#Only real ones know who's alfur

[imactuallysoup]

So like i thought id stop being a coward and post my sketchbook doodles ToT

Idek

[blaithnne]

I think my one complaint about Anders is that I wish we’d seen him leave of his own accord at least once. Unfortunately I doubt that would be possible due to time constraints but, I think if we’d gotten to see how Hilda was affected by him actually leaving and not being fairynapped it would have better shown what kind of person he is, and been a really good representation of what a lot of real kids go through. That moment where Hilda finally realised her Father abandoned her is so heartbreaking, raw, and real, and the fact that it’s later revealed he didn’t kind of undermines that.

I’m not against Anders changing for the better - it’s a kids show, and it makes sense they’d want to give him a character arch instead of just introducing him to be a dick lol. It also makes sense for his character to have nearly losing his entire family forever be a wake up call for him. But I wish we’d gotten more time with him, and really seen the effects of him leaving for real. Without that, we can generally assume that it had the same effect as him being kidnapped did in canon, but it’s just not the same.

I’m of the opinion that introducing Hilda’s dad as a concept was a good decision, and I don’t think it undermines the shows found family. It gives Hilda a relatable and realistic aspect to her that I think is important for kids in similar situations to see. I am, however, very biased in that regard.

My biological father was an asshole who fucked off before I was born, but I’ve had no absence of family or fatherly role models - I’m very close with my adoptive dad and my grandad. But that didn’t mean I never had questions, or insecurities.

It’s easy to look at fictional tropes and say that found family is clearly superior and biology doesn’t mean shit, and that’s true! But when you’re living in that reality, when you’re young and coming to terms with it for the first time, it’s hard. Especially when you’re surrounded by people who all have blood relations with their families, and when the person you’re related to is regarded as a dick. it really makes you feel isolated and like there’s something wrong with you, like you’re an outsider — you’re different.

Real life people are messy and have insecurities that defy reason, you might logically know that biology doesn’t matter, but when you’re thirteen and insecure and full of inner turmoil, you can’t help but feel bad.

Personally, as I got older, I met people in similar situations and realised I wasn’t alone, that it was okay to have those feelings but it didn’t make them true. But at that age, having grown up in a rural community, I really was alone.

Hilda’s insecurities in season 3 are a great representation of that, she feels like she’s never had a proper family, this thing with Frida, David, Tontu, Alfur and Johanna and Astrid is all new to her. You can tell her Father’s absence has hurt her, how she’s felt different and alone and like something was missing. Hilda defines her worth through her relationships with others, how she can help them make them happy, it destroyed her when she felt like she failed Frida, imagine how she feels about her father.

What I think season 3 was missing was for Hilda to realise that she doesn’t need Anders, and that her happiness isn’t reliant on him being there, I wish she’d had a tad more agency in the relationship, yk? She wants him to be in her life, and he’s going to make an effort now to do that, but she has a support system in place and will be perfectly fine without him. I wish the show had properly acknowledged that just because this is how things ended up, it wasn’t the only option — with or without Anders, Hilda would still have been happy with her family in the end, the fact that he’s a part of it is a nice bonus, but not an essential one.

In general, I think Anders is the best they could do with the time they were given. Having him be a realistic shitty dad who loves his daughter but is just so bad at it is relatable and realistic, though I wish they’d better emphasised that just because he loves hers that doesn’t make his actions okay (perhaps by slightly altering Johanna’s moment with Hilda at the end of The Job), because it’s clear, I think, as a diehard fan, but might not be for more casual viewers.

Having him be redeemable and stick around to do better is a good conclusion for his arch, it’s a happy ending all around and makes sense for the story - it could’ve been weird if they just had him show up and then immediately leave with zero resolution to his character, unless they made him an all out irredeemable abuser, which I think would’ve been worse than what we got. Portraying abusers as unforgivable and cartoonish villains only makes it harder for real life victims to recognise their situations, so if it couldn’t be portrayed properly (which thanks to time constraints and the overall narrative I don’t believe it could be) I’m glad they went with something else.

What we’ve got is, and I know I’ve said this many times lol, a realistic depiction of a crappy, absentee father, that young viewers can recognise and relate to. On that end, the biggest issues are Hilda’s lack of agency within their storyline, since she has no control in the resolution of their relationship, young people looking to this show for ways to cope with their own situations might be discouraged by the end resolution of “he decided to stick around”, since that resolution rests on his decision, not Hilda’s, if that makes sense.

TLDR; Overall, I think Anders’ was a good character and the best that could’ve been done with what the team was given, but,

A) I wish we’d gotten to see him leave of his own accord at least once, so that Hilda’s final realisation that he left her on purpose has more impact and doesn’t loose its meaning in retrospect, and,

B) That Hilda had more agency in the final resolution of their dynamic, that their happily ever after wasn’t entirely reliant on Anders swearing he won’t leave. An alternative solution, maybe presented earlier on in the season when he first left, that provided her with a coping mechanism/outlet in case he does, so that her happiness and mental health isn’t in his hands, would’ve been pretty neat.

[r7inyz]

my fav shows with reasons why under cut because I am a nerd and am bored

(warning this is very long lol 💔)

•disenchantment- THIS SHOW DGUDGUDUGO AAA THE LAST SEASON MADE ME CRY it was so good omg. the pacing of the show isn't great at times BUT I LOVEE THE MAIN CHARACTERS (not elfo. he makes me mad and I don't know why) really enjoyed the storytelling and vibe of this show

•bee and puppycat- major art inspo for me, I LOVE THE COLOURS AND THE ARTSTYLE <3 this show is just sososoooo cute and a joy to watch,,,I love the silly plots in each episode (I love bee she's so real)

•hilda- HILDA HILDA HILDA **THE** SHOW EVER. I LOVE HILDA. I HAVE ALL THE COMICS AND TIE-NOVELS. this show means the WORLD to me.. i adore the inspiration behind it being like,,, European (mainly Scandinavian) folklores,,like omg that's so cool,,,,I love all the little creatures (alfur and tontu my favs 💪💪) everything about this show is so good 😭😭 (I used to be a Hilda fanblog in 2021-2023 before I rediscovered my love for COUGHS fnaf,, still adore that show)

•the baby- DAMN. WHY DO I EVEN SAY ABOUT THAT ONE. the only show on that list that is LIVE ACTION‼️ (well um aside from dhmis in ways) this show omg. I need a season 2. There HAS to be one. IT CAN'T JUST END LIKE THATTTTT... This show. Very normal show where this woman unexpectedly finds a baby ((it legit falls from the sky LMFAO)) that's like. evil. demon baby. IT'S SO CREEPY SFUFDUOKUGD love this show it was so fun to watch (it terrified me)

•dont hug me im scared- RAAAAAAAAAAAAAH AAAAAAAAAAAHHH GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH AAAAAAAAAAAAAH AAAAAAÀÆÅÂ that's how I feel about this show <3 this show!! It's fantastic I LOVE HOW IT'S SO?? EXPERIMENTAL?? IDK HOW TO DESCRIBE IT BUT I LOVE IT. an actual horror show with disturbing themes pretending to be a cute innocent kids show?? WITH SILLY PUPPET CHARACTERS WHO ARE DEFINITELY NOT TERRIFIED??? YEAH COUNT ME IN 💪💪

•king of the hill- saving the best for last/j I LOVE THIS SHOW. MARRY ME. MARRY ME RIGHT NOW. KING OF THE HILL IS RIGHT. everything about this show marry me rn. The writing of this show, how the characters GENUINELY FEEL SO REAL?? AND MAJORITY ARE JUST SO LIKEABLE!!!perfect. And the humour is just 👍👍👍 the voice acting are just. Wow. it's just very good and I love it with all my heart..words cannot describe how good this show is. ALSO HANK'S FRIENDS. DALE, BILL AND BOOMHAUER. ARE JUST AMAZING if there is a KOTH fandom on Tumblr PLEASE find me

ok um see you next time for pt2

[eclipsed-illustrations]

Song of The King Part 3/3

So when Sully smirks and places a hand on Viktor's chest as the older devilkin’s smirk grows in excitement.

Because He has the boy right where he wants him.

"Tempting…” Sully whispers, drawing closer to Viktor, “how about first you teach me that spell? We discuss our business... and then..."

The words fade as Sully whispers something eldritch under his breath. Then, a shimmer runs across his body as, somewhere, a faint melody changes its key. In a moment the spy’s clothes shift from what he was previously wearing to a shirtless version. He lets the previous sentence hang, the unspoken promise settling in the air.

Needless to say this was not what Sully was supposed to be doing.

As a Whistleblower, it was Sully’s job to get close to suspects, monitor them, and report evidence of magical crimes to the Bastille. If Sully was to turn in Viktor Alfur, the Usurper Prince, that would be quite the respectable achievement.

The thing was, the Bastille didn’t really know Viktor was alive… much less that Sully was meeting with him… and employed by him.

Sully, you see, had disobeyed orders to chase a potential lead, an invitation. When he and several other people who had received the invitation were attacked… one of Viktor’s agents saved them.

And Viktor, as it turns out, was a very good person… He’d given Sully complete trust, privacy, even offered to help Sully find traces of his past… all while knowing who Sully really was.

And Sully had considered betraying him.

He can’t know. I can’t mess this up. I can’t fall apart in front of him. I can’t—

Viktor, without warning, gently begins to caress Sully’s chest. Drawing closer as his hand trails all the way down the boy’s stomach. He then… shifts his arms, pulling the younger devil  kin into a gentle embrace, one hand caressing Sully’s neck and the other running across the small of his back.

The young soldier begins to tremble as the prince whispers so softly, his very voice is suddenly a bed Sully could fall into forever.

“It’s okay... I see you.” 

Viktor smiles, brushing Sully’s bangs out of his face.

Sully really was handsome, especially for someone his age.

“I admire your fortitude, your self-control, but you don’t have to put yourself on a leash. It is not ‘Sully’ that I want... but ‘Soloman.’”

Viktor could almost feel the mask shatter. Good. Though more importantly it was what Sully needed to hear… regardless of his answer. Self-satisfied the ex-prince smirks.

"Although… I'll take either of their asses." Viktor says jokingly before returning both hands to the younger man’s shoulders and looking him up and down.

"Your move Songfi—."

Soloman grabs Viktor's jacket and trips him. The two devilkin land hard, the young soldier pinning the prince to the mat. Like a beast, the Soloman glares hungrily at the object of his desire, Viktor, licking his lips and grinning.

“You want me? Come and take me.”

Well… that was more aggressive than Viktor was expecting.  

After a brief pause, Viktor laughs and returns the hungry look, unconcerned at his position. “Well… I'm certainly glad to have coaxed the real “you” out... but I hope you don't think you can actually control me.”

With dominating strength the violet devilkin flips the both of them over and pulls Soloman under him.

Though taken by surprise by Viktor’s sheer power Soloman’s training kicks in. He raises his legs, using momentum to flip the ex-prince off. Only to find himself back underneath the older man before even completing the maneuver. 

After attempting several more maneuvers Soloman finds himself panting, his every single action countered with expert precision by the prince pinning him to the floor. 

The ex-prince smirks, while Soloman certainly has been trained by the best of the best, Viktor has had just as much training and far more experience as the young soldier was now realizing.

Eventually after feeling his dominance has been asserted, Viktor grabs Soloman by his back, hoisting him up to a place where the younger man’s legs wrap around his waist before pinning the soldier into the wall.

As keen as Viktor is to spar with Soloman, he came here for something else.

For a long tender moment the two devilkin stare into each other’s eyes. While Soloman struggles to catch his breath, he has spent the past few hours training if you recall, Viktor lets out a smile before leaning in and kissing the younger man’s collar bone. Soloman lets out a gasp, his conqueror’s lips lovingly caressing his shoulder, then neck, before finally reaching his lips.

He finds that Viktor tastes just like sweet wine; strong, smooth, and warm.

Oh yeah, he could get used to that.

After a few minutes of tender yet passionate embracing, Viktor tilts his head slightly, breaking the connection before leaning forward.

His breath is hot and wet in Soloman’s ear, “Let's take this conversation somewhere a bit more... discreet why don't we?” Soloman’s new King whispers in that silky musical voice. “My private chambers, perhaps?”

Soloman swallows, catching his breath, then smirks.

"As if you had to ask."

-Fin

[the-hilda-librarians-wife]

Carmen Sandiego Hilda AU (or rather carulia sketchbook AU)

I might pull my own rug by writing this before finishing s4 but hear me out. Johanna as Carmen Sandiego and Kaisa as Julia. Even their colour schemes match a little

VILE is mostly the Trolberg Safety Patrol. Except for Dr. Bellum, who is, of course, Victoria Van Gale

Johanna was being trained to be a part of the patrol, before realizing the corruption inside and not only dropping out, but also deciding to fight it

With support, of course, from her best internet friend, Alfur. Invisible nerd who whispers in your ear vibes lol

Her real life best friend would be Gerda, I think (she’s better than the rest of them even if she does still collaborate for their injustice and the maintenance of their system). Poor girl got her memory erased tho. Too loyal to the patrol, unfortunately

As for Zack and Ivy, I’m not really sure... maybe Hilda and David? Johanna found these two kids trying to fend for themselves on one of her capers and decided it was adoption time

Of course, let us not forget the older wise man who used to teach Johanna, but then betrayed the villains and began helping her with her capers, the Bellkeeper

Zack bugging shadowsan for ninja training —-> Hilda bugging the Bellkeeper for info on how to track woff migration paths

On the other hand, ACME would be the witch community watching Johanna and deciding that she was affiliated with VILE. I feel like their actions would be less related to stealing and more to treatment given to magical creatures, but this depends on how AU-y we make this

There is, of course, one agent/witch who notices the patterns in Johanna’s plans and believes in her innocence, that being Kaisa.

Come on, Kaisa with a suit. I know you want that too

She is usually accompanied by her partner, a witch in training... Frida. Okay I know I’m doing Frida SO DIRTY by comparing her to Devinaux, and Johanna would probably end up in jail in like two days if that were the case, but the roles kind of match and you have to admit that Frida is stubborn 😭

(Major season 3/4 spoilers) Eventually Kaisa leaves ACME, because she’s had enough of their anti-Johanna bs, to teach about magic and magical creatures, and this leads to her getting involved with Johanna’s operations. Also to getting captured by the patrol/VILE, but that is beside the point

No seriously you guys. Just imagine the “To Steal Or Not To Steal” business but with sketchbook. Imagine Kaisa wearing Johanna’s coat and looking at the mirror going “I’m Johanna and I’m here to make your day.” and then BLUSHING when she gets some roses from her. Imagine it.

