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Twisted Hearts: The DLC

Gender Neutral Reader x The Draconia Fam Word Count: 3.2k

Summary: In which the Isekai Truck Driver of Fate sends you right into the messiest Briar Valley Sitcom you never could have asked for. Found family wasn't meant to come with a kill count, you don't think.

Twisted Hearts was a game that had grown so popular that it had veritably wound up eating itself along the way.

What had started as a simple but effective love story spanning the social hierarchy of a medieval world had shot off into horror game emulators, snack brand sponsorships with weird, integrated advertisements straight out of The Truman Show, and so many DLC character packs that the original cover art boys had all but been drowned in a sea of pastel ikemen with tragic backstories each more miserably sad than the last.

The creators had concocted sweeping romance routes for every available NPC down to the distant, foreign merchant mentioned exactly once in a letter you could unlock during one of seven royal escapade routes. They’d even introduced technology—technomancers, technically. As if a fancy name suddenly made the idea of dragging beep-boop squeaking robots into a world still living without modern plumbing less of a desperate bid for relevancy. They’d run through a hundred heroes and a hundred villains. Written ‘I object!’ into so many wedding scenes that it ought to have been basic tradition for nuptials by this point. The spited lovers laughing in glee could all be overlayed into their own goddamn harmonized symphony, and the list of tropes lined up and ticked off like an itemized to-do list could have made a bureaucrat wince.

And you hated it.

The miserable, repetitive, corporate slop it had become. A money tree blooming from what had once been a seed of genuine greatness.

No, the original plot had never been anything to write home about. A tale of lovebirds finding solace in one another in a world where pairings were made off practicality and romance treated as a tool. The King falls for his Lowly Servant, and his Vengeful Fiancé will ruin them. The Second Prince falls for his rival royal’s Lowly Servant, and his Vengeful Betrothed will ruin them. The foreign dignitary falls for his host’s Lowly Servant—and on and on. But what had made that generic garbage so worthwhile had been the golden shine of the characters buried beneath it all. True gems hidden just there, right beside the sludge.

So you’d stuck around. For them. As ridiculous as that sounded.

Endured all the pay-to-play walls, and the looping circles of cliffhangers, and the product placement. Scoured each new route like a weary archeologist searching for the creaking remnants of a lost civilization. For just five keys you can unlock a special dialogue branch off the main route with [Selected Character]—

And maybe the original story had just happened to come along at a time in your life when you’d needed it most—had offered up lovely, warm promises of forever when a scarred, fragile heart had wanted that gentleness so terribly. It’s hard to forget the first person who tells you that they love you, that you’re worth something to the world. Even if the voice behind such a sentiment is filtered through the tinny grain of a laptop speaker and their soft smiles grew pixelated at the edges.

But anyways.

The point of all of that was to say that you knew this goddamned game. You knew every ending, every dialogue pitfall, every enemy, everything.

So you would certainly know when you’d wound up as one of its most reviled antagonists.

‘Brother Complex,’ as they were so often called, did not have a set name. Like Professor Oak so often forgot the moniker of his own flesh and blood, the player was expected to look the littlest Prince or Princess of Briar Valley in the eye and dub them whatever they wished. It was one of the first examples of an otome game so flagrantly allowing their player base to project their most hated foe onto its antagonist. Middle school nerd drama had found a new battle ground in Twisted Hearts: The Regency Routes.

‘Brother Complex’ was a character that hadn’t existed in the original series, but had been incorporated along the line as an extra level of challenge for those who saw Lord Rune’s reign as an obstacle too easily toppled. ‘Brother Complex’ was Malleus Draconia’s adopted sibling—a rare, draconic fae, just like him. One of perhaps the last in existence. ‘Brother Complex’ doted on Malleus, and expected just as much rabid devotion in return. They were expected to grow together, age together, and eventually wed—restoring the dragon race to the land and ruling as a beloved king and queen for all time. And that was what made ‘Brother Complex’ so much more of a fight.

