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maplemarcher · 3 years

Text

Reconciliaiton

Words: 4,486

Rating: T

Warnings: Mild violence, blood

Summary: rec·on·cil·i·a·tion/ noun 1.the restoration of friendly relations.

Notes: So, uh. I really love the roleswap au from @yumoirail. I hope they like this, if they see it!

It’s been one week since Ganon’s siege on Vah Ruta ended. Not a drop of rain has fallen in that time, allowing the ground to dry out and the swollen Zora River to slowly return to its natural state, banks once hidden by muddy flood waters revealing themselves once more and its current slowing. The divine beast that had previously instilled unease and dread upon all who looked at it stands proudly above the domain, trunk raised to the heavens and its sights set on Hyrule Castle, waiting for its companions to be brought back to the light and for the hero to venture into the castle’s depths and rid it of the dark force within. Repairs from the unprecedented torrent of rain are well under way. Joy has returned to the hearts of the people of Zora’s Domain as they feel the sun on their scales for the first time in what seems like an eternity.

There is only one that still carries a considerable weight.

Sidon spends his days on the perimeter of the domain, gazing out into the world beyond, wondering. His nights are spent either in the town square staring up at his sister’s statue or in his chambers, once more looking out past the borders of the land of his people. After seeing Ruta make its way to the mountaintop (by Mipha’s hand, who else could it possibly have been, only she could control it with such grace), he’d expected to see Zelda again, despite what she’d said just before making her way inside the massive piece of ancient machinery. He’s desperate to know what had happened, if Mipha’s spirit is truly free, if there is even a tiny fraction of a threat still hanging over his people regarding Vah Ruta, if Zelda is—

Sidon shakes his head and runs his hands down his face haggardly as he turns away from the railing of the balcony just outside his chambers. He shouldn’t care where Zelda is. He should be beside himself with joy that he’ll never have to see the one who failed his sister, failed all of Hyrule, and cost Mipha her life, ever again. Instead, he’s worried about her. He may even go so far as to say he misses her.

The water of his sleeping pool is soothing as he steps into it, but it does nothing to clear his mind. Nothing has been able to that as of late—not having one-sided conversations with his sister’s likeness immortalized in luminous stone, not training with his spear until his arms tremble with exhaustion, not the thrilling weightlessness of the apex of an arc out of the water, just before the descent. His thoughts are occupied with golden hair and green eyes full of determination and sadness. The conversation he’d had with Bazz a few days prior plays over in his head.

Hope. She gave me hope.

Sidon sighs and walks down the steps into his sleeping pool, laying back and letting the water support him. If he floats in the right spot, he can see the night sky. The way the stars are glittering reminds him of the adornments on the Lightscale Trident. Memories of Mipha that belong to him rather than his father or the elders are few and far between, but he remembers watching her train rather clearly. She’d been unmatched in her spearmanship, her movements smooth and graceful, the trident shining as it arced through the air. Mipha’s prized possession hasn’t seen the sun in as many years as she’s been gone—it sits on a special mount in the armory, slowly gathering dust.

A splash interrupts the silence as Sidon rises out of the pool and makes for his father’s chambers. King Dorephan is most likely asleep, but that doesn’t occur to him as he walks through the palace halls, water still dripping from his scales and void of any of his adornments. He knocks twice on the king’s chambers before entering, unsurprised to see him rubbing sleep from his eyes as he groggily lifts his head out of the water.

“Sidon?” Dorephan says. “Is something the matter?”

“It’s my doing that Zelda hasn’t returned,” Sidon says. “I treated her so harshly—I refused to let her near Vah Ruta, despite what you and Muzu said. Just before she entered it, she told me she wasn’t coming back, and she was gone before I could protest.”

“My son. Calm yourself.” Dorephan swims to the edge of his massive sleeping pool where Sidon stands. “I am sure that you are not the only reason she has not returned. This place must hold many memories for her that are painful now, and she has other work to do.”

“Even so, I want to make things right. The things I said to her, Father—I—”

“My son,” Dorephan says again, softly. He rests one massive hand atop Sidon’s head. It’s an act he hasn’t performed in years, not since Sidon would easily fit in his whole hand. The prince can’t help closing his eyes and letting out a long, shaky breath. “I have not seen you so troubled in a long time.”

“I feel like a fool,” Sidon confesses. “I spent so long blaming her for Mipha’s death and the state of Hyrule. The prince and other Hylians as well, but Zelda especially. I hated her, Father. The mere sight of her made my blood boil.”

“As much as it saddens me to hear that, I do understand,” Dorephan says. “We lost so much. You lost so much. The influence of the elders certainly did not help.”

“I shouldn’t have let their opinions become my own.”

“You were a child, Sidon. You cannot blame yourself too much.” Sidon sighs once more and nods. “Now, while I do not at all mind you seeking comfort, I cannot imagine that is all you came for.”

“Indeed,” Sidon agrees, straightening his spine as Dorephan returns his hand to his side. “As I said, I intend to make things right. While I can’t say my feelings toward Zelda are all positive, I can acknowledge that she was undeserving of my harsh words and disdain.”

“I am glad you realize this,” Dorephan says with a nod. “How is it you intend to make things right?”

“By giving her the Lightscale Trident,” Sidon answers. “I know you intended to gift it to her upon her return. It’s what Mipha would have wanted, and therefore it’s what I want.”

“And you intend to deliver it to her?”

“With your permission, yes. I—I want to see her myself. Whether she accepts them or not, I want to offer her my apologies personally.”

“You are a noble soul, my son,” Dorephan says with a pleased chuckle. “You have not only my permission, but my insistence. With the threat from Vah Ruta lifted and many of the monsters around the Domain slain by the hero herself, we will be well protected.”

“Thank you, Father,” Sidon says. “I promise not to be gone for too long.”

“Take all the time you need.” There’s a twinkle in Dorephan’s eyes that Sidon can’t quite decipher, so he dismisses it for the moment. “She may be difficult to track down with that curious slate at her hip. Prepare for a long journey, and take heart.”

“I will,” Sidon reassures. “I apologize for barging in at such a late hour.”

“Not at all,” Dorephan dismisses with a wave of his hand. “You can always come to me.”

Sidon smiles. “Yes, Father. I know.” He bids the king goodnight and turns to leave, only to be stopped by a call of his name just before the door.

“I am proud of you, my son,” Dorephan says with a warm, if tired, smile. “I know you shall make a fine king someday.”

Sidon is struck speechless by this. Rather than answer with his usual eloquence, he simply ducks his head and stammers out a thank you. Dorephan nods and slowly sinks back into his pool, and Sidon takes that as his dismissal. His father is snoring even before the door closes behind him.

