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teeff
Other Characters: Sunburst (My Little Pony) -bibliocorn
Character Name: Grendel
Series: Fables
Timeline: The Wolf Among Us: Episode 5 "Cry Wolf"/ Issue #48 (The game and the comic run parallel to one another, each filling in gaps the other leaves, it's the same canon, just two different mediums) - The game itself has those pesky player-made choices, so I'll follow the 'canonical' choices given in the comic.
Canon Resource Link: Here you go
Character History:
"It all starts simply enough. Gren calls in a noise-complaint on his neighbours, Hrothgar and the party kids at Herot."
Grendel's story started, as all these stories must start, Once Upon a Time. Grendel was a monster living during the 6th century in the swamps of Fryslân, largely ignoring mankind up until the point where King Hrothgar built his mead hall, Herot, and started partying it up like there was no tomorrow. Sensitive to noise, and preferring peace and quiet anyway, the constant ruckus enraged Grendel. And so, he took matters into his own hands. He stormed into Herot, and devoured thirty Danes on the spot, creating chaos, before stomping back to his swamp. He continued to do this every night for twelve years or so- and the Danes never once thought to maybe not party so hard to prevent the giant ragemonster coming in and eating them all.
Eventually, Hrothgar got the help of a Geat hero named Beowulf- who goaded Grendel back to Herot and took him on single handed. They had quite the epic battle, right up until Beowulf made Grendel and his right arm part ways very violently. Grendel took his arm and slunk off into the swamp to lick his wounds- and somehow got the arm reattached (how, we never know). His mother went off to Herot to get revenge for he son's injury, and Beowulf defeated her, with much less arm ripping. There was no sign of Grendel for some time, but he did not let the arm thing go unavenged. He sent a fire dragon after Beowulf some years later, and both hero and dragon killed one another, and that was that.
Grendel is, indeed that Grendel, from the ancient epic poem, and Fryslân is just one land in many- all connected to one another- the Homelands. Here, all the fairy-tale folk (known collectively as 'Fables') lived, knowing one another, but never really crossing paths. Never getting involved in one another's stories. That is, until a great evil known as the Adversary came and started conquering them, one by one. Some Fables managed to escape into the Mundane (Mundy) world; regular old Earth. They set up their own borough of New Amsterdam called Fabletown, and lived amongst the Mundies (regular humans) for centuries. There they signed the Fabletown Compact; which absolved them of all their former crimes, and stated their cardinal rule: to never allow the mundies to become aware of their true nature. Less human looking Fables had to either get glamours from witches (mystical artefacts which allowed them to take on a human appearance) or move up-state to the dreaded Farm- a large, magically hidden farmland from which no non-human Fable could ever leave. A guided cage. New Amsterdam eventually became New York, and grew and evolved around them. Fables continued on regardless, some adapting to modern life better than others. Grendel adapted well, for a swamp monster- gaining a glamour and living in a human skin as well as he could- though things were absolutely not all peaches and cream. His mother was killed in the invasion and did not make it out of the Homelands, and the safe haven he had journey to had it's own very glaring problems.
"Holly's sister goes missing and no one gives two shits about her. Paperwork, waiting rooms, and then that bitch, Snow White looking right past me, and ushering me out the fuckin' door."
Gren is one of the unfortunate Fables who survived exile to New York in poverty. Some managed to flee the Homelands with their titles (and in some cases fortunes) in tact, and as such got to live a plush lifestyle, and in the case of some-as their money pays for the upkeep of the community, no small amount of preference went to their needs, well above those who had nothing. The divide between the haves and have-nots is visible and gaping, and it's something that really gets under Gren's skin. He spends his days with the other 'stays' of Fabletown, the Fables who have fallen through the cracks of their society, unwanted, forgotten. At some point, he gets a drinking habit and spends a lot of his time in a bar called The Trip Trap, run by his dearest friend, Holly- a troll.
Jump to 1986, and Holly's sister, Lily, goes missing. Gren took it on himself to try and nudge the Fabletown government to do something, anything about it. He headed to the Woodlands, the building where the governmental offices are held. Mayor (Old King) Cole was away on business, leaving the deputy mayor Ichabod Crane in charge of the community in his absence. Unfortunately, Crane had no empathy for the more destitute Fables, and just continually passed Gren on to his assistant, Snow White. He was given paperwork, made to wait, and largely just ignored. Nothing was done about the missing troll.
