#the thread got tangled. then it ran out. then the little piece by the needle that holds the fabric down idk what it’s called fucking fell
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literally all i want is to hem a dress and this mf sewing machine is going wrong in like all the possible ways
#at this point im about to start sewing by hand#the thread got tangled. then it ran out. then the little piece by the needle that holds the fabric down idk what it’s called fucking fell#off. then the thread disintegrated. and now i cant get the needle out of the fabric to fix it#ELL OH ELL.#rambles
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Performance
Rating: Gen
Fandom: Castlevania (Netflix)
Word Count: 2.6k
Characters: Alucard, Greta of Danesti, Sypha Belnades, minor OCs (mentioned)
Relationships: pre-Gretacard, Trephacard (mentioned)
Warnings: none
Summary: Alucard muses on how life has changed since the head woman of Danesti, now Belmont, and her people have settled about his home.
The clearing was relatively quiet that afternoon, with the odd settler or two roaming around, enjoying a moment’s rest after doing their part in the rebuilding effort for the day. The setting sun warmed Alucard’s skin as he sat against a large oak tree. Strong winds shook the branches above his head, sending bursts of orange and red drifting about him. He brushed errant leaves out of his basket and plucked out a dark spool to finish his mending.
Aaliya and Rahim, bless their hearts, were the most rambunctious out of all of Alucard's children. So it came as no surprise when a few hours ago, Rahim came to him with pieces of what used to be a stuffed horse, “His name is Sumac, Father!”, wailing his dark eyes out. Alucard promised to make time to mend him by the end of the day. The toy was a well-loved thing, with stains and misaligned stuffing, all evidence of a boy who took his friend everywhere he went. The horse’s reddish-brown fur was now a muddled sepia and its once cream mane and markings now gray. Alucard just about had his fill of bloody horses, but he could make an exception just this once.
He wasn’t resting alone though. After depositing lumber and stone for Solomon and his building team, Greta settled beside him. She only dozed off a short while ago, but not before giving a knowing chuckle at his project and a snark about how he was finally as used to people as people were used to him. Absolutely maniacal. He couldn’t find room to complain.
So much had changed in just these last four months. Alucard would be lying to himself if he said that it wasn’t jarring to go from months of solitude to human interaction and back again, a hellish cycle that always seemed to end with him alone. But with the settlement of the people of Danesti, now Belmont, that cycle had been broken. Funny, considering how he had been hesitant towards the idea.
Except hesitant wasn’t an accurate description. Initially, Alucard had to wrestle with his desires for both solitude and companionship. As much as he longed for the latter, Alucard wasn’t prepared for its magnitude. Saint Germain, for all his scheming, offered a reasonable solution to a suffering people. Only that reasonable solution left Alucard feeling bare and scrubbed raw, as if the entirety of the world made itself at home in his ribcage before even giving him the courtesy of undoing the frog of his cape first.
Those first nights after the battle was when the enormity of his hospitality truly began to set in. He lamented the loss of his solitude. Protection, knowledge, and safety-he would never hesitate to offer, but with so many rooms holding so many personal memories, he’d unintentionally left his soul bare to all. He remembers all but dashing ahead of Greta while showing her the food supply to hide his makeshift companions from her teasing, scrutinous gaze.
But...it was nice.
It had been so long since the halls were alive, filled with laughter and with people milling about the halls. It hardly ever seemed like he was alone now. His role as champion along with Greta’s say-so granted him a founding role in Belmont and as such was bombarded with questions daily; someone asking for aid, someone asking for instruction, someone...just asking how he’s faring that day.
From beside him, Greta, with her arms crossed, snored softly. Alucard let out an undignified chuckle. For someone who had such hasty and scathing observations about settling at Castlevania, she seems quite content.
Greta wasn’t wrong when she called the Castle cold. Alucard remembers plenty of nights alone, abandoned, shivering and craving nothing but someone, anyone, to ease his loneliness. His mother. His father. Belmont. Sypha. Anyone. But after Sumi and Taka’s betrayal, Alucard began to appreciate the aura Castlevania emanated. It’s dark, cavernous windows and ominous silhouette, looming and judging those who came across it, a warning sign to all. It stood imposingly with cautionary tales skewered at its lip. Greta was simply experiencing the emotions Castlevania intended to elicit from oncomers; the cold, fear, and danger.
Even so, after everything that’s happened, Alucard couldn’t help but feel a sense of welcome and warmth in those dark, cavernous windows.
The windows that led to the study where Adrian spent years on years learning a multitude of languages, preferring the ones with lots of “s’s” because of the way it slithered off his tongue.
The windows that led to the southwestern dining room, where an infantile Adrian nearly chomped off his mother’s finger whilst she tried to stop him from swallowing a frozen carrot he’d been teething on.
The windows that led to the science hall, where he, Sypha, and Trevor spent the last few blissful days of their union getting drunk and blasting off various spells into the ceiling to see what would happen.
Yes, there had been plenty of warmth in the Castle, even before it had been graced with the people of Danesti. Almost every room he can recall with a smile and a fond tale. He’d had to convince Greta, he thinks. He can already imagine it; the disbelief on her face when he tells her he learned to shapeshift into a dire pup in a conservatory, a room filled with foliage and beakers and sunlight and all sorts of breakable things. And he can imagine telling her that Lord Dracula himself had to call for aid from his wife when their son burst through a window and pranced about nude in the outdoor sun. He can imagine that curious wrinkle in her brows before she thinks of something, immediately says it, and rarely regrets it.
He can imagine telling her so much about his childhood. About Vlad and Lisa Țepeș. About growing up the only dhampir, to his knowledge. He can imagine telling her so much about his past and about, ahem, possibly their present; what’s changed since he met her and what’s stayed the same. The tangled but firm bundle of feelings she’s elicited from him. He’ll have to ask for her time one day, one day when she isn’t exhausted from doing the work of half a dozen persons in a few hours time and taking a well-earned break.
Alucard was broken from his musings when he saw Sypha striding up to him in the distance. In the midst of Sypha’s pregnancy, her passion and spitfire were amplified. As such, she had enough of all the side looks and loaded barbs between them all.
They had talked, Trevor and Sypha and Alucard. They talked about feelings, about abandonment and betrayal and neglect, about Trevor and Sypha’s child also calling Alucard father. About how it was almost too soon to make such a leap, feelings too raw. About sentiments that could have, perhaps should have, been properly expressed before fucking off across Europe. About regrets and pain, about trust and building it back up. It wasn’t ruined, but it was worse for wear. Nothing that some regular maintenance wouldn’t help.
Alucard almost stands to offer Sypha a hand, but she politely declines, saying that if she gets down, she won’t get back up as easily. Besides, she was only here for a quick thing. Then, she took note of the sleeping Greta, and lowered her voice, saying, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so still before.” Alucard was inclined to agree. With her coat draped over her lap, and her head lopped to the side, Greta looked at peace. The tasks of a head woman were never-ending, it seems.
“What brings you out here, then?” Alucard asked, once he was able to drag his gaze away from Greta’s sleeping form.
“Rahim was looking for you,” she cocked her head, giving him a puzzled look. “He said that you would help him find some sumac?.” Chuckling into his chest, Alucard ties off the thread on the poor thing's left haunch and passes it up to Sypha.
“I believe I stitched together all the bits of his Sumac as best I could.” Alucard wonders if Sypha even heard him over all her soft albeit consistent cooing.
“Alucaaaard. I never knew you were so good with a needle,” she spoke as she ran her fingers lovingly through its sullied mane. “With the state of Trevor’s socks, he could learn a thing or two from you.”
And then the most terrifying thing happened; Sypha got The Look. To the casual observer, looking at the duo of Belnades and Belmont, one would think that the former was the sensible one. And they wouldn’t necessarily be wrong. However, what the casual observer typically fails to notice is that Sypha, for all her grace and intellect, was at least half as crazy and twice as impulsive as Belmont himself. Arguably, she was at her worst when she got mischievous, and the only tell for that was a distinct Look; one where her impossibly large eyes sparkled and her lips twitched like a kitten holding onto a canary for a little too long.
“You knoooooow,” she began, sounding like a child all too eager to tell an adult about some fact they recently learned, a fact that they had no business knowing. “It's never too early to start preparing things for the baby-books, clothes, toys and things. Perhaps little Trefor would appreciate something personal from his Alucard. Mayhaps if you had any miniature dolls of his parents lying about,” her bright eyes squinting in mischief, “Or something like that.”
Alucard would’ve liked the earth to swallow him whole or for a wayward night creature to snatch him away into the woods. He would’ve liked a multitude of things, but he was stopped by a soft snort coming from behind him. He turned to see Greta trying and failing to suppress a smirk.
With her eyes still closed, she gave up her storybook act and said, “I’m sure sunshine here could pull something off. Yours and Trevor’s resemblance is quite striking.” Sypha howls with laughter, calming herself only after Alucard throws her a glare, all the while blush painting his...well, everything. He sighs, turning back to Greta.
“I hadn’t known you were such a fan of my needlework.”
“Well, I hadn’t intended on saying anything.” Greta barely got her last word out before Alucard rounded back, still mortified.
“Quite unlike you. I ought to be worried.” Greta cracks open an eye at that, playfully raising an eyebrow at the dhampir.
“I thought you were asleep,” he said indignantly.
“I don’t know what gave you that impression,” Greta closed her eye again, crossing her arms behind her head, “ I was merely resting my eyes.”
“And your heart rate?” Alucard bent an arm against his leg, resting his chin in his palm and gazing at her through lidded lashes. “If I had poorer hearing, I would have almost certainly mistaken you for a sleeping person.”
Greta raised a single finger. “Almost. Key word: almost.”
Rolling his eyes under closed lids, Alucard said, “You would make an excellent performer, you know.”
“I am a woman of many skills.”
“Indeed. One day, I imagine you might even be able to successfully imitate a rock.”
Greta effortlessly lands a hit against Alucard’s thigh. There’s no real force behind it. It’s the same friendly banter they’ve always shared, the same heat that fills his chest, the same stir it causes in his gut, and the same burn to the spot she touched.
“Smartass.” As she draws her hand back, the smirk on her face never drops.
Alucard, chuckling and chest warming, cocks his head back to Sypha to ask if she needs anything else from him and is surprised to see an intensity in her widened eyes. Wide as they were when they first entered the Belmont hold, large and curious and flickering as she combed through every book she could find, devouring any new information at her grasp with a thrilling quickness. Before the embarrassment at being perceived settled in his bones, Greta spoke up, this time to Sypha, making her eyes softer than usual.
“How are you and the little one today, Sypha?”
“We’re well, thank you,” Sypha takes her hand and rubs it across her slowly increasing bump, giving the head woman a pleased grin. “I see you’re taking a well-earned break.”
“Nothing wrong with a little rest,” Greta shrugs, relaxing further back against the bark. Her brows get that curious wrinkle, however, and she says, “Especially for those of us with child who’ve been running about since dawn.”
Alucard takes solace in the fact that the air around Sypha tingles ever so slightly and he is, for once, not subject to embarrassment. If Greta sensed Sypha’s chagrin, as she almost certainly did, she didn’t make it known, aside perhaps from the cute crinkle around her eyes and nose.
But Sypha recovers much faster than Alucard ever has, giving Greta a self-satisfied smile. “I’ll have you know I wasn’t up and about until after the sun broke.” She then releases a long sigh. “But between Trevor, Khadijah and the other healers’ constant fretting, you’d think I was on my last legs instead of giving life.”
Mischief incarnate would do well to take note of Greta of Danesti, with a hand propped under chin, a single digit tapping her cheek, and a dangerous glint in her burnished eyes. “Foolish of them, then, to disregard the woman who battles night creatures regularly and moved an entire fucking castle as incapable of anything.”
“Foolish indeed!”
Alucard cast a sly gaze towards Greta, naughty of you to rile her up like this-Belmont is sure to get an earful later. Coy is never a word he would’ve ascribed to the head woman, but the curve of her lips and flutter of her lashes had him reconsidering.
Sypha says her goodbyes and goes to return the horse to its rightful owner. Stopping short, she looks back to Greta and says, “I don’t think you have much room to talk, however, Head Woman Greta of Danesti-now-Belmont-who-wakes-with-the-sun-and-slays-night-creatures-and-carries-lumber-and-.”
Greta ducks her head, sending the Speaker off with a wave, “Enough of that, Belnades.” She lowers her hand, her brows creasing as she says, “Thank you and be well.”
As Sypha departs, Greta settles back against the tree. With nothing to keep his hands busy, Alucard joins her in relaxing in the setting sun, hands folded in his lap. Being immortal, the dhampir never needed excessive amounts of sleep to function, per se. Perhaps he would just rest his eyes and enjoy the company.
Alucard sighs as the cool breeze passes through his hair and picks up fallen leaves, carrying them across the clearing. Then he sputters as one flies straight into his mouth. The dhampir gets no warning as Greta’s soft hands pull his hair aside, causing him to jump slightly. Her slender fingers pick out the foliage from his hair and shoulders before tossing them to the ground beneath them.
She can’t stop herself from letting out one last chuckle at Alucard’s expense. “Are you sure you don’t have anything better to do that loaf about with me, sunshine?” Her tawny eyes held still against his. Alucard arched his head back against the tree to appreciate her gaze.
“Nothing in particular springs to mind,” he doesn’t bother smothering the smirk growing on his face, “Besides, as I understand it, Khadijah has ordered you to loaf about after your mishap two nights ago.”
That earns him quite the eyeroll. “Khadijah, the worrywart, would order me to loaf about if I tripped over a stick.”
“Tripping over a mere stick?,” he lilted, “ I’d think he’d need to examine your head if that ever happened.”
Another thwack. Another burst of heat. Only this time, Alucard held fast, catching her hand before it could completely fall away. Greta startled at his reflexes, her head teasingly cocked aside as her eyes flicked from his to their joined hands. Before he lost his nerve, Alucard placed his other hand atop hers, giving it a soft squeeze and resting it in his lap. “I’m sure. I’d much rather be here than anywhere else.”
#come get y'all juice#fanfic#who did this#castlevania#gretacard#greta danesti#alucard#adrian tepes#sypha belnades#trephacard#castlevania fanfic
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Please Hate Me //part 41
Fandom: Marvel
Summary: Based on: “Imagine having a love/hate relationship with Loki.” by @thefandomimagine Who would have thought that babysitting a god could be so much fun?
Genre: slow-burn, enemies to lovers, banter
The air was crisp and buzzing with tension as you walked through the forest that was a part of the endless gardens surrounding the palace. No matter how far you ventured, the palace still rose behind your back, melted into the very core of the mountain piercing the clouds.
The river shimmered somewhere to your right as you followed Loki through the thicket.
"You okay?" he asked again, casting you a glance over his shoulder.
You just nodded, a little breathless after circling around the fallen trees and muddy holes.
The reason behind Loki's concern was getting nearer with each step. Magic was sizzling in the air, filled with energy not unlike one of a storm front's lightning about to strike. You'd passed a few bird-like creatures on your way there, but they didn't dare come close to the Rift. Double sets of wigs took them away and into safer spots. A three-eyed doe disappeared among gnarled trees, shedding starlight as it skittled off. Even the plants, usually a feral mass of color, seemed all to have withered the closer you got to the Rift. The only things left were dried, greyish branches and rotten greens of mud slipping upwards over them.
Loki stopped at the edge of a clearing and took your hand. Your breath came out in clouds against the icy cold that shouldn't have been possible on the Edge.
In the center of the clearing hovered a rip. It was a long, sharp wound that filled you with a sense of wrongness. The mud in the direct closeness to it rose as if sucked by phantom winds and entered the dark, narrow space where it sizzled and disappeared. There was nothing natural in the way it made your skin crawl, even despite the safe distance between you.
You couldn't blame anyone in the palace for wanting to stop it from spreading. Even if it meant complicating your life.
Loki must've sensed your tension. He ran a hand over your back in a soothing manner, as he often did to calm you down.
"We're far enough from it to be safe from its influence," he said.
"Are you sure it'll be enough to hide your magic?"
"I think so. Opening a portal requires a lot of energy from Bifrost, but the Rift should help us hide the evidence."
"If it opens at all," you reminded him.
"Indeed," Loki sighed, getting ready for the inevitable.
Having been almost murdered by a huge spider put both of you in an uneasy situation. No matter how you looked at it, it became obvious that your little investigation was definitely going against someone's plans.
It would be dangerous to try and point a finger at anyone without evidence. Everyone you'd met so far had a motive. Your only wonder was the ambassador's role in this tangled mess - was he working with someone, or trying to correct the balance on his own? The notes found in his study were quite clear about his interest in the value of life on the Edge. The bloodiest conflicts in its history led to centuries of peace and freedom from Rifts forming, but was such bloodshed even possible anymore, let alone worth it? Was the ambassador's death just a door to achieving it through a new war against Asgard? Or was it simply a suicide?
Loki and you spent a large part of the morning looking over the few facts in your possession, feeling like you were piecing a puzzle together without ever seeing the original picture. They had to connect somehow, and make sense through the details, but no matter how you looked at them, you still missed something vital.
Those were frustrating hours that only resulted in making your heads hurt from coming up with increasingly bizarre theories. It was a good thing then, that you never left the bed and could relax for a while. There were marks on your bodies left from the night, and it took you both a while to retrace them. It took you longer to add some new ones, in ways that still made your toes curl thinking about it. Unfortunately, as pleasant as it was, it couldn't last forever.
Which was what led you to decide to change the course of action a little bit, and play by a different set of rules. Neither Loki nor you were allowed to leave the Edge, but who would be there to blame you for it if no one ever found out? There were interesting places in the universe to pay a little visit to.
One of those places was Asgard, where Loki claimed to have hidden a handy little device he had frequently used to trace even the thinnest whispers of magic back to its original caster. It was a long shot, considering how long ago he set foot in his chambers, but unless they'd been completely trashed, his secret stash should still hold.
There were a few ways of sneaking into Asgard without notice, but Loki had to admit none of them led from the Edge.
That left you with only one choice. A choice that made Loki's skin crawl.
"Stay here," he braced through his discomfort and offered you a tight-lipped smile. "I'll see what I can do."
You watched him walk a few steps away. Loki held his chin high and shoulders square as he faced the dome of the neverending night overhead.
"Listen, Heimdall, I know it's been a while, but don't you dare pretend you haven't been lurking-..."
You leaned on a nearby boulder, carved with some intricate, needle-thin patterns. There was no reason you could come up with carving some huge boulder and then leaving it in the middle of a forest, but it was a good place to let your legs rest for a moment anyway.
Loki left his bottomless bag with you as he continued his one-sided conversation, working himself up the more words poured out of him. He wasn't the most detailed about his relation with the being operating Biforst and guarding Asgard's borders, but from the way Loki talked about him, it was clear they weren't friends. What Loki had to ask of him now was a risky favor he had little hope would succeed.
He tried it anyway, humiliating as it might make him feel.
