The Traveler

The Traveler is an extra-dimensional being appearing through multiple worlds. More often than not, he just goes by Fred. A being of unimaginable power, he is able to shapeshift at will, and readily bends reality around himself for the benefit of his designs. Fred is fully aware of his control over the world, and never hesitates to take advantage of this advanced awareness. 
Fred is singlehandedly responsible for the Broken Verse Event, triggered in an attempt to rescue Vischias Sei'Dist from his cursed existence. Everything that happens in the Multiverse can be attributed to Fred.
== History ==
=== A Stolen Relic ===
The being better known as Fred was, at first, an Ifrit--a variant of Djinn that is almost always evil, inescapably drawn to death and destruction. Despite his often immature behavior, Fred is an immortal beyond the concept of age. 
He came onto the scene by the will of a man named Jasper, who procured his binding item--a jeweled knife--during his travels. With all the power of the world at his fingertips, the mischievous thief could have asked for anything. So what did he do? He bound Fred to his lover's son, Frederick Du Con, to ward him from harm. The choice was equal parts mischief and test. If the Djinn was truly all-powerful, the task of protecting the naive Frederick would be simple enough, and prove Jasper's mastery of him. As an added slight, he elected to bind the Djinn to the (rather uncreative) name of Frederick's childhood imaginary friend: Fred, described as being "like him, but brave and strong." Little did anyone know how apt this description would become. 
Needless to say, the Djinn was displeased with being relegated to the role of supernatural babysitter, but he was resigned to it, having no other choice. He went along as his charge found work in the Kingdom of Yaoi (later Achillea), the single most ridiculous place in the world. Frederick became counselor to the Queen, and lover to the Queen's Inquisitor, himself a dangerous but honorable man. Frederick should have been the safest person alive. But there is nothing in the world more boring than safe. 
Luckily (?) for Fred, Frederick's lover was burdened by a dark secret. And that secret made itself known in the form of a particularly dangerous poltergeist.
=== The Problem with Vischias ===
A violent and pitiless man in life, the aptly-named Vischias Sei'Dist found death to be no more agreeable. Bound to Helvah by the sheer horror of his death, Vischias wasted no time in possessing him to wreak havoc on his hated younger brother's picturesque world. His first target: Helvah's lover, Frederick. His goal was to destroy his brother utterly, and the first thing he tried was targeting Frederick. 
It was in this way that he came face-to-face with Fred, who wasted no time in serving his purpose. Bound to Frederick's body, Fred was able to temporarily take control of his host, tagging in for him when he was in danger. And with Vischias around, that was all the time. Impossibly strong and deeply disturbed, Vischias had dire designs for Frederick, which Fred promptly botched by getting in the way. What followed was a sadistic dance that saw the two battling to get even with one another, each humbling the other, only to be humbled in return. It was a twisted game of tag that went on for months--one which took a toll on their respective hosts, themselves unaware. To them, it was just a game, never mind the harm it brought to the mortals involved. To Fred, it was collateral damage, easily mended and therefore irrelevant. To Vischias, damage was the goal, and so he took no care in avoiding it, leaving mess after mess for Fred to casually sweep under the rug.
The consequences of this game were far steeper than either of them bargained for. 
Over time, Fred found himself fascinated by Vischias, a being so warped and twisted that even he was impressed by the depth of his depravity. It was rare for an immortal to meet their match, and that was what he found in Vischias, who met his every attempt at domination with a level of will and spite he had never known. But the former lordling turned poltergeist was more than he seemed. Tormented by a mental illness with no cure, which followed him even in death, all Vischias sought was an end--and he invited it at every turn. When he wasn't driving Helvah's body around like a stolen car, trying (and often succeeding) to get him into trouble, he was often to be found wandering the halls of the palace in his natural form, swathed in an eerie sense of melancholy that did not suit his usually outrageous behavior. Without meaning to, Fred was witness to the truth of Vischias: he had been violently murdered, in a coup of his own design that had gone sour. Now, with an eternity of suffering stretching out before him, he vacillated wildly from self-destructive to life-destructive, doing everything possible to try and bring his surviving brother down with him, or else to end his own existence.
Somewhere along the road, Fred found he had grown fond of the sadistic spirit, whose eyes stared out from Helvah's with equal parts passion and despair. Vischias' growing instability soon began to threaten not only the sanity, but the lives of both Helvah and Frederick, a fact which brought him in conflict with Fred's primary directive. It became clear that the time for the game was coming to a close. Therein lie the problem in becoming attached to a being that was already gone: even if Fred could defeat him, there was no way for him to keep him.
