Nathalie Juneau

Name: Nathalie Juneau
Nickname: Thia
Title: The Gardener
Age:
Age apparent: 20
Gender: Female
Sexuality: Why define it?
Occupation:
Languages: French, Menominee, English

Seeming: Fairest
Kith: Shadowsoul
Court: Autumn
Keeper: Lady of Midnight and Shadow
Faction: Garten Flüchtlinge

Wyrd: 5
Glamour Pool:
Willpower:



Concept

The tender of the garden.  A dark fairy and infused with shadow in the image of the Lady.  Thia is like a flower child, into herbs and holistics to those who meet her, boho and earthy with a yoga mat over her shoulder.  A flower witch who cares for the other refugees of Mondlicht Garten, encouraging their growth or pruning them back, and keeping the weeds from causing them harm.


Appearance
Height: 5'0' (Women from centuries ago were petite)
Weight: 114 lbs
Eye Color: Green
Hair color: Shades of brown and blonde
Hair Style: Mid back, loose waves
Complexion: Olive
Body shape: Svelte
Clothing: Gypsy boho feel, long skirts etc.

Mien (Description): (Insert Description)

Mask (Description): (Insert Description)





Personality
Virtue:
Vice:

(Insert Description)



Your Story
Passions/Goals:

History
Nathalie Juneau was born in 1826, the second daughter and fifth child of Solomon and Josette Juneau.  Her parents were prominent fur traders in the southeastern Wisconsin territory--her grandfather on her mother's side, Jacques Vieau, had been trading with local Indians since 1795, when he opened a small post overlooking the Menomonee Valley in today's Mitchell Park.  Solomon had been his clerk.  Josette was his daughter with Madeline, an Indian of the Menominee tribe.

Her early years were spent running somewhat wild in rustic, pre-settled Wisconsin.  She grew up among traders, trappers, and Indians far away from civilization to the east in places like Ohio.  She spoke French and Menominee, not English, and lived in the swamp lands to the east of the Milwaukee River.  Her father's trading post, perched atop the first dependably dry ground above the mouth of the Milwaukee River at the present intersection of Water St. and Wisconsin Ave. was the busiest in the region, and there was no end to the strange visitors who frequented her father's business.

This wild state lasted until she was around ten.  The Juneau family's lives changed dramatically in the 1830s, when eastern speculators arrived with dreams of building a city on the swamp that covered central Milwaukee. Solomon quickly moved from furs to real estate as his stock in trade. He became the impresario of Milwaukee's east side, serving as promoter, postmaster and developer. Suddenly Thia was speaking English more often than French and, along with her pretty older sister, (name), was expected to behave as a proper young lady for the new "civilized" settlers.  Her mother demanded that she learn her histories, writing and penmanship, Latin and church teachings, and even mathematics.  She learned proper manners and her wild romps through the forests and swamps came suddenly to an end.

It was a few years later, as trading post grew into a large settlement on the shore of Lake Michigan, that Nathalie became aware of the person she would later identify as the Lady of Midnight and Shadow, though she knew nothing of that title at the time.  Appearing as a girl slightly her senior by a year or so, the Lady seemed for all intents and purposes the daughter of a wealthy settler of English descent, though years later Thia could never identify just which one.  In fact all the folks in the settlement simply accepted the young girl as part of the settlement and none ever wondered from where she had come or to whom she belonged.

As Thia and her older sister, (Name), grew into young ladies, a fierce but unspoken rivalry developed between them.  Her sister, who was two years older, was tall and pretty in a very traditional, proper way, and caught the eye of all the boys and young men in the settlement.  Nathalie was equally pretty, and might by today's standards be the more attractive of the two, she was pretty in a more exotic and striking way (her French and Indian heritage shown through more clearly), and didn't fit the 19th Century standards of beauty as much as did her older sister.  She was also slower to develop, being thin and spritely in form rather than full and voluptuous.  She often felt left out when the boys would pay significantly more attention to her sister than they did to her.

