hat first night, while Mr. (Dr.) Chu kept Christina's parents busy in the front parlor, Mrs. (Dr.) Chu explained much to Christina --of the dual nature of the Kithain; of Banality and Glamour; of Arcadia and Arts and Realms. Mrs. Chu explained that the very act of the Chu's moving in next door probably triggered off Christina's own Chrysalis, and that Christina could count on her and her troll husband to help her through. Mrs. Chu told Christina that it all had to be kept secret, and Christina happily agreed --secrets were fun things, especially when you had grown-ups in on the act. Christina became good friends with the Chu's and their little boy, Marcus, and she was there on Marcus's birthday, just two years later, when he underwent his own Chrysalis.
Marcus and Christina were best of friends all through school, united both by many common interests and their common bond as Kithain. Mr. and Mrs. Chu became like an Aunt and Uncle, and Marcus like a cousin, if not a brother. Christina and Marcus both went to Cranbrook together, but when it came time for college, Marcus went west to Chicago, while Christina stayed onward to the University of Michigan. That was far from the end of their friendship, as they talked for hours on the phone, exchanged many a letter, and saw each other on the holidays when Marcus would come home.
Christina had always been a beautiful girl, but as she grew into a teenager, and then a young adult, her beauty became extrodinary. Christina found herself the most lusted-after girl in school, and she did not like the attention one bit. More than once she had to tell one guy or the other exactly what he could do with himself, and such was her force of personality that men twice her size never gave a second's thought to disobeying. (Kneeing the mentally slower ones in the groin with Legermain 1 didn't hurt, either.) She grew tired of being everyone's fantasy, and more and more she turned to the community of Kithain for company.
he grand old house sat high up on a hill overlooking a great bend in the Huron River; from there you could see most of Ann Arbor unfold below you. Locals said that hilltop used to be famous for it's Indian Magic. Few would have suspected the place was magic still. But for the motley of young Kithain studying under Master Auerlian at the place they called Cair Paravel, after the great castle of C.S. Lewis's Narnia, the freehold built on top of that glen was a magical place indeed.
Christina had begun studying the basics from Mr. and Mrs. Chu, but when she began college full time in Ann Arbor, they turned her training over to Master Auerlian. Iorgi was a kind old grump who was a member of the famed Crystal Circle, one of the long line of great scholars attached to the order founded by the Spencer-Drakes, and he was one of the reasons the University of Michigan had become a magnet for Kithain scholars to rival Chicago in the West. Christina spent many long hours during her undergraduate, and later Ph.D. work in Ann Arbor mastering the Kithain Arts and Realms for which she had shown promise. Magic too Christina was learning in her laboratory --the mid 80's were the beginning of the biomedical Renissance at U. Michigan, and Christina became one of the generation of scientists whose careers began under the tutelage of Francis Collins and his pioneering gene hunters. By the time Christina left Ann Arbor for a three-year fellowship at Harvard, she was an adept wizzard of both Cantrip and cloning.
For most fae, reaching thirty without being Undone is an accomplishment indeed. It is a vicious cycle; fear of getting old fed upon doubt and despair, which fed Banality, which caused aging, which fed the fear. But Christina was one of the fortunate few blessed with fae eternity --a slowing of the aging process that granted her a lifetime ten times that of others-- and thus for her, time was her ally, not her enemy. Whereas many other Kithain, driven by fear of age, poured themselves into the pleasures of the Dreaming or the intrigues of Court, determined to make their mark before they passed on, Christina took her time to dive into scholarship, both mortal and Kithain.
She came back to Ann Arbor for her first faculty appointment, and rose swiftly through the academic mortal ranks by dint of her skill and accomplishments. Her equal emphasis on work in the mortal world did somewhat slow her progress through the ranks of Kithain society, but by the late '90's, she had become a remarkable scholar and spell-caster in her own right, having a command of her Arts that put her among the Kithain elite. Where she had come to Cair Paravel to learn, it was now to learn from her that many came; the challenge of instruction and mentorship was one she took up with great enthusiasm and verve. She was everyone's favorite teacher (and more than one student developed a impossible crush on her) and a skilled scholar. Her talents did not go unnoticed.
