in the long space between almost-death and Exaltation, dreamed a meditation upon them. Infliction, he had done to himself, attempting to end his life.
His sacrifice was his mental clarity, as it had not been erased despite his crushing despair.
Since his training, Sarien has had something of an...interesting...affair with the Midnight Caste Lingering Smoke. Sarien doesn't love him-not like he loved Gan Ning-but he thinks he's a nice person, and he is anxious to please the other man, even taking a girl's form to help make him feel better (and to threaten his sexuality less). There are worse men out there, especially for a completely compulsively submissive delicate thing with an addiction to sex and minus the ability to give informed consent.
The name he took-Lost Butterfly Maiden-has more then a touch of irony about it, especially since he is not a maiden, even as a girl, except in the sense that he is unmarried. But he flutters through the shadows, lost beautiful and mad, a lost broken butterfly-doll-child.
[edit] and become all they told you;
Most people see only the outside shell that Sarien presents to the world: a pretty little empty-headed wanton slut, as well as drunk most of the time. Very childlike in personality, and so very out of it, he seems as though he is either high on bright morning or had his mind fried by too many drugs, all the time. Part of that is true: Sarien is indeed drunk, or attempting to get drunk most of the time, as well as a hedonist (of sorts), but he's nowhere as shallow as he seems. Or even happy, for he has given up believing in happiness: he has had his hopes shattered so much, that the idea of hope hurts too much to bear. He hates himself, lacks inner peace or even a focus most of the time, drifting off in his own litle world. He cannot stand the idea of anyone else being hurt like he was, though he cannot understand that what he went through was wrong for him as well as happening to anyone else, surprisingly compassionate for a member of House Cynis, especially having gone through what he did, a master of the pretty (shattered) mask. He is too gentle and too compassionate for the world he was born into, more sweet then he ever should have been, and it breaks his already-broken heart into shards to witness the suffering of the world.
An unstable genius and expert tactician, Sarien's moods swing wildly, and he tends toward melancholy and depression, with no self-esteem or self-worth, with too much compassion besides: he puts more value in others then he does, or ever has, in himself, for he sees himself as just a doll, just a toy for others to use and abuse and to leave behind, offering himself up as a vessel to sate their lusts and desires on. He knows that he is pretty, and believes that's all he is, the pretty shell (pretty yet never shone, only barely glowed) He buries himself in alcohol and sex to try to drown his memories of being a child, of being his brother's plaything, and because he believes he is not good enough for anything else, compulsively submissive, used to yielding, pleasing, used to being a toy that is used and abused and left behind. He has forgotten who he is, withdrawn so far that he has lost himself somewhere along the way. He has no gender identity of his own: it is all in relation to others and what they wish of him to be.
Afterwards, he weeps, when his partner(s) are asleep and cannot see him cry.
Sarien is also weak-willed, impulsive, prone to outbursts and behavior dangerous to himself, innately self-destructive, passively suicidal and with a clear submissive streak: he cannot say no, do anything for you he would, especially if it's related to sex, unless it involves hurting another person or those he cares about, is basically completely incapable of informed consent. Because, after all, he reasons, his body doesn't even really belong to him anymore, if ever it did in the first place, so what does it really matter? He's also incapable of setting outside limits for himself, sexually speaking: unless a partner puts their foot down and insists that enough is enough, he could be sore and bleeding and in no physical shape for sex, and yet try to seduce them into more (especially if he thinks he has not pleased them entirely). He has, and does, fake pleasure when he is not enjoying himself (as is the vast majority of the time: he has a hard time with physical pleasure) but believes it would please his partner(s) to think that he was enjoying himself: he relies on acting and facades a great deal.
At his worst, most melancholy, he cannot even summon up the will to get out of bed, though he disguises it by simply pretending he's lazy. He profoundly believes at the core of him that he is not only weak and worthless, but that it was his fault for everything that happened to him, that he is a whore, good for nothing but gratifying others' every desire, that what was done to him wasn't rape, that he consented somehow, that he wanted it.
