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yeyinde · 10 months

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WILLOW TREE MARCH

John Price x Reader | Fae!AU

"They'll give you gifts," your gran says, shaking her head. "Things from their realm. Little trinkets and gems—" geodes, sapphires and diamonds, raw gold and coral; "—and you must never accept them," a whittled deer made of sequoia under your pillow; crow bones buried in the garden."Because if you do, if you do, they'll never let you go." "Why?" You asked, blinking at her. "Because it's a courting ritual, and to accept means… well," her mouth twists in wry disdain. "Just don't."

—WARNINGS: 18+ | SMUT fae shenanigans, mythological nonsense; unsafe sex, smut in random places, slight exhibition kink if you squint; Dom-ish Price, soft Price, pining Price; fae trickery (dubious consent on account of the trickery but not really); unreliable narrator; ahhhhhh, body horror (??????????) —TAGS: Fluff, AU, mythology —WORD COUNT: 8,5k —Based on this ask

There's a thick forest at the edge of your town. It curves along the coastline, breaching the yawning maw of the inlet—the last safe haven before the open ocean—and can be found almost nowhere else in the entire world. A unique ecosystem comprising vaguely familiar flora and fauna. Brown and Black bears. Wolves. Sitka-black-tailed deer. Ravens. The waters that crest through the forest are full of salmon, steelhead, and river otters. On the coast of the inlet, you can find whales, sea lions, seals, orcas, and porpoises swimming offshore.

It's protected, in large part, by its sheer vastitude. Spanning a massive chunk of your home, it stretches far north with curling fingers cutting through the granite of the crumbling coast, and as deep south as its knobby knees can reach.

From above, it looks like a child curled on its side, knees tucked to its chest. It's this pose alone that makes others revere it as some sacred being, slumbering mindlessly until the day it cracks open its eyes, and awakens to the new world. A child god made of conifers, red cedar, spruce, fir, pine, birch, and hemlock. Mossy caves of granite and limestone. Thick colonies of moss, liverworts, plume moss, and common haircap.

The forest is linked to your town only by a small strip of land that juts out from a raging ravine with currents too dangerous, too deadly, to try and traverse. An archipelago all on its own, untouched by greedy, human, hands because of its placement.

It's insulated by the vast ocean on its front, and a series of insidious looking mountains ready to swallow wandering mountaineers whole if they get too close to the sleeping child. Protected and safe by anyone who might try to harm it.

You used to dream about the forest. A nightmare dredged up about whispers and calls. Lured close to the edge of the river where a man would hand you his heart—sap-stained, and charred; a brittle piece of Bristlecone pine that felt fragile and worn—and told you to come back for him. To wait for him.

You'd wake in a cold sweat each time, heart pounding so fast that it almost felt like you were dying.

(Maybe you were. Maybe you did.)

You don't know if you believe the stories told about people wandering into the gaping chasm of the forest and never coming out. It's not uncommon for people to get lost, after all. But it feels distinct and archaic. Old. Something about the way the wind howls sounds different from the other woodlands scattered around your home.

It sounds like a beckoning call. A mother calling their child home for dinner. Come to me, the Chinook bellows. Come home now, dear.

You never venture too close. You know all too well what happens to children who do.

His name is—was now, you suppose—Kyle, but no one called him that. To everyone in town, he was simply known as Gaz.

Newcomers to the isolated archipelago are a rarity—so much so that news of the new family's arrival sent waves through the community, making Gaz an instant star overnight, all without him even setting foot on the shores.

None of that mattered, though. He fit in with an ease that seems almost preternatural when you think about it, as if he was meant to be there. And maybe he was. Maybe the soft rolling valleys were destined to be his home where flowers bloomed in the spring, and Arctic tern trilled from the branches.

Gaz was unique, different.

He picked dandelions with the same intensity that picked fights with the bullies in the neighbouring town, the ones who tried to pick on the smaller kids in the community.

With his fists always covered in dandelion oil and bruises, face caught between a grimace and a grin, like he was never sure if he wanted to spit at their feet or tell a joke, he stood against the onslaught with an anger that seemed to crackle in the air like fireworks. Ready for battle. Thirsty for blood.

His anger never waned even when he turned back to the group, eyes cresting in satisfaction, and body trembling with adrenaline, and you could scent the rage in his smile, hear it in the soft words he muttered to the kids, telling them everything would be alright.

Gaz was everyone's friend. The person you told your deepest secrets to, the one you planned adventures with. He was a rock—always armed with snappy jokes to make you smile, and advice when you needed it.

He was everyone's friend—yours especially—but you can't remember if anyone was his best friend. He was polite. Distant.

It started in the summer. His hands were always cold, and he kept them shoved deep in his pockets, clenched tight around the latchkey his parents gave him.

He started to seem almost liquid then. Temporal. You'd reach for him, brushing your hands against his arms or shoulders just to assure yourself that he was really there.

You noticed that his eyes would list sideways, head tilted, slanting toward the forest. It looked to you as if he was listening to something. To some unheard noise or call that only he could hear.

When you asked about it, he'd always blink, surprised, as if you'd woken him up from a dream quite suddenly. Then, he'd smile, and shake his head.

"Don't worry about it," he'd say, shrugging. "Just the wind."

He'd bend down and pick a dandelion for you, holding it out between pudgy fingers with a grin that seemed to mimic the cresting moon.

"For you."

He picked them for three springs before he, too, became another victim of the endless forest. Another empty tomb in the overcrowded graveyard.

Missing, they said, but not forgotten.

You think about him often.

(Even more so when you, too, begin to hear your name echoing through the forest.)

Beware the woods, your grandma says. Especially when it calls your name.

(You never understood why something that sounds so comforting, so sweet, could ever be dangerous. It sounds like an old friend calling you over to play.

"Never go," she snaps, her hands lashing out to grip your arms tight. You feel her knobby fingers digging into your bones. "Never listen, and stay away—"

"You're hurting me, gran—"

Her rheumy eyes burn into yours. "Stay away—!"

(You wisely never speak about the whispers in your head, keeping them to yourself. A secret just for you.)

You leave town when you're old enough, when the hisses in your head grow too loud to ignore, and it feels as though they're scratching at your skull.

(Clawing at the walls.)

"Crazy weather, eh?" The first mate mutters nervously, eyes tilted upward as the sky darkens into an angry grey. "Came outta nowhere."

You leave, and you don't look back.

(But oh, how the forest screams.)

She calls you back several years later with a phone call. Your gran has passed.

You think you should mourn, but it's been so long since you thought of home, that you don't remember what she looks like anymore. The sound of her voice is a whisper in your head—the cadence gone, the tone flat.

But you don't cry, and you don't grieve—she's been dead for a long time now, after all. Ever since your mum went missing all those years ago, she's always seemed more of a ghost than a person. Living as if her body hadn't realised her heart was long dead.

You go back only because you think your mum would have wanted you to.

(And pretend it isn't because the silence in your head is suffocating. Without the whispers, it feels as if you're missing something. A part of yourself forever lost in the forest.

You wonder if anyone has found it by now.)

Nothing has changed since you turned your back on the town that raised you, the forest that stole from you.

It's the same buildings. The same market. The same roads. The same houses.

The people, too, seem largely unchanged by the years that have passed.

The friends from your childhood who stayed meet you at the graveyard, eyes filled with sympathy as they ask how you're doing.

She'll be missed, they lie sweetly to you. Everyone loved her.

She was a hermit, you want to scream. A woman driven mad by ghosts and fairytales and terror.

You nod, instead, and let them lead you around the town on a grand tour as if anything about this beautiful, haunting place had changed since you ran away.

It gets easier to force a smile when they ask if you're okay.

"Fine," you murmur and wonder if your voice even carries over the whispers. "Just—yeah. Fine."

North of the town is where the river separating the lonely forest carves a path, not at all dissimilar to an idyllic trough, through bedrock and sand, and flows into the sea.

The estuary is dangerous in high tide when the rapid ascent of water on the sandy shores hides the rip current that is known to form when the two bodies of water meet.

It's a dangerous place to get caught in.

This beach was impressed upon you as deadly from a young age, almost in equal—if not greater—measure than the rapacious forest across the river. You know the dangers of standing on the slippery bedrock.

But as the sun glows a burnt orange in the distance, and the endless ocean before you darkens into an almost unfathomable black, you can't help but find the view from the cliff's edge to be the most mesmerising thing you've ever seen.

It looks like a painting. A brush stroke of tigers eye in the centre of the cresting sun that gradually fades out into xanthous, and rings of hazy peach; the light of diminishing star smears coruscating rings of persimmons into the indigo water. The gradual fade into gradients as the waves lap closer to the shore is reminiscent of liquid sapphire and smelting amethyst.

The picturesque view is more befitting of a pastel postcard, an ethereal pastiche of the Ninth Wave—a moment of life imitating art, or—perhaps—the same view Ivan Aivazovsky stumbled upon when he set out to render the haunting beauty of the ocean in oil.

The cresting waves arch into curled petals of white before setting upon the sloping beach with frenzy. It's the roar of those hungry waves that seem to, if only for a moment, drown out everything in your head.

There are no whispers. No songs. No screams. Vengeful hissing can't climb to a higher decibel than the frothing waters slamming against jagged bedrock.

All is quiet—except the sea.

You lean into it. The closer you get to that precipice, the quieter everything in your head goes. Sounded sucked into the vacuum of the ocean. The endless song of the sea.

Another step. Another.

For a moment, you're free.

The forest doesn't scream for you. Your grandmother doesn't dig her teeth into your gyri, hands clawing at the space behind your eyes. You don't think of her, or your mother, or Gaz, or anyone else unfortunate enough to get consumed by this damnable place where fairy tales split the seams apart, and merge with reality.

It's peaceful.

You take another step—

A hand curls over your shoulder, tugging you back.

Anger pools, thick and acidic, on your tongue, but the flash of your ire, your vexation, is dashed by the sound the waves make when it slams into the spot you were just standing.

It slashes across the concrete as the stranger pulls you into his broad chest, heat nearly liquifying your spine.

He sucks in a breath. You feel his chest expand with it. When he breathes out, you taste gunpowder on your tongue.

"Gotta be more careful n'that, love."

You've had near-misses before. Flirted with the reaper. Ripped yourself from the jowls of death himself.

This isn't anything new.

And yet—

Your eyes drag up, meeting flat black boring down at you. His hood is pulled over his forehead, casting shadows down to his jaw.

"You—"

Your teeth sink into your tongue. Emotions lash through you like the flick of a bullwhip, shredding your skin until it's raw and oozing. The tail pulls away whenever you try to wrap your fingers around one of them—relief: you're not dead; embarrassment: how could you be so stupid; shame: saved by a stranger; and—

Visceral terror. Panic.

It bludgeons its fist down your throat, barbed knuckles clawing at the soft tissue of your esophagus until you taste blood on your tongue.

Panic tastes of ozone and leaks, thick and warm like molasse, down your throat.

"Hey," he murmurs, and the sound of his voice, his low timbre, is porous, calcined. The rough scratch scours through the haze of fear threading through your sternum. "C'mon on, now. Gotta breathe, yeah?"

It's his hands on your shoulder—hotter than grenade fire—and the thick scent of musk, of stale smoke and kerosene sweat, that break through the gossamer of your acrid panic. He spins you around to face him, eyes fixed on your face.

