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el-michoacano · 3 years ago

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I Saw the Dead, Small and Great

It’s finally posting day for the @tltbb and I couldn’t possibly be more excited! What a great time this has been! Shout out to the event hosts, and also to @queensabriel and @melli4uhbees, who have been the best artists a girl could ask for!

Summary: Once upon a time, many, many years ago, Harrowhark's great-great-grandmother, who had herself lived an unnaturally long life, told her that their family was descended from that one wicked snake that haunted the Garden of Eden, that the family Nonigesimus were more serpent than man. At the time, Harrow had thought she was joking, just a senile old woman weaving mindless tales. She knows better now.

Trigger warnings: Suicidal thoughts, lots of talk of death.

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1 Is your soul prepared?

Harrow isn't sure how the sign got onto her property. It's been there for years and years, the nails rusting, the white paint chipping, the wood rotting beneath it. The sign is as tall as she is, and double as wide as she can stretch her arms. It's sinking into the mud, though, like everything else in this damned place, standing crooked enough that it might just topple over in a strong breeze.

Is your soul prepared?

The words were wrought in bright, angry red once, but they're an ugly brown now, the color of old blood. It's oddly fitting.

Hooligans, Harrow thinks, but she can't be sure. The sign is large, and its post is set deep into the soft earth. Would just any rowdy local boys be able to do such a thing? Would they have any inclination to pass on such a message? She'd been the target of their little pranks before, but such an effort from boys who hadn't the cleverness to not wet the front of their trousers when they took a piss? It seems unlikely. They’ve always been more the type to leave dead animals hanging on the gates. The sign is too civil.

It was the church that planted the sign, she's sure. The Ascension Parish Southern Baptist Church had been after her for years, all the way up until it had caught fire and burned to the ground in 1912. Fingers had pointed at her for that, too, and even now, she occasionally wakes to find God is watching or Repent now! or Open your heart to God! painted across the front gates.

Removing the paint gives her something to do, she supposes. Is it really so bad?

Is your soul prepared?

Harrow has considered removing the sign more times than she can count, but it's not as though any other living soul sees it. Why bother? It's not as if her family's sinking home is the only site of such signs. There are others like it scattered all over the bayou, ones of this seemingly standard size, smaller ones tacked to chain link fences, even huge billboards. God sees all, they proclaim. Jesus saves. Hell is real.

Of course Hell is real, Harrow thinks with a roll of her eyes. She lives there, after all.

Hell's End is the name of this area, a name given by her great-great-grandmother when the family had first arrived in the States all the way from New Zealand. It was to be the end of their long and dangerous journey west, the start of their Heaven on Earth. How wrong she had been. How wrong they had all been.

Harrow is one of the very few who dare to come near this part of the swamp now. The brackish waters part around her feet, and the heels of her elegant boots leave no prints in the mud. The gators go scurrying away at her approach, and high in the moss-draped trees, the cicadas fall silent.

The snakes, though, make no move to flee. They watch her with their bright, slitted eyes, and they bow as best as they can. She is one of them. She offered an apple to Gideon, and another to Alecto, apples of forbidden, carnal knowledge. She is the snake in the Garden of Eden given human form, and she is the mistress of this particular bayou.

Once upon a time, her great-great-grandmother, who had herself lived an unnaturally long life, had told Harrow that their family was descended from that one wicked snake, that they were more serpent than man. At the time, Harrow had thought she was joking, just a senile old woman weaving mindless tales.

She knows better now.

This wickedness is in her blood. Her parents had tried to fight it, but Harrow has long since given in. There's no use in trying to deny who she is.

The wickedness is as much a part of who she is as the swamp is.

The Nonagesimus family have always been the masters of this bayou, back since the 1750s when the house and its great iron gate had sprung seemingly overnight from the mud. That was centuries ago. Harrow isn't sure of the year anymore, but she is certain that it's high summer now. The children should be catching fireflies and the old biddies should be sipping sweet tea on the porch while their husbands talk about the weather, but Harrow is the only Nonagesiumus left in all the world, and the sinking mansion sits quietly in its watery grave, waiting to claim her as it has all the others.

Her family is long gone.

Harrow, with her twisted magic and her unnatural tastes, is all that remains of her once-great, once-powerful family.

The irony of it is enough to choke her, to send her hundreds of dead relations a-spinning in their graves. Or spinning in their coffins, at least. There are no graves here.

Though the closest towns are lively and New Orleans isn't terribly far away, there is no music in Hell's End.

There was, once upon a time, a lovely harpsichord in the parlor, but Harrow used it as firewood ages ago. Her mother had been an accomplished player, and she had taught Harrow to play, too, but Harrow couldn't bear the sound. Even in dreams, it breaks her heart.

There was an old gramophone once, too, but it met a similar fate. One too many times, it had come alive in the night, likely by Pelleamena's hand, and Harrow had thrown it from the top gallery. She still steps on its splinters from time to time.

The closest thing Harrow can bear to a song now is Ortus's low humming, though she's not sure it's a hum at all. It's a purr, almost, like that of a cat, a soft, comforting sound. It's the sound of his aura, she thinks, gentler than ever in death.

On occasion, she joins in on the hum, letting it rattle its way up her throat and down through her chest. It's a tender, deep sound, and she worries sometimes that it will shake her apart if she lets it.

Sometimes she thinks she wouldn't mind shaking apart. She could sift her way down through the warped floorboards, down into the manor's sunken foundation and even lower, drifting down, down, down.

Maybe she'll sink all the way into Hell. Maybe Alecto will be waiting for her there, her dark, dark eyes full of longing and anger. Gideon won't be there, though, Harrow knows. Hell is the last place Gideon belongs.

Harrow, though, belongs there. A witch, a homosexual, a murderer. Where else would she belong?

The wicker chairs set out behind the house are sinking and rotten, but the ghosts don't favor the back, and so Harrow often finds herself sitting there in the low evening light. Her legs are crossed at the ankle, her wide-brimmed hat pulled low, a book resting open in her lap, though it's too dark to read it now.

The mosquitos are a choking cloud this time of year, buzzing thick in the air, carrying diseases on the wind. They have taken too many of Harrow's kind already. She swats at them with her lace-gloved hands, but they're never deterred. Stubborn things, she thinks. They're the only swamp creatures that don't seem to fear her.

It has to do with her blood, she's sure. There was wicked magic in her veins from the day she was born, and they can smell it, even now, long after she's been bled dry. Though they hover around her like a plague, there's nothing left in her for them to drink. She used it all up trying to bring back her parents, her family name, her old life, her dead lovers.

But they're all gone now, and her magic can't bring them back. Not in any way that matters.

Her parents are gone, interred in the grand white marble mausoleum out behind the house. It's sinking into the swamp, like everything else is, a few centimeters every year. The doors can barely be opened now. When Harrow dies, there will be no way for her to join them in the tomb. Maybe that's for the best. Maybe she doesn't deserve to be with them. They certainly wouldn't welcome her, not after all her disastrous attempts to bring them back.

She doesn't deserve to be with Gideon in death, either, though no one to this day seems to know exactly what became of her. For all Harrow knows, Gideon is in some gator's belly. Had been, anyway. No one has seen her in decades. No one is even looking anymore. Not even Aiglamene is looking anymore. Gideon was murdered, Harrow is certain, likely by the church itself. The worst things always happen to the best people.

And then there was Alecto. A predator, yes, but Harrow's predator. There isn't a day Harrow doesn't regret drowning her, but there was nothing else to be done about her. She was mad. She was inhuman. She was everything Gideon wasn't, and Harrow had taken comfort in that for a while. But Alecto had ripped poor, sweet Ortus limb from limb in a fit of rage, and her drowning was a far easier death than she had deserved.

Alecto sits on the fence at the edge of the property most days, her dark, empty eyes staring off into the distance.

On particularly gloomy days, Ortus joins her. Even dead, he can't bear to be alone. He's more a great mass of shadow than a true figure, weak even in death, but Harrow would know him anywhere. Her heart aches when she sees him. The sad, tremulous smile he gives her makes her want to die.

But after all she's been through, is there anything that doesn't make her want to die?

Is there anything in the great, wide world that makes her want to live?

If there is, she hasn't found it.

At this point, she doubts it exists at all.

She doesn't live now, anyway. She just survives.

Slowly but surely, the Nonagesimus house is sinking into the mud.

It's been sinking for years, of course. It started the day Harrow's parents died.

Died.

It's too gentle a term. They didn't pass away in their beds, old as the hills, their souls well-prepared, as parents should. They didn't go peacefully. They didn't just die.

Pelleamena and Priamhark hung themselves from the high branches of the cypress tree that had been growing just inside the gates since before the gates had even been erected. Harrow had been the one to find the bodies, the one to cut them down, the one to lay them to rest in the family mausoleum.

Her being the one to read their note was by far the worst of it.

You bring shame on us, it had said. It had been scrawled in her mother's elegant handwriting, and her father hadn't even bothered to sign it. Harrow often finds herself wondering if he even read it, or if he had found Pelleamena's body before Harrow had and followed his wife to the grave of his own volition.

It was Harrow's fault either way, and to this day, after all these decades, she carries the weight of it on her back. It weighs so much that she can barely stand upright, hunched like an old woman in her wanderings. She would be an old woman, were it not for her magic. This eternal life is her punishment, and she deserves every single second alone.

Her parents were ashamed of her, and probably had been for most of her life. Even as a child, there was something wrong about her. They had tried and tried for more children, but alas, she was the only one to make it to birth. Their only daughter, they whispered, the blood witch. Their only daughter, the necrophiliac. Their only daughter, the homosexual. Their shame had driven them into the arms of Death, and their precious child had played witness to it.

She should have seen it coming from a country mile away, but she hadn't. She had been too busy trying to resurrect Gideon and kill Alecto to notice their downcast eyes and trembling mouths. She hadn't noticed how they had wasted away until she was cutting them down from their twin nooses.

Harrow supposes it doesn't matter. Even dead, her parents are with her now.

They stand silent most days, pacing the sinking house's top gallery, staring out over the swamp with their dark, sunken eyes and their sewn-shut mouths. Dead men, after all, tell no tales. She's made certain of that.

Though they can't reply, not in words, she does talk to them sometimes.

Today, though, she's more focused on the foxfire darting through the trees. This is no swamp gas, she's sure. She's intimately familiar with that particular sight. Instead of the usual blue, this light is violet, and it moves slowly, ambling through the trees without a care in the world.

There's someone down there, Harrow realizes.

The question is, is this person living or dead?

It isn't alive.

Harrow isn't sure if it's human, but certainly is not alive.

She meets it outside the iron gate, her hand resting against the metal, as if its narrow bars can somehow protect her from this strange half-dead girl.

"Hello," it says. Its smile is sharp and fanged, its voice a rasping whine, like dead tree branches scraping a window during a storm. It takes Harrow's hand in its golden right one, presses its soft, bluing mouth to her knuckles, and Harrow can feel the coolness of it through the lace of her gloves. It's prettier than it has any right to be, despite its wasted appearance and its pallid skin and the deep, dark shadows beneath its eyes. "Have you been waiting long?" it asks, catching her eyes with its own.

Waiting? Harrow doesn't wait. She takes. The only thing she's waiting for is death. Perhaps, she thinks, this is Death. "Who are you?" she asks, slowly, stupidly. Her voice is rough from lack of use, the croak of a frog more than the voice of a witch. It's oddly fitting.

The other woman, tall and pale as a ghost, laughs at her, and the sound is the knell of church bells ringing on a foggy morning. They're funeral bells.

Hear the tolling of the bells -- Iron bells! Harrow thinks. She pulls her hand away, wraps her arms around herself. What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!

It asks, its voice low and seductive, "Who do you want me to be, Harrowhark?"

Harrow bristles. No one has called her by her name in years. She doubts anyone even knows her name anymore. Only old Aiglamene would remember, if she even remembers anything. This time, Harrow asks, "What are you?"

The eyes roll. They're a ludicrous shade of purple, striped with blue and brown, deep-set and heavy-lidded. They're inhuman. "I'm no one," it says, then approaches her, reaching a hand toward her face. Harrow doesn't flinch, even when the soft fingertips and sharp claws brush her cheek. "And yet everyone knows me." It moves closer, and Harrow can smell it: Musty, powdery, with something sweet underneath. Something terribly, deathly sweet. "Everyone faces me."

It's the smell of rot, Harrow realizes. "You really are Death."

It leans closer, brushes its mouth against hers. It agrees in a voice like shattering ice, "I really am."

"I've been waiting for you for years." Harrow feels strange saying it, but she can't take it back now. She feels stranger still letting this creature into her home, but she can't take that back, either. Why would she want to? Death is the first physical guest she's had for decades. It's been all ghosts and vermin for far too long. "Where have you been?"

"Around," Death says, its eyes roving as it steps into the manor, stepping gingerly through the puddles in the foyer, its feet bare. It's dressed all in white, its long skirt trailing on the floor, the hem damp and muddy. It wears only a camisole on top, the straps thin and hanging off its bony shoulders, short enough that it leaves a few inches of its midriff enticingly bare. Harrow startles at that: She hasn't been enticed in decades. She startles again when she realizes how utterly human it is to feel enticed. Perhaps she's still human after all. "I keep a very busy schedule."

Harrow has the distinct feeling that that isn't true, but she doesn't dare say so.

Death itself has come to her.

It's hard not to feel special in the wake of it, and she swallows down a wave of pride. Pride. She hasn't felt that in ages, either.

"You really live like this?" Death asks as it steps into the parlor, the damp rug squelching obscenely under its bare feet.

This room had once been grand, but now, it's little more than a shadow of its former self. A ghost of itself, like its mistress. The walls are lined in ceiling-high shelves full of moldering books and pretty little treasures, the Persian rug unwinding at its edges, the lovely chaise discolored and misshapen from years of sweat and sitting. All the furniture in the house is in such a state. Harrow can't find it in herself to be embarrassed by it anymore.

Death takes a seat on the chaise, kicking its bare feet up onto the far end, its delicate ankles crossed one over the other. Its skin is so pale that the worn navy velvet makes its veins all but glow.

It's otherworldly, and Harrow comes to sit in front of it on the warped wood of the floor. She arranges her skirts carefully, keeping her tattered slippers hidden under her equally tattered hem. Had she known Death was finally coming for her, she would have dressed better. "Why are you only here now?" she asks, an unfamiliar desperation in her voice. Of course she's desperate, she thinks. She's been waiting since before the turn of the century. She's been waiting longer than most people get to live.

"I told you," Death says, picking at a loose string on the arm of the chaise. A bit of the piping comes off with it. "I've been busy." It glances up with its ludicrous eyes, meets Harrow's gaze, holds it fast. Harrow feels caught in their depths, like a fly in a glass of sweet tea. Sweet it is, though. "And I thought you would have come to me on your own by now."

The following morning, Harrow wakes alone, still dressed and still exhausted.

She's disappointed, but she can't bring herself to be surprised. She's poison, after all. Even Death itself can't bear to be around her. She can't say she blames it.

She's still on the floor in the parlor, the chaise empty, but it still has that smell clinging to it: Musty and cloyingly sweet. Like violets, Harrow thinks again. Death has eyes like violets. Who would have guessed? Certainly not her.

She had always imagined Death as a skeleton wrapped in a black robe, a scythe at its side, its eyes empty black pits in its skeleton face. Death didn't look like a girl, but an ancient being, rotting away from the inside. She had had a nightmare, once, that Death had come to her in the guise of her long-dead aunt, Glaurica. In the dream, Harrow had very nearly taken its hand.

She had never feared Death. Even now, having met it in person, she doesn't fear it.

Death was the first real companionship she had felt in ages.

She thinks this even as her mother crosses the room. Pelleamena is dressed in the same long, trailing black dress she wore on the eve of her death, her long black hair pulled into a braid that hangs heavy down her back. It looks eerily like a rope. She's reaching for a book on the ceiling-high shelf, but her hand goes right through the spine, and she pulls back, staring through her transparent fingers as if it hasn't happened a thousand times over.

Harrow watches her, silent as a stone.

Even in death, they barely acknowledge each other.

Priamhark, as much as the ghostly thing that wanders the house is Priamhark, is less dead. When Harrow watches him, he watches her right back.

"Father," Harrow says to him as he paces the gallery.

He doesn't speak, Harrow has made certain of that with her postmortem sewing, but he looks at her, and his dark, dark eyes are gentle.

They stand together, his lighter-than-air hand over hers on the gallery's splintered railing, and this night, the swamp is dark.

When her parents killed themselves, Harrow called the police.

Hours passed.

No one came.

Pigs, Harrow had thought.

She's been alone ever since, save Death and the ghosts. Even Aiglamene has stopped visiting.

Harrow doesn't mind being alone most of the time. It's the peaceful nights that get her.

In the quiet, under the singing of crickets and the rumbling of the gators, she can hear Gideon's voice. Gideon, asking, You really gonna wear that? Gideon, calling her baby. Gideon, begging for her touch.

From time to time, it's Alecto's voice in her head, whispering songs and poetry and utter nonsense. Too much of her voice, and Harrow is certain she'll go mad. For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams of the beautiful Annabel Lee, Alecto sings in her whispery, water-logged voice, and the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

Now, though, it's Gideon's voice nor Alecto's she hears.

The air is hot around her, humid, and Harrow loses herself in the fantasy, her black eyes slipping closed. Her chewed-down nails rake against her skin, and she imagines a golden hand in their place. She imagines bluing lips at her neck, too-sharp white teeth sinking into her neck. She imagines the cool, meager weight of Death above her. It's Death's voice she hears, and in its creaking hanging-tree voice, it whispers, Come.

Harrow does.

You bring shame on us.

Though her mother hasn't spoken in half a century, Harrow can still hear the words in her voice. She had a lovely voice, Harrow's mother. It was elegant and soft, almost musical. Her words always came slowly, carefully selected before they passed her lips. The note was probably exceptionally well selected. Short and sweet.

The note is tucked into the neckline of Harrow's gown, the paper tucked against her heart and tinged yellow from years of sweat and tears.

Harrow can't bear to be without it.

It's her cross to bear, and she must bear it alone.

It's a full week before Death shows itself again. Harrow finds it in her room, stretched out on the molding canopy bed. The canopy is less lace now than Spanish moss, the covers mildewed and practically falling apart. Death doesn't seem to mind. It looks perfectly at ease, its hands joined behind its head, its right leg bent, the other tossed over its knee. It was humming to itself, its pale foot bouncing along to the rhythm.

Harrow can hardly believe that it's back.

Death's voice is an undignified whine when it asks, "Did you forget about me, Harrowhark?"

How could I? Harrow doesn't say. She does say, "I tried to." It's not entirely true. "I thought you'd abandoned me again."

"Abandoned you?" Death looks almost offended, its golden hand coming to its chest, clutching invisible pearls, but its laughter is high and sweet, bouncing off the crumbling walls like birdsong. Harrow represses a pleasant shiver at the sound of it. "Harry, my love," Death says, smiling with blue lips and too-sharp animal teeth, "I have been beside you since the day you were born."

My love? Harrow's cheeks go warm, but she ignores it, asking, "Since I was born?" It seems impossible. It also seems impossible that Death exists as a person at all. She's been surrounded by impossibility for as long as she can remember. This shouldn't be so surprising. "How could you possibly have time for that?"

"There are half a million Deaths," says Death with a wave of its hand. It wears lacy, threadbare gloves, and its cuticles are bluish, its nails chewed short. "This is just the area I chose to cover," it's saying, though it doesn't sound at all interested. Harrow wonders if it's even capable of interest. "There are fewer people here, less work. I can just hover most of the time."

The dark cloud of Death follows us, Harrow's grandmother had once told her. It seems she was right. Harrow can't quite believe it, even now. It's a curse, her grandmother had told her, and we deserve it. "Why me?" she asks.

"Why not?" Death shoots back. It holds out its arms, and against her better judgment, Harrow climbs into bed beside it, letting it enfold her. The gold of its skeletal right arm is chilly through the worn lace of her dress. "You Nonagesimus types are my favorite. You always come to me so willingly."

Harrow props herself up on her elbow, meeting Death's eyes with her own. "You know my family?"

"All the dead ones," Death says with a shrug that sends the strap of its camisole slipping off its shoulder. The veins just beneath its icy-pale skin are especially visible there, and Harrow lifts a hand to trace them. They have a green tint to them, and she wonders if there's blood in them at all, or if this iteration of Death has algae and swamp moss in its veins. "I gave the kiss of death to your father, and to your mother, and to Glaurica, and to sweet Ortus." Death ticks off each name off on its spidery fingers. Then it looks down at Harrow, one colorless brow lifting. "And then there was Alecto." Harrow feels the blood drain from her face, the breath fleeing her lungs in a single second. "She wasn't one of you, was she?"

"She could have been," Harrow says, softly, "eventually."

"You sent her to me gift-wrapped, didn't you?" Death doesn't sound at all bothered, and it slips its fingers beneath Harrow's chin, forcing her to look it in the eye. "It had been so long since I received a sacrifice like that. Your people don't offer tribute like they used to."

"Our magic isn't what it used to be," Harrow says.

"I wonder why," Death says. Its smile fades, though, when it asks, "You're how old? I'd say your magic is working just fine."

Harrow's lips threaten to smile, but it never comes. She says, "It's impolite to ask a lady's age."

Death itself laughs at her, songbird-sweet. "All you want is to die," it says, sounding bemused, one brow lifted in a match to the corner of its mouth, "and yet you'll live forever."

"For far too long, anyway," Harrow agrees, shivering when Death's golden hand slides into her hair, carding carefully through choppy black locks.

The silence that falls then isn't silence at all. Outside, the wind is in the trees and in the water. The cicadas are singing. Birds call to one another. Harrow's heart is beating a mile a minute, pounding in her ears. Death's heart isn't beating at all.

Softly, its voice almost a purr, Death says, "Did you know you've been dying your whole life?"

Harrow scoffed. "Isn't everyone?"

"Where did you go?" Harrow's voice is soft and plaintive, and she hates it. She's straddling Death's waist on her bed, its pointy hip bones pressing into the backs of her thighs. It feels like too much too soon, and it's far too intimate, but she has no intention of pulling away. She could stay like this forever.

Death presses its fingertips, both the flesh ones and the golden ones, into Harrow's hips. "Someone needed transporting," it said with a shrug of its narrow shoulders.

"You do that?" Harrow asks. Her hands are resting against the flat plane of Death's stomach, her fingertips tucked just beneath the hem of its camisole. "Transport people?"

"I transport souls," Death says. Its eyes are on Harrow's, searching for something in her black gaze. "This one was the last one in the area, save you."

Harrow's unkempt eyebrows draw together, her eyes flittering off to one side. As far as she knows, she's the only person still living in the area. She asks, "Who was it?"

Death, strangely, hesitates. "An old woman called Aiglamene," it says, and there's a strange weight in its voice, as if it knows how much Aiglamene meant to Harrow once upon a time. "Must have been a hundred and twenty years old." Its hands slide down to Harrow's thighs, its thumbs coming to rest in the creases of her knees. "Maybe even older than you."

"By a bit," Harrow agrees, doing her best to keep the sudden numbness out of her voice. "I didn't know she was still here."

"Keeping an eye on you," Death says, "from what I can gather."

And now she's gone, Harrow doesn't say, but the words fill her chest. It hurts.

"You should have seen her automobile," Death is saying, sounding almost mystified. Its hands are joined behind its head now, its eyes distant. "Such an incredible machine!"

More to herself than to Death, Harrow says, faintly, "I've never seen an automobile." Gideon had one that she was immensely fond of, but she hadn't trusted it on the marshy roads of the swamp. Alecto, old-fashioned thing that she was, chose to simply walk. It had made her disappearance so much easier.

"You're so behind the times, Harry," Death chides, though there's amusement clear in its voice. "You should come to town with me." It gives her a sly grin, looking very much like the fox that managed to break into the chicken coop. They're both foxes, Harrow realizes. "The things I could show you..."

"No." Harrow says it far too quickly, and her eyes dart off to the side, embarrassed. "No, I belong here. My magic ends here. I would age fifty years if I ever left the swamp."

"Shame, that." Death doesn't sound particularly bothered. Instead, its hands come to Harrow's thighs again, pushing the fabric of her skirt immodestly high, up past the tops of her stockings. It takes everything Harrow has to keep from pushing her hips into the touch. "But there are so many things I can show you right here."

The next time Harrow wakes, she isn't alone.

She's on the great bed in her room, Death's arms wound tight around her and holding her close. Her chest is pressed to Death's side, its skin bare and cool to the touch, devoid of breath or a heartbeat. It's eerily still. It's not Harrow's first time in such close contact with a corpse.

Outside, through the thin curtains over the balcony doors and the windows, the light is thin and greyish, either dusk or dawn, but certainly overcast. There's a storm coming. Harrow wonders if Death will simply sleep through it.

Death, unsurprisingly, sleeps like the dead. All through the night, it didn't move even once.

Was it only all night? It could have been years, for all Harrow knows.

As she lays quiet in Death's arms, she's surprised to find that she doesn't mind that idea. Let her dream her life away in the arms of Death. There are worse fates.

Just inside the door of the sinking manor is an antique dark wood table. On top of it is a crystal vase filled with flame-orange roses.

They were a gift of Aiglamene, given shortly after Gideon vanished in a rare gesture of comfort.

They are the single thing in the house that isn't rotting.

Harrow stands before them, staring, willing life through them.

Death stands beside her, watching quietly, its arms crossed over its chest, its head tipped curiously to the side. "I can feel their age," it says, its voice soft and thoughtful. "How long have you had these?"

"Decades," Harrow says. She plucks one from the crystal vase and tucks it behind Death's ear. Immediately, the life leaves the petals, and even when Harrow touches the petals, she can't revive it.

Death says, softly, "Are you afraid, Harrowhark?"

"No," Harrow says, and is surprised to realize that she means it.

"Good." Death steps behind her, wrapping its arms around Harrow's waist, resting its pointed chin on her shoulder. Its skin is soft and chilled. "With old Aiglamene gone, my attention is all yours."

The smell of violets mingles with the scent of roses, and Harrow realizes there's nothing she wants more.

"How do you do it?" There's something like awe in Death's voice, its head tipped to the side, a chipped tumbler half-full of decades-old scotch in its golden hand. "I'd lose my mind if I had to stay here all the time."

There's no derision in its tone, and Harrow says, "Maybe I have."

"Suppose you wouldn't know if you had," Death says, taking a long sip. "You could be dead right now, couldn't you? Would you even know the difference?"

She isn't dead. She may be dead inside, but she still feels. Harrow feels the chair she's sitting on, threadbare and creaky as it is, feels the warped wood beneath her bare feet, feels the coolness of Death sitting beside her. She would know, she tells herself.

She doesn't quite believe it.

Death goes out sometimes, wandering through the swamp and into the towns.

Harrow watches it leave from the iron gate, Ortus at her right, Alecto at her left. Her parents keep close, too, sewn-lipped and sullen.

Even with the ghosts, Harrow is alone, waiting.

Her life has become a waiting game, and she finds she doesn't mind, because she knows she'll never be alone for long.

Death always returns to her, sometimes with a man to sacrifice or a woman to seduce, sometimes with a butchered gator or a pot of jambalaya it found God-knows-where. It rarely comes to the manor empty-handed.

Death is courting her, Harrow realizes, and for the first time in decades, she smiles.

The courting is gentle. Death often is, isn't it?

It comes softly, like sleep, darkening the edges of the world and drawing it all in close.

Death steals the very breath from Harrow's lungs, pinning her flat against the wall. Its blue lips are pressed to her nape, its golden hand resting lightly around her throat, its spidery flesh hand at her hip.

Its voice is soft when it says, "You were made for this."

Made to be used by Death itself? Made to cater to Death itself? Made to be a lover to Death itself? The answer is obvious. "I was," Harrow agrees, her voice nearly lost in her heavy breathing. "I am."

Harrow spends her time in the arms of Death itself, now. But is that any different from how she lived before?

At the end of a long day, she waits beside the rusting gate, waiting for her deathly love to return to her.

The branches of the too-familiar cypress shake above her, Spanish moss swaying in the breeze. She presses a hand to its rough bark and wills it to live. Like the roses, it must live. It's a monument now. This tree is her old friend, known all her life.

As is Death, approaching through evening fog, violet eyes shining in the dark.

Being in the company of Death is better than being alone, Harrow supposes as Death's arms wind around her, pulling her close. Death's lips are blue and chilled against hers, but she melts into the feeling of it, as she always does.

As they walk back toward the sinking manor, they pass the old sign. Is your soul prepared?

Death trails its golden, skeletal fingertips along the top of the sign as they pass, and the wood is immediately overtaken by mold and mushrooms, the paint flaking off in great chunks.

"Is my soul prepared?" Harrow asks as they walk in the dark.

"Oh, Harry," Death laughs. Its glowing eyes turn to her, hypnotic and bright as lightning bugs. "Your soul has been ready for me since you were born."

#harrow nonagesimus #ianthe tridentarius #harryanthe #harrianthe #harrowhark nonagesimus #gideon the ninth #harrow the ninth #the locked tomb #the locked tomb Trilogy #tltbb 2021 #tlt big bang 2021 #my tlt

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springtimebat · 4 years ago

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The Autumn Meeting (Part 1/4)

Six suns peer down from perching clouds, leaving heavy, gilded dents on the heavens. They watch with amused, greedy eyes, their eyelids soft and rusted. They sit and wait for a hymn to be sung.

The city of tomorrow arrives in the early morning, on a thousand dying legs. The crow is beginning its call as the sun sets in the east, and the queen begins to cross the old town bridge just as the sky turns pitch black. The queen is young and full of life. Her hair is dark and wild. Her eyes are electric green. Naturally, the shadows clamber over each other, desperate to touch her skin. They claw at her footprints, grasp desperately at her diadem. The Queen places a shawl, a piece of midnight, careworn and devoid of stars, around her shoulders. She places galoshes on her feet. They snap against the cobblestones. The shadows attempt to bash her brain in. The queen pulls the shawl tighter around her neck and carries on. She must begin her quest before it's too late, before she misses her window. She pulls apart the ghoulish bonds restraining her and slips into the forest, the heavy frame of her home balancing on stilts behind her.

