( michiel huisman . cis man. he/his . 40 ) THE HUNTSMAN from snow white & the seven dwarves has found themselves trapped in grimsby. though here they go by ELIJAH HOUTMAN . they reside in comfery wood, and have been passing time working as a CARPENTER. according to the people around town, they're often seen WHITTLING LITTLE KEEPSAKES and they've also mentioned that they're just as - apathetic & jaded, but as + detail-oriented & observant as ever. + the gentle smell of crackling firewood trapped in soft brunet curls, calloused hands stained (literally) with wood lacquers & (figuratively) with the ichor of his sins, the gentle purr of a cat curled on his chest, & guilt, so heavy it threatens to choke and bury, weighing around the neck like an anchor . always seems to remind people of them. i wonder how well they'll do around here.
------BEFORE THE CURSE
once upon a time there was a huntress who lived on the edge of the woods. she was a strange kind of woman, beautiful in the sort of way that the earth might enhance her features, but tall and broad with all of the muscle that came to a woman who had worked all her life. she lived alone, no family to speak of even when memory tried to serve, and offered her game in the town markets when she needed to trade or earn coin. she was skilled, dangerous, and almost as wild as the creatures she prided herself on hunting. one warm summer evening a traveling market came to the kingdom, it just so happened to fall onto the same night the huntress came to town to trade. she did something wildly out of character that evening ---perhaps it was the way the wind smelled, or the merrymaking had her in a more sociable mood, but the huntress paid some of her coin to a traveling tarot reader. just a bit of fun, nothing to take seriously. she did not take stock in such frivolous things.
the spread told of a child, her child, and the great misfortunes that would befall the family she would create. the huntress scoffed - there was no lover in her life to plant the seed of a child and she had no interest in such things. the reading fell into the back of her mind where it was forgotten for a time, until some years later when the huntress came upon an injured soldier in the king’s guard in the forest. she nursed the man back to health, they fell in love (or so she believed), and she bore him a child. a son.
but when he was well-enough to return to his duties he did, and the guard left the huntress to her own devices. alone save for a baby boy and spurned, the huntress swore she would never again fall for the tricks of men. she grew cold and bitter, save toward her son whom she feared the daunting fortune of her tarot reading so many moons before. the huntress sheltered her son, taught him everything she knew of her trade - trapping, tanning, skinning, that not one ounce of their bounty went to waste ... and for a time they lived in a private sort of harmony. at night she would hum to her son, soft lullabies learned from family she no longer recalled (or cared to). the sort of things that tell of boogeymen and fairies - beautiful but haunting melodies. they lulled her son to sleep.
and one harsh winter, in the midst of a hunt deep in the woods, the huntress was felled by game that threatened to gore her precious son. all at once the boy was left alone, where he wept in the growing snowdrifts over the loss of his mother, whom had only ever loved and cared for him.
the boy, who had barely contacted anyone outside of his little hut on the edge of the woods and away from town - save those his mother had traded with, continued on her legacy. at night he hummed the same lullabies to himself that his mother had shared with him throughout his childhood, and he spent much of his time during the day in the forest. as he became a man the town simply came to know him as THE HUNTSMAN and they knew his schedule, when to expect him, and the icy demeanor that came with it.
it wasn’t the blame of the man himself, but the nature in which he was raised - sheltered, save for the love of a mother, in fear of the fortune she had been read coming true. and the truth of that was ---the misfortune was never hears to live out ... it had always been her son’s.
his reputation as that huntsman grew: the quality of his hunts, the goods he brought, the skill with which he stalked his prey ... his ruthlessness (but never cruelty to the creatures themselves, that was saved for people). for years he lived in his own private peace with his lullabies, with the woodland creatures he either cared for or hunted, with his reputation growing. the knock came at his door one day, and the tarot spread he had no knowledge of ---from years before his birth, fell into place finally.
a king’s guard (much like the father he never knew or cared to) called for him. there was never a choice to comply ... only the illusion thereof, to come before the queen in shackles or by “free will” and the huntsman chose the latter. before her he was brought, propositioned for his talents. the most fruitful hunt, rumors of your talents have spread even to the walls of my castle. many nights i’ve feasted upon your game. attempts to stroke his ego. when the hammer dropped he knew ---humans were just animals, after all, their bodies and faces gave away what their lips did not.
he had no choice but to agree to hunt the queen’s game. white as snow. TEAR OUT HER HEART.
------AFTER THE CURSE
he took private pleasure in the queen’s failure. he’d spared snow white, given a false heart in place of the girl’s, offered to the woman who would sooner see him dead for his treachery. the peace was short-lived and when the spell was woven upon them all ... when they awoke in grimsby he remembered it all.
elijah houtman is a quiet man, comfortable with his private home and his carpentry business. fear is not something he readily feels (or would admit to) but the knowing and hard eyes of the evil queen have driven him away to a life he’s always known. unlike so many denizens of grimsby he was never offered the chance at another life. he knows that eventually he will be at the end of a certain vengeance, perhaps tricked into assisting in evil deeds once more. in truth he longs for his old and simple life - away from the world where he only had the company of his game and himself, and his mother’s lullabies.
you can find him lingering in the bar some nights, in the back corner where he’s more comfortable watching others interact - becoming familiar with them, figuring out who they were before now. an especially brave soul can enter his shop and either purchase one of the little statuettes he whittles and sells, or hire him for an outright contracting job. he still prefers the forest, and longs for life to go back to how it was ... if it ever will.
------THE FINE DETAILS
pinterest.
mother's lullaby.
------HEADCANONS
he whittles things from his life as the huntsman - game, people he’s passed by or interacted with, items of significance. occasionally he’ll paint them, and while he sells most of them there are a few that he keeps in his home.
very fond of cats, and he has one of his own. it helps to stave off the loneliness that he doesn’t quite understand he feels, and would never really admit to feeling if he did know it.
