#I'M RIDICULOUSLY INVESTED IN THIS PIKELAN 6000 YEAR SLOWBURN

[words-writ-in-starlight]

torture buddies AU if you’re in the mood for it! if not, how about Good Omens AU of Vox Machina?

On the one hand, I’m always in the mood to Angst about my boys, but THIS ALTERNATIVE IS TOO GOOD TO TURN DOWN.  This is not really in the correct format but I REALLY fucking like this concept.  Pitch: Scanlan hits on Pike for literally six THOUSAND years and is still totally useless when she kisses him.

“So,” the snake said, smiling at the woman in the Garden.  Well, not smiling exactly, it was difficult to smile as a snake, but he was reliable informed that he was reasonably charismatic even as a reptile. He was a handsome snake, too, as snakes went, ink-black down his spine and red down his belly, with unusual eyes in a striking shade of slit-pupiled purple, and more than that he was convincing. He’d already convinced the woman all the way over to the Tree, where he was draped comfortably over the branches, and now he felt that the Tree could do most of the convincing itself.  He liked the woman, liked most of what he’d seen of humans so far, and he especially liked that they didn’t seem to have much in the way of impulse control when it came to things that looked delicious.  It made his job easy.  “It’s just an apple,” the snake said, with a slow blink of purple eyes.  “What’s the harm?”

The Angel of the Eastern Gate, newly assigned thus, recently removed from her post on Tree duty, was fidgeting.  Angels weren’t really supposed to fidget, and as a rule she was both a good angel and not a fidgeter, but she couldn’t seem to stop, spinning the hilt of her sword in her hand and blinking each time the flames whipped past the face of her corporation.  The humans stepped toward the Gate, the one that she would be expected to stand guard over—to keep them out, of course.  To drive the humans out of the safety of the Garden, into the wide and frightening world, alone and obviously scared, without even the dubious protection of a stick to fight off anything that might be interested in eating them, or a flint to keep them warm, or—or—or anything.

This thought did not advance much further before the angel found herself moving purposefully toward the Gate, so as to intercept Adam before he reached it.  The man flinched back, alarmed, and the angel managed not to titter hysterically—it was funny, really, her corporation was so much smaller than the man’s form, downright tiny in comparison, and here he was acting like she was about to smite him.

“Right,” the angel said briskly, forcing the hilt of the sword into his hand until he had to grab the thing or risk dropping it on his foot, divine fire and all.  “You’d better take this, I think you’ll be needing it more than I will.  There’s water to the west, that’s the way the sun sets.  Um.”  She glanced over at Eve.  “Congratulations,” she added.  “I’m told it’ll be a boy.  Now, get moving.”

Two hours later, there was a storm moving in over the horizon, and the angel was standing on the wall, squinting into the distance and trying to keep her long blonde hair out of her face, when the snake slithered up to join her.  One hand on her hair, the angel watched him change into a man with a suspicious frown, until he cocked his head at her, blinked a set of striking slit-pupiled purple eyes, and said, “You know, you could braid that.”

“Excuse me?”

“You could braid that,” he said, gesturing to her hair.  “To keep it under control.”  Then he blinked.  “You’re Pike, right?  The Guardian of the Gate?  Where’s your sword?”

                                                             ***

That was about six thousand years ago now, and now the snake—Scanlan—is getting drunk on the floor of Pike’s antique shop.  This is fair enough, really, because she’s getting drunk on her couch.

“Cute kid,” Scanlan says mournfully.  “Shame about the Apocalypse.”

“Yeah?” Pike asks.

“Little girl,” Scanlan says. “Lots of red—wha’d’ya call it. Hair.”

“Red is nice,” Pike says solemnly.  Her own hair is starting to come out of its braid, the crown she’s laced it into every day since—a long time ago, really.  She never bothers to use a miracle to keep it in place, letting it grow rumpled and wispy as she goes about her business, sometimes forgetting to take it out and rebraid it for days.  She knows this bothers Scanlan immensely, because Scanlan never goes anywhere without looking immaculately mussed, the kind of affected disorder that takes care and attention to achieve.  She’s careless with her hair for many reasons, mostly because she never got a taste for sleep and therefore often loses track of time, but bothering Scanlan is a bonus. 

Pike sighs and says, “Shame about the Apocalypse.”

“That’s what I said,” Scanlan half-whines.  “Think they’ll get you another sword?”

“Used to have a mace during the War,” Pike says wistfully.  “Liked it better.  Had a nice--” She makes a vague gesture and Scanlan starts snickering on the floor.

“A—a—a nice shaft,” he giggles.  “Or a nice—ha—a nice ball?”

“Yeah, sure,” Pike says with another heavy sigh, and drinks more wine.  Incredibly, a plan comes out of this.

Less incredibly, it is critically flawed.

In everyone’s defense, this as much the fault of Brother Tiberius at the Chattering Order as it is anyone else’s.

                                                             ***

While the wrong red-haired baby goes on with her life unaware of her newly self-appointed godparents, the right red-haired baby (the Antichrist, the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Princess of This World, Mother of Lies, Spawn of Satan and Lord of Darkness) is being doted on by her new parents, who are very nice people, if a little odd, and who name her Keyleth.  Kiki, for short.

                                                             ***

Eventually, it’s Keyleth’s eleventh birthday, and the error comes to light rather quickly when the hellhound doesn’t show up at the wrong baby’s party.  Keyleth, however, gets a dog, a clever little dog all black and white, whom she dubs Minxie and who does everything that Keyleth says.  Keyleth’s three best friends are obediently impressed with the fact that Keyleth convinced her father to let her keep the dog, and Vex is especially pleased with the fact that Minxie, in addition to Vex’s enormous wolfhound Trinket and Percy’s family’s greyhound Orthax, brings their pack of hounds to three.  Vax is mostly pleased that Minxie is small enough to be sneaky.

The newly named hellhound looks away from her adoration of her mistress, considers the two entirely mortal, much larger dogs she’s expected to play with, and decides that she seems to have gotten the short end of the stick.  She was expecting something more...apocalyptic.  On the other hand, her new mistress manages to find a tennis ball, so maybe it’s not so bad.

                                                             ***

Down the street, Allura Vysoren, Professional Descendant and Witch, is trying to unravel her ancestor’s prophecies, and would very much like to know who the witchfinder she’s supposed to marry is.  In the city, Kima Vord has no idea that she’s supposed to marry a professional descendant at all, and she’s pretty sure that the man hiring her as a “witchfinder” is a bona fide lunatic.  Viktor certainly acts like one.  But also no one wants to hire a four-foot-ten woman as a bouncer, which is really what she’s good at, and she recently lost her fifth job in eight months, so.  Witchfinding it is.  At least it gets her out of the house.

                                                             ***

The world’s biggest, most cheerful delivery man is being given three packages and a message.  Grog likes his work.  He gets to travel to new places, meet new people, get in bar fights at new bars against those new people in those new places.  So, sure, he’ll deliver a sword and a crown and some scales.  He’s just happy to help, really.