OH Kelly the Marra has major Tigress vibes me thinks

ANYWAYS I veered off the tracks here, at some point Frida, of course, realizes Johanna is one of the good guys and goes back to working with Kaisa

Just. Johanna and Kaisa flirting while being nerdy and stopping villains. Just think about it

[tootiredtobeunique]

The Hilda Characters on Halloween

This is probably trash but, I have this idea that the main Hilda gang have an annual Halloween costume competition with a different theme every year (one year they dress up as the silliest thing they can come up with - it was David's turn to pick the theme that year - another year it's great scientists throughout history - Frida - and another year Johanna picks the theme of dressing up as how they see themselves on the inside) and they decide a winner by an anonymous vote (Johanna decides this, to teach the importance of voting), written on pieces of paper and tossed into a witch's hat (provided from the Librarian's own ritual wardrobe, of course).

Anyway, so one year Raven decides on the theme of dressing up as their worst fears. Johanna objects at first, but then she sees how upset the kids get when she shoots it down and Raven starts looking all sad, and the Librarian convinces her to let them go through with it.

Johanna herself dresses up as a rock troll (with grey face paint, a clown nose painted grey and pillows stuffed under grey sweats) despite all of Hilda's objections that rock trolls really are just misunderstood creatures.

The Librarian is afraid of nothing but fear itself, but the kids convince her to dress up so she puts together a lazy ghost costume (a mandala patterned bed sheet because she doesn't own any white sheets, with holes cut in it to make kind of a ghost shawl, and then lets Frida braid white ribbons into her hair) and everyone's happy.

Hilda thinks about it for ages and at the last minute dresses up as the result of a bike crash, with deflated wheels around her neck and waist and a fake twisted handlebar through her shoulder (like those headbands with either end of an arrow sticking out of it so it looks like you've been shot in the head, but with handlebars) and a bike bell on her head like a hat, and they all know it's kind of a cop out but nobody mentions it except for when Frida says, “I really can't imagine why you'd still be afraid of bicycles, Hilda, you haven't had a fall in ages.”

Frida knows what she's most afraid of (losing her friends because of her own stubbornness and messing everything up again, failing at school and disappointing her parents) but she doesn't know how that would translate into a physical costume (she tells the Librarian as much when she's helping out with packing away books into their respective shelves in the library - it was David's idea for her to start volunteering there, because it would teach her some tidying up skills and it wouldn't seem as tedious because she likes books and all that - but all she says is that she could magic her up a costume that would make her look like the personification of whoever looks at her's worst fear, which she politely declines) so she decides to go as a Mara. It's been so long at this point that they can look back and laugh at the whole ordeal with the Mara, and dressing up as one helps her with accepting that it's all over and they're all friends again, especially when her friends help her to make her costume look as mocking towards the Mara as possible. She wears a sweater so large it reaches her ankles, wears glasses with green tinted lenses (they're St. Patrick's day glasses) and goes around acting all broody and sad.

David, surprisingly, has the most fun with the whole thing. He can't pick any one thing, so he ends up going as a combination of a bunch of different things and it all looks quite ridiculous. He wears a clown wig and makeup (the makeup provided by Johanna), a white sheet shawl for ghostiness, fairy wings because fairies are evil, Hilda, stop laughing, one foot a bear paw, the other a wolf's, one hand a hoof and the other a skeleton hand. There's a unicorn horn sticking out of his clown wig. He looks more like a toddler's imaginary friend than anything to be afraid of and it makes him feel daring enough to join Hilda in her Halloween Harmless Prank Spree (another Hilda Halloween tradition) for the first time.

Alfur is the fine print in a contract. Frida helps him with his costume by using the Librarians eyeliner pencil and David's magnifying glass to ‘tattoo’ Alfur with the complicated legal terms which he dictates to her. No spelling mistakes are made and it's all quite neat, until he smudges it while writing out a contract swearing Hilda to refrain from making him a victim of her (truly harmless but really hilarious) pranks. The gang comforts him by telling him that they're really the only ones who will see him anyway and Johanna says that she thinks smudged fine print is much scarier, anyway.

Raven dresses up as a bat, which they all agreed was quite underwhelming for how much he hyped up his costume.

(Before they go out for the night, Hilda steals David's unicorn horn and straps it onto Twig's head.)

They all take Halloween almost more seriously than Christmas. The mornings are spent baking cookies and setting out the Real Decorations (they've had Halloween decorations up since the end of September), then they all set our to do their own daily business. Frida reads scary stories to kids in the library while the Librarian does a Halloween ritual in the hidden bit of the library (“It's just a little sacrifice to appease the Halloween gods so that they don't rain down their wrath on us this year - been in my family since Halloween first started being celebrated,” she says). Hilda sets up her pranks and David helps her this year (every other year he carves a pumpkin to enter into the city's pumpkin carving competition, and comes in at a decent second place). Johanna busies herself with collecting payment for all the Halloween special commissions she's designed and then they meet up with all the other parents and cook dinner together. They watch a scary movie while they help each other with putting on their costumes, and then the kids go out trick or treating while the adults stay in to greet trick or treaters (they switch up which family's house they go to every year and the kids in town figure out their pattern to get to that house that gives out cool stickers with their candies).

At midnight, they do the voting and choose the winner. David wins by a landslide, with Johanna and Frida tied for second place, Hilda in third, Twig in fourth, Alfur in fifth and Raven dead last.

(The winner gets to sit back and gorge themselves on all the leftover candy and a fifth of everyone's haul while the others clean up the decorations.)

(They do the theme “Unusual and Ominous Entities” one year and they all dress up as Woodman. Woodman joins in that year - he just shows up out of nowhere for Halloween dinner at Frida's parent's house - and he's dressed as Hilda despite not even knowing the theme.)

[snellyboi]

Pictures of the Past

I mentioned I’d be making a Hilda one shot, and this is what came out. I figure I ought to start writing for more shows and such so I don’t get totally burnt!

words:1865 Summary: Hilda meets an old friend of her mother, Rolf Sigmundson, who holds some strange revelations about her past... warnings: Sort of a cliff hanger to a one shot I might get around to writing? Also involves an OC, and a bit of headcanon on my end (of course!)

By all accounts, Rolf Sigmundson was a good man. He mostly made a living for himself making nature shows, and indeed, few people were as qualified as he was to do this sort of thing. He spent time with Woffs in his university days, and also spent plenty of time studying trolls, giant birds, and all sorts of flora and fauna. He was mostly known for his show ‘Troll Hunter’, sort of a spiritual successor to Steve Irwin’s Crocodile Hunter.

He was a tall man, with a large, dark beard and short brown hair, with big brown eyes framed by large round glasses. He was popular, that’s for sure...and he was making an appearance for the sparrow scouts in Trolberg today.

“He’s such a sweet man, you’ll like him.” Johanna smiled as she spoke to Hilda, giving her some sandwiches to take to the meeting, as she knew it’d run until at least noon. “If you get the chance, tell him I said hello!”

Hilda took the sandwiches and hopped out the door, Alfur in tow. “I’ll see you mum, thanks for the food!” She was really excited to meet this guy! Not only was he kind of a big deal, but her mother knew him! And not a simple ‘saw him once at a zoo’ sort of thing, either, those two, according to Johanna at least, were really good friends in their youth. Not that Hilda would brag about such a thing...but it was a nice feeling.

“Hello, sparrow scouts!” Raven Leader spoke loudly from the front gate to the Huldrawood. “I’m excited you’re all here, and I’m sure you’re all incredibly glad to welcome today’s guest!” It was a simple idea, drummed up by Rolf himself. What better place to talk about nature than...well, nature? Sure, Huldrawood wasn’t the unforgiving, harsh wilderness, but it was still pretty natural, and had plenty to offer. “Our guest doesn’t really need an introduction, but he’s not here to hunt trolls or teach us how to do it. He’s here to talk about one of the most important parts of our lives...the great outdoors.” It had clearly been prepared, but would you wanna introduce someone without preparing yourself first?

“Let’s all give a warm, Sparrow scout welcome to Rolf Sigmundson!” The kids hooted and hollered, and Rolf stepped out, wearing a black ball cap, vest, beige button up shirt, and khakis, with heavy looking hiking boots.

“Hey, kids!” He smiled brightly and opened the gates, walking in. “We’re gonna hang by the front for a minute, just stick around there and pick a place to sit down.” Lucky them, it had been clear all week...the ground wasn’t too muddy. Hilda, David, and Frida all found each other and sat together.

“Are you excited?” Frida asked. Hilda nodded. “My mum loves his show...I watch it when it’s on.” She shrugged. “He does sound really interesting, though, the way my mum tells it.” Frida looked over at David. “Maybe he can find out why you’re teeming with bugs, eh?” David, at the moment, had a beetle crawling around on him. He looked spaced out.

“...sorry, could you say that again?”

Rolf rubbed his hands together and sat on the ground with them. “Yikes...kids, don’t get old, your knees start to ache and it hurts to sit down.” Some of the children laughed. “So! The woods...we sort of take it for granted, don’t we?” He looked around. “We play in them, camp in them, go on walks in them...without even thinking about what’s here. What sort of things live underground? What worlds go left unseen by most humans?” He looked over at Hilda, Frida, and David. “What if I told you that it’s not just giant things, but little ones as well? Like that...bug...on your shirt...do...do you know that’s there?”

David didn’t really say anything in response, he just sorta...pointed at it. Frida looked over. “He’s always got a bug on him.”

“Bugs tend to pick favorites, I find.” He giggled a little to himself. “Of course, the small world isn’t just made up of bugs. There’s even elves!” Some kids furrowed their brows. “Yep. Seen ‘em. I had to sign paperwork, though, these elves are obsessed with documentation, let me tell you.” He stood. “Of course, we won’t be seeing those today, you have to have permission from the elves themselves, and it’s a lot of papers to sign…”

“It isn’t THAT much paperwork!” Alfur whispered. Hilda whispered right back. “It is for this many kids!”

“Kids love paperwork!”

“Not the human ones.” Hilda whispered back. The group started to move through the woods, as he pointed out birds nests, ant hills, rabbit holes, and even a hole for a good sized bug, which he stopped around. “Phew...now, kids, most of these small guys are actually pretty safe, but this one’s not quite healthy to hang around too long.” he tapped the ground around the hole for a moment. “Hmm...must be empty. Can anyone guess what I’m looking for?”

“A snake?” One child asked.

“No, not quite...I wouldn’t be so close to it if it were a snake hole, those have a bit more...length than what should be in here.” He said. “Although, I have been bitten by my fair share of snakes. Most of the ones around here are pretty harmless.” He knelt down and tapped again. “Anyone?”

Frida jumped at the chance. “A spider? I read that some make trap doors, and sneak out to catch their prey.” Rolf smiled. “That’s an awful lot closer, it’s a sort of spider! Those spiders tend to be in other, warmer places...this is a sort of wolf spider dwelling.” He said. “They aren’t deadly, but I’ve managed to get a bite from one, and it’s bad. Opens up a sore about this big on the bite, and...it’s messy.” He said. The group kept going.

“Here’s another, much larger hole, it looks like it was dug by a-”

“Vittra!” Hilda pointed. “I’ve been in those tunnels...well, not...not those ones.” Rolf and the others looked over, and Rolf crossed his arms. “You’ve been IN a…” He looked at her for a moment. She looked...familiar.

“...how’d you get in? Why’d you go in?”

“We had to rescue some from becoming mulch, but we sort of got them angry.”  Rolf nodded. “Huh...they do like their privacy. Kids, these holes can be real deep, and falling into them can lead to some embarrassing injuries. It’s good to look at the forest floor while you walk around.” The group kept going, stopping for lunch, learning how to spot different types of bee hives and wasps nests, avoiding snakes, and even learning a bit about fishing...though, that was anecdotal, and mostly about Rolf’s bad run in with a rather large catfish in the states. They were back at the front gate. “So, scouts, it’s important to remember that the world isn’t just what’s easy to see...there’s little cities, families, and houses all around us! We just have to look.” The scouts all got pictures, some got stuff signed, and they were on their way out. Hilda couldn’t wait to tell her mother abou-

“Hilda!” Raven Leader went over to her. “It appears Rolf would like a word with you.” Hilda furrowed a brow. “Me?”

“He wants to know more about that vittra hole I think.” Hilda walked over to him. He was sitting near his car, an old beat up jeep he’d driven to the front gate. “Hilda! Hey! She wouldn’t believe that I knew your mother so I had to give her the Vittra hole line...I knew you looked familiar!” Hilda looked up at him. “You knew me?”

“Oh, you were tiny tiny before I got the show and got too busy…” He knelt down. “Agh...gotta get that knee checked on. Hey, listen, I don’t wanna hold the van up, but…” He went into his car and got a box of polaroids. “I was real good friends with your mother, and I liked to take pictures of stuff. I took a lot of pictures of her, she didn’t really own a camera until after I left that neck of the woods. Years ago she got rid of these...I won’t say why.” It was photos of her mother doing...not ‘Johanna-ish’ things; rock climbing, swimming in the middle of a lake, waving from the top of a tree.

“I think it’s time she gets these back.” Hilda nodded. “She was quite the adventurer, huh?”

“Oh, are you kidding me? She was shredded! I bet she could have benched ME back then.” He patted Hilda’s shoulder. “Tell her I said hello, yeah?”

“Of course.” She nodded with determination.

“Thanks so much, I’d stop by but I gotta split...also, Mr. Elf,” he pointed to her ear, and Alfur popped up from behind it, “You look good in red.”

Alfur blushed. “Oh, stop, you’re flattering me…”

“Heh, alright...you run along now, enjoy yourself!”

“Likewise!” Hilda got back into the van they’d used to get there, and got home, just before dark. Dinner was almost ready, and Johanna sighed with relief when she heard the front door open. “Hilda, you’re back...how was it? How do you like Rolf?”

“He’s nice...he gave me these.” She put the photos on the table. Johanna looked flustered. “...I’d been looking for those.” She went through a few of them, sitting on the couch. “That’s...well, I was quite the adventurous type.”