Gren refused to give up, though- determined to find Lily, or at least get some sort of reaction from the supposed protectors of the community. It was while waiting in line to see someone again that he had a run-in with Fabletown's sheriff, Bigby (The Big Bad) Wolf. Tired of being passed from pillar to post and looking for someone to take it out on, Gren picked a fight with Bigby- making snide comments about how he can do "whatever the fuck (he) wants", due to being the sheriff. Bigby assumed Gren was there to once again claim unemployment- due to his rage issues making him unable to work in the Mundy. Gren did not respond to the needling well, arguing the plight of the poorer Fables in the community - but Bigby ignored him, heading into the office to start what would become a super-fun double murder investigation.
A prostitute named Faith (The Donkeyskin Girl) had been murdered, her decapitated head left on the steps of the Woodlands. The previous night, Faith had been in the company of Woody (The Woodsman) who had roughed her up- until Bigby had broken it up. This made Woody his prime suspect, and so Bigby descended on the Trip Trap to get some answers. There, he was stonewalled by both Gren and Holly, pretending Woody hadn't been there for a long time. After searching around for clues, and trying and failing to get any answers out of them, Woody returned to the bar from his visit to the crapper, surprise, he was there all along.
Gren, forever protective of those closest to him, and still angry about the lack of interest in Lily's case, attempted to divert Bigby from Woody a few times, before Woody- realising Faith was dead and he faced the Fable's death penalty (being pushed into the possibly bottomless Witching Well) started to break down in a panic. Gren goaded Bigby into a fight- shouting his usual protests about how little care the government gave for the down-and-outs unless Bigby was sent down to them to give out justice.
Gren shed his glamour, shifting into his monsterous self and set to fighting with Bigby. For a while, it was very one sided - Gren tossing Bigby around the bar like a rag doll. It wasn't until Bigby allowed some of his lycanthrope nature to break through the surface that the tide of the battle turned. Now stronger, Bigby fought Grendel down- in the process tearing off his right arm, taking advantage of the weak spot left there by Beowulf. Holly and Woody were understandably unhappy with the turn of events, calling Bigby a monster- but Bigby pointed out Grendel could just have his arm reattached like he did last time. Spiteful and angry, Grendel snarled that he'd rather live without it, and Bigby left him lying on the floor of the Trip Trap- chasing after Woody, who'd used a well-timed entrance by Tweedle-Dee to attempt escape.
"Where were you when we reported this weeks ago, huh? Where are you when we ever fucking need you?! If you'd given one ounce of a shit about her, about any of us, she might've been saved! She might've been cared for!"
The murder investigation continued - another headless Fable turning up (with her body dumped in the river), this one glamoured to look like Snow White. A lot of chaos erupted for the people of the Woodlands, until the real Snow appeared - and the glamour was broken, revealing the murdered Fable was a troll. Lily.
Bigby returned to the Trip Trap, to give Holly the bad news, Snow White in tow. There, they found Jack Horner (literally all the Jacks) being his usual irritating self towards Gren (now minus one arm, but mostly healed up) and Holly. Jack instantly started quizzing Bigby and Snow- news of someone dead glamoured to look like Snow having already hit the community thanks to Tweedle Dee. Holly, sensing the tone in the room from Jack's increasing needling, told him to "find his off switch". Jack, annoyed, pointed out that Gren and Holly were always talking about overthrowing the government, but always tucked tail the second Bigby showed up. Bigby very quickly kicked him out, to the approval of Gren.
The news of Lily was broken to Holly, which set Gren off on his usual diatribe. He was convinced the only reason Bigby even cared about the investigation was because it has inadvertently involved Snow in the mess. He angrily raged that if they had taken the case seriously weeks ago, when Lily's disappearance was first reported, she could have been saved. His rant was cut off by Holly, smashing one of her own glasses. Snow did her best to calm her, a start to try and mend the bridge in the Fabletown divide. Holly asked Gren to leave for a while, likely not wanting him to be set off once again, ticking time bomb that he is. Gren was unwilling to leave, until she assured him that she would be fine- only then did he reluctantly leave the bar and let her speak to Bigby and Snow alone.
Gren reappeared again at Lily's funeral - at this point Bigby having learned the person paying Lily to look like Snow was none other than Crane- using her to carry out his perverted fantasies of Snow. The funeral was important, part of a scared troll act, to burn their dead before the sun rose. It turned out in trying to cover his tracks, Crane had thrown Lily's body down the Witching Well, so the funeral was already tense when Bibgy walked in and interrupted it. Gren and Holly acted in anger, Gren especially unhappy with Snow, stating "we thought you were different" - the headway she was making with them already starting to crumble. As Bigby talked to Snow, Gren, Holly, and two of Lily's friend Vivian (The Girl with the Ribbon) and Nerissa (the little mermaid) returned to the funeral to try and deal with their grief.
