Fayre
Hummingfly
- Created
- 2 years, 10 months ago
- Creator
- Hummingfly
- Favorites
- 7
Profile
Overview
[There are rumors of a strange creature living in the woods, one that steals your face and warps reality around it - there are some that say it can even erase your memories, though if that were true where would the rumors originate...]
Hailing from the Mirror World, Fayre has made their home in the various wild biomes of the prime plane. An avid appreciator of natural splendor, they spend their days wandering the woods looking at clouds and overturning rocks to see what hides underneath. Perfectly content with their own solitary life, stumbling upon them is a rare feat, and them choosing to stumble upon you even more so.
Traits
- Acid-trip Wings
- Permanent 0.0 Face
- Can stare at snails for 78 hours straight
Likes
- Exploring nature
- Picking up rocks
- Staring at snails for 78 hours straight
Stats
A Mask of a Million and No Faces
One of Fayre's most iconic attributes is their strange reflective mask, which they use to reflect and mimic the expressions of anyone who gets close enough to engage in conversation with them. While many chalk this fashion choice up as an oddity, the truth is that Fayre's one-way mask was designed as an aide for their natural lack of expression. Indeed, Fayre's face is permanently stuck in a resting 0.0 expression, a static constant that doesn't even make exceptions for something like blinking. Being raised by similarly static broom-hatters this wasn't anything Fayre has ever felt self-conscious about, but once they set out on their own they picked up the mask as a way to come off as a bit less unnerving to others (not fully realizing a mask that reflects your own face back at you with a different expression than the one you're wearing is also deeply unsettling).
Premature Reflection >
When the broom hatters first found a baby puffball face-down on the ground, they naturally assumed the child's lack of expression was probably due to some form of paralysis tied to the impact crater they'd found them in. While not a bad guess, the answer turned out to be stranger, because rather than being a typical puffball child that had fallen from the cosmos, they were actually a bizarrely-young mirror clone. It turns out that Fayre's prime-counterpart had indeed fallen from the sky, and in fact had fallen right onto a cloud holding up a dimensional mirror. Wasting no time, the infant had peeked into the mirror before running right through it, triggering the creation of a new being on the other side. However, while the dimensional mirror normally has a surplus of past reflections to pull from when creating a copy, faces reflected in raindrops and windows and beyond, in this instance the one and only reflection that had ever been made was the wide-eyed stare of a child. Thus Fayre was born somewhat 'premature', a mirror double made up of only a single reflection, locked forever into that initial blank expression of childish wonder. (Right after that is when they fell off the cloud holding the mirror up and into that crater).
A Feathered Migrane
When Fayre got their wings no one really knew what to make of them, both because Fayre was alone at the time hibernating in a tree and also because anyone they tried to ask about it later tended to keel over foaming at the mouth. It turns out when the Amazing Mirror doesn't have any valid data to reflect when making a double, things can get a little Odd. It was through this magic of the enchanted randomizer button Fayre has wound up with a set of oddly insectoid-looking feathered wings that while beautiful, also are constantly emitting a stunning aura that quickly incapacitates any sentient creature at close range, starting with dizziness and ramping exponentially from there. It's unclear if the effect is more magic-based or due to physical 'fairy dust', but ultimately the effect remains inherent to the wings themselves, and can't be muted beyond just attempting to physically cover them up. While useful for warding off nosey wildlife or biting insects, wings-out Fayre makes for poor company without some precautions.
Family Resemblance >
Although unknown for much of their early life, it turns out Fayre's wings are in fact similar in some regards to their twin's. Though Prism's own bird-of-paradise wings only bare a passing physical resemblance to Fayre's (in terms of being different flavors of overstimulating), her wings also aren't anything to trifle with, as her bright and flashy feathers are actually quite poisonous. Even though the Amazing Mirror never had a chance to get a copy of Prism's back before she walked through as a child, the enchanted item clearly carried over some latent predispositions to her reflected double.
You've Heard of Dimensional Capes Now Get Ready For Whatever This Is
If anyone ever does happen to catch Fayre outside of their natural habitat, odds are they may notice that their iconic wings are nowhere to be found, instead replaced by a strange fabric cape that shimmers and drags along the ground behind them. The lace (or knitted?) article is not a Dimensional Cape in the traditional sense, but is actually a strange sort of Dimensional Trade spell, with the cape taking the place of the wings rather than concealing them. Damaging the cape does not damage the wings and vice versa, but the cape itself cannot be removed from Fayre's back either. By tucking their wings away (aside from their highest two feathers), Fayre is able to mingle with general populations without their signature aura adding a bit too much psychedelics to the festival scene.
Learning Process >
Fayre's cape actually represents the culmination of many years of trial and error. When Fayre first got their wings, they quickly found that 1) the wings, while pretty to them, were quite overwhelming to others, and 2) they had no way to control or minimize the effect. This led to some early improvisation - a small hooded cloak taken from a clothesline was their first attempt at mitigation. While it certainly helped, simply covering the wings didn't fully muffle the emanating aura, and many folks still reported strange headaches after coming across a mysterious hooded figure in the woods. It wouldn't be until several years later, and an educational foray into another realm, that Fayre would learn a method of more properly hiding their wings.
