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weirdowithaquill · 5 days ago

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Traintober 2024: Day 31 - Dusk

Tidmouth Train to Hell:

Pip and Emma stared at the timetable, not quite sure what to make of it. “Why is there a massive gap?” Pip finally said, still trying to wrap her head around the odd space from dusk until the next day. “Oh, that’s a Halloween tradition,” replied Bear, looking over from his own train. “Every Halloween they put us all away early for some reason. Never quite understood why, but each to their own and all that!” Pip scoffed, while Emma looked more bemused than anything.

The High-Speed diesels were still new to Sodor, and had only been once before, on trial during the summer period. This was their first October on the Island of Sodor, and all month they’d been amazed to find that the engines were far more interested in the holiday and its various traditions than the mainland was. Particularly, it was extremely popular amongst the native Sudrian people, who had been performing several rituals and festivals since the start of the month.

Emma had been far more curious about the whole thing than her sister, and decided to ask one of the older engines, in hope of getting some information. “Well,” hummed Percy, “it’s a Gaelic thing. Sauin, I believe the Sudrians call it. It’s like Samhain up in Scotland, and is all about the end of the harvest season. I remember how much Sir Topham the First put emphasis on listening to the local Sudrians about how important the rituals and festivals were. For example, at the start of the month is the cleansing ritual; it’s a bit like a spring clean, but in autumn. It used to be when the men would go out and start chopping wood for winter according to Edward.” At that moment, the signal clunked up to show green, and Percy puffed away.

Pip snorted from her end of the train. “Asking about all these silly holidays again?” she asked. “They’re not silly!” protested Emma. “They’re—” “An excuse to get more days off work,” finished Pip crossly. “Now come on, we’ve got a train to pull.”

Pip and Emma ran the WildNorWester express to London, stopping only at Crovan’s Gate, Barrow and Preston. It meant the two were often the most out of the loop on all the important gossip of the railway, as they were over on the mainland and missed it. One such titbit of gossip the pair missed was the track repairs being done at Crovan’s Gate. On their return run a week later, Pip and Emma were stopped at the platform to wait while several old signals and a set of points were replaced.

Their repair shed had recently been completed and stood on one side of the line while the narrow gauge railway sat on the other, the mainline trapped between the two and the Works. Pip and Emma had been switched onto the wrong side of the line to avoid a massive section of missing track. This put Emma right next to the Skarloey Railway sheds, where Duke was resting. “Excuse me,” Emma called. “You’ve been on Sodor for a long time, Duke – do you know much about Sau---een?” “Sauin,” corrected Duke kindly. “And I certainly do. My old line used to run through the heart of old Sodor, so I learnt all about it.” “Not this again!” groaned Pip from the other end of the train. Duke and Emma ignored her.

“Sauin is a festival to celebrate the end of the harvest, the start of the winter season… and the point in time when the barrier between our world and the Otherworld is at its weakest. The month begins by preparing for winter and giving thanks to the sun, before pivoting to asking for protection from the winter gods and giving sacrifices to the ancestors as thanks for their guidance. Then, it ends with Sauin itself, which is better known as Halloween. People celebrate the wicked and supernatural, then stay indoors overnight with scriptures for protection painted on the doorway to ward off evil spirits. It’s said they begin to break out of the Otherworld at Dusk, and party in our world until midnight…” Duke broke off, looking contemplative. Emma wasn’t sure why, but she felt uneasy all of a sudden.

A group of people walked along the platform, offering blessings to the stranded passengers and burning incense. Pip refused to be blessed, and then the group made their way over to Emma and Duke.

“Ah, if you wouldn’t mind,” Duke said. A man stepped forward, painting a sigil on Duke’s forehead in red paint before waving the incense around him. Duke smiled warmly, his old eyes closing as he relaxed while the ritual was performed.

“Oooh, can you do me next please!” asked Emma. The group nodded. “Of course we can,” one said. “Explain it to Emma while you do,” Duke added. “She’s new, and this is her first Sauin.” The man stepped forwards, dipping his thumb in some more paint.

“Alright then Emma, I’m going to paint a sigil for protection on your forehead in Ancient Sudric, and then we’ll bless you with the incense.” A few of the more curious tourists wandered over to watch, intrigued by the ritual. The man painted the sigil in careful strokes on Emma’s forehead, and then several of the others walked around her as much as they could, waving the incense over her radiator grills and wheels.

“Thank you!” said Emma happily when they finished. “I… I actually feel better already.” “You should,” hummed Duke. “It’s a popular Ancient Sudrian tradition to get blessed prior to Sauin night – just in case you’re caught out after dusk.”

Pip just rolled her eyes down at her end of the train.

Emma asked a few more questions while they waited, before finally deciding to broach a topic she’d been unsure of since she’d begun asking around about Sauin. “Why is the timetable completely empty on Sauin night?” she asked. Duke frowned. “I said everyone stays inside, so why would anyone want to take the train?” “What about tourists, or goods?” quizzed Emma. “This is Sodor – there’s always another reason.” “You’re… not wrong,” sighed Duke. “Every Halloween, a train runs from the Rolling Bridge to Tidmouth. It’s on no timetable, and has no schedule. Some engines assert it leaves at dusk, while others suggest it crosses the island in the blink of an eye. What is known about this train is that it arrives at Tidmouth at exactly midnight… and continues on through the buffers.” “Through the buffers?!” squeaked Emma. “What, do they crash the train on purpose?” “Oh no,” sighed Duke. “It’s a train to the Otherworld – though some of the workers call it the ‘Tidmouth Train to Hell’. It’s pure black from one end to the other, and absolutely no one is allowed to set eyes on it.”

“What happens if someone does?” asked Emma, spooked. Duke sighed. “Well – a man was walking along the line in ’37 when he saw it. He was found a gibbering wreck on the trackside, white as a ghost and shivering like mad. He spent the rest of his life in a mental asylum, poor chap.”

Emma winced; at that moment, the signal turned green, and the two High-Speed twins were cleared to go. The passengers hurried back aboard, and the twins set off.

“It’s poppycock,” sniffed Pip as they rocketed along. “Ooooo, be afraid of ‘The Tidmouth Train to Hell’. Duke’s trying to have you on. I bet if you ask a sensible engine like Henry or Gordon they’ll tell you it never happened!”

Pip was proven very wrong. Emma decided to ask the pair that very night, and to Pip’s surprise they immediately confirmed Duke’s story.

“Oh, old Jefferies,” hummed Gordon. “Duke told you about him? I’m surprised he didn’t use one of the earlier cases – when I arrived, people still didn’t believe in it, and we’d find three or four every Halloween stumbling about the line screaming and gibbering and acting like lunatics. I remember very vividly Glynn going down the line and picking them all up in a compartment coach so they could be kept separate and brought to the hospital safely. By the end of the 20s, every had learnt better than to be out on Halloween. Sir Topham always ensured that we were in our sheds on that night too, and his son and grandson have both followed his example.”

Pip and Emma were both stunned!

“So… it’s real?” asked Emma slowly. “It’s very real,” Henry said grimly. “I’ve seen a peek of it through the shed windows. It’s a frightening thing, let me tell you! All black, with great red headlamps and it’s puffs sound like screams. We all stay in here and tell ghost stories and try not to think about it. And I’d suggest you do the same – I know you’ve got the last train of the day. Do not be late getting here.”

Emma agreed that she definitely was going to be on time, and even Pip seemed nervous.

The week went by, and the two new engines watched as more and more Sauin festivals were held. These were less and less about the harvest, and more and more about the oncoming winter and the spirits. A number of the native Sudrians and older engines began to have protection sigils painted on their foreheads when they went out; Duke was joined by Skarloey, Rheneas, Thomas, Edward, Henry and Gordon within a few days. Donald and Douglas, who’d learnt about Samhain back in Scotland, had their own sigils written in Scottish Gaelic. Duck and Oliver got their own Scottish sigils written in support of their friends.

All around them, Pip and Emma watched as Sodor prepared for Sauin night. Hotels filled to capacity, with large parades held celebrating the spirits in several of the bigger towns and cities.

And then finally, Halloween came. The day was incredibly slow, with barely any passengers at all riding with the railway. Pip and Emma wondered if it was worth pulling their train at all – at least, until they set out on their last express of the day. It was packed.

“Why are there so many?!” exclaimed Emma. “We’re going to be barely able to hold them all!” “It’s everyone heading to the mainland to avoid Sauin night,” James said, puffing in. “You’ll be hard pressed with this many – I think it’s cause there was a fog warning put out earlier; no one wants to be caught out past dusk with that in place. Spirits and fog? No thank you!”

James steamed away to shunt his coaches into their siding, while Pip and Emma prepared to head off. It was a struggle setting off. Every single seat was filled, and a number of others stood in the corridors, making the trip extremely difficult. Even more piled on at Crovan’s Gate, where almost all the Skarloey engines had already been hidden away in their shed. Emma watched the slowly descending sun with worry.

