mapofthemazeinthemirror

[mapofthemazeinthemirror]

I ain’t giving my ID to any social media platforms, so this might be my last few months on this site. The govt haven’t said much about what sites and apps are to be included in their new laws, but tumblr fits the criteria of social media.

I’m not sure how it will work (I’m not sure the govt even knows, it seems like they’re just making the rule and then saying to the websites “now you figure it out”), whether we’ll be able to watch any YouTube videos at all without logging in as you can right now or if that will change… so I’m left wondering, without any social media, YouTube or Spotify, how will I keep up with my favourite kpop groups? I thought I would at least be able to follow their music on Spotify, but apparently some countries are already getting asked for ID for it.

As for fanfiction, I’m going to miss it a lot. There’s AO3, but most of that is shipping stuff, and it’s different than the fics here in general. Plus it’s more like a community here. I think I’m just gonna spend the last of my time here enjoying other writers’ fics and post drabbles and short ideas as they come to me. Sitting here looking at all my WIPs for both of my blogs that might never be posted is making me sadder than I thought because I love so many of them and was excited for them. I don’t think they will be finished in time due to my health situation.

Thanks to social media I found BTS, TXT and Stray Kids who have helped me through some really difficult times. I have also been able to interact and connect with people, and as someone who is housebound due to illness I’m going to be more isolated without it. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to watch music videos or variety shows or even see clips from lives anymore without social media or YT. There’s Weverse, but not all groups are on there. It’s maybe sad to say, but I’ve been hanging by a thread this year and the main source of my laughter, happiness and semi-sanity has been watching content like SKZ Code and TODO, keeping up with concert clips and whatnot. Obviously I have other hobbies and interests outside of kpop, but it has been a source of connection and comfort. Hopefully there will be more of my chaotic favourite boys making me laugh and dance in my future, but it’s really unclear right now.

TLDR: I’ll probably only be here until the end of November

[mapofthemazeinthemirror]

Wolf hybrid! Bangchan

note: i had originally posted this on a side blog but it seems that I won’t be keeping that blog so I’m posting it here. sorry to anyone who liked/reblogged before.

warnings: mention of tranquilliser dart

Wolf hybrid Bangchan who is a stray, mistrusting of humans and determined to fend for himself. Even if fending for himself means being cold and hungry most of the time. Spending his days in the forest and prowling through suburbia at night when there are less humans about.

Despite his best efforts, he's unexpectedly hit by a tranquiliser dart after a restaurant owner reported a feral hybrid digging through their trash out back, scrounging for food. He wakes up groggy and disoriented inside a small room with a glass window in the door, which is locked. It's not a cage but it might as well be. On edge and feeling trapped, he paces the room, his anger towards humans growing with each heavy huff of breath. When he's worn himself out, he chooses the floor over the bed, out of principle, and stays sitting up, even while fighting off sleep.

Wolf hybrid Bangchan who tries to scare off the shelter workers who try to enter the room. He refuses to answer their questions, only giving glares, snarls and growls, never letting his guard down. They even try bringing in another hybrid to placate him, but he sees right through their ploy. No matter how good it looks, he only eats the food they leave in his room when he becomes desperate enough, and only at night when he knows none of the workers are around. He avoids their knowing looks each time one of them retrieves the empty plate the following morning, hating the satisfaction he knows he'd see on their face.

After a month of his persistent behaviour, he's labelled ‘unadaptable.’ With his heightened hearing he picks up the worker's conversations about him, the other hybrid's pitying whispers; how they say he'll never find a home when he's so…. feral. Good, he thinks. He doesn't want a home. He's seen those domesticated hybrids, the ones that rely on humans for shelter and food and protection. It disgusts him. He'd rather be free than have to answer to one of them.

He is so pissed at the world and so tired of keeping up his defenses by the time you come around. All the other shelter visitors take one glance at him and keep walking, looking for the more placid types. Not you. You stop outside the door, your full attention on him through the window, and though he fixes you an unyielding cold glare through the glass, he can't help his strange curiosity. Everyone else has written him off, but there you stand, considering him while the other humans fuss over the more friendly, cutesy hybrids.

Wolf hybrid Bangchan who nobody had ever looked at the way you did. Your eyes so warm and kind and unfazed by the dangerous hybrid he was trying to seem that something inside him flinched. His wounded animal side warned him that look in your eyes was just another human trick, and he keeps his gaze hard as he watches your every move …but when you come into the room, he forgets to growl, too fixated on your presence.

He doesn't say a word to you that first day. He stays in his spot, sat on the floor, back against the wall, body rigid with tension as if ready to make a break for the door. But he doesn't. He doesn't answer your friendly, gentle questions or ask any of his own, though he wants to know why you're wasting your time on someone like him when there are perfectly responsive hybrids down the hall. But he doesn't try to scare you away, either, which, as the staff tell you, is a first

Wolf hybrid Bangchan who is surprised when you come back again. And again, and again. More surprised still when during one of your visits he notices he's dropped his fierce demeanour. Your presence is different from the other humans he came across on the streets, from the workers who always wanted him to answer questions or eat on their schedule. You're kind and patient, unwaveringly so, and it seems like it isn't an act at all.

Slowly, day by day, he warms up to you. He sees your surprised but pleased reaction when he first speaks to you, and it fills him with a strange warmth he's never felt before. It scares him a little, that feeling. What if you suddenly stop coming back? What if you decide he's a lost cause like all the others have, that he'll never be one of those hybrids that crave human attention?

Wolf hybrid Bangchan who begins to dream of you at night on the few days in a row you don't visit him. He longs for your soothing presence, and he begins to fear the worst the longer you don't show up: that you've lost interest in him. The dreams make him grumpy, make him question everything he thought he knew about himself. Why is he dreaming about going home with you? Of sleeping in a bed? Of a quiet house where he is the only hybrid? He used to scoff at the thought of waiting around for a human, and now here he was subconsciously fantasising about sitting by the window in your house, eagerly waiting for you to walk through the door like some pet. For the first time, he climbs onto the bed, sighing at the surprising comfort of the side mattress, his muscles weary from so many nights on the laminated floor.

He can't keep his tail from twitching with excitement when you show up again, apologising and saying something about work that he hardly registers as he finds himself overjoyed with relief and the need to be close to you. Before he even knows it's happening he's stepping forward, closer and closer, to meet you. He sees your eyes light up at his sudden new proximity, and he ignores the lingering bitter voice of the tough wolf persona he had built berating him for the way his heart leaps at the sight, the feeling washing over him that maybe, just maybe, he'd do a lot of things to see that light, to be the one to put it there.

Wolf hybrid Bangchan who melts into your touch when you stroke his ears, his tail stirring behind him. Who lets you start calling him Channie and can't deny that he feels like a whole new hybrid. He doesn't want to seem desperate, but now that he's experienced your gentle touch, he finds he can't get enough, as if you've unlocked a need deep inside him that he didn't know he had. He tries to be subtle about his clinginess, casually standing so close to you that he's just pressed against your side enough to feel you, as if the two of you were standing in a fight space and not an adequately sized room. He can smell your unique scent from this proximity, and he breathes it in greedily, calming and grounding himself with it. You look at his bed, noticing that the sheets have been slept in for once, and then you're looking at him and he realises you've asked him a question that he was too distracted to hear, so he just nods sheepishly.

Wolf hybrid Channie who feels like bounding off the walls when he hears the words, “Channie, how would you feel about coming home with me?” His tail goes into a full enthusiastic wag for the first time since he was a kid. He pulls you into a hug with a resounding, “Yes! Yes…. yes…” as he buries his face in your neck without trying to be subtle about it in the slightest.

Wolf hybrid Channie who lives in a house. Who knows where the food is and can help himself any time he wants. Who has his own bed, which he hardly sleeps in, in favour of yours. Who is loved and doted on and maybe a little clingy from time to time. Who, in the beginning, needs frequent assurance that this is really his home, but eventually comes to know that he's found his forever safe place, with you.

[mapofthemazeinthemirror]

a puppy hybrid! Beomgyu drabble

warnings: none, he’s a very good boy

words: 500

You were at your desk in your home study, trying to get some work done, when you heard the sound of the front door and Beomgyu’s soft growl carry in. Sighing quietly, you pushed yourself up from your chair. "Not again..."

Beomgyu's voice reached your ears as you stepped into the room, finding him standing at the front door, his tail flicking in what you think is probably meant to be a threatening manner. The mail man stands on the doorstep, clutching the strap of his mail satchel and looking nervous.

"Take them back!" the hybrid is saying, and you notice the envelopes almost being crushed in his fist that he tries to shove towards the poor man.

"Gyu, what have we said about scaring the mail men?" you ask, trying to make your voice stern.

Beomgyu's ears twitch at the sound of your voice and he turns his head to face you. "But he brought so many bills! They stress you out."

You approach the hybrid and gently take the envelopes from his hand. "It's okay, Beomgyu. Let the man do his job." You motion for him to go back inside.

His tail slows its motion and with one last glance at the mail man, he turns away from the door and retreats into the living room.

"Sorry about that. He gets protective," you offer the mailman an apologetic look. The man nods tightly, looking relieved to be on his way again as you close the door.

In the living room, you find Beomgyu on the couch, his finger tracing the patterns in the leather as he pretends not to sulk, his ears flat against his head. He doesn't look up as you enter the room; a sure sign that he is in fact sulking. “I don't like it when you're stressed,” he mumbles through a severe pout as you sit down next to him. He still doesn't look at you.

You place a comforting hand on his shoulder. Even after all this time you can't help soften at his sulking, and you certainly have never been able to be stern with him, try as you might. “I know, but sometimes things are just stressful and there's nothing we can do about it. We can't ignore the bills, otherwise they'll pile up and get a whole lot worse.” The glumness of his face seems to deepen, so you reach up to pet his ear and try a new tactic. “But there is something you can do to make it better.”

He finally looks up at you, his broody eyes lightening with hope and his ears going into a half-perk. “Really? What? What is it?” he asks eagerly.

You set the stack of envelopes on your lap and wind an arm around his shoulders to pull him closer. “You can sit with me while I open them. That will make it easier.”

His tail flicks softly at this and he leans his head on your shoulder, fully committed to his task as stress-reliever as he watches you open the first envelope.

[mapofthemazeinthemirror]

i love my mutuals because we never talk but we still… like… follow each other……….. and i admire that we stick together even tho there is no communication in the slightest………u kno what i mean… hello…

[mapofthemazeinthemirror]

paper hearts- c.sb

pairing: kindergarten teachers! soobin x reader

summary: you and soobin teach kindergarten classes across the hall from each other. when the day to hand out cards finally arrives, you notice one card in your mailbox that’s not like the others

warnings: this fic is all-ages!/ a kindergartener falls at recess/ odi is still alive because I think teacher soobin with a pet hedgehog is adorable

word count: 2,400+

author’s note: part of my valentine's day event!

song rec: valentine- laufey

Paper hearts lined the hallway bulletin boards, shades of pink, red and white signaling to all who passed through what holiday was soon approaching. Holidays, spirit days, and any big event of the like were your not-so-secret favorite part of your job. You loved cutting construction paper into new shapes, stapling themed borders to your announcement boards and finding new crafts for your students to create. You’d been a kindergarten teacher for years now, and viewed each group of students as a new opportunity to create lasting memories for them to look back on as they continued through school. You taught because you loved your students, loved helping them discover a love of reading, loved seeing their eyes grow wide as they watched a caterpillar burst from its chrysalis transformed into a butterfly. You loved their curious eyes and silly takes on arts and crafts. In short, you loved the kids. But the holiday decorating, that was an extra bonus that made you love the job even more. And this year, there was an extra special bonus.

