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* TheOlderImmortal: [[spoiler: Nicnevin]] is easily the oldest of the main cast of immortals, by a wide margin, although based on some of the details of [[spoiler: Father Kenaz's]] little speech to Penance about his death he might also fit the bill.
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* MayflyDecemberFriendship: Though he's presumably had many, Penance's friendship with Gilbarta of Clan Cameron was notable given that he stayed with her for decades, up until her death, all the while posing as her surrogate son.
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* InconspicuousImmortal: Being a 12-year-old Penance hasn't got many options for being anything ''but'' inconspicuous, spending most of his life as a street urchin or the ward of regular families. Briefly averted several times, most notably when he fell in with the Scottish noblewoman Gilbarta and became the technical chief of Clan Cameron.
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* ImmortalApathy: Clara expresses this attitude toward the mortal human world in regard to the events of World War 2, urging Penance to give up on fitting in with others and instead travel with her.
-->'''Penance:''' "Hate to break it to you but we're part of this world, too."\\
'''Clara:''' "No, we're not, Penance. Not really. And you know it, too."
-->'''Penance:''' "Hate to break it to you but we're part of this world, too."\\
'''Clara:''' "No, we're not, Penance. Not really. And you know it, too."
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*Foreshadowing: At one point early in the story Penance gets upset and throws a book clear across a library, making a sizeable dent in the wall. This is the first hint at his heightened physical strength, which wouldn't be on full display until his fight in Ikey Boggs' office.
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* NamedWeapons: Some who've heard of Penance call his dagger the ''Fiacail den Sionnach'', or 'Fox's Fang'. Penance finds the name ridiculous. Nicnevin's liquid-steel sword is called the 'Chrysalis Blade' in author notes, but not in the story itself.
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* TheMagicGoesAway: Being set a short time before the Gathering it is noted that there are far fewer immortals alive at the moment, and all of them slowly converging on New York City. [[spoiler: Nicnevin’s detailed intelligence from global surveillance seems to prove that new immortals are not being born, leaving the few still living to be all that’s left]].
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*LastUnsmokedCigarette: Penance gets a handful of cigarettes from Whip at one point, and he debates smoking the last one at a certain point but decides to hold on to it. He finally brings it out in the Aurelia Arms and lights it [[spoiler: while standing over a broken gas line, where the resulting explosion gives him the upper hand on Nicnevin's cultists]]. Later he admits that while his maneuver was very cool, he'd rather have kept the cigarette to smoke in hindsight.
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* AlarmSOS: Whip trips the fire alarm at the main control station in the basement of the Aurelia Arms during her play to save Penance from being sacrificed. The cultists can't convince authorities that it's a false alarm (à la {{Film/Die Hard}}) since they've been stalling on finishing the building for so long that the city of Trenton is solidly fed-up with them.
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** Whip often refers to Penance as [[IronicNickname 'white bread']].
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* SadisticChoice: [[spoiler: Nicnevin makes Uallas choose to either give-up his immortal apprentice Penance or 'pre-immortal' adoptive daughter Struana as a sacrifice. He chooses Penance, though the decision is agonizing for him]].
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* ImmortalityHurts: Discussed by Penance, at one point, who's actually come to find many comparatively minor injuries to be more painful that catastrophic damage, given the body's coping mechanisms for the latter. He admits that his immortality has 'warped' his sense of pain.
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* IronicNicname: Whip refers to Penance as 'white bread' when she thinks he's a normal runaway child. She continues to do so even after learning he's anything but normal and boring.
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* IronicNicname: IronicNickname: Whip refers to Penance as 'white bread' when she thinks he's a normal runaway child. She continues to do so even after learning he's anything but normal and boring.
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* IronicNicname: Whip refers to Penance as 'white bread' when she thinks he's a normal runaway child. She continues to do so even after learning he's anything but normal and boring.
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TheRedBaron: Penance is called the 'Rabid Fox' by those who've heard of the boy.
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TheRedBaron: Penance is called the 'Rabid Fox' by those who've heard of the boy.