And so while the men competed for, and even fought over, the attention and affections of her sister, who received countless proposals for her hand by the time she was 16, Thia was often left to her own devices.  Which was why it was so easy for her to fall under the spell of the alluring older girl with no proper place in society.

The Lady of Midnight and Shadow, in her guise as young and wealthy English ingenue, was ubiquitous in society and took a backseat to no one.  She was daring, wild, fun, beautiful, exotic, charming, and turned every head in Juneautown, Kilborntown, and Walker's Point (the three settlements that would eventually merge to become Milwaukee).  She was always the center of attention.  She melted every heart.  Everyone wanted to make her acquaintance and become her bosom her friend.   And yet she only had eyes for Thia.

The two girls spent endless time together, away from the hustle and bustle of the growing settlement.  The Lady encouraged Nathalie to cast off the rules and traditions of "civilization," and they often fled the town, shedding their skirts and blouses and running free through the wilderness, the way Thia had done when she had been little.  The Lady taught Thia to dance wildly under the open sky, to hoot and howl like the animals, to kiss and touch in ways that brought exquisite pleasure.  Nathalie was smitten and fell for the Lady like a ripe plumb.

It was shortly after the Milwaukee Bridge War in 1845 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milwaukee_Bridge_War), when Juneautown, Kilborntown, and Walker's Point had decided to end their long rivalry and unite to become the City of Milwaukee, Nathalie's world was once again thrown upside down.  Her sister had just been married to a handsome and wealthy young suitor and was already pregnant with their first child, causing feelings of petty jealousy in Nathalie.  But worse than that, her mother and father had arranged a marriage for (name) as well.  She was to be wed to a powerful and wealthy tanner from Kilborntown.  The alliance would help solidify her father's political strength in the soon-to-be-united city, and yet Thia was appalled.  How could she give up her long and passionate affair with the beautiful Lady for a man as old as her father and who smelled so foul (the tanning process smells something awful) that she gagged and could not bear to go near him?

Once again, as she so often did, the Lady had the solution.  They would run away together to a place where no one could find them.  They would be together forever in an eternal garden where they could run under the stars and swim naked in the crystal clear pools.  They would dance and sing and make love among the glowing flowers of every hue and shade.  The Lady promised that her ancient family owned this garden, which resided in a distant land over which her people held dominion.  All Thia must do is promise to stay with her forever and help her tend the garden.

To this Nathalie readily agreed.  It was all she had ever wanted.

In the Garden
Mondlicht Garten was not all the Lady promised.  Not at first.  It was a place of darkness and moonlight, where the sun never dared show it's face.  The extensive gardens were overgrown with briars and weeds and crumbling edifices--as if the garden had been untended for decades or even centuries.  There was something beautiful about that unkempt place, to be sure, but also sinister. It was once a majestic garden, to be sure, but it was long ago forgotten.  In the absence of light and love, the dark, dangerous wilds had reclaimed it.

There were...things...in the garden. Monstrous things.  Horrible, shadowy things out of nightmare that flicked too and fro among the tangles or cried out in terror and pain.  The trees and plants had faces--contorted and frightened faces with empty eyes that saw but did not see.  And within the briars men and women with twisted bodies lay tangled among the thorns, unable to move or speak or do anything other than weep hopelessly as the vines subsumed them into the mass of vegetation.  They frightened Nathalie at first, and she realized that she had been brought to a place of nightmares.

But the Lady promised her otherwise.  She took Nathalie's hand and brushed back her hair and kissed her under that sinister moon that hung so low in the night sky.  The Lady promised that all would be well, and all that Nathalie must do is tend the Garden and return it to it's former glory.  It was a beautiful place once and it would be again under Nathalie's tender care.

