Gregory Finn

History

• A Reluctant Prince

  ((Note: This is only very loosely based on actual Faerie mythology. VERY loosely based, as in very little connection. There are many kinds of Fae, and Gregory’s breed is Elemental. They are a separate species from the ones we are familiar with. So if you are a folklore nut, just relax, and don’t expect any similarities. Just go with it.))
  
  Gregory detested his life as Prince of the Fae. He had been born “homely” by Fae standards. That meant his nose was a touch too big and his face a shy too narrow. Still handsome by all respects by human standards, but that was just it: he’d fit in among humans rather than Fae, and their too-perfect beauty. His own parents sometimes wondered if he were a changeling instead of true Fae, but his sweet nature and polite manner proved that theory wrong.
  Gregory, however, saw his features as something wonderful and for something to take pride in, for they separated him from the too-flawless Fae whose faces seemed to all look alike after a while. Still, it earned him the treatment one might expect to see on the playground, where the odd one of the group was outcast and treated like something one only speaks to to be polite. He grew up lonely, with even his age-mates keeping their distance. However, with time, his people got used to him and were kinder to him, even sociable as they accepted him. It helped that the wise ones of the Fae explained that Gregory looked the way he does because he was meant for great things, things that required the human world, where he would need to blend in. It made sense to the Fae, and the explanation made them more open. They soon learned to love him, for he proved to be a very just and kind ruler, and eventually not one negative word could be heard about the beloved prince.
  However, the peaceful, perfect paradise of the Fae kingdom, Annwn, shattered one day when it was attacked by two armies: spirits and vampires. The generals of both armies were conquering worlds in competition with one another, and the unsuspecting world of the Fae just happened to be one of their stops. They laid waste to the land, enslaving as many Fae as they could grab, and in no time at all, the king and queen, Arawn and Mab, were captured.
  Gregory’s wrath was one to be reckoned with. He effortlessly put together an army after evacuating the women and children into the human world, and the three immortal races clashed. However, the Fae had three things the other two did not: knowledge of their world, a reason to not give up, and full command of magic.
  The other two armies were crushed and banished. The Fae were freed, and the invaders were chased back to where they came from.
  However, on the night of the celebration for Gregory’s victory, Mab consulted the Wise Ones, who told her Gregory’s freedom and life was in danger, for the vampire general was not going to give up and wanted revenge on Gregory alone. In a desperate measure to save him, after the celebration feast, she drugged her son and brought him to the human world, in the forests of the northern border of France. Crying, she swore to protect him, to make sure the undead general never found him. She placed a curse over her son that gave him the appearance of a small Fae child (though with the wings still there should he need to escape), and she locked his memories away in a ring, so that there was no reason for anyone to ever find him as the heroic Prince of the Fae. She would have turned him human, but the idea tore at her and was unbearable to even think about.
  Saying her last goodbyes, Mab left Gregory alone and unconscious in the forests of France. Only fate knew if he would survive.

