Biography:
Wooden Heart: When Tara returns to Court Emmere after Sloane’s death, Evan arrives. He claims to be a Festival Exchange adopted into the family of her Aunt Aiofe. Evan becomes Court Bard; his gentle manners and musical talent allow him access to her inner circle. When Ta’al Erich is betrothed to Meliss, Evan dances with Tara because Merkht cannot master the Saltarello. He is present to hear Tara recount the story of the Atlas Tree to Lady Lorma. He breaks into tears at the story of Daniel. We learn that Evan has possession of Tara’s tanzaku, and that he reads it in secret every night.
Tara is sunk in depression for most of this period. She is mourning Sloane, and coping with recovery from Gyre addiction. Lord Danak tries to persuade her to get more involved in politics, but she refuses. At one point, she asks Evan to sing to her, and he chooses a section of Yeats set to music, a verse that begins, “Gaze no more in the bitter glass.” Sunk in her reverie, Tara does not realize two things – the verse is from a poem called “The Two Trees,” and it is in the volume of poetry that she gave to Sloane – Evan still has that, too.
The political situation becomes more complicated and fraught with danger. The Matriarch visits Tara. She instructs Tara to go to earth to study xenobotany. Tara is delighted – it’s finally her chance to escape her cursed destiny. She believes that the Matriarch wants a potential rival out of the way – but she is wrong. As we learn later, the Matriarch wants her to study the Nau’gsh because the Archon is dying. The conversation is full of subtext, and there is a hint that the Matriarch understands Evan’s nature.
Evan is devastated and tries to talk her out of it. Later, Tara admits that part of her realizes that there is a growing attraction between herself and Evan, and she is trying to protect him from the prophecy that she blames for the deaths of Daniel and Sloane. When Tara leaves, Evan is traumatized. This trauma produces Whirljack, an emanation whose competence and determination are game-changing.
In the period between Ailann becoming Archon and the marriage of Tara and Ash, Evan and Tara finally become lovers. Evan’s refinement and delicacy leads to a shyness and squeamishness about the physical, but it’s a surface veneer – his true nature is a sexual libertine with a humiliation fetish.
Eden Blues: Evan stays mostly in the background. When he is called to testify to the SongLuminants, he responds that although they do not consider understanding important, it is the foundation of Cu’enashti evolution. He then proceeds to sing a selection of folk songs as the rest of his testimony.
The Poison Garden: In the main story, Evan is in the background, generally critiquing literary endeavors, but is not a part of the action.
In “The Prophecy of Rebirth,” Johannon Deverre reveals that at the time, he felt that Evan was a rival. In the commentary it becomes clear that this was intentional – because Tara had taken a refined, beautiful man as her lover, Ash produced one even more refined and beautiful as his next emanation.
In “The Lost and Found Vision,” Tenzain Merkht plans to remarry and demands that Tara return his wedding ring. He confronts Evan over the situation – unbeknownst to Merkht, Tara had tossed the ring away carelessly years ago. Evan’s search for the ring – and the solution to the problem, are commemorated by Evan in a ballad. Years later, Tara has a vision of Evan going through her underwear drawer – he was looking for the ring. Tara deliberately misinterprets the vision to tease and seduce him.
The Perpetual Rose: it is mentioned that Evan for Evan to learn a piece of music, he need only play it correctly once. Valentin taps into Evan’s musical talents when learning to play the piano. Evan plays coy and acts shocked at every double-entendre, but he is the first to pollinate Quennel, and flirts with him.
The Portable Grove: Evan’s relationship with Quennel is continued. They are assigned to the eleventh experiment. Quennel reveals that he’d like to be Evan’s pollen partner, but he fears that Evan is in love with Patrick and sees Ellery as a complication of his own. Tara forces a confession, but when the two of them find out they’ve both been doing Tarlach’s PRAT therapy, they fight. Tarlach straightens them out, and both of them conclude that PRAT/PIT is beneficial. However, their next encounter is marred by the strange BDSM scene between the emanated brothers Ethan and Barnabas.