=== The Break ===
When the time came to fulfill his purpose, Fred rebelled. Ordered to destroy the mad poltergeist, or else to perish for failing his task, he instead took a third option: Fred was going to save Vischias, whatever the cost. Fred tricked Jasper into freeing just enough of his natural power to allow him the trick of altering reality, and--marshaling all the might of a Djinn--Fred did just that. He broke apart the very fabric of the world to reach the multiverse, and relocated both himself and Vischias to another world. One he hoped would treat his lover better than the first.
Fred had stolen Vischias' soul for himself, abandoning his duty, and the world they had born been created for. It was the first of many attempts to keep the man he cared for safe from the horrors of his fate. It would not be the last.
=== Worlds and Worlds ===
The first thing Fred tried was forcing them into a world that already existed: the world of Kyravelle, and the Unnamed Story. It was similar enough to their world that he felt it would be a good fit, but moving there involved bringing more than just Vischias' ghost. Displaced by the Break, the lives Vischias had touched came with them. It was in this way that Helvah and his family were also adapted into the narrative, with time slid back enough to allow Vischias to live. Due to his connection to Fred, Frederick Du Con was also dragged along, thus bringing his family as well. Fred paid them no mind. The first step of his plan was complete: Vischias was alive. Fred's power forced those who came with into the roles they would best suit, and modified their memories to believe the world they occupied was the one they had always lived in. He gave no thought to the world he was invading. To him, all that remained was to reap his reward.
As it turned out, this was more complicated than he expected. Vischias had never known in him in life, and did not recall him when they met. Fred would have to gain his favor again, and set about doing so the only way he knew: by pretending to be human, and being near enough to enjoy the hell Vischias raised. It was a perfect scenario. Vischias made the most of his new situation, and quickly fell into old habits, his skill as a slave hunter translating well to his new occupation of witch-hunting. That he was ruining lives was of little consequence to Fred. All that mattered was that he lived, and he was near enough to touch.
However, the consequences soon reared their heads. Fred had returned him to life, never knowing that the life he had lived had set Vischias on a path that had come with him. He remained mad, still untreatable in a time before medicine, and the conflict between himself and his House persisted. His lord father--formerly Whiltheld Sei'Dist--perceived in this world what he had not in his own: that his son was a threat, and one to be dealt with. Vischias brutally struck back against the attempt on his life, and the resulting bloodbath led once again to his grisly death, directly mirroring the end he had found in his own world. His story, too, had translated from the place they had left, and with all of the elements present, his life would always gravitate toward that fate. 
Fred was furious. He had given Vischias life again, only to watch as he died that fated death. He realized his error: he had placed Vischias in the exact place in the timeline where he died. The key, then, was to place him farther back, and prevent his death before it happened, any way he could. With the Powers that Be hot on his heels, Fred tried again, aiming to find Vischias sooner, and force him from that doomed path before fate could catch up with him.
The problem, Fred decided, was that the world was not made for Vischias and his cruelty, and so Fred placed them in a place and time where Vischias could not be held to account: after the world had ended. He watched with glee as his unbound madness razed everything that he touched. Lacking morality, Fred enjoyed the spectacle of a world without consequences--that is, until Frederick wandered into the narrative, drawn by his connection to Fred, and landed square in Vischias' crosshairs. Here, Frederick suffered a fate worse than death. Fred was shocked to find that he actually cared for the human boy who had been his host, and so did not wait for Vischias to die, scrapping the attempt at once. Whatever world they landed in would bring consequences not just for them, but for those they took with them, and so it had to be a safe world. Safe for everyone. Fred tried again.
This time, the world he forged was a mirror to the modern world. In this place, Vischias became Victor, Helvah became Henry, and their lives began as they always did. Here, Fred played human again, placing himself in Victor's path, and digging in his claws. Long-term proximity to Victor showed Fred just how tormented he really was. With front-row seats to his struggle, Fred learned about mental illness, and the difficulty of treating it, even in a world where science had come so far. He made it his mission to keep Victor stable, knowing that his madness always led to bad ends. It turned out to be more effort than he was ready for, but--for the first time--Fred tried, not with magic, but by being there to help him. He didn't even notice when his feelings of ownership and entitlement began to grow into something more. 
