The Lost Questionnaire
In the interests of giving people a bit of insight into Cerannen's mind, I've filled out the Lost questionnaire. Feel free to have a look under the cut.
Pre-Kidnapping
• How old are you? What year were you born?
I don’t know, to both. Others of the Lost tell me that I’m in my twenties, maybe. As to when I was born, what few memories I have of this world show me nothing of all of these lights, machines, and stinking smoke. Does that help?
• Who were you before you were taken? Who did you want to be? What were your goals and fears? Describe your mortal life in as many details as you can.
I don’t know who I was; some mortal child, I suppose. He’s dead, now. Who cares what he wanted to be? Probably, he was afraid of the elves when they came for him. I think he was. I think they came for him more than once. That scared him more than he had words to tell, because they were interested in him.
• How old were you when your Keeper took you?
I was…I don’t know. I can’t remember. I was taken many times, and many times they let me go, only to take me again.
• Describe your kidnapping.
I can’t remember. I was too young. Some of the elves told me that I was born in Arcadia, but they must have been lying. I don’t know.
Across the Hedge
• How many days/month/years were you in Faerie in Earth time?
I don’t know. I remember growing up partly in this world and partly in that one, I think. Or maybe those were just dreams.
• How long were you in Faerie in Arcadia time?
What use do animals have for the counting of years? Long enough to grow to the age that I am now.
• Tell me about your Keeper. Who was s/he? Did he or she (or it?) treat you kindly? Cruelly? Capriciously? How did your Keeper interact with the other Fae?
If I had one Keeper, I could not tell you which of them it was. They all treated me the same. They would blast the horn and signal the hunt, and their hounds would be upon me, and then they followed, riding things that were meant to look like horses, but didn’t. They pierced me with arrows and spears, and then made me live again, so that the hunt could start over. If one of them claimed me, it never said so. Who knows? Maybe I killed it. That would please me.
• What about your time in Faerie? What were your days like? Were you a hunter or a servant? Maybe a court fool? Describe an average, nothing special sort of day.
I wake from a fitful sleep to the sound of the horn. I’m still tired; always tired, and hungry, and cold, and desperate. The anger is new, but I like it better than the others. I run, knowing that they’ll catch me, sooner or later. They’ll catch me, and run me through with their lances, and allow their hounds to feast on my flesh. And they’ll put me back together again with their elf-magic, and I’ll be a little less the man that couldn’t escape them, and a little more the Beast that can kill them. Maybe, before they finish with me tonight, they’ll nail me to a tree by my wrists and let their children torture me for sport. Or, maybe, they’ll let one of their wives have its way with me. Or, maybe, if I’m lucky, they’ll just kill me and raise me up once more, so that this can start again tomorrow. If I’m truly lucky, I’ll hurt or kill one of them before it’s over for tonight, but I can never tell if they stay dead. Wretched, accursed fucking elves.
• Is your seeming similar to your Keeper’s, or does it reflect your environment? Were you shaped for a specific purpose?
“Shaped” is far too kind a word - cut apart with sharp spears and thirsty arrows, run to ground and devoured by savage jaws; that is how I was made. Hunted and slaughtered and stitched back together again. Maybe they took pieces from the animals nearby and added them to me when a piece went missing, or they thought they might like it better than what was already there. I look nothing like them: all starlit eyes and skin of moonlight, or smoldering embers, or night-blue smoke, with hair that slithered like snakes of silk, and hands softer than newborns’ flesh and stronger than a bear’s bite. I was made to be sport and, when I chose otherwise, they changed the game to suit what I had become; what they had made of me.
Being Lost
• How did you escape? Did you have help?
Yes? Maybe? I don’t remember. I remember blood and fear, pain and panic. I remember the baying of their briar wolves at my heels. I remember some other faces - did I help them to escape, or did they help me? When I fell out of the Hedge, I was more animal than anything else, and my memories of that time are an animal’s memories: instincts and senses. I have no idea how I got away. All I can remember is the feeling of my teeth closing around a delicate throat, and the raw pleasure of it; and then running, as fast and as far as I could.
