C'est pas vrai.
Samedi, 16h. Le coin de Williamsburg et Bushwick, Brooklyn
Pourquoi je fais ça? Pourquoi je fais ça? C'est une décision stupide et idiote. Et si c'était un piège? Ok, eh bien, les chances qu'il soit un piège de mon vieux 'playmate' pour me ramener sont minces. Après tout, il n'est pas assez intelligent pour écrire et semble un peu trop antisocial pour que les gens le fassent pour lui. Les chances qu'il soit... assez bas. Mais c'est toujours une décision stupide et je... pourquoi suis-je encore là?
D'habitude, Robin était plus intelligent que ça... honnête. En fait, après avoir reçu l'invitation mystérieuse la suivre jusqu'à ce qu'elle l'ait finalement récupérée... elle allait d'abord l'ignorer. Arrosez-le et brûlez-le juste pour être en sécurité. Et elle était bien sur ce chemin, en prévoyant de le faire dès qu'elle est rentrée de son déjeuner hebdomadaire avec une de ses seules amies. (Elle l'avait même pris avec elle pour ne pas oublier.) Sa seule amie étant une gentille femme plus âgée à la fin des années 50 nommée Landis. Certains ont trouvé bizarre qu'elle passe du temps avec la femme aînée mais, personnellement, Robin se sente à la maison avec elle.
Elle s'était habillée et était en route pour le petit café où ils se sont rencontrés. Cependant, ce n'est qu'en marchant qu'elle s'est souvenue pourquoi la région environnante l'a tellement frappé... C'est le même domaine général que l'invitation l'avait invitée. Contre sa volonté, elle s'est retrouvée en marchant dans la direction de l'ordre donné par la note. Coin de Williamsburg et Bushwick, la lettre avait dit pour les directions.
Elle connaissait New York comme le dos de sa main après de nombreuses nuits sans sommeil, errant dans la ville sans aucune direction générale à l'esprit.
Tout le chemin qu'elle continuait à se demander pourquoi elle faisait ça. Bien sûr, ce n'est peut-être pas son ravisseur. Mais ça pourrait l'être. Et si ce n'est pas lui, alors ça pourrait être un autre fae qui l'amène à sa mort. Ou peut-être une autre menace surnaturelle, elle était assez ouverte d'esprit de nos jours. De toute façon, c'était idiot d'elle. Et même si elle était imprudente, elle n'était pas idiote. Alors... à quoi pensait-elle?
La seule réponse qu'elle pouvait trouver était la curiosité et peut-être une sorte d'espoir. Qui sait, peut-être que ce sera quelque chose de bon? Bien sûr, c'est douteux et elle sait que sa mère la réprimanderait pour avoir des pensées aussi irréalistes. Mais elle n'a pas pu s'en empêcher. Elle savait qu'elle regretterait de ne jamais aller à l'adresse. Ne jamais voir ce que c'était pour elle.
Donc, c'est à cause de ces pensées qu'elle a fini là où elle était maintenant... debout devant cet entrepôt à l'air sournois. Élevant un sourcil, Robin regarda autour d'elle. Elle s'attendait à être sur une de ces horribles émissions de télévision qu'elle se souvenait de certains de ses collègues au travail qui discutaient. Elle ne se souvenait pas des détails, mais tout ça ressemblait à ce qu'ils avaient dit. Mais, la rotation dans son estomac était la preuve qu'elle ne croyait pas à cette idée.
Individuellement craquant ses doigts pour essayer de se détendre, elle a pêché son téléphone à partir de l'une des nombreuses poches sur sa jupe. Prenant un moment, elle s'est faufilée avec l'appareil assez embarrassante alors avant qu'elle n'arrive à envoyer un texto à Landis. Elle s'est parfois sentie un peu bête à savoir qu'une femme de 50 ans était plus capable avec la technologie qu'elle l'était. Mais elle se rappellerait à quel point elle a vraiment l'âge et se donnerait de la clémence.
Désolé Landis, j'ai peur de devoir annuler notre déjeuner. Pardonnez-moi, j'espère que nous nous réconcilierons plus tard. Désolé encore une fois.
S'il vous plaît, elle a remis le téléphone dans sa poche avant de regarder en arrière à l'entrepôt. Respirant profondément, Robin tenta mentalement d'ébranler toute crainte et de susciter cette confiance. En ouvrant les yeux, elle s'est hurlée avant de marcher vers la porte. Bref hésitant, la femme a ouvert la porte...
... et j'ai failli m'évanouir.
Il y avait... un homme exceptionnellement grand avec la chair noircie qui pourrait être ce que Robin imaginait un géant carbonisé à ressembler... si elle l'avait imaginé pour quelque raison que ce soit. Le feu était clairement une sorte de connexion et... c'était horrible sinon quelque peu fascinant dans une très petite partie de son cerveau fourré dans un placard.
