#bucca

[monstersandmaw]

Laces for a Lady - 18th century poly shifter romance (Part one, sfw)

Disclaimer 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. 

Well folks, here it is. You said you were interested, so I hope it meets expectations! Here's part one for you, of a multi part story. If you want to kno wmore about it, you can find some more info here, as well as a little 'mood board'.

Content: sfw, the daughter of a country gentleman from Sussex relocates to a sleepy fishing village in Cornwall in order to become the paid companion of a young widow, and meets some of the locals on her arrival. Wordcount: 3972

Five and twenty ponies, Trotting through the dark - Brandy for the Parson, 'Baccy for the Clerk. Laces for a lady; letters for a spy, Watch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go by! ~ from ‘A Smugglers’ Song’, Rudyard Kipling (1906)

In the cool, lavender light of a late spring dawn, a gaff-rigged cutter drew into the sheltering arms of a small bay at high tide, and quietly dropped anchor. As if the soft splash had awoken him, a cockerel spluttered to life in a farmyard somewhere inland, but most of the villagers were already up and awake and steering their small, secret fleet of boats out from the golden crescent of sand beneath the cliffs to meet the waiting ship fresh from Roscoff.

Beneath the waves, where churning kelp moored itself in unyielding handfuls to the ancient granite of the sea floor, a long, serpentine shadow snaked between the stalks, and the currents of the coastline subtly shifted. Any revenue men trying to sail along the coast from Fowey to catch the smugglers would have found the wind and tide set dead against them, and in the subtle wake that wafted from the mottled, eel-like tail as it passed unseen, the waters of the secluded inlet calmed beneath the keels of the scurrying fishing boats. The drag of the oars through the waves lessened, and muscles already tired from heaving and hefting goods up the cliff moved a fraction easier for the unexpected boon.

Between them over the next hour, the gathered men and women shifted their haul of half anker barrels and dozens of crates and boxes of goods ashore. The small kegs of rich, French cognac would fetch a pretty price all across Cornwall, and along with the liquor came smaller luxuries like lace and silk, and bundles of tobacco and spiced tea, all meticulously wrapped in oil cloth to keep the sea and the salt and the water out.

And when the speedy, slender ship was riding noticeably higher in the water, the locals simply melted away into the countryside like so many mice from a late summer granary before the excise men even knew the ship from Guernsey had visited the cove at all.

Fifteen miles away, as the sun breached the horizon and cast its first rays of warmth along bellies of fleecy clouds and the flanks of blossoming hedgerows below, a stagecoach lurched and rumbled westwards along potholed roads, and a young woman stared out of the grimy window as the horses carried her into a new chapter of her life.

After leapfrogging some two hundred miles or so along the staging stations that dotted the South Coast, with nothing but a small trunk of her belongings and a thrice-read, dog-eared novel for company, Eleanor Bywater was more than ready to see the back of that infernal stagecoach. Had it not been for the small but inconveniently bulky travelling case sitting at her feet, she might have hired a horse and ridden from the last staging inn at Plymouth to reach the secluded fishing village of Polgarrack, but given that the trunk held all her worldly belongings, she had not been quite desperate enough to escape the discomfort of hard seats and poor suspension to abandon it.

Bouncing along in the nearly-empty stagecoach, she studiously tried to ignore the older woman sitting opposite her. She’d stared intently at Nel since they'd left Plymouth behind that morning, and her scrutiny had begun to make that last twenty mile stretch feel much, much longer.

Finally, after jouncing over a pothole deep enough to start prospecting for copper ore at the bottom, Nel gasped and then raised her eyes to meet the woman’s openly curious stare. She found sympathy for her own discomfort, and a small degree of kindly amusement too. 

“Where are you headed, miss?” the stranger asked after Nel raised the hint of an eyebrow at her as the silence stretched.

“Polgarrack.”

At that, the woman’s grey eyes narrowed in confusion. “Now what takes a young miss like you to an old fishing village like Polgarrack?”

She looked to be in her fifties, though a life beside the harsh sea had weathered her features somewhat, and her wiry grey hair was covered by a simple linen cap. Her dress was dark and plain, though there was a hint of tired lace around the neck and cuffs. Her hands had the tough, reddened look of someone who scrubbed pots and salted fish, while Nel’s own hands were smooth and soft, if a little ink stained from sending a letter to her friend before leaving the inn that morning.

Nel laughed quietly and shrugged. “There’s no mystery to it,” she said. “I am to be employed as a companion to the widowed Lady Penrose at Heath Top House. I am expected there this afternoon.”

Given that only ladies of relatively high social standing themselves tended to become a ‘lady’s companion’, the older woman made a hasty re-evaluation of her fellow traveller, and her already ruddy cheeks flushed a darker shade as she cleared her throat and looked away.

“Begging your pardon, miss,” she said. “We don’t get many new faces in Polgarrack, is all. I didn’t mean to pry or cause offence with my questions.”

“No harm in a little curiosity,” Nel said, trying to put the stranger at ease to avoid any further awkwardness between them on the remainder of their journey. “I take it you’re from Polgarrack yourself then?”

“Oh, born and raised, miss,” she chortled. She eyed the forest green redingote Nel wore, with its rather masculine high collar, wide lapels and small, gold pocket watch dangling on a chain, and the contrasting sage green skirts beneath, and no doubt made one or two judgements of her own about the young lady. “And yourself? You don’t sound as though you’re from these parts at all, if I may be so bold.”

Nel smiled. “I’ve come from Sussex.”

The woman’s watery, grey-blue eyes widened almost comically and she gasped. “’at's a bloody long way, miss! And all on your own?” She shook her head but remembered herself and mumbled, “Begging your pardon.”

“You’re right,” Nel sighed, letting her gaze slide to the window to watch the countryside roll past in a blur of salt-bleached grass and vibrant yellow gorse flowers. “It is a bloody long way.” And her spine and backside felt every lump and bump and lurch of the stagecoaches from Sussex to Cornwall. With a warmer smile, she turned back to the woman. “My name is Eleanor, but most people call me Nel.”

“Agatha,” she replied with a grandmotherly smile of her own for the young woman. “But everyone calls me Aggie. My husband, Martin, is the village carter and smith, and we’ve got four boys, all of them either fishermen or miners. They all married too, so I’ve got nine grandchildren, if you can believe it!”

Nel offered Aggie her congratulations and another little smile, and then ventured to ask, “Will you tell me a bit about the place? I should like to know more about it, since it is to be my home for the foreseeable future.”

Aggie brightened even more and shuffled her plain, dark skirts, giving a wince and a grunt as the coach lurched over a pothole and the driver cursed audibly above them. Settled, if not entirely comfortable, she began.

“Well, see now. Folks has been fishing these waters for time out of mind. Pilchards is our mainstay, o’course, but the folks over St. Austell way mine clay, and obviously there’s copper and tin mines all over in the north of Cornwall. Mining here is as old as fishing, but it’s starting to dry up here and there now, o’course.”

She barely paused to draw breath before barrelling on, and Nel sat and listened while the older woman talked.

“Now, your Lady Penrose married into the Penrose family — see, she’s from Bath herself originally, though I can’t rightly remember what her family name was, but…” Nel let Agatha's potted history of the fishing and mining community wash over her, paying just enough attention to make polite sounds at the right pauses, but the discomfort of the journey and a decided lack of sleep was beginning to wear her attention span down to a single, fraying thread.

After two hours in the swaying, rolling coach, she felt woozy and weak-stomached, but with Aggie’s near-constant chatter, she at least had a better understanding of the politics of the little village than she’d ever have gained in six months on her own. She’d also learned why Aggie had been in Plymouth, since most folks never had any reason to travel further than the bounds of their own parish. Agatha’s sister’s husband had apparently been killed in the American Revolutionary War some ten years earlier, and since the widow’s health wasn’t the best these days, Aggie made the trip along the coast when she could to see her and take care of her.

Nel’s ticket took her as far as Whitcross, a desolate intersection of paler roads on a clifftop overlooking the tightly-nestled fishing port below, and away across the heather and tufted grass of the heath, she could just see an old manor house in the distance, flanked by tall copper beeches and ash trees. It looked slightly further away than she had anticipated, and she glanced apprehensively down at the travelling trunk at her feet.