“If we get held up on the mainland even once, we’re not going to be back for dusk,” she fretted. “We’ll be fine,” replied Pip. “Worst comes to worst, we’re a little late. ‘The Tidmouth Train to Hell’ isn’t a threat to us.”

Oh how wrong Pip was.

The big sheds at Tidmouth were filling to capacity rapidly. The usual crowd had filed in, as had Edward, BoCo, Thomas, Percy, Toby and Daisy. The sheds were so full that the tank engines had to share a road between two of them; Duck and Oliver on one line and Percy and Toby on another. The scripts had been painted on the doors, and the storm shutters rolled down on the windows. Daisy huffed grumpily, glaring out at the yards as thick fog and mist wafted in. “I hate having to spend the night here, it’s so bad for my swerves!” “Oh belt up!” groaned Thomas. “It’s better than being out there – no one wants to be out there.” “Speaking of out there, where are Pip and Emma?” asked Gordon. “Dusk is in half an hour, and they aren’t back.”

Edward, sat on the turntable, winced. “I heard they had a full train leaving Tidmouth. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve been waylaid. Let’s just hope the stationmaster at Barrow parks them there for the night.”

Pip and Emma would have no such luck. The pair were late leaving London and Preston, filled up once again with people wanting to get home for the holiday – but the platform at Barrow was deserted. The fog had truly begun to set in, leaving long shadows where none should be.

“You can’t stay here,” the stationmaster said grumpily. The sun was beginning to sink over the horizon. “There’s no space, and you’re not a Northern engine anyway. Go back to Sodor.”

Pip and Emma both tried to argue – but it was no use. At least the lack of passengers meant they didn’t need to wait around. The pair roared out of Barrow, trying their best to claw back time from the setting sun. Dusk was coming fast: too fast. The fog was willing it on faster, thick cloud cover blocking out part of the sun and making it increasingly harder to see.

Vicarstown flew by, followed by Henry’s tunnel and then Crovan’s Gate. Clear signals guided them through each station, the two honking their horns loudly. It was almost as if they were heralding the dusk, trying their best to make it back home before night came. Dark figures watched their progress from deep in the shadows, hiding where neither twin could really see them. “Faster Pip, faster!” called Emma. “I’m giving it all I can!” called back Pip.

Finally, Tidmouth came into view, one door still rolled up for them. Pip and Emma were quick to back through it, the door slamming down behind them just as the last rays of the sun vanished over the horizon, leaving behind only the fog.

“Cutting it close there,” said Gordon darkly. Both Pip and Emma winced. “We were held up on the mainland… a lot. And then the stationmaster at Barrow wouldn’t let us stay there.”

Gordon huffed. “Stupid man – he’s got no sense. Why, the other day!—”

He was cut off by James shushing him. The two shot glares at each other, before allowing Edward to pick up his story again.

The old engine wove stories throughout the next few hours, telling tales of twisted grins and haunting ghouls heralded by owls, of spirits sent to help and those sent to destroy. The engines relaxed, enjoying the night even as the hours ticked on. Pip and Emma could have fooled themselves into thinking it was just another horrible storm trapping all the engines in the shed.

That is, until a most horrific sound pierced through the air, shattering Edward’s story and leaving all the engines deathly silent. The clock showed a minute to midnight. The sound came again, a ghastly howling and screeching and moaning that seemed to work its way into the engines’ frames and bury itself there, leaving them all shaking. The doors and windows began to rattle and shake, as if hundreds of people were banging on them, trying to pry them open.

“Out after dusk!” they howled. “They were out after dusk!” Pip and Emma began to shake, terrified.

Another ear-piercing whistle filled the air, made of even more tortured howling and screeching. Then came the screams. As the engine thundered towards Tidmouth, each beat of its cylinders sounded like the screams of the damned. The entire shed seemed to shake, as the horrific banging and rattling continued.

“Out after dusk! Out after dusk! They belong to us! They belong to us!” Pip and Emma quivered, petrified. The other engines looked equally terrified – all except Edward. As the cacophony reached a peak, he took a deep breath.

“You are not welcome inside. We are protected. This shed has been blessed; these engines have been blessed. You are not welcome inside!”

“ONE HAS NOT!” boomed the creatures outside. Pip gasped – she had refused the blessing!

The engine grew nearer; time seemed to slow. Edward took a level breath, and spoke again.

“You are not welcome inside. We are protected. This shed has been blessed; these engines have been blessed. You are not welcome inside!”

“ONE HAS NOT!” came the furious reply. Before Edward could speak again, there was a horrendous roar and scream of whistles, brakes and steam – the Tidmouth Train to Hell had arrived. It roared past, it’s red lamps illuminating against the doors. The shed walls groaned, as if nearly at braking point. The windows rattled harder, dents being made it the metal. Daisy shrieked and fainted.

Thomas began praying under his breath in one language; the twins did the same in a different one. The train sped into the station, thundering towards the buffers. One dent slammed against the glass of the window next to Pip, cracking the glass. A gnarled nail pierced through the shutter.

“You are not welcome inside. We are protected. This shed has been blessed; these engines have been blessed. You are not welcome inside!” Edward thundered again, his eyes darting over to the shutter.

The train hit the buffers.

The creatures outside let out a chorus of tortured screams. They were in agony, ripping away from the sheds and howling in pain. The nail was torn from the shutter, giving Pip just enough space to see dark figures writhing on the ground.

The clock ticked over; a new day began. The creatures let out one last screech. The floor seemed to open up around them, hellflames licking up at the night fog and illuminating the entire night in a sea of blood red. The creatures screaming and screeched, dragged downwards and suffocated in the earth before they could be scorched alive by the flames.

And then there was silence.

“Oh…” managed Pip softly.

Everyone looked shaken. Edward sighed softly, and looked over at the twins. “The last time an engine was out after dusk and wasn’t blessed was in 1916, during the war,” he said quietly. “Thomas mightn’t remember it – but I do. It was a loaned engine who told us all that Sauin was stupid… that is, until the creatures of hell surrounded the sheds and began demanding we give him over. Glynn kept trying to keep them out, but he slipped up. The engine’s shed door was ripped open suddenly, and he was… dragged out. We never say what pulled him out – but whatever it was bent that door open like it was a tin can and shoved it back down afterwards. We all heard the loaned engine’s screams as it was given to the creatures and torn piece from piece…”

Edward paused, and gazed at the shed doors, looking wary.

“It’s said that engine became the Tidmouth Train to Hell, crossing the island and giving the spirits and creatures time to roam free before arriving in Tidmouth and condemning them all back to hell, to make sure none can inflict that fate on another.”

He finished his story and looked around the silent room. Daisy was still unconscious, and it was a miracle none of the others had followed. Everyone’s eyes were fixed on the dent shutter and cracked window, a stark warning of how close the creatures got.

No one slept that night.

And suffice to say, Pip and Emma were never late again on Sauin.

Back to the Master Post

#weirdowithaquill #fanfiction writer #railway series #thomas the tank engine #traintober #traintober 2024 #ttte pip and emma #ttte edward #ttte duke #ttte gordon #ttte henry #ttte percy #ghosts #evil creatures #tw low horror #prompt: dusk

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five-rivers · 1 year ago

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Stargazer, Moonweaver, Net

Hey, you. Yes, you. Have you ever wondered, hey, what would it look like if @five-rivers, @jackdaw-sprite, @seaglass-skies, @datawyrms, and @akela-nakamura all worked together on a fic for Phantasy Phest? No? Too specific? Well, if you had, it would look exactly like this fic here.

AO3 link

Tags: Lost Time, The portal accident, Phantasy Phest 2023, Alternate Universe - Modern Fantasy, Fairies, Blood Drinking, Moths, Clockwork has low opinions of the Fenton Parents, Transformation, Body Horror, Danny gets to say Fuck

Word Count: 11,197

Fic continues after cut.

"Ohno. Oh, no, no no nooooooo."

The stars were bright tonight.

Danny could even see them from where he was at the edge of a large clearing, where the trees stopped to wreathe the base of a hill.

Unusually, Danny didn't care.

"Nooooo," he said again under his breath.

Danny pushed at the net again. It reeked of garlic and sage the same way his parents’ nets always did, and the cord was rough and knobbly between his fingers. They must have woven this one with something extra.

He needed to get out. But with his flashlight fallen somewhere he could barely see the net or where it might end.

His flashlight. Where was his flashlight? Danny crouched, and began to grope at the ground around him. It couldn't have rolled too far, right?

The net folded up into his face, scratchy and unexpected. Danny flinched back but kept going, moving his hands in a circle. They met dead leaves and earth, and more than once he touched slimy and wet things he hoped were slugs.

He didn't find anything that felt like a flashlight.

"Heck," said Danny.

He sat down on the ground. The damp seeped into his pants but at this point that was a distant concern.