When the clock strikes the right time, three pilgrims meet deep inside the bowels of the forest to tell stories they stole off of wanderers backs. One is skull and bones, the second is more shark than man, the last is cast in iron and gilded armour, kept together with unsteady bolts and springs. The three are old, dear friends with different destinies that lead them to separate for months on end. Still, now they gather for a night in. They gather for the stories and for listening.

The forest is a protective shield, swarming with thistles, brambles and decaying pieces of junk. Years before, during the days of the dust, a king set up booby traps in the forest, hoping to capture some kind of beast. Now spikes and barbed wire festered among the moss, weary of a world full of colour beyond the tree trunks. The queen notices flashes of silver as she races through the trees; simply shadows against the bruised sunset and the sad oaks. Her feet dance around the puddles and quicksands. She flies through the grass and the rock until she comes across the meeting place from her stories. In a clearing stands a roaring fireplace and three men, huddled together like three fates. One stands up and hurls wood onto the fire, his back muscles tensing. He is a fish-man, with silver scales framing his brow and giant saucers for eyes. He wears the same strange uniform the Queen had seen him wear in an engraving once, all frills and ridiculous trimmings. The second man sits watching the third as they recite a poem. His body is masked by a suit of metal armour. Atop his helmet sits a boar’s head, its eyes closed, bored. The final man shakes their bones and clacks their teeth. He disguises his lack of skins with a cloak, similar to the Queen’s. He is standing by the fire, whistling a strange sonnet:

“-so the little girl set off to win back her foot. But the ogre’s own pair of feet were large and heavy. He was quicker than the little girl and it took her months and months of travelling to catch up-”

“Didn’t her parents worry about her?” Interrupts the fish man from his space at the mantle-piece, “Poor girl out on her lonesome.”

His friend groans and stamps his foot.

“She had no parents Abram. She was all on her lonesome to begin with and that’s how she lost her foot. Haven’t you been listening, you knucklehead?”

“Surely she has friends who would wanna know where she is...right? I mean, surely one of you guys would wanna know about my fins being cut up? Or my scales being punctured-”

“Enough! I have a story to finish Abram. Leave questions ‘till after the workshop.”

Abram lets out a tiny squeak but speaks no more. The skeleton grins in the firelight and begins again:

“The little girl carried on, always searching for her missing foot. She asked everyone she came across and slaughtered the many who tried to take her for their own, with their nets and their traps and their cages. By the time she finally found her foot she was covered in blood and guts and body parts. Still, she had found her foot and that’s what truly matters-”

“Where’d she find it Emil?” Abram asks, his eyes widening.

“I’m getting to that! Now where was I- oh right! The little girl, all alone and bloody in middle of a winter wood, found her foot on the low branch of a great oak much like these-” The skeleton waves his arms at the trees encasing the three storytellers, “The bone was still brand new, like a new pair of shoes elastic new. It had been left there many, many moons before by someone very tall.”

“What did she do then?”

“Well, she grabbed her foot from the oak tree and put it back, snapping it into place so to speak. Then she began the journey back home. As she did she thought to herself, “The ogre must have not needed the foot as much as I did.” The End.” Emil raises his skull to the sky, grinning proudly.

His friends give awkward coughs.

“What happened to the ogre?” Abram asks, frowning, “Surely something interesting happened to him.”

“Unimportant.” Emil growls.

The suit of armour gives a squeak and stretches his wiry arms. Emil rolls his head to the side in annoyance.

“What the girl did once she got home does not matter Gus. Not in the slightest. Don’t you understand what I was trying to get across? What I was trying to convey?”

“Not really.” Abram says, poking at the fire with a stick.

“The moral of the story, of the stanzas, was that quests of revenge, of bloodshed, are simply pointless. The journey is important and needed. All the other benign details are just...unnecessary!”

“It was good ‘till the ending. You just need to rework the ending.”

Emil scoffs, “Amateurs! Both of you! And Francis, Boris and Johnson and…all of the folding folk at the board up in the mountains! I cannot compromise my masterpiece with...amateurs!”

“I enjoyed it.”

The three men turn to see a young girl approaching their campground, her eyes an electric green, her pupils dancing. She has an amused smirk on her face. Her hair is a dangerous dark brown. Abram just stands there, blinking, confused. Emil turns his back on the visitor, muttering some obscenities about damned fairy folk under his musty breath. Gus on the other hand, recognises the queen immediately and falls to the ground in a bow, his chest plate and helmet clinking. The queen’s smirk grows into a grin and she pats the knight on the shoulder.

“I enjoyed the blood and the guts...and the body parts.”

“Yeah you would,” Emil growls, “You and your tasteless, tasteless people.”

Gus gasps and places himself in front of the queen, as if Emil’s words can pierce her skin. Emil simply laughs.

“Look at this old fool! This old, old fool! She doesn't care for you at all my boy! She looks at you as she looks at the bugs swarming around her feet. Learn that Gus! Learn these young girls only want to look at you in amusement and never want to settle down!”

“I want to settle down,” The queen replies, and she strides towards a chair the men have manufactured from fallen Autumn leaves, “I am going to settle down.”

“Ah see! I knew it! I knew you were that queen I’ve heard gossip about!”

“Gossip?” The queen’s eyebrows raise, “Gossip about me?”

“Oh yes. I’ve heard quite a lot of tall tales about you. Stories about you eating babies, stabbing your own knights with their own swords-” At that, Gus swallows and sits back down on the forest floor, shaking, “-stories of you charming snakes and cobras. Stories of you sleeping in their coils.” Emil stares at the queen, goading her to respond. The queen tuts and stretches her short, stubby legs. They were tired from hours of running as their owner searched the dark places. Her skin stretches and shifts in the firelight.

“I only ate one baby. The rest is just nonsense.”

“Hmmm. All the gossip came from your kind so I never took any of it seriously. Seeing you now makes me think it wasn’t so far fetched.”

The queen furrows her brow and rolls her eyes.

“Are you all telling stories?” She asks, focusing on the dirt beneath her leaf throne instead of the man in front of her, “ When I was little I read stories about you telling stories together. In an endless loop.”

The men fall silent. The queen sighs.

“I would like to join you all. For just one night.”

Emil growls. Abram roasts a marshmallow. Gus shivers in an invisible wind. His legs make a strange croaking sound and detach themselves from his waist, stumbling about on the rocky terrain.

“What are you queen of, exactly?” Emil asks.

“All sorts of things really.”

“Like what? What do you do? What are your day-to-day ac-tiv-teees?”

“I look after the lost ones most of the time.”

“The lost ones?”

“Folks made of time and sand. They come to us, my husband and I, full of regrets and sorrows. They lose themselves in our corridors and become our subjects. We transform their troubled minds into something sweet.”

“Sweet for the monarchy, one supposes, but not for everyone else,” murmurs Emil, picking at his cloak,“ I heard you two aren’t married already.”

“We will be soon.”

“Once your quest is complete, I’m guessing.”

“Yes. Once I return.”

“Do you take babies?” Abram asks, sitting cross-legged on the milkwood grass, “I heard you take babies.”

“Sometimes.”

Emil clears his throat, which makes his bones rattle in a very unattractive way. He then nods to Abram, who nods back. He turns to Gus, who by now is just a bunch of scraps flailing about in the mud. Gus’ head, however, has enough time to tilt his head back in agreement.

“Very well. You may join the club for a night. A single solitary night-”

“No baby eating!” Abram shouts from his corner. The Queen tuts and crosses her heart with a wicked finger.

“I promise. No baby eating.” She grins.

“-And you’ll be the last to go. No cuts!” Emil growls.

“Very well.” The Queen sighs and closes her eyes, listening to the whispers in the breeze.

Emil looks to his companions, sitting by the campfire as they always do, and shrugs.

“Now that…compromise has been met I suppose we can continue with the workshop.”

“Finally,” Abram mutters.

And as the four take their places in the storyteller’s guild, the woods begin to shiver with excitement.

The annual Autumn meeting was only beginning.

#creative writing #my story #a devil's palm story #fantasy #monsters #parallel worlds #cryptids #cryptidcore #weirdcore #oddcore #american gothic #surreal #southern gothic #character study #ongoing series #a rough draft #part one of four

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maple-writes · 4 years ago

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[Image ID: Banner image reading: The City of Eventide, Chapter 28, Maple-writes. End ID]

Guess who finally finished the next chapter? This one took a lot longer than I thought it would oops

###

This was wrong, this was all wrong! I paced back and forth along the pebbly edge of a lake far enough out of the way for hikers to find me. Far enough I wouldn’t find them.

Shaking hands ran through wet hair, claws digging into my scalp and brushing against dark horns. They should have gone, should have gone away by now. Why were they still there? Why were—

I knew why. I knew why. I stopped beside the calm waters, doubling over around my aching chest. I knew what was going on. I knew. I knew and I’d ran away all the way up here and now… Now what? What was I supposed to do? My blood burned through my system, fast and frantic with a beat that wouldn’t slow. It was over. Was this? I squeezed my eyes shut. Was this what Ember had felt? What Wendy?

It didn’t matter! I threw my head back to the cloudless sky, chest heaving as I fought for air. Trees shifted all around me, tops swaying and creaking in a wind that sent shivers across my overheated skin.

How far away was I really? I swallowed. hopefully far enough. Far enough out of the way that—

What if Vena was right though? My eyes opened wide, watering in the light, burning in the sun. The game was up. There was no question what I was. And what really was there to leave behind?

Fuck, fuck how nice would it be to just rest. My lungs burned, my heart faltered, my legs shook. What was stopping me? What was I doing this for if it would all go to shit either way?

Striker would be so disappointed. So disappointed like so many times before. So many, so many, so many. Anger flared behind my bones. He’d neve, never be able to save me. He was wasting his time. He—

I screamed, long, loud, to the cloudless sky. the empty blue, void of anything that could—

What had Eventide ever done for me? I snarled, lurching forward on unsteady ground. What did I owe to this city anyway?

Grasses and mosses died under my feet with every step. Beetles stopped crawling, curing in on themselves as they expired. I panted as I paused, jaw parted and hot saliva dripping from my mouth, down my chin and mixing with the blood dried on my face.

Why shouldn’t I do what I was born to do? If I were born to kill, to tear, to destroy, to steal, why shouldn’t I? Why shouldn’t I destroy the place that held me back, that wouldn’t, where I couldn’t…

Where I was nothing and always would be.

It was like Vena said. I wasn’t getting anywhere. Not in 23 years. How dare anyone stop me.

I flexed my claws, light vanishing between my fingers, leaving only shadows. Shade gathered around my legs, stolen from the sun before it could hit the earth. The wind blew browned needles from dead pines until they stood towering and bare. The lake vanished below the dead foliage choking its shores, broken only by the floating bodies of fish breaking the surface. Dark tails thrashed behind me, coarse and dark where light couldn’t pull way, couldn’t escape. My shoulders bunched up to my ears as every hair across my body bristled.

Something moved behind me.

I turned, a growl loud in my throat and eyes narrowed as Cirrus stepped out of the forest of lifeless trees.

He froze where I met his stare. He stood. He stood. All the did was stare as my heart hit my ribs one, two, fifteen times in quick fast. Even from where he stood he was too much, soul trapped in too small a vessel, arching and writhing like violent solar flares held back by paper skin.

All he did was stand there.

I snarled, curling my claws at my sides, the shadows creeping higher, higher up my legs. “What do you want?” My shout echoed through the dead wood, loud like it all but tore through the pathetic wall of my chest. “Don’t you have a mother to let down again?”

Cirrus flinched, face twisting a moment before taking a hesitant step forward. “Asher,” he spoke softly, like I was a goddamned animal. A spooked livestock to be calmed. “Asher it’s—”

“What?” I bared teeth sharp and gagged like broken glass. “You better say it quickly before I rip your voice from your throat.”

“Relax, relax Asher,” Cirrus took another step, then another, approaching with a wary eye. “Ginger said you got into a fight and didn’t come home and I…” He stopped only three arm lengths away, keeping his eyes low. “Are you okay?”

What kind of? My tails lashed across the lifeless ground. Heat spread out from the base of my throat, hot and searing through my already overcooked heart. I clenched my jaw and looked my eyes but I…

That was Cirrus. Cirrus. Pain wrapped tight around my ribs, choking in my neck. I told him. He knew he should never. He knew. My teeth jut through my cheeks, my gums. Blood seeped into my mouth. How dare he show up like this.

Still he kept talking. “Ginger’s probably not far behind. Ember said over the phone this is where you two used to meet.” He swallowed. “Is that true?”

“You told Ginger?” I spat blood to the ground, the rest oozing from the corners of my lips. “You bastard. You good for nothing piece of shit.” I paced back and forth, glaring hot and dark at Cirrus. “The hell you think you’re down here? Show up, showing, like I’d care what you had to say?”

He opened his mouth and started to speak, but I cut him off. I wasn’t done.

“You idiot. You worthless idiot.” A sharp toothed grin pulled at my mouth. “You’re nothing but a fool if you thought I’d ever love you. You wouldn’t believe how easy it was to trick you, trick you into thinking I gave a fuck about a worthless lowlife like you.”

Cirrus didn’t seem to know what to say. He stood, staring, eyes furrowing and lips tightening. I stalked forward. The light vanished behind me, blanketing the dead grass in night. Cirrus didn’t move, didn’t back up, didn’t flee, he stood his ground as I came closer, closer, every step closer until we were nose to nose. My skin crawled this close to him, this close to the unrestrained power nestled between his lungs.

“A-Asher what,” He choked on his words. “What are you doing?”

“I told you not to follow me, didn’t I?”

He yelped as I grabbed him by his shoulders and shoved him down. Before he could even try and get back up I was on top of him, my knee on his chest and my hand on his throat. My skin burned as his wild energy surged up through my arm.

“Asher stop—”

“I know why you came here, Cirrus.” I leaned in, teeth bared and blood mixed with saliva dripping from my open mouth onto his wrenching face. “You thought you’d be safe, didn’t you? You thought I’d care it was you, right?” I ghosted my hand over his heart. “You thought since I couldn’t take this that you’d be safe? You thought you’d be safe cause I couldn’t destroy your soul?”

He didn’t answer, staring up with wide, wet eyes. Shadows curled and twisted around my shoulders, crawling like thousand-legged insects up and down my back. My eyes went black as I gripped Cirrus’ jaw, forcing his head up and hunching over to meet his face.

“Maybe you’re right, maybe I can’t.” I tightened my grip, points of claws sharp against his skin. “But you know what I can do?”

His hand closed around my wrist, pushing my arm away from his face.

“I can hurt you. I can cut through your skin, tear your muscle off the bone.” I leaned in deeper, pressing my head against his. “I can rip you apart limb to limb, shred through to your organs.”

Wind picked up in the treetops, scattering the last of the dead pine needles across my back.

“I can make you wish, make you beg for me to kill you.” I smiled with narrowed eyes. “You should have done what I told you.”

“Asher please—”

“Why don’t I start with your eyes?”

I ripped my arm from his grip and grabbed a handful of his hair to keep him pinned in place as I raised my other hand, claws sharp and my eyes locked on his. Panic raced through my blood, leaked from where my palm touched his skin, and he stared, frozen, scared, hurt.

Strange, seeing him like that.

“Hold still.”

I brought my hand down to strike across his eyes, but Cirrus threw his arms up over his head. My claws raked the length of his forearm instead, ripping his sleeve and cutting through skin that bled.

The first drops of rain fell around us, more and more as the wind blew hard and cold straight through my clothes.

Cirrus grabbed at my arms as I clawed wildly at his face, his shoulders, anything I could try and reach, yelling and snarling as anger drove me forward. How dare he come here, how dare he after I told him not to, and how dare he try and fight me back. He knew. He knew what he was getting himself into! He caught my arms and shoved me off.

I fell on my side, the ground already starting to muddy from the downpour without the live grasses to hold the sediment in place. Before Cirrus could get up, I swiped and grabbed hold of the collar of his shirt. I pulled him down with a snarl and lunged to bite his shoulder but he grabbed one of my horns and forced my head back. He pushed off against the ground and yanked my head back, throwing me down as he scrambled to his feet.

Rainwater dripped from my hair, plastering it to my forehead as I found my footing on the mud. I slipped trying to get up, dirt mixing with the dried blood on my arms, on my pants, on my clothes.

Cirrus backed towards what was left of the tree line, his sleeve darkening with watered down blood. He was going to run, wasn’t he? Going to run away now that he saw what I was? Of course he was. I opened and closed my fists at my sides. If he thought he could run he was dead wrong.

A yell tore from my aching throat as I charged. My feet slipped as I ran across the mud field, chasing after Cirrus as he fled into the trees. Branches and bare bushes whipped against my arms, my face, my sides, stinging wherever they found skin instead of torn fabric. Wind blew through the trees, shedding needles and lichens as I raced past in pursuit.

Cirrus weaved in and out of the trees ahead of me, barely dodging boulders and skinny trunks and struggling to keep his footing on the wet hillslope.

My breath came fast as my strides as I ran, feet hitting soft springy ground of a trail with frantic rhythm. Eyes locked on the back of Cirrus head, anger burned deep in my body. He was trying to get out of the forest, back to the parking lot, wasn’t he? Coward. The gap was closing, closing, I was getting closer, closer. Coward coward coward.

Cirrus glanced back over his shoulder.

His foot caught on a protruding root.

He fell.

I leapt on his back, claws digging into his shoulders as he struggled to throw my grip. He thrashed, and I sunk my teeth into the back of his arm. He screamed, cursing and pleading. Blood oozed hot into my mouth. He tried to move just for the tissue to tear even more between my jaws.

He twisted, shoved my head back and wrenched his bleeding arm from my mouth. He tried to scramble backwards, to escape, but I pushed forward, reaching, grabbing, swiping at his throat as he tried to get away. Just fast enough he managed to get away until he backed himself up against a sturdy conifer.

I lunged just as Cirrus drove his heel forward, straight into my chest. My breath faltered from the force and I fell sideways onto the cold wet ground. I coughed, pushing myself back up in time to see the last of Cirrus disappearing through the trees.

Cold rain dripped down into my eyes from soaked hair as trees creaked and swayed the wind above my head. No doubt Cirrus would run back to Eventide. Run back, hide, whatever. I dug my hand into the rain-softened earth. He was going to pay for coming here.

I pushed off from the dirt and started in the direction he’d left. Shadows gathered around my footsteps, choking out the mosses and the ferns and leaving dead, wilted foliage along my path. Insects that couldn’t get away fast enough fell from the damp wood bark and disappeared among shed leaves. The trees thinned into the trail, a clear way down the hillslope. My feet slipped on the wet ground as I walked, pushing on and on towards the mouth of the trail. Towards Eventide.

#the city of eventide #chapter 28 #writeblr #my writing #fiction #finally lol #tcoe

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tigerclawsremorse · 4 years ago

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Warm sunlight trickled through the slim entrance of the medic’s den, shimmering onto the sleeping Tigerclaw. The morning light turned his tabby fur into a glistening soft brown, speckled with the bright particles in the beam. The light lulled Tigerclaw awake. Stretching out his legs, he was released from the stiff grip of sleep.

“Hiya Tiger,” Spottedleaf squeezed into the den, momentarily blocking out the sunlight. “You look like you slept well,” she laughed and pawed at his ruffled fur.

Frowning, Tigerclaw sat up, casting his gaze away from Spottedleaf, “...I’m sorry, Leaf,” he sighed, “I should have known better by now, I should have listened to you more. I almost killed Clawface... I could have killed him,” his claws pressed into the nest.

“But you didn’t,” she smiled and cocked her head to the side, “That’s got to count for something.”

Swiping a paw over his face to do some grooming, he shook his head, “It can’t count for much if I thought about doing it though.”

That made Spottedleaf’s soft face sour into a frown, hidden partly as she lapped down some of Tigerclaw’s messy neck fur, “It would have taken a lifetime to teach you everything. I can teach herbs just fine, but being good, that comes from you. But so does being bad… and so does just kinda being in the middle. Maybe you’re not the best, but at least you're getting better. I'm proud of you for having done that much.

“We can’t always control what we think, sometimes it’s just part of us, you already had a lifetime thinking like that.”

“I still have a lifetime to get better, I guess.” The tom looked up at the tortoiseshell with a smile, but it was quickly lost as he saw her expression when she pulled away from him.

Looking almost in shock, her eyes were wide and her mouth hung a little open, “Don’t you remember that battle, Tigerclaw?” Her gaze was not meeting his eyes, it was on his neck. “How it ended for you?

“I'm of course still proud of you for all you’ve done but—“

Piercing pain shot through Tigerclaw, the spot that Spottedleaf had lapped down was pulsing. His amber eyes flickered down to see blood flow steadily from an open wound that stretched from his chest up his neck. As he had his head tilted down he could feel more blood pooling in the back of his throat. He gagged to spit it out, scrambling to his paws. As heavily as blood oozed from his neck, it leaked out of his mouth.

“You know, I’m proud of you too, Tigerclaw.” Laughed a raspy voice from behind him. “Even after all that nonsense in the medicine cat den, you’re still you. You’re still a warrior at heart.” Thistleclaw started up a new cackle and circled around the gagging tom, “You’re still my apprentice.”

“Nowe Iahm” Tigerclaw sputtered, the blood clogging his mouth, “Noo ‘m” he tried again.

“Now hush,” Thistleclaw sneered, “You listen to me again. You did your deeds and no amount of leaf picking and star praising saved your pitiful soul.”

Tigerclaw shook his head, splattering blood on the rough dead ground, and backed away from the gray tom. In the harsh light of the forest, tall shadows casted down on Thistleclaw and displayed his ragged and unwashed fur with coarse patches that looked to be black with rot. If he was any skinnier his bones would surely be breaking out of his skin. Even his face held a hollow expression, like it was practically a skull.

“We’ll be making our plans of revenge till the day we’ve both turned to dust!” As he laughed, his whole body shook, dust flittered into the air.

“Noa! Noo! No!” Choking, Tigerclaw swiped at his old mentor as he backed away.

“Yeah you get in your practice shots, we have a lifetime to train!” Thistleclaw fell and rolled with horrid laughter, his body—his bones— clanking against the ground as he howled, “A lifetime!”

“Leef! Leaf! Spottedleaf! Spottedleaf!” Tigerclaw gagged, in trying to continue moving away from Thistleclaw, he felt his paws sink into the muddy forest ground. In a heartbeat he was up to his stomach in thick mud, “Leaf!”

“Spottedleaf isn’t here to help you.”

“Spotted...leaf.” Tigerclaw repeated, his eyes slowly adjusting to the new light to see the gray cat who stood above him was not the decaying corpse of his old mentor, but Yellowfang. Quickly, Tigerclaw recognized the scent of the medic’s den and the rough patient's nest he was currently settled in.

“If you keep calling for her you’re gonna wind up meeting her in StarClan because your wound will reopen.” The ShadowClan molly snapped.

“I’m… sorry.” He said softly, being cautious to speak as his throat felt as if he had been eating sand in his sleep, “Water, please?”

With a grunt she turned and left the den, returning a few moments later with a wad of semi-soaked moss. She set it in front of him and surprisingly to Tigerclaw, took a seat near the edge of the den.

“Am I the only,” he involuntarily paused to wheeze, “only one down here?”

“Besides me, yep, everyone else was out of here yesterday or earlier today, not too many serious injuries all and all. Whoever you pissed off to get clawed so bad must have really had it out for you.” She spoke in a joking tone but neither of them laughed.

“Yeah, I don’t need to know about it,” Yellowfang faced towards the den entrance, “Thank the stars that they didn’t kill you, surprising I know, but even the great Tigerclaw could be killed.”

“That’s not such a surprising concept.” He croaked a dry answer.

“Gone through some personal developments lately? From what Firepaw says about you, I never could have guessed you were the reflective type.”

He lapped at the last drops of water in the moss, “Something like that.” He had briefly been confused why Yellowfang was still hanging around, after all, ShadowClan had now been cleared of those who had exiled her, but he considered she was most likely invited to join ThunderClan, now that they were missing a medicine cat. Another sting of pain made him gasp slightly and have to contain his ragged breathing.

Yellowfang, turning back towards Tigerclaw, opened her mouth before shutting it quickly in hesitation.

“I don’t need advice or anything.” Tigerclaw propped himself up on his front legs, “I don’t need anything right now… except maybe more water.”

Yellowfang obliged and resoaked his moss ball. “I also noticed all the time you spent with Spottedleaf,”

“Did Firepaw tell you about that too?” He turned his head away from Yellowfang to hide his deep furrowed brows and eyes he was sure were filled with sorrow at even the mention of her name.

“No,” she scoffed, “I can see.” She paused again, “Maybe you think you’re impenetrable, but I have a sort of knack for seeing the truth in cats.”

The warm sun turned cold, as if a cloud had blown over it suddenly. Tigerclaw could feel himself shaking in the nest, Yellowfang could most certainly see it too. Yellowfang did not need a knack to see the truth if Firepaw had spilled the tabby’s secret to the old she-cat.

Darkstripe got a good hit in, but Ravenpaw at last would deal the final blow.

“You’re not what you seem to be, Tigerclaw.” She carried on as Tigerclaw got unsteadily to his paws. “I see the good in you that you’ve hid away.”

He blinked at the medic and it seemed for the first time, met her eyes. ‘ It’s a trick you mouse-brain, ’ shouted a voice in his head, ‘ Maybe, but shut up.’ He thought in reply.

“Nobody is born with evil in their heart,” her yellow eyes looked far away and clouded, “even if it feels like it’s your destiny.”

“Have I missed the vigils yet?” He meowed quickly and took shaky steps towards the exit.

“No, they’re to be held at sunhigh.” Yellowfang answered, still deep in her own thoughts.

“It looks to be sunhigh now.” He shook his head and gazed back at her.

“Oh.” She gave a curt response, not looking to meet his gaze again.

The walk up the medic tunnel felt like the long hike to the moonpool, each step making him take a gasp of air. He was tempted to stop along the path and tighten his bandages to see if that may help, but he decided against it. ShadowClan may do a different kind of wrap than ThunderClan and he could not risk the walk back down to ask Yellowfang to fix it. As quickly as he could manage, he poked his head into the clearing.

There was a quiet hush around the camp, only the scurrying of cats repairing dens and the whispers of clumps of cats chatting amongst themselves. Tigerclaw could even pick up on birds chirps outside of camp, he took a heartbeat to gather a large breath and take in the serenity.

The vigil had not started yet, obviously as no meeting had been called nor did Spottedleaf’s body lay in camp. Tigerclaw’s usual resting frown, deeping at the thought and he thrust his head away from the sight where she soon would be.

Luckily enough, he didn’t feel any eyes looking upon him as he padded along the outskirts of camp. For the first time, he had made his way across the entire clearing without being trailed by Darkstripe. ‘ He must have stayed in ShadowClan, good riddance.’ Still, he felt a pang of unexpected sadness.

‘ All he ever did was look up to me.’ He thought grimly, ‘ I did the same thing to Thistleclaw.’

Being swept away in thought made it easier to trek along camp, he soon arrived at the nursery.

For a moment he watched the queens all bunched together in their nests, sitting up and chatting about whatever queens chat about. Peering in, he was quickly noticed by Frostfur, “Tigerclaw, if you’re looking for Goldenflower, she’s off in the leader’s den with Bluestar and Brindleface preparing Spottedleaf for the vigil.” She spoke between her lapping at her kits, especially licking at one that whined softly.

“Oh, okay,” he nodded, “are your kits alright?”

Frostfur shrugged, “I suppose, Yellowfang said they weren’t harmed any. Well expect for this one,” she nudged the whining kit, “They got a knick in their ear.”

“Afterwhile, go ask Yellowfang for some raspberry leaves and marigold, they should help the kit.” He instructed.

“What, was Spottedleaf teaching you herbs down there?” She tilted her head at the tom.

“What else would she have been doing?” Tigerclaw grimaced and turned to walk away.

“That’s not we thought she was doing, huh Speckletail,” Frostfur spoke in a tone like a whisper, but still at a pitch where Tigerclaw could hear her clearly. Speckletail did not reply, Tigerclaw guessed she was asleep, but it didn’t matter to him too much.

“Tigerclaw,” meowed a friendly voice as the tabby laid against a wall of the camp waiting for the vigil. He had planned on talking to Goldenflower, but he couldn’t imagine bringing himself to see Spottedleaf so soon.

“Whitestorm.” Tigerclaw greeted back.

“That’s just like you Tiger,” he smiled, “back on your paws in no time. ShadowClan really thought they could take down ThunderClan’s greatest warrior? What a pack of smart-ears. Yellowfang did a very good job in clearing you up too.”

Tigerclaw listened to the deputy ramble, Whitestorm usually only spoke so much when he was nervous, and he was only nervous when Bluestar was nervous.

“Couldn’t save them all though,” Whitestorm meowed in a grimmer tone.

“Yes, it's a shame what happened to Spottedleaf.” Tigerclaw dipped his head, “We were very good friends and she was-“

“Uh,” Whitestorm interrupted, “I meant it was Ravenpaw who died in the battle. We couldn’t even find his body, but Firepaw and Graypaw both said they were ganged up on and Ravenpaw fought bravely and practically sacrificed himself. I know how closely you were watching his progress.”

Ravenpaw….dead.

“How awful.” Tigerclaw shook his head and spoke in his deep monotone voice. “Truly awful news.”

“I know, he didn’t even get his name—“

“All cats who can catch their own prey, gather for a clan meeting.” Bluestar summoned. All the drama of the past few moons had taken their toll on the leader, but now she seemed more like her usual self, presentable, strong, judging.

“Battles never come without their losses, and in this case, betrayals. We have lost clan members, but also gained them. Let us not despair in the past, but look to the times that are to come as is the duty of any cat in ThunderClan. We honor today, Fireheart and Graystripe who have earned their warrior names and sat vigil, Spottedleaf and Ravenpaw, who died in the great fight to serve their clan, and Yellowfang, our newest member of ThunderClan.”