** [[spoiler: Father Kenaz]] is known by other immortals as 'The Hunter'.
** [[spoiler: Nicnevin]], appropriately enough, is known to some as the 'Child Eater'.
** [[spoiler: Father Kenaz]] is known by other immortals as 'The Hunter'.
** [[spoiler: Nicnevin]], appropriately enough, is known to some as the 'Child Eater'.
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* ExactWords: When offered a swig of bourbon by Whip Penance declines and tells her he's an 'addict'. Much later, when she learns [[spoiler: he was hooked on heroin for some years]] and not an alcoholic, he reminds her of his phrasing.
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** Black Hat's mentor Medici also goes this route when subduing [[spoiler: Penance: he just comes up behind the boy and jams an ice pick through the base of his skull]].
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* TamperingWithFoodAndDrink: [[spoiler: Uallas]] does this to Penance's tea when he betrays the boy to [[spoiler: Nicnevin. It doesn't fully work, as the poison berries he used were the same ones Penance had found tasty and been using to make his own recreational beverages, [[AcquiredPoisonImmunity allowing the boy to metabolize the poison faster than intended and recover earlier than expected from his 'death']]]].
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* ItGetsEasier: A roughly 50-year-old Penance reflects on the pain of having to pack up and move on from whatever 'life' he's been living every few years, to avoid people's suspicion about him not ageing. He figures that after a few centuries of practice it won't bother him anymore. [[ItNeverGetsAnyEasier He's]] [[GoMadFromTheIsolation wrong]].
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* WalkingTheEarth: Penance spends most of his time doing this. As a child immortal he can't have the usual decades-long 'lifespan' an adult immortal might be able to pull off; he can go, at best, three to four years on average before having to move on.
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* ForeignQueasine: Subverted. Cadha has Penance help her make Haggis, and as they go through all the steps to make it Penance is baffled about the whole process, thinking it to be inedible. The result [[TrademarkFavoriteFood sends him over the moon]].
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* SoProudOfYou: Uallas says this to Penance after [[spoiler: Penance gets the upper hand on him after Uallas betrays him to Nicnevin, just before Penance kills him at his request]].
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* LikeASonToMe: Penance's mentor Uallas comes to feel this way about the boy. [[spoiler: It makes his betrayal of Penance to Nicnevin that much harder, but in a choice between sacrificing Penance or his adoptive daughter Struana Penance loses]].
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* CheerfulChild: Struana, Uallas’s adopted daughter, very much fits the bill [[spoiler: and her death at Nicnevin’s hands [[MyGreatestFailure haunts Penance]] to no end]].
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* CheerfulChild: Struana, Uallas’s adopted daughter, very much fits the bill [[spoiler: and her death at Nicnevin’s hands [[MyGreatestFailure haunts Penance]] to no end]].
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* ChekhovsGun: Penance picks up a heavy-duty spiked collar (meant for working dogs protecting sheep from wolves) and a gold-plated cigarette lighter at Ikey Boggs' store. [[spoiler: the former he uses to kill Nicnevin, and the latter he uses to blow a gas line in the Aurelia Arms and allow him to take out the bulk of Nicnevin's cultists]].
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* SpiritAdvisor: Around the second half of the story Penance starts being visited by other immortals that he's previously killed, all of whom generally provide helpful advice. [[spoiler: Nicnevin appears to also have the same experiences, but her visitors only silently stare at her, and she's distressed by their appearance]].
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* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: Whip's [[TheFagin fence]] and handler is a man naked Ikey 'Babysplitter' Boggs. Two guesses as to whether he's on the up and up or not.
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* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: Whip's [[TheFagin fence]] and handler is a man naked Ikey 'Babysplitter' Boggs. Two guesses as to whether he's on the up and up or not.
not. And [[spoiler: Nicnevin]] gets her name from a legendary witch from Scottish lore that was said to feast on Christian flesh, take ungrateful children from their parents... [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and steal unfinished knitting at the eve of the new year]].
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* MeaningfulName: Penance names his stuffed fox head Galabeg, a shortening of the Gaelic ''galla beag'', meaning 'little bitch'.
