Extrodinarily rare for Concordia, in this age of encroaching banality and sundered Arcadian ties, both Marcus's parents were fae themselves --his father a sturdy troll, his mother a spunky, calico feline pooka. They had gained fame during the Accordance War, especially in the final days when the Sidhe and Commoners fought in the streets of New York where both were doing their residencies, for their tireless efforts healing the wounded of both sides. For both of them, the first duty of a physican was to serve, help and heal, without regard to affiliation or cause, bound by codes and oaths both Hippocratic and Kithain; to protect the innocent and the helpless, the mundane, Dreamer and fae alike. It was a onus that even superseeded their hatred of those who would ravage the helpless Dreamer in an effort to gain Glamour for themselves; even the hated Leanhaun, who deliberately destroyed Dreamers and their ability to dream to keep themselves young, would find care equal to that given the most innocent childling. It was to their great joy that Marcus turned out to be fae, greater still when he grew to adopt the same core values that they held dear.

he time of Chrysalis --when a kithain's fae self awakens from her mortal shell-- is often difficult and confusing. Most kithain's entry into the fae world is further complicated by having to explain seemingly eccentric behavior to their mortal parents and spending extensive time away from them in favor of their new fae families. None of these things are a problem if your own mortal parents are _also_ fae, especially respected and experienced kithain like Turnberry's. While the onset of chrysalis in most kithain is a unplanned, uncontrolled experience, Turnberry's parents deliberately brought him into the kithain world on his tenth birthday, and Turnberry undertook his Warding and Watching under his parent's loving eyes, a combined mortal and kithain upbringing about as ideal as is possible in this world. While, owing to the random nature of kithain rebirth into mortal bodies, Turnberry had no true (in the genetic sense) decendance from his parents, he always said, only half-jokingly, that he must have inherited some of his father's troll stamina, his mother's cat-like dexterity, the powers in Prime to heal and the will and heart to do so from both.

As a teenager and young adult, Marcus's success in the academic and medical world --Cranbrook Academy ('79), Northwestern University's BS/MD Honors Program in Medical Education (CAS '82, M '86), Pediatrics at Children's Memorial in Chicago ('89) with a combined Heme/Onc fellowship and Ph.D. ('95) followed by appointment as a faculty member at Northwestern-- came as a surprise to noone except the humble Marcus; he was widely regarded as a wonderful listener and trustworty confidant, a serious and dedicated, if quiet, student and scientist; one who made close friends easily and gave of his time and heart freely. The child-like whimsy common to his kith meshed perfectly with his work in Pediatrics and was easily accepted in the often eccentric world of ivory-tower research. The only down-side to the entire experience was his development of a stiff addiction to caffine in all it's forms, but frankly, what medical student doesn't?

s a college and graduate student, his fantasy side most expressed itself through the SCA, through which he became a reasonably accomplished swordsman; from a grateful roommate Marcus helped talk out of suicide came early lessons in firearms that Marcus later pursued on his own, encouraged by his father, who still bore scars from the Accordance War fending off those who considered the wounded under his care easy targets. "There comes a time," his father had said, "when defending your patients will take more than a healing touch --it will take a soldier's arms as well. But remember that no weapon is more powerful than the will and the heart."

It would be just such an incident that took from Marcus/Turnberry his voice; returning to his dorm one night from a late evening doing research, the sounds of a struggle next door drew him to discover a kithain colleague Ravaging --both in the Dreaming and sexual sense-- his young female neighbor. Marcus unhesitatingly threw himself at an attacker twice his size, and in the ensuing violent struggle Marcus had his throat crushed and very nearly died, only an emergency amateur tracheotomy and extremely close proximity to a local emergency room saving his life. Marcus's opponent was less fortunate; Marcus had slain the Unseelie satyr's fae seeming with a chimerical short-sword and the satyr's mortal persona is now serving a life sentence without parole.