Still, she was aching for fresh air and to be free of the sickening motion of the carriage, so she took the driver’s hand and allowed him to guide her safely down onto the hard-packed surface of the road before he lifted her case down for her as well.

From inside, Aggie peered out and scowled disapprovingly. “Now just you wait a moment,” she barked at the driver, who cocked an eyebrow but did pause. “Did they not send someone for you, dearie?” she asked Nel, still leaning out of the doorway and peering about like a disgruntled badger, and using the endearment freely. Apparently, two hours of talking non-stop at Nel had removed any pretence of formality or sense of social distance. Nel might as well have been adopted into Aggie Carter’s family as a niece by that point, and she couldn’t help but smile at the warmth it conjured in her chest.

“I… I never thought that far through,” she admitted, with her hand atop her bonnet as the wind gusted up from the sea below, soaring delightedly over the edge of the cliff and racing on inland as if to continue the momentum of the great rolling breakers that foamed and thundered against the shore. The coachman glanced at his pocket watch and groused something about a schedule that was almost immediately lost to the next inward gust.

“No, no, dearie,” the old woman scoffed. “No, you must come into the village. It’s far too far to go all by yourself, and with that case as well. Here, let me —”

“I can manage the case, I assure you,” Nel said with a gentle smile as Aggie half-toppled, half-leaned out of the coach to pick up the case. “How far is it to the house?”

“Two miles up that hill yonder,” Agatha said, pointing with one gnarled and arthritic finger towards the house on the rise to the north. “Come to the Lantern, and we’ll have one of the lads take you up once you’ve caught your breath.” The Lantern, as Nel now knew thanks to Aggie’s detailed prattling, was the inn at the centre of the village, right on the water near the harbour.

She had been about to protest, but with a sigh, she simply nodded. The constant journeying and jolting had worn her down more than she cared to admit, and while she wasn’t the kind of wallflower she’d met any number of times in London during the Season, a life led mostly indoors with few opportunities for physical activity had not prepared her for a two mile walk in heavy, too-fine clothes, carrying an unwieldy case in gusty conditions. Her family had been invited a number of times to Goodwood House to walk the large park there, and she had frequently ridden a rather spirited mare through the parkland of Lavington Hall with her dear friend William, so she was not entirely unused to the great outdoors, but she did have to admit that her experiences had been rather more curated and sanitised than the wild expanse of heathland visible on all sides of the stagecoach from Whitcross.

“You’re kind, Agatha,” she said, and let the woman heft her case into the otherwise empty coach.

The thing about a tiny village was that an outsider stood out a mile, and a young lady in her mid twenties and dressed in impractical, rich green clothes, stood out like a beacon in a dark night. Everyone turned to watch her as she disembarked from the coach. At home, she had barely garnered a look from anyone. Being the centre of everyone’s curiosity there was novel and, in a word, horrifying.

She almost blurted aloud that one would think she was a revenue man come inspecting for smuggled goods, but she bit it back just in time. Cornwall’s so-called ‘free trade’ and smuggling rackets were absolutely none of her concern as an outsider, infamous though they may be, and it would do her no good to start sticking her nose where it did not belong.

The Lantern was a half-timbered, two-storey building that faced the walled harbour. Its painted sign was peeling and sun-bleached, and it squawked something dreadful as it swung back and forth in the squalling wind. Mullioned windows glinted and shimmered, though the small, diamond panes were caked with a haze of salt spray, and alongside the inn, a hand-cart rumbled down from a narrow side alley towards the harbour beyond, where fishing boats bobbed on their mooring lines at the lapping high tide.

Agatha pushed open the black-painted door but came to an abrupt halt as someone appeared to be leaving the inn at the exact same moment, and nearly barrelled into her and Nel.

“Oh, excuse me,” came a young man’s hoarse tenor, and he stepped aside within the inn’s small porch to allow the two women to enter before he left.

Nel noted briefly that he wore well-made but plain clothes, and carried a hefty looking cane in his left hand, upon which he leaned while he waited for them to pass. He was pale and thin, his undyed linen shirt hanging loosely off his shoulders, and his light brown hair was tied back at the nape of his neck into a horsetail. The moment he met her eye, he inhaled in surprise and almost immediately looked away, his large, dark brown eyes turning shy and uncertain. “M’lady,” he mumbled without looking up.

She didn’t have time to correct him and tell him she had no such title, because the moment she had stepped inside, he was off out into the day beyond, limping markedly on his right leg as he went.

Nel turned back to find Agatha waiting for her, watching. “That there was young Edmund Nancarrow,” she supplied as Nel caught up with her. “Local lad. Lots of Nancarrows in this area,” she chuckled. “Can’t move for tripping over a Nancarrow. He was a shy, skittish thing even before he went off to war in the Colonies and came back with a bad leg,” she added. “But he’s a sweetheart if ever I saw one. Tailor’s ’prentice he is now.”

At that, Nel just nodded. Something in her ached when she realised she probably wouldn’t have much to do with the folk from the village once she was ensconced up at Heath Top House, and she half wised she could. They already sounded far more interesting than the Lady Winnifred Penrose, with whom Nel had only exchanged a short flurry of letters before becoming formally engaged as her ‘companion’. 

Still, an unmarried woman of Nel’s age and social standing was considered almost past her prime, and given that the few marriage proposals she had received had faded into the mists of her very early adulthood, she had had to find another respectable way to support herself. Hence, Heath Top House.

Aggie bustled her into the main room of the pub, and their arrival caused a flurry of activity that drew the eyes of a good few patrons. 

Seated at the wooden bar inside, hunched over a pewter tankard, sat a tall, bulky man in his late-thirties or early forties, with long, thick, dark grey hair shot through with a shimmer of silver white. He had it tied back off his face in a low ponytail at the nape of his neck and as he turned to regard Nel’s arrival, she met unusually deep green eyes surrounded by a web of crows’ feet lines in a tanned, weathered face. His scowl was dark and full of suspicion, but even the storm clouds in his expression couldn’t mask the fact that he was handsome, in a rugged, rough-hewn kind of way.

When she saw where Nel’s attention had snagged, Aggie let out a little gasp and snatched her by the upper arm to steer her towards an empty table in a bay window, about as far from the wooden bar where the man still sat and glared at them as it was possible to be. 

“And that’s Locryn Trevethan,” Aggie hissed as she saw Nel settled into a seat. “Can’t say as I’ve seen him in here more than a handful of times this year though. He’s usually out on the water. Lives alone in an old stone cottage round the bay from here, up at Pilchard Sands. You’d probably best be giving him a wide berth, miss. Not that he should give you any trouble, mind,” she amended carefully, “But he’s not for the likes of you to go mingling with.”

Nel smiled at the protective tone in the older woman’s voice, and nodded once.

With her warning given, Aggie raised her voice and called over to the old man behind the bar. “’ere, Tom! This young lady needs a ride up to Heath Top. You think you can arrange that for her?”

The stoop-shouldered, white-haired man nodded and knuckled his forehead at Nel across the space. “Not the finest, but we got a cart.”

“If you have a horse, I could ride,” she said, trying to be helpful.

“Ain’t got a saddle for a lady,” he said regretfully.

Memories of galloping through the leafy trees of Lavington Hall’s parkland with William flashed across her mind and she suppressed a smile. She certainly hadn’t ridden the grey mare side-saddle while keeping up with her childhood friend, and although it had been a year or so since she’d sat astride a horse instead of side-saddle, she thought she could manage well enough. “I know how to ride a man’s saddle,” she said, “But I do have a travel case I’d need to send someone back for.”

“I could get one of the lads to bring that up for you after,” said Tom, “But it’s almost as much effort to hitch up a cart as it is to tack up a horse for riding, ma’am.”

“Whatever is the least trouble for you will do fine,” she said, and the stoic, weather-beaten old man’s red cheeks darkened and he ducked his head.

