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dilatorywriting · 1 year

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Monster Mayhem: Lion's Pride [Part 3]

Gender Neutral Reader x Leona Kingscholar Word Count: 6.2k

Summary: Your new job as a Full Time Royal Therapist does not pay nearly as well as you'd like. Or, Leona is more of a problem child than he would ever admit, but you're surprisingly okay at dealing with that.

[PART 1][PART 2] [PART 3]

Sometimes you felt like you hardly knew what it meant to be a functional person, living a comfortable life on the fringes of society. So in comparison, trying to think of what it meant to be an actual prince, ruling over all of said society was something you literally could not comprehend no matter how hard you tried to wrap your head around it.

“If you’re a Prince, what were you doing in a hole?” you asked, because you had far too many questions and concerns, and this one at least seemed easy enough to address. And also because you were genuinely pretty curious.

The newly dubbed ‘Leona’ twitched against your back and you felt the low rumble of his snarl work its way from the depths of his gut all the way up through his chest and out his mouth.

“Holy shit,” Ace wheezed. “Screw this. I’m getting out of here before I wind up implicated as an accessory in your murder.”

And so your trusty friend abandoned you to the wolves lions?—darting away so quickly he always forget his bag, shoes, and everything else in the process.

You waved after him as he departed, knowing full well that he’d wind up stumbling back within the week, maybe two at most. He always did, no matter how much he complained about your Present Company. Plain old ‘murder’ was actually one of his more polite accusations. When he’d run into your Hunter friend the first time, Ace had gone on a wildly incoherent rant about how he was going to find your corpse strung up in a tree like some weird, ritual, sacrifice. And then that had devolved into something-something cannibalism or other. The visiting Hunter had just thrown his head back and laughed, positively enamored with the grisliness of it all. Ace had vanished for almost an entire month after that encounter, but he did come back—glaring up at you with a miserable pout like you were the one who’d gone and fucked off for thirty whole days.

Leona snorted and you felt the puff of breath against the back of your neck.

“Coward,” he grumbled, though he didn’t sound particularly displeased about your friend’s sudden departure.

“Fear lets us be brave,” you responded, wise as a sage. Or maybe an old frog in a puddle.

“Yeah?” he intoned, rolling his eyes. “And when’s that little rat ever been brave?”

“There’s always tomorrow,” you chirped, and that snort turned into something dangerously close to a chuckle. Which—gasp!—how dare such a pleasant sound fall from the lips of someone so obstinately determined to be otherwise! You grinned at the low tones of it, only for the snickering to cut off sharply in his throat once he’d realized what he was doing. And then of course he shoved you forward and out of his lap with a great amount of indignant snarling.

You laid there for a few minutes—face down in the sun-warmed grass and laughing quietly about just how ridiculous this stupid Lion was, before finally sitting up with a pleasant stretch. He could put on airs all he liked, you knew there was kernel of something far less angsty and murderous buried at the heart of him.

“So,” you hummed, lazily making your way back to your feet. “What exactly have I done to draw the realm’s Prince to my doorstep?” You squinted at him suspiciously. “You’re not here about the fairy gate thing, are you? Because that was actually an accident.”

“The what?” he frowned, brow pinched in confusion.

You waved him off. “Ah, nothing, nothing.”

Something in his jaw twitched, like now he was going to push the subject out of principle of you being shifty. But he just sighed and brought a hand up to pinch at the bridge of his nose.

“I need your help,” he said finally. Just as crabby as the first time he’d asked, if perhaps just a touch less imperious.

You arched a brow. “I think you’ve mentioned that already, yes.”

Silence.

The Lion stared you down with a slowly deepening scowl, and you stared back with a smile as placid and unmoved as the shallow pond you’d nearly drowned Ace in not an hour before.

“If I apologize, you’ll help me?” he asked after a long moment, the question turning sharp at the end on a bitten of growl.

“That’s what I said, isn’t it?” you hummed back and he crossed his arms stubbornly over his chest.

“I’m sorry,” he said, with all the pleasantry of someone undergoing a root canal. And all the sincerity of Ace swearing that this was the last time he’d get caught evading the tax man, promise.

You sighed, feeling a bit cheated. But you hadn’t really stipulated anything beyond those two little words leaving his mouth, so if anything, that was on you.

“Alright,” you huffed. “What is it you need help with?”

The Lion glared at you suspiciously for a long moment—glowing eyes narrowed into slits and tail twitching back and forth like he was swatting flies. Finally, he sighed and lifted his hands out in front of him with a pointed flex.

“It’s not supposed to be like this,” he frowned sourly, wrists twisting to display the pointed claws tipping his fingers. “I’m not supposed to get stuck in between.”

Your eyes traced the fluffy tufts of his round ears, the black-tipped tail swishing irritably at his hind, and allowed yourself a melancholy sort of huff.

“But you look good like this,” you pointed out sadly. Because he really, truly, did. Leona without his squishy lion ears would just be… grumpy. Miserable, and angular, and angry. Nothing soft worth coddling at all.

“That’s not the point!” he snapped, baring his overlarge canines at you. There was a darker cast along his cheekbones that seemed to be making a valiant effort to crawl all the way up into his fringe. “And don’t fucking say that!”

You frowned. One second this stupid dick wanted to be praised to the Heavens and back! Practically swanning about, demanding you bow down and acknowledge his blatant superiority. But, oh no. Apparently your meager half-sentence masquerading as a compliment was too much for his delicate, princely, sensibilities.

“Fine,” you griped. “You’re ugly.”

He growled—low and rumbling—and if he was anymore of a cat you’d say you could see his hackles raising in indignation. But before he could launch into another vicious, verbal, evisceration of your person, you cleared your throat loudly in an attempt to get him back on track.

“What do you mean by ‘stuck in between?’”

He sneered down at you testily for a moment before reaching up to pinch at the bridge of his nose again and letting out a put-upon sort of sigh that was not at all indicative of the fact that he was the one asking you for help.

“The Shift. When you found me in that pit, I should have been able to Shift between that form and this one without issue,” he frowned, brow tugging down tight with something a bit more disquieted than his usual, flat, annoyance. “The iron was a problem, but once I was out of the trap, it should have been fine. I’ve dealt with cursed snares like this before, and the effects have never lingered as long as this one has.”

You blinked owlishly. That did sound… fairly unpleasant. And honestly, if you were in his position you’d also be at least a little concerned that something else was at play. But, still, all that being said—

“I’m sorry,” you frowned, more or less genuine. Perhaps leaning a bit harder into less.“But I don’t understand how that has anything to do with me.”

“You were down there with me,” he argued. “You dismantled the trap.”

Uh, yeah. By messing with bits that looked breakable until they broke. Not exactly a high-level intellectual pursuit.

You didn’t say that, of course. Because after a few days watching you scuttle about your homestead like a particularly vocal lizard in the dirt, you were sure he already thought you were stupid enough without you outright admitting to it. Nevertheless, the Lion observed your zip-lipped silence with an ever-deepening scowl.

“You took it apart,” he tried again, nearly a growl.

“Yes,” you said with a nod.

“You know how you did it,” he continued, firm. At your lack of affirmative, he pushed again. “You know. I watched you do it!”

You raised your hand nervously and made a little so-so tilting motion.

Anyone less refined would no doubt have had their head in their hands at this point, but Leona just curled his lip at you and looked like he was fighting valiantly not to put your own very silly head through a wall.

“It was charmed,” he spat. “Bound up with talismans, and cursed down to its very moldings. That isn’t something any random farmer could walk up and break.”

“Oh,” you blinked, taken aback, and struggled to recall if there had been anything so obviously enchanted about the trap you’d fiddled into bits. “Was it?”

And head had officially met hands. He ground his clawed fingers into his temples like you were a headache that with enough determination and massaging he may somehow be able to will away.

“Couldn’t you go just home if this is such a big problem?” you asked, still genuinely baffled at it all. “Get help from your family? I mean, you’re a Prin—”

“No,” he interrupted, emerald eyes gone glacier cold.

You frowned, as unimpressed by his prickliness as you usually were. But something in you was hesitant to prod at whatever it was that had managed to tug a feral rage so tightly across his face—like drawing a shade over a window until the entire home was cloaked in shadow, or slipping away behind a carved mask too heavy to ever wear comfortably. It was an expression so sharp and so bitter that if you hadn’t only just yesterday watched this stubborn man lounge about in the sun as your chickens hopped all over him like he was the world’s most carnivorous jungle gym, you wouldn’t ever have known that they could be the same person at all.

“Alright,” you shrugged, and some of that angry, hunched, defensiveness eased into confusion.

“Hah?” he frowned.

“Alright,” you said again. “We’ll figure it out here.” He glared over at you balefully, and you waved off the obvious retort on the tip of his tongue about something-something-you have no idea what you’re doing-something-something-dangerous risks and lifelong consequences-blablabla. “I have a friend who would know a lot more about those kinds of traps and talismans that I do. He could help, probably.”

“Probably?” he scoffed. Though when he rolled his eyes, they weren’t quite so hate filled—lids hooded with a familiar, begrudging sort of irritation rather than outright malice.

“He’s a bit of an enigma,” you explained—wiggling your fingers in a little, sparkly, dance to emphasize the, well, enigmatic part.

Another huff. But amidst that grumpy bellyaching, you watched those fluffy ears of his slowly perk back up atop his head, and his tail swish leisurely behind him. The Lion certainly didn’t look happy (but did he ever? So was that really a fair comparison?), but he definitely seemed like he’d thawed into something less ‘frigid dead of winter’ and more ‘unpleasantly nippy spring morning.’

“Weirder than you, herbivore?” he sniffed, looking down his nose at you and crossing his arms loosely over his chest. “I find that hard to believe.”

Normally you would too. But, well…

“He’s charming,” you chirped pleasantly, and Leona’s face twisted up like you’d served him a bowl of rancid yogurt.

That night you composed a letter to your dearest Hunter friend. You thanked him for bringing you the White Moor Stag, elaborated a bit on the new marinade you’d been experimenting with, and then ended the whole thing with a polite plea for his aid in deconstructing the mechanisms of a magical trap you’d encountered. You bribed one of your two carrier pigeons with some snacks and watched it fly off into the unknown with a little, cream-colored envelope tied to its foot. Message talismans were much simpler and far more convenient, but the Hunter always seemed to appreciate the personal touch of postal birds.

