Chapter 1 or how I became an Unseelie knight.
I am the narrator, I am the hero of my story, coincidence, I don't personally believe in it. I have been asked to chronicle my adventures for posterity, so here goes. Oh, you may read or hear differing versions of these events, be assured that these are the truest accounts.
Before I begin to tell all, I should tell you a bit about myself. My name is Carlo, but I have another name. I am not an ordinary man, I am a changeling. Stop Laughing ! You were expecting me to be a leech, a vampire. No. Do you know what a changeling is? No? Then its not for me to tell you here but do you believe in magic? In fairies? Again no? Well I guess it was too much to hope for.
Lets just say that I have special powers and leave it at that. Oh and I am not insane!
I work at a halfway house on the Gold Coast of Queensland Australia, formally run by my friend Sam and his wife Margery. Come to think of it, Sam kind of reminded me of Pops from the cartoon show Johnny Bravo. That’s why he was always calling me Johnny. Now I get it! Well anyway I guess that for me it all started there at work. I was facing the prospect of another lonely night in my dingy, dank castle when I espied a young dame who still had the sparkle of hope in her eye.
Hmm, you may believe that I just stoped making sense a moment ago but that’s just how it goes. You see I see things Chimerically. That means I see things that are imaginary as if they were real. I am not crazy! I told you I am a changeling, a creature of the Dreaming. Wheres that? Well I guess you could say that it’s the second star to the right and straight on till morning.
Anyway, this young girl looked to have been homeless for a while, but had not yet lost her spirit. She was probably a runaway. I saw her as a wonderful source of Glamour.
Now I’m sure that you’ve noticed that I get easily side tracked but I should definitely explain Glamour. Glamour is magic. No correction, Glamour is MAGIC! Glamour is the sparkle of life; it is what dreams are made of. It is what Kithain (changelings) are made of. Does that help you? Oh well!
Back to the girl. Have you ever noticed that in these stories it always comes down to a girl? Oops, nearly lost it! She was neither exceptionally gorgeous nor ugly but had about her an energy that I had to nurture.
I went over to her and discovered her name was Katherine. She didn’t tell me a lot about herself but I didn’t ask a lot of questions. I figured I’d learn everything I needed to later. Later: the perfect time to do anything. Of course this was one of those increasingly frequent times that I was wrong. After making sure she was that she was going to be looked after, and looked out for, I decided to return to my modest holding. I contacted Max, a Nocker friend of mine and…Oh my you don’t know what a Nocker is! Um… never mind if I stop to explain about different Kiths and their Birthrights it could easily fill a chapter of a role-playing games rule book.
Err… Max is a Nocker and I am a Sidhe. Those who know what I’m talking about may be surprised by that. I don’t take myself as seriously as others of my kith, but I am still loyal to the Seelie Code. Seelie, Unseelie arrgh! There’s too much to tell!
I know I promise to explain more as we go. I’ll explain Later.
Where the heck was I? Oh yes, I was contacting Max and asking him for a favour. I’ll explain later. Then it was going to be a nice quiet evening in front of the magic picture box. Which promptly committed suicide right in front of me. At the time I was hurt. I had always given that box all the attention I could give, but upon reflection, I had actually taken it for granted and never really paid attention to its needs. Could that be why I don’t have girlfriend?
I am not without friends and given that my television was now dead I phoned my friend Jeremy Meyer. Now Jeremy is the kind of guy that the Cool People call Cool. He was slicker than slick, and richer than Scrooge McDuck. There’s a rumour that he’s a vampire but that’s true.He’d been a friend of mine since we met when I was a teenager.
When I had told him that my friend Telford Television was dead (R.I.P.) he offered to buy me another. Bye Telford, hello Telulabelle, but I was no longer in the mood for T.V so I said that I would like to see him maybe hang out at the Club, by the Club I mean ‘The Ninth Gate’ A pretty happening place if you’re into not being human. Yeah there were plenty of Mundanes there all the time. But they were just sort of entertainment for us Supernaturals. Jeremy said he would send a limo for Me! Me in a Limo! Jeremy is so COOL! The T.V got there before the limo did. Odd huh? When the limo arrived I was ready to go. Wearing my loose blue jeans, black t-shirt and a black mock-leather jacket covered in many badges and markers from all the charities I support. On with the story.
On the way to the Club we, that is the Chauffer and I, saw a car pull over missing a wheel. Just as I noticed the Woman I had always dreamed about. Long red hair, green eyes, I could just see from where I was sitting that she would have a vivacious personality and outgoing nature.
Now normally I would look for common ground before tying to make friends with a girl, before starting a relationship. But I know from first sight that I would never be happy until I had made her mine. As a side note I am not happy. The Chauffer got a call as we were passing and I asked him to pull over to pick up the Woman.
She was with this loser named Chris, whose car had lost its wheel. I did not like Chris. I was in love with Josie. She had a bit of an Irish brogue and I just love accents. I was hooked on every word she said, well actually my attention was split between her lips and her cleavage. Wait, why did I write that? Argh! Why did I write that? Um what am I saying? O.K I admit I can be a bit of a sleaze sometimes but I was forming genuine affection for this wonderful woman.
When we arrived at the Club Jeremy introduced us properly. Josie was a ‘Personal Assistant’ (Of course I thought that I could really use her assistance.) Then I realised that she was part of his pack. The woman of my fantasies was a vampire.
I am no speciest but Vampires, well o.k. I am very good friends with a number of them but you just can’t have a real relationship with a dead person. Yet I still loved her.