Alors... une femme verte. La première chose à laquelle Robin pensait, c'était les plantes. Des motifs de vigne dans sa peau jusqu'au cadre mince. Elle a eu un flash d'elle-même travaillant sur son propre jardin des années avant. Il y avait une douleur dans sa poitrine qui lui a fait toucher les doigts. Elle a vite évité son regard.
Puis, il y avait ce... demi-bête et demi-homme. Et une queue. Une vraie queue. Il lui a rappelé un Satyr pour être honnête et elle a senti que la curiosité agaçante poke c'est la tête dehors tout... curieux. Elle a dû la remettre mentalement dans l'armoire pour celle-ci. Il semblait... un peu effrayé... compréhensiblement donc si sa théorie est correcte. Mais elle y arrivera assez tôt.
Enfin, il y avait un aussi grand (Est-ce que tout le monde était plus grand qu'elle? Honnêtement, avec ces talons, elle a environ 5'5. Même à ce moment-là, elle est naïve à propos de tout le monde ici. Sans eux? Oh, imaginez si elle avait porté des appartements.) l'homme qui semblait être l'un des plus terrifiants. Il lui a presque rappelé cette créature d'une histoire dont l'un de ses collègues lui avait parlé. Quelqu'un a appelé... un homme mince? Tallman? - Oui. Quelque chose comme ça. Et après avoir vu une photo... oui, cette description a bien fonctionné. Bien sûr, avec des griffes très pointues et des yeux réels... noirs sans fin, mais quand même.
En réussissant d'une manière ou d'une autre à lui enlever les yeux, elle s'est déplacée vers la gauche tout en s'en tenant au mur. Il y avait six chaises avec des morceaux de papier sur eux. L'un des autres, l'homme mince, était assis dans l'un d'eux. Je suppose que c'est une séance de thérapie ou quelque chose de similaire? Je crois que j'ai vu ça dans un film... mais qu'est-ce que c'était? Poussant sa mémoire défaillante sur le côté, elle regarda le mur gauche vers... un mur de miroirs.
Contre son gré, elle a été mise en face d'elle... du vrai moi. Elle a vu sa peau fissurée et l'apparence de porcelaine avec une fronce avant de regarder rapidement loin. Consolante, elle a pensé un peu sarcastique avant de regarder les autres. Peut-être qu'ils étaient... comme elle?
"L'intrigue s'épaissit..." Elle bourdonnait, le pouce se jouait mal avec sa bague alors qu'elle se tenait sur le côté.
Name: Robin Pearman
Age: Born in 1958. They physically look 26.
Gender: Female
Seeming: Elemental
Court: Courtless
Appearance:
Mask: Light brown skin with a beauty mark underneath her right eye. Big chocolate brown eyes framed by thick and dark lashes. A smaller nose that narrows to a point. Thick and arched eyebrows with smaller lips that look to be constantly quirked to the left, giving the impression of a smirk. There is a dimple on that cheek with high cheekbones. She's short at 5'3 with a slightly disproportionate frame, more pearshaped. She has long and curly dark brown hair with light brown and blonde natural highlights scattered throughout that falls to her elbows. She typically wears long skirts or dresses. Maybe even the odd shorts here and there. Usually with crop tops or with tunics, maybe the odd flannel. Always with a single ring on her ring finger.
Mien: She looks very similar to human form apart from a few key features. Her skin becomes hardened like one of those antique glass dolls you'd see. Her eyes glaze over and turn into a milky shade, lifeless. There are cracks littered all over her skin, a few pieces missing revealing black emptiness. She shrinks down to 5 feet even, not too far down from her usual height.
History: Robin's previous life is a blur, small details missing. She came to the U.S with her parents from Mexico when she was a little girl. They bought some house somewhere in a rural town, small in numbers, very close-knit. When she was older, she met a man. His name is lost to her, but she remembers them falling in love. It was something... epic. They got married and moved in with each other a few years after their first meeting. She remembered being... happy. She'd never been the most... sought after girl with her accent and dislike for most 'normal' girl things. He was the first guy to show any interest in her.
They were happy together. Less than a year after their marriage, she gave birth to her first child. A baby girl. Her name was... Alice. She remembered that. Then, 2 years later, twin boys by the names of James and David. She's unsure as to why she remembers her children's names and not her husband's but... Robin prefers to not think of it. She stayed at home while he was a... doctor? Or maybe a businessman. One of the two. While it may seem like a bland or boring existence... she was genuinely happy. She never wanted it to change... but she wouldn't be known to you if that was it, ya know?