What could have been a disasterous end to Marcus's medical career twenty years ago was now, with modern technology, barely a footnote --if anything, a benefit, as his lack of voice was a badge of honor that never disappeared. His deans made sure stories of the heroic student preceeded him to his interviews, and the unique one-handed voice-box Marcus/Turnberry used basically allowed him to communicate with ease, certainly more than enough for his muteness to only be a blip, if that, on an extrodinary academic record. A grateful Nocker, whose life his parents had saved, made sure that voice-box had a chimerical seeming every bit as good as the mortal one.

His quiet nature caused him to avoid the social circles, mechanizations and games of mortal and Kithain high society, yet he was far from a recluse; everyone knew that if you needed someone to talk to at 3 AM in the morning, Marcus/Turnberry was your man; he was the medical student/physican every patient felt comfortable around and every team of nurses and physicans wanted on service, the doctor who was more at home playing with children or listening to his friends than playing at the latest Court gossip. His down to earth, disarming, honest (some might call simple) demeanor mirrored the stereotype of adepts of the Kithain Primal arts --for which Turnberry is quite strong for his age, his Realms sufficent to extend his healing touch to Fae, Chimera and mortal alike. These traits won Turnberry many friends and the notice of the Court of the Kingdom of Grass --which culminated, the year Turnberry graduated from Northwestern University Medical School, in a suprising appointment to the elite Order of Eiliethyia .

he Order of Eiliethyia had been established by the High King and the Parliament of Dreams as a strike force to combat the increasingly heavy losses among newly-awakening Kithain undergoing Chrysalis. In addition to all of the problems adjusting to the world, the very act of Chysalis produced an awesome burst of glamour that could drive nearby mundane bystanders to riot, make cantrips and magic cast in the area go out of control, and other dangerous effects. Furthermore, there were many who hunted the Kithain, and the burst of Chysalis, combined with the total confusion and inexperience general to a newly-awakened Kithain at the heart of it, made a fae undergoing Chrysalis extrordinarily vulnerable to being ambushed and killed. Kindred and rougue Mages sought them for their fae blood; Pentex and the Progenitors sought them for experimentation; Nunnehi, Hunter and Innanimae extremists and Dauntain simply sought to kill them for being Kithain; rumors abounded that the Syndicate, or the Tzimisce, or the Order of Hermes, had found a way to turn a fae's vitae into an awesome, creativity-sparking drug. Whatever the reason, many sought to hunt and kill Kithain at the moment of their birth --unless the Order of Eiliethyia found them, and rescued them, first; by speed and stealth when possible; with desparate hand-to-hand battle when necessary. A unique body composed of warriors and sorcerers and specialists of all kinds, members of every Kith, Nobles and commoners alike serving and working as equals, the Order was to the Kingdom of Concordia what Force Delta was to the United States --the elite rescue force of the Kithain courts, deployable on a moment's notice for missions ranging from the difficult to the out-right suicidal.

While Turnberry's medical, combat, and Prime skills were certainly respectable at the time of his appointment, he had nowhere near the skills of a Red Branch warrior-knight or Crystal Circle spell-caster. But what Turnberry did bring to the Order's Palatine Chapter --and one of the prime reasons he was chosen-- was his Children's Memorial Hospital of Chicago credentials. Since most awakening Kithain were children or adolecents, and since many of the physical symptoms of Chrysalis resembled seizures or mental illness, often Marcus/Turnberry could explain and reassure parents, police and authorities by making use of the trust and respect they accorded Marcus as a pediatrician on staff at CMH. Dr. Marcus's credentials often got Turnberry and the field team he was attached to out of very messy situations dealing with authorities, especially after a violent melee or battle; and being a pediatrician gave Marcus, and anyone with him, the right to be with and work with kids that might not otherwise be afforded someone else.