Because the original Malleus hated Lord Rune. Playing the main character in that tale was more a fight to avoid the petulant fae’s attempts on your life than it was to win the male lead’s heart. And no one liked Rune in those timelines. So sneaking your way into the dragon’s arms didn’t leave many dissenting voices in the crowd.

But ‘Brother Complex’ was not that. Malleus adored his sibling, and on top of that, they were two dragons. Veritably destined to wind up mated and married. Childhood friends to lovers with just enough of a sprinkling of forbidden ‘oh, step-bro, what are you doing?’ to make things juicy. So when you played as the MC in that story, you were out there fighting for your goddamned life. Battling with an antagonist who had the male lead wrapped around their little finger, and the entire government body of their world rooting for their success.

On one hand, it made for a genuinely intriguing story. Particularly as the MC uncovered more and more about ‘Brother Complex’ and all of the dastardly deeds carried out in the name of keeping their favored sibling all for themself. On the other hand, it had landed ‘Brother Complex’ at the top of everyone’s villain shit list. They had the worst deaths, the cruelest ends, and the most fandom antagonism you had ever witnessed on god’s green earth. Unlike in many other otome tales where the hero’s failure just meant spiraling into their own demise, you could snap in this one. Kill the scheming sibling when you saw no other option to end their reign of terror, and in doing so, lose the love of your life in the process. Or said sibling could even off themself in the name of laying blame on your weary shoulders—backed into a corner with no way to victory, so deciding to simply take the MC down with them. It was complicated, it was dramatic.

And now your life, it would seem.

Because when you had first woke with teeny, tiny claws for hands and fluffy wings at your back, you hadn’t thought anything terrible at all. Just that Heaven was pretty cool, and you would love to be a dragon. Even if you were only the size of a housecat for now.

But then you’d seen him. Lilia Vanrouge. A man who needed no introduction but received one in every iteration of Twisted Hearts that had ever been released nonetheless. Adopted son of Maleficia Draconia, companion and brother to Maleanor Draconia, father figure and blood uncle to none other than Malleus Draconia, himself—the Cover Art Boy. The hallowed night general who had reared not only the future dark prince, but his sibling.

Brother Complex.

Fuck.

“Oh, you poor thing,” the fae frowned, leaning down amidst the heavy droplets of a Very Convenient Rainstorm to shield your teeny head. “What are you doing all the way out here?”

‘Not letting you pull me into Plot Hell, is what!’ you hissed, instantly scrabbling for a tree, a big rock, anything.

Lilia yelped out a ‘hey!’ and was diving after you before you could blink. He almost got a hand around your tail, but you turned around and bit him square along the wrist until he was cursing under his breath and dropping you back into the mud.

“Get back here! You little—!”

No, no, no, no. Absolutely not. You weren’t going to face down the isekai gods just to wind up as the most hated antagonist in all of bodice-ripping literature. Because what else could you be. With your useless, fat wings and snuffling, silver snout. Made to be a literal foil to Malleus’s sleek, black hide and sharp edges.

You jumped for it—dove into the air like a fat caterpillar dreaming of its wings—and Lilia snatched you out of her freefall with a squawk.

“You—” he gasped, winded, and you smacked him square in the face with the feathered tufts of your tail.

He spat the downy fluff from his mouth and you screamed enough obscenities at him to make the devil blush. But all that came out of your pointy toothed maw was a cacophony of shrieks, and bleats, and growls that were infuriatingly squeaky.

Lilia huffed, eyes narrowing as you hissed, and spat, and chewed at his fingers.

“You’re not making this easy, you know,” he complained, bordering on good natured, and you wondered if you could force yourself to shit in his lap. “I don’t know how you managed to get yourself stuck all the way out here,” he continued, and you were really focusing now. You swore you could feel your stomach starting to churn. “But for a hatchling—and you—you’re a—"

You opened your mouth and promptly vomited all over his vest.

Lilia gawked, you preened. You burped, a cloud of funky, unpleasant mist that had Lilia wrinkling his nose.

“…Such a baby,” he rumbled under his breath, and you turned up your nose.