Maybe he could just find the edge of the net. It was a net. It had an edge. And his parents weren't always great at traps.

Danny pulled the net hand over hand in one direction and stopped when he felt something thicker cross over an arm.

He groped at it. It felt like the edge. Or an edge. One side didn't have all the net stuff. With mounting relief he followed it with his fingers–and discovered that it was attached to an opening only about large enough to slip a hand through.

There wasn't a tie that he could feel.

He couldn't find any other holes in it.

The relief withered. He was caught, alone, in the dead of night, in one of his parents' stupid monster catching nets. Without a flashlight.

And his parents, at best, might find him in the morning.

"Heck," said Danny, again.

Then he remembered he was alone, deep in the woods in the middle of the night, and no one would hear him.

"Fuck."

If only, Danny thought a while later, he'd brought his pocket knife. Or literally any knife. Something sharp to cut through the ropes.

None of the rocks he could reach had worked, though that was probably a little because he still couldn't see much of anything. It was really hard to wear through rope when you were doing it with a rock, blind. And through a net.

He was cold. His butt was colder from sitting in the leaves earlier. He kind of wanted to do it again, as a measure of his suffering. He wanted to be home, dry, and warm even more.

Maybe he could just wait for morning. Maybe his parents would know the trap had gone off, and come to check it. Maybe they'd check it anyway. They were the town crackpots for a reason. They didn't just believe in fictional creatures, they did so enthusiastically and with the kind of prejudice that made them set net traps in the woods. For one of their own innocent children to get caught in when he was only trying to stargaze on a clear night before school started in a few weeks. See some constellations, spot a few meteors, maybe a handful of planets, that kind of thing.

Never mind that he’d maybe snuck out. Because he knew they’d freak out about him going into the woods alone. Because they believed in faeries.

Gosh, he hoped this didn't get back to Dash.

At least the stars were bright tonight.

He sighed and looked up, eyes automatically picking out familiar constellations. The Big Dipper was easiest, although finding the rest of Ursa Major was less familiar. All seven stars of Ursa Minor were easily visible, which again highlighted how good the seeing was. Then there were the other circumpolars. Draco, Cepheus, Cassiopeia… He could see the V of Andromeda, where it blended with Pegasus, and he could almost convince himself that–

An owl - he thought it was an owl - hooted somewhere nearby. He jumped, which had the side effect of reminding him that, yes, he was still in a net. He rubbed his shoulders and neck where they’d been rammed into the net. Straining against rope shouldn’t have felt like running into a wall, but he supposed he did have his weight on the bottom of it.

But he soon had other things to worry about than his parents’ irrational net design.

(Seriously, why was there enough room to stand up in this net? What were they even trying to catch? At first, he’d thought he could just walk away, back to town, even inside the net, but it was tied to something. Maybe one of the trees?)

Sounds started to rise up from all around the clearing. First the high-pitched chirr of crickets, then croaking, buzzing, and chirping. Small noises, from small things.

But with those small noises, Danny started to notice rustling and creaking and– Was that a dog howling or a wolf? Were there even any wolves here? He remembered a unit in science last year where the teacher talked about wolves going extinct in some states.

The stars were bright tonight. The woods around him? Not so much.

“People spend nights outside all the time,” he said out loud. The word probably would have been more impactful if they weren’t whispered. “All the time. People go camping and hiking and stuff for fun.” Never mind that they were usually more prepared to do so than Danny currently was. And that most of the time, they could decide to just leave and go home or get a hotel room if camping got to be too much for them. He continued, more loudly, “I just have to wait for morning. They’ll find me in the morning. And– and if they don’t, I’ll be able to see. I’ll be able to get myself out. I’ll be fine.”

If nothing ate him first.

No. No. That was– What out here could even eat him, anyway? Wolves, yeah, okay, but were there wolves? Still unclear. Bears? If there weren’t wolves, he doubted there were bears. He’d never heard of any bears out here, anyway. What else could eat a human who wasn’t, well, already dead? Cougars? That one school, a couple districts over, had a cougar for a mascot, didn’t they? That didn’t really mean anything, though. What else, what else… Feral pigs? Those were supposed to be invasive around here, weren’t they? Danny had kind of laughed at the idea of it in class, but, here, now, in the dark, was a different story.

He was pretty sure anything else was too small. So. Three things out of how many animals? Thousands? Yeah. Yeah, the odds of those three specific animals showing up to bother him were low. Yes. Nothing wrong with the math there. No siree.

(And the stuff his parents were worried about, the stuff they’d set this trap for, that stuff didn’t exist at all, so he didn’t have to worry about it. There were no werewolves, no chimerae, no hobgoblins, and definitely no fairies. Wasn’t even worth thinking about.)

A branch snapped. Then another.

He’d thought the owl was close, but this sounded closer. And those didn’t sound like small branches.

A deer? There definitely were deer here. Sam talked about deer resistant and repellent garden plants, sometimes. Deer could get big. Like, reindeer were huge, right?

It was dark under the trees, but by starlight alone Danny could still perceive a shadow moving among other shadows. Something tall. Something not shaped anything like a deer.

The shadow came closer.

Danny held his breath and shrunk down against the nearest tree. He couldn’t fight a bear. Not even when he wasn’t caught in a net.

"Hello."

"Hi," said Danny back, on autopilot.

Danny continued staring at the shadow for several more tense moments before it occurred to him that it had talked.

"Wait, you can talk?" Danny asked.

"It would appear so," said the shadow, and did not move. Now that Danny was looking and thinking rather than just freaking out, the shadow looked, well, pretty humanoid. Tall, sure, and wearing a long coat with a hood - or maybe a dress? And that could be long hair. Significantly less weird in the middle of the summer than a coat - but humanoid.

Human, he should say. Outside of, like, parrots, there weren’t a lot of other things that could talk. No matter what his parents said.

"Um. I'm a little stuck," said Danny.

"Really?" The shadow did not sound surprised.

"Can you, I don't know, cut the net loose? Please?"

The shadow hummed. "I think the more interesting question is why you're stuck in the first place. One does not frequently encounter those such as yourself in the woods so late at night."

Oh, wow. Danny could empathize with the curiosity. He really could. This was a weird situation to come across, and whoever this was, they must be just as confused as Danny. But he also really didn’t want to explain anything about this to a stranger. And he would really rather be out while talking to what was, yet again, a complete stranger.

… Humans were pretty dangerous themselves, come to think of it.

“Yeah, I guess not.” He swallowed. “Why are you out here, anyway?” Maybe he was being rude, but the shadow had asked first.

The shadow shifted, looking up. Starlight limned pale skin and a sharp, straight nose in shades of gray. “The stars. The sun is too bright during the day. It is easier to see them at night.”

“Oh,” said Danny. Maybe, hopefully, not a murderer, then. Just another person out stargazing. A weird person but… Danny didn’t exactly have room to talk. “Yeah. Me, too. Since the moon isn’t up and all. I just, uh, ran into this. Trap. Thing.” He tugged at the net. “And now I can’t get out.”

The shadow’s head tipped back down. “Can’t you?”

“I really can’t. I can’t even figure out how it’s tied on. Do you, like, have a flashlight or something?”

“I do not.”

“Not even, like, one on your phone?”

“No.” The shadow leaned forward, and might have held out a hand, but if they did, they didn’t touch anything that Danny could feel. “What a curious and terrible thing,” murmured the shadow. “What cruelty and carelessness, to leave it to trap the unwary.”

Danny winced. Yeah. Yeah, okay, it kind of was, and it was probably a small miracle that no one else had ever gotten trapped in one of these things.

That Danny knew of.

He pushed the thought of his parents absent-mindedly forgetting to check one of these traps, or only checking them once a week, out of his mind. His parents were crazy and kind of forgetful and… well, the point was, he would have heard if something had… happened.

They wouldn’t do that, anyway.

“Yeah. But, um. Even without the flashlight, please, help? Just, maybe if you could untie me, or if you have…” Did he really want this guy to have a knife? Not really. Still. “Something to cut with, maybe?”

“I cannot cut the net in which you find yourself.” The shadow shifted again. “However, I will stay with you until you are free.”

“Maybe if you tried some of the knots, you could get me out, though,” pointed out Danny.

“I have encountered ropes like this in the past. They do not agree with my skin.”

“What, like, you're allergic?” asked Danny.

“Something like that.”

Just his luck. He was found, but the person to find him was… incredibly strange. And not very useful. And had possibly run into his parents’ nets before and had a reaction to them.

“Okay. But maybe you could call for help? I mean, I know you said you don’t have a phone, but you could go get someone who can get me out?”

“Child,” said the shadow, with a touch of amusement, “there are things in these woods that would eat you whole. I am equipped to deal with them. You are not. It would be irresponsible of me to leave you while they wander.” They settled themselves nearby. “Besides, I can see the stars here as well as I could elsewhere in these woods.”

