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whaleofatjme1920 · 3 years

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In the Backyard Catching Fireflies (Hoodie X F!Reader X Masky)

In the Backyard Catching Fireflies

[Hoodie X F!Reader X Masky]

[Warnings: slight blood]

You honestly could have dreamed you would be in this type of situation if you were looking at this from the lens of last year's Reader. It was a mistake to even make contact with them to begin with.

As a child, your mother would often bring you into the woods to look for fun things: flowers, mushrooms, rocks, sometimes bones or pieces of trees. Other times, she brought you out there to practice her own magick, other days it was just to spend time in nature, and every other time than those reasons was just to spend time with you, her one and only beloved daughter. The correct term would be ‘witch’ but your mother never actually called herself one. Magickal practitioner, maybe, but never a ‘witch.’ You, on the other hand, absolutely took that term with pride.

You being a witch was what accidentally caused you to meet them to begin with. One evening, while out and about in the forest on the edge of town where you looked for fresh violets to eventually make violet syrup for your daughter’s ‘magical creature tea party,’ you found your favorite stretch of woods filled with the scent of blood. How strange, and it didn’t strike you as an animal’s blood. No, this was much stronger, more metallic, and carried the weight of sins past in its wake. As you looked around the forest to see what on earth was causing the terrible scent, you saw two men get spit out in between the trees. They flailed for a moment before getting tossed onto the forest floor, looking so much worse for wear.

“Oh my gods!” You exclaimed in surprise as you began to run over to the two, wondering if they were okay. You drew cautiously near them, only momentarily pausing to grab a large stick from the ground should they pounce when you finally got close enough to see their faces. How peculiar - their faces were covered. The one in the yellow hoodie had a ski-mask with a frown etched onto its surface, and the one in the tan coat was donned with a white mask with feminine features.

Your eyes flicked down to their midsections - that’s where the blood came from. They’re out cold, and you confirm that by trying to get them up. No dice. Against your better judgement, you load them onto your little wagon and bring them back to the car. It wouldn’t be right for you to just… leave them to bleed all over the forest floor.

You entered back into your house around the early evening, tired from trying to drag two grown men much bigger than you into your garage and set them up so you can work on them.

“Mommy?” Your small daughter’s voice piped in as she popped her head through the door leading to the garage where you were. “Who are they?”

“Got hurt,” you replied. “Can you get me the first aid kit?”

Your little girl smiled widely and nodded before she quickly zoomed back into the house. “Make sure to get the lavender and rosemary oil too! Can you do that for me, Magnolia?” You called out.

You heard your little girl running around as if she went back to get something. She eventually came back to the door, her arms full of things she thought you needed and the things you actually needed. “Thank you so much, baby,” you said with a small smile, petting her head as she put the things down on the table for you. “Go upstairs and watch some TV for me, okay? I don’t think I want to overwhelm our guests.”

At the sound of being able to watch more spongebob, she zoomed off and allowed you to get to work.

You mentally asked the two men before you to forgive the intrusion as you lifted their shirts to get at their wounds. You’re not sure you’ve ever seen something like this before. Is that… Are those claw marks? You dab a piece of cloth with some isopropyl alcohol and move to the white masked man and get three of the four lines cleaned when he awoke. His eyes shot open and his hand was gripping painfully tight at your wrist.

“Who the hell are you?” He asked in a panic, struggling to get you off of him in his half awake state. “Where are we?”

“Woah!” You cried out as you attempted to wriggle your hand free from his grasp. “I’m just cleaning you up-”

“Where are we?” He’s rattling off questions so fast and so loud that it wakes the second one up.

Due to you not being able to hold him down as well, he was able to pounce up and pin you to the ground, ready to end your life.

“Agh- stop!” You cried out in shock. “I just wanted to patch you two up!”

The man in the ski mask looked into your eyes for any hint of lying, or deception only to find none. Still, you were a normal person getting involved with two proxies. That in itself warrants death according to their society’s rules - and the Slender Man’s will.

“Wait,” the man in the white mask sighed. “Let her finish this up. You’re bleeding out on the floor.”

On cue at his comrade’s words, Hoodie glanced down to his midsection. He was indeed bleeding out on the garage floor and by extension, you. Realizing he was in no state to even consider inflicting damage, he relented.

An awkward silence quickly built up once you were back working on them. “So… What’re your names?”

“Hoodie.”

“Masky.”

“Interesting names,” you noted as you continued to work. “I’m Reader.”

“Interesting name,” Masky mirrors.

You laugh slightly.

That wasn’t the last you saw of the two men. They left almost immediately after being patched up much to your chagrin, but came back about a week later to properly thank you.

“We noticed some spell books in your garage before we left,” Hoodie began before nodding for Masky to go to the back of the car (they stole). “One of them being florals and it looked like you had some space in the front of your house. So, we brought you some flowers.”

You move your vision from over Hoodie’s shoulder to see Masky holding planters full of flower’s you’ve never even seen before. “Oh my gods,” you said in slight surprise as Masky places the small bushes down in front of their designated spots.

“We can plant them for you - or if you don’t like them we can-”

“No, no! They’re beautiful and the front lawn needs some color,” you beamed, looking at the array of colors dotting your front lawn. “How did… Where did you even find those?”

“We know a guy,” Masky said as he went back to the car to get a shovel.

You ended up going out there to help them plant the flower bushes and spent some more time in their company while you worked.

“So, tell me about yourself,” Masky said as he began to carefully place one of the shrubs into the dirt.

“Too broad,” you teased slightly.

Masky rolled his brown eyes. “You and magick.”

“My mother practiced, now I do,” you replied as you gently scooped back some of the dirt. “Most of it is home related work, but these plants are such a big help.” You took in their sweet scent. Come to think of it, you don’t think you’ve ever seen these types of flowers before anywhere. “What about you two?”

“Travelers, of some sort,” Hoodie piped in. “Never stay in one place for too long.” He glanced over to Masky to continue.

“That’s pretty much it,” Masky whistled slightly. “Used to be film students. Now we just… Go wherever the winds take us.”

From there, you began to hear stories from the two. Mostly little adventures they’d gone to, creepy towns they never wished to visit ever again, people they wished they stayed in contact with and everything and anything in between. It was actually rather nice to talk to other adults - and while they were relatively quiet about their past past, they seemed at ease talking with you about these things.

In return, you told them about other memories and anecdotes in your life. Small memories of climbing up the mountain with your mother, meeting your friends, your academic adventures and what brought you out to this part of the country.

“Wanted to get away from it all, I guess,” you said as the three of you sat on the front porch. “Figured it would be better to start again out here than face everything that had happened back there.”

Hoodie shared a look with Masky for but a moment. You hadn’t gone into detail about what happened back then, but they could somewhat fill in the lines with their experience of the world so far.

They came by plenty of times after that - sometimes together, sometimes not. Most of the time they stayed on your porch with you, chatting away about the day’s events and what would come next. You told them about your job, a teacher’s assistant to middle schoolers, and how you often passed your time. They eventually showed you their faces - and lord were they handsome - and still refused to tell you about their actual work.

“It’s dangerous, that’s all you need to know,” Hoodie had said one night while sipping a beer bottle.

Yet, they seemed to come by even more than usual when they met your darling little girl, Magnolia. Somehow, they’d managed to avoid her and her them throughout all their visits, but one afternoon near the beginning of the school year, that all changed.

She’s only 7, and the school bus often lets her out about a block from your home. You trust her enough to walk there and back (though another part of you wants to hold onto her forever and never let go).

“What time is it?” You hummed, sipping at your iced tea.

“About… 3:30, why?” Masky asked as he looked at his watch.

You immediately perked up. “She should be home soon,” you said eyes wandering from the two men on the steps with you towards the direction you knew your little girl was going to be coming from. And just like clockwork, there she was.

“Mommy!” She cried out, a large smile on her face as she began to run the rest of the way to the front steps.

“Mags!” You giggled as you maneuvered your way through the two men before hurriedly meeting her half way. “There’s my special little girl,” you laughed, taking her into your arms, picking her up and spinning her. “How was your day?” You ask, carrying her in your arms as you make it back to the front porch.

Masky and Hoodie move aside slightly as you sit back down with Magnolia on your lap.

“It was so fun! Today, we talked about bugs!”

“You did?” You asked as she nodded rapidly. “Tell me all about it while I get you something to drink and a snack, okay?” You said as you put her onto the steps before standing and opening the front door - and propping it open so you could still hear her and see her from the kitchen.

“We learned all about butterflies and what happens when they’re babies and become pretty,” Magnolia began to explain. “And then Miss Honey said we were gonna get caterpillar babies in our classroom and release them later. And then, she told us about bees and how bumbly they are-”

You listened to Magnolia go on about her lesson with a small smile as you fixed her some iced tea and apple slices. You could listen to her all day. When you failed to answer one of her questions, you heard Masky picking it back up for you.

“Hey Mommy? Why is the sky blue?”

A beat of silence because you honestly didn’t hear it.

“The atmosphere,” Masky began as he looked up at the perfectly azure sky. “You know what the states of matter are, don’t you?”

Magnolia nodded. “I do! Solid, liquid and gas,” she answered.

Masky smiled back and nodded. “Yeah, that’s it. Atmosphere is air and it covers the whole earth like a blanket,” he explained.

“It does?”

“Absolutely,” Hoodie chimed in.

Magnolia looked in between the two men with stars in her eyes, urging them to continue.

“The atmosphere changes the way that light from the sun reaches us,” Masky continued. “Light comes to us in wavelengths,” he moves his hand up and down like ‘waves’ to show what he means. “And those wavelengths look different depending on what they hit,” he claps his hands together, “and how long they are.”

“Do shorter wave… wavelengths show different colors?” Magnolia asks, clearly enamored in Masky’s teaching.

“Smart girl,” Masky chuckled softly as he ruffled her hair.

You finally come back from the kitchen with Magnolia’s snack and drink, more than pleased to see how well Masky and Hoodie were doing with her. Magnolia was admittedly a shy girl - she never really warmed up to people easily, especially not men given the situation with her father (who you’d rather not think about most days).

“And what about rainbows? Are those wavelengths?”

Both Hoodie and Masky laughed slightly before entertaining your daughter’s question as she sipped on her drink and bit into the apple slices. You watched with a small smile as you listened to the three talk.

After meeting Magnolia, Hoodie and Masky were more often at your house than not. And it carried on like that throughout the school year.

Masky often helped Magnolia with her science and math when you didn’t (feel like it).

“Mhm, and how many do you need to add to 5 in order to make 9?” Masky asked, eyes

glancing between your daughter and her math worksheet.

Magnolia smiled widely, “It’s 4.” She said it so confidently that you felt your heart burst from the living room.

“Good job,” Masky smiled back just as widely. “I’m sure you don’t know what you have to add to 8 to get 15, do you?”

“7!”

“Gods, you are so smart,” Masky chuckled warmly, hand once again ruffling her hair.

Hoodie was much more inclined to help with her reading and language arts skills. Seemed he had a knack for those things over math and science anyways.

“Spell bridge.”

“B-R-I-D-G-E.” Magnolia said with a grin.

Hoodie nodded. “Alright, how about… Believe?”

Magnolia furrowed her eyebrows slightly but gave a stab at it anyways. “B-E-L… I-E-V-E.” I before E, right?

“Good one. And laughter?”

“L-A-U-... F-no… G-H… T-E-R?”

“Nice job!” Hoodie complimente in an excited tone, scooping Magnolia up onto his lap making her burst into a fit of giggles. “You are seriously gonna kick everyone’s butt at the spelling bee on Friday.”

While they grew closer with your little girl, you noticed they had also grown oddly close with you as well. It came in little bouts - sometimes Masky would be cuddling with you on the couch while you watched the late night news. Hoodie would sometimes spend time with you in the garden and help when he didn’t have to - he was there just because he wanted to be with you. There were some days when they’d get you little trinkets, plants and herbs to help with your magick. Masky would even remind you of the full moon so you could put a jug out for moon water - and Hoodie would inform you of when the planets were in retrograde to potentially explain any odd behavior (remember: mundane of magickal.) They were helpful. Other times the three of you would spend the day together and eat brunch and act like your own individual family unit. And in your own unique way, you were - what with Magnolia now referring to the two men as her ‘aunt Hoodie’ and ‘uncle Masky’ much to the former’s original hesitance to accept that title.

It wasn’t just you feeling this way either, it was both of them as well. Masky was surprised to see how fast Hoodie had grown to care about you as Hoodie doesn’t really care about anything anymore. Maybe himself, definitely Masky, and definitely the other two in their group - but that’s it. To care for a human and her child… That’s admittedly out of pocket for him. They’re not sure what exactly to call it, maybe it’s love, but it’s a different kind of love. One that doesn’t have a name.

Ever since they entered your life things have been better. Life has been sweeter. Your little girl is more outgoing than ever and she’s finally coming out of her shell with not one, but two positive male role models.

And that led to now. The sun had finally dipped below the horizon and the stars were coming out to play. Magnolia was about to go on summer break - and the four of you had been planning on visiting the beach sometime soon. There were a lot of things to look forward to (another magical creature plus aunt Hoodie and uncle Masky tea party) being one of those things.

“Careful with the jar, Mags,” Hoodie said as he handed Magnolia a good sized mason jar to her awiting hands.

“I will!” Magnolia said before she zipped outside the backyard.

“Masky, you want anything to drink?” Hoodie called out from the kitchen as you got together the materials for s’mores.

“Lemonade, if we have it,” Masky replied.

“Good choice,” Hoodie mumbled before turning to the fridge.

After the two of you had everything you needed, you and Hoodie went out to the backyard and started to set everything up on the glass table Masky sat at. You settled into your seat as Hoodie got a fire going in the pit and when that was ready, he let it burn and took a seat at the other side of you. With Masky to your right and Hoodie to your left, you felt an odd sense of peace.

“It’s a nice night, yeah?” You hummed out in content as you watched your baby dance around with the fireflies.

“It sure is,” Hoodie agreed, hand lightly resting on top of yours.

“Ditto,” Masky smiled, arm now around your shoulders.

In the grass, Magnolia giggled as she caught fireflies, admiring how beautiful the flashes of green looked as they danced through the swaying leaves of grass.

#masky #hoodie #marble hornets #creepypasta #creepypasta x reader #masky x reader #hoodie x reader #mh #reader insert #x reader #masky headcanon #hoodie headcanon #marble hornets x reader #fluff

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tchallasbabymama · 3 years

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Troubled Waters Prologue

Hey y’all! Some of you may have seen this already, but I took it down and reworked it a little bit. Check out my masterlist to read my other stories, and let me know if you want to be tagged in anything. Enjoy!

Word count: 1,723

Aziza [a-zee-za] noun: A benevolent magical species with moderate stature, pointed ears, colorful wings, and deep brown skin that always has a slight glow. They enjoy music, dancing, and frolicking with human children. They also have a propensity for plant magic and hunting and tend to dwell in or around the rainforest.

Long before humans ever stepped foot in Wakanda, the aziza were appointed guardians of the land by the panther goddess, Bast. Aziza lived in harmony with the other magical beings, with a few exceptions, and the queen of the aziza ruled over all of Wakanda. That is until these strange, magicless creatures stumbled into the forest one day and were immediately accosted by some of the more malevolent beings that inhabited the land. Several aziza sprang into action to protect the newcomers and were able to stop the evil obambo from possessing them and driving them mad. When the heroic team of aziza brought the defenseless humans to the queen, she welcomed them into her kingdom with open arms and gave them their own plot of land that was locked between her forest and a dangerous mountain range.

When left to their own devices, the humans began to fight with each other over resources and the right to rule. Queen Ani grew tired of the fighting and called on Bast to help end the constant wars. The goddess instructed her to find a man named Bashenga and bring him to her garden. Apparently, her favorite flower had a strange effect on humans. To all the other beings under her rule, the flower simply acted as an ointment of sorts, but it made humans powerful. Queen Ani followed Bast’s instructions and ground up the petals for Bashenga to consume. She buried him in the rich soil, and when he emerged minutes later, he was a new man. He was a leader, a champion, a king.

Humans and magical beings lived in harmony in isolation from the outside world for centuries until a strange thing started happening on the continent. People were disappearing from the western coast, and when the queen of the aziza heard about it, she brought it to the human king’s attention. King Amir refused to help out of fear of exposing his kingdom to the world, and Queen Onara became incensed. She couldn’t believe he was turning his back on his own kind. The queen wanted nothing more to do with him and his cowardly people, so she called on Bast again. The goddess made another realm within Wakanda for the magical creatures to live in. Onara assumed it would be difficult to get the other species on board, but, as it turned out, most of them were eager to get away from the humans. It seemed the only ones that actually liked them were the aziza, but that quickly changed upon hearing of their negligence. A few even chose to travel to the new world in disguise to help the humans that had been taken. The aziza operatives did their best to help them, but there were just too many for them to save. Their numbers were few, but they were able to perform small acts of magic to help where they could.

Over the years, magical creatures became a thing of the past to the Wakandans. They became bedtime stories and folk tales, but nobody truly believed in their existence anymore except for the children the aziza would occasionally visit when they felt like being playful.

————

One sunny afternoon, a little aziza was playing down by the river when she sneezed, and her surroundings changed. Everything looked almost the same but slightly less vibrant despite the bold greens and blues around her. She turned around and couldn’t see her village in the distance, but instead, she saw a boy about her age splashing in the water.

She emerged from behind the bushes and called out to him, “Sawubona!”

The boy looked up, and his eyebrows furrowed. He was sure he had been alone.

“Um, mholweni...ungubani?”

“I’m Nia. Who are you?”

“You speak Xhosa?”

“I speak a bunch of languages,” she giggled. “You speak Zulu?”

“Yeah. I bet I speak more languages than you,” he challenged her.

Nia’s face scrunched up as she counted up all the languages she knew.

“I speak thirteen so far, but I’m only eight,” she shrugged.

“Wow, thirteen?! I can only speak five.” He looked dejected, and she hated seeing the look on his face, so she quickly changed the subject.

“Can I swim with you?”

“Sure, but...where did you come from?” the boy asked as he looked around. “You just sort of came out of nowhere.”

Nia was young, but she knew she was in the human realm. She had visited plenty of times with her ubaba and knew it well. She just wasn’t sure how she got there this time. However, she knew not to tell him exactly what she was, so the little aziza tucked her ears under her colorful headband as she stepped closer and tried to think of a good explanation.

“My ubaba says I’m sneaky like that,” she shrugged. “Want to play tag?”

“You’re it!” he yelled as he splashed her and swam away as fast as he could. She cut her eyes at him and wiggled out of her clothes before jumping in after him. She quickly caught up to him, much to his surprise, but he stopped when it was his turn to chase her. The boy noticed something strange on her back as she swam away, and he grew concerned.

“What happened?”

Nia quickly turned around, confused by the tone of his voice, “To what?”

“To you. The scars,” he pointed to her back.

“Oh,” Nia had to think fast again. “It’s just a really big birthmark.”

“Really? That’s so cool! It looks like two wings,” he mused before his eyes lit up and he gasped loudly. “What if you can fly?”

“I wish,” she said with a certain sadness to her voice that confused him. He noticed the heaviness in her eyes and decided to lighten to mood a little by splashing her in her face. It worked, and they were off again.

The two of them spent the afternoon splashing away in the river, laughs echoing loudly as they played until a deep voice called out, and the boy froze.

“T’Challa!”

“Coming, baba!” he yelled back before turning to his new friend, who had just figured out that she had been playing with the Crown Prince of Wakanda this whole time. “I have to go. I’m not supposed to be out here.”

Nia’s face deflated until she looked at the shadows and realized too much time had passed since she left home. She nodded solemnly, and they swam to shore. They begrudgingly got dressed in silence until T’Challa spoke up.

“Can I see you again? I had fun today… I don’t get to have fun often,” he looked at the ground, and she hugged him tight to make him smile.

“I can come back tomorrow,” Nia said, making his face light up.

“Deal!”

