eyes, and a vaguely pixie/mousy cast to her features.
Full Name: Aiden Morag Ferguson
Nickname: Fergs (from Birdie only)
Birthdate: March 3, 1979
Father: Kenneth Ferguson, professor of medieval studies,
University of California at Irvine
Mother: Lady Finella, one-time betrothee of King Kenneth,
foolish over Constantine
Other Family: "Aunt" Mary Bywell, Tom's mother
Grandmother: Morag, deceased.
Description:
| Human -- Aiden is a petite thing, about 5' and 100
pounds soaking wet. She has fair skin, shoulder-length beige-blond hair,
pale blue
eyes, and a vaguely pixie/mousy cast to her features. |
Gargoyle -- much the same, petite and slim, except that her skin color is light grey, she has webbed wings, and a pterodactylian crest sweeps back from the crown of her head. |
|
|
|
Background:
When Mary and Finella bid
farewell to Princess Katherine, the Magus, and Tom, their goal
was to keep the Grimorum away from Constantine. Avalon's
interpretive answer to this was to send them forward in time, to the year
1976. They washed up by Castle Wyvern, where they
met Kenneth Ferguson, who was doing a research project
on the castle.
Aiden was born to Kenneth
and Finella a few years later, after they sold the Grimorum to David Xanatos.
A good student with an interest in history, Aiden eventually discovered
the Internet and became pen-pals with Lexington (author's note -- this
is an almost universal
thing in fanfic; just about everyone hooks Lex
up with a girl via the 'Net <g>).
In November of 1996, Kenneth
Ferguson had the opportunity to speak at a seminar in
New York, and took the whole family along. Aiden wanted
to meet Lex, arranging a time
and place in Central Park. This meeting changed her
life forever.
Personality:
Aiden is quiet and shy, easily
embarrassed, and quick to take any actual or perceived
blame for things that go wrong. She is convinced that
she has the worst luck in the
universe and that she will never be as competent a
sorceress as everyone expects. Low
self-esteem, nervous, wistful, and eager to please
are all terms that suit her quite well. She
doesn't give herself enough credit, and isn't half
the failure she thinks she is.
The Stories
Where You Need to Be --
"Gosh, you don't look anything
like I pictured you."
When she arrives in Central
Park, Aiden makes the mistake of letting a creep convince
her that he is Lex, but luckily for Aiden,
the genuine article shows up and rescues her.
She overcomes her shock at finding out her friend
is a gargoyle, but gets a new shock when
it turns out that Aunt Mary recognizes Lex, and vice
versa.
Eventually, everything is
revealed about her mother's past. Aiden also finds out, thanks
to Owen, that a combination of factors including Finella's
exposure to both the Magus'
magic and Avalon's have given her an innate sorcerous
talent. Xanatos promptly makes
her an offer she can't refuse -- tuition and the chance
to study magic in exchange for her
services.
Sterling Silver --
"I don't know what I just did,
but I've got a bad feeling!"
Aiden is enrolled in the
exclusive Sterling Academy, where she makes the acquaintance
of Birdie Yale and Professor Lennox MacDuff.
On Aiden's 18th birthday,
Owen gifts her with Hecate's Wand, a powerful magic item
that can only be used by a human sorceress. Much to
Owen's concern, the first thing Aiden
does is to accidentally cast a love spell upon him
and the dean of the Sterling Academy,
Cordelia St. John.
Double Date --
"Um ... just stand there, and
think about being a gargoyle."
Aiden and Birdie go on a
double-date with Lex and Broadway, attending the Scarlet
Angel Blue Moon Concert. For the occasion, Aiden uses
Hecate's Wand to turn herself
and Birdie into gargoyles. The night goes well, letting
them meet the band (including
Ebon, the amnesiac reformed Thailog) and battle some
Quarrymen.
Future Imperfect --
"It's not like I could just
raise it overhead and cry *invoco*!"
A scroll sends Aiden and
Lex into a possible future, where they become caught up in
a conflict between Janine Xanatos (daughter of Alexander
and Patricia) and Moray
MacLachlan (son of Demona and MacBeth). Aiden is given
several terrifying glimpses
of things that may come to pass, including Elisa and
Hudson's deaths at the hand of a
rogue Avalon gargoyle, Lex's maiming and subsequent
cybernization, and the theft and
destruction of Angela's egg.
