ALWYNNE
WRIGHT
PERNICIOUS BONDS BASED OC. LADY'S MAID TO THE MONTAGUES, THE LYCANTHROPE WHO WASN'T MEANT TO BE.
BIOGRAPHY
Virginia Wright has already raised three daughters for fifteen years before Alwynne’s birth, ten of them without her late husband. Her youngest is a dreadful surprise for an unmarried widow, let alone one for whom money is running horribly low, and the situation her daughter is born into is less than ideal. Virginia never talks to Alwynne about her father ( some rather unkind people suggest to her that her mother isn’t really sure ), but as a family they don’t talk to each other very much at all; most days, their mother goes to work in the big house and the girls go to school and they come home and cook and clean in the silence. But Alwynne knows her mother loves her. She tells her so every month, when she bundles her up, kisses her forehead, and locks her in the cupboard underneath the stairs. She tells her to be brave, but Alwynne doesn’t know why. She always forgets.
Her sisters grow up and leave home, and by the time she is ten it’s just her and her mother. The routine has never changed, and every month like clockwork Virginia kisses her daughter and leaves her in the dark room, and Alwynne never questions why because it’s what they’ve always done. Besides, if she can’t remember, what is there to question? It’s a life - it’s not special or meaningful or luxurious but it’s something, and she’s grateful for it, and she’s certain her mother is too. She never smiles, but she never cries, either. Not until Alwynne wakes up in the dark, and the door under the stairs has been ripped from its hinges, and her mother is curled up in the corner, scratched and bleeding and terrified.
Which is the night her mother brings her to the Montagues' door. Alwynne sits in the kitchens, silent, whilst her mother gives a desperate speech to the staff: the girl can cook, clean, anything, but she can’t cope any more, doesn’t know how to deal with what she is, and this place is the only one she can think of which possibly could. Her mother glances at her one last time through her desperate gratitude, the sort of display of excess she’s never seen from her family before, and she knows it means be brave. Her mother doesn’t say it, not this time, but she always means it.
Montague Manor is a world away from the Wrights’ tiny cottage, and a mystified Alwynne throws herself in entirely. She’s a hard worker, that’s undeniable; they don’t exactly have a specific role for a little girl, but she cleans and fetches and assisted wherever she’s needed, and in return she’s given bed and board and - best of all, she argues - company. The Montague children aren’t too different in age to her, and though they live drastically different lives under the same roof she grows to call them her friends. They can do amazing things, transform in an instant into incredible creatures, and they have Alwynne in awe; they insist she can do the same, but she tries everything, follows all their advice, and she can’t manage anything close.
She’s fourteen before anyone explains what she is. Perhaps she’s known for a while, or at least guessed, but until she’s sat down and told she can’t quite process the fact that she’s a lycanthrope, too. She isn’t like the Montagues; she can’t do it at will, can’t mimic the talents they have, remains at the mercy of the moon. But she’s more at home than she’s ever been, more alike the people that she’s with than before, and as terrified as she may be, she comes to understand that she’s somewhere she belongs. For the time being, at least.
The time being becomes the next ten years. Alwynne grows to be as loyal a servant as she can to the family who gave her a home, and when she’s old enough, she becomes lady’s maid to Dominique. She still can’t control her condition, but she’s learnt to manage it; after all, she’s certain that in Montague Manor she’s in the safest place she could be. That is, of course, until the murders shake their village, and a fearful Alwynne can’t help but worry that something is on the rise, ready to challenge the people she’s come to hold closest...