040

Demna

so it all actually starts with idrys: idrys' story is basically that the fae queen kept knocking up ladies trying to make the perfect dainty/fairy hybrid because she thought it would be pretty. her process was that she'd go, she'd do her thing, and when the baby was born she'd swap it for one of the ones she had on hand and check it over to see if it had what she wanted. she had just. so many fuckin mortal babies laying around bc she kept doing this. so she'd take the one she hoped was a faerie and leave one of the ones that definitely wasn't.

now, when idrys was born, he didn't have any of his fae traits. he wouldn't get those til he pupated. so she categorized him as a failure and put him in with the ones to be swapped out. so his parents are ???? who knows. and he was raised by demna's parents. 

demna, obviously, also not a fae

but as it just so happened, a couple of representatives from the seelie court happened to be stopping by to talk about politics and planning and whatever else they do, and they fell absolutely head over heels with this lil baby. so instead of being swapped out down the line for the unseelie queen's next hopeful baby, he got adopted by some seelie fairies and taken to their court. also there's just. so many fucking babies that don't belong to the right people out there. which is gonna raise some questions if they ever get dna tested like "oh ur not the father.... and ur not the mother?? where did u get this from"

ANYWAYS demna was taken in by these seelie fae ladies who doted on him like it was their fuckin JOB like. they love this kid so much, and he spends his childhood running through the fairy woods, playing with gnomes and brownies and hobgoblins and generally just kinda... thinking he was one of the fair folk. like. yeah ok he didn't have shiny wings or compound eyes or anything but like. that could totally happen at any point he's like a little kid he doesn't know shit about what puberty is supposed to do to him. but after a while he starts to get upset bc all his fairy friends are pupating and he still hasn't, so he asks his moms about it and they're like "oh right weeeeell about that-" and they tell him he's adopted. which like. all his fairy friends already knew and they were absolutely astounded that he hadn't figured it out yet but y'know. he was a kid he wanted to believe. so he gets upset and runs off to cry about it, and there he meets Fionn, the Huntsman

now, Fionn is like. a big gruff dude. again i'm kinda messing with actual wild hunt lore here for my own enjoyment so he's basically just like, giant deer man. hooves and antlers and muscles and beard. and demna is like "oh u... almost look like me this is close enough so i must be the same thing as you are you my dad bc i just found out that my moms arent my Moms" and fionn is like "no. i'm not your dad. stop bothering me." but Demna does Not Stop. he kinda gets over the whole "being adopted" thing but he's still absolutely FASCINATED by this big dude and his many dogs and his big deer and all his fancy weapons n shit

so, predictably, he doesn't leave fionn alone. he doesn't like. get in his way or anything either he just sorta slowly starts sliding his way into fionn's life like "oh yeah i fed ur dogs this morning" or "i polished all your bows for you they were looking sorta dingy" and fionn doesn't talk to him ever he just lets it happen. and then one night he goes out for a hunt and he offers to take demna with him, and demna is over the fucking MOON. he woulda been like. ten at the time, so while he's off running in the woods with Fionn and his Fairy Band idrys is building his cocoon and getting ready to turn to goo

so demna goes off and he has a wild time and he even gets to fire off an arrow at a rabbit but he absolutely misses, but fionn has officially decided that this is his Child and now all of a sudden demna has like... three entire parents and his moms are like "we're not really sure how to feel about this but it makes our lil boy happy so ok come over for tea some time and we can talk about joint custody". and like. they don't have a particularly big place, so just picture these two little fairy women, their small dainty son, and BIG BIG DEER MAN sorta hunched over on the couch sipping tea

the way it works out is that he's allowed to go and learn to shoot arrows and train dogs and shit but he has to do all his schoolwork too. so he spends a lot of time goin back and forth between these places and he becomes a very well rounded young man. diplomatic and kind hearted, but with a little bit of a wild streak that he indulges in when he goes out riding with his mentor. there's a lot of other hunters in the group, but demna is absolutely fionn's favorite