Sidon departs the Domain several days later, carrying the Lightscale Trident as well as his own spear and a silver bow. He also bears a bag packed for him by Kodah and Marot, one of the innkeepers and the owner of the general store, respectively. It contains all manner of supplies, cooking ingredients, and meals made for the road. His final and arguably most valuable gift is a small wooden chest contained in his bag that holds many an elixir crafted by Laflat. They’re different from the one Sidon had (begrudgingly) given Zelda at the start of her journey to the Domain—they actually work for Zora. Laflat had explained what she’d done differently—something about making the base with water from the Domain, or perhaps putting a few of her scales in the mixtures—but Sidon can’t recall exactly what she’d said. If he’s being honest, he’s not sure how much of it he understands. He isn’t unintelligent, but his mind is more catered to battle strategy than magic or science.

Tracking Zelda down does in fact prove to be a tricky feat. For one thing, nearly everyone he approaches stares up at him with wide eyes and a slack jaw. He supposes that many of the people he encounters haven’t seen a Zora in person before, let alone one of his stature. When he does manage to get people to answer his questions about having seen Zelda, they give him vague answers, unable to remember her face in the sea of travelers they see each day. Sidon nearly gives up after days of unsuccessful searching, but the sight of Ruta in the distance is enough to spur him on.

He’s lost track of how long he’s been gone when he sees a most unusual sight. From downriver, it had looked to be an enormous insect, but upon closer inspection, the creature stuck on its back and flailing on the bridge above him is a Hylian wearing a frankly enormous backpack in the shape of a beetle. Sidon leaps from the water and onto the rickety wooden bridge, landing just short of the Hylian’s head. He takes hold of the beetle backpack’s horns and pushes, helping the Hylian to stand upright.

“Oh, thank you!” the Hylian says, dusting himself off.

“No problem at all, my friend,” Sidon says with a smile. “If you don’t mind me asking, how did you find yourself in that position?”

The Hylian seems unfazed by his height or the fact that he’s a Zora as he cranes his neck to look him in the eye, much to Sidon’s relief. “Someone on horseback came barreling by and knocked me onto my back!” he huffs. “They didn’t even stop to see if I was alright. Imagine if a monster had come by, or if I’d fallen into the river!”

“Dreadful,” Sidon says with a grimace.

“Yeah,” the Hylian agrees, sighing. “But, anyway! Thank you so much for helping me! My name is Beedle, by the way. I normally sell the things I carry here, but as payment, I can give you something for free as a thank you!”

“No need,” Sidon says, raising his hand to stop Beedle from reaching for the straps on his pack. “But if I may ask you a few questions, I’d be quite grateful.”

“Of course!” Beedle says enthusiastically, drawing another smile from Sidon.

“Do you travel around Hyrule frequently?”

“Do I? I’ve been just about everywhere you can go!” Beedle gesticulates grandly, seemingly unfazed by what must be the massive weight on his shoulders. “From Hebra to Faron, I go wherever things can be bought and sold!”

“Then have you encountered a young woman by the name of Zelda? Golden hair, green eyes, and carrying more weapons than should be strictly possible?”

“Oh, yes! I see Zelda quite frequently,” Beedle says. “She’s my most loyal customer! I don’t know exactly what it is she gets up to on her adventures, but she’s very kind to me. She even gave me this!” He reaches into a pocket on his backpack and presents Sidon with a bright yellow beetle contained in a glass bottle along with a few leaves. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

“It is,” Sidon agrees. “Would you mind telling me where you saw her last? And if you happen to know where she’s going?”

“Only if you tell me why you’re looking for her,” Beedle says as he lovingly puts the beetle back in its little pocket. “My heart may belong to Hyrule, but I still don’t want to see anything bad happen to her.”

Sidon sighs and scratches at the back of his neck. “Zelda helped me and my people in our time of need. Despite all of this, I was—unkind to her. I wish to mend our relationship as best I can.” Beedle studies his face with a scrutinizing eye for a long moment before nodding.

“You get good at reading people after meeting as many as I have, and you seem like you’re being sincere,” he says. “The last time I saw her, Zelda said she was headed to Hateno Village. Follow the river south until it leads through the Dueling Peaks, then go east.”

“Thank you,” Sidon says. “Truly. When you see her next, would you tell her I’m searching for her?”

“Sure, but you’ll probably see her before I do! That, and I don’t know your name.”

“Oh! Forgive my rudeness. I am Prince Sidon of the Zora.”

“A prince? Wow! I don’t think I’ve ever met royalty before!”

“Perhaps not,” SIdon chuckles. “Thank you again, Beedle. I wish you safe travels.”

“You too!”

With that, Sidon gives Beedle a wave and dives back into the water. The gasp of wonder that meets his ears as he twists through the air brings a smile to his face once more. Over the course of his journey, the grip of hatred and anger over his heart regarding Hylians has begun to loosen. He still can’t quite fathom completely forgiving those responsible for what had happened a century before, but he’s able to set aside his negative feelings aside for those such as Beedle, who are simply trying to live their lives in the wake of tragedy. It’s too easy for him to forget the relative brevity of their lifespans compared to his.

Sidon follows the river south, just as Beedle guided him, keeping an eye out for the Dueling Peaks. The occasional lizalfos or octorock blocks his path, but he makes quick work of them with his spear. They’re nothing compared to the behemoth he’d faced years prior. The next few days pass like this: swimming for long periods, dispatching enemies as they come, and asking passerby for directions to ensure he’s heading in the right direction. Before long, he reaches the stable on the other side of the Dueling Peaks. He inquires about Zelda and is directed again to Hateno. The river grows too small for him to swim in as it passes through a fort surrounded by the decayed remains of guardians, so he’s forced to continue on foot. He finally catches up with her as he emerges from the forest surrounding the fort.

It’s a rather violent reunion—there’s a massive explosion below the cliffs on the other side of the river followed by the pained screeching of bokoblins and the stench of burning flesh. Sidon catches a glimpse of yellow and a high-pitched chime before a red barrel adorned with a white skull and crossbones hurtles toward the monster camp below the cliffs, exploding on impact. The screeching doubles in volume, and the prince watches as Zelda descends upon the monsters making the noise.

Even from the river on the outskirts of the camp, Sidon can hear the wet thud of blade meeting flesh and smell the metallic-sulfur of monster blood. Zelda wrenches her sword from the torso of the first bokoblin and dodges a strike from another just before it hits her. She’s behind it before it can retaliate, bringing her blade down upon its head. It catches on the horn atop the creature’s skull, causing the already chipped metal to splinter and break off. Zelda takes this in stride, shoving the now jagged blade in the bokoblin’s neck. It falls with a pig-like squeal, its bat falling out of its grip and into the fire at the center of the camp. One last monster flees for its life, but arrows riddle its back before it can get far. Zelda stands in the center of the destruction, breath coming in pants, purple blood smeared across her face.

Just as Sidon climbs onto the shore, he spots a stray bokoblin out of the corner of his eye. It’s severely burned and limping, but alive. Its bluish-green skin is colored red as it nocks a fire arrow and aims for a bomb barrel that had escaped the initial detonation, laying on its side behind a pillar. Out of Zelda’s field of vision. No more than ten paces from where she now crouches, wrenching the fang out of the charred remains of a bokoblin.

