Adain ferch Fnwy

"*The curse has a tendency to be more keenly felt in certain generations. Your mam is not as touched by it as I am, as you are. My mam was the same.*"
―Rhiamon ferch anFnwy[[The Curse, Chapter 1]]
**Adain ferch Fnwy** was a Seelie common fae, the daughter of Rhiamon ferch anFnwy, wife of Calder ap Cenn, mother of Crielle ferch Fnwy and Penarddun ferch Fnwy, and Gwyn ap Nudd's maternal grandmother. She was murdered by Crielle.

## Life

Long before Adain's birth, a member of the An Fnwy estate slighted Davix, which angered his brother Olphix so much that Olphix forced a curse into one of their family members and married it to his own magic. Adain was affected, but not as much as her mother or daughters.

Adain was seemingly the only child of Rhiamon, and married Calder ap Cenn. When she bore her first child, Crielle ferch Fnwy, no one was prepared for how powerful Crielle's dra'ocht was at manipulating them into doing what Crielle wanted. Crielle seemed particularly physically cruel to her father, but forced Adain to participate in his torture: Adain was made to find bees for Calder to crush using his fingers, whereon they would sting and injure him, and Crielle also made her bring his sickbed into Crielle's room so the child could watch him suffer through his pain. Adain was outwardly happy through all this under Crielle's control, but Rhiamon could see that she was actually exhausted under the strain.

Rhiamon knew that if Crielle was left unchecked, Crielle would drive her parents into an early grave, so she took Crielle away to Rhiamon's home, for training. Once out of Crielle's influence for long enough, '[h]er parents . . . were horrified to realise how out of control their lives had become. Crielle made them forget about Court appointments, carefully cultivated strategy meetings, themselves, each other, their desires.' Adain and Calder began to try for another child.

Eleven years after Crielle's birth, Adain gave birth to Penarddun ferch Fnwy. She and Calder doted on Penny, and were worried about their daughters meeting. They'd expected Crielle to be cruel to her, and were surprised when the pair got along quite well, and Crielle was rather sweet to her.

When Crielle returned to the An Fnwy estate to visit Penny for the last time during Adain's life, Penny went through so many servants that she was forbidden from killing them. Crielle taught Penny how to use her dra'ocht, and together they took control of the estate. Barely two weeks after her arrival, Crielle murdered both Adain and Calder, and later had Melchor the sixteenth remove their bodies.

## Relationships

### Calder ap Cenn

It seems that and Adain and Calder cared for each other to some extent - when they were released from Crielle's control the first time, they realized they'd forgotten to care for each other during that time.

### Crielle ferch Fnwy

Adain cared for her eldest daughter and loved her to some extent, but was also afraid of her. Crielle 'had no respect for [her parents]. They were mannequins that brought her whatever she wished, or suffered under her increasingly unrealistic desires. She did not like the vacuous way they wanted her to be happy, their love was an empty object; it looked pretty enough on the outside, but she wanted the *meat*.'

### Penarddun ferch Fnwy

Adain and Calder doted on Penny, but Penny was bored by her parents, and thought they were 'nothing'.

### Rhiamon ferch anFnwy

Rhiamon cared deeply for Adain, to the point where she went out of her way to protect Adain from Crielle, and cut off most ties with Crielle when Crielle murdered her.

## Quotations

* 'Mam and Dad are puppets,’ Crielle whispered, and Penarddun rubbed her nose into Crielle’s ribs and then nodded quickly, rabbit-like. ‘They’re nothing.’ ‘Nothing at all,’ Crielle said. ‘Vapour.’ ‘A blank space where people should be.'

## Trivia

* Since Crielle wanted to outdo her mother's importance at the Seelie Court, it seems that Adain, like the other members of the An Fnwy family at this time, held some high status at the Seelie Court.

## References

1. ↑ not\_poignant. “The Ice Plague: Book 2 - The Seething Seas.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 30 April 2020. https://archiveofourown.org/works/17959874/chapters/57536779. Chapter 31: Whatever It Takes.
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 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.