"That's it," he says, soft, soothing. "Keep breathin'. You ain't dead yet."

You come to yourself in pieces. The world bleeds with startling clarity around the blurred edges. Home, you think. Maybe.

Once upon a time.

You blink. Blink again.

The hand still on you—heavier, you find, than an anvil—lifts, his thumb brushing over the curve of your jaw, swiping over the sweat-stained skin.

You can't see his eyes through the shadows cast over his face. A stranger. You've never seen him before.

They didn't say anyone new moved to town.

"Who are you—?"

"You don't know?"

And then his hand is gone, taking all the heat in your body with him.

It lifts to his vest, thick fingers, gloved in yellow, curling over the butt of his cigar.

You must make a face. A grimace. A whisper of bemusement. Whatever it is, it makes his lips twitch under the shorn burnt umber of his beard.

"I'd share," he mutters, teething sinking into the hilt as he pats himself down for a lighter. "But I ain't got the time."

"Shouldn't be smoking in a provincial park, anyway."

The words are dragged out of you. Numbed, gritty.

It makes him snort. "Maybe—;" he cups his hand around the end, thumb striking the ignition of the lighter. He inhales, and the red circle at the tip illuminates the cerulean blue tucked away into the folds of his hood. The plume of smoke curls over him like a shroud. "But I doubt a cigar is gonna bring the whole forest down, mm? 'sides, we all have our vices, don't we?"

With that, he leaves you standing in the tendrils of smoke that billow out from his caustic mouth. No goodbye. No name. Nothing except the hum of his touch buzzing through your veins.

Your head is numb. Thoughts congealing into hardened clay.

Yeah, you think sluggishly, eyes dropping to the drenched pavement where the ocean narrowly missed you. Swallowed you whole. We do.

(Yours is bad decisions that reek of napalm.

Men who scour your hands raw when you touch their coarse surface.)

You find him again in some desolate pub on the fringes of town a few days later. It looks like it's one strong gust of wind away from blowing down. Dilapidated. Rusted from the harsh salt of the ocean to the north.

He lifts his head when you slide into the empty chair on the left, but says nothing about your unexpected company.

Instead, his lips curl over the cigar sawed between his teeth. A grin, you think.

You wonder if he was expecting you.

(Wonder, then, with a touch of something warm gnarling in your belly, if you surprised him.)

The barkeep wanders past, brows lifting at you in question.

"Um, a vodka soda—"

The man, Price you learned from the locals with a great of digging, snorts.

"Ain't got none of that here, love. Two scotches. Neat." He leans over, thick fingers grasping the middle of the cigar, an inch away from the bristles on his upper lip, and pulls it away, ashing it in the tray in front of him. "And a bottle of spring water."

"Scotch?" You echo, leaning your elbow on the sticky counter. He reeks of smoke. Sweat. Blood. Gunpowder. You veer closer, soaking in the astringent tang of him. Everyone on this island smells of daffodils and cotton; clean and neat and innocent. He reeks of danger. Everything inside of you screams to stay away. "I don't drink scotch."

The cigar burns in the tray. He pulls back, shifting in the chair. His elbow rests on the counter, the other arm is slung over the back of his seat. The picture of appeasement, of a satiated tiger eying a little mouse sniffing past it. There's no immediate danger, and his posture is relaxed. Open. But his eyes—

Price turns to you, then. His legs are spread, knees notched apart, taking up more space than you offer him. A looming presence. Dominating. Confident. He's not doing it on purpose, you don't think, he's just—

Big.

His legs are too long. Thighs are too thick.

Something gnarls behind your ribs when you take in his bare face. It's different, smaller, without the bulky black hood thrown low on his brow. His hands bare, leaving him in only casual clothes that stretch taut around his broad body.

The beanie on his head, pulled low on his forehead, makes him look roguish, rough. The picturesque presentation of a bad boy down to the pelt-brown leather Levi jacket stretched taut around his broad shoulders.

He looks older, somehow, without the tenebrous of night shading him in dark indigo. Aged like a fine whisky. All burnt umber and ivory.

The charcoal colouring brightens the heavy blue of his eyes—crushed bluebonnets and powdered graphite; a black hole centre—and the frame of his brown lashes dusting over his clean cheeks makes something pool in your lower belly.

(You wonder if he'd taste of whisky sour.)

"Well," he murmurs, brow lifting. It makes the skin on his forehead crinkle. He has laugh lines cresting around the corners of his eyes. They stand out to you, now. Void of the shadows you're used to. "You do when I'm paying."

The scotch, the cigar, the dingy pub that reeks of stale cigarettes and is perfumed in a dusting of nicotine that films every surface coalesces into incipient vice.

His hand moves from where it's loosely curled around his glass, and rests, heavy and warm, on your thigh.

When he leans in, you taste calcine on his breath.

The acrid tang is a balm to the blisters in your raw esophagus. You meet him in the middle, smaller hands curling over the wool lapels of his jacket, tugging him into you.

"Never thanked you for saving me," you murmur, his beard grazing your lips. A tickle. A brush.

Price sucks in a deep breath, eyes liquifying into an intense azure. "No need to thank me, love. As much as I love the ocean, you don't belong there, do you? No," he adds, decisively. Sure. "You belong on land. The earth. You're wild, like the forest, aren't you?"

It's an out. An escape. An option to flee from the cosm that folds around you like a nebulous cloud.

You could take it. Back up, away. Walk out of this dingy pub on the wrong side of town, and forget the man who reeks of nicotine, smoke; who leaves ashes behind on your skin when he touches you.

The only one who stares at you from the unfathomable black of his eyes, lashes shrouded in tenebrous, and makes you falter. Makes your heart lurch, jumping to sit at the bottom of your throat.

You should pull away. Stay away from the man who leaks ethanol and nitroglycerine. From the man who smells of acrid smoke. Gunfire.

You should.

But your fingers tighten in the lapels of his jacket, pulling him closer. Closer.

The bridge of his nose is warm when it presses against your own.

His eyes spark, wildfires. A blazing forest.

"You said something about vices." His chest rumbles in response to your hushed words.

"So I did."

Smoke singes your nose when you brush your lips over his. Warm. Chapped. Dry. You taste ash. Humus. The bitter tang of dandelion oil.

"Got some time tonight?"

"Thought you said I shouldn't be smoking."

"We're not in a park, near flammable trees," your hand falls to his chest. His heart thuds beneath your palm. Thick, full. Your eyes lift to his, lidded and heavy. You gaze at him from under your lashes, coy. Demure. You wonder if he can see how eager you are beneath the sly cut of your lids. "Are we, Price?"

The use of his name makes his lips quirk. A small, secretive thing that you can't read.

"No, we're not." His hand slides down, curling over your knee. "Don't know what you're gettin' into, love."

"Oh, no?" You taunt, breathless. Even through all your layers, you still feel his searing heat on your skin. His eyes drop when your tongue lashes out, wetting your lower lip. "And what's that?"

A frisson shudders over his face. Lashes fluttering. He leans forward, resting the rim of his beanie on your forehead.

When his eyes slide open, all you see is arsenic white pooled around Prussian blue. "More than you could ever dream of."

Your trembling fingers curl into the lapels of his jacket. For leverage, maybe; or to hide the quiver in your joints from his widening eyes.

And so, you kiss him.

A messy punch to the mouth with your sun-blistered lips.

His mouth parts, wry curls flutter when he inhales sharply. And then—

He devours you.

It's messy. More sealed lips glueing together than it ever could be considered a proper kiss, but it feels more like a homecoming than stepping off the boat, and you tuck that inside your pounding chest.

(The whispers in your head seem to sing when his lips touch yours.)

You taste bark on your tongue when it slips over his. Loam. Moss. Something earthy and rich. His beard scratches your chin, your lips, but you pull him closer, hungry for more—for the taste of wilderness on his tongue, for the respite from the whispers, the screams. Like the ocean, he, too, is a vacuum, swallowing everything whole until just you remain, stripped down to nothing but sensation and want. Bare, raw.

Your teeth ache when you pull away, fingers curling into the coarse hair along his chin. The whips of his wry curls scratch your palm.

You never want to let go.

Price's eyes are noctilucent clouds; a storm over a rainforest. He'll ruin you. Devour. Destroy. Take, and take, and take until there is nothing left.

Your lips tremble when you speak, words tremulous with your desire, your eagerness, when they slip past your bruised mouth.

"I can think of a few that are better than smoking."

Price shudders.

"Where did you go?" Your friend asks, eyes swinging from the cards spread out in front of him—the Idiot, Solitaire—to you. They burn into the side of your face, the same place Price touched with bare knuckles, and said you belong to the forest, don't you? "Missed dinner."

You ate Doro Wat in a small shop after Price fucked you stupid in the dingy bathroom of the pub, face scraping against the waterlogged wallpaper that chipped with each brutal thrust of his hips.

Like that, hmm? Can barely take me, love, but you're so fuckin' greedy for it, ain't you?

You're sure the barkeep heard your moans as they bounced off the jaundiced walls.

(You still hear him hissing in your ear. Still feel him splitting you apart.)

You try not to shiver.

"Ate already," you shrug, bundling your sleep clothes tight in your trembling hands. When you stand, his eyes follow you. "So. Um—"

"You okay?"

"Yeah," you say, shifting on the balls of your feet. "I've—" You think of his eyes, gyre white, and wonder if this is what it feels like to get swallowed by the sea. "I've never been better."

"Good," he says, smiling. "I worry about you, you know?"

You nod. "Yeah," you say. "Me, too."

You break apart in the shower, falling into pieces as you make yourself finish, thinking about nothing but the phantom stretch of his cock seated deep inside of you, the taste of his come pooling on your tongue.

It balms the residual burn in your esophagus, and you know, then, when you throb, still wanting his touch on your skin, that you've always been terrible at telling yourself no.

It can't happen. It can't.

There's a strange magnetism about him—an uncanny sense of mystery and familiarity sutured together.

It feels a little bit like staring at the looming maw, the event horizon, of a black hole. Unfathomable black. No way out.

There's something that feels a bit like forewarning inside your chest when he brushes against you, and presses his lips on the skin behind your ear—a secret place only he knows, where only his fingerprints have ever been. You feel his touch even when he's gone. Haunted by the memory of his rough hands and rasping tenor.

Running would make sense, you think, watching the ferries come and go. You have enough money for a ticket, and you've yet to even unpack your bag.

You don't know who he is, but you've given him everything. All of it. There's nothing left inside of you to hand over, but he keeps looking at you as if he's waiting for more.

"Waiting for a ride?"

You glance back at the operator with a divot between your brow and cotton inside your ears.

You want to say yes, but you shake your head instead.

"No." I can't leave. "Just enjoying the view."

You find birch branches stripped of leaves, juniper berries, maple leaves, spindles of dogwood, bushels of fir, and bouquets of bog rosemary, northern bluebell, fireweed, and wintergreen on your doorstep each morning, laid gently against the old welcome mat.

You should toss them out, and throw them away. How does he know where you live, anyway? It would make the most sense; be the wisest decision.

Instead, you tuck them inside your notebook, pressing them against the pages where they'll be safe.

(You try not to think too much about why they never die.)

It happens again. And again. Again—

It becomes a ritual for the few months you're back in town. The leaves, twigs, petals, pines, and seeds all show up at your door each morning and come nightfall, you're drawn to him like a moth to a flame.

He finds the nastiest looking pub in the city, and you find him there after dark.

