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pocket-ozwynn · 1 year

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Offline Valor: Chapter 3

[Borrower!AU]

Previous Chapter: Chapter 2

Next Chapter: Chapter 4

Word Count: 3874

CW: blood, mentions of death, light adult language

Not two minutes after being called a ‘titan’ and Zelly had nearly fallen on her face. She’d been so caught up in trying to make it out into the hallway, that somehow she’d stumbled over her feet. She choked back a bark of profanity as she clutched the chilled can of Baja Blast and braced herself against the wall. At least she was out of sight from Rowan.

She felt the rising need to scream. This was insane.

She shook her leg until one sandal flew off, then did likewise with the other before hurrying off towards the opposite end of the house. Hopefully that would give her enough privacy to vent some of her anxiety without totally unnerving her diminutive guest. Her feet thumped across the cool hardwood as her mind swam with noncoherent thoughts…

Wonder and worry mingled caustically as Zelly hurried Rowan in. And while she couldn’t deny the quiet marveling she had carrying this finger-tall man in her hands, there was also a certain degree of horror and concern. He felt so frail. His breathing was shallow and his muscles faintly trembled as he spent the last of his energy just staying awake. And when he slipped into unconsciousness and nearly fell out of her hands, she was run through with a fresh spike of anxiety. She couldn’t ignore how delicate this life she held in her hands was—like flickering embers of a dying flame.

She made a mental checklist of what to do: first, she’d need to stop the bleeding; second, she’d need to get his core body temperature down; third, water. Rowan was bound to be dehydrated, so she’d need to make sure to get him a bottle cap full and make sure he sipped.

As she got the kitchen sink going, she noticed something. It was a little thing–literally–but she noticed his hand. The palm was upturned and the fingers were slightly curled…

His hand looked just like hers.

After staring for perhaps a beat too long, she shook herself from her stupor and gingerly laid the Borrower out on the countertop. Carefully pinching the front of Rowan’s shirt between her nails, she ripped it twain with an effortless tug. The sight of a red-slick chest was all too familiar to her as she peeled back the halves. With lips pursed, she tugged the ruined tunic and microfiber cloth-turned-cloak off and set them to the side before gathering him up once more to examine the man closer.

Zelly’s eyes widened slightly as she examined him. Not because of the blood, but rather because of how much more worn and strong his body was than she first thought. Rowan had been covered up before, but now she saw the pale scars marbled into surprisingly lean muscles.

And that burn. Not the sunburn (that thankfully was contained to everything above the neck), but rather the second degree scar tissue that went up from his waist to armpit—it covered a huge chunk of his right side. What had done something like that? If that was on someone her size, that would’ve been an utterly massive injury that would’ve called for immediate hospitalization. But for someone like Rowan, it could’ve been anything she might’ve considered mundane…a grill? A firework? Had it been an accident, or something more cruel? She couldn’t consider the possibilities—she had to focus.

Step one, stop the bleeding. She briefly tested the faucet’s flow before gently bringing his body over so the tap water would flow over him like a cool waterfall. Zelly examined Rowan as she carefully washed him, her eyes scanning every detail of his chest for any signs of injury. And as the light refracted off of the glistening skin as she cradled his body in her fingers, she couldn’t help but wonder what life was going to be like after she turned off the sink.

She found the source of the bleeding after getting him washed off. It was a diagonal cut roughly the size of Rowan’s hand that ran across his breast.

Thankfully, it was largely stitched up with the bleeding only coming from the sternum-ward side. It looked like a few stitches had popped. And while she couldn’t be sure what caused that in the first place (Chu Chu maybe?), her mind was caught up with who did the stitches in the first place. Rowan? Or someone else?

Thankfully the treatment was easy enough. His blood coagulated fairly quickly after she applied pressure on the wound with the tip of a clean kitchen towel for about five minutes. From there she applied some Vaseline, then—with the smallest band-aid she could find, which was still huge in comparison—she wrapped the band-aid as best as she could, then got him settled into a shot glass filled with cool water to get him started.

And yes, the shot glass was a stupid idea. But hey, it worked.