Her capture was... another blur at first. But, she dreamt of it every night so she was quite familiar with it. She was at home, making dinner. Her husband was to be home soon and she wanted to surprise him, it being their anniversary. The kids were upstairs doing... something. Apparently, there was a rumor going around their school that if they said this... thing and did a ritual, they'd be able to have good luck. Them being kids, they saw nothing wrong with it and believed it to be true. So, they cut open one of Alice's old dolls and put a strand of their hair into it before taping it shut. They said... something. She didn't know what. And it didn't give them good luck but it did something.
Robin heard their screams and had ran upstairs. Bursting into the older sibling's room where they were, she saw this... creature. It was... tall and lanky... horribly disfigured. It was as if it's face had been melted, all of the features mixing together. It held her squirming children in it's hands, trying to stuff them into a sack, some kind of portal behind it. She didn't think. She didn't hesitate. She threw one of the books from the bookcase at it, and kept throwing. Apparently, she caught his attention and kept it. Setting the children down, it went for her. She fought back best she could but she was no match for it. With her children crying and screaming for her and the sound of it laughing, it all went to black when she finally shoved into the sack.
Everything after that was... hell. She was trapped inside a doll. The creature that took her was apparently a collector. It collected everything from dolls, to carvings, to even silverware. It looked shiny. Robin was it's favorite doll to play with. But, the doll she was inside of was one of those antique glass dolls. You know, the ones that your grandparents told you to be careful with because if you dropped it, you could crack it. Yeah, one of those. Those dolls were never meant to be played with, usually just kept for the decor. But, it didn't care. It would have tea parties with her, run around and play with her, have fights with her against other dolls (Those were the worst. She had a feeling she wasn't the only soul inside of a doll, it filled her with the disturbing mix of pity and relief at not being alone.), and he would sleep with her. She was the favorite, she could never figure out why.
Actually, no. The fights weren't the worst... his tantrums were. He was apparently more childish then you'd think. He'd storm into his hidden home where she was kept, so angry. She never figured out why he was so angry all the time. Hell, it took years before she realized that 'it' was a 'he'. Process of elimination, really. He'd come in angry and would start breaking stuff. His rage was... horrifying. She always took the brunt of it, being thrown around so much that it was a miracle the whole thing didn't shatter. But, by the time she left, the doll had many pieces missing and many cracks scattered all over. It came to reflect how her Mien form would look. And don't think that just because she was a doll, she felt nothing. No, she felt it all. And it was... agony. And it never ended. The same routine over and over again for what felt like centuries... before she escaped.
Now she would be let out of the doll every once in a while, usually to clean herself up and maybe eat. She could go a long time without eating there and she didn't need to clean herself as often. But whenever she started to smell, he would take her out of the doll to clean her. It was demeaning and disgusting, feeling his lumpy hands on her own skin. But, she dealt with it because she never knew when she'd ever be let go again or if he'd throw a fit and up killing her the next day. It just so happened that on the day he was letting her out to feed her, he'd left the door unlocked by mistake. She didn't hesitate, she couldn't. She ran. She ran out of the door and ran down the stairs, he was none the wiser. Her legs hadn't been used in a long time and she kept stumbling and falling, but she didn't stop. Even as rocks and sharp objects bit into her feet, cracking them, she didn't stop. She'd memorized the path back to the hedge to reach home. He'd taken her down this path many a time for walks and strolls whenever he walked his possessions. And it wasn't until as she was leaving that she realized she never knew it's name... and she didn't care.
Reaching the mortal relm, she was naked, cold, dirty, and starving. She'd appeared in the same place she was taken... her older daughter Alice's room. However, it was empty. Moving quietly, she searched for any sign of her family and... nothing. It was as if they were never there... there was a new couple living there if the pictures were anything to go by. Stepping outside, there were all these things that she never knew about. Unfamiliar and horrifying. She ran... again. She'd managed to change into human form and had stolen some clothes, doing her best to get to New York in this unfamiliar world. Her parents had told her that, if she needed them, to come to New York and she would be welcomed.
She made it there a few weeks later after hitching a ride from a few people and managing to steal some money in order to pay for a flight to New York. She did some... not so good things. Making it there, she searched for her parents the best she could, going to the address she'd repeated in her head like a mantra during her time in captivity. She'd always wanted to believe she'd escape, after all. However, she was horrified to find out that she was already there. Or, at the very least, someone who looked like her. She'd banged on the door, pleading for them to recognize that it was her. But, her family thought that she was some crazy woman trying to hurt them while they were having a nice dinner to celebrate her daughter Alice's engagement.