Yowls echoed through the camp, of joy and loss and overall celebration. Tigerclaw sighed and for a moment, smelled the sweet scent of Spottedleaf linger in the air.

“Today is a new day,” Yellowfang spoke up from under high rock, “I am glad to call ThunderClan my new home, but I must admit, I am old and weary. That shouldn’t come as a shock to any of you,” she laughed, “For the clan’s sake and for my own, so I may retire before I join StarClan, I ask to mentor an apprentice to help ThunderClan after I am gone.” Her eyes pierced into Tigerclaw’s as she unblinkingly looked straight at him.

“Yes of course, Yellowfang,” Bluestar dipped her head, “we can certainly-“

Tigerclaw stepped a pace towards Yellowfang, who in return nodded her head, “Bluestar,” he interjected, “I have spent these past few moons training under Spottedleaf, now she is gone, I would like for it to be continued with Yellowfang so that I may receive my full medicine cat name under StarClan.” He felt his mind go blank and if he didn’t stop himself he would ramble on too long. His paws were numb, but he could still feel himself standing on shaky legs, waiting for Bluestar’s reply.

Everyone in the clan was looking at him. He would rather die on spot than turn and face them, what could they be thinking about him.

The heartbeat of silence quickly turned to a tension filled pause. If Bluestar refused him, he gulped, “Bluestar I-“ he started again and took a crooked step back.

“Very well Tigerclaw. If Yellowfang accepts, it shall be. ThunderClan has been through wilder changes.”

“I do not dare dishonor the memory of Spottedleaf by refusing her apprentice,” Yellowfang padded to Tigerclaw, who was frozen in place, and pressed her nose to his. “Here is your first step to change,” she whispered to him, “it wasn’t learning herbs and wallowing, it was admitting what you need.”

“Sure.” He quickly licked her shoulders to conclude the ceremony. “But it’s not just about going to StarClan.”

Yellowfang raised an eyebrow.

“I really do think being a medicine cat will be good for me, I liked learning herbs and all that.” He padded back to the edge of camp, Yellowfang a pace behind him.

“That’s good,” she chuckled, “you still have a lot more learning to do. Frostfur told me to give her raspberry leaves and marigold, and I told her what kind of toadstool for brains told her to mix those together.”

“Sorry maybe my memory isn’t so sharp right now,” he twitched his ear awkwardly, “I’ll do better I promise.” Brief visions of Thistleclaw flashed in his mind as he remembered what it was like to be an apprentice. Shivering, he shook his head to forget the thought.

“It’s not that bad of a mistake,” she broke his concentration, “both would do the job to help, but together it might be too much for just a kit.” She explained with a slanted smile.

“Of course,” he sat up, “being partially right has to count for something, yeah?”

“Maybe in practice,” Yellowfang looked up to her apprentice, “but let’s keep you from treating patients solo for a little while longer, you’ve got my whole life to learn what you need.”

“I thought you said you wanted to retire?”

“I think I’ll have to change my plans if I have to mentor you, making a fighter into a healer is more than teaching herb combinations.”

He puffed out his chest and watched the meeting continue on. Even with a large wound in his neck, he felt he could finally breath again. He couldn’t predict how everyone would view him from now on, and in for this moment, he wouldn’t let it matter. Worries could be put off just until he set his vigil for Spottedleaf and his training would really begin. “I think I’ll do well.”

“That’s some gross optimism,” Yellowfang shook her head, “you get it from Spottedleaf.”

#med cat tigerclaw #tigerclaw #yellowfang #whitestorm #Thistleclaw #bluestar #spottedleaf #chapter 15

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monstersandmaw · 5 years ago

Text

Male changeling fae (Mhorrin) x male reader (nsfw)

Edit which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.

So some of you have waited over a year for Mhorrin’s story. I promised someone a long time ago that Mhorrin’s reader would be male, but mostly (as always really with my readers), they’re fairly neutral except for the odd pronoun or body part...

I really hope you enjoy this one - it’s one of my favourites I think, and Mhorrin is a sweetheart who deserves some love. I had a lovely patron who wanted to commission me to write his story, and when I said that a long time ago I'd promised Mhorrin a male reader, they said that was fine, so here it is! I'm pretty proud of this one, and I really hope you enjoy it.

There’s a fight with a big spider at one point, so arachnophobes might not like that bit so much, and a few descriptions of injury, but not life-threatening, and not to the reader. Also Bridget likes to curse a bit. I like Bridget. :)

Wordcount: 10,064

---

Why was it always bloody raining in these parts? Sheets of drenching grey drizzle drifted across the landscape from a low, oppressive sky, and the thick canopy of trees barely offered any real shelter. Heavy drops spattered down from above with almost the force of falling acorns, and sent the decaying leaf mould leaping and scattering.

Kicking idly at a fallen branch that lay across your path, you scowled as you tramped onwards through another patch of quagmire. Apparently there had once been a half-decent road winding its way between the huge trunks of ancient trees, their bark smothered with thick moss and laced with lichens, branches dripping with ferns and orchids, but now it was little more than a muddy ribbon rutted with potholes and puddles. Ahead and to your right, you could just glimpse the wide, lazy river sliding along between slick, muddy banks just to the south of the approaching town, and you turned your leather collar up further to ward off the fat drops which plummeted from the canopy overhead.

A collection of wooden houses with patchy thatched roofs, composed more of moss than reed, huddled miserably outside the colossal stones of the town’s wall, but hardly anyone was about in this weather. Even the chickens had given up their scratching in the mud. A huge, dark minotaur ducked briefly out of a doorway and glowered up at the small shred of grey sky visible between the branches before grunting something in disgust and slamming the door shut, leaving you to make your solitary way towards the wooden gates of the town. The pair of human guards barely even seemed to notice you as you struggled through the sludge towards them.

Inside the town walls the place was hardly any cheerier or more welcoming than outside. Despite the rain, however, there were a few vendors standing beneath ragged canvases, hawking their wares to those who scuttled by searching for shelter not trinkets, and in the distance a smith’s hammer could be heard ringing on iron. Other towns you’d passed through had bustled with life but this place seemed to be made up almost entirely of humans; any non-humans you saw were scowled at in a way that made you jumpy and wary. There wasn’t a pleasant feeling to this place at all.

A dwarf stumped past you with eyes focused firmly on the distance, heading towards the blacksmith’s, but as you pushed open the door of the first inn you came to, you saw a massive orc behind the bar which reassured you somehow.

The orc nodded at you as you approached and grunted, “Keep your weapons sheathed in here, human, you’re welcome to drink. What can I get you?”

“An ale,” you said, “And a bath.”

“The house ale is a copper,” he said. “The bath is six.”

Too tired and foot-sore to haggle, you nodded.

“Drink up, and I’ll have the bath drawn for you,” the orc grinned, clearly noticing the weariness soaking through your body now that you’d stopped walking. He was huge, with arms easily twice as big as your thighs, and one of his thick tusks had been cracked off, but his yellow-eyed gaze was friendly enough and he waved over a curvy human woman who greeted him with a kiss before letting him speak, which he did with a fond chuckle.

You took yourself off to a quiet corner of the nearly-empty inn, and groaned noisily as you eased your sore shoulders out of the travel pack and your wet leather and mail jerkin. You’d been wearing it for nearly a month solid as you’d moved steadily west in search of… something. Sure, you needed the work, but you could have joined the army if it was steady pay and a meal in your belly that you’d truly been looking for. Your journey had been about something more than that though. Shivering slightly as you sank onto the cool wood of the corner bench, you wondered if perhaps you’d find whatever it was that you were lacking here, in this formerly-prosperous trading town on the banks of a silted up river.

Somehow you doubted it.

Once you’d bathed and changed into the last of your relatively clean clothes, you returned to the bar and asked the orc if he knew of any employment for a young man of considerable skill with a bow and blade, though you didn’t own the former currently. The orc eyed you up and down, clearly getting the measure of you, and then shrugged. “There’s a bunch of mercenaries in the outer buildings,” he said, jutting his heavy jaw towards the direction of the huts outside the walls of the town. “Five of them: a big human woman, elven twins, a minotaur, and… something else. Not sure what he is. Only met them all the once, you see. Still, they might take you on if you’re any good.”

“Thanks,” you said. “I can ask at any rate.”

The rain had miraculously eased up just a little but you still donned your trusty - and now probably a little rusty - mail and leather jerkin once again, and headed out in search of the group. You’d arranged to leave your pack in the care of the orc at the inn for the moment, in case the mercenaries weren’t looking for another blade for hire.

It didn't take you long to find them. With the cessation of the rain, folks had started to emerge from the huts you’d passed on your way in, and outside the one where you’d seen the minotaur, you found two elves, a tall, beautiful woman with short chestnut hair and a scar across her lips, and the one the orc had called ‘something else’. It was immediately obvious why he’d said as much; the creature gave off a strange, almost otherworldly feeling that sent shivers down your spine if you looked at him too long.

He stood tall at over six foot, with a hunched, misshapen back over which he had draped a long leather cloak that came down almost to the mud of the road. He appeared to have the legs of an animal with long, black claws that flexed as he stood there, though his skin was hairless and an odd, almost slate coloured blue-grey. His hands, you saw as he reached to pass one of his companions their travel pack, were mottled with paler grey and he had two thumbs and long, strong-looking fingers. Covering his elongated - perhaps canine? - face was a carved wooden mask, and his hair was black as an oil slick; long, plaited, and falling to his waist.

The minotaur was nowhere to be seen now.

Approaching with your palms open and empty, showing no threat, you called out to them, “Hey, you guys are a mercenary group, right?”

The elves looked up as one and nodded, but it was the human woman who answered. By the gods she was muscular, and you didn't mind admitting that she was more than a little intimidating. “Why, you got a job for us?” she asked, looking you up and down in the same way the orc had. You where more lithe than muscular yourself, but years on the road had made you lean and solid in a way that other warriors and fighters usually weren’t. Not that you didn’t have your softer areas too though.

“Actually,” you smiled, “I’m hoping you’ve got a job for me. Any chance you’re looking to take on an extra blade?”

She glared at the sword on your hip and pouted, unimpressed, one eyebrow sailing high and placing one hand on her hip before looking at the other two, who shrugged. Somehow it seemed like an encouraging kind of shrug, and you nibbled your chapped lip while you waited for her to answer.

“Alright,” she said with a beautifully feral grin. “If you can best me with a blade, we’ll see about taking you on for a contract or two.”

That hadn’t been quite what you’d expected, but you supposed she had a point. “What are the terms of the fight?” you asked, rolling your shoulders out. You suddenly felt very grateful for the good work that the heat of the bath had done to ease out the stiffness from hauling your travel pack around.

“First to draw blood wins,” she said. “No intent to kill, maim, or seriously injure. We’re doing it properly, but this is sparring only.”

You nodded and drew steel. “Agreed.”

She grinned and her honey coloured eyes lit up as the two of you began to spar. She was strong but slower than you, and the two of you danced, circling each other in the mud of the street while the twins and the strange, silent one looked on from the shelter of the dripping eaves of the nearest hut.

In the end, you beat her with a well timed dart to the upper arm, but only just, and she sheathed her huge two-hander and held out her gauntleted hand to you, ignoring the small ooze of blood through her shirt sleeve. “Welcome. Name’s Bridget,” she said as she nearly crushed your hand in her fingers, making you rather wheeze your own name as you introduced yourself. “These two idiots are Elduin and Luirlan -” the two elves grinned and held out their hands.

Their palms were as rough and callused as your own, indicating that they preferred blade to bow - unusual for their kind, but not unheard of - and they had both cropped their brown hair short along one side, revealing their tapering ears. Luirlan had a scar through one eyebrow and a notch missing from the tip of his left ear, and Elduin had a leaf and vine tattoo that ran up his neck and onto his scalp, but other than that, they were utterly identical.

Bridget went on to say that the minotaur was named Ned, but he’d gone to have a nap ‘like a fucking old man’ and had therefore missed all the excitement - “His loss,” she grinned - and the final member of their group she introduced as Mhorrin. The figure, swathed in his heavy leather cloak, simply nodded without approaching, bowing his mysteriously masked head before turning away and returning his attention to repacking his bag.

Swallowing, you hoped that the others would balance out the relative creepiness of Mhorrin, and that you hadn’t made a mistake in joining them. Still, it had to be better than going it alone anyway.

Just after sunrise the next day, you joined them at the city gates, and the small mercenary company moved on in search of new work. Ned quickly found a contract about seven miles further west along the road. The job involved eradicating a small nest of demon-spawn that had been terrorising travellers along the King’s Road, eating them and disembowelling everyone they came across.

The nest was apparently located a short distance back from the road towards some mineral springs, and the elves and Ned soon tracked it down to a dank hollow between two huge sycamore trees. You and Bridget stalked closer, while Mhorrin drew his huge, cruel bow from his stooped back and hung a little way behind on the lip of the dell with an arrow nocked, flights to cheek, ready to loose. The strength in his wiry arms must have been prodigious because he never shook or trembled. Only a few days ago you’d seen him hunting rabbits with unfaltering accuracy, so you weren’t surprised when he aimed a deadly pine arrow straight past Ned’s ear, sinking it deep into the chitinous plating of the first creature to emerge from its festering burrow in the ground. The creature was dead before it had gone a single pace from the entrance.

The demon-spawn were vile, spewing acid and darting forwards to lash out with their serrated claws, but you and Ned cornered the second, while the twins finished of a third, and Bridget hacked another to pieces under a rain of arrows from Mhorrin. You’d just lowered your sword, the steel dripping with the viscera and slime from your own kill, your arm stinging from a light spattering of acid, when you saw one last demon-spawn scuttling down the rough surface of a tree behind Mhorrin.

“Mhorrin! Above you on that sycamore!” you yelled, and he ducked and rolled out of the way just in time for you to hurl your long belt knife at it, striking it in the chest and pinning it to the bark like a three foot long, toxic beetle in a gruesome collection. The creature’s stinger had missed him by inches and still hung in the space where his head had been, dripping onto the forest floor.

“Thank you,” he murmured, checking that the curved, wooden mask was still in place with his odd, grey-skinned, twin-thumbed hand. It was a graceful hand, with long fingers that spoke of strength and cleverness as well as the calm control of a bowman, and you stared at it for a moment longer while he listened carefully to the forest around you.

“Phew,” Bridget grunted from not far away, wiping her own zweihänder on a clump of thick grass at the base of an oak tree. “Think that’s the last of them. Those were some freaky motherfuckers… Everyone alright?”

“Yeah,” came the reply from Ned and the twins. You were a little breathless and a bit scuffed, but otherwise ok, and Mhorrin only nodded.

“You want to check out the thermal springs that these fuckers have stopped everyone visiting?” Bridget asked with a playful glint in her hazel eyes. “We’ll have it to ourselves before the hoards start moving back in!”

Everyone agreed, though with varying degrees of enthusiasm, and once you’d torched and sealed the nests and burrows, the troop moved off through the trees to the nearby springs.

While Ned practically bombed his way in, sending hot water splashing everywhere, closely followed by Bridget in just her underwear and chest wrappings, the twins were a little more demure, and you followed last. The water was deliciously warm, though it smelled quite pungently of minerals, and you groaned as you lay back and ducked your head under the water, washing out the sweat and grime from the fight. Mhorrin, it turned out, had no intention of bathing with everyone, and only washed his hands and feet carefully in the edge of the shallowest pond before retreating to a quiet rock a little way off.

As Ned resurfaced, huffing and blowing spray like a buffalo, you shot Mhorrin a curious look as his figure retreated, and asked Ned in a hushed whisper, “So… uh, what’s the deal with Mhorrin? I’ve been with you a week and he’s hardly said a word…”

“Keeps himself to himself mostly,” the gregarious minotaur shrugged. His thick, black hair was already curling wildly, and he had drops like diamonds on his thick eyelashes. “You got any more questions though, I suggest you ask him.”

“Fair enough,” you said. Of course, his answer had done nothing to quell the curiosity that was quickly blossoming inside you. Swathed constantly in that thick, leather coat, careful with all his movements, masked and distinctly ‘different’, Mhorrin was a mystery to you. While you weren’t generally one to pry, you couldn’t help the desire to get to know him at least, but it seemed that the strange being - you didn’t even know what he was - kept his cards tight to his chest.

As you swam across the deep pond, however, you rolled over and noticed that Mhorrin’s gaze appeared to be locked on your body as you slid through the water. Resting your feet on the bottom of the rocky pool, you stood, chest half out of the chalky blue water, and called out to him, “Hey, Mhorrin! You not coming in?”

You actually had yet to hear him speak more than a few words to anyone, but he surprised you with a full sentence as he drew his thick cloak more tightly about himself and said, “I don’t think it would be as pleasurable as you imagine, human. But thank you all the same.” Behind the mask, his voice was rough and rasping, deep, and his words were quietly and almost gently articulated, as though he had large teeth to work his tongue carefully around.

“Fair enough,” you said again, backing off, but you still felt the slight sting of disappointment anyway.

As the weeks slid by into months and you travelled further with this group of blades for hire, you began to feel at home in the rather odd family. Bridget was loud and brusque, but she had a tender heart, and you realised she was easily hurt by comments tossed her way in taverns along the road. Ned did his best to tell them all to fuck off, but you soon discovered that, despite her closeness to the minotaur, it was you with whom she found a scrap of comfort with on evenings by the campfire when the others were bedding down. Perhaps it was easier to bare her heart to a relative stranger. Either way, you liked her and you let her.

“I’ve always been too big and too strong,” she snorted on one such night when you’d passed through a town and she’d had comments tossed her way - this time about being part ogre. Ned’s earth-shattering snores already drowned out the crickets in the grasses, and the elves were quietly occupied a bit further from the fire, talking quietly in their own language.

Taking a sip from your wineskin, you crooked your elbow over your knee and leaned forwards. “No such thing as too big or too strong,” you grinned, hoping to lift her spirits.

Mhorrin was sitting not far away, whittling a forest creature out of a stick of firewood, and the steady scratching of his blade against the wood slowed as you spoke, though you pretended not to notice.

“If you weren’t how you are, you wouldn’t be able to protect the people you care about. Plus, I now know first hand that you give great hugs.”

She smiled and leaned back on her hands, her body going taut for a moment as she stretched out along the warmth of the fire. She crossed her feet at the ankle and shot you a sidelong glance. “You know,” she said, “If I didn’t already know that you like men more than women, I’d think you’re making a move on me.” She grinned playfully and you laughed, pleased that her mood was lightening a little.

Her words made your eyes and thoughts drift once again to Mhorrin. His back was hunched high over his right shoulder as he sat on the edge of the ring of firelight, and his almost animal-like legs were folded beneath him. Swathed in that cloak of his and masked as he was, you knew almost nothing more about him after those first few months than you had in your first week with the company.

You recalled your gaze and turned it back to Bridget. “Yeah, true,” you chuckled, scrubbing at the scruff on your chin with a scar-knuckled hand. “Well, I’m just showing my new friend the love she deserves. You’re gorgeous. Anyway,” you added with a snort, “You like pretty little elven women yourself, so I think any attempts at flirting from me would fall on deaf ears…”

She leaned over and gently smacked your upper arm with the backs of her fingers. It was a friendly, affectionate kind of tap, and you shivered slightly at the warmth of the unexpected touch. “Appreciate it,” she said, not appearing to notice your reaction. “I love this bunch of idiots so much, and I’m glad you stuck around too.”

With a wonky grin, you laughed and lay back, staring up at the sky above with your arms behind your head for a pillow. You drew a deep sigh that filled your lungs completely, and then let it go. As great as it had been to be with them, to have a modicum of stability and continuity in your life, you did ache for privacy at times, and as close as you all were, that pang of loneliness which had haunted you for a long time still stabbed at you now and again, usually when you least expected it.

“That was a big sigh,” Luirlan commented as he too came to settle down silently for the night beside the dwindling flames.

“Just relaxing,” you said. You didn’t think anyone quite believed you, but no one took it any further. They gave you that privacy at least.

Mhorrin’s blade had stopped feathering details into the sculpture completely now, and, risking a quick sidelong look at him before you closed your eyes, you saw that he was staring at you. You flashed him a quick smile but got no response. Disheartened and more than a bit miserable, you drew your cloak up around your ears and tried to get some sleep.

Three days later the company arrived at a town that was much livelier and more prosperous than the one where you’d first met Bridget and her friends. Made of red brick and sandstone, some faced in mosaics of knapped flint, the merchants’ houses which bordered the wide market plaza were mostly three storeys tall, and they all glittered with large-paned windows. Elduin whistled through his teeth as he looked up at them, and Ned snorted. “This is where we should have been all this time - I can practically smell their gold. Folks like this always want someone to do some dirty work for them, or at least some heavy lifting!” He and Bridget flexed simultaneously and then fell about laughing at the silliness of it.

Mhorrin was the only one who seemed truly uncomfortable here.

Even the elves, who moved like shadows amongst the trees and could imitate almost every bird call you’d ever imagined, laughed and shoved each other playfully as you made your way through the market, but Mhorrin hung back, apparently staring at the ground, with his shoulders high and tense.

Doubling back, you fell into step beside him and murmured, “Everything alright?”

He nodded tersely and then added, “Not overly fond of places like this.”

“Fancy towns?”

“Any towns. Too busy. Too open…”

You bumped your shoulder gently against his side and said, “We’ve got your back, Mhorrin.”

You sensed the smile beneath the mask in the slight softening of his body, but he made no further reply. Side by side, the pair of you walked across the marketplace, following where the others led.

An old, ovine satyr stood behind a stall selling everything from herbal ingredients to sweets and snacks, and the elves slid over to her just as a human threw down in disgust whatever she’d been holding in her hand. “At that price? Go chew on a patch of nettles, you ugly old sheep!” the customer yelled at her and the satyr bleated something unspeakable at her retreating back.

“Sorry about that,” she grunted as she turned to face the elves. “People just don’t know the value of things that are hard to find. What can I do for you?”

They haggled cheerily over the price of various herbs, and the twins also came away with a large bag of licorice which they immediately dug into with the enthusiasm of small, lanky boys.

You watched them until Mhorrin’s soft voice at your ear made you jump. “Nothing for you?” he asked.

You shrugged, astonished that he was speaking to you. “Not really. You?”

He immediately shook his head. “I’d like a bath and a room at an inn,” he said, which surprised you.

So far he’d not shown himself as someone who liked his creature comforts. Clean he certainly was, but he was always efficient about bathing, heading into the river or stream after the others had returned shivering to camp, or using the baths in whichever establishment they called home for the night alone after everyone had finished. You wondered what it was that he felt the need to hide, but never went so far as to pry and ask.

Something of your curiosity must have shown, as he chuckled softly and said, “Am I so strange that my desire for a hot bath and a comfortable bed shocks you?”

The playfulness in his tone was more shocking to you, though only because it was so unusual for him to be so chatty and informal.

When you said as much, he shook his head, the long, tarred ship’s rope of his plait swaying. “Ah, what a bore I must be to you,” he all but whispered behind his wooden mask.

Before you could refute him, a young child with the hooves of a deer and the horns of a demon pointed at Mhorrin and tugged at their mother’s arm. “Look! Is he a tiefling too? Why is he wearing a mask?”

“I have no idea,” she said, shooting Mhorrin an apologetic look to which he apparently didn’t deign to respond. “It’s rude to point. Come on.”

Mhorrin’s heavy sigh made your head snap round but he was stalking away after the retreating backs of the others before you could get a good read on him. Not that such a thing was ever truly possible with his intense need for privacy and the mask and cloak covering almost all of him.

The inn that Bridget found was a few streets back from the marketplace, backing onto the temple and its grounds. “What about it, lads?” she asked. “If we double up on rooms, we should be able to afford this place quite comfortably after that last job we took.”

Everyone agreed that it was a huge step up from your last arrangements, and while she and Ned predictably partnered up, and the elves nodded at each other, Mhorrin turned to you with an odd tension in his body. “Do you mind?” he asked breathily.

“Sharing with you?” you asked, your voice catching in your throat at the chance to speak with him later in a more private setting. “Of course not!”

He nodded once, and it was all decided. Bridget paid up, and even managed to acquire a contract from one of the patrons who happened to be meeting a friend there for a drink.

“Oh thank the gods,” the merchant sighed, pressing a bejewelled finger to his temple. You had a job not to stare at the gem-encrusted rings that studded his hand and the gold chains that dangled around his fat neck. “I’ve been looking for someone capable enough of ridding the cellars of this pest for a week now, but no one will do it!”

“Just tell us what it is that needs killing,” Bridget said evenly.

“It’s some kind of spider, but it’s enormous. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you it’s the size of a small horse! It’s lurking between my finest barrels of Black Cedar red, and I’ve got the mayor and most of the council coming for dinner on Thursday, and if I can’t serve them that with the roast, then I don’t know what I’ll do. Even I can’t simply procure a wine of that vintage at such short notice!”

Bridget smirked and Ned hid a snort behind an artfully timed cough. You shot Mhorrin a look, but he had taken a step back into the quiet shadows and remained silent as always. Part of you ached a little when you saw him simply standing there, waiting for the next thing to be decided. Did he have no agency? No whims of his own? No desires? Did he just drift wherever Ned and Bridget and the others led him? As if he sensed your rising anger, Mhorrin’s face turned a little towards you but you shook your head and looked away. The private places of his heart were not for you to barge your way into.

Somehow Bridget wangled the most outrageous price from the desperate merchant, and the six of you headed over to his huge city mansion almost immediately after dumping your travel gear in your bedrooms. The room that you and Mhorrin were to share was beautiful, with a wide stone sill and twin beds on either side, a large silk rug in the centre, and two huge and elaborately carved wardrobes that neither of you would need.

The spider did in fact turn out to be the size of a small horse, and Elduin hissed, as you shut the door on it and backed out into the hallway to discuss your plan one final time, that it was more common to find these things up in the mountains where the goblins tunnel after emeralds and sapphires and the endless veins of silver.

“What the hell is it doing in the city then?” you growled. “It’s fucking huge!”

To your surprise it was Mhorrin who answered. “Many creatures such as that are traded as exotic and monstrous pets. One that size, and producing that much venom, would fetch a handsome price on such a market.”

Luirlan turned to him and said with a wry grin, “You think you can stick it full of arrows before it rolls us up like a party snack and sucks us dry?”

“Perhaps,” he hedged. “For all their size though, they’re damned quick. I’ll need a distraction.”

The twins looked at Ned and Bridget, and they nodded just as Elduin yipped, “Why are we always the distraction?”

Bridget grinned, “Because you’re also damned quick.”

Ned chimed in with, “Plus you look like a tasty little party snack,” which earned him a punch to the sternum which probably hurt Elduin’s knuckles more than Ned’s chest, judging by the gruff chuckle the minotaur gave.

“Ok, fine,” Luirlan said more seriously. “We’ll go in and chuck some throwing stars and powder snappers at it while Mhorrin turns it into a stationary porcupine. What about you two?” he asked Ned and Bridget.

“We’ll make sure you don’t get turned into that party snack for real,” she said darkly. “One of us on either side.” She turned to you and added, “And you’ll watch Mhorrin’s back.” There was no room for debate in her comment, but neither did she leave room for doubt; she knew by now that you would truly have Mhorrin’s back, and she trusted you with her friend’s life. Something about that made your chest ache and glow, and you nodded.

With the plan finalised, and your assorted weapons eased in their holsters and belts, you re-entered the dark cellars. None of you had any magic, so the elves tossed a couple of powder snappers they’d bought in the market which flared and popped when they struck the ground, and the spider, which had been crouching low between two enormous barrels at the far end of the stone-lined chamber, rose up and chittered softly in alarm.

The sound of it sent shivers down your spine like nails on a chalkboard, but you focused on the creature with your beautiful steel blade held firmly in your hand. Beside you, the gentle and now familiar creak of Mhorrin’s bow as it flexed was a steadying reassurance in the dark of the room.

The first arrow struck the creature in one of its eyes, but somehow - despite the power of the bow and the deadliness of the aim - it survived.

“You pissed it off real good!” Luirlan yelled as he dived out of the way of its lashing, frothing mandibles. “Oh fuck!” he yelled as it slashed at his skinny body with one of its eight, hairy legs. “It’s got fucking claws too!”

The fight went more or less to plan, with Mhorrin loosing arrows at vulnerable points on its body, but its hide was so thick that they seemed more like thistles in the coat of a wild boar than the deadly pine shafts of hunting arrows. Bridget yanked Elduin back out of the way just in time, and Ned hacked off one of its legs, making the spider spit and scream, retreating back towards the barrels. At that point it seemed to notice that Mhorrin was the source of the stinging barbs in its side, and it scuttled with the speed of a hunting hound fresh of its leash straight at you.

Ned was too far away to take another swing at it, but he hurled his great axe at it, though it missed and embedded itself in a smaller barrel to your right, the scent of wine filling the chamber to replace the fusty dank smell of the spider’s lair.

It was almost upon the pair of you, so you stepped in front of Mhorrin, barely noticing the arrow that hissed past your ear as the spider reared up again, its horrifyingly enormous mandibles clacking and glistening in the low light of the room. You swung at the taloned leg that darted forwards for you, but it was Mhorrin you gave a sharp cry from right behind you. The creature hadn’t been going for you at all, and its six inch long claw had gone through Mhorrin’s thick leather cloak like a needle through silk.

With a howl of rage, you drove the point of your sword upwards into the rearing spider’s throat until the hilt hit its soft fur, and you reeled back as it writhed and screamed. Forgetting about the creature and your blade, you turned and found Mhorrin on the floor, though he’d only been knocked back by the speed of the attack, and was quickly staggering upright.

“Mhorrin,” you gasped but he shook his head.

“I’m alright. It’s…”

“You’re bleeding,” you stated. “Let me look at it.”

“No,” he said, his spare hand flying up to press it into the stab wound. “Thank you. I’ll… I’ll tend to it myself.”