Wood turned to carpet as she reached the living room. She fumbled with the pull tab on her soda as her hands uncharacteristically shook. After a few moments of losing the fight to her Baja Blast, she finally cracked it open on the third anxious lap around her living room. She took a drawn out swig and savored the fizzing lime as she allowed the last ten minutes to sink in.

God, what the actual hell, Zell, she silently lamented. She still felt the imprint of Rowan—the sensation was burned into her memory: a full-grown man breathing shallow, ragged breaths as he lay unconscious in her pal-

“Okay, so tiny men just-” Zelly exhaled through her teeth. She tried violently shaking the feeling from her hand, as if it was covered in fire ants. “-EXIST now? Great, cool, good!!! Nothing insane about THAT, right?!”

With no one to respond to her exasperated query, she took another defeated swig. She silently wished for a stronger drink, but she knew better than to consider that when she was dealing with a patient. She chugged the rest of her drink, set it on the nightstand, then threw herself onto the couch. She buried her palms into her eyes as she just groaned.

Before stepping out of the kitchen, Zelly had left Rowan with a Gatorade cap filled with water. It had been comically large in comparison, but it was clean water that he could drink and that’s what mattered. Food would be next, despite his insistence.

But what came after that?

A familiar, useless feeling percolated at the corners of her heart, and she had to be careful not to let it overwhelm her again. But thinking realistically, she was just some idiot streamer right? What was she going to do to help this weathered warrior, aside from putting a band-aid on his chest and getting him a bowl of ramen?

God, her eyes were just…Opened now, weren’t they? That terrified Zelly. As an EMT she saw a lot of gruesome things that she could never unsee, but she eventually grew desensitized to it. But Rowan and these Borrower (she still had no idea what that meant) had been living right under her nose this whole time…how many were there? Were there other things like fairies that were real too? And all of those scars on his body…were those by accident? Or did someone inflict those upon him?

“You’re spiraling, babe,” Zelly noted quietly to herself as she felt the anxiety rising. She needed something to keep her busy. And while she sorely doubted there was a WikiHow that would help her reconcile her new reality, she still wanted to give it a shot.

So she fished out her phone and frantically typed with it held above her face at arm’s length. First she searched for Borrowers—that’s what Rowan called himself after all, so it seemed appropriate to start there. Nothing came up, though she wasn’t really surprised. She screwed up her lips and tried Little Men next, but only an old-as-dirt book from the 1800’s that apparently was the sequel to Little Women. Interesting! But still useless.

No matter how hard she searched, she couldn’t find anything that matched Rowan’s description. She tried Googling fairies, leprechauns, Pikmin, tiny-little-elf-men…

Nothing.

And while she got close, everything she found missed the mark (though it didn’t help that she would find herself aimlessly scrolling through Instagram without realizing it at times). Her anxiety now mixed with frustration. Surely she couldn’t really be the first person to meet a Borrower before right? The weight of that implication was too much for her to really consider–she never asked for that burden of responsibility.

Zelly racked her brain for more possibilities. She hadn’t tried pixies yet, right? She was three letters in, and a migraine began to blossom right behind her eyes. A string of colorful swears tumbled past tired lips as she stopped typing.

“This is pointless,” she murmured to herself. She kept her phone lifted as she closed her eyes to just try and focus on her breathing. She could hear the distant squawking of a mediocre marching band, the splashing of unseen cannonballs, and the laughter of children amidst the anxious yells of fretting parents.

Why did it have to be her?

Before Zelly could bemoan her fate further, her phone vibrated and slipped through her fingers. It dropped and smacked her square in the face—a nonsensical cocktail of profanity and anatomical slang was her only response after a brief yelp of surprise. She sat up with a humiliated huff before answering the phone.

“S-Sup?” Zelly ran her fingers through her hair and prayed she could keep the nervousness out of her voice. She hadn’t even checked who’d called her anyways…

//Hey babe!// It was Nikol. //Sup? You okay?//

“Yup,” Zelly lied with a smile. She knew she couldn’t be honest with how she was really feeling, but her reality was too insane to admit at the moment, “Toooooooooootally fine. What about you?"