Things went from bad to worse, as the Tweedles decided to crash the funeral with shotguns. Gren and Holly did not take this further disrespect well, and threatened the Tweedles to get out. Tensions rose, as Bigby admitted they were there to try and get him to back off Crane. Gren and Holly both dropped their glamours, getting ready to fight, both enraged that Lily's funeral was being trashed. Tweedle Dee made the flippant remark that Lily was "just a dead whore", which made everything hit breaking point. Holly charged at him, Dee shooting her point-blank with his shotgun. Grendel was quick to react, incensed at the attack on his dearest friend. He pinned down Tweedle Dumb, very nearly ripping his head off, before the Tweedle manged to get a shotgun blast right into Grendel's face. Bigby was also shot in the chaos, and the Tweedles fled, leaving all three 'monsters' bleeding on the ground.
"We don't know if any of this shit is actually true! It's like the man said, what happens when it's our turn?"
Luckily, this didn't kill them. Thanks to their Fable nature (more of that in the powers section), they were patched up by Doctor Swineheart and sent on their way. Gren and Holly were dosed up with barmecidal ambrosia, and went back to the Trip Trap- where Bigby chased them up on his investigation, trying to trace the witch Lily was using for glamours- to lead him to the true perpetrator of the murders. The drug induced sleep, which Holly was doing in the back room, but if sleep was resisted, the drug gave a "very interesting high".
And so, Bigby walked into the Trip Trap with an unusually happy Gren, and an increasingly worried Woddy trying to get him to rest already. Gren, high but still ceaselessly stubborn refused, enjoying the ride and to "feel this good in a long, fucking time". Bigby tried to steer the conversation towards the investigation, but Gren was having none of it- instead gathering up a toast for Lily (ignoring Woody's desperate pleas that he wasn't supposed to mix his meds with alcohol). Sombering up for a moment, Gren pointed out Lily's funeral had been a mess, a "shitty sendoff for a pretty okay lady" snidely adding that Bigby being there didn't help matters at all, and that the Tweedles ultimately got away. Still, hed persuaded Bigby to take a drink with him, in honour of Lily.
Woody once again told Gren he shouldn't have been drinking, and Gren finally snapped. He threw a fist at Woody's head, the two Fables grappling before Bigby separated them. Furious, Gren shouted about how Woody had been using Lily as a prostitute, paying her for sex behind all their backs- and that Holly had to find out by going through her dead sister's things. Woody explained he'd never slept with her while she was Snow, but Gren didn't care, his concern was with the pain Woody had caused Holly, that his actions encouraged Lily's hooking. Woody left, their previously solid friendship crumbling to dust.
Gren finally hit the low point of his little drugs trip, sitting back at the bar, for once quiet and subdued. He tiredly told Bigby that Lily's stuff would be in the back with Holly, but discouraged Bigby from trying to wake her "sleepwalkers and trolls, that's the rule, man." Then he started to pass out, mumbling that if Bigby made sure he didn't choke on his own vomit, then he'd consider that "all's forgiven with the arm". (Gren will not remember this).
He reappeared when the true mastermind of the crime, The Crooked Man, was brought to trial at last. The Crooked Man had been the one to order their pimp, Georgie (Porgie) to kill Faith and Lily, as they had evidence on Crane, and could have likely blown apart the crime ring he'd created within Fable community. Gren voted in favour of The Crooked Man being executed, dropped down the Witching Well, for what he did to his friend. The community bickered amongst themselves, as the Crooked Man worked his charm on them, trying to convince them of his innocence, pointing out that there was no evidence against him, and any one of them could face the same fate as him, if Bigby so willed it. This started to change Gren's mind (what with already losing an arm to Bigby that week and all) and the Crooked Man almost got away scott free- had Nerissa (The Little Mermaid) one of the other girls under the spell that had kept the prostitutes in line stepped forward to state she'd heard the order given to murder the girls. The Crooked Man was imprisoned, rather than executed - Snow wanting to build a new relationship with the denizens of Fabletown, to get back some trust from those who had been wronged and ignored in the past.
Gren was once again outside the office a few days later, this time considerably less hostile towards Bigby as he passed, even offering a smile, suggesting that finally, things were starting to get better for the disenfranchised Fables, and Snow (stepping into Crane's place as deputy mayor) was keeping her word.