Across the hall from you taught Mr. Choi, or Soobin, as you called him in the teachers’ lounge. Tall and handsome, he had a way with the kids that most didn’t. He had a natural softness that made the kids feel safe, a charm that made them laugh, and a way of explaining things that made them understand the world in a whole new light. There weren’t many male teachers in your elementary school, and as embarrassing as it was, you couldn’t help but crush on Soobin.

He didn’t make it any easier for you either, standing by you during recess when you went outside to watch the kids play, sitting by you at lunch, asking you about your students, what books you’d been reading, even showing you pictures of his pet hedgehog. His careful attention made your heart flutter, and you desperately wished you could see him outside of work.

With Valentine’s approaching, you couldn’t help the hopeless romantic in you from daydreaming about having him as your Valentine.

—

Monday, February 10th

You slid into your usual chair in the teachers’ lounge, reheated leftovers from the weekend on the table in front of you. Pulling out your current read from your bag, you dug in, relaxing into the quiet. The brief moment of solace was soon interrupted as Soobin sat down across from you, his long legs bumping into yours beneath the table. He quietly apologized for the unintentional invasion of personal space but you didn't mind, not when it was him.

You asked how his day’s been so far, tell him your kids have also been bouncing off the walls, excited for the holiday. Taking a sip of his drink, he replied that he’s sure your kids are more excited than his, your classroom being decorated so much more than his. You could feel your cheeks heat at the compliment, appreciating the recognition of your secret passion.

“So um,” he cleared his throat between words, “do you have plans for Valentine’s?”

“You mean besides my hot date with twenty five-year-olds?” You laughed, stirring your leftovers. “Nah, I'm gonna read the cards they give me and eat leftover candy on my couch probably.” You took a bite and looked at Soobin, “it's all I ever do for Valentine's.”

He smiled empathetically, the left side of his mouth quirking up first to show his dimple. “Yeah, that's probably all I'll be doing.”

Part of you wanted to seize the moment, suggest the two of you hang out, go out, or eat half-melted chocolates together. But before you could speak, Miss B- who taught second grade- sat down next to you and very excitedly began to tell you about her newest sewing project. The moment was over, but when you looked back at Soobin, his eyes were still on you.

—

Tuesday, February 11th

Twenty students napped on their vinyl pull-out mats. The lights in your classroom were dimmed, blinds turned shut to keep out the afternoon light, the tip-tap of your fingers on your keyboard the only sound heard over the quiet rise and fall of tired breaths. A soft knock at your door pierced the quiet, drawing the attention of the few kids not sleeping. You slowly stood, smiling to calm the little ones that have stirred before peeking through the glass to see who the visitor is.

Soobin stood on the other side of the door, smiling sheepishly as he rubbed the back of his neck. You cracked the door open slightly, stepping into the hall so as to not further disturb your students with your conversation. 

“Soobin!” you whispered excitedly, still trying to keep your voice down during naptime. “What’s up? Do you need something?”

“Would you believe me if I said I was here for naptime?” He smiled at his own joke and you couldn’t help the way your heart fluttered when his dimples pressed into his cheeks. He shook his head before whispering back, “I actually need to borrow your glue sticks.”

“My glue sticks?”

“We have arts and crafts next and I had to throw half mine away last week after one of my students took a bite out of them.” He grimaced at the memory and you stifled a laugh, hand coming up to cover the sound. “Purple glue was everywhere! It was a disaster; I had to call his parents!” His whispers were desperate, only making you laugh more.

When you recovered from your threatening giggle fit you took a breath, smoothing down your shirt. “Yes, you can borrow my glue sticks. But, I expect to get them back without bite marks.”

A smile brightened his face and butterflies filled your stomach again. “Lemme go get them.”

“Thank you! I owe you!”

—

Wednesday, February 12th

You waited with your students as their parents arrived to pick them up, occasionally bending to tie a shoe or zip up a backpack, reminding everyone to stay away from the curb until their grown ups were ready for them. You looked down the line of approaching vehicles and locked eyes with Soobin. He quickly looked away, turning his attention back to his students, but you couldn’t help the heat that rose in your chest. How long had he been looking at you?

You waited a little longer that day, holding hands with one of your students as she waited for her dad, running late from work. Once she was finally on her way home, you made your way back inside the building, eager to grab your things and go home.

Across from your classroom the lights were still on in Soobin’s room. You couldn’t help but peek inside, still buzzing from catching him staring. His door was shut, and when you peered through the glass, you could see him at his desk, mouth twisted in focus as he held a glue stick and sheet of dark red paper.

—

Thursday, February 13th

Recess was dusted with a flurry of fresh snowflakes. The kids were eager to get out onto the playground, and you were on edge as you kept an eye on everyone, making sure no one slipped on hidden ice or threw snowballs at someone else’s head. Your students loved when it snowed, but you wished today had been an inside recess. Fresh snow always meant someone got hurt.

It was no later than you thought it then you heard the sound of crying. Every teachers’ head whipped in the direction of the cries, and you watched as Soobin ran towards his student sitting on the blacktop, cradling her arm. You approached him, concern washing over you. Other students tugged on your coat, asking what happened. You comforted them, telling them to give the girl some space while Mr. Choi figured out what was wrong.

Soobin’s voice was gentle as he spoke to the girl, asking her what happened and where it hurt. Through tears she said she slipped and now her elbow hurt. He picked up her hat from where it fell during her fall and placed it gently on her head. “Only your elbow, right? Your legs feel okay?”

The girl nodded, slowly calming under Soobin’s careful attention. “Do you think you can stand up for me? I’ll go with you to the nurse’s office and we’ll make sure that you feel better.” The girl nodded again, wiping away tears with her tiny pink mitten. Soobin took her non-injured hand in his and began slowly walking inside, careful to lead the girl away from the patch of ice that had caused her fall.

“Can you watch my students while I take her inside?”

“Of course.” 

You spent the rest of the day replaying the moment in your head. Soobin’s quick reaction, his careful attention, the way he calmed her almost instantly. It made you feel a warm, almost domestic affection towards him. You had to keep your mind from wandering, from imagining if he would be the same as a father.

After school that day you asked Soobin about the girl.

“She’ll be alright. Nurse thinks it’s just a bruise, but the parents are taking her to the doctor to make sure she didn’t break anything. She wasn’t even crying anymore when her mom picked her up.”

You sat down in the tiny kids’ chair in his classroom, knees coming up to your chest. “That’s good. I was worried about her.”

“Yeah, it was scary.”

“You’re really good with the kids you know.” Your voice was heavy with sincerity. “They adore you.” You picked at a stray fabric on your pants as you spoke next. “We all do.”

He looked into your eyes after you spoke, holding your gaze, starting a fire in your chest. “Thank you. That’s nice to hear.”

You stood, wanting to diffuse the intensity of the moment. “If I ever slip on the ice, I hope that you’re there to pick me up.”

He laughed, leaning back in his chair. “I’ll make sure I catch you before you fall.”

It might be too late for that, you thought.

—

Friday, February 14th

The kids all chattered over one another as they opened the Valentines they shared with one another, a nostalgic Charlie Brown special playing in the background. They couldn’t possibly sit still and watch the movie after snacking on frosted cookies and heart-shaped chocolates all afternoon. Their crafted mailboxes from earlier in the week were now stuffed with treats from their classmates and teacher. Your mailbox was also stuffed with cards, lollipops and gifts from thankful parents. You weren’t going to open them until after school, as per your tradition.

The school day ended on a high note, lots of giggles and excited little ones running to show their cards to their parents at pickup. You waved goodbye to all of them with a full heart before retreating from the cold back to the warmth of your classroom.

Slumping into the oversized bean bag chair in the reading corner, you began to rifle through your mailbox of Valentines, looking for something sweet as a pick-me-up before you tidied up and went home. At the bottom of the box sat one Valentine that stood out from the rest. Instead of store-bought cards with cartoons, or handmade cards still sticky with purple glue, this one was expertly put together, dark red cardstock folded into a perfect heart with white lace decorating the edges. “Be my Valentine?” it read in the neat script of an adult across the front. If this was from a parent, it was awfully personal. You opened the card with apprehension, not sure what you would find inside. In the same white pen it read “from your secret admirer in 2B.”

2B? That was the classroom across from yours, Soobin’s classroom. Your heart raced. This card was from him? A Valentine? This must have been what you saw him working on the other day. A Valentine for you?

Did this mean he liked you back? Maybe it was something he did for all the other teachers. But if it was just a friendly Valentine between coworkers, then why did he sign it “from your secret admirer”? You had to ask him about it.

You stuffed the other cards back into the box, shuffling to get up out of the beanbag. At that moment, Soobin walked past your open door, heading towards his classroom. You called his name, still struggling to stand. He turned, eyes wide, towards you. You walked towards him, card in hand. His ears flushed as you held the Valentine up. “Is this from you?”

“I was hoping that you’d open those at home.”

“I wanted a snack before I drove home.”

You took in the way he shifted his weight between his feet, hands itching towards his pockets, ears growing redder by the second. “Did you make anyone else a card?”

He shook his head, lips twisting into a small pout. “Just you.”

“I should’ve made you one.” Your voice was quiet, hoping he read into what you really meant.

His eyes shot up from where they had been focused on the floor tiles, finding your gaze and holding it. “So you don’t think I’m overstepping?”

“Oh my gosh no! I actually thought it was from a parent at first, and that would’ve been weird and overstepping, but I um,” you paused, scared to admit the secret you’d been harboring since the fall. “I actually really hoped you’d ask me to be your Valentine.”

His eyes lit up like a puppy’s, a smile breaking over his face, dimples pressing deep into his cheeks. “Me too.”

You laughed, he was just too cute not to. “Well I really should’ve made you a card then.”

He shook his head, stepping closer. He reached for your hands, holding them in his much larger ones. His skin was soft against yours, and you could barely focus on his face when every cell that touched his felt like a tiny firework. “It is still Valentine’s Day, you know. We could always celebrate without twenty kids hyped up on sugar.”

“You’re saying that like the twenty kids aren’t what makes it fun.” You smiled at him, heart swelling at the thought of finally getting to spend time with Soobin outside of work. “But I would like that very much.”

“Let’s go, right now. Let’s go somewhere.”

“Right now? Won’t we need a reservation though? It’s Valentine’s day, and a Friday night.”

He paused, enthusiasm faltering. “Well, true, but we’ll find something.”

“Even if we don’t,” you smiled, squeezing his hand in yours, “this is already my favorite Valentine’s Day.”

Just like that, you finally had a Valentine.

author’s note: this is a work of fiction not meant to accurately represent the idol. please do not repost.

taglist: @lunesdesire @notyourjaem @https-yeonjun @mapofthemazeinthemirror @ohhdet

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[mapofthemazeinthemirror]

Need to read some Skz scifi fics stat

[mapofthemazeinthemirror]

CAM this is the best, most thoughtful feedback I’ve ever had and it means so much ㅠㅠ I really didn’t expect this fic to have many readers or any reception but I loved it so I kept going at it, and to hear your thoughts and reactions, and that you had an emotional response to it… I’m so grateful. The part that you said made you tear up I wrote after the loss of my own pet, and to know that emotion comes through really means something.

Thank you so much for reading and sharing your thoughts!

Safe & Familiar - Huening Kai

Synopsis: When your familiar goes missing, you set out on a search, only to find danger is brewing (I’m no good at writing synopsis)

Warnings: death, grief, brief mention of imprisonment and someone being killed (slowly so maybe torture?), reader is a witch so themes of magic, eludes to the beginnings of some considerably dark historical events 

Author's note: Finally finished! A little ashamed to say this took three years when hardly anything happens in it, but life happens and other ideas come up, and my writing brain doesn't always want to co-operate. This is a story I was really excited about when I started it and couldn't wait for it to be done to be able to post it, so I hope it's a good read because I enjoyed writing it. I was halfway through writing this when I lost someone special, and I thought it wouldn't get finished for a lot longer due to that. Surprisingly, the grief spurred me to work on it and I ended up able to use my own feelings because it matched the character’s thoughts. If it feels a little bare-bones or disjointed, it's because I worked on it on and off over three years including when I had lost my writing mojo but just wanted to get it finished!