Leona glared at you from the window, and made some dramatic swipe at your pigeon like he meant to knock it out of the air. The poor bird tottered about like an overfilled water balloon—jiggling and wriggling in its roundness before eventually righting itself and continuing on into the sky with a warbled coo coo.

“Don’t be rude,” you huffed at him.

“I can’t believe you still won’t let me in,” he sneered from beneath the fluff of that blanket you’d gifted him. “I apologized.”

“Yes, but you actually have to mean it,” you explained, not unkindly, as he prowled just beyond the glass. “But we’re making progress!” you beamed. “That’s something! Maybe you’ll make it in here within the next five years, hmm?”

“Or I could just wipe out the entirety of your ridiculous dirt farm now,” he threatened, a bit of that sandy magic swirling sinisterly along his fingers.

“You certainly could, your highness,” you agreed easily. His lip curled unpleasantly, but that glowing, gritty, arcana faded away and he didn’t move from where he’d tucked himself up under the duvet.

After another solid fifteen minutes of his pissy glowering and barbed insults, you pointedly unclipped the ties on your curtains and let them fall shut so that his ridiculous pouting was hidden away behind the thin, cotton, mess of poorly stitched flowers and herbs.

(You did leave a nice dinner plate on the ledge before that, with extra portions of meat and a neatly frosted cookie for dessert. Because as much as your day had been a bit rough, you had a feeling his melancholy extended far beyond being left out in the dark for another evening.)

The next morning, your doddering pigeon returned with an elegantly bound scroll—all embellished with golden filagree and tied up in a neat, crimson, bow.

“Why does this freak call you ‘mon cher ami,’” Leona sniffed, tongue curling awkwardly over the unfamiliar words.

You sighed and debated snatching the letter back, but all that would probably culminate in was the paper in tatters and a smug beastman lording his superior letter-wrangling skills over your head like a trophy.

“It’s just one of his little ticks,” you explained with a shrug. “I told you—he’s charming.”

“Ah, yes,” Leona drawled, tracing a claw along the parchment’s edge with a soft shhhhhft. A raised, white, line cut across the paper’s surface like the beginnings of a wound. “Waxing poetic nonsense in a foreign language. Rambling on about all kinds of useless fucking garbage. Charming.”

“You,” you snipped, reaching out to smack at his tightening grip before he could rend the poor correspondence to bits, “are not one to talk about ‘charming.’”

“Oh?” he scoffed. He maneuvered around your tutting to hold the letter over your head. Typical. When you leaned forward to try and wrangle it back, Leona leaned in closer—eyes going hooded and lips curling into a smug little smirk that promised all sorts of trouble. “Haven’t had any complaints about that before. Who’d be saying otherwise?”

“The person you left stranded at the bottom of a pit, you inglorious oaf,” you griped. His ears immediately swiveled to pin flat against the top of his head, and you used the distraction of his indignation to finally snatch back your prize. “Besides,” you huffed, straightening out some of the new wrinkles. “Not very Prince-like, is it? A real prince would have swept in to save the idiot in distress. Sword drawn, banners flying,” you sighed, a bit too besotted with your own imaginings. “Why did you have to be such a dick, huh? Ruined my fantasies for the rest of my life.”

“And what?” Leona snapped. “Some rogue bastard sending you cursive garbage does it for you?”

“Better than being left for dead in a hole after saving their life,” you smiled—perfectly, poisonously, pleasant.

Leona rumbled something indiscernible under his breath and turned to glare petulantly off across your garden.

“Besides,” you hummed, looking over the letter. “There’s more important things. Like this—right here. Do you know what a self-bored stone is? He’s thinking maybe there was a process like that with the iron shackles. Or maybe something to do with seeping the components in herbs… Hmm…”

“Whatever,” Leona scoffed. “I’ll try whatever it takes to fix this shit.”

You clapped him amiably on the shoulder. “That’s the spirit, tête de noeud!”

“The fuck did you just call me?!”

“Poetic nonsense,” you chirped, and Leona looked half ready to drop you back into the hole where he’d found you.

The first attempt to aid the Lion Prince in his conundrum didn’t go particularly well.

You’d tried to work off of the whole ‘overlap with a self-bored stone’ theory, but all that really amounted to was you gesturing like an over-serious crossing guard for him to walk under every low hanging branch, every arch, beneath the stunted beams of the chicken coop. You dangled rocks from strings and waved around your little creations like slightly more dangerous pompoms.

Penelope clucked irritably when one of the pebbles fell with a plunk into her nest, and Leona frowned up at you from where the wayward chicken had firmly situated herself in his lap.

“How was any of that supposed to help?”

You drew a blank and promised to try something new tomorrow.

The next day you tried herbs. The Hunter had listed off quite a few that were known to cause lingering issues with magical creatures, and you harvested the lot of them from your garden with ease. You held them up to Leona’s face one by one, brow furrowed in concentration, as you waited for… something.

“How is this any better than the rocks?” he complained.

You pushed the bright, butter-yellow, blossoms of some Saint John’s Wort under his nose until he sneezed and shoved you away with a slew of indignant threats to your person.

The following few days were spent perusing your meager library. You carted every book you owned on magic, and binding rituals, and rune smithing out into the yard. Leona looked over at the slowly growing pile of tomes with a truly unimpressed scowl.

“You could have just invited me inside,” he griped, rolling his eyes. He was splayed out in the grass at your side, his head tossed lazily across your lap after he’d complained that he needed at least some leverage to see what you were trying to read.

“Nice try,” you hummed, reaching for your page of hastily scribbled notes. “But you’re not getting off without a genuine apology that easy.”

A week passed in this fashion, with you attempting to string together more and more ludicrous ideas—throwing everything you had at the wall and hoping something, anything, would stick. But Leona’s ears stayed tufted and round. That tail seemed to only grow more twitchy, his claws longer and sharper.

You sent the Hunter another letter and waited anxiously for a reply. When it arrived the next morning, Leona snatched it from your pigeon before you’d even made it out your front door. It was a miserable sort of day—pouring rain and with nothing but the grey cloud cover overhead to color the world.

He read it over once, twice, before dropping it to the ground. You could see the tendons twitching along his jaw, could practically hear his molars grinding in his frustration.

You plucked the note from the grass and looked it over carefully.

‘Mon ami, while I am loathe to address this, perhaps it is not the make of this trap at all that is causing such a vexation? Is there any chance that rather than this being a lingering malady, that this friend of yours was simply unable to overcome the initial curse in the first place?’

You glanced back up at Leona, who was intermittently clenching his fists at his sides. You could see the harsh indentations from where his claws were digging into the skin of his palms.

‘Sometimes such things just happen, je crains. The flesh may be willing, but often the spirit is weak. You mentioned this Roi du Leon has a powerful family he may turn to for assistance. Certainly one of them may be strong enough to overcome this curse for him, even if he perhaps is not.’

“Of course it’s all because I’m a fuck up,” Leona snarled. Some of that spitting, sandy, magic of his seeped into the air. It bit at the rain like an overeager dog. You could see it dancing along his skin—fighting to pull his features one way or another.

“He didn’t say that,” you pointed out gently. “And even if you were, there’s nothing wrong with needing help sometimes. Your family—"

“—Would rather I keeled over dead and stopped sullying my brother’s perfect fucking reputation!” he snapped. “Heir to the King’s Roar,” he scoffed. “Stupid. I was never going to be a king to begin with. And even if I had been born first, they would have deposed me to put their flawless, favorite, golden boy on the throne anyways.”

That... That was a lot. You stared at the pacing Lion with wide eyes—unsure how to help, unsure if any attempts to do so would only make this worse. This was—this was so above your ‘happy, homey, hermit’ paygrade.

“Of course this is all because of me,” he hissed, that roiling, angry, arcana coiling around him like curdled milk. The pupils in his eyes flickered oddly from round to thin-cut, hard, lines. Beastly. “Of course it was because I wasn’t good enough.”

“Leona,” you tried, as gentle as you could be.

The Prince threw his head back and laughed. And laughed, and laughed.

“I should have known!” he cackled, borderline hysterical. “I should have fucking known!”

“Leona—” you tried again, reaching out a hand.

Only to be immediately knocked on your ass by an explosion of magic.

You’d heard of self-destruction—of implosion. The arcane wonders of the world were a wily and unyielding mistress. While creatures like Leona who were so naturally steeped in ancient magics and sorcery could control that beast more adeptly than some little mortal like you, it didn’t make them any less susceptible to its dangers. If anything, they had it worse. It was like sitting in a shallow stream versus wading out into a roaring ocean. So much more opportunity, such a higher aptitude for greatness, but far too easy to drown beneath the churning tides of it all.

The inky, geometric, swirls along his arms pulsed like a heartbeat. They crawled along his skin and traced black patterns into his veins. Even you could feel the horrible, dark, stickiness of it—as the magic ate him alive. His face twisted back and forth between human and animal, and you watched him contort and snarl under the weight of it before turning on you with a vicious roar.

Uh oh.

The first wave of magic seared the ground, leaving nothing but strange, grey, sand in its wake. The more he snapped and clawed wildly at anything and everything, the more that dusty desert spread. You managed to hop out of the way of most of it—sparing a single, sad, thought for all the poor plants you’d worked so hard to cultivate dying a miserable, grainy, death.

The next arc of magic shot straight from his clawed fingers, and it managed to catch the flesh of your forearm. It was sharper than any dagger or sword that you’d ever had the pleasure of accidentally nicking yourself with, and it tore its way down your arm like a raging beast, leaving an eerie, tacky, bubbling mess in its wake. And ouch did it hurt—like someone was taking a fistful of coarse sand and rubbing it into the open wound. You ground your teeth against the strange, gnawing, sensation and hastily wrapped a bit of torn fabric around the weeping gash to keep it a bit more contained. You waited for the worst of it to pass, for that initial bite to fade into a more manageable throb. But it didn’t. It just got sharper and tighter, hotter and hotter. For a moment it felt like your skin was crackling—like firewood popping and splitting beneath the weight of a blaze. From across the field, Leona made a noise like a hurricane given voice, and you bit back a groan.