Abilities/Special Powers: Gren is a Fable, first and foremost, and this grants him a special sort of longevity. The more well known and popular a Fable's story is in the mundane world, the more power a Fable gains from it. They are granted an even longer lifespan than they already have, and gain a healing factor of sorts. They're very hard to kill, it's not impossible however- cutting off their heads tends to work, as does some magical means. Gren's no exception to this rule. Beowulf, after all, is a very old story that the mundies have been telling for a very, very long time. In the original tale, Grendel was impervious to any weapon with a cutting edge, but how much of that effects him in his current state is unknown. Fables themselves admit that parts of their tales get 'lost in translation' with various retellings. Regardless, Dr. Swineheart points out that Gren is a 'titan', and as such can heal quickly from damage that would put other Fables out for a while - after all, he is a seven foot tall, gorilla-shark monster, all teeth and claws. Gren's back on his feet and seemingly unharmed mere hours after taking a shotgun round point-blank to the face.
While he has his glamour on, Gren's strength is much like that of the body his glamour has made for him. That being a scrawny guy, all mouth and no muscle. Of course, if he lets his glamour fade, and he takes on his true form, he's very big and very strong. In their bar fight, he tosses Bigby around the like a rag-doll, flinging pieces of furniture and fixtures as if they weighed nothing, and taking everything Bigby can throw at him, like a hat stand to the face, without really breaking stride. It's only when Bigby lets the wolf out a little, and evens up the battle that Gren loses ground, and loses his arm for his troubles.
His human appearance can only be maintained thanks to his glamour, a magical spell hidden inside a capsule which he keeps on his person. Glamours, however, run out, and a witch is required to top up the magic in it, as it were, to prevent it from stopping working. Once it runs out in Wonderland, he'll need someone with magic to get it working again (or find a technological equivalent) or he'll be stomping around in his true form all the time. I made a little post explaining glamours in more detail HERE.
He also has very good hearing, to the point that excessive noise is painful for him. It's likely he became an alcoholic due to the fact being drunk takes the edge off all the noise that comes from living in one of the busiest cities in the world. Being a swamp monster, presumably he can breathe underwater, and is a pretty good swimmer, given his true form has webs between his fingers and toes.
Third-Person Sample:
This place made Gren's skin crawl. They told him it was Wonderland, as in Alice In- but he knew that was complete bullshit. He'd never been to Wonderland, the real Wonderland, but he knew for damn sure that it was taken over along with everywhere else when the Adversary stormed through. But here it was, fucked up and weird like Wonderland was supposed to be, but unharmed. It was a fucking joke.
Worse still were the residents, those who claimed to be the denizens of Wonderland. Sure, the animals kinda hit the right notes, and the Queens were about as fucked up as he imagined they'd be (did they even make it across to the mundy? he couldn't remember) they weren't right, but they were almost, and that could have been enough. But then there were the motherfucking Tweedles. They were absolutely not little girls who finished each others sentences and seemed (seemed, seemed) largely harmless. They were cockney shitweasels who were instrumental in the death of Lily. They fucking shot him and Holly.
Every time those little kids appeared, all he could think about was the Tweedles back home, and all he wanted to do was rip their little heads off their shoulders. But that...likely wouldn't go down well. There were too many mundies here. As much as he hated the system he was forced to live in, he knew it existed for a reason, and until he could figure out how this not-really-Wonderland worked, he had to play by Fabletown rules. Which meant not exposing his true nature, which in turn meant not killing the shit out of not not-Tweedles.
"This whole place is a fucking joke," he grumbled, mostly to himself, running his hand through his hair. "Fuck it, I need a drink."
He might not be able to understand what's going on here. He might not find any other actual Fables, but at least this festering shithole had bars. And bars had alcohol. He'd take his small mercies where he could get them. He turned up a flight of stairs, heading to the nearest bar, not planning to reemerge until they kicked him out.
First-Person Sample:
[The communicator is unlike any mundy technology that Gren is used to. Sure, he learned how to drive, how TVs worked, telephones, all that. He learned and he adapted because he had no choice otherwise. Besides, it made him feel a little better than Bigby, who seemed to be permanently stuck in the old days, when it came to technology. Can't teach an old dog new tricks, he guesses.
But these...these were like computers- far more advanced than anything available to him in '86. As such, when he turns on the video feed, he's not quite on screen, everything is a little more slanted.]