Word count: 4.7k

At the break of dawn, with the first light of day intruding through the windows of your room, you decide to give up on the idea of sleep. Proper rest has evaded you for weeks, slumber slipping from your grasp as soon as you seem to catch it. You feel ragged and rundown, drained and lackluster, and you know the cause.

Your magic has been weaker lately. You can feel it like a dwindling fire inside. Everything that should be easy is difficult, and all that was once difficult has become impossible. Not only are you half the witch you were, but you also feel like half the person you know yourself to be. Looking dazedly around the room, you try to calculate how long it’s been since it began. It began a few days past the last occurrence of the full moon. Was that a week ago? In your mind, you try to pry the blur of days apart, but since most of them have been much the same – lethargic and hazy – they seem unintelligible from one another.

All you could clearly and vividly remember was the day that ended with the full moon. Watching your familiar disappear past the front gate, tail flicking between the garden shrubs, and then gone. Then you'd begun preparing for your own full moon rituals. It had been the same as every month before. Except that your familiar had not returned come next morning, and had not returned since. Every full moon phase the cat would go, called to the natural world, to explore, to hunt, bathe in the moonlight, instincts leading it out into the forest, part wild animal. It'd never been away from you this long, always returning home by mid afternoon of the following day.

Pushing yourself up from the still cold mattress, you walk to the doorway of your room, from which you can see through the open door of the room opposite. Once again finding the bed inside empty, you breathe in a sigh. Despite your misguided hope, you had not expected to see anything otherwise. Exhaling deep and slow, you resign yourself to what you know; that something is not right, and that it's time for action.

Not bothering to eat, for you have no appetite, you wrap a shawl around yourself over the clothes you have not changed for days, and slip your feet into a pair of boots. With one last look around the strangely empty quarters, you step out into the brisk early morning air. 

The light of day is hidden behind a substantial layer of cloud, casting a grey gloom over the garden. At your feet are the tracks of your dear companion; little paw prints still sunken into the soft dirt of the path that leads from your door to the garden gate. Closing your eyes, you visualize the animal leaving that day, before you'd closed the door behind it. You focus on the feeling of the cat and the empathetic bond that you share, searching for the tether between you. 

There – you get your first instinct of where you should be headed, though vague and foggy, and step onto the middle path into the woods, trampling through layers of pine needle and shredded tree bark, scanning the landscape of rocks and trees. As you walk, you try to reach out through your bond, asking for a sign. The cold bites at your face, and you curse yourself for leaving it so long, for not gathering your remaining strength to search earlier. Your familiar knows its way around, never lost – you know that. If it had not returned home, it meant something was stopping it – something has certainly gone awry. Why have you not forced yourself into the forest sooner?

The wind in the trees makes it harder to listen out for movement, creating noise all around you. The chill of the breeze tries to distract you, make you focus on yourself, the feeling of the cold settling heavy into your face and limbs. A few times you almost stumble clumsily as you look around you and not at the placement of your steps. As you venture further and further still, pushing your weary body along even while it begs you to stop, you feel something; a faint presence not far away, though there is no living being in sight. Unconsciously, you pick up your pace, ignoring the exaggerated ache of your legs and feet, eyes straining and searching, until suddenly, you stop. Your eyelids close of their own accord.

In your mind you see yellow and orange leaves making the transition from green to red, different from the foliage of the trees around you that remained a deep green. You caught a fleeting scent of moist soil, as if it had flown by on the swiftest of breezes, shivering as the phantom sensation of cool water dripping down your neck tickles your skin. Water.

Without another thought, you instinctively turn in the direction you know there is a stream in a glade. You find yourself almost at a run now, your body despises you for it. As the evergreen trees around you thin, you see the yellow-orange leaves of the liquidambar trees ahead. You begin to feel another pain, a pain that is not your own. 

Approaching the stream, eyes trained on the plants around the bank, you see black shapes against the greenery. Shapes that, as you grow closer, focus into birds. Sleek black feathers and beady eyes – five of them. Your mother had always tried to teach you the symbolic meaning of the number of crows one came upon, but you can't remember now, for better or worse, which number meant death or misfortune or good luck. You shoo them away, making them clear out, screeching their loud piercing calls, a blur of feathers and a racket of strong flapping wings. Finally, as they fly off, you lay eyes on your closest friend, laying in the shrubbery. 

Your heart pulses as you take in your familiar's unkempt state. The cat's midnight black fur is damp in patches and ridden with leaves and twigs from the forest floor. The yellow of its eyes is less vibrant than usual, and less attentive of the scene around it. Not until you stepped closer, until the two of you made eye contact, did the animal's eyes seem to focus. Worst of all were the cuts and scratches to its face and body. Whipping your shawl from around you, you carefully scoop up the cat, eliciting a pained ‘orw’ from the poor creature. 

"Shh, we're going home," you soothe as you wrap your shawl around it. 

----

The house is warm and welcoming, and relief washes over you the moment you step inside. The cat is sleeping in your arms, having relaxed into you on your journey back, and you can sense how it has missed your presence, that it feels safe once more with you. You feel considerably more stable and capable yourself. 

Placing the sleeping bundle on the settee by the fire, you leave the room to fetch water and some cloth. The kitchen is in disarray, having had no strength or desire to see to any of your chores since the last full moon. Thankfully though, the bread you bought last week is still good, and you grab it on the way back. 

"Ah ah," you scold as you enter the room and find your familiar halfway off the settee. 

Dark eyes look up at you, the bloody cut across his nose shining in the firelight, your shawl falling over his shoulders, no longer big enough to keep him warm. "Sorry," he says quietly, bringing his foot back up off the floor. 

His wounds don't look as severe on his less tiny body, but they need to be cleaned nonetheless. You hand him the chunk of bread as you set the dish of water on the table and sit on the space of floor in front of him. You hear his stomach make itself known at the sight of food, catching his eye as he chuckles with a small smile. Oh, how you've missed that smile. 

Being home again is doing him good, giving him more strength and allowing him to shift. He would not have been able to shift to his human form at all while he was out there alone and injured, away from you and your magic. Your bond causes you to depend on one another, and though other magic users found this frustrating, you felt that it made the magic that you did use more meaningful. 

One hand clutches at the edge of the shawl and readjusts it around himself as he eats, eyes watching your fingers dip the cloth into the bowl. You should have brought a blanket, you realize, but then you feel the warmth of his skin as the hand you use to press the wet cloth to his arm comes in contact with, and decide the fire is enough. 

"You scared me, Hyuka."

His chewing stills as his eyes find yours; those big innocent eyes that let him get away with even more in his human form. You would be able to see every emotion of his in those eyes if you weren't able to feel them for yourself through the bond. 

"I didn't mean to be gone so long, o-or go so far. I lost track of time, and I was coming home but..." He trails off as he senses you aren't upset, your calmness washing over him. He sighs and leans back into the cushion of the settee tiredly. There's food in his belly, he's warm and cozy, taken care of, and most importantly, home. "I missed you."

Images play in your mind of when Hyuka had come into your life. You had begun to have dreams, more vivid each night until he arrived, of paw prints through your house. Then one morning you'd opened the door to a ball of midnight fur. He had been nervous about how you'd feel about him being a shifter, and shy when it came to revealing his human form, but he needn't have worried. He'd come to you just when you needed him and you grew alongside each other. Now you could not do without each other, magical bond or no. 

His hand moves to the back of his neck, a well-known habit of his. His eyes grow startled as he feels the absence of leather cord, his hand flying to his throat to confirm the loss. "My... my charm… Do you have it?"

"No," you answer. You'd been too worried about getting him home to notice his accessory was missing. 

"I must have lost it in the tousle… a wild cat picked a fight with me," He looked down at a scratch on his forearm as he spoke with a scowl, as if mentally cursing said animal. 

You knew the charm was important to him—it was special to you, too. It was a long running tradition amongst magic users to give their familiars a token of their bond. Not only as a symbol of the connection, but for other magic folk to determine familiars on sight, give them shelter or aid, accept or send messages, or follow them to their human counterpart if they were in need of help. "We can go and look for it. Maybe in a week, when we're both back to our best, hm?"

Hyuka agrees, his eyes back to their usual warmth and calmness. As you tend to his cuts and scratches, he watches the fire, his mind wandering back into the forest. He'd gone further than he'd ever been, and if it weren't for his cat form's senses, he probably would have been lost. 

"There was another familiar in the woods," he says suddenly, remembering more as the haze of hunger lifts and the warmth of home settles into his being. 

Hands stilling their work, your eyes lift to his face. You had lived in this area your whole life, born and raised and never left, and never met another magic kind—not one you weren't related to. "A familiar? Are you sure?" 

Hyuka nods, looking solemn. "I had walked a long way. I must have been halfway between our village and the next. I was about to turn back and make for home, but I spotted a house. It was abandoned, I think. But... there was a woman."

Sitting back on your heels, you listen intently, fingers worrying at the cloth in your hands subconsciously. "At an abandoned house? Was she a squatter?"

"She was using the shelter. She was weak. I could tell she'd been through an ordeal. She was like me. A shifter, I mean."

Blinking in this information, your mind begins to rush with possibilities. Has there been someone else with magic close by all this time? Just a walk through the forest? Could you have had a friend, someone to share everything with? To exchange notes about herbs and spend traditional holidays with? Just the thought of it made your chest squeeze with longing. You had Hyuka, of course, but a familiar was different; an extension of yourself, in essence.

“Was she separated from her witch?” you ask, intrigued. “Was she lost, like you?”

You feel his mood dip lower before he even formulates an answer. “No,” he answers, eyes blinking faster, the way you knew he always did when trying to keep his composure. He looks off again, remembering. “I’d never met another shifter before, you know. What they say is true; I could sense that she was one, and she sensed me too. She talked to me, told me I’m more lucky than I know to have a bond. She told me I should go home.“ You notice a longing in Hyuka, just as you had felt moments before, perhaps a little stronger now. “She told me her witch was dead. She knew it would be her turn soon.“

Moving on instinct, you get up from the floor, planting yourself on the settee beside him and clasping his hand in both of your own. “That's terrible.”

He looks at you again, with sorry eyes and a heavy heart. If only you could take it away for him. “I wanted to do something to comfort her, to be able to say something, but…”

“You couldn’t shift to your human form,” you finish. Hyuka nods. As ragged and tired as you are, the feelings of desperation and distress you feel, both your own and shared, outweigh everything else. “Do you think you could find your way back to that house?”

His eyes light up a fraction. “But you need to rest and–“

“We can't just let her die all alone out there.” You feel your frazzled nerves sparking as you speak, mentally preparing yourself and what little strength had returned since your reunion. “Someone should be with her. If you’re up to going back again.”

Hyuka stands faster than you can blink, almost knocking over the dish of water at his feet.

–---

 Leaving the house with Hyuka in human form alongside you is something new. While his animal side was a keen adventurer, as a human he was somewhat of a homebody. As someone who could change himself from man to animal, Hyuka didn’t own a single pair of shoes. You’d offered to buy him a pair in the beginning, but he’d refused. For one, he never planned on walking around outside of the house as a human, and, he’d pointed out, what was he to do with a pair of shoes once he’d shifted? Carry them around by his little cat mouth?

For the first time, you were witnessing his bare feet in the elements. The pine needles, broken twigs, stray stones and other natural materials that made up the forest floor didn’t seem to bother him the way it would your own feet. 

It was getting into the afternoon now, and the sun had made an appearance from behind the clouds. Hyuka was much easier to keep up with when he was a cat; his long human legs made for big strides, and while you struggle to keep the same pace, straggling only a few steps behind, you understand his haste. 

