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robotslenderman · 4 years

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Avallac’h headcanon

IDK if I’ve shared this before but here it is. This got long, so it’s under a cut.

Avallac’h spent the first few years of his life with his single father (which in my HC is normal for elves), Caomhan, out in rural Elfland, after his mother weaned him. His father was a musician who carved and sold wooden instruments, and taught little Crevan how to play the pipes.

When he was five years old some sages from Tir na Lia came visiting to conduct genetic tests on the local children. This test discovered he had a mutation that was known to enhance magical power, so because of that, Crevan ended up being taken away to be involved in the Elder Blood project, which by that time was nearing completion with the marriage of Shiadal to Auberon

Caomhan could do shit all about it.

Once taken to Tir na Lia, Crevan was pretty much enrolled in a public mage school. After further genetic testing, finding that some of his other genes only made his key gene even more prominent, he was enrolled in a prestigious private one at the expense of the state.

As for how little Crevan coped with being far away from home in the big city -- he didn’t. He was pretty much a mess from the moment he left home, constantly crying for his father and pining for home. Although he got better as he got older, starting to forget his early childhood, he never stopped missing home. His older half sister through his mother, whom I named Melenaya, ended up hearing about him and searched him out. She was no more maternal than other female elves, but she was in contact with their mother when Crevan was born and remembered him as a baby. While he was at the academy she often tutored him to help him get ahead.

When Crevan was around ten years old he, and about a dozen other elves, had their genetic tests submitted to Auberon for review. A few years later (because they’re so long lived that elves take fucking ages to decide shit), with the help of his advisors and experts on the Elder Blood project, Auberon decided that Crevan would be the breeding partner of his future daughter.* This was seen as a great honour and when Crevan told his father by letter -- whom he’d kept in close contact with, despite not having seen him since five -- Caomhan was very, very proud.

* This is presuming that children of the Elder Blood line are always female -- I can’t quite remember if this is actually the case, but I do remember the majority of Ciri’s known ancestors on the Dorren line were female, such as Lara herself, Rhiannon, Rhiannon’s daughter, Pavetta, etc. I may be wrong and I’m too lazy to look it up rn.

As a teenager Crevan ended up developing an interest in the Elder Blood project due to his future involvement as a participant, and that’s where his studies ended up taking him. Lara was born when he was in his thirties, and as an apprentice (since apprenticeships last a long time for Aen Elle), he helped examine her and conduct genetic tests. He tried to avoid meeting her where possible while she was growing up due to the Weirdness, citing the elven name of the Westermark Effect to avoid offending Auberon and Shiadhal, but was still required to occasionally keep tabs on her magical development.

When he was finally made into a full elven sage in his forties, the first thing he did was visit his father again. He could barely remember him, beyond the constant exchange of letters they made, but they were able to pick up their close bond where they left off. Their bond is why, to this day, Crevan made the unusual step of referring to Caomhan in his full name instead of just his mother, Macha.

Once she was an adult in her forties and had completed her education I accidentally typed aeducation lmao he finally let his guard down and let himself get to know Lara, and that’s when he fell in love with her. He found they balanced each other perfectly -- Crevan was very dreamy, Lara very grounded. She was very quick to anger, but Crevan was very good at reining in her rage instead of getting defensive when on the end of it. It’d be the same kind of balance that would make him a good partner to Ciri. Lara did love Crevan, but not in the way she’d come to love Cregan later.

(In my headcanon, Lara met teenaged Cregan while on an expedition to the human world, and introduced to the local “madman.” Lara quickly deduced that Cregan suffered from schizophrenia, and therefore humans could too, and was able to use the knowledge from Tir na Lia to brew him a potion that kept his symptoms under control. Thanks to Lara teaching him how to make this medicine, Cregan was able to re-enrol in school as a mage, having had it interrupted when his symptoms appeared, and the two of them kept in touch. When he was in his mid twenties Lara met him again and fell in love with him. Unlike Crevan, Cregan [whose nickname, I always notice, is very similar to Crevan] was light and cheerful and often making jokes and making Lara laugh, compared to Crevan, who was prone to melancholy and only showed any wit when he was being sarcastic out of annoyance. Although Crevan was always in denial about it -- there was never any competition. Crevan paled compared to Cregan’s joyful smile and sharper wit. Lara loved Crevan, for a time, but it was only with Creggenan that she was happy.)