This thing on? [He's going to guess yes.] I got questions about this 'Wonderland' that you people seem so fucking sure is real. Actually, I got questions for people who might actually be able to help [which isn't many, given how...odd Wonderlanders tended to be] Is Alice around? Or..fuck, I don't know. I'll even take the Rabbit. Maybe even that fucking Cat. They around?
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teeffE-Mail: Your email. tfwelshwerecat@gmail.com
IM: teefflady#2361 on Discord
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Other Characters: Sunburst (My Little Pony) -
bibliocornCharacter Name: Grendel
Series: Fables
Timeline: The Wolf Among Us: Episode 5 "Cry Wolf"/ Issue #48 (The game and the comic run parallel to one another, each filling in gaps the other leaves, it's the same canon, just two different mediums) - The game itself has those pesky player-made choices, so I'll follow the 'canonical' choices given in the comic.
Canon Resource Link: Here you go
Character History:
Grendel's story started, as all these stories must start, Once Upon a Time. Grendel was a monster living during the 6th century in the swamps of Fryslân, largely ignoring mankind up until the point where King Hrothgar built his mead hall, Herot, and started partying it up like there was no tomorrow. Sensitive to noise, and preferring peace and quiet anyway, the constant ruckus enraged Grendel. And so, he took matters into his own hands. He stormed into Herot, and devoured thirty Danes on the spot, creating chaos, before stomping back to his swamp. He continued to do this every night for twelve years or so- and the Danes never once thought to maybe not party so hard to prevent the giant ragemonster coming in and eating them all.
Eventually, Hrothgar got the help of a Geat hero named Beowulf- who goaded Grendel back to Herot and took him on single handed. They had quite the epic battle, right up until Beowulf made Grendel and his right arm part ways very violently. Grendel took his arm and slunk off into the swamp to lick his wounds- and somehow got the arm reattached (how, we never know). His mother went off to Herot to get revenge for he son's injury, and Beowulf defeated her, with much less arm ripping. There was no sign of Grendel for some time, but he did not let the arm thing go unavenged. He sent a fire dragon after Beowulf some years later, and both hero and dragon killed one another, and that was that.
Grendel is, indeed that Grendel, from the ancient epic poem, and Fryslân is just one land in many- all connected to one another- the Homelands. Here, all the fairy-tale folk (known collectively as 'Fables') lived, knowing one another, but never really crossing paths. Never getting involved in one another's stories. That is, until a great evil known as the Adversary came and started conquering them, one by one. Some Fables managed to escape into the Mundane (Mundy) world; regular old Earth. They set up their own borough of New Amsterdam called Fabletown, and lived amongst the Mundies (regular humans) for centuries. There they signed the Fabletown Compact; which absolved them of all their former crimes, and stated their cardinal rule: to never allow the mundies to become aware of their true nature. Less human looking Fables had to either get glamours from witches (mystical artefacts which allowed them to take on a human appearance) or move up-state to the dreaded Farm- a large, magically hidden farmland from which no non-human Fable could ever leave. A guided cage. New Amsterdam eventually became New York, and grew and evolved around them. Fables continued on regardless, some adapting to modern life better than others. Grendel adapted well, for a swamp monster- gaining a glamour and living in a human skin as well as he could- though things were absolutely not all peaches and cream. His mother was killed in the invasion and did not make it out of the Homelands, and the safe haven he had journey to had it's own very glaring problems.
Gren is one of the unfortunate Fables who survived exile to New York in poverty. Some managed to flee the Homelands with their titles (and in some cases fortunes) in tact, and as such got to live a plush lifestyle, and in the case of some-as their money pays for the upkeep of the community, no small amount of preference went to their needs, well above those who had nothing. The divide between the haves and have-nots is visible and gaping, and it's something that really gets under Gren's skin. He spends his days with the other 'stays' of Fabletown, the Fables who have fallen through the cracks of their society, unwanted, forgotten. At some point, he gets a drinking habit and spends a lot of his time in a bar called The Trip Trap, run by his dearest friend, Holly- a troll.
Jump to 1986, and Holly's sister, Lily, goes missing. Gren took it on himself to try and nudge the Fabletown government to do something, anything about it. He headed to the Woodlands, the building where the governmental offices are held. Mayor (Old King) Cole was away on business, leaving the deputy mayor Ichabod Crane in charge of the community in his absence. Unfortunately, Crane had no empathy for the more destitute Fables, and just continually passed Gren on to his assistant, Snow White. He was given paperwork, made to wait, and largely just ignored. Nothing was done about the missing troll.
