The Oldest Child in the World
Age: 39
Appears: 12
Eyes: Black, glittering. Sometimes red and reflective.
Weight: 90 lbs
Height: 4' 1"
Predominant features: Dark circles under eyes, flawless if unhealthily gray complexion, deceptively delicate hands.
Sydney grew up on a large former plantation, in a antebellum-style house, with too many rooms. Mr. Gale owned a printing and engraving company, through which the family earned a living, while Mrs. Gale was a model hostess who frequently entertained her local sewing circle. Sydney himself was a mild-mannered child who took piano lessons obediently, and never got his shoes muddy. They had house servants, but the plantation was no longer operable as such, the fields overgrown.
When Sydney was twelve, he ceased to age physically.
Since before he could remember, Sydney's arch rival had been the daughter of their housekeeper, a maidservant with a sharp tongue and a ready-made barbed insult always at the ready.
As soon as the two were old enough to speak to each other, she had made his life a quiet hell of subtle intimidation and snide remarks. She was often the only reason Sydney ever got into serious trouble with his parents; either by his responding to one of her pranks and being caught, or by being framed for her mischief.
He retaliated to the best of his ability, but though he had some amount of power over her position, he was far more emotionally sensitive than she and could only manage infantile comebacks to her stings.
The realization that Sydney was different dawned on the boy and his family slowly; he didn't hit puberty like other boys his age, he no longer got any taller or larger as the prime years for growth-spurts ticked away.
This created an accute strain on his relationship with his parents; they never could come to see him as anything but their precious twelve-year-old boy.
They accepted it serenely as a medical condition, and were prepared to pamper and house him without ever expecting him to have real responsibilities for the rest of his life.
They didn't imagine that the situation could be any different, even as their son began to develop a mean streak and his mental capabilities and worldly interests no longer resembled a child's.
At the age of 19 Sydney confronted his rival, seven years his senior now though they were the same age. A confession was made to certain vengeances and the improper use of a vodun curse; uttered in a childish rage and now irreversable: time will have no effect on his body for the length of his natural life.
Sydney tried to kill her, and upon failing to do so, filled his pockets with stones and gave himself to the mercy of the bayou.
Days later the Gale child was pulled from the water: still 12, still cussing, and looking like death warmed over.
The servant girl was executed for the 'attempted murder of a white child'.
Sydney went home to his parents, staying inside as his half-decayed body worsened.
Sympathetic, his parents kept him sheltered indoors to avoid the strains of the outside world that they felt had traumatized him enough already. The more time passed, the less recognizable their son became. Doctors were summoned to no avail.
Eventually, one of the physicians disappeared without delivering his diagnosis, which would have worried Sydney's parents a gread deal, had their son not appeared miraculously that afternoon looking as healthy as he had ever been before his accident. He remained so for several weeks, before relapsing. More doctors were called for.
The later disappearance of Mr. and Mrs. Gale was not well covered in the papers. A brief search was conducted without result, and their loss was blamed on the stress of raising an abnormal child and emotional desperation.
No longer at home in the community, the surviving Gale child took his inheritance and moved up North, free to squander his new independence on the pursuit of bad habits, shady company, and dulling the ever-present loathing of himself and the world.
Despite his condition, Sydney is an artistic young man, with good balance and a feline delicacy of motion that allows him to squirm his way out of most any disagreeable situation.
By a stroke of lucky coincidence, he was discovered by a certain Master Cristoff in the slums near Dock Street and the Flenser Inn (where the bulk of his inheritance was spent on poppy, laudanum, whores, liquor, and tobacco), and invited to work as a painter and performer at the local theater.
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