You scowled, but there wasn’t much you could do. The others finished off the spider and brought down the oiled tarpaulin they’d prepared earlier to deal with its corpse, as per their contract.

The merchant was hardly as grateful as he might have been when he discovered the damage that Ned’s axe had done to one of the casks, but even without the cost he’d removed from the final payment to cover the replacement of the wine, you’d earned yourself a small fortune.

Mhorrin’s progress back to the inn was slow, but he showed no signs of passing out and he refused to take your arm or lean on you. When you were back in your room, you tried again to offer your help.

“Please,” you said. “I’ve got salves and bandages, and thread to stitch you up if it needs it, though I don’t think it will. I know what I’m doing. I’m not some hedge doctor; I’ve patched people up before, and done it well.”

He was breathing steadily but rapidly, the shallow rasp of his breath the only betrayal of the pain he must have been in. His masked face revealed nothing.

“Please Mhorrin,” you said even more gently. “Let me help you.”

“I can manage,” he said, though the conviction had gone from his tone.

“I know.”

After another few breaths, he nodded. “Fine.”

The tension that suddenly filled the room seemed nearly choking, but you took a breath and stepped back while he turned away from you and reached up to unlace the knot that held his wooden mask in place. He took the tiniest intake of breath before he removed it, and then set it down on a table nearby, still with his back to you.

A moment later, he undid the buckle that held his heavy cloak in place, and folded it carefully over the back of a chair so that the strange, black blood which still oozed from the wound in his shoulder wouldn’t mar anything.

You’d never seen him without the shapeless leather cloak, and without it, he seemed suddenly so much more slender; almost vulnerable. His waist was invitingly narrow and he wore loose trousers of the kind that many satyrs and fauns preferred, leaving his paw-like feet bare from the ankle. Over his top half, he wore a rough-looking linen shirt that was stained black with his blood, a fact as unusual as the rest of him.

He plucked at the hem of his shirt and murmured without looking at you, “You need this off as well, I suppose.”

You didn’t respond immediately. The right side of his shoulders was markedly higher than the other, making his spine curve and his shoulders hunch, and beneath the thin fabric of his shirt you could see ridges and bumps on the points of his shoulders. There was something alluringly beautiful about the unusual quality of his body. You’d never seen anyone like him in your whole life, but now was not the moment for that. You had not been given this moment for the luxury of admiring him.

“Or do you just want to gawp at the monster like everyone else?” Mhorrin snarled with real venom, still staring at the wall in front of him. The hiss of breath through his nostrils reminded you of a lurking naga in a dark cave, dangerous, threatened, and poised to strike.

“Yes please,” you murmured sheepishly. “I need it off.”

In a single motion, he ripped it over his head with no care for the open wound in his left shoulder, and dumped it on the floor before reaching for his mask and shoving it roughly back onto his face before you’d even seen it.

His back was the same mottled light and dark grey as his unusual hands, like water spattered on granite, but his spine was prominently ridged and he did indeed have almost horn-like protrusions at the shoulder joints, reminiscent of those that some lizardfolk have. He was clearly not reptilian though, you discovered as you cleaned the wound, earning nothing but a sharp intake of breath from him, and the same again as you smeared the heady-scented salve across it; his skin was warm to the touch, and surprisingly smooth, though you tried not to let your fingertips linger.

Mhorrin did gasp, however, when you pressed the clean dressing down over the antiseptic salve, keeping your other palm flat to his shoulder. The wound was on his left side, and the gnarled hump on his right shoulder rose and fell as his breathing quickened.

“Did I hurt you badly?” you asked and to your surprise he shook his head.

“No.” A moment later he laughed huskily, nervously, and said, “Your hands are cold.”

“Really?” you snorted. “That’s what’s bothering you right now?”

“You’re right,” he returned with sudden sourness returning to his words. “I have much bigger things with which to concern myself at the moment.” He didn’t seem to be talking about the wound.

Not understanding his words, you nearly let go of the wad of dressing, but you steadied yourself and returned to the task at hand. In no time he was bandaged up, and it didn’t bleed through the wrapping, so you figured you’d made the right decision.

“All done,” you said, and he rose immediately from the chair and fished out a clean shirt from his pack while you washed your hands in the stand at the corner of the room. This time he didn’t wait to remove his mask, and forced it over his head, ripping the dusky blue shirt slightly at the throat.

Once it was on, he snatched up his leather cloak and stalked from the room, securing it with the buckle as he left. His clawed feet faltered at the doorway, almost as if he had been on the point of turning and speaking to you, but to your disappointment he simply disappeared into the dark corridor beyond and let the door close behind him.

You stood there a moment, recalling the rapid breathing, the warmth of his body, the closeness of him, the musky smell of leather and something else that was undoubtedly his own scent. The way his black hair had gleamed in its thick plait, and the way his strange hands had twitched in his lap as you’d leaned over him; the tension ratcheting up his spine the closer you’d got… Dismissing his sharpness with a shake of your head, you grabbed your coin purse and headed down to the bar in search of a drink.

Bridget scowled at you when you arrived and plonked down in a seat beside her. The elves were nowhere to be seen, but Ned was drinking quietly beside her. “What happened?” she demanded in a low growl. “Mhorrin just headed out like a horse to pasture, and now you come down wearing a face like that…”

You shrugged and after a passing waitress took your order, you leaned back and rubbed your eyes. “Is Mhorrin always like this?”

“Like what?” Ned asked, resting his massive forearms on the sturdy table.

A shoulder twitch was all you had the energy for until you added, “So… skittish.”

“Skittish?” Bridget blurted. “The guy’s about as steady as a rock. What do you mean?”

“I don’t mean that he’s nervous in a fight,” you amended, running your fingers through your hair. It was greasy and you needed a bath, but somehow you hadn’t got the impetus now. “When I was dressing his wound just now, he -” Bridget cut you off with an astonished bark of laughter.

“He let you get near enough to touch him?”

You met her hazel eyes directly, confused. “Yeah? I mean, I had to convince him that I knew what I was doing first, but…”

“Oh, I don’t think that would have worried him,” she went on. “I mean, he’s pretty handy with a needle himself. He knows his way around an injury or two.” She set her glass down and tugged up the sleeve of her shirt to reveal a scar you’d seen many times on her stunning bicep. She had a habit of wearing sleeveless tunics after all. “He patched this up when I thought I was gonna lose my whole fucking arm. Left barely a whisper when it was healed.” She thumbed the thin silver line and shook her head disbelievingly.

That piece of information left you reeling. “If he could see to his own wounds, why did he go through all that with me…?” you mused aloud.

“All what?”

You gestured vaguely with your hand and nearly knocked your drink from the server’s hands as it arrived at your table. With a swift apology and a grin that seemed to appease him, you thanked the pretty tiefling and he left your glass on the table with a wink and an overly-friendly squeeze to your shoulder.

Ned growled, “There’s an open invitation if ever I saw one.”

You didn’t feel like taking him up on it, no matter how handsome he was. Your mind was occupied solely with thoughts of Mhorrin and his dappled skin. He’d had freckles on his back. You drew a deep breath and shrugged. Downing half your drink before looking up again, you simply said, “He let me clean and dress it, but he nearly bit my head off for the privilege of it.”

Bridget was quiet for a while, staring into her ale before she said, “You know, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen him without that damned stupid cloak on?”

“Really?”

“Mmm. He never takes it off. To let you see more of him than even that… must have been a big deal for him. He trusts you,” she said, shooting you a look. “He partnered with you in that scrap with the spider and the two of you moved like our fucking elves; like you’ve been fighting together all your lives. I’ve never seen him like that…” She traced a fingertip through a glistening ring of beer on the tabletop and added, “Normally he’s our ranged fighter, hanging back on his own. To have someone with him is… new.”

Ned nodded quietly in agreement. “Give him time.”

“I think that’s all he’ll let me give him,” you grumbled, draining your glass and setting it down on the table with a hefty clunk. “I’m going out,” you announced, standing suddenly. “Need to clear my head.”

The two best friends let you go without comment, swiftly falling into their own conversation once you had strode away and left a few coppers at the bar for your drink.

Outside the soft patter of rain greeted you, and you groaned. With your hair damp in minutes, you sighed. You didn’t feel like doubling back for a cloak though, so you set off through the streets towards the temple grounds to stretch your legs and try and wear yourself out completely before going back to your shared room.

To your surprise, you’d gone no further than the bridge over the river which guarded the temple garden when you spotted a very familiar figure, swathed in a ridiculous cloak.

“Mhorrin?” you asked quietly as you stood in the drizzle at the foot of the gently arching bridge.

In the fae-lamps which illuminated the city at night, he looked decidedly peculiar, which was saying something - perhaps somewhere between a gargoyle and a damp dragon with wings folded downwards. He turned slowly and regarded you from behind his eerie mask. You thought he whispered your name, but you couldn’t be sure.

“You want me to leave?” you asked.

After taking a moment to mull over your question, he shook his head. “No,” he said. “No, I don’t…” he faltered as you walked towards him, boots scuffing on the cobbles.

Ignoring the water pooling on the rough masonry of the sides of the bridge, you joined him and leaned your forearms on the stonework. A huge sigh heaved itself from your lungs and you stared at the silent water slipping by in an inky black stream beneath you. Rain dribbled miserably down the collar of your jacket and you shivered, sniffing as it dripped off your nose as well.

A rather more significant shudder shimmied down your spine a second later, and Mhorrin snorted a soft laugh behind his wooden mask. The next thing you knew, the heavy leather of his cloak was being draped around your shoulders and he was standing very close to you. “I cleaned the blood off it,” he said, and you smiled a little snort of your own.

The two of you stood like that for a little while, watching the river slide by, but eventually Mhorrin spoke up. “I’m sorry I spoke to you like that. I had no right.”

You shrugged, not knowing quite what to say and hoping it would be enough.

“Bridget showed me her scar,” you said pointedly after a minute or so.

“Oh?”

“Mmm. The one on her arm. The one you patched up. If you didn’t need me to treat you, why did you let me?”

Mhorrin remained silent for a heartbeat or three before he sighed and said heavily, “Perhaps I wanted someone else to do the looking after for once.”

Something about his tone struck you deeply and you found yourself unable to speak or find a proper reply, so you said nothing. He seemed to understand, even to appreciate the distance your silence gave him, despite your proximity beneath the cloak.

After a while he said, “We should head back.”

When you nodded, he withdrew the shelter of the cloak from you and you straightened. Neither of you said anything as you returned to the inn, but the silence was comfortable. Comforting even.

The bustle of the inn’s bar jangled against your memory of the soft rain outside, but you still shot Bridget a reassuring smile as you passed, and she nodded once before looking away.

Back in your room, you said you were going to get some of your clothes cleaned by the inn staff, and you offered to add Mhorrin’s bloody shirt to the pile. When you returned with empty arms, you pushed open the door and found Mhorrin standing against the windowsill, his arms braced against it, his body bare except for his trousers.

His back was towards you, but it didn’t feel like he was shutting you out. Quite the opposite, in fact; it felt as though he were giving you the opportunity to stare at him openly.

And you took it.

Mhorrin’s back was crooked and gnarled as an oak tree, listing slightly to the right like an old sloop in a force eight. For the first time you realised with a slight pang of… what, excitement?… that he had a long tail like a tiefling’s which, until then, had been carefully concealed beneath the fabric of his trousers. Now it writhed gently behind him like a hypnotised cobra, occasionally twitching. You let your eyes roam over the blue-grey skin of his shoulders, taking in the horn-like studs and the freckles and the various shades of stormy grey as you approached him. His hair hung down his back in its usual thick plait, but you saw with jolt that he didn’t have his mask on.

It sat on the sill beside his hand, empty and hollow as an old temple offering.

“Mhorrin?” you asked, voice cracking ever so slightly. “Everything alright?”

“You wanted to see me,” he said without turning around. “Well… here I am.” He turned just a little as you crossed the last few steps towards him and put your palm on the small of Mhorrin’s back, making him suck in a breath as his spine tensed up.

Then, almost imperceptibly, he started to relax again as you began to explore his body bit by bit, inch by inch, savouring the touches he was allowing you. Slowly, hesitantly, Mhorrin turned towards you, still in the circle of your arms, and he revealed his face for the first time.

Elongated and almost canine, his muzzle was drawn back in a nervous snarl to reveal huge canines and a black tongue. His almond shaped eyes were massive and completely black with no visible white sclera, but they were covered in a milky film like starlight.

“Mhorrin?” you gasped, taking half a step back from him, eyes fixed on his. “Mhorrin, are you…?” and your fingertips fluttered anxiously beside his muzzle, wanting to touch his cheeks just below his eyes. His gaze sailed straight over your head.

“Blind? Yes,” he said.

“I had no idea you couldn’t see. The way you shoot…?”

Mhorrin shrugged, not shying away from your touch this time as your fingertips connected with his soft skin. “I can see heat, like a snake - always could - which is how I found you on that bridge just now.” With a dry smirk he added, “All I had to do was look for a little block of ice.”

You snorted indelicately through your nose and dropped your hand back to your side. “Can I ask… what you are?”

At long last, his face softened just a little, the muscles of his muzzle relaxing, and he sighed, leaning his wiry body back against the sill behind him with a heavy exhale. “I’m a changeling fae, born on the blood moon and thus cursed to look like… this. My mother didn’t want a monstrous child like me, so she swapped me for a pretty human boy, stole him away, and suckled him on her own blood to turn him fae. He’s… He’s their prince now…”

The brutality of his answer shocked you to your core. “Mhorrin…”

He shrugged again, turning his strange hands palm up and seeming to regard them.

On impulse, you slid your own hands into his and he sucked in another sharp breath.

“I don’t care what you are,” you said, more earnestly than you’d perhaps intended. “You’re a good soul. I’m glad I met you.”

A quiet, rumbling purr began to sound from Mhorrin, which was slightly interrupted by the embarrassed laugh he gave.

“Mhorrin?”

He shook his head, still smiling, and said, “You… You’re not like other humans I’ve met…”

“Oh?” you asked, tilting your head up to look at him properly, your hands still in his powerful grip, very aware of how close to him you were standing.

“Mmm.”

“How so?”

He laughed and said, “I… I feel…” but then he shook his head.

Deciding to act rather than to speak, you let go of his hands and took him by the hips, tugging him those final few inches closer, and you nuzzled your cheek against his before kissing him there.

Mhorrin growled softly like a gnoll and surged forwards, his hands searching up your sides, kissing you hard and you felt your cock stirring already, blood rushing south in a dizzying spiral. This was what you’d wanted for all those weeks; for someone to want you with a basic, almost feral instinct.

The changeling’s purring growl echoed in your ribcage as he backed you towards the nearest bed. “Tell me you want this,” he managed to rasp, drool glistening at his lips already. “Please, tell me you want this.”

“Fuck, Mhorrin,” you hissed, already leaning back towards the bed. “Yes. I want you. I don’t care how, but I want you.”

He chuckled at that and nuzzled a few more kisses at your neck one final time before tipping you onto the bed and stripping you rather hurriedly of your clothes. When he sprang your cock free, he moaned. “If you could see you the way I do,” he said.

In answer, you bucked your hips upwards a little and he got the message. Taking your cock in his hand and steadying your hips with the other, he smeared your leaking tip with one of his two thumbs and then slid your hard cock into his mouth and took you all the way to the back of his throat.

You couldn’t have contained the groan that rolled out of you even if you’d wanted to. The heat of his tongue and the ridges on the roof of his mouth were almost too much for your sensitive cock. You did manage to fight the immediate urge to fuck upwards into the heat of his mouth, however, and as his black tongue swirled around the head and then the shaft of your cock, you grunted inarticulately and he gripped your hips even tighter.

“Fuck, Mhorrin…” you wheezed, head lolling to one side, chest heaving. “That’s so good…”

The changeling sucked and dipped, his breath fanning over your lower torso as he worked you astonishingly quickly towards your climax, and as white heat coiled in your belly, you gasped, “Mhorrin, stop… I’m… I’m gonna…” and you lurched forwards and grabbed his thick hair, pulling him by the plait off your cock with a lewd pop that made your head spin.

“Mm?” he asked.

As you glanced down you saw the tent in his trousers and you gestured at his waistband. “You’re overdressed…”

With a shy grin, Mhorrin obliged, sliding out of his remaining clothes to reveal the evidence of his own arousal. Where the skin of his lean torso was a dark, stormy grey, his cock was almost blue, the tip a vibrant red and already weeping pearlescent pre-come down the length of his shaft, twitching in the relative cool of the bedroom.

Before he had the chance to return his attention to your cock, you reached for him and tugged him down to the bed. “My turn,” you said as you wrestled him onto his back with a playful grunt. He was stronger than you by far, and could have overpowered you easily, but he let you.

As you sat astride him, Mhorrin’s long tail snaked around your thigh and made you gasp as he caressed your balls with the soft, blunt tip of it. Your knees buckled and you pitched forwards, landing with one hand on his chest and the other on the bed beside him. His jaw parted and he raked his teeth across the pounding pulse in your neck before drawing back and saying, “Two can play that game, you tricksy little human…”

Your cock throbbed at the sound of his voice, suddenly so confident and self-assured, and it made you want to unravel him in the best way possible.

Sensing this, perhaps, he smiled hesitantly and said, “I… I have no oil that would be suitable, I’m afraid…”

“I do,” you said quietly. “Would you like me to fuck you then?”

He nodded mutely, and you smiled, raking your nails down his chest and making him gasp, his dark nipples hardening almost instantly.

It didn’t take you long to find the small vial you were looking for in the depths of your bag, and when you turned back to face him, you took just a moment to admire him. His long, lean body was stretched out, the pads of his toes spread wide with expectant pleasure, his tail writhing slowly beside him, his thighs tensed, his quads standing out and straining, and his hand was on his weeping cock already.

It didn’t take you long to open him up, but you did delight in watching the way his jaws went slack and drool slid freely from his lips as he tilted his head back and keened with pleasure as you hit that spot inside him that made him jolt and jerk with searing pleasure.

His body began to quake and quiver in minutes, and soon he was writhing and snapping his maw shut, his blind eyes rolling closed as his hands searched for you amid his pleasure. “Please,” he rasped. “Please…”

With a grin you slicked your own achingly hard cock with oil and then lined yourself up with him. Again, his tail snaked between your legs as he lay on his back, and he started to caress your balls as you eased yourself into him. He was still so tight that it took you a while to enter him completely, but when he raised his hips and finished the job for you, the pair of you let out matching moans.

Mhorrin went rigid with the pleasure of it and you felt the heat of his insides clench around you, almost daring you to come then and there.

“Fuck…” you breathed, bending low over him, adjusting to the grip he held on you.

“That’s… the idea…” he grunted. “Isn't it?”

With a hoarse laugh, you started to move, enjoying the slide of your cock inside him, watching him coming undone with each thrust, until he was shaking and whimpering. “Oh by Fate…” he cursed suddenly, “I’m… I’m going… I’m…” he cried and suddenly he was overcome, his body convulsing, his hands gripping your forearms as he curled his spine towards you, his abs clenching, his body rocking and jolting with the force of his release. His cock - untouched - spurted over his abs and chest, and he almost howled as he came.

Three more thrusts and you too were coming, emptying yourself inside him with a breathless gasp as your vision went white. Falling forwards over him, you lay there with him, gasping and still twitching, until he brought his strange hands to your back and traced idle lines up and down your spine.

Eventually you shifted, sticky and spent, and staggered towards the washstand in the corner of the room to fetch a cloth for him and for yourself.

Even cleaning him elicited similar groans of pleasure from him, and before you knew it, he was getting hard again, and despite your exhaustion from the day and from your first round, you felt the same awakening in your own body.

Silently, you moved your hand back to his cock and he jerked and whimpered.

“Yes?” you asked, and he nodded.

“Yes… Please, yes…”

—

I really hope you folks enjoyed this one! Don’t forget to let me know if you did enjoy it by leaving a like and/or reblogging it!

For all early releases, character art and bios, upcoming story info, and much, much more, join me over on Patreon! You’ll have access to stories before anyone else, and you’ll get instant access Patreon-only content as well, including polls and an exclusive monthly story for those on the Pixies and Goblins tier or higher!

#fae #changeling #male fae #exophilia #fae x reader #mlm #male monster x male reader #male fae x male reader

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d-a-anderson · 4 years ago

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The Deer Church

This short is based on a dream I had last night. It disturbed me enough that I couldn’t stop thinking about it, so I wrote it down. I may expand it to flesh out the themes and context.

H. P. Lovecraft is known for “cosmic horror”—that is, his assumption that we live in an uncaring universe that feels nothing for us, so that its true nature is so alien that it is existentially dreadful.

My subconscious seems to be working with a kind of “ecological horror”—that is, that nature is uncaring, and if it ever felt something for us, it has now turned against us. And that an uncaring Nature can be as alien and dreadful as a cosmos that is wholly and perniciously “Other”.

Image: "Cernunnos", or the “horned god” of Celtic polytheism, on the Gundestrup Cauldron, c. 150 BC

The forest beyond the town broke into a clearing. I could see the ravine that had once been a river, now dammed up to make way for work on the mines.

Old, metal-wire fences teetered on the edge, and dead trees that had long since fallen hung down the other side. The air smelled musty, and the mud stuck to the side of my galoshes.

I noticed where the fences curved away, hugging the only path out of the forest. There was a landbridge leading to the other side of the ravine. It seemed impossibly thin for its height against the river basin, like a sidewalk’s width, and moss-covered signs hanging on the fence were too dirty to be readable. I noticed a set of tracks leading across the landbridge—what looked like deer tracks, caked in the mud, still wet.

“Hello there?”

A voice echoed from across the river basin. At the other side of the landbridge, I saw an elderly woman who seemed to be dressed in black, with fine gray hair pulled in a bun. Her dress seemed to me vaguely reminiscent of a nun’s.

“Hello,” I said, projecting my voice. A faint echo came back.

“We have a church here,” said the lady. “Would you like to see it?”

“Across this path?” I asked. “Are you sure it’s safe to cross?”

“Of course it is—here, let me show you.”

The lady crossed part way across the dirt path, and I could see the grandmotherly wrinkles on her face. She seemed to traverse it easily, without even minding the closeness of the fences to the steep drops on either side.

“See? Come on over now. Lots of people come this way. We have a beautiful church just up the side of this hill.”

I had a soft spot for churches. Ever since growing up in New England and attending Sunday school as a child, I loved old Protestant churches—their pews, their well-worn hymnals, and the musty homeliness that came with them.

“Oh,” the lady said. “You’ll just love our church then. It’s by far the finest here in the west. What brings you out this far?”

“I’m surveying for the developers.”

“Mhm,” mumbled the lady, seeming unconcerned with my answer.

I minded my footing as we passed along the path. The wire fences seemed to hold the ground together, even as the path got muddy. The lady seemed unfazed, but I stuck my hand out to grasp the chainlinks as we stepped. The wire jingled in that dull, steely way, and I could see the waves travel through it as I clutched it with my unsteady hand.

“See? It’s not so bad.” The lady muttered again. And as I watched my feet, I saw in the ground again: deer tracks. Or, at least, deer footprints. Were deer this big? I didn’t know; I’d never been a boyscout.

“There we go. Up this way now. I promise, it’ll be worth it.”

I followed the lady up the hill where a loose footpath was made. The dirt, moss, and mud were held in place by wood planks that looked like they must’ve been placed there long ago. The lady held up her skirt against the mud, and I could see the hose beneath her dress.

“Here we are—the old, dear church,” she said.

I looked up, slightly winded. A few paces from us was an old, decrepit church. Vines covered the side of its walls and dark mold crawled up the sides of its brick foundations. The wood-step path led up to its threshhold. There were no broken windows and they weren’t boarded up��but they were too dark to see inside.

“It’s small,” I mentioned.

“Oh, but that gives it some charm,” she said. “We don’t need those big churches like some people do. You should see the inside—it’s quite special.”

Still entertained by the idea of nostalgia, I walked up the path, following the lady. A sign read “Dear Church” in metal lettering, nailed over the double doors—but the “a” in “Dear” was missing, and instead had been scrawled into the wood.

“Come in, dear,” said the lady. I entertained her as she opened the door for me, and I neglected to ask her name. I suppose I didn’t want to offend her.

I stepped inside, and the mustiness of the air outside was exponentially thicker beyond the doors. When my eyes adjusted, I could see the lobby of a normal, small-town church—much like ones I grew up going to Sundays in.

Except there was a pervasive mold. Not just the kind of mold you’d see in a condemned house—at least, I’ve never been in a condemned house before, or one like this before. It wasn’t the kind of mold you’d expect in a house—it was white, furry, with splotches of green in some places. It wasn’t quite the kind you’d see on a piece of cheese in the fridge before throwing it out, but something close to it.

And it was everywhere. On the seats’ cushions on either side of the doors as you walked in. On the tablecloth where greeters must’ve delivered their programs to visitors. On the carpets of the floor, trailing up the staircases, leading up on either side, onto the doors leading to the main room. On an old coffee dispenser that must’ve been there for decades.

“It has its own special charm,” said the lady. “Quite humble compared to other churches, don’t you think?”

I managed to hide a frown of disgust, careful not to touch anything, and instead nodded at the lady—still, wishing not to offend. She seemed unperturbed by the extreme state of growth, and, still daintily clutching the sides of her dress, stepped up the stairs, which split to either side of the greeting station.

“The architecture is… interesting,” I managed to comment without stammering too much. She nodded without looking at me, but still visibly smiling.

“Sister Mary? We have a visitor who wishes to see the church.” The lady announced as she reached the top of the stairs. A door creaked open, which I assumed must’ve led to a balcony in the main room.

Another elderly woman, not too different in complexion, but now in a gray dress rather than black, entered the lobby.

“Ah, how nice. Glad to see we can have another visitor.”

I proceeded up the opposite stairs, doing my best to play it nice and congenial. Surely this wasn’t a functioning church? Either that, or I’d landed myself into some kind of cult. Still, some impulse in me wanted to see beyond the layers of ruined upholstery and drywall, all caked in this thick, soft, white layer of fungi. Or, maybe, I wanted to entertain what the rest of it looked like as it was out of gross curiosity.

Until I noticed, on the upholstered benches leading up to the main double doors, where the main room would be, what looked like a mannequin’s head sitting on the cushions. It was completely covered in the white, moldy moss, so that its features were indistinguishable. The layer of organic gunk was so thick that it seemed to have solidified in place, like the fungi had hardened so that it had the visible texture of plaster. Next to it was an arm. I didn’t dare touch it.

“Ah, don’t worry about those,” the lady called Sister Mary said. “We like to leave things as they are here. Come on in—you have to at least see the auditorium.”

Sister Mary walked to the double doors and opened them, gesturing for me to enter.

I looked inside. It looked like a church’s auditorium all right, if a bit modern in style. A small flight of stairs, split on either side of an exit below, led down to pews in angled rows facing a central pulpit. The ceiling sloped downward, and the whole room had a pentagonal shape, roughly big enough for two hundred people.

It was a mess. The wood of the pews was so water damaged that it was discolored from brown to black. Scrap pieces of wood laid about, I took note, as I descended the staircase, feigning curiosity and amazement. After all—only two elderly women, right? And, of course, mold was everywhere.

I was taken to a figure to my left. Another mannequin—this time, seated, like where a deacon would be. Totally covered in white and splotchy green fungus, like someone had plastered it with the stuff. The features were totally indistinguishable, and even the hands were so coated that it had no fingers; they just looked like mittens. The stuff was covered on the seat too, like the head and arm was in the lobby. I had the visceral sense, whether incorrect or not, that the figure was part of the seat now.

And as I stepped downward and the floor creaked, I could see the pews from an angle; I could see more heads on the seats, as if they were fungi themselves, either placed there or growing out of the upholstery, but now indistinguishable either way. They all faced the pulpit, as if to receive a sermon.

Daring to look at the pulpit, I couldn’t make out the figure behind it. The felt-covered stage, the wood of the pulpit, was all completely covered in fungus. Instead of standing like a pastor would be, the figure was seated behind the pulpit on the floor, and I couldn’t see its face. All I could see was what must’ve been a pair of antlers protruding from its head.

“What do you think?” Said one of the sisters. “Please meet our brother, Hern.”

Out stepped from the balcony a large man in a patchwork sweater. He wore a mask that seemed to be caked, solid mold, carved in the shape of a rudimentary face.

My eyes darted to the exit, just below the balcony, as I watched this hulking man descend the staircase, coming to flank me.

“Hern is the custodian here,” a sister said. “He can take care of you.”

I stepped toward the exit, still feigning interest in my surroundings. Some scrap wood, fallen on a table at the back of the auditorium, was within my reach. I picked it up, flipping it in my hand like it was a toy, smiling innocuously. Hern slowly walked up toward my rear, and I could feel the floorboards give under his footsteps. I looked up at the balcony and noticed, behind the sisters, what seemed like child’s drawings of a series of faces. One had two sets of eyes beneath a mask.

“What’s with the drawing with the two sets of eyes?” I asked.

At that moment, Hern grabbed me in a headlock with one arm from behind. I felt a strong pressure at the left side of my neck. Was it a needle? Was I about to pass out? No. Was it a gun? No—it felt like just two massive fingertips, dirty, with rough nails, digging into my skin. He must’ve been feigning a gun. I gave a shove against the headlock, still gripping the wood scrap in my hand.

“Let me go!” I yelled. Hern was a head taller than me and the headlock held fast. So I reflexively did the one thing I could: I took the wood and slammed the sharp end above my head in an attempt to stab his face through its mask.

“Let—me—go!”

On the third try the headlock loosened, and I darted for the exit ahead of me, intent with all my might to make it to that thin little landbridge, the one with the oversized deertracks, and to get to the other side of the ravine.

#daily #writing #prompt #creepy #horror #cernnunos #herne the hunter

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judecak · 5 years ago

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Maiko Fluff Week - 4 Day

@idonthatemaiko

He walked with angriness, he knew this was a stupid idea, the whole thing was a stupid idea but as usual, Azula had to drag him with her. He kicked the grass. He didn't understood why he had to accompany her to this drenched place, it's her and her friends trouble if they had to do some homework outside Caldera. He had private tutors and they never asked silly things.

