Rook

Rook

Summer's Constable of Calefaction Summer Mantle •••••

Freehold Status •••

Elemental Metalflesh, Gameplayer

Played by Kazakin

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Appearance

Rook appears to be around 6'3, with short grey hair and a heavy, muscular build. He looks to be in his 50s. Habitually, he wears mirrored sunglasses, because his mein is imperfect, and if he should remove them his eyes would be visible as solid steel spheres with shuttered irises inexplicably forced into apparently human eye sockets. He tends to wear suits when he's got the money to afford them. He thinks it makes him look more welcoming. He's wrong.

Beneath the Mask

Rook's skin is dulled and hard, with intricate brick-like detail etched into it. Small fortification ridges sprout across the lines of his bones. His hands are particularly noticable, seeming to be riveted and apparently impossible to move. It looks extremely strange when he does move them, particularly when he's playing the piano. His eyes are exactly the same in this shape, only now they're set rather more logically into a metal skull, although around them is a splash of welding, as if they were added in later. Here and there, there's the impression that he should be a tower, his entire body built just slightly above normal. The soles of his feet, if someone should see them, are serrated and jagged, as if he was broken off from a base.

Mantle

Rook's mantle is an intense manifestation of a chessboard. He always appears to be standing on a black or white square, and it always shimmers with intense heat. In addition, when his mantle flares, the rivets, nicks and lines in his body suddenly glow intently, as if a nuclear fusion reaction were occurring within his metal body.

History

Rook used to be John Andrews, an ordinary beat cop with an ordinary life. He was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1952 to a comfortably well-off family, had an older sister, a dog and did averagely in school. He joined the force as soon as he was able, passed in a completely average amount of time, middle of his class. He got married to a perfectly ordinary school teacher, Laura, and had two perfectly ordinary kids, James and Natalie. He played piano as a hobby and drank with his buddies. In short, everything in his life could have come from a textbook on Joe Everyman.

The night everything changed, he was on the way home from his shift, in the middle of the night. There was snow on the ground, and the streets were relatively quiet. A little traffic now and then, some pedestrians, but nothing particularly noticable. That was when he saw the side alley.

The snow was almost black with blood in the dim light, and he'd grabbed the radio in his cruiser, called it in and gone to investigate. It was the last thing the real John Andrews would ever do. He was seized by something he could never quite make out from behind, and torn away through winding roads of thorns that ripped and clawed at his skin. He fainted from the pain.

For a while, he swam in and out of consciousness, and remembered only fire and blazing heat, as if he was suspended in the centre of a furnace.

When he really, truly came back to the living, he found himself stood on a vast, steel board. In two rows, next to him, he saw metal figures readying weapons, all of them shining like steel. When he looked ahead, he saw two identical rows of metal figures in bronze.

When he looked at himself, he saw that he was the same, and he screamed and tried to run from the board, only to be beaten down by his comrades. Eventually, he was broken apart and he died. His last thought was that at least the nightmare would be over.

He woke up in the fire, remade, and was put back onto the board. The second time, he refused to fight when the brass bishop made it to his square. He woke up in the fire, was remade, and put back onto the board. Eventually, he started to fight back when others stepped onto his square. Sometimes he lost, sometimes he'd win and the other piece would shatter. Little by little, he forgot who he was, and why he was there.

He never met his Keeper, or heard their voice. Movement happened instinctively, as if an invisible hand pushed them along. There was no sky, or fields, just the vast, flat plains of the board.

Things continued in this way for what seemed like years, maybe even decades. He became a good piece, fighting his corner bravely. He won matches. Once, he toppled the brass pieces' Queen, and checkmated the King in a daring dash. He was only Queenside Steel Rook now, and it seemed that moments like that were all he had to live for.

Things changed the day the brass pieces were taken away and replaced with a new set. Rook's steel side had won a lot lately, and perhaps the Keeper had grown bored of the one sided match. Whatever the reason, there were new pieces now, and they were made of gold.

Gold crushed steel in their first match, but by some strange stroke of luck, Rook was not destroyed. Defeated, yes, broken in two, yes, but he didn't die or lose consciousness as he was swept up by chittering, worrisome little creatures. With their mechanical, spidery limbs, they dragged the pieces back to a white hot furnace to repair them.

Rook saw a badge on a shelf as his legs were refused to his body, and some spark of memory made him throw off the creatures and seize it. When he took hold of it, he remembered his name. The creatures came from him, tried to tear the police badge out of his hands, and he ran. He ran through a door at the end of the workshop with them in hot pursuit, clutching the token of his humanity, somehow aware that if he let it fall he would let everything he was fall away.

He staggered through clawing thorns that couldn't make real purchase on metal skin, and emerged, blinking, into the midday light of Central Park. He didn't stop running, knowing that if he gave up even a little, they would come for him and drag him back. And this time, they would destroy the badge.

He walked back to his house, and saw his wife greeting a man with his face, stepping out of an unfamiliar car. He saw the badge on the fake's pocket, and it smarted him to see that it was a Detective's.

He forced himself to walk away. He left New York on foot, not caring where it would take him to. He became a drifter, playing piano in bars to get by, until he met other Changelings in Chicago. When they asked him his name, he told them he was Rook. He settled there for a while with the Summer Court, but it always felt too close to New York. Eventually, the drive to wander pushed him on, and he got back on the road, drifting on and on until he drifted right into Sacramento.