In many ways, he is still the frightened wounded child who both never grew up and grew up too fast, all at the same time: many of his perceptions are that of a child, if twisted, a boy of strange vulnerable innocence-that-is-not-innocent. Lost, fragile of mind and heart and soul, he truly is Ophelia, wandering down secret halls and corridors, all alone. He believes that he is good for nothing but being the pretty ornament to gratify others' every desire: he has externalized his intelligence, his ability to make decisions, his independence, his ability to criticize others, to his little frog plushie, "Froggy", believing that it is only with Froggy's guidance that he can do anything.
He is an extraordinarily affectionate young man, especially considering everything that has been done to him, with an extraordinary amount of love to give, and equally affection-starved: however, he does not want to be loved or cared for, believing that he does not deserve it. That any chance he ever had for love was taken away from him, because who would ever want him if they knew what Jalide had done to him?
[edit] screams from the bluebells;
Sarien is a slender, slight, young man, who looks to be barely fourteen, of about 5'11" though with such a slight build that he appears smaller, delicate-looking and not at all physically imposing. He looks to be a Dynast of impeccable breeding, and is unusually pale, with almost translucent, alabaster skin, easily bruised and marked, rather ghostly-looking with very long, thick, silky bright red hair that he usually keeps tied back into a long ponytail (unbound it falls to the ground), and deep, wide, startlingly green eyes framed by long, long lashes, dressing most often in green, black or a violet so deep it looks black, favoring fluttery, delicate, translucent, filmy silk robes that conceal barely anything and leave almost nothing up to the imagination, sash tied in front in the manner of a courtesan, and a dark cloak, with both ears pierced: he wears delicate, finely worked earrings. He possesses a soulsteel chain shirt and a slim, light soulsteel reaper daiklave, crafted in such a way as to suit his delicate frame, and not overwhelm him. While tall, he is tiny of frame, with small hands and feet, far too thin for his own good, but proportioned in such a way that his slenderness only adds to his appeal, rather then subtracts, long-limbed and graceful. Delicately lovely, with breakable, perfect, otherworldly beauty, more then beautiful enough to be worthy to grace the bed of any king or emperor in Creation, more then beautiful enough to cause men to fight to possess him, but surprisingly strong for someone who seems so fragile and frail (not to say that he is very strong, because he isn't), he is usually to be found smiling, a sweet empty vague smile: what most people don't see is that it's a false smile, that never seems to quite reach his eyes, because he long ago forgot how to really smile, a sweetly broken childlike smile. He carries himself with perfect, floating grace, a vulnerable grace.
He looks more like a porcelain doll then anything real, hauntingly, heartbreakingly beautiful and breakable and oh so delicate, a pretty toy more then a person, the sort of looks that could inspire dark thoughts of possession and covetousness in a good number of people, and have. He has the 'break me, use me, shatter me' look written all over him. Sweet-voiced, with a soft, musical low alto voice, drifting and dreamy, he is easily mistaken for a woman. Or would be, if it wasn't for the fact his clothes reveal his lack of womanly curves. Froggy is nearly always accompanying him, a cute green frog plush with black (and somewhat creepy) button eyes.
As a woman, he appears much the same: too thin to have much in the way of breasts, with narrow, boyish hips, Girl!Sarien is just as androgynous as her usual self, with the body of a girl only just barely blossoming. Her lack of curves is less a masculine tendency, then simply the fact that she is much too thin for her own good, both as a girl and as a boy, and there just isn't enough there to have curves.