The two kids said their goodbyes, and Nia watched as T’Challa ran through the trees towards the disembodied voice. She turned around to leave the same way she came and jumped at the sight of her father.

“Did you have fun?” he asked with a mischievous glint in his eye.

Nia nodded enthusiastically, “I made a friend!”

“I saw,” he chuckled. “How’d you get over on this side?”

“I sneezed,” Nia shrugged as she grabbed her ubaba’s hand, and they shimmered back over to the magic realm. That night, he began to teach her how to clear her mind and travel between the realms intentionally. Nia took to it quickly, and she was excited to explore the human realm, her mother’s realm, more than ever before.

Amare, an aziza, and Celeste, a human, met and fell in love while he was stationed in New York for his first tour as a secret operative. When Amare heard about what the human Wakandans had allowed to happen to their kin, he jumped at the chance to make a difference. It was a dangerous job, dealing with humans and the occasional fae, but he loved it. Almost immediately, he met and fell in love with Celeste, a vivacious and opinionated brown-skinned beauty from Harlem. They lived together for two blissful years before they found out they were expecting a child. Celeste was over the moon, but Amare couldn’t help but worry. There had been very few half-human, half aziza babies over the years, but they always took a massive toll on human mothers. Amare knew then that he might have to say goodbye to the love of his life. Sadly, he was right. The baby’s higher need for energy to fuel her growing magic drained her mother dry, and Celeste was even too weak to push. She didn’t survive the cesarean.

Amare brought his baby girl back home to Wakanda, and they lived in a small home near the rainforest on the outskirts of the Border province that he had enchanted to straddle both realms. He raised Nia the same as any other aziza child, but they often traveled to the human realm so she could be among her people. Before popping over to the other side, he’d always cast a glamour spell to hide his wings, making them lay flush against his back so that they looked like intricate tattoos. Nia was always jealous of her dad’s bright orange wings since she never got hers, just the giant wing-shaped scars that covered her back. She always felt a little broken, like she wasn’t as good as the other aziza kids, so when she met T’Challa she was excited to have her first human friend. Or so she thought.

Nia went back to the river the next day and waited for T’Challa. She waited and waited, but he was nowhere to be found. She tried again every day for a week, but he never showed. His absence started to weigh on her, and Amare hated to see his little girl look so sad. After day seven, he put a stop to it and Nia eventually gave up on her so-called friend. However, the pain of his abandonment never really went away.

Next Chapter

Taglist: @maddeningmayhem, @theblulife, @motheroffae, @love-mesome-me, @toni9, @bribrisback, @impremenior, @ljstraightnochaser

#cecewritessometimes #black panther au #black panther fanfiction #t'challa x oc #black!oc #troubled waters

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waiting4inspiration · 3 years

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A Secret World I: The Outsider

Summary: Hvitserk wakes up in a strange place, surrounded by people (and creatures) he has never seen. The creatures are like those in the stories his mother used to tell when he was a child. And the people...well, they seem to be riding these creatures.

Warnings: mentions of a war, mentions of death, strong language, magical element, dragon rider au, fluff, little angst

Word Count: 2,201

A Secret World Masterlist II Vikings Masterlist

War had brought the Sons of Ragnar together. But it had been that exact war that ripped them apart from each other and from the world. When someone else threatened Kattegat, they came together to defend their home city. It seems that the only ones that could fight over the city are the brothers and no one else. While they were so concerned over fighting each other for the city their father once ruled, they were blind to the power growing outside, seeking to claim the gem to the Lothbrok legend.

The morning of the battle was the last time Hvitserk saw his brothers. Things went so wrong, so quickly. Ivar’s plan had failed and the garrison Hvitserk had to lead fell into an ambush and now lie dead in the clearing they had to pass through. Hvitserk does know how he had survived or how he had managed to trundle through the trees and bushes of the forest before finding his savior.

He thought it had been a trick his mind was playing on him due to blood loss, but he was sure he saw a giant beast he had never seen before hiding behind a huge collection of bushes. It was...growling at him in a low growl he had imagined Fenrir to growl when his mother told him stories of the wolf. And a woman, crouched in front of the bushes, with a look of trepidation in her eyes, wearing clothing he has never seen before. As she approached, the blackness clouded his vision and he fell with a thud.

The next moment, he wakes in a place so bright, it could be Valhalla. But there are women hovering above him, giggling and whispering. He’s sure this isn’t Valhalla. Not to mention that he doesn’t feel dead. He feels very much alive and very much in pain.

“He’s awake,” one woman gasps, and Hvitserk almost regrets letting his eyes flutter open for a second. Knowing he can’t fake being asleep anymore, he lazily rolls his head to the side and opens his eyes to see where he is.

There’s a strange creature by his face that startles him with a scream and flaps its leathery wings to land in the arms of one of the women beside the bed Hvitserk lays on. He jumps at the sight, pushing himself up but then hisses at the pain shooting through his side. The creature shots at him again before it takes flight out of the window. Hvitserk doesn’t think about the pain in his body, but about the creature and what it might be. He’s never seen anything like it before.

A clap echoes through the room, making him jump again as every head turns to the sound. Hvitserk’s eyes widen at the woman making her way into the room.

“Alright, leave him alone,” you order, a chorus of protests sounding as the girls around the wounded man slowly back away. “Come on, I let you have a look, now it’s time to do your duties. Runa, go feed Darkar for me.”

“But Darkar doesn’t like me.” The girl who had mentioned Hvitserk’s awakening and who has been close to his side this whole time stands and faces you.

“Well, then you’d best do it with caution,” you snidely state, placing a hand on her shoulder and moving her away from the bed, urging her to leave with the others.

The girl, Runa, leaves with a frustrated huff and arms crossed over her chest as she mutters to herself. She’s followed by the others after you had given them a hard look but before they exit through the door, they take one last look at Hvitserk, giggle, and then walk away.

“Forgive my sisters. They are still quite young,” you laugh, walking past the bed to collect a cup from a table. “I think the only way they will bother you is by asking questions about where you come from. They have yet to explore the outside world.” As you speak, you walk across the room and towards what seems to be a stream trickling down the wall of the room. A small waterfall Hvitserk had not noticed.

He gets a better look of your face when you turn towards him. “You,” he whispers, remembering you from what feels like a dream. The woman with the strange creature lurking behind the bushes.

“(Y/n).” You walk to him, holding the cup in your hand and a smile on your face. Sitting beside him, you hold out the cup for him. “And what do I call you?” you ask.

Taking the cup from you, he looks down at what’s in it. It looks like water but there’s a sweet smell coming from it. His eyes lift to you, holding the cup closer to his chest. “Hvitserk,” he whispers, finding himself smiling back at you when you nod your head. “Where am I?” he asks, looking over at the windows of the room to see if he recognize the surroundings. When he looks back at you, he finds your smile is now bigger.

“Drink up and I’ll show you,” you sing, smiling brightly at him as you stand to your feet. “Oh, and don’t encourage the hatchlings otherwise they’ll never leave you alone.”

Hvitserk frowns at your words as you chuckle and turn to walk out the room. He wants to ask you what hatchlings are, but you’re gone before the words can even make it past his throat. What are hatchlings, he asks himself, his head turning away from the door you had closed behind you to the window of the room.

His first thought goes to birds. Is this place that he’s in a place filled with birds? Is that creature that he saw when he woke up some kind of bird that he’s never seen before? He’s sure it didn’t have any feathers.

How far is he from Kattegat?

Curiosity gets the better of him and he slowly pushes himself out of the bed. He sways a bit on his feet, hissing in pain as his free hand clutches his side that he only realizes now is bandaged. He had been wounded and he’s only realizing that now. He had been so taken aback by the strange creature by his face when he woke and then being in a strange room surrounded by women he’s never seen, wearing clothing he’s never seen, not even in the stalls in the marketplace. The clothing doesn’t look as smooth as the silks merchants would try to sell, or anything that any normal person in Kattegat would wear. It doesn’t even look like the armor he’s used to. Though it does look like armor.

But, when he thinks about it, closing his eyes as he supports himself against the wall beside him to picture what you were wearing, it seems like the clothing was made out of scales. And yet, the scales are not a normal size, a size he’s used to. It’s as if four scales had been used to create a breastplate. What kind of creature, what kind of beast, could be that large to produce such enormous scales?

His eyes open and he glances down at the cup he still holds. Staring down at the liquid in it, he slowly raises the cup to his lips to take a sip. Even though it looks like water, it smells quite different. A sweet smell drifts into his nose as he takes a sip, but the taste is almost that of ale. It’s not like the ale he’s had back at home. No, this is like ale that he imagines the Gods drink in Valhalla.

It leaves a burn in his throat, and yet it is not an unpleasant one. It makes it feel like a fire fills his body and he doesn’t feel as tired and weak as he did when he woke.

He downs the drink, breathing out a satisfied sigh when he lowers the cup from his lips and places it on the table beside the bed. His gaze returns to the window that seems to be carved out of the stone wall of the room and with a small limp, his hand still clutching his injured side, he walks over to it.

The sounds coming from outside are not like the ones he’s used to hearing. Sure, it sounds like a busy city, but not in the ways Kattegat sounded when new shipments came in or when they returned from the summer raids. There is shouting, but Hvitserk can’t distinguish whether they are ones of anger or happiness.

He reaches the window, rests his hand on the walls, and cautiously peers out of it. As he does, someone shouts ‘Look out’ and something -Hvitserk’s not sure what - swoops up in front of him, It’s something big, and big enough to send a gust of wind through the open window, knocking Hvitserk backward.

His head snaps up to see what the hell that creature is but the sight his eyes land on is something he does not expect to see in this lifetime or any other.

The bright blue sky not filled with birds like the thought. In fact, he sees one of these creatures catch a bird in flight, sending features flying everywhere. Just like that creature by his head, these have leathery wings. But they are bigger. Much bigger. He’s sure that if they were closer, they would be the size of a house or a boat.

Instead of chirps like birds, they roar with great might and it feels like the ground is shaking under his feet from it.

The longer he looks at these creatures, the more he thinks about the stories his mother used to tell him when he and Ubbe were children. They almost seem to be like Jǫrmungandr but with wings.

He knows now what they are. He knows what that creature was that he saw behind you before he passed out. He knows what the small one is. Dragons. And it seems that here - wherever here is - they come in all shapes and sizes.

The more he looks around, the more he sees. Some of these Dragons sit perched on the tops of the house that seem to be emerging from the mountains and Hvitserk sees that on their backs are saddles like those he’d put on a horse. He shakes his head at the thought that people could actually be riding these wild beasts.

But slightly to the side, he sees someone climbing stairs up to the roof of the house. The person rests a hand on the dragon as they make their way closer to it. And then, they mount it like a horse, and Hvitserk watches as the Dragon takes off, the rider holding onto the saddle a horn from the dragon’s neck tightly. The more Hvitserk looks around, the more he sees these people interacting with these Dragons. Smaller ones lie in the arms of women and others play with children as a puppy would play with its owner.

“Hatchlings,” he mutters to himself with a small smile as he sees a smaller dragon try to fly, but its body is too big for its wings.

He looks directly beneath him, a breath hitching in his throat when he sees how high up he actually is. Never in his life has he been so far off the ground it almost makes him nauseous. But then he sees you and the beast he had seen hiding behind the bushes. He watches you walking up to it with no fear. You hold out your hand and the creature presses its head - that’s roughly half the size you are - against your palm. It then shifts on its feet, standing and now towering over everyone around, and cranes its neck to keep its head at your level.

When another Dragon tries to come near you, the one in front of you Hvitserk concludes as your own turns and harshly snaps at the other, making it take to the skies as you try to pull the attention of your dragon back to you.

As you do this, Hvitserk looks around at what he can see of the city again. He’s never seen anything like this before. It’s all so amazing. He can’t help but wonder why no one has ever found this place or even a creature like these Dragon, small or big. It’s obvious that they have free reign and who knows how far they’ll fly away from this place.

He looks back down at you, smiles at the sight of the gentle moment between you and this grey scaled dragon. After a moment, the Dragon pulls away and turns to fly off. Hvitserk watches it join a group of other dragons all of different sizes.

This place is so different from Kattegat. It’s so different from what he grew up with and grew up knowing. And yet, he never felt like he belonged there. He never felt like he belonged in that world. Perhaps this is the change he needs. Maybe this is the new life he’s been hoping for.

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saint-eridell · 4 years

Text

A Silent Prayer (Midoriya Izuku/F!Reader)

I… honestly don't know how this happened. The words just kinda came out. I didn't start out intending to write a slow burn saga, but that's apparently what my brain decided to do with it. Might continue the series at some point, to be honest; this whole universe has its hooks into me.

Collab piece for @lemonlordleah-shinzawa-kitten's Citrus Dome server collaboration. 15k, completed, proofread, no beta. Pairings: Dryad!Midoriya Izuku/Human!Reader, Human!Toshinori Yagi/Dryad!Midoriya Inko Prompt: Gods Content warnings: Background character death, non-con (very brief, not explicit)

Read on AO3

Quick Guide (ctrl-F to jump)

Prologue

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

---

Prologue

Your village's clearing, while spacious enough to afford room for a small population, is essentially cut off from the outside world by the dense verdant wall that circles it on all sides. One of two paths out leads toward a well-maintained temple where the locals (and rare traveler) leave offerings to the Fae that populate the forest, and one leads out to the nearest trading post… which lies a week's away ride on a speedy horse. This clearing of hand-built homes and ancient looking shops is the only thing you've known. Your studies as a temple attendant began young, before you could even comprehend what you were training to do, and have kept you attached to the village with zero chance of travel.

That has suited you just fine so far. From what the hunters talk about seeing in the forest… you'd rather stay alive than "sightsee".

The first thing you're taught in your village is to respect the forest. Even the youngest of your people know not to step in Fae circles, or follow strange sets of eyes in the dark, or listen to any voices that come trickling out of the treeline on quiet nights. The Fae could be immensely giving, but they're fickle creatures on a good day and absolutely dangerous at their worst. Contact with any roaming Fae, regardless of the type or how friendly it seems, has long been banned among your people. Your job as an attendant, despite a common misconception that you have direct contact with beasts and monsters, is to maintain the temple, greet travelers, and meditate among the many gardens built within the temple walls.

Worship is a part of your daily routine. Each season you place the fruits of your labor at the altar. Every day you pray. It’s human nature, seeking answers from the Gods.

But you never expected one to answer… much less three times.

---

Part 1

The first time is after a terrible fire that razes half of the village during your first year of training. A roaming wyvern tears through the fields surrounding its back half in a fury, razing an entire cluster of homes and over half of the summer crops already suffering through a prolonged drought. The village finds itself in disarray amid the smoldering remains: one half wants to burn the temple in retaliation, seeing the wyvern as an omen that some Fae lord is on the warpath, while the other seeks to gather what remained of the crops as one final beseechment to whoever or whatever they'd angered.

Having just been initiated, your young mind goes directly to one of your first lessons: true offerings are of the heart. In your barely school age mind, that means offering something that means a lot to you. After some consideration you narrow it down - your favorite doll, a gift from a mother you never had the chance to know - and take it to the temple. You find a quiet altar to lay the doll down upon, and as soon as you find your knees to begin praying before it you catch sight of a boy hovering behind the marble pedestal.

His head is wrapped in emerald linen, but it rounds off enough to suggest there's densely packed hair underneath. A single curl peeks out at the center of his forehead, somehow even deeper than the rich dyed fabric over it, its point resting between huge green eyes that seem to peer right down to your very soul. It would be eerie if he wasn't smiling at you with a gap where one tooth should be, a bright beam of sunshine in an otherwise rather gloomy marble-lined room.

"Is that a doll?" he asks, and his voice chirps with the same excitement of the first few birds that poke out of the melting winter snow. You nod, frozen with trained hesitation that wars with your naive curiosity - he doesn't look familiar, nor does he look like the child of anyone who had recently come through the village. But he doesn't look dangerous to you. He's barely as tall as you, and he smiles too nice to be a threat… right?

You open your mouth to call for your matron but the boy holds both hands up suddenly, his eyes somehow widening even further with a bolt of fear. "Wait," he whispers. "I'm not supposed to be here. I heard people praying and snuck away from my mother." He tilts his head. "Did you sneak away from your mom, too?"

You shake your head in response. "I live here," you explain quietly, matching his hushed tone. "I'll work in the temple one day. I came here to offer my doll so our fields will come back."

The boy's face splits into a grin. "Does that mean I'll get to see you again?"

You aren't given time to answer: a sharp voice echoes into the room from somewhere beyond the open door, growing louder by the second as someone approaches. You turn your head to listen until a quiet shuffling brings your attention back to the boy, who's moved around the altar and taken the doll in one hand. He quickly tugs off the linen wrap covering his head and thrusts it toward you. You struggle to grasp it, shocked by a pair of tiny antler nubs that poke through the curls on the top of the boy’s head... or Fae’s rather. There’s no mistaking the point of his upper ears. "Here," he whispers urgently. "It's my favorite, so be careful with it. Wrap it around some ashes from your burned crops and bury it in the middle of the field." He waves as he steps back with another one of those beaming smiles, your doll clutched tight to his chest. "I promise I'll keep your doll safe. Maybe we can play next time!"

You blink, and as quick as he appeared he's gone. Matron Elspeth, a short and round woman with more than enough years in the temple to justify her limited patience (and the woman in charge of your temple training), appears behind you the second he’s gone. “We’ve been looking for you everywhere,” she snaps as she grabs you by the upper arm and hauls you toward the door. “We’re convening the-

You dig your heels into the floor. “Wait!” you exclaim with all the assertiveness your tiny voice can muster. “I have something!”

The matron stops to glare down at you. You hold up the linen like it’s a prized tapestry. “A boy appeared in here and gave this to me. I brought my doll as an offering and he gave this to me.”

The matron’s brows knit deep between her eyes. “And you took it?”

You nod eagerly, but you aren’t prepared to see such a terrifying old woman blanch like she just witnessed a murder. She stops you both in the hallway, all sense of urgency abandoned, a wrinkled hand held to the wall as she breathes out a long, ragged sigh. “Oh, child,” she murmurs. “I don’t think you realize what you’ve just done.” She gives you a smile that’s softer than anything you’ve ever seen from her, and it’s disarming enough to have you stunned silent. Isn’t she supposed to be rapping you across the knuckles with her willow switch? “He was Fae, wasn’t he?”

You nod slowly, your excitement slowly twisting into pangs of dread. “I didn’t give him my name,” you burst out after a sudden realization - of course she’s worried, she thinks you just signed yourself away to the forest. What was the first thing she’d taught you? You wave your hands in front of you defenselessly, the scarf flapping back and forth. “I only said the doll was my favorite, and that I’d brought it as an offering. He said this headscarf was his favorite and that I should bury it in the field wrapped around some ashes from the crops and -”

“Eeeeeeasy,” Elspeth chides gently. She lowers herself to a knee to put herself on eye level with you, both hands wrapped around your shoulders. “You did the right thing. I wouldn’t have expected someone so small to learn our ways as quickly as you have.” She holds her hand out for the scarf and you hand it over. She turns it over gently, running her fingers over the seams with a pensive hum. “And you say he told you to bury it?”

“In the field, wrapped around ashes from the burned crops."

“And you absolutely did not give him your name?”

You shake your head fervently. “He didn’t even ask for it.”

Elspeth’s frown deepens. “Curious.” She rises slowly to her feet with a wince as both knees audibly crack under her shifting weight. You grab her arm to help her stay upright as she rests a hand on the wall once again with a low groan. “I’m getting too old for this,” she grouses. “You need to hurry up and grow already so I can hand off the robes.” Her wrinkled hand takes one of yours as she leads the way toward the temple’s main hall. “Tell me more about the boy.”

You go through everything you can remember - same height, pale freckled skin, lots of green curls, big eyes… “Oh, and horns,” you add on.

Elspeth stops you both at the end of the last hall. Several groups of people in various temple garb hover in the large foyer beyond, but your matron turns your back to them with both hands on your shoulders. She bends low at the waist to stare you down from only a few inches away. “Horns?” she hisses.