Fear creeps in as your mind wanders ahead. What if you were too late? You can feel the desperation in Hyuka, wanting to help even if it was just by being there for someone, even a stranger, in their final moments. You knew that if she was already gone, he’d be crushed. You would be crushed. Hoping against hope, you chant silent prayers in your mind that there is still time.

Hyuka turns to look over his shoulder at you as he dodges a stray branch that had already lost all of its leaves. For once, you can’t think of anything to say to him, so you give him a small reassuring smile which he returns, though you both know the other’s feelings like your own – there could be no hiding them. You both wanted to say something to comfort each other, and that knowledge was enough. 

The further you walk, the drier the surroundings grow, as if the place had been abandoned not only by people but by nature itself. Brambles catch on your clothes, dried needles crunch and snap underfoot, and the air somehow feels stale as your lungs breathe it in and push it out again. This was unfamiliar ground for you, and so different from the areas close to home you were used to.

“Almost there,” Hyuka announces as you pass the remnants of a broken down and weather worn horse cart.

Your heart squeezes with hope when you approach a clearing and a small cream coloured house with a faded roof comes into view. Sensing Hyuka’s pulse quicken, you attempt to slow your breathing and be strong for him – for the both of you. He was losing something that might have been too, but he was also seeing his fate first hand should anything take you from this world.

As the two of you draw nearer to the home, you can make out the figure laying still on the doorstep. The closer Hyuka advances, the more carefully he treads the dry woodland floor, so as not to startle the woman. A few paces from the step of the porch, he stops and calls out softly, “Hello.”

The woman’s weary eyes open, and or a moment she looks panicked, her body tensing, the expression of a scared animal wanting to flee crossing her features. But you can see she is too exhausted to make a move even if she wanted to run away. Your stomach pangs with the realisation that the woman is not far from death. To look at her, you can see how shallowly she breathes, as if each intake of oxygen is an effort. You wish with all your being that this was an ailment you could cure with magic, with some special brew, but there could be no righting her condition or her fate.

“It’s okay,” Hyuka assures her, his hands held out flat in what he hopes is a calming gesture. “We’re friends. Remember the black cat you spoke to?”

A wave of understanding and surrender rolls over her face and she physically relaxes. She must feel comforted by the fact that she is in the presence of her own kind – even as her eyes take you in, it looks as though she puts it together; a familiar and his magic user. You feel Hyuka relax slightly at her acceptance.

“What’s your name?” he asks.

The woman’s lips part, her tongue darting out to wet them before she speaks in a weak, hoarse voice. “Alita.”

“Alita,” you address her gently as you step wider out from Hyuka so she can see you in full. Her eyes are slow to drift over to you once more. “Where is your bonded one?”

Alita’s eyes fall closed as if recalling a nightmare. “She is gone.”

“What happened to her?” Hyuka asks. Carefully he steps forward onto the porch, and when Alita doesn’t look frightened by this, he kneels down by her side. You follow suit, crouching down next to your companion. Her eyes look broken as she looks up at the two of you, flitting between both pairs of eyes. There is a sadness there that you can only imagine. 

“They came in the night, the people of our village. Shouting and banging on the door, on the walls. So many men. A few women, but mostly men. They were angry – more rage and hate than I’ve ever seen in one person, multiplied many times over,” Her lips quivered as she found her next words. “They broke the door down and took her, my mistress. Dragged her from the house and into town, locked her up. She was locked up for days, and they wouldn’t say why. Then she was taken to the town hall. There were so many people there, even people we knew. People my mistress had helped. Everyone was shouting at her. They all looked at her like she was the most evil thing they’d ever laid eyes on. A trial, they called it.”

You watch as Alita shudders, a sign you recognise as the irreversible cold someone feels as they linger at death's door. Even if you had a blanket to give, she would not get warm. She would never be warm again.

“I’d name it a screaming match. They all shouted such terrible things, claimed my mistress had done things that just weren’t true. It went on for days.” Alita’s next inhale was so shaky and stuttered you thought she might’ve been choking until she spoke again. “They said they knew she was a witch. That part was true. It wouldn’t be tolerated, they said. So they took–” Her voice caught in her throat. Hyuka placed his hand comfortingly over hers which laid limp on the concrete of the porch. You could see the pain written all over her face, her eyes far away as she relived the whole ordeal, grief that she would never get to heal taking her over. “They took her away again, and they killed her. Slowly. I know because I could feel it.” 

She was looking at Hyuka now, and when you glance at him you see tears wet on his nose. You had never seen him cry. He always held it back on the rare occasion he got choked up. But in this moment, hearing this story, he couldn’t. “It’s been happening more and more in our town,” she continues. “We thought we’d be safe because we live just on the outskirts, close enough to visit but not really part of it. I thought we were safe because so many people appreciated my mistress's help. She always went to them when they asked for her.”

Feeling your own eyes prickle, you take a sidelong look at your familiar as he holds Alita’s hand. You imagine what it would be like if he were suddenly gone from you, from the world; to never again be able to look into his eyes and feel seen and understood; no longer feeling that connection, your bond severed, left feeling cold and untethered. A shiver threatens to take over as you consider your life without him, and you stifle a gasp as a pain throbs in your chest. Alita’s fingers weakly clench Hyuka’s hand as she sobs. You are so lucky, your thoughts remind you. Lucky he came into your life, lucky the two of you get along as well as you do, and that your bond is a strong one. Lucky not to be completely alone in the world and your little cottage. 

If you were to lose your life, Hyuka would soon follow after. But if Hyuka were to die, you'd go on, your life forever missing one integral piece. Other familiars might come, perhaps, but they wouldn't be Hyuka. Hyuka, with his superstitions about ravens, scowling at them through the window as if he might pounce through the glass even in his human form. Who always muttered in his sleep when he went to bed with a full stomach. Whose soft snoring you had come to be unable to sleep without hearing across the hall. The small black bundle of fur with glowing moon eyes he shifted to and fro, always making you laugh as he strayed from the path his human counterpart had told you he would take the minute he saw a butterfly; chasing them always seemed more important to the cat. You were sure you'd still see his phantom running around the house and garden for years to come if he were to be taken from you. All you can do is what you have always done; do your best to protect each other and hope that fate will be kind.

Alita turns Hyuka’s hand over and presses her palm into his with a weak squeeze, and Hyuka’s eyes are drawn to their touching hands with curiosity. Her hand slips away and he up-turns his palm to find a silver moon charm in a leather cord – the one he had lost. She meets his eyes with a slightly guilty look in hers. Her breathing is growing more ragged by the minute, her eyes losing more and more of their light, and you want to suggest that she save her strength, but you don’t want to deny her of her last interaction. 

“I’m sorry I took it,” she says a little breathlessly. “I slipped it off while petting you when first we met. I don’t know why…” You can see her body growing heavier against the concrete of the porch, hear her breathing more shallowly. “Maybe I just wanted something to hold onto. Something like… a friend…”

Suddenly her eyes go hollow, the breath draining from her chest. Hyuka just has time to draw back his hands before Alita’s body shifts one last time into her animal form – a grey dove. 

You take in a shaky breath, feeling so many emotions yet numb at the same time. Hyuka turns to you, his eyes wet, and presses his forehead to your shoulder. The two of you sit like that for a while, until you’re sure Alita’s spirit has passed on. Until you’re both ready to do what needs to be done. Then, you pick up the grey dove and follow Hyuka in silence to a nearby tree, the biggest one in the clearing. Using his hands, he scoops out enough dry earth to make a hole just big enough. You place the dove inside, then carefully bury her together, handful by handful. You place some stones to mark the spot, but don't dare to leave any likeness of a symbol of magic.

Standing side by side looking over the site, you grasp Hyuka's hand. The numbness has given way to questions and concerns, leading you to finally break the silence. “She said this has been happening a lot, and getting closer to the village,” you say in an almost whisper, as if the trees might overhear and spread your words. “Do you think… do you think we're safe?”

A brisk chill blew across the clearing, as if the very wind itself was relaying a warning. 

He meets your eyes and you find there a cloud of emotion and determination like you've never seen. When he replies, his voice is rough but firm. “We'll make sure of it. We'll lay low. At the first sign of trouble, we'll leave.” 

You nod solemnly. “I'll do everything in my power to protect you,” you say, as if it needs saying. 

“I know,” he replies in a gruff voice, and you feel your shared feelings of protectiveness intensify as his grip on your hand tightens.

As he takes a step forward, you fall into step beside him. He leads you out of the clearing, back through the forest, towards the village – towards home. Neither one of you lets go of the other's hand, both silent once more as you trek home in a flurry of emotions and anxieties, wondering what the future holds, and grateful to have each other. 

[mapofthemazeinthemirror]

i adore u

LIAAAA stop, I don’t know what I did to deserve this message?! I appreciate you so much. I’m actually in the middle of reading one of your works when I saw this!

[mapofthemazeinthemirror]

Thank you so much for your comments, this made my whole week! And thank you for reading!

Safe & Familiar - Huening Kai

Synopsis: When your familiar goes missing, you set out on a search, only to find danger is brewing (I’m no good at writing synopsis)

Warnings: death, grief, brief mention of imprisonment and someone being killed (slowly so maybe torture?), reader is a witch so themes of magic, eludes to the beginnings of some considerably dark historical events 

Author's note: Finally finished! A little ashamed to say this took three years when hardly anything happens in it, but life happens and other ideas come up, and my writing brain doesn't always want to co-operate. This is a story I was really excited about when I started it and couldn't wait for it to be done to be able to post it, so I hope it's a good read because I enjoyed writing it. I was halfway through writing this when I lost someone special, and I thought it wouldn't get finished for a lot longer due to that. Surprisingly, the grief spurred me to work on it and I ended up able to use my own feelings because it matched the character’s thoughts. If it feels a little bare-bones or disjointed, it's because I worked on it on and off over three years including when I had lost my writing mojo but just wanted to get it finished!

Word count: 4.7k

At the break of dawn, with the first light of day intruding through the windows of your room, you decide to give up on the idea of sleep. Proper rest has evaded you for weeks, slumber slipping from your grasp as soon as you seem to catch it. You feel ragged and rundown, drained and lackluster, and you know the cause.

Your magic has been weaker lately. You can feel it like a dwindling fire inside. Everything that should be easy is difficult, and all that was once difficult has become impossible. Not only are you half the witch you were, but you also feel like half the person you know yourself to be. Looking dazedly around the room, you try to calculate how long it’s been since it began. It began a few days past the last occurrence of the full moon. Was that a week ago? In your mind, you try to pry the blur of days apart, but since most of them have been much the same – lethargic and hazy – they seem unintelligible from one another.

All you could clearly and vividly remember was the day that ended with the full moon. Watching your familiar disappear past the front gate, tail flicking between the garden shrubs, and then gone. Then you'd begun preparing for your own full moon rituals. It had been the same as every month before. Except that your familiar had not returned come next morning, and had not returned since. Every full moon phase the cat would go, called to the natural world, to explore, to hunt, bathe in the moonlight, instincts leading it out into the forest, part wild animal. It'd never been away from you this long, always returning home by mid afternoon of the following day.

Pushing yourself up from the still cold mattress, you walk to the doorway of your room, from which you can see through the open door of the room opposite. Once again finding the bed inside empty, you breathe in a sigh. Despite your misguided hope, you had not expected to see anything otherwise. Exhaling deep and slow, you resign yourself to what you know; that something is not right, and that it's time for action.

Not bothering to eat, for you have no appetite, you wrap a shawl around yourself over the clothes you have not changed for days, and slip your feet into a pair of boots. With one last look around the strangely empty quarters, you step out into the brisk early morning air. 