“Got it form somewhere, right?” Hilda winked. Johanna...sighed, and lowered her shoulders. “Well...had to come from somewhere.” They came across one of a tiny, baby Hilda, with a woman with purple hair playing with her. “Oh, look at you! So cute back then!” Hilda thought nothing of who that woman was, probably just some aunt she’d never met...but then she popped up in another photo of them at a campfire. And another of them holding hands. And another of them in flower crowns and soft looking white dresses, kissing under a flower archway somewhere in the woods. “Mum...who’s that woman? The one with the long purple hair?”

Johanna tensed up a bit. She sighed. “...well, she and I were lovers...that was our wedding. Well, it was just a ceremony, it wasn’t legal at the time…” She sighed. Hilda looked up.

“What happened to her?”

“She...went missing.” She said. “After a troll attack. I never saw her again after that.” She rubbed her eyes. “I’m...I got rid of these to cope with the loss, I suppose.” Hilda hugged her tightly. “Sorry I brought it up, mum, I-”

“No, Hilda, it’s alright.” Johanna kissed Hilda’s forehead. “I...needed to see them again. It’s just a bit of closure.” She took the one of the wedding ceremony and placed it on her desk. She went to the kitchen. “...looks like dinner’s ready. Go wash up and get ready to eat, alright?”

“Okay, mum!” Hilda went to look at the woman in the photo again.

She looked familiar.

[guardiancherisher]

Netflix’s Hilda Fanfiction Time! (outlined ideas only) (free use) (Please give credit)

David AUs

Secretly the son the bug queen

Turns out he’s a changeling

Queen’s child

Amnesia Hilda AU

AU rewrites first meeting of the great raven

Hilda loses memories while climbing mountains

Would have died if the raven didn’t save her

The raven tries to help her regain memories

Meanwhile her friends and family are looking for her

Hours turn to days turn to months

Finds scarf but not Hilda

The raven grows protective of Hilda

Amnesia Hilda has started living with the raven in his nest

She wants to do something for him to say thanks and goes out on her own to do so.

This ends with a troll or giant kidnapping or coming after her.

The raven saves her just in time, but she is injured.

He doesn’t understand human wounds and she ends up getting a fever on top of things

He’s so worried and doesn’t know what to do

That’s when he goes to find a healer

Alpha?

Nissa?

Random healing spirit?

Who is Hilda’s father?

Crossovers

Rick Sanchez

Blue hair

Stanford Pines

In the first episode, she is basically sketching a mythical creature like Ford has done.

Perfect personality mashup between Ford and Mum

Flaw: doesn’t explain blue hair

Maybe it makes her a prophecy?

Died as a kid and bringing back from dead is blue hair side effect?

She was going to die, but by looking for a mythical creature they were able to save her.

But at what cost?

Cursed?

As a baby, played with one of Ford’s dimensional thingies and now has blue hair forever

Mum: “Ford clean up your inventions! I don’t want them lying around where the baby can get at them.”

Ford: “Don’t worry. There’s no possible way she’ll be able make them work with the safeties on.”

Baby Hilda:

1. –too smart for safety-

2. –puts science in mouth- -sparks-

Mum: “FORD! –panics-”

Ford:

1. –panics-

2. HOW!?!

OC’s

Random blue haired/bearded guy

Looks like a woodmen?

Business men?

Bad father faceless father montage

Refer to Treasure Planet

Spy? Adventurer?

Reason he’s no there

Lost at sea?

Turned to gold while exploring an old temple

Indian Jones type?

Random traits

Abusive

Mum escaped to the woods because of him?

Abandons Hilda and Mum

Dead

Ghost dad

Mum is a teenage pregnancy

Dad is magical creature

Centaur

A spirit of some kind

Water

Air

Rain

Ocean

Lake  

Forest

Humanoid of some kind or can transform from human to beast

Merman 

Kitsune

Blue dragon

Blue beast wolf thing

Typical beast

Male Snow White

Prince of the forest

King ruler person

Alien

Mum has memories erased of husband

Because he had to go away and it was easier cause he knew Mum was stubborn

Danger

Random

Does Woodmen see Hilda as a kind of daughter?

Did he lose his real daughter? Family?

Cursed into woodmen form?

Woodmen finds Hilda as a baby and raises her

rude Hilda?

Wild Child AU

Aka Wild Hilda AU

Hilda raised by the creatures of the wilderness

Like Tarzan, but every creature pitches in

Woodmen

father figure

Mum dead or worse

Mum ghost?

Hilda Has Powers AUs

Hilda has superpowers

Communicates with the animals

Empathic powers

Can shapeshift into mythical creatures

Like Ben 10 or something

Alien powers?

Blessed by mythical creature?

Fairy?

Godmother?  

Hilda has magic

Hilda the witch

Twig familiar

Elf summoning (Witch norm: Usually Elves are used as slaves)

The librarian is her teacher

Hilda with cape  

Twig AUs

Hilda’s cursed brother or half-sibling (because magical forest dad?)

Twig talks AU

Twig familiar AU

Has a secondary dangerous form

Protector AU

Hilda long lost princess idea?

Blue hair

Father comes to take her back home

Or like Princess Diaries were she is last of royal family

Royal drama!

Sabotage

Assassinations  

Ninjas

poison 

Villains

Princess of Earth’s creatures

Diplomat

She may be immortal now    

Alfur AUs

Hilda’s cursed brother

Elf Slave AU

Hilda to the rescue!

Plot: make elves free!  

Crossover Needs

KND Hilda (#89)

89 is number form translates to “Hi” :3

make her Earth in another galaxy 

space KND 

Danny Phantom Crossover 

Dimensional crossover

Hilda and Danny team up

Dimension Ghost villain 

Hilda solves everything

Danny gets board 

The Great Raven doesn’t like Danny very much

Danny can’t stop braking into accent 

Danny: “It just slips out!”

Hilda: “Rude”

Hilda Falls AU

Hilda literally falls through rift into Gravity Falls 

needs help coming home

When?

Young Ford?

need that father figure Ford fuel 

Hilda really misses her mom

Before Weirdmageddon

Mabel and Hilda hit it off right away

mostly because of Mabel being Mabel

Dipper shipping

Hilda working in the Shack and being a natural 

gives Stan ideas for exhibits 

Runs into Bill moment 

Maybe instead of Gravity Falls the rift just sends her to portal Ford and they go on adventures that way while still trying to get her home.

After Weirdmageddon

falls into icy sea

Stan twins rescue her 

amnesia Hilda again? 

Hilda Universe AU

Hilda and Steven universe fusion

Silda? Heven? Stelda? Hiven?

Hilda is a gem that Steven finds

Hilda is a gem/human hybrid

Her Mum is also a gem

Either Mum’s friend was a gem that turned into Hilda

Father left 

Or Mum is human

Father was a gem, but he was flawed (hence being masculine)

Must be blue gem list

Lapis Lazuli

Aquamarine

Badass much?

Zircon

Eh more like Alfur if I’m honest

Kyanite

Blue Topaz

Sapphire

Oooo

Blue diamond

JUST KIDDING!!!!

Blue Pearl

So cute!

Gem placement

Belly

Chest center

Over heart

Hand

Forehead

In place of one ear

Disability if half human?

Knee

Back

Nose

Gem shape

Heart

Marquise

Trillion

Star shape

Pear

Briolette

Father flawed gem

Thunderbird shape

Weird shape

Shipping Hilda

Crossovers

Dipper Pines

They would work off each other rather well I think

Dipper could be lost in the multiverse or Hilda’s world could be isolated like Atlantis?

Dipper and Mabel dimensional travelers and documenters?

Dipper totally freaks when Hilda starts talking to him

He word vomits, trying to be discreet

Hilda shows him around

They go on a life threatening adventure

They fall for each other

Oh can they totally geek out when it comes to all the creatures together

In Hilda’s world

David

Eh kind of think he works better with Frida, but whatever

Trevor

Ew, but cute if he matures I guess? Maybe he turns himself into a werewolf or something because he’s stupid and Hilda has to save him?

Nightingale syndrome?

Human transformed raven?

Beauty and the Beast much?

Alfur? (pronounced ‘Alpha’)

–squee- little elf Hilda AU! In a little elf school! With a little nervous elf crushing Alfur!

OC’s

Mythical boys

Witch/magic boy

Siren (honestly because Ford dated one once)

Centaur

Changeling

Alien star child

Forest spirit

Superhero kid

Like Danny Phantom or kid flash powers

transforms into human…

Dragon

Phoenix

Unicorn

Kitsune

cute little trickster that doesn’t really understand what feeling so he lashes out or makes fun

Humans

Detective kid

Rogue kid

[sarka-stically]

it's called "forbidden forest" for a reason Hilda (1/3)

In her second year at Hogwarts Hilda goes running head-first into trouble to defend Elven rights and David with Frida get pulled along as always.

Hogwarts AU. (Hilda is Hufflepuff, David is Gryffindor and Frida is Slytherin).

Also available on AO3: HERE.

Hilda Berg always made a lot of noise when it came to magical creatures. Her whole first year at Hogwarts was nothing compared to the second, which held so be called “the Elven Affair”.

It all began in the middle of October when she had seen an elf, dusting a fireplace in the second-floor corridor.

 ….

“What’s your name?” Hilda spoke softly kneeling down to see the tiny elf in red hat closer.

The elf looked up, blinking few times, his eyes wide open, or at least Hilda guessed they were, she couldn’t see his features that well since he was only a few centimeters tall after all.

”Huh?? You-you can see me? Oh silly me, of course she can see you Alfur, she would not be talking to you if she didn’t.“ The tiny man immediately stops talking, his high but not loud voice cracking. He looks even more shocked than before. “Oh goodness, I am babbling now. I am terribly sorry Miss Hilda.”

“Don't you apologize. It's a pleasure to meet you Alfur. How do you know my name?”

“It is my duty to remember all the residents of the castle. We elves take our obligations very seriously.”

“So, you are really brainy."

“You are being most gracious Miss Hilda, but I'm just a simple elf. Memorizing is one of the few things we are good at.”

Hilda frowned, she just didn't like the way this was beginning to sound.

“If I may be so bold to ask, how is it that you can see me, Miss Hilda?”

“It's just Hilda, everyone calls me that.”

“Oh, my apologies, Miss Hil- Hilda the Just.”

Hilda couldn’t help it but giggle.

“I mean you don't need to call me ‘Miss’.”

Alfur looked as shocked and starry-eyed as his little face could be.

“Look what got here; a freak talking to her imaginary friends.” A mocking voice shouts from across the corridor, joined by a wave of laughter.

Hilda scowls, picking up the elf against his protests and set him on her shoulder. Turning around she sees Trevor, one of those Gryffindor boys that she can’t stand, along with some of her other fellow second year students.

 “Just because a troll-brain like you can't see it doesn't mean it isn’t real. Oh, I’m terribly sorry,” Hilda takes a very dramatic pause, “I just insulted all the poor trolls out there by comparing them to you, you doofus.” She turns around and walks out of the corridor and onto the stairs before Trevor gets a chance to think of a comeback or something worse.

....

She rushed to the Hufflepuff basement, then through the common room and into her dorm room. It's empty, except for her Deerfox, which startles awake, basically leaping up with fright when she storms in.

“I'm so sorry for waking you, Twig"

He looks as annoyed as a Deerfox can.

“I know, I always do that. But now I got a good reason; we have a new friend!"

The Deerfox turns his head to the side as if to ask where.

“Oh, you can't see him from there, right."

Hilda holds her outstretched palm by her shoulder. It only takes few moments for the elf to stop clinging to her neck and hesitantly jump on the palm. Hilda sat on the bed and let Alfur sit between her and Twig. When the Deerfox begins to snarl at the elf, Hilda snarls back until he stops.

“Alfur this is Twig, my pet Deerfox. Twig this is Alfur. He is an elf. Like those that lived around our house, you know, the ones that wanted to evict us.”

“You’re met elves before?” Alfur blurted out excitedly, his pale complexion getting almost as red as his hat.

“We have!” Hilda just smiled back at him “Before Hogwarts my mum and I lived all by ourselves, out in the wilderness. But we were never alone...”

So, she told the story. One that began with an eviction note, continued with lots of paperwork, almost war, and ended with their house getting smashed by a giant foot.

....

With Alfur sitting on her ear—a place he deemed most comfortable, yet inconspicuous—Hilda stormed through the Great Hall, decisively heading towards the High Table. Alfur, however, had none of her certainty.

“Miss Hilda… I mean Hilda. This is truly not a good idea. I was lucky to get a permission to act as an emissary to students since the only student who can see us elves is yourself. We should not do something so harsh and unprepared. You follow none of the protocols I spoke about and...”

Hilda stubbornly ignored him, instead choosing to stop right in front of headmaster's omelet.

“Good morning, Professor.”

All professors just stared at her, as did most of the students.

“Good morning to you too, Miss Berg.” Dumbledore looked completely stunned for a fraction of a moment, but he managed to cover it well with a jovial smile. “What is so urgent that it couldn't wait until after I enjoy these exclusively made eggs?”

“It, as a matter of fact, is rather urgent. I don't know if you are aware, but there are Elves in this castle.”

“I am well aware Miss Berg,” Dumbledore replied, unmoved by the statement.

Half of the staff looked very much ready to give her a detention right then and there, but Hilda didn't let it scare her off.

 “Well, then I must sadly inform you that elves—those intelligent creatures with a magnificent culture—are used as unpaid slave labor in this very castle,” Hilda announced, probably a lot louder than she needed to.

A murmur broke out at the High table, most of the professors giving Hilda incredulous looks. Alfur’s shocked gasp was so loud it made Hilda’s head jerk, but the most vocal of all was definitely, Professor McGonagall.

“Miss Berg!” Her voice steadily rising, “It’s not your place to –“ She was silenced by headmaster’s risen hand.

“It’s no bother Minerva,” Dumbledore said, as serene as always, “it’s just a little misunderstanding, nothing more. As your little friend can tell you, elves are no slaves of ours.”

He made it sound so reassuring, but it wasn’t enough for Hilda, who had spent the whole night preparing what she would say. However, before she could begin, Dumbledore continued.

“Now, I understand there is a lot you want to know, but why don’t you first ask your elven friend, maybe go to the library. Then you are welcome to ask me anything you’d like.”

Hilda opened her mouth to protest, but a dismissive wave of Dumbledore’s fork and McGonagall’s scowl discouraged her from it. So instead she just turned around with most of her dignity still intact. While walking towards the Hufflepuff table, she felt them all watching her.

 ….