There’s no time to think. Sidon charges toward Zelda, grabbing her around the waist and hauling her up with one arm. She (expectedly, really) lets out a shriek of surprise as she’s lifted off the ground. Behind them, the fire arrow whizzes through the air, carrying with it the sound of roaring flames. It explodes upon contact with the bomb barrel at the same moment that Sidon leaps into the air, aiming for the river. White-hot shrapnel makes contact with his scales. The pain barely registers as he and Zelda crash into the water, breaking the surface a moment later. Zelda squirms out of his grip and hauls herself up on the bank opposite the camp, coughing.

“What in Hylia’s name—” she wheezes.

“You wouldn’t have noticed in time,” Sidon says through gritted teeth. The source of the tension in his jaw isn’t sourced from any frustration with her, but the feeling of wooden splinters and a few rather sharp rocks embedded in his back. He hisses as he climbs on the bank beside her, collapsing on his stomach.

“Don’t move,” Zelda says. There’s no trace of harshness in her tone as there had been before, but an edge is still present. Sidon obeys without question. Now that the adrenaline is no longer coursing through his veins, he has no desire to move. “This isn’t going to feel good, but it will help.”

Sidon grits his teeth as Zelda begins pulling the shrapnel from his back. She works efficiently, only taking a few minutes to finish. Sidon moves to sit up, but she stops him with a single touch. Soft blue light radiates from her hands as she passes over his wounds, bringing with it the soothing coolness of running water and the scent of salt. It feels like—

“Mipha’s Grace,” Sidon says softly. Zelda merely nods, eyes flitting to the trident strapped to his back. She sits back on her heels when she’s finished, and Sidon takes that as his cue to sit up.

“That was incredibly stupid,” Zelda says. “But thank you.”

“No need,” Sidon replies. They stare at each other for a long moment, tense silence stretching between them. Words refuse to come to him no matter how hard he searches.

After what seems like an eternity, Zelda gets to her feet and motions for Sidon to follow. They go back the way he’d come, into the trees and to a hastily-made encampment standing near a small pond. Zelda sits on a moss-covered log near the fire, turning a spit skewering a few Hyrule bass. Sidon’s mouth waters. It’s been too long since he’s had freshly caught fish—he’s been so focused on his task of finding Zelda that he hasn’t bothered with anything other than the rations packed for him.

“What are you doing here, Sidon?” Zelda asks finally.

“I was looking for you,” he answers. “I have been for a little while.”

“I see,” she says, eyes intense and unreadable. “Why?”

“A few reasons.”

Sidon retrieves the Lightscale Trident from his back as he sits on the log next to her. It glitters in the light of the fire, magnificent as ever. Zelda turns her attention from the fish to stare at it. Silence descends upon them once more. Sidon is the one to break it this time.

“This belonged to Mipha, as I’m sure you remember,” he says. “My father intended to give it to you upon your return to the Domain, both as a reward for freeing Vah Ruta and a hope that Mipha’s spirit would guard you as long as you carried it.”

“She already does.” Zelda stares at her hands, refusing to look him in the eye.

“Even so, I’m certain she would want you to have it,” Sidon says. He presses the handle into her hands, and she finally looks up at him. “So please.”

“If you insist,” she replies. She holds the trident close to her for a moment before gingerly resting it on the ground behind them. “But I must ask—why deliver it to me personally? I thought you made it clear that you never wanted to see me again.”

“I…”

Sidon has thought about what he’d say to Zelda when he finally found her ever since he left Zora’s Domain. He’s run through the speech in his head time and time again, so sure that she would be impressed by his eloquence and grant him forgiveness without a second thought. Now, though, the words so carefully crafted in his mind refuse to come to him. It’s entirely too difficult to plan what he’s going to say when she’s looking at him like that, emerald piercing straight into him, straight through him—

“Sidon?”

“I’m sorry,” he blurts, decidedly un-princelike. “I let my pain and anger blind me and I lashed out at you. What happened all those years ago can’t be changed, and staying angry with you isn’t useful to anyone. I nearly stopped you from doing the very thing that set Mipha’s spirit free. I may be undeserving of your forgiveness, but all I can do is ask for it.”

Zelda stares up at him, eyes wide. Sidon doesn’t waver, though he still feels as if she’s seeing right into his soul. He nearly yelps in surprise when she surges forward and wraps her arms around his neck in an embrace. It’s a nearly perfect recreation of their last interaction before Zelda boarded Ruta, but this time, Sidon returns Zelda’s gesture. All he can hear is the gentle crackling of the fire, the wind blowing over the cliffs, and the croaking of frogs, though he’s sure his pounding heart is loud and clear in Zelda’s ears.

“I’m going to make this right,” she says. “I won’t fail again. I’ll free the rest of the Champions, just as I did Mipha, and vanquish Ganon once and for all. This I promise you.”

“I believe in you,” Sidon says, prompting her to tighten her grip. “Know you are always welcome in Zora’s Domain.”

“Thank you,” Zelda whispers. She releases her grip on him, wiping her face with the back of her hand. Sidon averts his gaze, giving her a moment of privacy.

The charcoal-like scent of burning food wafts through the air, accompanied by a curse from Zelda and the sound of her scrambling back to the fire. The fish aren’t burned too badly—there’s only a faint black mark on one side. Zelda sighs and removes them from the spit, offering one to Sidon, who gratefully accepts. They’re plain, lacking even a bit of salt, but the flesh is hot and deliciously flaky as well as the only freshly prepared food he’s had in days.

“I’m normally a better cook than this, I promise,” Zelda says, and Sidon chuckles. She sends him a glare out of the corner of her eye, but there’s no anger behind it. She may even be smiling. The fire hisses and pops as water is poured over it and the ashes scattered.

“Thank you for the fish, regardless of them being burned.” Sidon laughs when Zelda glares at him again.

“I was going to offer to take you back to Zora’s Domain, but perhaps I’ll retract my offer,” she sniffs in faux haughtiness as she finishes clearing her encampment.

“I assure you I don’t need an escort.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that. But I can get you there much more quickly than you could ever get there on foot.”

“And how is that?” Sidon asks, head tilted slightly.

Zelda doesn’t answer. Instead, she pulls the Sheikah Slate from her hip and pulls up the map, tapping on one of the many blue icons. She extends her hand and looks up at him expectantly. He takes it a bit hesitantly, taking note of the way his hand dwarfs hers. Before he can ask her what it is she’s planning, she taps on the Slate once more and the world dissolves into blue light.

Sidon stumbles a bit when he and Zelda materialize on the pedestal of the shrine in the Domain. He doesn’t realize how tightly he’s gripping her hand until she visibly winces, and he relinquishes it with mumbled apologies. Were it not for the twinkle of amusement in her eyes, he’d feel a bit more guilty. His scales prickle as he runs his hands up and down his arms as if to check that all of him is there.