You watched him. His conversation turned into a rather heated argument, as one sided as it was.
You looked up at the clusters of stars and galaxies passing the immeasurable expanse of the universe. Rarely had you felt so small and irrelevant.
"You know," you said quietly, "Loki's really trying. He's doing his best, despite how shitty it is here. It's unfair how everybody expects so much out of him, but don’t consider how overwhelmed he is with all that's expected of him. No wonder he tries to hide it. It's hard to live knowing you'll never be what people want you to become, and how they are willing to force and shape you into what they'd rather have. But he's trying. He really is, and even now, he just needs this thing from Asgard to let us have some evidence and finish this investigation before we get killed for trying. Loki's amazing and capable, but even he needs some help sometimes, and I think now is one of those times. I try to help him as much as I can, but it's not me he needs right now. Just… be kinder on him, okay? If you're truly listening, I mean."
You sighed, biting your lip. The wind picked up some rogue leaves and dust, and took them away from the unnatural blemish looming to your right. The Rift was suspended mid-air, as if air itself had been torn and whatever lurked underneath the surface of reality, waited for the moment when it got wide enough to pass through.
The weather on the Edge was mild usually, but you couldn't help a shudder from running down your back.
Loki cursed in a language you didn't know.
"At least we tried," he shrugged.
There was a tight smile on his face, but it couldn't hide his disappointment completely. He would think of another way out, though, he just needed some time.
Just as you were taking his bag and began to walk toward him, light enveloped both of you, and a familiar, gut-wrenching feeling threatened to bring the contents of your stomach to daylight.
There was surprise in Loki's eyes, and a thread of hope as he reached out to you and gathered you in his arms. Clinging to him would be much more pleasant if the atoms weren't ripped out of your bodies, but before you blinked, the Bifrost plucked you out. Where you'd been standing, only faintest scorch marks remained. The Rift buzzed, but there was nothing for it to feed on.
Pressing your face into Loki's chest didn't look dignified, but it helped you get through the blinding rush of universe passing you by. Your heart hammered against your chest, but Loki's arms held steady around you until all finally stopped.
Peeling yourself from him took a considerable amount of effort, but once you did, both your fear and nausea dissipated. As it had happened with the Edge, the first thing that hit you was the smell you could only describe as otherworldly. It wasn't strong, but it filled you with the certainty that you were the stranger in this place of blinding gold.
Loki and you arrived in a circular room at the end of a bridge casting rainbow reflexes under the setting sun. It was a beautiful thing, but you could only spare it a single look before a figure stepped down from the dais in the center.
The man clad in armor of gold didn't budge at your gawking. Loki might be tall, but even in his own armor, he didn't look so menacing.
"Hello, Heimdall," Loki nodded calmly, even though his arm was still on your back. "Long time no see, or at least on my side."
"Coming here was an unwise choice," the warrior's voice boomed in the small space. He sheathed the impossibly long sword with ease.
Loki put an unnerving smirk on his face. "And yet you got me through."
You could've sworn Heimdall's eyes rested on you for the briefest moment.
"So I did," was all he said, though.
That was not an answer Loki had expected. He was tense, as if readying himself to argue or fight, but there was nothing about Heimdall that would suggest the need for that. The great Gatekeeper just stood, and waited.
"We won't stay long," you promised carefully, breaking the silence.
Loki loved you for it.
"I have to retrieve something for the mission so thoughtfully commissioned to me. " He kept his chin high, not yielding a step.
Staying composed and calm was an uneasy task in front of Asgard's most vigilant guardian. Loki had changed since he was a mere child, but something from those days stayed with him in the way he had to crane his neck to look into Heimdall's face. The Asgardian didn't change at all, or so it seemed. He was still an unbreakable mountain, with golden eyes capable of seeing all and knowing all.
"I won't linger any longer than necessary," Loki added into the silence. "I know I'm not welcome."
Heimdall took in the young Prince, who had grown strong, despite how cruel life had been to him. Then he turned his all-seeing eyes to you, noting the defiance in your pose, and the tension on your face, as if you were ready to throw fists with him, had the bargaining not worked. And based on the firm grip Loki now had over your shoulder, the Prince was aware of that.
There was a hint of a smile on Heimdall's face, but it was obscured by the golden helmet and the shadows lurking beneath it.
"Then go, and be quick about it."
You cheered and quickly moved to the bridge, but Loki lingered, just a while longer.
"Why?" he asked, the frown not fully gone from his brows.
The Gatekeeper moved back to the dais, rising in the center.
"I serve Asgard, and Asgard I protect," he said. "If war is imminent, I shall spill my share of blood, but if there's a chance to stop it from ever happening, I shall take that chance."
The Guardian stood tall on the dais, as he did for as long as Loki's memory went, overlooking the portal and all the worlds it opened to. Loki bowed curtly, even though Heimdall's back was to him. The golden armor flared in the rays of the setting sun, but never before had it looked so heavy.
You waited for him at the bridge, and despite the towers of gold and glass piercing the clouds ahead, they were secondary in your eyes, following Loki's steps instead.
There was something unwinding in him, as if only then it truly occurred to him where he came back to. He knew that bridge, and the palace shining brightly in the sun heading to rest beyond the shore, and the salty waves that would swallow it in a few hours. Until the very moment his feet hit the bridge, Loki wasn't even aware of the ache deep in his bones that had finally eased.
He kissed your brow and cast a glamor over both of you. Heimdall might've been forgiving, but the guards stationed at the gates far up ahead likely weren't.
"Let's go, love," he said, leading you by the hand.
"Are you sure we won't be noticed? There's nowhere for us to hide on the bridge."
The waves crashed underneath it, and seagulls screamed overhead as you walked. The glamour made both of you look almost translucent, or at least it did in your eyes. You had no idea if it would work against others, in a world where magic was a common thing.
Loki pointed ahead, where the guards were stationed at the far end of the bridge. "They have sensors sensitive enough to mark any ounce of magic on travelers."
"Makes sense. What do we do?"
"We shed the glamour."
You blinked. The seagulls overhead shared your confusion. "Wouldn't that make us visible, though?"
Mischievous light filled his eyes. "Not if we slip on a secret little passage beneath the bridge beforehand, and only there recall all the magic around us. We wouldn't want to alert anyone, would we?"
"Oh dear, sounds like someone was a naughty little kid," you laughed.
"And look at what's become of me. It's a wonder I hadn’t been banished centuries ago."
"They are idiots for doing that now."
The sheer conviction in your voice made Loki imagine Odin hearing that from you. You wouldn't balk or juggle around, that he was sure of. And would pay to see that, even if it earned him a few more centuries of banishment.
The guards were closer now. Loki looked around for the tiny mark on the carved railing he made long ago.
"Do you trust me?" he whispered in your ear, approaching the railing. The shore was close enough to see the waves crashing down on the blackened rocks, but still not close enough to jump to it.
You looked down at the foaming chaos of the sea crashing against the pillars and stone. "I mean, I wouldn't trust you with a car, but I literally traveled worlds with you, so I guess I do?"
"That's fair," he said and jumped over the railing.
Despite yourself, you rushed to it, half expecting to see his bloodied corpse sprawled over the jagged rocks. The wicked grin on his face told you enough.
"You're an ass," you growled, quietly enough not to alert the guards posted nearby.
"You love my ass, don't lie to yourself," Loki reached out to you, urging you down.
Crawling over the railing wet from the sea mist was not the way you imagined this day to go, but the steady form of Loki waiting below made you a little less nervous as you let go of the cold metal and fell into his arms.
"Welcome back," the smug bastard dared to smirk at you as he navigated the barely noticeable path over the rocks.
You noticed the glamour disperse as you neared what would be the gates overhead. The width of the bridge hid you from the guards' eyes though. Loki skittered over the rocks, somehow finding just the right place to step on.
Despite his grip on you, you couldn't help but wince every time the cold waves crashed beneath you, the mist spraying high. The path was winding and barely noticeable. Every leap between the rocks made you tighten your arms around Loki's shoulders.
"I know you like to joke around," you managed to say with the heart in your throat, "but please don't fake-fall or something."
"As you wish."
The shore neared soon. Sand never felt so much like a blessing than when Loki finally put you down on the steady ground. The cliffs to your left hid you from the guards' outpost, but Loki didn't want to linger there any longer than necessary. The patrols rarely visited the narrow stretch of a beach, but it was not impossible.
Loki knew every stone and thorny bush on this side of Asgard. He led you up the cliffs hanging high, through a path concealed so much it looked as only the wild prey might've ever used it. You stopped only for a moment, to look over to the sea and the evening reflexes in deep shades of orange and red playing over its surface.
Loki waited for you a few feet ahead, with an expression you’d rarely seen on him.
"We'll get in through the stables," he said when you almost reached the top.
The glamour was back on you as you sprinted through the lush, green fields surrounding the plain in front of long barracks. People were rushing in and out, and no one noticed two additional sets of steps in the loose hay and sand as you snuck inside.
Most of the boxes were closed already, horses and hunting dogs readied for the night. In one or two you passed by, you could've sworn you'd seen winged creatures, but there was no way of getting close enough to them with so many people around.
Loki led you out of the stables through a courtyard, to a narrow pathway and up the steps carved in stone to a more pronounced building. The doors were open, but no guards stood the watch there. Coming closer, the smells betrayed the reason. Kitchens, even in another world, always seemed to be a place steaming with sweat, spilled food, and not enough hands to control every pot around.
Bent low, you followed Loki below the long tables, yielding under the weight of all the dishes prepared. Feet stumped around in a rush, plates landed heavily on the counters, and the absolutely divine smells made your stomach grumble. Loki must've felt the same because his hand reached out for a few freshly baked pastries at the same time as yours, pocketing them with a knowing wink.
You slipped out into a dim corridor, for the interior use of the kitchens and took the doors to a pantry full of meats and sacks of something stored by the walls.
In the far corner, Loki moved old, rotting boards to the side and revealed a small, dusty corridor hidden behind them.
"After you.” He bowed.
You looked at the webs and thought of their owners. "I'd prefer to stay in the back, if you don't mind."
He only laughed and broke the thick webs before crawling inside.
It wasn't long, and soon opened to a winding staircase full of dust and only a few slits instead of windows somewhere ahead allowing the faintest shreds of light inside.
"A long time ago, part of the kitchens was located upstairs," Loki explained when he sat down on one of the steps. "This was a shortcut used mostly by the kitchen boys who had to run around all day, but it hasn't been used for centuries. I used to hide here with whatever I managed to sneak out of the kitchens."
"And it looks like you haven't changed much since then," you observed, as you both pulled the pastries from your pockets. Even in the narrow space with little to no fresh air, they still smelled absolutely delicious.
There were crunching noises as you both devoured them in record time. You hadn’t even noticed how hungry you were until you took that first damned bite. Minutes later, only a few crumbs were left, scattered on the narrow steps below.
You caught Loki looking at a few stains of old ink that surely none of the kitchen boys had left.
"So many hours I had spent here, feeling like an outcast among my own family," he said, tracing them with fingers. "And here I am again, as mere outlaw, no closer to them than I ever was. Do you think I'm even capable of changing?"
There was no sorrow in his voice, not really. Loki had enough time to dwell over the same question over and over again that it no longer bore its initial weight. He was no closer to finding the answer, but at least it no longer hurt.
Loki didn't budge as you slipped into his lap. He only turned to look at you when your hands cupped his face.
"You are here, because you made a conscious decision to do everything in your might to prevent that pointless bloodshed and war from happening. You could have ran - look how easy it would be to just sneak out and hide in some remote location far from responsibility. Still, you chose to stay and do your best, and even if that doesn't answer your question directly, I think it's something worth keeping in mind."
Loki didn't answer. The dust in the air turned into gold as it hit the narrow rays of the setting sun. His eyes were closed as he pulled you into a slow, contemplative kiss.
He had countless memories of the hours spent on that staircase. There were books he had all but devoured, and pages he had reread until he'd had them memorized. There were tiny spells he practiced where nothing would burn or get destroyed by untrained fingers. There were cookies and cakes and sometimes even some wine hidden from all eyes.
And there was you, in this place of cold stone and times long since gone. Tasting you, Loki was reminded that no matter what the past had brought, the future was still a mystery worthy of waiting for.
"Thank you," he muttered breathlessly into your lips.
#please hate me#loki x reader#loki x you#loki laufeyson x reader#loki laufeyson x you#loki marvel#loki laufeyson marvel#loki#loki imagine#loki mcu#loki series#loki reader insert#Loki Laufeyson#I Love Loki#loki fanfiction
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The Divine Beast
A/N: Everything in this story time-wise or travel I have spent doing in the game so it could be as accurate as possible. The photo above and on other Chapters of this story - when they are posted are drawn by the lovely @coconut-mocha.
Chapter 1 - To Hyrule Castle
Darkness, 10,000 years passed with nothing but darkness to show for it. Not a dream to be had besides the replaying of memories until they became nothing more than a distorted, distant lie. The feelings of happiness, anger, sadness, and love all sunk into the void of her mind as Alyss lay motionless, frozen in time, on a stone slab in a cold, damp cave. Visions of a familiar darkness, a sick and malicious darkness, filled her mind destroying anything she ever held dear. Villages and homes she used to recognize became desolated and desecrated by this malicious evil as faces – both new and old – were distorted to the point Alyss couldn’t recognize them anymore.
After years of torment at the hands of an unknown evil Alyss found herself standing in the middle of Hyrule Field. She watched as the guardians she vaguely remembered turned and wrought havoc upon all of the Kingdom. She watched as people grabbed their families and tried to escape, the last of the Hylian race trying to save itself from total annihilation. She heard the torturous beeps of the guardian’s laser beams, she heard the screams of the desolation around her, yet when she tried to call out to those around her to warn them she found that her voice was silent. She was powerless to do anything but sit and watch as Hyrule ceased to exist and a large cloud of malice followed a beast around Hyrule Castle. Alyss felt terror strike from her head to her feet at the beast’s enormous, blood curdling roar. She watched as a guardian seemingly aimed it’s beam at her, unsure of whether or not the beam was meant for something behind her. She closed her eyes and waited for the inevitable. After a few moments of nothing happening Alyss opened her eyes, but instead of a guardian all she saw when her eyes focused on the darkness was damp cave walls.
The cool damp air of the cave ravaged her body as Alyss tried to suck oxygen into her screaming lungs. Panic slowly left her body as the soft sounds of a village going about it’s daily life and the loud roaring of a waterfall caressed her ears reminding her that everything was okay. Very carefully this girl pushed herself up by her hands, testing her ability to move after what felt like a really long nap. Thanking Hylia that her muscles had not degenerated, Alyss sat up and looked around.
There wasn’t much to see in the small damp cave she resided in for Hylia knows how long except a small chest. Swinging her legs over the edge slowly she tested her leg's strength by slowly standing up. Once she was comfortable with standing Alyss took her first step of the past 10,000 years and – only losing her balance a couple of times – she made it to the chest. There she found some gemstones, rupees, and a brittle scroll. None of this interested Alyss so shutting the chest she made her way down the hall of the cave. It wasn’t long until the smallest rays of sunlight pierced the darkness Alyss had lived in all those years, and it wasn’t long after that that she found herself staring into a wall of an angry – yet peaceful – waterfall.
This new sensation scared her enough to force her backwards where she stepped on her soft, tangled hair and fell to the hard and unforgiving ground. After taking a moment to regain her equilibrium Alyss performed a once over on her body. Only when she was comfortable there were no cuts or bleeding she stood back up and continued on. Being very careful not to touch the falling water, Alyss looked over the edge of the waterfall to see nothing but a large pool of water. Looking back, she found herself wondering if she could return back to the stone slab she woke up on and go back to sleep, but with a shake of her head she turned back to the water, took a deep breath, and dived straight in.
The chill of the water embraced her body like a hug as she plunged into the depths of the waterfall’s basin. Alyss found herself swimming away from the waterfall without fully realizing what she was doing. It turns out that her survival instincts hadn’t completely dissipated and she had some form of basic survival knowledge. Her thoughts were cut short when her lungs screamed for oxygen as intensely as they had when she first awakened on the stone slab, and she found herself pushing herself towards the surface. When she broke the water, she found herself staring at a gigantic wall of stone supporting a large house made out of a dark wood. Alyss looked around for options but it was either follow the river and see where it took her or climb the gigantic stone wall and she wasn’t too keen on climbing right now.
Moving her arms under the water was a struggle the further she got from her starting point, and it took a good bit of willpower to keep pushing, but eventually she came upon land. Pulling herself up onto the shore slowly she sputtered for air and tried to catch her breath. As the top half of her body laid on the warm and welcoming grass of the land Alyss scanned the small village. It was peaceful and quaint. Children ran about freely, playing without a care, while others tended to their gardens, livestock, and other duties. In a way it made Alyss want to start crying, but before she could humor that emotion her vision started going blurry making it hard to see the figure that blocked out her view of the sun as she passed out.
The moon was at its peak in the sky by the time Alyss woke back up. This time she did not lay on a hard slab of stone in her torn and frayed clothes, but instead she woke up in a robe made of thin purple cloth on a soft bed of straw. Opening her eyes just enough to see in the candle lit room of the small, one roomed, hut Alyss saw a petite framed woman with long silver hair sitting next to the only table in the home. She had the clothes Alyss was wearing before in her small, fragile looking hands and was seemingly working to fix them. Alyss rolled her head back to the middle of the pillow she rested on and stared at the ceiling trying to piece together something, anything, of what happened to put her in this situation. Only bits and pieces came to her mind, most of them in the form of feelings, of Princess Zelda ordering for her to be locked away.
‘Guess they thought I’d never wake up…’ she thought to herself bitterly but before any more thoughts could be had a weak voice called out to her.
“Oh, you’re awake! I am happy to see you are alright.” Alyss watched as the younger woman put down her needle, thread, and the fabric to stand up and walk slowly over to the bed. “When the town guards found you passed out in the town’s lake they brought you to me to make sure you were alright before assuming the worst.” The fragile sounding woman reached over to the end of the bed and grabbed a worn cloth full of what Alyss assumed to be water. Wringing it out and placing it upon Alyss’s forehead to wipe away sweat or clean her face, Alyss did not know, before continuing. “I am the town healer, my name is Lasie. Might I know your name?”
Alyss turned to look at the woman named Lasie. At the moment her purple eyes met Lasie’s golden ones something inside of her felt like it clicked. She didn’t know what it was but the feeling was not a pleasant one as the fire-like pain that shot through her skull forced her hand up to try and make the pain stop. This, of course, worried the town healer as she hadn’t seen any kind of cause for this young woman’s head to hurt so suddenly.
“I’m sorry. Please, rest while you can,” she stood up and bowed to Alyss. “My questions are not of concern for I have already sent word to Lady Impa about your discovery. Please save your strength until they arrive.” Before Alyss could respond with anything, Lasie had run out the door into the night to do only Hylia knows what. This was somewhat of a relief to Alyss as the departure of the town healer made her headache lessen to a small, dull thud.