You nod, confused by the sudden change in her demeanor. “Tiny ones,” you reply. “Like when the young bucks grow their first set at the beginning of summer. I didn’t see them or his ears until after he gave me his scarf.”

Elspeth goes quiet for several seconds, her gaze averted to the throng behind you, and just as you open your mouth to question if she’s okay she’s steering you around and through the crowd with a purpose. “We need to speak to the temple Ascendant,” she urges quietly. “This is beyond both of us now, little one.”

---

Part 2

You hadn’t been approached by just any run-of-the-mill forest creature. If you really had experienced the entire moment (which the linen basically proved without a shadow of a doubt despite your own dumbfounded disbelief), you’d come across a young dryad. Or rather, he’d found you, which is an incredible occurrence in itself: dryads are known for being among the most reclusive of Fae, preferring to live in their heavily altered pockets of the forest where only their kind can survive. According to the ancient lore they’re protectors of a vast plane beyond the one humans live in, a vanguard of Fae hidden among life-providing vegetation and deceptively thick forest floor in wait for someone or something to come along and threaten their territory. The tomes in the temple library are filled with tales from “survivors” of attacks by wandering dryads, all telling of razor sharp teeth and sickly green skin and a heathenly worship of the old gods that on its own warrants avoiding them at all costs.

But in the whirlwind following your encounter with the young Fae, something becomes glaringly obvious: no one wants to talk about who had provided the linen that saved them all, despite it successfully bringing back their fields during a single earth-shaking rainstorm and assuring a solid harvest that would more than provide through the winter. All the villagers flock to the temple with offerings by the basket, but no one wants to acknowledge who had actually saved them. That reality sticks with you like a sharp thorn, as does the dryad boy’s hauntingly sweet voice as you grow older within the temple walls, your studies growing more intense by the year. By the time you reach adulthood, you’re actively involved with just about every aspect of temple life. You’ve grown popular among your fellow attendants and the temple-goers alike, even the ones who seem reluctant to be there at all. Your easy-going demeanor and disarming smile is able to diffuse even the staunchest of cynicism. You have, for all intents, and purposes, become the shining example of everything Matron Elspeth raised you to be. Nothing in this world makes you prouder than knowing you're on the way to earning her robes… and maybe, at some time in the future, the temple Ascendant's.

You remain faithful to your doctrine, but in the dead of night every full moon you pray that he’ll come back. You’ve had years to think about it: if you give him a “given” name, he’ll have to use that. It’s not yours, so he won’t own you. Dryads are attracted to beehives, presumably for the same reason pixies are attracted to berry bushes (an almost impulsive sweet tooth) so you’re ready with a clump of the temple’s finest honeycomb every time the moon reaches its largest point.

But despite your increasingly saddened prayers and offers over the years, no sign of him or any other dryads appear. There are rumors of the occasional peculiar looking traveler with big green eyes, but your temple work prevents you from wandering into the village unless it’s on a designated supply pickup day. Elspeth tells you to forget him and focus on your studies every time she catches you quietly moping: “We can’t have our future Ascendant being wooed away by some doe-eyed boy, regardless of if he’s human or not.”

On the evening after your confirmation and the following party, once you’ve returned from the village and gathered up your usual prayer supplies, you make your way to your favorite altar in the temple as the moon finds its highest point in the sky above. The room’s roof has been removed to give a full view of the sky for astral worship, but you prefer it for the way it allows moonlight to fill the center with a skirt of fading dark that swallows the edges of the room. It’s easier to focus here, to lay yourself bare before whatever force that lays beyond the clearing’s edge and let it speak through the beams of light emanating from above.

Elspeth disapproves of your “fixation”, but doesn't argue back when you request privacy for the rest of the evening. Your birthday this present is in the form of your matron keeping all wandering staff away from your prayer room, and that seems perfectly fair to you. You’ve already made plans to repay her empathy with a few of her favorite lemon pastries.

You lay out the contents of the basket hanging from your arm across the marble altar’s polished surface: green and gold candles, several lengths of high quality gold pendant chain, a large bowl of fresh, sticky honeycomb and an ornate goblet full of a rare winterberry mead you were given by the lead hunter’s son (“For the day you get free of that prison and decide to marry”, he’d boasted... his mistake, you’re keeping the mead and he can choke on the cork).

In the center goes a hand-sized velvet pillow upon which you set an emerald big enough to fill your palm. It had taken three years to save up enough for it, but in your eyes it’s the best thing you’ve ever bought. The moonlight dancing off the lines of the gem’s depths flicker and dance exactly like the Fae’s eyes had so many years ago. You pause to take in the sight, transfixed by the shifting planes that white themselves out before immediately shifting to deep green and then to inky black when you tilt your head.

A slight breeze rattling through the room snaps you from your reverie. You glance upward where the moon hangs directly overhead, a wide white circle set deep into an array of scattered stars and inky skyspace beyond. A vivid memory of pale skin dotted with freckles flashes across your mind’s eye and you have to force yourself to redirect to the present, shaking your head hard as the breeze fades away. “Focus,” you murmur to yourself. You don’t have long before the moon will move away from the center of the open roof.

Once the candles are lit, several cones of musky incense set into miniature cauldrons come next, wisps of pungent smoke permeating every dark corner of the room within seconds. You kneel before the altar once everything is in place with your plain white robes folding neatly under you. As you take your first deep breath, the incense fills your nose and drowns out anything beyond it; a hazy blanket hovers thick and heavy in your sinuses, even after you exhale.

This is an easy process for you. You've long mastered how to find your own meditative headspace through years of disciplined practice. You let the chirping of bugs beyond the temple echo around your ears, your breathing slow and light. You tilt your closed eyes up toward where you can vaguely tell the glow of the moon is strongest. "I have no crisis," you say in your head. "I seek no power, no glory, no riches. I only wish to see my friend again." A deep sense of peace radiates down to your bones as you let out a slow breath. The entire room comes to a standstill, even the wind seemingly reverent of your descent toward the lowest floor of your headspace. If you go any further, you feel like you could slip right through the floor.

"We're friends, eh?"

Your eyes fly open as a shriek tears through you, every semblance of calm shattered. You kick yourself backward and the cushion you'd been kneeling on flying forward to bounce off the ornate carving set into the front of the pedestal. You skitter in the opposite direction, prepared to take off running down the hall and find the first guard you come across, when you stop dead with your hands planted to the cold marble floor.

It's him.

The dryad boy is standing in the same spot he'd appeared in last time, smiling at you with that same beaming grin. Or… it looks like him, at least. He's taller now, but he still looks to be around your height, maybe just an inch or so taller. It's obvious he's been up to something strenuous: his tunic sleeves cut off around defined upper arms, where you can spot an array of thin scars set into his pale, freckled skin. He's dressed in emerald traveler garb, a linen wrap identical to the one he'd given wrapped loosely around his neck, and as you look further up you choke on a gasp.

You hadn't been hallucinating all those years ago. The tiny antler nubs he'd been sporting before have grown fivefold and now branch over his head in tall, proud spikes that circle his hair like a jagged halo. He seems to catch what your eyes lock onto and he dips his head, a scarred hand reaching to clutch at the fabric draped around his neck like he wants to throw it up over his head. "I'm sorry," he says quietly, and you're immediately floored by how achingly familiar the lilt of his voice is. You've heard it in your dreams enough to know it's him. "I didn't mean to scare you that bad."

You push yourself up to your feet with an indignant huff. "Scare me that bad?" you grumble back as you dust yourself off and right your robes.

He laughs again, light as air. Your anger slips away at the sound despite your best attempt to hold onto it. You're not some shrinking violet, dammit. "I had to take the opportunity when it presented itself," he replies through a fond smile. "Couldn't help myself."

You huff your disapproval, which gets you another chuckle. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry," he says as he takes a step forward with his hands raised in a show of surrender. "No more scares, I promise." He fixes you with another beaming smile. "Happy birthday. I'm here now."

Your heart flips sideways into your ribs. He'd really heard you. But if he could hear you tonight…

"Why didn't you come any other time I prayed?" you ask before you can consider the implications of your query. You slap a hand over your mouth. "I'm sorry," you say quickly from behind your palm. "I don't mean to say I expected you to listen or appear, I just…"

The dryad fixes you with a concerned frown. "You just what?" he asks back without a trace of anger, which catches you off guard. "I'm not gonna cut your tongue out or anything. You didn't offend me."

You let out your held breath in one hard burst. Thank every god in existence. You pause, waiting to make sure he really isn't angry and just playing head games, then proceed with only a tiny tremble: "I just hoped you would."

Something akin to pain dances across his face and you immediately regret your admission for reasons you can't quite figure out. "I'm sorry," you exclaim again, but he holds up a finger before you can try to babble through a reason why.

"It's not easy for my kind to survive here," he says with a solemnity that draws the entire room to a standstill. "The air is too dry for ones who haven't acclimated to it. I'll admit, the first time I tried I got incredibly sick upon returning home." His gaze flicks to the span of marble between your feet. "But I've been practicing. I should be able to stay a few hours now." He finds your eye again and the sincerity behind them smashes into you like a cannonball. How could anyone ever say his kind are hideous? Is it the antlers?

"If you'll have me, that is."

Oh gods above, below, and in gran's cookbooks. "Of course," you breathe back without hesitation.

His smile returns, wide and genuine, bright enough to narrow the room to just him alone. "I was hoping you would say that." He bows politely, his traveler's cloak brushing the floor as it sweeps back. "I'm sorry, I didn't have a chance to introduce myself before. May I have your name?"

A caustic jolt rushes up the length of your spine. Every hair on your body raises at the root as you cut a glare in his direction. Oh no no no, you didn't go through an entire childhood of Matron Elspeth's lectures to fall for his ruses that easily, no matter how hard he makes your stomach flutter. "No you may not," you say back with practiced ease. He sits up abruptly to give you another wounded look, but you're too on guard for it to work. "I'm sorry." You really aren't.

He huffs a laugh. "Fair play. I should have known better. May I have a name to address you by?"

You've trained for this your entire life. In no way is he going to get you. "No you may not," you say again. "But I was born under a sparrow's first nest." A meaningless fact that would at least lead him toward something you'll answer to without naming you directly. Elspeth is going to be so proud.

He hums, seemingly picking up your subtle lead. "Sparrow, then," he confirms. "It suits you."

You clear your throat as the collar of your robe shifts against your reddening neck. You can't hold eye contact and keep your flush contained so you opt for the former while your hands clasp respectfully behind your back. You're an anointed temple servant. You won't be reduced to a pile of girlish mush in your own temple. "Thank you," you reply with a polite bow. "And is there a known name I may refer to you by?"

"Deku," he chirps back. "You could have just asked. I'm not as picky with my known name as you humans seem to be."

You straighten up with a placid smile. "Can you blame me?"

Deku shrugs. "I mean, a little," he replies with an honesty that almost knocks you backward again. "I've seen the records humans keep on us. The way your "beastmasters" talk makes us sound like feral crypt monsters."

You catch the bitterness in his tone and squirm on the spot. You hadn't meant any insult. "We've had a lot of people killed by dryads over the years," you reply as gently as you can. "And even more that have disappeared around the same time one was seen. The people here are just fearful."

"Fear doesn't excuse ignorance." His jaw flexes and your frame draws tight with tension. He takes a slow breath as he pauses, and his anger visibly recedes. "But you haven't taken off running yet, so I guess it's safe to assume you're not as ignorant as the others."

Your voice drops to a murmur when you respond. "I remember what you did for us. We would have starved the winter after that fire if you hadn't brought our crops back."

"Thank my dad for that. It was his idea. He couldn't make the trip himself, so he sent my mom and I with instructions."

The pieces click into place with a weight that knocks the wind from your lungs. Deku watches you ponder as he steps around the altar and perches on its edge. "You didn't just save us. You risked your life to do it. But… why?"

"Because you asked me to-" He plucks the goblet and gives it an appreciative sniff. "-And you brought a worthy offering to go with it." He sips the mulled wine with a deep groan of approval. At least the idiot who'd been hitting on you throughout the entire celebration has good taste in booze. "Winterberries?" You nod, and he takes a longer sip before offering you the goblet. You take it with pride as he traces his thumb over his lower lip to catch a stray drop (don't stare don't stare don't stare don't stare). "Gods, this is fantastic. I hope your meadery has put in offerings, because they deserve whatever they were asking for."

You go to take a sip as he continues his praise, but another bolt of anxiety keeps you from raising the cup all the way to your lips. This isn't a directly outlawed interaction (you can't recall a rule that says you're not allowed to share an offering, as far as you can remember); however, something still feels… ominous about accepting such an offer. Or maybe you're just being paranoid. The lore books also said dryads instinctively kill humans on sight.

His features darken at your hesitation. "I can guarantee that I've already got a tolerance if you just tried to slip me something," he spits out with a mix of anger and raw hurt. The venom in his tone paralyzes you with fear and for a long moment all you can do is stare at him with wide eyes. You swallow around your dry tongue as you struggle to formulate a disarming response.

"It's not like that," you finally say back with the goblet held in both shaky hands. You raise it for a prolonged sip and make a display of showing that you actually took a drink, which seems to assuage his anxiety as much as it does yours, the mead warming your throat and chest as it settles in a warm ball somewhere deep in your core. The Hammerbar meadery doesn't mess around with the efficiency of their products, apparently. "See? If there's something in it now you'll know."

Deku shakes his head. "Then let's hope it's just mead. I'm sorry. I don't think you'd do that." He turns away to pick at the honeycomb and pops a corner into his mouth, which is received with another appreciative noise from deep in his chest.

The conversation is light and easy from the very beginning. He's young for his kind with double your lifespan ahead of him, maybe longer if he "ascends" (a term that has you both laughing in solidarity as you commiserate on your respective mentors). After a good hour of chatting a silence finally lapses between you, the buzz of cicadas filling the space as Deku picks up the last chunk of honeycomb. You sit at the altar's base, just within touching range of the leg he has dangling over the edge of the pedestal, his eerie green eyes trained on you with the sharpness of a royal blade.

He's ethereal in close range. The air around him carries a drift of something wild and feral, like an inaudible drumbeat that thumps in time with your heart.

"Do I make you nervous?"

That feels like a loaded question if you've ever heard one. He seems to pick up on your hesitation once again and tilts his head, his lips parted slightly around a faint smile that makes your heart skip a beat. "No," you reply, but it's a hollow projection. Deku raises a brow, a clear sign he caught your lie.

"Uh… maybe a little. You said it yourself, human understanding of your kind is apparently woefully inaccurate." Which bothers you a lot. You're one of the people responsible for interpreting every tome in the archive. How much else do humans have wrong?

Deku nods. "I know it's not very helpful, but we don't hate humans. The elders pity your lack of connection to wild magic, but that's a sentiment that's fading with the younger generations."

"And what do you think of us?"

The Fae pauses, his head tilted askew as he ponders your question. You have the urge to take it back before he replies suddenly, his teeth flashing in a grin that makes your stomach flip and promptly fall into your feet:

"I don't care about other humans. I care about you."

You swallow hard. You're completely unprepared for the weight of his tone. It's all you can do to remember to breathe normally as panic and excitement go to all-out war. You're vaguely aware that you've been warned about this: Fae rely on glamour magic to conceal their true selves while among humans. The closer you are to one and the longer you spend there, the more likely you are to fall for it. This isn't him, you say to yourself in a firm tone. You're seeing a spell. And yet you remain rooted to the spot amid the molasses-thick silence, his emerald eyes transfixed on you like he's trying to bore himself right down to your soul. Logic is no longer enough to make yourself move, to speak, to do anything but watch him with deep fascination. Part of you doesn't want to move at all, and you're vaguely aware that your lack of fear should probably be some kind of warning sign.

He suddenly pushes himself off the altar and lands on his feet, cat-like and eerily graceful, his hand extended to help you up as well. You take it and are immediately shocked by how rough his palm is under your fingers. He doesn't look old enough to have gone through years of hard labor, but his hands tell a completely different story. You frown at your palms where they're flattened together, his weathered fingers draped gently around the side of your hand. He radiates heat like a stone dock in summer. Even with a foot or two between you, you have to wrestle down the urge to step closer and draw yourself into the warmth that surrounds him.

He leans far enough to get your attention and flashes you another dazzling smile (you're not insane, he can't feel even warmer now how is that even possible). "I have a present for you," he chirps. A hand disappears into his satchel and reappears a moment later with a long piece of rich emerald silk. You can't help but beam until your cheeks ache: the delicate gold embroidery along its edges is identical to what is on the linen scarf you've held onto for all these years. The delicate silk threads are woven into a river of shiny deep green that pools around your fingers in feather-light ripples. It's clearly worth more than anything you've ever owned and everything you currently own combined, adding an extra level of surreal that has your head slightly spinning.

"I embroidered it myself," he says, pride radiating through his words. He holds it up with an encouraging nod toward you. "May I?"

It takes your brain a few seconds to catch up with what's happening, but when it does you nod slowly. He closes the gap between you in one slow step and oh, you aren't ready for the scent of earth and pine that radiates from him and the crackle of something intangible that hits you like a mallet once you're nearly standing chest to chest.

The scarf is draped over your shoulders in a single flourish. He secures it in an ornate knot at your throat, his knuckles dragging little brushes of electricity across your skin as you do your best to stay still. Gods, whatever glamour he's using is powerful because he's absolutely breathtaking this close. The freckles you remember from so many years ago are still there, softened by the slight tan of his cheeks but still a pronounced constellation under his soft eyes as he smiles down at you with a mind-nymbing warmth.

"Green is your color," he murmurs close enough for you to feel his breath ghosting across your throat. Your heart flies upward and, on a whim you can't wrestle down, you reach for his hand once again to deftly slide your fingers between his. Deku jumps, clearly startled, but he makes no move to pull away or retreat. In fact, he gives your hand a squeeze in return that makes every hair on your body stand on its end. He draws even closer, pressing out every bit of air between you. Your interwoven hands are guided to between your chests, the breeze and ambient noise from outside coming to a dead standstill.

"I never forgot you," he rumbles, eyes half-lidded from the close proximity. "Not for a second."

"I dreamed about you," you whisper back, and the last few inches between you are gone in an instant. You draw in synchronized inhales as a surprisingly strong set of arms wraps around your back. Your own thread around his waist to clutch at the Fae and keep him pressed close with a sudden flash of desperation. He seems to be of the same mind: he kisses you with a ferocity you've never known, demanding and insistent enough that your lungs' cries for oxygen go willfully ignored. When you finally rip apart it's with another unified inhale and a wonble as the world spins on its ear. You can feel yourself grinning despite the shock still numbing out your brain.

A Fae kissed you… and you kissed him back without hesitation. There's something unsaid in the room now and it hangs heavy in his stare, which has once again fixated upon you with trickles of gold dancing along the edges of deep green. You quietly gasp. You've never seen feral magic this close. Shouldn't you be afraid by now?

"Come with me," he breathes out of nowhere. Your knees just about give out from shock. What?

"I'm serious." He holds both your hands under his chin. "I can give you things you don't even know exist. Anything you want, I'll make it happen."

You gape back. It's the sort of dramatic offer you read about in children's books, but never in a thousand years did you think you'd really be offered something like this. "Deku…"

"I know it's a lot," he blurts out. "You've spent your whole life here and I would never want to separate you from the world you know, but if I can find you in the same spot twice I'm sure we can find a way to go back and forth -"

Something in you decided the second he asked. There's no question what your heart wants. You press in again while he's rambling to cut him off with another firm kiss. Deku grunts into it as he's forcibly quieted before a hand gently cradles the back of your head.

You pull away with less ferocity this time and hover in his space, hazy with giddiness. "I didn't say no," you whisper, unable to bring yourself to speak any louder. "But there are things that need to be done in the meantime. I have duties here, Deku."

"We can figure out how to do both," he replies with rapidly growing excitement. The thin gold veins around his irises have begun to overtake the emerald. Your heart thunders as his excitement edges on feral. "Please just consider it. If you want, I can come back this same time next year and we can figure it out from there."