“Well,” he says, “you certainly weren’t kidding.”

Zelda laughs, and his chest tightens a bit. The ghostly blue of luminous stone combined with the faint glow of the Sheikah Slate’s display playing off her face makes for a captivating picture, made only more so when she looks up at him with a smile. The shrine chamber of the Domain gets very little daylight, but Sidon swears he can feel the sun’s warmth on his scales.

“I should get back,” Zelda says, snapping him out of his reverie. “I believe I’m on the brink of deciphering one of the puzzles a shrine is locked behind. Something about a statue and dark light.”

“But you’ll be back?” Sidon nearly bites his tongue, embarrassed by his overly hopeful tone.

“I’ll return,” Zelda promises. “And Sidon...thank you.”

Sidon nods, and with one last smile, Zelda dissolves into strings of blue light that ascend through the ceiling of the shrine’s chamber and out of sight. Sidon stares at the spot she was just standing for a moment before making his way to the throne room, eager to inform King Dorephan of his success. He laughs at the startled reaction from the guard outside the shrine chamber as he passes, and the final cloud hanging over the Zora’s Domain finally parts.

#maplewrites #botw

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thetirashan · 3 years

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Soup of the Day

Written for 2021 Vyn Spring Event.

Two guys sit in a bar and bitch about how Narathzul can't govern a city worth a damn. One is a future Shadow God and the other has seen some shit in his lifetime. Huberto just keeps stirring his soup in the meantime.

Set between Barateon's death and the Shadow God's arrival in Ostian.

Vendil had a love-hate relationship with transitional periods. They were always full of uncertainty, chaos, and destruction. Sure, he ushered in his own transfer of power from one egomaniac to another but that didn’t mean he liked it. Order and structure were his bread and butter.

Yet on the other hand, three o’clock was always the best time to visit the tavern. It wasn’t the most inviting scene to walk into it but there was something to be said about the cool crisp privacy of a near empty bar. There was just him, a few washed out old men, and Huberto. The latter knew that he was the one to help overthrow Barateon, Vendil could see it in his eyes, but the man stuck to his routine. Vendil ordered a glass of beer and a bowl of unsalted peanuts, Huberto nodded before delivering the order, and Vendil paid upfront. Neither one gossiped about the other. It was balanced and even-handed -- an exchange at its simplest.

The sound of boots shouldn’t have broken him out of his stupor. Occasionally travellers would wander in to scarf a hot meal before passing out in a room after all. They barely paid attention to the innkeeper much less him. With that said, his head still snapped up at the jingling.

It was a steady lulling noise. A single heavy boot step then that faint jingle. Almost comforting in a way as he blinked at the figure strolling through the door. The darkness by the threshold gave him the visage of a spectre but the candlelight revealed a man cloaked in soft browns and greens with a wide brimmed hat crowning his mop of red curls.

Huberto glanced up from handing a customer a plate of smoked sprat with an astonished look. It was quickly gone with a blink and a small cough into his elbow.

“Good afternoon, sir. Can I get you anything?” he asked, keeping his eyes directly on the patron before him. Vendil didn’t know the innkeeper well but he could spot a nervous man a mile away.

“I’d like a cup of wine and a bowl of whatever you’ve got over the hearth.” the man, now revealed to be Aeterna, replied. With his hat under his arm, the man’s identity was immediately determined, forcing Vendil to take a long sip of his beer. So much for a relaxing day.

“Potato soup?”

“That’ll do. Just one bowl please.”

As he waited, the man leaned against the counter and scratched at his beard, looking everywhere except where Vendil was lounging. However, the moment the small tray filled with hot soup and wine was given, his head snapped towards his direction with a sunny toothy grin. His teeth were remarkably straight despite the coffee stains.

“Well, well… if it ain’t the lava hopping asshole.”

Huberto’s eyes widened for a brief moment before clearing his throat and focusing on cleaning the dishes in a tub near the hearth. Vendil just sighed, swallowing his bite of peanuts.

“Vendil.” he replied curtly.

“I know. I’m poking fun at you. Still gives me a giggle from time to time.” he drawled out, taking the seat across from the other man. He could only sigh as Arthan let out a rusty old gate chuckle.

“Why are you here?”

“Aw, why you gotta be like that? You know with Anku all a-buzz that there’s no work so I decided to crawl outta my hole. Heard that someone let ol’ Narry boy out of his cell and let him go wild. Now he’s in Erothin with his fingers up his ass while you run the show. Am I caught up?”

He opened his mouth to reply, only to shut with a clack. Arthan’s grin grew obnoxiously as he leaned back and sipped on his cup of wine. Vendil could only groan and rest his forehead against his hand as he slouched over his beer.

“Perhaps it’s… something like that.” he mumbled out, taking a long sip of his beer. Glancing down into its bottom, he briefly wondered if a second was in order. Wasn’t part of his ‘destress’ routine but neither was a mouthy Aeterna that kept grinning at him.

“Mm, I’m guessin’ by all those posters slapped on every corner that he’s taken a bunch of credit too.” he tsked, not bothering with the spoon to enjoy sipping on his soup. Vendil only grunted at that. “I wish I could say ‘I told you so’ but even I didn’t expect him not to… I dunno -- not give a shit about his partner in crime.”

His sigh could barely be heard over the crackling of the hearth and Huberto’s soup pot stirring. Arthan cocked his head to the side ever so slightly as his grin softened to a smile. “It wasn’t always like this.”

“Is that why you’re here?”

“What do you mean…?

“You’re running a city for him. Now I’m making an assumption but I figure that it’s a high stress job. You’re no longer the hero that saved him but an underling that files tax reports. None of those posters even mention you. Not exactly fair and not a good sign.”

The pinch of peanuts that Vendil held quietly dropped back into the bowl as he glared. Arthan, of course, didn’t seem bothered in the slightest. “Good sign of what? The city is doing relatively well considering the coup.” A wave of disgust washed over him at how weak his words felt. Suddenly he yearned for the taste of whiskey, not cheap beer.

“He’s half assing city governance to the extent that his closest friend is hiding at a bar to avoid snapping from the pressure. Imagine what’ll happen once he gets Nehrim under his belt.”

Immediately Vendil held a single finger up, earning a cocked eyebrow. “How do you even know any of this? Or are you just pulling all this out of nothing?”

“Shit, Vendil, just open your ears and walk around the market. I’ve only been in the city for three hours and a five minute smoke break by the bank told me more than I wanted to know. Vendil Auralus approved of some new guards, Vendil did such ‘n such tax reform, talk to Vendil if you got concerns. Blah, blah, blah. Not too hard to put two and two together.”

An awkward silence soon filled the room, leaving only the sound of the crackling logs in the hearth. Huberto, despite his nature, peeked over his shoulder towards them, still hunched over the dish tub. A quick wiggle of the eyebrows from Arthan made the man snap his head forward so quickly that Vendil was sure he had whiplash.

