Chapter Text
Grimm was used to moving. It’s something that’s always been a normalcy in his family. They’d get a new circus gig, they’d move to the city in question for a month, two months tops, then off to the next job, and so on. He’d only ever known that life, and although he was used to it, he couldn’t help but feel lonely sometimes.
All the places he’s been, and he never truly felt at home. People envied his travels, saying how lucky he was to go to so many different parts of the world, and Grimm never bothered denying it. He’d play the part, he’d talk about the sites he saw, the people he met, the wonders he witnessed, made it sound grand and marvelous and beautiful, but deep down he knew that wasn’t the life he wanted.
Grimm’s parents wouldn’t hear of it, of course. They’d say he was ungrateful for the opportunities he was presented with, that he was just being a spoiled brat, but his parents were never truly able to fathom that just because the nomadic, extravagant lifestyle worked for them, it didn’t mean it worked for him too. He knew they would never understand. Thus, he never spoke of it again.
Grimm spent that day locked in his room, took the time to wallow in his misery, then took a deep breath and moved on. It worked for him. He’d allow himself a moment of feeling what he needed, then he’d brush it off like dust from an old jacket, doing what he always did best, despite everything. Putting on a mask. Acting. Performing.
That worked for him. Worked for a good while actually, but recently, as he was heading into his twenties, he found that the crushing loneliness, the disorienting sentiment of just feeling lost, was getting harder and harder to ignore. Grimm tried to shove it away, push it down into the farthest corners of his mind, but as he and his family made their way to their new temporary home in the city of Hallownest, he couldn’t help the strange feeling that things were going to change very soon.