Kensi Gardens

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 *The Galatea of Faërie*

* Overview
* Background
* 'Ships
* Logs

 What we are made to be is less important than who we choose to be... I hope.

— Kensi Gardens

Kensi isn't from around here. She's not from anywhere near here. Born in Faërie, she was constructed by her Fae master to act as a servant and entertaining bauble. With the help of her Changeling friend and confidante, she's escaped to Earth to find a new beginning for the both of them. While magically imbued with knowledge and personality and intelligence, Kensi only has a few years of life to her name. Naive and inexperienced, she's got a lot to learn about humanity and life outside Faërie.

## Personality

Born to serve. This describes Kensi well, but there are seeds of rebellion in her. Her newfound freedom has ignited a desire to be free of those roles imposed upon her by her maker. Still, there is a sort of comfort the doll would never admit in doing what one was made to do. When overwhelmed or uncomfortable or feeling unsafe, Kensi reverts back to the well-mannered servant. As well, those she cares about are much more likely to get an obedient 'yes' of agreement even for things she might not otherwise want to do.
When she feels safe, however, she can be friendly. Cheerful. Outgoing, to her friends. When she feels safe, there is a bubbling wellspring of life and wit and joy that can pour forth from her. It's a glimpse at what she could be, if she were ever able to fully shed her shackles.
But there is also that fire. It's perhaps the rarest side of her. When supported by those close to her, facing someone making demands or giving orders, and she does not feel at risk of life or limb, there is fire. There is where she will rebel most viscerally against the nature that was put into her by her maker. The spark is there. It takes just the right circumstances to fan it into open flame, but the spark is there always.

## SKILLS

As part of her tasks in Faërie, Kensi was occasionally assigned with writing invitations for guests. She has experience with calligraphy and writing as an art, even if the actual contents of her writings are best composed by someone else.

Kensi was created to serve, and so she was also imbued with the ability to care for people and places. Cooking, cleaning, basic first aid, massage, and other tasks likely to come up when serving guests at a Fae's estate. These skills all tie into Kensi's core purpose.

While most may never know it, Kensi's insides are animated clockwork rather than organs or hollow space. Her maker imbued her with much of his knowledge, though not all of it, that she might repair and maintain herself and help him with his projects. Now escaped, she is able to create intricate clockwork devices and art. Nothing magical about them, these are typically for her own amusement or as a means of expressing herself, but - sometimes - her talents stretch into the wondrous and whimsical to behold.

Very quickly upon her escape from Faërie, Kensi realized she had to hide her nature. Since, she has begun to get proficient in using cosmetics to mask and conceal her features. She's also been known to experiment on her friend for other sorts of disguises... rarely, she even uses makeup for what it was designed for; beautifying.

Kensi was created in Faërie by a Fae master. She is a native, even if she didn't live there long before her escape, and she knows a fair bit about her original home.

Intended to be a servant in a Seelie Court, Kensi was imbued with the knowledge to create art for her master to display. Perhaps more importantly, she can also sculpt her own replacement parts when it becomes necessary.

## ABILITIES

Kensi is not human. She's not even alive, in all technicality. She is doll, animated by the magic of Faërie and clockwork innards. She does not eat, she does not breathe, she does not sleep, she has no metabolism or biology and is unaffected by things that require these. Age, poison, disease, and the more debilitating effects of pain hold no sway over her.

The mundane side of Kensi's clockwork craftsmanship has its limits, but she is animated clockwork herself. So, in situations with limited supplies and sub-par tools, she can imbue a jury-rigged creation with a part of her animating essence to help it along, making clockwork gadgets that maybe shouldn't quite function - due to poor parts and craftsmanship - into something functional, if only for a single use or brief period. This does cost some of her own animating essence, leading to needing rewound sooner.

Skin made of porcelain and innards made of clockwork lend to a particular sort of resilience. Kensi's skin can take blows that would cut flesh without a mark, though sufficient damage will cause her to crack or shatter. Likewise, with no vital organs, she will not die so long as her mechanical heart survives. The fact that she does not heal naturally, and the skills to repair her are very uncommon if she cannot repair herself, keep this from being as effective a defense as it could be.

## ADVANTAGES

Created as a servant and assistant to a Fae, Kensi has a photographic memory to assist in managing her tasks without risking any detail be forgotten. While no longer a servant, this remains very useful in helping her acclimate to a new world.