“I, uh…”

“It’s so damn obvious that it might as well slap me on the ass on the way out. I’m only telling you this because you seem to be the only one who doesn’t know. Don’t feel bad about it. No one really knows their own reputation.” Arthan’s chair creaked softly as he leaned back further like a lazy cat in the sun. Vendil simply glanced at his reflection in his glass. His face was colored piss yellow from the beer but even that unflattering shade didn’t hide the circles under his eyes or the droop of his ears. Golden eyes were unashamedly looking at him once he finally tore his gaze away.

“You’re not chickenshit so what’s the problem?”

Another sigh -- probably the millionth of that afternoon. “He murdered his girlfriend and father. Narathzul’s not exactly the most reasonable person.”

“So?”

“So…”

“Listen, I’m not exactly the most knowledgeable with history but Narathzul has a mile long track record of failing miserably. Treomar? Just look at the place. His little conquest of Inodan? He ended up getting tossed into a cell and was rotting for a thousand years. His little recent streak of luck has been less about luck and more about you.”

“He murdered his girlfriend and father.”

“I know, I know but you got leverage. You’re justified in saying something. And if he tries to pull something funny? Well, you’ve got a shield and a mean right hook, don’t you? What other options do you got left? At this point, it’s not if he’s gonna fuck you over but when. Do it on your own terms at least.” He loudly sipped on the dregs of his wine. As he did, he spotted from the corner of his eye Vendil’s face contorting into a mess of expressions -- rage, confusion, disgust, and a few unrecognizable ones. Eventually he settled on something akin to a dried out old grape -- scrunched up and quite bitter.

“All he does is pour over the Predestination and sit on his throne. I can barely get his signature much less get him to govern the city. It’s like he sees Erothin as nothing more than a stepping stone instead of a living breathing city. The people here have hopes and dreams and I can’t just ignore them.” he groaned, feeling the tightness in his chest unclench just a little.

“I get what you’re saying but the Predestination?” Arthan asked softly, leaning over the table just slightly.

“It’s a prophecy about the Shadow God or Tel'lmaltath… or whatever. Basically it’s about a god of shadow dethroning the Light-Born and restoring balance. Like all prophecies, it’s vague enough to mask the incompetence of others.” Tension yet again plucked at his chest. This is clearly private information that Narathzul entrusted to him. Focusing on Arthan’s face, he noted the tenderness the man surprisingly invoked. Concern wove itself into the man’s crow’s feet as he reclined back once more. He expected guilt to overwhelm him at the admission but it never came.

Arthan’s lips thinned as he fell silent for a moment. His eyes flickered back and forth between his lap and Vendil’s eyes. “Now that is worrying…”

“What? That he intends on killing the gods?”

“No, no. Those seven aren’t gods. Never were, never will be. Their downfall is inevitable. But what concerns me is the source of this prophecy and amount of shit Narathzul’s going to be in. For a man who spites the gods, he sure does love blindly following higher powers.”

Vendil’s eyebrows furrowed as he watched the other all but pour the rest of his now lukewarm soup down his throat. “In a hurry somewhere?” Vendil asked quietly, his voice surprisingly weak.

“I’ve still got some errands to do while there’s time left. Can’t you feel it? There’s a spring thunderstorm coming soon.” His ears twitched as he rooted around in his bag, grumbling as the various mish-mash of his pack clinked together. “Um… oh! There we go. Got a gift for you.”

“You left the king so frazzled that he forgot to properly gift you a token of the Starling’s affections.” he explained as Vendil examined the scroll. The paper felt like butter in his palms, so smooth and alien, with an even odder looking strap of leather tying it together. “A teleportation spell in case you need to head back to Anku, specially made by the old bird.”

Vendil only nodded, knowing better than to question the reasoning of Starlings. “Well, I appreciate it. I’ll have to thank him later.”

A shrug was his response as Arthan quickly plopped his hat back on his head. “The man might be gone by the time any of us get back to Anku. They’re getting ready for the ‘Grand Voyage’ and all that. Thankfully, the old bird is staying behind.”

“The king?”

“Nah, the old bird.” he clarified, not bothering to explain further as he slung his pack over his shoulder after rising to feet. Huffing, he glanced over at the innkeeper who kept himself busy with the soup. “Well, I might see you around later. Might even visit the palace for work.”

“Interested in joining Narathzul’s army?”

“Fuck no, just need the work. Narry can kiss my hairy ass.” he mumbled, rifling through his pockets to slap some coins down for the meal. “Enjoy yourself, you hear?”

“I hear.” he replied yet he didn’t receive an answer nor did he expect one. Glancing down into his beer, he huffed and began to chug. Midway through, his ears twitched at the quiet jingling that grew fainter with each step away. Almost on cue, rain began to fall upon the windows.

“Huberto… I think I’ll take a glass of whiskey if you don’t mind.”

#nehrim #enderal #vynspringevent #vynblr #narathzul arantheal #I bet you fuckers just thought I did nothing but shitpost #look ma i contributed to something #alt title: two dude roast the shit outta narathzul

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kirk-spock-in-the-impala · 4 years

Note

Wanna write about Geralt thinking he’s ugly like in the books? Everybody else thinks he’s scary ugly but I want him to feel the softness of our love that says he’s a handsome lil baby boy. You don’t have to. I just love the way you write and bet you’d come up with an amazing story with his self deprecation as a theme

OMG YES I DO. the books are awesome, btw.

PROMPT FILL: GILDED LILIES (on AO3 here)

Summary:

The world tells Geralt he’s a monster. Jaskier shows him he’s not.

CW: Geralt’s headspace; prejudice and xenophobia; deals heavily with finding oneself unattractive, so please read with care if you have issues with that.

Slightly canon divergent.

——————————

It wasn’t that Geralt wanted to be beautiful. No, he understood that only sorcerers gained beauty along with their inhuman powers, but he wished that he could have remained unremarkable in his looks. The distant memories of Geralt’s childhood told him he had once been perfectly average looking. A dark haired, dark eyed boy of middling height and build. Neither ugly nor handsome, he passed without comment wherever he had gone.

Among the boys at Kaer Morhen, looks were irrelevant to the training process, but even there, standing among boys ranging from Lambert’s strong, handsome features to the scarred visages of those struck by the pox in their youth, Geralt had felt neither confident nor insecure about his appearance. He was so normal, so average, that the thought to consider his looks never cross his mind.

The mutations changed that.

Not only was he one of the few boys to survive the Trial of the Grasses, but he was the only Witcher in history to receive additional mutations. Because of that, not only did he have a Witcher’s characteristic, unnatural, cat-like eyes, but his hair had been bleached white, his teeth elongated, his features sharpened, his very bones thickened to accommodate the enhanced strength afforded by his mutated muscles. The other Witchers had unnatural eyes that flashed in the darkness. He was nearly as much of monster as those they hunted.

Geralt understood the stark difference, the sheer hideousness of his appearance, the first time he left Kaer Morhen after completing his training.