Like Trying to Pin a Cloud
Despite being known to a few settlements, Fayre themselves does not possess any sort of permanent address, instead following the breeze to wherever the road (or fun bug or cloud or-) takes them. While they do have one or two more reliable habits, like returning to their nomadic broom hatter village for the Sweeping Season now and then, they are largely an enigma that is only encountered by chance, and rarely in the same place twice.
Dial-up Modem >
Prism was the first person to ever try and track down Fayre, and upon their first meeting the wayward sibling was gifted a mobile phone, should they ever want to keep in touch. Nowadays Fayre doesn't use their old flip phone often, predominantly just to send blurry photos or shoddily edited memes to whoever is in their address book, but for the more tech-savvy the phone represents an easier way to track them should it be required.
About
Appearance
Fayre is smaller-than-average for their species, but with the long feathers on their back sticking straight up and swiveling all the time it's easy to overlook. Fayre is almost always seen with a strange and simply polished reflective mask on their face and sharp metallic shoes on their feet, with a thin gossamer cape the branches out behind them. Very rarely, it is possible to catch a glimpse of their strange, dragon-fly-esque feathered wings. The color almost seems to shift beyond normal visual spectrums, it's inadvisable to stare very long.
Personality
Despite living a largely solidary existence Fayre is actually quite friendly, and is always happy to chat with the folks they come across should they want to swap stories. Equal parts whimsical and humorous, Fayre can be surprisingly blunt and comedic when given the chance. Upon meeting new people they're personable and fun, but they also don't stick around for long. It's in their nature to not put down roots, instead choosing to explore more with a dreamy positivity you often see in those destined to wander.
It's rare Fayre remembers many details about those they meet, and even rarer that they choose to seek them out again. Getting close to people often is the catalyst for Fayre experiencing emotions beyond their usual cheery ambivalence – and each one is always accompanied by some degree of surprise when they do surface. Fayre isn’t quite sure what to make of this tradeoff, but as with most negative things they tend not to linger on it too long. This avoidant behavior also applies to conflict, and in the rare instances they’re presented with a threat, Fayre will always choose to flee.
Backstory
In terms of early life, Fayre was found and raised by a small village of broom hatters, who came upon this child in a little crater they'd made after falling off the cloud holding up the mirror. The broom hatters assumed that fall was what had paralyzed their face, but fortunately as the broom hatters are a race of faceless creatures themselves the lack of expressions wasn't ever a problem. Fayre stayed with the broom hatters until reaching early adolescence, after which they left to go explore the natural world - though now living on their own they do still come back to say Hi every year or so during the Sweeping Seasons.
Fayre got their wings sometime while off living by themselves in the woods, and after some trial and error did figure out a way to more or less 'replace' their wings with a funky cape (the trial and error being a learning curve whereupon getting near people with their wings would cause people to get dizzy/sick, so for a while they were wandering around in a little cape they found until they could puzzle out a way to properly tuck them away).
For quite a while Prism was the only consistent point of contact Fayre had with anyone else, and even then the two only visited one another infrequently, both happy to largely keep to the homes and lives they've carved out for themselves.
Meeting Strix:
The first major change to Fayre's day to day life was the introduction of another puffball named Strix, who happened upon them while looking for their wayward coworker. Fayre and Strix managed to hit it off early on, and occasionally meet up every month or so for an hour or two to get their required socializations in before wandering back off from whence they came. Strix will often share their work bereavements, or encourage Fayre to actually learn some self-defense, which is largely met with playful ambivalence, though despite Fayre's general disinterest in combat some minor progress has been made on Strix's part.
These friendly meetings continued with regularity for some odd years, up until fayre accidentally rode-along on one of Strix's business calls~
Meeting Stell (aka The 'Among-Us' Arc):
Unfortunately for Fayre, Strix had been called to investigate what was reported to be an erroneous wish caused by a faulty comet, one without its proper safety regulations in place. Fayre tumbled on through strix's portal and into the sidelines of an ongoing fight between strix and some new armored fighter apparently affiliated with said comet.
Hoping to avoid whatever anime-ass conflict was going on over there, fayre started drifting towards the only other point in space of any note, the giant cat-like mechanical comet. Unfortunately for fayre, whoever had maintained that comet had rigged it up with a series of perimeter defenses, which fayre became intimately familiar with as they were shot down and forced to land on the comet itself to escape the bullet-hell firing at them.
Suffering some fun knicks and scrapes predominantly on their wings Fayre pushed that on the back burner with their cape started looking for an exit from this weird mechanical death trap. (Past this point Fayre has a quasi-permanent notch in their left feather). After a few weeks of being hunted for sport (and pulling wires out of the walls to delay their hunter enough to survive), contact was made with the assailant, whose name was apparently Stell, and an agreement was brokered just as Strix finally decided to stop by again to see how fixing that busted-ass comet was going.
