Description

Mask

A mop of sandy brown hair atop his head, Heath has a friendly refreshing expression. His big brown eyes are like a puppy's, playful and subduing. He's not too tall, around 5'10" and is often dressed in a suede jacket and jeans, but sometimes spices it up with a three piece suit.

Mien

His hair is a little longer and his height is a little taller, thinner, almost lanky. His hair looks parted into thick locks that resemble a jester's cap. Heath's skin is porcelin white and smooth and rubbery. The face itself looks like a mask of solid polished wood, with an eternal smile embedded in its carving. Eerie yellow light pours from its mouth and eye sockets. When he moves it sounds as though he jingles with the soft murmers of giggles.

Hedgespun Raiment

Mask: A navy blue three-piece-suit. Mien: A striped blue and light blue jester outfit.

History

After graduating high school, Heath was sure what he wanted to do, which was to become a stand-up comedian. When he was a kid he practiced on groups of neighborhood kids and even had a routine for the school talent show. He was just a funny, creative, oddball sort of guy who liked the attention of an audience. Yet that changed, he changed, when they came for him. Maybe it was because of his boyish aspirations or goofy antics on stage. Who could ever know? Who could ever know what really went on in their minds?

His Keeper appeared initially as a man, trim, clean-cut, otherworldly, a man's man who could take on the world. He offered Heath a deal, to be the funniest standup act ever known. Heath had been naive and unbelieving then. Now he regretted it forever. When you sign the paper you sign over your soul, they sometimes say. But the paper was just a show, a con. It was the agreement itself that was the bloody John Hancock. All it took was one show to know he'd been duped. It was like he was dead on stage at the amateur stand-up show. They only started laughing after the crowd began to heckle him. They were cackling like crones, giggling like goons, howling like hyenas, snorting and snickering a this pathetic boy who thought he could be funny. But the man was there, his Keeper. He said it was excellent, his performance, said he would be a star, and almost like magic everyone began to clap in unison.

Of course it was a joke. That's always what it's been about, the jokes. A laugh riot. He was taken that very night through the Hedge, through those prickly Thorns that tore through his mind like razorwire. Since then time never flowed quite right. He remembered being on stage a lot, in front of a crowd of beady glowing expectant eyes. They laughed at him a lot, made him do horrible embarressing things. Dressed him up in all sorts of foolish outfits like a doll. Maybe they wanted to understand what the whole standup thing was about, maybe they didn't even have a real sense of humor, or maybe he just didn't get the joke.

The Keeper, though, never laughed. He smiled, sure, but that was the same bored detatched smile that served as an accessory along with his nose and eye sockets and such. He just clapped along with the others. It went on like that for what seemed forever. Heath had tried to escape several times. He wondered if they were laughing then too, watching him try to run away, this pathetic boy. Finally his Keeper made him another deal. If he could make him laugh, really laugh, then he would release him from his contractural agreement. How cruel, to give hope to this poor boy in this state. Yet with hope in his heart he threw himself into each performance, coming up with clever jokes and humorour discourse, performing skits and theater for satire and irony. And despite the hardships, the punishments he suffered when he disappointed them after trying new things, he even found he enjoyed it. The stage was a place where he held the barest glimmer of control. It was his world, a temporary space where he could construct a fictional place of psychological safety. Even if it was an illusion it allowed him to keep some semblence of sanity, if that makes sense.

And then one day, a seemingly random day, he was testing a new joke he came up with. It was a comedy of manners, criticizing the Fae. Heath can't even now remember what he had said, but his Keeper laughed, a hideous unpracticed sound that rumbled through the entire world that he knew. The others knew what this meant, that Heath should be set free. A deal was a deal, wasn't it?

Tossed out into the wild realm he made his way desperately through the Hedge, searching for that dimming memory of the mortal realm. And then emerged, like a newborn. Ten years had passed since he was taken so now the memory was old and buried. Yet he reconstructed what he could of his past and went in search of his family only to find them long dead. The Fetch that had replaced him was gone with them and he life he had became impossible to regain. Unable to come to terms with the facts, he left his home to make one elsewhere, finding Changelings like him along the way. He took on the name Heath Moore, burying the old one alongside his family.