Gerrit

Bio

Life before being taken

Mason Wilken knew about pain for as long as he could remember. Being the only son of a deadbeat father and a mother who couldn't take the drug-fueled beatings anymore and ran away when he was five, he always knew that the way he was treated wasn't right or fair, but he quickly learned that it was easier to take what's being thrown at him than to argue or fight his dad.

When he was eleven his father woke him up in the middle of the night, dragged him outside and made Mason watch while he set fire to the crappy house they called a home. His dad saw a surefire way to cash in on the insurance. Mason just saw whatever of his youth was left go up in flames.

Not surprisingly, his father got himself jailed up shortly after that and Mason got passed around various foster homes and families. He kept his head down, vowing to earn the happiness he deserved and through hard work and diligence he finished high school, took the necessary tests and finally became a firefighter.

He married a co-worker and fostered a relationship built on respect and warmth. Together they had two kids and Mason vowed to always be a better father, a better husband and a better person that his dad ever was. While it wasn't easy, he never grew bitter or cynical - the pain, he figured, only gave him motivation to push on and gave him the desire to protect others from similar fates.

Durance and Keeper

One day while he was on duty he heard the distressed cry of a child inside a burning building. Looking for the source of the voice, he stumbled right into his Keeper to be. One second he was in a hallway, breaking down a door the next moment he found himself inside a burning room too big to logically fit the layout of the house. In it's center stood a faceless entity, terribly beautiful and almost divine looking. Eight feathery wings sprouted from the chiseled male torso, bronze skin clad in spotless white robes and a corona of light around it's bald head.

There weren't any bells and whistles - Mason was simply captured and taken through the Hedge to his Keeper's castle. It was pristine and almost sterile in it's outer appearance (like the master of the house), but inside it more closely resembled a dungeon or what a sadistic sicko would think of when he imagined a castle: apart from a decadent ballroom the only rooms Mason ever saw were either torture chambers or cells. His Keeper never talked or communicated in any other way with him. From the day he got taken every day was the same: his Keeper would look at Mason with it's featureless face for a few minutes and then the abuse started. The Fae was quite creative when it came to torture and so Mason got beaten, cut, burned and whatever else the Other fancied. At some point it would stop and Mason was left to suffer in his own sweat and blood, dropping in and out of consciousness until he was lucid enough to start over. He doesn't know how long he was kept there - time lost it's meaning in the windowless room he was locked in but his body began to change at some point. No longer did his flesh part so easily when whipped, no longer did his bones break when pummeled. There were times when truly the worst of the whole ordeal was the contemplating silence before the beating started.

But Mason got through hell once before and he vowed to not give up what he's been working for his whole life. With the memory of his family held dear in his mind, he endured. It was one time when his Keeper looked at him that Mason snapped. He realized that he never would be able to get his life back if he just took the abuse instead of standing up for himself and in an act of impulsive rage rather than controlled action he jumped at the Fae and thrashed it. The Keeper didn't put up any fight at all and when Mason came to his senses he stood over the lifeless form of his tormentor. Panicked he fled the room, fully anticipating some kind of guards to storm in and take him down. But the castle lay still, the silence felt oppressive and almost... expectant. He got all the fight out of his system and so the only thing in his mind was to flee, make his way through the brambles and find his family again.

Life after his escape

Mason made it out and the local Freehold almost immediately found him and took care of him. He learned that three years passed since last he remembered, about his hideous appearance and about the new life he found himself thrown into. For a few weeks after his return, he mostly stayed with other Changelings and during those nights he had plenty of time to ponder over some questions nagging him in the back of his mind, even with his memory of the Durance fading already. Why was he being taken? Why was it so easy to overpower his Keeper and why did no one and nothing try to prevent his escape? There was no satisfactory answer to those questions, but he never seemed to take his mind fully off of them.

Well, those questions and his family. The local Winter court gathered intelligence on the current situation of Mason's wife and children and so he learned about the impostor that took over his place. For months, he observed them from afar, never finding the guts to confront them or his Fetch. One day, his Fetch confronted him. Said Mason's family was happy with the impostor. Said barging in now would only tear the family apart and traumatize the children. Basically, the Fetch played Mason like a fiddle and the tune was "you wanted to be better than your father". Mason took upon himself the largest amount of pain yet - he cut ties to his family and went back to square one. After some time trying to rebuild something else in his hometown he decided he needed more distance, a real fresh start. He struck a deal with the local Winter court and after some favours granted they offered him the documents to a new life, some money and the means to travel to his new home: Sacramento.

Mason's been through hell twice. Gerrit is going to make sure there won't be a third time.

Mien and Mantle

Mien: Leathery scars, bruises and scaly scabs cover the whole hairless body. There is a certain symmetry to the disfigurements, the color of the visible skin ranging from pale pink to purple and dark red.

Mantle: Contrast seem to grow slightly more stark around Gerrit, the crisp clearness of a winter morning.