A year seems long enough to your addled brain. "Sure," you wheeze. "One year from tonight."

"One year." Deku nods furtively, but as he lets go of you it's obvious you're not the only one who hates having to do it. He looks to the floor, then to the darkest corner of the room where he'd appeared, then back to you with a smile too heavy for the ones you're used to. "I'll be watching over you. The embroidery of that scarf is kind of powerful, so I'd be careful wearing it around anyone or anything that might pull it."

You look to the fabric tied around your neck and your frown deepens. "What's that supposed to -"

Too late. By the time you look up again he's gone, and the altar in front of you is empty.

---

Part 3

You hold his promise close to your heart and don't breathe a single word of it to anyone, even your mentor. Elspeth would have an absolute fit if she figured out you're planning on not only leaving the temple, but running off with a dryad of all things. And besides that, she doesn't deserve the disrespect of knowing all her years of effort might go to waste. You can't bring yourself to face that very real chance just yet.

You stick to your studies and daily duties as your matron's hearth declines through the year, and nearly a year to the day since Deku's last visit the inevitable comes. Matron Elspeth passes in her sleep with you at her side, holding her hand while humming her favorite hymns until you see her chest rise and fall for the last time. She lived to a blessedly old age, but that doesn't help the fierce tear of grief that rips you open when she's finally gone. Elspeth was essentially your mother along with being your mentor.

And beyond that, if it hadn't been for her, you would have never met Deku.

You head up the organization of her final ceremonies, as is your place. Her pyre is constructed along the edge of the clearing's small lake, a neatly organized stack of wood and highly flammable fabric from the temple with a gap in the middle for her remains. You make sure to include clippings from her favorite lavender box as a final personal farewell.

The pyre is set ablaze with your own torch. This is how it has to be. It's how she sent her mentor off, and it will be how your mentor sends you off as well. You can only hope you've given her the honor she deserves, every decision you've made considered.

You make your way back to the temple alone at sunset while the other attendants remain behind. You need time to think. You've spent every quiet moment that day crying alone. If you don't get a second of true isolation you're going to break in front of half the temple. Elspeth wouldn't like that. You're stronger than your grief, at least for the moment, so you make a beeline for your preferred prayer room and let your feet move in that direction on autopilot, emerald scarf drawn up around your cheeks. You hold it close and will yourself to remain calm until there's a door between you and the rest of the world.

You're running by the time you throw yourself into the altar room and shove the door closed behind you. It lands in its frame with a thunderous BANG that muffles the broken sob that cracks from between the hands you have clutched over your face, along with the shuffling of a second person in the room that had gone unnoticed while you were trying to escape everyone else. A boot heel slides along the marble floor and you whirl around, eyes wide as you peer through the strands of summer dusk that pour through the room's open roof. Your heart flies into your throat with a burst of excitement. "Deku?" you call out, shaking with the urge to throw yourself toward the person as he emerges from the darkest shadowed corner.

But it's not Deku. Elation flips to horror as the lead hunter's son appears with a lecherous grin. He's still a good ten feet away, but you can smell strong booze radiating odd him in nauseating waves. "Why are you here?" you demand. "Only temple attendants are allowed in the prayer spaces alone. You need to leave."

"Do I?" he asks back derisively. Ice floods your veins with his first step. You instinctively shuffle back toward the door. "Because I'm pretty sure I can do what I want. Your temple wouldn't have food without me."

"Without your father," you clarify in a sharp tone. All manners have already been abandoned: this is not the day, and you are not the attendant to bother. You don't want to deal with calling guards or causing a cacophony. You just want to be left alone with your grief.

Your comment makes him clench his jaw. "Without." He takes another heavy step forward, and as he draws closer it becomes apparent how much of a size advantage he has. "Me." He takes another heavy step as your bones ice over. You want to take off, but you're terrified that any sudden movement will just propel him toward you faster, and you're not strong enough to shove the heavy stone door open without a few seconds of effort.

"You're drunk," you point out in hopes of derailing his train of thought. You can feel your pulse thumping hard and fast in your throat. "Go home and sleep it off. I won't tell anyone you were here."

"You think I give a shit f'anyone knows I was here?" he slurs back with increasing volume. "You fuckin' demon worshippers are all th'same, so far up your own ass you wouldn't know a good offer if it kissed you right on th'mouth."

A realization hits you like a brick. "Is this about what happened at my birthday last year?" you ask, using his off-kilter focus to your advantage as you slowly begin to step backward toward the door. "You pushed yourself onto me and wouldn't let me go until I kissed your cheek, then you threatened to drop me off the roof if I didn't accept your marriage proposal on the spot. Do you…" You cut yourself off. Of course he doesn't remember. He'd been just as off his head back then as he is now.

"I was only joking!" he retorts. "Why would I drop m'future wife off a roof? Thasstupid. Y're nuts for thinking I'd actually go through with it."

You successfully baby-step your way to within reach of the carved inlet that serves as the door handle. Just keep him rambling. You can hit him with the door before you take off. "And you're nuts for thinking anyone would immediately accept a marriage offer from someone who reeks like the bottom of an ale barrel."

You know the second you shoot off your mouth that it wasn't a good move. He tenses on the spot, both hands drawn into club-like fists at either side, his stony features pinched with disgust.

"You sayin' you're too good for me, bitch?"

He rushes forward, too fast for you to get the door more than a crack open before he throws a massive shoulder against it to slam it shut once more. You scream as he grabs the front of your robes, praying it echoes down the hall with your heels dug against the floor in a fruitless effort to prevent him from bodily dragging you toward the empty altar. He's far too strong to break away from. Your nails digging into his wrists seems to not even register, even when blood wells under them. "Let go," you plead, wide eyed fixed on the pedestal as he drags you toward it clawing and kicking the whole way.

Nothing seems to faze him. He forces your upper half over the marble pedestal with enough force to knock the wind out of your lungs. You wheeze under the weight of a forearm that presses hard into your upper back, reinforced by extra weight that's too heavy to roll out from under. You struggle the entire time, unwilling to stop, with everything in you that isn't trying to escape screaming toward the Aether for someone, something, anything to see what's going on and intervene. You've spent your whole life serving this temple… why would the Fae abandon you now?

As you flail, a small brown sparrow lands on the edge of the open roof and peers down directly at you two. It chirps once, clear as a bell, and the sound hits something deep and instinctive in your chest.

You aren't given enough time to ponder. He grabs your scarf from behind without warning and the knot instantly digs into your windpipe as he yanks the garment back in an attempt to rip it off of you. You sputter and flail your hands to signal for him to let go, to warn him of the danger that lingers in your head with Deku's last warning, but it's not enough.

You hear a piece of embroidery thread snap somewhere in his closed fist. A gust of humid air blasts across you and the weight above you disappears immediately, followed by a nauseating crunch of bones breaking amid the shatter of cracked marble. You wail in fear, clutching to the warmth that had drifted through you with both arms over your head as you sob into the marble. You can't bring yourself to move yet.

Where are you? You said you'd be watching out for me…

You finally force yourself upright once you begin to lose circulation in your arms. You wipe your face, sniffling quietly as you turn. You nearly collapse as a petrified shriek rips itself out of your chest: the hunter had been thrown back against the marble wall next to the door with enough force to crater it inward. His unmoving frame is slumped over in the center amid a splash of red that drips heavily off the jagged edges around him.

It isn't the wall that grabs your attention, though: his tunic has been ripped with several round puncture wounds arranged in a rough circle, the apparent source of the blood pooling at his sides. You tremble from head to toe despite the summer breeze coursing through the room. The longer you stare at the hunter's chest wounds and the way they're arranged, the more they begin to look like…

"Antler wounds."

You smack a hand over your mouth like you'd just hexed someone. He really had been watching out… somehow. What kind of magic had gone into your scarf's embroidered edge? You run your fingers over it, seeking out the thread that snapped. The wind dies out in time for you to hear another set of feet shuffling in the room. It's almost too much; you nearly faint with the panic that latches around your throat. You sway back toward the altar to use for leverage as your knees once again threaten to buckle and are bolstered by a rough set of hands that press against your shoulder blades to keep you upright.

You're too strung out to do anything but gape as Deku - the real one, the same one from the year before with his antlers and freckles and big, terrifying green eyes oh gods he's finally here - steps around and immediately yanks you against his chest. You cling back with both arms circled tight around his ribs and let out another ragged sob into the soft fabric of his cloak.

"Are you okay?" he rumbles. You can only nod back and clutch him like he's keeping you anchored to the ground. You feel his head turn above yours, toward the cracked wall and what remains of the hunter, and a low growl vibrates through him. "I'm sorry," he murmurs. "I tried to get here as fast as I could." You feel his arms tighten around your upper half, boxing you in and insulating you from the sight behind him.

"You saved me," you manage to choke back. "You don't have to apologize for anything." You step back far enough to wipe at your eyes and clear your sinuses, trembling like a leaf in the circle of his arms. "What was that? What attacked him?"

Deku's mouth draws into a tense line. "I can't tell you," he replies. "But I know someone who can." You blink, confused by his ambivalence. "Have you considered what we talked about last year?"

…What? "Of course I have," you retort. Your head hurts. Where's that spiced wine when you need it? "But I hardly think this is a time to talk about-"

"No no no, think about it," Deku cuts in hurriedly. "I don't mean this in a threatening way at all, but the people of your village are going to get suspicious when someone turns up dead with a set of puncture wounds to the chest."

Your entire body numbs out with panic. He's right. Your gaze snaps to the top of his head, where a set of now fully grown antlers jut out of his wild verdant curls. You begin to count how many points they have, but shove the impulse away with disgust. You don't want to know. Even if you did, it's probably for the best to remain ignorant for now.

Voices echo through the open roof from somewhere beyond, possibly the temple courtyard. "I have to go," he says with a hint of genuine hurt. "They can't find me."

This is too much. The decision to leave was always supposed to be planned out. You've had an entire year to get everything ready, only to have your plans shattered into jagged chunks of broken marble by a drunk hunter and some creature powerful enough to kill him with velocity alone. You clutch yourself to his chest again as panic grips your throat with white-hot claws. "We'll find a way to come back, right?" you whisper with a silent prayer of hope to the entire cosmos.

He nods. "I swear it on my name." He pushes you gingerly by the shoulders so he can look you in the face again, his own tense with mounting anxiety. "We have to go now, my sparrow. Please… I'm begging you, come with me. I don't want to go back without you again." His hands tighten over your shoulders as tears well up along the edges of his wide green eyes. "Please."

It feels like your heart has been ripped out of your chest and flung out through the open roof. You open your mouth to blurt out some pained apology for making him assume you'd say no, the voices outside growing louder and clearer in the pause, but can only choke around a whimper as everything you want to say jams in your throat. Instead you simply nod, a single weak incline of your head.

That's all it takes for him to scoop you around the waist again and drag you both sideways toward the corner where he appeared. "You might be kind of shocked when we get through," he warns as he hurls you both toward the marble seam you're convinced is going to split your head open on contact. "Hold your breath!"

The command is sharp enough to make your lungs draw in a deep inhale without conscious thought. Your eyes snap shut as your forehead approaches the shadowed corner; it meets only an icy wall of air as the lights beyond your closed eyelids pitches black. You can feel Deku holding you around the waist, an anchor that keeps you tethered to your own sanity as he rushes you through the dark at breakneck pace. The icy rush whipping against your face seems to deplete the lungful of air you're still stubbornly holding onto and within seconds they're screaming for relief. Deku smacks a hand over your mouth just when you think you're going to break and try to take a breath, and a second later you're both tumbling across the stone floor of an unfamiliar but warm kitchen.

---

Part 4

The second your head stops spinning long enough to see again, you realize there's a woman standing between you and Deku. You weakly recognize the faded emerald of the hair she has trimmed neatly at her shoulders. You glance her over and realize with a jump that the skin you can see around her modest summer dress is a pale shamrock green.

"By the gods, who's chasing you now?"

You blink from where you've landed in a sprawl sprawl against an ornately carved kitchen cabinet, too dizzy from the rush of air that fills your lungs when you take a greedy inhale to answer immediately (even though the question was clearly directed at Deku, who landed upside down with his long legs arched over his head against a stone hearth in a corner of the kitchen). You take another breath, but the bottoms of your lungs feel heavy like they've been filled with a thick gas. Deku slumps over to right himself and immediately looks to you. You're beginning to breathe faster as exhaustion gives way to panic.

The woman turns, fixing you with a look of shock that probably rivals your own. She's a spitting image of Deku, down to the ear points that poke out of her silver-streaked hair and the way her eyes go impossibly wide with genuine emotion. "You're human!" she exclaims.

You nod back, too panicked to form proper words. "Oh… oh, you're human!"

She jumps into motion like she'd just been zapped by a bolt of lightning. She procures a large wooden bowl from a cabinet and fills it with a few handfuls of herbs snatched from dried bundles hanging over the hearth, then steaming water from a kettle that she carefully pulls out from its resting place in the coals. She mutters something in a lilt you can't follow as the bowl is set on the floor in front of you, the woman following suit to kneel on the other side. "Lean down and breathe through the steam," she instructs gently, tilting down to encourage the motion. "The air here is different from the other side. You need to coat your lungs before they start rejecting the pollen floating around."

You tilt forward with a choked noise of panic and take as deep of a breath as you can with the steaming water wafting up across your face. Relief finds you immediately: you can draw a breath all the way to the bottom of your lungs, which takes the edge off your panic enough to finally slow down your respiration rate.

"There you go," the woman encourages gently. She rests a small, comforting hand between your shoulders that's shockingly cold for how warm the kitchen is. "You should be fine now." She turns to give her son an exasperated look. "You brought a human back without giving her anything to prepare?"

"I didn't have a choice!" Deku pleads back. "It was that or risk an entire war on their side-"

The woman holds up a hand to stop him and Deku immediately obeys. "Hold on," she says slowly, turning back to look at you with both brows raised. Her gaze drops to your neck and freezes. "You're the temple girl, the one he's been going to see."

The room goes silent, spare the crackling of the fireplace and your own rapid heartbeat. The older dryad watches, still as stone as she takes you in with one long look before staring at the fabric around your neck once more. All you can do is nod back. something akin to pain flashes across her face and she sits up with a fond smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes. "I'm sure you have a lot of questions, but I think it might be best if you let my son explain a majority of them over some tea. You look exhausted."

My son. "So you're Deku's mother?"

The dryad wrinkles her nose. "Yes," she replies stiffly. "Though I very much dislike his chosen name. It's undignified." She turns to Deku again. "You haven't given her your name yet?"

Deku waves his hands in front of him and goldfishes for a response before you cut in. "It's not his fault," you quickly counter. "I didn't want to offer mine. I was raised in a temple that had some pretty strict rules against that in particular."

"Understandable. Though I can't say I'm thrilled at the prospect of my own son having courted someone for nearly an entire year-" (Courted, what!?) "-Without even having offered his name."

"I did offer it!"

His mother chuckles. "I have to fetch someone who will be of much more significant counsel than I, but that will give you two some time to settle in."

You nod in acknowledgment, but her words don't really process in your brain. Now that you're breathing normally again, exhaustion has begun to creep into your bones. You'd been going on fumes before the hunter decided to ambush you, and now that you've quietly literally been flung through a Fae circle it's hard to do anything but lean against the cabinet. The dryad brushes her hand over your shoulder as she passes on her way out. "My name is Inko" echoes through your own head with the contact, jarring you into a sharp yelp, which only makes her chuckle in the same light-as-air way as Deku.

"Well… this is a hell of a way to meet someone's parents."

Said dryad has found his feet and is watching you with a sheepish smile, a hand absently scratching at the base of an antler. "At least it's over now?"

Your head thumps back against the cabinet. This is too much. You need to sleep. If you don't find somewhere to lay down soon, your body is going to give out. "Could we just…" You glance around the kitchen and into the room beyond, where another hearth flickers around a circle of ornately carved wooden den furniture. Perfect.

He follows your line of sight and seems to catch on without you having to finish your request. He moves toward you, arms extended to help you to your feet. When you wobble upon standing he immediately seams your sides up to take a gentle lead toward the sitting room. The furniture all looks hand-carved, the seats made up of soft animal hides that look older than both of you. He lays you down on the longest bench with a small blanket under your head for a pillow, the deerhide that's draped over the back of the sofa gently pulled across you for a proper blanket.

"We can talk later." He leans down to press a kiss to your temple. You groan as he turns to move away, an arm shooting out from under the hide to grab his tunic and hold him in place.

"Wait," you plead quietly, fatigue tugging heavily at your eyelids. "Please stay with me, at least until I fall asleep." You have no idea where you are or how long you'll be out. All you know is Deku being gone means you're here alone and you absolutely cannot bear that thought.

A soft smile breaks across his face. "Of course," he murmurs back. "Anything you need, just like I promised." You scoot to make room and he steps over to fit himself between you and the back of the sofa without prompting. This is what you really needed: a space heater behind you, a fire in front, and a strong arm draping itself over your midsection to hold the knotted ends of your scarf as you both drift off. If nothing else, Deku has more than proven he'll kill anything that comes near you… or at least has access to something that can.

He's still there when you come to. The lighting in the room hasn't changed when you open your eyes to peer around, and it isn't until now that you notice neither the kitchen nor den have any windows. The fire has burned down to a low pile of flickering embers, which means you were at least out long enough to burn through what had been there earlier. With no view of the sun, however, it's impossible to tell how long you were out.

Your stirring rouses Deku, who grunts in his sleep and pulls you back into his chest. The arm cradled under yours has turned an eerie cold. When it registers you sit up to face him, concerned until it snaps into another bolt of shock.

You yelp and fall off the edge of the sofa. Deku's skin has turned a shade of green identical to his mother's, his freckles standing out in sharp contrast. He bolts upright as well, looking around for the source of the panic before he spots you on the floor, half covered by the deer hide you'd accidentally tugged with you. "What's wrong?" he asks urgently, glancing around again.

"You're…"

He gives you a puzzled look, then glances down to where you're staring at his forearms. "Oh!" His hands rub absently at the opposite forearm as his cheeks flush ever so slightly. "Uh… yeah. I told you you might be a little shocked."

Shit. You did it again. You push yourself up to scoot onto the end of the sofa near his feet, and he respectfully folds his legs up to his chest to give you room without having to make contact. It's a gesture you appreciate, but not one you (or him) necessarily need. You sidle up to his shins, where you lean your side with your hands acting as a chin rest on his knees.

"Surprised is more the word," you clarify before poking your tongue out at him playfully. "A little advance notice would have been nice."

"Hey now," Deku chuckles. "I tried. We had a solid plan going there for a minute." He reaches a hand forward and, with a twitch of hesitation, shifts a lock of hair off your forehead and behind an ear. His fingertips are ice cold, a sharp juxtaposition to the warmth in his tone and the care with which he brushes across your skin. "I'm glad you're here, regardless of how it came to be. I've thought of you every single day since my last visit."

How had anyone mistaken dryads for monsters? If the others are a fraction as kind as Deku and his mother, then they've been handed a grave injustice when it comes to human comprehension of their kind. You lean your head toward his hand and he opens his fingers. Your cheek brushes against his weathered palm, eliciting a shiver that courses down your back as the temperature of his skin clashes against the warmth of the den. For a long moment you simply exist, anchored by the green stare fixed upon your own and the callused thumb that smooths over your cheek. Whatever it takes for you to keep this kind of tenderness around will be well worth the effort. You've already decided (long ago, you silently realize) that he is the only one you ever want to be this close to you.

"Do I make you nervous?"

You're taken back to the altar room for a moment as you recall the image of Deku sitting on the pedestal, bathed in pale light with the cicadas humming behind his ethereal laugh. "No," you reply truthfully, hushed and reverent in the slowly disappearing space between you as you both lean forward. Both your eyelids lower as you both lean closer. It's a chaste contact when Deku leans in to kiss you, as soft as his tone and the way he brushes the rest of your hair from the side of your face. Within a few seconds, the soft contact is enough to have you melting against his hand.

