fearless child,
broken boy.

tell me what
it's like to BURN.

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Fred was born to Markus Hafstrøm, a Fjerdan civil engineer, and Zara Van Hooft, daughter of Ketterdam's property tycoon Pier Van Hooft. His parents had met while his father was studying at the University of Ketterdam. Against her parents' wishes, his mother married his father after his graduation and followed him home to Fjerda.Despite her best attempts to make Fjerda her home, Zara often felt lonely in the cold, conservative country and would frequently visit Kerch with Fred. Fred spent the first nine years of his life sailing back and forth from his father's port in Djerholm to the Van Hooft's estate in Ketterdam. He learned how to sail before he could ride a horse. The sea was more of a home to him than Fjerda or Kerch ever was.Fred's mother left for Kerch one summer without him and never returned. His parents divorced a year later and never spoke to each other again. His father grew increasingly absent after the separation, and Fred was left to raise himself.Fred found that the only way to communicate with his father was through logic rather than emotion. Because of this, Fred would come to mistake his Grisha power for pent-up emotions when it awoke within him. He ignored the energy for years, growing sickly and frail in the process. In school, he was bullied relentlessly for being thin and sickly.Fred was thirteen when he realised that he could influence the moods and bodies of the people around him. A scientifically minded young man, he rejected the notion that his Grisha powers were a thing of evil. Instead, he began experimenting with his powers, becoming stronger and healthier as the years passed.Fred came under the scrutiny of the Drüskelle for the first time at the age of seventeen after accidentally using his power in a school brawl. Fearing for his father's safety, Fred chose to tell him the truth. A trusted friend to the royal family and a well-regarded man in the Fjerdan society, his father was able to pull strings and favours, and the incident was quickly swept under the rug as a simple misunderstanding. Unbeknownst to the father and son, the investigation continued in secret. Fred was put under surveillance by the Drüskelle, his every move was watched and scrutinized from then on.

Markus encouraged Fred to pursue a career in Ketterdam, where he would be safe from persecution. Fred tried to leave for Kerch upon getting a job offer but was arrested while attempting to board a ship. In order to stop further interference from Fred’s father, Jarl Brum fabricated a story about how the ship Fred was on had sunk in a storm during its journey and that there were no survivors.Fred was one of the first subjects of the Jurda Parem experiment. After becoming unresponsive to one of the experimental doses, Fred was transported out of the Ice Court to be burned with other deceased Grishas. The heat from the pyre woke him up from his coma. Fred managed to crawl out from the fire with only a minor burn on his arm. He hid in an abandoned whaling camp until he gathered enough strength to flee Fjerda.With nowhere else to go, Fred headed south to Ravka. He mostly travelled on foot, stopping here and there to work whenever he needed the money.Fred arrives in Ketterdam a few months after Kuwei's auction with the intent to reconnect with his mother. He abandons this plan after discovering that she has remarried and has three other children. He settles down in the Barrel, where he hopes to live in relative anonymity. Peace doesn't last long in the Barrel, however, as he is soon blackmailed into joining the Crimson Finch, one of the prominent gangs in Ketterdam. Ryley Lankbroek, leader of the Crimson Finch, regularly loans Fred out as a bodyguard to powerful individuals in Ketterdam.Kaz, needing someone to replace Nina as the Dreg's heartrender, later recruits Fred, saving him from Ryley's abuse.

*** show based for now. i've only read up to book 3, but i do not mind book spoilers.Fred was born to Markus Hafstrom, an Andoran noble, and Zara Van'hooft, daughter of one of Illian's wealthiest traders. Possessing the spark, Fred began to channel for the first time at 14. He continued to channel without knowing for many years. It wasn't until he fell deeply ill with the channeling sickness that he realised what he had been doing.Unaware of what was truly afflicting him, his father called for a Yellow Aes Sedai. The Aes Sedai saved him from death and, in yet another act of kindness, told him that she would allow him a few days of rest before reporting him to the Red Ajah.Knowing what was coming for him, Fred told his father the truth and tried to leave for Illian. The Red sisters found him in a matter of days. But so did a mysterious man named Ryley and with him, six other young men who could channel. Ryley helped Fred escape, killing many Red sisters in the process.Ryley tried to convince Fred to join him, telling him of a place where men like him could go to cleanse themselves of the taint. Fred said no, but Ryley wouldn't take no for an answer, binding Fred to his will with Compulsion.During their journey north, Ryley taught Fred the art of compulsion and crude forms of battle-oriented weaves. Fred mostly used these new-found skills to shield himself and bystanders from his travelling companions, whose madness was progressing at an alarming speed. Unlike the young men he led, Ryley appeared untouched by the madness.Ryley led them into the Great Blight and right into the hands of the Darkfriends awaiting to enslave them and turn them to the shadow. The young men were kept as prisoners and given experimental, and sometimes lethal, potions that strengthened their connection to the One Power. Fred eventually manages to escape before they could turn him and has been on the run ever since.