#SLAMS THIS DOWN... i could've said WAAAAAY more

[timey-fandom-stuff]

> Blood Moon - a dark fantasy ISAT AU

aaaand here we go again, this time with my take on a vam-- I MEAN, my I-can't-believe-it's-not-another-vampire AU. what can I say, I'm a sucker for messy AU ideas. ba dum tss. ALRIGHT ALRIGHT, all jokes aside... I couldn't resist after seeing so many fun vampire Siffrin AU ideas floating around, but still wanted to try my hand at doing something a little different. don't be fooled, this has at least 2000% more world building packed into it than it has any business having.

hey, I didn't lie! they're not actually a vampire! technically!! don't worry, I came up with something worse. more below the cut.

> OVERVIEW

set in a world where fae encounters are simply a grim reality of life, Siffrin himself is a part of the darkness that humanity has been taught to fear-- even if he himself doesn't realize what that entails. how could he, when everything that he was has been erased from the world? the Court of the Empty Star is no more, scattered to the winds-- its history wiped clean, even from the fae themselves. weak and depleted without their source of magic, the 'Lost Ones' found new ways of filling the hollowness it left behind-- methods that would render them monsters more than any fae had ever been before.

somewhere along the coast, a human village took pity on a wayward child and took them in, raising them as their own. they believed him to be a harmless abandoned changeling, a creature of fae origin that had lost its ill-gotten mortal name yet been left behind as a part of their world. they only knew he was no such thing after livestock started going missing, nothing but scattered inedible remnants left behind by morning. this certainly was not the work of a changeling. so they called him something else; a 'Cursed One,' bearing the Curse of Hunger that had twisted its afflicted for generations... an insatiable beast who could live forever by devouring the lives of others.

how could they abide something so dangerous in their homes?

how long until this hungry little monster was eating more than just chickens and cattle, after all? it was only ever a matter of time.

how long until their own families began to look like easy food?

he heard every word spoken in the town hall that night, and knew that this place would never be the home he'd hoped it to be.

so the child ran, and ran, and they've never stopped running since.

it's been over a decade since then. deep in the heart of the nation of Vaugarde, a vast fount of otherworldly power flows its cursed power across the land, twisting the land of mortals into a paradise for beings of the Moonlit Realm. there, concealed by night with only the moon and the stars shining overhead, creatures of the darkness travel freely and humanity is condemned to wander as ageless beasts. rumors even claimed that the pure magic of this strange, macabre 'blessing' could cure the hunger of a Cursed One.

'Siffrin' was never the type to play hero. everyone knows that the favors of a monster never come for free, after all. the Saviors believe he is their secret weapon, a mysterious creature who seems as at ease in this expanse of unfathomable night as they are in the day.

but he knows the truth. their new 'friends' will pay the price for such a dreadful bargain-- even if they haven't yet realized the cost.

will they pay their toll in blood or in tears? in time, or the stars above?

or will the pull of two conflicting worlds snap him in two first?