like, holly was almost a pre-adolescent when grendel met her, but lily? he was there for when lily was Born. and from day 1 she was always just ... fucking ... strange.
even holly and maple -- the girls’ mother, who was equally as weird as lily -- didn’t always understand lily’s antics. gren never tried to understand, though. if lily wanted to go out to the countryside and chase rabbits while maple was training holly up to overtake the business in her absence, then goddammit, gren was taking lily out to the countryside -- on horseback, in those days. he didn’t have to Get It in order to let her Have It, and that’s why he was closer to being a parent, in lily’s mind, than maple was.
lily couldn’t care less about the old world, the troll ways that holly and sometimes maple still clung onto despite having come to america to escape that society. lily was detached from her culture. her and grendel’s bond comes from the fact that grendel raised her, that they built their own culture and language together in a way that holly and grendel -- despite being as close as they are, these days -- just ... didn’t.
holly and grendel’s disconnect, and holly and lily’s disconnect, stems from this. after maple died, holly started feeling like a third wheel to her own remaining family. gren was more of a father to lily than to her, which is why it wasn’t so strange for holly to grow motherly towards gren. in retrospect, this is what forced holly to grow up way too fast.
the moment maple died overseas, holly suddenly had ... two little siblings: her oddball little sister and the man that stepped in for her father but ended up being very childish, himself. the man that enabled her sister’s oddness. both of whom had a tendency to be impulsive / make terrible choices for themselves. holly was always cool and level-headed; she felt separate from them. lily and gren were so close, though, that people actually Did mistake them for being blood relatives. A Lot.
( i could talk for ages about how holly being a trans woman is part of what made her and her very flawed, very supportive, very well-meaning mother so dedicated to preserving the culture of The Female Troll And Her Role(s) In Society even though that’s ... literally why they left their stronghold in the Himalayas ... but i’d be here all day and that’s an entirely different, more painful meta than this. )
