#i keep trying not to brainrot about trolls on main

[gracethefoundfamilyfan]

in case you don't live forever by ben platt is so branch coded the urge to write fanfic is killing me rn

like he knows poppy wont live forever and he's not gonna lie to himself that she might get hurt or die, and his arc is literally just him saying 'screw it, living well is better than living safe' and choosing to love her anyway and aghhhhhhhh

[nitewrighter]

Gency #15

15. “Is that blood?”

11. “Don’t touch me.”

Doing the Illidan/Sugarplum AU because someone *glances in mirror* has Cruel Prince brainrot. No thoughts head empty only fae.

Also you can read my previous Illidan/Sugarplum gency fic here.

(Also I know I said I’d keep the prompts for these under 1k words but... it’s been a week since I’ve had a full keyboard so...)

----

Good respectable Seelie knew to keep out of the goblin market. The string of torn-off wings hanging like grisly prayer flags between the two glittering black stalagmites that marked the market’s main gate was more than enough of a ‘keep out’ sign. Mercy, however, was not exactly what you’d call a good respectable seelie, and she appreciated variety when it came to shopping. She was completely covered by a hooded cloak that shifted in purple, green, and gray, like a glaucous-dusted unripe plum. Her face, half-covered by an aubergine scarf over her nose and mouth, was glamoured to have slitted eyes and fish-like scales. Just a Jenny Greenteeth out running errands, nothing to see here, she thought as she walked among the crowd. The Unseelie realm had its own sort of charm--between the glow of mushrooms and stall lanterns, and the complex ripples of crystal-veined karst that formed the grand cathedral of the vast cave chamber, there was an undeniable beauty to the market.

A very unique beauty, thought Mercy, watching as a troll at a food stall roasted whole toads on a skewer over a purple flame before handing a toad-kebab over to a scrawny little púca. She knew she didn’t have long between how much effort it took for her to maintain her glamour, but all the same she could have spent centuries down there just looking around stalls. There were flashing baubles, potion-makers tents with rows of multicolored glass bottles glowing in their back shelves, Tomtus running what were essentially human junk swap meets, and one large stall which prominently featured a wyrm’s skull hanging over the counter and rows of cages that growled and rattled with all sorts of captured creatures. She heard a tinny ringing and glanced down to see a teal and violet butterfly-like pixie trapped inside a lantern on the counter, banging a tiny fist on the interior of the glass in a panic. Her breath went short and instinctively she picked the lantern up.

“Oi! Hands off the merchandise!” a goblin with yellow-orange eyes and spiky white hair suddenly slammed his clawed hands down on the stall’s counter, making her almost drop the lantern before the goblin snatched the lantern away from her. 

“No touchin’ ‘less yer payin’ for it,” said the massive bugbear next to the goblin. 

“Ah--yes, of course, paying for her--It,” said Mercy, looking at the lantern.

“Yep!” said the goblin, giving the lantern a demonstrative shake, much to the distress of the pixie inside it, “Jamison and Roadie, at your service! In this stall you’ll find only the finest specimens from the Seelie, Unseelie, and mortal realms! This little gnat in particular can provide light for hundreds of years, or makes a handy poultice when mashed up. Or you can smoke her over a fire till it gets all dried up and then you can use the powder in poisons, portals, you name it. You just gotta be careful and set the proper wards though--no doubt this thing would poof out of here right quick if it weren’t in the lantern. Me, personally, I just snap ‘em like a bean pod and suck out all the squishy bits.”

“And you can pick yer teeth with them skinny little arms afterwards,” the bugbear, apparently named ‘Roadie’ added.

A cold shudder went down Mercy’s spine but she managed an appreciative “Mm!”

“But tragically this is the last one in stock,” said Jamison the goblin.

“Ain’t easy grabbin’ seelie creatures,” said Roadie.

 “So we can only accept your best offer,” said Jamison.

“...best offer...” said Mercy, feeling at the pockets of her robes. She pulled out delicate clover-like sprigs from the interior of her cloak, “Well so long as we’re trading in seelie goods, I stole this from one of the gardens of their fancy manors.”

“Mm?” Jamison leaned close to the vine.

“It’s raskovnik,” said Mercy, “It can unlock any lock--human or fae made, and it has healing properties.”

Mercy knew producing a plant like that with no sunlight would definitely put a dent in how much time she could keep her glamour up, but she couldn’t just leave that pixie.

“Fake,” said Jamison, turning up his nose.

