Queen Sootsleeves

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Queen Sootsleeves is a powerful Lost bound by the Garricks and freed by Avery and Verona.

Personality

Sootsleeves is a bad tactician and has never managed to win a war in the paths, her soldiers are weak and cowardly.<ref>“Sootsleeves never won a war in her crusade across the Dreaming. Her soldiers are cowards and weaklings,” Avery murmured. “And she’s not a good tactician.”- Excerpt from Playing a Part 15.5</ref>

She loves her kingdom despite its endemic poverty, constant hunger, and rampant disease,<ref>“It is the reality for myself and my people that we must be the poorest kingdom. We exist on the verge of starvation, we struggle, our sick are among the sickest, but my love for them is unbounded and their loyalty to me firm.” - Excerpt from Playing a Part 15.7</ref> and was proud of the Run-Down Kingdom Path.

Relationships

Kennet Trio

Avery and Verona released her and in return, she agreed to do three tasks for them.<ref>“Then I’m with her, it seems,” Queen Sootsleeves said. “Three, I’m to follow your laws and lend you assistance?” - Excerpt from Playing a Part 15.5</ref> Her relationship was good enough to give Avery a little tassel cloth to help her navigate the Paths.<ref>“Ready!?” Sootsleeves called out.

“Not especially!” Avery shouted.

“It’s a rare person who is truly ready for the Falling Oak Avenue.  Here.”

Sootsleeves steered with her knee pressed against the bottom of the steering wheel, while she reached over, tying a scrap of cloth around Avery’s wrist, where it joined friendship bracelet, barometer, black rope, charm bracelets, and her wooden spy-detection bracelet.  The cloth was tattered, with burns at the edges, and it had a warm, deep gray color.  The parts that weren’t burnt were very soft.

“What’s this?”

“It should earn you a bit of status in the Commons.”

“Thank you.” - Excerpt from Gone and Done It 17.10</ref>

Kingdom

Her kingdom is essentially her so it's hard to tell where individual members end and she beings. It seems, given the example of Squiring & Servantry Squared Away they're largely independent but have to obey orders from her. It gives her a large amount of Claim over them which can be used to protect them.<ref> - Excerpt from Gone and Done It 17.a</ref>

It's a large part of what makes her formidable, given her large amount of man- and animal-power.

Finders

Avery and Jude suspect that the Garricks were more than willing to bind and forget about her on a shelf as a result of the kith and kin killed in her kingdom, inadvertently and otherwise.<ref>Avery really wanted to ask what logic had led to them keeping Queen Sootsleeves on what Jude had said was the back shelf of the main house, rarely summoned or unbound, but that wasn’t the focus right now. Her suspicion and Jude’s was that Jude’s grandfather and older relatives had known too many people who’d met bad ends in the Run Down Kingdom and resentment had led to her being shelved for long enough she’d mostly been forgotten. - Excerpt from Gone and Done It 17.6</ref>

Reputation

She is still known on the Paths by Lost such as Miss and others.

Appearance

Her appearance is always distinctly tatterdemalion regardless of the style; when she first manifested she wore a silverware crown, rag-made outfit that still invoked nobility,<ref name=":0">The woman astride the horse looked like a queen, but the particulars were all shabby and improvised.  A crown of silverware, a complicated raiment and gown in what Verona presumed were bright colors- made of rags and trash.

She still held a torch.  She still carried a spear with a tattered banner attached to it.  For all that she was dressed in garbage and things, the look on her face was intense. - Excerpt from Playing a Part 15.5</ref> after adapting to modern times she took on an appearance that evoked current hipster trends.<ref name=hip>“But we’ll need to adapt,” Queen Sootsleeves declared, before throwing down her torch with unnecessary force.

The torch flared bright, blinding Verona momentarily.  The eyeliner didn’t help with light.