“You confronted the headmaster, are you insane?” Frida whispered as loud as possible. She probably would have yelled, if it wasn’t for Madam Pince giving their table hard stares since they arrived at the library.

“That’s what I told her,” David commented. Hilda had spent most of Gryffindor-Hufflepuff Herbology class telling David all about the elves and occasionally fighting with the elf on her shoulder. At least she said it was an elf because to David it seemed as if she had finally lost her mind and was talking to empty air. Well, at least until the elf spoke right into his ear and made him almost get strangled by a Devil’s Snare.

 “I must agree with your friends, Miss Hilda,” A squeaky voice with no visible owner said. Both Frida and David jumped up a bit.

“That is seriously creepy Hilda,” Frida said, “Can’t he un-invisible himself or something like that?”

Hilda stopped browsing through the four giant books in front of her to think.

“Well back then, elves made themselves visible after I signed some paperwork. So maybe that could work.” She looked at a fifth— smaller, but still giant—book on the table, whose pages were creasing slightly as if tiny feet were walking on them. “Could you do that for them Alfur?”

The squeaky voice was back, “It may be possible. Although my clan has not mastered the sacred art of paperwork, we should still be able to do this. However, to get a hold of that form you must apply for permission, and for that, you must fill a form of stating the requirement, but for that, there is a sixteen-day waiting period, and to get that you must…”

“So, it’s possible?” Hilda cut off his train of thought.

There was a short pause.

“It should be.”

David already knew this would get really complicated, and he knew it wasn’t just paranoia speaking.

I know this was totally meh, but 2 upcoming parts are where party happens.

All kudos gives me life, even when it’s critique about how shitty I write.

im tagging people who seemed interested in this fic when i talked about it, because im an attention seeking bitch, sorry guys: @suchisthelifeofanadventurer, @latenightwriter1, @roses-hilda-corner

[the-hilda-librarians-wife]

Most Powerful Magic - Chapter Two

Summary: Set a few months after the end of the events of Family Fights, Hilda and the librarian’s sister are tired of seeing Johanna and Maven dancing around each other and decide to take matters into their own hands

Read it on ao3: [Family Fights] (chpt1) (chpt2) 

Even though she’d chosen to distance herself from her family’s craft, Myra had far from forgotten all that she’d learned about magic. With the same attention to detail that Maven always applied to her casting, Myra guided Hilda as they built up their plan in a way they could be sure they wouldn’t be caught, not before the appropriate time, at least. The comparison amused Hilda, who thought that as Maven’s calling was magic, Myra’s true purpose was causing mischief.

Phase one of their plan had been brainstormed by both of them, but it was up to Hilda alone to set in motion, and she’d done so the night before. Maven had been invited over to have dinner with them, and when they all had finished eating, Hilda had called both women to her bedroom. The “slip” they’d need to fake for the spell would have needed a strong presence of both Johanna and Maven’s energy in the casting site, and Hilda assured this by having them touch as many things as possible.

This was the part of the plan that had been the hardest to come up with, but eventually the two of them had made a decision. Hilda should make as many drawings as she could and hang them up on random spots in her room, in a way that it would be believable when she said she wanted them there to show them something, and, at the same time, ensure they’d leave enough of an energy imprint.

As expected, they’d been very encouraging about the drawings and apparently hadn’t given any mind to the strage placement they’d been given. It was a bit flattering, Hilda thought, that they’d liked them so much even though they were only rushed sketches made with no other purpose then building up a lie. Maybe she should draw the two of them once they were together, she thought. It might make them more inclined to forgive her.

With that done, it was time for phase two of the plan. Or would it be phase one-point-five, Hilda wondered as she opened the front door to let Myra in, since they were still arranging their steps to make their lie credible? Either way, it was time to pretend they were casting the spell.

“Did everything go well?” Myra asked as she cleaned her shoes on the carpet before coming in. Hilda nodded.

“It did, and neither suspected anything.”

“Great. let’s get moving, then.”

Johanna was out walking Twig, and they’d been lucky enough that Alfur had wanted to go with them. Not that Hilda didn’t trust the elf, but she knew his opinions on irresponsible use of magic, and there was no better way to describe what they were doing there. After guiding Myra to her room, Hilda gestured for her to sit on the bed.

“As I mentioned.” Myra began, watching Hilda pull herself the chair in front of her desk. “Mavey will get very nervous when we break the news. I’m sure you know I don’t really mean angry, she’s not this sort of person anymore, but she sure will be upset and try to find another explanation at all costs. Now, she does trust you and your skills a lot, so she should probably take your word for it, but I think it would be safer if you did something related to love magic right now. In order for her to feel its remnants and think that it’s because of the spell, I mean.”

“That does make sense.” Hilda said unwillingly. It was not so much that she didn’t like the idea, but she’d never studied any sort of love magic before. She hadn’t a clue of where to begin, and at the same time she knew it was a necessary step. For someone who had already done such intricate energy work as Hilda had, they would need to be very careful if they wanted to get Maven to believe in the situation they would claim. “Do you have any suggestions?”

This is a terrible time to not have listened to mother when she tried to teach me, Myra thought even as she put a reassuring smile on her face. For so long the only magic she had had contact with was the dark nightmare magic the Marra had. True, forcing someone to have feelings for you was not too different from the manipulation she’d grown so used to, but she thought it would be better if they had none of that sort of enchantment around them.

“It doesn’t have to be anything big.” She said with far more confidence in her voice than in her heart. “Maybe you could just do some minutes of meditation towards that. Do you have a piece of rose quartz? That should help.”

“I do.” Hilda opened a drawer and took a small, pink pebble from the inside. She then sat cross legged on the floor and closed her eyes.

Though she hadn’t done any energy work in very long, Myra found it fair that she should help the kid since she was the one who had dragged her into that whole thing. She too took her meditation posture, knees bent and sitting on her heels, and did her best to help change the vibrations of the room in a way that could pass for the residues of a love spell.

Surprisingly, the trance-like state came to her so easily that she didn’t notice the time running, and startled when Hilda spoke up.

“Do you think this is enough?”

Myra blinked her lashes open and looked around, as if she’d be able to see any differences with any eyes other than her mind’s.

“You probably know more than me, Hilda. Do you?”

“I guess.” The girl shrugged. “I’m not really sure of what else I could do.”

They were in silence for a few seconds, both staring at Hilda’s hands, slightly hypnotized by the repetitive motion she was doing by twirling the rose quartz around with her fingers. Whether they were waiting to notice something or for some mysterious voice to tell them how well they had done they didn’t know, but since these were the last moments before they actually began their plan it felt right to take their time assuring themselves that their best had been done.

The silence, however, became more uncomfortable than reflexive the more time passed. Sensing this Myra cleaned her throat.

“Nice room you’ve got here.” She said, admiring the natural and fun way Hilda had given her personal touches to the room. Every once in a while, Myra tried to remind herself to be polite. When one spent as much time living with evil spirits as their sole source of human (though she could barely call them that) contact, one tended to forget how normal social interactions worked. It was something she was working on, along with her sister and her therapist, to be more positive when talking to people, less like an actual nightmare monster. Besides, her naturally self-centered personality made it so she’d never really been a pleasant person, and now she was trying to change that. “It really does scream ‘green witch’, in my opinion.”

“Oh!” Hilda smiled at Myra’s unexpected comment. “Thank you. I wasn’t at all too happy when Mum and I moved here, but I had fun decorating my room. I wanted to bring some of the wilderness in with me.”

The teenager smiled as she thought that Hilda had done a very good job with that. “Hey, you know what this reminds me of? Has anybody ever told you about the time my sister nearly cried because of some tarot cards?”

“What?” Leaning forward to hear Myra better, Hilda tried to imagine what kind of message could have been bad enough to reduce Maven to tears. The way Myra laughed told her that it wasn’t a sad story, though, and Hilda anxiously waited for her to continue as she moved her legs to the side to sit more naturally on the floor.

“Yeah, this is a fun one. It’s not like I remember it, of course, I’m pretty sure I was a newborn at the time, but I asked mother to tell me this story many times. When she was a child, Mavey used to have a mock tarot deck that she apparently loved. It wasn’t real, of course, our mother had made it herself with fun pictures and oversimplified descriptions of the card meanings, just so she could get used to them and have some fun pretending to read people’s fortunes. What happened was that one day she was playing outside with the rain, and as she took the deck literally everywhere, it fell on a puddle of mud. You can guess that i was ruined beyond salvation, but apparently my sister threw a huge tantrum because she wanted to hang the muddy cards on our bedroom wall instead of letting go of them. Mother had to pretend to have lost the cards, and when Mavey was told that she literally pretended to be dying and began telling our mother about how those cards were the source of her power and without them she couldn’t live anymore.”

“Oh my goodness.” Hilda chuckled, hiding her grin behind her hand. “Maven sounds like she was a fun toddler.”

“Hilda, she was like, eight at least.”

The girl broke into laughter as she imagined cold, rational Maven being the most dramatic child ever. “Does she know you know this?”

“Yep, and she hates it. Great advice for you, bring that up when you want something from her, it works every time.”

Hilda laughed even more until her sides hurt, now picturing her mentor’s eyes widening and her face becoming red if she ever tried to use an embarrassing story against her. That was the moment when she realized that even though more than an year had passed during which she and the librarian had been very close, she wasn’t near to knowing her as much as Myra did. Opposite to upsetting her, it made her wonder if there were more things she could tell her about the older witch, and even about her own life. Gaining proximity with Myra herself was beginning to sound like something she’d like.

“You know, Myra.” Hilda said when she stopped laughing. “If this works, we’ll practically be in the same family.”

Myra blinked, clearly not having seen that comment coming. “Yeah, I guess so.”

Seeing she had her attention, Hilda opened a playful smile. “Can I begin calling you auntie already?”

Hands on the floor behind herself, Myra threw her head back and chortled good naturedly. “No way in hell, kiddo.”

_#_#_#_

“I guess this is it.” Hilda whispered anxiously, Twig by her feet not understanding why the girl looked so uneasy.

“Which one of us is gonna do it?” Hilda’s nervousness was mirrored in Myra’s voice. If anything went wrong, it would be at this part of the plan. Not only that, but if the plan went right they’d be scolded for irresponsibility. Seeing as that was the best outcome, neither of them were particularly excited about it.

A full day had passed since they’d been in Hilda’s room, working on faking leftover magic. Figuring that the time that had passed would have been enough for Hilda to notice the love spell’s symptoms on her mother, and for the two of them to discuss what had happened and reach a conclusion about the way the spell had gone wrong, they now found themselves in the library again.

“Better if we do it together, I suppose.” Myra nodded at Hilda’s comment, and they both tip toed away from the bookshelf they’d been hiding behind while they watched Maven reshelf books.

When she noticed them coming in her direction, she smiled, but it faded upon her seeing their worried expressions. At least those were things they hadn’t needed to fake.

“Is everything alright?” She asked, pausing the song she’d been listening to and bringing her headphones to rest on her neck

The two of them glanced at each other as Maven climbed down the ladder, and Hilda rubbed her neck. “We messed up.”

_#_#_#_

“Tell me again how it happened.”

Myra had been right to assume Maven would lose her cool when they revealed the problem. While they’d been talking about the attempted spell, Maven had done nothing but look at them with a lifted eyebrow, apparently knowing that sort of spell was due to backfire, but when they got to the part about what, exactly, had gone wrong, the witch had looked like a bucket of icy water had been dumped on her head. She quickly grew agitated and insisted on going to the casting site, in that case Hilda’s room. The scolding had yet to come, as she seemed much too lost in thought to give a mind to how the two of them were to blame for the situation.

“I asked Hilda to cast a spell for me.” Myra sighed. At that point, the nervousness was gone, replaced by boredom due to having to repeat that yet another time. “But the taglocks we used for me and Nyx weren’t personal enough.”

“I couldn’t get a proper hold of the energy.” Hilda continued, feeling as tired of repeating herself as the teen. “And it escaped my control and decided to manifest into the two other people whose presence in my room was stronger, which would be my mum and directed to you.”

“Oh, honestly-” Maven paced around the room, grumbling to try and hide her panic behind irritation. “The two of you should know better. Which love spell did you use? We need to do a counterspell or brew an antidote as soon as possible.”

Hilda looked nervously at Myra, suddenly uncertain because she hadn’t thought of what to do in case Maven said that. Myra, however, was clearly doing her best to contain a smirk of satisfaction, and from her jacket’s pocket she pulled a copy of the spellbook’s page.

Maven took it from her hands and ran her eyes through it, once, twice, enough times for Hilda to figure she did not want to believe what she was seeing. When the witch looked back at the two girls, her face was one of utter incredulity.

“Please tell me this is a joke. Of all the love spells, please tell me you didn’t actually go for this one.”

“I didn’t want it to be forever.” Myra shrugged. “I knew that if they got the chance to know me better they’d like me. By the time we kissed there would be no need for a love spell at all.”

Maven’s hands tightened on the paper, making it crumple.

“Myra.” She said slowly to her sister, who bit the inside of her mouth to stop herself from smiling. She was reasonably sure her sister was pretending that the sheet of paper was her neck. “I am going to feed you to a fucking Barghest.”

Gasping dramatically, Myra leaned towards Hilda and covered her ears with her hands. “Mavey, language! There are children in the room!”

Maven’s face became even more red, and she looked as if she would explode at any moment. She opened her mouth to say something, but they were spared as they heard the sound of the front door opening.

“Hilda, I’m back from the meeting!” Johanna said from the living room. “Where are you?”

“In my bedroom, mum!” She shouted back, growing slightly concerned with how the librarian seemed to have stopped breathing. “I… invited some friends over for tea, I hope that’s okay!”

“Oh!” They heard the woman gasp. “Sure is. Frida and David?”

Walking to Hilda’s bedroom door to poke her head out and look at Johanna, Myra waved. "It's us, actually! We’ll go greet you properly in a second, Hilda is just showing us a new touch she added to her wand!”

Johanna told them to take their time, and Myra closed the door again.

“Quick thinking.” Hilda praised, making Myra shrug in attempted modesty as Maven raked her hands through her hair, leaving herself looking slightly insane.

“What are we going to do?” The older witch said to herself, which obviously didn’t stop the other people in the room from hearing. Myra had to admit, she almost felt bad for making her sister that worried. Almost.

“You are going to talk to her and... take a look at the difference for yourself. Then we can trace a plan.”