The light of day is hidden behind a substantial layer of cloud, casting a grey gloom over the garden. At your feet are the tracks of your dear companion; little paw prints still sunken into the soft dirt of the path that leads from your door to the garden gate. Closing your eyes, you visualize the animal leaving that day, before you'd closed the door behind it. You focus on the feeling of the cat and the empathetic bond that you share, searching for the tether between you. 

There – you get your first instinct of where you should be headed, though vague and foggy, and step onto the middle path into the woods, trampling through layers of pine needle and shredded tree bark, scanning the landscape of rocks and trees. As you walk, you try to reach out through your bond, asking for a sign. The cold bites at your face, and you curse yourself for leaving it so long, for not gathering your remaining strength to search earlier. Your familiar knows its way around, never lost – you know that. If it had not returned home, it meant something was stopping it – something has certainly gone awry. Why have you not forced yourself into the forest sooner?

The wind in the trees makes it harder to listen out for movement, creating noise all around you. The chill of the breeze tries to distract you, make you focus on yourself, the feeling of the cold settling heavy into your face and limbs. A few times you almost stumble clumsily as you look around you and not at the placement of your steps. As you venture further and further still, pushing your weary body along even while it begs you to stop, you feel something; a faint presence not far away, though there is no living being in sight. Unconsciously, you pick up your pace, ignoring the exaggerated ache of your legs and feet, eyes straining and searching, until suddenly, you stop. Your eyelids close of their own accord.

In your mind you see yellow and orange leaves making the transition from green to red, different from the foliage of the trees around you that remained a deep green. You caught a fleeting scent of moist soil, as if it had flown by on the swiftest of breezes, shivering as the phantom sensation of cool water dripping down your neck tickles your skin. Water.

Without another thought, you instinctively turn in the direction you know there is a stream in a glade. You find yourself almost at a run now, your body despises you for it. As the evergreen trees around you thin, you see the yellow-orange leaves of the liquidambar trees ahead. You begin to feel another pain, a pain that is not your own. 

Approaching the stream, eyes trained on the plants around the bank, you see black shapes against the greenery. Shapes that, as you grow closer, focus into birds. Sleek black feathers and beady eyes – five of them. Your mother had always tried to teach you the symbolic meaning of the number of crows one came upon, but you can't remember now, for better or worse, which number meant death or misfortune or good luck. You shoo them away, making them clear out, screeching their loud piercing calls, a blur of feathers and a racket of strong flapping wings. Finally, as they fly off, you lay eyes on your closest friend, laying in the shrubbery. 

Your heart pulses as you take in your familiar's unkempt state. The cat's midnight black fur is damp in patches and ridden with leaves and twigs from the forest floor. The yellow of its eyes is less vibrant than usual, and less attentive of the scene around it. Not until you stepped closer, until the two of you made eye contact, did the animal's eyes seem to focus. Worst of all were the cuts and scratches to its face and body. Whipping your shawl from around you, you carefully scoop up the cat, eliciting a pained ‘orw’ from the poor creature. 

"Shh, we're going home," you soothe as you wrap your shawl around it. 

----

The house is warm and welcoming, and relief washes over you the moment you step inside. The cat is sleeping in your arms, having relaxed into you on your journey back, and you can sense how it has missed your presence, that it feels safe once more with you. You feel considerably more stable and capable yourself. 

Placing the sleeping bundle on the settee by the fire, you leave the room to fetch water and some cloth. The kitchen is in disarray, having had no strength or desire to see to any of your chores since the last full moon. Thankfully though, the bread you bought last week is still good, and you grab it on the way back. 

"Ah ah," you scold as you enter the room and find your familiar halfway off the settee. 

Dark eyes look up at you, the bloody cut across his nose shining in the firelight, your shawl falling over his shoulders, no longer big enough to keep him warm. "Sorry," he says quietly, bringing his foot back up off the floor. 

His wounds don't look as severe on his less tiny body, but they need to be cleaned nonetheless. You hand him the chunk of bread as you set the dish of water on the table and sit on the space of floor in front of him. You hear his stomach make itself known at the sight of food, catching his eye as he chuckles with a small smile. Oh, how you've missed that smile. 

Being home again is doing him good, giving him more strength and allowing him to shift. He would not have been able to shift to his human form at all while he was out there alone and injured, away from you and your magic. Your bond causes you to depend on one another, and though other magic users found this frustrating, you felt that it made the magic that you did use more meaningful. 

One hand clutches at the edge of the shawl and readjusts it around himself as he eats, eyes watching your fingers dip the cloth into the bowl. You should have brought a blanket, you realize, but then you feel the warmth of his skin as the hand you use to press the wet cloth to his arm comes in contact with, and decide the fire is enough. 

"You scared me, Hyuka."

His chewing stills as his eyes find yours; those big innocent eyes that let him get away with even more in his human form. You would be able to see every emotion of his in those eyes if you weren't able to feel them for yourself through the bond. 

"I didn't mean to be gone so long, o-or go so far. I lost track of time, and I was coming home but..." He trails off as he senses you aren't upset, your calmness washing over him. He sighs and leans back into the cushion of the settee tiredly. There's food in his belly, he's warm and cozy, taken care of, and most importantly, home. "I missed you."

Images play in your mind of when Hyuka had come into your life. You had begun to have dreams, more vivid each night until he arrived, of paw prints through your house. Then one morning you'd opened the door to a ball of midnight fur. He had been nervous about how you'd feel about him being a shifter, and shy when it came to revealing his human form, but he needn't have worried. He'd come to you just when you needed him and you grew alongside each other. Now you could not do without each other, magical bond or no. 

His hand moves to the back of his neck, a well-known habit of his. His eyes grow startled as he feels the absence of leather cord, his hand flying to his throat to confirm the loss. "My... my charm… Do you have it?"

"No," you answer. You'd been too worried about getting him home to notice his accessory was missing. 

"I must have lost it in the tousle… a wild cat picked a fight with me," He looked down at a scratch on his forearm as he spoke with a scowl, as if mentally cursing said animal. 

You knew the charm was important to him—it was special to you, too. It was a long running tradition amongst magic users to give their familiars a token of their bond. Not only as a symbol of the connection, but for other magic folk to determine familiars on sight, give them shelter or aid, accept or send messages, or follow them to their human counterpart if they were in need of help. "We can go and look for it. Maybe in a week, when we're both back to our best, hm?"

Hyuka agrees, his eyes back to their usual warmth and calmness. As you tend to his cuts and scratches, he watches the fire, his mind wandering back into the forest. He'd gone further than he'd ever been, and if it weren't for his cat form's senses, he probably would have been lost. 

"There was another familiar in the woods," he says suddenly, remembering more as the haze of hunger lifts and the warmth of home settles into his being. 

Hands stilling their work, your eyes lift to his face. You had lived in this area your whole life, born and raised and never left, and never met another magic kind—not one you weren't related to. "A familiar? Are you sure?" 

Hyuka nods, looking solemn. "I had walked a long way. I must have been halfway between our village and the next. I was about to turn back and make for home, but I spotted a house. It was abandoned, I think. But... there was a woman."

Sitting back on your heels, you listen intently, fingers worrying at the cloth in your hands subconsciously. "At an abandoned house? Was she a squatter?"

"She was using the shelter. She was weak. I could tell she'd been through an ordeal. She was like me. A shifter, I mean."

Blinking in this information, your mind begins to rush with possibilities. Has there been someone else with magic close by all this time? Just a walk through the forest? Could you have had a friend, someone to share everything with? To exchange notes about herbs and spend traditional holidays with? Just the thought of it made your chest squeeze with longing. You had Hyuka, of course, but a familiar was different; an extension of yourself, in essence.

“Was she separated from her witch?” you ask, intrigued. “Was she lost, like you?”

You feel his mood dip lower before he even formulates an answer. “No,” he answers, eyes blinking faster, the way you knew he always did when trying to keep his composure. He looks off again, remembering. “I’d never met another shifter before, you know. What they say is true; I could sense that she was one, and she sensed me too. She talked to me, told me I’m more lucky than I know to have a bond. She told me I should go home.“ You notice a longing in Hyuka, just as you had felt moments before, perhaps a little stronger now. “She told me her witch was dead. She knew it would be her turn soon.“

Moving on instinct, you get up from the floor, planting yourself on the settee beside him and clasping his hand in both of your own. “That's terrible.”

He looks at you again, with sorry eyes and a heavy heart. If only you could take it away for him. “I wanted to do something to comfort her, to be able to say something, but…”

“You couldn’t shift to your human form,” you finish. Hyuka nods. As ragged and tired as you are, the feelings of desperation and distress you feel, both your own and shared, outweigh everything else. “Do you think you could find your way back to that house?”

His eyes light up a fraction. “But you need to rest and–“

“We can't just let her die all alone out there.” You feel your frazzled nerves sparking as you speak, mentally preparing yourself and what little strength had returned since your reunion. “Someone should be with her. If you’re up to going back again.”

Hyuka stands faster than you can blink, almost knocking over the dish of water at his feet.

–---

 Leaving the house with Hyuka in human form alongside you is something new. While his animal side was a keen adventurer, as a human he was somewhat of a homebody. As someone who could change himself from man to animal, Hyuka didn’t own a single pair of shoes. You’d offered to buy him a pair in the beginning, but he’d refused. For one, he never planned on walking around outside of the house as a human, and, he’d pointed out, what was he to do with a pair of shoes once he’d shifted? Carry them around by his little cat mouth?

For the first time, you were witnessing his bare feet in the elements. The pine needles, broken twigs, stray stones and other natural materials that made up the forest floor didn’t seem to bother him the way it would your own feet. 

It was getting into the afternoon now, and the sun had made an appearance from behind the clouds. Hyuka was much easier to keep up with when he was a cat; his long human legs made for big strides, and while you struggle to keep the same pace, straggling only a few steps behind, you understand his haste. 

Fear creeps in as your mind wanders ahead. What if you were too late? You can feel the desperation in Hyuka, wanting to help even if it was just by being there for someone, even a stranger, in their final moments. You knew that if she was already gone, he’d be crushed. You would be crushed. Hoping against hope, you chant silent prayers in your mind that there is still time.

Hyuka turns to look over his shoulder at you as he dodges a stray branch that had already lost all of its leaves. For once, you can’t think of anything to say to him, so you give him a small reassuring smile which he returns, though you both know the other’s feelings like your own – there could be no hiding them. You both wanted to say something to comfort each other, and that knowledge was enough. 

The further you walk, the drier the surroundings grow, as if the place had been abandoned not only by people but by nature itself. Brambles catch on your clothes, dried needles crunch and snap underfoot, and the air somehow feels stale as your lungs breathe it in and push it out again. This was unfamiliar ground for you, and so different from the areas close to home you were used to.

“Almost there,” Hyuka announces as you pass the remnants of a broken down and weather worn horse cart.

Your heart squeezes with hope when you approach a clearing and a small cream coloured house with a faded roof comes into view. Sensing Hyuka’s pulse quicken, you attempt to slow your breathing and be strong for him – for the both of you. He was losing something that might have been too, but he was also seeing his fate first hand should anything take you from this world.

As the two of you draw nearer to the home, you can make out the figure laying still on the doorstep. The closer Hyuka advances, the more carefully he treads the dry woodland floor, so as not to startle the woman. A few paces from the step of the porch, he stops and calls out softly, “Hello.”

The woman’s weary eyes open, and or a moment she looks panicked, her body tensing, the expression of a scared animal wanting to flee crossing her features. But you can see she is too exhausted to make a move even if she wanted to run away. Your stomach pangs with the realisation that the woman is not far from death. To look at her, you can see how shallowly she breathes, as if each intake of oxygen is an effort. You wish with all your being that this was an ailment you could cure with magic, with some special brew, but there could be no righting her condition or her fate.

“It’s okay,” Hyuka assures her, his hands held out flat in what he hopes is a calming gesture. “We’re friends. Remember the black cat you spoke to?”