Lead Me Not ... --
"Oh, boy, talk about rotten
timing!"
When Aiden is abducted and
then rescued by Demona, she finds herself tempted by
Demona's knowledge of magic. But when the spell they're
casting requires a virgin to
control the summoned unicorns ... the night _after_
Aiden and Lex become lovers, chaos
results and it takes the help of Lex, Birdie, and
Broadway to set things right.
Menagerie --
"I have the worst luck in the
known universe."
Aiden goofs again, this time
using Hecate's Wand to accidentally transform everybody
else in the castle into animals. The situation is
worsened when Petros Xanatos shows up
with his fiancee Lydia. To break the spell, Aiden,
Birdie, and Lex wind up taking a trip
to Una and Leo's shop in London.
Xantasia --
He snapped it open and showed
her a silver ring set with a small but sparkly diamond.
"Will you marry me and be my mate? Now and forever?"
A combination of science
and sorcery let Aiden and Lex create the ultimate video
game; to celebrate, they go to Disneyland and are
surprised by a visit from skiff-travelers Broadway and Elektra. Aboard
the sailing ship Columbia, Lex finally pops the question.
Dear Diary --
"One thing I'm not
looking forward to is getting my wings pierced."
From Aiden's point
of view, this story chronicles her thoughts before, during, and
after she takes the big plunge and becomes a gargoyle.
Breeding Season --
"Aiden looked like a top
view of an opened umbrella, the poor lass barely able to get
her arms to her sides on account of how round her
middle had gotten."
Despite getting interrupted
by Xanatos when he catches them on the ledge outside his
office window, Aiden and Lex produce two eggs which
will eventually hatch into a male
and a female. She also rings in the New Year by dumping
a huge amount of water on a mob attempting to storm the castle, although
she immediately feels horribly guilty about it.
A sampling of other appearances:
A Gargoyles Christmas
Special -- Aiden joins Lex, Angela, and Brooklyn on a Christmas caroling
expedition that takes them to visit both Demona and MacBeth.
Mother's Day -- Aiden
and Owen confront Demona and Titania on the grounds of the
Sterling Academy, where a mystical plant known as
Lady's Veil grows.
Black Roses -- Aiden's
brush with an incubus gives her a naughty dream about playing "professor,
I really need an A" with MacBeth.
Love Machine -- Aiden
is reluctantly dragged along to Elisa's wild bachelorette party.
The Wedding -- Aiden
showers the newlyweds with twinkling magic light instead of rice.
Hotwire -- Aiden's
enchanted writstwatches give Lex and Brooklyn disguises that let
them go barhopping, but she gets scolded by Xanatos
later because the illusions don't
show up on film.
Upcoming appearances:
At the moment, the author's
plans around Aiden are fairly vague. She will most likely
have a role to play in the upcoming story Damien,
she may develop healing spells to
bring Claw out of his coma, and she will probably
appear in the Guardians spin-off (a
series of stories set in the future, with Amber as
an adult and the hatchlings as youngsters).
Random notes and thoughts:
Aiden is one of my more borrowed
characters. She has turned up in guest appearances
in several other authors' universes, usually with
my foreknowledge and blessing (there have
been a couple of occasions when, upon hearing what
another author had in mind for the
poor girl, I had to turn down the request).
When Aiden first appeared, a lot
of readers wondered if she was my Mary-Sue (translation: character strongly
and often deliberately based on the author to allow vicarious wish-
fulfillment; said characters usually being just fantastic
at everything but usually horribly
annoying to the reader; I've also heard this called
"Kirk's Daughter" based on the large
number of suggestions and submissions the Trek people
would get).
Is Aiden my Mary-Sue? I seriously
doubt it. Sure, she reminds me of my own insecure
teenage past, but that's more because I draw upon
it to fuel her, not because I'm basing
her on me. Besides, Aiden hardly meets the other qualifications.