The Lady showed Nathalie how to tend the Garden.  She showed her how to exert her will over the thorns.  Bestowed upon her the gift to beat them back and expose the wonders beneath and to shape the Garden to her will.  To free the men and women and the trees themselves from their organic prisons.  And though they were grateful, these mortal creatures twisted into miraculous trees and radiant flowers and then forgotten and covered in briars like the garden itself, they never seemed to regain their full faculties, and later when the Nathalie walked among them they ranted and raved of a time long ago when the Garden had been in it's full glory.

But the Lady of Midnight and Shadow hushed them and shooed them away.  And she whispered promises of beauty and passion and pleasure and a carefree life that would be theirs to share in the Lady's Mondlicht Garten.  And the Lady promised her power over all the things in the Garden save herself should Nathalie pledge to stay with her and tend the Garden.  And Nathalie again accepted. And in the beautiful clearing that Nathalie had cleared (for the Lady had not done anything and Nathalie had done it all) they made love.  And this time it was not just innocent touching.  For the first time in that clearing among the briars and brambles of the untended garden their passions knew no limits, and where the two young women lay the weeds pulled away and were instead replaced by wonderful flowers that glowed pale blue in the silvery light of the moon.

Nathalie worked diligently over the following years to reclaim the Garden for the Lady.  It was not easy work, but it was fulfilling.  She started in the small clearing where they had made love, clearing out the grove, uncovering fine sculptures and dazzling pools and meandering paths and returning them to their unblemished state so that she and the Lady might walk along the paths and admire the flowers and trees of the garden.  Then she moved on to an orchard where she might grow succulent goblin fruit to please the Lady, who loved to taste the sweet nectar and allow the juices to drip down her chin or to feed them to Nathalie and lick the juices from her lover's lips.  And then Nathalie uncovered a crystalline pool where she and the Lady might bathe under the silvery surface.  And so this went on until she had made a small paradise among the wild weeds all around.

The Lady did not help in this work, though she ordered strange creatures in the garden to give aid to Nathalie where she needed it. These creatures obeyed Nathalie and called her mistress.  In fact all the creatures obeyed the Lady's Gardener, though some more enthusiastically than others.  And Nathalie took control and put those of them who were capable to work (many were flighty things that were of no use, or nasty things that caused more harm than good, but there were some among them that were indeed useful) tending the garden and keeping the weeds at bay and the paths and pools in good condition.

The Lady would come to the Garden every day (if one could consider a sunless garden to have a thing as a day) to frolic and play.  She would pull Nathalie away from her work, and Nathalie would show her all that had been done. The Lady would look in wonderment as the Garden took shape, eat the goblin fruits and drink the fermented juices and sing and dance and kiss Nathalie and make love to her.  She was always quick to praise, frivolous and playful and fun...just like she was in the mortal realm.  The Lady would bring Nathalie wonderful presents from all over the world and Faerie--exotic foods and wonderful spices and new perfumes and fancy baubles and jewelry and pretty clothing. But she never really got her hands dirty with the work of clearing the garden.

Over time Nathalie began to change.  Slowly and surely she became one with the Garden itself.  Her skin grew pale and her hair took on the properties of shadow and night.  She became more spritely, such that her features started to resemble the Lady's, and they became a pair--a matching set.  Nathalie's fear of the garden left her once and for all and she found that she was equally comfortable flitting among the shadows or walking openly and proudly down the emerging paths.

Where the Lady was a frequent visitor to the Garden and a common sight among it's groves and pools, however, she always in the end returned to the manor at it's heart. Nathalie became the true mistress of the Garden--its tender mother, it's caretaker and protector, and the lady of darkness who was the true heart of the garden.  She could shape the garden to her will, creating new groves or paths or pools as she saw fit or letting the dark wild places reclaim parts she no longer enjoyed.  The creatures of the garden--those born in Faerie --learned to both love and fear her, for she possessed power there unlike any save the Lady, and she would wield it for good or ill depending her mood and the disposition of others. To get on Nathalie's bad side could be very, very bad.

