The Lone Wolf

***The Lone Wolf*** is a *Fae Tales Verse AU*, and part 1 of *The Lone Wolf (series)*.

## Summary

Gwyn ap Nudd, adopted by the Unseelie Court and half-raised by the Raven Prince himself, is the protégé and apprentice of the Raven Prince, and both of them are Master Mages. The Raven Prince has always liked having a hound to do his bidding, no matter how dangerous the task, nor the hound.

## Character Bios

### Fluri the Mouse-Maiden

#### Life

Fluri is a healer and member of the Raven Prince's Inner Court, and works on Gwyn's injured hands. She is only able to do so much for the injury, and much of the healing process is left to his status and time. She also manages the Court in the Raven Prince's absence, along with the other members of the Raven Prince's Inner Court.

### Gwyn ap Nudd

#### Appearance

Gwyn is tall, lean, and wiry. His Mage's staff looks 'like a crude walking stick.' Gwyn's motley 'was white and gold and black', much like Taronis', and he doesn't think the colors suit him.

#### Personality

Gwyn has a difficult relationship with the Raven Prince, but when they work together, they can do extraordinary things. Gwyn also greatly appreciated the Raven Prince's rare praise.

#### Life

Gwyn is a Mage, as well as the Raven Prince's student and member of his Inner Court. He has been raised by the Raven Prince ever since he was given to the Unseelie Court as 'a small child'. The Raven Prince orders Gwyn to map Taronis' realm, and when Gwyn is brusque with the Raven Prince, the Raven Prince takes away the language and knowledge that would let him perform basic etiquette, without telling him what it is the Raven Prince took. Gwyn eventually obeys the Raven Prince's order, and maps the Delta, until Taronis seeks him out. When Gwyn is unable to properly greet Taronis, and is even unable to explain what the Raven Prince did, Gwyn flees, but Taronis overpowers him, breaks his staff, and then burns away the flesh on Gwyn's hands to the bone and bare tendon. Gwyn returns to the Unseelie Court, only to collapse at the Raven Prince's feet. The Raven Prince leaves Gwyn in Fluri's care, where Gwyn slowly recovers. When the Raven Prince returns, he turns over the key to Taronis' realm to Gwyn.

#### Skills

Gwyn can make charms that allow 'him to preserve almost any object as a recording device, and he could keep it unobtrusively on his person.' He even manages to use a handful of gravel as a charm. Gwyn can also create illusions, such as when he creates 'a herd of deer stampeding over the slabs of light, the ground rumbling, hooves thudding. He called swarms and flocks of bats and birds that all flew straight towards Taronis, distracting him for enough moments that Gwyn was able to transmogrify some of the grass at the edge of the slabs into blinkers for his own face that would keep the worst of the light away. Then, he called forth the illusion of bees and wasps, a grey haze of mosquitoes and the crawling of thousands of spiders on their delicate, furred legs.'

Gwyn can sense the zahakhar in the Unseelie Court: 'an energy that reminded him that one day – if he pleased the Raven Prince – he might be made King. Not that he particularly wanted to be.'

### The Raven Prince

#### Appearance

The Raven Prince has clawed fingers. The 'Raven Prince’s own staff was simply a splinter of wood beneath the index fingernail of his left hand.' His motley is 'silver, violet and a shimmery black-blue.'

#### Personality

The Raven Prince is capable of great cruelty, particularly over slights from his subjects, and has a history of taking Gwyn's language away. He is also a self-proclaimed trickster. Despite this, on the rare occasions the Raven Prince offers praise and tenderness to Gwyn, Gwyn greatly values those moments, and the pair are clearly fond of each other in their own ways.

#### Life

The Raven Prince is the King of the Unseelie and Gwyn's teacher. He orders Gwyn to map Taronis' realm, and when Gwyn is impolite, the Raven Prince takes away Gwyn's capacity for etiquette, without telling Gwyn what it was he took, knowing the whole thing will give the Raven Prince a reason to enter into a duel with Taronis. After Gwyn returns, gravely wounded, the Raven Prince confronts Taronis in a duel, and kills the other Mage.

### Taronis

#### Appearance

When Taronis encounters Gwyn in the Delta, he wears, 'a long, floor-sweeping cloak of white, yellow and gold motley. His dark green eyes were amused and sharp'. He has, 'dark brown skin had a goldenness to it, suggesting centuries spent in the peak of health.' He carries a 'polished, black wooden staff in his fingers. It was inlaid with gold and pearl, and flashed lines of light when wielded within Taronis’ hands.' He smells 'of the earthy, sharp karapincha he used in most of his potions work.'

#### Personality

Taronis supposedly has an aversion to small animals. He also cares greatly for fae etiquette, to the point that not using etiquette around him is considered an insult or assault. He knows why Gwyn can't use etiquette around him during their last meeting, and wants the fight with the Raven Prince, and seemingly also wants to punish Gwyn as collateral damage.

