CANTRIPS & CONTRAPTIONS XIII - FANTINE & COSETTE

Fantine was a wylder sidhe orphan unaffiliated to any noble house, but still innocent and full of purity. Félix was a mortal toff out to have fun and make the most of his youth. Their paths crossed over and over again, and then they suddenly parted ways.

Their daughter Cosette, raised as per canon first at the Sergeant's by the Thénardiers, and then adopted by Valjean, is a perfect example of a sidhe kinain. Her eyes are a supernatural shade of icy blue, for starters (warmer than Enjolras' but still brightly cyan); that and her Slavic-like angular features are her faerie marks. The troll grump that is Jean Valjean has warmed up significantly to her and laying as much as a fingertip upon her is anathema - he's even taught her not only literacy and numeracy, but also the arts and realms needed to cast cantrips that Cosette may use in self-defense.

Perhaps even more than changelings, kinain are caught between the worlds of faerie and mortality. They are mortal by birth and nature, but they each carry a Birthright of Glamour and marks of their faerie heritage that set them apart from other mortals. Kinain walk the line between the two worlds, and it is a delicate balancing act; leaning too much in either direction can cause a kinain to fall, either into Banality and forgetfulness, or into the depths of madness and Dream-Struck stupor.

Their passionate natures, balanced between Glamour and Banality, make them very effective Dreamers, which is why many changelings attach themselves to kinain as muses. Kinain often express their imagination and creative spirits through some kind of art or performance, becoming artists, actors, writers... They lose themselves in worlds of imagination (that are poor and pale reflections of the Dreaming), create elaborate fantasies, and have very rich dream-lives...

During her time as a childling at the Sergeant's, little Cosette - a frail little-match-girl kind of waif - had learned to access the "castle on a cloud" in her dreams where she saw her mother in true sidhe mien, not knowing that she had accessed the Rapture - ie connected directly with her own inner Dreaming -; this was in order to escape too harsh a reality. Nowadays she achieves Rapture far more scarcely, mostly focusing on the studies her guardian has planned out for her.

closeness to Courfeyrac - she is pretty close to Courf especially since he introduced her to Marius and acted as a go-between between them; though she is only friends with him

closeness to Marius - Mariusette is the main straight pairing in this Changeling/Les Misérables AU