Alyss wasted no time once Lasie left in standing up and heading out the door into the cool night air. It was silent compared to the hustle and bustle of earlier that day and for that Alyss was kind of thankful. Taking a few methodical steps, she made her way to a railing and looked out over the town. The railing had a direct view of the large house in front of the waterfall she found herself behind when she woke up. The moon was directly located above the waterfalls and just looking at it’s silver beauty took Alyss’s breath away. She hadn’t seen the moon in Hylia knows how long and the sight literally brought tears to her eyes.
“It’s a beautiful night isn’t it?” A man spoke beside her, making Alyss jump and quickly wipe away the lone tears that had fallen. Her head snapped to the side and looked at him inquisitively. She had not seen someone that bore the logo of the Sheikah in quite some time and the sight of another Sheikah made her smile. “That’s a beautiful smile you have there. It almost rivals the sight of the full moon.” The man spoke gently, making his way closer to Alyss.
Letting her guard down for a second the young woman turned to look back at the luxurious moon, nodding as she agreed with him. Little did she know that the young man reached behind his back to a curved dagger he kept hidden. The beauty of the moon lured Alyss to it, completely unaware that someone was about to end her life.
“You know what else is beautiful,” the man continued in that same dulcet tone he had the entire time he was talking to her as he placed the dagger firmly into his right hand. Lifting it up slowly and silently, his gaze became one of sickening happiness at the event that was about to occur. Before Alyss could ask what or turn around he continued in a much more desperate tone, “the praise that Master Kogha will give me one he learns that I have wiped out the myth of the fifth Divine Beast!”
In the flash of an eye the curved dagger was flying towards the neck of the young woman. Everything that happened next occurred in slow motion to her. She turned just enough to spot an arrow running it’s way into the hand of the man behind her causing him to scream out in pain and drop the dagger. Turning completely around, Alyss saw five horses galloping down the slope of the hill, people had started to emerge from their huts to see what the commotion was, but all Alyss saw was a young man dressed as knight cutting down the man who had tried to assassinate Alyss.
The rest of the company dismounted their horses and ran up to Alyss as she stared at the lifeless, blood-stained body of the man who tried to slay her. Her eyes were wide and her legs started to quake from the shock of the events. Her legs started to give out on her, but Alyss felt a pair of strong arms reach out and grab her, holding her up enough to help her get to a nearby bench where she could sit down. “Are you ok?” The person who kept her from falling asked.
Alyss looked up slowly so her purple eyes could meet his… goggles? Looking up past his goggles she saw a large poof of hair on top of the man’s head which wasn’t as nearly weird to her as the double axe shape on the back of his head. It wasn’t until the man was saying “yoo-hoo” and waving his hand in front of her face jovially that she shook herself out of her stupor and nodded.
“Oh Robbie, leave the poor girl alone,” a high and happy female voice sounded from the other side of the man named Robbie. “she’s obviously been through enough!” A young woman with a magenta streak on the right side of her head popped up from behind the man and threw an arm around his shoulders. Once the woman got a good look at Alyss she tilted her head in confusion. “Hang on…” she took a step closer to Alyss to where she was practically in her face and put her fingers under her chin. “I’ve never seen you around here before. You’re very clearly a Sheikah as Robbie, my sister, and I, but I would remember a Sheikah with purple eyes. How odd…”
“Can you tell us your name?” Robbie questioned standing up and crossing one arm over his body and letting the other rest on it so he could also hold his chin with his fingers. This seemed to have gathered the attention of the other three members of their party. Alyss watched as they all turned to look at her, but there was one group member in particular that immediately made her blood boil.
Jumping to her feet, she backed as far away as she could from Zelda and pointed a shaking finger at her face. “Traitor!” She cried out in a small, crackly voice that sounded as though it hadn’t been used in a millennium. She didn’t stop backing up until she stepped on her hair and whipped her head backwards causing her to let out a shriek and fall to the ground.
Everyone standing witness to the scene felt the tense air about them when Link, the short knight, jumped forward in case he needed to protect the princess. They looked to Princess Zelda to see what she would do in this case only to see that Zelda was smiling. She pushed past Link and approached the girl on the ground who was trying to escape again. “Why do you state that I am a traitor?” She asked, standing over her.
Princess Zelda wasn’t trying to be intimidating, but from Alyss’s perspective the Princess looked as menacing as she did before she shut her away in that cave. “Get away from me,” she growled, some purple smog escaping her nostrils as she breathed out. This caught the attention of everyone but nobody said anything about it. No one dared to breathe too loud. Alyss watched with threatening eyes and an increasing breathing rate as the Princess leaned down to her level. This time, Alyss was not playing. Her ingrained fear and hatred for this woman was too much. “I said get AWAY,” she screamed at her. The skin around her eyes started to seemingly break. The texture had turned into a reptilian type of scale while her breathing turned more and more purple by the second. By the time Zelda had stood back up and allowed Link to drag her away from the woman, Alyss was emitting enough smog to engulf her body.
Her eyes focused on Zelda behind Link for a bit until she was content that the Princess would not advance further, only then did she allow her head to fall. Silver hair hiding her face as the purple smog started to evaporate and disappear from around her. “Don’t touch me Princess Zelda,” she whispered, shocking everyone that she knew her name. “The face of the one who locked me in that hell is not one I will ever forget.” Slowly raising her head to look at the Princess, Alyss felt herself starting to crack. The pain, the torment, the loneliness that she felt all those years with nothing but bad memories replaying in her head, like a broken record, had started to seep through.
Impa slowly approached Alyss making sure her actions were known by the woman. “Please come with us. We can take you to the castle and try to figure out where to go from here.” She paused when Alyss looked at her quickly. Impa knew she had to be cautious from this moment on. “Let us take you to the castle," she started back. "We have been working on recovering the Divine Beasts and Guardians to fight Calamity Ganon, so I’m sure we can figure something out to help you.”
Alyss furrowed her eyebrows and stood up slowly. “Recovering the Divine Beasts and Guardians? What do you mean recovering?” She looked down at the hair that graced her heels, the robe she was in and how tattered her previous clothes were. In remembering that scroll that looked as though it would break if someone touched it the pieces started to click into place. Slowly she looked back up and at each and every one of the people in front of her in horror. “How… How long was I gone?”
Princess Zelda, despite Link trying to push her back behind him, stepped forward just enough to make it known that she was about to speak. Despite the earlier aggression, this woman intrigued her and she wanted – no needed – to know more about her. “What is the last thing you remember before I placed you into your proverbial hell?”
Alyss took a good look at the Princess before responding to the Princess’s question, “we were preparing to attack Calamity Ganon. I was created to help in that purpose, but…” Alyss looked away unable to face the memories that caused her deep slumber, but in making eye contact with Robbie she forced herself to continue. “… I malfunctioned. The Princess sealed me away and focused her attention on the other Divine Beasts.” Clenching her fists to her chest, Alyss closed her eyes, “I failed.”
Robbie slowly approached Alyss and held his hand out for her to take. The night had started to turn into early morning and with the long ride from Hateno Village to Kakariko Village everyone was tired. “It’s been a long night for everyone here and I think some rest would do everyone here good.” He smiled welcomingly at Alyss trying to help her feel more at ease with their company and show that they aren’t hostile.
It took a minute but eventually Alyss’s small hand met Robbie’s larger one to show him that she trusted him enough to take her somewhere to rest. Robbie beamed as he looked at the rest of the company, “well let’s get to it then!”
The sun was high in the sky before anyone woke up the next day but Alyss was the absolute last to rise from her slumber. When she had risen she saw that the clothes she had been wearing the previous day were laid out for her on a nearby table with a note that mentioned they were from Lasie. Making a mental note to herself to thank her at a later date, Alyss looked at the clothes laid out for her. The white robe she had been wearing when she left the cavern had been repaired and fashioned to look more like modern Sheikah clothes by adding a dark red ribbon along the hem and open v neck collar. Red ribbons adorned the sleeves of her newly repaired robe while the sleeves themselves were open from the shoulder to the red ribbon.
Alyss picked up the turtleneck, tank top, tunic and changed into it quickly before anyone walked back into the open room. Slipping on the matching blue fingerless gloves Alyss slipped the freshly repaired robe over her head and grabbed the thigh high socks lying underneath it. Sitting on the bed Alyss placed her foot on the nearby table, thanking Hylia that her blue tunic was shorts instead of a skirt, and slid the black thigh-high up her leg slowly so as to not rip the gentle fabric. When she was done pulling it up her leg she laid back on the bed for a second to contemplate whether she actually wanted to go through the process again with the white thigh-high. During her thought process, the door to the inn opened up to reveal Robbie.
Alyss turned her head to the side to properly look at him and saw that he had his arms crossed over his chest and a light smile gracing his face. “Good morning sunshine, need some help with the other stocking?” When Alyss shook her head no and sat up to start sliding the other stocking up her other leg she could feel Robbie’s eyes on her as he continued talking. “Well, in any case, Impa would like me to take you to her.” He walked closer to Alyss and placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “I know you’re scared but please try to be accepting of the situation. You can’t exactly go back in time to the past but remember you're not alone.” He smiled a warm smile when Alyss looked up at him in surprise and continued, “now come on. Let’s go see Impa.”
It didn’t take long for Alyss and Robbie to meet with Impa as the house she resided in overnight was not far away from the town’s inn. Impa and Purah made it a point to help Alyss shape her hair while teaching her how to put it up the way that the Sheikah do. By the time the women were finished with her hair Alyss had been fully updated on the events of the past few years. It was a lot of overwhelming information for the Sheikah and she didn’t know where to begin on processing it. All she felt was a major storm cloud looming in her heart threatening to spill over and drown her in sadness.
Alyss didn’t really put up much of a fight after last night in doing what the Princess and her friends said to do. She was an outcast in this world so she might as well roll with it. Alyss mounted the horse she was given by the current Sheikah leader and headed out of Kakariko Village to Hyrule Castle with the rest of the company. The ride out of Kakariko Village and through the country gave Alyss time to think about everything that had changed since she was put into that cavern. Kakariko Village rang a bell in her mind but she couldn’t shake the feeling that it was vastly different when she lived there with her parents versus the version she saw today, yet if anyone asked her how it looked or where it was located she wouldn’t be able to say for sure. The same went for the country around the trail they followed. None of it looked familiar and the unfamiliarity of the land did nothing to quell Alyss’s feeling of being an outcast in this world.
The company traveled in silence with Impa, Purah, and Robbie leading and Princess Zelda and Link behind her. The moon had started to rise, but no one was quite tired yet since they had slept in so late from the previous night’s events. Once again Alyss found herself staring at the only piece of home she could find. The silver beauty of the nearly full moon made her wish that she could pick up and fly off into the sky away from this foreign world she was doomed to live in. It wasn’t until the moon was high in the sky that the company decided to stop and rest for the evening. Everyone unmounted their horse’s before leading them to a safe area of the field to graze and sleep for the night.
Alyss laid out the soft blankets she was given to create a sort of bed and sighed. She didn’t notice that as she let her hair down to be more comfortable she was approached by none other than the knight himself. Not turning to face him, Alyss moved her blankets back and sat down underneath them, rubbing her face with her hands.
Link watched as she settled into her makeshift cot before setting the plate of food he had made in front of her. Alyss stared at the bowl of pumpkin stew in front of her flabbergasted. She looked up to see that the knight had already turned to join the others by the fire where they were talking and laughing with one another. A quick moment of contemplation ran through her mind as she tried to make up her mind on how she wanted to act. Did she want to be the person who shunned people she barely knew, or did she want to try and make the best of a bad situation and use these people to help her figure stuff out?
With a small sigh and a quick glance at the moon, Alyss grabbed the bowl of pumpkin stew and stood up. The smell of the stew hit her nostrils almost immediately which made her stomach growl loudly. Apparently sleeping in a cave for goddess knows how many years would make you famished. Forgetting all about the knight nearby who was watching her put the bowl to her lips with secret satisfaction, Alyss took a large mouthful of the creamy soup. The soup was the perfect balance of fortified pumpkin, goat butter, milk, and wheat and it brought back memories of her time with the beloved Rito friends she had. The thought was bittersweet as she thought back on the times she would sing with them in their choirs, enjoy their cooking, and the way that her friends would allow her to ride on their backs to the hot springs where they would relax their cares away. These thoughts, mixed with the pumpkin stew, made her heart ache for moments like that again.
Licking the excess soup off of her lips, Alyss looked up to the company of friends gathered by the warm fire. Ever so slowly she walked up to the fire and cleared her throat, catching the attention of everyone there. “Can I join you,” she asked hesitantly as her eyes drifted back towards her feet. In looking at the ground Alyss didn’t notice everyone at the fire smile happily at her question.
“We would be delighted to have you join us,” Princess Zelda said in a cheery tone of voice. She motioned for Alyss to take a seat in between her and Link and watched as the young woman sank to the ground staring into her bowl.
“Alyss,” the Divine Beast muttered almost too quietly for anyone to hear her. Lifting her head to look Robbie and Purah in the eyes, “you asked me yesterday what my name is. It’s Alyss.”
There was a comfortable silence for a second as everyone let this new act of trust coast through their bodies, but it didn’t last long as Purah held her hands in front of her and shook them happily. “Oh my goddess does that mean you trust us?” She was looking right at Alyss who scratched the back of her head sort of awkwardly.
“Now Purah we shouldn’t scare her with questions like that. Let’s just be grateful that we now know her name, although I can’t help but feel like I’ve heard of that name somewhere…” Impa scolded her younger, more eccentric sister.
Alyss watched with wide eyes as they quickly were thrown into a heated discussion that only siblings would understand. To her sides Link and Zelda and Robbie were laughing at their antics causing her to smile for the first time in a long time. Alyss finally felt that maybe there was a small glance of hope for this world she was thrown into.
They arrived at Hyrule Castle’s town late the next day which was a relief to everyone in the company except Alyss. Alyss was riding between Link and Robbie as they led their horses at a slow pace through the town so as to not disturb the hustle and bustle of the town’s businesses. “You know,” she started off staring at the majesty of the looming castle. “The castle was only one room and as I got older it was nothing but a few more rooms connected together.”
Link turned his head to signify that he was listening, the hustle of the town not really worrying him since Hyrule Guardsmen were posted all over town to keep the peace if necessary. He was curious about her past but before he could make any sort of gesture towards her to keep her talking about it, Robbie looked over and continued the conversation. “Really? This must be a pretty big shock then to see the castle in all its glory. I wonder,” he continued. Alyss turned to him curiously as his tone had become a more serious one. “Just how old are you? The castle has been this way for thousands of years.”
The rest of the ride was silent as Alyss herself didn’t even know the answer to that question. Once back at the castle everyone dismounted and handed their horses off to the castle stable hands. The King - which Alyss had learned was named King Rhoam - had met with everyone to learn of the happenings in Kakariko Village. They told him of the Yiga Clan making an appearance, how Alyss was found, and her reaction to the Princess. King Rhoam hadn’t seemed super surprised but he definitely didn’t expect that the validity of her story was too accurate. He didn’t really ask Alyss many questions beyond where she woke up before ordering his Knights to go to the village and search the area she was found for anything that could provide an answer. In the meantime he ordered Alyss to be placed in a guest room and closely watched.
This is how Alyss found herself laying on the large, fluffy bed staring at the ceiling of her room. The room she was trapped in had many bookshelves full of books, a decent sized desk, and different odds and ends in decorations, but she was bored. There wasn’t much she could do as the books were in a language she could only partially understand and the window was too small for her to crawl through, yet large enough to let in a decent amount of light. Once the moon had appeared over the horizon, Alyss started to think about going to bed when her thoughts were interrupted by a soft knock at her bedroom door. She eyes the door before standing up and heading to it. When she opened the door, she expected to see a Hyrule Guard bringing her something, since that’s really the only visitor she has gotten over the past few days, but she was surprised to lay eyes on Robbie.
“Hello,” she said a little curtly, eyeing him up. She was a little pissed off that she was trapped in this goddess forsaken room for so long, but her curt attitude didn’t really seem to bother Robbie as he just smiled at her. “Can I help you?”
“Well, I brought you some lunch and some news,” Robbie spoke, stepping into the room and placing the silver tray down on the desk on the other wall. He turned around sassily and placed his hands on his hips to look at the woman who had moved back to laying down and staring at the ceiling. She was silent and didn’t really acknowledge him which bothered Robbie a little but he didn’t let it get to him. Moving to the other side of her bed, he sat on the edge and laid down beside her to also stare at the ceiling. “What are you looking at?”
Alyss cut her eyes at Robbie and sighed in irritation. “Can we get this over with please? I’ve been stuck in this room for days, alone, so if you don’t mind I would prefer to continue to be alone please. Thank you.” She rolled onto her side to face away from Robbie as to hide her saddened face. Unknown to literally everyone, she was having quite a hard time adjusting and being trapped in the one place she had all of her bad memories wasn’t making it any easier. Fighting back tears as her mind raced, she listened to Robbie sit up on the bed. She didn’t feel his weight leave the bed so she assumed he was looking at her. Rolling back to look at him, she was taken off guard by the fact he was removing his goggles.
“Are you alright,” he asked furrowing his eyebrows. His eyes were surprising to Alyss as they were a deep red and she was kind of expecting them to actually be his goggles at this point. When Robbie asked her this question, Alyss tried not to let her emotions get the best of her. She barely knew this man and the question was a little more personal than she wanted to get into at this point. She nodded her head and turned to face the other side of the room again.
“Ok…” Robbie said a little thrown off that she was so standoffish, but in a way he understood. She has been locked up for goddess knows how long and thrown into this strange new world. He continued cautiously, making sure to monitor her bodily expressions for any signs of discomfort. “Well, the news I have to tell you is that I have been given permission to take you home.”
Alyss turned quickly to him and glared, “excuse me?”
Robbie held his hands up in defense and backtracked realizing what he had said. “Let me explain, it’s nothing weird I promise.” Robbie continued when Alyss slowly turned her head back to its previous position. He laid back down on the bed and continued talking. “Well, some guards came back with some interesting finds. They found a chest full of ancient looking material, a curious gemstone, and a very brittle scroll.” Robbie paused for a second for Alyss to respond but when he got nothing he continued. “You see, the scroll was written about you, but it was a little hard to decipher as the ancient language was lost to us long ago. It said that you were an experiment of the Royal Court gone wrong.”
Alyss’s entire body stiffened at Robbie’s words. Her memories of her life played through her mind in a hazy, theatrical way as she listened to his recount of the letter.
“Princess, she’s awake,” a female voice called out. Alyss could hear bits and pieces of the conversation between the Princess and this other voice. The world was dark and her entire body burned. What had happened to her?
“Alyss…”
Alyss groaned and turned her head as the sunlight streaming through the room lit up the dark vision she was having. When the blurry images focused, Alyss saw a beautiful woman with long blonde hair and a long, silken, blue robe. The triforce adorned the middle of the golden belt wrapped around her waist making it no mistake that this was none other than Princess Zelda.