Maven looked like she wanted to argue that there was no plan to be traced, that there was only one solution for that spell’s effects, but instead she took a deep breath in.

“Yes.” She squared her shoulders. “I’ll go and assess the damage.”

Putting on a brave face, Maven left the room first, followed by Hilda and lastly Myra. When Johanna saw them coming, she smiled.

“Good afternoon, you three! Maven, will you help me make some tea? Yours definitely tastes better. I’ll get the biscuits”

Such a simple question, yet it seemed to throw Maven off completely. She followed Johanna to the kitchen and began doing as she was told, but every few seconds or so she’d glance at the woman, nearly dropping boiling water on herself when she caught Johanna staring.

“Looks like it’s working.” Hilda whispered to Myra from their seats at the table, where they were watching the interactions in front of them with no small amount of interest.

“Sure does.” She chuckled. “Now we sit back and enjoy the show.”

_#_#_#_

“It’s worse than I thought it would be.”

“What is?”

The three of them were just outside Hilda’s building, close enough that Johanna wouldn’t be suspicious about Hilda going too far without warning her but far enough that she wouldn’t hear them talking either.

“Johanna’s situation!” Maven hissed as she kept her voice down even though she wanted to scream. “Didn’t you notice? She was… looking at me when she thought I wouldn’t notice. Also she was smiling all the time and laughed even when I didn’t joke! She blushed when we hugged goodbye, for crying out loud! I have no idea how you two did this to her.”

Watching Maven pace back and forth on the sidewalk, the two girls stared at her.

“You have got to be the stupidest person alive.” Myra said, which made her sister turn to her abruptly with her face scrunched in both confusion and irritation.

“What Myra means.” Trying to prevent a fight between the two Underhills, Hilda put one hand around Myra’s shoulders and squeezed, as if wordlessly telling her she needed to behave for their plan to work. “Is that now you know you’ve got to break it!”

Maven glanced away from Hilda, biting her lip before remembering she shouldn’t let any nervousness show. If she wanted her apprentice and her sister believing that Johanna was simply a friend to her, than she had to act less anxious about that whole ordeal. There was such a thing as ‘friendship kisses’, weren’t there?

“Yes.” She said with as much confidence as she could in that moment. “Yes, you’re right. I’ll go back in and solve this already.”

“What? No, you can’t do that!” Walkimg away from Hilda, Myra stopped in front of her sister to place her hands on her upper arms, stopping her from going back into the building. Maven lifted an eyebrow.

“And why not?”

“Well, you can’t just walk in and kiss her. Johanna’s a lady, Mavey. You’ve got to treat her like such! The bare minimum you can do is to ask her out on a proper date.”

“A date?!” Maven gasped, almost choking on her words.

“Of course! I really doubt she’d appreciate you going in there and kissing her like some brute. You’ve got to do something nice, woo her.”

As she grabbed her sister’s wrists and made her stop holding her arms, Maven scowled. “Could we not talk about wooing people in front of their daughters?”

“No, no, I’m with Myra.” Hilda chimed in, which made Maven stare at her with a look of utter betrayal on her face. Though it felt encouraging that her teacher had expected her to be on her side, Hilda would have to let her down just that once. “I think my mother would much rather you took her on a date before doing it. It sounds much more considerate, don’t you think?”

“I don’t want her to get the wrong idea.” Maven sighed, looking like she was starting to be swayed in their direction.

“You can always explain the reason behind your actions after it is done.” Myra pointed out. “But you won’t be able to change the way this whole experience affects what she thinks about you. Better to do it right, don’t you think?”

Seeing she had neither of their support, the witch sighed in defeat.

“Fine. I’ll come here tomorrow and ask her out. But let’s go home right now, I’m exhausted.”

“Of course, sister dear!”

“Goodbye then, Hilda. Rest assured that we’re going to have a long chat about completely undignified use of witchcraft when this matter is settled.”

When Myra chuckled, Maven tapped her arm. “I don’t see what is so funny, you’re grounded until second notice.”

Maven began walking away, and Myra followed slowly, walking backwards with her face turned to Hilda. She grinned and shrugged, making the girl giggle. Their plan was working swiftly, and no retribution from Maven’s part would be bad enough to not be worth having seen her come unglued in that way.

“She’ll thank us.” Myra formed the words on her lips though no sound escaped, and Hilda nodded in agreement before waving. She, too, was now certain they were doing the correct thing. Now it was only up to the two women to make the right choices as well.

[the-hilda-librarians-wife]

Love and Honour - Chapter Three

x x x x

Summary: All her life, Johanna had dreamed about serving the royal family as their guard. Now, as she finally reaches her goal, she finds renewed admiration for the Princess Regent, and the feelings might not be as one sided as she imagined...

Notes:  Can I offer the Johanna stans some pining happy Johanna in these trying times?

if you want visual aid for Johanna’s token, it would look something like this (it would probably be better if you saw this after reading the chapter though)

Read it on ao3: (chpt1) (chpt2) (chpt3)

The palace’s library was, in Johanna’s opinion, the most impressive thing in it. Not only because of its luxuriously decorated three floors, or due to the unimaginable amount of knowledge it stored in its ceiling-high shelves, but because of one of the changes the Princess Regent herself had imposed on the inner workings of the castle: though the upper floor was reserved for the royal family and the few other nobles in court, the rest of the library was open for anyone who’d like to come. So not only was it a comfortable, silent place, it was also a reminder of why Johanna nurtured such admiration for her princess, being the perfect place to work on her token of loyalty.

Her room allowed in a lot of clarity, she realized that morning as she woke up at about the same time she had the day before because of the thin sum rays that streamed into her room. It became clear to her that she’d make better use of her time going to sleep early and making the most out of her mornings, since she clearly wouldn’t be able to sleep past sunrise.

After waking up, she had taken three silver coins from where she’d hidden her money in the bottom of her chest, dressed up and headed to the capitol. The buildings of the city began surrounding her not five minutes of walking after she’d crossed the castle’s walls, ans she quickly noticed how lively a place it was. Having grown up in a small time, she was distracted by all the people and colours all around her, but she couldn’t get sidetracked. Knowing she’d have time to explore the city later, she asked the closest vendor about where she could find a spinner. She’d revealed that though there were many spinners in the capitol, one of them had a stand nearby and would be able to sell her what she needed.

Johanna thanked her politely after receiving the directions to his stand, and was quickly able to find it. The spinner was a gentle man, probably in his late forties and very skilled. He sold her spools colourful threads which she needed for what she had in mind, and also a piece of white cloth. It was folded carefully and stored on her satchel alongside the spools.

When she returned to the castle, breakfast had already been served, and after it she decided to spend some time at the archery field. Precision had never been her strong suit, so it was one of the abilities she practiced the most. By the time she was satisfied with how much she’d trained, it was already late morning and in few hours she’d need to take her post protecting Lord Alfur.

That was the time she chose to dedicate to making her gift to the princess. Settling down on one of the tables in the library, she began sketching the royal coat of arms in the cloth she’d bought with a piece of coal, gently enough that she could erase it if she made any mistakes. She’d had no idea of what she could give to the princess herself that she already didn’t have, and came to the simple conclusion that she couldn’t. With that in mind, all that had been left for her to do was put some effort into the crafting of her token, so that at least the time she had spent on it could serve as a worthy gift. It couldn’t be anything personal, of course. She was afraid that anything of that nature could be considered as an offense. With those restrictions, embroidering her coat of arms on a handkerchief had been the only thing Johanna had been able to think of.

Luckily, the spot she was sitting on had the coat of arms hanging from the wall right in front of it, so even though she was very familiar with the symbol, she could look at it anytime she wished to check a detail. Every once in a while she lifted her eyes from her work to gaze at it, and she was paying such attention to the task at hand that she didn’t even take her attention from it when she felt a familiar presence in the library.

The sound of steps coming closer reached her ears, but since she payed it no mind, she nearly fell back in her chair when she raised her gaze to the emblem again only to find the princess herself standing in front of her.

“How interesting.”

“Your Highness!” Hastily, Johanna made a bow, as best as she could while sitting down. She was about to get up in order to give the princess a proper cursty when she noticed that she had raised her palm in front of herself, an indication that she had noticed the soldiers’s intention and that getting up wasn’t needed.

“May I sit here?”

Johanna inhaled sharply, and her elbow accidentally hit her embroidery hoop, making it falll from the edge of the table. As she quickly tried to reach down to grab it, her needle also fell, and she was sure she was blushing in embarrassment at that point. To make matters worse, Johanna remembered the very real possibility that Lady Hilda had told the princess about her infatuation with her. In the split second in which all this happened and that it took for her to look at the princess again, she had worked herself into a fine state of panic.

“Of- of course!”

An eyebrow lifted, Maven tilted her head to the side. When she’d walked inside the library looking to take a couple of short minutes to herself and noticed the same guard that had caught her attention sitting on one of her favorite reading spots, she’d thought it would be a great chance to spend some time in her presence. But apparently she had been wrong; the woman didn’t look at all at ease.

“You don’t have to accept just because of my title. Do I make you uncomfortable?”

“No, Your Highness! Not at all.” Johanna was quick to assure, hoping the princess wouldn’t guess that the problem was that she made her a little too comfortable. But it did strike her as very kind that the princess truly sounded like she wouldn’t be offended if Johanna told her she did make her uncomfortable.

Being assured that she was welcome, Maven pulled herself the chair directly in front of Johanna, resting one hand on top of the other on the table.

“May I ask, then, what is unsettling you?”

Johanna didn’t meet her eyes when the princess spoke to her, both because she wasn’t sure if she was allowed and because she doubted her own ability to do so without blushing even harder. Instead, she kept her gaze focused near her face, on her veil. It was silver that day, matching her dress, which was grey with details in blue and silver. She knew she shouldn’t say anything, should deny being unsettled, but she had a strong sensation that it wouldn’t work. Once again, she felt the same way she had that night in the great hall, like the princess could stare into her very soul. It made her certain that denying would be useless.

“You shouldn’t be talking to me, Highness.” She admitted softly, lowering her eyes to the handkerchief she’d been sketching on.

“Why not?” Maven asked. She’d seen people react this way to her and her parents many times before, and she was not about to let the same thing happen with Johanna. “I’m the princess, shouldn’t I be able to talk to whoever I please?”

“I don’t mean to limit you, Highness! I’m just a guard, s- surely you have better use for your time.”

Sighing, Maven forced herself not to let her shoulders slump, keeping her air of gracefulness at all times.

“You left your family the moment you became an adult in order to enlist, faced a harsh trainment for years, worked hard to earn the title of royal guard, and yet I shouldn’t be speaking to you because you weren’t high born like some knights? I, who never did anything to get to the position I’m in?” She asked, seeing Johanna's eyes widen with shock. Even when she didn’t see eye to eye with them, which was not the case at that moment, she always did her best to be kind to soldiers; they had done so much more for the kingdom than they had to, and still they felt subordinate to her. Though she did have the impression that this one particular guard felt like Maven was even higher above her than the other ones did.

“Highness!”

Another sound cut through Johanna’s gasp of bafflement, that of a door opening. They both looked at the library’s door as a short woman with tanned skin and grey hair peeked in.

“Your Highness.” The princess’s advisor said with a controlled voice and a serious face. Johanna couldn’t imagine that woman ever showing any strong emotions. “The representative of the traders’s organization is waiting to speak to you.”

“Is five minutes of peace asking for too much?” Maven whispered under her breath, hoping neither of them had heard it. “I’ll be with them in a minute, Lady Hallgrim. Thank you.”

After a small nod the advisor left the room, leaving them alone again. The princess didn’t make a move to get up, however, turning her face to the guard again.

“Will you tell me what you’re embroidering?”

Johanna blinked, caught by surprise.

“The royal coat of arms, Your Highness.”

“Oh!” Maven looked down to catch a glimpse of her work materials, indeed recognizing the shape on the cloth. “And why would that be?”

Wondering if she should take back the question, the princess watched Johanna’s face redden furiously. She looked around as if searching for somewhere to hide, even as she answered.

“I was hoping you’d accept it.” Johanna uttered nervously, surprised when she managed to get through the sentence without stuttering. This was likely to be the most crucial moment on the decision of whether or not she’d be chosen to serve her. Or worse, Johanna thought, if she’d be allowed to be there at all. If the princess was offended, she was sure she could be sent all the way back to the Sparrow Fortress.

“As a symbol of my dedication to you.”

That time, it was Maven who had surprise written on her face. For a moment, she was rendered speechless by the simple declaration, which struck Johanna as infinitely odd. She’d never seen the princess caught unprepared before.

The princess blinked away her momentary shock, opening an elegant smile.

“Are you trying to bribe me?”

When a moment before she’d been looking into the princess’s face, amazed by the effect her clumsy words seemed to have had on her, now Johanna looked away, completely embarrassed. It hit her, then, that that was the truth, in a way, and she couldn’t just answer ‘yes, I’m crafting this in hopes you’ll pick me to accompany you’.

Maven frowned upon noticing the guard’s unease and landed a soft touch on her hand, which had been on top of the cloth.

“I was kidding, Miss Johanna. I am sure you are a righteous woman. It’s very touching to know you meant to gift this to me.” She softened her already velvety tone, trying to make it clear she had no low opinion of her

Glancing up at her, Johanna suddenly looked more relieved than uncomfortable. It took the princess aback for a moment, seeing how adorable the guard looked like that.

“So you’ll accept my offer?”

“Of course I will.” She did her best to keep her smile from going from graceful to eager as she got up from her chair. “But if this is not taking advantage of your good will… instead of making our coat of arms, why don’t you embroider me something you’re fond of?”

When Johanna looked pleased with the request instead of offended, the princess stood up taller, proud at herself for making such a skittish person less nervous. The idea of receiving a symbol of something the guard liked pleased her a lot. The emblem was something she saw all the time, but something that told her more about Johanna, however, would be a precious piece of someone she wished to know better.

For her part, Johanna finally took an easy breath in. It wasn’t like she’d already won her place in the mission, but at least she had a hint of what the princess would like for her token.

“It will be my pleasure.” Johanna stated, finally feeling a bit more like the brave soldier she was supposed to be and less like a teenager with her first love.

“Great to know. Forgive me now, but unfortunately I have to go.”

The princess began to walk away, and involuntary Johanna extended her hand towards her.

