Chapter Text
If Tamlin was a wolf, and Lucien was a fox, then Andras was a dog. A fiercely loyal and protective guardian, he was also full of boundless joy and ceaseless energy that would immediately charm all those in his company. Although he was native to spring, he lacked the refined quality of his peers. His jet black hair was cut in shaggy, uneven locks, and he had no qualms about showing his crooked teeth when he often smiled.
The High Lord’s mutt, people called him. Somehow, Cauldron only knows how, his parents managed to conceive him. His father was a lesser-fae pict and had bewitched the aetherial high-fae beauty that was his mother. Their love was true, but it cost them their lives. Like any child born amongst the fae, the rarity of Andras’ conception demanded that he be allowed to live. But his parents’ cross-breeding had to be punished, and Tamlin’s late father had them sentenced to death. Andras was raised in the war camps as soon as he was weaned.
It was there that he met Tamlin, the then Prince of Spring. Andras wanted to hate him for everything his father had done. But over time, he learned their hatred of the High Lord was a shared one, and Tamiln had suffered just as much abuse, if not more, under his tyranny. Their friendship grew quickly over the years, and after the tragic slaughter of Tamlin’s family the role of high lord fell to him. His first official act as the High Lord of Spring was to appoint Andras as captain of the guard.
Between having a war beast for a high lord and a half-breed for a captain, most of the ranks and courtiers deserted. But a loyal few remained, and they would welcome new members to the court: outcasts and asylum seekers, like Lucien. Spring became known as a haven for anyone who was different. A paradise that was all too short lived. Amarantha cursed them, and year after year passed without any hope of breaking it.
One day, during the final years of the curse’s duration, Andras left to patrol the border of the wall as he often did. He’d come to expect the naga and the martax that tried to poke holes in the wall to break into the human world. It was his duty to dispatch them, and slaughter them on sight. What he didn’t expect to find was a human woman, unconscious in the grass.
He was still miles from the wall, and he knew it was miles thereafter until the nearest human village. But he didn’t need to speculate for long how she arrived in Prythian. Speckled in the grass all around her was a ring of mushrooms: a faerie portal.