Chapter Text
Once, long ago, there lived an old man who had seven children and a large, fertile farm. He and his wife had separated bitterly many years before, and since he was a distant man with little concern for his children, she had taken all of them with her when she left him. She, on the other hand, was very involved (perhaps even smothering in her affections), and as each one grew up, the ones who could support themselves all moved out as soon as possible.
The custom in the place where he lived was for the youngest child to inherit, since the older children would have more opportunity to grow up and make their own way in the world before their parents died. However, the youngest child of this family, named Delirium, was a daughter everyone believed to be fairy-touched; she danced to music no one else heard, and spoke in riddles, and acted like fish were birds which were simply too stubborn to fly. Her father and mother declared that she would never be able to inherit and run the farm.
The next youngest children were a pair of twins, a sister and a sibling. Everything one did, the other was involved in too; everything one owned, was shared with the other. The sibling was greedy and spoiled, always wanting more, and the sister enjoyed watching the misery of others. Their names were Desire and Despair.
Eventually, the old farmer died, passing the farm on to the twins. It was expected that they would pass on some of the livestock and household furniture to their siblings, but the two took great delight in only giving them the worst of everything - the youngest daughter got a nanny goat too old to give milk and a butter churn, and the oldest son a sick old ox and broken plough, while the oldest daughter got a slow and cantankerous donkey. The middle brother, who had run away to the army, naturally got nothing as no one knew where he was.
Desire and Despair were the most generous to the second-oldest brother, Dream, who was an artist: a sculptor, and a storyteller, of great skill. He wove worlds with his voice and dreams with his hands, but this did not help him make his way in the world, because he also had a bad temper and a distant disposition like his father, and got along better with the local birds than the local people. Desire and Dream had once been almost as close as the twins were, and did near everything together, but due to some ancient quarrel such times were long gone.
Dream was given a derelict old shack on the edge of the farm with a few ancient apple trees nearby which had once been an orchard. But even this was only rented, and the twins made sure that they always got the rent in full and on time every month.
Still, he wanted to be out of his mother’s house more than he wanted to tell the twins where they could shove their poisoned honey of a gift, so however much he grumbled to himself he didn’t say a word to them, and he was too proud to ask for help from his other siblings. He went along the lanes and cut grass and herbs from the verges to sell as fodder and for healing to the local farmers, and let their livestock graze in his orchard and fertilise the trees; he cut mistletoe from the branches to sell in the market when winter came around; he carefully pruned the trees to help strengthen them, and carved the wood or used it to smoke food. He fixed up the shack until it was liveable, if not comfortable. But mostly, what he did was go hunting in the forest nearby.
Now, technically, the forest belonged to the king, and no one was allowed to hunt there without his leave on pain of death, but Dream didn’t think he would notice a few birds, rabbits, or mushrooms, or a few bushes’ worth of berries. And he was right.