‘Oh come on,’ you hissed to yourself. ‘Not now, please.’

And while you’d been mostly referring to the Lion losing another brick of his sanity fort, your wound seemed to pulse at the command—a sensation not unlike the soft drone of the wards carved deep into the support beams of your dilapidated home, and an impression of words tingling along your nerves without any real shape or form. ‘Alright. Later then.’ Like a breath of wind along your fingertips. That pulsing doubled back, and the wrap you’d hurriedly tied around your forearm hummed low with gentle arcana.

And then the cracking stopped. Just like that. Like it’d given up on eating you alive and decided to head home early for the day.

Huh, you though a bit dazedly, before hurriedly ducking out of the way of another swipe.

You clutched your still smarting but at least now functional arm to your chest, and Leona turned on you and your ethereal booboo with a raging snarl. But then that glowing glare caught on the blood trailing down towards your wrist in too dark, too thick, rivulets and his eyes went wide. It wasn’t much, but the strange bought of shock rocketing through him gave you a handful of seconds of ceasefire. You reached into your pocket with your uninjured hand and pulled out a thick bit of cardstock. This was supposed to be for emergencies, goddamn it! And you’d spent so much money on this stupid little thing! And—

You shook off the mildly delusional complaints bogging down your brain and unfolded the paper between your fingers. The sigils inked into it hummed against your skin, and the rain sluffed off its face like the cold and the damp were no bother at all.

“Fucking—” you flung the talisman at your ridiculous, rampaging, guest. It fluttered like the beat of a hawk’s wings and dove towards him with just as much vicious precision. “GO TO SLEEP!”

The enchantment smacked into his face with an echoing THUNK and you watched those too-bright eyes of his roll up into his head as he collapsed to the ground in a heap.

With the main source of all the Magical Warfare knocked unconscious, most of the miasma began to disperse—like dust caught up in a gale. The rain washed away the rest. It slid into the mud and seeped back into the earth. The plants and animals seemed to give a collective sigh, and some of your more courageous chickens even started to venture in close to peck at the leftover destruction.

You approached the felled Prince hesitantly. The talisman had been meant for subduing an enemy with a more human constitution, so you doubted it would keep him down for very long.

“Hey,” you grouched, poking his side. He twitched a bit but didn’t move otherwise. “Hey, asshole,” you tried again. Still, nothing. Uh oh.

You reached down to wedge an arm under him and hoist him upright. The singed skin of your forearm brushed along his jaw as you attempted to maneuver his bulk, and his nose twitched sharply at whatever scent was trapped in the dark, cracking, gash there. His brow scrunched up like you’d just doused him in spoiled milk, so naturally you went about waving your wounded flesh beneath his nostrils like the world’s strangest smelling salts.

After a moment he blinked back awake, face twisted up into the most properly disgruntled mien of distaste that you’d ever seen on a person who’d only just barely managed to claw their way back into the world of the living.

“Herbivore,” he rumbled, still looking more than a bit dazed.

Good enough.

You manhandled him back onto his feet as best you could—turning yourself into an impromptu crutch to try and get him mobile again. The sand shifted and sank beneath your heels, making dragging his ridiculous, dramatic, ass even more of a challenge. As you hauled him towards your cottage, you complained to him in earnest. Every little irritation under the sun. Half because you’d probably never have another opportunity to bitch at him so thoroughly without getting your own earful of grievances in return, half to keep him conscious—keep him focused on staying here. With you. And not… Wherever it was he’d gone in those moments of delirium.

“I still don’t get why you call me that,” you griped, readjusting your grip on him when he’d started to slide down to the point his nose had buried itself against your collarbone. “Herbivore. I’ve cooked so much meat for you since you decided to crash here. Talked about how I prepare it, and the flavors I experiment with—I literally gave you some from my own sandwich when we first met! That I ate the rest of! In front of you!—”

When you finally herded him over the threshold and into your little cottage, the wards and their protection slipped around him like the soft current of a stream. You hardly even noticed the way the old magics ruffled his hair—and that was only because you were actively looking, half convinced the house was still about to toss up an invisible barrier and send him sprawling back into the dirt.

Leona wobbled on his feet, and his eyes were still too far away and grey.

You grabbed him by the ear and maneuvered his too-tall self into one of your rickety kitchen chairs. The wood groaned under the sudden press of his dead weight, but it didn’t collapse beneath him so it wasn’t worth fussing over. Once you were certain he wasn’t about to fold over sideways and crumple to the ground (or at least, that he was angled enough over a rug that he wasn’t going to crack his head on the stone floor), you rushed off to your bookcases and shelves and began hurriedly rumaging through your collection of nonsense.

The charms, the charms. Where were your emergency charms?! You’d thought you left them right there on the—Ah! There we go.

You pulled the raggedy binder from its place on the shelf, blew away the coating of dust that had settled over the top of it, and returned to your patient.

You flipped open the worn leather hooks and began sorting through the dozens upon dozens of sheets of enchanted parchment within. They were unimpressive—just small, rectangular, bits of faded paper inlaid with the softest kinds of magic. Not meant for much more than coaxing warmth into chilly limbs or placing a soft kiss over a scraped knee. But medicines were medicines—whether arcane in origin or otherwise. If you—if you just doused him in the things, that would probably work. Right? Of course it would. That made perfect sense.

So you slapped the first talisman square in the middle of his forehead. Leona swayed at the wet SMACK of the paper gluing itself to his soaked-through skin, but aside from the faintest, startled, widening of his eyes, he didn’t do anything else to complain. So you stuck the next charm to his cheek, and then another on the opposite one too.

“Magic overuse is dangerous,” you chastised as you went about layering a veritable novel’s worth of pasty, paper, enchantments up his arms. The soft spells worked their way into his skin, and you watched those twisting, black, shapes skitter back up towards where they’d once sat peacefully curled around his bicep. “Are you trying to kill yourself, hah?!”

Instead of snapping back at you like normal, he just sort of… sat there. Accepting your angry accusations in frosty silence. He absolutely looked like a cat that you’d fished out of a bag in the river. Pathetic, and sad, and droopy. And… quiet. So, very, quiet. You frowned, because as much as you didn’t particularly enjoy being insulted every minute of the day, the Lion’s biting little remarks had become… familiar, at the very least. Even if they weren’t entirely pleasant. Even if he was far from pleasant.

The dampness on his skin was starting to curl the edges of your talismans, and you reached forward with a huff to at least pull the freezing, soaked-through, vest off his shoulders. The leather jacket landed with a wet plap on the stone floor, a cold puddle already pooling around all its stupidly intricate, embroidered, edges. Something fluttered out of one of the open pockets—small, and off white, and crinkled. You stepped over the whole mess to retrieve a pile of towels and didn’t give it a second thought.

“Make a mess of my home, why don’t you,” you complained, dropping one of the towels over the entirety of his head before reaching forward to start drying him off with perhaps a bit more force than necessary. “Drip all over the floors I just mopped, why don’t you. Be emotionally constipated and almost turn my whole yard into a sand pit, why don’t you—”

A hand reached out to snag your wrist, and you let him pull you away from your attempts to rub all that stupidly thick hair straight off his head.

From beneath the curtain of the cotton towel, you could see Leona glaring at the long, dark, scratch curling along your forearm. It certainly wasn’t… nice to look at. The gymnastics of getting him into your cottage had managed to displace the impromptu bandage, so the whole of it was just there. Bruised, and dark, and odd looking. But ugly or not, it was hardly bleeding or anything anymore! And he was the one who had almost just self-destructed in your front yard!

‘Think of the accusations!’ you wanted to wail. ‘Can you imagine the garbage I would have to deal with if I wound up with a dead royal fertilizing my garden?! No thank you!’

But before you could complain about his fussing, his claws flexed against the soft skin of your palm and you saw the muscles along his forearm tense—like he was fighting to keep still.

“You should be dead,” he muttered, terse.

You huffed. “Look, I know you think humans are all sorts of pathetic, but I’m not that—”

“You should be dead,” he repeated, sounding as if the words had to tear their way out of his throat—scraping like shards of glass all the way up.

You stared at his dark eyes and dripping bangs—the shadows playing across his cheeks and the strange, hollow, wrongness that had settled over all of him. With a heavy sigh you plopped yourself down into the chair across from his and dragged a handful of the leftover charms your way. Pointedly, you took one and slapped it over the wound. And then another.

“See?” you said, flexing your wrist in his grip to put the creeping, black, cut on display. The talismans glowed softly against your skin and the lingering whisps of darkness licking at the the injury began to fade. “All better. Not something a dead person would say at all.”

Leona frowned, but at least it looked a bit more annoyed than outright bleak. And besides, frowns were better than whatever that stoic, expressionless, numbness had been.

“Though I appreciate your concern,” you grinned, pointedly sharp and prodding. Like a toddler standing by with a stick, hoping to poke out a reaction. “Truly, whatever would I do without the Great Lord Lion there to fret over me?”

But instead of the acidic ‘I wasn’t fucking worried,’ that you were expecting, or even a more muted grumble of dissent, Leona’s brow just pinched in displeasure and your awkward attempts at teasing faded into terse silence.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered, almost too quiet to hear—his head low and eyes lower.

You sighed and twisted your wrist around to pat at his hand. There was the faintest tremor in his fingers and you tangled your own between them to give him something to squeeze, something to hide the shiver of lingering malaise that he would no doubt deny with his dying breath. You observed the stern, tight, expression warping his otherwise handsome face—the miserable, puckered, angle of his mouth and the way the emerald of his eyes was cut through with a shadow of genuine remorse. You reached out with your other hand to pet at his soft, round ears. They squished flat beneath your palm and your lips twitched up into a fond, little smile. Leona tipped his chin just enough to glower at you from beneath his bangs with no real heat, and you sighed and gave him one more pat for good measure.

“You’re forgiven.”