A wave of understanding and surrender rolls over her face and she physically relaxes. She must feel comforted by the fact that she is in the presence of her own kind – even as her eyes take you in, it looks as though she puts it together; a familiar and his magic user. You feel Hyuka relax slightly at her acceptance.

“What’s your name?” he asks.

The woman’s lips part, her tongue darting out to wet them before she speaks in a weak, hoarse voice. “Alita.”

“Alita,” you address her gently as you step wider out from Hyuka so she can see you in full. Her eyes are slow to drift over to you once more. “Where is your bonded one?”

Alita’s eyes fall closed as if recalling a nightmare. “She is gone.”

“What happened to her?” Hyuka asks. Carefully he steps forward onto the porch, and when Alita doesn’t look frightened by this, he kneels down by her side. You follow suit, crouching down next to your companion. Her eyes look broken as she looks up at the two of you, flitting between both pairs of eyes. There is a sadness there that you can only imagine. 

“They came in the night, the people of our village. Shouting and banging on the door, on the walls. So many men. A few women, but mostly men. They were angry – more rage and hate than I’ve ever seen in one person, multiplied many times over,” Her lips quivered as she found her next words. “They broke the door down and took her, my mistress. Dragged her from the house and into town, locked her up. She was locked up for days, and they wouldn’t say why. Then she was taken to the town hall. There were so many people there, even people we knew. People my mistress had helped. Everyone was shouting at her. They all looked at her like she was the most evil thing they’d ever laid eyes on. A trial, they called it.”

You watch as Alita shudders, a sign you recognise as the irreversible cold someone feels as they linger at death's door. Even if you had a blanket to give, she would not get warm. She would never be warm again.

“I’d name it a screaming match. They all shouted such terrible things, claimed my mistress had done things that just weren’t true. It went on for days.” Alita’s next inhale was so shaky and stuttered you thought she might’ve been choking until she spoke again. “They said they knew she was a witch. That part was true. It wouldn’t be tolerated, they said. So they took–” Her voice caught in her throat. Hyuka placed his hand comfortingly over hers which laid limp on the concrete of the porch. You could see the pain written all over her face, her eyes far away as she relived the whole ordeal, grief that she would never get to heal taking her over. “They took her away again, and they killed her. Slowly. I know because I could feel it.” 

She was looking at Hyuka now, and when you glance at him you see tears wet on his nose. You had never seen him cry. He always held it back on the rare occasion he got choked up. But in this moment, hearing this story, he couldn’t. “It’s been happening more and more in our town,” she continues. “We thought we’d be safe because we live just on the outskirts, close enough to visit but not really part of it. I thought we were safe because so many people appreciated my mistress's help. She always went to them when they asked for her.”

Feeling your own eyes prickle, you take a sidelong look at your familiar as he holds Alita’s hand. You imagine what it would be like if he were suddenly gone from you, from the world; to never again be able to look into his eyes and feel seen and understood; no longer feeling that connection, your bond severed, left feeling cold and untethered. A shiver threatens to take over as you consider your life without him, and you stifle a gasp as a pain throbs in your chest. Alita’s fingers weakly clench Hyuka’s hand as she sobs. You are so lucky, your thoughts remind you. Lucky he came into your life, lucky the two of you get along as well as you do, and that your bond is a strong one. Lucky not to be completely alone in the world and your little cottage. 

If you were to lose your life, Hyuka would soon follow after. But if Hyuka were to die, you'd go on, your life forever missing one integral piece. Other familiars might come, perhaps, but they wouldn't be Hyuka. Hyuka, with his superstitions about ravens, scowling at them through the window as if he might pounce through the glass even in his human form. Who always muttered in his sleep when he went to bed with a full stomach. Whose soft snoring you had come to be unable to sleep without hearing across the hall. The small black bundle of fur with glowing moon eyes he shifted to and fro, always making you laugh as he strayed from the path his human counterpart had told you he would take the minute he saw a butterfly; chasing them always seemed more important to the cat. You were sure you'd still see his phantom running around the house and garden for years to come if he were to be taken from you. All you can do is what you have always done; do your best to protect each other and hope that fate will be kind.

Alita turns Hyuka’s hand over and presses her palm into his with a weak squeeze, and Hyuka’s eyes are drawn to their touching hands with curiosity. Her hand slips away and he up-turns his palm to find a silver moon charm in a leather cord – the one he had lost. She meets his eyes with a slightly guilty look in hers. Her breathing is growing more ragged by the minute, her eyes losing more and more of their light, and you want to suggest that she save her strength, but you don’t want to deny her of her last interaction. 

“I’m sorry I took it,” she says a little breathlessly. “I slipped it off while petting you when first we met. I don’t know why…” You can see her body growing heavier against the concrete of the porch, hear her breathing more shallowly. “Maybe I just wanted something to hold onto. Something like… a friend…”

Suddenly her eyes go hollow, the breath draining from her chest. Hyuka just has time to draw back his hands before Alita’s body shifts one last time into her animal form – a grey dove. 

You take in a shaky breath, feeling so many emotions yet numb at the same time. Hyuka turns to you, his eyes wet, and presses his forehead to your shoulder. The two of you sit like that for a while, until you’re sure Alita’s spirit has passed on. Until you’re both ready to do what needs to be done. Then, you pick up the grey dove and follow Hyuka in silence to a nearby tree, the biggest one in the clearing. Using his hands, he scoops out enough dry earth to make a hole just big enough. You place the dove inside, then carefully bury her together, handful by handful. You place some stones to mark the spot, but don't dare to leave any likeness of a symbol of magic.

Standing side by side looking over the site, you grasp Hyuka's hand. The numbness has given way to questions and concerns, leading you to finally break the silence. “She said this has been happening a lot, and getting closer to the village,” you say in an almost whisper, as if the trees might overhear and spread your words. “Do you think… do you think we're safe?”

A brisk chill blew across the clearing, as if the very wind itself was relaying a warning. 

He meets your eyes and you find there a cloud of emotion and determination like you've never seen. When he replies, his voice is rough but firm. “We'll make sure of it. We'll lay low. At the first sign of trouble, we'll leave.” 

You nod solemnly. “I'll do everything in my power to protect you,” you say, as if it needs saying. 

“I know,” he replies in a gruff voice, and you feel your shared feelings of protectiveness intensify as his grip on your hand tightens.

As he takes a step forward, you fall into step beside him. He leads you out of the clearing, back through the forest, towards the village – towards home. Neither one of you lets go of the other's hand, both silent once more as you trek home in a flurry of emotions and anxieties, wondering what the future holds, and grateful to have each other. 

[mapofthemazeinthemirror]

Safe & Familiar - Huening Kai

Synopsis: When your familiar goes missing, you set out on a search, only to find danger is brewing (I’m no good at writing synopsis)

Warnings: death, grief, brief mention of imprisonment and someone being killed (slowly so maybe torture?), reader is a witch so themes of magic, eludes to the beginnings of some considerably dark historical events 

Author's note: Finally finished! A little ashamed to say this took three years when hardly anything happens in it, but life happens and other ideas come up, and my writing brain doesn't always want to co-operate. This is a story I was really excited about when I started it and couldn't wait for it to be done to be able to post it, so I hope it's a good read because I enjoyed writing it. I was halfway through writing this when I lost someone special, and I thought it wouldn't get finished for a lot longer due to that. Surprisingly, the grief spurred me to work on it and I ended up able to use my own feelings because it matched the character’s thoughts. If it feels a little bare-bones or disjointed, it's because I worked on it on and off over three years including when I had lost my writing mojo but just wanted to get it finished!

Word count: 4.7k

At the break of dawn, with the first light of day intruding through the windows of your room, you decide to give up on the idea of sleep. Proper rest has evaded you for weeks, slumber slipping from your grasp as soon as you seem to catch it. You feel ragged and rundown, drained and lackluster, and you know the cause.

Your magic has been weaker lately. You can feel it like a dwindling fire inside. Everything that should be easy is difficult, and all that was once difficult has become impossible. Not only are you half the witch you were, but you also feel like half the person you know yourself to be. Looking dazedly around the room, you try to calculate how long it’s been since it began. It began a few days past the last occurrence of the full moon. Was that a week ago? In your mind, you try to pry the blur of days apart, but since most of them have been much the same – lethargic and hazy – they seem unintelligible from one another.

All you could clearly and vividly remember was the day that ended with the full moon. Watching your familiar disappear past the front gate, tail flicking between the garden shrubs, and then gone. Then you'd begun preparing for your own full moon rituals. It had been the same as every month before. Except that your familiar had not returned come next morning, and had not returned since. Every full moon phase the cat would go, called to the natural world, to explore, to hunt, bathe in the moonlight, instincts leading it out into the forest, part wild animal. It'd never been away from you this long, always returning home by mid afternoon of the following day.

Pushing yourself up from the still cold mattress, you walk to the doorway of your room, from which you can see through the open door of the room opposite. Once again finding the bed inside empty, you breathe in a sigh. Despite your misguided hope, you had not expected to see anything otherwise. Exhaling deep and slow, you resign yourself to what you know; that something is not right, and that it's time for action.

Not bothering to eat, for you have no appetite, you wrap a shawl around yourself over the clothes you have not changed for days, and slip your feet into a pair of boots. With one last look around the strangely empty quarters, you step out into the brisk early morning air. 

The light of day is hidden behind a substantial layer of cloud, casting a grey gloom over the garden. At your feet are the tracks of your dear companion; little paw prints still sunken into the soft dirt of the path that leads from your door to the garden gate. Closing your eyes, you visualize the animal leaving that day, before you'd closed the door behind it. You focus on the feeling of the cat and the empathetic bond that you share, searching for the tether between you. 

There – you get your first instinct of where you should be headed, though vague and foggy, and step onto the middle path into the woods, trampling through layers of pine needle and shredded tree bark, scanning the landscape of rocks and trees. As you walk, you try to reach out through your bond, asking for a sign. The cold bites at your face, and you curse yourself for leaving it so long, for not gathering your remaining strength to search earlier. Your familiar knows its way around, never lost – you know that. If it had not returned home, it meant something was stopping it – something has certainly gone awry. Why have you not forced yourself into the forest sooner?

The wind in the trees makes it harder to listen out for movement, creating noise all around you. The chill of the breeze tries to distract you, make you focus on yourself, the feeling of the cold settling heavy into your face and limbs. A few times you almost stumble clumsily as you look around you and not at the placement of your steps. As you venture further and further still, pushing your weary body along even while it begs you to stop, you feel something; a faint presence not far away, though there is no living being in sight. Unconsciously, you pick up your pace, ignoring the exaggerated ache of your legs and feet, eyes straining and searching, until suddenly, you stop. Your eyelids close of their own accord.

In your mind you see yellow and orange leaves making the transition from green to red, different from the foliage of the trees around you that remained a deep green. You caught a fleeting scent of moist soil, as if it had flown by on the swiftest of breezes, shivering as the phantom sensation of cool water dripping down your neck tickles your skin. Water.

Without another thought, you instinctively turn in the direction you know there is a stream in a glade. You find yourself almost at a run now, your body despises you for it. As the evergreen trees around you thin, you see the yellow-orange leaves of the liquidambar trees ahead. You begin to feel another pain, a pain that is not your own. 

Approaching the stream, eyes trained on the plants around the bank, you see black shapes against the greenery. Shapes that, as you grow closer, focus into birds. Sleek black feathers and beady eyes – five of them. Your mother had always tried to teach you the symbolic meaning of the number of crows one came upon, but you can't remember now, for better or worse, which number meant death or misfortune or good luck. You shoo them away, making them clear out, screeching their loud piercing calls, a blur of feathers and a racket of strong flapping wings. Finally, as they fly off, you lay eyes on your closest friend, laying in the shrubbery. 

