An Fnwy estate

The **An Fnwy estate** is the birthplace of Gwyn ap Nudd, and the generational home of the An Fnwy family. It is a large mansion/villa found in the Seelie Courtlands, with close proximity to the Seelie Court and Ethallas forest. It also includes at least two geographically separate estates, the first of which was largely abandoned after Gwyn used his light to damage the land. 'The An Fnwy estate held parcels of land all over the world, traded in military secrets as well as those of merchants.'

## Appears in

Major canon:

*Game Theory*

*The Court of Five Thrones*

Canon extra:

*The Curse*

*The Drawn Bead*

## Adain ferch Fnwy's Ownership

When Crielle ferch Fnwy is young, she uses her dra'ocht to make her parents fill her room with flowers and bees, the latter of which she has her father, Calder ap Cenn, kill. When Calder grows unwell from the bee poison, Crielle has her mother, Adain, move Calder's bed to Crielle's room, so Crielle can watch Calder suffer as he recoveres.

## Crielle ferch Fnwy's Ownership

After Crielle murders her parents, Rhiamon ferch anFnwy (Crielle's maternal grandmother), has Crielle take over management of the An Fnwy estate and its holdings until Rhiamon appoints her a husband. Crielle has sole stewardship for at least a millennia before she marries Lludd Llaw Eraint.

Crielle has a room for all her chemistry equipment, including an, 'autoclave, centrifuge, other equipment she’d repurposed from the human world, purchased from the fae world, [and/or] engineered herself.' Melchor the sixteenth convinces her to move it to the basement.

The estate itself is located near a forest, which is home to Seelie dryads, at least after the estate is left to fall apart. During Crielle's stewardship, the estate, 'became a social estate, hosting many functions. Crielle acquitted herself as one of the best hosts the Seelie Court had ever seen'. Crielle intentionally cultivated gardens, in part for the socializing aspect of the estate, but also to grow poisonous plants.

There is a portrait of Rhiamon hanging in the estate. There is also a private library.

## Crielle ferch Fnwy and Lludd Llaw Eraint's Ownership

### Old Estate

Lludd works on developing the estate for, 'orchards, farming, and . . . more extensive kennels, stables and mews.' The estate also hosts all or at least part of Crielle and Lludd's wedding, and guests stay and wander the property after the principal ceremony.

When Gwyn is six years old, he unleashes his light on the estate. The light kills, 'several square kilometres of family land', turning it into 'a black, empty wasteland, where nothing lives, or moves', disabling plants from being able to grow for some time (but not forever). Crielle and Lludd make up a story about 'a magical curse or plague so that they could move location and start again.' In *Game Theory*, the old estate smells like 'the burnt carbon of plants, charred minerals in the soil'.

When Augus Each Uisge and Gwyn go together to the old estate, wind 'had eroded some of the landscape, but the dead plants and grasses had stayed tenuously anchored to the soil, as though something in Gwyn’s light had mummified the scene. Everything was black, brown, twisted, except for the three quarters of the Estate that were still whole, preserved by that peculiar fae magic that didn’t allow things to crumble and fail with the passing of time.' Augus finds a 'tiny blade of grass that had poked up a centimetre from the sand itself'.

When Gwyn is on the run from the Seelie Court, someone leaves a trap for him on the old estate, which Augus inadvertently activates while hunting for Gwyn.

### Current Estate

The primary An Fnwy estate is a grand, large estate including a significantly sized multi-storeyed villa constructed in cream ketton stone separated into two distinct wings, fully gated and complete with prohibitive iron spikes at the top to deter lower status fae, with a significant amount of land, fields and orchards on the property. It also has stables, gardens, a separate garden of poisonous plants, Crielle's laboratory, mews and presumably other buildings for breeding dogs for hunting. It is next to at least one forest used for hunting: Ethallas.

A large fountain is at the front, depicting Lludd holding a longbow, gazing into the distance, with water flowing from his other hand. The entrance has double stone doors, and the white gravel leading up to the stairs accommodates carriages easily. It has, 'a giant, vaulted marble-floored entrance-way, complete with dual marble staircases, underneath a crystal chandelier lit with pale yellow werelight. [The next room was] a smaller, carpeted room designed for receiving important guests.'

Gwyn used to leave notes around the estate when he took food, so that servants wouldn't be blamed for it. His parents call his wing the 'storage wing', and go to great lengths to ensure no one else stays there.

Crielle's primary bedroom that she sometimes shares with Lludd had golden door handles, and smells of her perfume, clothing, and faint poison. 'Her bed was a four-poster draped with a thin, shimmering gossamer that would twinkle like the stars when evening came.' She had a large wardrobe with many dresses and 'fur stoles, coats, muffs. All of them from animals that had been gifted as pelts or that Lludd had caught'. She also has, 'an entire chamber that was devoted only to jewellery'. She keeps her personal journals, receipts, and even some jewelry hidden deep in her rooms and throughout the estate.

The estate has, 'grass fields. It was always gold or wheaten or ochre, and the grass was always long – sometimes heavy and bowing with seed, sometimes not. Gwyn didn’t know what the land was meant for. It wasn’t cultivated. Sometimes there were targets set up at the far end, but there were formal target grounds and even a sandy circular arena attached to the manor itself. . . . The grasses bent gracefully and gently and silvered in the last of the light, looking like they were spun out of white-gold. It was quiet but for the occasionally chattering and cooing of birds. There were noises in the grass. Rabbits running to their holes, mice and rats getting out of the way of their footsteps.'