The Queen sat within a fancy old car.  Her subjects were still rats, but the children were now dressed in modern rags, at least.  Sootsleeves herself was meant to look dirty and shabby, but it really looked like hipster chic with a hipster car, scratched sunglasses included. - Excerpt from Playing a Part 15.5</ref>

Her ragamuffin subjects include rats, children, and beggars, many of them carry standards, torches, and have soot stains on them.<ref>They came through the two doors into the room.  Mice and rats carrying flags.  Children in rags.  Men and women with heavy bandages, smelling of something herbal that did a bad job of covering up the smell of flesh that seemed to be rotting alive.  Many carried torches.  Most were smudged black, like they’d been playing in a pile of coal.- Excerpt from Playing a Part 15.5</ref>

Abilities

She was born owning a torch, steed, and kingdom, and cannot be separated from them.<ref>I’m the poorest Queen of all, but I was given three things when I was born.”

“A torch,” Avery said.

“Fire in hand and breast.”

“A kingdom,” Avery said.

“Loyal to the last, despite my failings and lack of wealth.”

“And your steed.”

“Unfaltering.” The woman stroked the steering wheel, then stomped on the gas. She peeled out in the contained room, turned the wheel hard, and turned the car around. To face the window. “Would you be so kind as to remove the lines in the way?”

“Of the window? - Excerpt from Playing a Part 15.5</ref> This claim allows her to match people like the Turtle Queen and her pervasiveness.<ref>The woman in the car didn’t have a frame.  But there was a decorated background behind her and it extended through most of the lot.  The other woman’s frame was irregular in shape, moving.
[...]
Inside that irregular frame were images.  There were more than four, and they mutated, each flickering between symbols.  Over her head was one, translating from turtle shell to pearl to ring with a jewel to snake eating its tail to snake wrapped around a staff to harpoon impaling a fish, rotating a hundred and eighty degrees to become a pole with a flag attached to sign-

It snapped over to the frame of the rust-stained plastic sign above the diner, overlapping, then slowly rewound backwards, dragging the sign’s symbolism with it.

It was like a brute force password attack, just trying letter combinations until it found something right.
[...]
A pigeon landed on the edge of the car door.  Elizabeth watched as the irregular golden frame around the black woman in the green dress snapped out, seizing the bird, like a frog’s tongue catching an errant fly.

The woman in the car put a hand out, cupping it around the pigeon.  The frame lost its grip, pulling back.

The woman stepped away from the car, walking over- to the door.
[...]
He answered, “I couldn’t say for sure about the ‘big’ one.  It sounds like a demiurge.  An Other with her own pocket domain, usually divine, almost always powerful.  Except this one has no defined borders.  But if she has that kind of structure around her, it’d keep the frame in a position to want to give the full picture.”

“Yeah.  Feels right.  I wonder how well she could bring that domain from the abstract into reality.  What it takes, what it might look like.  All I saw was a pigeon, and an old castle, faint on the canvas.” - Excerpt from Gone and Done It 17.x</ref>

She owns a torch and steed as well as a spear with a banner attached to it,<ref name=":0" /> upon being unbound she translated her horse into a car for the modern day.<ref name=hip/>

She used to have her own Path named The Run-Down Kingdom, participants would have to traverse a maze of streets, performing errands for people every two minutes, if your failed an errand you would be beaten by her subjects, the severity of the beating increased with the number of errands failed. Upon reaching Sootsleeves the Finder would have to win a game of riddles. If you lost you would risk losing either your material possessions, social status or health. If you won your boon would either be a bunch of apples but half your food would spoil ever afterwards, a crying baby that never grows up, or fifteen wounds, afflictions or scars. After being endured the scars would eventually become as hard as armor, the curses would become regenerative wards and then ailments would become resistances.<ref name=rdk>“This was true when we had our own dream, it was true when we founded a kingdom on this Earth, in a patch of remote forest.”

“You had a Path of your own?” Avery asked.

“You had a kingdom on Earth?” Verona asked.

“The Dream was The Run-Down Kingdom,” Sootsleeves replied. “I would meet those who made it through and down the maze of streets with a favor or errand asked of them every time the bells tolled, and the bells would toll roughly every two minutes.