“Wait!” She exclaimed, and then all the embarrassing she had been feeling came back when she realized she’d asked the Princess Regent herself to stop. But Maven had already turned her head back to the soldier, looking curious if anything, so there was no taking it back. “When you arrived you said- you said that something was interesting, I believe. Pardon me, Highness, but I don’t think I understood.”

Maven smiled, as elegantly as ever. Johanna had not a clue of how she did that, but it felt like she could subdue a whole army just by giving them that knowing, small smile.

“Generally people who follow your career path have no mind for more delicate works like embroidery. I just meant it’s interesting to see a person doing both.”

“Oh!” Johanna uttered and glanced down at her hands. She’d been holding her needle and hoop during the conversation. Keeping her fingers on something stopped her from fidgeting. “Well, I’ve always found the crafts fascinating.”

Her mother was a seamstress, and some of her skills had been passed down to Johanna when she was a child and still hadn’t chosen to be a soldier. She’d also taken an interest in drawing since a young age, to the point where she was quite good at it for someone who only did it for fun.

The princess lifted her eyebrows, smiling a bit wider despite not having meant to.

“Hard-working and talented, then. Impressive.”

Walking away, Maven didn’t get to hear Johanna gasp at the compliment. The soldier stared into the door well after the princess had disappeared behind it, doubting that she’d heard it correctly.

When she managed to shake away her bafflement and return to thinking normally, she told herself it was stupid to have gotten so flustered at an offhand remark. Everybody said Princess Maven was kind, and she wouldn’t have acted any differently with Johanna. Determined not to let that encounter get to her head, she did her most to go about her day as usual, even if she did suspect she’d worn a lovesick smile all the way through it.

It was only later, when she was already in bed and half asleep, that her mind jolted her completely awake while she was in the middle of replaying their conversation in her head.

The princess had known her name.

_#_#_#_

It took her finishing her embroidery for her to realize that she didn’t know how to give it to princess Maven. It took a couple of days longer than a week for it to be done, and during all that time she hadn’t caught a glimpse of their ruler. Obviously, that was to be expected, since it was no small task to run a whole kingdom, but it did present a problem when it came to delivering her token.

She’d seen no one else preparing a similar gift for her, so she hadn’t wanted to ask anyone about how she was supposed to do it, since Lady Hilda had told her that the soldiers were supposed to figure that out alone.

She’d found the answer to her dilemma in Lady Hilda herself. Working for the girl’s tutor, she’d had many encounters with her since that night in the gardens, and each time she’d looked less scary in Johanna’s eyes. Little by little, the guard came to realize that regardless of her title, Hilda was just a kid, and a very sweet one at that. She always greeted her and the soldier who worked with her, and even started conversations with them while most nobles didn’t even give them a passing nod.

With the plan concrete in her mind, she’d taken her embroidery with herself to her duty, keeping it hidden beneath her armor during the afternoon. When the lady stepped out of Lord Alfur’s office, her lessons done for that day, Johanna requested a second of her time. Intrigued, Hilda complied happily. For a moment, Johanna once again had the impression that the girl’s hair was blue, but she pressed her lids together and managed to blink it away, rubbing it off as a consequence of not having eaten that well at lunch. Though she had to admit that seeing colours wrong was a very peculiar symptom for lack of energy.

“I… I have my token. Would you be able to deliver it for me?” Johanna asked rather embarrassedly, but the girl looked nothing if not excited.

“Definitely!”

As she picked the handkerchief with the embroidery from where she’d stored it, under her breast plate, Hilda watched with intense interest. After her plans for the token changed, she’d had some trouble deciding what to do instead. The idea came the morning after she’d spoken to the princess, when she was in the common room with no one but Knight Ravena, who seemed to wake up with the birds, and was watching the sun rise outside the window. Memories of watching the dawn with awe ever since she was a little girl, in the village she’d grown up in, and later in the Sparrow Fortress came to her and she realized that that scenery would be perfect for her token.

She was able to use the colours of thread she’d bought even with the change of plans. The purple of the emblem’s background had become the sky; the golden yellow that would be used for a crown, the sun; the green from the ivy that surrounded the coat of arms had been turned into sunflower stems, and the black she’d thought about using to do the royal family’s motto became the sunflower’s middle. Johanna had even found some old buttery yellow thread among her things, and used it to make details in the sky and the petals.

“Wow, it’s gorgeous!” Hilda beamed. “I’m sure she’ll love it.”

It wasn't the same as being told so by the princess herself, but it still made Johanna quite flattered that Lady Hilda had liked her work. And as the girl walked away, she left Johanna hoping that Hilda knew Maven well enough to have been right about her loving it.

Usually, Hilda would go ride a horse or play with the servants’s children after the end of her lessons, but once a week Maven’s council gathered so they could all discuss the actions that had been taken and what needed to be done for the kingdom, and Hilda was required to be present. That meant that she’d go straightaway to Maven’s study and wait for her to finish whatever she was doing so they could go to the meeting together, and for once she was happy about that. She couldn’t wait to see Maven’s face when she received Johanna’s token.

After knocking and being allowed in, Hilda stepped gingerly into the princess’s office, holding the handkerchief close to her chest in a way that Maven wouldn’t be able to see it, a smile of anticipation on her face. The princess was on her desk, writing something.

“We’ll go in a second, I just need to finish this.” She informed, her back hunched over her writing. Maven’s posture was usually perfect, but somewhy when she wrote her shoulders always bent forward.

“Oh, no need to rush.” Hilda stepped closer, trying not to look suspicious. “You know, I was wondering if you’ve already chosen the guards who will take you to Freith.”

“Of course I have, we part in only a few days.”

Maven gestured with the end of her quill to a piece of paper near the edge of the desk. Controlling her face to let only a small amount of curiosity show, Hilda reached out and grabbed it. It was a letter to Ravena, asking her to gather the soldiers that had been listed for that duty. As she reached the end of the list, Hilda grinned. Johanna’s name was there.

“Why are you so interested in it, anyway? Afraid for my safety?”

“Not at all. I just wanted to know whether or not your favorite guard had made it in.”

Though she was looking down at her work, the girl could see Maven blink and pretend to be focusing on the document she going through.

“I have no idea what you mean.”

“Really?” Hilda asked in a singsong voice. “Because she seems to have.”

Maven turned to her to see what she meant, a frown of annoyance on her face that disappeared when she noticed Hilda holding up a piece of cloth with colourful embroidery in it.

“A token of loyalty for her highness. She’s really outdone herself, huh?”

Picking up the handkerchief with stunment, the princess ran her fingertips through the embroidery gently, admiring the art and downright amazed with the soldier’s skill. Only to herself, she admired how flattering it felt to have that work put into something for her by someone she hardly even knew.

“Wait.” The realization that Hilda looked all too pleased with herself broke through her pleasant thoughts. “You knew about this.”

After taking a deep breath in, Hilda let her shoulders drop. As well as it had gone, she knew Maven would not approve of what she’d done.

“I might have told her about the diplomatic mission… and said that you were more likely to pick her to go with you if you gave her an offering.”

In few seconds the princess’s face switched from neutrality, to shock and realization to anger. Standing up, Maven turned to face her fully.

“You did what?!” Her voice was a low, disbelieving hiss. Maven never shouted when she was angry. “Hilda! What on earth possessed you to do this? There are people who want this war to happen, what if this information had fallen on their hands?”

“But it didn’t.” Hilda interrupted her. When Maven ignored it and simply continued speaking, she knew the princess was just nervous with the situation, not angry at her.

“And you know I only choose my guards based on their skill! Really, what kind of idea-“

“Yes, but I also knew you’d like to receive a gift from a pretty woman.”

Stopping her pacing to stare at her ward, the princess’s face was almost comical. She looked like she hated the girl for suggesting such a thing, and hated her even more for being right. As she sighed, she took her gaze to the ceiling.

“You shouldn’t have done that. Political conflicts aside, Johanna probably felt like she had to make this. Like she had to buy her way in.”

Hilda’s eyebrows were lifted as she thought about the way Johanna spoke about the princess, as if Maven was something so wonderful she had a hard time to even comprehend her existence.

“Trust me, she was very happy for the chance to get your attention.” She muttered under her breath.

“What?”

“Nothing!”

Maven rubbed the bridge of her nose, exasperated at how amused Hilda sounded.

“Why don’t you go outside to play in the stables, hm?”

“Can I?”

“Yes, get out of my sight and stop causing mischief.”

“Yes!” Booming triumphantly, Hilda ran up to Maven and kissed her cheek. She knew really well that this was a reward rather than a punishment, even if Maven tried to mask it as such. Clearly, she wasn’t as mad at her protégée as she wanted to be.

The girl was gone in the blink of an eye, leaving the princess alone with her thoughts. She looked down at the embroidery again. Knowing that there was a reason for Johanna to have given her this took some of the wonder away from the gift, but at the same time she mused that it would have been a lot weirder if she had given her something out of the blue, even if Maven had found the intention cute either way. Regardless, the princess allowed herself to believe that her wish to serve as her guard on the next mission was born from more than just wanting to ascend in the ranks.

It wasn’t fooling herself, she insisted. She had no expectations about a future with this soldier, so there was no way of her building false hopes of something she didn’t hope for to begin with. But it wasn’t too far fetched, she thought, to imagine that Johanna had some feelings towards her. After all, she was just coming to learn just how deep admiration for someone could run.

_#_#_#_

Knight Ravena had been calling people to speak privately to all day long, setting everyone in the soldiers’s wing on edge, even other knights. When Johanna left for her duty, four soldiers had already been called, among them warriors, guards, and even knights, with no predictable pattern. Already having been on edge due to having sent her token to the princess, the anxiety of not knowing why those people were being summoned made Johanna more anxious than she could have predicted.

To her utter dismay, as soon as she arrived back at the common room that night, tired and ready to throw herself in a tub, the knight called her aside. Ravena did ask her if she could talk, but it wasn’t like Johanna could decline. She was then taken up the stairs for the first time, and once they were in the second floor of the soldiers’s wing, Ravena took her through another spiraling staircase, up this wing’s only tower. Right in the middle of it, there was a door which the knight opened and entered, allowing Johanna inside as well.

“Sorry for the secrecy.” She began, heading for the desk near one of the stone walls. The room wasn’t heavily decorated, but it had a fireplace, a ceramic raven with jewels on its eyes on the mantel. Near it, there was a small painting, half covered by a piece of black cloth. In the visible part, Johanna recognized a younger Ravena looking longingly at whatever was beside her.

“But I needed to wait until we were here to talk to you. This is a matter of utmost secrecy, Miss Johanna.”

On the wall directly opposite to the door, there was a simplified map of the kingdom and its surroundings, which Johanna noticed Ravena was looking at. Already feeling slightly more at ease knowing that Ravena wouldn’t have brought her all the way to her personal office if she’d meant to fire her for doing an insufficient job, or even hang her for daring to give the Princess Regent a gift, Johanna stepped closer.

“Are you familiar with the kingdoms of Cirillan and Freith?” The knight asked her, making the breath catch on her throat as she remembered the most recent occasion in which she’d heard about those kingdoms, followed by a widening of her eyes when Johanna realized there could only be one reason why Ravena was making her this question.

“I am, my lady.”

“For years now the region has been a gunpowder barrel of political tension. One tiny spark could start a full scale war. Finally, the leaders have agreed to sign a treaty to put an end to pending issues. As you know, our princess is well respected across these lands, and she is recognized as a great negotiator. She was invited to be the mediator during the making of this treaty.”

Ravena made a pause so Johanna could take this information in. Already having known all of that, however, Johanna struggled to contain her excitement, praying to whatever deity would listen that she wasn’t mistaken about what would happen.

“The document will be elaborated and signed in the kingdom of Freith, so obviously Her Highness will need to take the journey there. Usually, only her personal guards protect her while she is traveling, but this time the matter is more complicated. Not only is the trip longer, allowing for more opportunities for bandits to attack, but also there are separatist groups in Cirillan who’d do all for a war to strike their kingdoms, so the central government would be weakened and they could fight for their own freedom. If these groups gain the knowledge that the Princess Regent is to aid in the diplomacy, they’d put all their efforts in stoping her from arriving. That being so, the princess and I have decided to take more soldiers for her security, and she does have a habit of picking younger soldiers every once and a while to see for herself how the younger generations of guards and warriors are coming up. This time, you were among her choices. I take it you have nothing against taking this duty?”

“No, my lady, I do not!”

“Very well, then. You and the other soldiers will receive further instructions soon. Be ready to depart in three days.”

_#_#_#_

Ravena considered going to her room after Johanna left, retiring early for once, but there was still someone she had promised to see. She found the girl playing by the gardens, trying to trap fireflies into glass jars only to let them go minutes after, when she was done admiring their beauty and thought they had become sad at being contained.

“You were right.” Ravena said when she approached a tall apple tree, upon the branches of which Lady Hilda was sitting, her jar at hand. “Johanna did look thrilled.”

“Told you! Do you think they’ll finally get the hint? You know, with being together for a longer period of time and all.”

Ravena chuckled fondly at the lady’s bluntness. The girl really didn’t beat around the bush.

“I hope so.”

“Me too. I caught Maven writing poetry these days, can you believe it?” Hilda let out the fireflies she had trapped, watching them fly away with a sigh. “Is that why you recommended Johanna, because you’re also tired of this? I know Maven went to you to help pick the soldiers.”

“Not at all.” Ravena shook her head as she declined. “I recommended Johanna because she’s been doing an astoundingly good job for someone so young.”

“Huh.” Hilda breathed. “That’s nice.”

There were moments of silence before the girl’s voice came again, smaller.

“Do you think they should get the hint?”

Thinking the question through, the knight lifted her eyes to the starry night above them. She doubted anyone who was close to either the princess or the new guard had yet to discover they were growing feelings towards one another, but Hilda’s question was a pertinent one. Not everything that sounded like a dream couldn’t turn out like nightmare. Ravena knew that all too well.

“I do think so.” Ravena answered at last. “They’re both honourable women who put their duty above themselves, and this is crucial. But something I also admire in both of them is that they know very well how to love, and yet it seems like there isn’t enough of it in their lives. It… sounds like it could work. They would face hardships, but all lovers do, I suppose. And whatever they face, they have the things they need the most. Love and honour. The rest will come with time.”

[the-hilda-librarians-wife]

Family Fights - Chapter Eleven

Summary:  Even the strongest bond, the most loving family, can be broken by nightmares, and the librarian is soon to learn this. As she learns sinister things about a person who she had thought was lost forever, she realizes she will need the help of another witch to get her family back.