“Eat me?” squeaked Danny. He'd thought about bears earlier, but not, like, out loud. Talking about them out loud was different. He cleared his throat. “You mean like bears?”

“In some respects,” said the shadow, still amused.

"Okay, um." Danny really did not like confirmation that there were bears around. He could have gone without knowing that. Except he probably should know. Considering he was in a net.

The net.

Which the stranger somehow thought he'd be able to escape on his own?

"Hey, um. I have been trying to get out for a while," said Danny. "It hasn't been working. You're sure you can't do anything to help?"

"There is more than one kind of trap here."

Danny blinked.

Crap. That would be just like his parents, wouldn’t it? They couldn’t leave it at just one stupid trap in a public space, they have more. “Where?”

“You will not be able to see it from your perspective, but I have no doubt it would close were I to attempt to free you.”

“Great,” said Danny. He took in a shuddering breath. “Great. And you, what, think I’ll be able to avoid it on my own? When I can’t even see it? Or is this a ‘wait until morning’ thing?”

“You will, at least, be less liable to be eaten by wild animals at that point. And more able to untie knots with the light of day.”

Okay, yeah. Danny had been thinking both of those things as well, but with someone here, he’d hoped…

He rubbed his eyes, tiredly, and, to his absolute horror, his stomach rumbled.

��Are you hungry?” asked the shadow, as if Danny wasn’t already embarrassed enough.

Danny mumbled something indistinct. He had eaten. Just… The main course had… Well, some things were better left unsaid. The salad (courtesy of Jazz) had been okay, and so had the carrots. He’d felt full right after dinner. He had.

But, yeah. He was hungry. Dinner had been hours and hours ago at this point.

“I have food enough to share.”

“Uh,” said Danny. “Okay?”

Something moved under his nose, and he flinched. He hadn’t seen the shadow move.

“Um, I’m not sure I can…” He tried to wedge his fingers into one of the holes of the net. He’d lost track of the opening.

“They are small. They will fit. Hold out your hands.”

Danny, only a little skeptical, held out his hands. As promised, several round, slightly damp things, like largeish marbles, were dropped into them through the holes in the net.

“What are these?”

“Star jelly.”

“Like, from starfruit or something?” asked Danny, interested. He squished one between his fingers. It was springy, like a gummy. But still. Damp.

“Or something,” said the stranger.

“Why is it damp?”

“It hasn’t dried.”

Well. That was almost no information at all.

“But it’s edible?”

“I enjoy them regularly.”

Danny huffed slightly. This guy was weird. Again, that was the pot calling the kettle black, but Danny didn’t go around offering weird food to strangers.

No, he went around getting trapped in nets.

And he was hungry.

And it wasn’t like he hadn’t eaten weirder things. His parents could be creative.

Maybe he wasn’t supposed to accept food from strangers, but… This guy was his getting caught in a net buddy. And he had to admit, he was pretty mad at his parents right now. It’d serve them right, that Danny was eating someone else’s food.

Did that make sense? Maybe not. But it wasn’t like any of the stuff Sam or Jazz did made any sense, either.

Plus, it had ‘star’ in the name. He basically had to try out at least one.

He squished the smallest between his fingers one last time, then popped it in his mouth.

He chewed.

There was no burst of flavor. It tasted… pretty bland, actually. All the way through. But the texture was okay. Mostly. It was at least better than what had happened to the chicken fated for dinner.

So. Probably not poison.

(Although why anyone would bother to poison him when he was quite literally trapped in a net was beyond him.)

“I also have a variety of mushrooms.”

Who was this guy? The last hippie in Amity Park? A revolutionary war survivor?

“Do you have hardtack, too?” asked Danny, unable to help himself.

“I have biscuits.”

Oh thank goodness. Normal food.

“Can I have one?”

Something distinctly cracker-like was placed in his hand.

Danny didn’t even bother snarking, he just ate it. The texture was flaky, the flavor nutty and buttery and just salty enough to coat the whole of his tongue with flavor. He crunched into it again and the layers almost shattered between his teeth, then melted in his mouth like butter in a hot pan.

Danny swallowed. He’d never had a cracker that good.

“Can I have another?” he asked. Then, as more fell into his hands, “Where did you even get these? They’re great.”

“I baked them myself.”

Well. That explained why he didn’t have a phone. He was a hippie of some variety. Danny didn’t comment aloud, though, too busy plowing his way through another cracker. He spent a little while chewing in blissful silence before he could swallow.

“They’re great,” Danny repeated, and had another one. And another.

“Ah,” said the shadow, “I believe that was the first proper shooting star of the night.”

“What?” said Danny, looking up from his impromptu meal. He licked his fingers, then stretched out the net, the better to see through it. “Really? Where?”

“From the neighborhood of Cassiopeia, crossing her and going north.” A pointed finger stood out in silhouette against the slightly brighter sky, tracing an imaginary line.

Danny sighed. “I can’t believe I missed it.” The Perseid meteor shower was, after all, one of the main reasons he risked sneaking out.

“Many meteor showers reach their peak shortly before dawn,” said the shadow. “As we will be here for some time yet, I believe you will have the opportunity to see many more.”

“But the first one…” Danny said, trailing off.

“The first from our perspective. This shower has been going on for some time. For someone to our east, perhaps it is, instead, the last.”

Danny grumbled.

First the net and now this…

Something golden green streaked across the sky and he perked up. That one had been nice. A breath later, a smaller, shorter one flashed at the edge of his vision, a tiny needle of light.

“See? There will be more for you to wish on.”

“That’s really not why I wanted to see them,” said Danny, wrinkling his nose. Wishing was, well. It was the sort of thing little kids did. It wasn’t scientific. It was the kind of thing his parents strictly forbade.

“It isn’t?”

“I…they’re cool. And it’s nice. Or it would be, if it weren’t for this net.”

“What would it hurt to make a wish?”

Danny sighed. It wasn’t like they were wrong. This situation was stupid and illogical. So.

“I wish I could get out of this stupid net. Before my parents find out about any of this.”

The stranger hummed in interest. “They don’t know?”

“They sure know about the net,” griped Danny. He didn’t take his eyes off the sky, but he did tug on the ropes to make his point. The rope was homemade, twisted with nonstandard fibers along with more common silk and hemp, rubbed with garlic and sage. It was distinctive. It was familiar. It was something he'd probably tripped on a dozen times when it was left half-finished on the living-room floor. “But it's not like I told them I was sneaking out. Like, who's going to tell their parents they're breaking rules?”

The shadow hummed again. "That is true."

Danny was distracted from replying or continuing by a pale, oddly oblong blur to the north. It stayed in place, even as colorful shooting stars passed it by.

"Is that–?" gasped Danny. He leaned forward against the tension in the ropes and a similar, less tangible ache in his chest, as if he could get closer to the sky.

The oblong blur widened into several similar streaks, like thumbprints on glass. Green, pink, and purple began to seep into them.

"There must have been a solar storm I didn't know about," said Danny as meteors shot through the undulating curtain of the Aurora. Delight was dancing in his stomach and thrumming along his limbs at the sight. "We hardly ever get the Aurora this far south."

"It is an auspicious night for stargazing, then," said the shadow, "and one I am indeed glad to share, despite the circumstances."

The thing was, they were right. Despite the net, stargazing with someone who liked it as much as he did was nice. It was really nice, despite the net. Nice enough to wish, quite sincerely, and on a meteor that fell across the sky in that very moment, that they could do it again. It probably would have been nice even without the Perseids and the Aurora, but with them he was practically giddy.

Briefly, Danny imagined how this meeting might have gone sans net.

Okay. Honestly, Danny probably would have run for it. Weird adult in the middle of the night, after all. He had briefly wondered if the guy was an axe murderer.

He rolled his shoulders. His back was starting to get sore - probably a combination of the net and how long he'd been looking up, but he didn't want to take his eyes off the light show even for a second.

"My name's Danny, by the way." They were kind of sort of friends now. Stargazing buddies. Net buddies, even. Danny couldn't refer to the as 'the shadow' or as 'the guy who sat with me all night the time I was trapped in one of my parents' nets' forever, and he doubted the shadow wanted to keep mentally referring to him as 'that weirdo kid who got stuck in a net' for eternity, either.

"I am honored that you would trust me with your name," said the shadow, tone strangely formal.

"Uh, you're welcome?" Danny said.

"I go by Clockwork."

Wow. This guy really was strange, huh? Was that his legal name? Just a nickname? A screen name? Had he changed his legal name to that?

"Nice to meet you, Clockwork," said Danny, for lack of a better response.

"I am pleased to make your acquaintance, as well."

Pleased to make your acquaintance. Well. Danny's parents were eccentric too (see also: net. see also also: believing said net was going to catch faeries and demons.) and he was now almost eighty percent sure this guy wasn't an axe murderer.

