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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Orochi" data-source="post: 5015319" data-attributes="member: 11276">His parents shouldn't have given him a name that meant servant. Sometimes Christian thought that, at odd moments while he was trapped in the Gilded Tower where the Masque took place. He can only remember bits and pieces of life before. He knew he had been a prodigy, a natural artist and performer. He could paint, he could sing, he could act, it all came to him with no effort. He remembered being called on to perform, growing to resent his ability, wishing it away. Sometimes he thinks it was that wish which drew the monster to him.His time in Arcadia is remembered more clearly, to his horror and pain. He remembers playing to a hall full of monsters, only to have the talent in his hands and voice stripped from him slowly and painfully. His performances were auctions, not for his time, but for his talent. Different Lords and Ladies had different ways of collecting, of removing his skills from him and grafting them into favored servants. Needles, energy, heat, the tang of metal in his mouth and the stench of burning in his nostrils as he became...less. He could recognize talent, but he could not duplicate it. His skill was gone, and he was nothing but a shell.And so he was put to work in a new task. The Thousand-Faced Judge had set him to work "auditioning talent." He would select those who were to perform, knowing that if those he chose failed to entertain, he would be punished with them. Even his rewards were painful: a return of talent for a short time, always fading just as he began to feel joy. And when he was not at work, he had to watch himself around the others, as those he did not choose were often punished, and sometimes they wanted revenge. But, over time, he learned to play the system, and manipulated others into creating a distraction during a performance at The Market, a distraction he used to open cages and escape into the Hedge. After stumbling blindly, he was able to convince a Hobgoblin to lead him to a place where the trees thinned and the world became something real again.</blockquote>

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