• A New Life

  Gregory wandered that forest for days, lost and yet strangely at peace, innocent of everything and taking everything in with wonderment and curiosity. He still spoke the Fae language, though he discovered the talent of speaking quite by accident, when he tried to mimick a bird call, and he discovered that he had some control over the nature around him: he could make butterflies dance in the air, and he could make the flowers bloom.
  On his fourth day of wandering the forest, he heard voices and went to investigate, finding a noblewoman conversing with a man that was repairing the wheel of a carriage. Gregory observed, mesmerized by their similarities to him, though lacking in certain qualities. He hid behind the trees, watching. Once, he mimicked what the woman was saying, not knowing he did it until she looked up, startled, and he hid from view just in time. He bounced from tree to tree, and eventually went up to the horse to pat its nose, when the woman giving an almighty shriek told him she had seen him. He raced for cover, but after she got over the initial shock, she coaxed him out of the bushes with a gentle, soothing voice, though Gregory understood not a word of it.
  It didn’t take long at all for her to be charmed by his obvious harmlessness and friendly manner as she watched him explore the fascinating trinkets in her carriage like a child with a toybox full of strange teasures. The woman was Maria Finn, a noblewoman from the British isles that believed in faeries and a woman that had just lost a son, and she took him home to her new French husband, Henri. She learned his name was Gregory, and she gave him her surname. He quickly became like a son to her. She taught him English and French, and taught him manners and the ways of humans.
  Henri, however, was less than kind toward Gregory, and detested the child from the day Maria brought him home. He abused him whenever he could, treated him like a servant, and whenever Gregory made a mistake, even if it was pronunciation, he would lock the Fae child in his room, ignoring his wife’s pleading. The servants were sworn to secrecy, and whenever the family had company, Gregory was to stay in his room and keep quiet so he wouldn’t be seen. As for going outside, he was only allowed to play in the garden under strict supervision.
  His brother Jer, however, offered him as much relief as he could. He’d sneak him food when Henri was out to starve the Fae, and he’d offer him comfort and help sneak him out into the gardens with the help of their mother. Gregory loved Jer dearly and looked up to him.
  However, one day, the family received a surprise visitor that accidentally came across Gregory. Chaos followed, and the family was forced to flee in fear of being hanged for association with “The Devil.” As they were attempting to escape, their manor caught fire, and Henri died in the burning flames. Maria, Jer, and Gregory escaped into the woods and caught the earliest boat to England, keeping Gregory safely hidden underneath a cloak.
  They settled down near the towns of Brookton and Dale, where Maria had a family castle waiting for her to accept her inheritance. This time, however, not two days passed when word of the “demon child” spread, and an enormous mob of townspeople gathered in the courtyard, cornering the weary family. Jer stood in front of Maria and Gregory, sword drawn and shielding them, but as he tried to defend them, he was beheaded just as cold hands pressed themselves over Gregory’s eyes and pulled him away. His mother’s screaming seemed off in the distance, as the grief and confusion and sheer exhaustion put Gregory in a state of complete shock. His captor dragged him off to the woods, away from the chaos, away from everything.
  His “captor” turned out to be Val Mason, a kind vampire butcher that was part of the Underground for hunted beings that did his best to rescue the victims of persecution from a violent death. Val took the child to his shop, where his mother was taken as well, separately. There, once Gregory “came to,” he fought with Val so he could see his mother, but as soon as he opened her door and she saw him, what he saw was no longer the kind, calm Lady Maria Finn, but rather a hysterical, mad, banshee that screeched at him that it was his fault Jer and Henri died, that it was his fault everything happened the way it did, and if he had any decency he would drop dead at that instant, and he was nothing more than a freakish thing not worthy to wipe slime off her feet.
  Devastated, Gregory fled, seeking refuge in the forest. It started to rain. He tripped and fell into a mud pile, where he began kicking and thrashing and screaming at the sky, apologizing for all he had caused, begging to be someone else. Anything else. Once his hysteria ebbed just enough to put him in a pathetic state of dejected misery, he curled under a tree and wept himself to sleep.
  In the morning, Val found him, and kindly gave him a spell that gave him the disguise of a human, as well as clean clothes. He then took Gregory to Witchery Hill Tavern to stay, another branch of the Underground and a place for healing. There, he met Carmen Easthill, who quickly became his first, and best friend, and he began to heal.
  He grew up at Carmen’s side, teasing eachother, sharing endless private jokes with one another. Maria was moved back to France, and her sanity never completely returned. Gregory, feeling like it was his duty, still disguised as human (he had never taken off his human disguise), went to visit her every couple of years to make sure she was alive and as well as one could be.
  In his “19th” year, Gregory came back from three years in France to find Carmen had been missing for three days. He went into a panic and in fact lead the search party, finding Carmen at the bottom of a canyon with a small, redheaded girl. She had transformed from a gawkish tomboy to a woman, and a woman that looked so natural with a child in her arms. He realized his feelings, but nothing ever emerged into a romance, much to his dismay. However, he got used to it, and turned a blind eye to Carmen’s newly flirtatious nature toward men in town.
  When he was ’22,’ Carmen fell into a dangerous romance with an incubus, one that turned out to be the incubus, Delacroix, controlling Carmen to bother Gregory for the pure pleasure of it. Once Gregory realized it was mind control, he went ballistic, and power surged from him that he had never felt before. Delacroix fled, severely weakened, but not before leaving a black magic scar on Gregory’s chest and side.
  Everything went back to normal. He went to France once more, and when he came back, Carmen was now running the inn, her father having passed away. He met a rather mysterious woman with pure white, boy-cut hair and intelligent blue eyes that stunned him. Her name was Valia, but he knew her best as Avi. She had intended to use him to get close to her enemy, a demon satyr named Sade, but instead they slowly, sweetly, fell in love.
  The event of the Bedlam Ball was a turning point in Gregory’s life. He ran into a slightly terrifying (in an overly cheerful sort of way) female Fae that broke the news that she was his mother, and he was the prince of the Fae and was actually 454 years old. He found it hard to swallow, and he escaped to a safe corner with Avi, where she calmed him down. They made a promise that seemed joking at the time of having four children together and living in a secluded cottage in the woods.
  Later that night, he was reacquainted with Delacroix once again, though Joey, Carmen’s lover, killed him, but Gregory still received a curse from that battle that was slowly paralyzing him. With the help of Mab, Avi took half of his curse to stop it in its tracks, forming an odd bond with eachother. That moment was the defining moment when Avi and Gregory fell in love.
  They lived at Witchery Hill Tavern, happily in eachother’s arms, until the tavern’s demise by fire and battle. Just before all hell broke loose, though, Gregory had found a Fae baby that he named Rae, and he asked Avi to be his wife. This set the precedent for what felt like would be the rest of his life, but was really just the beginning of something painfully short.