Danny shifted under the net. He could try and shake hands, but the excitement and delight hadn't faded much at all and it was hard to focus on formalities when so much of him was full of so much energy.

Wait.

That was weird, wasn't it? Danny frowned. Should he have taken random food from a stranger? Clockwork had mushrooms, too. Had the star jelly been not just edible but an edible?

Was he high right now?

"Clockwork," Danny began, and the Aurora bloomed across the sky. The moment filled with shared murmurs of admiration, and by the time it died the thought had passed.

Even if the energy hadn't.

He flexed his fingers. Maybe he’d run through some kind of itchy plant? That might explain the tingle on his skin.

There was a hollow, almost melodic popping noise from the vicinity of the shadow. The vicinity of Clockwork, he corrected himself.

“You should try to stay hydrated,” said Clockwork.

A scent both floral and salty wafted up to Danny’s nose. The green glimmer of the Aurora reflected off the glassy lip of a bottle. “Is– Is that alcohol?” asked Danny. “Are you offering me alcohol? Wine?”

“I am not,” said Clockwork. “This is far more nourishing.”

“‘This’ being what, exactly?” asked Danny, still vaguely suspicious.

“It is mostly sugar and water. Fruit juice, salt, nectar, among other things. As you would call them, electrolytes. You have exerted yourself. It has not been purposefully fermented.”

This guy and his weird food. Still, that didn’t seem…bad, exactly. Danny was thirsty, and he liked gatorade, and that was kind of similar, right? And he was curious.

The crackers had been good. And even the star jelly had been edible.

It took some experimentation to hold the bottle firmly through the net. The body of it was too large to fit through any of the holes. But the mouth and neck of the bottle could go through, and Clockwork seemed content to hold it until Danny figured it out.

The liquid inside was thicker than he had expected. Sweeter and saltier, too. The flavor was… interesting. A little sour, a little bitter, a little… savory? It definitely tasted like flowers smelled. Only, it also tasted like something else? A lot of something elses.

He pulled the bottle back and licked his lips thoughtfully. He… didn’t hate it. It sure wasn’t something he’d just drink on his own, though. On the other hand, taking that sip had made him realize how thirsty he actually was. Which was very thirsty. He must have gotten more dried out than he’d thought, first walking here and then fighting the net for who knew how long.

He took another sip, trying to focus on the flavors he hadn’t quite been able to name.

And another.

Something in him settled as he drank. He hadn’t realized how nervous he’d been. Was it nervousness? He’d thought it was excitement. Delight. Something positive. But now it was settling into something softer. Calmer. And yet the sky was no less compelling.

Maybe it was a different sort of happiness, now that the unexpected relief and delight of a fellow stargazer out here had calmed his nerves. Maybe he hadn’t managed to calm down until now, and the drink was finally letting him?

Regardless, his limbs weren't so tense anymore, and breaths he hadn’t realized had become so short were drawing long and even now, and that was a relief.

He alternated sips with looking up at the stars. The Aurora undulated slowly, and was periodically pierced by meteors. The stars behind the curtains of light were harder to see, but he could still pick out his favorites coming and going, first hidden, then not. The motion of the lights almost made them seem as if they were moving. It was hypnotizing.

He tilted the bottle back once more, and made a disappointed sound deep in his throat when he realized it was empty. Huh. He must have liked it alright after all. That wasn’t a small bottle. In fact, it was bigger than he’d originally thought when Clockwork had first given it to him.

… He hoped this didn’t make him have to pee. He was in the woods, but standing next to, um. Well. An impromptu bathroom. Until dawn, at least. Would make the net thing much worse.

“Done already?” asked Clockwork.

“I guess I was thirstier than I thought.”

“You had been exerting yourself for some time.” Clockwork plucked the bottle out of Danny’s hands. “But I believe that you will soon see the fruits of your exertions.”

Danny sighed and leaned more deeply against the tree he was attached to. Subtly, he rubbed his back against the bark. The soreness was getting worse. “Not unless you see a rescue party.”

Clockwork hummed. “I do not. But perhaps you will not need one. The weave of the net seems looser, now. Can your hands fit through?”

Danny tested it. His hand fit through one of the holes easily. And another. It was the same with the third he tried.

“What,” he said.

“It is progress, is it not?”

“I don’t know how,” Danny said. “It’s not like Mom and Dad don’t tie these things at every connection. I didn’t think they could slide.”

“And yet your hands can fit through.”

“Yeah. I just wish I knew how that happened.”

“Dawn will come,” said Clockwork. “You will be able to see it then. Perhaps you worked them loose with your straining.”

“I guess,” said Danny, still wondering.

“And with dawn, you will be free, one way or another. For now, shall we focus on this spectacular sky?”

“Yeah,” said Danny.

He’d never seen a night sky like this before, after all. Even if he was stuck under a net, he had a …not a friend. But a fellow stargazer who was just as appreciative. And he was full, and no longer thirsty, and even the cold of the wet earth beneath him wasn’t as cutting with Clockwork’s company.

He settled in again to watch the lightshow, and worried at the cords of the net as he did. It wasn’t like he couldn’t do both, after all.

The stars flashed. The sky spun. Clockwork and Danny both exclaimed and pointed at particularly impressive meteors. Clockwork noted the visible planets and occasionally pointed out asterisms Danny had never heard of before. The Veil, the Key, the Mistletoe, the Dancing Maidens, the Hive, the Moth. He half suspected Clockwork was just making them, and the stories that went with them, up to entertain Danny. But, then, Danny was entertained. He couldn’t complain. Even when Clockwork tried to get away with calling Libra The Balance, Danny found his objections were more laughter than indignation.

The eastern horizon began to blush pale. Danny found himself almost disappointed at the sight, even if he’d be able to get out of the net soon. And really see Clockwork. After stargazing for hours together, it felt odd that he still didn’t know what the man looked like even though his voice was becoming as familiar as a friend’s.

He rubbed one of the net cords between his fingers. Was it just him, or did it seem… scratchier? Thicker?

He stroked the skin on his palms. Did he have rope burn, maybe? He had been pulling on the cords for hours. And who knew what his parents had soaked the nets in after they’d been woven? Danny sure tried not to.

More importantly, before too much longer the sun would drown out the meteors and the Aurora both. He wanted to press this sight into his mind to keep forever and ever. And not just the sight, but the feeling of… He couldn’t put a name to it, to what he felt, sitting here with Clockwork

It just felt important.

A meteor fell. He wished it would last. Another meteor, brighter. He wished that even after Clockwork inevitably found out who Danny’s parents were and what they were like in person, he would still want to be ‘acquaintances.’ Friends. Whatever. He was weird enough. Probably. Like Sam and Tucker.

He wished–

A huge fireball bloomed directly overhead, a celestial arrow angling down, north, wreathed in blinding green. It took Danny’s breath away.

He wished he could do this again. He wished he could cast off the shadow of his parents’ weird fae traps and property damage and hatred of creatures that didn’t even exist. He wished he could have the space and time to figure out who he was and who he could be, whether that was an astronaut, an astronomer, a screw up, whatever Jazz was trying to convince him to be that week, or, heck, even someone just as strange as his parents and Clockwork. He wished he could be himself, could just shed the image of what they and almost everyone else seemed to see in him.

Also, the net.

Some of the net fell heavily around Danny’s shoulders, then slid off them. He didn’t look down, still entranced by the after-image. Then pain, white hot and as sharp as a knife, drove into his temples and back. It took his breath away.

He dropped to his hands and knees, gasping for air and squeezing his eyes so tightly that tears began to slip out. What had happened? What was wrong with him? He hissed out a shaky breath that was dangerously close to a sob as the pain redoubled, strengthening and strengthening again until static pulsed in the dark of his shut eyes.

It felt as though his head were splitting open.

The pain lanced down his back and he revised the thought. It felt as though he were splitting open.

And then his face came apart.

And then there were only scattered fragments. Scratching. Growing. Stretching. The feeling of fingers on earth. The feeling fingers of earth. Unfolding. Squeezing. Balance; a knife’s edge.

A great and overwhelming sense of space.

Like a leaf before a storm, Danny trembled.

Eventually, it ebbed.

He was clinging to the ground with all his might, which wasn’t much; the whatever-it-was had left him weak. His limbs felt like jelly and seemed half as cooperative. He was gasping for air, each breath harsh enough to sting his throat. There was a blanket over him and he had the halfway-delirious thought that if Clockwork had a blanket he’d have appreciated it sooner than this.

He couldn’t feel the net.

Had Clockwork gotten him out once it got light enough out? It seemed much brighter now, even if the thought of opening his eyes made Danny wince.

There was a painful, high-pitched chirr sound in the background. It hurt Danny’s ears and made him wonder if there was an injured animal nearby.

Something pressed down gently on the back of his neck, where the fuzzy, fluffy edge of the blanket rested. It removed itself, then returned at the top of his head, whereupon it slid down to the top of his back.