[edit] "sit in the chair and be good now";
Name: Cynis Falen Sarien/Lost Butterfly Maiden
Caste: Daybreak
Concept: little child lost
Motivation: To make everything stop hurting for him
Intimacies: Cynis Falen Lianna,Cathak Gaius Gan Ning, Lingering Smoke, Froggy, belief that no one will ever want or love him if they knew about his past, belief that it was his fault and that he deserved all the abuse that he got, belief that he is weak and worthless and that he does not deserve to be loved or cared for, the innocent and helpless
Anima banner: shimmering black and shadow-silver wings that spread from his shoulders
Attributes:
Str: 2
Dex: 5
Sta: 2
Cha: 2
Man: 2
App: 5
Per: 2
Int: 5
Wits: 4
Caste Skills: Investigation 3, Occult 4 (Necromancy +1), Lore 3, Craft 2 (Craft: Air and Craft: Water), Medicine 1
Favored Skills: Melee 3, Awareness 5, War 5 (Tactics +3), Performance 4, Dodge 5
Other Skills: Linguistics 3 (Native: High Realm, Low Realm, Riverspeak, Old Realm), Martial Arts 1, Resistance 3, Archery 1, Ride 1, Presence 1, Socialize 3, Athletics 3
Virtues:
Compassion: 5
Conviction: 1
Temperance: 1
Valor: 4
Virtue Flaw: Heart of Tears
Limit: 5/10
Willpower: 4/5
Essence: 3
Personal: 14
Peripheral: 25 (25/37, 12 motes committed)
Backgrounds:
Whispers 3
Artifact 3
Underworld Manse 3
Necromancy 1
Familiar 5
Merits:
Tactical Instincts
Enchanting Feature
Flaws:
Nightmares
Derangement: Melancholia
Derangement: Delusions
Enemy: 3
Addiction: alcohol
Addiction: sex
Vice: Conviction
Vice: Valor (-2)
JB: 9
DDV: 8
PDV: 5
MDV: 4
MPV: 3
Soak:
9B/10L/7A
Hardness:
3L/3B
Charms:
Awareness: 2nd Awareness Excellency
Resistance: Ox-Body Technique x 1
War: 2nd War Excellency, Mob-Dispersing Rebuke
Dodge: 3rd Dodge Excellency, Flitting Shadow Form, Uncanny Impulse Evasion
Melee: 2nd Melee Excellency
Performance: Second Performance Excellency
Occult: Shadowlands Circle Necromancy
Necromancy: Iron Countermagic, Shattered Void Mirror, Dusk Eyes, Gentle Call of Lethe, Midnight Shadow Sun
Attack:
Daylight Falls, soulsteel reaper daiklave:
Speed 4 Accuracy 14 Damage: +6L Defense 9 Rate: 3, drains per essence in motes per hit
mortal staff
Speed 6 Acc 10 Damage +9B Defense 10 Rate 2 Tags 2-handed, Reach
[edit] can't make them go away
Backgrounds
Whispers ***- Sarien is fairly well attuned to the emotions and memories of the dead and the Underworld.
Artifact ***'
- Soulsteel chain shirt (*, attune 2)
- Daylight Falls, soulsteel reaper daiklave. (**, attune 5)
- soulsteel hearthstone bracers (**, attune 4)
- moonsilver wedding ring (*, attune 1). This was the wedding ring of his last incarnation: Sarien came across it by chance, it was shiny and pretty and felt right, so he picked it up and wears it.
Underworld Manse ***'
The House of Sanguine Pleasure (Water/Blood): Once the most prominent brothel in Underworld Sijan. It produces the Hearthstone of Gender-Transformation
Necromancy *'-Sarien has been somewhat schooled on the basics of necromancy: he has learned a bit in a short span of time.
Familiar *****- Unknown to Sarien, Froggy, his plushfrog, is slowly awakening into a little god of great power, thanks to the symbolism that the young Abyssal has imbued into him.
Merits/Flaws:
Tactical Instincts: Sarien has been blessed with the ability to look at a tactical situation, be it hypothetical problem, historical event, Gateway game, or battle, and is able to read the ebb and flow of the situation in moments.
Enchanting Feature: While Sarien is a stunningly beautiful person, flawless and exquisite, his eyes stand out. Big and wide and an unusual, striking shade of green, framed by long, long lashes, they are lovely and sad and haunting.
Nightmares: For the last fourteen years, Sarien has suffered often-crippling bouts of nightmares: however, ever since his Exaltation, Sarien has begun dreaming of others' suffering, attuned as he is to memory, and only rarely of his own.
Derangement: Melancholia: Sarien has changeable mood swings, and he tends mostly towards being sad and melancholy. He is especially prone to crippling bouts of depression, during which he does not have the will to do anything.
Derangement: Delusions: Sarien's mind wanders down secret halls and corridors where no one goes, and he sees and hears things others don't. Some of his more common delusions are talking to plants like they are people, and talking to his frog plush.
Enemy 3: While Cynis Falen Jalide definitely does not wish Sarien dead, for he treasures him in his own sick way, Jalide has destroyed Sarien's life, sanity, and made him dance on his twisted puppet strings for fourteen years. He regards Sarien as his little pet, his doll, his toy, and if he ever gains word of where Sarien's current whereabouts are, he will be sure to try to take him back.