He sits, smokes a cigar. Orders two scotches, and a bottle of spring water. Teaches you how to drink it properly—none of that sugary cocktail shite; just pure whisky, love, as it should be—and lets you puff on the damp end of his cigar, eyes gleaming in the soft yellow light above as he takes in the way your lips curl over the wet tip.

He stares at you like he's indulging you.

Like he knows.

And maybe, he does.

Maybe he sees the way your jaw works, tongue lashing over the tip just to chase his taste. The heat in your cheeks, your eyes, as you gaze at him, open and raw and wanting. The way you list toward him. Eager for it. For him. His touch, his smell.

He must, you think, but he's a right bastard.

He doesn't give it until the end of the evening, when everyone has gone home. When it's just you and him and the barkeep that glowers at you something ugly when you stand on shaky legs, and whisper you're going to the washroom.

Your fingers curl over the chipped porcelain, back arched as you stare at the face in the mirror.

You can't remember if it's you.

Whisky has polluted your synapses. The thick scent of smoke, the tobacco from the cigar, has congealed into resin over that little bundle of axons and nerves that control your impulse, logic.

Stupid.

You stare at the thing in the mirror, and wonder if the basal want on your face was so apparent to him as it is to you. If he saw the dark gleam of hunger, greed, impatience, swimming in your ink-smudged depths.

The door rattles. Clicks.

The squeak of the hinges is the only warning you get before Price is there, liquified in the doorway and clouded in smoke.

His hand curls over the worn, peeling frame. Eyes dance with the same hunger, same want, as the ones that flicker across the surface of the mirror.

"Couldn't wait for me, eh, love?" He breathes, his chest expands with his exhale. Scenting you, you think. You wonder if he can smell the slick pooling in your panties. The desperation brimming in your veins. "Wanted it that bad, huh?"

He moves. A mountain of a man now filling up the entirety of your gaze until all you see is him.

You used to want to climb mountains. In training, they always warned of summit fever. Of that little part of your head that just wanted it to be over, to reach the very top of the precipice. Impatient, it couldn't wait. It made you spring up, and climb higher and higher before you were ready, prepared.

You think of it now when your hands lift, curling over his broad shoulders.

("Summit fever will get you killed," they say.)

"Just shut up and fuck me, Price."

His eyes flash. "Greedy little thing, aren't you?"

You are. Painfully so.

It etches in your ribs like a sickness, festering in your mouldering bones. Rotting you from the inside out.

A crutch in the searing heat of skin, sweat, and sin. The feeling of him taking you apart, breaking you down into atoms and molecules that bubble in the lining of your head becomes so commonplace, so often forget who you are when you're pushed up against a wall, being filled to the brim by him.

He leaves madness behind when he goes, and the world that divides fantasy from reality begins to crack, to splinter.

You hear his voice in your head late at night when the wind blows through the window, carrying the scent of the forest.

"Come home," he rasps in your ear.

The scratch of his beard seems to scrape against the little thread keeping you tied down to reality. It's frayed and worn by his hands. You wonder when he'll sink his teeth in the silk, and snap the line. Untethering you from your binds.

Come home to me. Come back to where you belong—

Price takes you out to dinner three months after this—whatever it is—starts. After your house becomes more of a garden, writ with the wild remnants of the forest, after each passing day. Full of bushes, and branches. Twigs and precious gems. He gives you raw gold, and open geodes full of amethyst, and sapphire. Canopy leaves, and bark from the trees.

He leaves a whittled deer made from the red wood of a giant sequoia, and the likeness of the little fawn makes you believe that one day, it'll come to life in your living room.

(You leave a dish of water near the doorway—just in case—and wonder if you're becoming just as mad as your gran.)

He shows up at your doorstep, the bleached antlers of a great pronghorn in his hands. It's decorated with vines and moss weaved over the ivory in intricate braids and knots that you can't even begin to unravel. You marvel at the gift as he tells you he's taking you out for dinner.

There is no discussion. He doesn't ask, he just—

Does.

"Found a spot," he says, arms crossed over his broad chest. The cable-knit sweater pulls, stretched taut over his bulk. "Think you'd like it."

You don't know what to say. The antlers feel heavier in your hands, and warm to the touch. You try not to shiver when you set it down beside the little fawn.

"Oh," you say, but know you've never turned him down yet. It's all—

So much.

Your home is slowly becoming one with nature, with vines growing on the walls in great blooms of wisteria and lilac; the old floor boards under your feet shudder and creak as little saplings sprout through the cracks. You wake up at night and taste earth in your throat, feel the grass beneath your fingers. The breeze in your hair. The call of an arctic tern.

You dream of running through the forest. Of being chased. You breathe and feel the little seeds inside of your lungs start to take root. Soon you'll bloom with dandelions.

"Okay," you say, and wonder if the madness rummaging around your head will turn into a beautiful sequoia in the end. "Let's go."

The tavern is busy on a weeknight, crowded with a swell of mainlanders who'd ventured out for a camping trip over the long weekend.

You sit with your back straight, and listen to him talk about a hike he wants to take with you in the morning. Through the woods, he says, and you don't ask which one. You know. You know.

(It's time. It's time.)

There are alarm bells ringing in your head, but they're drowned out by the crooning whispers.

But the line is only frayed and worn, and despite the lure in his voice, the itch in your head to say yes, you hesitate. Falter.

The woods are dangerous.

You don't want to go.

He seems to sense it. His brows knot together.

"You want to, don't you?"

You fiddle with your napkin and try not to meet his arsenic stare. "It's… dangerous."

"I'll keep you safe."

"It's probably time for me to leave, anyway."

The air in the room turns frigid all at once. You think you can see white plumes of condensation when you shakily breathe out, teeth chattering.

"Price—"

"Didn't wanna do this, love," he says, voice hushed. Barely a whisper. His eyes are lavascapes. "But you ain't givin' me much of a choice, are you?"

"What—?"

The words die on your tongue when movement flashes in the corner of your eye. A man weaves, liquid, through the mindless crowd, cutting a path like the parting red sea.

His eyes are honeycombs. In his hand, he holds a limp dandelion.

It takes you a moment to make out the strange man who looms in the background. A splash of colour among sfumato.

It's Gaz.

The childish swell of his cheeks has sunken into angled, sharp bone. Slender fingers twirl the flower around, around, around—

It's hypnotic. You stare, horrified and awed—a strange amalgam of emotions that slip down your spine: worry, elation, panic, comfort—as his pink lips part into an easy, familiar grin. The cresting sun breaching the horizon. Eyes slanting in playful derision.

He looks like he's torn between telling a joke and spitting vitriol. Making you laugh, and then making you cry.

It buzzes in the air, electrified fingers dancing down your spine, and then just as quickly as the boy who disappeared reemerges into the land of the living, into this bastardised reality, he gives one last sharp, fanged grin, a mordant wink, and then he's gone.

He slips through the door, and without hesitating, you give chase.

Price says nothing when you go. Or maybe he does, but you can't hear anything except the rustling of leaves in your head.

Gaz, it whispers. Gaz, Gaz, Gaz.

(It's time for the lost little boy to come home.)

The rocks sit in a zigzag pattern through the frothing waters, a deceptive bridge that connects the valley to the coast. You feel the tremulous rattle of the water slicing against the hollow cavern beneath your feet. A ledge chiselled from the blunt erosion of the rapid currents below. One day, they say, the granite shelf will give and a massive hole filled with howling water will fill it.

Try not to be the idiot standing on the ledge.

You feel the power of the currents even on the peat-covered edge.

The water in front of you is deceptive. A calm, rolling surface at the shoreline almost seems to beckon you inside. Come take a dip in the cool waters. Grow fins and gills and chase the river otters through the currents. Feast on the wily salmon, and see if your feet can touch the sandy streambed.

But the river's fatality is nearly assured. No one has survived a dip in these waters that act as a serrated knife, carving chasms and channels through the granite below. The currents will rip into you, pulling you until your body is crushed against the wall, or into an unsearchable cave.

One slip, you think. Just one.

But—

The man in the bar flickers through your mind. His honeycomb eyes, fanged grin. Ethereal in his beauty like a painting of a god in oil and raw canvas. Carved likeness of a Stygian prince.

It was Kyle. It was Gaz. You know it. Know it deep within your bones, your marrow.

Taking the first step to the jutting slate that peaks just a few precious inches from the raging waters is easier, then, when you think of the boy who plucked a dandelion from the earth, and tucked it behind your ear. It makes the risk less daunting when it's for him.

For his parents who sunk into themselves, into the crater his absence left behind. A deep depression into the earth that swallowed them whole.

They moved last year after laying down a bouquet of flowers at the mouth of the forest.

You toe your shoes off, leaving them at the embankment, and then you leap. The perch is slick with waterlogged moss, slimy. It wobbles under you, but you catch yourself, stabilising. Steady. You huff. One down, four more to go.

Up close, they look so far apart. A chasm between each rock. An endless abyss that will rip you into pieces.

Still. Still. You have to find him. Have to.

You step, toes sliding in the algae. The rock beneath is stained green. It wobbles again when you bring your other foot down on top of it. The loud clack of rock scraping against rock is heard, unmuffled by the roaring water that tugs on the stone. You feel the push against your feet.

Two more. Two more.

You take another step, and then—

You fall—

The world drips into focus, a steady trickle of cognisance that paints the world in shades of greens and browns. An eagle soars above the canopy, their shadow swooping through the thick tangle of conifers reaching to the heavens.

The bed of moss beneath you is damp—lush with dew and softer than your mattress at home. You sink into the ground when you breathe, caught in an embrace. The vines curl over your wrists, your ankles, as if refusing to let go.

It should scare you—and maybe it does—but there's something against your head, fingers digging into your temples, and you feel nothing except a warm serenity leaking in. Thought spool into liquid gold, threads that weave together in a knotted clump. Indistinguishable from each other, and unreachable when they slip deeper into the honeyed-thick fog that curls around your mind. A temper from logic, from fear. Anything that isn't pure, artificial comfort is filtered through and cast aside.

You don't know why you're here.

One moment, you felt the coils of the raging currents sinking its claws into your flesh, pulling you under the deep waters, and then—

Heat on your face. The sun's desperate attempt to filter through the corded canopy and touch the forest floor. The shrill call of an eagle on the prowl. The tender caress of the moss below cushions your body.

You should be underwater. Pressed tight against the side of the rocks until you were swept downstream and spat out in the inlet, waterlogged and dead.

You draw humid air into your lungs until it swells against your ribcage. The steady thud of your heart tells you that somehow, somehow, you're alive. An empty brag—thud, thud; thud, thud—that seems to call out to the birds in the emergent layer, the ones nestled in their branches as they watch your feeble attempt to reconcile how you survived.

It's strange, you think, but the soporific warmth coursing through your veins does not let you panic.

You are—

"Foolish."

The warmth turns molten. You try to sit up, but the vines tighten around your limbs. If you weren't so vulnerable, you think it would almost feel like a hug.

The soft crunch of the moss tells you the voice—the man—is moving forward, toward you. You want to scream, but your tongue is thick, and your mouth is numb.

"What you did there was stupid," he says, and the forest around you seems to come alive in his anger. Pulsing. The branches sway and the leaves rattle without any wind. The trees bend down, coming inward. You hear the scream of a fox in the distance. The chuff of an agitated brown bear.

Primordial signs tell you to run.

