Dominic Brontes

Dom grew up in a small, podunk town that was highly religious and completely hypocritical. His first most significant memory was sunshine over a field of meadows. His mother was forcing him to go barefoot and he was stuck by a thorn that made his tender, toddler foot bleed. He wept and his mother kissed his foot, comforting him to such a degree that he couldn't remember ever having the pain to begin with.

He grew up with an older brother, always loving him, admiring him, but always in his shadow. His father clearly favored his older brother, and as such, he became his mother's little boy. She nurtured him as a mother should, and taught him things that weren't particularly welcomed in a small town.

With his found comfort under his mother's wing, most people in the community treated him like his mother, a black sheep, while they loved his father and brother. They never understood why his father loved his mother, the odd woman of the village. No one would ever say it directly to Dom out of fear, but rumors of her nature bordered witchcraft. Despite the rumors, everyone went to her when they were feeling ill or needed something more that a doctor simply couldn't cure. Who helped her in these cases? Dominic, of course, was her second hand. Lily taught him almost everything she knew.

Lily didn't want her son to grow up a pariah, but she wanted him to know the 'craft' of the generations before him, especially the herbal and natural knowledge of the path she followed. She taught him to respect his fellow men, to love them, to educate himself, and to question everything, including God, but most importantly, think first, question second, and communicate third, even if it took two days to mull over an answer.

Lily and Dominic always had exceptional gardens, herbs, and the Brontes family always had a great deal of happiness. Garreth, Dominic's father, was the local construction manager. He built most of the homes and buildings the people used. While his brother was skilled in hunting and catching the local women's eyes.

Eventually something snapped in Lily, and she tried to kill Dominic's father out of the blue, or as told by his father. But Dominic knew his mother and knew it must have been an act of self defense, a gun shot went off, hit his father, but he'd already subdued her -wounded. This mental break landed her in an insane asylum for many years. He was sixteen then, and as soon as it had happened his father kicked him out of the house for being too much like his mother. He was too odd, looked too much like his mother, acted just like her, he said, Dominic was only sixteen.

This led him down a hard path of experiences: homelessness, addiction, depression, loss... and some how he was able to dig himself out of the hole, pull himself out of the gutter his father had forced him into, and rise above his own sorrows and pains, to become the person that his mother wanted him to be, someone kind, someone strong, and someone who did what was right, not what was easy.