## WEAKNESSES

It isn't something Kensi puts much thought to, and it's unlikely most will even know, but the body of the doll is not Kensi. No, she is instead an intricately designed, near-infinitely complex clockwork heart placed within the chest of the construct. It is a cunning mix of animating magic and incredibly advanced and detailed clockwork, powering all of her movements and housing her animating force. So long as the heart remains functional, she lives. If the heart is destroyed, she is no more. Not even a spirit or ghost left behind. The people with the skill in both magic and artifice necessary to remake her are near non-existent outside her original maker. Lastly, the animating force is kept powered by the clockwork side of her heart. Weekly, she must be wound by a key in her back to survive. To keep her reliant on her maker, this key is outside Kensi's own reach. Winding the key takes energy from the one winding, exhausting them in equal portion to the amount it restores to the heart.

While imbued with much knowledge by her maker and possessed of a fully developed mind, it has not even been five years since Kensi's creation. Created in Faërie for the Fae, her knowledge of Earth is minimal. She is sometimes confused or dazed from the overwhelming differences, and often she is naive or gullible when the native residents attempt to explain things to her. A bad actor with a clever tongue could influence her overly easily towards bad ends.

While Kensi's porcelain skin cannot be meaningfully cut and is generally tougher than human skin, it is brittle. Bludgeoning, from bullets or clubs or fists, causes her to shatter more often than chip or scratch. Where humans might bruise, she will crack, possibly exposing her more vulnerable clockwork. Where humans might have a broken bone, her skin will shatter, large chunks of her body collapsing or breaking off entirely.

Kensi is not a hero. She isn't a warrior or witch or supernaturally strong. While harder to kill than the typical human, she is frail and fragile and a shattered body could leave her alive but incapable for the foreseeable future. And so, Kensi is meek and cowardly. She is inclined, both by imbued nature and experience, to defer to those stronger or more power than her. Her inclination during conflict is to hide or flee. Perhaps needless to say, she is not a killer. Even if her Master himself were to find her and she had the opportunity, she could never strike the final blow to free herself for good.

The serving doll was created to serve. She is to do a task until it is done, and it will be done to perfection. This is fundamental to Kensi's psyche, and she has a very difficult time tearing her focus from any task she sets herself to, even at risk of danger or violence, unless physically removed from the task. Even so, she has a lesser aversion to leaving things unfinished. This goes doubly so if the task was assigned by someone else, and she agreed to perform it.

Kensi was created to be both property and a servant. She was stolen away, willingly, by the friend that helped her escape. Her master, who she will never call by name, wants them back. Should she return to Faërie, servitude awaits. But it's also entirely possible that her master will send others after her, or even come looking himself.

When Kensi was in Faërie, she was just a thing. And when she wasn't needed, she would be kept in a cupboard for hours or even days at a time, expected to lie still there like any other thing. Enclosed places and dark places and, worst of all, places that combine the two are a source of great anxiety for the living doll.

Kensi was created on another world. As such, she has no identification or proof of her existence on Earth. She has no ID, and this may lead to trouble with Earthly authorities.

CREATION

It took a year and a day from Kensi's conception to her birth. This amount of time was significant, magically so, in the meaning it has for Fae and Faërie. It was spent by her master gathering materials, making plans, working magic, and piecing her together piece-by-piece. And on the last day of preparations, the grand rite was performed to bring the new servant to life. The rite imbued her with all she needed to know to act in her role; assistant, servant, maid, and entertaining curiosity.

SERVICE

The newly-created doll filled her role. She did so for another year and a day, unquestioningly. She would serve drinks, sculpt art, assist her master in his creations and organizing his parties. She would endure her punishments and not complain when put away in the cupboard like an unwanted toy. But then she met Aletheia, a human that had been kidnapped by her master in her youth but kept separate until then. United in servitude, they became fast friends. Eventually united in punishment, they would plot their escape.

ESCAPE

The first attempt would fail. The punishment indescribable. It was another year before they would try again. A little more than three years after Kensi's creation is when they would succeed and escape, together. Together, they emerged on Earth. A return for Aletheia, and the first time for Kensi. It's been two months since, with both of them learning and relearning their way around life outside Faërie, settling into their new lives.

BEGINNINGS

It was a rocky start, when they first arrived. Neither Kensi or her friend had the ability to survive in the modern world after they appeared in Golden Gate Park. They were homeless for weeks, with no identification or money to their name, until a local cafe owner had pity on the pair. Aletheia was given a job as a cook. Kensi, unwilling to be looked at too closely, was allowed to work after closing as a janitor. Spending their first down few paychecks on a nearby run-down apartment, the pair have achieved something resembling stability for the first time since escape. It's a delicate thing, though, and their future remains uncertain.

Logs featuring Kensi Gardens:

*Coming soon!*