#the trows

Tbh that’s a really nice thing to remember.

I’m normally remembering really tragic stuff about the characters but that one makes me smile. I’m on the opposite end where I sometimes forget things like that and then upon rereading I’m like ‘naw Pia you fluff monster that’s really nice and sweet.’

Man the trows love Gwyn so much. Well, not the sea trows.

Hmmm, they’re not really ‘offensive’ fae in terms of their magical capabilities.

Tbh, I think if they wanted to, they could probably do a lot of damage, but they don’t really have any fight instinct at all. We see this a lot in Game Theory. They don’t react to Efnisien breaking a trow’s arm with anger with violence or defense. They always, always run at the slightest sign of violence, even if that violence is Augus throwing Gwyn down on the floor to have sex with him.

Their flight/fight instinct is geared almost solely (I’d say 100% but hey there’s probably like one trow who likes to fight who was kicked out of the clan and has to live on their own) towards flight, I’m not even sure they can biologically fight other fae. They are sort of like, immensely powerful within their own category of what they do: which is provide things and look after a household (except for dusting). They can find almost anything.

Which would be great if like, Gwyn wasn’t already a very accomplished finder himself (he doesn’t know this, but this is actually one of his magical abilities, which I’m pretty sure the Raven Prince realises in The Wildness Within in that one chapter), and the answer to this story would be to find some magical object to defeat Olphix (which it’s kind of not).

Ahahaha, well Gwyn was the only one who ever hired the trows, so the others have a lot of other networks of fae in that industry to choose / pick. But I have to hand it to the trows, they are industrial, quiet hardworkers not prone to gossiping.

But not many others want to hire them because they compulsively steal silver (whether Seelie or Unseelie). Gwyn’s figured out ways around that, but a lot of others don’t think it’s worth the risk.

I'd love to say it was all very sophisticated but it was some clumsy writing. I had meant for the trows to call Gwyn, 'Gwyn of the stars' in the chapter that he dismissed them from his service and paid them out in silver. At the time, he was supposed to observe that it was quaint, that they did it because of his connection to astronomy and his glowing light and how he looked on a battlefield.

BUT I FORGOT.

It was kind of supposed to be another hint that was 'explained away' with logical explanations (kind of how Gwyn's Unseelieness always made plausible sense because of his upbringing and his Seelie family). But yeah. Writer-Pia forgot. So by the time it came around in the final chapter, it looked like the trows had known all along that Gwyn was a celestial fae.

As much as I love the trows, they didn't - alas - know that he was a celestial fae. SO yeah it was more like 'Gwyn is shiny like star,' lol. When I go back and edit, I'll drop that slight foreshadowing in earlier.

The answer to your question is YES.

There are basically two groups of trows (and then cultures within those groups), the Seelie trows and the Unseelie trows. They are very similar in temperament and both steal silver. They're actually a really great example of a fae where...there's not actually a huge difference between the demeanour and actions of the alignments?