Trowna

**Trowna** is the 'underworld kingdom' of the trows. The trows invite Gwyn ap Nudd, Augus Each Uisge, Eran Iliakambar, Mosk Manytrees, Ash Glashtyn, and Julvia Dubna Vajat to Trowna to rest while the group is on their way to deal with Olphix.

## Appears in

Major canon:

*The Ice Plague: Book 3 - The Ice Plague*

## Description

‘Trowna is its own realm.’ This helps keep away intruders. Thousands of years before the story present, 'the trows tamed the standing stones and coaxed a new family to their sea, and . . . the standing stones rewarded them by crushing their enemies to death.' This involved chasing out the local carnivorous wyrms, which the trows sometimes memorialize in brightly colourful 'ceramics and . . . rugs and . . . wall hangings' around their homes.

The pathway to Trowna that Gwyn and his party took with their trow guides started narrow and became narrower as they traveled it. 'It was at first dirt, and then slippery pebbles that the trows never slipped on, even as they talked to each other rapidly with their hands and didn’t pay attention to where they were stepping.' There was eventually 'a wall of boulders and large domed rocks. Some had writing on them, runes scratched in that were barely readable. The rocks seemed indistinct, grey, almost unimportant.' The trows touched each of the rocks as they prepared to enter Trowna.

To actually enter Trowna, one trow 'with a light push of their fingertips – moved a boulder taller and broader than Gwyn aside, and with a heavy rumbling sound, it revealed a thick, opaque blackness that almost seemed to radiate from behind the boulder.' The darkness is a kind of passageway where time seems to slow, and which seemingly shrinks normal-size fae down to trow-size, so that the trows appear the same height, or even taller, once inside Trowna.

After the entrance, there was 'a huge underground cavern. It was like they were standing by a sea underground, water lapping the shore rhythmically. There were many boats designed only for two or four people with sails woven from silver thread bobbing up and down.

And underneath Eran’s feet, somehow laid into the dun dirt, were hundreds of long silver lines that stretched off in coils and spirals, parallel to each other in dizzying patterns, stretching up along the walls and reaching into the water until they disappeared. It was like someone had taken a brush of silver and painted the dirt, but Eran could feel beneath his feet that the silver was solid, and the dirt was soft. . . . There were arches and doorways carved into some of the walls'.

The boats of Trowna 'sailed on a magical wind.' The kingdom had 'a ceiling of stone that glittered with blue and green stars, impossibly bright.'

Trowna also contained rolling 'fields of dun and grey and brown dirt, with those silver lines that Gwyn called ‘silver leys.’ Meadows with strange, ghostly white orchids, and tall standing stones, as well as stones that lay flat on the ground like they were sleeping beasts. Grey goat-like creatures with dense, shaggy fur, moved around in flocks and trow shepherds with crooks of silver watched as the group walked by.

It wasn’t silent . . . The sound of water was everywhere. It rushed nearby in a fast stream, it dripped from stones and plinked into puddles here and there. The sounds of industry – like mining or smithing, or perhaps both –in the distance, echoing hollowly across the land. The goats bleated, and creatures that could have been birds – except Eran never saw any – sung like tinkling bells. And Eran thought he could *just* catch the sound of some kind of instrument playing, unlike any instrument he’d heard before.' The music was made by 'silver chimes hanging from some lintels'.

Gwyn's group was 'taken to a large meeting hall that had six beautiful, four poster beds right at the back of it.' 'The hall itself, with its rounded ceiling, rounded entrance, and tapestries hanging at varying points along the wall, was clearly intended as a mass meeting place. There were long benches designed for fifteen or so trows each, and lamps that were currently out, the only lights coming from small fae-lights here and there.' The trows made the beds for them, with each bed designed specifically for the person who would sleep in it. Gwyn's 'was a bed made from a pale wood, with gauzy pale-yellow curtains, and cushions embroidered with flowers and little fawns. He picked up one of the central pillows – embroidered with white poppies'. Augus' bed 'was a deep green, with heavy dark curtains. But at the bottom of the curtains were little pale green tendrils and leaves. And carved into the wood were patterns of antlers and running stags. Ash’s bed was the one that was bright and colourful. None of the pillows matched and they were all overstuffed and different sizes, in red, orange, yellow, blue. His quilt looked cut together from different types of mismatched cloth, and when Ash smoothed his hands beneath the quilt and the blankets, he immediately pressed his face into the pillows.' Ash noted that even the high thread count of the sheets was to his satisfaction. Julvia's bed 'was bowl shaped and resembled a stylised nest. There were white feathers embroidered in the deep cream pillows and the blankets, as well as a ceramic basket filled with more soft-looking cream and beige blankets. Eran’s bed was all the colour of flame, though unlike the blankets taken from the Mantissa, all the blankets here were made from fireproof material. Eran could tell as soon as he sat down on it. The colours ranged from deep red to the brightest and palest yellow, and every now and then there were little beads of blue, like the blue found in flames.' Mosk's bed had dark wood 'carved with runes and inlaid with silver in the shape of clouds and waves. The quilt was made of a predominantly dark blue, lush-looking fabric, and though pale white leaves were embroidered into it, so were shells, and clouds pouring spirals of rain.' Ash, Gwyn, and Augus' beds faced Mosk, Eran, and Julvia's.