...

“What happened if you couldn’t do an errand?” Avery asked.

“Often unavoidable. The offended party would be waiting at the end to beat you with a stick, broomhandle, or branch. If it was only a handful it would be a light battering, if it was ten or more it could be actual violence. Past twenty, they might use torches and set you alight, or put the weapons through you.”

...

“If they reached me then I would try them with a game of bidding for pieces of riddles. Boons to those visitors who triumphed, losers would find their material things, health, and status at risk of being forfeit, and they would have to choose two of the three to lose before I returned them to where they came from.”

...

“What boons?” Verona asked.

“The first is enough apples to fill one’s stomach, in exchange for half your food being ruined thereafter. The second a squalling babe that’ll be bound to you as your own. The third is an assortment of fifteen wounds, afflictions, or lesser curses. The wounds become great scars harder than any armor, the ailments resistances to what you endured, the curses become regenerating wards. But they must each be healed, endured for long enough, or dispelled, first, respectively.”- Excerpt from Playing a Part 15.7</ref> Attempting to escape the path without completing it would get the individual harassed by rats or orphans until you return.<ref>Queen Sootsleeves went on, “The path must be walked. The exit is through. Any other route invites a bane, a tide of my soldiers and spies following you to confound you in whatever world you decide to move to.”

“For how long?”

Avery climbed over the side of the car, grabbing her bag.

“For as long as you reside there, whenever you return there.”

“So if you came to Earth? Rats harassing you for as long as you’re on Earth? And if you leave and come back, they’ll come back?”

“Not only my smallest followers. It might be the orphans to steal and move your things, or the sickly, to cough on you and spatter you with mucus. - Excerpt from Playing a Part 15.7</ref>

At one point she had a kingdom on Earth in a patch of remote forest.<ref name=rdk/> Avery suggests that the Path was one that was easy to accidentally stumble on and that it was brought down to earth to remove the dangers it imposed from the wider network. She also thought that things went wrong after she was brought down to earth and that's why she was bound.<ref name=Bdte>“I think it might’ve been a path that was easy to stumble into,” Avery said. “Like, enter a door with a rat nearby while on a Path and it could take you to the Run-Down Kingdom.”

“I think that’s a case where you can say yeah, maybe there’s merit to binding, just to stop a lot of people from being screwed over.”

“Yeah, except I think they tried other things first. She was brought down to Earth, that’s a whole thing where Path practitioners can try to bring a path or a key component of a path down to earth to try to create an effect, or remove it from the network of the Paths. So if they find a path that’s easy to stumble onto where every option is bad, or things aren’t doable, they move it out of the network. The situation she described sounds like a good case for that.”

“And then that went wrong enough they bound her?” Verona asked.- Excerpt from Playing a Part 15.7</ref>

Has some ability to deal with incarnations such as Death and Starvation.

She was able to bring Avery onto Falling Oak Avenue.<ref>Avery hung up. “Thanks for putting up with that. I’ve got to get onto the Paths, and then I’ll signal him. He’s coming.”

“Want a ride?” Sootsleeves asked.

“To…”

“To the Paths.”

“That would help a lot.”

Sootsleeves gave the passenger seat a pat.- Excerpt from Gone and Done It 17.10</ref>

Chronology

Origin

Her creation on the Paths led her to lead a "crusade" on them that took her through several Paths before settling and forming her own. Eventually she was bound, specifically by Chester Garrick.

Modern Day

After being released by Avery and Verona, following the negotiations of the terms of the release which included three tasks or favors,<ref>Verona spoke up, calling over.  The queen turned to look at her.  “Will your kingdom adopt our laws?”

“You’d be free,” Avery said.  “More or less.  We’d also cooperate.  But you can’t go invading or taking over, you can’t cause problems.  Just… find a nice spot, set up, do your thing.  It’s gotta be better, right?”

“We’ve slept so long the dust can be measured in handspans.  If you’d free my people, you’d have my gratitude, and my agreement, my torch, my sword.  For one task.”