A deep male voice breaks the reverie from somewhere behind Deku: "Ah, excuse us…"

This time you both jump hard enough to nearly land on your asses. Deku pushes himself back until he thumps against the arm rest of the sofa as Inko enters the room, followed by what can only be described as a mountain of a man with wild goldenrod hair and deep-set sclera black eyes, their vivid contrasting pupils locked directly on you as he and the dryad approach.

"I hate to be a bother and intrude on such a formative moment, but Inko was insistent upon checking to make sure you're both still alive." He bows his head in deep apology. You're startled by how easily he seems to hold himself level with the massive antlers jutting out of his hair; they're taller than his head and several inches wider on either side. As you force yourself to not take count of the antler points, you vaguely wonder to yourself how he fits through doorways or in anything less than giant-sized.

Deku rises to his feet, and you quickly follow suit. "Ahh, this is my father," he says quickly. "I get the feeling you two are going to be fast friends."

"If you're willing to risk traversal sickness for her, she's got to be worth her weight in gold," the man booms back. He approaches with a hand the size of a serving platter toward you, the deep lines of his face bent around a beaming grin you recognize on the spot. "My name is Yagi Toshinori. Don't worry, it's safe to introduce yourself to me. I'm not Fae."

You twitch your head to the side but take his hand to shake it anyway, suddenly flummoxed. "But the antlers…"

"A by-product of the life I've found for myself." He lifts an arm as Inko steps up to his side and lays it over her back. It's kind of amusing to see such a small woman under the arm of a moving mountain, but the care with which he moves about her is heart-warmingly familiar. "All by choice, zero regrets."

The two of them take a seat on a smaller bench in the den, and you and Deku take your seats once they're both settled. "The drop in is rough, eh? That ice tunnel is awful."

You frown back. "How did you find this place?"

"I didn't find this place." He puts his arm behind Inko's neck, who leans into him with an appreciative hum. "I found my wife first. She's the one who brought me here."

You can't help but laugh, and mercifully the other three join in. "That sounds familiar," you reply through a chuckle.

"It happens less than it used to, but it's not unheard of," Inko adds. "I had a feeling my son would be following in my footsteps."

There's just enough flatness to her words that you squirm on the spot. "I hope that's not a bad thing," Deku says as he draws himself closer to your side. "Unless my logic is severely flawed, there wouldn't be a son to follow in your footsteps if you hadn't done it first."

Yagi lets out an undignified snort. Inko tries to frown, but it breaks around a smile as she nods in defeat. "All the same, I wish this hadn't been so sudden," she adds. "Not that I'm upset you're here now-" She holds a hand up quickly toward you. "-It was just rather abrupt. I wish we could have had time to prepare a proper welcome."

You glance down to your lap. "Deku saved me from something terrible," you respond quietly. "We didn't really have a choice in the matter." You look up again to offer the older dryad an encouraging smile. "Though rest assured he's been nothing but respectful the entire time I've known him." You bow your head politely. "Your hospitality is much appreciated. Thank you for giving me shelter."

Something behind Inko's eyes softens enough to make your heart twist. She watches you for a long moment, studying you as you do your best to not squirm. "The door has been opened for this place to potentially become your home," she replies to break the silence. "No need to speak of it as a foreign place. You already belong."

You feel Deku draw in a sharp breath. When you glance up to him he's hastily wiping his eyes on the back of his free hand. "Don't mind me," he chirps with a slight tremble. "This is normal. Been a crybaby since I was a sapling."

"You are not a crybaby," Yagi jabs back as he casually swipes a thumb under one of his eyes. "You have a heart."

And I wonder where he gets it, you think to yourself as you lean into Deku's side to comfort him.

The situation that brought Deku's parents together is so similar to your own it's almost eerie: Toshinori had been a well-known hunter from another village who found himself "lost" during an extended journey into the forest; in reality, he'd been lured away from the village so a team of rogues could take him out and claim his hunting grounds. He reached out for Inko, who'd already been coming around in a similar fashion to Deku responding to your meditation, and she answered by snaring the entire group in a wave of venom-thorned vines before sweeping him through a circle and away from the chaos. They were married within a year, and Deku came along a few years after that.

"It's oddly romantic, when you take out the death-by-murder-vine part," you offer to keep the mood light. All three of them laugh, especially Inko, who chortles behind her hand until her cheeks turn pink.

Something is digging at you, though. You can't let the entire moment go without at least trying to ask. "You said you're human," you repeat to Yagi. "But you also say the antlers come from magic. I thought we couldn't access magic."

"We can't," he replies casually. Thank goodness, you'd been incredibly nervous about broaching such a personal subject. "Not by default, at least. Humans haven't earned the right as a whole. However, sometimes things happen and the magic itself chooses someone who might be worth it." He nods toward the scarf tied around your neck. "Not just anyone can affect a connection through something like that. It takes something predetermined by forces beyond our control for that connection to be forged at all."

The air in your lungs evaporates. "So this was fate."

Yagi nods sagely. "Yes, as was me coming here. We aren't the first, and we won't be the last." He jabs a finger at Deku, who's taken to clinging to your side like a newborn bear cub. "His antlers, however, come from a direct blood connection to feral magic. He's full dryad, and it'll be even more apparent once he's eventually the most powerful one."

The world screeches to a halt amid Yagi's beaming pride. You feel Deku go very, very still next to you. "Um… I beg your pardon?"

"The Ascendant," Inko answers. "There is a thread of feral magic more concentrated than anything else recorded in our history. It chooses who it resides within, and whoever that force chooses is essentially the most powerful being in our charted world." She inclines her head toward her son. "And one day that will be him."

You look between the two of them, then back to Yagi. "So that means you're the Ascendant."

"For the moment. My time is coming to an end soon. I've served my purpose, so it's time for the next cycle to begin."

"You don't mean…"

Yagi's eyes go wide. "Oh no no no, I'm not going to die, dear," he booms. "It's time for me to pass along my power. I'm fortunate to have a successor in time, and it would seem like this little excursion is a good indicator he might be prepared for it."

"We don't know that," Deku cuts in, and it isn't until now that you notice how flushed his cheeks are. "It'll happen if it's meant to happen, right?" You lay a hand on his knee that's immediately covered by one of his own. He sags into your side in quiet gratitude.

Inko nods. "And it hasn't happened yet, so we won't fret about it for now." Her tone is soft, but there's a comforting finality ronit that effectively ends the subject for discussion.

You're given a tour of their house, which Deku fervently clarifies is not the place where he's lived for several years (Inko replies with a smug "And yet there's almost always a third plate at the table", which seems to be more than enough for him to take a back seat with his dad and let Inko lead them around). She walks you through the lower floor, where several cozy bedrooms are situated around a circular pit set into the floor. The center is full of a myriad of cushions and pillows in an eye-catching pile of patterns and colors all jumbled together in a space wide enough to fit at least three Yagis with extra foot room. "You can pick any of the empty rooms for yourself," Inko says to you sweetly before shooting a pointed look toward her son, who drops his head and shuffles anxiously on the spot. "But I ask that you remain in yours. I know you're grown, but this is my-"

Deku squirms harder. "Yep, got it," he confirms hastily. It's clear there's literally anything else he'd rather be talking about. "Can we start dinner? I'm starving."

Your stomach audibly rumbles at the mention of food. Yes, that's an excellent idea for more than one reason. When is the last time you ate? If you can't remember, it's probably been way too long. Yagi sweeps everyone toward the stairs with both arms stretched to herd them forward. You silently thank him with a smile as he squeezes your shoulder on the way past.

Four people working at once means dinner is made with a quickness, something you're intensely grateful for when you finally sit down to ea. Your stomach hurts from lack of food so much it almost hurts more to eat until you've got enough sustenance in you to level out. You see to the tableware afterward as Deku cleans what remains of the kitchen mess. The other two take their leave for the night with one last round of greeting, Inko's eyes trained on her son as she warns him about "straying past boundaries" on the way toward the stairs, her husband chortling the whole time.

You and Deku wait in silence until a door audibly opens and closes again. "Well," Deku chirps as he turns to face you with an equally cheeky grin. "I guess I'll bid you goodnight here as well. I'll show you where I live tomorrow, once we've both had a chance to sleep." He takes your hand and kisses the back of it with a dramatic bow. "Sweet dreams, my sparrow."

You snort and take your hand back, but not before giving his fingers a gentle squeeze. "Good night, Deku." His grin turns sly as he moves off to his own room, leaving you to find the smallest unoccupied bedroom for yourself.

---

Part 5

The next morning both Inko and Yagi see you both out, the former not allowing her son to leave the house before he's verbally promised to come by soon (and in a hushed whisper to keep you safe). It isn't until you're outside that the lack of windows is explained: the front of Inko's home is set underneath the roots of a gargantuan tree that juts straight up toward the sky in a massive straight line. You peer upward toward the canopy, but it's so far above the other trees the bare trunk is swallowed by the forest crown on all sides with no way to see beyond. The house sits at the head of a narrow trail with more angled trees visible down the road. "The sooner we get there, the sooner we can get settled," he reminds, offering you a bent elbow.

You smile and slip a hand onto his forearm. You take the short walk to his home in lockstep, Deku's skin cooler in the open breeze where it brushes under your fingers. The air is heavy with humidity and the chill of a light fog that hovers over the trail as you walk down it, bugs chirping and creaking from the grass on either side of the path. It's… idyllic.

Deku's house is almost identical to Inko's, but it's only a single floor and houses, much to your delight, a natural spring under the kitchen. He waves you toward it with a grin and something about a fresh tunic, but that devious little glint in his eye is back when he meanders off to change his clothes as you see yourself downstairs.

The hot spring is a deep pool in its own room with a shallow end that slopes up to the water's edge. The torch-illuminated rock wall behind it shimmers with a stream of water that runs down from somewhere above and down into the pool in a soft, trickling wall, next to a sitting area has been carved out of the rock to the right side of the pool. You dig out a couple of towels and a robe made of butter-soft material from a cabinet before ridding yourself of your dirty temple garb and every garment underneath it, your prized scarf folded lovingly on top of the pile before everything gets placed in a basket next to the edge of the pool. You can't bring yourself to leave the scarf somewhere out of arm's reach, and your robes are the last real thing you own.

The water is hot when you step onto the shallowest shelf, not enough to burn but definitely enough to pull a groan of satisfaction from you as you eagerly step in until you're submerged to your bare chest. Every muscle in your back begins to unclench themselves within seconds. You sink lower into the water, past your chin with a slow inhale and all the way down until your knees touch the stone floor of the pool. Everything goes quiet in a rush of water: it fills your ears and drowns out everything else but the odd bubble of warmth you've found below the water's surface. Your nerves balm themselves over for the first time since flying through the ring amid the trickling quiet. I's just you here, with no one else to drop another surprise on you. You stay submerged as long as you can before pushing back up to breach the surface with a satisfied gasp, your head clearer than it's been for days.

You wipe at your face to clear your eyes of excess water and the first thing you see is Deku hovering at the edge of the shallow bank, a towel slung low over his hips. You yelp and jump back amid a slosh of water, partially out of shock and partially to keep yourself from immediately staring at his bare torso. It isn't enough to stave off the newfound knowledge that he's built like a sprint courier and that he's very, very much naked under the towel. "Gods, you've got to quit startling me," you whimper as you swipe a wet hand over your face.

Deku laughs. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. To be fair, you were underwater when I opened the door."

You grouse back, but it has no heat. He's right.

"Can I join you?"

Your playful frown turns genuine. "I thought that was understood."

"You didn't say I could come close. You're vulnerable right now. If you tell me to stay out, I will."

"You're very polite for someone who's already stripped down."

His cheeks flush bright pink. "I was hopeful," he replies in an obvious attempt to be aloof, but it doesn't quite mesh with the way he keeps jerking his gaze away from the surface of the water (and, you realize with a bolt of mortification, a clear enough view of your naked form for him to definitely see). "But I meant what I said."

The urge to test him and see what happens flashes through you, but it doesn't seem worth the effort. At the end of it all, you do want him to come closer. You step toward him, willing yourself to keep moving as the water lowers enough to expose your chest. Deku seems equally dead-set on keeping his eyes raised, your flushes a matching shade of garish pink now and getting deeper as you come within arm's reach of him and offer a hand.

"Please?"

His hesitation snaps in an instant. Deku throws the towel aside and hurtles toward the pool, only giving you barely enough time to step aside and avoid the splash of water that cascades over you. He resurfaces and shakes his hair out before turning to face you, grinning from ear to ear. "Am I dreaming? Is this really happening?"

Given your own doubts, there's only one real way to tell. You take the initiative and glide toward him in two long steps and snake your arms around his neck. As soon as you're in reach he pulls you in by the waist and kisses the air right out of your lungs. You break away for a breath, but as soon as you've gotten it he tugs you again and the kiss quickly grows sharper with edges of teeth that clack together every time one of you readjusts your head. A hand pushes into your hair to cradle the back of your head; when you tilt into the angle of his hand he presses his tongue past your lips and all bets are off.

The delicacy with which he's touched you so far is gone. Deku kisses like he's been starved of contact for years on end. You give back everything you're given with enthusiasm until you're both struggling to inhale. A dam has been broken: every bit of excitement, fear, doubt, and loneliness that's eaten at you over the years rushes forth in a tidal wave and it's all you can do to cling to him and hope you're not going to wake up in your own bed at any second.

You finally separate with a wet pop. The both of you hover close enough to brush together as you struggle to regain some composure. Deku sighs quietly, his chest still rising and falling hard enough to disturb the water around him. "So I'm not dreaming," he says quietly. "Good. I dunno if I could have handled waking up without you again."

His admission wobbles around a thread of genuine hurt that has you pulling him into a tight hug, your arms wrapped around him tight. You circle your fingernails over the backs of his shoulders in lazy circles. "You don't have to," you murmur into his ear. "We're both here now." Which, wow that's a wild truth, but it's a truth nonetheless.

Deku clings back with his face buried in the crook of your neck. A silence lapses with only trickling water to fill the gap. There's no need for either of you need to say anything: there's a wealth of communication in the reciprocal drags of his nails, the tiny ghosting pecks he leaves under your ear, the little sighs when you drag your nails up toward his neck. You're more than aware of the fact that there's something hard pressing into your lower stomach that definitely isn't his abs, but your curiosity can wait.

He doesn't seem to agree. The pecks along your throat lengthen into full kisses as he settles above the thump of your pulse. A faint drag of teeth makes you jump and he muffles a laugh into your neck. "So jumpy," he purrs.

You give him a nip to an earlobe in retaliation. He jumps on the spot as you chuckle into his ear: "Who's jumpy?"

That seems to hit a switch. You're pulled up and out of the water in one unceremonious grab as Deku hauls you over a shoulder. Your yelp echoes off the walls but he pays them no mind, spare a wet smack to your bare ass. He doesn't leave you with any other real option besides being hauled out of the spring and up the stairs once again.

His room is somewhere deep in the house. It's impossible to ascertain exactly what anything looks like while you're slung over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, so when he shuts the door of a bedroom warmed by a crackling floor pit it's a bit of a shock.

You fully expect to be thrown down, but instead he braces you under the knees and neck to set you on an impossibly soft blanket stretched across his bed. He steps back, a look of apprehension on his features when they come back into view. "As much as I want this," he says as your sense of gravity corrects itself. "I won't touch you unless you want me to. That was rather… abrupt, and I apologize for it."

It takes a second for you to realize why he's even apologizing. The guilt twisting across his face is what makes it click: you hadn't told him to pick you up. It's your turn to frown as you lean toward him. "I'm not mad," you offer gently. "But I appreciate your apology. It's okay. I want to be here."

Deku's apprehension ebbs, but doesn't completely disappear. "You give me your word?"

You nod without hesitation. His smile returns immediately, radiant amid the firelight, and your stomach flips with elation as he eagerly closes the distance between you.

He settles low between your spread knees, a solid weight that keeps you in place without much room to breathe, let alone think. You're dizzy with the intensity, but you kiss him back with every bit of fervor you're given. Deku groans against your flattened tongues. "Can I taste you?"

You nod without opening your eyes and the weight above you slides downward. It's definitely for the best that you hadn't watched him move: a long, hot tongue drags up your slit and draws your back up off the bed in a graceful arc. He seizes you around the waist with a muffled groan.

He takes you apart with a ferocity that's almost scary. Sharp dives of his tongue punctuate the moments he's not wrapped around your core, alternating every time your wails start to get louder or shake apart. You grip at the blanket above your head for an anchor, but abandon it in favor of the verdant curls on top of his head when a cruel twist of his tongue has you pushing nearly all the way off the bed.

His name flying past your lips mixes with a weak moan from the juncture where his face is buried. "Watch the horns," he whimpers (gods, it shouldn't be so hot to hear someone's voice crack). "But do that again."

You tighten your grip obligingly. His head pulls ever so slightly against your grip when he returns to devouring you with a newfound focus. Something thick prods past your folds and you jerk your head up in surprise, but it's a critical mistake. You're afforded a full view of him with his tongue pressed flat to your core and two thick fingers burying themselves to the thickest knuckle and it rips you right over the edge before you can even draw a breath.

He coaxes you through it, drinking you down with your thighs wedged directly over his ears. When you can finally move them away, you're almost concerned you might have hurt him. But then he sits up, his chin shining in the dim light with a wet grin planted just above it, and there's absolutely no doubt he was just as into it as you were. Your own grin edges on feral. "You gonna stop there, or are you gonna take care of yourself as well?"

Deku snorts with an edge of derision that has you shivering. "You think I'm done with you?"

Oh.

He's back in position with one sharp swoop. This time he throws either leg over his own, splaying your knees wide around his ribs. A wave of self-awareness punches you square in the gut as he drags his eyes down the length of your exposed frame. "Incredible," he breathes. "I've never seen anything as beautiful as you."

You squirm, but will yourself to remain still. It's almost too much. There's so much tenderness behind the wild thrum shaking through him you're not sure how you even deserve it. Thankfully, his patience seems to run out just as your resolve to remain still snaps. He kisses you again as something thicker presses into you, drawing out a prolonged moan from both of you that breaks off when your laps settle together. "Hang on," Deku grunts hard against your lips. "N-need a second."

He's shaking under your arms where they're circled around his neck, but that could very easily also be you. "Yeah. Gods, Deku, you're-"

"Izuku."

The entire room goes still. He locks eyes with you, his own blown wide with only a ring of gold-flecked emerald left. Fear jumps across them while his throat bibs around a hard swallow. "That's my name. I just want you to have it. You don't have to give me yours."

Fear twists your heart for just a beat before it's replaced by a heavy warmth. You reach a hand up toward his face where it hovers just above yours, tentative and soft, the finger that curls his hair behind an ear ever so gentle. "Soon," you whisper back.

Izuku beams. "I'll wait as long as it takes."

Your lips crash together again, both of them curved upward around matching smiles. Izuku sets up a pace that keeps you close while still allowing him to take the lead and kiss the air out of your lungs, skin softly popping together with shallow thrusts without stopping. He has each hip in hand again with a grip that slowly increases with his breathing. Before long you're both panting into each other's ear, your head thrown back while he worries your throat with his teeth and grunts with barely restrained need.

"Won't last long," he rumbles.

You nod your acknowledgment. You've been a puddle since the second he laid you on the bed and took you apart like a prized garment. It's only fair he ends up just as boneless as you. You set your knees around his ribs to lift yourself into him, but both knees are pushed to the bed just as quickly. Izuku is watching where your bodies meet with a feverish focus. He doesn't seem entirely aware that he's got you completely splayed open but he thrusts hard and deep anyway, guttural noises punching out of him in time with the snapping of wet skin.

He finds an angle that seems to hit right up into your midsection and it's all over. He rips a wail out of you before your mouths are sealed together again, his pace unrelenting. You fall apart hard enough to make your entire frame quake under his grip, which has tightened enough to leave deep bruises where his fingers dig into your thighs. Just when it feels like you might actually have to tap out or risk going unconscious he thrusts in one more time with a sharp growl, then another, then a final one deep in his chest as he rolls himself into your hips and finally paints your insides white hot.

