Background

Snowdonia has long been associated with myths and legends of faeries and demons. Most people think them just that but I know they are neither, as I’m related to those who are called farie or fay or those of the Seelie or Unseelie Court. I know this as my mother, may God bless her, told me of this, before she was killed in what has become known as the Demon Invasion(Rodian Wars).

The difference between us, those who trace their lineage to the Courts, even if we are no longer welcome there, and thus are forced to hide our true form in our adopted home, and the demons that erupted from the portals across Snowdonia, is that they were demons and we are not. Their sole purpose was to kill and destroy, not to live out their lives in peace and harmony. It was not the first attack that befell the village of Beddgelert, now was it quite the last, but it was the largest.

It was nearly 5 months after my tenth birthday when she was taken from me. I had under her guidance learnt basic control on my ability, to shift between my True form and my human form at will, and had mastered the ability to assume the form of a wolf as an alternate. The next step would have been to learn to control the instinct to revert to what my mother called my “Primal” form in times of great stress as it was a dangerous state to find oneself in, in all but the direst of circumstances. It was a form that both of us assumed on that day, but I was very much the child and very much ineffectual. That she managed to slay all 7 of the attackers is still very much of a mystery to me, but she saved us, my father and I, though it cost her her life.

We burnt the bodies the next day, the seven demons in one pile, and my mother in her True form reverently in another. Until that day I hadn’t realised my father knew of my mothers secret, but I have since realised that somehow he doesn’t, which has made it difficult for me to talk to him about her. Why or how he doesn’t know I do not understand, especially since she was in her True form when we cremated her body. I vowed to myself that day that it would be the last where I would be unable to defend myself. I found both a fencing club and a Judo club and have attended both regularly since then. Strangely my father never balked at the suggestion and I have no idea how he has been able to afford my attendance at both, including competitions and summer camps.

This is another bone of contention between us, one we choose not to discuss. It is not quite that I can have everything I ask for at the drop of a hat, but somehow we manage to afford things, such as driving lessons when I turned 17, and the Mustang wreck I bought and restored, although a large portion of my own wages have been ploughed into that car.

Having the car has given me a lot of freedom, and in the summer when all the tourists come to visit, makes taking the girls somewhere secluded much easier - it’s much harder to pull if you have wait to take the bus. It also means I can get both to work and to college easier, but work is very seasonal. In the summer we’re inundated, it seems every few hours another car breaks down. In the winter things are much quieter, the seasonal traffic has gone, and it’s the odd local needing their yearly service and MOT or a locals crashing due to bad weather or a coach or truck on the way to or from Holyhead that gets brought in for repair. Still it does allow me to go shooting far more often