He kept walking, mother had told him to stay where there was grass and not go inside the woods because he could get lost. A firebender always knows where the sun was, so they have an impeccable good sense of direction and right now he didn't want to see his mother. She was the one who pleaded him to go outside. He could have stayed at home practice his bending.

He stomped his feet with a branch. He blasted it with fire and the thing was blown to smithereens.

"Ouch!" Someone whined and he hunched, it hadn't been his intention to hurt anybody. "WHAT...?" It's was the first time he had heard her rise her voice, usually she didn't even spoke. "I'm sorry, Prince." she bowed. She was angry, her voice and body seemed calm but there was something menacing in her eyes. "Did I do something to upset you?"

"No" He answered quickly "It's difficult to walk with all the branches here."

She didn't move, but her lips were in a thing line, after a while she sighed.

"If you go out the wood, you'll not have any trouble." She pointed at the path he had walked.

"Nah" he said. "Here we can practice, I think I have got better at throwing knifes!" He searched in his pocket for his knife.

"I'm sorry, Prin..."

"Zuko" He corrected her. "My name is Zuko and almost nobody calls me Prince, that's more for my cousin." He felt comfortable with her, she didn't judge him, mocked him or giggled at everything he said.

Her eyes opened.

"Come let's practice!" He grabbed her arm she gasped. "Watch the branches..." He suddenly realized he didn't know her name, he had always thought about her as the silent girl, but he couldn't call her that. "Uhm" It seemed rude to ask for her name right now, they had spent some time together. "What's your name?" He said feeling stupid.

"Mai" It fit her, it's short and it almost felt like a sigh.

He smiled at her. "Don't be afraid." He was going to tell her where to walk, he was going to protect her, like the gentlemen do.

She tugged him and he stopped. "I'm not." He turned around. "Pri... Zuko" she corrected herself. "I'm searching for mushrooms."

"Why?"

"Our homework is to plan an attack" She explained to him. Ah the stupid homework. "Princess Azula is surveying the place to decide the best place to launch an attack and I'm searching for possible sources of food."

Oh, their homework seemed interesting! "That sounds fun!" Why Azula didn't told him about it, he could have help to plan an attack. "But why mushrooms?"

"Because they grow here" she showed him her basket "However these are poisonous, they can't feed us but you can prepare a simple poison if needed."

"Poison is not honourable."

She rolled her eyes. "You can poison your blades as a second plan if your opponent survives the direct attack, all possibilities should be explore." That's an interesting choice "Besides you'll know what to eat and what don't." In that she was right.

"You're and expert then?" She denied. "Poisonous shuriken! That's amazing." She was really interesting. "I believe some Fire Ladies had poisonous daggers or maybe shurikens."

"Uhm." She murmured.

"Let's find poisonous mushrooms or fruits." She sighed. "I will look from this side." She opened her mouth and he waited for her reply, however she didn't said anything and he smiled at her. "I'll look this side."

He searched among the trees looking for mushrooms, the ground was wet and he slipped several times, however he only found several bugs, branches, a lot of moss and a suspicious bush, but no mushrooms.

"There are not mushrooms, I'll go that way." He told her while walking.

"I don't think is a good idea to go deeper into the woods." She followed him

"Don't worry." He stumbled and had to help himself with his hands, he hadn't saw the roots of an old tree. "I can't get lost." He assured her.

"Even if..." She had troubles walking the same path.

"There're a lot of roots." He offered his hand to regain her balance. "It must be very old the tree."

She nodded. "Yes." Both were more careful walking over the big roots this time. "Zu..."

"Oh, look there!" The tree was rooted in the edge of the earth, after the tree there was a depression. It's small but he couldn't consider just jump.

She kneeled the enough to put her hands in the roots. "Those may be edible" her voice sounded happy and her eyes lighted. That's something that had never happened before, but he felt warm. "I think we may jump from there."

She grabbed his arm and he felt very conscious of her hand until she realised him and jumped. Besides his mother and Azula's hits, rarely someone touched him.

Both kneeled and went down to watch the mushrooms, they looked like boring brownish flowers that protruded from the earth. So it's highly probable they're edible. Both looked at themselves and smiled. He never had seen her eyes so close, she didn't had light brown eyes, her eyes were more like honey not the yellowish honey but that between light and dark.

"There's something wrong?" she asked. He had watched her for a long time, he'd been rude and he didn't know how to react. She frowned and sighed. "I'll take them."

She watched the mushrooms trying to figure it out the best way to take them from the earth, she was trying to grab the mushroom from the lowest part, but suddenly she squealed.

"Worm!" she said taking her hand out. "Its body is squishy and it moved"

For a girl who liked gory stories, she seemed so disgusted by a little bug.

He looked at the mushroom and he thought he saw the bug. "We can pick other." He chose a little one that was barely growing, he guessed, they didn't need to eat the thing. He just picked it and tossed it in her basked. She blinked then laughed. Her features looked, soft and happy. He laughed too.

"I'll pick two or three more." She started to search for other little mushrooms.

"What about those there?" He pointed some on her right side.

Both froze when they heard the growl. Slowly they turned their head. Foxlynxes, were not very friendly with the humans and this in particular didn't like them at all. It was showing them all its teeth from the roots of the tree they had been.

"Did you brought your knife?" She whispered him.

A second one appeared. He didn't remember if foxlynxes were afraid of fire, but at least if he blasted some fireballs maybe they could escape.

"No" He said while a third one appeared. "I'll thrown them fire."

"I don't think..." The foxlynxes seemed ready to attack.

"Run" He throw fire with his hands, making a wall big enough to cover their escape, or he hoped so. He ran after her while he heard the animals whine, still he saw them jump.

"That was bad idea" she told him "They got angered by the fire."

"You had a better idea?" he reproached her.

Both kept running into the woods with three foxlynxes following them.

"We need to find the others" she told him "Were are they?"

It's hard for him to remember the exact place while running from wild animals. Both keep running for a while in hope the animals could get bored and stop.

"Where're we?" She asked him.

"We have run to the east" He said looking at the sun through the trees "We need to go back the road" She got scare.

"Not with them, behind us." She said.

"We need to fight."

"I just have a knife" she groaned. "I may be able to kill one, but... I will just have one chance and I have never tried with animals."

"You can do it" she was good "I can burn the other two." Or he believed.

She looked at him with worry. He nodded, trying to give her encouragement. She turned around several times, probably she was trying to calculate the enough force. She nodded to him, pointing at the foxlynx from the far right. Suddenly she stopped, she throw her knife but she slipped. Zuko expected to watch the animal fall. I did not. She struggled with her balance. The one in the far left whined, the second one stopped but the one in the far right got enraged and jumped. He put himself in front of her and blasted fire from both hands.

The animal made a terrible screeching noise, he didn't moved fast enough to avoid the animal that was crossing the fire. He felt the foxlynx very near his face, he used his hands to try to protect himself, still he felt something scratching his face. He felt his feet fall into the mud, he slipped. He bumped hard into something or maybe someone and both felt into the ground. She whined. Something hit him in the leg and he firebended from his hands and legs in order to avoid been bitten. He didn't saw the animals but he hear little paws running away.

She screamed and hurt him with her knees and legs in her try to move from bellow him.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry" He kicked the flaming basked. He supposed, he had set it on fire by accident at some point.

He rolled and sat in the muddy ground. He felt a sharp sting in his nose, he touched himself with the back of his palm. He hissed, there was a bit of blood.

"Are you fine?" he asked her, despite the fuss, she hadn't rise.

He was going to asked her if something had happened when she rose. One of her buns had unrolled, he had always thought her hair was straight but it seemed to have some waves. The other one barely hung in its place.

"I'm fine" she said. "Are they gone?"

"Yes."

"Zuko your face!" She got worried for his scratches.

"I'm fine" He grabbed her hand before she touched him. "It sting." She opened her mouth. "Thanks" It's odd to have somebody besides Mother who cared for him. It's uncomfortable, he got up and watched the sun. "We need to go that way."

She got up and frowned.

"I'm sure about it" He insisted. "I can't get lost, the sun..."

"I believe you" She answered with calmness. "I'll follow you." The determination in her eyes made him feel suddenly warm. He turned around and walked. He didn't knew were the animals had run, but he hopped they won't come back, neither that they stumbled with any other animal. They had gone very far away from the others.

"Do you think they have noticed our absence?" He asked her.

"Maybe" she murmured.

"I'm hungry." He said. She didn't reply.

They kept walking in silence, in time to time she sighed but he didn't mind she did that a lot. He tried to be sure no other animals followed them, he didn't remember what kind of wild animals were suppose to live there. Suddenly he noticed she was not behind him, he turned around she was walking really slowly. She limped from the left side. He walked to her. "You're hurt." He stated.

"It's nothing." She avoided his eyes.

"Doesn't seems so." He insisted, she stubbornly refused to speak. He kneeled and she tried to give a few steps back, but when she tried to put weight in her left foot, she hissed. He moved his hand to her leg.

"It's improper." She spoke.

"You're hurt" He persisted. "And I want to know how to help." She blinked. "Besides nobody is watching"

"It's my ankle" She stopped him. "Don't touch it, it's really hurts."

Once he twisted his ankle while bending. He grabbed her by her left arm. "Don't worry, I won't tell." He calmed her when he saw her face with an astonished gesture.

He could tell she was trying to not rely on him even if she was hurt. It's stupid, but he understood her fear. Adults were very strict with proper behaviour. It's going to take them more than he had thought to reach the others.

"We need to climb" He announced once they reached the tree were they have found the mushrooms. "Let's find the lowest part."

"I saw a lower part to the right."

It's not so far from the point they had jump. He climbed first with easiness. He was sure she could do it too and he wasn't wrong, but the effort made her go to the brick of tears.

"Just give me a few minutes" She said, avoiding contact with him.

She truly needed help. He kneeled in front of her.

"Up" he said "I'll carry you."

"It's..."

"I don't care about the rules!" He told her with angriness.

"You're the pr..."

"Damn the stupid rules, Mai!" She had an odd sight in her eyes, the one she usually used to watch him. "Don't be stubborn."

She scoffed.

"Come, now!"

She surrounded him with her arms and he felt his stomach turning, he was going to be very embarrassed if she hear how hungry he was. When she got nearer he thought that maybe he had not thought of how close he was going to be to her. He knew her and he didn't mind to spend time with her, he thought she was pretty. He flushed, it's not... well between his aggressive sister and the smiling girl, he preferred her. There was nothing wrong, her mother was pretty too.

And now he could smell her too, she smelled of wet earth, something fresh he couldn't pin point, something citric maybe tangerine, something spiced that made him remember home. He really liked it.

"There's something wrong?" She asked and he swear his ear had become suddenly very warm.

"No" He got up with her.

He decided to focus on his task, but her hair was against his cheek and it felt very soft. Her breathing tickled his ear too. He was sweating, maybe she was heavier than he had thought so.

None of them spoke at all in the road, it's very uncomfortable, he had moved his hands several times so she didn't fell, she kept moving her hands over him too. He didn't remember to have been uncomfortable when Azula was younger and he had carried her to her bed after both had played for a long time.

It's not bad but it's odd or it made him feel something he didn't know very well.

They reached the end of the forest, he looked at her when they were near the valley and her eyes were happy. He hurried his walk and she hold him nearer and stronger than before. He felt his heart pounding, he was happy, they were almost there.

He tried to run and he felt, she gasped and he barely had time to put his hands in the ground, still the weight was too much. He ended almost flat in the earth. She moved quickly and helped him to roll.

"Are you alright?!" He thought it was the first time he had ever seen her face with her emotions so pure, he had always had troubles understanding her because she showed almost no reactions. "Zuko" She got really close to his face, and he thought that her eyes were indeed warm. Why she hid behind a emotionless mask?

She put her hand in his shoulder, he grabbed her hand. "I'm fine" He said, he rose from the ground and sat in front of her. She watched the ground and nodded. "Don't worry" He put his hand in her cheek, yes her eyes did said a lot of things, he'll make sure to look at them more often.

"You got hurt." She pointed his knees. He moved his knees, it seemed that both were bound to get hurt.

"A bit, but did you?" She denied with her head. She was worried and maybe even ashamed. "I'm famished! I'm sure I can convince Mom to give us some sweets." She blinked. "We survived the attack of wild animals after all." She laughed, he smiled, yes she was pretty with her hair down, her scrambled clothes and her emotions in her face.

"We're a disaster." She stated. "But we did survive to hostile enemy."

It's getting easy to be around her.

In The Rise of Kyoshi, Rangi (a Fire Nation bodyguard to the Avatar) states that in the Royal Acamdemy for girls, they studied different constructions to plan attacks, even Ba Sing Se. Things may have change in Azula’s time, but the military part I really doubt it.

#maikofluffweek19 #mai atla #zuko #maiko #zumai

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tyrell-garner · 5 years ago

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› [ CHRIS EVANS / CIS MALE ] ┊ TYRELL ‘TY’ GARNER ― This THIRTHY-EIGHT YEAR OLD SUPERNATURAL ( BETA WEREWOLF WITHIN THE HEUNG PACK ) is WITH the humans. HE has lived in Marion for THIRTHY-EIGHT YEARS in the EDGEWATER ORCHARD neighborhood, working as an POLICE OFFICER. There are no winners in this war, and HE is NOT AT RISK of losing the supernatural war.

ABOUT TYRELL GARNER

FULL NAME: Tyrell Garner

AGE: 38

NICKNAME: Ty

SEXUALITY: Heterosexual

GENDER IDENTITY: Cis male

HEIGHT: 6‘7

WEIGHT: 240 lbs

SPECIES: Werewolf

OTHER

DISTINGUISHING FEATURES: Hard to overlook. Tall and bulky.

OCCUPATION: Police officer.

HOMETOWN: Marion, Louisiana

PERSONALITY: goofy, loyal, protective, reliable

VIEWS

WEREWOLVES: Very loyal to and protective over the members of the Heung-pack. Neutral towards lone wolfs as long as they are harmless. Hostile towards wolfs of other packs.

HUNTERS: Has an eye out for them. He knows how there is danger in number especially.

VAMPIRES: Ty is neutral towards them if they keep their distance and prove to be no threat.

HUMANS: Tyrell likes humans in general. He wants to protect them.

ABOUT

Looking at Tyrell, you would expect a hard shell, soft core kind of situation judging from his figure, how tense he gets when he is deep in thought and the police uniform. It’s the other way around though. You see, Ty is the softest dough in town. He’d wrap the whole community into a big bear- uh, wolf- hug if he could and fix all the lost souls out there. Reaching out like that has brought the second of seven Garner children no luck though, so he sticks to being friendly and only really opens up to very few.

Judging from his personality, Tyrell would have to look almost like a golden retriever. Softest, warm golden fur and deep brown eyes that welcome you home, keep you safe and hug you close. His paws should be almost clawless, able to caress instead of harm. Instead, once turned, Ty rages in his true form. His hard core can be seen clear as day, dangerous and disenchanted. Tyrell looks almost like a huge Husky, his soft baby-blue human eyes turned to glares of ice glinting in the darkness of the night.

Ty had turned for the first time when he was eleven. He had been so young. Far too young. But age is in no indicator for how much pain the soul has felt. The pain of turning had only made him loose his mind. He had searched for guidance, for direction, for leadership so desperately and yet, had found none. He would have needed his older brother Hector. Instead, Ty’s father had brought the situation under control as far as possible, still being unable to get ahold of the young wolf. Tyrell ran – out of control, out of mind – he wake in the middle of the woods, in snow, in Canada. When he finally returned home, Ty was almost starved to death and a child no longer.

Hector had not been there for Tyrell’s first turning because he had already been dead for the better part of two years. It had been an accident, child’s play gone bad. The four eldest Garner children had escaped their mother, had followed their oldest brother, their leader, their alpha since the day they were born, out of town right into St. Agnes village. Down unpaved roads until they could have no longer even been called trails. Between the trees and puddles of mud, the two boys and girls played their games, chased through nature, tested their own and each other’s strength. Ty had never been one to challenge Hector. He was his second in command, his right hand, the two of them stood tall against the rest of the world. Xenia, their oldest sister, never accepted her brothers’ birthright, or the right of the stronger, taller and faster ones. Rematch followed rematch until slick fair skin slipped on moist moss. Three children had cheered for the one that had climbed higher than them all. The fall had been quick, the landing dampened by more moss but the breakage of bone had been louder than any noise that Tyrell would ever hear in his life to come. It echoed through the woods like his mother’s cries over the cemetery.

Even though Tyrell was now the oldest of six, he had never once thought of taking over his brother’s place. He took care of his family and was in every other aspect the big brother that he was supposed to be, but he was simply not born to be the leader. Xenia took over the position until most of the children had left town for university or because of love once they all got older – but she could never get ahold of them all.

‘Them all’ was a loose expression to use anyway. With seven children, there was a high chance that not all of them were born werewolves and would turn once they hit puberty. Once they reached a certain age, Tyrell’s parents would also take precautions for their young teens. They were always ready, expecting one of them to be an early surprise like Ty had been years before them. Still, for some of his siblings the excruciating pain never came.

Xenia was one of them. With the personality of an alpha without the disposition to turn, she was trapped inside her human body in a family of wolves. For the longest times, she had begged Tyrell to simply bite her and make her truly part of the family. Of course, Ty denied her, hoping that she would see the value in her human life, find a partner, a passion, start a family and forget about the crazy idea in her head. After all, Ty knew about the risk that not all humans that got bitten had the chance to turn and life on as werewolves. Some simply died. Maybe this had just not been meant to be for Xenia and nature had already made its decision. Luckily, Xenia did find love and seemed to find her way into a different happy ever after. Her marriage lasted for seven years, the time it took the both of them to try and test for every possibility to conceive a child. When Xenia asked Ty to help her move back to Marion, to her parents place until she had found something for herself, Ty had kind of forgotten about Xenia’s desperate wish to become one of them. When she asked him for the bite once more and Tyrell, of course, denied her once again, she had a backup plan. Up to this day, Ty doesn’t know who did bite his sister in the end. All he does know is, that nature has its ways of knowing and that Xenia did indeed die that night in his arms instead of turn into her true form.

The other Garner child that didn’t have the gene was Curtis, Ty’s youngest brother. He had been different to them in a lot of ways. According to Tyrell’s mother, Curtis was a different kind of special and supernatural. All siblings knew that Curtis was their mother’s favorite, the golden boy, but he was all of their favorite, so it was alright anyhow. He had an aura of light, fingers of luck and a voice of happiness. Ty sometimes wished his mother wasn’t the only one left to talk to and halfway taken from dementia so he would be able to talk to her about him. Apparently, there was a faint line of magic powers running in his mother’s family and those genes had been dominant with Curtis. He had never been able to control any of it, but the older Curtis got, the stronger his powers grew and the luckier they were. Their shield of protection when they went out during a full moon was luck and hunters, or invaders in general were just unlucky when it came to them- Until a group of hunters didn’t only target them, the wolves, but attacked Curtis. He grew up in a golden cage. Protected during those special nights, kept away from the others and entertained with pizza and movies until the night was over. He wasn’t a fighter.

Tyrell married just a year after Curtis had died. It was a confusing time. He had just finished training and had returned home, just to see his brother end up dead after his first full moon back in town. Ty blamed himself for having led the hunters into town and towards his family. He took it upon himself to hunt them down and kill the whole group. He was satisfied, once he found that the next relevant hunters that were connected to the net were located in Spain. During his time tracking down the hunters and revenging his family, he met his wife Nicole in France.

Niccy and him married after half a year of knowing each other. Ty had only been told by his father what it meant to find a mate, but he was sure that this was it. Past struggles were forgotten, and Ty felt like that there was a veil lifted from the world that had dulled down all the colors. Now he had entered reality. The presence was all that ever mattered with her. Niccy wanted to stay in France because of her father. She was an only-child and her father was all the family she had left. Ty was happy to agree. He found a job in a security agency and made friends with Niccy’s friends.

When Niccy’s father died, Niccy agreed to follow Tyrell back to the States. Of course, Ty was anxious. In France, he had been able to hide his supernatural side from his wife. His job had provided him with an easy excuse for why he would be gone the night of every full moon. He just also added every night that he knew he would have trouble keeping himself from changing to his shift schedule and the deed was done. In Marion, Niccy would need to be introduced to his family and his family’s secret. As expected, Nicole reacted with disbelieve followed by fright, but Ty did see hope for them after a week and a lot of explaining and showing her around and answering all of her questions. For the next full moon, the family had decided to gather and go out as a pack for the first time since Curtis had died, leaving Xenia and their mother behind with Nicole. On the packs return, all of them went to bed in exhaustion.

In the very early hours of the morning, Tyrell woke with a very strange feeling. Realizing that Niccy was not by his side, he decided to search for her. It had been far too late. Ty found all his siblings dead first, then he found her, her hand still on the handle of the dagger that stuck right in his father’s heart. His mother had probably been woken by the noises Niccy had made killing his father in his sleep. She was rushing out of the master bedroom, tried to hinder Tyrell from going inside, but he just shoved her out and closed the door. Nicole armed herself with a gun, loaded with silver bullets, but Ty was faster and stronger and taller and they were on the floor and his father’s blood, all their blood, was on her. He didn’t need to force it out of her. She blamed him for it. How she came from a family of hunters, how she had tried to deny all of it, how she had cut off all her family but her father to get out as soon as she had been old enough, how of course he had to be the one thing she had never wanted. Of course Ty had wanted to settle things, he couldn’t not do it. The bond made it impossible for him to resist the urge to try and fix and ignore all the pain around the one love he had. However, Nicole tried to kill him anyway and self-defense, the urge to stay alive, self-preservation, was stronger than it all.

By now, Tyrell and his Mother are the only one left in town of the Garner family. The family’s home has not opened its doors to another person since then. Ty’s mother has left the house for a nursing home because of her dementia. Tyrell is a different person when he is home than when he leaves the premises of his family’s home.

#intro-post #intro #bio #long!#gore tw #blood tw #death tw #multiple death tw #hunter #werewolf #so much hurt and angst #what am I doing?

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fortheloveofwarriors · 6 years ago

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Warriors: Blossoms in the Tide: Into the Wild: Chapter 3

Princess and Shadepaw stayed on the riverbank for a moment. Shadepaw stared after her clanmates, muttering something under her breath. Princess curled in tighter on herself and pressed her head against her white paws. Her thin body started shaking... this was all too much! She just wanted to go home.

She was roused from thoughts by a warm, fuzzy head pressing against her shoulder. Looking up, she saw the older molly crouched down and slowly slinking up beside her to press against her. The calico watched her warily, unsure of why Shadepaw was doing this. She was even more startled when Shadepaw started purring.

Yet the deep, rumbling sound was comforting in a way. It masked the feeling of Princess's shaking body. Coupled with Shadepaw's natural warmth, Princess found herself pressing back, trying to soak up as much comfort as she possibly could. Shadepaw let her stay there for a bit, even pulling closer so she could rest her head on top of Princess's.

It wasn't long before Shadepaw was pulling away, much to the little calico's disappointment. "We shouldn't stay here," the orange-eyed wild cat said with a sympathetic grin. "You need medicine and rest," she insisted gently as she nudged the smaller molly to her paws. Staying by the kittypet's side, she headed for the direction of camp.

Princess followed obediently; her tail dragged in the soft sand and her head hung low, but she followed. She no longer cared where she was going. No matter where she went, how could she go home again? Telling everyone about Rusty would be one thing, but how would she even get back to the houses?

"How well can you swim?" Shadepaw asked. Taking stock of her surroundings for the first time, Princess realized they were at the edge of a stream. It wasn't a very big stream but she was sure it was deeper than it appeared to be. On the other shore was an island of reeds with a single willow tree. The island itself was much higher than the rest of the land nearby.

"I swim okay, I guess. I mean, I've never really had someone to test me or anything. The river back there seems harder to swim in than this little stream, though. If we need to cross, I think I'll be okay," she assured.

"Alright, let's go then," Shadepaw chirped with a friendly grin still on her face. Making sure to guide Princess with her tail, she led her exhausted charge through into the stream.

There seemed to be a natural tunnel in the reeds, the soft soil packed hard by generations of paws. Princess couldn't help but wonder how long the clans had been here. The tunnel opened to a sunny clearing filled with cats. Cats that were staring at her and had stopped everything they were doing to do so. Princess flicked her gaze between the pairs of staring eyes, frozen in place in the presence of so many prying eyes. The only cat who wasn't frozen in place, waiting for the next move, was Shadepaw.

"Hello, everyone! Are Crookedstar and Mudfur here?" she chirped with a calm, knowing look.

Something about her question broke whatever spell the camp was under. A pale tom darted into another, smaller reed tunnel while a slender silver molly dashed under the roots of a willow tree. With a hiss, a light brown tabby molly trotted up to Shadepaw and Princess.

"Shadepaw, why have you brought a kittypet into our camp?" she snarled, glaring at Princess. The calico shrunk back at the sight of the aggressive molly but Shadepaw was having none of it.

With a cheerful little bounce, she placed herself between the two mollies. "It's okay, Cloudheart. The patrol I was with found her washed up on our side of the river," she chirped in reassurance.

A golden tabby molly with blazing sky blue eyes spat in fury as she rushed to Cloudheart's side. "And why does she smell like Thunderclan? A kittypet from the houses near their territory just happened to stumble into our river? Did nobody point out how suspicious this all seems?!" she snarled with the fur on her neck sticking straight up.

“Well, I think they were; nobody was really thinking about that because Thunderclan was trying to take Sunningrocks back at the same time.” As Shadepaw talked, Princess looked around in alarm. The entire clearing had gone from confused and cautious to angry and hissing just from that one sentence. However, Shadepaw seemed oblivious to this and continued her explanation. “So, yeah, Oakwatcher was a bit more focused on that. Besides, she told us the important part of what happened to her; I'd tell you but I think I should tell Crookedstar and Mudfur first,” she finished with a crooked grin before sticking the tip of her tongue out.

The golden molly had looked ruffled at the mention of Oakwatcher’s name; was that regret that flashed in her eyes? She recovered quickly and huffed in return. “Be that as it may, you shouldn't be so flippant when delivering such a message!”

The brown molly from earlier lazily drew her tongue over a paw and meowed, “Can it really be helped, though? I mean, all things considered…”

With a snicker, the other molly picked what where Cloudheart left off. “No, I suppose not. I forgot for a second where this one's roots lay.”

For the first time since meeting the apprentice, Princess saw Shadepaw's fur bristle. The, what Princess had assumed to be a slow to anger molly, had a growl building in the back of her throat. Before she could spit her own retort, an old brown tom pushed his way into the group. “Now, now, I don't think we should be having this kind of discussion in front of our guests,” he rumbled in a friendly tone, his voice starting to shake with age.

“Indeed,” a new voice chimed in, deep and rumbling almost like thunder. Standing a tail length or so behind Cloudheart was a big light brown tabby. His voice wasn't aggressive but the stern look he was giving Cloudheart and the golden tabby was quite heated. What Princess noticed most prominently about this newcomer was his jaw- it was crooked! Almost like it had been jerked out of place and never got put back right.

“I'll be speaking with you two after this; wait in my den,” he told the two aggressive mollies. The slinked off with their tails low. Cloudheart had the decency to look at least a little embarrassed.

Her companion, on the other hand, was still shooting Princess and Shadepaw a heated glare.

With the aggressors gone, Shadepaw merely stared at the ground and gave her chest a couple of embarrassed licks. “Don't be embarrassed, Shadepaw,” the time with the crooked jaw meowed, his gaze now much softer. “They had no right to chastise you without knowing the whole story; at least, not over a cat who clearly needs help like this kittypet. You did well to stay civil for as long as you did.” As he spoke, the old tom with a shaky voice had moved to Princess's side and began sniffing and looking through her fur. Princess gave him an odd look for his efforts.

“What happened to you, little one?” he meowed, a welcoming purr building in his throat as the crooked jawed tom started to call forth cats to go help reclaim Sunningrocks, or something along those lines.

Princess gave him a long look before sitting down. “Well, my brother said he had a surprise for me and that we had to get to the woods to get to it. I tried to tell him it was too dangerous; honestly, I did!” she stressed, her breathing starting to quicken. “We had barely gotten in when we were found by clan cats. Rusty tried to argue our right to pass and the giant brown tabby attacked him! I clawed his ear and nose and we managed to get away. I accidentally let us fall asleep and we had to run first thing this morning to. Rusty pushed me into a stream as three more Thunderclan cats found us. He wasn't running and they wanted nothing but a fight… I think they killed him,” she explained, her voice getting quieter as she went on. She was vaguely aware of the clan cats still in the clearing listening intently.

“The stream brought me to those huge boulders. I stopped to rest; the water had been so fast, I could barely keep my head up. There were more Thunderclan warriors there and they followed me onto the rocks. I- I didn't know what else to do, so I jumped in the river and swam across. That's where Shadepaw and her patrol found me,” she finished, looking at the molly who brought her here.

Shadepaw had turned to stare at the crooked jawed tom. His fur had fluffed out and his lips had curled into a snarl. “Mudfur, get her to your den. Get her whatever medicine and care she needs. Meet up with me after; I want a full report on her condition,” he ordered.

Mudfur gave the tom a nod and began nudging Princess to her paws. He was leading her back to the reed tunnel someone had gone through to retrieve him if she was remembering correctly. The calico didn't question or try to argue; as far as she could tell, she wasn't going to be hurt. Even if they were, what would be the point? She wouldn't be able to escape this many cats, even if she wasn't exhausted.

The reed tunnel Mudfur led her down was much shorter than the one into the camp. It ended before a large bush that had spread itself low over the ground.the entrance was large but didn't leave enough room to let in gusts and rain. The calico slid in with ease and blinked her eyes a few times to adjust to the dim lighting inside.

Mudfur was right behind her. “You can rest in one of the nests over there,” he meowed with a flick of his tail, indicating the left wall of the den, lined with thick, soft beds of moss. “Just be sure to lay on your belly. I'll give you something to help you with the shock but it'll put you to sleep and I need to check you for wounds,” he explained.