Oh. Oh. He was being petted. Comforted. That must be someone’s hand. Clockwork’s?

It felt… unusually satisfying. Especially when they fluffed the ruff of the blanket which Danny was strangely aware of.

Very gradually, the tension in his body began to ease, and he was able to start cataloging the parts of his body that hurt, which was all of them. But there were a few that hurt more. His eyes. His ears. His temples and the sides of his head. His entire back. His shoulders, neck, ears, and large parts of his spine felt like every hair on them had been individually plucked out and then sandpapered. Speaking of his spine, that felt as if it had been stretched, pulled to bits. And his back still felt like it had been stabbed. Multiple times. Especially around his shoulder blades and at the base of his spine.

Other than that, he was just sore, everywhere.

The quality of the chirr sound he’d been hearing started to change, morphing into a sort of purr. One that rose and fell in time with the hand petting Danny.

Huh.

His hand flexed on the ground. Something was… There was something very off here, beyond the pain, but that was getting better, and he was starting to feel almost… comfortable.

His weight shifted again, and the ground shifted under it.

It was warm.

It was…damp? Wet. There was something wet under his hands. Carefully, worried that it would move again, Danny took one hand off the ground and brought it to his face to sniff.

It smelled good. It smelled wonderful, salty and hearty and just a little bit like chicken soup.

He licked it.

“There we are,” said Clockwork, softly. “Take as much as you need.”

Danny needed a lot, right now. His throat was raw, and he was thirsty and suddenly starving, and beyond that the pain that was still leaving echoes through his body. This was warmth and comfort and he wanted both.

He lowered his head and began to lap directly from the source, and warmth and comfort steadily filled him like the morning sun.

He pulled back, not exactly satiated, but needing something else, something different, now. He made a soft, pleading sound, more like a chirp or a keen than anything human. He didn’t understand what was going on, but part of him trusted he would be cared for. Loved. He’d already been given so much he didn’t know he needed…

Another plea escaped his throat. It blended with the softening chirr, fitting with it far better than Danny felt it should.

Something soft and sweet-smelling tickled his cheeks, and Danny dove in, his tongue coming out to search for what he knew was there.

Sweet.

Sweet, but not in the way of candy or even sugar. This was softer, perfumed, more reminiscent of honey but lacking that sharp note.

He wanted more.

As he pushed his face deeper into the… container… something touched his… Touched… What? It was touching his… not his head, but something over it, something attached, something he could feel, and now that he could feel it, was thinking about it, whatever it was, he could feel its movements, as even the sigh-soft breeze pushed it around.

It– No, they were something fine. Something soft and delicate. Something light and flexible and oh so very sensitive.

The hand, Clockwork’s hand, stroked down his back again, and Danny realized he could feel the fluff of the blanket the same way he’d been able to feel the things on his head. And it trailed past that, to his horribly sore back, and down, all the way down, past where his back should end.

Down, to where Danny could feel something laying across a foot. Down, to where he could feel a hard object under him.

Something twitched, and the thing across his foot fell away. The hard something vanished, too, replaced with the soft ground he found himself on.

Danny chirred, confused.

Oh. He had been the one making that sound all along. But. That wasn’t a sound he could make. It wasn’t.

He had to see what was going on.

Opening his eyes was, perhaps, the single hardest thing he had ever done. It wasn’t that they were stuck closed or anything, they were just so heavy, and a large part of him just didn’t want to know, wanted to stay half asleep, wanted to keep being held and petted.

Red. A deep, rich red puddled around him on the strange, soft ground. And the ground was uneven, and covered with small ridges and creases where it didn’t vanish beneath the red. Which was welling up from the ground like a spring.

Danny was wrist-deep in it.

A short distance from his face lay the biggest flower Danny had ever seen. It was bigger than his head, its pale petals stained liberally with the red. Handprints. The red stains were in the shape of handprints. Danny’s handprints.

The red looked– Well, it looked a lot like– Like a scene from a horror movie– But it was coming from the ground, it couldn’t be. It couldn’t be blood.

Danny had been drinking this. What had he been thinking?

“Are you feeling better?” asked Clockwork.

Danny looked around for him. Then, he looked up.

The very first thing he noticed was that there were still stars in the sky. It was still dark, the Aurora was still bright. The meteors were still falling.

Why could he see?

Why could he see so much more? He’d only ever seen the stars like this in long-exposure photographs. The light pollution was way too strong this close to the city.

There were other, closer things. The leaves on the trees were green, but they weren’t just green. Their veins seemed to glow with soft pinks and blues. He could see insects and birds, too, all of them strangely bright to his eyes, like they had swallowed stars.

Then, there was Clockwork. It had to be Clockwork. There wasn’t anything or anyone else it could be.

“I will interpret that as a yes,” said Clockwork, smiling down at him with love clear in all six eyes.

He had the nose Danny had seen before, yes, and long, silk-white hair, but everything else was so far beyond what Danny had imagined that it was hard to even comprehend.

And yet it suited him perfectly.

His skin was blue, like summer twilight, warm and rich.

His face glowed in the same soft, steady way as the birds, and set in it, his eyes were a kindly red. There were four on his right side but his left had only two; a deep black scar tore its way down most of his face and left two empty sockets in its wake. It was interrupted only by his primary eye on that side, and Danny felt tender relief that the old wound hadn’t taken that one, too.

White filaments made up a thick ruff around the collar of his– No, that wasn't a cloak, those were wings. Huge, dramatic, moth-like wings, layered over one another. There had to be dozens of them, all the way down his back. They were as dark and starry as the sky on the outside, but some were turned towards Danny to show the luminous, moon-pale undersides.

Below that–below that, Danny couldn’t see. The ground he was on was too high, and Clockwork too large. The ground–

He wasn’t on the ground.

Finally, like disjointed pieces of a puzzle, the details became whole. The uneven place where he lay, with its softness and whorls of ridges and creases. The warmth of it, and the placement.

The–the blood.

He was on Clockwork’s upturned hand.

Forget the rest of it. When, and how, did Clockwork get so big?

Danny chirred a question. Wordless, overwhelmed and wondering.

(And why was Clockwork bleeding?)

“You are safe, little one. My little one.”

Danny chirred again, a little cross. That didn’t answer anything.

Clockwork only smiled, and then there was a gentle rocking motion as they moved. Like clouds, the trees in the distance slid sideways with deceptive speed.

Danny settled, feeling sleepy, slow, and stupid, but still safe. Like he should be able to make this all make sense, like this should make sense, if he was just a little more awake and aware, but that it didn’t matter if he couldn’t, because he would be protected.

And then, Clockwork tilted, and his hand jostled, and though he didn’t become more visible, they were suddenly surrounded by great spikes of grass and flowers, stories tall. Some of them drooped, heavy with seeds or droplets of dew. They hung huge and heavy from the stalks, like fruit ripe to bursting.

Danny blinked. Frowned. Blinked again.

There was something, an idea, that made sense. But it hung just out of reach, blurry, and every time he reached for it, the thought passed through his mental fingers like the morning mist.

It was, it should have been, obvious.

Clockwork would know. Danny chirred his question again.

“It will come to you,” Clockwork said. ”Give it time.”

Clockwork cleaned him off gently with a huge, damp cloth, taking special care with his ruff, antennae, and wings. He mopped up the blood pooling beneath Danny as well, with a reassurance that Danny was welcome to more if he needed it. With another hand, he laid another huge flower down next to him. The stem where Clockwork had held it glowed briefly, before it faded into the relative dark of early morning, leaving the flower with the same odd coloration as the tree leaves earlier.

Dawn was still hours off. He wasn’t in the net.

Danny looked up.

He’d wondered what it would be like to stargaze with Clockwork without the net. Apparently, the answer was wonderful.

The stars were still so beautiful. More beautiful, now. There was such an incredible array of color and brightness in the sky, like a living painting. There was scarcely any black left in it.

Danny blinked, slow. He rubbed his face with his hands, lingering over his ears - which felt long and soft, like a cat’s or a rabbit’s, he must really be sleepy - and the long fluffy things that had sprouted from his head. They twitched under his fingers.

He looked up at Clockwork, still hoping for an answer and… Clockwork had things growing from his head, too, now that he looked. He’d mistaken them for hair, before, but while Clockwork certainly had plenty of that, braided, beaded, and beribboned, that wasn’t all he had.

They were antennae. Four of them. White, fluffy, and softly glowing. They were much longer, compared to Clockwork’s body, than Danny’s were compared to his. Danny raised his hands to feel his again. He had two. And, maybe, behind each, a ticklish little nub.

It felt…right, that they should both have antennae, though. Satisfying. Comforting, like a hug. Like the stroking had been, and the blood.

What else did Danny and Clockwork share, now?

Danny’s eyes trailed carefully over Clockwork’s face.