While Tom left to sort out transportation to the house, Aggie flapped about getting some refreshments for Nel, leaving her to wait at the table alone.

In the wake of the hubbub and pother Agatha left behind her, Nel took a long, deep breath looked around to find Locryn Trevethan still staring across the room at her. Taken aback by his directness and the intensity of his glare, she tried to smile, but his expression remained thunderous beneath strong, dark brows, and she quickly looked away, embarrassed.

In a face turned to leather by the sun and sea-wind, wide cheekbones and a heavy brow framed his piercingly green eyes. Never mind that marked crow’s feet around his eyes that made him look like he would rather have been laughing; the contrast between the dark, hostile glower and the soft laughter lines unnerved her and made her feel off-balance, as though her stranger’s presence in their local pub had unknowingly raised the ire of a usually gentle man. 

He had a short, neatly-trimmed, salt-and-pepper beard around full lips that were currently turned down at the corners and which bore a silver-pink scar across the middle. Despite the warm day, he wore a fisherman’s dense, woollen sweater, and when she risked another look back at him, she found him still frowning openly across the bar at her.

Nel didn’t relax until Aggie returned, at which point the man snapped abruptly out of his trance, slammed a coin down on the bar, and strode from the pub on long legs that were thick as tree trucks at the thigh. The door bounced back off the plasterwork in his wake and his boots rang on the flagstones outside.

“Not one to welcome strangers, I take it,” Nel muttered, and downed half of the cheap, watered-down wine that Agatha had set on the table for her.

“Oh don’t you pay him no mind, miss,” Aggie scoffed, settling herself down into the seat opposite her like a brooding hen and glaring at the pub door. “He don’t seem to like no one in Polgarrack save for sweet Ned Nancarrow, strangely enough. Then again, I ain’t met no one who’s taken a disliking to sweet Ned. Now, Tom will have the horse and cart ready for you in just a moment, but you just take your time and recover after your journey.”

Nel, who had felt ten times better the moment she’d taken her first proper lungful of sea air on stepping out of the swaying stagecoach, looked across the table into the older woman’s face and found a mother’s kindness and compassion in her wrinkled face, and something twisted in her gut. “You’re very kind,” she whispered, unable to muster anything more. “Thank you.”

She chuckled. “You know, and don’t you take this amiss, but you remind me of my niece a little, though she’s a little younger than you.”

Nel’s eyebrows twitched in wry amusement, and Agatha blushed at the impropriety of her words. Nel didn’t get the chance to reassure her because Tom shuffled back in and told her the cart was ready for her.

She laid a coin on the table for the wine and stood, following the innkeep out into the yard and clambering up with her case into the back of the cart. It was hardly a very dignified mode of transport for someone of her station, and when Tom said as much while they rumbled out of the inn’s yard, Nel just laughed and said she didn’t mind.

“Anything is better than that awful rolling stagecoach,” she beamed, and swung her legs back and forth like a child off the back of the cart bed while Tom clucked his tongue at the horse to hurry up.

As they trundled up the narrow, cobbled street from the harbour, they passed Edmund Nancarrow standing outside a tailor’s shop, talking with the beast of a man from the bar. Both men looked up and watched her pass like she was some kind of rare spectacle.

In a way, she supposed she was. 

Still, she smiled at them despite her nerves, and Edmund knuckled a non-existent cap at her with a shy smile, while Locryn just glared.

She sighed and wondered what this next chapter in her life would bring.

___

Next chapter ->

Well, what did you think of it so far? I can't wait to hear your thoughts on it, as always!

I hope you’ll consider reblogging as well as leaving a like if you enjoyed it. Take care, and I hope you have a lovely day/night wherever you are, and whenever you read this.

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[wytchoftheways]

“Witches at play” by: Daniel Greiner

Woodcut housed in the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic in Boscastle, Cornwall.

[slaughtergutz]

Once Upon a Time there was a little prince who was cursed by a witch to become a sea creature. He stole her book of spells to try to turn himself back, but accidentally took a piece of mail that teleported him to a a strange land. Now he has to pretend to be a witch doctor if he wants to get home.

This is Buckwisht! Or Buck for short. He's based off the bucca legend and my character for my playthrough of Apothecaria: Cursed Coast expansion. His familiar is an ancestral guardian eel spirit named Scylla who helps him hunt and fish sometimes. He's generally good natured and tries to help but is also prone to mischief and scaring fish away if you're mean to him. So far he's been doing pretty well at his "job". (Just got the Stormbreaker Prow the last game I did. Went to the Pirate Isles in downtime for funsies and immediately stumbled upon a dead body. He noped out of there fast lmao)

Here's a few pics from my first couple of plays

[heathenvvitch]

Betwixt, Middle, & In between

I have just come to e realization that I have been witnessing several synchronicities over the past several weeks but didn't put it all together until only about a half hour ago whilst reading "The Devils Dozen" by Gemma Gary. I'm going to take the time now, to info dump about all I learned and with that being said, I believe, I am finally on the correct road for me and my practice. I'm finding the crooked path to resonate very deeply with me and I'm finding the connection that I was lacking with wicca and other practices. Now, on to the post.

I have noticed that the song "Stuck In The Middle With You" by Stealers Wheel has been playing on random a lot when my vvitch sister and I are together. Furthermore, I've noticed that the word middle and the phrase "in between" has come up multiple times as well in our previous discussions and random statements I've heard from others around us.

In the craft, betwixt, middle, & in between verbiage is used quite a lot. The in between is the space between the "mundane" and the magical. In traditional/folk craft, the middle/in between are very prevalent. The stang is used to represent the witch father/horn god/bucca/etc. There is talk of the light betwixt the horns, which again represents the liminal space between the "mundane" and the "magical" worlds.

I have already preformed the first of "The Devils Dozen" rights and have been visited four times by the witch father. I first encountered hi during the invoking ritual. He didn't say anything directly but I could feel his presence and he was pleased with the the offerings I gave him. Directly after the ritual, I walked into my mud room and a horned figure was stood out my door that I just caught a glimpse of before turning on the light. I, naturally, was startled and shut the light off again but the figure was gone. However, I knew it was him.

The next encounter I had, was while i was doing chores around my home and suddenly was overcome by a heavy energy that scared me and swore I saw another figure on the corner of my eye while alone. However, I pulled out my tarot card and pendulum as calmly as I could and was given a pretty clear message from the witch father to continue my studies because I had been neglecting them. I believe he may have been irritated with me but he was pleased by reaction to his presence and deducing his message promptly. How do I know this? you may ask, well.... I cant really explain it. Its just a feeling, the energy suddenly lightened and the witch father's presence left shortly after the energy shifted.

There were two more encounters, one that happened right after the first rite and one that happened recently but I prefer to keep those to myself for now. However, I will say, that both these encounters happened while i was BETWIXT a sleeping and awake state. They were full deep energy that felt as though the air was electrified and warm. It was very surreal and the feeling itself was both intense and amazing.

The fact that, the in between keeps showing up in my life and the recent visit from the witch father, leads me to believe that I am not only on the right track, but a big break through is immanent. Even before writing this post, a phrase entered my thoughts. This phrase was "Comme Ci, Comme ca". This phrase is French for so-so or neither good nor bad. This can be seen as, yet another representation of the in between. As above, so bellow. I'll post some photos bellow of that show some representations of what I've spoke about here. Things are truly getting interesting.

[monstersinmysheets]

@monstersandmaw

Nel gearing up with Edmund and Locryn like

[oldonesorceress]

Who's the Lady in White? How do you work with Her?

[rookily]

A digital painting of the Cornish entity Bucca for @pysksos

[wolverinesorcery]

11: What deity do you think your taste in music best represents, regardless of who you worship?

this has been sat in my inbox for a while and I honestly have no idea for all of my taste. I cannot think of a deity that'd enjoy techno/breakcore/etc, but with my folk music I can sure see Bucca or similar nature-based deities. I am biased to think that japanese jazz - especially Hako Yamasaki, suits babalon + similar delightful women of the night types

[thedansemacabres]

there truly is something to people looking at the Bucca and taking Gemma Gary’s book at face value and running with it in their practices without ever being able to place Kernow on a map.