“Hello there, do you know who you are?”
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Alyss had been training all morning with Sheikah warriors to hone her new skills and test out her latest power, poisonous smog. Alyss watched as the newest hoard of Bokoblins came running at her. With a smirk, Alyss took a deep breath in and focused on connecting with her inner rage. Once the red bokoblins were close enough to touch her, Alyss exhaled hard surrounding the monsters with a dark purple smog. It didn’t take long before Alyss heard the Bokoblins make a choked screaming noise and a bunch of thudding. Opening her eyes, Alyss saw the Sheikah warriors standing there, some shocked and others recording the results. Looking down, Alyss’s eyes widened as they found themselves staring at a pile of at least thirty bokoblins dead on the ground. She noticed that with that last breath, her skin around her eyes was tight and incredibly dry feeling. Reaching up slowly she found that her once soft skin was now the skin of a reptile akin to a Lizalfos.
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“You have to continue training Alyss for the good of the Kingdom” Princess Zelda hollered after the Divine Beast as the latter stormed through the Castle. “You have to aid us in sealing away Calamity Ganon!”
Alyss had been having a hard time controlling her emotions as of late during training and it scared her. Never before has she lost her ability to calm down and now here she was trying not to lose her shit at someone bumping into her. Princess Zelda came on the scene when Alyss lost control of her emotions and body, almost murdering the poor woman with her own hands that had turned to talons and the same reptilian skin she’d come to expect. When the Princess called her name, Alyss did not answer. Purple smog flowed out of almost every pore of her body as her feet left the ground, dragging the poor choking woman with her. Her hair had started to form it’s way around her body and to the top of her head as Alyss lost herself to her anger.
Zelda had managed to stop Alyss from killing the poor servant woman by summoning her sacred bow and shooting an arrow into Alyss’s shoulder blade forcing her to drop the woman. As her anger faded into pain, Alyss’s body and mind slowly changed back to normal. When Alyss came to she looked at her hands, tears starting to roll down her face at what she had almost done. “I’m a monster,” she whispered, running away to be chased by the Princess.
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The four divine beasts, besides Alyss, were up and running. Vah Medoh, Vah Rudania, Vah Naboris, and Vah Ruta, they had their Champions to pilot them, and Alyss was doing well when it came to her training. She had been able to control her levitating and smog to use them sparsely outside of combat, but her guardian beam was the newest thing she had to focus on. It wasn’t until a few weeks later that the disaster that forced Zelda to seal her away would occur.
On that fateful day, Alyss stood in the small Sanctuary of the castle listening to the King ramble on and on in an update of the land. Alyss was drifting off where she sat until she heard faint noises, whispers and murmurs of terrible things to become and all the death and destruction the voice would bring. Looking to both of her sides where the other Champions sat, she saw that none of them were trying to get her attention in the slightest.
Alyss tried to shake the voice out of her head, but the more she tried to resist it, the quicker it got louder and became multiple voices, making it harder for her to ignore it. Alyss covered her ears trying to drown out the incessant whispers of doom, but soon it became too much. A loud, shrill scream erupted out of her mouth and her eyes became wide with panic, unknowingly scaring everyone in the room into a stunned silence. The Sanctuary had turned into a decrepit, broken down wreck while the bodies of everyone standing in that room littered the floor in a giant pool of blood.
Intense panic, fear, and anger at seeing her loved ones dead on the ground sent Alyss into a blind rage she couldn’t control. She couldn’t recognize the people in front of her who were still very much alive and trying to calm her down. She didn’t feel her hair grow longer and longer while two thick portions of hair floated to the top of her head to create horns. Her breathing had become more and more ragged, slowly replacing the oxygen in the room with smog. With tunnel vision, Alyss looked around at the dead people as they slowly rose up from the pools of their own blood. “Stay away,” she screamed, which let out a beam of blue light from the horns on her head which barely missed the King. She felt people using rope to grab her and push her down to the ground which she barely recognized as her Sheikah brethren doing their best to subdue her.
“Seal her away,” was the last thing she clearly heard coming from Princess Zelda before a bright white light knocked her unconscious.
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“Robbie,” Alyss pleaded gently for him to stop talking. She had curled up into a small ball at the memories flooding back to her, the tears which were threatening to fall out of her eyes before were now freely falling down her cheeks. Alyss didn’t have to look over to see that Robbie noticed her pained state and had sat up. “I can’t hear anymore of this. If I lose control again-” she whispered shakily, holding her unsteady hands up in front of her face disgusted as though they were covered in blood.
“Lose control again? What do you mean?” Robbie asked, placing a small supportive gesture to Alyss’s shoulder that caused her to flinch.
“I’m a monster,” she whispered, horrified.
“Nonsense,” Robbie scoffed, unable to believe that this girl they had just found could have done anything terrible enough to be called a monster. He watched as she sat up slowly. She was shaking as though she had just spent the night in the Hebra Mountains with nothing but a thin layer of clothes. Her purple eyes were wide and full of fear at whatever memory was flashing in front of them. She stared at the edge of the bed just past him and continued to torture herself. Robbie watched as her skin crinkled and turned into scales, the nails that were digging into her arms, as she held herself, turned into large talons that drew blood from her porcelain skin. He watched as her hair started to float and her eyes turned into slits. He had to hold back his excitement as he made mental notes of her sudden changes and what could have potentially caused them how he knew he had to help her.
Leaning over, Robbie grabbed Alyss’s shoulder and pulled her roughly into him. He wrapped his arms around her scaly skin, ignoring the cuts he received from it, as he gave her the only thing he could think of, a hug. Robbie felt her tense up at the sudden contact, but it wasn’t long before the open skin showing through his v-neck outfit started to feel little droplets of water. He felt her skin turn back to its former texture as she allowed herself to relax in his arms and release her emotional distress in the form of loud sobs. “I promise you’re not alone anymore,” he whispered to her, gently running his palm up and down her small, shaking back. “Come with Purah and I. Let us help you figure out what went wrong and what we can do to make it right. You’re not a monster,” he leaned back and smiled at Alyss gently.
Alyss nodded slowly as she searched Robbie’s eyes for any sign of insincerity and malice, but when she found none her cheeks turned a bright shade of pink. “Stay with me please. Don’t let me be alone,” she whispered in a plea.
Robbie smirked and threw his hand up to point into the air. “Oh yeah,” he shouted, making Alyss giggle at his eccentric and slightly ridiculous way of agreeing. Pulling the bands and sticks out of his and her hair to make both fall to their natural length, Robbie wasted no time in laying her back down cuddled up in his arms, whispering promises of a better future until she fell fast asleep.
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Again?
A/n- I needed to take a break from my Daichi series, I want to be able to write it organically and not pump it out like some factory, so I decided to write this :)
Pairing- Tsukishima/Fem!Reader
Summary- Sometimes things fray, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be fixed
Trigger Warnings- Not a lot really, just a little angsty and a mention or two of just some blood!
Y/n sighed as she stepped past the cherry stained door frame. The bag that clung to her shoulder slipped from her grasp, clattering against a pile of heavily weathered shoes. She cringed, the sound of needles, embroidery scissors and plastic bobbins most likely becoming a mess of tangles and thorns in the black bag. She was tired though and left the bag where it was, practically kicking off her shoes. Her life was going pretty okay, she guessed. Asahi snagged her a spot with a well-known brand as soon as she graduated. She was doing something she loved, threading beautiful tapestries onto ridiculously expensive shirts, reveling in the way designer brands vied for her and her work. It was a nice change from home. Home should feel warm and open, that’s what her sister had told her. So why did her living room feel like a closet?
It was quiet, all the lights were off. There was no trace of Kei in the house, except for his messily piled shoes at the door. How long had they been living like this? In a limbo of bitter feelings? Coming home to empty rooms and dusty clutter on the coffee table? Y/n felt her shoulders sag, her body becoming numb as she trudged into the kitchen, the smell of sweet strawberry shortcake still clinging to the kitchen walls, a subtle reminder of the love she desperately felt for her lover. Love? No, that wasn’t the word. Being with Kei wasn’t love, it was comfortable and normal, mundane at best. There were no soft touches, no gaps of silence suddenly filled with bursts of airy giggles. Lately, her relationship with Kei felt like a construction site. Kei lugged around beams and barrels of concrete as he built up his walls, Y/n standing still on the other side of the barrier, lazily throwing pebbles at the infrastructure he had built overnight. She had stopped trying long ago.
Her fingers felt heavy as she pulled open the fridge. The taste of yearning coated her tongue, clinging to her throat and building a home in her chest. She missed him. She missed the way his voice would float with every chuckle, the way he’d roll his eyes with that tender smile, the dopey smirk on his lips when he would wake up in the morning, their legs tangled among cheap comforters and puppy like love. Y/n sighed through her nose, tired eyes searching the fridge for something filling, only to land on the cake she had made him sitting untouched in the back of the fridge. She had made it for him, knowing it was a favorite before she had to leave for a work trip. She would be stuck in Italy for a few days working on some fancy designer piece. Their relationship was in tatters, but she hoped that the sight of warm cake on the counter could patch up the gaping holes in the fabric of their relationship. How silly of her.
She racked her brain, her head racing along non existent horse tracks while a wispy detective walked idly by on the forgotten roads of her memories. Why? What had she done for him to just leave her on standby? Yet still, she couldn’t be bothered. They had fallen out of sync long ago, only staying with one another out of complacency. The house was big, and it was easier to save money when there was someone to share bills with. Love didn’t exist inside their four walls anymore, but climbing into bed with someone felt better than laying alone and lingering on your thoughts. The feelings were gone, but at least the sex was good, right? Staying together was forgetting, forgetting about their problems, ignoring the depression that dug at their intestines with bottles of strong liquor and clumsy kisses. Forgetting was better than remembering.
“Hey,” Y/n turned from the open fridge to come face to face with Kei. She had been staring at the molded frosting and fuzzy strawberries in the fridge for longer than she thought. Nodding a response, she turned back to the fridge, pulling out the cake to throw it away. “I’m sorry, I forgot about it. Thank you though,” Kei’s voice was soft, his eyes focusing on the black bag that sat on the floor, a frown tugging at his lips. They had loved each other at some point, Kei knew they did. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t miss it a little. “Why aren’t you saying anything?” Kei questioned, walking into the kitchen with an annoyed look on his face. He had gotten home late after going to catch up with Tadashi at some little cafe after work.
“Tired,” is all Y/n said as she threw the rotten cake into the trashcan. She’d have to take out the garbage later. Kei huffed, normally, Y/n would be dragging answers from his lips with the claws of her questions, but today seemed different. Had she finally given up? He could feel a frown clinging onto the corners of his lips, but why did it bother him so much? They had never ended their relationship, just watched it waste away, hoping someone would cut the tether before they got married out of complacency. He didn’t know why, but the nagging feelings of change gripped onto his chest, begging for him to do something. What was there left to salvage?
“I’ll do chores tonight, okay?” It was so simple, but the small gesture was enough for her heart to fall into a frenzy of jitters. The look in his eyes was softer than it had been in months, and oh, suddenly his hair seemed brighter, his eyes oozing honey and warmth. Pathetic, she thought to herself. He was just offering to do chores, that was all, Y/n tried to reason with herself. But this was Kei. The smallest of gestures were always the most complex. He didn’t like big shows of emotions after all.
Kei watched as Y/n nodded, her eyes showing the way her mind swam in pools of confusion. This is stupid, Kei thought to himself, sighing through his nose as he pulled the bag from the bin, tying it closed before carrying it to the buckets outside. Doing the chores wouldn’t bring about any change. There wasn’t a remedy for a wandering love. There was no bait that could hook it back to their shores, so why should he even bother? And then he was walking upstairs to their shared bedroom, passing photo after photo of her pretty smile, tripping over the gift bags that littered the steps and finally passing the embroidered dinosaur that sat in a frame on the wall. A gag gift turned favorite by Kei.
He stopped to look at the cloth in the frame, admiring the stitching and shading that ran across its back. He could only imagine all the pricks she had sustained on her fingers because of that stupid little dinosaur. Kei couldn’t help the laugh that breached past his lips, the tender warmth of memory that climbed over the barbed wire around his mind.
Y/n had been working on some piece for a Tokyo based brand when she came to Kei with watery eyes and bloodied fingers. At nearly twenty years old, he never expected to be taking on the role of nurse. He had shaken his head, laughing to himself as he gently wrapped up her fingers, making a quick quip about the way he wraps his own fingers before matches before she interrupted to tell him she knew exactly how he wrapped his fingers. They had spent the rest of the night on the couch, Y/n’s tongue poking out from between her lips as she perfectly wrapped up his fingers. It was such an insignificant gesture; she knew how he wrapped his fingers, so what? But she knew how to wrap them. She came to his games so often that she knew; she paid attention to all his little quirks, and the fact that she paid attention was enough to make him swoon. Not long after that, Kei had become her first.
He shook his head, turning away from the frame to twist the door nob and step into their bedroom. Y/n was sat in bed, the only thing that clung onto her body being the oversized hoodie he had bought for her about two years ago. Why had they fallen out of sync? Things were perfect, simple and so warm. Why had they disconnected? It was, of course, because of Kei’s lack of communication and Y/n’s fear of confrontation.
Y/n looked up at Kei from the manga she had been reading, putting it into her nightstand drawer. Why did she do that? Kei wondered, pulling the glasses from his face and setting them on his dresser. Because you hate having the lights on when you sleep, and she doesn’t want to turn the lights on to read. It bothers you, Kei reminded himself. Lowly humming to himself, Kei walked towards the air conditioner in the room, bumping it down to the lowest setting and angling the vents to blow air to the left. It was a habit, ingrained into his muscles, something he couldn’t go to sleep without doing, but why?
Y/n thought the same thing as she settled into her side of the bed, making sure to leave most of the blanket for Kei. He didn’t exactly like a freezing cold room, so why had he been doing it for so long? You hate sleeping in a warm room, he’s always made sure you’re comfortable before you sleep, Y/n reminded herself, her eyes focusing on the glossy ceiling. Maybe they hadn’t forgotten everything.
“Do- do you think…” Y/n trailed off, rubbing her hands across her face. What was she thinking? Of course there wasn’t, right?
“Hmm?” Kei hummed, feeling the mattress dip under his weight.
“Do you think, that maybe one day we could… Fall in love again?” Y/n whispered, her hands fisting into the quilt they lay on. Kei looked over at Y/n, his face seemingly expressionless. But Y/n knew, with just one look into the pools of honey reflected almost every emotion that ran rampant in her chest.
Kei stayed quiet for a moment, eyes staring at the same ceiling Y/n had been staring at for the past five minutes.
“I want to believe we will…”
#tsukishima scenarios#tsukishima x y/n#kei tsukishima#tsukishima kei#tsukishima x reader#haikyuu!!#haikyuu imagines#haikyuu x reader#haikyuu oneshot#haikyuu angst#tsukishima imagine
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A Jeff x Ace prompt extending from the werebear ask, which you can make as nsfw or clean as you'd like: Ace and Jeff are relaxing and talking together away from the campire, which escalates to cuddling and rolling around, changing positions a lot. Ace rolls himself ontop of Jeff's torso, leaving Jeff on his back and face up... looking into the full moon hanging in the sky. 🐻 time.
ok ngl i vibed hard with this ask, i never even considered this ship before but now i love it bless you <3
this is just self-indulgent fluff with a sprinkle of angst, apologies if you wanted a crackfic!
(based on these headcanons!)
word count: 3772
(werebear!)Jeff X Ace ft. tooth-rotting fluff
Jeff doesn’t know when he’s last been this happy. The warm laughter of the man next to him never fails to calm his nerves, and he smiles at the joke the other cracks despite it not being one of his best.
Ace is gesturing animatedly, in the middle of telling another story of riches and grandeur from his youth, a glint in his familiar brown eyes and a grin staying on his face the entire time. Jeff knows the other can come across as overbearing to some, seemingly never running out of bad jokes and incredulous tales, but Jeff can’t see himself ever tiring of hearing Ace talk.
One of Ace’s hands nearly smacks him in the face when he tries to show just how big of a pile of poker chips he won in the illegal game. Jeff is thankful for his quick reflexes when he’s able to grab the eager hand before it hits his brow, and Ace pauses mid-sentence to offer him a sheepish grin, looking apologetic.
When Jeff brings the hand to his mouth and brushes his lips over the dry knuckles, Ace’s expression softens into a fond smile that makes his eyes crinkle at the corners. When Ace looks at him like that, it’s almost enough for Jeff to forget what a monster he is.
He would have never imagined letting the others know about his curse could allow him to grow closer to some of them. He expected everyone to be scared and disgusted, distancing themselves and maybe even kicking him out of their shared camp. He wouldn’t have blamed them; who would want to share their only safe place with a werebear?
Instead, the majority had been surprisingly understanding, and Jeff was taken aback by just how worried Claudette and some of the others were about him instead of fearing for themselves. A few of the more tactical survivors like Bill vowed not to treat him any differently than before, recognizing the strategic advantage of his strength in trials.
But by far the biggest surprise had been Ace. The other reacting to the revelation with humor was nothing out of the ordinary, but he also made it a point to constantly BE there, often butting in with a well-timed joke when the likes of David or Tapp were giving Jeff a hard time.
“Gentlemen, please!” Ace had said with a warm smile, a hand on Tapp’s tense shoulder as he managed to slink between David and Jeff. “You know Jeff wouldn’t hurt a fly—he’s a big softie!”
“He’s unpredictable—” Tapp tried to argue.
“Hmm, see, I recall a certain ms. Kimura breaking my arm on one occasion, not to mention David clocking Quentin square in the face. Oh, remember the time Meg kicked Ash and broke his knee? That was fun!”
“What’s yer point?” David spat.
“That you should be grateful the one with this power is someone with better self-control,” Ace said and stared David straight in the eye, and Jeff saw defiance burning in the gamblers’ usually friendly eyes.
“I’m sorry baby, I got a little carried away,” Ace says, snapping Jeff out of his thoughts. “You know you can just tell me to shut up.”
“And miss hearing about the biggest jackpot of the decade? Not a chance,” he says with a smile, giving Ace’s hand a squeeze before releasing it.
“Sweet of you to pretend you haven’t heard this story ten times before,” Ace smirks, adjusting his wide-brimmed hat before leaning closer.
“My favorite part is how the pot gets bigger every retelling,” Jeff teases, and gets an amused huff and a light slap against his arm for his troubles.
“Had to tone it down at first, lest you not believe me,” Ace murmurs, face now only inches from his own. Jeff chuckles and tilts his head down to capture the man’s smiling lips in a kiss, having long since learned that Ace will keep talking until he gets the last word.
Jeff remembers when he first realized Ace’s friendliness might be more than just looking out for a brother. He’d gotten back from a trial where he had to transform, and his shirt had been ripped during the process, getting snagged on a tree branch. Back at camp, he loaned a needle and some thread from Quentin to mend the garment. He’d gone to the edge of camp and pulled the shirt off, not realizing he had an audience until he heard a gasp.