The group was woken by 'the clattering of bells and drums and what sounded like stones.' The trow homes in the village Gwyn's group visited had 'immaculate lounges filled with woven rugs, tapestries, stitched works everywhere. Long threads of silver were worked into the clay bricks that made their homes . . . There were bedrooms for children that weren’t home, filled with colourful toys and beds that weren’t raised off the earth. There was a small room where all the silver spiralled into a central point, and all that was kept in that room was a sphere.'

While Gwyn's group visited, they were taken to 'a huge empty dirt field with a handful of standing stones. Two trows stood there, waiting, and then one of the standing stones trembled and shivered. . . . [The] standing stone grew tiny spindly legs from its base, and then *moved.* It trotted down to a river and bent its huge form over and touched the water where its rocky head might be . . . The other standing stones woke and all of them staggered in an ungainly fashion down to the water, laying down and drinking.' Gwyn said that the 'standing stones here are all like this . . . They can’t be interfered with because they’re not- They’re not smart, being…well, stones. But they go down to the river some nights and get drunk. Often, they’re in different positions the next morning. But the water doesn’t make them drunk every night, and sometimes months will go by, and they won’t move. But if there’s a full moon- Ah, it’s predictable on nights like these. They dance too, apparently. Rather badly.’

The air of Trowna was sometimes filled with the sound of bagpipes, which is seemingly a favoured instrument.

The henk that Gwyn's party attended took place in a 'field set aside and cleared of their livestock, and the fences strung with thousands of tiny silver bells setting off a tintinnabulation that shimmered through the air. In one corner, a stage had been set up, its wooden walls hung with tapestries depicting a rich and storied history in threads of red and blue, ochre and violet, deep crimson and black and white. On the stage, many musicians, though they didn’t always play.

Even in the silence, among the bells ringing, the trows henked away. Sometimes they all seemed to find the same steps together, and sometimes they danced their own way, cavorting about with movements that were graceful or graceless, depending on their mood. Children and elderly trows together, all spinning or shuffling or sidestepping and sometimes clumsily banging into one another.' There were 'trestle tables piled with food. Marinated legs and other hunks of meat from the goat-like creatures richly glazed with a fruit-sauce that was sticky and rich. There were small, barbecued birds, a kind of poultry Eran didn’t recognise. Whole bowls of orchid petals, harvested from the underground orchids, which – when gently smoked in Eran’s hands – tasted like watery honey, and left a powdery aftertaste on his tongue. The trows loved them, but Eran preferred the strange grey fruits that glowed pale blue on the inside. . . . [They tasted] like agave and prickly pear.'

The Trowna Market is a special place that requires an invitation, at least for outsiders. The only currency is silver. Many different items are sold there, including jewelry. Gold was very cheap there, because the trows value silver more.

Tiny worms possibly in or around Trowna grow blue spiral shells, and the trows collect an ink from the worms 'to create the blue in their tapestries.'

## Trivia

* Being invited to Trowna is very special, as it seldom happens.
* There is some knowledge of Trowna outside the secret kingdom itself: Gwyn read about it as a child.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 not\_poignant. “The Ice Plague: Book 3 - The Ice Plague.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 30 September 2021. https://archiveofourown.org/chapters/85040659. Chapter 16: Trowna.
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 not\_poignant. “The Ice Plague: Book 3 - The Ice Plague.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 28 October 2021. https://archiveofourown.org/chapters/86595049. Chapter 18: The Silent Dances.
3. ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 not\_poignant. “The Ice Plague: Book 3 - The Ice Plague.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 14 October 2021. https://archiveofourown.org/chapters/85843123. Chapter 17: Singing Silver.
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 not\_poignant. “The Ice Plague: Book 3 - The Ice Plague.” *Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 11 November 2021. https://archiveofourown.org/chapters/87334006. Chapter 19: Golden Bonds.