The work was often extrodinarily dangerous, and Turnberry still bears more than one physical scar from one brutal melee or another. But for Turnberry, it was the culmination of everything he had been raised and trained for. Turnberry's exploits during his years as a resident, fellow, lecturer and finally faculty at CMH, within and outside the Order, rescuing and healing fellow Kithain and their mortal Dreamer friends, often at great personal peril, won him renown of his own beyond that which his parents held, and he earned in gratitude many a night in a Freehold, his Knighthood and several remarkable treasures over the years he served the people of the Kingdom of Grass; the ring on his finger, the charm around his neck, his sword and pistol being some of them. During his nearly twelve years with the Order, Turnberry also advanced greatly as a fighter and spell-caster, honing those skills that would enable him to protect the innocents that were his ward and charge.

hough offered the boon many times, he, like his parents, gently refuses to become attached to one House or another within the Seelie court, believing less in the possible favors that might come from the Cat's Cradle of politics, and more in the power of kindness and service. (So far as his title makes it easier for him to help his kithain patients, the better; otherwise, he largely ignores what many would lord over. A two-year old doesn't care that she might be puking on a Knight.) He too shares his parent's hatred of the Unseelie and their disrespect for the rights of Dreamers and mortals, not (as he's honest enough to admit) least of all for what one did to his young neighbor (and incidentally, his voice); so far as High King David would hold off the Shadow Court, he is all for them and the Seelie cause, often more so by his actions than many nobles themselves. Yet above all he shares his parent's driving belief in the higher cause of healing all, regardless of affiliation, politics or deed --need knows no alligiances, his mother had said.

After almost twenty years in Chicago, Marcus has recently accepted a faculty position at a major University medical center on the West Coast and an appointment as a Howard Hughes Investigator. In addition to his research and clinical duties, he has helped establish a free clinic for the city's poor with several of his colleagues, into which he pours much of his finances and time (although not as much of the latter as he would like). It is true that a academic physican at his level could do far better, material wise, than a cozy apartment and a motorcycle, but Marcus/Turnberry is more than happy with the tradeoff.

Life is good for the young Pooka, not least of which because of his partial immortality --his Fae Eternity meaning that, even at almost forty years of age, he still has almost a hundred years left as a childling, and easily another hundred after that before grumpdom. He has a productive and exciting research career, wonderful, long-term relationships with his young patients and their families (and not more than a few Dreamers), and a growing reputation as both a empathic clinician with a natural touch for kids and something of a miracle worker in the field (both for his important clinical advances and for his surreptitious, occasional use of Prime 4 cantrips on the most desparate of cases. Marcus/Turnberry figures, quite legitimately, a few 'miraculous' cures aren't going to skew the clinical results badly enough to harm anyone, and he rigorously makes sure it doesn't inflate his research data.)

While Turnberry has now moved far away from his kithain parents, friends, patrons and mentors in the Kingdom of Grass, his remarkable abilities in healing and his empathy have eased his transition into the Kingdom of Pacifica, especially in the turbulent, and often violent, times that have followed the disappearance of the High King. The free clinic provides cover for his healing work among the Kithain that might otherwise be noticed at the University Medical Centers, and he is rapidly gaining a reputation similar to that he had back East. Certainly there will be more than enough call for a Healer-Knight in the uncertain days ahead, with Concordia coming apart at the seams and the Unseelie houses doing surreptitious --and even open-- combat across the Kingdom.

But so long as there is still hope --so long as there is still life and time and strength, there will be work to do, and Turnberry intends to try. He has been so fortunate in life --in parentage, in opportunity, in the time his fae immortality gives him-- that he feels he can do nothing less than to give, as much as he can, for as long as he can.

erhaps most interestingly to him, Turnberry has begun to make friends among the other Prodigal races. He has recently sworn into service as a Warder to a beautiful young Mage of great power (with an equally powerful addiction to Chocolate and a wicked sense of humor, Turnberry might add, a wonderful friend even if she is a Buckeye to his dedicated Michigan Wolverine) and, through his journeying and the word of a friend from the Isles, discovered a place of magic -- a pub of some kind, perhaps a refuge from the War now sweeping his adopted kingdom and the rigors of his mundane life...