You're both trembling like leaves when he finally collapses on top of you again. You run your nails through the damp curls over his temples as he returns the favor along your hips, idle and tender despite the harsh bruises you can feel blooming along your inner thighs. Your breathing comes back slowly as you lazily kiss through the aftershocks, hands never ceasing in their wandering. It's a perfect feedback loop of calm and relief with only the fire to witness in the otherwise empty house.

As your breathing returns to normal you nudge Izuku up enough to meet his eyes. They've gone back to their normal emerald, the flicker of the fire catching hair-thin veins of gold. With the curved points of his horns looming overhead and flush-kissed shamrock skin, he should be some kind of intimidating. Instead, you can't stop staring at him. He's ethereal, more so than anything you've ever seen in any tome or heard in any story. He's real. He's flesh and bone and big, soft eyes and a heart entirely too warm for a creature who could take down minotaurs bare-handed.

And yet he looks at you like you're made of Faerie porcelain.

The corners of your mouth curl upward. You beckon for him to lean forward again and he does so, seemingly as transfixed as you. You pull him down so your lips can brush the shell of his ear and, after a ghosting kiss to his cheek, you whisper your name.

#midoriya izuku x reader #midoriya izuku imagines #bnha imagines #bnha smut #bnha server collab #citrus dome collabs #my fics

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cutegirlmayra · 3 years

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Hello Mayra! Hope you're doing well, perhaps a prompt to make you feel better? This is canon adjacent but also kind of AUish. Weresonamy but it takes place in the Storybook world (you knows those games). Sonic is now the big bad wolf and Amy is little red riding hood. At first she's afraid of him which hurts Sonic but there's a bigger threat and he jumps into action protecting little red. So the werehog saves the day and earns little reds trust and he realizes how much important Amy's support is

<3 I could always feel better lol But I’m doing great, thanks for asking! :Db

Also, still not sure if Canon Adjacent means Semi-Canon..? Eh? -help please I’m old and I don’t read fanfiction anymore lolol-

PROMPTS ARE ON SHUTDOWN. You know the drill, don’t send any more prompts until they’re announced to be reopen again! :Db

My response and first impression of this prompt: Pajama Blogs - Prompt Requests Ep. 1 (x - 41:05)

Prompt:

I was told to immediately head to Miss Vanilla’s house with Cream and I’s cookies. I was holding her hand as the path grew dark and strange noises kept crushing the leaves that blew in the full moon night.

I heard grunting at different intervals, and as Cream clung close to me, I stroked her head but couldn’t find the strength inside myself to open my mouth and give her encouragement. Comfort... I greatly needed that too.

“M-Miss Riding Amy?”

She was a kind girl, Cream. A small rabbit, that any predator would make a gruesome snack out of. I was a traveling adventurer who just happened to be fortune telling when she asked me for this favor.

Her mother lived so far out into the enchanted woods... doesn’t she know the stories and rumors? Even in all my travels... I’ve never heard of a forest this dense with evil magic!

“What is it, Little Cream?” I asked, moving the basket from her arm and switching it to my other side, cradling her once burdened arm now tightly within my own.

Escorting was the easy part, but monsters were at the forefront of my worries.

“D-do you think mother is safe living so far from town?” She asked me.

‘How the heck would I know, kid?’ I made a sour face, but kept my slurring suspicions to myself. “She’s your mother, Cream.” I finished my thought out loud, even with the tone of my voice being rather foul. “Which means she’s got to be twice as strong and brave as you! Right?” I bounced her arm in mine, smiling down to her from my red hood with a white rim that coupled nicely with my dress. It was tied tightly around my neck and even looked good with my corset, something I had picked up along my travels. “Now then, stay close, and everything will be alright, okay?” I manipulated my voice to sound assured, the only comfort I had waited for my lips to speak seemed more for myself than anything else.

Still,... I wasn’t going to leave a helpless little bunny to the hands of these deadly forest.

I glared at them, as though warning them that at any wrong move, I’d hammer them!

We continued down the dark path before I couldn’t tell dirt from moss anymore, and the colors dulled into deep blues and blacks, the moonlight no longer helping from the shadow of the trees above...

“Hmm...” I frowned, trying to gauge by the wind if a storm was coming... I squinted my eyes through the cold and thought I saw a shadow turn and inch closer to a tree.

I took Cream’s hand tighter, “Let’s keep moving...” and continued my brisk steps towards where the compass pointed us too.

I didn’t see it till later... but scratch marks revealed the sign had been tampered with, and with the compass pointing north, but the sign saying that her Mother’s cabin was another way... I took the other path.

I shook the compass when it was clear we were walking on grass, with no more trodden down carriage routes, and then...

We heard the howl.

“Miss Riding Amy!” Cream jumped into an embrace at my waist, as I put an arm protectively to her back and looked around. I could hear soft, misty voices as creatures that looked like chameleons began to materialize as though invisible this whole time! Tracking us?! They crawled down the trees with hooks for feet, sharp bluish and purple bodies with horns, and their tongues flung out and wiggled themselves in front of us before they jumped to attack.

I summoned my hammer and threw Cream back behind me, and as my first powerful swing locked onto one of the nightly creatures, my hoodie flung off.

I also didn’t know... that a beast within the forest’s eyes dilated at seeing my face, who had secretly followed us in the hopes of guiding us back on the correct path... hidden this whole time as well, when he saw my face, he immediately disregarded his own reservations at staying out of sight, and used the cover of darkness to swing his massive fists, stretching far and wide, to make it look like my hammer throws were hitting them all.

I didn’t see through his illusion, instead, I thought I was whipping my hammer around so fast that the monsters couldn’t keep up, till one ducked and dodged both our tactics and walloped me right in the chin. I was flung back, with poor Cream’s basket getting thrown in the impact and landed with her cookies that we had spent so long making.

This quest was harder than I thought.

I scooted back on the ground as Cream cried out to me, but the monster tried to ready his tongue to lasso Cream, when an even larger beast finally sprung out into our sights, and began to throw a gorilla-like tantrum with his arms, banging the ground and causing it to shake.

He roared fiercely and grabbed the chameleon by it’s ankles, swinging him wildly as it looked like an unwanted carnival ride, round and round.

His fur shuffled in the wind as he finally released the foul terror and it slammed against a tree, twitching... before it’s misty hide disintegrated back into the forest’s magic power...

I quickly pulled myself up and gripped Cream in fright, but held my hammer out with harsh pants, still not fully quitting without a good struggle first.

The beast relaxed it’s shoulders... then slightly turned its head to us.

I continued to hold my hammer out, before shifting it behind my shoulder, ready to swing at any given notice.

He slowly reached his hand out, letting its true length be known and lifted it above my hammer as I swung to defend ourselves, but we were both surprised when he picked up the basket.

He then swiftly gathered up the cookies with precision in his claws and lengthy fingers, before withdrawing his arm back to it’s normal, monstrous-still size and presented it at our feet.

We were still both laying upon the ground, except my torso raised slightly, before he nodded and was about to walk away when we heard a woman’s voice shriek out in fright.

“Mother!” Cream called, looking behind me and taking off.

“Cream! Wait!” I didn’t even think about the basket, and took off after her. Dust in our wake, I suddenly looked back to see the blue, hairy monster carrying the basket in his mouth, and lowering his head, scooped me up and onto his back. “W-wo-AHH!!” I gripped his back like a baby monkey, just trying to not get jostled off as he raced on all fours with such velocity.

‘He doesn’t look to be hunting Cream.’ I surmised, and then for a moment, actually thought riding this beast was my calling... it was fun, it felt like I was meant to trust him... I only had this feeling when drawing tarot cards, and seeing the fortune of ‘Destined Love’ written upon it...

“I don’t know who you are-!” I immediately shouted out, positioning myself more comfortably upon his back as he dipped his head and was about to scoop up Cream to his back as well, “But let’s save this family!” before another even more frightening beast that looked like a phoenix swooped down and clamped its claws to her. “Ah!” I cried out in shock, it happening so fast.

“Oh no!” The burly voice of the monster had thrown the basket back up to me and I caught it instinctively, before seeing him reach out his hand to extend it again beyond normal means, and grab a branch.

Like a springboard, we were slingshotted to that branch as I let out another yelp of shock.

This... was surprisingly fun! If it didn’t mean my little friend and her mother were in danger.

“Can you go faster!?” I encouraged, and suddenly, the beast seemed to take offense to that.

“Hold on!” he called out, a harsh grumble in his voice he may have not meant to make, and immediately we began swinging and launching ourselves closer and closer to the flying bird creature, when I noticed another--adult--rabbit in it’s other talon.

“It’s got her mother!” I cried out, and his eyes seemed to bleed with the necessity to save them as well.

“Do you trust a monster?” He asked, dropping to the ground after each failed jumped couldn’t get us close enough to reach them.

I held my hammer at the ready, looking to the strange beasts as though the term ‘monster’ didn’t suit how heroic he was being in trying to help us.

“N-no.” I stated, and he looked down a moment, as though disappointed. “I trust you.” I stated, boldly and point-blankly. “You’re willing to risk life and limb just for a couple of girls... I wouldn’t know a monster that noble, but I do know heroes that stalwart and true.”

His head rose and for the first time, I could see his full face. He looked touched by my words... before nodding with a narrowing of his eyes. “Alright then, Miss Rose Rider. Prepare to ride to wind!”

“W-what?”

He shot his arms out and pulled himself back, just like a slingshot position!

“Ho, boy!” I bit on my hammer and kept it between my teeth, realizing I needed to hold onto this ride with both hands....

He strained, before finally whiplashing us both into the air.

“Now, go!” He reached back to grip me, as best he could without injuring me with his brute strength, and threw me like an arrow across the night sky to the belly of the beast.

“HHHAAAAA!!!!” I slammed my hammer into it’s gut and had it coughing up a storm, dropping it’s prey as the woman and her child screamed upon their descent.

“Hero!” I called out, deciding never to use the term ‘beast’ or ‘monster’ again for such a kind soul.

The Hero seemed to understand I was addressing him, and threw out his arms to grab the girls and tucked them into his chest... falling down... Oh no...

“NOO!!” He was taking the plunge for them!

I wasn’t able to think about it long though, as the dark phoenix cried out and came for me, but I whammed it’s beak away from devouring me and grabbed a talon, using its body to take the hit for me on the ground while I remained safe at the underbelly of it’s feathers.

Spitting out said feathers, I then frantically backed tracked further into the forest, before seeing Vanilla and her daughter crouched over the Hero, tears of regret in their eyes.

“He... He took the fall for us. All of it.” Vanilla admitted, seeing that I was the one with Cream.

“Oh, Miss Riding Amy...” Cream wiped her tears, holding her mother’s hand and pulling themselves away from him. “He was the bravest, nicest wolf I’ve ever known!” She then pulled me into that said hug, but my eyes never left the body of the Hero.

His fur swiveled in the breeze... and the forest moaned as if losing something precious.

“N-...No...” My cards never predicted this... I moved the grieving girl and mother apart from me,... crawling to the Hero’s fallen form. “Please... I still want to... I still want to know you... I want to thank you...” My voice began to break, gripping his fur in my white gloves. “I didn’t even know your name...” I sobbed more than I ever thought I could have...

“I... I love you... Mr. Wolf, sir.” Cream began, “Thank you... for saving both me, my mother... and my friend.”

I shook my head, “You and I... we fought like a supersonic comet... that bird didn’t know what hit’em.”

Then...

While the sun began to rise... his form twitched and rumbled as though something was happening.

I pulled away only when a bright light flashed and yellow streams of golden ribbons flew around him.

He was lifted into the air and the golden streams wrapped around him before revealing a handsome--more beautiful hedgehog man than I’ve ever seen in all my life--slowly floating down to the ground before blinking his eyes open.

“Who...” he began, rubbing his head and shaking it as he got upright, spooking us all as we were jaw struck. “Who said my name..? And that they... could love a beast?”

We had a big party that night at Vanilla and Cream’s home. Cream explained her mother didn’t like her walking the path at night, due to the trickery of the forest dwelling monsters, but that she always knew a kind, mysterious figure protected her and her daughter every time they crossed.

On this particular day, Cream was attending the Chao Kindergarten in the village and had played so long with the Chao, had forgotten the time. Vanilla was so worried she went in search of Cream, finding the wolf and asking if he was the one that kept them safe all those many years they lived there.

He agreed to go on ahead before finding Riding Amy with Cream, and stalked them to make sure they got to safety, but was too afraid to reveal his cursed form.

The curse could only be broken by someone speaking his name after a declaration of admiration and love.

“That’s... amazing.” I was still in awe at how handsome the young hedgehog man looked. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him, but when he looked at me, my heart raced and I had to look away, pulling up my hood so he couldn’t see my blushing cheeks. “You should-! Ehem.” I was getting too excited... “You should come with me on my travels. I’m sure you could do a lot of good now that you’re not so afraid of what others may think of you.” I explained.

Though, in my heart, no matter what box this beautiful man came in... he was still a hero... just... more dashing in this form!

He smiled to me, and I felt my soul withdraw into his arms at such a sunny-disposition.

“I’ve always wanted to see the world, so that sounds great! But...” He looked to Vanilla.

“We’ll be fine.” She patted his arm. “You’ve been watching over us all in the village for far too long, time we took precautions for ourselves!”

We both didn’t realize that the Chao were formidable fighters... and ended up joining with each villager to protect them come night time, where their little forms could judo slam any monster that tried to trick in the night!

Sonic and I... We... hehe!

Well... The cards are never wrong.

I was destined to ride alongside the spirit of the wind!

#sonamy #sonamy prompt #weresonamy #sonic au #sonic au prompt #weresonamy prompt #weresonamy au #weresonamy au prompt #cutegirlmayra

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dercolaris · 3 years

Text

Purification

Fandom: Resident Evil Village

Characters: Mother Miranda, Salvatore Moreau

Relationship: Mother Miranda & Salvatore Moreau (None-romantic)

Genre: Hurt/Comfort

Word length: 2052

Warnings: No warnings

Status: Complete

Short Summary: There are still doubts in the once pure heart of the Lord.

The heat was lurking heavily in the air as Salvatore dragged himself into the protective walls of the old church. It was so incredibly hot outside. He practically couldn't remember when Romania had such a warm summer. Temperatures usually climbed to twenty degrees or less by mid-year – not nearly forty. The doctor wiped his completely sweaty forehead and closed the large doors behind him. A pleasant coolness settled over his still busily mutating body. The Lord took a few deep, liberating breaths. The black-haired man quickly recovered himself and strolled up to the impressive altar, looking nervously around the spacious church again and again. The shadows of the hungry Lycans flitted past the cold stone, looking like unique patterns on the otherwise bare walls. The creatures growled loudly and dug their claws deep into the rock while moving around. They patrolled the whole village, especially around their high priestess. Otherwise, the Lycans regularly terrorized the surviving villagers or hunted animals in the adjacent forests. Salvatore had little to do with the cult's bloodthirsty aides. Of course, he had also experimented with the mould on some creatures, but without any significant success and the mindless nature of the mutants sometimes made him doubt the good intentions of Mother Miranda. The doctor brooded for a moment. She had once been so peaceful and shone with foresight and unattainable wisdom. For this reason, the villagers in particular could not believe for a long time that the priestess could actually be hostile to them. This blind trust had made it unexpectedly easy for the woman to build her own army and drastically reduce the human fraction of the small village. The Lord shrugged his shoulders slightly. He had sincere pity for the poor souls, but they would serve a greater purpose. At least that's what Mother Miranda kept saying. The man blinked a little and looked at the altar, then tilted his head slightly to one side. Everything seemed to be staged again today, even almost wrong. Salvatore half closed his eyes. The black-haired man was still not an idiot, even if the parasite slowly ate its way through his mind and gradually robbed him of the ability to think independently. This suffering of the poor people was not justified, no matter how hard the priestess tried to convince her subordinates otherwise. The black-haired man put a hand on one of the golden cups on the richly decorated tablecloth and carefully lifted the noble metal.

His grey eyes looked at the blood-red gemstones and for a moment regarded his own shape in the reflection of the material. Countess Dimitrescu and Lord Heisenberg seemed to have been completely robbed of their former humanity by the Cadou and were only little interested in the fate of the common people. Basically, the villagers were only expendable research objects or served as a slowly dwindling source of food for the family of the vampire. And the doll maker in her never ending solitude? Countess Beneviento was too caught up in her own world, which did not allow her to judge the current situation with a sense of logic. Salvatore carefully put the cup back. The priestess was probably just trying to convince him by now of her good intentions, but that wasn't really necessary. In principle, the doctor had no choice but to stay by her side and serve her. He could feel the parasites very clearly in his body. They moved through his organs, looking for new places to infiltrate and infect. They planted their poison deep in his cells. The man now closed his eyes completely. He feared the total loss of his former compassion. Wasn't that what made him and his family so special? Above all, his father, a noble doctor without great demands, had repeatedly explained to him during his childhood that their work was not for own enrichment and was only intended to help the general public. The Moreau family's job was to keep the village in excellent health. Salvatore looked down on the floor, concerned. He now successfully trampled this code under the force of the Cadou. The black-haired man looked up at the half-destroyed cross and finally fell to his sore knees. The Lord wiped the tears from his eyes and finally clasped his hands tightly. He lowered his head in humility and began to say a quiet prayer.

A solitary prayer for all the sacrifices the cult had already demanded and who would follow in the near future. The doctor knew that God had left this village years ago. Presumably he did not want to watch his own creation perish under the hand of evil. Salvatore spoke the 'Our Father' in a shaky voice. Perhaps the angry and restless souls would forgive him if he expressed his repentance to them. He ignored the constant growling of the Lycans, repeated his silent prayer three times. After a few seconds the man looked up at the symbol of his former faith. It would probably not be long before the cross succumbed to the extreme weather in Romania and fell down. The old chains were way too rusty. The doctor got up with great difficulty and snorted softly. He was the only one of the counts who actually came to church regularly to pray. Salvatore was about to make his way back to his reservoir when a melodic woman's voice stopped him: “Salvatore. Haven't we talked about this several times, my son?” Mother Miranda. The black-haired man shrank in an instant and turned to the priestess, startled. She came slowly towards him, a small smile lay on her lips. The man mumbled softly: “I can't bring myself to not pray at least once a week. My parents raised me to praise the Lord and I don't want to cover my families name in shame by simply forgetting old traditions.” The person addressed nodded slowly and took a step closer to her subordinate. As usual, there was no denial in her eyes, but a small trace of disappointment. This expression suddenly faded and gave way to a seldom observed warmth. After a while the woman spoke calmly: “I have always valued this loyalty in your soul, my child. A gentle and generous heart beats in your chest.” The Lord looked confused at the leader of the cult. Was she really serious? Her eyes left no room for doubt.

The doctor played with his fingers and replied shyly: "That is firmly connected with my original profession, Mother." The priestess laughed a little. She put her hand tenderly on the man's bulging cheek and caressed it tenderly. She spoke slowly while stroking the skin: “It is always touching to watch how seriously you take the suffering of the unbelievers and pray for their unsaved salvation. You are more than entitled to rule by my side, no matter what my other children say. I need a pure heart like yours for my plans, in order to maintain the balance between necessary hard-heartedness and good-naturedness." Salvatore swallowed a large lump down his sore throat. Her words sounded meek as usual, but the content was anything but peaceful. He knew all too well what hard-heartedness actually meant to the priestess. The leader of the cult showed no mercy in achieving her goals and regularly showed this nature in her dealings with the villagers. The black-haired replied hesitantly: “I really want to believe your words, Mother, but I have a hard time looking at the sheer destruction around you. Are all these sacrifices as necessary as you always say?” The woman raised her eyebrows slightly. She was apparently surprised by this question. Before the priestess could answer, the Lord added, almost begging: “Please tell me the truth at last. I can't stand the uncertainty or another lie in my life.” Mother Miranda ran her thumb over the man's cheekbones. She remained silent for a while, seeming to ponder an appropriate formulation for her answer. Finally the woman reassuringly stated: “It is necessary, Salvatore. The locals have followed a misconception and need to be purified in order to know their true destiny. Unfortunately, drastic means are often required for this.” The doctor looked the priestess in the eyes. He searched for the hidden lie, some sign that there was a valid reason to doubt the leader's intentions. After a while the black-haired man lowered his gaze again and asked cautiously: "I have to trust in your words, don't I?"