But then his palm came down to rest between the buds of your new horns and you froze. Because Lilia was smiling. Small, and crooked, and amused.

“You have a lot of manners to learn, I see.”

You gulped.

Lilia reached up to tweak the point of your snout between his black-tipped nails and you burped again in a miserable effort to burn off his hands. He snorted and tucked you into the loose hood of his cloak, wrapped up like a burrito and restrained. You wiggled, miserable, and Lilia shot you a smirk.

“Nice try, beastie. But I’ve had more than my fair share of experience with unruly children already. You can’t beat me.”

You scrunched up your nose in irritation and then tipped open your silver maw with a yelp. To wail, and wail, and wail the whole way home.

You arrived at the Wild Rose Palace in the same sort of way that you pictured children sneaking frogs into the house in their back pockets.

Lilia kept you tucked in the folds of his cloak the whole while, whispering promises of treats and toys if you just kept quiet for a little longer. Your lip curled, and you would have screamed out of spite alone. But you’d roared your teeny throat so sore that you couldn’t do much but croak in miserable complaint. A proper pocket toad, indeed.

Eventually the flashes of light from windows, and chandeliers, and who knew what else came to a steady standstill. Soft, repetitive flickers of pale green licking the walls rather than wispy streaks of smudged embers whipping by. Lilia shifted, pulling you from the makeshift cradle of his arms, and you were rumbling on a snarl again all at once. This time he was clever enough to keep his fingers well out of reach, but surely there were more ways you could manage to wiggle free.

“You’re late,” a silken voice trilled, far too amused at something so simple, and from above you, Lilia’s mouth curled into a smirk.

“Oh? We had a prior engagement? Other than you simply taking all your dedicated periods of counsel to tug at my pigtails?”

“I’d cut them right off your head if you still had them,” the other lamented. There was a shfft, expensive fabrics slipping against each other in a waterfall of velvet. “What have you got there? Another mortal bauble for your collections?”

Lilia puffed, and you gnawed determinedly at the buttons on his vest.

“Not exactly.”

There was a pause—telling, somehow. And the air of whomever Lilia was sparring with shifted alongside it. Into something focused and stern.

“Well. Go on then. Out with it.”

The night general held you aloft in your burrito prison like a baker presenting his most prized loaf of bread out of the oven. And the whole room went silent all at once. Even the crackle of the flaming sconces seemed to fall muted beneath the sweep of… whatever had settled over the hall. You blinked, dizzy from the height, and promptly sneezed in a burst of sparking, silver embers all over the floor.

“…this cannot be.”

“That’s what I thought as well,” Lilia returned, gently lowering you flailing self back down to the floor. You rolled around in a mess of feathers and clumsy wings—scrabbling at the black marble and flopping over face first when your little claws slid right out from under you. Lilia scooped you gently beneath the arms to right you again, and you bowled right back over in an attempt to swat him away. “But I found them. Abandoned by the borders of the Verduous Moors.”

“The Moors?”

Another pause.

You bolted forward, running in place against the slippery floors, and Lilia calmly reached out to pull you back by the scruff with a screech of nails over tile.

“…it’s been years,” the woman continued. Maleanor, you realized. There had only been a few portraits of her shown throughout the whole of the game—that, at least, had been kept sacred no matter how the IP descended into degeneracy—but her regal visage and youthful, sharp face would have been enough to give it away.

She was meant to die, as all Mother’s were in games like this. More space for a soft touch later in life, when the poor, lonely hero needed it most. But clearly whatever tragedy befell her had not yet had a chance to sink its teeth into this happy, blooming family and rend it apart. She looked down at you with narrowed, emerald eyes that crackled with a power that you could feel all the way from across the hall. You shivered before you could help it, curling down into a teeny, tiny ball of scrunchy fluff and feathers.

“And there was no one else? You’re certain?” she pressed, something anxious twisting her lovely features. Her claws drummed against the seat of her throne, sending off sparks of spitting, black static into the air.

Lilia shook his head, already bending to work away at easing you out of your armadillo squat.