• The Call of Duty

  Gregory helped rebuild the inn, but he and Valia and Rae packed up and moved to their own peaceful little cottage in the middle of the woods, where they could raise their children in peace and be surrounded by the serenity of nature. However, as Valia became pregnant with their second child, Peony, their little happy paradise was ripped apart.
  A power hungry dark magic user discovered the power of the Fae, and discovered a loophole in absorbing their power: the witch killed the Fae, and before they could be reborn again, the witch absorbed their magic, leaving behind an empty husk that was formerly a Fae. Once she had gained enough power, she was strong enough to take on Annwn. The unsuspecting, sheltered Fae didn’t see the attack until it was too late. Mab and Arawn managed to evacuate only a handful before the witch attacked the power source that held Annwn together.
  The land of the Fae imploded on itself. Those inside the world were ripped apart, and those outside in the human world were forever cut off from their home. Magic became unbalanced, and some Fae were either bursting with unexpected power, or couldn’t even manage a spark of magic. Gregory came to the aid of his people, finally claiming the throne as King of the Fae, at the cost of leaving behind his child and pregnant wife.
  For eight long years, he rebuilt the Fae Kingdom, stabilized the flow of magic, protected his people, and swallowed his mourning for his lost homeland, people, and parents. Finally, when the kingdom was able to stand on its own, he appointed a Council of Elders to see things over, and he returned to his wife and children, returning periodically to check on his kingdom. He lived happily with Avi, and two children became four, and it seemed their ambitious, half-joking promise to eachother at the Bedlam Ball came true.
  They lived happily ever after, until Valia died of old age, followed shortly by his mortal children. Soon, only Rae was left of his family, and he brought her with him to the Fae kingdom for her to become next in line. Gregory had become reserved, quiet, and mature, having lost some of his old spark. He doted on Rae, for she was all he had left.

• King of a Lost Civilization

  But the Fae no longer lived in their safe world. They were vulnerable to contamination. Eventually, a dark breed of Fae began to arise, a disease-like contamination of some of the already existing Fae. They changed. Not physically, but in personality. A darkness had come over them, where they experienced overwhelming hate. They began killing their light counterparts, unseen assassins among the Fae.
  The Fae began to die off, for the dark Fae killed eachother as well in a struggle for power. Gregory was at a loss. This mysterious wave of hate and death seemed to have no source, and no cure. At times, it was impossible to differentiate between the good and evil Fae, for the dark ones were sometimes good at acting. Soon, nobody could be trusted. Friends mistrusted eachother, and it turned even like-brother against like-brother. Civil wars erupted before Gregory could stop them. The Fae kingdom Gregory had so carefully built was now crumbling before him, and peace was out of his reach.
  And then, one evening, the entire Fae community exploded in one single war, good against bad, and Gregory received the shock of his life when he found Rae leading the forces of the dark Fae, having been infected without Gregory knowing it. They separated themselves from the battle, and Gregory refused to fight his own daughter. She relentlessly struck at him again and again, but he would not lift a finger against the only thing he loved left.
  Out in the battlefield, the light Fae were winning, good triumphing over evil, but only just barely. Rae continued to strike against Gregory, and Gregory realized that this was no longer his daughter, and if she won, the Fae would lose all hope of survival. Chaos would reign. And with that, he made the most difficult decision he had ever made in his lifetime: with a bellow, he struck back, knocking her into a crumbling wall. He thought her injured, and by instinct, he lowered his guard. A beam of light abruptly shot out from the ruins and hit Gregory in the middle of the chest. He couldn’t move. He didn’t need to breathe. He stared, frozen and wide-eyed as his daughter stumbled from the ruined wall and regained her composure as she glided over to him. With a cold smile, she kissed him on his cheek, and the last words Gregory knew were “Goodbye, Papa,” spoken by the object of betrayal that crushed Gregory inside before all faded to black.
  And then the kingdom of the Fae was no more. The last great King of the Fae had died at the hands of his own daughter, becoming something of a tragic legend amongst magickind. The Fae faded into myth, worming their way into fairy tales as either good or bad, but the once great race vanished from the world forever.
  Some say that some were reincarnated into humans, or other species of faerie. One thing is for certain, though: in the middle of Ireland, there is a magic in the air, a magic that speaks of history and wonders, a magic that speaks of the Legend of the Fae, and a magic that will forever be there to inspire tales for future generations.