he's probably about like... fourteen when he decides to go out riding by himself around the border between the two courts, and who should he see on the other side of the brambles but little idrys, with his pointy teeth and his weird eyes and his pretty wings and his hooves and stockings, just like demna(edited). and at first demna is THRILLED because it's someone else like him, but he also knows that unseelie fae aren't really the best company to keep, so he's kinda cautious. but idrys is idrys and gets all up in his space and asks him lots of questions bc he's also never found anybody else like him in the fae realm and demna ends up explaining that he's lived there ever since he was a baby and he was disappointed that he wasn't a fairy but he guessed he shouldn't have been surprised. now, of course, neither one of them has any way of knowing the whole swap out situation, and i doubt they ever will know bc like. how does that even come up?

so anyways they keep up this whole meeting at the border and talking thing for a while, and they make plans to someday go back to the mortal world and explore, but as time goes on their plans on what to do there start to sort of... shift in opposite directions. demna, of course, wants to hunt. maybe play some tricks on the folks there, but really he's more interested in seeing how the wildlife is different in a world so barren of magic

idrys, on the other hand, has been listening to his mother, and he wants to go and steal and upset things. he's learned all those nasty lil fairy tricks like turning grain into snakes or making it so that every time a person opens their mouth to speak, a toad will hop out. and demna decides to just. stop visiting. he'd kinda hoped since they were sorta the same thing that maybe idrys wouldn't be as gross and weird as the other unseelie, but its just kinda in his blood and that doesn't seem likely to change. demna is kinda upset by this, because he honestly like. wanted someone he could really relate to, and when he's upset he goes out riding

so he does his thing, and he happens to come across this big old bear god, the kind that's long since been forgotten and is, therefore, fair game. normally he wouldn't go after that sorta thing without fionn and the gang, but he's mad and he wants to put a couple arrows in something so he does just that and the bear goes NUTS. which, y'know. is terrifying, so of course demna gets the fuck outta there, and of course the big bear chases him down. and of course, as these stories go, fionn appears to save his favorite child, and gets the shit clawed out of him. which, normally, not a big deal. fionn is, at his age, pretty much a minor god himself, so he's been roughed up before with no real problem, but God Bears are a lil tougher and they can do a lot more damage, even if they haven't got any followers anymore

so demna helps his teacher get home and tends to his wounds and thinks that everything is gonna be just fine bc fionn's bounced back before he's the huntsman he can't be taken out by a stupid bear but he like. totally is.. he dies and he turns to nothingness, because fairies don't have souls and they don't go anywhere when they die they just... vanish.

so all of a sudden there's a big gaping hole in the order of things. the fae realm is very particular, and it needs to have certain things. there needs to be rulers for both courts, there need to be certain entities who perform certain duties: granting wishes to kind little girls, spinning gold in return for first borns, helping princesses escape curses

and there needs to be a Huntsman

of course, everyone assumes it'll be one of the others in fionn's band, because they've ridden with him for centuries. but, y'know. i made this dainty to fit a certain theme, so of course the queens of the courts choose demna, because he was fionn's favorite and it's what he would have wanted. which isn't a really popular decision, but once the queens make a choice that's just How It Is. it can't be changed.

so demna gets fionn's big black buck, and he gets all of fionn's dogs, and his little cottage and all his bows and all his arrows and the horn he used to start the hunt. which is like. a lot to hand off to a kid who's probably not much older than like. sixteen at this point.but he takes it all because, again, it cant be changed. he can't deny his new duties.

he is, however, upset still. rather than blame himself, however, he blames idrys and the rest of the unseelie fae, for being the way they are and making him upset enough to go and do something stupid. everything is idrys' fault and that's just how it's gonna be according to demna

and so he becomes the huntsman and also threatens to shoot idrys on sight every single time they meet up, but he hasn't yet because that would kick off one helluva war, what with idrys being the unseelie queen's special pet. eventually, though, he knows the queen is gonna get tired of idrys, because she gets tired of everything eventually, and as soon as he's no longer in her good graces demna is going to turn him into a fucking pincushion. and now he has forever to wait because part of being the huntsman is immortality