Chapter Text
Bristol was a little village , at the East of Gotham’s kingdom. It was at the edge of a forest, and like every forest at this time there were rumour. A kid who swear to have seen a unicorn, a hunter believed that he run into a gnome, add to this the whisper that some mothers heard coming from the darkness , someone crying, a baby asking for help. Every person in Bristol knew that the forest was forbidden, every kid had learn to fear this place, because everyone knew it wasn’t just rumour.
However, a little kid always had bothered his nanny by running toward the trees. Timothy drake had always heard the forest calling him. For him, the place wasn’t dark, scary, never gave him goose bump it was fantastic, shiny, peaceful. The only sound that he heard from there was a laugh, joyful noise that always feel right for the little boy.
A laugh that welcome him, make him feel part of it . It was a lot for a kid like Tim, because in all Bristol, despite the rank of his family as Lord, Tim was different. Not a normal difference for the other people, different in a way that no parents wanted their children to be friends with him, the way that make other kid to bully him, putting him away, a way that his parents always preferred to travel through the kingdom than be with him.
Come from that others rumour, about their family. At this times there were only one explanation for a kid to be that different. The baby had been swap by a fae, it was a changeling. A monster that come to take the place of an innocent child for cruelty.
Tim never understood why the other saw him as different, weird. He tried to be normal, he swear to anyone who could ask him. His parents gave him the best instructor who would correct him for anything he could done wrong as looking at every details of a room or playing with his hands when he was supposed to listen to the adult. But something always wrong, at the end even if he tried as much as possible something seem off with him. He didn’t understand the rumour. (he wasn’t a monster.)
As a result, his parents weren’t often at home. When they were here, his father was distant, looking at him like if he was a nuisance, an error. His mother… Being invisible for the person that should considerate you as their family was the most painful feeling that a child could ever experienced. With his father he exited even if it wasn't like what Jake drake wanted. But with Janet Drake ? It was like he never existed , like if she never gave birth to him. It was right that he didn’t have any memories of this event but from the book it was normal, what did he do wrong for his mother to denied his existences ?
The only thing he could do, was to try to act normal, try to be like the other as we taught him to be.
(And just maybe they would saw him..)
( He just wanted to live again this memory, a blurry one. But he swear to remember his mother, rubbing his hair while he was crying, she was trying to calm him down after a nightmare. Whispering a lullaby, calling him her little Cardinal; The sweetness memory he only have, the only one where he ever felt normal.)
The only thing that he shared with any kid from his village was that he was a curious boy, and a curious boy without a real monitoring could do anything. Furthermore, the forest that everyone fear but not him was just at the back of his mansions. Who would rest in a big and lonely mansions when they could explore the world, far away from a place where nobody welcomed them.
Really who ?
Unlikely, lonely didn’t means alone. Sure there were no parents, but there were instituter and servant and nanny. Everyone always watched him, because he was different in conclusion dangerous. He could never leaves the mansion except to go to the market or when one of the maid wouldn’t want to deal with him and just push him away from the house to “go play with other kid like every children”. And if he dared to get close to the forest than he would be punish back home.
The paradise was always forbidden for the monster.
Which was controversial because here, the forest seem to be like hell on earth for the people of Bristol.