"What do you know of the faol-duine?" After the room was clean, Snow and Grenarin had sat themselves on the low bench beside the slate, and Grenarin was leaning in with a secretive air.
"Faol-duine?" Snow repeated, fairly certain that she had never heard of them. "Is it possible that we call them something different?"
Grenarin shook his head. "You first learned of their existence from us, you have no separate name for them. Have you truly never heard of them?"
Snow shook her head. "I was deliberately isolated from magic, except when my step-mother didn't want me to be." Snow realized suddenly that just a little knowledge learned earlier would have been immensely useful now. She felt a bit chagrined remembering how little she had tried to obtain some.
Grenarin peered at her skeptically but continued. "a faol-duine is a man who can become a beast. They have mastered the art of Tha, and can change their shape at will, though most only have one additional form. Much like Tha is practiced by most everyone, anyone can become a faol-duine through contact with one. Their strange ability to alter their Tha at will is easily transmissible through small injuries. They retain their human intelligence and wisdom while in their other form, though on the night of the full moon all but the most experienced become wild and unpredictable. They prefer to live together in groups, often called packs because of the most common of the alternate forms: a wolf."
Snow nodded. "what does this have to do with me?"
Grenarin chuckled. "Patience. Fey are creatures of Ionad. Much about our power is accessed through the where. Particularly, where we are born determines much about us, the time, place, objects around us, everything makes a difference. In particular, since life has such innate power, the people, animals, and plants around us at all times have a significant impact on our abilities. We have deliberately created ourselves to be creatures ruled by the environment around us, and through that become powerful."
Snow thought. "If you created yourself through careful placement of your surroundings – does that mean a human could become fey?"
Geranin thought for a moment. "No, at least, not an individual. You see, the effect of our environment is cumulative. My abilities are the sum of the changes made in myself, and my mother, and her mother, and so on. My family have been scholars of magic for as long as we have been. A human could not live long enough to accumulate enough changes to be noticeably different. Even individual fey do not live that long," He paused for a moment, as if weighing what he was going to say next, "however, it is a theory, among some scholars, that once, a long time ago, fey were human. They changed themselves into what we are now." He looked at her very seriously for a moment, and then quickly added, "that's nonsense of course. The very idea that fey were once human is scandalous".
Snow looked at him slyly for a moment. She was pretty sure he did not think that idea was as nonsensical as he claimed. Nonetheless, she returned the topic to what she still wanted to know, "and how does this relate to me?"
Grenarin smiled. "Well, there is not creature that embodies Rùn. At least, there was not. Now, there is." He then gestured at her with the Ace of Spades she hadn't noticed he was holding.
Snow had no response. It made a strange kind of sense. After all, Rùn was the magic of using other's power to create incredible effects, and she drank others blood to survive. He seemed quite excited at the revelation. Snow was not feeling quite so enthusiastic.