• Tell me about your Fetch. Are they alive? Dead? If they are alive, do they appear younger or older than you do? Are they happy? Does it matter?
I don’t know if I ever had a Fetch, and I don’t care. If there was anyone to miss me in this world, I wouldn’t know them if I saw them, and I wouldn’t be who they remembered. That boy is dead.
• Do you want your old life back? Why? Why not?
Did I ever have an “old life?” I don’t know. But to want what is dead is meaningless. Now, I am the Horned Hunter. I am Cerannen of the Furious Host. What could that sad little mortal child have been that compares to what I have become?
• How old do you appear to be? Younger or older than you should be?
Those of our kind that will speak to me of it say that I look young, though of the age of full manhood, and have not aged at all since my return. If I had to guess, I would say that I look far younger than I should, but I don’t know.
• What do you look like? What color is your hair? How do you dress? Do you have distinguishing marks? What does your seeming look like?
When my godly form is put away, I look like a man of the wild. My hair is the deep brown of woodland shadows, and I dress in what I can scavenge and in the skins of what I kill. I wear some scars, though those are common enough among the Lost. My godly shape - that of the Horned Hunter - is great and powerful: crowned with antlers, fanged and clawed. Sometimes, I paint myself with the old letters of power and the spirals of the ancient way, especially when there are elves to hunt.
• How do you react to changeling society? Are you looking to create a new life as a changeling? Do you wish to be “cured?” What are your current goals in life? Do you have a motley? A position in the local Freehold?
I don’t understand civilized ways and I have no use for them. Those that know the secret tongue of the hunt - of the chase and the sweet taste of the prey - make sense to me, and I invite them to share my fire. I have no need to “create” a life; I am what I must be. The Hunter is dead; the Hunter is reborn; the Hunter lives forever. Do I wish to be “cured” of my godhood? Are you mad? I don’t understand what you mean by “current goals”; I do as my nature demands. That is all I need. I have my Furious Host and I may join a motley of those that keep sacred the ancient laws, though they must understand that I have no roots and I wander as I will. I am not chained to kingdoms, and I bow to no master.
Pre-Kidnapping
• How old are you? What year were you born?
I don’t know, to both. Others of the Lost tell me that I’m in my twenties, maybe. As to when I was born, what few memories I have of this world show me nothing of all of these lights, machines, and stinking smoke. Does that help?
• Who were you before you were taken? Who did you want to be? What were your goals and fears? Describe your mortal life in as many details as you can.
I don’t know who I was; some mortal child, I suppose. He’s dead, now. Who cares what he wanted to be? Probably, he was afraid of the elves when they came for him. I think he was. I think they came for him more than once. That scared him more than he had words to tell, because they were interested in him.
• How old were you when your Keeper took you?
I was…I don’t know. I can’t remember. I was taken many times, and many times they let me go, only to take me again.
• Describe your kidnapping.
I can’t remember. I was too young. Some of the elves told me that I was born in Arcadia, but they must have been lying. I don’t know.
Across the Hedge
• How many days/month/years were you in Faerie in Earth time?
I don’t know. I remember growing up partly in this world and partly in that one, I think. Or maybe those were just dreams.
• How long were you in Faerie in Arcadia time?
What use do animals have for the counting of years? Long enough to grow to the age that I am now.
• Tell me about your Keeper. Who was s/he? Did he or she (or it?) treat you kindly? Cruelly? Capriciously? How did your Keeper interact with the other Fae?
If I had one Keeper, I could not tell you which of them it was. They all treated me the same. They would blast the horn and signal the hunt, and their hounds would be upon me, and then they followed, riding things that were meant to look like horses, but didn’t. They pierced me with arrows and spears, and then made me live again, so that the hunt could start over. If one of them claimed me, it never said so. Who knows? Maybe I killed it. That would please me.
• What about your time in Faerie? What were your days like? Were you a hunter or a servant? Maybe a court fool? Describe an average, nothing special sort of day.