There was a pause. //Oh, cool! I was worried. Are you still comin’? I thought we were grabbing Starbucks?//

Realization hit Zelly like a truck. Nikol was the whole reason she found Rowan in the first place—her silly little “mental illness Starbucks trip.” It was the reason why she was able to save him from the jaws of her neighbor’s cat.

“Oh shit, I-” Zelly gasped. “Dude, I TOTALLY spaced! I’m so sorry!”

She chewed her lip as she entertained the notion of telling Nikol.

On the one hand, Nikol was her best friend—Nikol knew EVERYTHING about Zelly. But on the other hand, she couldn’t violate Rowan’s privacy. That poor man had clearly been through a lot. And while she did trust Nikol to keep a secret, it didn’t feel right to talk about Rowan without his consent.

“Something came up,” Zelly replied as guilt gripped her gut. “S-Sorry baby girl. I hate to bail on you like this, I just…have to take care of something. Rain check?”

//For sure, no worries. Do what you gotta do. Just let me know if you need anything, ‘kay?//

Zelly licked her lips, her heart beat heavily in her throat. “Y-Yeah, for sure. Thanks dude. I’ll, um…I’ll text you when I can, alright?”

//Sounds good. Mwuah.//

Zelly echoed the affection before hanging up. She let the phone drop to the floor before ruffling her hair with a restrained groan.

Now what?

—

Zelly held her breath as she peered around the corner back into the kitchen. There was a 50% chance the guy just bolted while she was away (wouldn’t be the first time), but to her surprise Rowan hadn’t left.

Since she’d been gone, he’d climbed out of the shot glass and hung his boots to dry along the rim of the glass. Meanwhile, the man knelt quietly on the countertop with his head bowed and eyes closed. Unlike Zelly, Rowan was remarkably calm–which was shocking, given how much worse his day had been in comparison. Sunlight poured through the kitchen window and washed over him as he held his microfiber cloak reverently in his hands.

She caught herself staring again.

Zelly tried to keep her approach deft as she crept into the kitchen, lest she startle him. She spied his ruined shirt and a teeny satchel over by the obnoxiously bright orange Gatorade cap she had filled with some water for him to drink while she was away.

The closer she got to him, the more she found herself marveling again. And she wasn’t sure why.

“H-Hey,” Zelly croaked as she finally got within arm’s reach. She jumped as Rowan scooted back with a start, his eyes snapped open with wild surprise—he dropped a hand and went for one of his thumb tack daggers. When he saw it was Zelly however, his demeanor shifted. He took the cloak in his lap and in a single, fluid motion threw it around his shoulders and wrapped it in such a way that it fell like an impromptu poncho to cover his scarred chest.

“S-Sorry!” Zelly took a step back in reply, her hands raised. “I didn’t mean to startle you!”

“N-No no,” Rowan murmured bashfully. “The apology is mine, I would have covered up had I known you were there. I was just, ah…”

His voice trailed off before he cleared his throat. “Never mind. Forgive me.”

“You’re fine dude,” Zelly chuckled softly. “It’s not like you’re the first guy I’ve seen shirtless, so…”

Rowan didn’t reply. She wasn’t quite sure if he was spacing out or still feeling the fatigue of the heat exhaustion, but he still didn’t look great. When was the last time he ate? Originally she came in ready to learn all about him and his world, but now…that didn’t seem nearly as important.

“How hungry are you?”

Rowan looked up with bleary eyes. “Sorry?”

“How hungry are you?” Zelly repeated with a raised eyebrow.

Rowan looked somewhere between confused and conflicted. After a pregnant moment of hesitation, he shook his head. “‘Twill be alright. I-“

“Yeah that’s bull,” she teased. She realized that might’ve come off a bit harshly, but she didn’t back down—she knew she was right. “Do you have any allergies?”

Rowan looked bewildered. “No, but I-“

That was all she needed. With a nod, Zelly grabbed her phone and pulled up GrubHub. She leaned up against the counter, but kept Rowan visible right in her periphery. “Swag, I’m ordering Greek then.”

