Summary: Nyx is ancient, and powerful, and so very tired.
Note: another personal spinoff for @tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors bc I LOVE IT so much and I have so many hcs for Virgils mother.
She doesn't remember being born... it has been a long time, after all. Centuries upon centuries. She has watched her woods become more and more populated with her kind.
She was alone. At first. Not even she is quite sure where she came from, but she knew she was tied to the forest in which she found herself. So she roamed her woods, and she gave herself a name. Nyx. She quite liked it. It sounded spooky, and mysterious.
But then, all of a sudden, she was no longer alone. Sprites grew out of the flowers, and trolls and red caps and Springs and Autumns and Winters. And soon a fairy hill grew.
She never had much need for a fairy hill. She liked to be able to move around as she pleased. She liked the quiet. Of course it was never really quiet, but it was preferable to the fights and challenges that took place with the others.
And so passed this first millenia.
But as the woods took on more and more fairies, she felt a weight settle across her back. The weight of so many, and with each passing decade the number only grew.
She was tired. Her shoulders ached, and her head bowed so that the tips of her hair brushed the ground, she wished to sleep. But she began to fear that if she laid down, she would not get up.
So she continued to walk through her woods, and her woods walked with her.
The change was slow. She barely noticed, at first. She had no cause to look at her hands, so she did not notice them becoming darker, yet more transparent, until there was only shadow. Next was her feet, and then her legs and arms, until the day she finally laid down to sleep, and when she woke... she was Different.
She was... Not Quite There, and the weight that settled over her was no longer quite so heavy. But she was still Scared. Scared if what had happened to her, and what would become of her forest.
So she took her Fear, and she bundled it together, in a ball of Fear and Ice and Thunder, and she put it in a tree. A witch hazel. She waited, until a storm started above her forest, and she called lightning down to strike the tree and hollow it out.
And the lighting his that ball of Fear and Ice and Thunder, and it created a child, and she whispered into his mind, where she Was but Not Quite.
You are Virgil, Spider Prince of the Winter Court, Lord of the Forest.
And she sighed, and sent him on his way, always Close but Not Quite There. And as she settled to finally, finally rest, she would have sighed.
Virgil was... lonely. She did not recognize it, at first, it had been such a long time since she had been lonely, herself. But she thought she would give him a present. A companion. Someone to be There when she could only be Not Quite.
So she took together a snake, a fallen tree, and sand, and she put it in the witch hazel. And so she made her son a brother.
You are Durant, Snake Brother of Spider
If she had a mouth she would have smiled, for now her son would have someone to love him.
This would not stand. Her son and his loves were sad, for a reason she could not quite name... but... remembered. Somewhere. Far, far back, before the weight of all the Life in the woods pressed so heavy on her shoulders.
She took part of the mortal. How could she not? So sweet and lovely, so kind. She would have nothing less.
She took part of the Seelie. So full of life, so clever, so passionate. So full of knowledge bursting at the seams to get out.
She took part of the witch. Of course she did. Descendant of one so dear to her son. So brave! So bold too. And yet... so sweet.
And she took the part of Virgil that was also part of her, the part most rooted into the shadows, the place where his voice and hers met.
And she took the pieces and put them together, speaking as she did so. She told the little one about all she would need to know. She asked her what she wanted on occasion, and when she was done...
You are Linda, the Lynx Princess of the Autumn Court, daughter of Winter, Spring, Witch and Mortal, Lady of the Forest
And she pulled her son to where she had put his daughter. She felt his fear, and she nudged him ever closer, she waited, eagerly, before she felt it.
The shift where the fear and confusion turned to utter adoration.
And she settled to rest, for it had not been long since she had nearly faded, and she was tired.