But you're trapped.

Price steps closer, falling to his knees beside you. You can see him now, and suddenly you wish you'd been swallowed by the waves.

His face is writ with anger, brows tightening together in displeasure.

He seems imbued with the forest. One with the lush green that swells around you. Burnt umber and icy blue. Ethereal, unnatural. Something in your hindbrain tells you to run from that man that looks as if he could swallow you whole.

"Tryin' t'die on me, hmm?"

His hand lifts, and you feel his warm knuckles graze your temple. Soft, gentle, despite the ire in his eyes, and the irritation clenched in his jaw.

"Gonna hav'ta try harder than that, love."

You weren't trying very hard at all, you think, dazed, dizzy. You weren't trying at all.

"You're mine," his eyes flash, and you feel the press of gravity against your skin, pulling you down to the soft earth. Your fingers twitch. The fog inside your head clears.

Blinking up at him, you catch the scattering supernovae echoing in the corners of his eyes; galaxies of pine and cedar, humus and tussock. They bloom from the black hole in the centre, surrounded by sapphire blue. He's not human, you think, but it doesn't surprise you because you already knew. Have known, really—ever since you asked around for his name and watched the same strange fog seep into their eyes as they struggled to remember a man they claimed to know.

Ever since you found bushels of figs on your doorstep.

A crown of pine needles and crow feathers.

Price leans over you, brows knotted together like the gnarled, weaving trunk of a Great Basin Bristlecone Pine.

There's a forest fire in his eyes. "You're mine, aren't you?"

You think about the trinkets left on your doorstep. The whispers, the screams.

"Did you ever give me a choice?"

The tension in his brow snaps taut. Agony frissons through the spaced canyons; whet from ire and slick from sorrow. He bends down, and shakes his head.

"I've always given you a choice," his words are smouldering logs, crackling with his pain. "I've always told you to go, but you couldn't stay away, could you?"

Price takes you on the mossy forest floor, fingers digging into the peat as you sink, down, down, down—

His hand under your head, cradling the back of your skull, keeps you from getting swallowed by the grass knoll that breathes and trill against your spine.

Fire licks in the crevasses of his eyes, molten desperation you can't ignore. He rages above you, quivering in the fading glow of the sunset struggling to slip through the canopy. No longer a man but a myth. He hangs over you with his canines bared, and flashes of anger and sorrow scorch the path his teeth leave behind on your skin.

You're becoming unmoored. Each touch, and brush; each sweep of his tongue soothing the indents of his razor-sharp teeth all seem to loosen the ties that thread through your soul, anchoring you to the world that stands in full bloom before you.

The forest shudders with his frantic pace; each piston of his hips leaks his fervent anguish and makes the trees croon, and creak as they bow their foliage in sorrow. His pain lashes through their roots, and rent the air in two. A fox mourns his loss in the distance. A wolf yowls in agony. His brethren lifting their muzzle to the sleepy moon, and howling out the melody of their despair.

It's too much, too much, and you fall into pieces in his hands, shivering beneath him as the woods around you tremble and quake. It's a mesmerising dance.

He finishes with a grunt that makes the world shudder anew, spending himself as deep inside of you as he can, as if he could overwrite your empty spaces with himself. Fill you to the brim until you are bursting with him, with life. Tulips for your eyes. Furze for veins. Moss for hair. Peat soil for blood.

When he speaks, the world falls silent.

"You don't know it yet, but you will. You've always been mine. Always belonged to the forest, to the earth. To me."

Despite his words, he lets you go.

And you run, run, run—

Your toes dig into the wet soil near the stream. The desperate catapult across the ravine halted at the very last moment, leaving you winded and shaking. Hands clenched into tight balls by your side. Quivering with fear, with the adrenaline rush still roaring in your veins.

You don't know what you're doing.

The whispers in your head go silent.

The absence of sound makes you mourn, and you think about his agony. The pain when he took you, the resignation when he let you go.

You think of him, and you know.

I've always told you to go, but you couldn't stay away, could you?

You scent napalm in the air, cloying despite the acrid burn that scalds your lungs when you breathe in deep, holding it there.

You think of the chest inside your closet. The pieces of yourself you left behind. The way he fits you like a puzzle, like he was made for you. Designed with your rough edges in mind. Softening your hard lines; scouring your gritty surface it was smooth and shiny like fire Opal and precious gems.

Ever since you felt his hand on your shoulder, you haven't been able to let go.

(You don't even think you ever really tried.)

Come to me, the forest says, honey in your ears. It sounds like the rapid beat of a million birds' wings, ready to take flight. Pulsing and alive and full of wonder, childish glee.

The earth blooms in your chest. You feel the soft, tender caress of the leaves against your skin, the moss sinking between your toes. Clinging to your flesh, desperate to get inside, and take refuge in your heart. Come home to us.

Your grandmother warned you to stay out of the forest, that it was dangerous. Deadly. Wrong. But how can it ever harm you when it touches you so sweetly?

The branches curl around your ankles as you walk, leading you, guiding you, to the place where you belong. The forest opens around you, spreads apart and makes room for you to pass, touching you as you go, taking little pieces of you. Strands of your hair, the salt from your tears. Pieces of clothes. Parts of your soul.

You pluck your heart out of your chest, and leave it beneath a gnarled sequoia. She will protect it forever.

Moss grows inside of the empty space. A tern makes a nest inside of it, filling it with a bed of pine needles, and twigs from the junipers. You feel a mouse make a home in your rib cage, burrowing between your bones. You place your hand over your side, and feel her nuzzle against your palm.

"You're safe now," you say. "We're almost home."

It's Gaz who greets you with a crown made of sugi. When he cups your face, you feel raging rivers and streams in his palms, and now that you are home.

"Missed you, dandelion," he breathes, and his voice turns into a Chinook that crests over the mountains. "But there's someone who wants to see you."

His hands slide down to your wrists, and you feel the sun grazing your skin when he spins you around, around, around—

"Now," he leans down, pressing his lips to the shell of your ear. You hear the Falcons nesting in his chest, and smell pine in his breath. "He's been an impatient bastard, you know? Just moping about ever since you left—"

A scoff. You lift your head and feel the swell of the earth beneath your feet. Dizzying. Wanting.

He waits for you in the thicket, eyes made of sapphire and stone. When he breathes, the forest swells with his breath, and you taste loam when you swallow.

"A sorry sap, thinkin' you were runnin' away, and all. But you won't, will you?" Gaz pushes you forward, and his laughter rings in your ears. "Not anymore."

Price meets you in the middle, his eyes sparkling embers. A baptism in fire. You feel the heat on your skin, and shiver.

You used to be afraid of forest fires, but you know, now, that sometimes trees need to burn before they can truly grow.

Lodgepole roots bud under his skin, rippling veins across a ravine. He rests his hand against your cheek, thumb brushing the dawn redwood needles that bloom under your skin.

"Welcome home."

"Why?" You asked, blinking at her.

"Because it's a courting ritual, and to accept means… well," her mouth twists in wry disdain. "Just don't."

You don't tell her that you already have. You don't mention the sticks and precious stones that always ended up on your windowsill. The whispers of the forest calling your name.

You nod sagely instead, fingers tightening around the sap stained heart chiselled from Bristlecone Pine. The charred ends are warm in your palm. You feel it pulse.

Will you accept this? My heart? Will you keep it safe for me?

"I will."

This was meant to be light and fluffy and smutty but now it's. This. And um. Oops. I hope you enjoyed it!

JOHN PRICE MASTERLIST | NAVIGATION PART THREE OF COD X MYTHOLOGY ⁞ SOAP ● DRAGON PRICE

#captain john price #captain john price x reader #john price #john price x you #john price x reader #captain price x reader #captain price x you #fae price #cod x mythology #bhhhhhhhh #ive been in halifax for the last week and it's been kinda rainy and weird and this was born

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astralnymphh · 4 months

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cocky era accurate misogyny (dw ellie is JOAKING shes a little trickster) moments with knight!ellie fic draft snippet 💜 I'm working hard and getting har

#ellie williams #౨ৎ. born of flora and fauna #⋆' upcoming #ellie williams x reader #ellie tlou #knight!ellie #knight!ellie x princess!reader #lesbian #sapphic #ellie x reader #ellie williams x fem!reader #ellie williams fic #ellie williams fanfic #ellie williams fanfiction #ellie williams series

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ahb-writes · 4 months

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Fantasy Worldbuilding Questions (Fauna and Flora)

Fauna and Flora Worldbuilding Questions:

What are the most common animals or plants, the fly, pigeon, grass and weed equivalents in your world?

What are humans or others’ relationship to fauna and flora? (For example, are some groups more respectful, reverent, or caring of their environment? Why?)

Who in your cast of characters cares most about your world’s fauna and flora? Who cares least?

Who nurtures or exploits your world’s plant and animal life?

Where are plants and animals more abundant or scarce, and why?

Where do plants and animals get their names from?

When will plants or animals first appear in the story, and what will their purpose be in regard to character or plot?

When did common species of plants or animals first appear in your world, and how did they evolve or adapt?

Why do certain plants or animals have cultural or religious significance – what is their backstory in myth or legend?

Why do specific plants or animals have economic value, and how does their availability affect this value? Do these aspects change over the story’s course?

❯ ❯ ❯ Read other writing masterposts in this series: Worldbuilding Questions for Deeper Settings

#writeblr #writing tips #writing advice #fiction writing #writing #novel writing #worldbuilding #now novel #fwq #flora and fauna #plants and animals #exploit the environment #cultural significance #urban fantasy #modern fantasy #fantasy worldbuilding

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sas-soulwriter · 7 months

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Fantasy place (which you can use for your story)

Some fantasy places you can use for your next story .

Luminoth Hollow: A subterranean cavern filled with glowing crystals that emit soothing light. Luminoth Hollow is home to a race of peaceful, bioluminescent creatures who communicate through light patterns.

Zephyria: A floating archipelago of lush, skyborne islands, tethered together by colossal, living vines. Each island has its unique ecosystem and is inhabited by winged creatures who navigate the skies between them.

Aurora Glade: A tranquil meadow hidden within a giant, sentient tree. The glade is bathed in eternal twilight and inhabited by gentle, dreamweaving creatures who protect the dreams of those who visit.

The Obsidian Spire: A towering, black monolith that pierces the heavens. It's said that at its peak lies a portal to another realm, guarded by enigmatic sentinels who test the worth of those who seek passage.

Eldertide Marsh: A mystical swamp where ancient, sentient trees rise from the waters, and luminous fireflies lead travelers along phosphorescent pathways. It's rumored that the marsh holds the key to unlocking forgotten knowledge.

Clockwork Citadel: A colossal, mechanical fortress powered by intricate gears and steam. Clockwork automatons serve as both guardians and caretakers, and the citadel houses a library containing the accumulated wisdom of the ages.

Whispering Sands: A desert where the dunes are constantly shifting, and the winds carry the whispers of long-forgotten spirits. At its heart stands an oasis of liquid crystal that reveals glimpses of the past and future.

The Eternal Library: A massive, floating island covered in towering bookshelves. Each book contains the life story of an individual, and the library is said to grant the power to rewrite destinies.

Gloomwood Thicket: A dense, enchanted forest perpetually cloaked in twilight. Within its shadows reside shadowy creatures that can manipulate time, making it a place of both wonder and danger.

