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Gwyn ap Nudd

Played by lunan

divine being

"Have more than you show, speak less than you know."
- William Shakespeare, King Lear

Biography

Gwyn was born as the son to the King and Queen of Seelie Court. Fae are embodiments of forces that shape reality itself. Like all fae, he was born to an essence; an ontological facet of the universe. His was wildness.

The Seelie and the Unseelie Court declared war on each other not long after Gwyn's birth. It weighed heavily on his father. He started drinking when he wasn't fighting and fighting when he wasn't drinking, whether it be in the war or within his own kingdom. His mom remained the steely woman she had always been; whenever she saw a bottle in his father's hands, she'd snatch it away from him and rage on about how he was ruining the fate of her family and the kingdom. He'd just continue eating without listening. Gwyn took every word in.

It wasn't until he was allowed to go outside of his wing of the castle - our equivalent of age three - that Gwyn realized there was something wrong with not knowing his family well. It opened a slow sadness in him. From then on, he was a very active child - hard to keep in line, hard to discipline, and hard to teach. He resisted lessons of manners. He had no taste for the soothing telepaths his parents sent to quiet him. He didn't care about history or reading. He liked to try and escape his room, or break the things in it to make new things, or try to escape the wing they kept him in - a "troublesome child," "the king and queen's nuisance."

Of course, Gwyn heard these things said about him. And hearing them did nothing to quell his temper. They only added fuel to the fire. So did his limited number of faces. He was certain there were more people out there, and he was certain that his 'caretakers' were keeping him from them.

For a time, he became a dutiful son. He was sensitive to criticism and desperate to be what would get him positive attention. He gave up his boyish things, like going into the woods and playing in the dirt and climbing trees. He hunted on horseback instead, with boots and heavy coats on. He learned how to use a rapier and tamed his curly hair and learned to reliably make eye contact. But he was never able to make himself good at talking to people, or laughing at things that weren't funny, or making those same banal jokes.

They were the worst few thousand years of his life. He was never happy, because he was never enough to make his mom happy, and she was the only reason he was doing all of it. All he thought of was how to make himself better, how to better place his feet and even coming up with a process to go through at every social outing he attended. He was mentally exhausted. Anger festered inside of him for a reason he didn't understand.

In a dramatic event, he broke his sister's wrist (Creiddylad, goddess of love), after she provoked him. His error? He did it in the middle of a feast during a diplomatic attempt between the Seelie and Unseelie fae to end the war ruining both the courts. He brought war to a peaceful diplomatic event - a massive insult to the delegation party. There was no other allowance within fae etiquette that could amend this insult fully than to expel Gwyn from the court - and so that is what his father did. Gwyn knelt before him in the throne room and had his title stripped from him.

In the days after, he ran to the home river of his brother Edern, who was a warrior feared by all the fae, despite not knowing him well enough to know if it was a good idea. Edern was half wild and crazy, sent mad by the war. He was mute, a being whose nature is like that of mighty rivers (speed, inevitability, current).

Gwyn found him from only rumors of his location. Edern took him in without wanting explanation, and taught Gwyn how to live in the wilderness by rule of necessity. If Gwyn did not catch his own fare, Edern did not cook it or provide him with his extra. If Gwyn did not make an arrow that could shoot, Edern did not offer him one of his own. Sometimes, he would show Gwyn how to hunt new game successfully, or a way he had just come up with to make a fish lure - these were the only times Gwyn got active guidance from him. The rest of what Gwyn learned of survival, he learned from watching. He taught Gwyn how to move through marsh without sound, how to read people without words, and the value of solitude.

Gwyn was able to fall into his way of life quickly. He'd wake up and cook whatever had been hunted the day before and they'd eat in silence, and then they'd go into the forest around them and spend the rest of the day taking care of their home. Gwyn just about turned feral from the years. The only reason he kept his knowledge of how to correctly be social is because of the yearly visits to market that they made. Each visit brought them odd stares and whisperings of "Aren't those the king's sons?"

They got good at ignoring them.

The war continued through those years, though, still. Soon, the fighting started spilling from neutral ground far from the Seelie Court's major city to up close and personal with the castle. Gwyn started to have to fight fae that got too far into the forest for comfort, and began camping around the edges of the trees to protect the first real home he'd ever valued.

One night, as he was asleep and the moon hung big and fat and full in the sky, a great cracking sounded behind him. When his eyes opened, his tent was alight, and not a second later he realized that there was fire - hot, immediate, burning. He burst from his shelter and into the night air to see the forest around him alight with flame. The trees in the courts are the homes physical bodies of many spirits, and Gwyn knew all of the ones he lived with by name.

He listened to their screams as he spent his first night devoted to murder.

He went back to the castle, despite Edern's protests and warnings, and demanded to join his father's combat discussions. He entered the rooms without asking. His sheer physical presence and indomitable nature made him successful. He was discovered to have a fantastic strategic mind and an even better sword arm, so his father put him on the frontlines. He became cruel and bloodthirsty, finding no resistance in being so from neither his men nor his authorities, and his nature of wildness finding itself well-given to the endeavor. He killed anything that seemed to be Unseelie. He started devoting his free time to studying the act of the kill.

He became victory. He won so many battles that his nature changed to *victory.* He did not lose fights, once they began, and all fae knew. He was terrifying on the battlefield. His presence alone, even rumored, became fear for the Unseelie. He singlehandedly began changing the war.

The Fates got tired of his misuse of his skill, however, and gave him his power of light and the responsibility of reaping souls on Samhain. It came in the middle of a battle, and chased out all of the impurities within him, the anger and the things that he forced himself to learn that went against who he was planned to be.

He stayed in the war, but was not bloodthirsty. He had to gather the souls of the dead after each bloodshed, and he found that it was heartwrenching and draining because almost all of them cried out for their families and loved ones and asked him questions with shell-shocked faces.

The war ended with both sides giving up on the same day, as it were. It took a long time for both courts to get back on their feet, and Gwyn found himself helping all that he could to right both sides. He didn't fight again, for the most part, keeping to himself and helping his forest grow back with Edern.

Around this time, Gwyn's father fell ill; Gwyn started to realize that he might be expected to take up more responsibilities. He ducked out before the member of the High Court could rope him into obligation and schedules and began his tradition of the Wild Hunt.

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