“...I assure you it is most certainly real seelie-grown raskovnik,” said Mercy.

“Pah! We know Seelie plants, and we know fakes! You’ll have to do better than that, swamp-breath,” said Jamison, waving her off.

Mercy’s pointed ear twitched with frustration under her hood. She knew they were only calling it fake to get her desperate, to get her to offer more. “Perhaps we could come to some sort of arrangement,” she said, “You said getting things from the Seelie realm wasn’t easy, perhaps I can---” she was cut off as a purple skinned figure with large curling horns suddenly elbowed her aside, “Hey!” she protested but then she looked up and she recognized the glowing green eyes and the long, wild, jet-black hair of an old acquaintance.

 Genji? He looked bigger here than in the mortal realm--she wasn’t sure if that was an intimidation tactic for the goblin market or if it was a reflection of him being closer to unseelie magic but he towered nearly a head and a half over her now, even taller with the horns. He carried something bloodied wrapped in tarp on his shoulder and slammed it down unceremoniously on the counter. Mercy saw spikes sticking through holes in the tarp.

“Well look what the cat sith dragged in!” said Jamison.

Genji didn’t notice her--and why should he, covered up and glamoured as she was? He huffed and leaned one hand on the counter.

“I got you your tarasque. Where’s my payment?” he said

“Oi, oi, patience now,” said Jamison, unwrapping the tarp to reveal a scaled and whiskered face, “hm...” he then pulled off the rest of the tarp to reveal a spiky turtle shell and a scorpion-like tail. Mercy drew back at the sight. Despite their rather frightening appearance, tarasques were noble, gentle creatures--aside from occasionally eating the odd human here and there, but nobody’s perfect. She cast a cold look at Genji, who had folded his arms as Jamison the goblin looked over the creature’s corpse.

“Hmmm nope,” said Jamison, “This thing’s practically unusable..”

“What do you mean ‘unusable?!’” Genji’s black hair flared with fury, “I left the shell perfectly intact as requested!”

“Unusable,” said Roadie.

 “It took me weeks to track this thing down and days to kill it! You said you’d give me the dragon fang if I brought you a tarasque, and here it is!” 

“Feh!” Jamison thumbed his nose, “We can give you some mortal realm human teeth and viper fangs for the meat and your trouble, but that carcass ain’t worth a dragon fang.”

“Cheat!” Genji slammed his other hand down on the counter so hard the lantern with the pixie in it rattled.

Both the goblin and the bugbear looked at Genji with fury. 

“You callin’ us cheats?” said Roadie, cracking his knuckles.

“In our own shop?” said Jamison.

“You heard me,” said Genji, gritting his pointed teeth.

“Um--so about the pixie--” Mercy started.

“Give me the dragon fang and I’ll take it ba--” Genji started before the bugbear punched him in the face. The force of the blow sent him flying and Mercy winced as he smacked into the cave wall with a large rumble that sent dust and water drippings down from the ceiling.

“Piss and vinegar, Roadie! You trying to start a cave-in!?” said Jamison, throwing his hands up over his head. 

“Oh no...” Mercy moved to run over to the section of cave wall Genji had just been thrown into but Genji launched himself out of the crater in the wall with a cry, unseelie magic flickering off of him in green flames. Mercy only managed to barely stumble out of the way before he crashed hard through the counter of the stall. Mercy watched as Genji broke into a full-on brawl with the two shopkeepers, and then glanced around the goblin market to see if anyone was going to step in and try to stop the fight, but no one did.

Well... I suppose that’s the Unseelie realm for you, thought Mercy. She gave a glance to the pixie lantern, still resting on a somehow-miraculously untouched section of the counter. She made eye contact with the pixie in the lantern, then winked, letting the glamour slip off of one eye to reveal its true lilac color. The pixie nearly cried out with joy before slapping her tiny hands over her own mouth. Mercy let the glamour slip back over her eye, then pointed to one of the voluminous sleeves of her cloak. The little butterfly-like pixie nodded. Slowly, gently, not taking her eyes off of the fight between Genji and the two shopkeepers, like a cat that doesn’t break eye-contact as it pushes your glass of water off a table, Mercy sent the lantern off the edge of the counter. 

The shatter of the lantern’s glass couldn’t be heard over the swearing and the crackling sounds of magic and the sound of blows landing, and the pixie burst out from among the glass shards and quickly zipped into the sleeve of Mercy’s cloak to hide. She then looked back to Genji fighting off the shopkeepers. 