[coldalbion]

It's also worth noting that Bottrell, in his Traditions and Hearth Stories of West Cornwall writes of the consequences of not leaving offerings via his recounting of the rhyming warnings of these spirits who variously led miners to good veins of tin, and latterly were said to “knock” to warn of mine collapse “Tom Trevorrow! Tom Trevorrow! Leave some of thy fuggan for Bucca, Or bad luck to thee, to-morrow!” When the miner Trevorrow, who had previously yelled at said spirits to be quiet, refuses to share, they declaim: “Tommy Trevorrow, Tommy Trevorrow! We’ll send thee bad luck to-morrow, Thou old curmudgeon, to eat all thy fuggan And not leave a didjan for Bucca!”

Further, from Evans-Wentz, one his sources says: "But this fairy, or troll, was supposed to date back to the time of the Phoenicians. He was described as a little old pleasant-faced man dressed in a tight-fitting leathern jerkin, with a hood on his head, who lived invisible in the rock. Whenever he chose to do so he could make himself visible. When I was a boy it was said that he spent his time voyaging from here to Tyre on the galleys which carried the tin; and, also, that he assisted in the building of Solomon’s Temple. Sometimes he was called “the Wandering One”, or “Odin the Wanderer”. My old nurse, Betty Grancan, used to say that you could call up the troll at the [Newlyn] Tolcarne if while there you held in your hand three dried leaves, one of the ash, one of the oak, and one of the thorn, and pronounced an incantation or charm. Betty would never tell me the words of the charm, because she said I was too much of a sceptic. The words of such a Cornish charm had to pass from one believer to another, through a woman to a man, and from a man to a woman, and thus alternately."

Historic links and alliances between Danes and the Cornish against the Saxons were a thing also.

Hey I’m interested in the ins and outs of the Bucca but to be entirely honest I can’t make heads or tails of much of the literature around them. Is Bucca Dhu the same as Odin and is the Grand Bucca the same as Baphomet? Sorry if I sound a little rude.

Hello there.

You don’t sound rude, however, that is more complex of a question to answer than it may initially seem. For, you see, much of the information out there on Bucca is, in fact, quite varied. As such, it can be confusing to sift through for many people.

It would seem, from what I can tell, that your main points of reference when it comes to the figure of Bucca are the writings of Gemma Gary, so I’m going to start by trying to answer your question, framed in the context of the Craft as practiced by Gary and the coven of ‘Ros an Bucca.’ However, I feel compelled to follow that up with some broader historical/folkloric information on this mysterious spirit since, as I mentioned before, it seems like a lot of people are curious and confused when it comes to him. So without further ado, here is my impromptu essay…

Bucca & His Role in the Modern Craft

In many iterations and interpretations of the occultic arts, often categorized loosely as ‘modern traditional witchcraft,’ a deific figure frequently called 'The Horned One'—amongst innumerable similar titles—is regarded as the principal Witching God of a given tradition, as well as the chief initiator of the Cunning Flame itself. It is a commonly embraced belief within most currents of practice that tend to fall under this banner of ‘traditional witchcraft,’ that in Old Britain, the god of rural witches was often referred to as 'Devil'. It is ostensibly for this reason that this is still the case for many traditionally based practitioners in the surrounding areas, including the Crafters of Cornwall.

The Devil of the modern traditional witchcraft is, of course, rarely equated directly with Satan as he is depicted in Abrahamic faiths, but is instead regarded, as Gemma Gary puts it,

“an old chthonic folk-god of the land mysteries and seasonal changes (particularly the Autumn and Winter months), weather (particularly storms), death mysteries and the unseen forces and gnosis of use to witchcraft.” She likewise states that “To traditional witches and Cunning folk in Cornwall, in particular the Penwith region, the old Horned One is known as Bucca, and in West Devon as Buckie.” (‘Traditional Witchcraft: A Cornish Book of Ways’, pg. 77, by Gemma Gary)

One aspect of the Bucca found in Cornish lore, and embraced within the paradigm of Gary’s practice, is that he emanates into the dichotomy of ‘Bucca Gwidder’ and ‘Bucca Dhu’—otherwise known the ‘White God’ and the ‘Black God.’ Bucca Dhu is generally seen as the Devil of the previously discussed rural British folk-belief, and is associated with storms, darkness, and the winter months. Conversely, Bucca Gwidder is generally associated with fair weather, light, and the summer months. As is the case in many other, similar spiritual paradigms, Bucca Gwidder and Bucca Dhu dualistically embody the opposing forces of nature. They are intimately tied to one another, with one always giving rise to the other in an infinite cycle of death and rebirth. What’s more, while I can’t seem to find historical evidence for it at this point, Gemma Gary and the coven of Ros an Bucca venerate a mystic triplicity as well, in the form of a ‘conjoined’ Bucca, known as ‘Bucca Gam’, or the ‘Grand Bucca’. This union of opposing forces is said to result in the embodiment of an ‘Androgyne of the Wise’, a concept which mirrors the attainment of the Alchemical Magnum Opus—also called the Rebis (‘Double Matter’), or ‘Divine Hermaphrodite’—which was frequently identified with the attainment of complete wisdom. According to Gary,

“The Grand Bucca and the great Horned Androgyne, the Sabbatic Goat and Goddess-God of the witch-way. For some the Grand Bucca is simply referred to as Bucca, being the whole, with the two opposing aspects of that whole being given the distinction of Bucca Gwidder and Bucca Dhu. In Bucca we find the resolving of all opposites, the traditional candle betwixt the horns symbolising the light of All-Wisdom', and the mystic state of "One-pointedness' which is the ultimate goal of the witch and is the light that illumines the Cunning Path.” (‘Traditional Witchcraft: A Cornish Book of Ways’, pg. 84, by Gemma Gary)

Regarding the connections between Bucca Gam and Baphomet, I think it largely comes down to the fact that it’s relatively rare for modern occult practices to acknowledge deities who are explicitly intersex, with the best-known example of the Divine Androgyne being Baphomet—a being invented by Crusaders in order to demonize the Knights Templar, and then eventually taken up and popularized by occultist Eliphas Levi.

Now, when it comes to the question of syncretic connections between Bucca and Odin/Woden, it primarily comes down to their roles within the concept of the Wild Hunt. As many people know, the Wild Hunt is an important folkloric motif, which describes the shepherding of a ghostly procession across the sky by a powerful mythic figure; in the Germanic world, the leader of this convoy was commonly identified with Odin. Within much of the known Celtic lore, this phantom band was attended and directed by great spectral hounds, known by a wide variety of names. In Cornwall, the Wild Hunt is generally associated with folkloric figures known as the ‘Devil’s Dandy Dogs,’ also called ‘Dando’s Dogs,’ however, it may also be associated with Bucca. As Gary put it,

“On dark and cold nights of winter, Bucca Dhu is also described as riding a great black horse with blazing red eyes and smoky breath. Such lore surrounding Bucca Dhu is cognate with the widespread folk traditions of the Devil and Odin/Woden, as leaders of the Wild Hunt, which in British tradition runs along the Abbot's Way towards Cornwall; the last stop en route to the Otherworld.”

I am yet to come across anything in the folkloric record that matches these particular details, however, it would seem that there is some traditional connection there. For instance, Bucca does demonstrate characteristics of the Wild Hunt in certain versions of the classic Cornish play “Duffy and the Devil” (sometimes called “Duffy and the Bucca”.) This link to Odin is further cemented by the fact that Bucca Dhu is demonstrably connected to the Devil in Cornwall, and the Devil is sometimes said to lead the Wild Hunt, creating an archetypal framework within which both Odin and Bucca fit.

Now for the historical/folkloric background I promised…

According to most relevant sources, Bucca was traditionally described as a form of male Sea Spirit who inhabited coastal communities and their mines during storms—often in the form of a sort of hobgoblin. Many agree that the origins of the Bucca likely relate to faery beings such as the Pwca, Púca, and Puck of Welsh, Irish, and English folklore, respectively, though he also seems to share characteristics with the mermaids of Welsh and Breton mythology—known variably as Morgens, Morgans, or Mari-Morgans.