The Lady was a fickle creature.  She was easily infatuated with new, pretty things.  One day the Lady lured another young woman--the woman who would later become Bethany Gale--to the garden.  It was a lark to the Lady to lure the ripe young creature there--she giggled and danced and so intoxicated the young thing that the poor girl forgot herself and gave herself wholly to the Lady.  Though she felt the first pangs of jealousy, Nathalie, too, was enamored of this new toy--it was the first time she had laid eyes on another mortal who was not twisted by Faerie and forgotten by the Lady in...well, she had no idea how long it had been.  In this new blush of desire, drunken on the seductive power of the Lady, Nathalie joined in their games and their sensual play.

But a short time later the Lady lost interest in Bethany, as she was won't to do.  She left her alone and forgotten in the garden, lost and alone.  Nathalie...(this section to be filled in later after discussions with Bethany).

For all her power, Nathalie could never capture the beauty of those twisted mortals who had been brought to the Garden long ago and changed into the flowers and trees and other living things.  They remained the most wondrous and radiant beings in the Garden, even in their broken states.  But Bethany...she had that beauty, even as she became a part of the garden--a cool breeze that danced and flitted and tossed the leaves from trees or blew Nathalie's hair about as she wandered through her garden.  There was a vibrancy there, or maybe a creative energy, that the things of the Garden could not achieve on their own. But where Bethany interacted with the Garden the whole thing came alive. (It should be noted that this would also have been true of Nathalie...it has to do with the idea that mortals add vibrancy to the Garden while things natural to it do not...at least not on their own).

The Lady noticed this as well, and so she began to bring mortals to the Garden to fill it and make it truly come alive.  They made everything Nathalie did that much more real, that much more fantastic, that much more radiant and beautiful.  It was difficult not to get caught up in the wonder the garden became once it was filled with revelers and merrymakers, with wondrous sentient trees and perfume scented flowerings, of nymphs and dryads who danced naked to the songs and flutes of the satyrs.  It was a pleasure to swim with the naiads and nixies or to wax philosophical with the clever wizened.  And if the Lady placed darker things on the edges where Nathalie had not yet reclaimed the garden, then that somehow made the garden greater yet, for there was an element of danger that had been before absent, and it was that spark of the unknown and hint that there was danger that made life in the garden even more vibrant.

Nathalie realized that it had been lonely in the Garden without others.  The Lady was as intoxicating as ever, but she was not enough.  She did not possess every quality that Nathalie required.  And so, though she had at times reservations about bringing stealing more and more mortals for the garden, she embraced them and made them one with the Garden.  They figured into her every plan, and with them she made the garden more than it had perhaps ever been before.  As Gardener she watched over them, kept them safe, made them comfortable.  She was strict with them when necessary, but quick to forgive when they were remorseful.  Like the creatures of Faerie before them, many of these mortals came to both love and fear the Gardener.  They loved her because she was human, though maybe not as she had once been.  And they feared her because she had power over them all.

From among these mortals there were many whom the Lady took for herself.  A pretty young boy, a succulent girl, she did not care so long as he or she had a glimmer and a spark and a beauty--the Lady was easily infatuated.  They were her playthings, and to claim them for a night of passion was no different to the Lady than asking them for the next dance or walking in the next glade or tasting the next juicy piece of fruit.

Sometimes she brought Thia in to it.  It was something they might share.  But even though Nathalie partook in this particular pleasure with the Lady--the blush of passion was hard to resist in the garden where morality and restraint were so rare that they were alien concepts--there was seldom a case where the pangs of jealousy did not strike her when she caught the Lady with another.  And though the Lady would always return to Nathalie in the end, often at the expense of her poor forgotten toy, whom the Lady would abandon to wander in the woods without so much as a word, Nathalie found herself hurt and upset more often than she cared to admit.  She would hide this from the Lady and from the others, though she found the comforting arms of one of her flock would at least assuage the pain for a while.


Escape and Post Garden






Relationships
Family:
Friends:
Co-Workers:
Lovers:
Enemies/Rivals:
Other PCs:


Pledges
Vows:
Oaths:
Corporals:



Attribute Merits (Positive Traits)

• I am very nimble and dexterous (x2).
  