Jeff saw some of the girls look over, and he flushed a little at being on display. He wasn’t particularly self-conscious about his body, but the only other person to ever have been shirtless in camp was David, and he knew his own physique was vastly different from the brawler’s. Still, Jeff saw Nancy blush and Zarina avert her eyes, and Kate even blew him a little kiss—which made him feel a little better—before the trio went back to their previous conversation.
And then he spotted a blatantly staring Ace, barely resisting the urge to roll his eyes. So Ace had a certain kind of reputation, flirting with everyone and even trying some pick-up lines on the killers, and Jeff was no stranger to the occasional cheesy compliments. He expected a tacky wolf-whistle, or maybe some more bear puns due to the generous amount of hair covering his chest, but instead Ace just kept ogling him.
“Well?” Jeff had finally asked, bolder than he meant to, but it made Ace snap out of it and look up at his face, blinking a couple times as to piece his thoughts back together.
“Don’t stop on my behalf,” Ace eventually purred, offering an exaggerated wink before his gaze dropped down to Jeff’s jeans. Jeff gave an amused snort and shook his head in exasperation, sitting down on a tree stump to start fixing his shirt. But some of his focus remained on the gambler, and out of the corner of his eye he caught Ace sneaking glances and fidgeting more than usual, like he wasn’t quite sure what to do with his hands, trying and failing to appear casual.
A warm hand cups his cheek, and Jeff can’t see himself ever tiring of kissing Ace. If he had his art supplies, he’s pretty sure he could fill an entire gallery with just Ace as his muse. The way his well-trimmed goatee scrapes against Jeff’s own unruly beard, the faint scent of cheap cologne that seems permanently etched into some of his shirts, and the slight softness around his hip when Jeff wraps and arm around him. The way he moans when Jeff bites at his lip, and the way it makes Jeff’s heart flutter and warm feelings of affection spread through his chest.
Ace lays down on the ground and pulls Jeff with him, hands wrapped around his neck and lips never leaving each other’s. Jeff cups the back of Ace’s head to cushion the fall against the ground, careful to guide him away from the rock they have been leaning against.
Ace’s long limbs are sprawled out below Jeff and he tries to deepen the kiss, groaning softly and hands tangling in Jeff’s ponytail. Ace is not a patient man, as Jeff had figured out even before they started dating. Still, Jeff wants to savor the moment, feeling even more sentimental than usual due to the fond memories of the man. He pulls away from the kiss, moving to pepper Ace’s stubbled jawline with butterfly kisses while the other swears softly and yanks at his hair in retaliation.
He'll never forget realizing his own feelings for the man ran much deeper than friendliness and a fleeting infatuation. It had been an easy trial, generators popping left and right while Ace kept the Hillbilly busy. Dwight got the gate open just as Ace finally took a chainsaw to the back and went down with a scream, and Jeff and the remaining two teammates started planning a rescue, their chances looking good as Nea had brought Borrowed Time into the trial.
However, instead of hooking Ace, the killer had merely stood above his prone body, revving his chainsaw menacingly. Ace had clearly managed to get under his skin, and now he was going to make sure the man bled out on the ground even if it meant displeasing the Entity. Jeff didn’t blame Nea and Dwight for leaving, as there wasn’t anything they could do. But he could.
Jeff looked up at the full moon above the Autohaven junkyard and let himself transform into the alter form he hated so much, his determination drowning out some of the pain. With the steadily ticking end game timer leaving no time to waste, Jeff took off in a sprint back into the trial grounds, his four legs carrying him much faster than any other survivor could run.
The Hillbilly spotted him charging and as Jeff tackled the killer to the ground and away from Ace, the grimy chains of the machine dug into the flesh of his shoulder through the thick fur. It was far from enough to stop him, and he roared in pain and lifted his massive paw up to strike at the killer. The next few seconds were a blur, but soon the killer underneath him wasn’t moving at all and the discarded chainsaw laid to the side, sputtering quietly.
Not wasting any more time on the killer, Jeff hurried over to where Ace was laying. Relief flooded through him upon seeing the man was still conscious, looking at him even while he was too tired to lift his head up from the muddy ground.
“Didn’t have to come back for… little old me,” Ace croaked, his voice barely above a whisper, forcing a pained, blood-stained grin on his face.
Jeff knew they didn’t have much time, both Ace’s injuries and the Entity’s impatience ensuring the gambler’s impending doom. Jeff had never been able to change back to a human at will, and thus was unable to tend to the man’s gaping wounds. Ace wasn’t getting out of here on foot, and they both knew it.
Jeff laid down on his stomach next to the man, rolling a little on his side to hopefully allow Ace to crawl on top of his back. He was either carrying the bastard out of here or dying laying next to him; he refused to leave the broken man to suffer alone.
“Didn’t take you for a little spoon,” Ace, mangled badly enough to barely have the energy to raise his arm forward, still joked weakly. Jeff let out a small sigh, both relieved and annoyed, but it came out more like a low growl. Ace didn’t seem to care, his shaky hand finding purchase in the fur of Jeff’s neck and gripping tight. Jeff rolled back on his feet, hauling Ace’s mostly limp body with him. With only a small shrug he managed to position the man securely on his back, heart clenching painfully at the distressed gasp the other let out when his broken body was jostled around.
The ground was opening into angry red cracks by the time he managed to run out of the exit. He’s pretty sure Ace passed out on the way to the campfire, hanging limply over his back and the pained huffs of air calming to raspy breaths against Jeff’s neck. But at least he was alive.
Ace’s eyes are full of life when he pulls away from their kiss and smirks roguishly. His thigh bumps against Jeff’s knee and a hand is on his shoulder, and suddenly Jeff is on his back as Ace rolls them over. Ace is now straddling him, a hand on his chest holding him down and a playful grin on his face at having bested him. Jeff takes in his handsome features, his familiar silhouette illuminated against the perpetual night sky, the moonlight framing him beautifully—
“Shit,” Jeff breathes, and he barely has time to shove Ace off of him and roll the opposite way to put distance between them, a piece of his heart breaking at the surprised yelp when his lover falls back to the forest floor. And then, every muscle in his body is burning and he grits his teeth as his spine starts snapping and his nails dig into the ground, the moon awakening an ancient power inside of him that demands to be let out.
Ace’s voice is drowned out during the transformation, the pain and his own self-loathing silencing all his senses. He’s normally in control of his curse, but he hadn’t noticed the sky clearing up, and then he was suddenly on his back and staring right at the moon.
Now fully turned, Jeff bolts into the woods, leaving Ace and the small forest clearing behind, too ashamed to face the man he could have ended up crushing under his weight, or worse. Jeff screws his eyes shut and keeps running, needing to get away—
And then he smashes into something and everything goes black.
“Thanks for earlier,” Ace had said, approaching Jeff with a spring in his step, and it was a relief to see after the close call with the Hillbilly.
“No worries,” Jeff said, scooting over on the ground to make room next to the log he was leaning on, in case Ace decided he wanted to join. “Feeling better?”
“Like a new man!” Ace beamed with familiar bravado, happily taking the offered seat. “Kate and Adam patched me up. Can’t complain,” he grinned suggestively.
“Glad to hear,” Jeff said. He’d never been a particularly jealous person, and he knew Kate and Adam were both attractive. Still, the comment made something sting painfully in his chest.
“You know… I always thought you and Kate were an item,” Ace mused, slumping down against the log and moving his hands to cushion his neck. He was trying so hard to seem nonchalant, but Jeff caught his eyes flickering to Jeff’s face behind the shades. Maybe Jeff wasn’t the only one who was jealous.
“Hmm,” Jeff hummed in acknowledgement. “She’s not my type. Though I can see why you’d think that; she flirts with everyone, so it’s hard to tell when she means it.”
Ace, predictably, didn’t miss the on-the-nose subtext of his statement. The man gave a small smile in agreement, before leaning further back to look up at the stars.
“Want to play a game?” Ace asked, still looking up at the sky but a smirk now spreading over his lips.
“Sure,” Jeff said, shoving down the feeling of being a pawn in a game he didn’t yet see the bigger picture of. He’d never been much for bets or gambling, but surely, this was all in good nature.
“Truth or dare?” Ace asked, turning his head Jeff’s way and showing him the mischievous grin in its entirety.
“Truth,” Jeff decided, smiling at the childish choice of game but curious to see what the other came up with.
“What IS your type?” Ace prodded. “If Kate doesn’t cut it, I don’t know what will,” he joked.
“Hmm,” Jeff pretended to mull over the question. “I’m terribly fond of idiots who provoke the killer enough to get tunneled for five gens. And then use their dying breath as a chance to make inappropriate jokes.”
“Really now?” Ace asked, his smile somehow stretching even wider, but not lifting a finger to make any sort of move.
“Truth or dare?” Jeff asked, obediently playing along with the other’s little game.
“Dare,” Ace said, the word sounding a lot more husky as he removed his shades and gave Jeff a coy look.
Jeff only hesitated for a heartbeat.
“Kiss me.”
When Ace immediately sprung to action, leaning into him and eagerly moving his lips against Jeff’s like it was something he’d wanted to do for a long time, Jeff realized he’d played right into Ace’s hand.
Did he mind? Hell no.
Jeff fades back into consciousness to the sounds of a conversation.
“—but he didn’t mean to! If anything, it was my fault!” He recognizes Ace’s voice anywhere. It sounds like his lover is arguing with someone, but Jeff’s body refuses to move or even blink awake, stuck on the edge of consciousness.
“I told you, he’s dangerous! Whatever it is you think you have, it’s bad for all of us!” He thinks that’s Jane, which would make sense. She’s been one of the most vocal about seeing Jeff for the monster he is.
“What we have is a whole load of ‘mind your own damn business’,” Ace argues. “And I’m not going to ditch him just because you’re scared!”
“You’re insane! You’re going to end up hurt!” Jane tries to reason, and the words cut deep into Jeff’s heart because he knows she’s right. He has no right to be with Ace, but he so desperately wants to.
“Look here you prude bitch,” Ace snaps, and Jeff shares the sentiment of who he thinks is Claudette gasping. He’s never heard Ace insult anyone like that, usually being much wittier and more composed with his criticism. “I know you hate my guts, so don’t try to pretend you give a shit about my well-being. You just want us both to be miserable.”
“Alright, that’s enough,” a gruff voice commands, footsteps approaching the scene.
“Bill, tell him—” Jane demands.
“You shut your mouth,” Bill shoots back, causing Jane to let out an affronted scoff. “Ain’t none of your business what those two—”
“He’s waking up,” Jeff hears Quentin’s voice right above him, not having realized the boy had been so close. The statement is followed by hurried shuffling, and by the time Jeff manages to blink his bleary eyes open, Ace’s blurry face is all he sees.
“Hey, big guy,” Ace is grinning shakily, his features slowly coming into focus. “Feeling better?”
“What happened?” Jeff asks, the lingering awkwardness from having overheard the fight making way for confusion. The last thing he remembers is transforming and running off, and then he blacked out.
“You turned into a bear, ran into a tree and knocked yourself out,” Jake deadpans from his left, sitting by Jeff’s side with some bandages in his hands. “Also, if you guys could stop fucking next to my camp by the glade, that would be great.”
“Didn’t realize there was an audience,” Ace snarks, shooting a glare Jake’s way. Jeff brings his hand up to his head, only to feel bandages wrapped around it. There’s a sting when he presses at his forehead.
“Managed to get a pretty nasty cut,” Quentin says, slapping away his hand from poking at the wound. “Patched it up with some butterfly tape, shouldn’t bleed anymore.”
“Thank you,” Jeff says, offering a small bow of his head to both boys who apparently tended to his wounds.
“Thank us by staying the fuck away from the glade,” Quentin repeats, tired eyes fond even while his voice is filled with threat. Jake clears his throat awkwardly and Jeff fails to hide the surprise on his face. He never realized the two were more than friends.
“Yes yes, now shoo,” Ace butts in, waving the boys away and kneeling down next to Jeff. Jeff spares a glance over his shoulder and notices the others getting back to their normal tasks, apparently giving them some privacy. Though Jane still isn’t looking happy, angrily whispering something to Laurie, but he’ll take what he can get. “I was lucky Jake and Quentin were nearby, they came to check up on the noise and we were able to carry you back to camp. Oh, and apparently running head first into something makes you turn back!” Ace chatters nervously. “Wouldn’t recommend trying it again, though, seeing as you were in pretty bad shape—”
“Hey,” Jeff interrupts softly, grabbing Ace’s hand to ground the other’s racing thoughts. “I’m fine now. Thank you.”
Ace takes a shaky breath that seems to calm him down some. “Why did you run?” he asks in a low murmur, squeezing Jeff’s hand and not bothering to hide the hurt in his expressive eyes.
“I… freaked out,” Jeff confesses, fighting the urge to avert his eyes in shame. “The transformation is always unsettling, but because I didn’t see it coming, it was even worse. I was so afraid I’d accidentally hurt you.”
“I’m sorry, Pumpkin. I should have realized,” Ace says, eyes casting downward and a sad smile tugging at his lips. “It was my fault.”
“It was nobody’s fault,” Jeff lies, knowing full well the entire thing is one hundred percent on him. Jeff is the one responsible for his curse, and nobody else. Still, he knows the self-deprecating attitude wouldn’t fly with Ace, so he settles on an “It was just unlucky.”
“You know that word doesn’t exist in my vocabulary,” Ace jokes, looking up at him playfully and apparently accepting the reasoning.
“I said ‘unfortunate’, I don’t know what you heard,” Jeff teases and it makes Ace smile brightly and lean in for a quick peck on his lips. Jeff is pretty sure he hears a snort echoing from the other side of camp, but it doesn’t phase him.
“Soo,” Ace drawls, making himself comfortable leaning against Jeff who still doesn’t feel like his pounding head will allow him to walk properly. “Since we’re evidently being evicted from the usual spot, how about the next one not having a gigantic hole to see the moon? It’s not like there’s a shortage of trees around here.”
“Sounds good to me,” Jeff murmurs, stroking his thumb over the back of Ace’s hand.
“How did you even end up picking a place like that in the first place?” Ace realizes, arching an inquisitive eyebrow.
“Because I know you like looking at the stars,” Jeff says, smiling fondly. So many times, in camp or the trials, he’d caught the other staring up at the sky, and each time he’d wished he could join him. Ace falters from the confession, surprise clear on his features before his face morphs into a familiar smile.
“You’re such a moron,” Ace says, all the creases and laugh lines that Jeff adores visible from how wide his smile is. “A romantic moron, but a moron nonetheless.”
Ace leans in for another taste of his lips and this time he lingers, treasuring the moment. And this time, Jeff is certain he hears an “Ugh, gross” from a disgruntled Feng followed by a snicker from Yui, but the comments don’t bother him. He has everything he could hope for right here.
#dbd fanfic#jeff johansen#ace visconti#jeff johansen x ace visconti#dbd#dead by daylight#othelo-s#dweetwrites#request
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Whumptober2020 SPG Power Outage
Rabbit’s core had been unstable for years. It was practically a part of their personality now. Just something the manor expected. Glitches and the occasional meltdown. Nothing the Walter Workers couldn’t deal with.
But it was becoming too frequent and getting worse. The blue matter effects were starting to leak into the manor. Rabbit’s dreams coming to life, or places where things got thin, portals trying to form. It wasn’t safe to take them to shows.
It had been a madhouse trying to find the original blueprints. How they had managed to get so lost was beyond Six. They should have all been kept together.
When someone did find them, it was a long conversation. The Spine sat with Rabbit while she tried to explain why she’d never come forward before. That pappy had been too happy to want to disrupt anything, and she was afraid no one would believe her.
She would be out for a few days. Long enough that The Spine had time to sneak in a few new pieces into her wardrobe. It wasn’t much, but something he hoped would make her happy. Overall it was a simple black dress with puffed up sleeves, a ruffled black Walter Worker dress. He found a corset to slip over it to make it look a little flashier. It was a start, at least.
When she finally powered back on, she woke up surrounded by family. Sitting up, she smiled brightly. She’d undergone quite the change inside and out. Her core glowed a bright red now instead of blue. “H-hey th-there! Did-didn’t expect such a cr-crowd when I woke up!”
The Spine laughed and leaned over to hug her tightly. “It’s good to see you awake. I was worried about my sister.”
She beamed brightly at hearing him call her his sister and clung to him tightly. He didn’t mention the oil soaking into his suit. It was, understandably, a bit overwhelming for her to suddenly be a completed bot.
“Come on. You’ve been stuck in that suit long enough, come on.” Helping his sister off the bench, he tugged her back upstairs.
“I don-don’t know what you’re expecting, Spineo,” she chided as she followed him up. She may have gotten an overhaul, but that didn’t change what was in her room.
He just grinned widely and sat down on the edge of her bed to let her look. “I’m sure there’s something in there that we can work with.”
When she found the dress, she squealed in delight. “Spine, it’s amazing!” Hugging the fabric to her chest, she spun around in a tight circle, dancing on her feet.
Suddenly she was pushing her brother out of the room. “Out out! You can’t be in here while I change! It ain’t appropriate.”
Laughing, Spine nearly fell on his face as he stumbled out of Rabbit’s room. “I’m going, I’m going!” While he waited, he leaned against the wall and crossed his arms.
After a while, when she hadn’t opened the door, he tilted his head. “You alright in there, Rabbit? Not too fiddly?” He asked and laughed when he heard something hit the door.
“I wear six belts! I can figure out a dress!”
Another long pause and she cracked open the door. “Okay, maybe I need some help,” she muttered.
Once she had managed to get zipped in and added a few belts, for flair and tradition, she said, Rabbit spun in front of the mirror, giggling like a loon.
Back on the edge of the bed, Spine watched his sister with a small smile. He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen her so happy. Not since before Peter I passed away at least. Excited, wild, smiling, content, sure. But not truly happy.
After a while, she stopped and laid a hand on her head, gently running over the shiny copper. She wasn’t sure she liked that.
Watching her, Spine lifted his hat a little to show off his hair. “Want to wear my wig?” He offered. While he would have let her, they both laughed when she threw a pillow at him. Maybe not that one. “What about your rabbit ears? Those might work for now.”
With a hum, she looked back in the mirror. Gears whirred slowly, and her head opened up as copper antennas came up in the shape of large rabbit ears. She wiggled them around a little, turning them this way and that before she settled on how she liked them. Yeah, those were okay! Giggling, she spun around and showed off her new look.
“They look perfect, Rabbit,” praised The Spine.
Rabbit looked like she could have vibrated through the floor with excitement. Everything was just perfect! “I-I-I gotsta show-show everyone!” Hurrying out the door, she ran through the manor to show off her new, well everything!
The Spine had to stop her to get water more than once as she got excited, and bubbled on about how much she loved the dress. No one mentioned it looked like a dyed uniform. The Spine had done his best.