(Rhiannon inherited Cregan’s schizophrenia. Because both of her parents were apparently dead [ctrl+F “Ida Emean” to skip to the relevant bit], Rhiannon never knew the recipe of the potion that Cregan used to keep his symptoms in check. When hers appeared, she was completely lost in delusions and symptoms, and was branded “mad” by the humans around her.)

Then Cregan happened. Lara died. Rhiannon was born, grew up, and died young, always living in the shadow of her parents. God I find Rhiannon so fucking tragic why does NOBODY TALK ABOUT POOR RHIA, EVER, THAT STORY IS SO FUCKING SAD

Years later, Avallac’h’s half sister camps in a certain lab when she’s looking for him after he’s accused of treason, and eventually gets in touch with him again, helping him out when he needs it. Having never forgiven Lara, or the Elder Blood project or anyone other than Avallac’h involved for the heartbreak her baby brother went through, she was more than happy to make Ciri think they were lovers and to chew her the fuck out, because “FUCK LARA DORREN, AND FUCK ALL OF HER ANCESTORS, AND THE HORSES THEY RODE IN ON.”

(Later, even after Cirillac’h happens in my headcanon, Melenaya and Ciri were on very cold terms. Melenaya only tolerated Ciri because her brother threatened never to speak to her again if she didn’t, but the relationship remained cool for a long time until Melenaya eventually realised the she-witcher was actually going to stick around, and dropped it. In contrast, Caomhan thought his son was very odd for choosing a human mate, but was quite happy to support it in a well-meaning-but-racist way because she clearly made his son happy. “You’re very eloquent for a human!” Ciri was so amused by how enthusiastic his support was that she couldn’t even be mad about it, making Caomhan the ONLY individual in the multiverse who could get away with that shit.)

#Avallac'h #headcanon #aen elle #the Witcher #TW3 #drunkpost #Lara Dorren

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iturbide · 6 years

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Grima Backstory

This has been such a long time coming but I’m finally going to condense a headcanon Heroes!Grima history because I need it and I am apparently in the mood to break hearts.

Cut for length and likely extreme angst.

While I will try to keep this to a more broad overview, I’m still going to split this into several general sections for ease of reading. If anyone wants more details on anything in particular, feel free to ask! Also I apologize for the inconsistent rambling styles and bursts of random analytics.

Creation and Birth

So we actually have some information regarding how Grima canonically came to be. Which is pretty great, all things considered, because it gives us a really strong starting point. We know that the alchemist Forneus acquired the blood of a divine dragon through unknown (but presumably dangerous) means. Using that as a base, he added several other alchemic ingredients (human fluids, herbs and nectar, etc.) and sealed the concoction within a vial, monitoring its temperature and daily adding some measure of human blood to the mixture.

Within 40 days, there was clear evidence of a new lifeform in the flask. It was tiny and resembled a human fetus -- which, all things considered, isn’t a surprise: embryonic development shows some rather striking similarities between a variety of species in the early period, and given that the creation was the size of a jelly bean at 40 days it may very well be that he attributed its appearance to a human embryo because that was the blood he’d been providing I know this isn’t pokemon but the science hat is warranted in this case. It continued to grow as he provided fresh blood on a daily basis until, at the 80th day, its development finally began to diverge from the generic embryonic form into something distinctly inhuman, with a long neck and tail.

From the 80th day on, Forneus’ creation began to show some increasingly surprising developments. While divine dragon blood had been the basis of his experiment, the new lifeform looked nothing at all like one, with six eyes and two pairs of wings in addition to its feathered hind limbs. But more surprising still to Forneus was the fact that the creature seemed aware of him from within its vial, its eyes sometimes seeming to smile at him.