#### Life

'Taronis had been one of the Thirteen Mages – the Principal of Light – of the School of the Staff when Gwyn had apprenticed to the Raven Prince, and he was still one of the Thirteen now. Mercurial, mean-spirited, and extremely powerful. Gwyn had never had him as a teacher, because Taronis had refused to teach him, pettily deciding that Gwyn didn’t have the right to know the secrets of celestial light until Taronis himself deemed Gwyn worthy. But Taronis had never deemed him worthy, and the gleam in his eyes every time they saw each other suggested that Taronis enjoyed the game of withholding his wisdom and knowledge about Gwyn’s own light.' The Raven Prince implies that he angers Taronis prior to the story start, which is why he sends Gwyn to scout Taronis' realm. Taronis grows angry that Gwyn does not greet him properly, then hunts him down, burns Gwyn's hands to bone and tendon, and sends him back to the Unseelie Court as a warning to the Raven Prince, hoping to duel the other Mage. When the Raven Prince goes to meet with Taronis for the duel, the Raven Prince kills Taronis.

## Locations

### Gwyn's cabin

Gwyn's cabin has charms hanging from the ceiling and at least one of the window frames. It has tiny alcoves gouged into the wood walls, and crystals that refract through, dotting 'almost every piece of furniture in the room.' Gwyn also keeps animal pelts, including that of a seal (or possibly a selkie). One wall is devoted to giant maps, which seem to impress even the Raven Prince.

### The Lightwash Delta

The Lightwash Delta is Taronis' land, that he 'twisted up himself out of physics'. On the boundary of the Delta, there are 'coruscations of light shimmering in front of it, a veil that was as much an aurora, a place that shouldn’t exist.' Inside the Delta, there were 'forests made of trees with white trunks and golden leaves, [and] a gleaming light turning everything mellifluous'. There is magic in the very land itself. 'Streamlets babbled and chuckled cheerfully on their way down to the delta, which was shored with white sands that squeaked underfoot, water that ran clear, giant oysters clinging to the base of granite outcrops, no doubt giant pearls inside each one. . . . There were a few plinths and pillars scattered around the place that echoed of Taronis’ magical signature. . . . At least one or two were designed for celestial matters of the constellations, and there was one sundial which exerted such a powerful force over [Gwyn] that he spent the rest of the afternoon feeling drunk on mead and stumbling through the forest until he could get away from its power.' In the north was 'an immense white tusk jutting from the land.' Nearby were flat 'slabs of pale, glittering stone' which formed 'a giant flat plateau circling the tusk tower'. The tusk tower itself had vertical 'furrows . . . carved or worn naturally into the sides' and seemingly had no windows. After the Raven Prince kills Taronis, he gives the key to Taronis' domain to Gwyn.

### Unseelie Court

The Gwylwyr Du is the main pathway into the Unseelie Court, where fae are meant to teleport - even Gwyn - when coming to the Court. Fae gather in the Unseelie throne room. Although Gwyn chooses to live apart from the Court later in life, the Raven Prince keeps a room for him when Gwyn is visiting. 'All the décor was mostly what Gwyn had chosen for himself. Furs on the wall and floor and bed, which was a sturdy four poster of carved, unpolished golden wood.'

## Quotations

* The Raven Prince, to Gwyn: 'Remember that I have taken your language before, and that I could take it again, *beast*.'
* 'The Raven Prince had started comparing him to dogs the day that Gwyn had been adopted into the Unseelie Court as nothing more than a small child. Back then, he was the ‘unruly pup.’ Then he’d become the King’s guard dog. The mad shuck. Now, was he the lone wolf?'
* ‘Oh no, no, I doubt you’ll realise what I’ve taken until you really *need* it,’ the Raven Prince said.
* To Gwyn: 'I know,’ Taronis said. ‘But I cannot send you back to him without making it clear that I will not tolerate his attempts at incursion on my territory. It’s not even really about you, which I’m sure you’d understand, if you didn’t think the entire world revolved around you. But you will not be sent back unpunished, and if you come here again, I will do this to all of you, and it will take you over a year to recover from it.'
* 'He knew the moment his language was fully returned to him, because he couldn’t seem to stop saying sorry and please and all the words he should have been able to say to Taronis in the first place, to stop this from happening to him.'
* 'You *tricked* me,’ Gwyn said . . . 'I am a trickster,’ the Raven Prince said. . . . 'It was a trick,’ the Raven Prince said, ‘but it wasn’t only a trick for you. . . .' ‘I hate you,’ Gwyn said, risking the words, the venom of them, the broken pain in his chest as he uttered them.'
* The Raven Prince, to Gwyn: 'Don’t tell me what I should and shouldn’t do. You are so incorrigible. Taronis couldn’t even flay it from you for longer than a fortnight.'
* Gwyn, to the Raven Prince: 'I’m your graceless hound.'

## Trivia

* Mages 'didn’t get to choose the colours of their own motley, even though they had to cut every fabric diamond and make it with their own hands.' Mages also did not 'discipline the protégé of a Mage without approaching that Mage first.' A 'member of the Thirteen cannot approach another member of the Thirteen to do them harm, without having great cause.'
* It's implied that the Raven Prince had more members on his Inner Court than Fluri and Gwyn, though how many and who they are is unknown.

## References

1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 1.17 1.18 1.19 1.20 1.21 1.22 1.23 not\_poignant. “The Lone Wolf.” *The Lone Wolf. Archive of Our Own,* 27 April 2015. https://archiveofourown.org/works/3831187.