Princess didn't give him a response; she just padded to the closest nest and tried to curl into a ball while still being on her stomach like he asked. Mudfur had sent to the back of the den where there were large mound of mud with shallow crevices carved into it. He quickly scooped his paw into one before hobbling over, keeping one paw off the ground.

“Eat these,” he ordered gently as he held out his paw. Sprinkled on his pale brown pad were two tiny black seeds. “They're poppy seeds,” he explained just as gently. “Known for pain relief, taking the edge off shock and grief, and putting troubled cats to sleep.”

‘That's me…’ she silently admitted as she lapped up the seeds. She wasn't sure if poppy seeds worked extremely fast or if she was simply that tired and just now had an extended moment of rest, but she could sleep pulling her under. She drifted off to the feeling of Mudfur gently pawing through her pelt.

-----

When she woke, the dim den no longer had any light. She could hear crickets chirping over the bubbling of the stream surrounding the little island. Her ears also picked up the troubled muttering coming from the main camp. Curious and concerned, she blinked the last of the sleep from her eyes before padding out.

She emerged from the reed tunnel to a camp that was somehow even more crowded than it had been this morning. Cats were gathered in small clusters, muttering worriedly amongst themselves. In the center of it all was Oakwatcher. His body laid out on its side, bent broken in ways a cat should never be. Princess couldn't help but gasp at the sight.

“Are you okay?” Princess heard from her side. Turning to put a face to the voice, she was met with a ginger patched molly with troubled green eyes.

“What happened to him?” Princess asked after a brief bout of silence. She had just seen him earlier that same day. How could he have ended up like this?

“In the battle for Sunningrocks, Oakwatcher was trying to help battle against Rosestar; he had focused in on Haybelly and she needed help. Mosspath cut him off and in their fight, they rolled into a shallow cave. The commotion was too much… the structure wasn't stable. When it collapsed, only Mosspath made it out. We spent most of the afternoon digging him out of those rocks,” she practically whispered.

The molly gave herself a shake before giving Princess a cheerful expression that didn't even come close to reaching her eyes. “I'm sorry; you've been through so much for someone barely older than a kit. My name is Dawnwhisper; what's yours?”

“Princess… I'm sorry,” she replied, her throat feeling choked. “He was angry they had attacked me and my brother… if it hadn't been for u-”

“Oh, none of that!” Dawnwhisper huffed, her white tail whipping about. “Thunderclan was trespassing on Sunningrocks; that land is rightfully ours and they know it. Oakwatcher would have led his patrol into battle with or without you there. And don't start getting any silly ideas that you're why Thunderclan was on those rocks! They've been longing for those rocks for countless years.”

Having no idea what to say now, Princess turned back to the big, kind cat who had ordered others to help her. There was an old dark grey molly and a pretty silver molly crouched next to his body. Nearby, the crooked jawed tom was talking in hushed whispers with Mudfur.

“What are they doing?” she asked quietly.

“Mourning,” Dawnwhisper replied simply. “That's Greypool, who was one of his best friends, and his niece, Silverstream. Crookedstar must be devastated.”

“Crookedstar? You mean the tom with the broken jaw?” Princess asked.

“Yes, he's Riverclan's leader. His jaw isn't really broken, though. It just didn't heal right… Oakwatcher wasn't just his deputy; they were brothers. He must be devastated…” Dawnwhisper quietly meowed. The last sentence seemed to simply be her speaking her thoughts aloud, not particularly interested in Princess anymore.

The little calico wasn't sure what a deputy was, but it seemed quite important. Her heart went out to Crookedstar, having to deal with a loss that was devastating on two levels. Her conversation with Dawnwhisper seemed to be through, so she stood and padded towards the much larger cat.

Crookedstar paused in his whispered conversation with Mudfur as he noticed her approach. She paused before him, suddenly unsure of what she was doing or even of what she had intended to say. “I… I’m sorry, Crookedstar. Dawnwhisper told me what happened. I didn’t know him very well; I only spoke to him once but… he seemed strong and kind. He seemed like a good cat. No one should have to lose their brother in such a way,” she said after a couple awkward heartbeats of silence.

Her emerald eyes met his pale green ones. His gaze was even and calm as he addressed her. “Do you feel guilty, kittypet?” His voice wasn’t mean or sarcastic; he didn’t even sound particularly curious. Princess nodded; she understood she couldn’t have helped- not with Thunderclan wanting the rocks in the first place- but she couldn't help the twisting feeling in her belly.

Crookedstar broke his stoic stance and bowed his head close to his chest. Cutting his eyes toward his fallen littermate, he meowed, “I do too. It’s typically considered reckless for a leader to get involved in a border dispute but… I can’t help but think I should have been there.”

The leader stayed quiet for a moment before turning back to the collared molly before him. “Thank you for your kind words, young one, but Mudfur and I were discussing important matters. You should head back to the Healer’s den and try to get some more rest,” he encouraged. Princess nodded and mumbled a quick apology for interrupting before turning to leave.

She paused beside the two grieving mollies as she made her way back. She gave them the same apology and couldn’t help but stare at Oakwatcher. She felt she owed him an apology as well but wasn’t sure how to go about it. Even if she could bring herself to press her nose to his fur- as Silverstream had been doing- she wasn’t sure if it would be appropriate; she wasn’t related to him, she wasn’t even a clan cat. Besides, what good would apologizing to his body do when his spirit had gone?

In the end, she decided to just go back to Mudfur’s den. Just as she got to the reed tunnel, she heard Crookedstar’s voice ring out over the camp. “Let all cats old enough to swim across the river gather before me for a clan meeting!” Whipping her head around, she saw that the clan leader had leapt onto one of the taller roots of the willow tree. The clan was already loosely gathered; they just had to tighten their half circle before Oakwatcher’s body. Princess just stood awkwardly at the tunnels entrance. She was old enough to do as Crookedstar asked but she wasn’t a clan member so she wasn’t sure if the call extended to her.

“The passing of Oakwatcher is unfortunate. I know the pain cuts deep for us all. However, it is almost moonhigh; while Oakwatcher will always be remembered and honored by those here today, Riverclan needs a deputy. The threat of Rosestar and his followers cannot be understated. Constantly pressing our borders, their unneeded aggression, it cannot be tolerated any longer. The kind of deputy I need to help us face this threat is a steadfast cat. Someone I know will never waver in the face of adversity and can return Rosestar’s ferocity tenfold,” he called out. Many of his clanmates nodded in agreement; others gave sidelong glances to whoever they thought their leader was referring to. Princess couldn’t help but notice that most of the glances were aimed at a single yellow eyed molly.

“Leopardfur will be the new deputy of Riverclan!” Crookedstar yowled. With the clan chanting her name, Leopardfur, the golden spotted molly most had been glancing at, stood with her chest puffed out proudly. She strode forward, stopping just before Crookedstar. “May Oakwatcher guide you in your new role,” he told her solemnly.

“I am honored, Crookedstar,” she meowed confidently before turning to Oakwatcher’s body. She touched noses with her predecessor before turning and leaping on a root below Crookedstar. The clan began chanting again, much louder than before. Princess said the name once or twice as it was clear this was a very big deal for the wild cats. Still, it was just as clear she didn’t have a place there. She turned back to the reed tunnel and left the clan to their ceremony.

-----

The moon hung high in the sky; most of the clan was dispersing to their dens. Leopardfur wasted no time in deciding on tomorrow’s dawn patrol. The situation around her promotion were tragic, of course, but she wasn’t going to let that slow her down! She was vaguely aware of Crookedstar and Mudfur watching her intently. Just as she sent he picks for the dawn patrol to their nests, Crookedstar was calling her over.

“You’re settling in quite naturally,” Crookedstar meowed as she approached them. “Just like I knew you would,” he added sadly.

“I’m so proud of you!” Mudfur told her with a loud purr rumbling deep in his throat as he moved forward to lick her cheek. His light golden daughter gave a short chuckle and briefly returned his affection.

“Let’s move this to my den, shall we?” Crookedstar meowed. Leopardfur pricked her ears at that and gazed after him curiously before following him. Crookedstar’s den beneath the willow roots had almost no light at this time of night. The hollow was big enough for the three cats to sit comfortably.

“I wish your first day could have come under better circumstances,” Crookedstar told her as he sat in his nest.

“I can’t imagine how badly you must be hurting, Crookedstar,” Leopardfur responded in a calm tone. “I’ll do everything in my power to help you through these trying times,” she swore.

“If only that was all that was going on,” Mudfur sighed.

“Mudfur has had dreams from Starclan,” Crookedstar explained to a very clearly confused Leopardfur. He gave the healer a nod to signal that he should describe the visions.

“The dream started out simply enough,” Mudfur revealed. “I was standing in front of a pond at the bottom of a hill; suddenly, from behind me, a shadow comes over me. I turn around and there’s a cat at the top of the hill. I can’t make out anything about them- the sun is directly behind them, you see- but their claws are out.

“Then I can smell blood… so much blood. It’s flowing from her paws, becoming a river as it comes down the hill. Stuck in the blood are bodies; cats from all four clans dead by this cat’s paws. Throughout all of this, I’m getting flashes of a bare tree standing alone in a snowy field; somehow, in the middle of winter, it’s covered in blossom buds. In each flash, more and more buds are dead and falling off. By the pond, I sense something, a presence behind me, so I turn around. And there’s a pile of bodies. Standing on top of the pile is this cat with tufted ears. She- I can tell by her voice that it’s a molly- she just starts laughing at me. It was this cold, empty sound.

“I get one more image of the tree. The blossom, the smallest, frailest blossom that had previously been on the verge of death, is now in full bloom. The only living flower on the tree. And then I hear the voice of the goddess herself, standing just behind me. ‘Sometimes the frailest bud can become the strongest blossom,’ she told me. It then cut back to the body pile; I’m looking down at my own paws but, in my gut, I know they aren’t my paws. For the life of me, I can’t remember their color. When I look up, the tufted eared cat is charging at me. She was a brown molly with green eyes. I woke up after she attacked me,” Mudfur explained. His eyes, the same shade as his daughter’s, had become fixated on the ground.

Leopardfur pressed her face to her father’s and draped her tail over his back. He had received dreams from Starclan before but she had never seen him this rattled.

“We need to find this ‘blossom’; this cat, from what we understand of the vision, is the key to saving many lives,” Crookedstar added, his voice grave.

“Do we have any leads on who this cat is?” Leopardfur asked.

“It’s possible it’s that kittypet Oakwatcher sent Shadepaw back with,” Crookedstar answered. At Leopardfur’s look of empathy and pity, he bristled a bit. “You can’t tell me that the timing isn’t convenient; Mudfur just received this prophecy the other day and now this happens?”

“I didn’t say that,” Leopardfur meowed, her gaze still empathetic. “Just be sure you aren’t trying to apply more meaning to his last actions than there actually is,” she added carefully.

“We have no proof either way,” Mudfur pointed out before this could escalate into a full debate. “The Goddess sees much but she can never pin down the exact timing; it’s possible the blossom hasn’t been born yet. They may not even be conceived!”

With a sigh, Crookedstar laid down in his nest. “Mudfur is right; we just have to be vigilant and communicate at any sign that the blossom has been found,” Crookedstar ordered, getting nods from his healer and deputy. “This is to stay between us three; the clan doesn’t need to know just yet. It could cause a panic. But be careful, both of you. This threat could come at any time.”

#warriors: blossoms in the tide #arc one #arc one: chapter three #into the wild #rip oakwatcher

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toffeetaffy · 5 years ago

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Beast at My Side [2]

The First Rule The first rule is: breathe. Every game has rules, she tells me, and this game is especially dangerous. Breathe. We need these rules because we're breaking another. One of Edwards. If he finds us he'll be furious, she whispers, and though she smiles as she says it, I can plainly see that it is true. Breathe. It's an easy rule to remember. Even as Bella wraps my legs around her, and digs her fingers in to my exposed upper thigh, I have no trouble drawing breath. When I press my face into her hair I want nothing more than to inhale. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. And we're flying.

The world has disappeared; replaced instead with a never ending canvas on which we paint our own futures. Out here we can make mountains. Each slow, methodical stroke of the brush erases a part of who we were and replaces it with the promise of who we could become. Her legs slow minutely, and just when I think we are done running - we begin the climb. It takes no time at all for her to scale the tree, even with me clinging desperately to her marble frame. Near the top she releases me. My arms unwind from around her neck and I slide slowly down her body. She holds me close. It's strangely intimate, but not uncomfortable. A streak of thick tears roll down my face, settling on my wind-chapped lips before I can remember the rules. "Breathe." Bella laughs. The sound is at home here among the other birdsong. I want to tell her that I'm terrified. That I'm not ready to live in a world where monsters are real, and my best friend is dead, but the words are lodged in my throat. My heart smashes against my ribcage. The weight of knowing, the shame of pretending, burn me. "Breathe," she says it again. "Breathe." Back on solid ground we talk about our lives. Brilliant, golden rays of sunshine slash through the leafy canopies above us, igniting her skin as she speaks. She tells me about how she wants to go college one day—maybe in Alaska—about how being a mother has given her patience, and about how all this would be easier if Alice were here. I would hate Alice, she tells me, and rolls her eyes. Before she can elaborate on why, the words are bursting from between my lips. "Where is Alice?" "Gone." Is the reply. She does not tell me much more than that. Only that it has been a long time, that it was not much of a shock, and that they do not expect her back. I know how hard it is to lose a best friend. I wrap my arms around her, squeezing tight, and whisper my condolences in to the wind. At the cottage, Bella takes her daughters hands in hers and they converse in voices so quiet that I cannot make out a single word. They are a Christmas card. They are a magazine cover. They are everything that every mother aspires to be, captured in a single, eternal bell jar. I am tired beyond my years. Ren wants lunch. The concept is simple but Bella's face looks grave, and I am left to intuit the things that remain unspoken. I tell them to go. I smile cheerily and wave them away and try not to be afraid of the man left behind. He knows that I am. I feel him picking at my brain. It is not something that he can always control, I am told. Sometimes even he wishes that our secrets were our own. "Edward?" I ask quietly, unnecessarily. "Would you walk me to the main house?" As we walk, he tells me more about himself: pieces of his history, fragments of his dreams. I do not think that he tells a single lie but I suppose I will never truly know. His perfectly chiselled face shines dully in the late morning sun as he speaks. Like Bella; not like Bella. I hate him. He smiles at me ruefully, bringing me a stop with a gentle hand. There are no words spoken as a nervous sweat breaks out across the back of my neck. None spoken as I wrap myself up tighter in my sheepskin coat. There is a single word spoken when the wind whips across my knees, the skin exposed between the top of my tall boots, and the hem of my cream coloured dress. "Lena." It's a curse. He speaks my name with the soft admonishment of a father. Though I do not know his exact age, I can hear one hundred weary years in that name. "I could tell you that you're wrong about me. That every fear you have is unfounded. I could lean in close and tell you that I have never treated Bella poorly... and you would believe me." His nose is touching mine, his breath is in my mouth. I believe every word. "But all I really want is for you to know that I am trying." Mercifully, he draws away from me. "I'm trying to be a better husband, a better father. A better person." He's smiling, and it's shy and honest. Inside the main house, I rifle through my things in search of my paperback. The pages are yellowed, warped from the damp, and more than one vital passage has been torn away. Ravaged as much from my affection for it, as time itself, the book is a sad reminder. We hurt the things we love. Soft piano music lingers in the hallway - too muted to be real. I follow the sound. My footfalls are quiet, though never silent in this house, and my fingers flex nervously around the discoloured tome. The door is ajar. A single pale hand emerges, fingers closing over the door's edge and pulling it wide. The ashen face of the doctor greets me. "Bartók," I state. As though answering a question I was yet to be asked. "Frankenstein." His reply, gaze lingering on the book in my arms. "Would you like to come in?" The study is richly decorated; every wall covered in books and paintings. This would be my haven too, I think. An eternity could well be lost in countless books, fine paintings, and Hungarian composition. The doctor repeats the title of my book again. I tell him that it's my favourite and he makes a sound that is almost a chuckle, but just short of a laugh. He asks me if I am fond of monsters. Honestly, I do not know, but I answer him as best I can. "I'm trying to be." What I think might be a glimmer of understanding catches in his eye. He takes a deliberate step toward me. The reflex to take a step back is hard to fight, and were it not for his serene, youthful face, the way he looms over me might be menacing. But he has studied us for a long time. Humanity. He knows how close is too close and he is not yet there. When he reaches out, taking my face in his long, bony fingers, I close my eyes. I am safe in his hands. He inspects my wound and tells me that it is 'healing nicely'. For a time I follow the river. When it splinters off in to a series of smaller streams I follow one of those. Eventually the water is little more than a trickle through its muddy banks. The air is warm and damp. Everything in the shaded glade is slick with moss and ripe with summer. Verdant. I take off my boots, then socks, stuffing them inside and rest my book atop them. At the edge of the water my feet sink deep and the chipped red paint on my toenails is sluggishly consumed by the rich brown mud. I lay my coat out on the grass and sit: my book in one hand, the other picking absently at the dirt spotting my dress. It dries slowly on to the fabric, my outstretched legs, and even my hands. I feel content. ___ My phone beeps. I'm surprised it has a signal. Bella. I tell her not to hurry, that I'm enjoying the time alone. I tell her that I'm happy. It is only a text message, and they are not the best conveyance for emotional tone, but I hope that she reads it and knows that it is true. Being here, seeing her again - it's healing me. I imagine telling her that face to face. All too easily I can picture her replying that she think it's ironic, never having really understood the word. The imagining makes me laugh out loud. "Now that's what I call a smile." He stands at my feet, his faint shadow creeping up my muddied calves. A bell rings soundly in my brain: alarm. "I was beginning to think only Bella got to see those.” My mind struggles to string a sentence together, and my legs go uselessly numb. Even if I wanted to—even if I could—flight would be pointless. He crouches there at my feet, watching me with golden eyes and a crooked smile. Jasper is positively leonine. "You're filthy." His gaze makes a lazy sweep up my legs and I feel my own eyes widen to the point of discomfort. My silence stretches too long to be considered polite, and even though the toothy smile slips off his face he doesn't look offended. Blush creeps up the back of my neck. My ears tingle, and just as I worry that the heat of it will set my face ablaze he speaks again. "Am I making you uncomfortable?" "Yes." This should be where it ends. This is supposed to the part where the civilised monster takes his leave of me because humans are friends, not food. But he isn't. He's laughing. The sound is low, it makes my stomach feel heavy and I don't want it to stop. I hastily shuffle aside as he sits next to me on my coat, shoulder to shoulder, our legs stretched out, my feet brushing against his shin. The chill of his skin reaches my bare arms. He takes my book and begins leafing through the pages, smiling to himself. The stretching silence grows comfortable. My fear ebbs. "Jasper?" He faces me, one eyebrow raised in surprise as though he assumed I would never speak again. I continue, "If I insisted that you leave, would you?" For a time he considers me. "Yes. I suppose I would." Something about his answer feels unsatisfactory. The displeasure must be written on my face because he qualifies his statement. "Not because it's the right thing to do, mind you. Not because you asked me nicely. I would leave because that would be in my best interests. Offending you would upset Bella, and that has the potential to... disrupt our family dynamic." "That's painfully honest of you." He smiles again, "I thought you might prefer honesty." "I do. I just wasn't sure you did." He has the decency not to lie to me then. His silence is response enough. We sit together for a long time as the air slowly cools. The silences are punctuated with short conversations, or the beeping of my phone as I continue to text Bella. At one time I began to read aloud from my book, stopping when I reach one of the larger tears in the page, only to have Jasper recite the missing words back to me. Fascinating. Eidetic memory, he tells me, tapping his honey coloured curls. I read aloud a little longer and he continues to fill in the gaps until I reach the next sheaf of undamaged pages. For a solid minute I can feel his eyes on me. I close the book. He's too distracting. When I finally turn to face him he is so very close, his gaze scrutinising. "My eyes were brown once." I'm filled with a strange sort of melancholy at his tone. "Not bright like Bella's were. Dark, like yours." He swipes his thumb once across my cheekbone, under my eye. Were it not for the cool trail left on my skin I may not have noticed the feather-light touch. It's happening again. I'm drowning in his eyes. I reach out to touch him—return the gesture perhaps—when I catch myself. My skin a meagre centimetre from his. It is easy enough to withdraw my hand, less so to contain my babbling apology. It's just that it's all so terribly interesting, I tell him, and he smiles again. Then I simply cannot stop myself. I tell him every single thought I have had since learning their family secret, ask every single question Bella won't answer, and gripe about every single inconsistency in their existence. I feel such relief. I should probably be mortified at the prospect of him knowing all of this, scared at the thought of offending him. The embarrassment—the fear—never comes. Finally, I stop talking. He waits for me to catch my breath, that good-natured smile still firmly in place, before reaching between us and taking my hand in his. Slowly, he lifts it to his face, pressing my muddy palm against his pallid cheek. "Ask me again." He says, as my fingers lightly probe his unyielding skin. "Every question Bella doesn't wanna answer for you." With his perfectly sculpted lips resting against my small wrist, the pulse thrumming steadily within, I ask the question I least want answered. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. "Why am I still so afraid?" ___ ← prev - next →

#twilight fanfiction #twilight #fanfiction #jasper hale #bella swan #edward cullen #carlisle cullen #title:beast at my side

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rosesisupposes · 6 years ago

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Destined, part 8

aka Sweet Dreams are Made of These

Character Tags: Virgil/Anixety ; Patton/Creativity ; Patton/Morality ; Logan/Logic ; Remy/Sleep ; Dante/Deceit

Chapter Pairings:

Chapter Warnings: lies, theft, negative self-talk

Reader Tags: @residentanchor @royally-anxious @brendonuriesguardianvirgil

Summary: After centuries of acting as an oracle to heroes, quest-seekers, and villains alike, Virgil just wants to live as a normal, modern human. For someone who can see infinite probabilities, you’d think he’d know better.

<<Chapter 7 | Masterlist | Chapter 9>>

Read on Ao3

Flashback: central Europe, 1000 CE

Kat Baker was not a very good one. At the very least, she was the worst baker in the Baker family. And today she’d proved beyond a doubt that if she inherited running the family store, as she was expected to, Bakers’ Dozen would be out of business within the week. She could practically feel three generations of Baker women glaring at her in disappointment.

It had started with the sign.

Mama had asked her to paint a new sign after the old one rotted. She had been ecstatic. Finally, a chance to create something not made of icing! Something that would last!

She’d been very methodical about it, too. She’d sketched several designs and got Mama’s approval, and made a quick version on parchment paper before trying to recreate it on the wooden sign that hung outside the thatched-roof bakery.

But today, once she finally had gotten her paints out, she had gotten too caught up in it, and she’d forgotten to take the loaves out of the oven. The simple daily loaves. The kind that people actually depended on the Baker business for. The kind that were the staple of half their villages’ meals for the day. They had burned, and Mama and her sister Cythera had had to use up the extra dough to quickly get out as many as possible for the daily traffic.

All the pretty, fancy baking that Kat was good at helping with was just extra, the kind of thing that would help them maintain and expand their business. The village loved her sugar flowers and decorations, even the elegantly braided and twisted breads, but they didn’t live on sweetcakes. The daily bread was the backbone of the town and the store itself. Mama was furious.

Kat had run to the woods, crying. Why couldn’t she be a better daughter, a better Baker. Why was she so flighty when her family needed her to be stable, and dependable, and adult?

She ran down a barely-seen path to a small glade, and threw herself down on the mossy bank of the small pond there. This was her paradise, her tranquil pool. She sat and breathed in and out, listening to forest sounds and admiring the flowers around her. At least here she felt like she belonged, and there were no expectations to disappoint.

Relaxing, she doodled in the dirt with a reed plucked from the bank, sketching the water lilies gently floating on the pool’s surface. She started adding flourishes - a frog on a lilypad, a bird overhead, a butterfly in flight. Her concentration was entirely locked on the spreading patterns drawn in the dirt.

Right up until she heard a splash and a voice yell for help.

A tiny blue form was in the middle of the pool, struggling to stay afloat as sodden white wings threatened to sink it. With a start but no hesitation, she waded in, and used a lilypad to scoop up the small creature.

Kat brought it back to land, and deposited her tiny, soaked burden on the dry moss. Shakily standing, a tiny voice said “Thank you, you sweet thing! You saved my life!”

Getting a good look at last, Kat gasped. It was a fairy! A real-life fairy! She knew they existed of course, and everyone said this forest was mystic, but she’d only ever heard stories. The small creature had sky-blue skin, from tiny toes to dangling antennae. Moth wings, white with light brown dots, flapped out from a wee torso in an effort to dry them.

“Oh, toadstools- I haven’t introduced myself. Hello, human! I’m Baxter!”

“Hello, Baxter, I’m Kat. Are you alright?”

The little fairy grinned. “I’ve been wetter! I was almost in over my head in that situation! But thanks to you I’ll be all flight now!”

Kat giggled. The fairy grinned even more broadly. They loved it when people enjoyed their jokes.

“So, mister Kat!” they peeped cheerfully. “How can I repay you for saving my life?”

“Oh, it was no troub- wait, mister?”

“Fiddlesticks, did I get that wrong again? You humans and your non-fluid genders, I’ll never learn. Do you prefer miss, is that right term? More importantly, can I call you Kitty Kat?”

Kat scowled. “No one calls me Kitty. Well, except Cythy, and only because she’s my little sister. And Mama, but only to annoy me. I’m just Kat. Miss Kat, but only if you insist.”

Baxter shrugged philosophically. “Someday, I will find a kitty I can get along with. Actual cats keep trying to eat me. And - oh wait, I was asking a question back there wasn’t I. Oh yes. What can I do to repay you, my sweet Miss Kat?”

Kat grinned at the funny little creature. “You don’t need to do anything for me - unless you can turn me into not a disaster.”

“Exccuussee me?” the fairy asked, offended. They tested their now-dry wings, and fluttered up to Kat’s eye level. “Are you bad-talking my newest best friend?”

“Who’s your - oh. Me.” She shrugged. “It’s not bad-talking if it’s true. I am a disaster and my whole family - no, the whole village - knows it.”

“I will PHYSICALLY FIGHT YOU!” the fairy said, holding up tiny fists.

Kat eyed them with a crooked smile. The fairy’s body was all of four inches tall, their long curly antenna only adding another half inch. “I mean it!” they insisted fiercely. “You are great and perfect! You just saved my life! How could you not be!”

“Because I’m supposed to be a baker and I just can’t do any of it right. Not to mention actually running a business! I just mess everything up and make my family’s life harder.”

“You adorable wingless butterfly, I am sure that’s not true.”

“It is. Every last bread loaf burned today, all because of me. People needed those, and because of me Cythera and Mama will be exhausted tonight when they need to be preparing for tomorrow.”

“I know! I could help you! With just a pinch of magic, you won’t give loaf a bad name!”

Kat half-heartedly laughed at the pun, but couldn’t restrain her sighs. “But even then… I’d be dependent on that for everything. And it wouldn’t be fair to Cythera. She’s the one who can actually bake, and she’s so good at it. Plus, she’s already had so many good ideas about how to make Mama’s life easier. Why couldn’t she have been the oldest? She could inherit the store, like she deserves to. I just want to make beautiful things, without the pressure of knowing families rely on me every day to get food out early enough.”

Baxter frowned. “Have you asked if you can just… not inherit and let your sister take over? It seems like that would make everyone happy.”

“I want to, it’s just… I love my family so much, I would never want to do wrong by them. If I tell Mama I don’t want to run the shop… wouldn't that be rejecting all her hard work, and telling her it didn’t mean anything? And her mother’s work, and her mother’s mother’s work… they all took on the responsibility for our store and our family name. None of them shirked their duty. If I do, that’s who I’ll be my whole life. The Baker who wasn’t.” A tear fell from her cheek and landed on her stained apron.

Baxter sat on her shoulder, legs dangling past her collarbone. “Hey, kiddo, it’s alright! You would be happier, and so would your family - that’s all you could ask for, right?”

Kat shook her head, careful not to knock off her new friend. “It just feels wrong. I know I’m not the best at it, but I promised Mama I would. I promised Papa I would. How can I back out of a promise, especially if I don’t know it will work out? Or even what else I would do?”

“What do you want to do, Kat Not-a-Baker?”

“I want to create, but not from dough,” she whispered reverently. “I want to paint and draw, and make beautiful things. Permanent things,” she added, looking sadly at her drawings in the dirt. In the scramble to rescue Baxter, almost all the marks had been smudged or splashed away. “It always feels so natural and right, when I’m able to sketch, or doodle, or paint. But I don’t know if that means it’s what I’m really meant to do, or if I’m just frivolous and need to focus. That’s what Gran’mama always said, anyway.”

Baxter hummed. “I might be able to help you there,” they said, dangling their legs and swinging them a little. “With my help, you might be able to find just the right person who can tell you exactly what you’re meant to be.”

Kat turned her head to stare at the blue creature. “Like… like a Quest?!”

“Exactly like a Quest,” Baxter replied. They knew that techhhhhnicalllyy, they’re not supposed to be going off on Quests without becoming an official Fairy Godparent, but even official parents don’t get to choose their Godchildren. And Baxter liked Kat a lot.

Plus, the Elders were sticks-in-the-mud and kept saying that Baxter “wasn’t ready” and needed to “stop making so many puns” and “take this seeeeeriousssslyyy.”

All the younger fairies loved them, and thought their advice was great. Maybe if they proved they could be a really great Godparent to Kat, the Elders would finally see reason.

This was a great plan, they could feel it all the way to the tips of their wings.

“Have you heard of the Harz Forest, or the Fortuneteller of the Wood?” they asked, fluttering out in front of the teen.

“Only that humans almost never go in it, and that everyone who tries to enter gets lost. And Auntie Delinda says it’s because the magic folk scare or curse everyone to make sure only the worthy can reach the Teller, but Mama says that’s horseradish and that fortune-tellers are just regular people telling you what you want to hear.”