“No one, Melly.”

You could have sworn that the Great Queen’s lip wobbled at that. Something quick, and jerky, but there. And then she was clenching her jaw and lolling back against the high back of her throne with a put-upon sigh.

“Well then, do whatever you like with it. It’s hardly my concern.”

You paused in your cycle of burrowing and biting to rear up, startled. None of her concern? But Brother Complex had done nothing but wax on and on about Maleanor’s grace and sweetness—how the dragon queen had so readily brought this new hatchling into her fold. Maybe that little bitch had really just been a liar through and through, or maybe you had already managed to make such a poor impression that Briar Valley’s Matriarch was happy to throw you out on your ass.

You perked up, tail nearly wagging, as you turned to trot towards the nearest window. Ready to take a plunge to freedom.

But then there was another noise.

A small, squeaky yawn and a leathery flutter not unlike a bat’s wings.

You turned before you could help it, serpentine eyes narrowing in on the sound like a second instinct. There, rising from a heap on Maleanor’s lap the same color and sleekness of her ebony dress, was Malleus Draconia. Or, well, the creature that would one day become Malleus Draconia. Right now he was just… a lump. A small, black and purple drake with the proportions of what a dragon might look like if drawn from memory by a toddler. Thick and round at the middle with eyes far too big for his head and wings far too stubby for the rest of him. He yawned again, high pitched and whiny. And instantly Maleanor was bending down to fuss over him with big kissy faces and head scritches.

But Malleus was looking at you.

With those stupidly vacant eyes and head tilted like a dog.

A sharp ‘what the fuck are you looking at’ came out as barely a chirp—like an angry baby bird. And Malleus blinked again, out of sync and slow. Your hackles raised and you paced in place, stomping your little feet and swishing your tail. Because this was the man who would lead to your end in all but a select few timelines. And on top of that, there was some new, core, instinctual part of you that was rearing up afraid over the idea of a strange dragon snuffling around your very delicate self. You bared your fangs and Malleus showed his in a strange, gummy display that almost looked like an attempt at a smile. But awful.

You stomped again and Malleus hopped down from his mother’s lap like a spoiled house cat. He fell half-way off her knees and the Queen had to give him a proper scoop to help him to the floor, but he just rolled forward with it like a pill bug. Used to the coddling.

Your feathery hackles arched up and up the closer he trotted, and off to the side Maleanor and Lilia were sharing an entire, silent conversation in terse looks and astonishment.

Malleus plopped himself down about a foot away, forked tongue flicking past his canines. And he just… stared. There was a low, slow rumble coming from somewhere in his throat, and you Did Not Like It. You curled around yourself with a growl, ears flat and claws kneading anxiously into your tail feathers.

And then the future Dragon King and Demon Lord folded over onto his side like a deflated balloon—head against your furred hip and stared up at you with the most braindead, green eyes you had ever seen in your entire life.

“…Sevens,” someone gawked, and Malleus’s tongue flopped out of his mouth like fucking road kill.

“Do you think he—”

“—Maybe it’s—”

“—And if that’s really—”

You glared down and Malleus returned your bitter leer with something so endlessly empty for a moment you wondered if he was even alive in there at all. He reached out with one of his clawed toes—syrup slow and lazy. And then his talons were kneading into your tail alongside your own, and he sighed contentedly. Burrowing into the fluff there with a strange thrum almost like a purr.

“…well,” Maleanor choked. “I suppose that decides that.”

“It does indeed,” Lilia echoed, sounding distantly astonished.

The princeling hummed again, low and long, and Maleanor murmured something that you did not want to even think about.

“Do you hear that, beastie,” Lilia called, warm. “You’re going to be staying with us now, hmm? How’s that sound?”

You lunged forward and bit Malleus straight in his Cover Boy snout.

#twisted wonderland imagines #twisted wonderland #twst x reader #Malleus Draconia x Reader #Malleus Draconia #Malleus x Yuu #My Writing #Twisted Hearts: The DLC #Lilia Vanrouge #Dad!Lilia #meleanor draconia

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