Abyssal Abyss: An underwater realm where bioluminescent flora and fauna thrive. Merfolk and other aquatic beings have built stunning, glowing cities within deep-sea caves.

Sylvan Skylines: An archipelago of floating islands inhabited by tree-dwelling, bird-like beings who harness the power of wind and weather. They craft intricate bridges and pathways connecting their aerial homes.

Whispering Peaks: Towering, mist-shrouded mountains said to hold the knowledge of the cosmos. Monasteries and meditation chambers dot the landscape, where monks seek enlightenment through quiet contemplation.

The Emberforge: An underground forge where skilled blacksmiths craft legendary weapons and armor imbued with the essence of fallen stars. The air is filled with the sound of hammers on metal and the crackling of celestial flames.

The Crystal Canyons: A network of canyons adorned with enormous, glowing crystals that resonate with hauntingly beautiful melodies when touched. Nomadic crystal herders roam the canyons, taming the living crystals.

The Dreamer's Archipelago: A series of islands, each representing different dreams and nightmares. Travelers can enter these dreamscapes and interact with the inhabitants, who are manifestations of dreams themselves.

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staytinyville · 2 months

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Stay Alive (42)

BTS poly!ot7 x Reader

Magical Creatures AU

Series Masterlist

Warnings: none

A/N NOT BETA. I am back to writing! I am crying. You have no idea how terrible this past two weeks was for me. I felt so out of place not writing but for some reason I couldn't find it in me to get back to it. I had lost literally all passion for it. So much happened that really didn't put me in the right state of mind. But I got back to it and found my passion again! So here is the long awaited Hobi chapter! I'm so excited to hear your thoughts on this one.

Hoseok lived in the same region your grandparents had. It was nice to take in the beautiful sights you were so familiar with. However, watching as creatures and different kinds of magical beasts mingle about. The flora and fauna were much different to your own home–it seemed like everything flourished a lot more.

Taehyung had told you about how witches and faeries lived out in nature because it made them feel connected. As you held onto his hand, you smiled softly as his fingers weaved between the bushes and trees that covered the path they were taking. Your eyes widened as the foliage seemed to bloom and follow along with his hands.

“Hoseok!” Someone shouted, moving along the path as they came upon a large cottage.

You smiled to yourself, finally seeing the kind of house you had assumed this world would have. However, it was still large. You were sure the inside looked spectacular.

You let go of Hoseok’s hand, allowing him to embrace his mother and another woman who was crying.

“Oh, my baby boy!” His mother smiled, looking over his shoulder to find you. “This must be your mate.” She exclaimed walking over to you to give you a hug. “I’m so happy to finally meet you.”

She turned around to her son, smiling as he was being bullied by the other woman. She had him in a chokehold, laughing when he tried to pull at her with the grass that was growing exponentially.

“I came home when mom called to tell us that you finally came back.” She smiled, patting Hoseok on the back.

“All thanks to (Y/N).” Hobi smiled, reaching out for your hand.

“We owe you so much.” Hoseok’s mother smiled softly, dropping her hand onto your shoulder.

“It was nothing.” You smiled bashfully.

“Nonsense!” Hoseok’s sister exclaimed. “Please, allow me to give you something in return.” She reached out to hold your hands. “Not only did you bring my brother back but you also brought his coven home. I'm sure their families would give you something as well.” She told you softly.

“I don't know—” You tried to tell her it was alright but she just gave you a smile.

“Let me give you a reading.” She stopped you.

“A reading?” Your eyebrows furrowed, looking over at Hobi.

“Jiwoo is a master at reading people.” He explained. “Witches clairsenses are a lot stronger than anyone else. We can predict futures, see the dead, see what haunts you. It's part of our abilities.” He told you.

You grew interested, being reminded about how Taehyung had explained his abilities to you. He did tell you that you could find out what Hobi was capable of if you asked him. You assumed readings were part of the things witches could do that faeries couldn’t.

“Taehyung can't do that then?” You questioned.

“No.” Hobi answered. “Telepathy and mental manipulation is our thing. He can't do any of that.”

“Fairies have energy manipulation which is a very powerful thing.” Jiwoo told you. “However we have healing and can control the elements.”

You looked down to the grass, seeing that it had gone back to normal now that the siblings weren’t play fighting. You also remembered how the leaves and the trees followed after Hobi’s fingers as he passed them. You wondered what it was like to watch him play with fire or water.

“That's so cool.” You breathed out.

“Come.” Jiwoo quickly brought you into their home, the decor modernized as you guessed. “Sit!” She pushed you to sit at the dining table, moving a chair in front of you and taking your hands. “I already saw a lot the moment you walked in.”

You could feel something tingle at your fingertips, making you tilt your head. You suddenly felt something hovering over your shoulder. Hobi and his mother were standing behind Jiwoo, watching with curiosity. You wanted to turn your head and see what it was but Jiwoo stopped you before you could.

“Oh.” You watched as Jiwoo’s eyebrows rose, making you glance up at Hobi.

“I think the first thing I should say—you have a past with our world.” Jiwoo turned up to you. “Don't you?” She asked.

“Yeah.” You sighed, thinking about your grandfather. “Apparently I do.”

Jiwoo nodded her head, smiling over your shoulder. “You have a protector too. They've been there since you were a little girl. Butterflies are what I see around you.” She explained, running her fingers along your palms just to get a sense of your energy.

“Nabi.” Hobi spoke up. “It was a name you kept saying but didn't know where it came from.”

“They're someone very important in your story. Both the past and this one.” Jiwoo nodded to herself, pausing as though she was listening to someone. “I'm positive they were the ones who led you to my brother and his coven.”

“You really think that?” You asked, eyes wide.

“Of course.” Jiwoo hummed.

You flinched just for a moment, hearing a childish giggle from behind you. Hobi and his family must have heard because they all looked over you, smiling softly. You turned around, frowning when you couldn’t find anything. It was clear that the Jung family could see things that you were not.

“Now something I find extremely fascinating is the number 5.” You quickly furrowed your eyebrows, wondering what that would mean.

“It keeps turning up–four and then two. They are different animals–different creatures.” This only served to make you more confused. If it was about the boys there was seven of them, not five. It made you worry, thinking something was going to happen.

“I can't really tell what they are going to be but I know they have to do with the boys.” Jiwoo turned around, quickly pulling her brother to the table. “Hobi, come here.” She told him, making him place his hand over your own.

“Ah!” Jiwoo gasped out, hands flying away from the two of you as though she had been burned. “I found it! Babies!” She jumped up, her face having elation as she turned to her mother.

“Babies?” You asked, still confused. You looked up at Hobi, watching as he seemed to have a frown on his face and looked beyond confused.

Hobi was nowhere near as powerful when it came to his clairsense like his sister was. The most he knew was his mental abilities so watching how his sister made him take your hand brought things out of him. He saw the animals that seemed to scurry around. They were small things, indicating something childish and small. It was clear that Jiwoo knew exactly what they all meant by her screeching.

“Eomma!” Jiwoo shouted. “Five grandbabies!”

“Five?” You whispered, wide eyed.

“Grandbabies?” Hoseok repeated.

Hobi’s mother and sister took a moment to gush and talk about it–claiming that Hobi was going to be one of the babies' fathers. However you just kind of sat there with a wide eyed expression trying to go through the motions.

It wasn’t that you didn’t want children, it had more to do with the question Taehyung had asked you when you had visited his family. If you were to have their kids did that mean you were going to stay with them? Was that your answer without you even reaching it on your own?

Later that night, Hobi had taken you to his room–showing off everything he could. You smiled softly when he showed you his elemental manipulation. He created ice sculptures for you, made the wind blow through your hair, and had a flicker of fire crackling at his palms. It served to entertain you for a while, keeping your mind off what had happened with his mother.

But after she came to bid you both a goodnight, you were left awestruck once more at the happy expression the woman had on her face. You couldn’t know how she must have felt–spending ten years without her son only to come back and hear that he had finally found his forever and was going to make a family of his own.

It must have been something that one would think hard on–especially because the one who was meant to be the mate to seven men was human and not from their world.

“Five children.” You brought up, laying on Hobi’s chest. “Oh god.” You chuckled quietly.

“Wow, wow, wow.” Hoseok sat up, bringing you along with him so he could look at you properly. “You're okay. You're fine.” He tried to tell you. “Let's not think about it at the moment, yeah?” He said softly.

“How can I not?” You sighed. “Jiwoo told yoru mom it was going to be her grandchildren.” You smiled lightly, memorizing Hobi’s face. “Does that mean I'm going to have a family with you?” You whispered to him.

“Not everything is set in stone.” Hobi’s shoulders dropped thinking it wasn’t something you wanted. “You can always change your future.”

You furrowed your eyebrows, pulling a hand up to his cheek. “What if I don't want to?” You whispered.

His eyes went wide, looking at you incredulously. “You want—to start a family with me? With us?” He gasped, lip trembling as he thought about it.

“I don't think we're there yet but, staying with you all has been on my mind.” You laughed lightly.

“Who told you?” Hobi pouted, knowing it had been one of the boys who brought it up to you.

“Taehyung.” You giggled.

“Such a boy.” He rolled his eyes.

Taking a glance over your face, he smiled softly, moving to rub a thumb across your cheek. “Hey, I love you with everything in me. You have done so much for all of us that it's hard not to love you.”

“But we want you to know that even if we do love you, it's not our choice to make.” He added softly.

“I love you, Hoseok. I love you all so much I don't think I'd want to be away from you.” You leaned forward, breathing against his lips.

“We have to save everyone first. And then we can talk about our coven.” Hoseok told you.

He leaned down capturing your lips in a kiss.

And so you smiled at him, knowing exactly what you wanted to do now that you had heard it from them all. You weren’t going to leave them. It would hurt too much. So you knew that deep down this was your story alongside them.

Series Masterlist

@h3arteyes4mingi , @fangirling-all-the-way-tbh , @rinkud, @rln-byg , @singukieee , @hoshi-is-ult-bbg , @ldysmfrst , @juju-2275922 , @alienchickenpoop , @dreamerwasfound , @afangirl91 , @psiphidragon , @puppyminnnie , @shyloh-the-cornsnake , @ollyoxenfrees , @whynotlarene , @beeltsumu , @cryingpages , @milopenne , @belikejk , @thatonedemigodfromseoul , @woozixo,

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cxyotl · 1 year

Text

Piglin stuff bc im. bored and kinda sad.

-Piglins are a Netherian race of anthropomorphic boars. The term “piglin” is an Overworld name for the race, literally meaning “pig-like” or “derived from pigs”. the term was adopted by the piglins, who’s word for themselves could be translated to a similar phrase.

-Piglins are matriarchal and live in clans but the eldest son of the clan is trained as a brute, or soldier in the multi-clan bastions as a representative. “brute” is, again, an Overworld name based on the Piglim word for soldier, which is a grunt that sounds a bit like the English word “brute”. the Piglin word is actually more like “brrutk.”

-Piglin language (Grüntish) is made up of a series of grunts, oinks, and squeals. one grunt can mean many different things based on culture, context, and tone. for example, take “brrutk”. that grunt or word can translate to soldier, eldest son, diplomat, or even villain depending on how the grunt is enunciated.

-Because Piglins naturally have a warmer body temperature, about 115° F or 46° C, cold temperatures are a better indicator of illness than warmer temperatures. the zombie virus, also known as the rotting disease, is a disease that happens when Netherians are exposed to colder temperatures or are ill enough that they become cold.

