Betty Girder
From Changeling Venue
| Seeming | Beast Skitterskulk |
|---|---|
| Court | Summer Court • |
| Freehold | (name pending - Hawaii) |
| Player | Julia Pohl US2005022863 |
Contents |
Overview
Alias(es): The Click-Beast of the Lone Cavern; Betty Girder
Real Name: Elizabeth Katherine Martin
Age: early-mid 20s
Concept: guardian in a cave
Physical description:
Character Information
Known History
Basic Timeline:
1932, March 23 - birth
1951, July 28 - the taking
2006, Sept/Oct? - the escape
2007, July 4 - dedication to the Summer Court
Current Activities:
construction worker for Unnamed Construction Company, Oahu, HI
"meat and shield" for various escapades concocted by the Oahu Freehold
Merit Details:
Background:
Whenever there is a prize to be won, there is a battle to be fought. Whenever there is a treasure that is buried, there is someone to guard it. Whenever there is an escape to be had, there is someone to stop that escape. There are deep places in the world to be explored, and dangers to be conquered. Someone has to be that thing that separates heroes from the weak, the one that drives away or kills those unworthy of the prize.
The Click-Beast of the Lone Cavern filled that role. Every day, someone came. Some came looking for a token or other treasure for personal use. Some came searching for a rare substance for their master's use. Some came seeking escape into the hedge, and to Earth. Some came only to prove there was nothing there. The Click-Beast did not know what it guarded, only that all were supposed to stay away. Some she injured, and they fled. Others, more brave or persistent, she killed. And a few won through, and there they found whatever it was that they sought. But always the Click-Beast came back, for always there would be someone else to come, someone else to challenge, someone else to drive off or slay.
Betty does not know whether she was really captured by trickery or simply found in the Hedge after stumbling into it on her own. She was protesting, picketting a factory that had laid off all its women workers, and the boss snuck out the back. Unwilling to let him escape without having their say (or at least their harassment), Betty and her friends decided to break into his home that night and trash the place. She was the first to go in, but rather than a home, she found a hedge. Walls became trees, potted plants spread vines across the floor, and every door and hallway led to a more insane greenscape. The deeper she went, the less of the house she could find, and the larger the thorns grew. She was torn again and again, each prick drawing blood and hope and memory until she fell unconscious.
She awoke in blackness. Though light did not hurt her, she understood that blackness was her home and was safe. She knew somehow that others would come. Some walked on two legs, some four, some with many, as she did, and some with many, many more. Some flew. Some drifted near the ground. Some were too transparent to tell. But all came into her territory looking for something to steal or looking to steal her home, and so she attacked them. Those that fled she let go. Those that did not she killed. Only her Keeper was she not allowed to slay.
Her Keeper was a scarce master. She remembers him coming, more than once, but often with entire moons between his appearances. He looked in from afar, and sometimes he poked at her with a long stick, and then he nodded to himself as if satisfied and walked away. She was a monster, larger than those who came and strong enough to carry them off to her den as food, and though her master did not seem overly large, she always felt very small when he came, as if she and her cave were only a model that would fit in his hands. She remembers seasons, more than one cycle of seasons, and finally there was an entire season that her Keeper did not come at all. She directed the entirety of her will on the vague memories, trying to figure out why he hadn't come, and suddenly realized she didn't want him to. She wanted to go home, and once upon a time, home wasn't a cave. She fled then, fled as far as she could. Stalking invaders in the cave had made her stealthy, and fighting them had made her strong. She was was determined not to go back, and she didn't.
She made the first part of the journey alone. Her Keeper raised no alarm and sent no one to reclaim or destroy her. She still does not know why. In time, though, she crossed into a place owned by another Keeper, and she set off hidden mystic alarms, and then she was pursued. She had a lead, and she still had her stealth, and she lost most of her trackers, but one remained. This one was clever and as stealthy as herself, a feline shadow that anticipated her moves. And in time, it was this anticipation - for the Cat's master knew the ways out and directed the Cat along them to lie in ambush - that showed the Click-Beast how to escape. And escape she did, with the Cat in close pursuit. She fled without stopping when she knew she was close and tore through the last of the Thorns into the sunlight on a sidewalk with cars driving by, and the Cat stumbled out with her.
They both stood up, warily. The Click-Beast had been trying for days to remember why her Keeper would not return, and in the process had discovered her name and her old form. Now she stood as she once had, on two legs, upright, but with all the accouterments of her term in the Lone Cave. The Cat stood as well and took a tentative step. She stared at her paws and wiggled her fingers, trying to figure out why she was not longer on all fours, and then the Cat fell back to the sidewalk and wept. Molly, the Click-Beast, gently helped the other girl up again and guided her away from staring eyes. She decided then that she would never go back and never let the Cat be taken back, either, and when the Cat remembered that she used to be human, they agreed to watch over one another.
In truth, it was a short time - a day or two at most - before the local freehold found them and guided them, but that first moment of fear and confusion, and the desperate attachment for sanity and support, has not faded, and the Cat and the Click-Beast remain best friends.
In the year since their escape, (Mitra) and Betty have become full members of the Freehold. They have sought and found new roles and have joined Courts (though not the same one). Betty is now a member of the Summer Court and the (Oahu freehold) and is dedicated to making sure none of her new family of misfits are pulled away from this world again.
Motley
Allies
Enemies
Character Inspirations
[Rosie the Riveter] (also one of the character's heroes)
Soundtrack
Quotes
"I never did know what folk were looking for, there. I couldn't see it. It was my home and I kept it dry and empty, but Changelings and Keepers alike still found things there and ran off with them. Some folk disappeared completely. Now, I think they found holes to other places, including the Hedge. I've heard some of us even escaped that way. But then, when I lived there, I searched and searched but never found a passage through to anywhere, never found any thing of note."
-Betty Girder, speaking of the Lone Cavern
Rumors
The Click-Beast didn't truly escape: her lair was simply moved from the Lone Cavern to a place outside Arcadia, where she is guarding something precious for her Keeper.