Her world was settled; she had a quiet life in Ann Arbor, teaching at the University and the halls of Cair Paravel, continuing her correspondence with Marcus, that she was entirely satisfied with. She had spent her whole life in the hills of the Huron River valley, excepting her short time in Boston, and almost twenty years with the Maize and Blue of the University of Michigan; she expected she would be there for the rest of her long life. But fate and the Dreaming had other plans for her.
he year 1996 was a milestone for Christina in different ways. She was appointed a Associate Professor with Tenure at the University for her pioneering work on genetic regulation; she was also tapped as a candidate member of the Crystal Circle, the secret inner society of Kithain Sorcerers dedicated to protecting the innocent and serving Concordia. Like Asimov's Foundation, the Crystal Circle had been founded during the darkest days of the Sundering to preserve knowledge and the magical arts and to use them to protect the commoners the Sidhe left behind. Crystal Circle spell-casters defended the frontiers of the Dreaming from the creatures born of nightmares; they provided much of the firepower backing the Order of Eiliethya and it's rescue efforts; they carried on the scholarship that might one day restore Kithain to lost Arcadia --or preserve the Dreaming against the Shadow Court.
Master Auerlian was a member, and it was he who had first raised Christina as a candidate for the Circle. Certainly Christina by 1996 had the talent and skill to have been considered --5 dots in one Art, four in a second-- but it was well known that not all powerful spell-casters were admitted; the Circle considered the heart and character carefully before bequeathing the boon of membership, and access to knowledge of Naming, the most powerful Art known to the Kithain, the Art that controlled all other Arts. What the aged Master saw in Christina he has still not revealed to this day, but it was he who had started Christina down the road. If Christina thought her training had been rigourous before, the next few years showed her just how much she had yet to learn. But the hard work was a joy to her, and after training, trial and testing, three years later Christina found herself kneeling in the Hall of the Circle, accepting her commission before the High King himself.
mong the boons of acceptance to the Circle was a Knighthood --it was recognized that noble title could be very useful in much of the work the Circle did-- and it came as no surprise to anyone that Christina choose the House Fiona for her own. She had not forgotten the wisdom and courage she saw as a little girl in Lady Lydia and the Accordance war, and, truth be told, Christina was the very model of passion unbridled that House Fiona stood for. Eliudred was too clannish and secretive; Gywdion was too arrogant; Dougal was too staid, Scathbach too blood-crazed and Liam not an option. Live life to the fullest --embrace passion when it comes, fight with fury and love without reservation--this was Christina. This was House Fiona. It was a perfect match.
Among the other results of her training was the awakening of a powerful Rememberance within Christina. Rare for Kithain, Christina was able to part the Mists enough to recall fragments from many --dozens-- of her past lives as a Pooka, memories going back almost a thousand years in one mortal life after another. She had fought with the French Resistance in World War II; ridden, disguised as a man, with Sir Lawrence in Arabia and Robin Hood in Sherwood; stood on the Barricades in Paris and guided slaves north on the Underground Railroad. Torrid romance; dramatic escapes, glorious adventures; fighting always for the innocent and the oppressed; these are the stories her Rememberance has for her. In a large number, she had become a Crystal Circle member; in just over half her lives, she had been counted among the House Fiona's warriors; in virtually all of them, she befriended Turnberry at some point, for times as short as a week together on the same privateering sloop between Jamaica and the Capes, to as long as entire lifetimes. Her memories are selective; she recalls not the miseries or disappointments that must have surely happened, but it still is a precious gift shared by few Kithain. And it is not just memories of the past that she unlocked...