TAG LIST [CLOSED]

@marvelous-maxi, @ilikefanfics4, @jackalope08, @crocwork-clockodile, @cosmicobubisi, @buttplugs-stuff, @pomefleur, @decemebercircus, @ailynyan, @genzombie, @meliade-ot, @sunlightocean, @theofficialantitherapist, @hermiona18, @sailorenthusiast, @fantasy-dating-sim-trash, @thefiasco-onyourblock, @insideous-beez, @its-clockwork-princess

@novaloptr, @imlost-sendhelp, @matcha-berry @preciosayorgullosa @whoretaglia, @kookygirlwholikescookiesandcoke, @nanauedorian, @trixeraptops, @voxnipop, @starkling25, @thedum1, @horcrux-alchemist, @sleepykitty21, @apathicace, @instantregret101, @nekanecorvus, @looney-mori, @re-ducing, @my2phetaliaheadcanons, @naughtybodypillow, @rendy-a, @carmen-404, @candy284, @thealiennamedterry, @their-name-is-fake, @huetolog, @glacticrose, @seraphinariddle, @rabioa, @sn00zl4x, @dreasimping, @jeidoreech, @ai-dev, @galaxyshine24-7, @fatally-incorrect, @juulranch, @camrastuff, @nocteetdie, @stargaryengirl, @hxjikonn, @bloomsapphire

#twisted wonderland imagines #twisted wonderland #twst x reader #Monster Mayhem #My Writing #Twst Fantasy AU #Leona Kingscholar x Reader #Leona x Reader #Leona x Yuu #Skin-Changer Leona #Ace Trappola #Rook Hunt #Monster Mayhem Leona Part 3

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twisted-wonderland-shenanigans · 6 months

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Twisted Monsterland: Sleepy Birds

So…let’s talk harpies.

Without going into details about the overall species (I’ll save that for the baby monster bestiary I’m working on), I will say that harpies can be based on all species of birds. Falcons, eagles, and vultures? Sure, they’re more commonly known as the base foundation for the species, but they’re not the only ones! Crowley is a good example as a corvid harpy, and some of Rook’s siblings are based on birds of paradise like parrots and macaws! Some can even be based on delicate birds like the hummingbird~

Oof…just thinking about having to flap my arms that fast as a harpy makes me tired! 0.0

Now, you’re probably wondering, “That’s neat! But…where are you going with this?” And that’s a good question! Because we’re gonna talk about birbs~!

I’ve never owned a bird as a pet before, but my grandparents had one when we used to visit in my childhood. One thing I learned about birds (aside from the fact that we had to clap whenever their bird performed a trick on her own and someone saw it) is that one common thing bird owners do to calm down their feathery companions:

The “sleepy-time blanket”!

When the blanket goes over the cage, it’s supposed to mimic night time so the bird thinks it’s time to sleep. And when the cover is removed? It’s time to sing good morning~! Granted, it seems like this varies from bird-to-bird, but considering how often I’ve struggled to stay awake in school whenever the teachers used powerpoint slides in a dark room? Yeah, I get very sleepy in those cases. 😅

Now…imagine if Yuu discovered this by complete accident in the Monster!AU. >v>

////

Yuu: *hanging laundry out to dry on a bright, sunny day* “Hey, Grim? I need another clothes peg. The middle is sagging too much.”

Grim: “Yeah, yeah, here.” *flaps wings to hover next to Yuu, holding a bag in his paws* “Are we done yet? I’m bored…”

Yuu: “We’d be done sooner if someone hadn’t taken one of the bedsheets while the ghosts were collecting laundry and added one more load to wash and dry.” *unaware of a large shadow on the other side of the sheet, Yuu frowning as they go to take the sheet down and redo the arrangement*

???: “Bonjour, little Trickster~!”

Yuu/Grim: “Ack-!?!”

Crash!! Fwomp!

Grim: *pinned under Yuu* “Get…off! You’re heavy!”

Yuu: “Ow…sorry!” *climbs to their feet with a wince before turning to face the visitor now covered under the sheet* “Rook! You scared us half-to-death!”

*Rook doesn’t move, eerily silent as he stands there*

Grim: “Hm? Hey, wazza matter? You usually start talkin’ funny by now!” *huffs when he doesn’t get a response and goes to peek under the sheet* “Hey! Are you listenin’ to m…eh? Wait a minute…he’s asleep!?"

Yuu: “Huh??”

Grim: “He fell asleep standing! See?!” *yanks off blanket, pulling off Rook’s hat at the same time*

Rook: *straightens up with a blink, fluttering his wings before feathers settle down and he smiles* “Oh, there you are, Trickster. How are you faring this morning?”

Grim: “Mrah!? I thought you were asleep! What gives?”

Rook: “Hm? I was asleep? I don’t recall…”

Grim: “Yes you were! You were practically snorin’!”

Yuu: *picks up the sheet again, looking between it and Rook before slowly climbing back on the stepladder near Rook*

Rook: “Non, non, I promise you that I did not fall aslee-”

Yuu: *throws sheet over Rook’s head again*

Rook: “Mon di-!?” *freezes before slumping, standing in place in silence again*

Yuu: “…holy crap…I wonder if this’ll work on Ace or Cater?”

Grim: “What’s going on?!”

////

Needless to say, Rook was thoroughly confused by this until Yuu told him what happened. This also leads to a discussion on harpy parents using their wings to settle down rowdy chicks and restless hatchlings. Suffice to say, Yuu decided to run their own experiment on their fellow winged students. The results were…interesting to say the least.

Ace: Froze in place but was wide awake.

Cater: Fell asleep but collapsed on his side.

Leona: Blanket was torn to shreds from manticore quills. Hiding out in Diasomnia until he cools down.

Kalim: Normal blanket activates the zoomies. Introduced weighted blanket. Instant calm and Jamil is left baffled and grateful at the same time by this discovery!

Crowley: Fell asleep instantly. Sheets have been weaponized by the staff on occasion, so now he flies away at the sight of anyone carrying one towards him.

Seeing these results makes Yuu question what other animal reactions the students can possibly have. Meanwhile, their fellow students are warily watching the human scribble down notes in a notepad while carrying a jar of peanut butter.

Jack: “…why do you need me to be in beast form?”

Yuu: “I wanted to see something.”

Jack: “Okay…but what’s with the peanut butter?”

Yuu: “This? It’s just a tasty snack.” *opens it and scoops out a large spoonful* “See? Just regular peanut butter.”

Jack: “…alright.” *shifts into Fu dog form, nearly eye-to-eye with Yuu now* “Okay. What did you want to se—mfph!?!” *scrambles back after Yuu shoves the spoonful of peanut butter in his mouth, licking and trying to chew at the same time* “Blamph! Namf-nif-thaths?!”

Yuu: *scribbling notes* “Fu dogs react to peanut butter like dogs. Fascinating…I wonder if catnip affects manticore too?”

Ruggie: “Do you have some sort of death wish???”

#twisted wonderland #twst #twisted wonderland monster au #twst monster au #rook hunt #ace trappola #cater diamond #leona kingscholar #kalim al asim #jack howl #ruggie bucchi #chaotic!Yuu #twisted wonderland yuu #twst yuu

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secondary-colorentimy · 6 months

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*me after drawing normal art for 2 weeks* IM BACK IN THE FUCKGN BUILDING AGAIN ‼️⁉️

#fanart #twisted wonderland #twst #twst x sonic #rook hunt #vil schoenheit #IM BAVK WOTH THIS BULLSHIT EHEHAHHAHA #me trying to hold back the beast all of october to make normal art #only to set the monster free as soon as all that art is posted #LOLLL #snapcube reference #if its a fox image i WILL draw rook as it

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twstrhythm · 1 year

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The Halloween Teams in a few words but without too much context:

Jamil & Silver - Violence is now an option but please apologize later

Riddle, Ortho, & Ruggie - Teaching Riddle how to have fun

Trey, Sebek, & Rook - Trey is with the strange ones

Leona, Floyd, & Ace - Leona’s babysitting services

#twisted wonderland #scary monsters endless halloween #jamil viper #twst silver #riddle rosehearts #ortho shroud #ruggie bucchi #trey clover #sebek zigvolt #rook hunt #leona kingscholar #floyd leech #ace trappola

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probablynoposts · 1 year

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I just had to do Rook as well @remturtle

I don’t know if I got the scares in the right place

#twst wonderland #twst #twst x reader #twisted wonderland x reader #twisted wonderland pfp #twisted wonderland #rook hunt #TWST wonderland rook #twst fanart #monster au #twisted wonderland au #rook twisted wonderland

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twisted-wonderland-but-gayer · 2 years

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Helloooo! Thank you for exisiting cause finding a GN/male friendly blog is harder than it looks 😭 But i give you choccy milk as my thanks

I hope you dont have too much on your platter already but can I please request a GN reader whos almost like a shadow monster? Its a sudden thought but yknow how Sam probably has smth to do with shadows cause of the char hes based off of, what if the reader was a shadowy monster themselves but their form only can be seen in pure darkness?

Its not a magical girl transformation too, its quick, like if they just step into a small bit of darkness people gets a peek of their true form, and so they have a bit of a bad reputation, but theyre just a nerd in reality who probably doodles bunnies in their notes, how will the bois react?

(This was long so sorry but for the Azul, Ruggie and Rook perhaps?)

Shadow Monster Yuu

I based this off Oz from Monster Prom and Don't Starve so enjoy. Reader is Yuu, but whether or not they have magic is up to you.

Gn, some swearing and body horror

Azul

Azul has had his eye on you from the second you appeared in this realm. A seemingly 'magicless', mysterious individual with no background informed at all comes out of nowhere and gets admitted at NRC as a beast-tamer? Furthermore, almost everyone who has run into you has been saying how terrifying you truly were – giving the Tweels and perhaps Malleus himself a run for their money.

What was it about you that was so scary? What made everyone else avoid you like the plague? And also, who exactly are you? You haven't a cent to your name, no records anywhere, is it true what you said? Of not being from this world? Another dimension? Was that truly possible?

After another report from the tweels came back fruitless, with no information at all on you, Azul took it upon himself to study you. You passed by each other during classes, so surely he may be able to get a glimpse of something. Or so he thought. He was right behind you in the hallway as you walked over to the cafeteria, trying his best to not stick out, making it seem like he just happened to be behind you.

Suddenly you stopped, and pressed your back to the wall behind you, glancing at Azul. Azul paused for a moment, before realizing that you were testing him. If he didn't move now, you would know he was following you. Damn, it's time to bring out the business persona again.