I wake from a fitful sleep to the sound of the horn. I’m still tired; always tired, and hungry, and cold, and desperate. The anger is new, but I like it better than the others. I run, knowing that they’ll catch me, sooner or later. They’ll catch me, and run me through with their lances, and allow their hounds to feast on my flesh. And they’ll put me back together again with their elf-magic, and I’ll be a little less the man that couldn’t escape them, and a little more the Beast that can kill them. Maybe, before they finish with me tonight, they’ll nail me to a tree by my wrists and let their children torture me for sport. Or, maybe, they’ll let one of their wives have its way with me. Or, maybe, if I’m lucky, they’ll just kill me and raise me up once more, so that this can start again tomorrow. If I’m truly lucky, I’ll hurt or kill one of them before it’s over for tonight, but I can never tell if they stay dead. Wretched, accursed fucking elves.
• Is your seeming similar to your Keeper’s, or does it reflect your environment? Were you shaped for a specific purpose?
“Shaped” is far too kind a word - cut apart with sharp spears and thirsty arrows, run to ground and devoured by savage jaws; that is how I was made. Hunted and slaughtered and stitched back together again. Maybe they took pieces from the animals nearby and added them to me when a piece went missing, or they thought they might like it better than what was already there. I look nothing like them: all starlit eyes and skin of moonlight, or smoldering embers, or night-blue smoke, with hair that slithered like snakes of silk, and hands softer than newborns’ flesh and stronger than a bear’s bite. I was made to be sport and, when I chose otherwise, they changed the game to suit what I had become; what they had made of me.
Being Lost
• How did you escape? Did you have help?
Yes? Maybe? I don’t remember. I remember blood and fear, pain and panic. I remember the baying of their briar wolves at my heels. I remember some other faces - did I help them to escape, or did they help me? When I fell out of the Hedge, I was more animal than anything else, and my memories of that time are an animal’s memories: instincts and senses. I have no idea how I got away. All I can remember is the feeling of my teeth closing around a delicate throat, and the raw pleasure of it; and then running, as fast and as far as I could.
• Tell me about your Fetch. Are they alive? Dead? If they are alive, do they appear younger or older than you do? Are they happy? Does it matter?
I don’t know if I ever had a Fetch, and I don’t care. If there was anyone to miss me in this world, I wouldn’t know them if I saw them, and I wouldn’t be who they remembered. That boy is dead.
• Do you want your old life back? Why? Why not?
Did I ever have an “old life?” I don’t know. But to want what is dead is meaningless. Now, I am the Horned Hunter. I am Cerannen of the Furious Host. What could that sad little mortal child have been that compares to what I have become?
• How old do you appear to be? Younger or older than you should be?
Those of our kind that will speak to me of it say that I look young, though of the age of full manhood, and have not aged at all since my return. If I had to guess, I would say that I look far younger than I should, but I don’t know.
• What do you look like? What color is your hair? How do you dress? Do you have distinguishing marks? What does your seeming look like?
When my godly form is put away, I look like a man of the wild. My hair is the deep brown of woodland shadows, and I dress in what I can scavenge and in the skins of what I kill. I wear some scars, though those are common enough among the Lost. My godly shape - that of the Horned Hunter - is great and powerful: crowned with antlers, fanged and clawed. Sometimes, I paint myself with the old letters of power and the spirals of the ancient way, especially when there are elves to hunt.
• How do you react to changeling society? Are you looking to create a new life as a changeling? Do you wish to be “cured?” What are your current goals in life? Do you have a motley? A position in the local Freehold?
I don’t understand civilized ways and I have no use for them. Those that know the secret tongue of the hunt - of the chase and the sweet taste of the prey - make sense to me, and I invite them to share my fire. I have no need to “create” a life; I am what I must be. The Hunter is dead; the Hunter is reborn; the Hunter lives forever. Do I wish to be “cured” of my godhood? Are you mad? I don’t understand what you mean by “current goals”; I do as my nature demands. That is all I need. I have my Furious Host and I may join a motley of those that keep sacred the ancient laws, though they must understand that I have no roots and I wander as I will. I am not chained to kingdoms, and I bow to no master.