For a time he was delighted. The care and monitoring saw the strange dragon grow to the size of a puppy -- but within its flask, it began to stir, demonstrating the first signs of a power he was not equipped to handle. But something interesting to note is that Forneus himself described the divine dragon blood in its pure form, prior to his experiment, as having a terrifying power -- so there is absolutely nothing to suggest that Grima’s powers were any more terrible than a divine dragon’s, and Forneus was just coming to realize that he may have gotten in over his head with this experiment, assuming violent connotations simply because the creation didn’t have the glorious appearance of a divine dragon.

Most surprising and disconcerting to the alchemist as time went by was the fact that the developing creation’s consciousness seemed to reach out to him from within the vial. He thought he heard it, believed he glimpsed dark, violent thoughts -- but remember, the creation was only a few months old. Even assuming that another 40 days had passed, Forneus’ experiment was only three months old and had never been outside its flask. Something so small, so new, knows nothing of the world, of violence -- what are a baby’s thoughts like? How does it interpret the world? How much of what Forneus considered to be his creation’s thoughts were just the reflection of his own fears as the tiny being reached out to the only other entity it knew?

Interestingly, the last line of the account is in quotes. This might be a translating typo, or it could be a clue that the words aren’t the whole truth: that his intent had been to destroy the creation before it could reach adulthood, but in making the attempt he either failed or stayed his hand and let it go, doctoring the final entry in his account before fleeing what he believed to be his mistake and praying it would not come back to haunt him.

Whatever the case, Forneus’ creation escaped its flask and retreated deep into the Thabes Labyrinth, out of sight and out of reach of any who might do it harm.

Growth and Escape

There’s a notable gap here between the end of Forneus’ account and Alm’s encounter with the creation at the heart of the Thabes Labyrinth. We know that a significant amount of time likely passed between Forneus’ final entries and the battle; while the creation certainly grew rapidly (from non-existent to the size of a thumbnail to the size of a puppy over the course of a few months), this might not be unreasonable for a dragon hatchling growing in an artificial eggshell, and even with Grima’s seemingly limitless capacity for growth (just judging by how huge that dragon is in Awakening), it would still take a significant amount of time to reach such a size, and would likely be dependent on the resources available to fuel such growth.

But let’s take a look at what we do know: while Forneus might have abandoned his creation to the dark, the strange new entity clearly did not perish as the alchemist might have hoped. Instead the creature survived on what it could find -- insects, lizards, rats, whatever it could feasibly capture and consume as it grew.

With nothing else to do, once its hunger was sated, it liked to watch the things that lived alongside it in the dark maze. Their thoughts, when it reached out to them, were simple and straightforward, and while it did not feel remorse for taking their lives to sustain its own, it felt no spite for them: they each did what they had to in order to sustain their own lives.

Time passed: years, decades, centuries. Forneus’ creation continued to grow, until at last it became difficult to navigate the narrow passages of the labyrinth. So it retreated deeper, into the wider halls; then deeper still, into the great chamber at the labyrinth’s heart. In the dark and quiet, it continued to grow, feeding on whatever it could (including other creatures Forneus had likely made in the time before he laid his hands on the blood of a divine dragon).

And then, much to its surprise, something ad disturbed the labyrinth’s peace. Travelers from foreign lands made their way down into the dark -- and while the creation retained only hazy memories of Forneus after so long alone, the smell of them awakened its curiosity. It rose from the depths to investigate -- but the adventurers saw only a terrifying visage, and attacked without thought.

The shock of their assault made Forneus’ creation lash out in response, which only seemed to cement in the strangers’ minds that this was a monster to be destroyed. The battle was long and hard, and in the end, the creature vanished -- but it was not dead. It only retreated into the dark to nurse its wounds. The scent of the travelers eventually faded...but something lingered even still: a breath of something strange that the creation had no name for. So when it was sure that the adventurers were well and truly gone, it crept up from the heart of the labyrinth, working its way through the passages it could still traverse...until at last it reached the surface, and for the first time in its life saw the sun.

It was bright, blindingly so to six eyes so used to the dark. For a time, it retreated, simply breathing in the scent of the world beyond the labyrinth that the travelers had come from. And when at last the gentle moon took the place of the sun, it made its way out into the world for the first time.

