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~ for in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow ~

The Hermit

Trump #: 9
Power: Silence
Name: Apathetic Noncholance
Height: 5'10
Servants: 2

Skills:
Insomnia
Eidetic Memory
Decipher

Class: Scholar

Card Meaning: The Hermit represents a guide, perhaps physical, perhaps not. Also it could be a sign that one should break away from the hustle of life, find solitude, and look within themselves.

History: The Castle librarian, historian, and scribe, the Hermit had written, himself, many of the books that were in the library. He always seemed to know what was going on, even if he never entirely understood why.

Still, he had the respect of the entire court for his wisdom and his advice. There were a few he did not trust, however, as he was ever suspicious of the force that governed the castle, and he, perhaps, knew more than others about its source.

Power Description: In a way, as it sounds. If someone is in his presence and being annoying, he can cause them to lose their voice until not with him any longer. For a more extreme use, he can actually "freeze" said annoying person, though obviously that requires much energy to do.

~ be thou happy, then, alone ---... ~

Cheshire
A Cat

Specifically, The Hermit's cat; Cheshire is a tortoiseshell male, quite curious about his surroundings, and rather disdainful of just about anyone... like the large majority of feline-kind. It was his being lost in the woods that caused Apathetic to stumble into the Castle the first time, and Cheshire has seemed quite at home in the place since then, apparently unperturbed by the Castle's strange occurances.


Elda (Servant #1)
A Housekeeper

A rather short woman, also rather stout, Elda is the brisk, no-nonsense type; nonetheless, she seems to enjoy taking care of others... or perhaps she feels that it's her duty to do so. Either way, she seems to think that The Hermit is incapable of looking after himself, and thus makes sure that his quarters are tidy and that he gets regular meals, which she tsk's at until he feels guilty and begins eating them. The Hermit feels that she's something like the stern aunt he never had, but appreciates the fact that she seems to keep his living-space tidy without being too intrusive.


Tomas (Servant #2)
A Librarian

Prior to coming to the Castle, Tomas was a bookseller, specializing in antique and out-of-print; here, he has all the books he could ever want to keep him occupied in the Library, which is generally where one could find him; re-shelving books, fixing damaged ones, and grumbling to himself about people who don't respect them. He knows the Library better than almost anyone, and is willing to help people find whatever books they might be looking for, assuming that he's awake at the time; an elderly man, it's not unusual to find him snoozing behind the large stacks of books that accumulate on his desk.

~ the dream is ended : this is the morning ~

Apathetic had always dreamt of another world; as a child, he'd devoured book after book in the fashion of the Chronicles of Narnia, or the Oz series. He remembered reading with the lamp next to his bed, late at night, long after he should have been asleep, and thinking that he'd even manage to tolerate that silly Caterpillar and all those annoying Birds if he could only make it to Wonderland. He used to strain his eyes on clear nights, trying to catch a shooting-star as it traveled across the sky, and rehearsing in his head the wish that he would make; he once locked himself in a great-aunt's antique wardrobe trying to get to Narnia. Apathetic had been one of those children who'd believed, whole-heartedly, in the Disney movies, who'd clapped with all the others when Tinkerbell lay dying, and who'd religiously set out milk and cookies for Santa... and carrots, for the reindeer.

But as he grew older, Apathetic realized that, whatever magic there might once have been in the world, it had been long gone by his time. He'd peeked around the corner while his mother lay out the Christmas presents and his father drank the milk and ate the cookies and carrots; he'd given himself headaches from reading in bad lighting, and he'd never, not once, seen a single shooting-star. He didn't quite resent the adult world for "fooling" him, but he still felt, at the tender age of thirteen, somehow wronged; as though his innocent disbelief had not been merely naive, but foolish as well.

Since then, he'd settled down to the day-to-day requirements of life; things had gone almost as though he'd planned it, through school-days and college-days and aquiring a steady, reliable job, and he'd become quite good at it, if he did say so himself. He wasn't living the life he'd envisioned, but it was a decent living, it gave him a decent house, and he had all the time in the world to think and ponder and read... although he never did wonder any more, and the fiction he read was never all that fanciful. Whenever he was asked about it, though, he'd just smile, shrug, and say, "Well, it's a living."

And one day, as he was going about that living, re-organizing the back room and all of the dusty, as-yet-unsold bricabrac that derived their worth by being a century or so older than he was, he was careless enough to drop one of the boxes. This was unusual, since a single dropped box could be disasterous - you never knew what held breakables, with some of these suppliers - but he'd been working late for the past week or so, and suffering from an odd sort of fatigue for even longer, and so maybe it wasn't too surprising. At any rate, the top of the cardboard box folded open from the fall, the box splitting along it's folded seams; with a hiss of breath, Apathetic rolled his eyes to himself, dropped to the newly-swept floor, and started picking up the merchandise... Replicas of the "original" tarot-set, which had spilled all over the floor as though they'd been dealt their intentionally.

Apathetic had stopped beliving in tarot-cards when he'd stopped beliving in fortune-telling altogether - that is, before he'd even heard of it - and so it was surprising that he even noticed the oddity of one card; as Cheshire was padding around the edges of the mess, however, Apathetic happened to glance down at the card atop the current pile, and paused for a moment. "L'Hermite," it said on the box with it's image, and it depicted a lantern-bearer, all right; instead of the standard old man, however, standing on a flat plane, it pictured a young man, descending a dark stone staircase. More astonishing was the fact that the young man, with his dark-brown hair and glasses... even the serious expression on his face... could have passed for Apathetic's twin.

Setting the other cards down, he removed his own glasses with one hand and rubbed them perfunctorily against his sweater; he knew very well that the lenses were fine, and - sure enough - when he replaced his glasses, that card still looked like him, though the location was unfamiliar and the clothing was strange...

... But there was still something familiar about it all, and it wasn't just the young man's resemblance to him...

Something, in the back of his mind, clamored to be heard; Apathetic, attempting to hear it clearly, almost didn't notice that the card had begun to... not to glow, exactly, but to sharpen, in a way he couldn't quite describe... as though someone had just upped the contrast of the world around him. The colors, which had previously been as matte as the others, began to assume a greater sense of vibrancy, and Apathetic defied common sense by keeping hold of it; with a sudden rush of wind, as though he were moving at incredible speeds despite the fact that he was staying still, the world around him seemed to momentarily blur into white...

... and resolved, what seemed a bare half-a-moment later, into a room that he knew at once, although he couldn't say how or why he knew it. And yet, as he stood on semi-shaky legs and glanced around to it's four corners, he recognized every inch, from the patterned rugs lying on the polished-wood floor to the carefully-measured stone fireplace; two entrances led from the room, and he knew where they led, as well. Things were... slowly... coming back to him, though what seemed like a grey haze still obscured parts of his memory. He sat on the edge of what he knew as his bed, not liking this feeling of not knowing (and knowing that he'd felt like this before), when a knocking at the door preceded the entrance of a stout, motherly sort of woman, to whom was attached the memory of the name "Elda."

"Good to see you back again, m'lord," was Elda's words, giving a prefunctory curtsey before placing her hands on her hips. "Might ye be wanting a meal now? You look as though you haven't eaten for the whole of your absence, beggin' your pardon for saying so."

"That's all right, Elda," was The Hermit's absent-minded response, as Cheshire curled up next to him and demanded to be petted. "A meal sounds good, actually... I've already enough food for thought as-is." Elda nodded, and left, and Apathetic was more-or-less alone with his thoughts.

He'd returned to that fantasy-world, but he knew - however he knew it - that this place was a great deal less innocuous than Narnia.