While she ran around, he could hardly keep up with her and opted to just be around, to make sure she was alright. Sure there weren’t really any risks for her in the manor, but that was still his sister, and he wanted to make sure she was alright after such a big change. He wasn’t sure he had ever seen her so energetic and full of life before. It was good to see her so happy now.
“It’s late, Rabbit. We need to shut down for a little while.”
“ B-b-b-b-but, Spine! It’s not that late! I wanna see what kind of dresses I can get! Petes promised I could buy some new clothes!”
Gently tugging her up to the room, his shoulders slumped. “Tomorrow. We can spend all day looking at dresses, okay? We'll find someone to take us to the mall or something.”
That worked! Mostly. She ran into her room, but he wasn’t sure she ever went into stasis.
Admittedly, he was excited too. This had been a long time coming, and he was glad Rabbit could have it at last. Even if he didn't think he could ever keep up with her again. Laying in his own bed, he sighed a happy stream of steam and powered down for a while.
It was easier in the morning. The Spine nearly had to pull her out of bed.
She was tired and sluggish. When she wouldn’t respond to knocking, The Spine marched in and found her tangled in her blanket.
"Must have used up all your energy bouncing around yesterday," teased Spine as he finally dragged his sister out of bed. He laughed when she swatted at him, clanging softly against his metal arm.
After making sure water boilers were topped up, he was worried she hadn't perked back up yet. She must have really been excited last night. Though he still didn’t think she should have been this worn down. They really didn’t need to sleep after all.
"Come on, we can look online for dresses," he offered, trying to get some life in her.
She perked up a little, at least as she followed him off to check the computer. Before they even sat down, she was asking about what kind of dresses there were. He wondered if it would have been better to have Upgrade or Malfunction there. He didn’t know all that much about dresses after all.
There wasn't a single dress she didn't gush over and plan on begging Petes for. From sundresses to ball gowns and even a few nightgowns she said were too pretty for bed.
When he suggested shoes, he thought she had ruined her voice box with that squeal. Or at least ruined his hearing! Who knew there were that many styles of shoes! The Spine wondered if he should update his own wardrobe. Of course, Rabbit came first.
That was the energy he was expecting! Not that he knew how the manor was going to fund this wardrobe.
He was pretty good with a needle and thread. There had to be something he could manage. Something he could look into later. For now, he was fine just sitting with Rabbit and planning outfits she would probably never get to wear.
They talked a while about what colours went with copper, and he bored her with information on wigs. There was a black and pink one that she had fallen in love with. Without thinking, he bought that.
After a while, she got quiet and leaned against his shoulder. She really must have been up too long. He supposed too much excitement could do it, even for robots that ran on blue matter, or red matter rather.
Smiling softly, he wrapped an arm around her and closed out of the tabs. That was alright. They'd been at it a good portion of the day, a break was good.
Once the computer was off, he gave her a gentle shake. "Come on, you. Nap somewhere else," he teased.
Nothing.
That was concerning. Rabbit shouldn't have been able to get that tired. Maybe she was pranking Spine again?
"Come on, I'll drop you," he warned, moving her he tried to trick her into getting up. Seeing her lulled back, he gasped.
"RABBIT!"
Her core had gone dark in her chest.
He called for help, screaming over the wifi as he lifted her up from the chair. Cradling her safely against his chest, he ran full speed through the manor and down to the labs.
The Walter Workers and Six were scrambling, trying to prepare as he barged into the room. Rushing him in the Walter Workers had to pry Rabbit from his arms to get her on the table.
The Spine was too heavy to force out of the lab. As much as they reasoned they would work better without him there, he refused to leave. That was Rabbit, his sister, on the table. He wouldn't leave her side.
While they worked, he paced the room and hovered over their shoulders. He sobbed and cried, quietly begging Rabbit to be alright. She couldn't die now, not now most of all.
Six was relentless as he worked. When restarting her failed, he opened up Rabbit's chest and checked every wire. Groundings, ports, gears, and screws, nothing was wrong, and nothing was working.
He poured hours into trying to bring Rabbit back online. Even the smallest detail wasn’t left unnoticed. The strangest idea was given a try, no matter how far fetched. He had even tried promising her a truckload of chocolate moon pies. He had nearly replaced all of her, hoping something would work.
"The red matter stabilized her, but it wasn't strong enough to keep her powered." Six put a hand over his mask and quietly wept.
The Walter Workers put their tools down and looked down at their feet. There was nothing left for them to try.
“Then make her core blue again!" Demanded Spine, stepping over to loom over Petes.
Six looked pained up at the titanium robot. Tears streamed down from under his mask, soaking into his lab coat. “I can’t.”
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Odd Sundays
I got a prompt a couple weeks ago for Solavellan. I’ve never written them before. I’ve never even had a Solavellan pairing until I created my Old West AU for “Oh Give Me a Home,” and it’s still just in the background. I was a breath from declining the prompt when I thought that God, I really should explore these two. So this is me, exploring these two. I’ll fill the prompt soon (I hope), but I wanted to get a feel for them first. It’s my first time writing a Solas romance of any kind, so please be gentle with me! ^_^
Tagging @thevikingwoman and especially @galadrieljones, since this is pertinent to their interests.
Pairing: Solas x Myriani Lavellan (Old West AU)
Rating: M for Mature (Sexual Content; Prostitution Warning)
Solas’s hands were callused in places. Just places. Not all over. Surgical needles and threads left slim roughness on his nimble thumbs and forefingers. The staff he wielded during the Civil Liberation War just a few short years ago coarsened the flesh at the tops of his palms and the bases of his fingers.
Myriani loved those calluses against her skin. He liked to put one hand on the back of her neck and the other at the top of her thigh when he visited her. Every Tuesday and Friday, and on the odd Sunday while the rest of the town was in the Chantry.
Every Tuesday and Friday and odd Sunday, he put his sovereigns on the table by the door, quietly, so her eyes would not be drawn to the sound. But she knew. Every Tuesday and Friday and odd Sunday, he unbuttoned his vest, and he doffed it with his shirt in a practiced motion learned over months of Tuesdays and Fridays and odd Sundays.
Every Tuesday and Friday and odd Sunday, he put a sometimes callused hand on the back of her neck before he kissed her. He wasn’t the only customer she allowed to kiss her, but he was the only one she allowed to kiss her for as long as he liked. He also liked to push her dress sleeves down off her shoulders, to let his fingers wander from her collarbones to her shoulder blades. When he had time to linger—her time was his until the money ran out—he pulled her hair free of its wide, U-shaped pins, and he tangled those sporadically raspy fingers in the straight blonde strands. He had no hair of his own, and when he tugged, she wondered how it would look on him if he did. Would it be dark or light? Straight or wavy? Curly perhaps?
Every Tuesday and Friday and odd Sunday, he laid her on her back. She kept her dress on. They’d been interrupted before. Injured workers from the Montilyet oil fields needed fingers reattached, cowpunchers needed rustlers’ bullets removed from their guts, children from Varric’s school needed their broken arms set. So she kept her dress on. It was an ungainly thing to remove, anyway. Worse to have to put back on. When he felt reckless, she imagined, he tore loose her corset to free her breasts. His occasionally stoney hands squeezed and caressed, pulling tiny noises from her, so unlike the dramatics she played for her other customers. She relished his recklessness.
Every Tuesday and Friday and odd Sunday, he held up her thigh with his inconsistently bristly hand. He liked it best when she undid the buttons on his britches for him. She liked it too. Hers were not the thoughts a soiled dove should think with customers, that she wanted his lips on her for as long as he would leave them there, that she wanted to please him. Not just to satisfy him, but to please him. So, she unbuttoned his always-pressed britches for him, and she took him into her with all the need of a woman whose lust was rare and raw. Her love was rarer, still. It was naive and it was complicated, rooted in desire and loss and a twisted kind of innocence. But it was real, and it reached out for him.
Every Tuesday and Friday and odd Sunday, he sighed hot against the pointed lobe of her ear. He felt desperate inside her. Lost. Perhaps that drew her to him. Their missing pieces matched. Their wounds wove together like his fingers that were rough in places wove into her hair. His ancient grief wreathed around her heart like her legs wreathed around his naked waist. He burrowed deeper and deeper, lifted her higher and higher, clung to her harder and harder. And the way he looked at her, blue eyes bereft and searching, as though the only thing tying him to reality was the slipknot tangle of their limbs. Awe begat awe, and she felt far away from the sovereigns on the table by the door and the pack of drunken Johnnies downstairs and the ocean of dead dirt outside the window.
Every Tuesday and Friday and odd Sunday, together, they unraveled. For a few noisy moments, they each tore the other’s suffering away. They left for each other only the blinding blankness of mortal sensation. They held tight, drawing out the brief gift of their mutual relief for every extra second they could manage. When those seconds could stretch no further, their twinned pain returned, seeping into all the tiny spaces between their bodies.
Every Tuesday and Friday and odd Sunday, as they righted their garments, they became themselves again. Solas slipped back into his role as Val Sable’s only doctor as he slipped his shirt and vest onto his lithe frame. The sly aloofness he wore outside her little room fastened itself to his features as he fastened his britches. His collection of past sights and deeds settled into his blue eyes as his feet settled into his scuffed brown shoes. Myriani was once again the soiled dove, the lone Dalish, whose past traumas made her Madame Vivienne’s most valuable commodity.
Every Tuesday and Friday and odd Sunday, Myriani accompanied Solas out of her room, each of them ignoring the sovereigns on the table by the door. She walked with him to the bottom of the steps, the threshold she could not seem to cross. The Iron Bull always watched them from behind the dark wood of his bar with a knowing look in his single eye. Solas always pressed a gentle kiss to Myriani’s forehead before turning to leave. Myriani always smiled as sweetly as she could smile.
And every Tuesday and Friday and odd Sunday, after she watched him push through the swinging doors, she began counting down the moments until the next Tuesday or Friday or odd Sunday, until the man she loved in secret would come back to steal away her pain once more.
*****
#solavellan#solas#solas x lavellan#old west au#dragon age#dragon age inquisition#fanfic#myriani lavellan#tw: prostitution
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Werewolf Boyfriend 2/2
If you’ve seen the first part then run right over here! \(^◇^；)
Disclaimer: There is near death experiences and death in general mentioned in this ficlet, please don’t read if you’re sensitive to this material ;;
Sewing was not a form of artistry that you followed.
You can vaguely remember a visiting family member giving you a botchy quilt, the mixture of cloth being a variety of garish colors. Neon greens did not mix well with midnight blues and cherry reds, too chaotic on the eyes. If you stared too long your head would begin to ache from the overflow of pure excitement on a blanket.
Regardless, your younger self had cherished it, no matter how red you made your skin from the constant itching.
A reminder to not pick sandpaper as your base for a creation.
However, your partner was rather good at this talent of weaving. Whether it came to molding hair, manipulating string, or carefully guiding a pointed edge, he had surprisingly gentle hands when it came to the creation of comfort. It was shocking to observe what sees a sewing needle through it’s life in soft cotton cloth can tear apart a fully grown elk to leave on your doorstep. Isn’t that how predators have always been though? For most the sound of gnashing teeth is all that comes to thought with the sight of him. For very little is the lip tightly curled over silver crochet hooks, your skin in range of the risk with the thread you were made with.
So thin.
With where the both of you live, so far out from civilization, he worries when you wander the woods alone.
Autumn is coming to a slow end. You need to get the last of your browns before the snow drowns it. Red and green paint was never your strongest suit.
But he insists.
Finely crafted sweaters over your shoulders, an adroit made crown with the ingredients of dying leaves upon your head. It is soon replaced with a fuzzy hat, puff ball extra fluffed on the end. His anxieties lead him to only make more, one of the only activities that sooth his soul. And though you can tell that your warmth when you leave helps him calm, he only begins to fear something else.
It’s a natural response, really. Wolves never usually travelled without their loved ones, especially when their skin is fine silk.
You really shouldn’t have turned around when you headed for the door, supply bag thrown over your shoulder.
His whine, a malicious thing, unfortunately lead you to look back.
Tail wagging behavior wasn’t a common thing for your wolf, despite body language being a big part of your conversations. But you wouldn’t need to look at more than his eyes to tell what he wanted.
He’s got pins and needles over the flap of his muzzle. Big creatures like this shouldn’t cower when they tower over a being so weak.
And yet he heels.
Fidgeting with his claws, his large brown eyes just stare at you.
He looks too sad for you to leave him there.
Maybe you’ll even let him come more often. A wolf the size of a bear while crouching over, bending his ear to listen to your latest story. Sometimes he laughs, a loud, intimidating thing. Like a playful growl compared to his vicious one, burly and low toned. Your’s beside it makes the two of you sound like a chorus of bells.
Eventually you grow too cold when the sun’s heartbeat begins to slow, and the moon chaperones the sky for a short while until it can find the strength to reach up again. Your sweater can only do so much, and your eyes weren’t made for seeing at night. He doesn’t hesitate to take the chance of his fur getting all over you. The positive side of it is that your partner is a walking oven, and you don’t even realize that you’d fallen asleep in his arms until he’s laying you down underneath the covers of a cold bed.
Yes, perhaps you’ll take him with you more often.
The shedding stops being annoying when he curls up at your side, snuffling against your hair and rubbing his scent all over your shoulders. A wolf thing, you were told long ago.
Another morning to be spent scrubbing his musk off of you.
The arrival of snow has him rolling around like a dog outside, his brown coat looking like icing poured over rich chocolate cake.
He blatantly ignores your insistence that he not come in with wet paws. The cold water sinks into your fuzzy socks, reminding you that you should probably buy more. They tended to disappear slowly for one excuse or another. Add it to the list of groceries and things that need to be fixed.
You can’t really be angry at him, though. Not when the only reason he ran inside was because of the ‘overwhelming urge to give you kisses’, he signs. You snort in laughter through all the cowlicks and dog saliva, watching as his tongue sticks out in his confusion, pink sliver just showing underneath his nose.
Horrible.
You have a feeling Winter will be fun.
Your trees have gone completely nude, and the usual route you take to find reference for paintings is now more boring than ever. Another path will have to be made by your shoes over time, just as this one was. The weather suggested no big occurences happening including snow, so wandering aimlessly should be safe without getting too lost.
The wolf doesn’t worry as terribly as before, since the bears have decided to lay to rest for the season. Unfortunately, he still crochets another sweater for you to wear while he goes on his hunts. The colors are neutral and calm, but you know the ugly christmas one is coming. You can see yourself loving it already.
You paint a dark brown wolf that day, glazed over with flakes of snow like a donut.
He is flustered that you thought of him in your free time, and your kisses to his forehead only make his tail wag more.
And you thought wolf’s ears weren’t supposed to be floppy.
For anyone else, they aren't.
Decorations are much easier than any other year you'd put them up.
He's a big help when he isn't tracking mud into the carpet. You need to add pet wash to your grocery list.
The tree was real this year, something you never saw yourself getting into the hassle of doing. You're lucky to have partnered with someone who can wield their claws as an axe. It was a tight fit, but the house’s ceiling is thankfully tall, and can handle the pine’s branches reaching for it. It's definitely worth all the work, since the house smells so lovely afterwards. Nothing like those scented candles you always depended on for all these years.
Hanging the lights is a different story.
You'll need to take notes for the next Christmas. The only paper you have nearby is the calendar, but it'll do.
A situation:
A tall, burly wolf, teeth completely clamped around the wire to a set of lights. His body is tangled in Rudolph red noses, the bulbs winking in holiday spirit. They're laughing at him.
You aren't cruel, so of course you set the whining predator free.
After a few photos.
Despite the fact that only the two of you are there to appreciate the house, a more cozy feeling settles into your stomach. A first holiday season with your loved one. A new romance. The slate of the garden is clean, and full of new options of what to plant when trickles of Spring come by. Crocus was always his favorite. Perhaps your love will bloom along with the flower when you plant it.
The morning is cold and the air sweet when you head out with your supplies. The weather is expected to be mild in your area, so being bold isn’t as much a risky idea than usual.
The bigger question, is how long will it take to find something to paint? You hardly find much interest in the plain white backgrounds and scattered naked trees. Wild life is appreciated, but the fuzzy brown deer that you see occasionally aren’t too interested in holding still for your reference. Perhaps you’ll need to need to buy a book full of pictures of them. You haven’t been to the nearby town’s library for a while now.
There’s the peek of the sun behind stitched in clouds for a moment, but it quickly hides again when reminded of the season. Maybe it’s off schedule this year.
When your supplies are set up, it is in front of a very simple piece. The remnants of Fall, like a single survivor from your favorite time of year. Packing your browns and reds was certainly a smart idea.
A barely crumpled red and yellow leaf, at least the size of your palm, resting half frozen in the snow. The background is a cold white mixed with light shades of blue, only the middle of your painting refreshing the eyes with such a warm mixture of colors.
You can only guess that you’re a few miles from your usual trail when the wind picks up.
The weather is to be laid back. You had watched the weather channel like you do every morning today.
But when did nature ever listen to the cries of man?
The fur around your hood is following the air upstream, and you know when the frost begins to grow over your canvas that leaving home was a grave mistake.
You should never waste your watercolor. But this was a very big exception.
The bags of supplies where you were left behind, your small body was not dressed up enough for a snow storm. Your running in the basic direction of the trail was a foolish idea, and through the splattered white acrylic paints you could soon see nothing to remind you of how far out you truly were.
The wind screamed with you for a living being to aid.
And it was the only voice you heard back.
Your stumbling through cold, too cold, lead to your fall.
It reminded you of your short lived love of climbing. How some mountains were so large and plagued by snow that many died with their journeys. How they had that realization of death when they finally fell.
How many of them had accepted it.
You could feel the weight of nature’s storm halfway up your back before your eyes closed.
The first holiday season.
Was the wolf sitting beside the fire after playing in the paint?
You hope he dried them off before he came in.
He knows you hate it when your socks get wet right as you walk inside.
.
..
…
….
It’s warm.
The fire is cackling next to you, and rested upon your shoulders is that horrible uneven cut blanket. He made it right when you purchased his first book on crochet, looked so excited when he gave it to you.
Terrible.
You love it.
Everything is very fuzzy for a moment. You can remember what happened, but not how you arrived back in your house. Your living room. Warm colors for cool eyes.
It’s when you call his name that it begins to make sense.
Something crashes in the kitchen, something you’ll need to sweep up later, and he slams too hard into the wall leading to the family room you rest in. You faintly wonder if he was trying to cook again, and how much damage he did to the counters if so.
There’s barely the register of the thought of a hole in your wall before the big wolf hugs you.
He’s very good at sewing things up. You’re sure he can take care of this too.
Just add it to the grocery list and things that need to be fixed.
And through all the crying, the tail wagging, the tongue giving you puppy kisses on your cheeks, you can only laugh at the sudden affection.
Such a large creature with needles behind his lip, one with a head twice as large as your own, broad shoulders like arms curled around you already. There’s still a few flecks of snow on his fur.
Donut dog.
His shaking goes down a bit when you hug him back, speak to him.