Gren refused to give up, though- determined to find Lily, or at least get some sort of reaction from the supposed protectors of the community. It was while waiting in line to see someone again that he had a run-in with Fabletown's sheriff, Bigby (The Big Bad) Wolf. Tired of being passed from pillar to post and looking for someone to take it out on, Gren picked a fight with Bigby- making snide comments about how he can do "whatever the fuck (he) wants", due to being the sheriff. Bigby assumed Gren was there to once again claim unemployment- due to his rage issues making him unable to work in the Mundy. Gren did not respond to the needling well, arguing the plight of the poorer Fables in the community - but Bigby ignored him, heading into the office to start what would become a super-fun double murder investigation.
A prostitute named Faith (The Donkeyskin Girl) had been murdered, her decapitated head left on the steps of the Woodlands. The previous night, Faith had been in the company of Woody (The Woodsman) who had roughed her up- until Bigby had broken it up. This made Woody his prime suspect, and so Bigby descended on the Trip Trap to get some answers. There, he was stonewalled by both Gren and Holly, pretending Woody hadn't been there for a long time. After searching around for clues, and trying and failing to get any answers out of them, Woody returned to the bar from his visit to the crapper, surprise, he was there all along.
Gren, forever protective of those closest to him, and still angry about the lack of interest in Lily's case, attempted to divert Bigby from Woody a few times, before Woody- realising Faith was dead and he faced the Fable's death penalty (being pushed into the possibly bottomless Witching Well) started to break down in a panic. Gren goaded Bigby into a fight- shouting his usual protests about how little care the government gave for the down-and-outs unless Bigby was sent down to them to give out justice.
Gren shed his glamour, shifting into his monsterous self and set to fighting with Bigby. For a while, it was very one sided - Gren tossing Bigby around the bar like a rag doll. It wasn't until Bigby allowed some of his lycanthrope nature to break through the surface that the tide of the battle turned. Now stronger, Bigby fought Grendel down- in the process tearing off his right arm, taking advantage of the weak spot left there by Beowulf. Holly and Woody were understandably unhappy with the turn of events, calling Bigby a monster- but Bigby pointed out Grendel could just have his arm reattached like he did last time. Spiteful and angry, Grendel snarled that he'd rather live without it, and Bigby left him lying on the floor of the Trip Trap- chasing after Woody, who'd used a well-timed entrance by Tweedle-Dee to attempt escape.
The murder investigation continued - another headless Fable turning up (with her body dumped in the river), this one glamoured to look like Snow White. A lot of chaos erupted for the people of the Woodlands, until the real Snow appeared - and the glamour was broken, revealing the murdered Fable was a troll. Lily.
Bigby returned to the Trip Trap, to give Holly the bad news, Snow White in tow. There, they found Jack Horner (literally all the Jacks) being his usual irritating self towards Gren (now minus one arm, but mostly healed up) and Holly. Jack instantly started quizzing Bigby and Snow- news of someone dead glamoured to look like Snow having already hit the community thanks to Tweedle Dee. Holly, sensing the tone in the room from Jack's increasing needling, told him to "find his off switch". Jack, annoyed, pointed out that Gren and Holly were always talking about overthrowing the government, but always tucked tail the second Bigby showed up. Bigby very quickly kicked him out, to the approval of Gren.
The news of Lily was broken to Holly, which set Gren off on his usual diatribe. He was convinced the only reason Bigby even cared about the investigation was because it has inadvertently involved Snow in the mess. He angrily raged that if they had taken the case seriously weeks ago, when Lily's disappearance was first reported, she could have been saved. His rant was cut off by Holly, smashing one of her own glasses. Snow did her best to calm her, a start to try and mend the bridge in the Fabletown divide. Holly asked Gren to leave for a while, likely not wanting him to be set off once again, ticking time bomb that he is. Gren was unwilling to leave, until she assured him that she would be fine- only then did he reluctantly leave the bar and let her speak to Bigby and Snow alone.
Gren reappeared again at Lily's funeral - at this point Bigby having learned the person paying Lily to look like Snow was none other than Crane- using her to carry out his perverted fantasies of Snow. The funeral was important, part of a scared troll act, to burn their dead before the sun rose. It turned out in trying to cover his tracks, Crane had thrown Lily's body down the Witching Well, so the funeral was already tense when Bibgy walked in and interrupted it. Gren and Holly acted in anger, Gren especially unhappy with Snow, stating "we thought you were different" - the headway she was making with them already starting to crumble. As Bigby talked to Snow, Gren, Holly, and two of Lily's friend Vivian (The Girl with the Ribbon) and Nerissa (the little mermaid) returned to the funeral to try and deal with their grief.
