Francis

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   <default>Francis</default>
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   <label>First Appearance</label>
 

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Francis is a Witch Hunter working with The Lighthouse.

Relationship

Cleo Aleshire offered to take him under her wing and wants to bring him to Montreal with her.<ref>“I’m from the Montreal group, but we’re really incestuous.  Trade people all the time.  We lost a few the other night, the others are a bit lost, they’re waiting for reinforcements and marching orders, so I’m taking Francis under my wing.  Might take him back to Montreal for a bit.  Give him an education in our methods.”-Excerpt from Summer Break 13.5</ref>

Appearance

He is gaunt and scruffy.<ref>Francis followed behind Cleo.  A kid Verona’s age.  Slightly gaunt, slightly dangerous look in the eyes, clothes a bit scuffed, skin more than a bit scuffed.  All suggesting he’d been in fights recently.  Kinda cute in a coyote-that’s-growing-out-of-puppyhood sort of way.  Like, in the way that she’d want to pet him but she was pretty sure he bit and that risk would be there no matter how much she tried.- Excerpt from Summer Break 13.5</ref>

Abilities

He has a high dexterity, knows when he's being watched and the interplay between light and shadow.<ref>The fucking little kid was a ninja.

...

The kid had a very intuitive sense of when he was watched, of light and shadow and its interplay.  Reid had fought the Hennigars who had trained in a variety of styles for much of their lives and those guys hadn’t had the ability this kid was putting on display.- Excerpt from False Moves 12.z</ref>

He uses a crossbow and knives as a weapon.<ref>The kid had already scaled his way up there.  He held a small crossbow.

Reid snapped his fingers.  The tin hammer at his belt stirred, and windows on the upper floor of the building shattered.  He’d been focused on the crossbow, but the practice had a way of not landing directly on these assholes.- Excerpt from False Moves 12.z</ref><ref>Cleo smiled.  “That’s going to annoy me.  You have a gun, Francis?  I hope you don’t object to me using it on her.”

...

“I’ve got knives.”

- Excerpt from Summer Break 13.5</ref>

Has a terrible poker face.<ref>And that poker face, the disgust on Francis’s face… that would need something too.- Excerpt from False Moves 12.a</ref>

Chronology

He became a Witch Hunter after being tricked by a swarm of fairies into entering a fantasy world where he believed he was the hero, he was seven years old at the time. They eventually trapped him inside a bottle along with four other children, stealing his memories and trading them for money. Eventually he was rescued by the Lighthouse but was unable to remember who his parents were.<ref>It felt more familiar than a lot of things in this place.  Way back when he’d been a little kid, he’d been lured away from his parents by sprites and fairies, the small wasp and butterfly winged kinds.  One fairy was stupid, only enough thoughts to fill a thimble, but as an organized group they could network, swarm, and think collectively.  They’d constructed a lie good enough to fool a kid who was only barely starting primary school: a fantasy world where he could be a hero, a robin hood type.  When he’d started to worry about the time, they’d convinced him that even though he’d spent all day with them, only a bit of time had passed, his parents casually still eating at the beach where he’d left them.

They’d laughed about that later.  That was how he knew.

No, they’d gotten lazy about keeping up the lie, and they’d put him in a giant bottle, and after their group had split up over some stupid fucking arguments about who had the best flower in their hair and who could dance best when nobody was looking, the illusions they’d made had fallen apart.  He’d been their plaything, to tease, mislead, torment.  They’d spin stories and let him think he’d escaped and he was fighting his way through fae landscapes or stranger places, and then they’d let the illusion fade.

When they wanted to buy something they’d sneak into his ear or up his nose and pull out memories in the form of glowing worms, and he’d wake up without a Christmas memory, or he’d forget his neighbor’s voice.  Or his mom’s.  They pulled out the little half-formed emotions and left him with huge ones and no ability to modulate them, then pestered him to push him to his limits.

When the Witch Hunters had come to set fire to the hive, the fairies had had four captives like him.  They’d reclaimed some bottles and tried to match them to each child, interrogating the little bastards, but fairies were stupid, and not every memory had gone to the right kid.  Francis had been left so jumbled that he couldn’t remember where home was, what his parents looked like, or any of that.  So he’d gone to the Lighthouse, and the Lighthouse had raised him.- Excerpt from Break 4</ref>

He was injuried while fighting Reid Musser<ref>Reid threw a knife, hard, and pushed it out, away.  It went as far as a bullet might, out of sight, and with Drowne’s awareness, he could push it in the direction of his target-

The knife found the flesh of the little ninja-like asshole with the crossbow.  He didnt know where, but it didn’t matter.  It slowed him down and pushed him to the ground, letting Drowne approach.

- Excerpt from False Moves 12.z</ref> but lived when Drowne refused to kill him.<ref>Reid was very aware that Drowne hadn’t actually followed through on finishing the boy.  He didn’t know enough and hadn’t dedicated enough focus to seeing the actual events unfold.- Excerpt from False Moves 12.z</ref>

He, Cleo, and a group of other Witch Hunters entered the contest for the Carmine's throne. After one round, he was benched to look after injured Witch Hunters, and noticed a tree that had cracked the barrier to the outside world. With John's help he and his injured comrades managed to argue they should be allowed to go free after Cleo died. He then proceeded to shoot Lauren Snyder through the breach in the arena and release the bindings on her familiar.<ref>- Break 4</ref> Afterwards the Aurum Coil turned him into a pile of coins.<ref>“Careful,” Toadswallow interjected.  “Witch Hunter got turned to coinage, just by that hole in the wall.- Excerpt from Summer Break</ref>

References

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