Before you stands a young Asian man, his apparent age in middle twenties. His black, messy hair falls down to his shoulders and from under the cover of black bangs two gray eyes glare at you with a bestial intensity. His build is slim, but the clothes he wears do little to hide the well defined muscles. He is by no means tall, probably somewhere between 170-180 centimetres, but there is a certain weight to his presence that makes him appear larger and more menacing.
As he tells you his story, however, the Mask breaks on several moments, when his emotions get too intense, and you see his Mien: the tail, the goat legs, and the macabre goat skull he uses as a helmet or a mask.
24 (apparent), born 1978
Gender: Male
Seeming: Beast
Court: None
History: I used to be a normal kid, you know? Back before it happened. There was nothing special about me. My looks, my grades, my ability in quite about every field were dead on average. Okay, okay, maybe not so average, there were variations sure, but nothing about me made me stick out. Yeah, I liked PCs and coding, which back in the day wasn’t so common, but if you asked my IT teacher who are the future Bill Gates and Steve Jobs of my generation, my name wouldn’t be among the first five mentioned. Probably not even in the first ten. That is why I have no idea how I caught her attention, let alone why I was picked for such a role. Maybe she knew me better than I knew myself – now that’s a terrifying thought.
She came for me bloody personally. Her Most Esteemed Excellency the Marquise found it in herself to get off her pompous ass and come to Earth, kidnap me just as I was returning home from school and drag me through the Hedge. I don’t remember much of the trip to Arcadia. My earliest memory from my Durance was being shoved into an animal stall. All my clothes were stripped off of me and I was left stark naked in the cold. The stall was small, not long enough even for a human to lie down and sleep, which resulted in me getting barely any proper sleep. It was always in the small intervals – sleep for an hour then get awoken when your head or other body part hits the wall of the stall. They fed me with stuff whose taste I don’t want to remember, let alone try to guess what was in it. I think pigs on Earth would turn their heads from that shit, but that was the only source of sustenance I had. And I needed it. Oh God did I need it.
I don’t know how long I was kept in that stall, but no amount of time would have prepared me for what was to come. One day I was simply taken out of it and thrown into the Arena. Yes, Arena with the capital A. It was huge and it was famous in whole of Arcadia, if my mistress was to be believed. They gave me a sword and told me to fight this one guy in extremely flamboyant armour and with an attitude to match. I wasn’t the only one however, there were many other poor suckers there with me. When I remember it now, it was like that thing they do in Spain. You know, the bull fighting, when this super fancy looking guy faces down a raging bull. Well, we were bulls, facing down a single matador, and we were massacred. The champ didn’t even break a sweat.
Next thing I know I was back in my stall, awakening to a terrible pain in the area of my chest where the guy’s sword pierced me. Do you notice the problem? I was pierced by a sword, a stab right into my chest and probably heart, yet I awoke. No wounds, only pain. For a moment I thought I dreamed the whole fight, but the visit from the Marquise dispelled such delusions.
Oh was she happy with how the things turned out. Turned out I had a talent of being extremely difficult to kill and that meant I could provide her with endless entertainment. She disregarded my complaints of not wanting to be stabbed to death anymore and quickly arranged for another fight. And then another. And another. And many, many more. I won’t bore you with describing them. Suffice to say that I “died” and “died” a lot. But the dying wasn’t even the worst part, it was the wounds that didn’t kill me but only severely crippled me that were truly horrendous.
However, all that dying wasn’t in vain. With each visit to the Arena I got better. With each fight there was a slight improvement. My reflexes got faster, my body stronger, my eyes could discern enemy’s intentions better, my hands got used to wielding swords. After God knows how many fights, I began winning. I still remember my first victory, the exaltation I felt when I stood under the gaze of a cheering crowd and my enemy lying broken and mauled before me. I tell you, it was the greatest high of my life. If my mistress wasn’t a cunt I might’ve even grown to like my new existence.
But she was and I didn’t.
When my victories started becoming more and more frequent the Marquise began losing interest in my fights. Seeing me manage not to be a pathetic wretch was not entertaining to her. She began partaking in the more direct forms of torture and she knew exactly where to cut and what to break. She was careful, though. My victories brought her lots of prestige and she didn’t want me incapable of fighting. In fact, she even wanted have fighters cut of the same cloth as me, so she had me breed with other animals from her farm. That’s right, I lost my virginity to a woman too terrified to feel any pleasure from the act, and you know what truly disgusts me? I liked it. They didn’t have to force to do jack shit, the moment I saw her I pounced like in bull in heat – which I guess I was, in a sense. And just like with fights, it didn’t stop at first.
