#mere moments b4 provoking my evil sister so that she “kills” me LOL

[bloodtwin]

@accultant ⸻ CONTINUED FROM HERE.

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HE’S LIVID. he hasn’t felt any emotion so intensely in ages. certainly not that one, never that one. he does his best to avoid it, yet it always seems to rear its ugly head at the worst of times. 

he was about to fix everything. he was about to make everything right again. he’d only been giving himself one last look in the mirror ( trying to see if that little boy was still in there, somewhere. if he was, puck couldn’t find him. those eyes were as dead as the last time he checked ) then he was yanked through the glass, dragged through time & space, life flashing before his eyes before he could take it himself. he thought it was a punishment at first. 

he knows, he’d thought. of course he knows ; how could he possibly not know ？  but that wasn’t what it was. he emerged on the other side, greeted not by the confines of a coffin, but wood flooring & dust. lots of dust. old furniture, forgotten trinkets, boxes upon boxes. some kind of attic. 

puck turns back to the mirror &, thinking himself alone, allows his rage to consume him. he repeatedly beats the glass until his knuckles bleed, yet it never cracks. blood smears over his frustrated reflection. briefly, he wonders if this is some sort of prank iago’s set up, but it’s not quite their style. there’d be a punchline, a note attached to the corner of the mirror with some stupid pun about- about . . . he’s too pissed off to think one.  

he kicks the glass. ❝ gods damn you, you wretched thing, where have you taken ⸻ ！❞

his ear twitches. someone is watching him. he had been wrong earlier ( odd, for he is never wrong ) ; he was not alone, after all. he doesn’t need to turn around to know exactly where they are. behind him, to the left. they’re small. young ？a girl, maybe. a little girl, no older than eight if he had to guess. her tiny heart pitter-patters with adrenaline, yet he smells no fear. if anything, she only smells familiar , somehow. 

❝ playing hide & seek, are we ？❞ his question is met with silence, so he starts to walk about the room. mostly to get a grasp on his surroundings, for he already knows the girl hides inside that armoire over there. one of the doors is cracked open for her to spy. while he looks around, he makes a show of peeking around corners, sifting through curtains & shadows, looking perplexed for the hells of it. from the armoire, there is a faint giggle. puck suppresses a smile. silly. 

there’s a hatch in the floor nearby. he’s in an attic, he’s sure, but not one necessarily for a home. he thinks it may be storage for some kind of shop. antiques, maybe ？magical items, certainly. why would a mirror drag him all the way here ？

. . . and where is here, exactly ？is he even in baldur’s gate anymore ？he could be anywhere.

❝ you’re quite sneaky, you know, ❞ he says, finally making his way to the armoire. after a pause, for dramatic effect, he pulls it open. there, as he thought he would find, sits a little girl with black bangs covering her eyes, hair parted into two braids draped over either shoulder. well, one braid draped over her left shoulder; the other, she chews in her mouth. her face looks familiar.

perhaps it was seeing him up-close that signaled her to the danger she was in. maybe it was the intensity of his eyes, or the lifelessness lurking behind them. whatever it was, she realized he was not a friend to play games with. ( ah, puck thinks, that is the smell of fear i expected. ) braid falling from her mouth, the girl gasps. her hands fly to close the doors on herself, panic flooding her eyes. her heart sounds like the beat of a drum in his ears.

she’s stronger than he expected from an eight-year-old, but that means very little in comparison to himself. the doors don’t budge with the handles still in his grasp. bad instinct, he thinks distantly, to corner herself like this. a predator would have eaten her by now. she is lucky that he means her no harm at the moment. 

❝ no, no, ❞ he chides, voice dry as he resists an eye roll. ❝ that’s not how the game works. i found you. now, you owe me a favor. ❞ that’s not how hide & seek works, either. ❝ where ⸻ ？ ❞

muffled voices from below. a pair of feet  ⸻ no, several pairs ⸻ climb a ladder, the voices approaching closer & closer. they’re heated & frantic. 

( ❛ it was just a prank ！i- thistle said it was like one of those funhouse mirrors  ！she tricked me & mom ！❜, ❛ don’t blame this on your cousin, dandelion ⸻ ❜, ❛ I’M NOT ⸻ ！！！❜ )

mirror ？dandelion ？sudden anxiety grips him. he lets go of the armoire & dives into the shadows, turning invisible in the darkness. the hatch swings open. 

a boy crawls out first. about twelve or so, scrawny, pale. dark, unkempt hair, lazily tied up in a tangled ponytail. he reeks of death, & mischief. at the moment, however, he looks rather embarrassed.

then another figure emerges, and puck’s blood runs cold. no, that can’t be right. their hair is too short. they’re- they’re old ！his heart hammers against his chest. he has to keep himself still, almost stops breathing in order to do so. don’t do anything yet. none of this makes sense. 

the little girl wiggles her way out of the armoire, then. scuttles up to- no. no, that just can’t be- there’s no way that’s ⸻

❝ auntie iago, there’s a scary man in here ！❞

. . . AUNTIE IAGO ？！