-The rotting disease pandemic hit the Nether severely, wiping out fauna and flora for a long time before it was managed. Piglins, their forests, and their main sources of food (hoglins and striders) were especially affected.

-Piglins make their clothes from hoglin and strider leather. Their main source of meat is hoglins, and they usually tame striders as transportation. Hoglins are sometimes captured and placed inside of bastions to protect the area or be released in battle against enemies, but this is extremely dangerous and therefore quite rare.

-Professions within Piglin clans are loose and unspecialized, since every clan member needs to learn and act as farmers, doctors, and hunters simultaneously. Matriarchs (Kruuk), heirs, and high-ranking men in clans do the same work as the rest of the clan

-Clans are family based, but sometimes can contain as many as four or five family units. These are organized and ruled by the oldest women from each family, all working together as one democratic “council”

-LGBT identities are honored in Piglin communities. transwomen who used to be brrutks are particularly respected for their ability to become kruuks and their experience in a bastion.

-Bastions (military bases that are organized and run by multi-clan alliances) are manned by the brrutks, prisoners, and volunteers. Serving in a bastion is both an honorable thing and a punishment depending on why you are there.

-Killing a hoglin is the most honorable thing a piglin can do, and an apprentice piglin (a younger member if a clan who is training) killing their first hoglin is a cause for celebration as it marks the end of their training. Hoglets (baby hoglins) are never hunted, but they can be captured to be brought into bastions.

#minecraft lore #piglins #minecraft headcanons

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millersdjarin · 1 year

Text

I Only See Daylight

Chapter One

Pairing: Din Djarin x F!Reader

Series: Ongoing, set after The Mandalorian season two

Warnings/Tags (Overall): eventual smut, post-canon, trauma, past emotional/physical abuse, scars, self-doubting/negative self-image, din working out his shit, reader working out her shit, found family, injury, religious trauma, cults

~series masterlist & info~

chapter tags/warnings: mentions of past trauma/emotional abuse

chapter length: 6.8k

notes: this planet and its creatures are entirely made up by me, it does not exist, hope u like it anyway :) the fic title is from "daylight" by taylor swift, aka the soundtrack for this fic ❤️

my love was as cruel as the cities i lived in; everyone looked worse in the light

Ah, the smells and sounds of a backwater planet in the morning.

Dewy grass underfoot and damp moss lining the bases of trees. Birds chirping on the tall branches, bright green leaves shaking gently in the wind, the sound rustling through the air. The scent of the nearby flowers, the running of the river beside your hut, the hissing of an engine and the smell of burning metal…

Wait.

That’s…not the smell of this backwater planet in the morning.

You’ve just had a small breakfast, fruit picked from the meiloorun trees a few miles West, when the strange sounds and smells suddenly hit you.

It’s concerning, to say the least. No one is around for hundreds of klicks; not a hint of civilisation, not a whiff of a trade route until you reach the other side of the planet.

You chose this place for a kriffing reason. No one’s here. No one’s even near. Despite the sparse covering of meiloorun trees in an overgrown meadow, there’s no reason for anyone to be here. No reason for a ship to land nearby, that’s for sure.

Unless…

No time to think.

There are footsteps approaching.

Shit.

Your sniper rifle is by the door to your hut, blaster by your pillow. One for hunting food, one for self defence.

One that you’ve never had to use before now. Not since arriving here, anyway.

Well, first time for everything.

You grab it, and press yourself against the wall by your door, slowing your breathing so you can listen closely. The footsteps get closer; they’re muffled on the grassy ground, but getting louder, and it’s definitely a two-legged being of some kind. Just one.

You’d have thought that if They had found you, They would bring the whole damn lot along to take you back. An army, a garrison, outnumbering and overpowering you in every way.

But maybe not. They’re cunning, manipulative. Maybe sending just one of them, sending him, is a tactic. Maybe They think it would break you down; make you vulnerable again.

Well, whoever it is is walking carefully, slowly. Like every step could be putting a foot wrong.

There is, of course, the possibility that they’re not here for you at all, and are just going to bypass your hut without a second thought. A very minute possibility; you are the only sentient being here, your hut the only sign of someone’s life. It’s the best place to hide, somewhere where no one ever goes, because no one needs or wants to. The flora and fauna isn’t ideal, there are no useful resources for trading, and only just enough for one careful person to survive on.

But that chance of someone being here not for you is squashed when you peer out of the window on the door and realise that, yes, there is a figure emerging from the woods in front of your hut, and, yes, that is the shine of the barrel of a blaster.

Kriff.

They’ve found you.

You could run. There’s a back door you built specifically for this.

But if there’s only one out front, then it’s definitely some kind of manipulation tactic. There will be more nearby. They’ll be waiting in the back, having taught you themselves to always have a back route to escape, and they’ll grab you before you can even think twice.

The only option is to try and reason with him. To try and use his own tricks against him. To manipulate him into thinking you’re doing what he wants, and then use his weakness to get away.

It’s never worked before.

But it’s the only option you’ve got.

Creaking open your front door, you point your blaster around the frame, followed closely by your left eye. You expect to see a human face, bearded, white skin and bright blue eyes. Familiar. So familiar you can never fucking forget it.

But, instead, all you see is blinding silver.

No, not silver. Not even durasteel. You don’t know what it’s made of, but it’s armour, a lot of it, shining brightly in the morning sunlight. It’s complete with a helmet, also that strange type of silver metal, with a black T-shaped Visor across the eyes and cutting down the front. A gloved hand is holding up a blaster not dissimilar to your own, though the person looks hesitant, only holding it as a caution, as they approach your hut in the same way.

“Get back!” You shout.

The armour stops.

People don’t normally actually stop when you tell them to. So, you’re not sure what to do next.

(You were expecting to shoot, but honestly, you’re not sure what good it could possibly do past that armour. What is that stuff, anyways?)

“Leave now,” you demand, “this is your warning. I will shoot you.”

The hand holding the blaster lifts, very pointedly bringing their finger off the trigger. They hold up both of their hands, in surrender. “I’m not here to harm you,” a voice comes through the helmet, modulated and most likely male. He’s speaking quietly, so measured and calm that you wonder if the helmet does that for him.

“You need to leave!” You say again, gaining enough confidence now that his blaster is not pointed at you to put your whole head around the door. Now both of your eyes are on him, you see the entirety of his armour. He is absolutely armed to the fucking teeth, probably not even needing a blaster to kill you in a breath. There’s a rifle on his back. A satchel is slung over his shoulder, but you can’t see the bag itself as it sits over his back.

The shape and design of his helmet is familiar to you, distantly, something in your brain ringing when you see it. But you can’t quite put your finger on it, and it’s not important right now.

“I can’t do that,” he says, measuredly calm again.

“Who are you? What do you want?”

A pause. He still has his hands in the air, but after seeing the amount of weapons he has strapped to him, it’s not all that comforting. “My ship crashed,” he says after an uncomfortably long time, like he wishes he didn’t have to say it. “I was hoping to find somewhere to buy parts.”

You huff out a laugh. “Good luck with that,” you say. Subtly, and with your blaster still aimed at him, you get another look at him. With his hands up, his satchel is starting to slip around his body. You get a glimpse at the very edge of the bag. Whatever is in there is heavy, and you’re not about to take the risk that it’s something dangerous. “You need to leave. You can’t be here.”

“Is there a town nearby that you can direct me to?” He asks. “I tried looking at the map, but it must have been corrupted…”

You laugh again, rolling your eyes. “It’s not corrupted. There’s nothing on this side of the planet.”

Another pause. “But you’re here.”

Alright. Either They have sent some random, terrifying guy to lure you into a false sense of security, or he is just genuinely lost.

You’re just about to lower your blaster, to give him the bad news that he’s going to have to travel half way around the planet if he ever wants to get off it, when two things happen at once.

First, the satchel slips all the way around. You jump at first, but soon, the bag itself is moving, and something pops out from the top of it. Something…alive. Something green, wrinkled, with ears as big as its head and deep, dark eyes almost as large too.

You frown. A kid?

Not enough time to process the fact that this seems to be a father who has got himself stranded, because suddenly you see something else in the satchel, sticking out from one of the front pockets with a blinking light and a beeping that you can hear from here.

A tracking fob.

Your heart rate shoots up, blood suddenly rushing through your ears so you can’t hear anything but that. You flick the safety off your blaster, aim it stronger at him, look through the scope with one eye. “Get out of here, bounty hunter, or I swear I’ll shoot you where that armour can’t protect you.”

The child—why the fuck does a bounty hunter have a child?—coos, seeming concerned, and looks up at the armoured man like he’ll have an answer.

The man himself has his blaster aimed at you again, and you didn’t even see him move to point it. Kriff. He’s fucking good.

They put a bounty on you. Fuck, They wanted you back that badly.

“I said leave!” You cry, feeling tears of both fear and betrayal sting at the backs of your eyes. You try desperately to swallow them down. “Take that tracking fob, and leave, or I swear to the Maker—”

Your words seem to startle him, and he drops his blaster once more, the helmet tilting down towards where the fob is sticking out of his bag. “No, no, it’s not—this isn’t for you!” He says, sounding more hurried now than he had when his hands were up and you were about to shoot him. He fishes the fob out. “This isn’t yours. See, it’s not telling me I’m close to my target. Look.” He holds it out towards you.

A quick glance tells you that he’s not lying about that. The lights aren’t blinking right.

You hesitate. Your heart is still beating wildly in your chest, so hard that it feels like it might jump out and run away from this entire situation. Which, you couldn’t blame it.

You wish you could do the same.

“You really just crashed here?” You ask, your blaster-wielding arm twitching.

“Yes,” he answers.

You look at the child. “The kid yours?”

“I…yes. Yes, he’s mine.”

A frown creases at your forehead, both concerned and curious. “No one’s surrounding us? No one going to jump out and take me?”

“…No,” he says. Something in the tilt of his helmet comes across as amusement.

It’s not funny.

But he has a kid. Someone sent here to kill you wouldn’t have brought a kid.

Well, probably not. Though knowing Them, you wouldn’t necessarily put anything past them.

Not without hesitation, you lower your arm. Flick the safety back on, but keep your finger on it, ready to flick it back at a moment’s notice. “You crashed onto the wrong planet,” you say, stepping further into the doorway. You can’t see his eyes, but it feels like they’re on you, taking you in now he can see you. “I meant it when I said there’s nothing until you get to the other side.”

He observes you. “Can you help me?”

You sigh. It’s been a long time since you had any kind of human contact—well, you assume he’s human—and it’s already becoming too much. A tiny, corrupt part of you says, No, you can’t help him. Send him on his way. A part of you that is either there for self preservation, or a part that They put in you from a young, young age.

It’s a part that you have never listened to. Not once.

And you’re not about to start now.

“I can give you food and water,” you say, eyeing the kid curiously, wondering if it even eats or drinks, “and I can tell you more about this place. Maybe even help with the ship. But I haven’t got a way for you to get to the city.”

He seems to relax a little. Tentatively, and still holding his hands halfway up, he steps closer. “Thank you,” he says. “Thank you very much.”

He sounds so sincere, so genuine, that it takes you by surprise. Because, really, he’s quite terrifying. Just this big, looming wall of steel-silver armour, covered head-to-toe in weapons, as well as ones that are no doubt hidden, too. You can’t see his face or read him at all. He walks so casually, like he’s meant to be here. Like this is normal.

