Lloyd Donalbain

"I am an architect - they call me a butcher.

I am a pioneer - they call me primitive.

I am purity - they call me perverted.

I know I believe in nothing, but it is my nothing."

- Manic Street Preachers, "Faster"

"Happiness is the most insidious prison of all."

- V, "V For Vendetta"

"Stars, hide your fires,

Let not light see my black and deep desires."

- Macbeth

Biography, Part 1
Writing a brief biography of the life of Fletcher Donalbain is like trying to squeeze the entire history of the universe into one textbook. In just thirty years, so much has happened in this man's life, yet most of it is information we know precious little about.

I have spent about eighteen months travelling the northern wastes that were his childhood home, and have gathered information, both factual and apocryphal, from numerous different sources claiming a connection to the man. I have conducted interviews, read writings by other historians and entries from Fletcher's diary, and analysed data found in caves, ruined villages and burial grounds, and have determined these few facts about this man's life through all this convoluted research.

Fletcher was born to the house of Donalbain roughly thirty years ago, during the pagan celebrations for the winter solstice. In the community, it was tradition to dance in a frenzied manner around stone circles at this time of year to honour the nature god, Cernuunos, but on that occasion, the celebrations were interrupted by the birth of a baby boy to the village chieftain. Legend has it that when he was born, the moon and the sun were visible in the sky at the same time, and a sinister angel with a satanic demeanour was reportedly seen on a nearby hill. The authenticity of these claims remains debatable, but the fact still stands that there was a lot of mystery surrounding his birth.

Fletcher grew up in a troubled time; the opposing clan of Falstaff declared war on the Donalbains when Fletcher was just five years of age, and his father was rarely home to see him. Despite this, Fletcher himself lived a peaceful childhood. The war, known by most historians as The North War or The Primrose War, eventually reached a peaceful resolution eleven years later, when, if the tales are to be believed, the gods threatened to pull the sky down if the clans would not cease fighting. Thus, the Donalbains and the Falstaffs begrudgingly laid down their arms, and opened what was claimed would be a new era of peace.

But it was not to be. Just three years after the war's end, skirmishes began to break out between patrols from either clan, and harsh conflict seemed imminent. Fletcher's father, Marcus, was seeking to avoid another war, as the previous one had left a large chunk or his fighting force dead. Seeking to make peace, he arranged to have Fletcher marry the Falstaff chieftain's daughter, Desdemona. However, Fletcher was uninterested in marriage, preferring to spend long days in the forest writing songs and epic poems instead, some of which can be found in the book Sutcliffe's Guide To Modern Poets. Diary entries reveal that he planned to avoid the wedding, and stay with his grandfather in his cabin in a village on the other side of the mountains. His father learned of his scheme, though, and Fletcher was forcibly dragged to the ceremony. Reports say very little about the wedding, other than what happened at the very end. It would appear that, in a fit of rage, Fletcher picked up a ceremonial sword and murdered the entire wedding congregation, including Desdemona, a majority of both the Falstaff and Donalbain clans, and, rather more poignantly, his own father and mother. Nobody was armed. It was a massacre.

Realising what he had done, Fletcher fled for the mountains in a state of deep regret, for he knew he could not seek asylum elsewhere. He spent a year fighting beowolves, bears and other terrifying creatures. He gradually became stronger and stronger, and it wasn't long before legends began to sweep around the area of someone, or something, living in the mountains, who could destroy any kind of beast, and it took virtually no time at all for people to realise that it was none other than Fletcher Donalbain, the murderer, the man who ruthlessly killed his wife and his own family. People started to invent horrific stories about the man, and blame normal occurences on him. A pig went missing from a nearby field? "Fletcher Donalbain did that!" An elderly clergyman peacefully passed away in his sleep? "He was cursed by the hand of Fletcher Donalbain!" A wall fell down in a nearby farm? "Why, it was Fletcher Donalbain that knocked it down!"

People cursed the name of Fletcher Donalbain, and soon, they decided to be rid of him once and for all. Hundreds of peasants picked up arms and began to converge on the mountain that was his permanent residence...