Things went from bad to worse, as the Tweedles decided to crash the funeral with shotguns. Gren and Holly did not take this further disrespect well, and threatened the Tweedles to get out. Tensions rose, as Bigby admitted they were there to try and get him to back off Crane. Gren and Holly both dropped their glamours, getting ready to fight, both enraged that Lily's funeral was being trashed. Tweedle Dee made the flippant remark that Lily was "just a dead whore", which made everything hit breaking point. Holly charged at him, Dee shooting her point-blank with his shotgun. Grendel was quick to react, incensed at the attack on his dearest friend. He pinned down Tweedle Dumb, very nearly ripping his head off, before the Tweedle manged to get a shotgun blast right into Grendel's face. Bigby was also shot in the chaos, and the Tweedles fled, leaving all three 'monsters' bleeding on the ground.
Luckily, this didn't kill them. Thanks to their Fable nature (more of that in the powers section), they were patched up by Doctor Swineheart and sent on their way. Gren and Holly were dosed up with barmecidal ambrosia, and went back to the Trip Trap- where Bigby chased them up on his investigation, trying to trace the witch Lily was using for glamours- to lead him to the true perpetrator of the murders. The drug induced sleep, which Holly was doing in the back room, but if sleep was resisted, the drug gave a "very interesting high".
And so, Bigby walked into the Trip Trap with an unusually happy Gren, and an increasingly worried Woddy trying to get him to rest already. Gren, high but still ceaselessly stubborn refused, enjoying the ride and to "feel this good in a long, fucking time". Bigby tried to steer the conversation towards the investigation, but Gren was having none of it- instead gathering up a toast for Lily (ignoring Woody's desperate pleas that he wasn't supposed to mix his meds with alcohol). Sombering up for a moment, Gren pointed out Lily's funeral had been a mess, a "shitty sendoff for a pretty okay lady" snidely adding that Bigby being there didn't help matters at all, and that the Tweedles ultimately got away. Still, hed persuaded Bigby to take a drink with him, in honour of Lily.
Woody once again told Gren he shouldn't have been drinking, and Gren finally snapped. He threw a fist at Woody's head, the two Fables grappling before Bigby separated them. Furious, Gren shouted about how Woody had been using Lily as a prostitute, paying her for sex behind all their backs- and that Holly had to find out by going through her dead sister's things. Woody explained he'd never slept with her while she was Snow, but Gren didn't care, his concern was with the pain Woody had caused Holly, that his actions encouraged Lily's hooking. Woody left, their previously solid friendship crumbling to dust.
Gren finally hit the low point of his little drugs trip, sitting back at the bar, for once quiet and subdued. He tiredly told Bigby that Lily's stuff would be in the back with Holly, but discouraged Bigby from trying to wake her "sleepwalkers and trolls, that's the rule, man." Then he started to pass out, mumbling that if Bigby made sure he didn't choke on his own vomit, then he'd consider that "all's forgiven with the arm". (Gren will not remember this).
He reappeared when the true mastermind of the crime, The Crooked Man, was brought to trial at last. The Crooked Man had been the one to order their pimp, Georgie (Porgie) to kill Faith and Lily, as they had evidence on Crane, and could have likely blown apart the crime ring he'd created within Fable community. Gren voted in favour of The Crooked Man being executed, dropped down the Witching Well, for what he did to his friend. The community bickered amongst themselves, as the Crooked Man worked his charm on them, trying to convince them of his innocence, pointing out that there was no evidence against him, and any one of them could face the same fate as him, if Bigby so willed it. This started to change Gren's mind (what with already losing an arm to Bigby that week and all) and the Crooked Man almost got away scott free- had Nerissa (The Little Mermaid) one of the other girls under the spell that had kept the prostitutes in line stepped forward to state she'd heard the order given to murder the girls. The Crooked Man was imprisoned, rather than executed - Snow wanting to build a new relationship with the denizens of Fabletown, to get back some trust from those who had been wronged and ignored in the past.
Gren was once again outside the office a few days later, this time considerably less hostile towards Bigby as he passed, even offering a smile, suggesting that finally, things were starting to get better for the disenfranchised Fables, and Snow (stepping into Crane's place as deputy mayor) was keeping her word.