Before, where he had passed without notice, now villagers pointed, stared, and spat. Gasps of shock, expressions of violent disgust, and whispers of “freak”, “mutant”, and “monster” dogged his steps. On his first day, passing through the village at the base of the mountain below Kaer Morhen, he’d heard an elderly peasant woman whisper to her companion, “they’re making them uglier every year, ain’t they? Those thrice damned mutant freaks.”

Compared to the havoc the mutations had wreaked on his body, the impact on his looks should have been insignificant. But it still hurt. Back then, he was young enough to still be idealistic. To still dream of being a hero, a knight protecting the weak and vulnerable in the world.

But the decades that passed showed him that dreams were not for the likes of him. The first time he saved a girl from bandits intent on stealing her virtue, he’d imagined she might be grateful. And she had been. Until she saw Geralt’s face. Then, she’d screamed and thrown her shoes, rocks, dirt, whatever she could lay her hands on at him until he’d retreated.

Once could have been a fluke. A terrified girl reacting to protect her life and her virtue from an unknown stranger. But it happened again, and again, and again. Travelers he saved on the road would chase him off once they got a look at who – at what – saved them. Aldermen who contracted him would curl their lips and sneer when he showed up to accept the contract, giving him the barest of details before hurrying him back out of town to complete his task, the only purpose for which his existence was tolerated. Villagers he’d saved from monsters would throw stones at him, chasing him out of town with vile words if he was lucky, and with pitchforks if he was not.

Geralt knew from the other Witchers that prejudice was common, as was a certain lack of gratitude from those served, but none experienced the depth of vitriol that Geralt suffered. Geralt had long since concluded that the difference was due to his appearance, his hideous, monstrous, inhuman appearance.

And so, he did his best to avoid human settlements. He limited his interactions to the bare minimum required to complete his contracts. He made sure to never raise his voice, to never show his anger. He was unfailingly polite and soft spoken when he was forced to speak. He kept his eyes averted and stayed in the shadows and corners of human settlements. He entered villages only when absolutely required, and spoke to innkeepers and merchants only when his supplies were utterly exhausted. He made sure to keep a supply of gold and precious gems on hand to compensate a healer in the rare event he couldn’t heal himself, knowing they would charge a premium for interacting with him, and even more of one if they were forced to touch him.

After nearly a century living in the shadows because of his monstrous nature, Geralt was resigned to his lifestyle. On occasion, in a quiet village that was more tolerant of him than most, he would take a chance and see if the tavern keeper would be willing to serve him. Every once in a great while, they were, and he would sit in the farthest, darkest corner of the tavern to nurse his ale in silence, hood up and eyes down, trying his best to blend into the background.

It worked well for him. He’d get to enjoy his ale and he’d yet to have a problem with the other patrons, if they noticed him at all.

But all good things must end.

In Posada, on a bright, sunny day before heading out to complete a contract for a “devil” (it was not a devil, but Geralt suspected it might be a sylvan), Geralt sat in his usual dark corner, enjoying a surprisingly good ale. The bard playing for the patrons crowded around the tavern’s large windows was as skilled with his lute playing as he was terrible with his lyrical composition, but Geralt let the words pass through his ears without listening to them, content to enjoy the music alone.

He was shocked to his core when the bard, having completed his set to a rain of bread and jeers, not only came up to him, but sat down. Geralt immediately stood to leave, head down to hide his face in his hood, taking his half-full tankard with him, when the bard stopped him. “I know who you are.”

Geralt froze. The tavern keeper knew, of course, but exposing his identity, his presence, could potentially cause a violent reaction amongst the tavern’s other patrons, who doubtless would want to clear him out of their space as soon as possible.

“You’re Geralt of Rivia.” The bard said, clearly pleased with his identification skills, and, fortunately, quietly.

Geralt leveled a quelling glare at him before he could stop himself. His face fully lit by the sunlight coming through the windows when he raised his head to do so. He took a quick glance around the tavern, seeing they’d not been noticed yet, and stalked out the door, leaving his ale behind, his rare moment of peace shattered. Luckily, he always paid in advance in case he needed to make a quick exit, so the tavern keeper let him go without comment.

Walking swiftly to Roach, he checked her tack before unhitching her from the post, leading her out to the road. As he moved to mount, he heard light, quick steps behind him.

“Wait!” The bard called out, lute banging on his back as he hastily stuffed bread into his shoulder bag, “I’m coming with you!”

Geralt took a deep breath, forcing himself to remain calm, to remain soft, inoffensive. “No, you’re not.” He said, mounting Roach and turning his head away from the bard.

“Yeah, no, I totally am. Meeting you is the most exciting thing that's ever happened to me, and I’m not going to let this chance pass by!” The bard said brightly, moving to stand at Geralt’s left stirrup.

Geralt heaved a sigh, looking down at the young man, and he was a young man, unsure whether he should be annoyed or pleased at his persistence in keeping Geralt’s company.

The bard looked up, meeting his gaze fully for the first time. “Wow, yeah, you’re gorgeous.” He said, staring up at Geralt with an expression Geralt didn’t recognize. Gorgeous? Geralt didn’t know how to respond to that, so he didn’t.

He kicked Roach on, setting her off at a quiet walk toward the village gate. Wouldn’t do to move any faster, no matter how much he wanted to leave this odd bard behind. Faster meant more attention. Faster was dangerous.

The bard kept up, walking more swiftly in his fancy shoes than he had any right to, chattering away about anything and everything, from his latest doublet, to some character named Valdo Marx, to how pleasing Geralt’s hair was when the sun hit it just so.

After a long hour of walking, followed closely by the young bard, Geralt arrived at the hill close to the site of the reported “devil”. He stopped and dismounted Roach, securing her safely to a tree branch with ample room to graze.

The bard trotted right up next to him. “So, where to next? I’m Jaskier, by the way.” He said, thrusting out a hand to shake.

Geralt just looked at it. No one had ever wanted to shake his hand before, but he wouldn’t play into whatever this bard – Jaskier – had planned by going off script.

He just moved on with his hunt, heading out to look for clues on his quarry’s location and identity, tossing a gruff, “stay with the horse” over his shoulder at the bard. If he couldn’t get the bard to leave him, at least he could try and keep him safe.

Jaskier didn’t listen. Not then, not after they eventually escaped from Filavandrel, and not for the next several months he followed Geralt all about the Continent, sharing camp sites, meals, and the occasional room at an inn. With Jaskier’s presence, one in every dozen innkeepers or so was willing to lend Geralt a room, with the understanding he was under the supervision and control of his human keeper. When he was alone, asking for a room was a useless exercise. Geralt wasn’t sure if Jaskier understood that or not, but he wouldn’t risk losing access to more frequent hot baths and comfortable beds by pointing it out.