“I’m okay, puppy.”
He adores you.
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Knitting and Crochet
Sasha Kagan is a British hand Knit and Crochet designer, I have chosen her s my inspiration because of the amazing detailed colour work of her knitting and the delicate crochet she creates. In the space of 10 years after her first celebrity commission she had 130 workers working for her company across Britain, they created pieces that she designed the patterns for. She made several successful pattern books for both knitting and crochet in not only the UK but America and even Russia. Now she participates in workshops to teach younger generations this dying skill of hand knitting in an attempt to keep it alive.
Here you can see an example of my favourite knitted and crocheted pieces. This sweater has a lovely autumn pattern in some lovely Earthy colours and the crochet piece is bright and cheerful, perfect for spring.
My Knitted Response.
For this piece I wanted to show off my colour work skills. I wanted to create an abstract portrait of myself in a knitted piece, while creating my own pattern is not impossible it would take a lot of time so I used a website and input my image, it made it into a grid pattern, I then translated the grid into a stocking stich written pattern which I then made the piece with, the pattern showed 75 stiches so that’s what I decided to stick with, this will make a large piece. I kept the colours simple for now, testing the pattern on just black and white yarn. As I moved through the pattern I ran into a few issues, I kept losing stiches (most likely accidently knitting 2 together) so I kept having to add stiches in. As the 2 yarns I used are different brands the thickness is different with the black yarn being thinner and less fluffy this makes the piece look a little odd and created a few tension issues. Another issue is that when the colours switch at the same place too many times there I nothing holding the 2 pieces together, so to solve this is used the white yarn and a darning needle to sew some blanket stich up the back of the stiches in problem areas, the attached the 2 sides closing up the gap.
I work at roughly 75 stiches per 4 or 5 minutes which should mean the piece took just under 7 hours to make (for the 80 rows) not including pattern translating time which may have taken an hour or so by itself. I like the final outcome however the stich tension issue could be solved by cutting threads of colour as l go along instead of trying to fix it all at the end.
Crochet Responses.
I tried to crochet with some green plastic netting, this did not work too well as the material was very hard to work with, it was maybe too thick for the hook size but also had some fraying which caught on the hook ad got it all tangled up.
I don’t often work in the round with crochet I tried making a small circle with a size 2 hook and some very fine gold thread, the thread was slippery and hard to work with however I managed to do 4 rows of treble stich to create a circle small enough to fit in the palm of my hand. It was quite small so using a size 3 hook I used a slightly thicker black yarn and added 1 row of chain stich petals, then I switched to a 3.5 hook and a slightly thicker white yarn and made a ‘seashell’ lace hem for it. The end result was not much bigger but most defiantly more texturally interesting and showed off a lot more stich types. Next time l would plan out what I want to make better than just going with the flow, that way I’d know what materials I needed to make the best piece possible.
References.
Kagan, S. (2018) Timeline Available at https://www.sashakagan.co.uk/timeline.html Accessed; 5.10.20
Kagan, S, (2018) Timeline (fig.) Available at https://www.sashakagan.co.uk/timeline.html Accessed; 5.10.20
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TW: one not graphic description of a wolf catching and eating prey, a dog abandoned in a car (but isn't hurt)
On AO3
When Jack awoke, he was in a strange bed in a strange house.
This would have worried him more if his head hadn’t felt so fuzzy, but, as it was, all he could focus on was the unbearable ache in his bones, the weakness of his breaths. There would be time to worry when he could remember more than his name.
The bedroom door creaked open and a man peeked inside. “Oh, you’re awake,” he said, so softly Jack could barely hear him. “How’re you feeling?”
“Bad,” Jack grunted, struggling—and failing—to sit up. The man hurried across the room, hands outstretched. Jack watched those hands as they pressed against his chest, easing him back down onto the pillow. They were beautiful hands, tanned and bruised and strong—he could see the muscle in them, the rough strength. Jack let himself be tucked in by this strange man and his lovely hands. “Where am I?” He remembered to ask as the man lightly touched his forehead, checking for fever.
“The Coop,” the man said, voice louder now. “If you mean specifically, you’re just outside Syracuse. We found you tangled up in our fence. Big drinker?” He asked, voice both amused and concerned.
“No,” Jack said, shaking his head. He immediately regretted this as the room began to spin violently. “Been sober two years.”
“Well, something made you wild last night,” the man said matter-of-factly, smoothing down the quilt that covered Jack’s naked torso. “But we’ll worry about that later. Are you hungry? I’ve got breakfast cooking downstairs.”
“No,” Jack said, a little too gruffly. He wasn’t hungry, despite it being late morning, and even felt full, the sickly kind of full that came from eating too much and too richly. “Water?”
“Here, Ransom left a water bottle on the bedside table after they carried you here.” The man grabbed the dented, metal thing off the table and handed it to Jack, who felt thirstier than he ever had in his life. He chugged several mouthfuls before the man said, “Slow down, you’ll be sick.”
Jack did slow down, and after the burn in his throat subsided he asked, “Who are you?”
The man smiled and extended a hand. “Eric Bittle, at your service. The boys call me Bitty. And you are…?”
“Jack.”
“Well, Jack, I suppose you aren’t from around here. What brings you to our neck of the woods?”
Jack took another sip of water and thought hard for a moment. “I was visiting a friend. And then I was travelling- Blue .”
Eric looked startled. “Blue?”
“My dog,” Jack hissed. He braced both hands on the lumpy mattress and pushed himself up, grunting in pain as every muscle and joint in his body screamed in protest. “She was in my car- we were driving- I need to find her-”
“Jack, Jack,” Eric gripped Jack’s shoulders and struggled to hold him still. “You are in no state to go looking for Blue. I’ll send the boys out, we’ll find her. Tell me what we’re looking for.”
Jack described his car and his dog, anxiety tightening in his chest like a screw. Everything hurt, everything shook, and all Jack knew was that Blue had probably spent the night trapped in his car alone and afraid and very, very cold.
“You sit here, I’ll round up the troops,” Eric said. “Don’t worry, we’ll find her. Drink water and lie back down, okay? You need rest.”
Jack did as he was told, but only very reluctantly. Eric slipped from the room and Jack could hear voices from downstairs. Then a door opened and slammed somewhere, and outside a car rumbled to life. Jack could hear the crunch of gravel beneath wheels, the soft, sock-padded steps of someone walking up stairs, even the creak and groan of the mattress under his infinitesimal shifts and movements. He took a slow, deep breath and tried to relax, despite the wave of fear now crashing down on him.
Eric came back into the room holding a plate of toast. “Rans and Holster are out looking for Blue now. I’ve texted Shitty and he and Lards’ll go looking after the market. We’ll find your baby girl, don’t you worry about it.”
“Why am I here?” Jack asked, frowning. “Why not just drop me off at the hospital? Where did you even find me?”
Eric shrugged. “Rans is a paramedic, he thought you were fine, apart from the cuts and bruises and dehydration. You didn’t show signs of alcohol poisoning, or any sort of aggressive or self-destructive behavior. Maybe it was a bad call,” he added, toying nervously with a loose thread on the quilt. “But here you get toast and far fewer needles.”
“Okay,” Jack said. “But where-?”
“Like I said, you were tangled up on our fence,” Eric said, face darkening. “You’d tried to crawl under, like the coydogs do, but passed out and got stuck.”
“Eric,” Jack said, voice growing thick. “I don’t- I don’t drink. I haven’t touched anything- anything like that in years. What...why can’t I remember what happened? Why was even here?”
“I don’t know,” Eric said softly, brushing a piece of hair from Jack’s brow. “But we’ll figure it out. Maybe we should take you to the doctor today. That bite on your arm isn’t looking too good, maybe it’s infected.”
“Bite?” Jack frowned. “The little nip I got from Ken- my friend’s neighbor’s dog? I thought that had scabbed over.”
He pulled his arm from the blanket to look at the bite he’d gotten a few days prior. The dog had been scared and it really hadn’t hurt much, so Kent had poured some antiseptic on it and bandaged it up and they’d called it a day. Yesterday, it had been a scab. Today, it looked almost fresh, red and irritated and aching. “Huh,” he said. “Maybe.”
“Try and get some sleep,” Eric said, calloused hand brushing over Jack’s shoulder for a second. “Everything will make more sense when you wake up.”
Jack nodded, weariness coming over him again, and he let himself drift off, the phantom touch of Eric’s hand the last thing on his mind.
Jack was running.
Running, and smelling, and smelling prey, and running, and chasing, and running, and lunging, and tearing, and howling, and-
Jack bolted up in bed, gasping for air. The sheets tangled around his body were soaked through with sweat, cold and damp against his bare skin. His throat hurt, ached, and he shakily reached for the mostly-empty water bottle at his bedside.
“Jack?” Eric rushed into the room, eyes wide with concern. “You were screaming, are you okay?”
“Yeah.” Jack swallowed roughly and ran a hand through his sweat-soaked hair. “Dream.”
Eric moved to sit on the edge of the bed. He was handsome, now that Jack looked at him again, with boyish features and large, expressive eyes. “Bad one, I reckon.”
“I dreamt I was a wolf,” Jack whispered. “I was howling.”
“Full moon’s got you in her grips, huh?” Eric laughed softly. “She does that. Well, I know something that’ll make you feel better.” When Jack tilted his head in confusion, Eric nodded towards the window. “The boys found Blue, asleep in your car. She’s out there now playing fetch with them and Apple and Peaches. Our dogs,” he added. “They already seem mighty fond of her. And the dogs think she’s okay, too.”
Jack laughed, though it hurt his chest. “I picked her up outside Odessa. Thought she was a coyote, she was so thin and dirty, but the vet thinks she’s mostly Blue Heeler.”
“Good companions,” Eric said with a nod. “Ours are pitbull mixes, so I hope she likes to play all day. They’re useless guard dogs, really, but great at playing.”
Relief flooded Jack’s body, loosening all of the tension he’d been holding. “Was she scared?” He asked, feeling even more comforted as Eric scooted closer to fuss with Jack’s damp pillows.
“Yes,” Eric said softly. “And there’s a bit of a mess that needs to be cleaned up properly in your back seat, but she’s eaten and relieved herself on every tree in the yard and is probably very anxious to see you.”
Jack nodded. “I should get dressed and get out of your hair-” He started, but Eric cut him off with an incredulous scoff.
“Oh, no, you are having at least one meal with us, mister. You are clearly in no state to drive, and Miss Blue has to finish her rousing game of fetch. I brought up one of your bags, so you should shower and change, and then we’ll figure out what happened and if you need to see a doctor.”
Jack sighed and nodded. "If you insist," he said reluctantly.
"I do," Eric said. "And we're having stew tonight," he added as he walked towards the door. "I hope you like beef."
Jack's stomach grumbled in answer for him. "Sounds great," he said, smiling at Eric.
"Good." Eric beamed back. "We'll get you back in tip-top shape, don't you worry, Jack. You'll see."
[My incomplete writing masterpost]
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Spirits of the Earth and Air
Chapter Twenty-Four: Faery Wine
Hiccup was awake.
It was the darkest part of the night, everything in Astrid's room still and silent. For several moments, he lay still with his heart thudding in his chest, eyes wide open, listening for whatever had awoken him. After a long silence, he heard the sound again: a soft tap tap tap on Astrid's window.
Next to him in the bed, Astrid was sound asleep, face down on the mattress so that she wasn't much more than a mop of blonde hair showing under the blankets. Hiccup got up, careful not to wake her, and crept to the window. On the other side of the glass, Jack was crouched on the roof shingles. When he saw Hiccup, he grinned and waved.
Hiccup slid open the window pane. "What is it?" he whispered. "What's wrong?" His heart was still going too fast.
Jack's eyes widened. "Nothing," he said sheepishly. "I just want to show you something. A part of Faerie."
Hiccup let out a breath of air. "Show me something?" he repeated, rubbing at his eyes. "It's the middle of the night."
"Well that's the only time you can see it." Jack studied Hiccup, his eyes raking over Hiccup's face, taking in the dark under-eye circles and tired lines. "You can go back to bed if you want?"
But Hiccup was already up, and the cold air seeping in from outside had him wide awake and alert. He didn't feel like going back to bed. Besides, he told himself, when else was he going to have a chance to see a part of Faerie? Without Pitch or his minions messing things up?
"Okay," he said, barely even hesitating. "Should I meet you out front? Is it far?"
"It's a bit far to walk. Not much to fly though. I can carry you."
Hiccup remembered the last time Jack had carried him while flying and shook his head frantically. That had been a catastrophe. "Oh no. Not again."
"Oh, come on."
"No!"
Jack scrunched up his face, half in amusement, half in exasperation. "I'll piggyback carry you," he offered. "Is that better?"
"…fine."
Licking his lips nervously, Hiccup scrambled out the window onto the roof, the shingles rough against his bare feet. Jack crouched down and Hiccup climbed onto him as gracefully as he could, but he still managed to knee Jack in the ribs.
"Oof."
"Sorry."
Impatient, Jack grabbed Hiccup under the knees and hoisted him u. Hiccup didn't get any time to orient himself before Jack leapt off the edge of the roof and into the night air, and then everything was rushing past them. Wind and woods and moonlight all slid together into one long whooooosh. Hiccup clamped his mouth shut to keep himself from screeching and clung onto Jack's neck for dear life, burying his face against the back of Jack's neck.
Jack yelled something.
"What?"
"I said you don't need to choke me!"
Hiccup tried to loosen his grip and dug his fingers into Jack's hoodie. He didn't know how long he stayed like that. They went up into the sky, over and through the tops of trees, and the ground far below slid away and away underneath their feet. The wind carried them.
After a while, Hiccup realized they were descending. There was another whoooooosh of tree branches flying past, and everything came to a stop. Jack was standing on a protrudent tree branch, his hand braced against the trunk of the pine for balance. Hiccup glanced around and then Jack leapt downward, angling off the tree branches until he reached the ground.
"Here," he whispered to Hiccup.
Hiccup unfurled himself from the small, clenched lump he made of himself, stretching out until his feet touched the ground and he felt slick pine needles under him. He caught his breath and looked around.
They were standing by a wide pond. The surface of it was smooth inky black, the edges laced with frost. At their feet the dark bank of it curved away, tangled with the thick roots of the trees that grew right up to the edge, reaching down under the earth and water. The air was thick with silence.
Jack took Hiccup's hand and pulled him carefully toward it, stepping over pine cones and twigs. They found a place where the tree roots made a perfect seat against the earth, and Jack sat and patted the ground next to him.
Hiccup hesitated before he slowly lowered himself next to Jack, leaving just enough space between their shoulders so that they weren't touching.
"What is this place?" Hiccup whispered.
"Just wait." Jack was looking for something, staring intensely out over the water, his eyes reflecting the faint moonlight that filters through the tree tops. Hiccup turned to watch.
Minutes passed. Everything was quiet, except for the occasional whisper of wind that sets the tree swaying and sighing. Ferns grew along the bank around them; the edges of their dark feathery leaves just brushed the water's surface. Jack was warm beside him. Hiccup had no idea what they were waiting for, but he was glad they were here, glad that he was getting to see something peaceful and soft in Faerie before it was too late. Before Jack was gone for good.
With a shudder, he realized that he didn't want Jack to go.
Mistaking Hiccup's shudder for a shiver, Jack leaned his shoulder against Hiccup's. When Hiccup turned to stare at him, he gave him a small smile.
Fuck, thought Hiccup. I made him promise to leave. If we get out of this…I… Feeling lost, he returned Jack's smile automatically. His mind was chasing itself around in circles, reeling. I should ask him to stay — but he doesn't want to stay — but I want him to stay — but it doesn't matter what I want ––
Talk to him!
He cleared his throat, feeling dry-mouthed all of a sudden. "Jack…"
"Oh!" Jack grabbed Hiccup's arm in excitement, voice still hushed. "They're coming out!"
Lights were beginning to glow in the ferns and foliage, appearing gradually the way stars come out. At first so dim it was hard to see them, they winked into existence, glittering bright. Like fireflies, they drifted, free-floating, through the air and over the water. The smooth, dark surface of the pond reflected them in a perfect symmetrical mirror image. As they grew thicker, there were so many of the floating through the night, it was like a field of stars.
"Ohhh…" Hiccup breathed. "What are they?"
"A type of wisp." Jack sighed in satisfaction and relaxed against Hiccup's side, curling toward him almost subconsciously. He hooked one foot under Hiccup's ankle. His fingers folded against Hiccup's palm and Hiccup stretched his hand out without thinking until their fingers were threaded together.
"Oh," he said.
They fell silent. The lights — the wisps — spun slowly through the air, cosmic and seemingly infinite. Hiccup took a deep breath of the cold night air; he felt good right now, clear-headed and alive.
"So…this is Faerie?"
"Yeah," said Jack. "A part of it. It's…not all bad, right?" Tentative, he looked sideways at Hiccup.
"No," said Hiccup slowly. He looked back at Jack. Why can't I ask him? he wondered. Belatedly, he realized he'd been staring too long and looked away. "Not all bad." He took a deep breath. "Jack…why did you bring me here?"
The wisps seemed content to simply drift where they were, admiring their own reflections in the still water. One alighted on the tree roots by Hiccup. At the center of its glow, Hiccup could barely see a pair of wings buzzing like a firefly's. He reached out his fingers to brush it, but it startled and flitted away.
"None of the court fey know about this spot," Jack answered him after a while. "I come here sometimes. To hide."
"Ah." Hiccup understood that. This was Jack's version of a secret library corner.
"Ah?" Jack echoed.
Hiccup leaned back against the bank and shifted to look at Jack. "I understand why you come here, but…" he swallowed, "it didn't really answer my question: what am I doing here?"
They were still holding hands; Hiccup had honestly forgotten, it felt so normal. Jack turned Hiccup's palm over absently to trace patterns on the back. "I wanted you to see it," he said quietly. "I just… I shoved my way so thoroughly into your life, I thought maybe I could even the score a little. Show you a secret piece of mine."
Jack's head was lowered. Hiccup couldn't see the look in his eyes, but his posture radiated vulnerability, and Hiccup felt like all the air had been stolen from his lungs. "Oh," he said. He wasn't sure what else to say to that right now.
Jack looked up at him. "If you want to go back, I can take you."
"No!" Hiccup sat up quickly. "I like it."
A smile quirked up the edge of Jack's mouth, wry but hopeful. "Yeah?"
Hiccup couldn't help the grin that spreads across his face. "Yeah."
Something charged and unspoken passed between them. A shiver ran down Hiccup's spine again, goosebumps creeping pleasantly across his skin. Jack looked at him and his eyes widened.
"Sorry," he said, letting go of Hiccup's hand so that he could pull his hoodie off. "I forgot, you get cold."
"What?" Hiccup glanced down at his arms; he was still wearing the t-shirt that he'd been sleeping in, but he didn't feel cold. "No, I'm fine. I'm good, actually."
Jack stilled; the hoodie slipped from his fingers to settle on his shoulders again. "You're not freezing?" he asked in surprise.