In one folktale, loosely known as ‘The Sea Bucca of Lamorna’, Bucca was a lonely creature who had once been a human prince, before being cursed by a witch. He was described as having the dark brown skin of a conger eel and a mass of seaweed for hair, as well as a penchant for swimming in the open waves, sitting among the rocks, and/or resting in hidden sea caverns. He was fond of children and assisted the Lamorna fishermen by driving fish and crabs into their nets and pots, but he was capable of terrible retribution, so they generally kept their distance, but left a part of their catch on the beach in order to mollify him.

However, it’s clear that many accounts on the matter clearly speak of the Bucca as more than simply a faery, or sea creature. As Cornish folklorist William Bottrell put it in his 1870 work ‘Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall’

“It is uncertain whether Bucka can be regarded as one of the fairy tribe; Old people, within my remembrance, spoke of a Bucka Gwidden and a Bucka Dhu – by the former they meant good spirit, and by the latter an evil one, now known as Bucka boo.”

In keeping with Bottrell's account of the Bucca , a number of folkloric sources make note of Bucca’s manifold nature, referencing the existence of a ‘Bucca Gwydden/Gwydder’ (White Bucca) and ‘Bucca Dhu’ (Black Bucca). Each of these accounts agrees upon the respective benevolent and malevolent natures of these incarnations, though it’s interesting to note that there are considerably more reports of Bucca Dhu, or ‘Bucca Boo,’ than there are of Bucca Gwydder.

A 19th Century author on Cornish antiquities, named Rev W. S. Lach-Szyrma, proposed Bucca to be the cultural remnant of an ancient pagan Marine Deity once worshiped in the area, such as the British Nodens or the Irish Nechtans. While claims such as these are primarily conjecture, folkloric records do make note of food being left out on the beaches of the region as votive offerings. In the 19th century, for instance, there were reports of fishermen venerating Bucca with offerings of fish, which were left for the enigmatic Wight upon the shores of multiple local beaches. One of these beaches, particularly well known for its use as a site of propitiation, was located near the Cornish town of Newlyn, known formerly as Park an Grouse (Cornish for 'the field of the cross',) where a stone cross was said to once have stood.

These accounts, in turn, bear a certain resemblance to reports of offerings provided to the subterranean Knockers of the region, and as such, may signify some form of cultural continuity of pre-Christian Brythonic traditions. In keeping with this theme of the ‘Mine Faery’, it’s also worth noting that Bucca was sometimes described as a tin-mining spirit as well.

However, Bucca has additionally been historically associated with storms, and in particular, with the wind, which was said to carry his voice across the sea in parts of the West Country. In fact, in Penzance, it was once considered normal to refer to storms that came out of the Southwest as 'Bucca Calling.' For this reason, among others, it is possible that Bucca would have been more properly labeled a weather deity, as opposed to a deity of the sea itself—a distinction that Gemma Gary endorses enthusiastically in ‘A Cornish Book of Ways.’

In Jaqueline Simpson’s ‘A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology’, these marine, tempestuous, subterranean, and pastoral themes are tied together when it’s stated that

“In Cornwall, [Bucca] was ‘a spirit it was once thought necessary to propitiate’; fishermen, tin-miners, and harvesters would deliberately leave a few scraps of their food for him, and spill a few drops of beer.

Children were told to stop crying, or the bucca-boo would come and carry them off.

Some said there were two buccas, one white and kindly, the other black and dangerous.

Fishermen applied the name to a sea goblin of some sort, causing a 19th-century vicar [Lach-Szyrma] to refer to the bucca-boo as ‘the storm-god of the old Cornish’.”

The origins of Bucca’s association with the devil are murky, but they probably have something to do with the widespread equation of faeries with devils in early modern Britain. This doesn’t exactly account for the Bucca’s role as Witch-Father in traditionalist Cornish witchcraft, but those origins are also somewhat murky. It would seem that, at least on the historical record, this particular role was only truly appointed to Bucca around the time of Ros an Bucca’s formation. This isn’t to say, of course, that there weren’t a quiet few who venerated Bucca ongoingly in Cornwall, but given the inherently cultic nature of most covens, this simply isn’t verifiable. However, W.S. Lach-Szyrma’s assertions regarding Bucca as “storm god of the old Cornish” do make explicit reference to the ties between Bucca and the Devil, such as in his 1884 ‘Newlyn and its Piers,’ where he wrote that in the Middle Ages, Bucca was “represented as the Devil.” This syncretism is also briefly highlighted in Margaret Ann Courtney’s 1890 book ‘Cornish Feasts and Folk-lore’, when it’s explained that

“In the adjacent parish of Newlyn, a fishing village, the favourite resort of artists, a great deal of gossiping on summer evenings goes on around the small wells (here called peeths) [. . .] Opposite one of these wells, towering over St. Peter’s church, is a striking pile of rocks, “Tolcarn.” On the summit are some curious markings in the stones, which, when a child, I was told were the devil’s footprints; but the following legend, which I give on the authority of the Rev.W. S. Lach-Szyrma, Vicar of St. Peter’s, is quite new to me:—

‘The summit of the rock is reticulated with curious veins of elvan [quartz-porphyry], about which a quaint Cornish legend relates that the Bucca-boo, or storm-god of the old Cornish, once stole the fishermens’ net. Being pursued by Paul choir, who sang the Creed, he flew to the top of Paul hill and thence over the Coombe to Tolcarn, where he turned the nets into stone.’”

With all of these variable, sometimes even conflicting, accounts of who and what the Bucca is, it's really not a shock that many people find themselves feeling lost when it comes to understanding him, but I hope that this can help to elucidate the subject for some. Resources on the subject are sparse, but they do exist, and a fascinating patchwork of historical and modern perspectives begins to reveal itself if you look for it. Yet, like most things in life, his identity will continue to unfold, shift, and evolve over the years to come.

—

Art Credits (In Order of Appearance):

‘Traditional Witchcraft: A Cornish Book of Ways’ —Gemma Gary

‘Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie’ — Éliphas Lévi

Odin Woodcut by Gerhard Munthe (1849-1929)

‘Faeries’ — Brian Froud and Alan Lee

Internet Clipart — Unknown Artist

‘The History of Witches and Wizards’ (1720)

‘Robin Good-Fellow, His Mad Pranks and Merry Jests.’ (1639)

[wordstome]

“How did Price end up with three girls who aren’t triplets or twins?” This is how.

I think we’re done here.

[monstersandmaw]

Laces for a Lady - poly, m. shapeshifters x f. human romance story in the works

So... I may be sort of ready to start posting chapters of 'Laces for a Lady', which I teased a while ago, and which is currently undergoing a massive re-write. It's my polyamorous, slow-burn romance, set in the heyday of Cornish smuggling in the late 1780's, but with secretly supernatural/shape-shifter characters too. Think Poldark, but with fantasy elements....

It features: a sweet, shy selkie with a life-changing injury, a surly and initially hostile bucca (Cornish eel-related shapeshifting marine spirit known to help locals who leave offerings/treat him respectfully), a country gentleman's daughter from Sussex who's scandalously unmarried at twenty five (sarcasm), a delicate young widow in need of companionship and confidence, some smuggling, a storm, a near-death accident and some light heroism from our leading lady, multiple lgbt+ characters, a rather charged harvest festival dance and a contrastingly extravagant Christmas Ball in the city, a bit of angst, a degree of period-accurate homophobia, sexism, and prejudices, a spirited horse friend named Blackthorn, and finally some spice between our love interests.

Interested? If so, I'll post chapter one fairly shortly for you.

[wytchoftheways]

“The Witches Ride” by: Daniel Greiner

(Woodcut housed in the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic in Boscastle, Cornwall.)

[pysksos]

Bucca as one with dominion over moorlands is such a delicious idea. While Their home is the Sea and the Weather, Cornish moorlands are so interlinked with both of those it's impossible for Them to not also have their home there.

[devils-reign]

“WHY ARE YOU ENCOURAGING ME??”