Humanity

So let’s take a little peek at our timeline here. We don’t know when Forneus lived or worked, but we can say with reasonable certainty that Alm and Celica are contemporaries of Marth, who is himself Chrom’s ancestor from 2,000 years prior (Palla, Catria, and Est appear as major characters in Echoes and Marth’s games both, which puts them in a reasonably short time period). This means that Alm’s group encounters Forneus’ creation 1,000 years before Grima is subdued by the first Exalt of Ylisse. This also lines up with Tiki’s age, assuming she was somewhere around 1,000 when she knew Marth, since she’s around 3,000 in Awakening.

Based on all the evidence we have available to us, dragons don’t age the same way humans do. Fae is canonically a few centuries old, but mentally and physically she’s a very young child, likely somewhere between 5 and 8 years old by human terms. Similarly, we know that Nowi, Tiki (in Marth’s time), and Myrrh are all around a millenium old, and physically they appear to be somewhere in their early- to perhaps mid-teens (with variable mental ages -- Tiki gets a pass here since she wound up in a magically induced coma for most of her life, but Nowi acts like a bubbly childish teenager while Myrrh is more mature but really no older). And in Chrom’s time, Tiki’s around 3,000 years old, and has an appearance of a woman somewhere in her mid- to late-20′s or perhaps early 30′s.

Considering that divine dragon blood was the core compound in Forneus’ creation, it seems safe to assume that Grima would age more like a divine dragon than a human (since the human blood and fluids were accessory to the base dragon blood component). And given that Fae’s dragon form is still comparatively small at a few centuries old, even with the seemingly limitless capacity Grima has for growth (just look at that dragon in Awakening), Grima is probably somewhere between a few centuries and a millennium of age when Alm’s party delves into the Thabes Labyrinth. Meaning that, for all intents and purposes, what Alm and company faced was no more than a curious, confused child -- and that even when the first Exalt brought Grima down, the fell dragon was likely no more than two millennia of age, or effectively in their early twenties from a mental standpoint.

Think about that for a minute.

Forneus’ creation creeps out of the Thabes Labyrinth and finds a world swarming with humans. Given that they haven’t exactly had the best experiences with humans, they’re somewhat warier now, but the strange new world is too much for its curiosity to pass up. Naturally, there are those humans who try to attack, and still more who flee...but eventually, humans begin to approach the monstrous creature. They doubtless fear at first, but anyone who’s paid attention would have noticed that the dragon didn’t attack unprovoked, and it did not pursue those who fled. Humans are innately curious, and some of them began to reach out to the strange creature in friendship. In turn, Forneus’ creation hesitantly responded, reaching out to their minds as they had their creator so long ago...and in that one simple act, things changed -- for better and for worse both.

They named Forneus’ creation. They were the ones who dubbed them Grima. And as word spread of the dragon’s appearance, humans came from all corners of the continent to. There were those who believed the dragon to be a kind divine, fearful enough to frighten off plague and pestilence. There were those who believed the dragon to be a weapon, no more than a tool to be turned against enemies. There were those who believed the dragon to be evil incarnate, a threat to all humanity and worshipped by only the most wicked of mankind. And there were those who believed the dragon to be a friendly, curious creature trying to learn about the world.

And with so many viewpoints, each treated Grima differently. Those who worshipped the fell dragon as a divine begged for boons and favors, brought offerings to appease Forneus’ creation, prayed to them for salvation and aid; when they believed their requests fulfilled, they praised Grima...but when they asked too much, for things impossible for any man or divine, and their prayers went unanswered, they cursed Grima’s name. Those who wanted only to use the dragon’s power for their own devices brought gifts and favors, spoke sweet words to turn the fell dragon to their side -- but as soon as Grima bade their request, they had no more use for them, and abandoned them to reap the spoils of victory. Those who saw the dragon as evil waged war against those who flocked beneath Grima’s wings, slaughtering any who disagreed with their judgment in the name of beliefs they stubbornly held and vilifying the fell dragon for defending his own, though he never struck the first blow. And those who reached out to the dragon kindly, who tried to teach them about the world -- those who Grima loved more than any other -- were taken by age and infirmity one by one, while time left Grima forever unscathed.