## Gwyn ap Nudd's Ownership

Crielle formally disowns and disinherits Gwyn upon her death, seemingly removing his right to the estate, which is backed by Lludd, as well as Albion's Court. The Seelie Court goes through the estate after they take it from Gwyn, but leave much of the wealth behind. Gwyn contests the disinheritance, in part due to advice from his Council of War Generals that it would be useful strategically to have land in the Seelie Courtlands, and ownership is eventually returned to him.

Gwyn visits the estate some time after it is returned to him. 'Gwyn stood in the creamy foyer, bright sandstone everywhere, wealth sprawling and not a speck of dust anywhere despite the fact that the estate hadn’t been maintained for months. Fae magic kept everything preserved. Including the bloodstains.' Fenwrel the Mouse-Maiden accompanies him to detect and remove any alarms, and she finds a few here and there, made to signal when Gwyn enters certain spaces. She also further wards the area, per Gwyn's request. Gwyn catalogues the remaining items of value, and plans to sell what he can to raise funds for the Unseelie Court.

Gwyn later visits the estate with Augus. 'Even though the sun was close to setting on the An Fnwy estate, the breeze wasn’t brisk, but balmy. It carried the distant smells of ocean salt and grass pollens, along with the deceptive nectars and mellifluous tones of the poisonous plants flowering in one of Crielle’s many gardens. Already, it had started to overgrow. Weeds had seeded with no one to maintain the beds. Grass pushed past rockeries and invaded amongst thorny roses that were covered with rosehips – no one there to snip them away to encourage new blooms.'

## Residents

* Gwyn ap Nudd (current owner)
* Former:
	+ Adain ferch Fnwy (former owner and matriarch, deceased)
	+ All'eth (Crielle's personal assistant, deceased)
	+ Calder ap Cenn (deceased)
	+ Crielle ferch Fnwy (former owner and matriarch, deceased)
	+ Delphine (Cook) (deceased)
	+ Efnisien ap Wledig (deceased)
	+ Euroswydd (deceased)
	+ Lludd Llaw Eraint (deceased)
	+ Melchor the sixteenth (deceased)
	+ Penarddun ferch Fnwy (deceased)

## Quotations

* Gwyn: 'I am the Unseelie King, Gwyn ap Nudd, owner of the An Fnwy Estate in the Seelie Courtlands.'
* Gwyn: 'The An Fnwy estate had a reputation to uphold; only the finest horses and hounds and hawks.'

## Trivia

* Rhiamon keeps a cottage separate from the main estate, though it's unclear if her cottage is included as part of the An Fnwy estate. Crielle is not put in charge of it when Crielle takes over the An Fnwy estate after Adain's death. A journey by carriage is required to get between the two. Rhiamon keeps many things there, including animal skulls. Rhiamon has a staff of servants there, and Crielle lives there for a time. Rhiamon also has a garden, which has songbirds at one point, before Crielle kills them all and/or drives them off. Crielle also 'cleared many of the rats and mice in [Rhiamon's] cottage roof'. Crielle also studies poisons there under tutors.
* The An Fnwy estate appears as 'An Fnwy estate' 41 times in the canon and canon extras, and as 'An-Fnwy estate' 35 times in the canon and canon extras, and only as 'Estate' in either spelling once, so this page has been titled 'An Fnwy estate'.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 not\_poignant. “Game Theory.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 27 October 2013. https://archiveofourown.org/works/915296/chapters/2030837. Chapter 23: Truth.
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 not\_poignant. “The Court of Five Thrones.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 19 June 2015. https://archiveofourown.org/works/1749290/chapters/9397818. Chapter 48: Exploration.
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 not\_poignant. "The Curse.” *The Fae Tales Verse - canon extras. Archive of Our Own,* 28 July 2014. https://archiveofourown.org/works/2034456/chapters/4416066. Chapter 1.
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 not\_poignant. "The Curse.” *The Fae Tales Verse - canon extras. Archive of Our Own,* 4 August 2014. https://archiveofourown.org/works/2034456/chapters/4527081. Chapter 2.
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 not\_poignant. “Game Theory.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 31 January 2014. https://archiveofourown.org/works/915296/chapters/2363349. Chapter 39: Alone.
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 not\_poignant. “Game Theory.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 23 November 2013. https://archiveofourown.org/works/915296/chapters/2115127. Chapter 28: Light.
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 not\_poignant. “The Court of Five Thrones.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 6 June 2014. https://archiveofourown.org/works/1749290/chapters/3737456. Chapter 1: Massacre.
8. ↑ not\_poignant. “Game Theory.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 22 December 2013. https://archiveofourown.org/works/915296/chapters/2204791. Chapter 33: Invisible.
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 not\_poignant. “The Court of Five Thrones.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 21 August 2015. https://archiveofourown.org/works/1749290/chapters/10537971. Chapter 57: Grief.
10. ↑ not\_poignant. “The Court of Five Thrones.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 20 June 2014. https://archiveofourown.org/works/1749290/chapters/3901096. Chapter 2: Orphan.
11. ↑ not\_poignant. “The Court of Five Thrones.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 26 December 2014. https://archiveofourown.org/works/1749290/chapters/6404462. Chapter 23: Confrontation.
12. ↑ not\_poignant. “The Court of Five Thrones.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 20 March 2015 https://archiveofourown.org/works/1749290/chapters/7890363. Chapter 36: Burden.
13. ↑ not\_poignant. “The Court of Five Thrones.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own*, 30 June 2015. https://archiveofourown.org/works/1749290/chapters/7101860. Chapter 28: Solidarity.
14. ↑ not\_poignant. “The Court of Five Thrones.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 5 June 2015. https://archiveofourown.org/works/1749290/chapters/9186013. Chapter 46: Masque.