Her success comes mostly through blind luck and the intervention of others.
Name: Roberta Louise Yale
Nickname: Birdie
Father: Charles Winthrop Yale II
Mother: Lois Yale
Brother: Charles Winthrop Yale III, known as Chas
(originally created by Christi
Smith-Hayden, along with his partner Eric).
Aunt: Margot Yale
Uncle by marriage: Brendan Vandermere
Description:
Human: Birdie is about 5'6 and full-figured, on the
fine line between plump and fat, most
of her weight in her hips, tush, and chest. She has
short black hair worn curly with a dyed burgundy blaze in the front. Her
ears are multiply pierced, she has a ring in her navel, and
a tattoo of a rose where a low neckline can showcaseit.
She favors and punk/Goth clothing,
mostly because it gets under her family's skin.
Gargoyle: when Aiden transformed her, Birdie became
a rose-colored, bat-winged she-garg
(and as gargoyles don't have navels, one might wonder
what became of that particular item
of jewelry).
Background and Personality:
"Growing up in the shadow
of my valedictorian prep-school golden boy big brother was
what did it."
Birdie comes from a wealthy,
blue-blooded family, and has devoted her life to not living
that way. Always a rebel, but smart enough never to
do anything self-destructive, she thrives
on making her relatives crazy. The only ones she gets
along with are Chas and Brendan (and
him not until after his adventures on the skiff and
subsequent change of heart).
She graduated from the Sterling
Academy with a major in drama, after trying and
rejecting or being rejected by several other haughty/snotty
schools. While there, she became
fast chums with Aiden and also developed a lusty crush
on MacBeth.
Birdie is flamboyant, mouthy,
brash, brassy, disrespectful of authority, and rarely takes anything seriously.
She is also fiercely loyal to her friends, an extremely talented voice
mimic, and very resilient -- no weirdness can stun
her for long.
Her car is an outward extension
of herself, being a wild 70's Pepto-Bismal-pink Mustang;
she probably has a noddy dog in the back but this
has never firmly been decided.
Birdie dated Broadway for
a while but broke off with him for fear of corrupting him and ruining him
for the eventual nice lady-garg that was bound to come along. She's also
been interested in 23rd Precinct heartthrob Rick Alvarez. She is currently
sharing an apartment
with T.J. Lawton (Fox's illegitimate son), but their
relationship has yet to be decisively
established.
Stories:
Most of the time, Birdie
appears alongside Aiden. Some exceptions would include:
1.) Her finest moment, off-screen
in The Pure and the Profane when Chas reported to
the clan how Birdie wound up getting arrested after
knocking Aunt Margot into a
glass-topped table during an argument over gargoyles.
2.) Hotwire, in which
Birdie and T.J. Lawton steal a Quarryman van after kicking
up some dickens in a bar with Brooklyn and Lex.
3.) Again with T.J. (and
Chas), a rooftop confrontation with Jon Canmore and her
smartass revenge involving a photo of him with a Snidely
Whiplash moustache and a word-balloon reading "Curses! Foiled again!"
Upcoming appearances:
At the moment, the author
is wrestling with the horrible temptation to make Birdie
even more Mary-Sue-like by letting her indulge one
of the author's personal fantasies
involving the author's runner-up Gargoyles universe
hunk, MacBeth. If so, this will take
place in The Scottish Rogue, a story due to
be written in January of 1999.
The author is also toying
with an idea that would have T.J. use his technomagic
powers to bring Godiva back online, and then Birdie
would use the Xantasia program
to remote-control her and they could go crime-fighting
together. But this is silly, and
will never happen ... probably ... maybe ... well
... we'll see.
Random notes and thoughts:
Of all my characters, I think
Birdie and Gustav Sevarius get the best lines (with a few memorable exceptions,
like Jericho and Brooklyn's "as above, so below" exchange).
I used Birdie to shamelessly
promote my own book once, in Lead Me Not ... when she refers to
elves' ears <g>.
More Mary-Sue things can
be found in Birdie's liking of Red Dwarf. Mostly, though,
I did that just so I would have somebody to make the
"smoke me a kipper" remark
about Griff in The Wedding.
