Toski

Fetches:
 
Folk songs and fairy tales tell many stories about how the fairies steal babies from their cribs and cradles, replacing them with one of their own kind in the guise of a child. Like most tales about the True Fae, these stories are half true. For centuries, the Fair Folk have been stealing humans from their beds (and other parts of their lives) but when they leave something behind, it is not one of their own. It is a fetch, a flimsy simulacrum made of sticks and string, meaty bits, or whatever other ephemera the True Fae chooses to bend to the task. Should your Keeper leave a fetch behind, the creature is given your memories at the time of its creation, and infused with a bit of your very own shadow. Once created, this creature lives out your life during your durance — and is likely not eager to give up its place once you’ve returned.

While your fetch is not a changeling, that doesn’t mean it’s without its own resources. First and foremost, of course, is the fact that it’s been living your life all along. How can you hope to convince those who knew you, once upon a time, that you are really you, when they’ve seen and interacted with your fetch as you every day you’ve been missing? You — warped by your durance, changed by your experiences in ways even your Mask cannot hide — are likely to seem less “you” than the being that has experienced your life in your absence. Your fetch knows things you missed during your durance, knows the joys and pain they’ve shared with the people you once called friends over the years. Years that are, for you, filled with memories of an entirely different place, different lessons, a different life. And it’s not likely they’re going to give up their place without a fight. While fetches don’t have the ability to use Contracts, per se, they are creatures of the Wyrd. They have their own abilities, known as Echoes, which they certainly use to defend their appropriated life. These powers play largely on your fetch’s connection to their changeling. and can allow it to hide itself as a normal human being, enter and exit the Hedge, heal itself in magical fashions, or even — in the most extreme of circumstances — to summon the True Fae down upon itself and whoever else happens to be in the area.
 
It’s easy to see your fetch as the enemy. After all, this stranger — this thing — was made by your Keeper. It has been living your life. Sleeping with your spouse. Taking your place. Most Lost, when they discover their fetch’s existence, are filled with an immediate instinct to destroy it, to cut out the replacement their Keeper left to take their place. But what happens when the choice isn’t so clear? Not all fetches are bad “people.” They are a replacement, a false “you,” but that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily evil or that they haven’t done their best to live the life you left behind. What do you do when you find out your fetch is better to your family than you were before your durance? That they’ve succeeded where you struggled, overcome the challenges you were battling, and essentially become a better “you” than you? You’re not “you” anymore, not the you that you were before your durance. And while it may not have started as the real you, it’s lived the life you couldn’t. Raised your children. Worked your job. Paid your bills. Even now, it’s willing to fight to protect the things and the people you couldn’t. Even if that means fighting you.