Erik Ymir

From Changeling Venue

Seeming	Ogre Gargantuan
Court	Summer Court •
Freehold	The Freehold of Northern Illinois
Player	Jonathan pessin

1 Overview
2 Character Information

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Overview

Alias(es): N/A

Real Name: Eric Aldous (never uses this name anymore)

Age: 38

Concept: Frost Giant

Entitlement: N/A

Physical description: In his Mein, Erik is massive to a nearly monstrous extent - at least 8 feet tall, and broad to match. His skin is pale, with a slight blue tinge, and his hair and beard are made of frost, evaporating in a heat-haze at the end. He wears a rough but well-made set of Hedgespun clothing - a tunic, vest, and pair of gigantic boots. Erik's Mask appears less gigantic, perhaps seven feet tall, but is still huge. He remains pale, although his hair and beard turn Nordic blond. His Hedgespun appears to be simple fare - flannels and blue jeans.

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Character Information

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Known History

Basic Timeline: Born November 6, 1979 - Abducted February 26, 1997 - Returned from Faerie December 14, 2006

Current Activities: Erik is attempting to gain a foothold in his new home of DeKalb, Illinois.

Merit Details: Giant
Summer Mantle *

Background: The boy who would become Erik Ymir was born Eric Aldous in Denver, Colorado on November 6, 1979. He was a frail child, and spent quite a bit of time in and out of doctors' offices and hospitals. His time among the doctors (especially in the care of his favored pediatrician, who grew into something of a mentor figure for the boy) gave him a fierce desire to become a doctor when he grew up.

Eric toughened up as he grew older, although he was always fairly slight. He enjoyed singing, participating in the school choir (even though it didn’t help his popularity. The choir had always been labeled as a breeding ground for sissies, according to the jock and bully contingents). In high school, he took up mountain climbing as a hobby, which gave him a deep appreciation for nature. He was on a hiking and climbing trip in the nearby mountains after being accepted into a prestigious pre-med program when he was abducted.

His keeper, Wotan, the Raven Lord, had made a wager with a fellow Fae, Loke the Lie-Smith, betting that no human could manage to survive for thirty years, alone, in the most inhospitable reaches of Wotan’s realm in Álfheimr. Loke, noting Eric’s skill, plucked him off of the side of a mountain and presented him to Wotan, creating a Fetch of moss and stones to take his place. Wotan then placed Eric in the middle of the most hostile area of his realm, Jötunheimr, and raised gigantic, impassable mountains around the area to seal the human in. Erik’s time in Faerie was one of brutal loneliness. For twenty years he had to survive starvation, exposure, and attacks by the vicious creatures of Jötunheimr’s wastes. On some days, his songs – both those he learned in choir and those he wrote himself – were the only things that kept him sane. With time, Erik began to adjust to his brutal surroundings, eventually killing a great wolf beast with his bare hands. On that day, Erik began to grow.

Each day that passed after that turning point increased Erik’s strength, his endurance, and (most prominently) his size. After years of this life, he realized that he was so large that he could nearly reach the lowest crags on the mountains surrounding mountains. Seven days later, exactly twenty Arcadian years since he had been abducted (he kept a careful tally), he reached up, grabbed a cliff, and climbed out into the Hedge. Although the ripping Thorns nearly drove him mad with pain, he pushed through and managed to make it back into the mortal world just outside the hospital in which he had spent much of his childhood, and in which he had been planning to do his medical residency.

For several days, Erik could do nothing but wander in a haze. After his long, agonizing Durance, the return to human lands was almost unreal – even with mountains, so similar to the setting of his Durance, glaring up and down at him from all sides. While he was in Arcadia, he had forgotten nearly everything about his mortal life, other than his name, the songs he sang, and his desire to heal. Everything else was a blank, and the human world was dizzying to him. Eventually, he encountered other Changelings and joined the freehold, slowly getting a handle on human life again. After getting acclimated, he went after his fetch. He found it with its hands wrist-deep inside the chest of a twelve-year-old boy.

Erik’s Fetch, in his absence, had gone on to become Dr. Erik Aldous, a respected pediatric surgeon attached to the prestigious Children’s Hospital in Denver. Dr. Aldous lived alone, because his job kept him busy at odd hours. While Erik studied him, he began to suffer anxiety attacks, paranoia, and a sense of disconnectedness – as though he weren’t a part of the world around him.

The day Erik resolved to kill his Fetch and reclaim his life, he followed the construct to work, hunching in an attempt to hide his massive bulk and covering his (apparently) Nordic-blond locks with a baseball cap. He tracked the Fetch to the hospital, and stalked outside the window to the receiving room in which the doctor spoke to his patients before surgery. The scene inside the window, however, froze him – it was like something out of his own childhood. The Fetch, Dr. Aldous, was talking to a young girl who needed a kidney transplant. She was obviously scared, and began crying. Without thinking, the doctor picked up the girl and gave her a deep hug. She hugged him back, obviously comforted.

Part of Erik didn’t care about the girl. He wanted to burst into the room, seize the false Eric, and tear him limb from limb with his bare hands. He wanted to take back his life, become Eric Aldous again. Another part realized that the Fetch was now a better Dr. Aldous than Erik could ever be. It had training, and it obviously loved its work. Even more, its hands were small enough to handle the delicate tasks required by surgery. Erik’s own hands, little smaller than dinner plates, could never handle a scalpel with the skill needed to save a life. Erik unclenched his fists and walked away, giving up on the life of Eric Aldous forever. That was the day he named himself Erik Ymir.

Even though he had given up on his mortal life, Erik still held a deep longing to be a healer. In the freehold he heard about a booth in a nearby Goblin Market, a Hob who claimed he could sell a man anything he wanted. Erik visited the Market and found the Hob in question, who offered to sell him a Contract to heal others – in return for a spring afternoon. Unthinkingly, Erik paid the price gladly. He had been thinking to join the Spring court anyway; he would have hundreds of spring afternoons ahead of him.

When he returned to the Freehold, however, he found that all of the Spring Courtiers recoiled from him. Eventually, an old Wizened of the Court told him that she could see betrayal on him. In making his bargin with the Hob, he had turned away from Spring. Although the courts in other cities might accept him, he could never join Spring in Denver. Indeed, he might never join the Spring court, or even be able to gain access to the least of its pacts with Spring. That was when anger began boiling in Erik’s heart. He eventually gave that anger a voice by joining the Summer Court. If he couldn’t heal others’ hurts, he swore, he would stand between them and the Others and take the hurts himself.

In the early spring of 2008, a year and a half after emerging from the Hedge, Erik finally lost patience with Colorado. The city held too many bad memories for him, and he had grown to truly hate mountains over twenty years of solitude in Faerie. He noticed a pair of Changelings during a wrestling match, and spoke to them afterward. The egotistical head of the wrestling troupe gave his name as Adrian Layne, and offered Erik a ride to DeKalb, Illinois – about as far from mountains as one could get. Erik accepted the offer.

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