And there’s a fucking green child strapped to him, the likes of which you’ve never seen before.

“Please, sit,” you say, gesturing to the table and chairs you have set up under the awning that stretches from your hut’s roof. “Are you hungry?”

“The kid is. We have supplies on our ship, but it’s a few miles away…”

You raise an eyebrow. He doesn’t sit down, just stands there under the shade, staring at you. “When did you crash?”

“We didn’t crash, necessarily. Just…an interesting landing.”

“Right, right, of course. But it was such an interesting landing that you can’t take off again?”

“…That’s right.”

Before replying, you head inside and to the little kitchenette along the left wall. There’s some fruit there and a little of the bread you made last week. You gather it, along with a knife and some plates, and take them out to the man.

“Well, I don’t know much about mechanical stuff,” you shrug, putting it all down on the table, “but I’ll do what I can to help.”

He still doesn’t move to sit down, or even towards the table. The child careens towards the food, though, reaching out little clawed, three-fingered hands.

The man just stares at you. You wonder why. What he’s staring so much for. Is there something particularly puzzling about you? Something he doesn’t understand?

“Thank you,” he says eventually. “For your generosity.”

Yeah, well. Again, you gesture to the table, and finally he follows. He sits down and puts the kid on the bench beside him, giving his nose an affectionate little rub before he turns to the table and breaks a bit off the bread. The kid is reaching for it as he hands it over, and the way his little green mouth starts biting at it is adorable.

“So,” you say, “who are you?”

The helmet looks back at you again. Even out of the sunlight, it’s still a piercing, shining silver. “People call me Mando,” he says after a beat.

You frown. “Mando,” you repeat, mostly to yourself. “As in, Mandalorian?”

He seems to startle a little, pausing as he cuts the fruit into kid-sized squares. “You know about the Mandalorians?”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

A noise comes through the helmet. You could swear it sounds like a breathy laugh. He shakes his head and looks back to the fruit in front of him. “Depends what you know.”

“Uh, let’s see,” you sit down on the chair opposite him, across the table. “A race of warriors, proud of their heritage, destroyed by the Empire…”

He tenses. Stops again, and looks up.

Kriff.

“Sorry,” you say quickly, “sorry. It’s…been a while since I talked to another person. That was insensitive.”

After yet another long, indiscernible stare, he gets back to work. Silence passes for a minute, long and uncomfortable as anxiety roils in your stomach. You always say the wrong fucking thing, don’t you? Always making things worse, always fucking things up…

“Well, you’re right,” his modulated voice breaks through your quickly spiralling thoughts. “The Empire destroyed most of us.” Grief laces his voice, heavy like you imagine the armour on him must be.

It twigs, then. His armour. Mandalorian. The shape of his helmet.

That’s where you recognise it from.

You want to ask, want to hear more about his people, about what happened. Before coming here, you knew a lot about the different cultures in the Galaxy; last you heard, the Empire was gone, and the New Republic was being built. But you don’t know anything about the Mandalorians except that they were all wiped out—or, so you thought.

He starts handing little cubes of yellow fruit to the kid, who coos and accepts them happily.

“Aren’t you going to eat?” You ask him, curious.

“No, thank you.”

A frown tugs at your forehead. Maybe he’s not human. “Do you…do you eat?”

“What?”

“I mean…do you need to eat?”

“I—yes, I need to eat. I’m human,” he adds on, like he’s realised my unasked question.

Okay, good. Not that it would have been bad if he’d not been human. But the way his broad shoulders look under the armour, the solidity of his thighs, the way his gloved fingers are flexing around the fruit, shiny with juice, working deftly…

You shake yourself from your thoughts. You literally just met this man, and you know that he’s a bounty hunter. You need to stop.

Speaking of, “So did you come here for a bounty?”

He looks up again, and something about the way he startles comes across as surprise. Pleasant or unpleasant surprise, you’re not sure, but either way, he looks surprised that you asked that.

“No,” he says.

“How badly damaged is your ship?” Recalling the smell of burning engine oil, you prop your foot up on one of the table’s legs, the soles of your boot gripping to the wood. Sunlight is streaming through the coarse fabric of the awning above you, casting tiny slivers of golden beams across all three of you. It shimmers in his armour, and he looks just a little magical. The kid is gazing up at the twinkling lights above him. It looks like the canvas is covered in golden stars, flitting as trees rustle between the fabric and the sunlight.

“I can probably fix it myself. At least enough to get me somewhere that has parts.”

“Hyperdrive blown?”

“Yes,” he says. “How’d you know?”

“I could smell it,” you say. It’s been a long time since you smelled that, but it’s ingrained in your memory, all sour and oily.

“The hyperdrive blew, and it damaged the engine. I only just got us down safely.”

“So probably a little body damage too, then.” I ponder, wondering if there’s any way we can find parts that he might need. There’s a scrap heap a little way off—definitely not as far as the other side of the kriffing planet—left there by, presumably, the last people unfortunate enough to crash here.

“I thought you didn’t know about mechanics?” He asks, something in his voice quirking, the same tilt of his helmet that you thought was amusement earlier.

“I have a little knowledge. Are you sure you’re not hungry?”

He shakes his head.

“Alright.”

And it’s not a good idea to offer him the kind of help you’re thinking of offering. It’s not. He’s a bounty hunter, very clearly dangerous, and he’s also the first person you’ve seen since you left Them.

You don’t trust people easily. You used to. But you don’t anymore.

But he has a kid. And if you don’t help him, he’s going to be stuck here forever, unless he’s happy to take the year-long journey of going to the other side of the planet. You came here for solitude, for safety. To not have to trust people.

That won’t work if he’s going to have to stay here.

And, who knows? Maybe he’ll try and kill you for food in the end. By the looks of him, he could.

You sigh to yourself.

Because even despite all that, despite the fact that the only remotely good reason to help him out is to try and stop yourself getting eaten, you’d still help him anyway.

That’s who you are. You didn’t let Them make you anything else. Swore you would never.

“Well,” you say, having made up your mind, “there’s a scrap heap a fifty klicks West of here. It’ll take a couple days of travelling on foot to get there, but it might have what you need.”

He nods. “I could probably get there. Can you mark it on a map?”

You haven’t seen a map in years. In fact, you only know this place by its terrain. By its land under your feet, the trees above you. “No,” you say. “But I can come with you.”

He stares. “You don’t have to do that.”

“If you ever want to get off this planet, yes, I do,” you say with a smirk. What you don’t say is, And I want you to leave. Despite the fact that you’ve got really lovely shoulders and a cute baby. “Assuming you actually need parts. Can you fix what you need to fix with what you’ve got?”

He sighs. “Probably not,” he says. “It’s a new ship. I don’t…know it as well as my others.”

I quirk an eyebrow. “You have others?”

“Had,” he corrects. “I have had others.”

“Hm. Alright, well, I’ll help you, if you’ll accept my help. Just don’t point a blaster at me again.”

There’s that sound again, a little huff, like a laugh. “I’ll ask the same of you,” he says, “if you would.”

“Mm…I’m already doing you a pretty big favour,” you tease, smirking and patting the blaster that sits at your hip, “I’ll think about it.”

You’re not really big on babies. They’re messy, sticky, demanding, and loud.

But this one is really very cute.

He’s got hold of your finger, and is squeezing it gently between his little fingers. Mando tells you that his name is Grogu, and the first time you call him it, his big green ears twitch along with a tilt of his head.

It probably wasn’t all that wise to let Mando stay the night. Even though he and the kid slept outside in your hiking tent, and you kept the front door locked, you know that he could have without a doubt gotten inside to kill you. Or worse.

But he didn’t.

All that happens is that, when you wake up, he and the kid are already sitting at the table, and the little box of food that you’d left with them after sunset in case they got hungry was empty.

You’d talked with Mando a little yesterday, but mostly went about your daily routine like he wasn’t there. He seems good at that; just being still, blending in, the opposite of obtrusive. Which, you suppose, is what makes a good bounty hunter. At least the type that likes to do it with minimal mess.

Still, you’re curious about him. He sat outside all day with the kid, even took him for a walk to the nearby creek in the late afternoon. It’s so strange to see such contrast in him: the cold, hard exterior of his armour, something so impenetrable and immovable; and then the soft way he handles the kid, the way he bounces him on his hip, shows him magic tricks, picks him up when his little hands reach out for him.

There are a lot of questions on your tongue. Why and how he has the kid, where he came from, where the rest of his people are, how the kriff are you such a gentle person when you’re also the scariest pillar of metal I’ve ever seen?

You keep them to yourself.

You wouldn’t want anyone asking questions about you. (Hence why you’re here in the first place, but.) So you don’t ask the same of him.

The morning after he arrived here, the three of you set off for the scrap heap. Your backpack slung over your back, filled with blankets, rations, flasks, and sleeping mats. Mando carries a bag that you gave him, though most of the bulk is your hiking tent.

It’s only when you’re a half hour into the forest that you realise you’ve only got one tent.

Three sleeping mats for the floor, yes. Three sets of blankets, yes.

But one kriffing tent.

Well, you think, we can take sleep watch shifts anyway.

The sun is warm this morning, but not too hot; just a comfortable heat on your skin as you walk through the thick forest, climbing over fallen trees and winding, gnarled roots that stick up from the ground. It’s mostly dry earth underfoot, some moss glistening on rocks, a few tufts of grass sprouting beneath pillars of light that shine through the treetops.

Mando isn’t much of a talker, you’re realising. And you can’t decide if you like that or not.

The kid is always babbling, though. He’s got his head sticking out of Mando’s satchel again, and he’s looking around slowly, his mouth slightly open and big eyes wide as he takes in his surroundings. You wonder if he’s ever seen anywhere like this; where the two of them may have been together. You don’t even know what species he is—he could be from somewhere like this. A planet with a warm, mildly humid climate during the spring.

You’re coming up on one of the large valleys that splits the earth, stretching down into a deep cavern filled with rushing water coming from the tall waterfall beside it. You can hear the water before you see any sign of it.

“We’re coming to the waterfall valley,” you explain, “there’s a fallen tree over the chasm that we can use as a bridge.”

Wordless, Mando nods in acknowledgement.

The fallen tree that bridges the gap between sides of the river is giant, both in length and width, with more than enough room to comfortably walk across it in a single-file line. It was probably thousands of years old before it fell. The roots snapped at its base, leaving gnarled and sharp splints of wood curling up into the air and surrounding foliage. On the other side, its branches are bare, the leaves having died and fallen off long ago, and the branches are anchored into the ground after years of being covered by it.

“It looks mossy,” Mando says as you step up onto it first. “Watch your step.”

He’s right; the spray of water constantly shooting up into the air from the waterfall has made for a nice home for moss, glistening in dark green florets along the top, with longer water weeds hanging from the underside.

It could be slippy, but you’ve walked across it many times, and you’re used to it. It’s the only way to the fruit trees in the overgrown meadow. There’s almost a path worn across it, though not quite; the moss grows back far too enthusiastically to stay away.

Grogu is cooing as you cross. You don’t look back at him lest you lose your footing, but you can imagine that he’s gazing around with that same wonder on his face.