"No," Hiccup said wonderingly. He ran his hands over his bare arms. "I feel better out here, actually. Like more awake?"
"Better?"
"Yeah." Hiccup wrapped his arms around himself and leaned his head against the tree roots, relaxing. "Less tired and sick."
Jack let out a snort. "I always feel better out here in the woods," he said, stretching his arms over his head. "Cleaner. Lighter. More peaceful. And also less tired and sick. There's no human iron or metal to poison me out here."
"Well yeah, you're fey," said Hiccup automatically, before the realization of what they'd just said sunk in. They both went still at the same moment, each unwilling to voice the thought that had just occurred to them: that Hiccup was developing the same reaction to metal that the fey had. That he was losing his humanity faster than he should have been.
Hiccup looked down at himself; his freckly pale arms, wrapped around his torso, are dark against the white shirt he's wearing.
"What's happening to you?" Jack breathed so quietly that Hiccup hardly caught the words; it was perfect to pretend like he couldn't hear then. And that was what he did, pushing on to a different subject.
"What will you do when you're free?" he blurted out.
"I don't know," said Jack with an easy shrug. "Celebrate."
"No, I mean," Hiccup cleared his throat, "where will you go?"
"What?"
That was their original deal: Jack had promised Hiccup that if he helped free him, he'd leave Hiccup alone to live his life. Now, the memory of that promise almost smacked Jack upside the head; in everything that had happened, he'd forgotten about it until now.
Jack opened his mouth to protest Hiccup's question, then closed it as he remembered his promise. He bit down on his lip a little too hard and turned his face away.
Before all this, he'd wanted to travel, find a new place to belong, but now he felt that the only place he could ever belong — ever wanted to belong — was already right here. Could only be right here.
"I don't know," he managed to say. "Why do you bring that up?"
Because I want you to stay, Hiccup thought. He opened his mouth to say it, but his throat closed up and he couldn't. "Oh," he said instead, "just… wondering."
The mood had shifted. A minute ago they'd been holding hands as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do, but now Hiccup felt like he couldn't touch Jack. Like he didn't have any right to.
He so badly wanted to move his hand and forearm — just a few inches and he could slide his arm through Jack's. His arm practically ached at this angle. He swallowed, edged his hand forward a few millimeters, then got cold feet and leaned back on his hands. His fingertips pressed into the soft tree bark beneath, moss — damp and slightly squishy — crushed under his palms.
Jack turned his face toward Hiccup, looking quizzically up at him. His eyes caught the reflections of the wisps, reflecting them in silver slivers.
Hiccup tipped his head back to look away. He couldn't think of anything else to say. They fell into observant silence, not looking at each other. It felt stiff now, not like the comfortable silence they had a few minutes ago.
A distant strain of sound reached his ears. Through the woods drifted a noise, like bells or chanting. "Hang on…" he sat up straighter and looked around. Far off through the trees he could see a distant glow, flickering. "Do you hear something?" he whispered.
"What?" Jack lifted his head.
Hiccup shushed him. "Listen," he breathed.
The sound was getting louder. It was definitely music. Something throbbing and primal, with high sweet notes that seemed to call to him, made his blood hum.
"I hear it," Jack whispered back. Hiccup started to rise to his feet. Jack seized his hand. "Where are you going?"
"To find out what it is."
Jack hung onto him as he followed him to his feet and they crept across the forest floor. They headed toward the light.
As they got closer the darting shapes evolved into forms. Fey creatures of all shapes, sizes, colors, spun and danced around an enormous bonfire. Three of them were crouched at the foot of the flames, long curled fingers pulling at twisted, alien instruments.
"What…" Hiccup's voice faded away, swallowed up by the sounds of music and shouting.
"We should go, right?" Jack raised his eyebrows at Hiccup, concern written into his face.
But Hiccup was entranced by the dancing figures, his eyes glued to their swooping, winding forms. They were so fluid, graceful, they seemed the music personified, the notes made solid into flesh; they bent and writhed so perfectly in time.
"Hiccup?"
He could feel himself craving to join them, his heart rate speeding up, his feet itching to move. "Do we have to?"
"You want to stay?" Jack leaned in closer, his hand snaking higher around Hiccup's wrist. His eyes lit up with mischief, reflecting now the warm glow of the bonfire. The corners of his mouth quirked up.
"I shouldn't." Hiccup pulled back automatically, withdrawing into the shadows, but Jack held on and followed with him.
"They're totally plastered," he said. A short laugh escaped him. "They won't remember you. I don't think they'll even recognize that you're human. Besides, you've already eaten faerie food. What more could happen?"
Hiccup paused. "…you think?"
"Only if you want to stay." Jack bit down on his lip as he grinned at Hiccup. His hand loosened, only to curl around Hiccup's and lace their fingers together.
Hiccup took a deep, excited breath. "Okay," he said at last. "Let's do this."
They crept forward. As soon as they stepped into the circle of warm orange light, they were swept up, like leaves in the wind. Hands were reached out toward them and they were pulled along. Faces all around them laughed. Hiccup found himself doing his best to keep up, feet flying over the ground, somehow, miraculously, moving in time with the beat.
It was like before, in the court, everything wild and untouchable and under his skin. The world around him melted away, everything he'd been carrying on his shoulders evaporated.
Coherent thoughts dissolved. His head grew light and dizzy, everything was a swirl of color and sound that he was floating on. His body seemed to move without him telling it to.
A cup of something was pressed into his hands. He looked at Jack, who just shrugged. "What's it going to do?" he called over the noise.
So Hiccup tried a sip. It was light and sparkling with an undercurrent of something thick and spicy. He downed the whole thing in several gulps. The effect was almost immediate. HIs skin tingled all over, he could feel every pulse of his heart, he felt warm and vibrant and alive. Nothing mattered anymore and that was the most amazing thing. Someone handed him another and he drank it. Swallowing down mouthful after mouthful. His head was swimming but he had never felt more alive.
He pulled Jack closer, and Jack came willingly, laughing. Their hands tangled together as they swayed nonsensically to the music, losing the beat and then catching it again, noses almost bumping. Time began to disappear, one moment running into the next, blurry and indistinct.
"Wow," Hiccup tripped over a rock [or something?] on the ground. He almost knocked Jack over, but a faery behind his caught him by the shirt and up-righted him without even breaking stride. For a second he was swept away in the arms of a girl with a braid almost down to her feet, then he was passed between hands and handed back to Jack again. Jack caught him with a laugh and pulled him back from the wild ring of dancers. They collapsed on the grass.
"Nnnnngh." Hiccup stretched out lazily on his back, grinning. "I'm kinda drunk," he confessed. He turned his head to smile widely at Jack.
"I…" Jack looked very serious for a second, took a deep breath, and then snorted and started laughing. "Me too!"
That made Hiccup start laughing again. "Too much…whatever that stuff is."
"Faery wine." His laughter dissolved into breath. Jack rolled onto his side, head propped on one hand. "Gods, I haven't had this much fun in…months. Years. A long time. It's not important."
Hiccup snorted. "Whatever you say, old man."
"Hey." Jack shoved him gently in the shoulder. "Show some respect to your elders."
"Never." Hiccup chuckled again, then quickly sobered up, staring at Jack. His mind was still buzzing, but he remembered…there was something important… "Jack," he said suddenly, intensely, "you're going to leave."
"What?" Jack's eyes widened like he'd been slapped. He sat upright and stared down at Hiccup.
"I…" Hiccup's face felt too hot. He turned his head away. "Nevermind."
There was a pause. Then Jack's cool fingers were there against Hiccup's flaming cheek as he reached over to turn his head back to look at him. Jack had shifted so that he was laying against Hiccup's side propped up on one elbow, looking down at Hiccup's face. Hiccup blinked. "I don't want to."
"Huh?"
"I don't want to leave."
Jack's hand was still on his face. His thumb stroked along Hiccup's cheekbone. Hiccup reached up and put his hand over Jack's. "Okay," he said, a little choked. "Then stay here."
A small frown tugged at the corner of Jack's mouth but he said nothing, merely studied Hiccup with intense, dark blue eyes.
"I can't. I made a promise. A fey promise."
Hiccup's sluggish brain took a moment to catch up to that. So no matter what, Jack would leave, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. "Come on." Hiccup pushed to his feet suddenly, staggering a little at standing up so fast. "I need some more wine."
"Wait, Hiccup—" Jack stumbled up after him.
Dragging Jack behind him, without looking back, Hiccup plunged into the chaos and let the music and the energy sweep him up again.
Some day, Jack would leave. There was nothing Hiccup could do to stop that eventuality.
The music picked up again. He grabbed more to drink and the liquid was warm and golden down his throat, and for now, for this moment, Jack was right here, hand in hand with him, and that would have to be enough.
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Snow-White and Rose-Red
There was once a poor widow who lived in a lonely cottage. In front of the cottage was a garden wherein stood two rose-trees, one of which bore white and the other red roses. She had two children who were like the two rose-trees, and one was called Snow-white, and the other Rose- red. They were as good and happy, as busy and cheerful as ever two children in the world were, only Snow-white was more quiet and gentle than Rose-red. Rose-red liked better to run about in the meadows and fields seeking flowers and catching butterflies; but Snow-white sat at home with her mother, and helped her with her housework, or read to her when there was nothing to do.
The two children were so fond of one another that they always held each other by the hand when they went out together, and when Snow- white said: ’We will not leave each other,’ Rose-red answered: ’Never so long as we live,’ and their mother would add: ’What one has she must share with the other.’
They often ran about the forest alone and gathered red berries, and no beasts did them any harm, but came close to them trustfully. The little hare would eat a cabbage-leaf out of their hands, the roe grazed by their side, the stag leapt merrily by them, and the birds sat still upon the boughs, and sang whatever they knew.
No mishap overtook them; if they had stayed too late in the forest, and night came on, they laid themselves down near one another upon the moss, and slept until morning came, and their mother knew this and did not worry on their account.
Once when they had spent the night in the wood and the dawn had roused them, they saw a beautiful child in a shining white dress sitting near their bed. He got up and looked quite kindly at them, but said nothing and went into the forest. And when they looked round they found that they had been sleeping quite close to a precipice, and would certainly have fallen into it in the darkness if they had gone only a few paces further. And their mother told them that it must have been the angel who watches over good children.
Snow-white and Rose-red kept their mother’s little cottage so neat that it was a pleasure to look inside it. In the summer Rose-red took care of the house, and every morning laid a wreath of flowers by her mother’s bed before she awoke, in which was a rose from each tree. In the winter Snow-white lit the fire and hung the kettle on the hob. The kettle was of brass and shone like gold, so brightly was it polished. In the evening, when the snowflakes fell, the mother said: ’Go, Snow- white, and bolt the door,’ and then they sat round the hearth, and the mother took her spectacles and read aloud out of a large book, and the two girls listened as they sat and spun. And close by them lay a lamb upon the floor, and behind them upon a perch sat a white dove with its head hidden beneath its wings.
One evening, as they were thus sitting comfortably together, someone knocked at the door as if he wished to be let in. The mother said: ’Quick, Rose-red, open the door, it must be a traveller who is seeking shelter.’ Rose-red went and pushed back the bolt, thinking that it was a poor man, but it was not; it was a bear that stretched his broad, black head within the door.
Rose-red screamed and sprang back, the lamb bleated, the dove fluttered, and Snow-white hid herself behind her mother’s bed. But the bear began to speak and said: ’Do not be afraid, I will do you no harm! I am half-frozen, and only want to warm myself a little beside you.’
’Poor bear,’ said the mother, ’lie down by the fire, only take care that you do not burn your coat.’ Then she cried: ’Snow-white, Rose- red, come out, the bear will do you no harm, he means well.’ So they both came out, and by-and-by the lamb and dove came nearer, and were not afraid of him. The bear said: ’Here, children, knock the snow out of my coat a little’; so they brought the broom and swept the bear’s hide clean; and he stretched himself by the fire and growled contentedly and comfortably. It was not long before they grew quite at home, and played tricks with their clumsy guest. They tugged his hair with their hands, put their feet upon his back and rolled him about, or they took a hazel-switch and beat him, and when he growled they laughed. But the bear took it all in good part, only when they were too rough he called out: ’Leave me alive, children,
’Snow-white, Rose-red, Will you beat your wooer dead?’
When it was bed-time, and the others went to bed, the mother said to the bear: ’You can lie there by the hearth, and then you will be safe from the cold and the bad weather.’ As soon as day dawned the two children let him out, and he trotted across the snow into the forest.
Henceforth the bear came every evening at the same time, laid himself down by the hearth, and let the children amuse themselves with him as much as they liked; and they got so used to him that the doors were never fastened until their black friend had arrived.
When spring had come and all outside was green, the bear said one morning to Snow-white: ’Now I must go away, and cannot come back for the whole summer.’ ’Where are you going, then, dear bear?’ asked Snow- white. ’I must go into the forest and guard my treasures from the wicked dwarfs. In the winter, when the earth is frozen hard, they are obliged to stay below and cannot work their way through; but now, when the sun has thawed and warmed the earth, they break through it, and come out to pry and steal; and what once gets into their hands, and in their caves, does not easily see daylight again.’
Snow-white was quite sorry at his departure, and as she unbolted the door for him, and the bear was hurrying out, he caught against the bolt and a piece of his hairy coat was torn off, and it seemed to Snow-white as if she had seen gold shining through it, but she was not sure about it. The bear ran away quickly, and was soon out of sight behind the trees.
A short time afterwards the mother sent her children into the forest to get firewood. There they found a big tree which lay felled on the ground, and close by the trunk something was jumping backwards and forwards in the grass, but they could not make out what it was. When they came nearer they saw a dwarf with an old withered face and a snow-white beard a yard long. The end of the beard was caught in a crevice of the tree, and the little fellow was jumping about like a dog tied to a rope, and did not know what to do.
He glared at the girls with his fiery red eyes and cried: ’Why do you stand there? Can you not come here and help me?’ ’What are you up to, little man?’ asked Rose-red. ’You stupid, prying goose!’ answered the dwarf: ’I was going to split the tree to get a little wood for cooking. The little bit of food that we people get is immediately burnt up with heavy logs; we do not swallow so much as you coarse, greedy folk. I had just driven the wedge safely in, and everything was going as I wished; but the cursed wedge was too smooth and suddenly sprang out, and the tree closed so quickly that I could not pull out my beautiful white beard; so now it is tight and I cannot get away, and the silly, sleek, milk-faced things laugh! Ugh! how odious you are!’
The children tried very hard, but they could not pull the beard out, it was caught too fast. ’I will run and fetch someone,’ said Rose-red. ’You senseless goose!’ snarled the dwarf; ’why should you fetch someone? You are already two too many for me; can you not think of something better?’ ’Don’t be impatient,’ said Snow-white, ’I will help you,’ and she pulled her scissors out of her pocket, and cut off the end of the beard.
As soon as the dwarf felt himself free he laid hold of a bag which lay amongst the roots of the tree, and which was full of gold, and lifted it up, grumbling to himself: ’Uncouth people, to cut off a piece of my fine beard. Bad luck to you!’ and then he swung the bag upon his back, and went off without even once looking at the children.
Some time afterwards Snow-white and Rose-red went to catch a dish of fish. As they came near the brook they saw something like a large grasshopper jumping towards the water, as if it were going to leap in. They ran to it and found it was the dwarf. ’Where are you going?’ said Rose-red; ’you surely don’t want to go into the water?’ ’I am not such a fool!’ cried the dwarf; ’don’t you see that the accursed fish wants to pull me in?’ The little man had been sitting there fishing, and unluckily the wind had tangled up his beard with the fishing-line; a moment later a big fish made a bite and the feeble creature had not strength to pull it out; the fish kept the upper hand and pulled the dwarf towards him. He held on to all the reeds and rushes, but it was of little good, for he was forced to follow the movements of the fish, and was in urgent danger of being dragged into the water.
The girls came just in time; they held him fast and tried to free his beard from the line, but all in vain, beard and line were entangled fast together. There was nothing to do but to bring out the scissors and cut the beard, whereby a small part of it was lost. When the dwarf saw that he screamed out: ’Is that civil, you toadstool, to disfigure a man’s face? Was it not enough to clip off the end of my beard? Now you have cut off the best part of it. I cannot let myself be seen by my people. I wish you had been made to run the soles off your shoes!’ Then he took out a sack of pearls which lay in the rushes, and without another word he dragged it away and disappeared behind a stone.
It happened that soon afterwards the mother sent the two children to the town to buy needles and thread, and laces and ribbons. The road led them across a heath upon which huge pieces of rock lay strewn about. There they noticed a large bird hovering in the air, flying slowly round and round above them; it sank lower and lower, and at last settled near a rock not far away. Immediately they heard a loud, piteous cry. They ran up and saw with horror that the eagle had seized their old acquaintance the dwarf, and was going to carry him off.
The children, full of pity, at once took tight hold of the little man, and pulled against the eagle so long that at last he let his booty go. As soon as the dwarf had recovered from his first fright he cried with his shrill voice: ’Could you not have done it more carefully! You dragged at my brown coat so that it is all torn and full of holes, you clumsy creatures!’ Then he took up a sack full of precious stones, and slipped away again under the rock into his hole. The girls, who by this time were used to his ingratitude, went on their way and did their business in town.
As they crossed the heath again on their way home they surprised the dwarf, who had emptied out his bag of precious stones in a clean spot, and had not thought that anyone would come there so late. The evening sun shone upon the brilliant stones; they glittered and sparkled with all colours so beautifully that the children stood still and stared at them. ’Why do you stand gaping there?’ cried the dwarf, and his ashen- grey face became copper-red with rage. He was still cursing when a loud growling was heard, and a black bear came trotting towards them out of the forest. The dwarf sprang up in a fright, but he could not reach his cave, for the bear was already close. Then in the dread of his heart he cried: ’Dear Mr Bear, spare me, I will give you all my treasures; look, the beautiful jewels lying there! Grant me my life; what do you want with such a slender little fellow as I? you would not feel me between your teeth. Come, take these two wicked girls, they are tender morsels for you, fat as young quails; for mercy’s sake eat them!’ The bear took no heed of his words, but gave the wicked creature a single blow with his paw, and he did not move again.
The girls had run away, but the bear called to them: ’Snow-white and Rose-red, do not be afraid; wait, I will come with you.’ Then they recognized his voice and waited, and when he came up to them suddenly his bearskin fell off, and he stood there a handsome man, clothed all in gold. ’I am a king’s son,’ he said, ’and I was bewitched by that wicked dwarf, who had stolen my treasures; I have had to run about the forest as a savage bear until I was freed by his death. Now he has got his well-deserved punishment.
Snow-white was married to him, and Rose-red to his brother, and they divided between them the great treasure which the dwarf had gathered together in his cave. The old mother lived peacefully and happily with her children for many years. She took the two rose-trees with her, and they stood before her window, and every year bore the most beautiful roses, white and red.
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