"Ah, greetings Prefect, it seems like we are both headed to the same place, care if I join you?"

There was silence for a moment as you looked at him. "Please stop sending people to follow me, it's annoying. Whatever you want, say it upfront."

Azul paused for a moment. "Now now, Prefect, just where did you get that idea from, it truly makes me– eh?" You walked away from him in the middle of his response. You were quick, and not thinking carefully enough. You stepped in a dark shadow.

You felt the effects immediately, your blood cooling down and body contorting to match the fears of whoever was around you, this time being Azul. Azul's eyes widened in horror as he looked at your shifting form take shape, frozen at the sounds of bones cracking and flesh ripping

Your eyes were brown, red, and occasionally yellow, Azul noted, trying to make sense of your nonsensical form towering over him. Gnashing teeth and glaring eyes were all across your shadowy form. Claws, spines, and odd tentacles sprouting and shrinking. Your face, or rather faces, terrified him the most. His stomach churned as your faces just seemed to somehow look like every bully he was hurt by in his childhood, all of them flaring down at him, calling him names, still seeing him as the pathetic child he always was.

Azul made the mistake of blinking. The minute he opened his eyes your face changed. It was the twins. They looked down at him in disdain, hate-filled eyes. His only friends, looked at him like he was nothing but shit. You saw Azul's shaking form and for form seemed to suddenly shrink, almost looking like a kicked puppy.

"I… I'm so sorry I didn't mean– this is why I told you not to follow me, I…" Your form came out of the shadows, shooting Azul a flustered, yet apologetic look, before walking off. Once he was over the initial shock, a scheming smirk spread across his face.

Ruggie

He never meant to run into you. In fact, he went out of his way to avoid you. Ruggie may not be one for rumors, but when the entire hall makes room for you just to avoid you, you can't help but wonder why. Everyone he's met has something awful to say about you. You're scary, you threatened them, you're going to hurt someone. There were too many people saying the same things and he wasn't taking chances.

Your reputation was no good, just like his. And you both got in trouble over it, just like how he is now. A few students surrounded him, accusing Ruggie of stealing from them. For once in his life, he didn't, but because of his reputation, no one believed him. How he wished to be feared like you and the leech twins.

"For the last time, I didn't take your wallet! The only wallet I steal from is Leona's." "You fucking liar, everyone knows you're the resident pickpocket. Give it back you stupid fucking hyena!"

The students prepared their wands and their fists. Ruggies ears dropped as wiggled free from a student's grip, trying to run off and dodge their spells. While stumbling to get up, a few spells got a hit on him, and the smell of burnt fur and the feeling of bruised ribs disoriented him. Still, he managed to get up and run, before he bumped into… something.

Ruggie couldn't even see what he ran into in the dark of the hallway, but he felt it. Something steadied him and pulled him behind it, protectively. "Leave the hyena alone." The voice snarled. Ruggie couldn't help but freeze in place, trying to feel around for a place he could squeeze out of and run off. Every time he felt around, he was felt right back, making him retract his hands. All he could do was look up at this monstrosity that decided to protect him.

He couldn't see its body, but they were huge. Its limbs are ever-moving and ever-changing twitching and twisting in unnatural ways. There seemed to be never-ending rows of sharp teeth in their mouth as they snarled at the group of students, who all quickly turned tail and ran off. Ruggie could only stand there, not knowing if he could escape at all from your but was quickly surprised to see this creature step into the light.

Cringing at the sight and sound of its body snapping into place, he realized his savior was none other than you. So this is why you're seen as scary, huh? Ruggie stared in shock as you looked over at him.

"You're not hurt are you?" At that, Ruggie relaxed and went on the defensive. "I'm fine thanks to you I guess… so… what do I owe you?"

You stared at him. "Pardon?" "I mean, you surely didn't save my tail for nothing, what do you want from me?"

Ruggie felt bad when he saw you deflate and flinch. "I… nothing I guess. Have a nice day, hyena." And like that, you walked off. Ruggie couldn't help but feel like he may have judged a bit too soon about it– them. Perhaps they aren't so bad.

Rook

Interesting. From the minute he's heard of you, you've been nothing but interesting. A student from nowhere, with no background, a Prefect of a new dorm? The huntsman couldn't help but be curious.

At first, he was simply going to keep you in the background. You weren't his main target after all, but you were still interesting. Or that's how it was supposed to go. Within a week, you garnered a terrifying reputation around campus.

"I heard that the missing students around campus aren't because they dropped out, but because of them" "The other day, they threatened me with my mother's old pictures, she's been dead for years and I've never shared anything with them!" "I heard a child crying and when I approached it I just saw them there with the creepiest expression on their face!"

All of these amazing stories and he has yet to experience one himself. Surely he could change that! You weren't that hard to find, after all. As a huntsman, he does what hunters do best: stalk their prey. Yet, after hours of following you, he doesn't notice anything strange.

You're meek, quiet, and try to keep a low profile. You're nothing like the reports he has heard. However, it's always the quiet ones that have the most to say…

After a few days of following you around, he saw it. On your walk home to Ramshackle, you slipped into the shade. Your body twisted and cracked before his eyes, melting then stretching into incomprehensible shapes a dimension above his understanding 3D. As quickly as it came, it went, and in the sun your meek form returned. His shocked expression turned into fascination. My my, what a little trickster you are!

#twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland x reader #ruggie bucchi #ruggie bucchi x reader #rook hunt #rook hunt x reader #monster mc #gender neutral #body horror #body horror tw #azul ashengrotto #azul ashengrotto x reader #eldritch yuu

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myplaylists-angeli · 6 months

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| '𝖈𝖚𝖟 𝖙𝖍𝖎𝖘 𝖎𝖘 𝖙𝖍𝖗𝖎𝖑𝖑𝖊𝖗 𝖓𝖎𝖌𝖍𝖙 𝐢𝐧 𝐍𝐑𝐂 |

Playlists:

Spooky Card Skeletons of Heartslabyul

Wild Ghost Pirates of Savanaclaw

Walk Like a Mermummy in Octavinelle

Howling Werewolf Nights of Scarabia

Vampires in Thirst of Blood of Pomefiore

Legend of Pumpkin Hollow of Ignihyde

Spirited Away with Ryuu in Diasomnia

#twisted wonderland #twst playlist #twst event #scary monsters event #twst halloween #cater diamond #leona kingscholar #jade leech #jamil viper #rook hunt #idia shroud #malleus draconia #spotify playlist

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twistedwonderlandshenanigans · 7 months

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Monster AU - TWSTTOBER

*yes this is very self indulgent, but it will be obvious when my OC is involved and trigger warnings for gore, blood, sacrifice, graphic death etc. etc. will be included at the top of each work

Day 1. Basic Worldbuilding

Day 2. Ace's Backstory (Fic)

Day 3. Delinquent Deuce (Ficlet)

Day 4. Trey's Backstory (Fic...kind of)

Day 5. Cater's Backstory (Ficlet)

Day 6. Riddle's Backstory (Fic....I think)

Day 7. Jack's Backstory (Fic)

Day 8. Ruggie's Backstory (Ficlet)

Day 9. Leona's Backstory (IDK I spaced out and wrote it in 20 mins.)

Day 10. Jade and Floyd's Backstory (Drabble)

Day 11. Azul's Backstory (Drabble)

Day 12. Jamil's Backstory (Drabble)

Day 13. Kalim's Backstory (Drabble)

Day 14. Epel's Backstory (Its So Short)

Day 15. Rook and Vil's Backstory (Fic??)

Day 16. Idia and Ortho's Backstory (???)

Day 17. Sebek's Backstory (Ficlet)

Day 18. Silver's Backstory (Ficlet)

Day 19. Lilia's Backstory (Ficlet)

Day 20. Malleus' Backstory (Drabble)

Day 21. Neige's Backstory (Fic)

Day 22. Che'nya's Backstory (Ficlet)

Day 23. Sam's Backstory (Drabble)

Day 24. Ashton's Backstory (idk man)

Day 25. Divus' Backstory (Fuck you Divus you gave me writers block)

Day 26. Mozus' Backstory (Just me rambling) ------------------------------------------------------ These May Or May Not Happen:

Day 27. Fuck You Crowley (The joke was I wasn't going to do anything but its not as funny now that I couldn't keep up lmao)

Day 28. My OC's Backstory (Vizzie)

Day 29. Ace's Big Brother (Ficlet)

Day 30. Three Musketeers (young Riddle, Trey and Che'nya Ficlet)

Day 31. TBD

---------------------

Heya Heya!! Sorry for the inactivity I've been in 💫School💫 but I have most of these written up and summarized anyways so I'm going to play catch up with these!! Yes this is very self indulgent but also you are very welcome to ask whatever you'd like! Please do!!

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randomshenaniganery · 2 years

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How to Handle the Magicam Monsters while getting as much money as possible and avoiding conflict (not made by azul that bitch wishes he was me /j)

1. Getting Cater, Jade and Idia to find out the identities of every single one of these bastards so that we have someone to bring to small claims to (home address, contact info, and family are a must)

2. Printing screenshots of their posts that are literal proof of their crime as well as eyewitnesses. place some of these screenshots in random places to shame them with text detailing what they did wrong as as example and so that I can point at it look at other people and say “look at these bitches horrible fucking asshats yeah?”