“Cool beans,” Avery said.

“Make it three?” Verona asked.

The woman looked at her, eyes narrowing.

“She’s with me,” Avery said.

“Then I’m with her, it seems,” Queen Sootsleeves said.  “Three, I’m to follow your laws and lend you assistance?”

Avery nodded.  “Sure.  And after, you find some place away from civilization.  For your own good, and so you don’t cause anyone we know any trouble.  If you have any goodwill, you’ll stick to the laws even after.  Generally.”

“We’ll negotiate that at the conclusion of our deal,” the Queen told Avery.

“If I can’t come to any agreement for your requests or you can’t agree to mine, will we agree to a compromise where you return to the paths?”
[...]
“That is what I know it as.  Yes.”

They sorted out the nitty gritty details, including behavior in the Lord of Thunder Bay’s domain. - Excerpt from Playing a Part 15.5</ref> she left the abandoned building she was in via the window.

She warned Avery and Verona that Theodora Knight was intending to kidnap and mutilate children,<ref>“Yes and no,” Queen Sootsleeves replied.  “Nothing against Thunder Bay, like you asked about.  But she has a group of children with her, and she intends to spirit them away.”

"Spirit-”

“Kidnap.  Ferry them to another realm.  To be consumed, perhaps, or be used for their power, or her own amusement.  Her intentions are not good.”

Verona and Avery exchanged looks.

“I’ll keep watch, for acts against this territory, or acts in support of this territory’s enemy, as you asked for my first favor to you.  Would you like to use a second?  To help stop her?” - Excerpt from Playing a Part 15.5</ref> she transferred them to the site to stop her.<ref>Playing a Part 15.7</ref>

Avery said she'd likely use her second favor to ensure the Beorgmann's abductees got to safety.<ref>“Yes,” Bridge replied.  “From the clutches of an Other who hasn’t fully released his grip.”

“Does that mean that if they’re out there on their own, and if they wander, they might end up veering right back into that place they were captured from?”

“Yes,” Rook replied.

“I can call Queen Sootsleeves, work out a favor.  Her minions would be able to cover a lot of ground.  Steer them to safety.” - Excerpt from Left in the Dust 16.z</ref>

She and her kingdom were tapped for the creation of a third Kennet,<ref>“Did you make a decision?  About the founding?”

Sootsleeves nodded.  “We’ll contribute.  No guarantee we’ll stay, but we’ll do our part.” - Excerpt from Gone and Done It 17.5</ref> helping with the creation of needed objects and ready to be stationed to "catch" the process.<ref>Avery explained, “We’ll have shrines at the perimeter, then the eleven arrangements of the mundane, which again, I want to ask about later.  The mundane stuff will be both a wall of ‘normal’ against the Lost energies and how we pull our Lost friend out from the Paths.  Then demesne, council seat, ideally something else too.  Some diagram work at the bullseye point, to refocus the energies.  That braces us.  A catcher’s mitt for the fastball.  Queen Sootsleeves will be bracing us some, so will some other Others we’ve got.  Ones that know how to manage power, or who’ll eat excess power and stay standing.”
[...]
Verona explained, “Avery brought the items we need, courtesy of Queen Sootsleeves.  We’re going to do another twelve.  We’re confident we can get that done tonight and early tomorrow.  The goblins and undercity people who held onto their stuff in hopes of getting the prizes don’t get anything.” - Excerpt from Gone and Done It 17.6</ref>

She did her part trying to keep the invaders in Kennet on the back foot.<ref>Gone and Done It 17.11</ref>

She settled onto the periphery of Kennet Found in a Hold of her own following her role in the Founding.<ref>Gone and Done It 17.x</ref><ref>Gone and Done It 17.y</ref>

Trivia

• Despite what one might think, Sootsleeves is not based on Cinderella, but instead takes cues from Norwegian folk tales such as Tatterhood.
• Sootsleeves and her kingdom are not examples of a Founder and Foundlings, but rather Lost that were excised from the Paths.<ref name=Bdte/>

References

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