“I DON’T KNOW.”

i love them so much your honour

[bucca2]

Shrike pt. 1 - words hung above but never would form

definition. male shrikes are known for their habit of catching insects and small vertebrates and impaling them on thorns

König x high school sweetheart reader

2nd person, gender neutral reader for now but reader is afab and referred to as a girl, reader is Austrian/has lived in Austria and speaks German for most of the story, romance, pining, friends to lovers, reader's nickname is Thorn, König's first name is Alexander

4.8k words

tw: bullying, brief mention of cheating and domestic abuse (not explicit, mentions of violence, and not done by König), mention of terrorism, suicidal thoughts

[NEXT]

based on this post by @ceilidho, who gave me permission to write this! many thanks <3

this post is dedicated to @papaver-decervicatus, who I am so proud of for finishing chapter 4 of her fic cat/mouse/den (which I highly recommend) and eating NO glass in the process. her headcanons for König have had a huge influence on me, and while there are some differences between julius and alexander, I absolutely must thank Caedis for her wonderful portrayal of König.

and of course, to @danibee33, for fueling my König brainrot. without you, I probably would not have returned to writing <33

disclaimer, I am not Austrian, I do not speak German, so if there's anything that needs correcting, please do reach out!

You admit, you’ve always had an affinity for protecting the weak.

When you were twelve, a bird slammed headlong into your bedroom window. The poor thing had avoided snapping its own neck but was certainly in no condition to fly. You’d bolted out of your childhood home to check on it, but by the time you arrived, a huge grey tomcat was prowling, sitting back on his haunches and ready to pounce. You generally liked cats, but this one was a mean old stray, and you’d always been frightened to go near him.

Without hesitation, you had shoved the cat aside, spitting and yowling, and taken the little bird into your hands.

It took a few days to nurse back to health, and you still remember the day you released it back into nature. It was worth the long scratch down your arm, pride swelling in your heart as it spread its wings and flew into a vivid blue sky. You remember it even now: a charming little gray bird, a streak of black coloring over its eyes. A shrike, your mother had identified it as.

People are no different than animals, sometimes. People can be cornered, battered, and bruised as well. You recognize the broken hunch of the bird you rescued in the boy sitting by himself at lunch time. His shoulders curl inwards with a desperate need to go unnoticed. You’ve seen him around: he’s not in any of your classes, but your classes always seem to end up in the same hallways, so you pass each other all the time.

He jumps a little as you slide into the seat next to him, shrinking away from you in a way that breaks your heart. “Hey.”

No response. You offer your name, but he seems reluctant to divulge his own.

“Is it okay if I sit here?”

He shrugs.

“Thanks. I don’t know anybody at this school, so it’s nice to have a friend.”

“…friend?” He has a nice voice, you think. Timid, but almost sweet.

“Well, if you’ll let me call you one.”

“…”

And so begins your friendship with König.

I was housed by your warmth Thus transformed By your grounded and giving And darkening scorn

You didn’t call him that in high school, of course. You wouldn’t know that name until much, much later. It takes a while to coax him out of his shell, cajoling him that you can’t call him “green-eyed boy” forever, to get his name.

“Alexander is a very good name,” you assure him, and he seems pleased. He’s still hesitant to speak to you at all, but that’s just fine by you. You’ve got plenty to talk about, anyway.

“You know, I read this book about Alexander the Great. There’s this crazy story about one of his battles at a city called Tyre. He was laying siege to it after a misunderstanding with their king…” you chatter on, unaware of the intense stare from the boy sitting next to you.

“…ordinarily, sieging an island is pretty difficult, but you won’t believe what he did,” you rattle on. “He—”

“He built his own bridge,” Alexander says, so quietly you almost don’t hear him at first. You look at him in surprise.

“Yes! You know this story already?”

“I read a lot about him.”

“Then why did you let me ramble on about it if you knew about it already?” You’re a little embarrassed, having felt proud of yourself for knowing niche facts about historical figures.

“I like listening to you talk.”

That shuts you up for a moment. Only for a moment though, before you start to laugh.

“What?” he asks, an edge creeping into his voice.

“Nothing! It’s just—usually people tell me the opposite,” you say. “People say I talk too much.”

“I don’t mind.” His eyes dart to your face before looking away again.

“That’s good to hear. But I hope you know this means you’re never getting rid of me now,” you tease, nudging him gently.

He doesn’t respond, but for a second, you could have sworn that a corner of his mouth had turned up into a smile.

Learning more about him is like trying to draw blood from a stone, but you do your best. He mentions sharing a room with a cousin. His oma makes the best comfort food. Sometimes his mother takes him into town to buy candy, but he has to hide it or his cousin will steal it. Not that he cares that much—he doesn’t have much of a sweet tooth, but his family doesn’t come from means, so it means a lot to him whenever his mother spares a few pennies to buy him a frivolity.

It's what he doesn’t say that tells you the most about him. The way he fidgets with his clothes when he’s nervous. The brief panic that shoots through him whenever you call his name before he relaxes when he realizes it’s just you. The way he shies away from people in the hallways, just to avoid any contact whatsoever.

The fact that he never talks about his father.

The way he curls into himself when he’s being bullied.

“You should be apologizing to me for being in my way right about now, freak,” Andreas taunts him. He’s knocked Alexander’s books to the ground, like some sort of cartoon caricature of a bully, and you’re fed up.

“Hey!” Without missing a beat, you slide yourself between Alexander and Andreas. You’ve recently hit a bit of a growth spurt, so you note with a bit of smugness that you’re at least an inch or two taller than Andreas. You’re also quite a bit taller than Alexander, you realize. The two of you are usually sitting when you talk, so you’ve never really noticed.

“Leave him alone!” You stand your ground even as Andreas fixes you with a withering glare.

“Ah, so you’re gonna let your big strong girlfriend fight your fights now, is that it?” Andreas sneers. Alexander stiffens behind you, and you decide right then and there that you’ve had enough of this nonsense.

“You’re the last person who should be bringing up girlfriends, Andreas,” you say, staring him down with a look that you hope is sufficiently intimidating. “Everybody knows Yulia broke up with you because you can’t get it up.” You don’t know Yulia. You don’t give enough of a shit about Andreas to follow the gossip about him. But by the way his cheeks get ruddy, you know you’ve struck a nerve. The handful of spectators your little confrontation has attracted snicker.

“You little bitch,” he snarls. You hear the gasp of the students surrounding you before you feel it. You put a hand to your rapidly reddening cheek.

The little twerp had slapped you.

“That’s what you get for getting in my way,” he says, with a smug little look that you want to wipe off his face.

You’re not a violent person. And honestly, you could have been expelled for what happens next. But you cast a quick glimpse behind you at Alexander on the ground, and something about the look in his eyes reminds you of that bird you rescued, and a quick and hot anger rises in you.

You punch Andreas.

With no wind-up, no warning, you break his nose, and he drops like a rock, howling and clutching at the blood pouring from his nostrils. A sick little giggle comes out of you as you watch, drowned out by the uproar of your little audience.

“What on earth is going on here?!” You hear a teacher roar, and the crowd quickly begins to scatter. Without hesitation, you pull Alexander up and escape before you can be subjected to the consequences of your actions.

“Boy, am I glad he didn’t put up more of a fight,” you say gleefully, high on adrenaline. “That could have gotten quite ugly.”

“I didn’t know you had that in you,” Alexander says when the two of you have gotten far away enough. The way he looks at you now is a little different—almost reverent.

“I didn’t know either!” you say. “I’ve never done that before!”

“Who knew such a pretty rose had such sharp thorns?” he mumbles to himself. Your eyes zip to him, and even he looks surprised at the words coming out of his mouth.

“A pretty rose?” you tease, nudging him on the arm. He flushes pink and turns away, but there’s a bit of a lopsided half-smile on his lips.

You’re not sure why, but the sight of it makes your skin tingle.