3. listing out the prices for everything they broke or vandalize and adding in that emotional distress tax because fuck you Why are these flowers so expensive? Well they’re being home grown in the PRESTIGIOus Night Raven College They could not be compared to any other ingredient u simply buy off in the markets how dare u

4. Blackmail/convince/bully crowley into letting me assemble a security team that does rounds around the school where in said security has the power to remove anyone causing trouble and banning them but we get paid for our troubles because STUDENTS AREN’T SUPPOSED TO BE SECURITY CROWLEY THE SCHOOL IS SUPPOSED TO PROVIDE THAT (i want rook to be in this security team I want him to shoot arrows just inches away from peoples faces with a note telling them LAST FUCKING WARNING BITCH)

5. (will apply if I just don’t want to deal with the magicam monsters at all) just ban phones from the whole school. There will be stall where u leave your phone behind and people will watch over it or else just don’t fucking go in. If they bitch about it show them the list of actual fucking crimes committed. We’re no longer allowing people to use their phones within the premises because of how damaging it can be like you kept touching a person’s body part even though they said no? Go to jail I hope your hands get ripped off you pieces of shit

6. (if there is literally no other choice and for some reason crowley won’t ban phones this is the back up rule) just have the halloween party but don’t invite the public. The party is private but the touring thing can be public its not that hard crowley use your fucking bird brain bitch

7. put up the waffle selling stall outside of the school and like a huge trashcan I’m only putting this here for Jamil’s sanity (I’m not azul i swear)

8. the most obvious thing i was so shocked riddle didn’t do was put a fucking sign that listed out the things not to do. WHY DID IT TAKE Y’ALL SO LONG TO PUT ONE UP???? and then add the note anyone who breaks this rules will be escorted out of the premises. That’s it, that’s what museums do, its what concerts do, I only need to use an eighth of my brain for this

9. Don’t eject the magicam people by just flying them out they’ll just think its funny and make that a trend what u do is you get a bunch of svanaclaw giant beef heads let them take someone by the arm and drag them OUT OKAY YOU CAN DO THAT BECAUSE ITS PRIVATE FUCKING PROPERTY

10. Convince vil to make a very sad video about how sad he is with how people have been treating his school and he’s just so devastated by what they’ve done and then use ignihyde students to rile up his fans to bash them online and ruin their magicam monsters’ fanbases

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mrsrookhunt · 7 months

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It's Friday the 13th but there's 30 minutes left so this is going to be short and sweet.

🎃 Inhuman Rook Hunt hcs 🎃

Warnings: None it's pretty wholesome

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><

Inhuman!Rook who is immediately enthralled with you when you pass his cabin in the woods on an offchance.

Inhuman!Rook who has been warned by the many generations of his species not to fall for a human. They don't understand, they don't get it, Rook, please, don't hurt yourself like this, they just don't get it---

Inhuman!Rook who is so deeply in love with you he opens his home, hides his secrets, and puts on a human disguise, all for you.

Inhuman!Rook who loves you so deeply he's named all your future children, picked out a home even farther removed from society, at the foothills of a great mountain range he knows you will be at ease at, and busied himself with textbooks on marriage and parenting customs among humans.

Inhuman!Rook who learns how humans show love so that he can be the best husband, best friend, and lover to you, and show you his love as deeply as he could ever express that deep-set affection within his mind.

Inhuman!Rook who is willing to cast aside the solace he found in loneliness for the love he took a gamble on.

Inhuman!Rook who is willing to leave the only community of his species he's ever known, for your happiness, because 'happy' for him is when you are happy.

Inhuman!Rook who loves you more than life itself.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><

October 13th, 2023

Also shout out for E.B.'s birthday today :)

-Kaori

#rook hunt x reader #rook hunt x mc #monster rook hunt #rook hunt #inhuman rook hunt #twst rook x reader #twst rook #pomefiore #pomefiore x reader #disney twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland x reader #twisted wonderland #twst #disney twst #october #spooky fanfics #twstober #monster x reader

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dilatorywriting · 1 year

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Monster Mayhem: Don't Fear the Reaper

Gender Neutral Reader x Rook Hunt Word Count: 3.4k

Summary: Running a little pâtisserie is quaint, and homey, and should not in any way get you involved with anything shady. Let alone the strange bounty hunter who prowls through your little town like the Grim Reaper himself. And yet here you are, teaching this literal murderer how to use a napkin.

A/N: Based on this wonderful brain rot from a very lovely anon! Also apologies in advance to anyone who actually knows French, because I do not lol. So Rook's babbling is all Google baby

[PART 1] [PART 2]

There was a murderer at your window, and you weren’t really sure what to do about it.

Well, maybe not actually a murderer. Bounty Hunters tended not to wind up in prison after dragging back the desecrated remains of their latest quarry. But still. You recognized the black plume tucked slickly into his wide-brimmed, purple, hat, and the pale, bright, bob of his hair was nearly luminescent in the dark. He was certainly the least covert assassin you’d ever seen, and you had seen him. It was hard not to. Traipsing through town to deposit every wayward criminal, every long-lost villain, at the doorstep of who’d ever called for him.

‘Rook Hunt’ you thought his name was, or at least, that’s what the old woman in the market would call him before crossing herself and spitting in the dirt. It was all a bit on the nose in your humble opinion, especially with that strange, twisting, ebony, bow of his strung across his back. ‘Hunter’ indeed. But it’s not like you’ve ever done anything to warrant winding up in one of those dripping burlap sacks of his, so you’d let the dude have his drama. It was probably good advertisement. And it’s not like the guy had ever bothered you before.

You thought that reassurance on repeat as you watched said not-quite-a-murderer stare through the front window of your little bakery, as if your rising dough had been kneaded with the secrets of the known universe. But he didn’t do anything—just kept watching with rapt attention as you brushed egg wash over your pie crusts and swapped trays in and out of the ancient, brick, oven.

In all honesty, he was far from the strangest thing that’d been plastered to your window in the early AM, and it wasn’t like he was licking the glass or anything. So you let it slide.

One of the custard tarts you pulled from the oven had cracked across the top. Nothing out of the ordinary—there was always at least one dud in a batch. Normally you saved the rejects for Ace or Deuce to gobble up (depending on whoever managed to pop by first), but this one you set aside onto a little tea plate. You topped it with a dollop of freshly whipped cream and a spoonful of the blackberries you’d left sitting in sugar overnight. Then you plucked up a spare napkin and made your way out from behind the counter.

When you opened the door to your little bakery, the tingling overhead bell warmed your unwanted guest’s expression in a way that it most certainly should not have—lighting the whole of him with this sort of wide-eyed, innocent, joy that belonged nowhere on the face of someone you’d watched cart literal corpses into town.

“Mon pâtissier!” he chirped. “What a fine morning it is, no?”

The sun hadn’t even started to rise yet. You could still hear the drone of crickets and toads in the distance, basking in the humid darkness of the night.

“Sure,” you shrugged. “We’re not open for,” you glanced at the moon, still full in the sky, “at least four more hours. If that’s what you’re waiting for.”

“Oh—non, non, non,” Rook waved you off. “I just wanted to watch!”

“…Watch?” you repeated.

“It’s quite the fascinating process!” he absolutely beamed. “Taking such basic, individual, components and turning them into something so spectacularly sweet and heartwarming! Quelle inventivité! I’ve heard nothing but excellent things about your marvelous menu!”

‘From who?’ you wanted to ask, because you’d never heard of anyone being able to hold a conversation with this man for more than a stuttered sentence at a time, let alone for long enough to go about giving dessert recommendations. But there was a streak of red blood across his cheek that still looked fresh enough to not even have gone tacky yet, and now that you looked closer, his dark gloves were perhaps a shade too dark to not have been, well…

You sighed and reminded yourself once again that is was absolutely not your business, before handing him the napkin.

He stared at it with that same sort of rapt fascination that had you wondering if this man had ever actually interacted with proper civilization in his entire life.

“Wipe your hands,” you demanded with a huff, and he dutifully scrubbed at his stained fingers. Once he was clean enough that he was at least no longer dripping unmentionables all along your windowsill, you held out the little saucer for him to take.

“Pour moi?” he muttered, looking a bit starstruck.

“If you’re going to say all those nice things about my food, you may as well get to try what you’re complimenting,” you shrugged, and that same eager enthusiasm lit his face all over again. “And it will be a nice treat to take home with you,” you emphasized, with all the intonation of a cheery ‘please get the fuck out before you scare away all my customers for the day.’

But instead of turning and meandering off back to whatever hole he’d crawled out of, he just kept staring at the little treat like he had no idea what to do with it.

“It’s a tart,” you said blandly, fighting the furrow in your brow.

Rook repeated ‘a tart’ under his breath like it was some kind of ancient, forbidden, enchantment, and not like it was literally scrawled into the little menu sign at your door at least a dozen times over.

The Bounty Hunter peered at the little custard treat like you’d handed him a treasure beyond measure. After a moment of carefully poking at the browned crust like it wasn’t literally meant to break apart beneath one’s fingers, he looked back over at you with eyes that were far, far, too green. He lifted the tart up like he meant to give it back to you.

“I ought to offer you la première bouchée,” he smiled.

You blinked, taken aback, and pushed the plate back into his hands. “That’s not how free samples work.”

Rook tossed his head back with a bout of boisterous laughter that should have been loud enough to wake everyone on the block. You glanced around nervously, hoping no one was about to come running out to make noise complaints.

“Ahh~ But how else will I know the best manner in which to savor such a treat?”

“You eat it,” you gaped. And then, slowly, because you weren’t even sure you were dealing with a functional human being anymore. “With your teeth.”

The Bounty Hunter, with his blood smeared cheeks and even bloodier clothes, put all those shiny, pearly whites of his on display in a merry grin. He swept forward in a grand bow that had the feather in his hat bobbing about in a way that reminded you far too much of a wagging tail.

“Of course!” he chirped. “In my home you said, yes?”

Please, you wanted to groan. Go there. Leave.

“Ideally,” you said instead, and Rook ducked his head until that purple hat of his had cast the whole of his face into shadow. He reached up to tap two fingers against the wide brim and tip it forward.

“Merci, merci!” he trilled. “Then I will endeavor to consume this marvelous spécialité humaine in the proper fashion. A very good morning to you then, cher pâtissier!”

He straightened with a merry little hum and began making his way back down the cobblestone road. In the soft light of the setting moon, his footsteps left odd prints in their wake—inky, black, dripping things that had faded entirely by the time you were able to focus enough to get a proper look at them, leaving you wondering if they’d really just been nothing but a trick of the night.

Well, that was fucking weird,you frowned, shaking the fuzz from your head. You slipped back inside and the door jingled pleasantly as it slammed behind you. But then again, when wasn’t customer service a trip? These people were all ridiculous.