Shortly after being raised, Christina began to have nightmares again. Horrible nightmares. She confided in the Chu's and Master Auerlian of what she saw...gears began to turn...a series of events started to come together..and a year later she was on the West Coast, assuming a named professorship at a new institute at a major west coast University --and serving on her first assignment with the Crystal Circle as a newly-raised Lady of the House Fiona, preparing to defend Concordia from the coming of the Shadow Court --at the same university where Marcus had just started an appointment as well.
side from her academic work is an entire side of Christina that few at the University would ever guess existed. Early during her college career, her spectacular physical beauty had attracted the notice of a fashion photographer who had happened to be passing through Ann Arbor, and from that one inital contact has blossomed a highly lucrative hobby in modeling, her services heavily bid for by the great designers. She has been featured on the cover of many fashion catalogs and even a main-stream magazine or two (though you couldn't get her to pose nude even if you put a gun to her head --and believe her, it's been asked). Once or twice a year, she will take a vacation and fly a few days to Paris or New York to model the new season's designs for some of the most prestigious Fashion houses in the world, collecting handsome fees and a spectacular wardrobe for her occasional work. Incidentally, it gives her the chance to inspire the fashion designers and artists, providing even more opportunities for Glamour, as well as giving her the ideas for the spectacular gowns she wears on her occasions in Kithain Court.
Another of her hobbies is singing, and here too her talent is extrordinary. She can easily hold captive any audience with her voice alone; throw in her appearance and she can make an audience do almost anything she pleases. Among the Kithain, at whose merry festivals her services are always asked for, and in the artist's clubs in New York and Chicago that she often takes weekend trips to, she is famous as a bard almost without peer, with a voice like silver, a heart of gold, and a wit like a rapier. More than once she has gently turned down offers to pursue singing fulltime, prefering to keep it a hobby that she loves. Few at the University suspect that the Professor on committee with them has also sung before thousands at festivals and was even featured in a movie soundtrack or two, any more than they realize that the star scientist is also a part-time supermodel; she keeps the two mortal halves of her life very separate.
She lives life to the fullest, working hard and playing hard, and her material lifestyle reflects this as well. Between the salary of a top-level academic scientist and the considerable financial rewards of even her limited modeling and singing gigs, she has more than enough money to indulge --even spoil, as even she will cheerfully admit-- herself and her friends. She scarfs down steaks, chocolate from Godiva, Dove bars, and Hagen-Daz ice cream pints (she has the enviable ability to eat whatever she pleases without gaining a pound of weight or purposefully exercising); she has a nose for fine wine, coffee, and gorumet food of all kinds; buys and reads a dozen new hard-cover fiction books a month and is a regular patron of the Kithain and mortal performing arts. Her high-rise, city-view apartment is a happy, messy jumble of the latest high-tech audio-visual toys, designer furniture and clothing, and the large stuffed animals she avidly collects; while she drives a modest sedan to work and academic events, she also has a classic vintage Porsche she rides when she's just going out to have fun. While, when given a choice, she'll go first class and five-star on everything, she's not snotty at all; she's just as happy in blue jeans and a sweatshirt as in the finest silks, just as excited to go on a canoe trip with her lab as to take them to Opening Night at the Chicago Opera House --on her expense-- and certainly she never looks down at anyone for not living luxuriously. But in the privacy of her own home, she most certainly lives well --she never grew up; she will often say with a laugh, she just got a much bigger allowance.
Her life is filled with good things, with Glamour and fantasy and magic, enough that she has been able to maintain a remarkably low Banality despite her significant (for a Kithain) physical age. So much so that she wrestles with the very real danger of Bedlam --insanity brought on by prolonged exposure to Glamour and Magic. While too much Banality can destroy a Kithain, too much Glamour can do exactly the same thing --and few are as vulnerable as the powerful spell-casters who routinely bend reality to their will. With too much time spent in the Dreaming, the risk exists that the mind will lose the ability to tell the difference between the mundane and the Dream. With a Glamour greater than even her considerable Willpower and her Banal grounding in reality; with her extensive time spent in freeholds and with chimera and chimeric treasures; with her constant exposure to the Glamour of Court and the fashion and musical worlds, Christina walks the knife's edge to maintain her grip on sanity-- but it is a risk she gladly takes.
t was the summer of '69; history would remember it for Neil Armstrong and his first steps on the moon; a select few would remember it, for related reasons, as the year everything changed, both on a national scale, and on a very personal one. 