The oddest thing about Jaskier though was not his persistence in following Geralt, but his persistence in complimenting him. It was always “your hair is so soft” or “gods, your eyes are to die for” or “you’re so attractive, it’s not fair.” More than that, more than those incomprehensible words, was the fact that Jaskier touched him. Freely and often. A pat on the shoulder, gentle hands combing through his hair while he bathed, a warm body leaning against his by the campfire. People didn’t touch him. Didn’t like to look at him. And yet, Jaskier did. Geralt didn’t understand it.

He knew he was monstrous; he knew he wasn’t fit for human companionship, and yet, Jaskier was seemingly unaware of that obvious fact. At first, Geralt had thought the compliments and the touching were all a great, cruel joke to Jaskier, but months of exposure showed him that Jaskier was as genuine as he was foolhardy, and he held nothing back when he felt Geralt did something that deserve censure. If Jaskier complimented him or touched him, it was because he wanted to, and that was beyond Geralt’s comprehension.

Geralt’s confusion, his frustration with Jaskier not following the script, all came to head when they were preparing to attend a fancy banquet, hosted by one of Jaskier’s friends from Oxenfurt, which Jaskier had convinced Geralt to attend as his companion. “I can’t just show up alone, Geralt!” Jaskier had said. “Besides, I can’t resist a chance to show off my lovely muse.”

As Geralt bathed, scraping drowner blood out of his white hair, Jaskier flitted about the room, laying out finery for Geralt to wear, commenting how nice everything would look on him and how jealous his friends would be when they saw him on the arm of such a gorgeous companion

Geralt couldn’t take it anymore. “Stop it!” He growled, turning a frustrated glare on Jaskier. “Stop saying things like that!”

Jaskier froze. He must have seen something in Geralt’s expression, because he immediately dropped the ribbon he was inspecting, one of his many choices to use on Geralt’s hair, and knelt at the side of the tub by Geralt’s left side.

He reached for Geralt’s cheek and Geralt flinched away, hiding his face behind a curtain of wet hair. Tension thrummed through his frame and his posture was abjectly miserable, fists clenched around the edges of the bath, knuckles white.

Jaskier frowned, uncertain where this upset was coming from, but knowing how reserved Geralt was, he knew the cause was substantial to create this strong a reaction in his normally stoic friend.

He reached out again and gently turned Geralt to face him. Geralt flinched, but didn’t pull away.

Geralt’s eyes remained firmly down, brows drawn together, shame flooding him. He’d shouted at Jaskier, growled at him like an animal, all over the little, innocuous lies Jaskier liked to tell himself about Geralt’s appearance. If he was lucky, Jaskier would simply leave. If he was unlucky, he’d be getting a visit from the guards.

“Geralt?” Jaskier prompted, concern clear in his voice. “Please, tell me what’s wrong.”

Geralt’s jaw clenched, daring a glance up at Jaskier before averting his eyes again. “Forgive me. I shouldn’t have shouted at you.” This time he did pull away.

“No, you shouldn’t have, but I’m more concerned with why. Have I upset you? Hurt you? Please, tell me.” Jaskier waited, watching as Geralt’s eyes darted about, jaw clenching and unclenching.

Geralt didn’t know what to say. This wasn’t how things were supposed to be. He had a role, a script, and Jaskier just came in and flipped the papers out of his hands, setting his own, improvised pattern instead. Geralt didn’t know what to do. What to think. He just knew it hurt that Jaskier kept giving him glimpses of his childhood dream, a dream he knew was forever out of reach.

But he had already behaved unforgivably, so he might as well get some information about Jaskier’s incomprehensible actions before he inevitably left. Could serve him well in the future if he ever met anyone else willing to tolerate him for more than a few moments.

Geralt drew in a breath and went for it, heart racing in his chest. “Stop saying things that aren’t true. I don’t understand why you do that.” He spoke to the bathwater, unable to look at Jaskier.

“Whatever do you mean?” Jaskier asked, anxious to ease the pain he saw on his dear friend’s face.

“You call me ‘gorgeous’, you compliment my hair, my looks.” Geralt shook his head, bewilderment evident in his tone. “I know it’s not true, so why do you keep saying it?” Geralt finally looked up, searching Jaskier’s expression, face lined with pained confusion.

Jaskier’s heart clenched in his chest, aching for his friend, for the decades of suffering that simple ask revealed.

He placed a hand gently over Geralt’s where it was clenched around the edge of the wooden tub, meeting Geralt’s eyes calmly. Geralt’s hand jumped beneath his, but did not pull away.

“Because it is true. You’re one of the most beautiful people I’ve ever met. And one of the most noble, to keep fighting to protect people who will never appreciate all that you do and all that you sacrifice.” Jaskier said, firmly and kindly.

Geralt shook his head sharply, looking away. He knew what he was.

Jaskier leaned forward to keep Geralt’s face in sight, thumb rubbing gently over Geralt’s clenched fist. “What do you think you look like?” He asked.

Geralt scoffed. “Like a monster.” He stated it like the indisputable fact he knew it to be.

Jaskier closed his eyes briefly, devastated to hear confirmed what he always suspected. Geralt had no idea of his own worth, his own beauty, having internalized for far too long the fear and hatred dumped on him by villagers unable to accept that something could be different and still be worthy.

Jaskier squeezed Geralt’s fist, reaching out with his other hand to turn Geralt’s face to his again. Holding his chin gently so he could not look away, Jaskier said firmly, “there is nothing monstrous about you.” Geralt huffed in disbelief, trying to avert his eyes, but Jaskier held him in place. “Your mutations made you unique, gave you the ability to do your job, to protect all of us from the real monsters. Your hair, your eyes, hell, even your teeth, they show the sacrifices you’ve made to protect our Continent. From a purely aesthetic perspective, you are stunning. But as a person, you are beyond compare.”

Geralt stared, unable to respond, unsure of what to say in the face of Jaskier’s firm belief that he was worthy, that he was not monstrous to behold. When he was young, he knew he was unremarkable. After his mutations, he knew he was a monster. Yet, Jaskier seemed equally sure that Geralt was neither of those things.

Jaskier saw the conflict in his friend’s face. He knew that one conversation would not change a lifetime of conviction. He gently leaned his forehead against Geralt’s, closing his eyes. “One day, you’ll believe me, and until then, I’ll remind you every day that you are worthy, that you are gorgeous, and that you mean the world to me.”

Jaskier pulled back, keeping his eyes locked with Geralt’s. Geralt saw nothing but calm assurance in Jaskier’s eyes. No matter how remarkable, how unprecedented his words, Jaskier believed them to his core.

Geralt didn’t believe them. He had nearly a century of evidence to the contrary. But if this one remarkable man believed him worthy, believed him beautiful, then at least in Jaskier’s world, Geralt didn’t have to be a monster.

