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| - One of the three original founders of the freehold of Miami, Rose Thorne was the most fervent supporter of Tom Hood’s vision of a changeling society. Taken in 1939 by a Fae Knight of Flowers, her durance was a half-recalled nightmare of crawling through the Hedge on her belly, torn and bloodied by the Thorns as she hunted for the rare blue roses her master fancied. She escaped more by luck than anything else, her long years of wriggling through the tiniest gap in the Hedge to pluck out the precious blossoms allowing her to find a path her Keeper’s dogs could not follow. Rose is one of the oldest changelings in Miami, and with that age comes a great deal of respect. Within her own Court, Rose has attained an almost mythical status, especially since she vanished into the Everglades. Now stories of her circulate like a kind of changeling Robin Hood — if the stories are to be believed, Rose Thorne has done everything from appear to homeless children to protect them from gang violence to drive off a hunting party from Faerie that had cornered several young changelings. Of course, the official position of the City of Endless Summer is quite different. Officially, Rose Thorne is a madwoman skulking in the swamp, having abandoned any vestige of Clarity and made deals with the Others to assure her eventual return to power. Within the Spring Court, these rumors are the subject of numerous crude jokes, but outside of the Antler Crown, Rose’s sanity, at least, is not exactly considered rock-solid. Rumors about Fae complicity are mostly accepted as political rhetoric — but the paranoia that lurks so often in the changeling heart can’t help but wonder. Rose is a striking woman who appears to be in her late 30s. Once, she was invariably dressed in the latest fashions and projected an image of serene self-confidence, but these days her exile has worn on her greatly. The few who have seen her have said she is haggard and drawn, with age and the weight of her struggle lining her face and clad in the travel-stained and ragged remnants of her finery. To mortal eyes, Rose is a tall, statuesque woman with long, blonde hair and strikingly bright blue eyes. She has full, naturally deep red lips and skin as soft as rose petals. In her fae mien, her skin takes on a slight bluish tinge, and her lips deepen to a dark midnight blue. Rose stems twine around her limbs like green wire, but somehow the thorns never seem to prick her. The Mantle of Spring enfolds her in life; the air around her always smells of fresh-mown grass, and flowers spring up at her feet when she walks. A crown of twined roses chased with silver and glass shines on her brow, marking her as the true Queen of Spring. Rose is fiercely devoted to her Court and her cause, and will not hesitate to take actions that others might consider extreme in her quest to throw down Grandfather Thunder’s regime. She stops short of knowingly sending members of her own Court on suicide missions, but she certainly would not have a problem sending cat’s-paws from the other Courts into harm’s way if doing so will further her ends. Years in the Everglades, living like a fugitive (and sometimes like an animal) has worn on Rose’s Clarity. The constant press of the wetlands reminds her uncomfortably of her time in Faerie, and her self-control is beginning to crack. Sometimes she dreams that she never left her master’s garden, and that her life in Miami has been a cruel trick. Sometimes, she dreams that she has been chosen as a kind of messiah, fated to deliver Miami from the tyranny of Summer. As these delusions gain hold on her mind, there’s no telling what she might try.
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