Downfall

The good humans -- the open-hearted ones, the gentle ones, who saw Grima as a friend above all else -- were few and far between. And each loss, be it to sickness or age or violence, robbed the fell dragon of hope in the face of mounting abuses by the swaths of selfish others. A thousand years before the events of Awakening, shortly before Naga and the first Exalt struck Grima down, there was one human that the fell dragon cared for above all others: they were kind, and gentle, and their presence soothed the dragon like nothing else. Wanting nothing more than to hold that hope close, Grima forged a blood pact with the human...and they became the first to bear the six-eyed mark, the Heart of Grima (aptly named, as the fell dragon truly loved them with all their heart -- and what a great heart Grima had).

The fell dragon did not overtake the human’s body, though the bond would have allowed it. The blood pact was the proof of the bond they had long shared. They lived their lives together and apart, taking heart in one another’s company in spite of the trials that they so often faced. The human, in time, bore a child of their own, and shared that joy with Grima, as well. And the fell dragon was, however briefly, happy.

But it could not last. Those who saw Grima as a weapon to turn against their enemies realized that the fell dragon’s favored human stood in the way of their aims -- and so they plotted and planned, and finally set their cruel designs in motion.

Under the guise of an attack by Grima’s enemies, they killed the fell dragon’s bonded human. The child was spared, perhaps saved by their other parent, perhaps rescued by strangers and secreted away from the slaughter...but whatever the case, they vanished from Grima’s sight. And that loss was all that the fell dragon, who had already been so close to devastation, could bear.

With no one to remind him of the good humanity had to offer -- with their loss as proof of all mankind’s ills, in the fell dragon’s eyes -- Grima set out to destroy all of the wretched, hateful, small-minded, selfish humans it could set its sights on. Taking control of the body bearing the six-eyed mark, now that the soul had left it, the fell dragon waged war on two fronts, carving swaths of destruction with a form that filled the sky and performing targeted strikes with the body that could pass among humans without arousing the least suspicion. Those who had orchestrated the attack in the first place had no way to control the dragon’s power, and were left in fearful awe of Grima’s might as the dragon razed all in its path.

The threat posed to humanity was too great for Naga to ignore, and so she chose her champion, the first Exalt. With Falchion in hand, they struck Grima’s weakest point: the human vessel that housed a part of their soul. The holy blade’s power rippled through the connection between vessel and dragon, destroying the human form and laying the fell beast low for a millennium.

Aftermath

In the wake of Grima’s defeat, the humans who had so inadvertently caused the fell dragon’s break saw an opportunity. Given that Grima had forged a blood pact with a human, and that human in turn bore a child, there was every likelihood that Grima’s blood had been passed on. Those who sought Grima’s return for use as a weapon against their enemies called themselves the Grimleal, and over the course of the next thousand years, they sought out any who might be even distantly related to that child of Grima’s bonded human, arranging strategic marriages to any who might have even a trace of Grima’s blood in their lineage. This, over time, led to Validar, and finally Robin, who at last bore the Heart of Grima...and who, in a moment of weakness after they were forced to take Chrom’s life, succumbed to Grima’s promise of power if it meant being able to take out their suffering on the one who caused it.

Askr is proving a very good place for Grima, though. The Summoner calls to mind that last gentle human they had such faith in, and little by little, that has helped to open them up again. They can do things here that they could not have imagined once (which contributes significantly to their little dragon baby creche). And once again...they feel that they are happy.

#fire emblem: heroes #headcanon #grima #i'm pretty sure i missed a whole bunch of stuff #but you know what this sums up the big points #also please consider for a moment:#grima having a range of abilities designed specifically to protect others #not just wreak destruction and devastation #but they've had no reason to protect anyone when they hated humanity #now that they're in askr and building a little found family though #imagine those abilities coming into play as they take care of the dragon babies #and how shocked everyone would be to see it #when grima's been made out as this creature of pure destruction for so long #okay i'm done rambling i promise #tl;dr i love grima a lot

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