Farren
Farren, a Passionate Wright who Exists Partially out of Phase
Farren is a Passionate Wright who Exists Partially Out of Phase
Farren’s happy, if eccentric, childhood vanished with her parents. She had grown up on a small farm on the outskirts of a large town that boasted eleven taverns, an emporium, a one-room school, and the smallest public library in the region. But taxes were low and land was plentiful in that area. Also, walls were permitted, though not encouraged, and privacy was of utmost importance to her parents, who were on the verge of a breakthrough and slightly insane and had been both to varying degrees for as long as Farren could remember. They really were close nine years ago.
Farren spent most of her childhood in the workshop trying to help and being a general nuisance until she was old enough to understand enough to actually help. Whatever spare time she had, she spent on the roof, leaning against the chimney for support and warmth in winter or in the uppermost branches of the dragon blood tree in the back corner of the yard during the warmer months. Winter was more productive for reading, but in summer she would bring her telescope wither her and survey all the surrounding land. She could see the market and library, the fields around the town, the forest and plains beyond, the nearby towns and cities, each surrounded by fields and connected by a spiderweb of roads, and on clear days she could see the Black Riage and the fracture of a pass that she would one day travel when she explored all the places she had read of. She knew it.
Almost as exciting as all the places she would one day travel, and more immediately enjoyable, was her parents’ workshop and the strange device they couldn’t quite explain to her or get to work, but which would one day revolutionize travel. She helped as much as she could, which mostly meant cleaning up after the occasional explosions and fires when tests went wrong. No amount of destruction could have prepared her, though, for the day they almost succeeded. They were so sure of it. Mother practically danced up to it to make one final adjustment as Father inserted the energy core. Then, poof…it was gone. And so was Mother.
Father lunged at the space she had just occupied, but she was gone and he fell to the ground, dropping the spare midnight stone, which shattered, and with it was broken his tenuous hold on sanity. Raging, he charged through the house, calling for her. Farren sat stunned, looking at the place where her Mother no longer was. Automatically, anticipating her father, she began gathering the spare parts to construct a new machine so they could bring Mother back. It wasn’t even close to everything they needed, so while her father frantically worked on the replacement machine, Farren ran to town to collect any missing parts. Every time she came in with her finds, Father shouted another component which he had remembered they would need. He brooked no delays, but not everything was readily available for her to purchase, whether due to price or the owners’ unwillingness to part with their goods. So Farren found other ways of acquiring the items on her father’s list, as well as an occasional morsel of food, which had ceased to interest her father, but which Farren found indispensable to life. Apparently, her father subconsciously agreed, because his dinner plate was always licked clean by morning.
Shopkeepers are singularly swift to notice missing merchandise, and several times the authorities were called to deal with the strange child who seemed a harbinger of such economic misfortunes. No merchandise was ever found on her, though, so she was always released and she would run home to deliver the goods her father had demanded. When such encounters became too frequent, she began visiting other towns. She told her father it was to evade unwanted curiosity. She told herself it was to avoid getting caught for real. Both were true, but increasingly, she travelled further away to avoid her father’s unsettling mood swings and the constant presence of her mother’s absence.
In less time than Farren had though possible, they had constructed a new machine, sturdier than the first. Heedless of caution, Father started it up, tweaking it here and there, and then, poof…he was gone. So was the machine. The sudden burst of power blasted Farren though the wall, and she landed at the feet of the town guardsmen who had come to search for merchandise she had been accused of stealing. Surprised to find her alone when she had sworn that morning that her parents were both home waiting for her, and finding a sizable bloodstain from one of her father’s many accidents when he had sliced his hand when cutting a wire, the guards did not think it too great a leap to conclude that the disreputable child had something to do with her parents’ disappearances.
They attempted to seize her, but manacles fell from her wrists intact, ropes fell, tied, to the ground, and when they grabbed her, their hands passed straight through. Abandoning their duty and decorum, they ran screaming from the ghost, who sat staring at her legs and the shimmery outline where they passed through the wall and connected too her feet on the other side. Slowly, she scooted back through the wall, to the room where both her parents had vanished. Shaking herself free of the shock, she examined herself, realizing that she was no longer solid except when she concentrated on becoming so. Now she could hear the shouts, both frightened and frightening, coming for her.
Quickly, willing her hand to work, she stuffed all the plans and journals into her bag, grabbed food, books, and knives, then ran unscathed through the mob who couldn’t touch her, through that beautiful, safe wall, east, to the Riage, where no one would look for her.
In the months that followed, she returned almost to normal. She was now mostly present in this reality and could control when she phased and for how long, which meant no more falling through chairs or shoveling food through her head, both of which accidents had made her limited human interactions all the more awkward and unnerving. The worst encounter she had since the mob came about three years later when she crossed paths with a bounty hunter who took far too much interest in her. In the woman’s bag she found a poster offering a 500-shin reward for Farren’s capture and stating that she was wanted in connection to her parents’ disappearance and supposed murders. She ran as fast and as far as she could for a month, then set about clearing her name.
It seemed logical to her that the only way to prove her story would be to rebuild the machine and bring her parents back. But the necessary parts and iotum were harder to come by in the Beyond, and she had to keep moving to stay ahead of the law and her paranoid imagination. During one of her excursions to find virtuon particles, she crossed paths with an Aeon priest named Alaric, who helped her acquire the particles and, when they parted ways, he told her of the settlement his sister had helped found and the inventor who lived nearby.
