"Julianna" by Jenny L. Morash

Memories of Arcadia fade like mist under the first rays of dawn's light, leaving hazy dreams in their wake. So it is that Julianna Harwick, of House Fionna, has only the vaguest of memories of what went wrong. Only the most poignent parts of her story are left for her to go on. But, there are those that know her tale, and places to find it. This is one such place.

Julianna ap Fiona was one of the belles of the Arcadian court, though her station was never very high. Beautiful, evenn among the Sidhe, it was hard to dislike her, and for many a Lord, it was hard not to love her. And many did. Now, as happens sometimes with beautiful women, Julianna was just a bit on the vain side of things, and tended to leave a string of broken hearts in her wake. It never seemed to dissuade potential suitors, though.. everyone seemed sure that /they/ would be the ones she stayed with. Alas, they never were.

Soon or late, it was bound to happen that she would win the attention of one who didn't take well to being deserted, and happen it did. the man in question was Lord Damien ap Eiluned, a sorcerer of some renown. They courted and flirted, and when she left him.. he grew angry. He decided that the vain creature had to learn what love was /really/ about. And so he cast upon her a spell.. a curse... Her voice, as beautiful as her face, would be stilled, from that point on, until such time as she fell in love with someone who loved her in return. As in all stories, of course, the proviso was that this must be /True/ Love.

Long years passed in Arcadia, and Julianna changed slowly. She grew more thoughtful, more introspective. It was said, really, that she became much more sweet-natured than she had ever been before. And yet, she never could manage to fall in love. There dalliances, to be sure, but they were of a fleeting moment only.. though, when they ended, it was always a mutual thing. The wanton no more, Julianna left her lovers feeling better about themselves for the time spent in their company. And then, the Resurgence. Julianna stayed back, after many had already gone, until, at length, the time came for her to venture forth. Perhaps she would find on earth what she could never find in Arcadia.

Enter Julianna Stanton. Her life pre-chrysalis was of no great importance. She was the only daughter of middle class workers, who often marvelled that they were able to produce such a child as she, more beautiful than any other child her age, and possissing the voice of a nightingale. Her childhood was a happy one, and her parents loving, up until their death. It was the same night she chrysalized, and afterwards, Julianna would likely say that her mortal self died that night as well. A snowy night, a winding road in the Colorado mountains, and a tree branch that fell in front of the car, causing it swerve into the face of the cliff. Her parents died instantly, most likely without ever knowing what had happened. The thirteen year old Julianna, asleep in the back at the time of the accident, awoke to a world of darkness and flying snow. She struggled out of her seatbelt, and out of the car, only to find herself alone in the snow. Utterly alone. Tears came, bleaching her eyes from brown to silver-blue, and snow fell, touching her hair, turning it from black to frozen silver. Thus it was that when Eliot Harwick, one of the local Sidhe Lords, drawn by the flare of glamour to find the newly orphaned girl, it was no mortal child that knelt in the snow.

Eliot took Julianna in, becoming her Ward and her Mentor. Mortal doctors believe that it was the trauma of the accident that caused the girl to lose her voice, or perhaps some undiscovered injury to her vocal chords. No explanation was ever found to explain the changes in her appearance, and most gave up trying. Only Julianna knew, her memories just clear enough to pick out the nature of the curse upon her head. She grew up in Lord Eliot's home in Clear Lake Colorado and, after his eventual death, inherited it as his sole heiress. She lives there now, a young Sidhe in the midst of Wilderhood, searching still for the love that will break her curse, and give her back her voice.