Addiction: alcohol: To try to take the edge off his pain, Sarien has turned to heavy drinking, to dull the memory, and "make everything floaty and pretty~"
Addiction: sex: Sarien behaves in a promiscuous manner, despite his deeply hidden dislike of sex, for several reasons: to try to make himself forget, because he thinks he's not good for anything else, because he's not used to anything else, because he is compulsively submissive. He can no sooner go without sex then he can go without air.
Vice: Conviction: When confronted by his brother, or within the same area as him, Sarien automatically fails any and all Conviction rolls.
Vice: Valor 2: Once again, regarding Cynis Falen Jalide: When confronted by his brother, or within the same area as him, all of Sarien's Valor rolls are at a -2 penalty.
[edit] there castles are burning in my heart;
Total XP: 46
Unspent: 11
Spent: 35
Bought: Enchanting Feature (eyes) Merit, Uncanny Impulse Evasion, 2nd Awareness, Familiar 5
[edit] my image under her thumb;
Cynis Falen Jalide- Air Aspect sorcerer of a little over half a century in age, Sarien's most hated sibling, subject of his nightmares, and pretty much THE biggest influence on him. Sadistic, cruel, manipulative, obsessive, possessive and just all around a horrible person, Jalide has basically made his younger brother dance on his puppet strings for almost two decades. Rape, manipulation, threats, and carefully applied psychological torture are just a few of the tools he's used against Sarien over the years: and as bad as it's been, it's only going to get worse. Currently, he is the satrap of Thorns.
Jalide is a little over six and a half feet tall, handsome yet cruel-looking, with long (somewhat past his shoulders) white hair and green eyes, very obviously an Air Aspect of impeccable breeding, physically imposing and powerful in build, with a rich, confident baritone voice, carrying himself with perfect, unshakeable confidence. His main resemblance to Sarien comes in the startling color of his eyes: otherwise, the two siblings don't resemble one another. He dresses finely, in dark colors, tasteful and elegant.
Cynis Falen Lianna-One of Sarien's younger siblings, a recently Exalted Wood Aspect of about fourteen, who is now being groomed to attend the Heptagram, she is the only one of his immediate family who Sarien actually likes-in fact, he is quite protective of her, and while he is willing to let bad things happen to him, for being used to it, he will react violently should he find out anyone has harmed her, or tried to harm her. Soft-spoken, kind, sweet, yet strong-willed, Lianna has strangely been not afraid of her publicly unstable older brother, and Sarien has never learned why.
Lianna is a slim, willowy girl with blond hair and green eyes, white roses growing entwined in her long hair, fairly pretty, a Wood Aspect of impeccable breeding, of slender yet wiry build: while she hasn't reached her full growth yet, she promises to be quite tall once she's done growing. She smiles and laughs frequently, sings often-she is a masterful singer-who dresses in white and pink (especially pink) very often.
Cathak Gaius Gan Ning-best/only friend, lover, and unfortunately apparently quite deceased, Gan Ning was two years older then Sarien, who was one of the few people who cared about him-in fact, loved him. Gan Ning's death, which happened a relatively short time ago, shattered Sarien and from which he has never recovered. However, things may not be just as they appear...
[edit] with a message from my heart;
- Sarien still somehow possesses his copy of The Thousand Correct Actions of the Upright Soldier
- He is easily distracted by shiny/pretty/unique things
- You can hear the tildes when he talks
- In battle, he will usually fight with a mortal staff: he will not draw Daylight Falls unless absolutely necessary
- He has a cute little frog plush with button eyes that he calls "Froggy".
[edit] callin' everybody else's girl;
Bearer of Myrrh-Touched Blessings: He has pretty feathers~He's nice~I just wish he didn't stop me from drowning~
Lingering Smoke: Um. He isn't a bad person~He's nice~And sex with him feels almost okay~
Cathak Gaius Gan Ning: I loved him~I still do~And he's alive~But he's dead~and everything is empty without him~
Kiwi:
Alek:
[edit] and in the shadow she crawls;
she's been everybody else's girl/maybe one day she'll be her own/everybody else's girl/maybe one day she'll be her own
