An Enchantment of Ravens Headcanons
Credit for these go jointly to @blogtealdeal @pterodactylichexameter and. WHATEVER THE FUCK LAUREN’S URL IS NOW. and i.
Fae don’t have biological family, and instead are spontaneously created by natural events: lightning striking a lake, a swan feather burning up in a forest fire, a great tree falling and thunderously breaking the ice of a frozen river.
But– as part of their inclination to mimic mortals, fae will sometimes arbitrarily label themselves with familial titles in relation to other fae they take a liking to. (keeping in mind that the line between a fae liking something and callously killing it is like. hair-thin.)
Which is to say: Lark was a thin feral fae-child wandering the spring forest gnawing on things when Gadfly found her and was like oh how novel! I will be her……. what’s the word mortals have for male relatives?……….. UNCLE. nailed it.
The Good Law was specific to the Alder King’s rule, which means he implemented it: it is perhaps not unreasonable to think that he was like rook, aeons ago, and fell in love with a human, creating the green well for them so that they could be together– or at least so that he wouldn’t have to watch them die. But the human, like isobel, wouldn’t drink, and the Alder king’s despair at their eventual death was the beginning of the Good Law, and of his long decline. He finds fae existence and their imitative love of Craft hollow and foolish, either because he once had a human show him the alternative, or because his grief soured his feelings on all things human.
You could extrapolate this a step further: we know that at the beginning of his rule, mortals lived in what is now the courts, because we see their carvings of him, and because their bodies are buried there. Perhaps humans and fae lived together, and when the one he loved died (or maybe they just plain refused him and his creepy gift of a well of immortality), the king sent them all away, banishing them to the outside world with the Good Law following them for good measure– though some fae arranged to keep a number of mortals close, a captive city for the purpose of generating Craft for them, because banishing all the Crafters from the courts was not a popular decision. And of course over time they learned to leverage the new green well to motivate them.
Rook is either a virgin or he had sex exactly one tragic time with the girl who didn’t love him (and we must keep in mind that fae may or may not be naturally equipped for such things, given that they probably don’t reproduce that way, but– there’s always glamours)
Fae name themselves after things in nature because they have to use existing words, words humans invented– coming up with a name is an act of creation they’re not capable of.