Notes: First and most importantly: the pentacle is a symbol that belongs to an actual culture (Wiccan/witches), and by using it in this fic I do not, by no means, want to make it look like something ~aesthetic~ or silly or fake. Respect cultural minorities and stop insisting that their symbols are demonic thanks

Now that we got the important stuff out of the way: please imagine Johanna getting flustered when she opened the door and found Maven wearing a dress. Do that for me

(chpt1) (chpt2) (chpt3) (chpt4) (chpt5) (chpt6) (chpt7) (chpt8) (chpt9) (chpt10) (chpt11)

Maven walked serenely with Hilda at her side. A feeling of lighthearted contentment washed over her, turning her steps light and her breathing easy. They’d gotten lucky with the weather - it had been sunny with a gentle breeze since early morning, and it was getting warmer by the minute. Although Maven generally prefered colder weathers, that day it fit her perfectly, in a way that she didn’t even resent having to forgo her comfortable pants and sweaters. Instead, she was wearing a purple summer dress that reached just past her knees and grey flats that she was reasonably sure hadn’t gotten out of her house for a whole year. A black wide-brimmed hat and a layer of sunscreen protected her from the sun. Summer was definitely here.

On top of that, her good mood was also due to her being very nearly alone with Hilda. When Maven showed up at her house, Johanna had confessed that she had a meeting with a client to attend, and asked her if there was any problem in leaving her to take care of Hilda by herself. It was a shame not to have Johanna’s company, but she would be lying if she said she wasn't happy that the woman finally trusted her enough to know she wouldn’t let harm come to her daughter. Their one other companion was Alfur, who seemed to have shown interest in that day’s lesson, probably because of the location.

Hilda was also wearing more appropriate clothing herself. When her mentor told her that they would be going to the beach that day (or at least to the closest thing Trolberg had to a beach), she’d ran into her room and come back in shorts and sandals. Maven hoped she wouldn’t be too disappointed by their lesson not involving any traditional beach activities.

It took longer than the librarian had thought it would for Hilda to speak up. They had left her house a full block behind before the girl’s curiosity got the best of her.

“So, what are we doing today?” She asked. Never having been to the beach, except when she passed by it on her way to find the rat king in the sewers, it was hard for her not to be excited. And it also made her feel better that Maven seemed to be in a light mood, a far cry from her zombie-like appearance from a few days before.

“We are going to study about the five elements.” The librarian declared. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see her apprentice frowning. A smile began to play at her lips.

Fire, water, earth, air. Hilda went over them on her head. But that’s only four. She was on the verge of wondering if those were not the elements that Maven was talking about when she noticed the amused glint on her eyes. She realized, then, that she wasn’t expected to know the answer.

“Well, which is the fifth?” She asked finally.

Maven kept her gaze straight forward as she walked. “The elements are what makes up everything. They’re the essence of the universe.”

“Really?”

“Well, I mean-” she shrugged. “Now we know about the atoms. But for witchcraft purposes it remains the same. You probably remember the most well known elements, but doesn’t something feel off to you? Much of the work we’ve done doesn’t involve any of the four.”

Hilda thought about it, and the more she did, the more it made sense. On their first real lesson, the librarian had taught her the most basic things in witchcraft, and although the earth had played an important role in the lesson, it hadn't been the main element of the practice.

“Energy?” She guessed, pleased when Maven nodded approvingly.

“Perfect thinking. We call it Spirit, but you got the idea.”

Hilda was silent for some time, which Maven took as a sign that she had sated her curiosity for now. Soon, they could already hear the soft crash of waves on the shore, and the cool wind that came from the sea was even stronger on their faces. The two of them walked to the area closest to the water, past the pebbles that covered the outside part of the beach, and into the warm sand. From the bag she was carrying, Maven took a towel and spread it out on the floor.

“Where is it?” Hilda asked while she sat down. “Spirit, I mean. I can see all the other elements, I know where to find them. But where is spirit?”

Maven shook her head fondly, letting herself get used to the fresh beach air. “Hilda, you’ve learned this already. Spirit is everywhere.”

_#_#_#_

They spent some time grounding. While they did so, Alfur sneakily got down from Hilda’s ear and hopped to the sand. He seemed to be trying to build himself a table out of the sand, but the witches tried not to let themselves be distracted by that.

After that stage was done, the librarian had Hilda do something different; instead of attuning herself to the world around her as a whole, Maven wanted her to connect with the four physical elements, one at a time.

Hilda chose to begin with fire. Under the librarian’s guidance, she closed her eyes and focused on the feeling of the sun on her skin. It seemed simple enough, and she was about to ask what she was supposed to do next when the instructions came.

“Now I want you to summon the strongest memory with this element that you have.” Maven said. “It doesn’t have to be good, or bad, it just has to be strong. Put it in the forefront of your mind.”

She didn’t have to think for long to remember an episode. She still could remember the day very clearly. Wanting to learn how to light a fire, she’d stacked some sticks on the outside of her house, and stolen a match from the kitchen, since she had been very young and her mother didn’t allow her to use them back then. Her mother must have been very focused on her work that day, because when her fire didn’t catch, she had gone back inside and found some cooking oil inside the pantry.

When she had poured what she’d thought to be a reasonable amount of it on the sticks, she must have spilled some on the grass around them as well. Dropping the match to her pile, Hilda had watched in amazement, and then in horror, as the fire caught and spread to the grass around it. She’d been paralyzed, able to do nothing but watch it slowly take over its surroundings.

Luckily, her mother had showed up with a bucket of water and skillfully put the fire out. She still didn’t know how her mum had showed up so fast, without even needing to be called. Maybe the light of the fire had been visible through one of the windows, but regardless of how it happened Hilda was grateful to this day for Johanna’s quick reaction.

“Visualize it the best you can.” Maven whispered, doing the exercise herself. “The scent, the warmth… feel it as if it was happening right now.”

Surprised at how real it felt, Hilda brought back the smell of smoke to her nostrils, the impossibly bright light standing against the darkness of the wilderness’ night. She didn’t know if it was only a placebo or of the sun was getting stronger, but she could swear she felt her hands getting warmer.

“How, would you say, is there magic in it?” Hilda almost startled when the librarian asked. “Fire is used in many rituals. But which spells go with it?”

“Curses.” Hilda said immediately, thinking about the fear her young self had felt when faced with the fire’s ability to consume everything near it. “Or anything related to strength.”

Her mentor didn’t push her for more, and so she didn’t say anything else. It felt good to bask in that warmth, that memory of raw power. Soon, however, she found she was feeling quite lost in the exercise. Her skin felt like it was on fire, but not in an unpleasant way; instead, it felt like she was bathing in power, but she wasn’t sure if that was all she was supposed to be doing.

Slowly, she opened her eyes, and had to stifle a gasp when she looked at Maven. She was kneeling on the ground, sitting on her feet, and her hands were cupped on top of her tights. Flickering on her palm, there was a strong flame, easily recognizable as magical because of the flashes of colour that shone inside of it every once in a while.

Had Maven not looked so calm, Hilda would have been worried for her burning herself. But as it was, the witch looked completely in charge of her work. She may have sensed that Hilda was staring at her, hypnotized by her magic, because she almost immediately opened her eyes.

“Is everything okay?” She asked when she noticed how startled Hilda looked. As she continued watching the fire, an excited smile took over her face.

“That’s so cool!” She exclaimed. “Was I supposed to do that?”

After taking a deep breath, Maven let her flame fade away.

“No,don’t worry about it. I don’t expect you to be able to summon the elements yet, it’s quite tricky.”

Yet, Hilda thought. With time and training, she’d be able to do things just like that. The idea made her exhilarated.

“Hold on.” She said when something occurred her, dropping her voice to a whisper. “Can’t people see what you’re doing?”

Before Hilda could look around them, anxiously checking for anyone that might have noticed the magic, Maven pointed to a symbol on the sand by the top of the towel.

“I already took care of that. Outsiders won’t see anything out of the ordinary when they look at us.”

A quick check told Hilda that Maven had drawn the sigil on each side of the towel, and she admired the intelligence of it. She thought she should probably memorize that sigil, it could be useful in many a situation.

They continued with the same exercises, and they made Hilda realize the reason why Maven had brought her to that place for the lesson. When they moved on to earth, the librarian gently guided her to burying her hands in the sand, feeling it pulse with energy under her. While she attuned herself to air, she noticed just how unyielding the wind was on that part of the town, and as she brought her focus to a lovely memory of dancing under the pouring rain with her mum, the sound of waves made it all more real. The elements were more intense in that place.

Something felt different about connecting to water. The feeling of cool raindrops falling on her skin felt too real, and she wondered if that was the objective of this dynamic.

“Which sort of spell goes with it?” Maven asked like she had for each element, but her voice sounded very distant to Hilda. Almost as if she was underwater and someone was talking to her from the outside.

“Intuition.” The words left her mouth without her even thinking about them, but they felt right, so she didn’t take them back. “Healing and emotions.”

“Hilda.” Her mentor said gently. “Open your eyes.”

Slowly, she blinked them open. She didn’t know when she’d done that, but during the exercise she’d raised her hands approximately to shoulder height, and now a thin stream of water was dripping from them. Her eyes widened, and as she lost her concentration, the stream dried out. Bringing her gaze to the librarian, Hilda saw that she was also wearing a smile.

“Very good, Hilda.” She said as they both looked at the wet spot in the towel where the water had fallen. “That’s very hard to get on the first try. You should be very proud of yourself.”

She was reminded that Alfur was with them when he clapped his hands for her, cheering at her success. She was admittedly quite stunned by what had happened, and she realized that it had been the first tangible piece of magic that she’d ever done. The sensation was thrilling, like she was finally on her way to being a real witch.

“I think this is enough practical training for today.” Maven said, using the same stick which she’d found on the floor and drawn the sigils to mix the sand and make them disappear. “Besides, the sun is getting too strong.”

Hilda extended her hand, still slightly wet, to Alfur, so that he could hop onto it and move back to her hair. Then, she got to her feet to allow the librarian to pick the towel up, waving it to get rid of the bulk of sand and storing it in her bag again.

“Just one last thing.” The librarian picked up the stick once more and brought the tip to the sand. She began making a drawing that looked like a star, but then she surrounded it by a circle. “Do you know this symbol?”

Hilda nodded. “Some kid doodled it on their desk, Ms. Hallgrim was livid. She says it’s evil and we should not go around drawing it.”

The girl was crestfallen when Maven pursed her lips and sighed in disappointment. She thought she’d been doing very well on that lesson, but that was not a positive reaction.

“Did I get it wrong?” She asked, holding herself back from fidgeting.

“Yes, but it’s not your fault.” Maven said gently, making Hilda drop her shoulders with relief. Her eyes were locked on the pentacle. “Many aspects of our culture were twisted to convince others that witches are vile. That’s the information most people have.”

“Look.” She used the stick to point to one of the tips. “Water.”

Hilda frowned as she too looked at the pentacle. There was no water in it, so she didn’t understand what her mentor was trying to say. Maven continued on, however, pointing at each tip at a time.

“Fire, earth, air.” She finally pointed to the tip at the top, the one she had drawn leading to the sea. “And spirit.”

“Oh.” Hilda sighed as she finally caught on to what she meant. The librarian then gestured to the circle that linked each tip.

“And the universe connecting them all. Do you see?”

Turning to the librarian to realize that Maven was already looking at her, Hilda grinned. “I do!”

Maven smiled shortly and dropped the stick to the ground. “It’s a lovely symbol. There are many meanings, but I like to use it for protection. It’s a shame it has such a bad reputation.”

Hilda had no chance to say anything before Maven began walking away. She took a few strides to catch up with her, and realized that she was still speaking.

“Does it sound good to you to grab some take out and go eat lunch at my house? I want to work through some theory with you but we really should eat.”

Hilda nodded, thinking about the perfect place to suggest. “That sounds just perfect, Maven.”

_#_#_#_

“Why do you think it only worked once?” Hilda asked. “The training, I mean. Why did it only work with water?”

The three of them were sitting on a couch in Maven’s leaving room. After lunch, they had spent some time going over the theory of elemental magic. Hilda wrote down information on her book of spells, which the librarian had asked her to bring over before they left her house for the beach, and Alfur quickly jotted down every word that left Maven’s mouth. He seemed to want to write a report on that particular area of magic.

It had been pleasant. She’d particularly enjoyed it when the librarian explained how the elements were incorporated in spells and the reasons behind them being included, which turned out to be the reason why she’d asked Hilda to say which spells she thought should use them. It turned out that, in the meditative state of connection she’d been, she’d gotten very close most of the time. Hilda had even asked which elements would be used in the Soul Spell (mostly Spirit, but also Fire for purification and healing, and Earth would be present in the form of the crystals they’d use). As nice as it had been though, she was glad for the little break that they were currently having.

“Just because you weren’t able to materialize the elements, doesn’t mean it didn’t work.” She answered. “You got in tune with them, and that was the point. But it is usually easier for a witch to do summon the element they lean towards the most.”

“So that would be water for me?”

Maven took a sip from her tea. She’d made some for the three of them, even going as far as putting some drops on a tiny cup that had belonged to her sister’s doll house for Alfur. “I’ve been noticing that you’re more of an Earth witch, actually. But Earth, just like Fire, are harder to get a hang of. There’s water in the air and, well, air in the air. So what the witch does is manipulate that which is already around them. With Fire and Earth, you actually need to create the element. Water is probably the second you relate to the most.”

“Oh, I see.” Hilda had barely finished speaking when the heard a thud from the outside. They looked in time to see something grey falling to the floor, but it was nothing recognizable.

“I’ll go see what that was!” Alfur said immediately as he put his cup down on the table. He was reasonably sure he knew what the source of the sound had been, and she didn’t want any of them to see him before he did.

“Are you sure?” Hilda asked. “It might be dangerous.”

“Don’t worry about me!” Before either of them could say anything else, the elf was already running towards the door which led to the back garden.

He didn’t even need to open the door, the gap under it was small enough for him to get through. Once he was out in the garden, he found exactly what he thought he would. A grey bird had his wing pressed to his head after having hit it in the window.

“Raven!” He exclaimed, striding to him, and he looked up to the elf. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be fine.” He brushed it off. “I got your letter, but I didn’t want to send the reply by mail. Who knows who handles those letters.”