It is pretty. This whole area is pretty. Serene, if you don’t count the various wildlife that can often be just a little hostile. There are birds of prey that swoop down from the impossibly small treetops sometimes; yellow and red lizards that skitter along the forest floor, their tails, complete with stinger, thrashing threateningly into the air as they run past. As long as you keep an ear out, though, it’s alright.

“I don’t know your name,” Mando’s voice, calm through his helmet, cuts into your thoughts once you’ve crossed. He’s fallen into step beside you, one of his hands absently pressed against the kid’s back.

You glance at him, uncertain. Technically, you don’t know his name. So, really, it’s only fair that your answer is, “No, you don’t.”

His helmet tilts as he huffs out a laugh. “Alright. Guess I’m not going to?”

“Tell me yours and I’ll tell you mine,” you challenge, raising a teasing eyebrow at him.

He laughs again. You wonder how often he does that. He seems to live a pretty serious life, with what little information you have on him. But the kid is adorable, and there’s bound to be several times a day where he laughs at his cuteness, surely. “Alright. Fair enough.”

“There’s a river up ahead. I’m going to fill my flask.” You gesture to the approaching clearing where a river cuts through the forest floor, a few metres wide, deeper than it looks.

“Can we cross it?”

“We’ll have to get our feet wet, but yes. And watch out for the water snails.”

“The what?”

“They live in the riverbed. If your foot lingers too long, they’ll crawl on you and suck you down into the sand. Oh, and then there’s the stinging lizards that live in the brush on each side.”

The helmet tilts to look at you, and something about his body language comes across as incredulity. “Safe planet you got here,” he says, dry.

The surprise of hearing him make a sarcastic comment catches in a laugh in your throat, bubbling out without permission. “It is safe,” you counter, smiling at him even though he’s not looking at you anymore, “no one else around kind of has that effect.”

“If there’s nothing on this side of the planet,” he says, “why are you here?”

A cold stab of dread shoots through your stomach. Quickly, you push it away, forcing the thoughts out of your mind that want to come in and race around until you feel dizzy. To cover up your slight falter, you clear your throat as you step out into the river’s clearing. “How about I don’t ask you about you, and you don’t ask me about me?”

He stops beside you when you lean down to fill your flask from the rapidly running river water. For a moment, he just observes you, quiet. It’s strange to be able to feel someone’s gaze so strongly when you can’t even see their face, their eyes. “Deal,” he says.

Satisfied, you stand up straight again, and gesture to the shallower part of the river a few feet to the right. He follows as you step into the water. You keep your steps light and quick, scanning the riverbed for any sign of those metallic-brown molluscs that masquerade as innocent rocks.

The thing with the snails is that they don’t actually want anything with you. They don’t eat you. They just pull you down into the sand because it’s their instinct. You get stuck, and sink until you drown in the water or the riverbed itself. When one sticks to your foot, the entire swarm of them joins in, and it’s nearly impossible to escape if you don’t catch it quickly enough. Your only hope in that situation is that the blue shindl birds will come and eat the snails before their numbers are too many.

You make it to the other side quickly enough, and turn to watch Mando copying the lightness of your steps. It’s quite amusing, actually, to see this heavily armoured, heavy-booted man taking light footsteps like he’s standing on ground too hot for his feet. The kid laughs from his place in the satchel, and you watch in amusement.

That is, until, there’s a loud swoop coming from the sky above you, accompanied by a Squalk!

A shindl bird, bigger than your own body, swoops just metres above you, dipping so low down towards the river that you can feel the downdraft from its giant, pale white and blue feathered wings.

On instinct, Mando freezes in his tracks, covering the kid with one hand and reaching for his blaster with the other.

“Don’t shoot it!” You shout hastily, watching as he tracks the bird flying down the length of the river with his blaster’s scope. The bird turns around, heading back to you. “They’re just looking for the snails to eat!”

Mando ignores you, too busy clutching the kid to his side.

“Mando, you need to move! The snails!”

This time, he doesn’t ignore you; but he does only have a second to look back at you before he’s trying to move, to bring his feet out from the riverbed, but one of them is stuck.

Kriff, he’s stuck.

His visor turns down to his feet. He tugs his left leg, trying to walk forward on it.

“Oh, for kriff’s sake,” you curse, reaching for your own blaster. He’s not sinking yet, but you can already see the large snail on his foot through the water, and more are coming to life beneath the surface, slowly making their way to him.

The shindl swoops overhead again, lower this time, clearly having spotted the snails too.

“Stay still!” You shout to Mando over the deafening sound of the bird’s wings flapping in the air.

He looks up at you and sees the blaster pointed towards his foot. “What are you doing?”

“Just hold still!” You aim through the sight, just an inch away from the edge of Mando’s foot, getting the snail’s eyes right in your crosshair.

Mando protests, saying, “Wait, no, don’t—” But he’s too late, your finger already squeezing the trigger.

The snail on his foot wilts immediately, like leafy vegetables thrown into a hot pan. Mando wastes no time in pulling on his leg again, and he only just gets himself to move in time before the rest of the snail’s colony is gaining on him and discovering the body of the early bird who got the worm—well, the foot.

He splashes out of the river towards you, still gripping the child to his side, with both hands now. Once he’s free and clear on to the riverbank, he sighs out in relief at the same time you do.

Lowering your blaster, you watch as the shindl bird swoops right down to the water and ducks its large beak down below the surface, grabbing the dead snail first. Its wings are so wide and so close that you feel the very edge of one of its feathers brush against your face.

It turns to look at the two of you before it flies up completely vertically into the sky and gives a triumphant cry.

“You might want to back up,” you tell Mando with a smirk at how he’s trying to scrape off the snail’s goo from the top of his boot. “The rest are coming.”

“The snails?”

“No. The birds.” As you reach a hand out in front of him, you back up, automatically taking him with you. He follows willingly, though he could just as easily push you away and defy your advice.

You step back into the tree line again, under the cover of the rustling branches.

Before you can even blink, suddenly an entire flock of the shindl birds is descending upon the river where Mando was once stuck, all diving in with their beaks open to pick up as many snails as they can at once.

Really, Mando did them a favour by getting stuck. The only time the snail colony comes out is when they think they’ve caught something. Otherwise, the shindl have to spend hours looking down into the water, standing still or hovering low, waiting for one to appear before them.

The flaps and squalks of the birds fills the air, and beneath it, you can hear a trill of glee coming from the kid’s satchel. Looking down, you find his hands outstretched towards the whole ordeal, flapping a little in excitement.

You chuckle. From under the cover of the trees, it’s a pretty amazing thing to see. The birds’ feathers are metallic and pearly, fading from glistening white to pale blue as the sunlight shifts over their curves and edges. They fly so gracefully despite the frantic fight to find the best snail.

The first time you got caught in one of their food grabs wasn’t as fun, though. But you learned your lesson.

“What are those things?” Mando asks. He lifts the kid from the satchel and clutches him to his breastplate, tapping comfortingly at the kid’s tummy. It’s sweet, like he’s reassuring him that everything is alright after what happened.

When you don’t answer right away, the helmet turns to look at you, waiting for an answer.

You got distracted by him, to be honest. By him and the kid. “They’re shindl birds,” you say.

He looks back to them. The flock is clearing a little now; you imagine there are only a few snails left for them to devour.

“They’re native to this planet. They really love those snails.”

“Hm.” Mando hums, and you’re not sure if it’s an acknowledgement or a laugh.

“Come on,” you say, gesturing to continue on your path, “we should move.”

“Are there more creatures out to get us?”

“Probably. But don’t worry. I’ll save you again, should you need it.”

Walking alongside you, his helmet tilts. “I can handle myself.”

“Clearly. You’re welcome, by the way.”

His sigh is not impatient or unimpressed; in fact, it sounds amused, warm. “Thank you. You did save me back there.”

“No problem. I’ve dealt with those things before.”

“I would have appreciated a warning, though.”

“I gave you a warning; I told you not to stop in the river!”

“You didn’t tell me about the birds.”

The kid laughs, lifting up one of his hands to press it against the side of Mando’s helmet.

“Well, I’m just glad you didn’t shoot them,” you say. Out of the corner of your eye as you walk side-by-side, you observe Mando, watch the kid touch the plate of metal that covers his cheekbone. You realise, then, that you don’t actually know what he looks like. He’s never taken his helmet off in front of you; not even his gloves. You don’t think you’ve even seen him have a drink.

Maybe it’s for the best, though. Because you’re finding yourself wanting to walk just a little ways behind him so you can admire the casual, commanding way that he walks, the slight swing of his hips as his hands flex at his sides. The breadth of his shoulders, emphasised by his heavy armour. His hips, the way his torso gets only a little narrower towards them, his entire frame straight and wide and beautiful.

You need to stop.

You don’t even know what he looks like.

Speaking of, “Do you want a drink?”

“I’m fine. Thanks.”

“Do you drink?”

“I told you, I’m human.”

You nod, hoping it comes across as unassuming. But there are so many questions swirling around in your head; so much that you suddenly want to know about him. He’s mysterious, you’ll give him that. Does he do it on purpose? Is it something he does to try and get people to follow him, or is he just genuinely a private person?

You’re so used to people using tactics, games to mess with you and the way you form relationships, that you never know what to believe. They used to string you along, make you chase them, make you beg for them to just see you, hear you, understand you…and then, just when you felt like you’d finally done enough for them, they’d turn it all around and shut you out again.

It was a never ending cycle.

It’s hard not to project that onto Mando. He’s the first person you’ve seen since you escaped Them. For all you know, he could be just as manipulative.

Except, unprompted, he says, “I don’t take my helmet off.”

Oh.

Okay, racing thoughts on pause: “What?”

“It’s part of my Creed. As a Mandalorian.”

“Oh,” you say as the pieces fit into place. It makes sense now, but you’re still surprised; you didn’t know that about Mandalorians. In fact, you distinctly remember meeting some when you were a child who definitely did not wear their helmet all the time. “So…you’ve never taken it off?”

He pauses, hesitating. His moment of unprompted honesty falters. “It’s complicated.”

Oh, great. It’s hard not to put bad intentions on to him when he says stuff like that. It’s complicated.

You wouldn’t understand.

You don’t get to know the secrets.

You’ve earned my trust, well done.

I never want to see you again.

You have to force yourself to stop spiralling. For a long moment there, you were no longer walking through the forest with a strange Mandalorian and his little green child. You were walking through the forest with Them. With your family. And the weight of everything they ever did.

You clear your throat, demanding yourself back into the moment. “Is it not uncomfortable?”

It must be. Especially in humid climates like this. Or maybe it’s temperature-controlled under there. The entire set of armour looks pretty swish; maybe it’s got some cool technology.

“I’m used to it,” he says, and his tone suggests that that’s the last he wants to talk about it.

So, you’re quiet again.

You focus on the ground crunching underfoot, the tiny birds whistling in the trees.

You’re not back there. Mando isn’t Them.

You’re safe.

You’re okay.

notes: i'm REALLY excited to finally be posting this fic! i hope you enjoy reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing it. all interactions are appreciated, but comments and reblogs especially make my day ❤️ updates will be regular!

i'm going to make a taglist for this fic so if you wanna be on it, drop me an ask or reply to this post!

take care of yourself ❤️

#din djarin #the mandalorian fanfiction #the mandalorian x you #the mandalorian x reader #din djarin x reader #din djarin x you #the mandalorian imagine #din djarin imagine #star wars fanfiction #din djarin fanfiction #my post #my fic: mando #my fic #i only see daylight

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