Danny was pretty sure he only had two eyes, but he touched his face again, just to make sure. Then his ears… Clockwork had big, long ears, too, the edges of them soft with white fur. Just like his ruff. Danny’s ruff was black shot with silver and… it was growing from his skin. It wasn’t part of a blanket, which meant…

He twisted his head to check.

There was no blanket. Danny had wings. They were wrinkled and slightly damp, but they were wings, just like Clockwork’s, although he didn’t have nearly as many. Two sets, to Clockwork’s uncountably many.

He also had a tail. And only two arms, to Clockwork’s four. Somehow, in the moment, this seemed less important than the wings.

His eyes kept returning to his wings.

The outsides looked just like the darker parts of the sky did now, streaked with meteor silver and edged with Auroral green. The insides were the same vivid colors as the Aurora itself. Pinks, purples, blues, and greens all dancing together.

They were beautiful. He definitely, definitely should not have them.

He wanted them.

He shouldn’t want them.

He did.

He drew them close to his body and looked up.

There was a huff of fond laughter. “Remember to fan them out, my little fledgeling. We want them to dry well.”

Oh. Right. Danny unfolded his wings again, a little embarrassed he’d forgotten.

And then he returned his attention to the stars. He was determined to enjoy this for however much longer this might last. Maybe this would all make sense in the morning. Maybe all of this would be taken away from him. Either way, neither was true now.

Now, Danny was here with Clockwork, looking up.

Now, the sky was vast and beautiful.

Later, his eyes started to feel heavy again. He pulled the flower close, and began to absent-mindedly chew on the petals in an attempt to stay awake. He didn’t want to miss anything else.

Despite his efforts, his eyes began to droop. His head kept falling into his neck fluff, and the flower tumbled from his hands.

Clockwork plucked it from where it fell, and replaced it with a blanket, just Danny’s size.

“Some inevitabilities we must fight,” said Clockwork, “but this isn’t one of them, my dear child.”

For another few moments, he kept his eyes stubbornly on the sky. Another pair of meteors fell, and he wished, perhaps selfishly, that this could last forever.

But, he admitted to himself with a sigh, he was very tired.

Danny curled up in Clockwork’s hand, tucking his head under the wings he was careful to keep fanned, and his tail around his head.

“Rest, my little one,” said Clockwork’s voice, already distant. “We can talk more when you are rested.”

And Danny did.

Dawn.

The kiss of the sun on the horizon. The beginning of a new day. The banishment of all things of the night.

Danny jackknifed straight up as if its fire had been poured directly into his veins, heart pounding. He woke just in time to see his new wings, his beautiful, terrible, fully spread wings evaporate like the morning dew.

The antennae, the tail, and the fur that had grown around his neck and shoulders and down his spine stayed.

More concerningly from Danny’s perspective, his perspective didn’t change. He stayed small, just the right size to fit snugly in the palm of Clockwork’s hand.

Clockwork’s wings stayed. So did his extra eyes, his antennae, his skin color, and everything.

This wasn’t a dream.

Or there really had been drugs in the food Clockwork gave him.

Why, oh why, was that the best case scenario right now? Why was the best possible answer to the question of what was happening that he was just really really high?

Because if he was just drugged, that meant he was only normal human stupid. People took stupid drugs accidentally and on purpose all the time. But if it wasn’t drugs, if this was real… That meant he’d somehow wandered into a world where his parents were right, had always been right, and he was probably about to get eaten.

“I would not, and will not, eat you,” said Clockwork. “I never would.”

“I don’t know what you would or wouldn’t do!” hissed Danny, pulling on his hair. “You turned me into some kind of– of moth boy.”

“You would have turned regardless, trapped so thoroughly and so long on a faerie door on a night like that. I simply made sure that it was kinder.”

“Kinder than what?”

“Any number of things. Any number of fates. They do not give much more mind to cruelty than your parents.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It was their trap you fell into, dear one. Without their actions, you could be human, still; safe and warm at home. Though,” and here Clockwork smiled so gently that Danny couldn’t help but be comforted despite himself. “You are safe, and you are warm. And you could be home as well.”

Danny hunched his shoulders. “What,” he squeaked, “is that supposed to mean?”

“I mean that as you are, you would be in danger with those who made the net that trapped you. I mean that you would be welcome in my home, and cared for, and safe. You are not the first lost and lonely child I have found. Nor the first with parents who should have protected them, and did not.”

“You’ve kidnapped other kids?”

“I have adopted other children. Other children, who were not cared for as they should have been, not loved as they deserved. As you deserve.”

“My parents love me just fine,” Danny snapped.

“I see,” said Clockwork, and he seemed sad. “And your presence here in the night? Alone, without even a light to see by?”

“I snuck out. And I brought a flashlight with me.”

“Alone,” said Clockwork.

“I thought the woods were safe.”

“Why? Did your parents tell you they were?” asked Clockwork, eyes narrowed and nose flaring.

“No! No, they said they were full of monsters.”

“So they didn’t teach you we could be dangerous?”

“No, I–I didn’t believe them.”

“My child, humans can be dangerous. Even to other humans. Surely, you know–”

“I know that,” interrupted Danny. “I didn’t think you existed.”

Clockwork frowned. “Your parents set cruel traps for the unwary.”

“Because they are crazy. Were crazy?” Danny moaned, burying his head in his hands. He resisted the urge to start preening his antennae and fluff. “I don’t even know anymore.”

“Their cruelty is the same,” said Clockwork, “Regardless of whether you believed the target existed. And they let you go hungry.”

“That wasn’t their fault. They made dinner. It just… didn’t work out.”

“Then whose fault was it?” asked Clockwork. “Yours? Your sister’s? As parents, they should provide for you, not leave you to fend for yourself.”

“They didn’t leave us to fend for ourselves,” scoffed Danny, crossing his arms.

“What do you call them leaving to go test what was left of that chicken?”

“That was– Okay, but what happened to the chicken was really weird–”

“It was not the first time, or the only time, that they abandoned you in favor of crafting their weapons and traps.”

Danny shook his head. “They love us. They love me.”

“Sometimes, that is not enough.”

“Sometimes it is. Of course it is. They love me. They love me enough to–” Danny swallowed, fighting down grief and horror. “I’m not leaving them. Or Jazz.”

Swallowing hadn’t helped. It had only shoved the churning knot of emotion down into his chest where it could reach awful vines around his heart and squeeze.

His hands were shaking.

God, what would Jazz do if he randomly disappeared? They annoyed the heck out of each other, and Jazz definitely held some of the things she did for him over his head for guilt trips, but he didn’t doubt she loved him. He didn’t doubt she would be frantic if he vanished.

He chirred again, mournfully, and only looked up again at Clockwork’s light touch.

“If love is enough,” said Clockwork, softly, ”then shouldn’t it be enough that I love you?”

“I–I don’t know,” said Danny.

Because the thing was, he didn’t doubt that Clockwork loved him. Nor that Clockwork would nurture and protect him, as he already had. It was easy, terribly easy, to imagine snuggling under Clockwork’s wings or into his ruff and trusting that he would be safe.

Danny pinched his eyes shut. “I’m going back.”

“As you are? Knowing how they would treat those they consider monsters?”

“Yes. They’re my parents. They love me.”

“Through this forest, and all of its dangers?”

“Yes.”

“Through all the hazards of that human city?”

“Yes.”

“Nothing I can do will dissuade you?”

“No.” Although, Danny reflected, Clockwork could certainly stop him physically. All he would have to do was hold him. But Danny would fight him. He’d fight, and he’d never stop fighting, and trying to get back home, no matter what. No matter how much Clockwork seemed to care for him, or how gentle and kind he was.

Clockwork sighed. “Then I have no choice. I will let you return.”

“You– You will?” asked Danny, suspiciously. It couldn’t be that easy, could it?

“Yes. But I would not have you killed out of hand, my child, as would certainly happen if you were to return as you are now. First, let me show you how to change.”

“I don’t want to change anymore,” said Danny. “I don’t. I don’t.” The fear was a beating heart inside of him, the idea of more change, unknown and untraveled.

“Perhaps I should say, change back.”

“I can be human again?” A needle of hope lanced through his chest. But would he ever see Clockwork again?

“Not precisely,” said Clockwork, before Danny could dwell. “No more than you are now. But it was the doorway that changed you, and doorways are of the between rather than here or there. Thus, you are of both sides of the door, not just one. You are still half human.”

Danny sat down. “I am?” he asked, voice wavering. He wasn’t going to cry. Not now.

“Yes,” said Clockwork. “You are half human… and half faerie. Half of their house, and half of mine, tied by blood, if not birth.”

Danny remembered. He remembered drinking Clockwork’s blood (again, what had he been thinking?) and how good it had tasted.

He hoped that wasn’t going to be, like, a recurring thing.

“So, what do I do?” he asked.

“First,” said Clockwork, “you ought to take off your clothing, so it doesn’t tear.”