Bright and early the next morning, you were waiting for Deuce to arrive with his delivery of a fresh crate of eggs. It was ungodly early, as it always was. But at least there was no hunter at your window this time around—

There was a bang and a screech, and then an unfortunate sort of cracking-squishing-yucky noise that sounded an awful lot like a couple dozen eggs meeting their doom. You frowned and tucked your rag into the ribbons of your apron and ducked out from the backroom with a sigh. Deuce was at the door. Or, well, Deuce was on the ground in front of your door. With the shattered, yolk, remnants of your shipment scattered all around him.

“I’m not paying for that,” you huffed irritably, and your friend looked up with a squawk.

He looked like he was trying to say something, but his face just kept flashing back and forth between deathly pale and a miserable sort of mottled red.

“I—! You—! And he—!”

“Use your words, Spade,” you sighed.

“I do believe he’s trying his best, cher pâtissier!”

You froze, and turned in near-slow-motion to see a beaming Bounty Hunter crouched at one of the little painted benches lined up neatly along your storefront. Not on one, like a normal person. But beside one. On the ground. There was no blood on him today. None that was very obviously dripping down his face at the very least. He didn’t seem like he’d come bearing any ill will, but your Chicken Dealer was still splayed out on the ground—nearly convulsing—so that wasn’t a great sign either.

“What’s going on out here?” you demanded, hands at your hips.

“I do believe Monsieur Spade had himself a bit of a fright,” Rook beamed, and then turned towards your very gaunt looking friend with a soft tut-tut noise that for all its amiability didn’t sound particularly sympathetic. “You really ought to work on your balance, hmm? Alas, all these petits oeufs have gone to waste.”

“What?!” Deuce immediately bristled, on the defensive. “If you hadn’t scared me, then none of these chicks would have had to die so tragically in the first place!”

“For the last time,” you sighed, grinding the heels of your palms into your eyes. “Unfertilized farm eggs are not baby chicks.”

“But Ace said—”

“Enough! With what Ace said!” you snapped, exhaustion and a sore lack of tea, or coffee, or anything wearing away at your already fragile sanity. “Ace would sell you snake oil and cry to your face about you underpaying for it!”

“Oh?” Rook chirped, unfolding himself from his crouch to stand at his full height. He wasn’t particularly gangly or long limbed—not even especially tall, all things considered. But there was something about him that made him loom. From the sharp cut of his purple robes to the harsh, starched, white of his tight collar. He was neat, composed. And yet… very much not civilized. “Is this not a person who wishes you well, cher pâtissier?”

You frowned, something odd tugging at a sixth sense of yours. Just… a little something on the periphery of your nerves, singing that the words you chose now would mean a lot more than they ought to.

You hummed, low in your throat, and considered.

“Ace is himself,” you said finally, “but he’s a friend nonetheless.”

“Magnifique!” Rook beamed and clapped his hands together with a near lovelorn sigh, all at once perfectly pleasant and soft. “It is such a very good thing to have friends!”

“…Is that what you are?” Deuce asked, enough of that enraged spunk fading away to leave him properly cautious once more. His blue eyes flickered pointedly from the bounty hunter, to you, and back. “A friend?”

You sighed and turned to retreat back into your little shop without a word. Deuce scrambled to his feet to follow you in hesitantly, still dripping with the remnants of too many eggs. You shot him a look, and he immediately darted over to the mop and bucket you kept propped up in the corner. Rook stood in the doorway, nearly just a blur of bruised shadow against the backdrop of the pre-dawn darkness, and you watched him out of the corner of your eye. After a long moment of terse silence, he stepped beyond the threshold with a little hum. He wiped his feet pointedly on your little welcome mat, and then turned to stand at the counter. He fished around in the pockets of his cloak for a moment before withdrawing a strange little flower. He placed it on the countertop with a bright smile that crinkled the corners of his green eyes.

You stepped forward to observe it curiously, and your brows shot up in surprise.

It wasn’t a flower at all. What had looked like the folded arch of soft petals was actually a dainty pair of wings. It was a tiny butterfly—caught in a perpetual sort of stillness. It was bright, and colorful, and so carefully preserved that even when you trailed a flour-coated finger along the thin membranes of its wings, it stayed clean and crisp.

“What’s this for?” you asked.

“Payment, of course!” Rook smiled. “For the lovely treat you gifted me the other day.”

You sighed, not at all in the mood to discuss the lack of viable conversion rates between copper coins and bugs.

So instead you settled on huffing, “Free samples are free. It’s in the name.”

Rook just kept on smiling, unbothered. Deuce knocked into some set of drawers or other—or maybe the coatrack. Who knew—and you shot him an irritable little scowl. The guy was like a bull in a china shop on the best of days, let alone when he was trying to multitask, and be sneaky about it all the while. The bounty hunter’s grin twitched a bit at the corners, like the idea of your blue-haired friend trying to stealthily keep a watch on him was just the funniest thing.

You glanced back down at the little, frozen, butterfly. It really was very pretty, even if it was a little odd.

When you ducked back behind the counter, you unearthed a blueberry muffin from one of many stacks of trays there. It was little lopsided, and maybe there were a few too many bits of fruit in it. Surely no one would have wanted it anyways.

You plopped it on the countertop, and both Rook’s eyebrows shot all the way up his forehead. When he made no move to take it, you pushed the confection closer. The wrapper slid along the counter in a heavy, sticky, way. You’d have to remember to wipe it down again after. The Hunter reached out carefully to pluck the treat up between his fingers. He squished it delicately, in a similarly cautious way as to how you’d stroked the little butterfly.

“Is this also for eating at home?” he asked, observing the offering with a wide, wonderous, expression.

“Yes,” you said, just in time for Deuce to nearly annihilate your trash bin. “Please enjoy it.” Please get out. You’re distracting my maid.

Rook Hunt dipped into another of those ridiculous, bobbing, bows and pinched the brim of his hat between his fingers.

“Your generosity continues to warm my heart, mon cher,” he crooned, eyes practically sparkling from behind the sharp cut of his heavily lined lashes. “I will endeavor to return your kindness tenfold! A hundred!”

You waved off his sentimentality with a flick of your wrist and a not so delicate ‘shoo shoo.’

The hunter left your little bakery with a spring in his step and an outpouring of flowery promises that had your head spinning. He melted seamlessly into the shadows of the early morning, and between one blink and the next, he’d vanished entirely.

You would have thoroughly enjoyed the well-earned silence that followed, if not for the veritable storm cloud brewing over your friend’s head.

“Do I get one…?” Deuce asked finally, staring outright at the remaining muffins and sounding small and hopeful. And like that clearly wasn’t what he’d meant to say at all.

“Maybe if I had the eggs to make more,” you lamented, brushing your hands against your apron.

Deuce made a wounded noise which you had exactly zero sympathy for. You got to work wiping down the counters and sorting through the bits and bobs you’d need to start your day.

“…You know he’s not right, don’t you? That bounty hunter?” Deuce finally said, setting the mop aside. “You must have heard at least some of the rumors floating around town. I don’t think anyone even knows if the guy’s human.”

You shrugged.

“Anyone who has to wake up when I wake up each morning has long given up on humanity anyways,” you droned, only sort of half kidding.

Deuce frowned, clearly unhappy with your non-answer.

“You’ll be careful, won’t you?” he asked, stern in his fretting. There was still a big ol’ chunk of eggshell tangled up in his bangs.

“When I am ever not?” you smiled, and carefully pocketed the little, blue, butterfly.

When you popped by the market stalls after closing shop for the day, the street was abuzz with all the usual gossipy nonsense that you’d long since learned to let settle at the back of your brain like white noise. You were busy debating if you had enough arms to manage balancing yet another bag of strawberries (they were at their height of freshness these past weeks it seemed, and you were like a little fruit goblin hoarding them while you could), when a particularly shrill bit of chatter worked its way past the pleasant curtain you’d let fall across your thoughts.

“There was another one,” the butcher’s wife whispered in a way that was most certainly not a whisper.

“I heard,” chittered the man who really should have been trying to sell you more strawberries if he’d any kind of business sense whatsoever. He turned on you with a look that meant you were clearly about to be dragged into a conversation you were entirely unprepared for. “It was one of yours, apparently!”

“One of my what?” you blinked back into focus.

“One of your regulars,” he said, like a secret.

“That strange Bounty Hunter came through again,” his coconspirator hissed, with a hand lifted as if she meant to cover her mouth. “He dropped off the body the other day—delivered the heart straight to the Felmier’s porch!”

“Who was it?” you asked, just like you knew they wanted you to.

“Sir Hamlen,” the butcher’s wife said. “You know, that awful toad who could eat you out of house and home.”

That sounded like all of your costumers, and more than half of your closest friends, but you gave yourself a moment to sort through your scattered thoughts and try and connect whatever dots they’d been throwing at you.

“Sir Hamlen…?” you said after a moment, slowly putting a face to the name. “With the terrible goatee?”

They both nodded enthusiastically.

“Rotten pig,” the butcher’s wife piped back in. “Served him right, if you ask me. Everyone was expecting the Crown would put him to death anyways.”

You shrugged again. You hardly knew the man, but he’d always paid you well enough that you didn’t really have any ill will towards him. You went back to fussing over balancing bags of berries, but then… Well, there was something a bit funny, actually. He’d been a loud sort of person, with no filter to speak of. One afternoon, he’d stumbled into your little shop absolutely pissed on cheap drink and all but burping bubbles.

‘You know,’ he’d lulled, dropping a full coin pouch on your countertop. Which you’d taken in its entirely with zero hesitation. ‘I’d die happy if my last meal was these fucking tarts of yours.’

‘Is that so,’ you’d drawled, in the bland way you answered literally every customer who spouted off whatever nonsense was kicking around in their heads.

‘Aye,’ he’d sighed, practically stooped over. ‘Gonna have to pry ‘em outta my cold, dead, hands.’

“Huh,” you muttered, thoughts wandering back to a pair of bloody gloves and the little treat you’d pressed into them. Huh.

TAG LIST [CLOSED]

#twisted wonderland imagines #twisted wonderland #twst x reader #Rook Hunt x Reader #Rook x Reader #Rook Hunt x Yuu #Reaper!Rook #Monster Mayhem #Fantasy AU #Rook Hunt #Deuce Spade #My Writing #Monster Mayhem Rook Part 1

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twisted-wonderland-shenanigans · 11 months

Note

Hey so I just found your account and omg?? it's literally so amazing 😭✋

Anyways-I was just looking through a bunch of the twist monster au headcannons/stories, and I thought of a scenario that could be done!