“W-What do you...?” Exasperation crept into Rowan’s voice as he moved to stand. He couldn’t even finish his question, he seemed too tired to bother, “But please, Miss Zelly, you do not have to worry about me. If this is too much of a hassle, rest assured I am fi-“

“It’s not a hassle.” She flashed him a smile as she got their order put together: two Deluxe Gyros (one lamb, one falafel. She wasn’t sure if Rowan was a vegetarian or not), some fried pita served with a couple sides of tzatziki sauce, and some sweet potato fries. Most of this stuff would be MASSIVE compared to him, but she hoped it would be a nice spread of some mild food that Rowan could pick at while also making sure he didn’t eat himself sick.

“Besides—” Zelly dropped down slightly so she could be at eye-level with Rowan. He took an instinctual step back, but he didn’t seem overly surprised by the sudden motion. Then, with a dramatic flourish, she hit the order button, “—the order’s been placed, they’ll be on their way!”

“I…do not understand,” Rowan furrowed his brow, looking from her to her phone. Borrowers probably didn’t have phones, huh? Well, that was a question for another time.

“Look dude,” Zelly huffed after noticing his conflicted expression. “I’m starving. And if I’m starving that means you sure as hell are. You can try and be big, tough, macho-man or whatever, but there’ll be plenty for both of us. And I’ll feel a lot better when I know you’ve eaten, okay?”

Rowan seemed to sense that this wasn’t a fight he was going to win. “Thank you, Miss Zelly. I appreciate your generosity. Though I do feel guilty…”

Zelly put a hand up on the counter and grinned. “Well don’t then, that’s stupid. I’m offering you food.”

“You wanted answers, correct?” Rowan asked. “And I promised not to leave before I gave them, but I did not mean to impose and force you to provide food.”

“First of all, I wasn’t forced,” she pointed out. “Second, I mean…yeah. I do have questions. But they can wait.”

Zelly pursed her lips. She could spy the burned tissue peeking out from what his cloak couldn’t cover on his chest.

“You’ve been through a helluva lot,” she breathed, her gaze returning to Rowan’s. “And I want to help—even if it means getting us some takeout. So yeah, don’t worry–I can wait.”

Rowan’s expression was conflicted. There was frustration, but the exhaustion seemed to outweigh it…and even for the briefest of moments, he looked grateful. Zelly smiled.

This she could do.

…

Basil was disgustingly sober.

Were it not for his fast, he would’ve been nursing his brewing frustration with a frothy pint. The day was blistering, and the prospects of good work were few. Clip had gathered some scavenging listings from the Carvers League in town, and the rest of their crew had split off for the afternoon.

Wanting to get out of the sun, the pair ducked into The Lively Priest. And though Basil quietly hoped he could relish in the second-hand revelry of others, he was met with the sleepy, boring atmosphere of a handful of farmers and travelers just looking to grab some shade and water. They’d grabbed a corner table and he’d been forced to settle on iced water while Clip barely touched his ale.

The Freewalker’s mind wandered as he tuned out the insistent rustling of leaflets as his companion did his research. He peered over the scrawny Borrower’s shoulder to see if he couldn’t find a little entertainment. There was a trio of merchants from the Cherrycliffs who had come in not too long ago who were just sitting at the counter silently signing to one another. Closer towards the entrance, the chef spoke with a baby faced courier who wore the colors of House Silver.

But what really caught his attention was the waitress.

She was a beautiful, ageless Faofolk with literal porcelain skin and curves chiseled in all the right places. She glided gracefully, her feet clinked against the wooden floor as she moved. She was a pretty little dancer, and Basil was confident he could get her spinning to his new tune.

The rustling stopped.

“No.”

Basil sneered, his eyes snapping back to Clip. His partner knew what was on his mind, and it made his blood boil. “Do your job.”

Clip sighed as he peeled back from his papers and splayed both hands. “I am–in fact, I believe I found myself doing BOTH of our jobs. Sometimes I feel like I should be in charge of the crew–you barely do jackdreg while I’m the one stuck doin’ all the REAL work.”

Basil picked up his empty plastic mug and tipped it back. The teeny trickle of melted water did little to whet his appetite, so he took up a bit of ice and chewed it.

“Skies yer annoying,” was the best retort the giant of a Borrower could muster. “Just read the damn papers and get us somethin’ GOOD this time.”