The woman smiled gently, only nodded slowly. She turned to the altar and lifted the cup that the Lord had held in his hands earlier. As if by itself, the vessel filled with a red liquid. Mother Miranda handed the goblet to Salvatore and said calmly: “Drink up, my son. It will quench your thirst for certainty and give you a clearer view of our task.” Small black dots floated in the strange drink. The Lord took the cup with trembling fingers and smelled the liquid slightly. At least it wasn't human blood, but the many pieces in the drink made him sceptical. He looked up uncertainly. The leader ran her fingers over the balding head of the man and quietly assured him: “Trust me, my child. It won't harm you. Drink.” The doctor looked back into the liquid. Finally he made up his mind and put the mug to his lips. Salvatore couldn't see the black dots moving in the direction of his mouth on their own. He drank the indefinable drink in big gulps. A sweet taste spread across his tongue, as well as a certain coolness in his whole body. The black-haired man wiped his lips with the back of his hand and handed the goblet to the priestess. Suddenly he was panting hard, practically gasping for air. Something was moving in his body. The Lord fell hard on his already aching knees and clutched his slippery temple with his fingers. Mother Miranda put the cup back on the altar, then carefully placed both of her hands on his head. She spoke almost gracefully in a soft voice: “I will cleanse you of all your doubts, my son, and take away the difficulty of having to make important decisions on your own any more. Express your loyalty to me and I will end your current suffering."

A strange feeling crept into his head. Out of the corner of his eye he saw black dots moving through his superficial blue veins on his arm. Salvatore opened his mouth a little, but no words came out of his throat. The pain in his chest got worse and worse, but suddenly he no longer believed that it was a bad thing. A strong tingling sensation on his back signalled that something was happening to him. At that moment another parasite broke out of his skin and stared out into the world with icy eyes. The doctor finally replied in a whisper: "I will be loyal to you forever, Mother." As promised, the pain disappeared as if by magic. What remained was a feeling of closeness to the woman in front of him. They might not have the same blood, but their connection seemed beyond this ridiculous family trait. The cult leader gestured him to rise. She breathed a little kiss on the man's forehead and meekly whispered: “That's right, my child. Let go of this nonsensical prayer to a dead God and devote yourself entirely to your task. I have to be able to trust in you.” The Lord nodded eagerly, a broad smile crept onto his lips. He wasn't going to fail her. He couldn't fail her. Salvatore dragged himself to the gate of the church, flinching again and again from the working poison in his body. He finally wandered out into the stifling heat. The priestess watched him carefully and waited until she found herself back in her usual loneliness. Only then did she speak to herself, barely audible: “With all the others, only one Cadou was enough, but your ridiculous morality keeps you sane with three parasites now. I don't know whether to be impressed or upset about this development, Moreau.” Mother Miranda stood at the altar for a while, then withdrew to the basement of the church. There was too much to do right now to philosophize about such small failures.

#Resident Evil 8 #Resident Evil Village #Salvatore Moreau #Mother Miranda #Cadou #Parasite #Hurt #Comfort #None-Romantic #Religious #Priestress Miranda #Miranda #Salvatore #Moreau #Lord Moreau

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escorble-writes · 3 years

Text

Stitches: A Changeling Tale (Prologue)

‘Mummy?’ the boy asked hesitantly, ‘Mummy, please tell me a story.’

He had picked out the shortest story he had because he knew that his Mummy didn’t like reading stories very much. His hands shook as he handed her the little picture book. Thankfully she accepted it and he got a rare smile as well. She looked like an angel when she smiled, her brown hair lit up like a halo with the warm lamp just behind her. It made him smile so much his cheeks hurt.

She patted the seat next to her and the boy climbed up, snuggling closer. He was really pushing it then but felt so lucky just to hear a story. She put her arm around him.

‘Sure Jamie, I’ll tell you a story.’

The boy froze as she put the book down and clenched her hand around his arm. He was really in for it now.

‘Once upon a time there lived a man and woman in a land not too far away. They lived in a town that was in the middle of a great big forest that was deep as the deepest ocean. Everyone in the town always looked angry and sad because of the monsters in the forest, who peered out from the darkness of the trees with too-bright eyes and impish smiles. Hundreds of years ago the settling people of the town had chased them into the shadows with swords and arrows of iron, which made the creatures sick, searing and burning their skin, because only monsters couldn’t touch iron.”

Jamie clenched his fists so his Mummy wouldn’t see the little burns on his fingertips. They were taking a while to heal, and stung a lot, making it really hard for him to hold stuff. There was a knock at the door, and it creaked open. His Daddy was standing in the doorway, and his eyes were making the thunderclouds that came from the bitter water.

‘Hi honey.’ His Mummy said. ‘I’m just telling Jamie a story. Come, sit with us.’

His Daddy smiled, but it wasn’t a nice smile. It was a cruel, mean smile and he came to sit by the boy. Jamie was trapped.

‘Now, where were we? Ah yes... the monsters in the trees were cruel and twisted, and after a few years spent licking their wounds, crawled back to do bad things to the town. Blighting the crops, curdling the milk and burning some of the newer buildings were only the beginnings of their cruelty. Many people who remembered stories of the old ways began to put up wards in their windows made of rowan and iron, but of course other people were too sensible for silly superstition, the man and woman included.

They were about to have a baby you see and thought rational beliefs and behaviours would serve them well. But the monsters in the woods liked to twist rationality around them and their evil knew no bounds. It was two months after the first barn at the edge of town burnt to the ground and the cold and darkness really began to set in that the man and woman brought their first child into their world. A son. He had his Mother’s deep brown hair and his Father’s sparkling emerald eyes, even so early. They loved him, more than anything or anyone. But within two short weeks he was missing.

The police were useless and searched for days but the only evidence they had was the smell of rotting pine needles that was left in the air. The man and woman waited and waited, and for three days there was nothing. Then, on the third day, when the man was sleeping downstairs and the woman was wandering upstairs, she heard a baby begin to cry. She rushed into her sons’ room and there he was, in the cradle screaming and screaming with his face bright cherry red and hair three inches longer. She cried in delight and snatched him up, calling for her husband to join her.’

Mummy paused and took a sip of her tea. Just the smell of the tea made Jamie feel happy, almost able to forget the story.

‘At first everything seemed normal. They did notice however, the small fires that started whenever the boy grew angry, how his screams sounded wrong like there were two voices instead of one. How fast his hair grew, and teeth cut, along with the inconsolable pulling at his ears as if they ached. How he hated the smell of iron and steel and would scream loud enough for the walls to shake if they ever tried to feed him with a metal spoon. He was behaving like a little monster, but after an experience like he had it was almost to be expected. So for two years they put up with the new strangeness in their son, and it was only when the boy’s hair began to shine strangely in certain lights and the green eyes that had passed down through both their families dulled to an ugly blue, that they finally realised something was more than wrong.’

Jamie looked down at the one rusty spot on the carpet where Daddy had once spilt his drink as he got up to run across the room. He didn’t like this story.

‘It changed the man and woman, robbing them of their happiness. The boy looked less and less like their son every day... until the stormy night when the enchantment that kept him looking human finally broke. His ears grew long and pointed, and two little bat wings sprouted out of his back like weeds. The monsters in the woods had kidnapped their little boy and sent a monster to torture and break the hearts of the man and woman instead. But they were not going to give the monsters the satisfaction. Do you know what they did Jamie?’

Jamie didn’t say anything, just kept looking down. He wanted to cry. A lump was forming in his throat. But that would mean that they won.

‘They pinned him down next to the fire, on a tarp so there wouldn’t be a mess. The man got his bolt cutters from the shed. And they cut off his wings.’

Jamie flinched, and they smiled at the jump.

‘It took three tries before the bones finally broke all the way through’ Daddy said with relish. ‘And three hours to catch on fire; after all the bandaging was done. Boy did he scream and scream and scream.’

‘That’s right dear. We don’t like monsters, do we Jamie?’

‘No.’ He whispered.

‘But Jamie,’ She said quite sternly, placing her fingertips on the raised ridges near his spine, ‘You are the monster.’

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raktanag · 2 years

Text

Verses (more TBA)

Disney Verse: Settled in The Jungle Book, the plot doesn’t differ from the original, he’s more of a trickster that isn’t to be angered

Tagged as jungle trickster (disney au)

League Of Legends Verse: Kalyan is a Vastaya from Ionia who suffered the Noxian Invasion and is hunting all of the treacherous humans who steal the magic from the land

Tagged as jussstice for ionia (lol au)

League skins:

Spirit Blossom: Kalyan is the suave and beautiful Spirit of Slumber who offers rest and comfort to kind wanderers or a dark fate to the greedy mortals. When he is asleep himself, he does his duty to hunt down any nightmare making demon and feast on them. But he never says no to physical food offerings at his massive tree temple

Blood Moon: a devoted member of the Blood Moon cult that guards the forests around the temple. Trespasses beware, the Blood Serpent's eyes are both beautiful and terrifying to look at, and his hunger is as big as he is.

Resident Evil: Once an innocent young man who was traveling from India to study abroad, now one of the terrible Cadou experiments of Salvatore Moreau in order to find a good vessel for Mother Miranda. Kalyan managed to maintain part of his sanity and adapt to the forests around the Village, hunting animals and making himself a hidden lair in the mountains

Tagged as i am the monssster you created (resident evil verse)

Urban Fantasy AU: With the passage of time, things changed, the people from India took back their nation, their beliefs and even if decades had passed, they came to ask forgiveness to Kalyan for the horrible things their ancestor did, with a huge offering. The Naga didn't know if they were telling the truth, but when some of the people turned out to be Nagas in disguise just like him, he was most happy to see he wasn't alone anymore. The temple was renewed and people went back worshipping the Naga Gods. After more decades, Kalyan decided to step outside of India into the modern world, having mastered his human disguise, to travel and see how is the world.

Tagged as scales under skin (urban fantasy au)

Twisted Wonderland AU: Despite his older age, a new student arrives at the Night Raven College from the east: Kalyan Vishvaas. Tall, fascinating, skilled in potion making and alchemy. His Unique Magic, Trust In Me, allows him to put people in a trance through eye contact and he makes good use of it by becoming the (unofficial) hypnotherapist of the College. Everyone is welcome in his room in the Savanaclaw dorm to just vent or ask for a moment of peace and quiet/relax. His price? Free dinner for him! Of course he can shapeshift into a Naga and he often uses his mighty coils to help people relax during the hypno session.

Tagged as descendant of the great serpents (twst au)

Genshin Impact AU: A descendant of semi divine snake like creature, Kalyan rejected the Akademiya’s teachings and retired himself in the deepest rainforests after being banished by the Sages themselves. They did not approve his way of thinking about respecting Lesser Lord Kusanali, even if she was still a child and without the experience of Greater Lord Rukkhadevata, for she was her reincarnation. They also judged his personality too frivolous for a respected scholar, and so they deemed him heretic. He obtained his Dendro Vision when he grabbed his Akasha terminal and crushed it in his fist, rejecting them once and for all. Before he could get arrested, the flowers in the gardens released a strange pollen that affected the guards and the whole council, making them fall asleep. Kalyan, marveled and enthusiast of this new gift, took the talisman and used it to adorn his hair, then stole a polearm and vanished into the deep forest, free to explore its deepest secrets and practice his divine gifts.

Tagged as serpens somni (genshin impact au)

Hazbin/Helluva Crossover:

While trying to meditate to at least have a glimpse of his Clan's afterlife. Kalyan misreads the Mantra and his spirit enters the wrong plane of existence, not the resting place of souls before their reincarnation but the place where the western sinners are sent for punishment. Being not Christian, and so not bound to Hell's laws, Kalyan uses meditation and the new incantation he learned by accident to explore this chaotic plane of existence, most importantly: make fun of the British soldiers he killed himself long ago.

tagged as the crimson western afterlife (hazbin/helluva verse)

#resssst time (ooc)#hazbin hotel tw #hazbin mention #helluva boss tw

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inspiringmelodrama · 3 years

Text

Yo no creo en brujas, pero que las hay, las hay

Part 3

Warnings: death of animals, spiders, curses, injuries, blood.

Beta read by the amazing @hnt-escape

The beast laid still in the middle of the clearing, its elegant body sprawled in a way that hid the harm done by Tovar’s blades. Vines curled around the big head, almost caressing it. The place looked sacred, holy.

No church had ever made him feel small or impure, but that clearing somewhere in the middle of nowhere did. The trees seemed to sway and a gust of wind swept through the space, causing leaves to spin.A distant howling sound sent a clear message for him: something treasured had been destroyed.

The idea of carrying some type of proof of the beast’s death had gone through his mind, only to be dismissed immediately.

He would end up dead on the forest floor if he tried to drag the heavy body with him.

The antlers or the fur could be removed with relative ease, but the thought made his guts wrench.

He had done enough to the being.

If the villagers didn’t believe his word, or his injuries, they could enter that wretched forest and see it for themselves.

With a last glance, Pero turned around towards where he thought he’d come from. Death heavy on his shoulders.

The trek back to the village seemed endless.

Tovar dragged himself, leaving a trail of blood from his various wounds. The creature’s antlers had speared clear through his right arm and he wheezed with every step feeling his ribs shift, courtesy of when the beast knocked him down.

The sun had passed the center of the sky when the foliage started to thin and Tovar found himself in one of the pathways leading to the edge of the village.

With a huff he climbed over a tree root that most definitely wasn’t there this morning and came face to face with the old woman from before.

She stood hunched over her cane, a beautiful piece of carved wood resembling entwined vines, her eyes crinkled when she looked up at him and that hissing cat voice was back when she proclaimed “The beast was slayed then.

Tovar assented, expecting she would say something else on the matter.

But the old woman kept looking at him, a flash of sadness on her wrinkled face.

When it became clear neither of them had anything to add, Tovar grunted and made to walk past her, only to be stopped by said cane planted firmly against his front.

“You’re hurt, Tovar. Come to my cottage and I’ll bandage that arm of yours.”

There was no question in her tone, but no order either. It was simply an invitation, a kindness offered to someone who had risked his life for her people. Accepting or not was entirely on him.

A friendly grunt and a nod was all they exchanged before she turned and went her way, Pero on her heels, hoping it wasn’t far.

Turns out nothing was far in that village and after a couple of minutes they stood in front of a small but well tended garden leading to an equally small and well tended cottage.

The door was low and Tovar had to bend down so he wouldn’t hit his head. Inside the ceiling was higher and bunches of drying plants hung from the wood beams.

The place was cozy, with embers heating a pot over on the hearth. It was one room with a big, sturdy table in the center filled with glass jars, a pestle and mortar and other strange items.

Fur pelts and candles, jars and what Pero presumed were cooking utensils finished the decorations.

And there were plants.

Everywhere.

Coming in through the sole window, hanging upside down from the ceiling, strewn around the table. Giving the room a heady smell of damp soil and green things he didn’t know the name of.

It’s all very witch-like, Tovar thought, or perhaps she is a healer.

Both healing and witchcraft were strangely similar. How did one know what was wrong in a place they could not see if not by some touch of magic?

One gnarled finger pointed to a chair by the table and Tovar followed with his eyes, still by the door. It was only when he saw the woman turn with her arms full of odds and ends that he moved his body and settled down on the chair.

She approached and started organizing the items she carried on the table top, murmuring for him to take the clothes off his torso.

“Let me see the injuries, Spaniard.” This time her tone was commanding and without thinking he started to undo the armour, disposing of the chainmail and other layers until he was left in his tattered and bloodied undershirt.

Her knowing gaze assessed the ragged edges, the trickle of blood running down from where the beast had stabbed him with its antlers. With quick movements the woman took hold of a soft looking cloth and dabbed it in a bottle with clear liquid, Tovar learned what was the purpose of it approximately 5 seconds later.

At once she pressed it against the wound, holding firm when Tovar thrashed against the intense burn and let out a yelp, sounding like a wounded animal.

Tovar let out a string of curses behind clenched teeth and braced himself for whatever else the old crone had in store for him.

The healer paid him no mind and after what seemed an eternity, but in reality was no more than a minute or two, she removed the cloth and he watched, astonished, as the wound started to foam and dirt bubble out.

Tovar realized 3 things at the exact same time:

1.She was definitely a witch.

2. She meant no harm, for now.

3. He was too tired to care either way.

It was time for the last part of his hurried treatment. The woman had cleaned other scratches, tied his ribs and applied a poultice to the many bruises he sported; the only thing left now, according to her, was sewing the skin together.

Pero would have no problem with it if she wanted to use normal thread, but no, the old crone wanted to irk him.

The old witch had to know, because she turned around with yet another jar. What this one contained though...

Few things in this life scared Tovar, and 8 legged creatures were one of them.

Inside the glass jar in the woman’s hand there was a stick filled with a white gray thin substance resembling thousands of fine threads tied together. In the bottom, a brown spider worked on even more of the weird thing.

A shiver ran up his spine, Pero could swear he felt eight legs and a fuzzy body making its way up his bare back.

The old witch, for in his mind he was certain now of what she was, could do anything she wished to his wounds. Anything except that.

“Absolutely not, witch!” He growled, one arm shooting up to hold her needle and thread away from him, the other took hold of his dagger that rested on his belt.

The woman’s nose wrinkled at the sight of the blade, “That,” she said pointing, “smells of death.”

“You figured me out then” the woman let out a sigh, and dropped the needle.

“You didn’t make it hard; with your weird jars and cobwebs you want to use on guests.”

“You are a very rude guest, Tovar.”

“Not letting you sew me with cobwebs doesn’t make me rude. I want answers.Now.”

They faced each other in a battle of wills; Tovar ended up winning.

She harrumphed and let go of the spidery thread, only to pick another spool, green thread this time. Raising it to his face, she only started stitching when he nodded and then they talked.

“Why get me to kill your own beast?”

It was the only thing he still didn’t understand.

“Do you think me the mother of that monster? Is there only one Spaniard on this earth?”

Foolish of him to think he wouldn’t end up in a village with not only one, but two witches.

The woman let out a breath and her body seemed to sag with it; that was the moment Pero truly saw the age in her bones, the tiredness in her eyes.

“I’ve been on this earth far longer than you could even imagine and there’s nothing in this world that I haven’t known, Tovar. I’ve seen it all, including what power can do,” she continued. “I chose this place as my home centuries ago and I come and go, watching children be born and grow and I cannot let them suffer any longer.”

“If you have seen so much, why not kill the beast yourself then? Why get me to do your bidding?”

“Because, Pero Tovar,” she said, taking hold of his hand and tracing with the point of her fingers the lines and scars intertwining in his palm, “you needed to come here, you’re meant to a place I haven’t seen yet. And sometimes one needs steel, not herbs and spells.”

“Dine with me, Pero Tovar and I’ll mend your clothes, as a favor. It won’t be long now.”

She sounded ominous. His mind paused at it but his stomach growled and between the two, his stomach usually won.

So he stayed.

He should leave. Grab his armour, go to the tavern, demand his payment and leave this place, let the only reminder be the dust on his soles and the scars he bears.

But he couldn’t.

The witch’s home was warm and inviting; the food was delicious and most important of all, she seemed happy to talk to him. To listen to his stories and animatedly tell her own.

He was in the middle of a tale about William and some ducks in Wales when a rush of cold air came and a strange woman entered the cottage.

Pero shot to his feet, his left hand wielding the same dagger he used to end the creature in the woods, the strange woman stood before him with fire in her eyes.