Basically the cast reacting to gender neutral or female reader/yuu acting stuff out in their book they are reading like poses, dialogue, just genuine reactions to the text itself

ex. Throwing the book across the room and them being genuinely concerned that something happened bc reader is just staring off into space or cursing but what actually happened was either a character died/did something embarrassing/the mc and love interest finally kiss

Anyways that's all I had in mind hope you have a good day/night! <3

Omg thank you! I’m so glad you’re enjoying the content! QvQ

Ah, books. Such a wonderful creation humans made to fill us with raw, pure emotion or shattering our hearts and souls into a million tiny pieces—only for us to read it again and again! Don’t you just love those moments as a reader? UvU

Except for cliffhangers. Readers have a love/hate relationship with it, writers adore cliffhangers! ÒvÓ

So, what happens if we take a bookreader!Yuu (they/them) and throw them into Twisted Monsterland where even the history books read like a world guide/omnibus to a game or TV series? Oh, and I took a bit of inspiration from a Disney princess comic and a Bill Watterson “Calvin and Hobbes” comic for two of these scenarios. 😂

/-----------/

“Jeez, you sure you’ve got enough books, Yuu?”

“The librarian wouldn’t let me check out more than ten at a time,” Yuu replied, their backpack and arms filled with thick books. “Wish I could’ve gotten ten more at least, but this’ll do for now.”

“Are you sure you can even read all those before next semester?” Deuce asked in concern. “Those look pretty…dense.”

“Oh, I’ll be done in a week. Maybe a week and a half if we get a lot of homework.”

“Funya?! You gotta be kidding me!” Grim said. “Can humans read that fast?”

“Not everyone. Some people are slow readers, but that’s okay since they enjoy it at their own pace while I enjoy it at mine. Only problem for me is choosing which one of these I want to read first!”

/Later that night/

“Yuu? It’s time to eat!” Grim called out. Silence greeted him as he stared at Yuu, who was sitting on the couch with their face practically buried in a book. Frowning, the chimera padded over to the couch and repeated, “Yuu! I’m hungry!”

Still the human didn’t seem to respond, their shoulders hunching as they turned the page.

“Yuu? Yuu!” Huffing, Grim crossed his arms as he glared up at them. “You’ve been reading for the past three hours! How much longer are you gonna read that book?”

“What’s going on, pal?” one of the ghosts asked as the trio appeared.

Gesturing his paws at Yuu, he said, “They’ve been reading ever since we got back from the library today, and now they’re not reactin’ to me. It’s dinner time and they haven’t made any food yet!”

Before anyone could even think of what to say, a loud, shrill squeal filled the dorm.

“Eeeeeee!!!” Yuu squealed, a huge grin on their face as they flopped to the side and kicked their legs like a nervous rabbit while holding the book against their chest. “Omg it happened, it happened!!”

“Mrah!? What?! What happened?!” Grim yelled, wings flared out defensively while his fur bristled. “Why are you yelling!”

“My new OTP!! They finally kissed!!” Yuu said, their eyes wide as they rocked from side to side. “They kissed!! Yes!! Yesyesyesyesyessssss!!!”

“OTP? What’s an OTP??” one of the other ghosts asked.

“It’s what we like to call the ‘one true pairing’ in a story,” Yuu explained, a positively giddy expression on their face with eyes shining brighter than the stars as they struck a dramatic pose. “It’s two characters who vibe with each other on a level that you just can’t help but want them to be together—and the author brought these two together!! Yeeeeeeeee, I’m so happy!!”

“And loud,” Grim grumbled, paws clamped over his ears. “Why are you standing like that?”

“It’s how the main character professed their love for the other!”

“…are all humans as weird as you?”

“Trust me, there are people out there that are way crazier in their excitement than I am right now.”

“Really?!”

“Oh yeah. Don’t even get me started on the fanfics people write.”

“Fan…fics?”

“Oh, you sweet summer child…”

/Two days later/

“Heeeey, lil’ Shrimpy~!”

“Mm…”

“Eh…? Hey, Shrimp…why are you ignorin’ us? It’s not very nice.”

“Now, now, Floyd. One mustn’t interrupt a reader when they’re indulging in such a riveting story.”

“Shh,” Yuu muttered, their brow furrowed as they hunched closer to the book. “I’m at the best part!”

Floyd frowned as he laid his head on his arms, the basilisk slumping against the table. “Man, this is lame,” he said. “You promised to come play basketball with me today!”

“Once I finish this part, we can go do whatever you want, okay, Floyd?”

Jade hummed in amusement as he said, “A rather daring proposition you just offered, Yuu.”

“We have to do a buncha reading for class anyway,” Floyd said with a bored expression. “And Crabby and Mackerel said you finished two other books already, so what’s the point of thi-”

“AAAAIIIIIEEEEE!!?!?” Yuu shrieked, leaping out of their chair as Jade and Floyd recoiled in shock. Before the twins could react, Yuu had ducked back into their chair and pressed the book even closer to their face than before.

“…lemmie see that,” Floyd said, leaning over the table to grab it.

“No, no! It’s fine, go do something else!” Yuu said all too quickly, sinking even lower and turning away from Floyd’s reaching claws. “I think I heard Riddle in the hallway.”

“Lemmie see it!”

“No! You can’t read it!” Yuu cried out, bolting away from the table holding the book tight to their chest.

“Get back here, Shrimpy!”

“Noooo!!”

“Oh my,” Jade uttered, eyes wide for a moment before he chuckled. “Perhaps I should look into this book when they’ve finished it.”

/The next day/

“Oh no…oooh noooooo, I hate this so much!”

“Then why are you reading it?” Jamil asked, the naga curled around them. “If you don’t like it, just take it back to the library.”

“I can’t! It’s soooooo good!” Yuu said, practically throwing themselves backwards onto Jamil’s snake half with the book pressed against their face.

“Eh? But wait, you just said you hated it,” Kalim said in confusion.

“I hate it, but I love it so much,” Yuu told them with a whine, their head now touching the floor on the other side of Jamil’s snake body yet still draped over him like a cat. “This book will ruin your heart and shatter your soul into a million pieces!...you should read it too!”

“Given how dramatic you’re being, it might not be wise,” Jamil said with a sigh.

“Read it!”

“It’s okay, Yuu. We can read together! It’ll be more fun that way!”

“Kalim, no. You still need to study for the next potions exam.”

“Augh, I need someone to talk about this story with so we can lament in solidarity!”

“…have you been taking lessons from Rook lately?”

/Three days later/

“Um…is Yuu okay? They’re looking a little…tense.”

It had been several days since Yuu borrowed a stack of books, and already they had gone through nearly half of their hoard. Between classes and on breaks or after finishing tests, it wasn’t hard for students to notice the lone human with their nose between the pages of one book after the other. Even the researchers had taken note of Yuu’s behavior in between tests, making note of their expressions and how their body changes with each scene depicting their emotions. It was noteworthy how they reacted when a character in the story did something “cringeworthy and stupid” (as Yuu would explain when asked), it looked as though the human had swallowed a lemon.

At the moment they were sitting in Heartslabyul, yet another book in their arms as they sat on one side of the lounge. Cater had taken progression snapshots of Yuu’s body slowly curling into itself, eyes steadily growing wider and wider to the point it looked as though they’d bolt away in panic.

“They’re fine,” Grim told Trey as he munched on a snack. “They’ve been like this since they got all those books. That’s the pose they had last time when their Ohteevee smooched or somethin’.”

“Oh, you mean ‘OTP’, Grimmy,” Cater corrected with a smile. “That’s so cute! Our human has an OTP already~!”

“I’ve heard of hitting the books, but this is ridiculous,” Ace commented with a sigh. “They’ve been reading so long that I forgot what half their face looks li-”

“GRAAAAH!!!!”

SLAM! Fwump!!

“Gyah!?” the boys yelped, everyone staring at Yuu as they sat on the couch with a dark scowl.

“Yo, what the heck? Why’d you throw the book like that?” Ace asked, pointing at the large tome on the other side of the couch now.

“Um…Yuu?” Deuce began when they didn’t respond. “Are…you okay?”

“……I’m mad,” came the response, Yuu’s expression growing more annoyed as they stared off into space.

“About what?” Riddle asked in surprise.

Yuu’s gaze turned to the discarded book, their expression as though they had been betrayed by a trusted friend as they said, “Because my favorite character died, and I refuse to read how the book ends when there’s literally two freaking pages left! That’s not enough space to bring them back in a satisfying way!!”

“Y…you’ve gotta be kidding me,” Ace grumbled with a sigh. “That big of a reaction just because a fictional character was killed off?”

“You weren’t there to see the struggles they went through! I saw them change from an annoying bully into a fully developed and vulnerable character who wanted to take charge of their life—and the author killed them off!” Jumping to their feet, Yuu marched towards Ace and Deuce’s room where they’d left their stuff and said, “Where’s my notebook? I need to fix this!”

“What are you gonna do?” Grim called out.

“Write a fanfic, because my scrunkly deserves to be happy!”

“Huh? Scrunkly??”

/Final day/

“Oh, Great Seven…what happened in your book this time?” Vil asked with a sigh.

Yuu sniffled as they tried to dry their tears, though it was difficult as more continued to flow down their cheeks. “I…I just finished my last book,” they said, their voice cracking a little with emotion as Grim pat their arm reassuringly.

“All ten books in a week?” Vil said in surprise. “That’s…impressive. Even so, why are you so upset? Was the story that horrible?”

“No…it…it…it was too good!” Yuu cried out, clutching the book so tight that their knuckles turned white as the tears flowed freely now.

“Ah…such pure, raw human emotion,” Rook crooned. “To express it so freely without fear…beaute!”

“Was the book really that good?” Epel asked.

“Yes!” Yuu wailed. “Now that it’s over, I…I don’t know what to do with myself now…”

Peering at the title, Vil gave a thoughtful hum and said, “Oh, that story. I hear there is supposed to be a spin-off book series. The first one should have released just the other day.”

“Really?!”

“Mrrr…now you’ve done it,” Grim grumbled with a sigh. “Here we go again.”