“The last job was good,” Clip insisted with a pointed glare. “300 notes got us three meals, yeah?”

“The last job was sifting through bodies,” Basil’s lips curled back with a sneer. He leaned back till his chair groaned beneath him. His skin crawled as he remembered the stench of the dead and picking bloodsoaked pockets. “I want somethin’ with riches–not whatever skuggin’ cud Ash was suckin’ on.”

“Careful for how you speak of the dead,” his companion warned him as he picked up his own mug for a careful sip–the ungrateful man didn’t even seem to enjoy his drink. “Clan Ash was snuffed out violently, I doubt their spirits are at peace…”

Basil ignored the superstitious warning. “Listen, I wanna snag a BIG job this time! I wanna rub shoulders with the ELITE like the Silvers and Blooms–not with the molderin’ dead and mumblin’ priests.”

He swirled around the crushed ice as he mused. “How ‘bout a job with arcana? Courtiers pay good for that junk, right?”

His companion’s expression turned grave. Clip took a longer sip on his spirits this time, “Nothing good ever comes from titanis arcana, boss–and you know it.”

Clip shot a careful glance at Basil’s empty mug of ice. “‘Sides, don’t your people have taboos on even touching it?”

Basil’s blood boiled as his stomach growled. He slammed the mug down–a faint crack spidered up the side. It caused enough noise to prompt the Faofolk waitress to jump and shoot him a glare. Despite his infatuation prior, the Freewalker now had little care for the brittle woman at the moment–Clip had poked the hornet’s nest.

“Like I care what the ‘Walkers think,” he spat. “Who cares about skuggin’ taboos when you could eat? Tell me bud, when was the last time you ate? Not crust, not rat–but ate REAL food?”

Clip hesitated.

“Exactly,” Basil replied with a huff, his syllables coated with crushed ice. “Harvests ain’t yieldin’ what the use’ta, and the Crown’s taxes are drainin’ us dry. …I say we go big. Just cuz arcana is a bitter dreg for some, don’t mean it hasta be for hardworkin’ guys like us–know what I’m sayin’? So how ‘bout we get on that cricket first, and snag a big payout while we can?”

The seconds ticked. Eventually, Clip sighed. “Well…there is one job we could try…” A crooked grin split across Basil’s face.

“Adda boy,” the Freewalker rumbled.

Clip carefully rummaged through the pile before drawing out a surprisingly clean piece of paper. He gave it a once over before pushing it towards Basil with his fingertips. It had pretty, useless filigree along the edges and a picture which Clip tapped.

It was an unremarkable piece of arcana: a thin, boring rectangle. And while the diagram indicated it had a sheath that could slide back to reveal yet another, smaller square hidden inside, he sneered at how shockingly simple Titans could be.

“‘S’all?” Basil demanded. “What the Sky’s shite is that suppose’ta be?”

“The Faofolk call it a Youesbee,” Clip shrugged. “Dunno much beyond that…only that some newly wedded noble wants one, and he is willin’ to pay a queen’s coffer for it.”

“How much we talkin’?” Basil huffed. “I know of some pretty poor queens…”

“Fifteen hundred notes.”

Basil balked. “Bullscrap.”

Clip shook his head. “Like I said…queen’s coffer. Dunno what is so important ‘bout it—but he wants one. Now the trick is finding one… ’s’not something you would find just anywhere.”

Basil tapped his finger against the mug. His mind swam with ideas of where to look, but one particularly colorful and bright domain stood out. He’d seen plenty of arcana there before…

“I think I know a place,” he smirked. “Get hungry, bud–we’re eatin’ good tonight.

#g/t #giant/tiny #sfw g/t #g/t writing #sfw g/t writing #wholesome giantess #gentle giantess #The Borrowers #Borrowers!AU #Borrower x Streamer #Offline Valor #ogtoc Rowan #ogtoc Zelly #HA I don't care if it's midnight imma post this NOW #this is still on a technical hiatus #but the creative juices were flowing enough that we got to this point<3 #also we HAD to introduce The Goons eventually #so meet Basil and Clip<3 #wonder what this Youesbee thing is huh

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