“So it doesn’t…?” Danny looked down at himself. Maybe he should have realized earlier, but he wasn’t wearing the clothes he’d put on yesterday. Which made sense. At his current size, they would have been far too big. Instead, he was wearing simple white layered robes that had openings in the back for his wings and tail.

“I will have to get you something enchanted to change sizes, or to come when you transform, should you choose to remain and change often,” continued Clockwork. “But I was able to make these on short notice, and they were suitable for the night.”

“You made these?” asked Danny, oddly touched. He was supposed to be mad at Clockwork. He was supposed to be afraid of him. But both of those feelings just ran out of his hands like water out of a fist.

“I did,” said Clockwork.

“What happened to my clothes?”

Clockwork shifted one of his wings, showing what was beneath it. Silver buckles and pocket watches shone brightly against dark silk and leather. Other things, like bottles, herbs, and what looked like a small spyglass hung from belts or were secreted in pockets. Danny’s ratty jeans and t-shirt stood out like a sore thumb.

“Oh,” said Danny. “Okay. Um.” His hands curled around the edge of the tunic-like top portion of the robes. “Don’t look.”

Clockwork closed his eyes.

“Now what?” asked Danny, who very much was not enjoying being naked in the open like this.

“We are creatures of the night sky,” said Clockwork, eyes still shut. “We are of the Stars and the Moon.”

“The moon is up during the day, too. It’s up right now.”

“So it is,” agreed Clockwork. “But so is the Sun that drowns out the Stars.”

“The sun is also a star.”

“So it is. But it is not like other Stars.”

“Yes, it is.”

“It is not like other stars to us, or to humans. It is the light by which so many see. It is what divides day from night. It is, you see, what has clipped your wings.” Danny shifted slightly, the missing weight of his wings both foreign and familiar.

(There was so much to unpack. He hadn’t any time.)

“Why is it different?”

“Its proximity, perhaps. We can discuss it at a later time, if you wish. I would enjoy such a conversation.”

Danny hadn’t really thought about there being a ‘later’ with Clockwork, but… The thought of never seeing Clockwork again made his heart squeeze painfully, so he shoved it away.

“In any case,” continued Clockwork, “for those like yourself to change, you reach for one or the other. For the day or the night. The light or the dark. The Moon or the Sun. However you would like to think about it. You give precedence within yourself to one or the other.”

“Is it harder when they’re close to one another in the sky, like now?” Danny asked.

Clockwork smiled, though he kept his eyes shut. “As I do not transform that way, I do not know myself. My other children may have more comparable experiences, and we all are more comfortable under the phase we were born under.”

“I don’t think I’m going to be running into your children any time soon,” said Danny. Seeing them would, after all, mean that Clockwork had succeeded in kidnapping Danny, too. Even if it meant that he’d see Clockwork again…

“Even so. You will be able to see for yourself before long. Reach out, now. Can you feel them?”

Clockwork had a lot of confidence in Danny being able to figure this out quickly, huh.

(Despite still being mad at Clockwork - he was mad, he was - Danny didn’t want to disappoint him.)

Reach out… to something inside himself. Which was also outside himself? He wasn’t entirely clear on how literal the connection to the moon and sun was. But… Right. Okay. He could do this. He didn’t want to be a little gremlin moth thing that Clockwork - or, heck, an average bird - could carry off at a moment’s notice.

He closed his eyes.

Day and night. Light and Dark. Moon and sun. This was the kind of Yin and Yang stuff Sam sometimes got into. Balance and changing balance.

If he was reaching for the sun - for the Sun, the idea of the Sun - he should reach for heat, shouldn’t he? Heat and life and truth.

He could feel it, on his skin, warming him, cutting through the coolness of the morning. He imagined that warmth sinking through him, filling him up.

But there was warmth inside him, too. It built in his chest and left his lungs with every breath. It churned in his heart and coursed through his veins like the blood that helped to carry it. It was easy to take that, and imagine light to accompany it, centered at his heart. To imagine it reaching out as the sunlight reached in. He imagined it growing, brightening, pushing out against the inside of his skin, chasing away the dark, chasing away the moonlight and starlight and Aurora. Gold, chasing out black and silver.

Except… not entirely.

The sun was also a star, and all moonlight had once been sunlight. They mixed at the edges, blending comfortably, linked inexorably.

(There was magic he would be able to touch through this link that few others could. He understood this instinctively - but he was not yet ready for it, and the feeling was pushed away, put aside for a later, more appropriate day.)

This was the Sun, a tiny spark of it held within himself.

(There was the Moon, dark but no less itself, no less present and pulling for its invisibility during the day.)

And… the balance shifted.

He wouldn’t be able to explain what it felt like, to fall back into his skin. Not now. Not today.

Maybe not even if he lived a hundred years.

(Maybe he would, something whispered in his ear. Who knew how long moth-things lived?)

But he found himself at his proper human teenager size, cradled in Clockwork’s arms, no fluff or tail in sight.

Still naked, though.

He snatched his clothes from Clockwork, and, blushing furiously, ran behind a tree to change.

It was strange, walking next to Clockwork. The… Danny wasn’t actually sure what Clockwork was. Mothman? Moth monster? Anyway, Clockwork was still way taller than him, and the way his ruff and wings made him seem bulkier made Danny feel a little bit better about initially mistaking him for a bear.

The walk itself was still weird and awkward. Danny kept drifting closer to Clockwork, and then when Clockwork’s wings ruffled out towards him, as if to part or turn back to let him shelter under them, he flinched away, walking as far apart as the trees would allow.

Danny wondered if one of the things Clockwork had given him to eat had been some kind of… family love potion, and if it would ever wear off. Despite no longer having any fur, his skin still itched for Clockwork to touch him, pet him, hold him.

Although, for that to be perfect, he’d need to change back. Shrink back down until Clockwork could hold him securely in one hand and pet him, head to tail, with the other.

Which– No. No. He was never going to turn back into a moth. He wasn’t going to think about it. He wasn’t ever going to have antennae, or wings, or a tail ever again.

… Clockwork had a tail. A long one, longer than Danny’s had been, compared to his body. It trailed on the ground like the train of a dress, and both the left and right side of it was completely lined with moth wings, as opposed to Danny’s where there were only wings next to the little bulb at the end. Which Clockwork also had. It flickered with light, like a lightning-bug’s tail.

Danny wondered if his tail would do that, too, under the right circumstances.

Not that it mattered. Again, weird fairy door magic or whatever, he was going to be human from now on. Yep.

(Wow, the more he thought that, the less convincing he got. That was sad, actually.)

They reached the edge of the forest. Amity Park seemed to sparkle in the light. Too bright. Too artificial. Unreal, after the events of the night.

“Here is where we part, for now,” said Clockwork. “If you need me, you will be able to find me.” Could he say anything that didn’t sound ominous and weighty?

“Right,” said Danny. He hesitated, then, impulsively, hugged Clockwork. He shouldn’t have. Clockwork was exactly the kind of monster his parents had always warned him about, and was an admitted serial kidnapper who had spied on his family and turned him into a moth.

But he couldn’t imagine leaving without hugging Clockwork. Just once.

Clockwork hugged him back, with all four arms and what had to be a dozen wings. It was the best hug he’d ever had - even if it was also the most terrifying.

Then, Clockwork leaned down so that his lips were next to Danny’s ear. He whispered to him a simple handful of words. Most of them were familiar. His name. His full name, the one on his birth certificate, the one his parents and sister used when they were really upset with him. But… one of them he hadn’t heard before. Not once. Not ever.

It was still his name.

He knew this with the same surety as he knew the rest of his name. He also knew it hadn’t been his name before last night.

It was his name… because it was Clockwork’s. It was a family name, belonging to him as indelibly and as truly as the name ‘Fenton,’ one that bound him not only to Clockwork, but to the rest of Clockwork’s kin.

It did more than that, too. When Clockwork spoke his name, his true, full name, it was as if every molecule in his body had been magnetized and his name was a magnet. He was held still by it, at perfect attention. Whatever Clockwork wanted to say, whatever he wanted to do, Danny had no choice but compliance.

Not that, in the moment, he wanted another choice.

“Follow your conscience, my dear, sweet child,” said Clockwork. “I want that for you, always. But when you do, please… Have a care for yourself, too. Do not needlessly throw yourself into deadly danger.”

Danny, pinned to Clockwork’s chest, nodded.

Clockwork, with palpable reluctance, released him, hands tracing along his cheeks before falling away. “Be safe, Danny.”

Danny nodded again, and stepped backwards, out of the trees and into the sunlight. He didn’t know why he felt so sad, all of a sudden. He was going home. He’d avoided being permanently kidnapped or eaten. He was fine.

He turned away.

He was going home.

Stay tuned for the sequel. :)

#danny phantom #Lost Time #The portal accident #Phantasy Phest 2023 #Clockwork has low opinions of the Fenton Parents #Body Horror #Danny gets to say Fuck #tw: blood drinking #tw: moths

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