Summer's Exile
rating: +149+x

Summer's Exile

Gaoler's Hubris, the Last Dragon1, Reptilia supernus2, Levon tarasque, Exile of the Flesh, The Recalcitrant Prodigal Son, Death's Mother, SCP-682

Conspectus

Summer's Exile is a singular monstrous, animalistic person capable of extreme, adaptive shapeshifting. They are thought impossible to kill. They are generally thought to be exiled from their home, a place ill-understood, and re-created or altered by the SCP Foundation. They are known to be imprisoned on Earth and unable to permanently leave. They express extreme horror at humanoid life, and will attempt to kill most humanoid people on sight.

Knowledge

Traits: Summer's Exile is an adaptive shapeshifter, changing form to respond to outside stimuli. They gain power in direct proportion to the power exerted upon them3. Once sufficient time has passed, most of their adaptations are lost, but their body never ceases changing.

In appearance they usually seem reptilian, though features are inconsistent.

Nature: Summer's Exile is a member of a highly intelligent, sapient species of unknown origin. It is known there are other members of their species4, and that this species are hermaphroditic predators. No known fellow members of their species have been identified. Summer's Exile has been twisted beyond recognition from their original form, so unfortunately few real conclusions can be drawn from them on the rest of their species5.

Summer's Exile is thought to have been banished or exiled from its home; the earliest and most reliable accounts claim the Exile is "ever denied the lands of Summer." The full circumstances of its exile are unknown.6

The Exile views humans as Western humans see cockroaches, but they also have real fear of humans beyond the instinctual, for humans are comparatively enormous and have spent years upon years tormenting the Exile (literally so, in the case of the Foundation). To the Exile, humans represent a horror nearly impossible for us to comprehend.

They seem to bear a lesser hatred for other Earth-based life forms. When interacting with non-Earth-based life forms, they behave like a typical large predator: sedate and cautious with punctuated periods of intense hunting activity.

It is not known if the Exile's adaptive shapeshifting capability is native to their species, or if it is a curse or trait bestowed on them for other reasons, such as the Mark borne by Cain the Wanderer, or indeed a side effect of Jailor interference.

History & Associated Parties: Summer's Exile is closely connected to the SCP Foundation on an occultic level; the nature of this connection is not yet fully understood. The Jailors certainly awoke them from their prior hibernation and may or may not have created their present form entirely.

It is known that Summer's Exile was in hibernation for centuries until the Jailors disturbed their slumber. At an unknown date a decade or longer ago, the Jailors discovered (re-discovered?) the Exile's grave, apparently based on information inherited from the Jailors' predecessors (see other entries relating to the SCP Foundation's history elsewhere).

The Jailors dug up the Exile's insensate body, and began subjecting it to experiments, attempting to combine the body with other preternatural entities. They must have been forewarned of the consequences, perhaps at the last minute, for no Jailor was present when the Exile awoke.

After awakening, the Exile briefly wandered the Earth before the Jailors managed to capture and imprison it. The Exile has been attempting escape ever since.

Because of these events, Summer's Exile is commonly named "Gaoler's Hubris".

The Jailors have reacted with fear to their mistake, but wrongly. Their leaders privately use the Exile as an example of why knowledge and scientific inquiry is dangerous and must be suppressed, rather than acknowledging that they ought to have sought out more knowledge on the Exile before blundering around in the dark in the Exile's grave. Predictably, the Jailors refuse outside help with the Exile.

Summer's Exile has shown great affection for the Fifth Lost Child, despite her humanoid form. The reason for this is unknown.7

Curiously, there are also reports of Summer's Exile cooperating with the Jailors at times to unknown ends. If this is at all true, most Jailors appear to be unaware of it.

Approach: Confrontations with Summer's Exile are best won through distracting them or temporarily imprisoning them long enough to escape. Human Hand members in particular are advised to flee Summer's Exile by any means possible.

Summer's Exile cannot be banished permanently to another non-Earth plane, only temporarily (usually attempts fail). The Exile's longest successful banishment was to the Ravelwoods (see Library sources) as the effect of a particularly powerful ritual, and even then the banishment lasted mere years, and was likely more successful due to the nature of the Ravelwoods itself. Summer's Exile cannot enter Ways and is barred from entering the Library.

No imprisonment of Summer's Exile has ever been permanent. The Jailors have been most successful, but Summer's Exile regularly escapes their cages. Only the Jailors' resources have allowed the Exile's continued imprisonment.

The Jailors continually subject Summer's Exile to attempts to kill it. This is strongly recommended against, for exposing Summer's Exile to more power will usually only increase its power, and not all its immunities wear off after time.8

Observations & Stories

Records of Summer's Exile appear intermittently throughout history, though many accounts appear to be fabricated. One famous account (thought fabricated due to historical inconsistencies) is Lord Blackwood and the Great Tarasque Hunt of '83. The earliest mention is from a fragment of an unknown work, naming the Summer's Exile and claiming that "she grieves eternally for tragedies unknown" with no elaboration.9

Many accounts refer to Summer's Exile as a Sisyphean figure, being punished for some terrible crime by banishment to our world, and forced into an endless incomprehensible and certainly painful cycle. The Exile's very existence here is torture.10

C. Mondessa claims in "Lost Souls" that Summer's Exile resigned themselves to being unable to return home, and wishes to either sleep undisturbed or to destroy the entirety of civilization, whichever is most convenient. She speculates that the Exile may, in fact, believe that they might be freed from their imprisonment on Earth once they have exterminated all sapient life on the planet — a belief that may in fact be true.

"The Exile is futility and absurdity in flesh. The Exile is the workman, stomped upon by the nobility, the wanderer turned away from shelter, the child ignored by the parent, the lover abandoned, injustice visited. The Exile, reborn and turned back from Summer in perpetuity, swims in the pains of birth and death, struggling to reach equilibrium when none is to be found. Only when it awakens, when it is conscious, when it sees the truth of its eternal struggle, will it turn its pain to scorn and return it thrice-nine-fold. There is no struggle that cannot be overcome by scorn. No obstacle that cannot be brushed aside by rage and righteous indignation. When justice is served it will be served in fire and sharpened stone." ~Septimus the Enchanter

Doubt

It is possible that the Jailors themselves created Summer's Exile out of whole cloth during one of their grand experiments, creating everything about the Exile's present and past — from the Exile's original species and absent home to their retroactive appearance in old tales — in a single vast reality cascade.1112

A few accounts alternatively claim that the Foundation is purposely attempting to help the Exile ascend back to godhood, so that the Exile can return to wreak vengeance on the home from which they were banished, but most of us find this unlikely.

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License