The first few years of high school are relatively uneventful outside of skirmishes with Alexander’s various tormentors. Your biggest regret is that you can’t always be there for him—sometimes you have to spend your free periods catching up on readings or speaking with teachers. But you’re always there for him afterwards, poison in your voice as you hatch plans to make his bullies’ lives miserable. The plans never go anywhere, but thinking about retribution always seems to make him perk up a little. And really, that’s all that matters to you.

It's silly, how long it took you to realize how much of a fixture he was in your life. There’s a street corner a few blocks from the school you always meet him at so the two of you can walk the rest of the way together. The few times you share classes, you’re always sitting together, exchanging notes and quietly judging your classmates together. And you always, always sit with him during lunch. Even when you start making other friends who surely would welcome you at their tables, you always return to the quiet green-eyed boy in the corner.

You tell yourself it’s because he’s lonely, and he needs the company. You tell yourself the rumors about the two of you are silly, the result of bored hormonal teenagers who can’t fathom being a genuine friend to someone of the opposite sex. You tell yourself it means nothing that your face feels warm whenever he smiles at you.

You never get the chance to figure out if it does mean anything. He gives you the bad news on the last day of classes before summer break.

“I…I see,” you say, trying to swallow past the lump in your throat. For once, you’re at a loss of what to say. His fingers twist around each other in his lap, the way they only do when he’s really anxious.

“Well, a fresh start is good, right?” You offer him a smile, but your heart’s not in it. Maybe you haven’t spent as much time with him as you used to back in first year—you’ve started to take more advanced classes, and you’ve been so swamped with homework and projects that sometimes hanging out with Alexander is put on the back burner. But you’d always taken comfort in knowing that he would always be there at mealtime. A steady presence in your life, as everything around you seems to be speeding towards a future you’re not quite ready for yet.

Now he’s leaving. You’d like to think your concern is for him—what’s to say his new school won’t also be rife with harassment? Will he be able to make new friends? Or will he be all alone at the lunch table again? But really, who are you trying to fool? The sudden heaviness in your chest is selfish. What are you going to do without him?

The roaring in your head stills as you feel his hand cover yours. You stare at it dumbly, unable to lift your head and look him in the eyes. Your gut feels like it’s flipping and twisting all over itself.

You lift your eyes to his. For one breathless, indescribable moment, you think he’s going to kiss you. You’re sure he’s going to kiss you. You lean closer to him, and you can feel his breath on your lips.

Your eyes slide shut.

A shout startles your eyes back open, and he jolts away from you. It’s your mother, calling that she’s here to pick you up. You let out a frustrated noise as you call back to her that you’re coming before turning back to him.

The moment is long gone, and your heart twinges with regret as he avoids meeting your gaze. “You’ll write to me, won’t you?” you say softly. “And we can still see each other?”

“Of course I will, rosethorn,” he says, with that shy little smile you love so much.

You don’t see him for another ten years.

I couldn't utter my love when it counted I couldn't whisper when you needed it shouted Ah, but I'm singing like a bird 'bout it now

It’s ironic, really. Saving birds. Saving boys. But the one person you can’t save is yourself.

Your life post-König is like the drop on a roller coaster, but with none of the thrill. High school flies by in a flurry of deadlines and mental breakdowns. It’s worth it when you get into a good university—at least, you thought so. In reality, there’s no work in Austria for someone with your degree. Your parents are older, well on their way towards retirement, so you find yourself unwilling to burden them. You’re lost, stuck, and so very alone.

And then you meet him.

Tall, handsome, a little older, with a blossoming career. In hindsight, how much of a perfect package he presented himself as was the earliest red flag. But when you’re young and behind on rent, anything better than that feels like a miracle.

You know better, really. You knew it the whole time. Getting married after knowing each other for 2 months isn’t as bad as it could be, but it’s still too quick for your comfort. But the eviction notice was on your door, and he was a perfect gentleman. What could go wrong, right?

Everything. He at least has the decency to keep up the façade for another month, but that’s the only credit you’ll ever give the man you’ve shackled yourself to. It becomes increasingly obvious that he only married you to have a live-in maid while he philanders around as he pleases. You try, oh god do you try, for five long, fruitless years. God, it’s so silly when you think about it. You liked him so much, it took you so long to realize he had never liked you in the first place. He’d scooped up the first desperate college grad he’d found, and thinking about it makes you want to hide from everyone you know.

Which you do: hiding from what few friends you do have, hiding from your parents, hiding from the part of your brain that screams that you’re wasting the best years of your life cleaning up after a grown man who won’t even touch you, much less fuck you. Your 20s are for drinking, one-night stands, and figuring out what the fuck the rest of your life is going to look like. There is plenty of drinking, but the rest of it, not so much.

You’re going to divorce him, you tell yourself in year six. Once you get a job, you’re out. But you’re no fresh grad anymore, and the 6-year gap in your resume isn’t helping matters. You spot a glimpse of light at the end of the tunnel when he tells you you’re moving: his company is offering him a higher paid position, and it’s in a bustling downtown area. Plenty of opportunity for you, right?

That’s when he starts hitting you.

You’re away from your parents, your friends, your home. You took English classes, but that won’t exactly help you in this equally European foreign country whose language you don’t speak. Now that you’re approaching your 30s, your husband seems to be rapidly realizing that his youth is also disappearing. His new job is more stressful, and most days he has no outlet for it other than taking it out on you.

Now you long for the days when he didn’t come home until you’d already fallen asleep.

And then the terror attacks begin, and your once-bustling city shuts down. More isolation. Even less hope. You stay at home all day, torn between hoping someone will get rid of your husband for you and the abject terror of being left all alone in a foreign country torn apart by violent partisans.

That’s when the despair really sets in: you’ve wasted over a decade in this awful, dead-end relationship. Sure, you’ve got a roof over your head and food in your stomach: you should feel grateful. But you don’t.

You start hoping the attacks will take you out instead.

I fled to the city with so much discounted Ah, but I'm flying like a bird to you now Back to the hedgerows where bodies are mounted

“There are mercenaries in town.”

You look up from your breakfast, lost in thought thinking about all the errands you have to run today. “Yeah?”

“About time we stopped relying on our corrupt fucking military,” he grumbles. “Maybe they’ll end this goddamn conflict once and for all.”

You don’t have much to say about that. What does it matter to you, anyway? The only conflict that matters to you lives at home, and you stopped trying to fight it a long time ago.

“The curfew’s a pain in the ass, though. You behave yourself, you hear me?” His sharp glare reminds you that he’s not saying this out of a concern for your safety: if you make trouble for him, you’ll pay for it later. You nod mutely.

Your morning goes by relatively uneventfully. You do the dishes, stare at the wall, sigh, stare at the wall some more. As much of a prison as this apartment is, you like it decently well when he’s not in it. Going outside and seeing the ravages of war all around you is anxiety-inducing. But you can’t put off buying groceries anymore.

The arrival of the mercenaries makes itself immediately apparent. The streets are somehow even emptier, and what people there are on the streets move quickly and cast suspicious glances at everyone else.

You were hoping not to interact with anybody, but your hopes are dashed when you see a checkpoint ahead, manned by soldiers in unfamiliar uniforms. Although most of them are wearing different gear, they still look more orderly and well-kept than the country’s own military. Murder must pay well.

You look around nervously, but there’s no alternate route here, and nobody local going through with you. You strongly consider going home, but you’d just have to do this all over again tomorrow.

You steel yourself with a deep breath.

“Identification?”

You show the mercenary your ID with trembling fingers, gripping your bag tightly and praying he doesn’t find your nervousness suspicious.

“Where are you headed?”

“Just—just down the street,” you say, wincing at your heavy German accent. Years upon years of living here and you still sound like a foreigner. “Getting food.” You’re so anxious you forget the word for “groceries” for a moment. You only know enough of the local language to get by, and you’re sure you must sound like a kindergartener.

The soldier raises an eyebrow at you. “You are German?”

“I…Austrian,” you answer hesitantly. Oh God, you hope there’s no issue with that. You’re not so much afraid of being detained as you are of getting home too late to make dinner.

“Interesting.” The soldier hands back your ID. “Our commander is Austrian, as well.”

You perk up a little bit at that. You’ve met a handful of German-speakers here, but not a single one of your countrymen.