Two years passed. Real time spent at Victor's side showed Fred the full scope of his brilliance, and his suffering. Fred did everything he could to lessen the latter. He swore that, this time, he would be the line between Victor and the abyss. But even with his support, Victor chafed under the weight of his illness. He tried to kill himself--a threat the Djinn had never considered--forcing Fred to rescue him. No amount of care seemed enough to soothe his demons. Finally, that safe, perfect world ended when Victor snapped, and unleashed hell on his family, following the script he had come with. Only Henry survived, as always he seemed to--but this time, Victor did not die. Instead, he was arrested, and put on trial for murder. Fred was powerless to alter the story now, and was forced to spend the next decade watching from the other side of the bars as Victor waited for his execution, desperate to find an out. Fred could have quit this world then, but by that point, the idea of simply leaving Victor to his fate was unthinkable. So, Fred stayed, visiting him as he could, watching over the people he had placed there, living the lives he had created, and waited for the end, ever hopeful of finding a loophole. He didn't. When at last Victor was executed, Fred set his teeth, and he tried again.
=== Fracturing ===
The next world Fred entered would be his last. He had sought a world where Vischias could live. Then, a world where he could not be punished. Then, a world where he could be safe. As he reached out one more time, Fred found that all he wanted was for him to survive the event that always took his life. He reached, unknowingly, for something similar to the world he had just left, eager to reclaim what he lost--only to find himself in a world that was entirely different. He did find Victor, older than he had ever seen him, and alive...but the Victor he found was not the one he wanted. Fred had spent so long in his last world that the timeline had shifted, and Victor had gone through with the massacre of his family, only for the mental strain to shatter him utterly. The person that met him when he finally appeared was not Victor at all, but an aspect of him--a fragment, left behind after Victor broke. There was not just one now, but three: the Patient, his awareness of his madness; the Hunter, the showman, laughing through his terror; and the Jackal, the violence that boiled beneath his skin. All of them were parts of the man Fred had known, but only parts. In Fred's absence, Victor had been lost. 
Fred could not accept that he was too late, so he denied it. Instead, he spent his time trying to get close to the aspects of his former lover. Of the three, the Patient seemed to know him, though Victor never had. The Hunter showed the same disregard for life that Victor had, but did not know him, though he seemed convinced he was Victor. The Jackal, however, only seemed to flee from Fred, as a monster, scared by the threat of a cage. Fred tried to determine which of them was the closest to his Victor, and in the end, decided that he did not care that he was fooling himself. He decided that it was enough. 
Then, suddenly, the end came again, this time in a new form. An assassin from this world, under someone's orders, attempted to take Fred out of the picture--and the Patient took to the bullet that could never have killed a Djinn. All that remained of Victor died in his arms, his last words: "You can't save me, Fred." 
And that, at last, was when Fred broke. A desperate part of the Djinn reached out to every corner of the multiverse, seeking any remnant of the man he had tried and failed to save. He found a dozen worlds, each less cohesive than the first, all of them scattered with shadows that resembled Vischias. A world where he was a child, still surly and cold, but innocent. A world where he was a painter, and Fred his doomed lover. A world where he was already gone, replaced with a machine that perfectly mirrored his madness. Again and again, Fred looked, and told himself, one of them had to be right. None of them were. 
=== Surrender ===
Each subsequent world was only more detached from reality, each shadow paler and more distorted the longer he looked. Finally, Fred gave up. Beseeching the Powers he had slighted in causing the Break, Fred begged for the chance he had tried to steal--and he was shocked when They agreed. At once, he was called back to where he began--to the liminal space of the jeweled knife, where he had first come awake as a Djinn--and found himself face to face with the man he had kidnapped. And Vischias remembered everything. 
"Do you so hate me?" he asked. Fred was mortified. Vischias recounted his side of things, the torture of being put through Hell, again and again, always a little more tired, a little more desperate for it to end. All he had ever wanted was oblivion--an end to his suffering--and Fred had kept him from that. Fred swore that he had only meant to help him, that his only goal had been to see him alive and safe, but Vischias discarded this, insisting that the only things Fred cared about were his own selfish wants. Shamefully, Fred conceded the point. What he did had started as a whim, but it had changed over time. He just wanted to save him. Vischias reminded him that Fred had never asked what he wanted, but instead had bent the universe to keep him as a pet. Fred apologized for the pain he caused, saying that all he wanted was to be with him, and that he had never meant him harm. In the time he had spent playing God, he had grown to love Vischias, in all of his forms, and the idea of losing him was so painful that he would rather cease to be. 
Then, the Elder Gods were there. To prevent further damage to the continuity of the universe, they offered Fred a bargain: his power as a Djinn, in return for one more chance. For a wish of his own. He could never save Vischias in a stolen world, because changing fate required a sacrifice of self, and an immortal had nothing to offer the universe in trade. Only as a human being could Fred make a difference, because humans earned what they had with their blood. Fred was challenged to save Vischias in the world he had come from, with no more boon than a mortal life. If he succeeded, he would be allowed to live out that life in a world he had earned a place in, and the worlds he had altered would solidify, allowing him the same chance in each one. If he failed, he would be destroyed utterly, and Vischias would die, as fate decreed. The price for the chance was all of his power. Fred accepted. 