Your heart pulses as you take in your familiar's unkempt state. The cat's midnight black fur is damp in patches and ridden with leaves and twigs from the forest floor. The yellow of its eyes is less vibrant than usual, and less attentive of the scene around it. Not until you stepped closer, until the two of you made eye contact, did the animal's eyes seem to focus. Worst of all were the cuts and scratches to its face and body. Whipping your shawl from around you, you carefully scoop up the cat, eliciting a pained ‘orw’ from the poor creature. 

"Shh, we're going home," you soothe as you wrap your shawl around it. 

----

The house is warm and welcoming, and relief washes over you the moment you step inside. The cat is sleeping in your arms, having relaxed into you on your journey back, and you can sense how it has missed your presence, that it feels safe once more with you. You feel considerably more stable and capable yourself. 

Placing the sleeping bundle on the settee by the fire, you leave the room to fetch water and some cloth. The kitchen is in disarray, having had no strength or desire to see to any of your chores since the last full moon. Thankfully though, the bread you bought last week is still good, and you grab it on the way back. 

"Ah ah," you scold as you enter the room and find your familiar halfway off the settee. 

Dark eyes look up at you, the bloody cut across his nose shining in the firelight, your shawl falling over his shoulders, no longer big enough to keep him warm. "Sorry," he says quietly, bringing his foot back up off the floor. 

His wounds don't look as severe on his less tiny body, but they need to be cleaned nonetheless. You hand him the chunk of bread as you set the dish of water on the table and sit on the space of floor in front of him. You hear his stomach make itself known at the sight of food, catching his eye as he chuckles with a small smile. Oh, how you've missed that smile. 

Being home again is doing him good, giving him more strength and allowing him to shift. He would not have been able to shift to his human form at all while he was out there alone and injured, away from you and your magic. Your bond causes you to depend on one another, and though other magic users found this frustrating, you felt that it made the magic that you did use more meaningful. 

One hand clutches at the edge of the shawl and readjusts it around himself as he eats, eyes watching your fingers dip the cloth into the bowl. You should have brought a blanket, you realize, but then you feel the warmth of his skin as the hand you use to press the wet cloth to his arm comes in contact with, and decide the fire is enough. 

"You scared me, Hyuka."

His chewing stills as his eyes find yours; those big innocent eyes that let him get away with even more in his human form. You would be able to see every emotion of his in those eyes if you weren't able to feel them for yourself through the bond. 

"I didn't mean to be gone so long, o-or go so far. I lost track of time, and I was coming home but..." He trails off as he senses you aren't upset, your calmness washing over him. He sighs and leans back into the cushion of the settee tiredly. There's food in his belly, he's warm and cozy, taken care of, and most importantly, home. "I missed you."

Images play in your mind of when Hyuka had come into your life. You had begun to have dreams, more vivid each night until he arrived, of paw prints through your house. Then one morning you'd opened the door to a ball of midnight fur. He had been nervous about how you'd feel about him being a shifter, and shy when it came to revealing his human form, but he needn't have worried. He'd come to you just when you needed him and you grew alongside each other. Now you could not do without each other, magical bond or no. 

His hand moves to the back of his neck, a well-known habit of his. His eyes grow startled as he feels the absence of leather cord, his hand flying to his throat to confirm the loss. "My... my charm… Do you have it?"

"No," you answer. You'd been too worried about getting him home to notice his accessory was missing. 

"I must have lost it in the tousle… a wild cat picked a fight with me," He looked down at a scratch on his forearm as he spoke with a scowl, as if mentally cursing said animal. 

You knew the charm was important to him—it was special to you, too. It was a long running tradition amongst magic users to give their familiars a token of their bond. Not only as a symbol of the connection, but for other magic folk to determine familiars on sight, give them shelter or aid, accept or send messages, or follow them to their human counterpart if they were in need of help. "We can go and look for it. Maybe in a week, when we're both back to our best, hm?"

Hyuka agrees, his eyes back to their usual warmth and calmness. As you tend to his cuts and scratches, he watches the fire, his mind wandering back into the forest. He'd gone further than he'd ever been, and if it weren't for his cat form's senses, he probably would have been lost. 

"There was another familiar in the woods," he says suddenly, remembering more as the haze of hunger lifts and the warmth of home settles into his being. 

Hands stilling their work, your eyes lift to his face. You had lived in this area your whole life, born and raised and never left, and never met another magic kind—not one you weren't related to. "A familiar? Are you sure?" 

Hyuka nods, looking solemn. "I had walked a long way. I must have been halfway between our village and the next. I was about to turn back and make for home, but I spotted a house. It was abandoned, I think. But... there was a woman."

Sitting back on your heels, you listen intently, fingers worrying at the cloth in your hands subconsciously. "At an abandoned house? Was she a squatter?"

"She was using the shelter. She was weak. I could tell she'd been through an ordeal. She was like me. A shifter, I mean."

Blinking in this information, your mind begins to rush with possibilities. Has there been someone else with magic close by all this time? Just a walk through the forest? Could you have had a friend, someone to share everything with? To exchange notes about herbs and spend traditional holidays with? Just the thought of it made your chest squeeze with longing. You had Hyuka, of course, but a familiar was different; an extension of yourself, in essence.

“Was she separated from her witch?” you ask, intrigued. “Was she lost, like you?”

You feel his mood dip lower before he even formulates an answer. “No,” he answers, eyes blinking faster, the way you knew he always did when trying to keep his composure. He looks off again, remembering. “I’d never met another shifter before, you know. What they say is true; I could sense that she was one, and she sensed me too. She talked to me, told me I’m more lucky than I know to have a bond. She told me I should go home.“ You notice a longing in Hyuka, just as you had felt moments before, perhaps a little stronger now. “She told me her witch was dead. She knew it would be her turn soon.“

Moving on instinct, you get up from the floor, planting yourself on the settee beside him and clasping his hand in both of your own. “That's terrible.”

He looks at you again, with sorry eyes and a heavy heart. If only you could take it away for him. “I wanted to do something to comfort her, to be able to say something, but…”

“You couldn’t shift to your human form,” you finish. Hyuka nods. As ragged and tired as you are, the feelings of desperation and distress you feel, both your own and shared, outweigh everything else. “Do you think you could find your way back to that house?”

His eyes light up a fraction. “But you need to rest and–“

“We can't just let her die all alone out there.” You feel your frazzled nerves sparking as you speak, mentally preparing yourself and what little strength had returned since your reunion. “Someone should be with her. If you’re up to going back again.”

Hyuka stands faster than you can blink, almost knocking over the dish of water at his feet.

–---

 Leaving the house with Hyuka in human form alongside you is something new. While his animal side was a keen adventurer, as a human he was somewhat of a homebody. As someone who could change himself from man to animal, Hyuka didn’t own a single pair of shoes. You’d offered to buy him a pair in the beginning, but he’d refused. For one, he never planned on walking around outside of the house as a human, and, he’d pointed out, what was he to do with a pair of shoes once he’d shifted? Carry them around by his little cat mouth?

For the first time, you were witnessing his bare feet in the elements. The pine needles, broken twigs, stray stones and other natural materials that made up the forest floor didn’t seem to bother him the way it would your own feet. 

It was getting into the afternoon now, and the sun had made an appearance from behind the clouds. Hyuka was much easier to keep up with when he was a cat; his long human legs made for big strides, and while you struggle to keep the same pace, straggling only a few steps behind, you understand his haste. 

Fear creeps in as your mind wanders ahead. What if you were too late? You can feel the desperation in Hyuka, wanting to help even if it was just by being there for someone, even a stranger, in their final moments. You knew that if she was already gone, he’d be crushed. You would be crushed. Hoping against hope, you chant silent prayers in your mind that there is still time.

Hyuka turns to look over his shoulder at you as he dodges a stray branch that had already lost all of its leaves. For once, you can’t think of anything to say to him, so you give him a small reassuring smile which he returns, though you both know the other’s feelings like your own – there could be no hiding them. You both wanted to say something to comfort each other, and that knowledge was enough. 

The further you walk, the drier the surroundings grow, as if the place had been abandoned not only by people but by nature itself. Brambles catch on your clothes, dried needles crunch and snap underfoot, and the air somehow feels stale as your lungs breathe it in and push it out again. This was unfamiliar ground for you, and so different from the areas close to home you were used to.

“Almost there,” Hyuka announces as you pass the remnants of a broken down and weather worn horse cart.

Your heart squeezes with hope when you approach a clearing and a small cream coloured house with a faded roof comes into view. Sensing Hyuka’s pulse quicken, you attempt to slow your breathing and be strong for him – for the both of you. He was losing something that might have been too, but he was also seeing his fate first hand should anything take you from this world.

As the two of you draw nearer to the home, you can make out the figure laying still on the doorstep. The closer Hyuka advances, the more carefully he treads the dry woodland floor, so as not to startle the woman. A few paces from the step of the porch, he stops and calls out softly, “Hello.”

The woman’s weary eyes open, and or a moment she looks panicked, her body tensing, the expression of a scared animal wanting to flee crossing her features. But you can see she is too exhausted to make a move even if she wanted to run away. Your stomach pangs with the realisation that the woman is not far from death. To look at her, you can see how shallowly she breathes, as if each intake of oxygen is an effort. You wish with all your being that this was an ailment you could cure with magic, with some special brew, but there could be no righting her condition or her fate.

“It’s okay,” Hyuka assures her, his hands held out flat in what he hopes is a calming gesture. “We’re friends. Remember the black cat you spoke to?”

A wave of understanding and surrender rolls over her face and she physically relaxes. She must feel comforted by the fact that she is in the presence of her own kind – even as her eyes take you in, it looks as though she puts it together; a familiar and his magic user. You feel Hyuka relax slightly at her acceptance.

“What’s your name?” he asks.

The woman’s lips part, her tongue darting out to wet them before she speaks in a weak, hoarse voice. “Alita.”

“Alita,” you address her gently as you step wider out from Hyuka so she can see you in full. Her eyes are slow to drift over to you once more. “Where is your bonded one?”

Alita’s eyes fall closed as if recalling a nightmare. “She is gone.”

“What happened to her?” Hyuka asks. Carefully he steps forward onto the porch, and when Alita doesn’t look frightened by this, he kneels down by her side. You follow suit, crouching down next to your companion. Her eyes look broken as she looks up at the two of you, flitting between both pairs of eyes. There is a sadness there that you can only imagine. 

“They came in the night, the people of our village. Shouting and banging on the door, on the walls. So many men. A few women, but mostly men. They were angry – more rage and hate than I’ve ever seen in one person, multiplied many times over,” Her lips quivered as she found her next words. “They broke the door down and took her, my mistress. Dragged her from the house and into town, locked her up. She was locked up for days, and they wouldn’t say why. Then she was taken to the town hall. There were so many people there, even people we knew. People my mistress had helped. Everyone was shouting at her. They all looked at her like she was the most evil thing they’d ever laid eyes on. A trial, they called it.”

You watch as Alita shudders, a sign you recognise as the irreversible cold someone feels as they linger at death's door. Even if you had a blanket to give, she would not get warm. She would never be warm again.

“I’d name it a screaming match. They all shouted such terrible things, claimed my mistress had done things that just weren’t true. It went on for days.” Alita’s next inhale was so shaky and stuttered you thought she might’ve been choking until she spoke again. “They said they knew she was a witch. That part was true. It wouldn’t be tolerated, they said. So they took–” Her voice caught in her throat. Hyuka placed his hand comfortingly over hers which laid limp on the concrete of the porch. You could see the pain written all over her face, her eyes far away as she relived the whole ordeal, grief that she would never get to heal taking her over. “They took her away again, and they killed her. Slowly. I know because I could feel it.” 

She was looking at Hyuka now, and when you glance at him you see tears wet on his nose. You had never seen him cry. He always held it back on the rare occasion he got choked up. But in this moment, hearing this story, he couldn’t. “It’s been happening more and more in our town,” she continues. “We thought we’d be safe because we live just on the outskirts, close enough to visit but not really part of it. I thought we were safe because so many people appreciated my mistress's help. She always went to them when they asked for her.”