• I am mentally tough and can persevere through difficult circumstances.
  
• My beauty and radiance knows no equal (x3).
  
• I am alluring and sexual; few can resist my charms (x2).
  
• I have a sharp mind and am particularly astute.
  
• I am unflappable.

Attribute Flaws (Negative Traits)

• Though I am compassionate, I can come across as uncaring and cold.
  
• I am slow to warm up to new people and can seem distant.

Skill Merits

• I have a green thumb and am a practiced gardener.
  
• I know the practical uses of magical and non-magical plants and herbs; I can use them to brew potions and elixirs from poisons to medicines, and everything in between (x3)
  
• I know the ways of the Fae and am a practiced witch of fae magic (x2).
  
  
  
• I am talented with a blade in my hand.
  
• I am deadly with a bow.
  
• Like my mistress I am a creature of shadow and darkness; I can move silently and disappear into the night.
  
• I was raised among trappers and fur traders and spent more than a lifetime learning the ways of the wild; I am capable of surviving in the wilderness without much trouble.
  
  
  
• I possess a strong empathy for others and an understanding of their feelings and emotional states.
  
• I was taught the finer points of etiquette when I was a girl.
  
• I can be quite intimidating, and I back up my words.  Do not cross me.
  
• I know how to get what I want through persuasion and seduction.
  
• I am cunning, crafty and subtle, and usually know when others are as well.

Skill Flaws

• Science and technology, including computers and other modern gadgets, are foreign to me (x2).
  
• I cannot drive a car.
  
• Without my blade you have me at a disadvantage.
  
• I am unfamiliar with the functioning or basic use of modern day firearms.
  
• I am ignorant of the underworld culture of today and lack street smarts.

Background Merits:

• I am a Witch of Autumn
  
• I created the Garden Hollow out of the Hedge and opened it up to all under my protection.
  
• I own a rare books store that provides me a steady income; as such I also own a nice house on Milwaukee's East Side.
  
• I have a source of Glamour that is readily available to me (TBD).

Background Flaws:

Rare Abilities:

• I am supernaturally beautiful.
  
• Long of Days - I do not age...not noticeably at least.
  
• I can mix magical potions and elixirs, from poisons to healing potions, from ingredients I recover from the Hedge.
  
• The people who frequent my shop--my regular customers--are smitten by my potent nature.  There are half a dozen damaged individuals who worship me and will obey my every wish.
  
• I carry the imprint of the Lady on my person and as such have a Gentrified Bearing.  As such Hobgoblins and even True Fae may mistake me for one of the True Fae.  Hobgoblins will act deferential or avoid me while they believe I am more than I am.  True Fae will only be fooled at a distance or only for a few moments before they realize the truth.

Seeming and Kith Abilities
Blessings:
Fairest of them all (Fairest) - The changeling may spend Glamour to make herself supernaturally beautiful, charming, and alluring.
Unnatural Chill (Shadowsoul) - The changeling may spend Glamour to imporve her ability to intimidate or trick, and she can purchase Contracts of Darkness as if she were a Darkling.

Curses: Callous and Unfeeling - The Changeling has a more difficult time maintaining her Clarity.


Frailties:

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Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)

• Bane of consecrated earth
  
• Cannot wear gold  jewelry
  
• Injured by virgin’s blood

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Contracts

Darkness
Creeping Dread (o)
Night's Subtle Distractions (oo)

Smoke
The Wrong Foot (o)
Nevertread (oo)
Shadowpatch (ooo)

Spellbound Autumn
Warlock's Gaze (o)
Barrow-Whisper (oo)
Smith's Wisdom (ooo)
Arcadian Commandment (oooo)

Vainglory
Mask Of Superiority (o)
Songs Of Distant Arcadia (oo)
Splendor Of The Envoy's Protection (ooo)
Mantle Of Terrible Beauty (oooo)
Words Of Memories Never Lived (ooooo)