Well. Aside from the one who came here with you.

“He should actually be arriving here any moment now. Big guy in a hood. You can’t miss him. They call him König.” As if on cue, a military grade vehicle pulls up to the checkpoint, military personnel stepping out. And then…

Your blood runs cold.

Nothing, nothing could have prepared you for the sight of the beast that steps out of the car. Even from a short distance, you can tell he’s a colossal size. Two metres tall, easily, wearing a dark hood that reminds you of a medieval executioner. And as if that weren’t intimidating enough, two red trails, like bloody tears, are bleached under his eyes. His eyes, which must have some sort of black paint around them, giving him the impression of being two eyes staring out at you from the pitch blackness of the hood.

Two piercing green eyes.

Trained directly on your face.

Staring in disbelief.

“I…need to return home. I’ve forgotten something.” All worries about appearing suspicious fly out the window as the enormous man in the hood hesitates for a moment before making his way towards you with alarming speed.

You all but fly back down the street, making a beeline for your building. Just a few moments ago, you were excited to meet the man. Now, the image of his eyes staring into yours fills you with a fear you can’t describe.

The next day you take a long detour to avoid the checkpoint. It’ll take you twice as long to get home this time, but it’s worth it. You can’t put the shopping off another day: the brand-new bruise on your arm throbs as a reminder. And you certainly don’t want to run into the hooded soldier again.

You get your shopping done without much fanfare. The old lady cashier, who usually looks at you from over her glasses with the stern look you’ve seen a lot of people around here level at foreigners, even pressed a piece of candy from behind the register into your hand. You’re pretty sure it’s just because she wanted to get rid of it, but it does wonders for your mood.

You’re busy plotting when to enjoy your little treat when you turn a corner and freeze.

He’s here. He’s there, standing in an alleyway near your building. Somehow even larger than you remember him yesterday, still wearing that awful hood.

Does he know where you live? You curse yourself for running straight home yesterday. He must have seen the direction you went in—or did he follow you? You attempt to quietly retreat and take another route home, but your shoe scuffs a paving stone. And like a hawk spotting its prey, his head darts towards you.

You book it.

“Wait!” calls a deep voice. Tears spring to your eyes as you hear heavy footsteps pursuing you. What have you done to deserve this? You’re no criminal. Your only crime is being a naïve dumbass in your twenties.

Your arm burns as you turn corner after corner, not bothering to take note of where you’re going. It’s no use, though: you can hear him gaining on you. Fuck, is this it? You can’t even fathom what he wants you for, and you don’t want to think about it either—

“Rosethorn!” You come to a screeching halt.

There’s only one person who has ever called you that.

You turn around, chest heaving with exertion, as the hooded soldier—König, the soldier said his name was—comes into view, approaching you slowly.

“It’s me,” he says, holding his hands out like he’s approaching a wounded animal. You’re not really sure what the point is, considering the gigantic knife he’s got strapped to his thigh is intimidating all on its own, but somehow it still puts you at ease.

“Alex...?” you whisper, hardly daring to believe it.

“Yes,” he says. His posture has changed from when you saw him at the checkpoint. He’s hunching over, trying to make himself smaller. It reminds you of that first day when you sat next to him at lunch.

It’s him.

You instantly drop all your bags and cling to him in a hug, tears spilling from your eyes. He’s so different: most obviously, he's so tall. He must have hit some growth spurt after he moved away, because he towers over you now. You can feel under all the gear that he’s put on serious muscle—not surprising for a soldier, of course. And when his arms fold themselves over you, you’re filled with a sense of safety you haven’t felt in a long time.

“What are you doing here?” you both ask at the same time. A giggle bubbles out of you as you watch his eyes crinkle in an obvious smile. God, his eyes are so green.

“I’m stationed here because of the conflict,” he says. “But what are you doing here? I contacted your parents, and they said you had moved here, but they didn’t say why.”

You’re not surprised. You’re still in contact with your parents, but you don’t talk about the elephant in your home. You know they would have helped you, if only you had asked for it, but you never have.

“I…it’s complicated,” you say, withdrawing from the hug. You stare at the ground, brushing away the wetness in your eyes.

“I have nothing urgent right now,” he says, staring at you intently.

You swallow past the lump in your throat. “I…got married,” you whisper.

Instantly, his body language changes, stiffening in shock. He takes a half-step away from you, which makes you want to cry all over again. This is awful. This is humiliating. You wish you could go back in time and shake some sense into yourself.

“I see,” he says in a strangled voice. “Congratulations.”

Despite your best efforts, the tears spill over again. “No, not congratulations,” you say. “It—”

It was the worst mistake of your life, you want to say, but you just can’t get the words out. He must notice you beginning to quake with fear, because he raises a hand to touch you gently on the arm—right on the bruise.

His stare hardens as he watches you flinch. “Rosethorn, what’s the matter?”

Everything, you want to say. I’m standing in an alleyway with my childhood crush, shaking like a leaf because a monster lives in my house, and I can’t get away from him.

With a feather-like touch surprising for a man with such large hands—he grew so much— he goes to push up your sleeve. You catch a glimpse of the bruise before you have to turn away again, shuddering. It’s ugly: black and green, and very clearly shaped like a human grip.

“I…bumped into a shelf,” you say lamely. You can’t bring yourself to rope him into your troubles. He’s a soldier now, for Pete’s sake. He has bigger problems.

You can’t read his expression due to the hood—but there’s a blazing anger in his eyes you remember all too well. The quiet fury you often saw in him so many years ago.

He must see in your expression that you don’t want to be questioned about it right now, and thankfully, he relents. With an ease in his movement that must stem from some newfound confidence, he reaches over and picks up your bags for you. “Let me carry these for you.”

It’s nice, to be taken care of for once.

Your mad dash took both of you quite far away from your building, so you have enough time for quite a nice little chat. You tell him about your time in university, he tells you what happened to him after he moved away. He’d jumped at the chance to enlist as soon as he turned 17, on the recommendation of an uncle who had spent time in the military. You laugh when he tells you that they wouldn’t let him be a sniper, a pout in his tone. You could have imagined him as a sniper back in high school, but he’s so large now it’s impossible not to notice him.

“The discipline was good for me,” he recounts. “I needed to grow a spine.”

“Don’t say that. You were just trying to get by in school, like everybody else.”

He shrugs. “I wanted to be like you.”

“Like me?” You ask incredulously.

“My rose with thorns,” he says, with a fondness that makes you blush. “Do you remember that day you punched that punk Andreas?”

“How could I forget? My fist hurt for days,” you say with a grin. “But I didn’t regret it for a second.”

He looks down at you—that’s new—with pride in his eyes. “I thought about you that day all throughout training,” he says. “You were my guardian angel.”

Your cheeks grow even warmer, and you feel like a teenager again. How can he still make you feel this way so easily after all this time? “He had a punchable face,” you say dismissively. “If not me, then it would have been someone else.”

You’re almost disappointed to arrive home. Only yesterday, home was your sanctuary. Now, it means being separated from the one person you trust fully in this country. You turn to him, almost bashful. “This is where I live."

He sets the bags down like they’re made of fine china, and he’s standing so close you almost stop breathing. The air is charged, the same way it felt that night when you almost kissed. You watch him as he watches you.

“Can I see you again?” he asks, breaking the silence.

“Of course,” you say, and the sparkle in his eye dazzles you.

You watch him leave until you can’t see him anymore. And for once, you enter your home with a light heart.

Remember me, love When I'm reborn As the shrike to your sharp And glorious thorn

if you'd like to be added to the taglist, just drop a reply! feedback is always appreciated, and my inbox is open, so please feel free to drop me an ask! I will 100% write little scenarios/headcanons about this couple because I have so many thoughts and ideas for them lol

I anticipate about 2-3 parts for this, maybe with König pov in the next part? he doesn't come across this way in this part, because it's from Thorn's perspective, but he is a very nasty boy indeed. also, I know putting lyrics in the middle of a fic is so passé, but I can't help myself. it's hozier! indulge me. also this isn't beta read so I really hope it doesn't suck