Evan and Quennel take part in the first stress-test, which is set to be a decadent scene on the theme of hedonism. When Quennel attempts to seduce Evan, Evan balks. He is, as usual, shy and somewhat repressed. He finally blurts out a question to Tara which she recognizes as originating with Ash himself. Ashtara had realized that Tara enjoyed voyeuristically watching sexplay between men, but this faced him with a conundrum: if the emanations took enjoyment from it, was it a violation of n’aashet n’aaverti? Evan realizes that his shyness is the manifestation of Ash’s own uncertainty. Tara reassures him that she doesn’t see it that way. While she scolds Malachi for not being committed enough to Daniel, Evan has an epiphany about the meaning of the Gold Cards. He then encourages Tara to fall in love with Quennel, but he is so beautiful in his rapture that Tara falls in love with him instead.
During the second stress-test, Evan joins Daniel in a confrontation with Ailann. Evan calls him out for his pointless jealousy, then helps Daniel to seduce him.
During the sixth stress-test, Tara gets separated from the group hosting the scene. She ends up in a hall of mirrors, witnessing a scene from the past – her first meeting with Evan. In retrospect, she realizes that he lied to her – trading on the idea that festival exchanges never lied, and that no one had spoken directly to Aiofe in over a decade. Evan emanated immediately after the burial of Sloane, and had never even been to Aiofe’s estate. She recalls her immediate physical attraction to him, an attraction she fought because it was too soon after Sloane’s death. Nevertheless, he impresses her with his musical ability, and she takes him into the household.
Tara’s memories are disturbed by the presence of Evan, who sensed that she desired his presence. He leads her to Suibhne’s music room, where he plays the piano before making love to her. They finally catch up with the participants in the stress-test, who are now holding a drinking party which has attracted some of the other emanations. Ari is initially jealous that Evan has earned a Gold Card, but then finds himself attracted to Evan. After an intervention by Tommy, Evan, Quennel and Tommy seduce Ari.
As part of the masque during the ninth stress-test, Evan has gotten hold of the Stradivarius Wynne found in the closet, and he plays a duet with Valentin on the harpsichord.
Correspondence Chart Entries from The Portable Grove
| Denotation | Evan Finlay-Cole, Esq. (Welsh: Youth; Evan is also an Etruscan deity in the retinue of the goddess of Love; Gaelic: Fair-haired; the hyphenated Cole was added to the names of festival exchanges due to a belief that it was added to the names of exchanged hostages in Ancient Ireland). |
| Numeration | 3rd emanation of Ashtara; 3rd branch of Atlas; 33 in the correspondence chart. |
| Age | 24 |
| Hotness | 10/10 |
| Vital Statistics | 1.815 meters tall, cock size 17.78 cm when erect. |
| Description | Thin, delicate hands, gamine, pale, with sensuous lips, a dreamy sort of beauty. A carefully trimmed goatee, long, lovely golden hair often elaborately braided. Wears foppish cloaks and lacy sleeves; mostly now designed by Quennel. |
| Skills | Incredible musician, prefers traditional instruments, madrigals etc. Master of the extraordinarily difficult fasharp. As a musician, capable of keeping time inside of the pleroma. |
| Sexual Prowess and Kinks | Humiliation fetish. |
| Average Duration of Play | 11 minutes, 51 seconds. |
| Totem Tree | Populus tremuloides, the quaking aspen. |
| Fixed Star | Shelyak, the harp (β Lyr). |
| Color |  |
| Esoteric Symbol | The geomantic glyph Tristitia, sadness. |
| Function | Visionary inspiration. |
| Official Title | Ipsissimal Bard (carries the title of esquire). |
| His Prophecy | Lyric heard at nightfall. |
| Dessert | Chocumber éclair filled with nau’gsh pastry crème. |
Persistence of Weeds Addendum
| Branch Growth Characteristics | Natural branch growth resulting from trauma of Sloane’s death. Used as a template for his half-brothers on Goliath, Valentin and Julian. |
| Nul-history | Was joined to Sloane and Hurley, and in the process of synchronization with Owen/Lugh-Tarlach when they were all drawn into Atlas. |
| Proto-conscious Root Concept | Melody, designated Song. |
| Prime Number of Energy Resonance | 137 |
| From Self-Portraits Not-of-Me II: Baby Pictures by Driscoll Garrett |  |