And all the worlds were put right, except for one, small addition. 
== Personality ==
No matter the form he takes, Fred is nothing if not chaotic, his roots as an Ifrit driving him towards destruction in all its forms. Fred is a bit of an adrenaline junkie, seeking out excitement and amusement any way he can. A trickster by nature, he lives to annoy anyone in his proximity, using everything from pranks to irritating habits to get a rise out of people. He will do just about anything to get a reaction--and even a bad one is still a win in his book. He has a penchant for finding trouble, and he is not one to back down. He has a habit of over-talking, even in a bad situation. Even beaten and bruised, Fred will smart off, and laugh in the faces of those who try to stop him. He's about as snarky as anyone can be, and delights in quick banter, the nastier, the better. He can be a bit temperamental; he's quick to start fights and eager to take them when offered, whether or not he can win. He does not know how to back down.
Though he would deny it, Fred can be very protective, readily placing himself in danger to guard those he cares about, heedless of the risk. He shows a general disregard for his own safety even on a good day, prioritizing fun and the safety of others above potential loss of life or limb. Even when he gets hurt, he tends to laugh it off or make light of it, never confronting petty concepts like pain or fear, because clearly he doesn't know what those are. (He does. He's just a liar.) In a pinch, Fred would rather be angry than scared, and he's quick to lash out when cornered. Consequences are not something he thinks much about. He'd rather roll with the punches and deal with the cleanup later. Or not at all, if he can get away with it.
Fred is a font of limitless energy. Parkour is a passion of his; if Fred can climb or hurdle something, he'll do it, and the harder it looks, the more likely he is to try. Whether due to his Djinn heritage or just because, Fred is a little obsessed with clothes, especially boots. His requirements for all outfits are the ability to run and climb, and he can do both in things most people can barely walk in. 
== Abilities ==
=== As a Djinn ===
The Traveler had several powerful talents. The greatest was the power he abused: the ability to alter the fabric of reality, and reorder it to suit his purposes. This stems from the Djinn ability to change reality in order to grant wishes. Though Fred could modify an existing world to suit his purposes, he could not create life in it, and so the people that populated the worlds were those who had been drawn from the original universe. This means that he not only broke the original timeline, but he took every single person from that world along for the ride. The lives of transplanted people settled into a semblance of their natural path, with families retaining their relationships and dynamics, the details changed to suit the context of the world. Those affected remain who they are, with only their memories altered to accept the world they were placed in. No one who underwent this process recalled who they really were, except for in moments--timeline overlays--where their current life so closely mirrored their original one that the similarities caused a sort of deja vu, recalling shadows of the related memory. This was most common for those in close contact with the Djinn, and rarely resulted in permanent effects.
In addition to reality-warping, Fred also had the ability to alter human memories directly, whether individually or en masse. He could do this either by will, or by selecting the memories specifically, and viewing them as he saw fit. He could erase or overwrite anything in a human mind, a power he used reflexively when he broke the universe, but also intentionally, during his initial encounters with Vischias. He claimed this was to make his own job easier, but it lessened the suffering of the mortals involved, sparing them the damage of memories that would raise uncomfortable questions about the situation.
As an Ifrit, Fred was a fire elemental, naturally comprised of heat and light to scorch the eyes of any living creature who looked upon him unglamored. This power could be used to immolate anything at a touch, destroying it down to the molecular level. As such, Fred has connections to fire elementalism in other worlds where he has been made mortal, presenting as a pyrokinetic in Heroverse. In UNS, where he remains an Ifrit, he presents as a pyromancer to disguise his true nature.
Though ostensibly a shapeshifter when unbound, Fred's appearance as a bound Djinn is locked by his connection to Frederick. Prior to his binding by Jasper, Fred is thought to have taken many forms of various genders throughout his centuries-long life. (As such, Fred doesn't have much connection to the concept of gender, and readily responds to whatever pronouns.)
Fred's original immortal nature left him somewhat out of time, fluent in every language, but with an out-of-time vernacular that made him immediately strange to anyone who spoke with him. Being not much of an actor, he never bothered to try and sound time period appropriate, favoring slang and curses over eloquence. As a mortal, Fred speaks his natural language with the same inexplicably modern grammar. Most people chalk it up to Fred being weird when, in fact, it's just a side effect of having once been immortal.
Category:Kingdom of Paraphilia
Category:KoY Characters