“I suppose no one would invite a mother to feast with her child’s murderer,” was said to him in a voice reminiscent of a hissing cat.

Fuck

“It was no child, Ethânis. It was a monster and had to be stopped.” The older witch sounded calm, too calm.

The witch’s forehead, Ethânis, blazed with a series of marks; the same ones he saw on the beast’s head, her eyes focused on the dagger on Tovar’s hand and he felt the steel grow hot in his grip.

“I haven’t finished with you, old hag,” Ethânis’ voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once.

“And you, you heartless bastard, with your precious blade; I know just what to do. A soul for the spilled blood.”

The dagger shone the same marks, the heat on the hilt became too much even for Pero’s calloused skin; he realized with horror that he could not let go of it.

The dagger and his skin were as one.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck…” was the only thing he could mutter.

The witch raged on, a storm let loose in an enclosed space; the old witch, Tovar realized in that moment he didn’t know what else to call her, laid frozen on the floor.

Everything stopped and the hissing voice came again, in whispers against his ears,

Place of the first strike cursed blade shall find; Wielded by friend or foe you shall never know; For millennia the will wander, only to alone fall in a strange land.

Her eyes kept blazing and winds erupted from the doors, sweeping around and raising leaves and fur pelts.When it was over Ethânis had disappeared.

Pero Tovar believed in witches. A lot.

He was stunned. What does one do when cursed?

Tovar refused to cry. He was a man of actions, and crying wouldn’t help.

What would help was getting rid of the curse. And that’s exactly what he set out to do.

The old witch was still on the floor and Tovar shook her none too gently until the old witch came back to her senses.

“Wielded by friend or foe”

“Wander for millennia”

The words kept twirling in his mind, spreading and infecting every thought.

God, he’d spent a life fighting; was it all he would ever know?

Would he truly spend a thousand years drifting only to end up forgotten and alone?

He didn’t want that.

He didn’t want any of that.

The old witch was up and running around the cottage and at this moment Pero didn’t care about names anymore.

He cared about being cursed.

About being alone.

About being owed a debt; he said so to the witch.

“I know, Spaniard. The debt the villagers owed is now mine.” She kept rummaging in her things, looking for something in various pouches.

The witch finally produced a single coin out of one of those pouches; it was beautiful,capturing the firelight and gleaming like pure, polished silver.

She offered it to him and Pero snapped.

“I don’t care about money,” he roared, “I want the curse gone.”

She shoved the coin in his hands and “There’s no way of undoing a curse after its cast, Pero Tovar,” she continued, a look of sympathy on her face, “the only thing I can do is lessen it someway.”

Shit

“Then do it! I don’t care how. Lessen the curse and I will consider your debt paid.”

“Then a debt shall it be.”

The old witch grabbed her cane, and started hitting it against the floor. A steady thump, thump, thump creating a thrum in Tovar’s ears.

The hissing voice was gone and now she sounded like water. The noise of gurgling springs and waterfalls, the eternal rivers running towards the sea. Powerful and mysterious, not to be played with.

You shall sleep, not wander.

When there’s fire in the sky and ice on the ground, a tender heart shall come and with frigid fingers touch you. She’ll guide you, where you have never been before, through earth, sky and sea.

With the last word the thumping also stopped and her voice returned to what Pero believed to be normal.

“It’s done,” was all she said.

This one wasn’t much better than the last.

“Yours didn’t rhyme.”

The look of sympathy was substituted by one of annoyance. “It doesn’t have to rhyme. Not all of us have the penchant for dramatics that Ethânis

possesses.”

Pero grunted in concordance.

He still held the gleaming coin tightly on a fist and when he let go there was a perfect imprint of it on his palm.

“And this? Shall I acquire another debt with you?”

“That is a favor, mercenary. You may need me once more.”

“What of Ethânis’ curse then? I just wait to be stabbed?”

“You can always take your destiny in your hands, Tovar. You can live in fear of it, or you can end it now.”

“What do you mean?” he was suspicious now.

“Easy. Let me stab you.”

Let me stab you.

She just said it. As if being stabbed was something he wanted for himself.

The worst of it was that he was actually considering.

“Strike me then, witch.” the words coming out of his mouth surprised even him.

Pero got to his feet unsheathing the cursed dagger from his belt.

His skin felt clammy as he extended his arm.

He felt shivers as he left his side unprotected and pointed to where the blade had first drawn blood from the creature.

He didn’t need to bother though, the moment the woman took hold of the hilt it felt like there was a string tying the tip of the blade and the place on his ribs together.

Guiding one towards the other.

Before she could strike, Tovar held her other hand, small and feeble under his strong ones, her skin thin and dry.

“Are you…” Pero cleared his throat before continuing, “are you friend or foe?”

Her old eyes held such sympathy for him that he knew the answer before she even opened her mouth.

“I would like to think ‘friend,’ Pero.”

He nodded, he would like to think that too.

She swung her arm in a wide arch, the dagger coming straight to the place it was supposed to hit, no changes in its trajectory.

He felt the blade pierce his skin, felt the tip scrape at bone. It burned more than anything he had ever felt. A fire within he thought never would seize.

He heard the words of the second curse again, then everything went to black.

#pedro pascal #pero tovar fic #Pero Tovar #the great wall fic #pedro pascal fanfiction

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the-hilda-librarians-wife · 3 years

Text

A Familiar Soul - Chapter One

Summary: Hilda decides to be completely honest with her mother, surprised when she seems to be a lot more in on magic than Hilda had expected her to be.

With her daughter’s association with witches, Johanna is forced to face some secrets of her own, bringing her back to feelings and people she’d rather have left behind

Dealing with insecurities and inner demons of her own, Kaisa finds herself face to face with the very issues that brought her to be so displeased with her own abilities

Or: the one where Johanna is Kaisa’s familiar

Notes: Wooo another multi chapter angst fic, let’s go So this is set after that whole “Hilda is a troll” situation is solved. However, since I never read the comics and don’t know how it actually was solved, I’ll be keeping it very vague and hoping you take it easy on me :) Also, there will be a lot of backstory in this fic, so all the flashbacks will be written in italics, and present happenings will be normal. Tmwm readers, you’ve been here before, same drill

Read it on ao3: (chpt1)

It was a lovely day, and as Johanna always said, lovely days called for lovely ways to spend your time. Her parents didn’t usually agree with what she described as “lovely”, though, but it was stronger than her! She couldn’t see the sun shining just bright enough that it didn’t burn your skin while still warming you, hear the birds chirping happily because of the freedom they had outside, know that the entrance to one of Trolberg’s many harmless woods was just beyond her backyard and not go outside. It was cruel of her parents to even expect that from her, really.

Luckily, they were hardly ever home and her current babysitter, whose name Johanna had yet to memorize, since her former one quit the week before after she painted the walls of the living room (and the child still didn’t get why the old woman had been so angry. The house had looked much more beautiful that way!) tended to fall asleep if she watched Johanna draw on her sketchbook for long enough. It had become her strategy to get out of the house, to sketch until the sitter fell asleep and she could sneak through the back door.

Once she was finally out, the girl extended her arms like the wings of an airplane by her side, mimicking the sounds of the birds as she hopped along a trail in the forest. The few times she’d been caught there, she’d been not only scolded but also told to never go past the clearing, since that’s when the Huldrawoods began. Johanna thought that was a rather stupid advise since they didn’t want her to go to the woods at all. It was like they admitted they couldn’t stop her from going out at the same time they gave her no good tips on what to do if she did go out. She couldn’t wait until she was old enough to join the Sparrow Scouts; they would teach her everything she wanted to know.

The deeper she walked into the forest, the closer the trees were to one another and the louder the birds sang. Their tune was soothing to her ears, and she thought that maybe if she walked far enough, she’d find herself face to face with a chorus of feathered friends with instruments and all. Those were all fanciful musings, of course, and she knew so because no matter how loud they got, no such thing had ever happened until she found the clearing (and she did always stop at the clearing like recommended, because she’d read enough ghost stories about the Huldrawoods to know better than to go there. Everybody knew you couldn’t go to the Huldrawoods without a witch). However, she reached a point from where on the music didn’t get louder like she expected, but lighter. Looking up at the tree branches, she saw many birds from an array of different species that were just perched there, silent and unmoving, as if mesmerized by a spectacle Johanna could not see.

Not liking the feeling of being left out, Johanna tried to follow the birds' gaze, trying to figure where they were looking at so intensely. As she saw nothing but trees, she kept on walking, but slower this time, so as not to miss what she was looking for. She kept her body low and close to the ground as though she was on a sort of secret mission. And she very well might be, since she had no idea what exactly she was looking for.

With her ears well tuned to her surroundings, it took her but a few more meters to begin hearing something she’d never heard this deep in the woods. Barely higher than the rustling of the leaves in the wind, a very human voice came from the end of her trail. Even so, she couldn't recognize the words.

It must be a foreigner, Johanna thought, noticing the voice sounded much like a child’s. Something about it made her think about lullabies on winter nights, or tales from the old books she read on magical creatures. Johanna was convinced that this was the kid of someone who had just moved into town, and who had probably gone to the woods because they still hadn’t made any friends they could visit. That being so, she considered it her duty to try and talk to the child, even if only to tell her to not go any further than the clearing.

When she lowered the branch that was on her eye level to allow her to see past it, she noticed a small girl, looking to be about her age, sitting on her heels in the middle of the clearing. She had dark hair which grew until the middle of her back. It looked wild and untamed, like it hadn’t been cut in quite some time, and a few small leaves stuck to it completed the picture. Along with her hair, her clothes were also raven black, making the girl look out of place amid so much green. She didn’t look lonely or bored like Johanna had thought she might, though. Instead, she muttered the strange words to a weed in the ground, which contorted itself with very odd, and to Johanna’s young eyes, even disturbing, movements.

Seeing that, Johanna gasped, revealing her presence. The girl stopped, turning her icy grey eyes to her. Neither of them moved for a second, but after the initial shock, the girl sighed in what sounded a lot like annoyance and turned back to what she’d been doing.

Though the weed had stopped moving when she’d been looking at Johanna, now that the flow of strange words returned it had begun its strange dance anew. The girl was causing this. Johanna didn’t allow herself to be scared by this realization. After all, this was just another girl her age, and instead moved closer to sit in front of her, the weed between them.

“This is bizarre.” Johanna whispered. “In a cool sort of way, you know? How are you doing this?”

No answer. Johanna didn’t want to raise her voice. It felt wrong somewhy, like there was a certain atmosphere in the clearing in that moment which she didn’t want to break. Instead, she leaned forward so the girl could hear her better.

“Can you understand me?” She asked, since maybe if her first hypothesis had been right, the kid still didn’t understand English very well. It would be alright, though, Johanna was very patient and she could help her with that. Her story books had taught her some big words.

However, the glare she was given stated very clearly that either the girl understood her, or she truly didn’t want to. Not allowing herself to be discouraged by this, Johanna spoke up again.

“I’m Johanna. What about you?”

No reply. When the girl took a deep breath, she thought she might get her name, but instead she just returned to her chant with more vigor.

“Do you, uh…” For a moment, Johanna was distracted by how the other child seemed to be trying to speak over her, her dirty hair falling over her face as her eyes closed in concentration. Her small brow furrowed, and for a second Johanna wondered if maybe she shouldn’t speak. But since her sentence had already been started, it would be bad manners if she didn’t finish. “Do you like the woods? Come here often?”

All she heard was more gibberish, though it must make sense to someone if the girl was so resolute in reciting it over and over again. Johanna was beginning to feel discouraged.

“I like it here. Feels nice and quiet, and the air smells like pine.”

The girl stopped her stream of words for one more moment, and looked at Johanna like she wanted to say something. Her eyes weren’t exactly untouchable stone anymore. There was a glint of sympathy in them. Still, she shook her head and went back to her chanting.

With a sigh of defeat, Johanna gave up. You couldn’t befriend someone who didn’t want to be befriended, even if she did very badly want to know how she was controlling the weed like that. Maybe the girl didn’t even know how to speak English, after all. She got up to walk away, or at least walk to somewhere else in the forest, but was halted when the girl finally raised her voice.

“Wait.” She said in that entrancing tone of hers. “Stay with me. Please.”

Though she had many other things she wanted to ask, Johanna’s eyebrows came together as she stared back at the girl. “Why?”

A second before, she was being completely ignored. She was wondering what had changed when the girl chanted again, with a clarity in her voice that hadn’t been there before, and from the top of the weed sprouted long, purple petals, one with each word the girl spoke. It was no unwanted weed. It was a flower. Johanna was staring at that with her jaw hanging open when the girl smiled at her, making her face light up.

“You make me stronger.”

_#_#_#_

Hilda had made them tea. That’s how Johanna knew how serious a conversation her daughter wanted to have; not because of the hints of nervousness on her demeanor, nor because of the way she said she needed to talk to her, but rather because when she was guided to their sofa, Johanna saw two steaming cups of chamomile tea waiting for them.

“Mum, even though you already know this, I need to admit that for some time I wasn’t really honest to you about the things that were happening in my life.” She said as she handed Johanna a cup. Her shame and embarrassment made her want to look away, but she forced herself to keep her gaze locked with her mother’s, not only because Johanna deserved to know how she truly felt, but also because Hilda needed the encouragement to continue that she found in her eyes. “And that led to… well, that whole mess. And I know you already forgave me, but you still deserve an explanation.”

She stopped to take a deep breath, and her mother nodded slowly as if telling her that it was all right and that she could take all the time she needed.

“That day I tried to use the nisse space to go back to Frida’s… when we fell into the stone forest.” The girl didn’t know why she was explaining like that, since her mother would undoubtedly know which day she was talking about. But she felt like she couldn’t help it, like the words were stuck in her throat and would only get out one little piece at a time. “I hadn’t been at Frida’s before coming home. I had been at the castle ruins collecting some dust, because Frida needed it.”

“For her school project?” Johanna asked softly even though she couldn’t imagine what kind of teacher would be as irresponsible as to give the children a project that would require them to go beyond the wall.

“It wasn’t a school project.” Hilda sighed. “It was for attempting a spell. Frida is a witch, mum. She only recently discovered her talent, and now she’s learning how to control magic. And I am helping.”

Silence washed over them for a second, and her mother shifted on her seat.

“Because you are her friend.” There was a weird timbre to Johanna’s voice, and Hilda noticed it felt somewhat ghost like. Her mother also sat with her back completely straight, as opposed to the relaxed posture she’d had seconds before as she stared not at Hilda, but straight ahead.

“Of course, but that’s not all.” Johanna’s sentence had been a statement rather than a question, but Hilda still felt the need to correct her. She’d decided to be honest with her mother, so she might as well do it right. “I’m her familiar. Do you know what a familiar-”

She didn’t get to finish her question, one she’d thought Johanna would be very interested in since as far as Hilda knew, she had very little knowledge about magic, because as soon as she’d completed the statement her mother got up from the couch. A robot had more fluid motions than the woman did at that moment, as she dumped the rest of her tea down the sink and mechanically began washing her cup.

“Mum?” Hilda whispered worriedly. This wasn’t a happy reaction; Johanna wasn’t hugging her or wishing her good luck or asking her about the experiences she’d had. However, it wasn’t an angry reaction either, since she hadn’t been sent to her room or scolded for whatever reason. Hilda wasn’t sure what kind of reaction that was at all, and it made her nervous. “Is everything alright?”

Johanna’s hand stopped its frenetic movement with the cup long enough for her to take a deep breath. “A familiar, huh?” She said, and there was once again something off with her voice. Her speech seemed too well controlled, like she was holding back a wave. If Hilda listened carefully, there was a touch of panic right in its depths. “How do you… how do you feel about that?”

After setting down her cup on the coffee table, Hilda walked to her mum. She looked like she needed a hug for some reason, but Johanna didn’t even look at her in order for her to make that offer.

“I love it! All that magic theory Frida is learning gets a little dull sometimes, I’ll admit it, but she adores every bit of it and it makes me happy for her. And when I get asked to help, it’s usually with cool stuff, anyway.”

“Okay.” Johanna took an audible breath in, and a long exhale out. She was using the same thecniques she’d taught Hilda how to use when she was feeling overwhelmed, Hilda realized. “I just need you to- promise me you’ll be careful.”

“With the magic?”

Johanna blinked, not realizing she’d closed her eyes. “Yes.” She said even though it wasn’t the magic she’d been thinking about. “And with Frida too.”

It was a weird request, and this didn’t escape Hilda’s notice. After all she’d put her mother through, though, she knew she wasn’t in place to question her. “I will, but I don’t think there’s anything to be careful about.”

Something about the way in which Johanna nodded made Hilda remember of a puppet having its strings pulled. She dried her cup and put it back in the cupboard while she whispered.

“You’re probably right. There’s nothing-”

She turned her head abruptly to her child.

“Hilda… how much closer have you gotten to other witches?”

Hilda didn’t see how any information she gave would make any sense to Johanna, but she gave it anyway.

“Well, there’s Tildy. She’s the one training Frida. She lives very close, in fact.”

As Hilda lifted a finger up to symbolize her counting, Johanna tensed up visibly at the mention. Lifting a second finger, the girl continued.

“And there’s the librarian.”

“Mr. Linus?” Johanna asked with urgency, remembering the gentle man who had been the librarian in her youth, even though the more sensible part of her brain told her he had definitely gone into retirement at that point.

“Oh, no. Her name is Kaisa, actually.”

Kaisa

In her attempts to not let Hilda see how that name affected her, Johanna only made her distress more visible. She twisted her hands on the hem of her sweater, not caring if they were still wet, and stared a hole into the kitchen tiles on the wall in front of her.

“The librarian, you say? How… how long have you known her for?” She asked, thinking about all the times she’d felt a sense of relief at knowing Hilda had been at the library, when she probably should have felt anything but.

“Some time…” Hilda shrugs. “She helped us with David’s marra. Remember that?”

Though Hilda made a pause for Johanna to add something, her mother didn’t answer.

“She also allowed me to read that book on the Tide Mice, but I swear she didn’t think I’d do anything! At one point we helped her retrieve a book that was missing and… well, there was a bit of fuss with the Tide Mice after the disenchantment which she helped us end once and for all.”

“You hadn’t told me about that.” There was some warmth that had returned to Johanna’s voice, but it wasn’t warm like a hug. It was warm like a fire.

“I know, mum, and I’m truly sorry. I promise I won’t be hiding things from now on.” Hilda assured even though she knew she wasn’t telling the whole of that story. She didn’t think that her mother would appreciate that whole void business, especially not in this state she was in. The girl took a step forward, wanting to hold her mother’s hand, but to her surprise, Johanna recoiled from her.

“Why won’t people tell me what’s happening?!” She burst out suddenly, still not looking at her daughter even though she was scolding her. “I just want to help you! Why is magic so much more important every time?”

Her mother never lost control. Her mother never scared her. Yet, in that moment, Hilda couldn’t help but be scared. Not of her mother, but for her.

“Mum?” She whispered, which finally made Johanna look at her. Her eyes were red, and her lifted eyebrows told Hilda that, somehow, Johanna seemed to have forgotten her daughter was even there.

“I’m sorry, Hilda. This… this isn’t really about you. Thank you for deciding to be honest. I’ll think on what you told me, but I need to be alone right now.”

Hilda desperately wanted to know what had caused that uncharacteristic outburst, but more than anything she wanted her mother to be fine. She respected her wishes, and nodded before walking away from the kitchen and to her room, where she knew Tontu, Alfur and Twig would be waiting to know how the conversation had gone. Hilda had no idea what she’d tell them. She had no idea how it had gone herself.

Before leaving her mother behind completely, Hilda took one last glance at her. With her back hunched and her hands on the counter, she stared out of the window and into the sunset. There was an emotion clouding her eyes which the girl couldn’t bring herself to describe.

This, Hilda concluded as she made her way to her room, really wasn’t about her.

#fic: afs #my fic #sketchbook ship #sketchbook ship hilda #kaisa hilda fanfic #johanna hilda fanfic #sketchbook ship fanfic

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