Abilities/Special Powers: Gren is a Fable, first and foremost, and this grants him a special sort of longevity. The more well known and popular a Fable's story is in the mundane world, the more power a Fable gains from it. They are granted an even longer lifespan than they already have, and gain a healing factor of sorts. They're very hard to kill, it's not impossible however- cutting off their heads tends to work, as does some magical means. Gren's no exception to this rule. Beowulf, after all, is a very old story that the mundies have been telling for a very, very long time. In the original tale, Grendel was impervious to any weapon with a cutting edge, but how much of that effects him in his current state is unknown. Fables themselves admit that parts of their tales get 'lost in translation' with various retellings. Regardless, Dr. Swineheart points out that Gren is a 'titan', and as such can heal quickly from damage that would put other Fables out for a while - after all, he is a seven foot tall, gorilla-shark monster, all teeth and claws. Gren's back on his feet and seemingly unharmed mere hours after taking a shotgun round point-blank to the face.
While he has his glamour on, Gren's strength is much like that of the body his glamour has made for him. That being a scrawny guy, all mouth and no muscle. Of course, if he lets his glamour fade, and he takes on his true form, he's very big and very strong. In their bar fight, he tosses Bigby around the like a rag-doll, flinging pieces of furniture and fixtures as if they weighed nothing, and taking everything Bigby can throw at him, like a hat stand to the face, without really breaking stride. It's only when Bigby lets the wolf out a little, and evens up the battle that Gren loses ground, and loses his arm for his troubles.
His human appearance can only be maintained thanks to his glamour, a magical spell hidden inside a capsule which he keeps on his person. Glamours, however, run out, and a witch is required to top up the magic in it, as it were, to prevent it from stopping working. Once it runs out in Wonderland, he'll need someone with magic to get it working again (or find a technological equivalent) or he'll be stomping around in his true form all the time. I made a little post explaining glamours in more detail HERE.
He also has very good hearing, to the point that excessive noise is painful for him. It's likely he became an alcoholic due to the fact being drunk takes the edge off all the noise that comes from living in one of the busiest cities in the world. Being a swamp monster, presumably he can breathe underwater, and is a pretty good swimmer, given his true form has webs between his fingers and toes.
Third-Person Sample:
This place made Gren's skin crawl. They told him it was Wonderland, as in Alice In- but he knew that was complete bullshit. He'd never been to Wonderland, the real Wonderland, but he knew for damn sure that it was taken over along with everywhere else when the Adversary stormed through. But here it was, fucked up and weird like Wonderland was supposed to be, but unharmed. It was a fucking joke.
Worse still were the residents, those who claimed to be the denizens of Wonderland. Sure, the animals kinda hit the right notes, and the Queens were about as fucked up as he imagined they'd be (did they even make it across to the mundy? he couldn't remember) they weren't right, but they were almost, and that could have been enough. But then there were the motherfucking Tweedles. They were absolutely not little girls who finished each others sentences and seemed (seemed, seemed) largely harmless. They were cockney shitweasels who were instrumental in the death of Lily. They fucking shot him and Holly.
Every time those little kids appeared, all he could think about was the Tweedles back home, and all he wanted to do was rip their little heads off their shoulders. But that...likely wouldn't go down well. There were too many mundies here. As much as he hated the system he was forced to live in, he knew it existed for a reason, and until he could figure out how this not-really-Wonderland worked, he had to play by Fabletown rules. Which meant not exposing his true nature, which in turn meant not killing the shit out of not not-Tweedles.
"This whole place is a fucking joke," he grumbled, mostly to himself, running his hand through his hair. "Fuck it, I need a drink."
He might not be able to understand what's going on here. He might not find any other actual Fables, but at least this festering shithole had bars. And bars had alcohol. He'd take his small mercies where he could get them. He turned up a flight of stairs, heading to the nearest bar, not planning to reemerge until they kicked him out.
First-Person Sample:
[The communicator is unlike any mundy technology that Gren is used to. Sure, he learned how to drive, how TVs worked, telephones, all that. He learned and he adapted because he had no choice otherwise. Besides, it made him feel a little better than Bigby, who seemed to be permanently stuck in the old days, when it came to technology. Can't teach an old dog new tricks, he guesses.
But these...these were like computers- far more advanced than anything available to him in '86. As such, when he turns on the video feed, he's not quite on screen, everything is a little more slanted.]
This thing on? [He's going to guess yes.] I got questions about this 'Wonderland' that you people seem so fucking sure is real. Actually, I got questions for people who might actually be able to help [which isn't many, given how...odd Wonderlanders tended to be] Is Alice around? Or..fuck, I don't know. I'll even take the Rabbit. Maybe even that fucking Cat. They around?