“I can get us out of here,” the pixie whispered in her ear.

“Wait--we can’t leave him,” said Mercy as Genji managed to kick Jamison in the face while being restrained by Roadie.

“Can’t leave him? He’s Unseelie!” the pixie piped up.

“Just give me a second,” said Mercy.

 By now Genji had managed to knock out the goblin, but was struggling in the crushing grip of the bugbear. She looked around for something, anything to try and break Genji. Her eyes flicked to bone white at the side of the stand and her eyes widened. The wyrm skull decorating the stand was now hanging loosely to the side, suspended by only one chord.

Roadie felt a polite tap on his shoulder and glanced over, still gripping a swearing and cursing Genji, and he saw the cloaked woman who had been inquiring about the pixie lantern.

“Come back later,” he said, “We’re bus--”

She clocked him across the face with the stall’s large decorative wyrm skill and the skull shattered, sending teeth and shards of bone everywhere. The bugbear’s arms loosened from the blow and Genji tumbled to the floor of the stall, but then the bugbear, not particularly injured by the blow, turned and loomed over her.  

“Shouldn’t’ve done that,” said Roadie.

“...Ah,” said Mercy. She let a defensive spell bloom in one hand but knew if she used too much magic, she’d lose her glamour, and then it would be all over, but then Genji stepped in front of her, brandishing one of the fangs from the wyrm skull.

“I’m not finished with you,” he said.

“Genji--” her hand went out and touched his shoulder, “Don’t---”

“How do you know my--” Genji started but suddenly the little pixie fluttered out of Mercy’s sleeve.

“You didn’t pay for that--” Roadie started but the pixie zipped around her and Genji with a trail of pink dust making a circle in the air around the both of them. The trail of dust flared outward in bright bursts of teal and magenta suddenly it felt as if the ground fell away beneath them--nothing but vivid colors surrounding them both, and then they dropped to the ground. 

“Oof!” Mercy rubbed her butt and looked around. They were still surrounded by the glowing mushrooms and stalactites of the Unseelie realm, but they were up on a high shelf of rock. She looked out over the shelf of rock and saw the goblin market glimmering below. 

“Ooohh,” the pixie she had freed was fluttering around haphazardly with exhaustion, “My head hurts...”

“...you got us out of there,” said Mercy, holding her hands up and letting the pixie flop into her open palms.

“If I were just transporting me and you, we’d be back in the Seelie realm...” muttered the pixie.

“You did wonderfully,” said Mercy, planting a kiss on top of the pixie’s head. Her puckered lips were pretty much the size of the pixie’s head so this prompted a snicker out of her.

Genji grunted next to her and Mercy and the pixie glanced over.

“Can I ask why we brought him?” said the pixie.

“Well, I wouldn’t have been able to get you out of there if he hadn’t caused a distraction,” said Mercy, leaning over him. Genji grunted and winced where he was laying and Mercy’s eyes widened with alarm as she gently set the pixie on her shoulder. Sparkling green ichor was shining on the stone beneath him.

“You’re bleeding--” she started, reaching a hand out toward him.

“Don’t touch me!” he swung the fang out at her and she brought her hands up in an ‘I mean no harm’ gesture.

“How did you know my name? What are you after? My horns? My eyes?” he held the fang at her.

“Genji--” she pulled the hood back and scarf down and shrugged off her glamour, letting her emerald green hair and lilac eyes shine at him. His expression shifted from fierce to shocked.

“You,” he lowered the fang, “From the Mortal Realm.”

“You remember me,” she smiled.

“You leave an impression...” he muttered, moving to sit up but then wincing, “I see you’re still wandering where you have no business.”

“As my folk are wont to do,” she said with a smile.

“You shouldn’t be here,” his voice was hoarse, “They’ll rip your wings off.”

“I can handle myself.”

“Oh I’m sure you were definitely going to handle yourself with that bugbear,” he scoffed.

“Like you were handling yourself?”

“I was doing just fi--ah--” he winced and his hand went over the wet green wound at his side.

“Let me see it,” said Mercy.

He gave her a defensive glare for a few seconds before warily scooting across the stone floor to her and bringing his clawed hand away from his side. The pixie perched on Mercy’s shoulder as Mercy pulled her raskovnik from earlier out of a pocket on her cloak.