Baxter put their hands on their hips. “I am offended. Here I am, a real-life fairy, and you’re telling me the magic folk are horseradish?”

“Don’t blame me!” Kat said with a pout. “I’ve been looking for fairies, or unicorns, or even a dragon as long as it’s something magical, for my whole life, and I only just found you on accident today. If most humans have to go at least fifteen years without any clues, no wonder Mama thinks fairies have disappeared.”

Baxter looked chagrined. “The fae folk have been limiting our contact lately, it’s true. Does that mean your mother won’t let you come with me?”

“Not at all - when she sees you, and you tell her we’re going on a Quest! She’ll have to agree. She may be a skeptic, but even she knows the tales - that to be a fairy’s Goddaughter is special, and there are consequences of denying a fairy Quest.”

“That...is… absolutely right! Yes, what we’re doing is a true, official fairy Quest, because you, Kat Baker, are just too special to ignore, you delightful little cherub. Yessiree, you are indeed a Goddaughter, and I am your Official™ Fairy Godparent!” Baxter lied. It was for a good cause, after all.

“Did you say something after official? What is a tee-ehm? Is it like a fairy’s magic wand?”

“Uh, yes! Yes, that’s very wise of you to point out. I will need to stop by my colony to get my magic wand before we can leave. If you meet me here as early as you can tomorrow morning, we can go talk to your mother then. And then we can be off on our Quest - to find the Fortuneteller of the Wood!”

Kate leapt to her feet. “You mean it? Really? Tomorrow? Oh, I’m so excited! Yes, I will be here once the bread is out tomorrow, just after sunrise. I’ll see you tomorrow, Baxter!”

Baxter watched her go, then wheeled in midair to head back to the colony. He’d committed, now. All that was left to do was get a wand.

If Kat hadn’t been convinced that Baxter was magical, this proved it.

Her Mama, her skeptic, no-nonsense, stubborn Mama, had needed only 5 minutes talking with the little fairy to allow her to go off on her Quest. Mama had packed a haversack with the most durable loaves, and made sure she brought her Papa’s forest journal of edible plants.

“Take care of it, and yourself, my sweet Kat. I hope your Quest goes well, and that you find what you’re looking for,” she had said, hugging her tightly and kissing her forehead.

Cythy was jealous, but promised to support Mama. “Bring me back an extra prince, Kitty! Or tell Baxter to come live with us!” Their charm had clearly roped in the entire Baker family. It was something in those earnest brown eyes, and the wide smile. Plus, they seemed to give off respect like a perfume when they put their mind to it.

And now, not even a day later, they’d reached the edge of the Harz Forest. They knew that the Fortuneteller lived deep in the woods, at the furthest point from all the edges. Kat was dying of curiosity - what kept people away? Would it be scary? Would she be ready?

She and Baxter were following what path seemed to exist. It was faint, and definitely not commonly trod. But it definitely was moving steadily away from the edge of the forest, so it must be heading deeper in.

Baxter spent parts of the journey flying beside he, and parts sitting on her shoulder or on her pack, telling stories about antics they and their fae friends had gotten into, and slowly convincing the girl to let them call her Kitty Kat. They were in the middle of a rather entertaining story regarding Baxter’s first ill-fated attempt to befriend an actual cat when they suddenly pulled on Kat’s hair, squeaking “Pump the brakes there, kiddo.”

Kat looked around, confused. She didn’t see anything threatening - what was wrong?

Baxter flew out in front of her, soft wings flapping as they removed their wand from a tiny holster on their waist. Their eyes and wand glowed as they turned in a semicircle, continuing to hover. “Aha! Oh, that is just so clever,” they exclaimed. Turning to their human companion - no, their Goddaughter - Baxter explained, “It’s wood sprite magic. That’s what protects this forest. There are misdirection charms everywhere, designed to send any humans right back to the edges of the forest without realizing they’ve been turned around. It would work on anyone unable to cast spells, though magic folk like me might notice something funny. Luckily, I am your Godparent, and I am Prepared!”

A glow arose from the tip of their wand, spreading into a silvery bubble the enclosed fairy and human alike. It hung for a moment, then melted away. “We’ll be all set now - the spells won’t affect us. The sprites have gotten more strategic than I remember - time was they’d just try to strangle any intruders one by one. But this way, they only need to maintain the spell, and don’t risk losing any of their own!”

Kat rubbed her throat at the thought of wood sprites and strangulation. “Will they still try to stop us? Is there danger?”

“I don’t believe so. We just need to be careful to not harm any trees. Not that either of us wood,” they added, flying next to Kat just to elbow her lightly. She giggled. “No really! These wood sprites are all the same! No bite, all bark!”

“Baxter, you were definitely destined to be my Godparent. Papa used to make the same jokes all the time. I always groaned and complained, but I loved them. I wish I could have told him that.”

The blue fairy felt their heart squeeze. They flew up and stroke the girl’s head. “Kiddo, don’t you worry. He knew.”

As Baxter had predicted, they didn’t encounter any trouble. It was a far distance to walk, but they were able to find small clearings to sleep in. At night, Baxter cast a protection spell just in case, and included heat in the ward, so there was no need to harm any trees for firewood.

It took two nights and three days of walking before Baxter noticed heavier layers of magic, and Kat spotted a break in the trees ahead. “This must be it!” Kat said excitedly. “The center of the forest - we’re almost at the home of the Fortuneteller of the Wood!”

They were expecting a cottage, maybe a tower. What they found was a huge natural home built in the heart of a tree. A sprawling tree, at least fifteen feet in diameter, twisted up towards the clouds above. A hollow in the middle of the trunk contained what looked like a natural staircase as the tree continued to grow around it. The stairs twined within the trunk before disappearing into a dense canopy.

“Should we… go up?” Kat asked nervously. “I hate to barge in…”

“The Teller probably isn’t used to guests, so wouldn’t know to check for us,” Baxter noted. “Let’s see where the stairs lead.”

They climbed up carefully, both in awe of the massive natural being. They reached the top only to find a room made out of twined branches. The floor was a net of branches in all directions, curving up and around to create the walls. It felt a bit like standing in a wicker basket - a still-living basket that pulsed with green life on every side.

Kat made eye contact with Baxter, who nodded encouragingly. She took a deep breath, and called out “Mr. Fortuneteller? Teller of the Wood? I come seeking my destiny!”

They heard a rustling above them. Through the leaves and branches above her head, Kat saw a form swinging back and forth from branch to branch. It descended quickly, but with what was clearly ease of long practice. The form finally dropped deftly in front of the fairy and human guests in its home, bracing its landing with a bended knee.

The form rose to full height. It was a long way to go. Baxter’s first thought was a druid or a sprite grown to fifty times its size, but neither druids nor sprites could be fortune-tellers. No, this was just a Sage who’d chosen to blend in with his home. His skin was a dark, warm brown, made even darker by his leathery tan. His hair was a mixture of dark and light green, falling messily into his face and almost - almost - obscuring shockingly bright green eyes. His cheeks had what could have been greenish stubble, but could also be lichen. At his full height, he was at least six feet tall, towering over both his guests.

Baxter was absolutely overcome. They would have expected the Sage to stand awkwardly, but his body was well-proportionate to his height, and he was clearly in his element surrounded by his wooded home. When Baxter was finally able to pull his eyes away from the tall tree man, he noticed wood sprites darting in and out of the tree room, flitting around their giant counterpart and away.

“Welcome, Seeker,” the Teller said at last. His voice was rough with disuse, but shiveringly deep, and Baxter could feel himself swooning as he fluttered by Kat’s shoulder. “I am the one some call the Fortuneteller of the Wood. My name is Devas.”

Kat gave a small curtsy. “Greetings, Devas. I am Katherine Baker, Kat. And this is my fairy Godparent, Baxter.”

“A Quest, is this? You must be very special to have a fairy Quest bring you to me. Particularly when I have not been an active Fortune Teller in over a hundred years.”

Kat beamed with pride. “They are an excellent Godparent, and have guided me here to help me find my destiny!”

Devas hesitated, and seemed ready to decline, but paused when the small blue fairy came up to just below eye level. Baxter felt their tiny heart beating much quicker as those emerald eyes inspected him. Devas rumbled, “I have been acting as protector to the sprites of this forest, helping the trees themselves repel advancing farmers and conquerors. Tell me, fairy, why I should resume the ancient duties I had left behind these many years?”

Baxter shivered, partly in fear, and partly not in fear at all. They drew a deep breath, and channeled their innate magic to sweeten the mood of the giant man. “Devas, great Sage, we have journeyed long to find you. My young friend here - that is, my Goddaughter, is torn between duty and passion. She just wants to know which choice will be Right. Can you, Heart of the Harz, Teller of the Wood, please help her? It’s for her family!”

Devas had never seen a fairy with such striking brown eyes, made all the more startling by the contrast from their bright blue body. And the way the little thing looked at him as they asked, on behalf of their charge… Devas may have been committed to his forest home, but he didn’t have a wooden heart. He relented.

“Very well, young Seeker. Do you know the invocation?” he asked as relaxed his lanky form into a tailor’s seat. Sitting, he still almost as tall as the teen who cautiously approached him.

“I do, great Teller,” she said, taking a breath. “Sage, I entreat you, tell me my destiny.”

“Seeker, to know your destiny is to be bound by it. Are you prepared to risk your future?”

“I am.” Her small face was determined.

“Then give me your hands, and prepare to be bound.”

Devas’ huge brown hands enveloped Kat’s, the paler skin of his palms still not as light as hers. He closed his eyes and looked into the ether.

Kat Baker. What a relief. No dragons or quests or risking the world. She just wanted to know if she was wrong to have an ‘impractical’ passion. It reminded Devas fondly of the farmers from all those years ago at Delphi. No grand decisions of right and wrong - just hoping that life will go her way. And it was within her power - no magic needed. If only all destinies were like this, Devas might not have escaped to the woods for his current lifetime. He smiled internally, and spoke.

“To trust that beauty will be recognized, you must commit with all your heart.”

Kat withdrew her hands, her eyes shining. She looked up at her fluttering companion and grinned. “Baxter, did you hear that! That sounds like a good sign!”

“It sure does kiddo! I can hardly be-leaf it!”

Something was bothering Devas. This wasn’t his first interaction with a fairy Godparent, and this one was… different. Much less polished. Far more scattered than fairies tended to want Godparents to be. And Devas was just a tad suspicious.

“Fairy - Baxter, was it? Do you seek a destiny as well? On behalf of your Quest, I will Tell it for you, if you wish.”

“Ohhh I don’t know that that’s necessary, my future can really stay a mys-tree!”

“Oh Bax, don’t be silly!” Kat piped up. “Even if you know you’re going to keep being a fairy Godparent, don’t you want a hint for how things will go?”

A strained look flashed across the little creatures’ blue face. They fluttered up towards the leafy ceiling, muttering to themself. Finally, they descended, and landed on Devas’ large palm. “I… suppose there are questions I have for the future. Here goes nothing. Sage, I entreat you, tell me my destiny.”

“Seeker, to know your destiny is to be bound by it. Are you prepared to risk your future?”

Baxter’s face turned a much lighter shade of blue, but they proceeded nonetheless. “I am.”

“Then give me your hands, and prepare to be bound.”

Two tiny hands wrapped around the Sage’s thumb as the ether clouded his vision once more.

As he gazed through flashing futures, Devas immediately felt his suspicions were well-founded. There were possible future Godchildren, yes, but far more were ending up selfish, or cruel, or cowardly than fairies were supposed to allow. And in the futures without Godchildren, Baxter was exiled entirely, shut out of their colony. Devas frowned. He didn’t see any future choices that caused it. What could the fairy have already done? Was it worth it to check?

A sudden voice, high-pitched but firm and filled with disdain. “Once a thief, forever a thief.” It came from a grave-looking fairy, clearly much older than Baxter, surrounded by a group of stone-faced elders. That was it. Devas was going to look into the past.

Devas is Baxter, sitting with a smaller, younger fairy. “Now Felics, I know you didn’t mean to hurt Poppy, but you did hurt them, and you need to apologize. “But Bax, what if they are still mad at me? Can’t I just wait until they feel better?” “No, kiddo, you can’t. Sometimes doing the right thing doesn’t feel all that great.”

The world shifts, to only hours later. Devas feels their fairy heart fluttering as quickly as their wings with nerves. Their prank went wrong, and their best friend is furious with them. Why can’t they understand it was a joke? Devas always meant it to be a joke, they should know that. If they don’t understand that and don’t want to be part of the delights that are Devas’ brilliant pranks, maybe it’s best they not be friends anymore.

Devas paused in his visions. He recognized the sentiment - feelings always threatened to overpower better judgment. But to give in to the emotional reaction just after urging the impressionable not to? No wonder their potential future Godchildren could be so… petty.

It is night, just a few days ago. Devas flies silently through the colony. They’d slipped through the illusion on the huge, mossy boulder during the ritual hour, as everyone was out in fairy circles. Their luck is doubly in - only one Elder is guarding the inner vault, and it’s Blunda. She is old and sleepy, and it takes just a whispered suggestion with a tiny twist of magic to have her snoring. Devas grins to themself. Clearly, this is why they would make a great Godparent. They’re so resourceful! The Elders really didn’t know what they were missing, delaying their first deployment. They fly into the vault, and found racks upon racks of magic wands. Bee-ee-ay-youtiful. They select a belt and holster from the tray, then reach for one of the magic objects. As they snatch it, they sense alarm spells going off, zooming to the Elders. Time for their escape. They race past Blunda (still sleeping) and take a hidden shortcut through the colony walls, escaping into open air. They feel a slight twinge against their conscience. They know stealing is Wrong, but who else would help Kat? The Elders were so particular in which children were named Godchildren. Baxter likes Kat a lot, and she was so kind to them. So helping her must be Right, and anything they do that helps her is also Right.

Right?

Devas drew back, frowning. Now the futures all made sense. But the fairy can’t be beyond all help, are they? Devas knew he was likely overstepping, but he asked Baxter a clarifying question.

“Fairy, what do you want your destiny to be? What do you want to be your life’s work and legacy?”

Baxter smiled cheerfully. “I want to be a Good Fairy and Godparent, and help as many kiddos as I can, and bring smiles to their faces!”

“Can a Godparent be Good if their idea of Good shifts?” Devas asked quietly.

The fairy went pale. Devas nodded, then spoke Baxter’s destiny.

“A willow that bends without end supports no weight. An unforgiving oak will break those that oppose it. Only if you can resist these extremes will the forest path be revealed to you.”

Baxter’s tiny mouth hung open, processing what the forest Sage had said. They had a lot to consider.

As fairy and girl made their way along the long journey home, Kat asked Baxter what they were thinking, unnerved by their uncharacteristic silence.

“Kitty Kat, have I been a good Godparent to you? Have I helped you figure out the Right thing to do?”

“Of course you’ve been good! You got us to the Sage and now I know what I need to do! At least I think I do.”

“But do I do what’s Right? Or just what I think will make me happy?”

“Both, I think!”

“What about when they’re not the same?”

Kat frowned. “I don’t know. I don’t think that’s happened, has it?”

Baxter’s insides twisted. Should they have admitted to Kat that the wand was stolen? But that would mean admitting that they hadn’t been assigned to her, that she hadn’t been picked as a Goddaughter. Would that hurt her? Wouldn’t she feel liked Baxter had betrayed her?

Their sudden realization caused them to fly straight into a tree branch.

They were asking themselves entirely the wrong questions. They couldn’t focus on the perceived outcomes of their actions, but on what was the right thing to do. And the right thing to do was to tell Kat the truth. All of it.

They had betrayed Kat, by lying, and convincing her to leave her family on false pretenses. The forest hadn’t been dangerous, but it could have been, and Kat would have been at risk of her life without even knowing why.

“Kiddo? I mean, Kat? Can we take a break for a second,” they asked nervously.

“Of course, Baxter. Are your wings tired?”

“No, I just… need to get something off my chest.”

“We’d better sit down then. Wouldn’t want you to get crushed!” Kat replied with a goofy grin. The cheesy joke, so like their own, made Baxter grin back in spite of themself.

Kat settled carefully in a mossy clearing, checking for saplings before sitting gently. Even though there was no longer a threat, she didn’t want to harm Devas’ forests.

Baxter found a sapling, barely over two feet tall, and alit on the top-most branch. Leaning against the slender trunk, they let their wings fall back into a rest position. They looked down at their tiny blue feet, not wanting to make eye contact with Kat just yet.

“I… I want to apologize, Kat. I have not been a good Godparent to you.”

Kat looked at him quizzically. “Bax, what do you mean? You’ve been so nice! And we succeeded in our Quest to find the Teller, and we’re practically home already. That all sounds like a great Godparent to me!”

“That’s just it, Kat. It wasn’t a Quest, not truly. And… I’m not a real Godparent. I just really, really wanted to be one. I’m so sorry,” Baxter said sadly. They looked up. Kat’s face was one of confusion, but her eyes still radiated trust for her magical companion of the past week. They felt their heart squish itself into an even tighter corner of their chest.

“The fae folk have a lot of very strict rules over who can be deployed as a Godparent, and who can be a Godchild. I’ve always resented those rules, because the Elders kept telling me I wasn’t ready, and I was so sure that I was.

“But now I understand, finally, why I never was. Kat, I… I lied to you. From practically the moment we first met. I was never chosen to be your Godparent. And to the best of my knowledge… you were never chosen to be a Godchild.”

Kat’s confusion shifted into clear self-doubt, and her eyes started to mist over with tears. This was even harder than Baxter had feared it would be.

“Kitty Kat, I promise you, it’s not because you aren’t brilliant, or talented, or delightful. There are just very exacting standards. It always feels like the Elders have some weird measuring cord - ‘Must Be This Miserable or Have This Much Potential Greatness or Must Have Been This Much Switched At Birth to Get a Fairy’. It’s not about who deserves one, I don’t think, but about whose life absolutely needs magical help to spread the most good in the world. And we don’t want to admit it, but we fae folk are shrinking in number. We live for hundreds of years, yes, but almost all our colonies are aging, and we don’t have as many potential parents to deploy. I’ve never heard of a fairy living over 1,000, and my Elders are all well into their 900s...”

Baxter shook their head. “Sorry, I’m getting distracted. That’s not the point. The point is… I wanted so badly to have the title of Godparent, to skip the process and go right to the glory, that I lied to you. I justified it because I was helping you, but I was really just trying to help myself. I lied to your family, and brought you out to these woods. What if they had been truly dangerous? If you’d been hurt… Kitty Kat, I would never forgive myself. And it would have been all my fault. I even stole this wand from my colony’s vaults, and told myself I deserved to have one. I am glad that you got to hear your destiny, and that you feel confident in your path moving forward. I really am. But you deserved better than me - as a Godparent or as a friend. And for that, I am truly sorry.”

They took a deep breath, still avoiding the girl’s eyes. “I understand if you are mad at me. I hope you will still allow me to accompany you until the end of this journey, so that I can at least protect you until you are safe at home.”

Long moments passed. Kat still had not made a sound. Baxter cringed. She hates me. She must. How could she not - I am a thief and a liar and I risked her life for my own ego.

Or maybe, she is just nervous. I should reassure her. If she needs to be reassured, I need to be the one to do it. I owe her that much, at least.

They peered up, still cringing, prepared for anger and disgust. They instead saw disappointment. Somehow, that was even worse.

“I… don’t know what to say. Thank you for telling me the truth.” Kat looked down, fiddling with the frayed hem of her apron. “I’m glad that I did get to meet the Teller, at least. And the sprites. I’m glad I know there is a destiny where I am happy, and pursuing my dream. I just wish… I wish I’d actually deserved it.”

Baxter’s heart broke.

“Kitty Kat… you did deserve it. And you do. Kat, please look at me,” Baxter pleaded. The girl reluctantly met their eyes, her own bright with unshed tears. “Kat, you deserve all of this and more. Certainly more than this shoddy excuse for a fake Godparent. I… know I haven't exactly been trustworthy. Ask me to swear by anything, though. I really and truly mean it.”

Kat frowned. “Swear by your destiny, then. The tales all say that breaking an oath will destroy the magic of what you swear by. Will you risk it? Or will you take the easy way out again?”

Baxter swallowed. Her tone hurt, but they knew they deserved it. “I will, Kat. I will swear by my destiny that you deserved this quest, and you deserved a Godparent. Even if I wasn’t the one you deserved.”

Both fairy and human regarded each other in silence for a moment. The only sound was the whispers of wind in the treetops above.

Finally, Kat nodded. “Thank you, Baxter. I believe you. And… I forgive you.”

“Why? I mean, really? You don’t have to, I know it was wrong and hurtful, you don’t have to be okay with it already…”

“But that’s just it, Bax,” the girl said. She stood, and reached out a hand for the fairy to step on. “You know now. I think, maybe, you knew before too, but you didn’t want to admit it. Because it was too hard, or too painful. But now you have, despite that.” She held small blue being up to her eye level. “You made mistakes, Bax. And your mistakes hurt others. But I don’t think you’ll ever make those mistakes again, now that you see that. I think you’re a Good fairy, and have always been one deep down. You just know to listen to that deep-down voice more now.”

Baxter tried to swallow the quickly-forming lump in their throat. She believed in them. After everything they’d brought her through, and everything they’d admitted, she believed. They’d never felt like anyone believed in them before. Even before they’d become a prankster, no one in the colony had ever seemed to expect them to be anything special or Good.

“Thank you, Kat. I am going to try my best, and keep trying even when I don’t quite get there. I hope you’ll be proud of me.”

“I know I will be. Swear on my destiny,” she said with a smile.

Baxter flew closer and hugged as much of her face as they could. “I’m sorry I was a fake Godparent, but I am so glad you were my fake Goddaughter. When we get back - will you be my not-fake friend?”

Kat carefully pat their head as a hug back, smiling. “Just you try and stop me!”

Fairy and human set off to the forest’s edge, heading home again. The sprite spells helped guide them away from the heart of the woods, and away from the Sage who’d given them both hope. Baxter was sorry they would likely never see Devas again, but one destiny was enough for anyone’s lifetime.

Besides, the Sage could only get so much credit. Finding him had been a grand adventure, but it was their young human friend who’d truly helped them find what they’d been missing.

Kat had rescued them, the first day they’d met. Now, she’d rescued them again, but for the rest of their life. If it hadn’t been for her, they might never have found their morality.

Notes:

Baxter’s wings are based on the moth Eudeilinia herminiata. Fun fact - this type of moth feeds exclusively trees from the dogwood genus

(did I specifically surround Baxter with Kat and Dog(wood)s yes, yes I did)

Baxter: Anglo-Saxon/Scottish origin, means “baker”

#destined #fanfic #sanders sides #modern fantasy au #writing #i love my smol fairy son

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kinsbin · 6 years ago

Text

Meetings

Title: Meetings Word Count: 4247 Ship: Dale/Alexys [Canon/Self Insert]

Summary: Alexys just wanted to get away from the city. A camping trip sounded like the best way to do that. What she got instead was a terrifying backwoods survival trip surrounded by cannibal rednecks and the constant threat of death. When she meets Dale in her race for survival, however, things start to look up.

Author’s Note: A writing comm for @bad-blue-moon-rising! She asked for a scenario on how she and Dale met and I was so happy to write out this whole thing for her and her great ship! I hope I did your view justice )b

It was supposed to be a retreat.

Alexys had wanted nothing more than to get away from it all. The hustle and bustle of the cityscape had brought nothing but headaches and anxiety with every passing car. Everyone was so demanding. So hungry for validation after movement after push and shove. Everyone moved so fast that they didn’t even bother to look to their side or at the person with them. It was full of anonymity and stimuli, things that normally were comforting but lately had become nothing but a chore. Once comforting city lights had become endless and...she hesitated to say depressing, but, it was something of the sort. A melancholy that came around once in a while, like a storm cloud against an already turmoil ridden skyline. An impossible heaviness that settled in the center of her gut before she could even garner the chance to pull herself out of bed in the morning.

When she did managed to, however, she decided that she needed a chance. Camping in the backwoods, miles away from the hubbub of civilization, seemed just what she had needed. The therapy of isolation with only nature surrounding her sounded ideal in the moments it was suggested. A chance to cleanse her pallette of the life she had formed for herself. A chance to, perhaps, find an answer to a question she wasn’t quite sure existed in the back of her mind. It wasn’t too hard to pack her camping gear into her car and prepare to head out for the week, her vacation time stamped to approval at work and her family asking for her to call when she returned so they could have dinner for it and talk about it. The thought filled her with dread, but, she decided she could pretend to have a stomach ache to get out of it later.

For now she was going to relax.

At least, she that’s what she had planned to do. Arriving at the isolated backwoods forest, further beyond the outlined trail of government-mandated camping zones, felt like climbing to the top of a mountain after an exodus. She felt free, relaxed, and even a little bit elated at the view around her. Trees towered far above her head, seemingly endless as they reached to touch the sky. The ground beneath her was mixed with moss, dirt, and damp as the end of winter rains gave way to fresh spring greenery flowering through the soil.

It wasn’t until later, when she had almost finished setting up her tent and campfire, that she felt something was...off.

The wind blew in the wrong direction, constantly accosting her hair and sending it back and forth. While the ground was fertile and the air was clean...there was something heavy in it. A radiating warmth that didn’t seem to leave the place no matter how hard she tried to ignore it. To tell herself that it was the fact that she wasn’t used to the area yet. A simple incoming warmth due to an unusually humid spring. She had set up the tent and finished making a fire with those words in her mind, brain fading in and out of the worry as it focused and refocused on the tasks at hand.

Nature warmed her fingertips. It brought focus to her mind as she worked on all of the necessary preparations for survival. Adrenaline hummed in the center of her veins and there was true peace in her heart as she rummaged through a cooler drug along for iced meals to cook over the roaring blaze created. By the setup completion of her first day, the sun was nearing its end in the sky. The faintest highlight of pinks and roses could be seen tearing up the horizon as mother nature closed her curtains on the day. It lit up the forest in a halo of cold as it cast shadows along the east sides of all of the trees. Alexys took a breath, letting the air fill her lungs. She shut her eyes, enjoying the momentary peace of the forest.

It was her second warning that something was...off.

No sound filled her ears aside from the rippling of the fire eating away its fuel. No bird call echoed against the treetops. The snap of twigs from deer bounding in herds never touched her senses. As the sun set, no cicadas chirped to welcome the arrival of the night. If she had put the fire out, there would be dead silence. There would be nothingness. A void where nature should have brought safety. Yet only one question could bring itself into her head as she gazed around the quiet, wistful treeline and bit her lips:

Why was it so quiet? Were the animals not comfortable in this surrounding? And if that was true...what was it that made them uncomfortable? Should she be worried about it too?

Perhaps she was being silly. Perhaps this area was cleared out due to its closeness to existing campsites. Surely there was a rational explanation to why this part of the forest was like this. To why the world around her was as dead as the city was loud. Alexys stood up, chest heaving with the anxiety she had worked up within her heart, and put her hand to her lips. Chewing on her nails, she couldn’t help but stare for a long moment into the oncoming darkness as the forest was taken by the night again.

Snap!

The sound of a branch breaking was like a gunshot. Fight or flight reflexes overcame her in a single instant and, without hesitation, Alexys flung herself away from her campsite. Scrambling, she flung herself over a fallen log nearby as it was supported by a heavy set boulder at its side. Pressing her back into the bumpy surface, she could feel the rock digging into her shoulders as she used her hand to cover her lips, muting the sound of her erratic breathing that resulted from the efforts of her sudden need for cover. Bunching her legs up, she made herself as small as possible and kept her hands firmly over her lips as she dared to glance around the cover, blue eyes stark with terror.

She knew, then, that this wasn’t going to be the camping trip she had wanted. It was going to be far, far from it.

Her mind was a blur now as she returned to the present time, days after the first sight of the mutated forest dwellers and their insatiable bloodlust. One had seen her the other day, watched as she appeared from the forest like a startled deer. Too close to fire the shotgun he was holding, he instead attempted to put her down with a serrated hunters knife. She had barely managed to dodge and scramble away down the forest floor before her arm was cut, not deep but enough to ingrain a deep stain of dark auburn into the fabric of her favorite grey hoodie. Enough to bring a series of sobs out of her lips as she covered her mouth with a hand in an effort to get away. She had to get away. The need for survival overran all other instincts as she tripped over rock after rock and log after log in the forest. Her feet had slowly grown used to the terrain, in all honesty. Days of necessary survival had forced it. If she failed once, she was dead. She didn’t want to be dead. Oh dear god, she didn’t want to die.

There was nothing in front of her but the blurred shapes of the forest through her tears as she booked it.

Today the cut had healed, but the hoodie was still red. The small bush outcrop she had managed to take shelter in and get at least a couple hours of tense rest was barely visible through the rest of the forest. It was the safest place she had found so far and, honestly, it lead her to suspect that it was a trap. They knew every single part of this forest, she was sure of it. Without a doubt they would come along at any moment and find her, be ready to kill her. Possibly to eat her. The thought sent her anxiety skyrocketing as she brought a hand to her face and chewed fiercely on whatever was left of her already blunt nails. The copper taste of blood as she chewed a bit too heavily into skin went unnoticed in her dissociative state. She was going to die here, the realization hummed in the back of her mind, no matter how much she fought and hid like she was doing she was going to die here. She was nothing more than a rabbit or deer to the only living mutants in this forest. Another piece of game to toy with and then, eventually, catch between their teeth.

