Backstory

Faeryn and their family are from St. Perdita's Circle. Their older sister, Llewellyn, started her durance when Faeryn was 13, and Faeryn hasn't seen her since. They got letters from her occasionally until they began their durance at 16.

Durance

Faeryn's parents knew that Faeryn stood a chance of being conscripted into the army or being sent to the works — both situations that would likely end in Faeryn's death. So their parents scraped together enough money to bribe the guards who collected Faeryn to hold them back long enough that they could dodge the most lethal assignments. Instead, Faeryn caught the eye of Leaves-That-Sing, a wealthy Aelfir who had originally been looking for a new administrative assistant. Leaves saw another use for Faeryn. He decided to turn Faeryn into a living work of art by decorating them with scarifications. Faeryn's first scarification was excruciating, so for subsequent pieces, they were kept high on Ivory.

For the first few months of their durance, everything went fine. They were given a fair amount of autonomy. They were sent on minor errands, and occasionally given small amounts of money to buy themselves things. They were obedient when Leaves would take them to social events to show off his art.

At one of these events, they met Kovach and his master. Kovach's master tried to woo Leaves to climb the social ladder, and Faeryn accompanied Leaves to the dueling rings. While there, they overheard some interesting tidbits about Kovach before they were left alone with Kovach. The two barely spoke. Despite Kovach's attempts to chat, Faeryn was ordered to remain silent. They only gave Kovach curt replies, attempting to wrap the conversation up quickly. He didn't get the hint.

One day, while Faeryn was running errands for Leaves, they found an entrance to the Vermissian. They didn't think anything of it until they had to undergo a particularly painful scarification on their chest. When they were recovering, they resolved to try and run away.

They took off in the middle of the night and hid in the Vermissian. They spent their first night in the abandoned tunnels before traveling down the line, trying to make their way down Spire. They didn't have much of a plan and had barely prepared. Leaves' private security tracked them down on the second day they were gone. If word got out that he had lost his pet, he would have never heard the end of the scandal.

When they were returned, Faeryn was told in no uncertain terms what Leaves could have done to them. Had Faeryn been gone for much longer, Leaves would have pulled some strings to have Faeryn legally declared dead. And when a living person is declared legally dead in Spire, the error is swiftly and brutally corrected.

After that, Faeryn lost a lot of their limited autonomy. They weren't allowed out of the house unsupervised and were often kept leashed in public. Leaves also started training Faeryn to follow basic commands: Come, Sit, Freeze, Silence, and Leave. Faeryn has become so conditioned to follow his commands that if they are ever unable to follow a command, they will panic.

About six months later, the public exhibitions began. The first time Faeryn was branded in public, they were strapped to a table, drugged with sulfur, and had the soles of their feet branded. Sulfur makes the user enjoy receiving pain and cruelty, and Faeryn loved the experience. That was when Faeryn began to buy into the art project. Word of Leave's project got around, and Faeryn was publicly exhibited increasingly often.

At the beginning of the last year of their durance, Leaves allowed Faeryn to choose one of the designs for their scarification. In a departure from the rest of their geometric pieces, they picked a floral design to be carved into their arm.

At the end of their durance, Leaves offered to continue their employment. He would pay them a small stipend to continue being his art project, so long as they were available when he requested them. Faeryn took the deal because they needed the money and wanted to get some autonomy back. They didn't realize that Leaves saw this as a way of extending his control over them. Faeryn was kept just busy enough that they were unable to find other work, and they were never given enough money to work towards financial independence.

Adulthood

Faeryn spent the first night after their durance in the Vermissian, the only place they'd been able to get any reprieve from Leaves in years. Shortly after, Faeryn ran into the Vermissian sages and began studying under them.

Faeryn continued to use Ivory after leaving Leaves, to deal with the anxiety of being out in the world for the first time. As part of his vigilante justice, Kovach killed Faeryn's dealer, prompting Faeryn to track Kovach down and buy the Ivory Kovach had found. Kovach and Faeryn became acquaintances after that. Faeryn would tell Kovach about their research, and when they were describing the evidence of a shadow government conspiracy they had found, Kovach pointed them toward the ministry.

Faeryn was contacted by the ministry shortly after and studied under a sage named Cas. They're still new to the ministry, and it's only been a year since their durance ended.

Faeryn has been doing their best to cling to the validation from their durance. They've done a decent job convincing themselves that they aren't bothered by it, but now and then, the facade cracks. Faeryn will show people their scars if they think they'll get validation for them, to help sell themselves on the narrative that what happened to them wasn't traumatic.