She was chased away with threat of a shotgun to the face and she had to leave. She realized she was on her own and used her remaining money to buy a small apartment in the shady side of New York. She got a job as a waitress at some kind of lounge. That's all she'd been doing, working and sleeping with little in between. She lives as comfortably as she can considering she's constantly looking over her shoulder and has no family and friends. The only reason she got the job was because the owner found her attractive and has been trying to get into her pants ever since. She gets paid well enough and can afford to go out and buy stuff but she doesn't. She saves her money and doesn't do anything that could draw attention to herself. (As far as she knows.) It's not the best life or even a really good one. But, she's alive and away from him. She'll take what she can get.
Personality: Prior to her capture, Robin was a confident girl. Sure, for the time period she was a bit of an oddity. Willing to stand up for herself and being anything but a submissive. However, these character traits only mutated when she was captured and let go. Her confidence turned a recklessness. Sure, she didn't want to get caught by any fae ever again. However, with other humans? She's no longer really scared of anything that's not fae or supernatural related. She is bluntly honest and has this feisty temper that developed after being unable to speak for herself for what felt like hundreds of years. Her ire for anything submissive turned her into a control freak. She despises being unable to control everything about her life. From what she wears to what she eats. If she wants to do something, even if on a whim, she'll do it. When she was a doll, she was never able to do even the most simple of things like feed herself or bathe herself. This will be different. She'll never let anyone control her ever again.
She's also anything but loud. At least, as long as you don't make her angry. She's not quiet to the point where she is afraid to speak or would be more likely to curl into herself then approach someone. Nothing like that. It's just that she's more of an observer. Being in a doll, whenever you weren't played with, you were forced to just sit on a shelf and stare. Just watch what was going on around you. Sure, it was boring. But, doing that made you observant and made you notice even the tiniest things. Robin just naturally falls back into that quiet state and just watches everything. It makes her great at noticing small details and ticks about people. She may come across as uncaring, aloof, or even crazy considering her being rash and being incapable of not thinking through decisions that don't involve fae. But, she is one of the most caring people you'll ever meet. She was a mother of three, don't forget that. Caring for others is embedded in her DNA. No matter how much she may try and fight those instincts, if she sees injustice or cruelty, she will act.
Skills: She is good at lying and sucking up to people, able to usually get what she wants from people. This comes from her having to lie to her captor in order to get extra time outside the doll or just to eat on her own. She's good at negotiations and sweet-talking, what can she say?
She's also a pretty great cook and, interestingly enough, she's a great dancer. Her husband and she used to go dancing every weekend either by themselves or with friends. She's, uh, good with random trivia and her skills with guitar are pretty good. Childhood and all that, even if she doesn't remember exactly how this happened.
Supernatural Powers: She has the ability to speak to dolls, able to communicate with them and have them talk back. She can just make small talk with them or ask them to keep an eye out for people or ask them if they'd seen others.
She also has a slight sensitivity to magic, mostly just enough to feel if it's near. She'd been exposed to a lot of it during her time in captivity.
Robin, if need be, can control dolls. Some dolls are empty, with no voices inside of them or life whatsoever. Those are the dolls she can control. Using her thoughts, she can have them do whatever she wants. Whether it be grab something, make something, or even fight someone if need be. But, those kinda dolls are hard to fine.
She can also turn into a doll that looks just like her, useful if she needs to heal. However, break and destroy the doll... destroy her.
Weaknesses: Due to her desire for control, she has a habit of not thinking things through. Sometimes taking really risky actions just because she wants to. Unless, of course, it involves the fae. She has an almost paralytic fear of the fae, afraid that if she gets caught she'll be sent back into the doll and to her cruel captor.
She is also claustrophobic with a fear of cramped and dark spaces. She is also allergic to blueberries and has this irrational fear of technology. Hmm, it might not be best described as a fear. More of an annoyance with technology considering she's not good with it and anything even somewhat advanced has a tendency to... malfunction.
Possessions: Apart from some of the obvious items, 3 of those that standout are.
1. Her wedding ring, she has never taken it off even when she was trapped inside a doll.
2. When she was escaping, she grabbed a large black overcoat to cover herself with. It was all she wore when she escaped and when she arrived in the human world. She didn't wear it since then, keeping it only as a souvenir to remember that she escaped. However, she does sense this strange magical energy from it. She'd assumed it was because of where it was from but... she's not sure.
3. An acoustic guitar she'd bought. It was one of the only things she'd bought for entertainment apart from books... she has a lot of them. It was something she bought on a whim and doesn't play it often. But, it feels like a connection to her past so... she doesn't get rid of it.
Other:
A quirk: She has an obsession with animals. Like, it doesn't matter the species or whatever. If she sees a dog, or a cat, or a lion, she wants to pet it.
Favorite Food: Tacos. Tacos are awesome.
Theme Song: Hmm... Control by Halsey.
Whatever: The movie Jumanji is awesome.