After clearing up that misunderstanding Fayre finally got off that shitty comet, and after being somewhat unceremoniously dropped off in the woods by Strix managed to trudge all the way to the mirror dimension to visit Prism and get some bandaids (slash bullet holes patched up).
They’ve been busy recuperating there for a while, but with people in the mirror dimension starting to act a little odd, and Fayre themselves feeling a bit out of sorts, they might need to fix more than their wings before they can wander back home…
Trivia
- Fayre’s wings actually aren’t all that good for flying, and instead at best are more suited for gliding or quickly shooting away from a threat like a startled octopus. Fayre is still able to take to the skies sometimes though, via a trusty broom gifted to them from their childhood guardians! (They keep it bike-locked to a tree when not in use :) )
- Speaking of their adopted family, Fayre actually picked up quite a few habits from the broom hatters, spanning from their emoji-laden telepathic speech to the intricate dances performed during the major holiday months (Sweeping Season my beloved). As such Fayre is surprisingly light on their feet and quite graceful, certainly living up to some well-documented fae stereotypes.
- Despite being able to eat things without too much trouble, nobody really knows what all is going on inside Fayre’s mouth. They can stick a cob of corn in there and pull it out picked completely clean with no noise or anything. It’s weird.
Links
Strix [ Hangout Buddy ]
Guide of lost souls, liaison between the realms of life and death, Purgatory's pencil pusher - these are only a few of the duties Strix holds as a reaper for the underworld. When not filing the paperwork for the hundreds of thousands of souls they help ferry into the afterlife, Strix can usually be found investigating and resolving any breaches in the boundaries between life and death or hunting down a certain fluttery fiend for shirking work...again.
Strix belongs to Cyriae
Read more >
It’s not every day you meet a new person walking by themselves in the woods, and even less often said person comes at you swinging with a butterfly net of all things. Despite the initial surprise from both parties, things were easily cleared up between the two as Strix introduced themselves while untangling Fayre’s mask from their net. For their part, Fayre was less surprised to hear this new stranger was chasing down some sort of death reaper and more surprised to find this stranger had no reaction to the aura coming off their exposed wings whatsoever! It turns out then when the coworker you chase down all the time puts out a very similar status effect, you start building up an immunity. Thus began an uncommon friendship, definied predominantly by casually meeting up for an hour or two every other month to get their required socializations in before wandering back from whence they game.
Tragically for Fayre's happy-go-lucky attitude, they've come to be attached to Strix, which only became obvious once Strix relayed a near-death experience to them and they got to experience their first ever Bummer Emotion. (They’d experienced a different flavor of Bummer Emotion before once they were removed from the comet, but there was enough going on then Fayre didn’t spend too much time thinking about it…)
Stell [ Territorial Shut-In ]
Self-proclaimed “Guardian” of the wishing comet Anima, Stell spares no expense in defending it against anything he perceives as being a threat, be those threats real, or entirely imagined.
Stell belongs to Aseuki
Read more >
In terms of first meetings, it could have gone a lot better, in Fayre's humble opinion. Hang out with their weird grim reaper bud and fall ass backwards through a mysterious portal, fine. Skirt around an anime standoff and come face to face with a weird cat-faced clock thing that shoots them down. Alright, not great! But doable! Ask someone for help and directions only for them to start chasing after them screaming bloody murder, and get stuck in the vents of aforementioned cat-faced clock thing while said person hunts them down in the worst game of tag ever. Alright. Things definitely could have gone better. Now they're stuck here until this person finally loses interest or maybe fixes all the wires they've cut in an effort to buy time for their escape. That is, if they survive that long. Who knows? They definitely don't.
Prism [ Hey Soul Sister ]
Every mirror double has their original, and Fayre is no exception. While Prism usually wanders the mirror realm as a mercenary for hire, she isn’t above taking the hop, skip, and jump over to the prime plane to see the sights—and maybe punch a baddie or two!
Prism belongs to Humming-fly
Read more >
Okay so maybe they don’t share too many features or hang out all that often, but they’re still quite tight with one another! Prism was the one to track down Fayre (given she had the home court advantage of Knowing she had a double out their somewhere), but despite not even realizing someone like Prism could exist, the moment she tracked down Fayre the two immediately connected. Despite the siblings going their separate ways back to their dimensional homes of choice, both utterly trust the other to be there if needed.
Parhelic Anima [ Bullet Hell Bullet Hell ]
The ancient wish-granting clockwork comet that serves as Stell's home, its and Stell's fates are more deeply intertwined than one might think. It wanders the deep expanse of space, awaiting summons from its next hopeful wisher.
Anima belongs to Aseuki
Read more >
Shot me :(
Art (except Prism and Anima) by Aseuki. HTML by Pinky