Feeling your own eyes prickle, you take a sidelong look at your familiar as he holds Alita’s hand. You imagine what it would be like if he were suddenly gone from you, from the world; to never again be able to look into his eyes and feel seen and understood; no longer feeling that connection, your bond severed, left feeling cold and untethered. A shiver threatens to take over as you consider your life without him, and you stifle a gasp as a pain throbs in your chest. Alita’s fingers weakly clench Hyuka’s hand as she sobs. You are so lucky, your thoughts remind you. Lucky he came into your life, lucky the two of you get along as well as you do, and that your bond is a strong one. Lucky not to be completely alone in the world and your little cottage. 

If you were to lose your life, Hyuka would soon follow after. But if Hyuka were to die, you'd go on, your life forever missing one integral piece. Other familiars might come, perhaps, but they wouldn't be Hyuka. Hyuka, with his superstitions about ravens, scowling at them through the window as if he might pounce through the glass even in his human form. Who always muttered in his sleep when he went to bed with a full stomach. Whose soft snoring you had come to be unable to sleep without hearing across the hall. The small black bundle of fur with glowing moon eyes he shifted to and fro, always making you laugh as he strayed from the path his human counterpart had told you he would take the minute he saw a butterfly; chasing them always seemed more important to the cat. You were sure you'd still see his phantom running around the house and garden for years to come if he were to be taken from you. All you can do is what you have always done; do your best to protect each other and hope that fate will be kind.

Alita turns Hyuka’s hand over and presses her palm into his with a weak squeeze, and Hyuka’s eyes are drawn to their touching hands with curiosity. Her hand slips away and he up-turns his palm to find a silver moon charm in a leather cord – the one he had lost. She meets his eyes with a slightly guilty look in hers. Her breathing is growing more ragged by the minute, her eyes losing more and more of their light, and you want to suggest that she save her strength, but you don’t want to deny her of her last interaction. 

“I’m sorry I took it,” she says a little breathlessly. “I slipped it off while petting you when first we met. I don’t know why…” You can see her body growing heavier against the concrete of the porch, hear her breathing more shallowly. “Maybe I just wanted something to hold onto. Something like… a friend…”

Suddenly her eyes go hollow, the breath draining from her chest. Hyuka just has time to draw back his hands before Alita’s body shifts one last time into her animal form – a grey dove. 

You take in a shaky breath, feeling so many emotions yet numb at the same time. Hyuka turns to you, his eyes wet, and presses his forehead to your shoulder. The two of you sit like that for a while, until you’re sure Alita’s spirit has passed on. Until you’re both ready to do what needs to be done. Then, you pick up the grey dove and follow Hyuka in silence to a nearby tree, the biggest one in the clearing. Using his hands, he scoops out enough dry earth to make a hole just big enough. You place the dove inside, then carefully bury her together, handful by handful. You place some stones to mark the spot, but don't dare to leave any likeness of a symbol of magic.

Standing side by side looking over the site, you grasp Hyuka's hand. The numbness has given way to questions and concerns, leading you to finally break the silence. “She said this has been happening a lot, and getting closer to the village,” you say in an almost whisper, as if the trees might overhear and spread your words. “Do you think… do you think we're safe?”

A brisk chill blew across the clearing, as if the very wind itself was relaying a warning. 

He meets your eyes and you find there a cloud of emotion and determination like you've never seen. When he replies, his voice is rough but firm. “We'll make sure of it. We'll lay low. At the first sign of trouble, we'll leave.” 

You nod solemnly. “I'll do everything in my power to protect you,” you say, as if it needs saying. 

“I know,” he replies in a gruff voice, and you feel your shared feelings of protectiveness intensify as his grip on your hand tightens.

As he takes a step forward, you fall into step beside him. He leads you out of the clearing, back through the forest, towards the village – towards home. Neither one of you lets go of the other's hand, both silent once more as you trek home in a flurry of emotions and anxieties, wondering what the future holds, and grateful to have each other. 

[mapofthemazeinthemirror]

Wolf hound hybrid Soobin who is supposed to be in training. He knows he's supposed to act all tough and scare off the bunny hybrid in front of him, make a good show. That's what they want from him.

But he looks at you and he can't help but feel... what is that? Protectiveness? Awe? Something definitely opposite of his natural instincts, surely, and something that could lose him this job. Yet he can't even entertain the thought of acting in such a way toward you. You're just sitting there, innocently preening and minding your own business. You're naive to the fact that anyone owns the ground under your feet, and you're certainly not malicious.

So he does the very last thing he should do; he emerges carefully from the tree line he was hidden in, makes a show of peace when your wide cautious eyes take him in. When you remain in your spot, seemingly trusting of him, he approaches, sitting beside you in the grass dotted with flowers, eventually curling up at your side and almost drifting off in the warm sun as he watches you comb your fingers through your hair diligently.

He was never very good at his job, anyway.

[mapofthemazeinthemirror]

Short but delicious! Concept so good, feels tragic but sweet at the same time? As soon as he dropped the nickname until the end I was kicking my feet on the inside 🤭 cosy and atmospheric?! the pictures you used really set the mood for me

˖ * ﾟ｡ʚɞ ˚⋅ my purpose is you

ʚɞ water fairy!yeonjun x human female!reader

ʚɞ he knows he’s the reason for your sleepless nights. he knows he’s causing you pain with destroying your garden, but he finds it difficult to stop. determined with love, water fairy yeonjun tries his hardest to make you look his way.

ʚɞ cw: sfw but yandere-esk yj, heavy rainfall that lead to flooding, mentions of death.. um it’s not really edited but i hope you enjoy

ʚɞ part of the fairy chapter: txt event pls check out other works in this event here

ʚɞ wc: 1.2k

rustling leaves right outside of the garden is all you heard right before the down pour of rain. not an ounce of gray clouds in the sky a few minutes prior, yet the amount of rain that began to land on you was extraordinary.

sighing from the window as you dry off your clothes as much as you could, you knew that perfectly growing batch of strawberries met their demise within seconds. it hurt your soul, but what more could you do but wait for the rain to pass?

you placed your wet clothes to the side while you got changed into a fresh set of laundry. it was when you pulled your shirt over your head when you noticed all the lights in the cottage go out.

great.. even the electricity is done for.

did you really understand why you were so unlucky that day? no, but you didn’t let it ruin your much needed nights rest.

except not even a week later, the same sequence happens again.

the crunch of sticks nearby followed by the vast change in weather and then another portion of your garden ruined. the cycle repeats week after week and by the fourth time, you’ve given up on your garden altogether.

it was difficult to find produce for a reasonable price at the market, but with the weird weather, you had no other choice.

“see anything you like?” a man your age looks at you while you browse his fresh vegetable selection at the saturday market that’s further in town.

you laugh softly as you grab a couple of everything, “how did you find an area to grow everything? my garden has been in shambles for the past month or two. down pour every single week.”

“what a shame…” is all he answers with, watching your hands with a sort of care that only loved ones give. “a beauty like you shouldn’t have to worry so much about getting her hands dirty, you know.”

“i like to break traditional norms,” you smile and hand him the basket full of a variety of vegetables to last a good two weeks.

the man glances at the basket and gives you a fond grin, “on the house, beautiful.”

the next couple of weeks were even more torture as you begin to experience heavy rainfall. what bites the dust is the fact that none of neighbors have had rain for a while.

then again they do live a couple of miles away from you.

“oh, it’s you.” the man from the market rolls his cart towards your door, feet sticking to the mud of the road. “didn’t think anyone lived this far.”

“yeah, well… i quite like how lonely it is down here,” you laugh, glancing at the delicious fruit he had rolling around. “headed to another market?”

“i’m headed home actually, but if you’d like some berries, feel free to grab a basket full.”

you don’t hesitate— grabbing as many fresh blueberries and strawberries to last you a good while. taking a bite out of one makes your tastebuds explodes, and you nearly moan from how delicious the berry is.

“delicious aren’t they?” the man gives you a small grin.

“very… not too sweet, but not too tart either,” smiles you, having another bite of the fruit. “thank you so much, umm…”

“yeonjun. you can call me yeonjun,” he offers his hand, to which you happily take, shaking it eagerly.

“thank you so much, yeonjun.”

every day since then you see yeonjun pass by your cottage at the same exact time, from the same place and to his home, as usual. seeing him everyday feels like a routine and slowly, but surely you begin to enjoy his presence.

he never stops by for too long, leaving the talk short and sweet. yet somehow he always tends to miss the rain that falls upon your home.

after a week of nightly rains, you complain to him.

“i just don’t understand how my house, out of everyone’s here, is the only one getting rain at night,” you sigh, opening the door for him in case he’d like to come inside.

usually he’d decline, but interested in your story he makes his way to the couch, “no one nearby gets rain?”

“no!” you sigh, pouring him some tea from the plants you managed to grow inside the cottage. “they don’t see or hear anything, yet it gets so flooded outside that i have to wait hours just to leave out the front door.”

yeonjun’s face is unreadable, or well, indescribable. it was like a mix of surprise, knowing, guilt, and desire. something that you overlooked from being a bit confused.

he takes a sip of your tea. “have you had this problem before?”

you shake your head, pouring a mug for yourself this time, “and it’s always the same cycle, too. i’d say bye to you and then head to my backyard to hopefully find a dry spot of land. but then i get distracted by a sound in the forest, and then boom! it’s raining. it’s almost as if a fairy is controlling the weather.”

you begin to laugh, thinking yeonjun would be in on the joke, but all he does is sit there and stare out the window that overlooks your ruined garden.

“i’m sorry,” he looks at you with a hint of sorrow. “i couldn’t help it, my love. you’re just too irresistible.”

the stare you gave him, not only for the nickname, but also for his apology, has yeonjun getting onto his knees.

“please,” yeonjun begs you. “i-i did everything. i ruined your garden. i made it rain so much. i needed you to need me the way i need you.”

“i.. i don’t understand,” you let out a small chuckle from confusion. “what do you mean you did everything?”

“i’m a fairy,” he whispers, as if it’s a secret that should have been with him until he died. “i noticed you stopped coming to the market one day months ago. i looked forward to your beautiful face amongst the crowd and so i followed you home.”

sucking in a breath, you stand up from your seat, ready to kick this man out of your home.

“wait! i-i.. i fully intended on knocking but then i saw you tending to your garden and i got jealous. how could you? how could you spend more time with stupid strawberries than coming to see me? don’t you understand how much i love you?” he cries, nearly yelling towards the end of his explanation.

“i don’t owe you anything, yeonjun. please leave,” you whisper with dread. it hurt to kick your new friend out of your home like this. but his behavior made you uncomfortable. it made you sick.

“no!” he yells and stands up to cup your cheeks. “l-love me. love me, please. you’re everything to me. i’ll even make it up to you, please! fairies have a purpose in this world, and i can’t go back to controlling the rain or oceans. i need my purpose to be you.”

ʚɞ hellooooo i’m kinda sorta back to writing :) have had a busy schedule for a good while but i’m motivated now to write and continue fics i’m proud of and would love to finish <33

[mapofthemazeinthemirror]

UPSIDE DOWN KISS??? WHAT?. HELLLO?.?..PARDON

[mapofthemazeinthemirror]

I just watched the Together concept trailer and damn I wish they would make a short film because I need more!

[mapofthemazeinthemirror]

YOONGIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII 😭😭

finally💜 thank you everyone for keeping up with my cryings - i will keep continue

[mapofthemazeinthemirror]

I need him ABYSMALLY like it’s not even funny at this point

[mapofthemazeinthemirror]

Boyfriend or best friend txt who watch a movie with you and notice you like the bad guys, becomes determined to prove he can be a bad boy