Her thoughts whirled in her head, only to come to an abrupt halt when her meanderings had run her straight into something hard. Something solid and fleshy that sent her spiraling backwards and landing onto the ground with a grunt of shock. The thing, person she corrected herself with horror, grunted back as they stepped a few shaky steps backwards themselves. They were strong enough, however, to maintain proper footing. Her breath quickened, mind racing as the thought of one of those...those beings finally catching her after days of so diligently escaping was by far the most terrifying emotion she had experienced in her life. Regrets and worries flashed by Alexys’ mind as she felt the rising panic build against her stomach. Then her chest. A sealed up valve ready to burst as her eyes grew blurry with the terror. She was going to die. Die. Die die die-

A hand touched at her shoulder. Alexys let out a scream of terror, sure that it would be the last thing she ever did. Instead a broad, heavy hand slapped itself sharply over her lips to muffle the screech. Her vision came back to her after a moment of thrashing, settling into the realization that the man in front of her was not, in fact, a mutated cannibal. Just a normal man, covered in mud and blood much like she was. His brown eyes shone from between streaks of dirt that flecked the edges of his silvering hair as well. His face was...intense to say the least. His body lean as it pushed nearly all of its weight on her to keep her both still and quiet.

“You’re okay. It’s okay,” He managed out in a sharp whisper of his own, “I’m not going to hurt you, but you gotta keep quiet and stay low, got it? Calm down.”

It took moments. Many heart wrenching moments, but, she eventually found the strength to listen to him. Alexys felt her shoulders relax. She felt her mouth unclench from holding back the scream she wanted to offer up in terrified retaliation. He waited in the position with her, bodies pressed close together and faces held mere inches from one another, as he observed her. His eyes were patient and careful as they monitored her status. Seconds felt like hours as they watched one another, Alexys suddenly becoming all too aware of how sweaty she was. How dirty they both were and how their blood commingled on the edges of their skin and faded into the darkness of their clothes. He had the look of a survivor and, with it, the comfort she had been craving in the darkness.

The stranger lifted his eyebrows, an indication that he needed an answer as he opened his mouth again:

“Are you good?”

She could only nod slowly behind his hand, grimacing slightly as she started to taste the blood and dirt on his palm leak into her own lips. He gave a curt nod back before peeling his hand away from her. Alexys took in a deep breath, brushing back some of her hair while watching him with careful blue eyes, “You...You’re not one of those...o-one of them….”

“Kid,” He huffed with a weak chuckle, “If I were one of them, you’d have been long since dead. No, promise, I’m the good guy. Well,” He paused thoughtfully, “You get it. I wanna take the bastards down before they hurt anyone else. That’s all. They didn’t get you or anything did they? What’s your name?”

He sat back while she sat up, giving her space to breathe. Space to think. As the panic attack she had been so close to having faded into her chest again, it left her overwhelmed with exhaustion. That was tied with adrenaline as she tried to ease her breathing. Tried to relax her frame, knowing being tense wouldn’t help even if she hoped it would. Licking her lips, she tasted the salt of her own sweat as she found her voice enough to reply shakily, “A...Alexys my-uh-name is Alexys.”

“Well, Alexys,” He greeted with a small quirk of his lips, “Name’s Dale, and I’m gonna get us both out of here in one piece, okay?”

The words brought a warm sense of hope to Alexys’ heart. One she hadn’t felt in nearly a week. Since she had arrived in these backwoods and found herself fighting for her life. The pain of her wound and the ache of hunger in her belly were momentarily filled and pushed away with the strong sense of something akin to relief. Joy? Perhaps hope, but, it was too soon to consider such an abstract emotion in this moment. Instead, it was all she could do to smile and let the tears she had been holding back for the past few days fall from her eyes.

Dale startled back, afraid he had said something or made a move that had only scared her further. A couple of inches backwards, Alexys flung herself to him, gripping his arm in her own and giving it the best awkward hug she could manage to. “Thank-you,” Her voice choked itself out weakly as she held him as close as possible to her body, afraid that if she were to let go then he would somehow disappear from her sight. Somehow he would be nothing more than a hallucination in the endless forest she had found herself trapped in. There was a moment of quiet as Dale allowed the girl before him to cry into his arm, unsure of how to quite move her away. Rather than attempt, though, he simply reached out to give her head the gentlest of pats, ruffling the long locks between his grizzly fingertips with a deep sigh of acceptance.

Once she had calmed down enough to wipe the tears away from her eyes, Alexys pulled away from Dale’s arm with a weak smile. He gave a nod, quirking his eyebrows as if asking ‘you done?’. The look wasn’t unpleasant, though, it was a gentle sort of gaze that made her feel safe. With this guy by her side, perhaps they could get out of this situation after all.

Dale helped her up and the two quietly crept through the remainder of the wilderness, Dale explaining in hushed whispers his own situation as they went. She hadn’t even been aware of the show nor the crew bustling around the area, her own reasoning for being there falling from between her lips amongst stutters and soft mutters. The sharing of their stories brought them closer as people. The tension of being forced with another for solely surviving purposes slowly dissipated into one of comfort. The comfort of having someone who, for the most part, did not seem like a horrible human being to be stuck with. They walked until the night grew dark. Dale made them stop to make camp, unsure that they would be able to see any of the traps or cannibals that leaked into the area as they went. Even if they did, though, he didn’t want to take any chances.

“We can’t have a fire,” He explained as he helped her over a series of fallen trees, using their internal coverage as a sleeping spot for the night, “So we’ll have to rough it like this.”

“That’s fine,” Alexys laughed weakly as she settled into her own spot against one of the logs protecting them, wrapping her arms around her chilled shoulders with a weak smile, “It’s what I’ve kind of been doing this whole time, so, I guess I’m a bit used to it….Just that though not, um, any of this.”

Her hand extended, gesturing into the air in front of them both to indicate the entirety of the forest as an example, “The getting caught in a cannibal hunger games and having the threat of imminent death around every corner. Uh. That part is pretty new. Not sure I’m going to be able to get used to that.”

Dale chuckled as he leaned back himself, resting an elbow on his knee as he propped it up. No moonlight penetrated the thick curtain of trees above them, yet, his hair somehow managed to glow the same shade as it, acting like a beacon in the overwhelming black. Alexys bit her lip as she tried not to make eye contact with the older man, shrinking herself into as small of a ball as she could manage in hopes of, possibly, disappearing. Half of her still wanted to hope that this was a dream and that soon she would wake up, ready to go about her day and tell her friends how she had a weird dream about a handsome man.

Handsome? No, she didn’t think that. She couldn’t have. Alexys shook her head and took a deep breath, sliding against the tree while Dale watched her.

“It ain’t anything anyone could get used to,” He insisted easily with a grimace, “Fuckers look uglier than a blobfish stuck on the side of a submarine.”

“Hey,” Alexys chided with mock shock, “don’t insult the blobfish like that! What did they ever do to you?”

“Get stuck on the side of my submarine!”

She almost laughed out loud at his whisper, having to throw a hand over her mouth to muffle the sound of the giggles that tried to escape. She missed the soft grin that Dale held back as well, pleased to see the once traumatized girl at his side show a bit more humanity in her reactions. It meant the shock wasn’t permanent on her and, while she would probably be fucked up after this, she would be okay. He wondered, momentarily, if this would fuck him up as well, but he decided that no. He was already relatively fucked up, it wouldn’t make much of a dent in that facade.

“Get some rest,” He murmured after giving her a pat on her shoulder in an effort to ease her still existing tension, “I’ll keep watch for the night, make sure none of those fuckers stumble up on us when we aren’t ready.”

Her gaze immediately melted from amused to concerned, the lines on her lips when she frowned prominent against her facial structure. “What? No,” She refused in a soft whisper, “You must be tired too, right? You should get some rest…”

“Both of us can’t rest,” He mused with near sadness in his voice, “God I wish we could. I’m a light sleeper anyways, promise. You’ve been through hell today too, you deserve to get some sleep.”

He didn’t know what she deserved, the thought brewed in the back of her mind with amusement. He was just assuming. It was always odd of strangers to do that, at least, to her. What did he know about her anyways? Just as much as she knew about him, certainly. Their name and why they were there, how they had gotten there...that seemed all they had talked about. It was all they had time for in this isolated hellscape, certainly. In the thought, she felt her eyes drooping slowly with the oncoming set of exhaustion. They dropped and she opened them again. Droop. Open. Droop. Open.

“Get some rest.”

“No.”

Dale startled at the sound of the stubborness in her voice, not expecting it from someone of her form. She hadn’t meant for it to sound so forceful, certainly, but she had to. She felt her lip trembling as she pulled herself into a ball again, ducking her head between her knees in an effort to simply disappear again. Shame and embarrassment momentarily overwhelmed her at the action. Her fingers flew to her lips where she felt herself chewing aimlessly on the already ripped apart nail beds, cracked and broken from scrambling for survival. Each chew hurt, burned, and caused a strange and nostalgic sort of pain she welcomed. It was a memory that she was alive. A memory of what she could do.

“I’m…” Her voice trembled before she could steady it again, “I’m scared to sleep. I don’t want to...L...Like what if...They come at night. I’m asleep and they’ll come and-and-” Her hand flew to her neck as she swallowed tightly, feeling the lump of anxiety crawl its way down her trachea like a bad pill. For a moment she swore that she could feel it, the sharpened and serrated blade of the cannibals who had been endlessly hunting her slowly sinking into her skin. Cutting her head off inch by inch only to hold it above them as a trophy, mumbling and cheering in an inhuman way. Her breath picked up at the memory, eyes widening as she grew on alert again. She needed to run away, she realized with horror, she had to-

“Alexys!”

A hand held her down, pinning her gently to the log. She blinked, confused, before registering the situation. Tears had stung the corner of her eyes, dipping down and into the crevices of fresh cuts. In the brief moment of remembrance and fear, she had tried to stand up. She had tried to run away from wherever they were, daring to brave the inky darkness before her over staying in the forest to possibly be killed. Dale had rushed to stop her, yanking her down by her arm and keeping her still against their hiding place while making an effort to bring her back into reality. He was patient and practiced, his eyes radiating concern amongst their equally saturated gaze of disbelief.

“What…”

“Breathe.”

She gave him another confusing look, but, he remained stubborn in his own way. They held gazes for a long, silent moment before he gave in with a sigh and began to explain himself carefully:

“I can’t guarantee they won’t come for us tonight. I can’t guarantee we’ll be 100% safe sleeping here, but, what I can guarantee is...I’ll do my damn best to protect you, got it? They’ll have to go through me before they get to you, and I’m not a soldier who goes down easily. So stop thinking about the idea that we might be found and start thinking about how we’re going to survive. Otherwise I’m going to have to play duck, duck, goose with you as those panic attacks of yours get worse.”

She inhaled, not used to people noting when she was panicking. Not used to anyone offering to...protect her how he did. Her body was tense under his, her eyes gazing up into his own as she noted the stubborn look he had offered. She licked her lips, tasting her own blood on them. The coppery flavor brought her back to reality as she exhaled shakily. How long had she been holding her breath?

“Why?” Her voice was cracked, “Why would you want to protect someone like me? You don’t know me we….just met? I don’t understand…”

His grip loosened on her, enough to let her move away if she wanted but enough to keep her in place in case she tried a third run for the hills. When she relaxed on the log and made no indication that she was going anywhere, Dale took a seat back in his original position at her side and murmured, “I don’t care how long we’ve known each other, no one deserves to die at the hands of those assholes. We should be working together to help each other and fight them, not leaving the other for dead. I’ve never left anyone behind and I’m not about to start. Not now.”

He bumped his shoulder to hers, a friendly gesture that made her feel...warmer. Alexys felt her face flushed and momentarily thanked the darkness for disguising it as he continued firmly down at her, “You’re safe with me, Alexys. I promise. I’m doing it because I think you deserve to stay alive, just like anyone else.”

The realization settled in, her heart sinking with relief as she finally let out a long, shaky breath. She nodded, resting her head on his shoulder and closing her eyes as she felt her body ache with the need to sleep.

“Alright,” She managed to murmur out with a chuckle, “I’ll trust you this time around...Thank-you.”

And as she faded into sleep, Dale keeping watch at her side, she felt a spark of hope for the first time in days since arriving in this hell.

Maybe things would be okay after all.

#self insert #self shipping #self ship #kinley writes #writing commissions #bad-blue-moon-rising

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lygrim · 7 years ago

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Feudal High Fantasy AU Part 3!

So excited! Thanks to @displacerghost and @elf-kid2 for the support, it made this go much smoother.

Onwards~!

Three times she tries to come back to herself. The first time, she is aware of something rapping against her forehead, and the nauseating sensation of being upside down, and swaying. She is happy to relinquish her hold on reality and all its attendant discomforts.

The second time, she is aware of red fox fire and the baying of hounds, hot breath, and something tugging at her short hair. At first she is afraid, until she hears canine whining and feels a hot tongue on her face. She swats at Molly, her mother’s motley old bitch, and the annoying animal backs away so she can sleep. As she sank again, a whisper of memory shows her Molly, stiff and cold and staring glassily on the hearthstones last spring. She was gone before the thought pierces her consciousness.

The third time, she awakens with an urgency that has her bolting upright and instantly regretting it. She cups her head with a moan; her skull pounds like the bell for mass is ringing inside it.

It takes several minutes for the pain to abate enough for her to open her eyes. She notes that she’s on a dusty fainting couch in front of an empty hearth, that she is freezing cold and caked with mud, and that she’s in a room she’s never seen before. She’s also not dead, which she counts to be rather extraordinary, considering what had transpired the last time she was conscious.

More important than any of that, though, she needs to piss and there’s not a damn chamberpot in sight.

Levering herself off of the couch is a challenge. She’s sore all over, from her crown to her feet, except for her toes, which are completely numb. She waddles to a sturdy wood plank door, one of two in the room, hoping to find a garderobe in which to relieve herself.

For the first time today she’s in luck; it is indeed a garderobe, or at least she supposes it is. Relief is sweet, and she considers the room around her now that her bladder is not pressing on her brain.

It’s… it’s an exceedingly pretty place to do one’s business. The walls are paneled wood and the mouldings on the doors were carved with flourishes, a costly and excessive detail for a water closet. It looks rather like something the Scotts would have in their demesne, where they a little more wealthy and a bit less practical. And Roxanne supposes that’s what puts her off about this room: who puts so much extravagance into the room where people spend the least amount of time? The room doesn’t even smell like a commode; instead it smells like lemongrass, and the sea.

Across from the commode is a silvered mirror. She moans in consternation when she sees her herself; ‘bedraggled’ is an understatement. Her everything is covered in mud, and there are twigs and leaves snarled in her hair. When she tries to rub a smear of mud off her forehead, she discovers (painfully) that it’s not dirt, but flakes of dried blood and a bruise stretching from brow to hairline. She prods at it bleakly. She doesn’t remember hitting her head, but this absolutely explains her migraine.

She’ll have to avoid her mother for weeks. When she was a child, her mother would joke to anyone that would listen that Roxanne was obviously a farmer’s get; she had a field for a forehead. Roxanne could live the rest of her life without hearing what her mother had to say about her new bruise in conjunction with her unattractiveness, spinster status and every other thing that’s ever been wrong with her.

Below the mirror is a wash stand, but the basin is empty, of course. She considers it mournfully: she’d kill for something to drink, even tepid water, and her dress had been dull burgundy when she set out this morning. Now it’s a dusty brown, with an emphasis on dusty. Her skirt is so stiff it crackles when she moves and she leaves a rain of dust behind her. She badly needs a laundry. And a bath. And most definitely something to eat. In fact, almost every physical discomfort known to man is plaguing Roxanne about now.

“And least you didn’t have to piddle on the floor,” She mutters to herself as she sets her skirt to rights. The far wall is an hidden by a tall privacy screen, but this one doesn’t appear to be made of wood or cloth, but rather some sort of semi-opaque white sheeting, painted with mountains and trees and long-necked birds in flight, besieged by looming grey thunderheads. In the center of it all was an armored figure on horseback, attended by a servant in green geometrically-patterned robes and a pack of the daintiest black hunting dogs Roxanne had ever seen.

The screen really was quite beautiful, but strange, with its muted colors and delicate lines. She traced a finger over the warrior; his armor was foreign to her, layered in scaly plates and rendered by a careful hand in exacting detail. The helmet was overly large compared to the rest of the figure, flared and festooned with… she really wasn’t certain what that was. A thicket of curving, waving tendrils, like a profusion of horns. The armor was the prettiest shade of blue-black, like hellebore, or wet slate.

She felt as though she was touching a relic, and quickly took her hand away at the thought. Then she scoffed at her own folly. Here she was, mooning over this fine work that someone obviously didn’t care for more than as something to shove against a wall in their privy. Still, something about it enchanted her and made her forget her pains. She could almost hear leaves rustling in the wind when she looked at the trees, and hear the distant baying of the dogs.

And then something damp and cold landed on her stocking foot and she jerked backwards with a shriek, kicking it off.

A frog bounced off the bottom of the screen and floundered on its back for a moment. When it righted itself it gave her a gimlet stare, then with a disgruntled croak it hopped out of sight beneath the screen, back the way it came.

She clucked and bent down to look where the frog had hit, worried that it had damaged the beautiful painting. She found no mark, but she discovered there was a soft light peeking under the base of the privacy screen.

Also, she still heard trees in the wind. And now birdsong.

Confused, she straightened and pulled aside the edge of the screen, and shielded her eyes with a curse as she was bathed in sunlight.

Squinting and scowling, she shaded her eyes against the sun and looked out, and what she saw stopped her breath. Her eyes wide with wonder, her discomforts forgotten, she stumbled into Paradise.

Her eyes caught on jewel tones, vibrant green leaves crowding up to the edge of water so blue and clear she feared she would step in and drink in that color, never to surface. Or want to.

Soft mist hung in the air and a warm, inviting breeze kissed her face and drew her forward. Even the basalt beneath her feet was warm, heated by a golden sun. She had left her world and its autumnal splendor behind for a land of eternal summer.

She fumbled with her ties, laughter bubbling up in her throat. She was battered and bedraggled and unmarried but by God she was not unfortunate, and not fool enough to stand for a moment longer on the banks of the most beautiful pool in the world.

She dipped her toes in the water, then disturbed the silence and the stillness with a shriek of joy and a loud splash when she found the water to be hot. “Dear God,” she groaned rapturously, leaning her head against the rock on the edge of the pool. “Let me never leave this place.”

After a few minutes of bliss, the soreness was gone from her muscles. By the time she had finished cataloguing and tending to her wounds, they had stopped stinging so badly. Besides the bruise and cut on her forehead -which was bleeding sluggishly now that she’d cleaned it-, she had scraped her hands, skinned her knees and acquired a collection of bruises. In spite of them, she felt relaxed and restored. Even her headache had abated. She washed herself leisurely, and when she finished she virtuously set to trying to salvage her dress.

She did her best, but she had no soap and no washing bat, and there was nothing to do with the smears of grey-green where she’d slid on moss and grass. She drenched and wrung out her dress until the water ran clear, and then set it out to dry on the warm stones before she gave her chemise and stockings the same treatment. While her undergarments had been spared the worst of the mud, they were distinctly dingy, especially around the hem and on the soles. She sighed and set them with her dress, and was content to let herself float and contemplate everything she had seen.

She realized that everything here had the air of something very grand that was somehow diminished. Everything was just slightly off, as if this place had been broken and when someone had tried to mend it the pieces hadn’t fit together properly. Or more aptly, they had used pieces from other things to try and fill in the gaps. The faded, understated drawing room she’d woken in had seemed as though it was waiting for an erstwhile servant to come set it to rights, and the bathroom, well. The bathroom was the bathroom, with all its strange incongruities and foreign artefacts.

Everything here was very fine, but the shrewd bookkeeper in her and the practical housekeeper had her frowning at the foolishness of whoever owned this property, which might be a certain flat-faced turtle-backed crosspatch bastard of a frog and a monkey she had made acquaintance with. That would go a ways towards explaining the bathroom opening directly to a pond with only a flimsy screen as a barrier.

She jerked when it occurred to her that perhaps that abomination had been the very sorcerer she had sought out. No one had ever seen him, outside of Wayne, and he never talked about the magician, no matter how many times she had prodded at him. All anyone knew about the sorcerer was that he was male, that he was powerful and dangerous with his craft, that he had a vicious temper, a worse sense of humor, and that he was terrible to behold.

Roxanne had assumed he would be something like a wizened, twisted old hunchback, perhaps with one eye and a shriveled hand. In her wildest imaginings, she’d never considered that the sorcerer might not be human at all.

Her heart pounds and her breath shortens, and the gentle lapping of the water cannot forestall her panic. Once again it dawns on her that seeking out the sorcerer -for all she admired his skill and the intelligence and wit behind his creations-, was foolhardy in the extreme, especially when her motivation amounted to fascination and curiosity.

She was out of the water and pulling on her damp chemise in an instant. She’d had more than enough adventure for today. It would be best if she found her way to the exit. Hopefully she would be able to find her way home. She glanced at the otherworldly pool in the summer sun and wryly amended that she hoped to find her own world first.

She slung her dress and stockings over her shoulder and slogged towards the painted screen, conspicuous against the foliage around it, and yet seeming like it had every right to be there. She ran careful fingers over it in farewell before she breezed through the profligate bathroom and into the drawing room.

She spared a quick glance, hoping to find her shoes. She froze when she caught sight of the fire crackling merrily in the hearth, a hearth that had been cold as old bone and strung with cobwebs when she’d left this room; this room that had now been dusted and swept.

She was not alone here.

She strode for the second, unexplored door as panic crested in her breast. Now was most certainly a good time to leave.

She’s pulling open the door when she hears it; a low, reverberating growl. A black muzzle with sharp, curved teeth jams itself in the gap between the door and the frame.

There’s a pissed-off animal trying to get into the room with her. A big one.

Her breath hisses through her teeth as she shifts her weight and pushes her shoulder against the door, hoping the animal will pull back and retreat. She doesn’t really wish to hurt it. Instead the jaws in the doorway flash and snap, furious and unwilling to get out of the way. Roxanne had assumed it was a dog, but the sound it makes is a horrible croaking bark, and as she looks she realizes there’s something very, very wrong.

The muzzle has no fur. It doesn’t even have skin; it’s just skull, with sharp, exposed teeth, but shiny and greenish black, like the carapace of a beetle.

Roxanne stops thinking and shoves on the door, pressing with all her body weight. The bony maw yelps. She can hear it grinding against the frame as she pushes. Looped by fear, her only thought is that she hopes she breaks it.

In the space of a breath, things go catastrophically wrong. A force slams against the other side of the door. Not expecting the resistance, Roxanne cries out when she’s pushed backwards and the door opens wide to let in a swarm of demons from the depths of hell itself; a legion of disembodied skulls, growling and barking in horrible synchrony like harbingers of the end times. The sockets of their eyes are overtaken with crystalline growths; each head is anointed with a fell crown of jagged quartz spikes wreathed in fingers of blue-white lightning. Each forehead is overtaken by a single slitted eye, glowing red with hellfire.

The swarm turns its blazing gaze upon her soul, and Roxanne runs.

She races across a room that suddenly stretches out for miles, every second slowing down to a crawling infinity of waiting for the first set of jaws to hamstring her. The door to the garderobe is before her but when she stretches out her hand it slides away, out of reach, always out of reach. Roxanne is distantly aware that time and space are not as they should be, but the demons are close behind. Their baying is deafening, she can feel the air of them snapping their jaws inches away from her ankles. She hears something ripping; her dress is yanked off her shoulder, her stockings go flying. Next time it could be her arm.

She feels the room mocking her. The door will never come. She will die here, a few scant feet from safety. Fear spikes in her chest, and she stretches for the door again. “Let me in!” She screams.

Space snaps like taffy pulled too tight. Roxanne rockets forward into the door at full speed, bowling it open. She trips on her momentum and throws her hands out to catch her fall, one wrist buckling and flaring in pain. She rolls on flagstone floors in a spacious, well-lit room that is certainly NOT the garderobe.

She scrambles to her knees, holding her sprained wrist to her chest, her eyes on the swarm. They hover in the doorway, filling it from jamb to floor, whining like chastened puppies and snapping at each other. Something is keeping them from entering the room. Roxanne stumbles to her feet, grips the edge of the door and slams it shut on all those staring red eyes with instructions on where they should go. She can hear yelping and scraping on the other side of the door for a moment before it quiets and fades away. She is safe, she thinks. For now.

A glance tells her she’s in somebody’s kitchen. Unlike the drawing room with its stately, forlorn dust, this kitchen is clean and worn in with use. There is a fire on the hearth and a cauldron that, from the smell of it, is full of stew. Before it is a rough-hewn table set with two chairs. She wobbles over to it on watery legs, collapses in the chair closest to the fire, and lets herself shake. Tears bite at her eyes and she leans over her knees, covering her face with her hands. Inside her a void yawns, sickening and dizzying. Her ears ring, and she gulps for air like water, making her head float and her vision darken. Tears slip between her fingers. Roxanne stops being okay. She is not okay for many painful minutes.

Finally she collapses against the tabletop, still hiccuping out light sobs. Her head throbs again; from dehydration or her bruised forehead, she doesn’t know. With Herculean effort she drags herself out of her chair. There’s a pitcher on the counter across from her; she reaches for it and hopes it’s full of something she can drink.

She puts the rim to her lips and drinks greedily; it turns out to be a sweet wine and Roxanne feels that somewhere out there is a trickster god who can’t decide whether they love her or want her dead. Roxanne wishes they’d just decide and get it over with, but in the meantime quaffing her fill of wine seems to be a good answer to her problems. By the time she’s done the shoulders of her chemise are damp with white wine and she’s beyond caring about anything: she is in her underthings in a stranger’s house, it’s not like she can be much more improper at this point. In the same vein her trespasses are enough that she’s willing to add a bowl of purloined stew on top of them.

She finds crockery, including a cloche with a ball of fresh dough that looks to have been abandoned before it could be baked. She takes the cloche to the hearth and covers it in coals, and serves herself a healthy serving of stew. It smells delicious, and her stomach rumbles as if she needs reminding that it’s been clawing at her spine since she woke.

She sits and immediately burns her mouth, trying to eat it too quickly. Disgruntled, she forces herself to slow down and cool each bite with her breath.

It is delicious; the meat is venison so soft it dissolves on her tongue. There are onions and potatoes and turnips, and carrots that are delightfully soft and savory. The stock is so thick it’s almost a gravy. Between the repast and the frankly regrettable quantity of wine, Roxanne is beginning to feel good about life again. She takes a second to reflect as she gets up to help herself to another bowl that this place seems to throw good and bad at her in equal proportions. She winces at the implication that hell is looming over her, waiting to cap off her meal with another period of terror. Maybe if she keeps going back for more stew she can put it off indefinitely. She brings the rest of wine with her, just for good measure.

Her theory is dashed when, halfway through her second bowl, the door slams open and the host of skulls spills into the kitchen, howling.

Roxanne jumps, but finds her nerves are a lot steadier this second time. It is possible she is quite a little much tipsy. She takes another bite and watches in amusement as half the host darts around the room, yapping, belatedly looking for her while the other half pins her down with eyes of arcane fire. It takes a few seconds for the swarm to get on the same page. She’s in no hurry. She keeps eating until she has their undivided attention, and then addresses them.

“Since you haven’t ripped me to pieces yet I’d appreciate it if you waited another half hour or so. I have bread in the oven, and if I have to die I’m taking all the stew with me.” She tells them, still chewing.

The swarm stares at her, and then surprises her by turning to each other and clicking as though conferring on the matter.

“If you’ll behave yourselves, I’ll allow you to stay and keep me company while we wait.” She said graciously. That seemed to decide them. They yip and disperse, flurrying through the room. Some go to the cauldron, some sniff at the cloche, some come flitter at her skirts. One particularly brazen one that was crusted with opals squirreled into her lap next to her injured hand and nipped at her spoon.

She quirked an eyebrow at her guest. “Excuse you, this was not part of the deal. I did not agree to this.” The skull whuffles at her and bares its teeth. Roxanne gets the impression it’s grinning, more so than a skull might normally do. She huffs. “Fine, suit yourself. Mind my wrist, though. If you pain me, I’m evicting you.” The skull whines and she takes that for agreement, and sets back into her food.

Something crashes on her left and shaves a few seconds off her rapidly dwindling lifespan. The skulls had knocked the butter crock on the ground and were now staring at the mess and conferring quietly with each other as though they were village council trying to settle a dispute. They had also managed to open every single cupboard and get into a sack of flour, condemning a quarter of the kitchen to a powdery death.

Roxanne opens her mouth to tell them off, then realizes it’s not her kitchen, and she doesn’t actually care to expend energy on wrangling a horde of the undead to spare the good crockery. Feeling oddly light, she makes a note to keep them away from her pitcher and looks back to her bowl, only to find her guest has disappeared halfway inside it.

“Hey! You slipgrace son of a succubus, get out of my food!” She scolds, trying to grip it with her good hand. It’s hard; the skull is slippery. She finds it to be made of metal. Of course, she thinks sardonically. To set all those pretty opals, Roxanne. The only orifices she can grip are either lined with sharp teeth, or perilously close to sharp teeth. Eventually she hooks a finger in a hole at the base of its head and pulls it away from her now-empty bowl. She delivers a withering look to her officially unwelcome guest, still hooked on her finger and licking its chops with a shadowy tongue and altogether too pleased with itself.

“You disgust me,” she tells it, and shakes it off her hand. “Begone, jackanapes.”

The skull yips and floats away. Roxanne is sure it would be whistling if it but had the means to do so. She sighs and shakes her head as she gets up to refill her bowl. A flock of beggars flit at her feet, hoping for her to drop a morsel. “I’d wonder if you could eat at all if I hadn’t just been a victim of robbery,” she tells them. She eyes the empty space beneath their jaws skeptically. “Where do you put it?” They open expectant jaws towards her in answer. Roxanne tells herself she feeds them each a bit of meat to stave off getting bitten, and not because she’s a soft touch. As she feeds them they gurgle and click, and she notices for each mouth she drops a bite into two more appear until the whole host is crowded around her and the hearth in a cloud, jockeying for a treat.

And that is the tableau she presents when the door slams open once more. She looks over her shoulder, not even perturbed this time.

The embodiment of menace stands in the doorway, roiling with lightning and staring her down with eyes of witchfire green.

Well, she thinks, turning to face him. I think I found the sorcerer.

-To be continued-

Part Two

Part One

Art for this Chapter

#feudal high fantasy au #megamind #fanfic #story time

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