Alfur blinked, somewhere between startled and impressed. “You did it already?! It’s only been a few days! The librarian was looking for longer and she managed to find nothing!”

It was true that Raven had an advantage with his point of view from above, but Maven was nothing if not skilled in her craft, and looking into each house couldn’t be that much quicker with wings than it was with magic. He sighed, rubbing his head again, and Alfur thought that he should probably offer something for the pain as soon as he could.

“No wonder she didn’t!” Raven said, gesticulating with his wings. “I only found her by chance, when I was flying over the woods.”

“The woods?”

“Yes! If you give me a map I can show you exactly where I saw her.”

Alfur looked to the the door and then back to Raven, analyzing the situation. He decided, eventually, that it was only fair for the girls to be there when his friend revealed Myra’s location.

“Come inside.” He said then. “You should show it to them first. And we could probably get some ice for your head as well.”

He was about to lead him inside when he realized Raven wouldn’t fit the gap. Luckily, he saw the problem and opened his wings, flying just high enough to land on the handle. It opened easily under his weight, and the door swung open to allow them inside.

As Raven hopped back down to Alfur’s side, they saw Maven’s eyebrows fly towards her hairline at the unexpected situation, at the same time that Hilda gasped Raven’s name.

“You know it?” Maven asked upon noticing Hilda’s reaction.

“Oh, Hilda and I are friends, ma’am.” At the answer, Maven smiled with amusement. She was beginning to see a pattern in her apprentice’s friends.

“I take it you’re a Thunderbird?”

“There’s no time for introductions at this moment!” Alfur interrupted, though his words were more anxious than rude. “Miss Maven, Raven knows where your sister is!”

[sarka-stically]

it’s called “forbidden forest” for a reason Hilda (2/4)

Part two of my series nobody reads:

In her second year at Hogwarts Hilda goes running  head-first into trouble to defend Elven rights and David with Frida get  pulled along as always.

Hogwarts AU. (Hilda is Hufflepuff, David is Gryffindor and Frida is Slytherin).

Also available on AO3: HERE. beta-ed by @nerodiscort

Frida spend a lot of time studying. Aside from general classes like DADA, Potions or Charms, she had other complementary classes that usually let only Ravenclaw students in it. However, Frida still got in there, she was persuasive like that.

When she was not in classes, Frida spent her time in the library. Mostly it was to study, but there was another reason she didn’t like to think about; because admitting that you didn't like your House was only one step away from becoming a blood traitor.

Why couldn't she have been a Ravenclaw? In Ravenclaw, nobody would care about her having Hufflepuff and Gryffindor friends. The way it was now, she had to justify herself all day every day and she was only lucky that nobody bothered to bully her. To be fair, that may have been connected to the fact that she had a ghost in her room that made Pansy Parkinson bald after she had thrown Frida's stuff off the Astronomy tower.

To avoid all the unnecessary drama, Frida spent most of her free time in the library, so she knew the place inside and out. Or so she had thought because when it came to elven laws, she had no idea where to find anything about those. Sure, lots of books about magical creatures, in general, had articles about elves in them, but nothing about their culture or law system. Frida spent two whole days searching the library for any mention of the small creature’s laws while Hilda and her invisible elven friend (Frida was still not absolutely positive he was real, even after hearing his voice) ran around the whole school, doing all sorts of insane things to get the paperwork they needed.

When her frustration reached a top and Frida felt like screaming (preferably at David for being absolutely no help at all) something very peculiar happened.

“You need some help over there kids ?“

Frida dropped the book she was holding, David even yelped as he fell off the stool he was perched on. The person that literally appeared (Frida knew the spot was empty a second ago) only a few meters from them looked like about everything their DADA books said about vampires; a pale young adult with dark eyes, mostly black clothes and half black, half violet hair (which definitely was not natural).

Frida hawked and slowly picked up the book, just to get a bit of her dignity back.

“Who are you?“ she asked.

“I'm the Librarian,“ Stranger answered matter-of-factly.

“I'm pretty sure Madam Pince is the school’s librarian.“ David squeaked, still on the ground, looking more than ready to bolt in the slightest sign of danger.

“She is too.“ The Librarian said. David glanced at Frida almost desperately. She ignored him, it wasn’t as if one pale teen was the strangest thing she had ever seen (these Muggleborns were so dramatic).

“We are looking for-"

“Eleven histories, law and bureaucracy.“

“How did you-"

“Follow me.“ The Librarian finished still in the same tone.

Now David was not the only one feeling extremely creeped out. They followed the Librarian anyway, though Frida had to walk about 5 meters before her friend while he was hesitantly sneaking behind them.

I'm not the only one that got sorted terribly wrong. She thought.

With her extended knowledge of the library, Frida knew where they were being led even before they got there.

“The Restricted Section? But we are banned from going in there.“

The Librarian stood before the locked door, an actual grin on her face: “All the cool books have been banned once.“

…

"You know, this is the moment in films when the main characters look down the cellar stairs and you say ‘Don't go down there, you’re going to die,‘ but they go and die anyway,“ David mumbled a few hours later in front of the very same door, where they sneaked under the guise of night.

“What are movies?“ Hilda asked.

“Muggle entertainment.“ Said Frida, with a tone of voice she had reserved for talking to insane people (so mostly her two friends).

“This is that moment! Only it's not an ordinary basement, but a strictly forbidden section of the library in the magic school! I'm telling you this is a very, very bad idea.“ David continued to drone on, “Why would we do anything that strange lady says. She doesn't even have a name, it's most shady thing ever and l don't want to die.“

Frida along with Hilda continued to ignore him. After the year of knowing David, they were well aware that he would always go down his spiral of paranoia and no soothing words would stop it when he got like that. However, in the end, their friend would follow them anywhere, no matter how much he complained about it.

“Did your mysterious Librarian say how we should get in?“ Hilda whispered, studying the locked door.

“She didn't need to,” Frida said, rolling her eyes, “I know the unlocking spell, I'm not a complete savage. We did learn it last year, you should know it too.“

Hilda gave her a sheepish smile.    “Why bother. We have you.“

Frida rolled her eyes and pulled out her wand.

Stepping closer to the lock she whispered “Alohomora.“

With a click too loud, the door unlocked.

“Oh dang it.“ David squeaked “We are so dead.“

Frida gently pulled the handle and slowly opened it. The process felt almost ceremonial.

The restricted section was like a whole different world. It was a lot darker, but not because of the night hours. Shadows themselves seemed longer and deeper. Shelves were higher, and the room felt too wide and too tall to fit in this part of the castle.

Frida ignored the fear crawling in her stomach and used Lumos to light her way. Both her friends stared at her in awe.

“Hilda, David, both of you should at least know this one. Merlin's beard, it’s the first spell Flitwick taught us.“ Frida sighed.

Hilda shrugged: “I am more animal orientated.“

Frida chose not to talk to David for he might panic and run or scream or anything irrational like that, rather than respond. Instead, she turned and went to follow the directions the Librarian have given them. Both followed her lead wordlessly.

“It's not ominous at all that scary looking lady tells us to go to forbidden part of the library and even tells us where to look, but doesn't let us in, like legally, even when she says she is a librarian,“ David mutters, while eyeing one of the books as if it was going to jump off the shelf and bite him.

Walking among the dark shelves looming over her like angry Trolls, Frida silently admitted that for once David kind of had a point. This whole thing was kind of suspicious.

“This is a trap and we will get murdered.“ David continued muttering.

Suddenly a voice came from behind them, “Come on kid, give me some credit; if I wanted you dead, you'd be dead.“

They all swiftly turned around and even Frida couldn't help it and screamed.

The Librarian looked most unimpressed, only slowly weaving her wand to cast a wordless spell Frida didn’t know.

”She is going to curse us.“ David cried.

The Librarian just sighed. “Don't be a fool boy, I'm just making sure nobody heard your yelling.“

“While you kill us?”

Frida couldn’t even hold it against her when the Librarian chose not to respond and instead lead them deeper through dark aisles.

After a while, she stopped by a very messily sorted shelf. Frida could hear her muttering something about what Irma Pince does if not her job before the Librarian spoke to them again.

“So there you got it. Everything we have on the elves, people don’t want in full access part of the library. Enjoy, but remember: this is for references only, no taking the books outside.” With that, she left them. Only stopping by the opening of the aisle to say, “And of course, don’t get caught.”

“That was …” Frida began.

“…cool.” Hilda finished.

“That is really not what I had in mind.”

Hilda only grinned in response.

 ...

Hilda liked libraries. Of course, it would be so much more fun to spend her night looking for the forest giants in the forbidden forest or visiting Hagrid or even sneaking in the Astronomy tower to watch Woff migration (it was just the season for that) but libraries were fun too. If she couldn't see all the magical creatures herself at least she could enjoy learning about them with her friends.

However, no matter how much she liked this, her interest was nothing compared to Alfur's. The little man (elf) has been beaming with an enthusiasm ever since they had entered the library, gaining himself a few amused looks from the Librarian (Hilda was not even surprised that the woman could see him). When they got to the elven section, Alfur quickly climbed off Hilda's head, starting to explore the shelves.

About a quarter an hour later, Alfur’s squeaky little voice called Hilda to a very top shelf and probably the largest book she had ever seen. With the elf sitting on a top of it, Hilda took the book, setting it on the ground.

“That is one giant book,” Frida commented.

“It's actually bigger on the inside,” Alfur stated. Before Hilda got a chance to ask what he meant, elf hardly turned a front page, revealing a page filled with letters so small Hilda could hardly see them, let alone read.

“It's an official list of several most basic elven laws. If you want to be more thorough, there are forty-two more volumes.”

“This is most basic?” Frida raised her eyebrows.

“Forty-two more volumes?” David added, for a moment choosing to put down the wand he was until then holding protectively in front of himself as if it was a sword.

“Elves are really into making paperwork.” Hilda shrugged.

“Indeed we are.” Alfur nodded “But don’t worry, even a common house elf like me is able to read faster than most humans.”

Hilda liked libraries, but she couldn’t say that she liked spending half of the night just quickly turning pages on two-thousand pages long book, followed by another set of titles, as giant as the first one. Frida, on the other hand, was reading a human written book on elven history, and David was actually able to stand for three full hours just staring at the dark aisles of the library and babbling.

By the morning they were all completely drained but at least they knew what they needed to.

...

“... and some people seem to have many things much more important to do than to pay attention.” Snape's monotone yet threatening voice sounded so out of this world to Hilda's tired mind, that she needed a nudge from Frida to realize what he was saying while standing right in front of their desk.

“Yes, sir.” Hilda muttered, “I mean, no sir I don't have anything to do.”

Snape looked down on her, his hooked nose making him look even more menacing, “What would have you so tired for my class Miss Berg? It sure was not you, wandering these halls in the dark of the night. Because that wouldn't fit your... reputation.”

“I had to eh... I had...” Hilda was stammering over her tongue.

“She was helping me, sir.” Frida interrupted her friend, her best professional tone and Slytherin wit intact “I took on preliminary classes on Care of Magical Creatures and it got too hard for me so she was helping me study.”

Hilda had to admire her friend very much at that moment. Some people said Hilda should have been sorted into Gryffindor, because of her nature of jumping into danger without caring for consequences. However, if there was something Hilda would be too scared to do, it would be to straight up lie to Professor Snape.

“Alright, I appreciate your honesty, Miss Ranstrom.” Snape said, although he didn't seem to be believing their story one bit, “However this does not justify slacking off in my classes. So that is 10 points from Hufflepuff.”

United groaning could be heard from the half of the class filled with Hilda's housemates.

“Stay after class Miss Berg, I still have something to discuss with you.”

Now Hilda got really scared.

  ...

Frida's fast reflexes were the only thing that stopped Hilda’s jittery unsteady hands from dropping too many frog eyes in the cauldron and accidentally turning their Polyjuice Potion into some sort of explosive (and frog eyes don’t even belong into a Polyjuice Potion).

“It can't be that bad.” Frida tried calming her friend, rather lamely, while cleaning their workspace.

“I'd rather face a Troll.” Hilda murmured, “Wait I actually don't mind Trolls. I'd rather face the You-know-who and a Troll.”

“Hilda!” Frida shrieked.

“Sorry, grammar. He whose name must not be spoken."

“Grammar is not what I was concerned about.”

While the girls were bantering, the class emptied out, leaving only them and the professor, who was cleaning something in the supply closet. Frida told her friend that she would wait outside in the hallway, leaving Hilda no other choice but to muster her courage and walk up to Snape's desk.

“Sir.” She addressed him.

“Miss Berg. I'm sure you know why I ask to speak with you.”

“No, not really sir,” Hilda answered truthfully.

“The headmaster may have chosen to let your arrogance go unpunished, but most of the staff disagrees with his decision, myself included. So, I give you one last warning. One step out of the way Miss Berg. One, and there will be consequences. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir."

  ...

A few hours later, in the middle of a chilly October afternoon, Hilda and her friends all sat by the Great Lake.

“From what I read in ‘The Abbreviated History of Elven Kind vol. 52: The Modern Times (part 1/8)’ it seems that in 1892 the elven king Viisas made a contract with Hogwarts headmaster at the time, Phineas Nigellus Black, about the elven clan of Aldric,”  Alfur lectured what he learned from one of the history and law books they found, while marching on top of one of bigger stones, scattered on the shore. All three friends were watching him, Frida and David with a great deal of interest, since it has been only a few minutes since they signed their paperwork and now were able to see the elf.

“By agreeing to this treaty, elven royalty repaid their long debt to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, precisely to the great Godric Gryffindor who saved the early elven kingdom of Elvares from being tread on by a Giant.”

“What were the terms of the treaty?” Hilda asked the question he was so obviously avoiding. Alfur gulped few times before answering.

“The most significant part of the treaty was that members of the said clan would become unpaid servants of the Hogwarts for the next five hundred years.”

Hilda didn't even pretend to be shocked, though she heard her friends softly gasp “Five hundred years?”

“Is there any way around it?” Frida asked.

“Why would I need a-"

“Is there any way around it, Alfur?” Hilda repeated sternly.

“No, not really. There is only this one loophole, but we can’t use that one. It’s a clause we elves put in every contract, and it is mostly just an internal joke among elven scribes.”

“I'm so going to hate this" David murmured.

“What is the loophole?” Hilda encouraged.

“Any elven contract is null and void if destroyed by the fire of a lindworm.”

“I hate this.” David nodded to himself.

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