“It’s usually best for opening locks, but there’s enough magic here for it to make a decent poultice,” said Mercy, crushing the raskovnik between her hands with a yellow glow, before opening them again to reveal a glowing yellow-green mash. She pressed it to the wound and Genji snarled with the sting before relaxing a little.

“Seems like a terrible wound to get over one tooth...” the pixie murmured.

“I’d rather get stabbed than end up in a jar,” said Genji, side-eying the pixie.

“Hey!” said the pixie.

“When we first met you seemed like the dignified warrior type,” said Mercy, still pressing the poultice on his wound, “I wouldn’t have taken you for one who’d slay tarasques...much less someone who’d sell their carcasses to folk like that.”

“Ah, so I’m not like the ‘other’ Unseelie?” said Genji, arching an eyebrow at her.

She huffed. “I know the Unseelie have their nobles, and I can smell nobility from a mile away. I wonder what great shadowy estate you’re truant from...”

Genji glanced off silent, practically pouting.

“You don’t have to tell me which one,” said Mercy, “But I know you’re far from common. So, why the goblin market, and why a fang?”

Genji sighed. “I needed to repair my sword, and only a dragon fang could do...but I needed to do it quietly. If my brother found out I broke an ancestral sword...”

“Ah family drama...” said Mercy, “That’s one thing both our realms have in common.”

“You have a bloody family too, I take it?” said Genji.

“In a sense,” Mercy’s smile was hollow.

Genji looked out over the goblin market. “What were you down there for?”

“Same reason you were in the mortal realm,” said Mercy, “It’s forbidden and I’m curious.” She glanced at the pixie on her shoulder, apparently busying herself amidst the conversation by braiding a loose strand of Mercy’s hair, “And then it turned into a rescue mission.”

“I rescued you,” said the Pixie.

“...after I got you out of that lantern,” said Mercy.

The pixie shuddered. “I don’t know why any Seelie in their right mind would willingly be down there...” she said, tying off the braid, “But I’m glad you were.”

“She’s not in her right mind,” said Genji, “If anything, she might be more trouble to you than the goblins were.”

It was Mercy’s turn to shoot a glare at him, but he just gave her a smirk.

“Still... I probably wouldn’t have been able to get out of there with this if it weren’t for you,” said Genji, looking at the wyrm fang in his hand, “So...thank you.”

“...thank you for helping me get our new friend out of there,” said Mercy, glancing down to the pixie.

“It doesn’t count if I didn’t mean to do it,” said Genji. He pushed up to his feet, only flinching a little from his injury, the poultice wouldn’t take long to heal it completely, “I can walk you two to the mouth of the mound,” he said, “That can be my thanks.” 

“Are you sure you can--” Mercy started.

“I can heal from this,” said Genji, already walking, “You can’t get your wings back if a goblin rips them off, and your little friend is in no shape to portal you again. We need to get moving.”

Mercy huffed and then glanced down at the pixie on her shoulder. “He really is nicer than this,” she said, getting up to her feet.

“I’m sure,” said the pixie, not a drop of belief in her voice as Mercy walked after him.

“But I can promise you he won’t eat you or pick his teeth with your bones or grind you into a powder,” said Mercy, “And I won’t either, Miss... um...”

“Oh!” the pixie leapt down from Mercy’s shoulder to Mercy’s palm and curtsied, letting her butterfly wings flounce behind her like a skirt, “Echo, 273rd in line for the throne of the Morpho Queendom. At your service.”

“Your majesty,” Mercy said with a nod. 

Echo gave a scoffing chuckle before settling in a seated position on Mercy’s palm, “As much majesty as 273rd means, I suppose. And do you have any titles we should know of?”

“None you need to know for now,” said Mercy.

Echo puzzled at Mercy’s emerald hair and the glassy leaf-horn-like ornaments at her temples for a few moments, they were the mark of a great house but which one, she could not recall. But at this point, the exhaustive relief of finally being out of that lantern and away from that market was washing over Echo. She settled in Mercy’s palm, sitting criss-cross. “I should like to know your family name so that I might properly thank you or have your estate rewarded,” she said, “But as any of the Folk you are entitled to your privacy.” 

“I appreciate that,” said Mercy.

“Though one can’t help but be curious at the company you keep,” said Echo, before giving a glance over her shoulder at Genji and a sly grin. “So... a night in the mortal realm, huh?”

Mercy huffed and glanced off, setting Echo back on her shoulder. “It was nothing.”

“Mm-hmm,” said Echo, watching as Genji walked on ahead.