#festervese

[tysonrunningfox]

WHO WANTS MORE ARVELIA OH IT’S ME AND I WROTE THIS YEARS AGO AND IT’S HERE AND IMMA CRY

The rest of the AU

“We agreed!”  The chief shouts from the main doorway of the forge and Eret snarls, pulling himself up to his full height and inflating.  He’s bigger than the chief, not by much, but it’s there and Arvid wonders if either of them has noticed it yet.  

“You declared, we never agreed,” Eret roars, louder than Arvid has ever heard him and Aurelia steps forward towards the shouting match like someone cued her.  

“It’s funny, dad, just because he’s your precious, long-lost son doesn’t mean he’s going to follow everything you say!”  Her voice is too large, ludicrous coming from her tiny frame and Arvid is glad for the drama keeping anyone from catching him staring.  

“No,” Eret whirls on her, voice low and deadly, another tone Arvid has never heard.  “I don’t need you fighting for me, I—” back to the chief, jaw set forward, reminding me so painfully of Mom.  “This isn’t a fight at all, I’m doing it.  You can’t stop me,” he shoves past the chief and out the door and Aurelia stares at her father, jaw twitching.  

“Well, aren’t you going to chase after him?”  She laughs, moving too much and tossing twitching hands wide.  “Aren’t you going to track him down?  You can’t let him tell Astrid you were mean and lose the part of the family that you care about.”   

“Aurelia!”  The chief’s voice breaks across her name and she narrows her eyes.  

The stare down lasts a strong ten count before the chief glances at the slammed door behind him.  

“Go get him,” she turns away and leans on the worktable, shoulders trembling.  

The chief leaves.  

“I never go anywhere,” Aurelia mutters to herself, and Arvid doubts he’d hear her if he weren’t watching her so closely, so mysteriously attuned to the distressed expression sweeping across her features.  

It’s too quiet, each of her too labored breaths louder than it should be.  The wind whistles outside, a few disembodied snowflakes drifting through the slats in the wall.  

“Aren’t you leaving too?”  She turns to Arvid, face set into a stern mask even as her eyes glisten strangely in the waning firelight.  “I’m sure you have someone to brag to.  Shouldn’t you go tell your sad, old dad just how horrible the chief is?”  

A tear leaks down her cheek and she ignores it, stuffing her hands into her pockets as her shoulders start to shake, a rattling shiver that has nothing to do with cold.  

“Are you alright?”  

“Like you give a shit,” she wipes away the next tears that fall, fussing with a pot of leather scraps on the counter.  

He doesn’t notice how much he cares until she accuses him otherwise and he steps towards her, his hand hovering an arms’ length away from her shoulder.  Eret was always the hugger of the family.  Even though he’s too old and far too bony, he’s—he was always wrapping Arvid and Ingrid into group hugs and holding them there until the back of Arvid’s neck started to burn with unseen stares.  

Aurelia bites back a sob and it breaks whatever manly cool Arvid has left as he steps forward and drags her into his chest.  She weighs nothing, like she’s hollow, and his first touch scoots her an inch across the dirt floor.  He flinches back, oddly scared he could have hurt her, but if she noticed the contact, she doesn’t show it.  Her shoulders shake as he finally tugs her in, and she presses her face into his chest and sobs, impossibly hot air sifting through his clothes and raising goosebumps on his skin.  

He holds her shoulders awkwardly, unsure of where to put his hands as hers clamp around his back.  She smells like soot and singed hair and something sweet and sad and lovely and he rests his arm against her shoulders, one hand stroking slowly, uneasily at the back of her head.  

“Uh, there there—”

“I’m not a baby,” she snaps, the words waterlogged and slow, and she’s probably ruining his shirt.  He’s horrible at laundry, and he hugs her closer anyway, “and I’m not crying, I’m just…”

“Leaking,” he starts rocking slowly on the balls of his feet, feeling ridiculous and natural at the same time.  

“How…” she pauses to sniff, her bare back expanding against the weight of his arm, “how is it that Arvid Hofferson is the only person not being an asshole to me?”  

“Eret will apologize.  He’s…aren’t you the one always telling me I’m too hard on him.”  He strokes her hair, “he’ll come through.  I’ll—I’ll hold him to it.”  

And he will, even if it means talking to the pompous ass traitor.  

“And my dad is just an asshole,” she says it too quietly, lips rasping over the damp wool of his shirt as her hands flit against his front, wiping her face.  

“I’m not going to argue with you there.”  He doesn’t know where to look as she squirms from his grip and steps back, fidgeting with that perpetually short skirt and her shirt’s slightly too long sleeves.  

“It…it makes me want to disappear.  Not permanently or anything, just—like Eret does.”  She combs her fingers through her hair and rebraids it like a nervous tick, like something genuinely horrible will befall her if she stops moving, even for a second.  “He leaves with Bang for an hour and when he comes back, everything is better and…”

She trails off and shrugs, staring between her tiny feet and an ambiguous spot above Arvid’s head.  

“Eret isn’t the only one capable of disappearing,” he holds his hand out to her and she looks at it like she’s never seen anything so bizarre.  “Come on, my dragon has heated seats.”  

“Does that actually work?”  She laughs, and the sound is a weight off of his chest.  “Are girls really that gullible?”  

“I’m really that handsome.”  

“I used to think so,” she catches him off guard with the honesty, a few glossy tears still clinging to her eyelashes and his hand drops to bounce off of his leg.  “And then you were so shitty to Eret, and you were such an ass…and then?  Then you started stalking me.”  

“My timing was horrible.”  

“I’m afraid of heights.  And I don’t really like dragons.”  

“You aren’t your father at all,” he shakes his head and looks towards the door, half-expecting the chief to appear in the doorway, for Eret to barge in and need their help.  

“You say that like it’s a compliment.”