Farren’s happy, if eccentric, childhood vanished with her parents. She had grown up on a small farm on the outskirts of a large town that boasted eleven taverns, an emporium, a one-room school, and the smallest public library in the region. But taxes were low and land was plentiful in that area. Also, walls were permitted, though not encouraged, and privacy was of utmost importance to her parents, who were on the verge of a breakthrough and slightly insane and had been both to varying degrees for as long as Farren could remember. They really were close nine years ago.
Farren spent most of her childhood in the workshop trying to help and being a general nuisance until she was old enough to understand enough to actually help. Whatever spare time she had, she spent on the roof, leaning against the chimney for support and warmth in winter or in the uppermost branches of the dragon blood tree in the back corner of the yard during the warmer months. Winter was more productive for reading, but in summer she would bring her telescope wither her and survey all the surrounding land. She could see the market and library, the fields around the town, the forest and plains beyond, the nearby towns and cities, each surrounded by fields and connected by a spiderweb of roads, and on clear days she could see the Black Riage and the fracture of a pass that she would one day travel when she explored all the places she had read of. She knew it.
Almost as exciting as all the places she would one day travel, and more immediately enjoyable, was her parents’ workshop and the strange device they couldn’t quite explain to her or get to work, but which would one day revolutionize travel. She helped as much as she could, which mostly meant cleaning up after the occasional explosions and fires when tests went wrong. No amount of destruction could have prepared her, though, for the day they almost succeeded. They were so sure of it. Mother practically danced up to it to make one final adjustment as Father inserted the energy core. Then, poof…it was gone. And so was Mother.
Father lunged at the space she had just occupied, but she was gone and he fell to the ground, dropping the spare midnight stone, which shattered, and with it was broken his tenuous hold on sanity. Raging, he charged through the house, calling for her. Farren sat stunned, looking at the place where her Mother no longer was. Automatically, anticipating her father, she began gathering the spare parts to construct a new machine so they could bring Mother back. It wasn’t even close to everything they needed, so while her father frantically worked on the replacement machine, Farren ran to town to collect any missing parts. Every time she came in with her finds, Father shouted another component which he had remembered they would need. He brooked no delays, but not everything was readily available for her to purchase, whether due to price or the owners’ unwillingness to part with their goods. So Farren found other ways of acquiring the items on her father’s list, as well as an occasional morsel of food, which had ceased to interest her father, but which Farren found indispensable to life. Apparently, her father subconsciously agreed, because his dinner plate was always licked clean by morning.
Shopkeepers are singularly swift to notice missing merchandise, and several times the authorities were called to deal with the strange child who seemed a harbinger of such economic misfortunes. No merchandise was ever found on her, though, so she was always released and she would run home to deliver the goods her father had demanded. When such encounters became too frequent, she began visiting other towns. She told her father it was to evade unwanted curiosity. She told herself it was to avoid getting caught for real. Both were true, but increasingly, she travelled further away to avoid her father’s unsettling mood swings and the constant presence of her mother’s absence.
In less time than Farren had though possible, they had constructed a new machine, sturdier than the first. Heedless of caution, Father started it up, tweaking it here and there, and then, poof…he was gone. So was the machine. The sudden burst of power blasted Farren though the wall, and she landed at the feet of the town guardsmen who had come to search for merchandise she had been accused of stealing. Surprised to find her alone when she had sworn that morning that her parents were both home waiting for her, and finding a sizable bloodstain from one of her father’s many accidents when he had sliced his hand when cutting a wire, the guards did not think it too great a leap to conclude that the disreputable child had something to do with her parents’ disappearances.
They attempted to seize her, but manacles fell from her wrists intact, ropes fell, tied, to the ground, and when they grabbed her, their hands passed straight through. Abandoning their duty and decorum, they ran screaming from the ghost, who sat staring at her legs and the shimmery outline where they passed through the wall and connected too her feet on the other side. Slowly, she scooted back through the wall, to the room where both her parents had vanished. Shaking herself free of the shock, she examined herself, realizing that she was no longer solid except when she concentrated on becoming so. Now she could hear the shouts, both frightened and frightening, coming for her.
Quickly, willing her hand to work, she stuffed all the plans and journals into her bag, grabbed food, books, and knives, then ran unscathed through the mob who couldn’t touch her, through that beautiful, safe wall, east, to the Riage, where no one would look for her.
In the months that followed, she returned almost to normal. She was now mostly present in this reality and could control when she phased and for how long, which meant no more falling through chairs or shoveling food through her head, both of which accidents had made her limited human interactions all the more awkward and unnerving. The worst encounter she had since the mob came about three years later when she crossed paths with a bounty hunter who took far too much interest in her. In the woman’s bag she found a poster offering a 500-shin reward for Farren’s capture and stating that she was wanted in connection to her parents’ disappearance and supposed murders. She ran as fast and as far as she could for a month, then set about clearing her name.
It seemed logical to her that the only way to prove her story would be to rebuild the machine and bring her parents back. But the necessary parts and iotum were harder to come by in the Beyond, and she had to keep moving to stay ahead of the law and her paranoid imagination. During one of her excursions to find virtuon particles, she crossed paths with an Aeon priest named Alaric, who helped her acquire the particles and, when they parted ways, he told her of the settlement his sister had helped found and the inventor who lived nearby.
Relationships
Spouses
Siblings
Children
Gender
Female
Eyes
Brown
Hair
Brown or semi-transparent
Skin Tone/Pigmentation
White or semi-transparent
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