Still, I was getting sick of it all. Fuck, sick isn’t the right word, I was horrified by what I was becoming, so I decided to make a deal with the Marquise. Actually, I think the word bet is more appropriate. I won’t bother describing how I got her to talk to me about it seriously in the first place, but the end result was that we made a contract: if I keep an interrupted winning streak for a year and a day, she will let me go free. I made sure to hammer all the nasty details out – she couldn’t sabotage me or have somebody else do it for her and when I was let free I was free forever, she or anyone on her beck and call was not going to come back for me.
Thus, the victories started rolling. By this point of time I was already a veritable monster in the Arena. Time after time I would look into the enemy’s eyes and see the acceptance of the inevitable. I didn’t care. Now I had something to work towards. Something to keep me from going insane and turning into the animal the True Fae already treated me as.
Naturally, my mistress wasn’t going to just let me leave. Oh no. The bitch had a plan. You remember me saying that I was used to breed more fighters? Well, normally they would change the woman after a while, to be as efficient as possible. Not during this year, though. Instead I kept getting parried with one girl named Telin – or at least that’s the name she gave me. I could see where this was going and I tried to remain distant, but God damn it, you can’t sleep with one person for months and not create a connection. And the worst of all, she also developed feelings for me.
As the deadline was drawing near and I kept my victory streak uninterrupted the only thing I could think of was how to get out of this mess. Do I leave Telin behind? Do I take her with me? If I take her with me it sure as fuck won’t be because of the contract. That thing relates only to me. So do I break the contract and try to get away with Telin – save my princess like some knight in bloody shining armour from a fairy tale? Or do I refuse to leave in the end?
Then it came. My last match. I won. No, I will not describe what happened, because I can barely remember myself. What came after the match, though, that is what will be stuck in mind for as long as I live.
The Marquise threw a grand celebration in my honour. I had an unbroken streak of victories for year and a day and that was pretty amazing, even for a plaything – those were her words. Many of the Gentry came, but also many like me, mortals who were trapped in this world. What I didn’t initially notice is that there were far more male mortals present than female. Heh, I see the realization dawning on your face, you can guess where this is going, can’t you? Yes, it happened. As a parting gift for me, the Marquise brought Telin and had her strip before the entire banquet hall. Then, while I watched, each and every one of the mortal men present had his way with her, to the grand amusement of the Fae.
I was furious. Despite all that was at stake and despite it being my last day I wanted to jump into them and tear them to pieces. I wanted to paint the entire hall in the blood of everyone present. I wanted to.
But I didn’t.
I mustered every ounce of self-control in my being and I watched. Just watched. I could see the disappointed grow on the face of my mistress with each man who mounted Telin. In the end the banquet was done to the great amusement of the Fae guests. Tomorrow I was freed, as per agreement. Just like how I don’t remember my trip to Arcadia, I don’t remember the trip out of it. Was I brought back to Earth or did I fight my way through the Hedge? I don’t know. I just know that at the moment when my wish of many years was fulfilled, I felt empty.
I didn’t even try to find my family again. I couldn’t. I just couldn’t picture myself returning to the normal life after what I let happen to Telin. In the end the Marquise continued to torment me even in my freedom.
I became a drifter, moving from town to town, city to city, doing odd jobs. It hasn’t actually been long since I was freed – I think it wasn’t even a full year. The world has changed a lot from the time of my kidnapping, even though it hasn’t been that many years. Only twenty. Still I managed to get used to it somewhat. Now I'm here, in New York. Not sure why though, but for some reason I felt I had to come. Like, every road I took seemed to take me here. So, here I am.
I am what you call a socially awkward person. I wasn’t very good at communicating with strangers even before the time spent in Arcadia, and being put into an animal stall and forced to fight every day with practically no human interaction didn’t really help me either. Now you may say ‘Hey, you are talking to me just fine!’ and you’ll be right. People who I get close to and comfortable with I can talk to normally, but with somebody I meet for the first time or not very often I start speaking quickly, avoiding eye contact and occasionally stutter. Then I start thinking I am making a fool of myself and I begin messing up even more. Worst case scenario I get irritated and break someone’s neck. Never happened before but I came damn close.
Another thing I think is worth mentioning is that I am very selfish. Hah, didn’t surprise you at all, didn’t it. Yeah, I am my most important person. I will strive to make things easy and comfortable for myself and then, maybe, help others if it doesn’t inconvenience me. Do you think anyone but the most self-centred asshole would be able to do what I did and live with it? No, a real human would have left his bones back in that banquet hall. Still, I am not a backstaby sort. I am not going to trip you then walk over you on my way to success. I have no ambition or desire that would motivate me to such things. All I want is smooth sailing through life and others can go and become heroes or leaders or whatever the fuck it is they want to be. Just leave me alone and don’t bother me.
My skills huh… Well, I am really good at killing things. Give me any weapon – swords, machetes, bats, sticks, knives, guns – or no weapon at all, and I’ll kill every fucker you put in front of me. I have years of experience at this job and I am somewhat proud to say that I became a bloody (both figuratively and literally) master of it. I have reflexes and strength to give any martial arts world champion a fight they’ll remember for as long as they live and that is if I obey the rules. In a fight with no rules besides ‘kill the other guy’ I am fucking invincible.
Also, my body is in as good condition as human body can possibly be. The matches in the Arena often weren’t straight-up fights but involved all manner of traps and obstacles, so I had to learn to climb, jump, lift, throw… You get the picture. I am not a contender for a medal on Olympics, but I dare say I am still far above average.
Then there’s the computer stuff. I told you already, I used to take interest in IT when I was in high school, and I have to say that seeing the progress made in that field during my stay in Arcadia only rekindled my interest in it. I am not actually very knowledgeable about the matter, to be honest, but I know some basic coding and I can hack into some weakly protected systems, so I can get some use out of it.
Lastly, I am good at making people scared. I just have to give them a direct eye-to-eye stare and repeat what I want slowly and they’ll be shitting their pants like they have diarrhoea. It doesn’t always get me what I want – sometimes they are so scared they faint or bail – but it is a good way to avoid things getting violent for real.
I am impossible to kill. Every time I suffer a lethal wound I will revert back to my peak condition in a few hours. Not sure if I am completely immortal, though, because I am pretty sure I aged during my time in Arcadia. Also, I won’t immediately heal non-lethal wounds no matter how gruesome they are. I had limbs severed and eyes gouged-out and I had to wait until I got killed before those injuries got healed. That is why I mentioned earlier that it’s the wounds that don’t kill me that really suck. Anyway, aside from this I don’t really have any other supernatural power. The rest of my abilities are still firmly within the realm of human capabilities.
Heat. That’s my number one bane. No, not fire. Heat. The region of Arcadia I lived in was pretty chilly and it made me forget how hot summers on Earth can be. If the temperature is above 30 degrees Celsius I become very irritable and I can turn violent very, very easily, which leads me to the other thing…
I have violent tendencies. Although I strive to restrain myself as much as I can, if things don’t go my way or something bothers me for too long, I will snap and break something. Or someone. I have yet to kill somebody in one of my outbursts, but I have made more than one lasting injury since my return from Arcadia, not to mention the property damage. It’s a miracle I have not been arrested yet.
What I have in my backpack? Here, let me show you:
- A baseball bat. Never played the sport but this thing is good for hitting plethora of other things aside from balls.
- Then, there’s machete. I didn’t use it so far but some Fae are allergic to iron and you never know…
- Ah, a pistol. I am not sure what type. A glock? I mean, it looks like the most average pistol you can think off. Fuck man, I don’t have interest in this stuff. I stole it, so I only have one clip.
- Motorcycling gloves.
- A couple of Snickers bars, helps with self-control.
- I also have a smart phone with a charger. Stolen, of course. I use it mostly to surf the net when I manage to grab free Wi-Fi.
- A jacket.
- Matches.
- Sunglasses.
- A map of the US.
- A Swiss knife.
- A plastic water bottle, currently half-empty.
So that’s all, besides the stuff I wear on myself. Pretty basic, right?... What’s with that look?
It seems I have a very good metabolism because I’ve been eating mostly junk food since coming to Earth and I have yet to put on fat. Which is great, because I love junk food.
Back in my high school I used to love listening to metal. I still do, but I have also developed a taste for hip-hop, country and classic music.
I bloody hate arrogance and condescension. Nothing pisses me off more than when someone assumes he is better than you and patronizes you. I usually end up changing physical description of such people.