#kirk-spock-in-the-impala writes #prompt fill #geralt of rivia #geralt #jaskier #dandelion #gerlion #geraskier #geralt/jaskier #it's pre-slash #so you could read it as gen #but why would you #soft!geralt #soft!jaskier #insecure!geralt #protective!jaskier #geralt's headspace #not a happy place

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doesitsparkjoytho · 3 years

Text

"The Happy Harpy Post" - Medieval Craigslist

(**For anyone not in the U.S., Craigslist is Facebook Marketplace's janky, super sketch predecessor, basically an online site to list items for sale, jobs, "Missed Encounters," etc.**)

[For Sale / Trade]

Realm's most powerful -- and evil -- sword

Just in time for that long-awaited conquering!

The realm's most notoriously blood-thirsty sword has reappeared from the dark abyss yet again. The last band of heroes battled death to cast it into oblivion some centuries ago, but like a merciless rash, it will not stay banished.

Features:

Authentic blood stains and nicks

Possessed by an extremely evil and demeaning spirit, rumored to be that of Lord Archbane himself

Crafted from the finest dragon's bone and titanium, ensuring years of slicing, thrusting, hacking, mutilation and general intimidation

This weapon is not for the faint of heart. If the latter is not black as pitch, I assure you that the blade will drive you mad in its attempt to corrupt your soul. I stumbled upon the sword but three weeks past, but already the power of this dark artifact threatens to consume my being. However, one with the strength of spirit to master it stands to gain an instrument of unimaginable potential.

Willing to trade for guaranteed safety during new owner's reign of terror, a residence in owner's general vicinity, and a small (negotiable) re-homing fee for myself / the sword. ***And please note: the sword has attached itself to me in ways that I dare not speak of. If you try to kill me and take the sword in place of a transaction, it will be lost for many more centuries. It has assured me of this.

If interested, please find or send for innkeeper Finbar Ruild of Heshire, Eastern Province.

Free Pulsating Crystal Thing

Are you a dark being of some authority seeking an artifact of unknown power and antiquity to enhance your castle/cave/fortress/tower/dungeon's mystical atmosphere? Are you perhaps also wishing for a handful of random occurrences to shake things up, or to rid yourself of a few pesky, traitorous, or bumbling minions too curious for their own well-being? Then look no further! This strange, eerily glowing crystal pulsates as if containing life and is sure to amuse and amaze guests. In addition, this nifty crystal can easily lull one to sleep with its deep, otherworldly and ominous croonings. I guarantee you won't stumble upon another artifact of such myriad uses and features. I'm only parting with it because the lady of the keep has suggested that I have one too many "unique" trinkets.

Serious inquiries only (No minions, peasants, slaves or other lowly beings, as I dread the repercussions of this falling into the wrong hands). Please contact Lord Vasuvian at the black tower. You can send a messenger by horseback, pigeon, falcon, hawk, bat, dragon, etc. I promise its safe return.

[Services]

Haircuts for Heroes

Are you a hero? Do you want to be? Nothing says "hero" like a unique hairstyle. I offer dying, cutting, braiding, and lime-washing. Be the first to try out my new Dark and Dangerous dye, made from a fermented leech and vinegar mixture which is entirely unique and promises the darkest, longest lasting black available.

Stop announcing your triumphs and displaying your spoils to earn the trust of the town and start standing out!

My shop, Haircuts for Heroes, is located in North Ghestfel.

Live-in Mage for hire

Have you ever wanted life to be a little easier than it is? Do you ever find yourself wishing that your floor would clean itself, that your fire would stay lit through the night, or that those pesky birds would cease pecking the thatch from your roof to build their nests?

Now you can make your wishes come true! Mage with 20+ years of experience in the Way is willing to lend his talents in exchange for room and board. His only request is that you don't treat him as a servant and allow him time for his own studies between your requests.

If interested, please send word to Octulus Drolp so that we may arrange a meeting and home viewing.

[Missed Encounters]

At the smithy - M4W

You, dearest woman, had four children in tow and were berating each of them as they touched everything in the shop. I smiled at you, but you were too busy to take full notice of me. Your voice was the sweetest music to my ears. I doubt a lovely lady such as yourself with four energetic children would be without husband, but if that is indeed the case, I beseech you to come and find me!

Make inquiry for Will at the stables.

O4H

To the ruggedly handsome human who passed through the southern Fivhren woods yesterday morn:

As I emerged from my cave, sleep still crusting my eyes like fairy dust, I was struck by a most unusual but welcome sight. Upon the knoll beyond my cave, a dark-haired man (you) knelt by his steed. My orcish heart pattered- and I am not easily moved, particularly by those of diminutive form. A dark green cloak enfolded your manly form, and you seemed intent on starting a fire, perhaps to make your breakfast.

Not wishing to startle you, I went about my morning as routine demanded, beginning with my rejuvenating spritz in the creek just beyond my cave. I began to hum to catch your attention. When you spotted me, I tried to act alluring, splashing my heaving green bosom with water from the nearby creek and rubbing my face sensually. In reality, I was merely taking my morning bath and desperately attempting to remove the morning crust from round my black orbs- but I figured 'hey, why not kill two birds with one stone?'

I locked my gaze unto yours, and your visage was overcome with- dare I hope- alarmed intrigue? You quickly gathered a few of what I assumed were your belongings, leapt onto your steed and rode away. Without me.

I am sorry if my forthcomingness frightened you away. I am willing to take things slowly, if you are lacking a mate and or have any interest in lady orcs. I enjoy, I imagine, many things you humans do: fishing; rolling in the mud and baking in the sun afterward (it's good for one's skin); eating and cooking (I prepare an astounding seared pig, and my frog-eye soup is unmatched); clubbing and stoning small, pesky animals; and, last but not least, dancing.

If you ever pass my way again, don't hesitate to peek your beautiful head into my cave and holler. But you'd better holler fairly loudly, as I'm a heavy sleeper.

Sincerely yours,

Ghrus'yula

[Community Notices]

Your Daughter Is No Treasure

Dear Lady Fitz,

Please cease advertising your daughter as the most enchanting creature in the land. I had the misfortune of crossing her path in the market this Saturday past, and she was neither lovely, endearing, soft of voice, or willow-thin. In fact, I have seen female trolls more alluring. If you were to place her in a tower for one to rescue, those stupid enough to brave the perils set before them on faith of your word alone would, upon seeing her, leap to their deaths or fall on their own swords before they carried her out of there with them. I am not trying to be rude, I am merely pointing out the truth which I think you should know. If you really wish to marry your daughter off, be honest. It also might not hurt to throw in some gold.

Sincerely,

A man saving fellow men from unhappy futures

To my neighbor to the east and south, the marauding tyrant

Dear kindred conqueror:

Being a power and land hungry tyrant myself, I acknowledge that certain consequences can be expected from claiming new provinces. For example, I realize that valuable farmland will likely be laid to waste in the process, forest burned and the animals inhabiting it slain, and villagers and townspeople dispatched from their homes.

However, it is the latter which concerns me. Far be it from me to advise you on proper warmongering, but your actions have brought the consequences of war to my borders. In the towns and villages dotting our shared borders, beings fleeing your terror-inducing campaign are piling in by the hour. However, that's not the main issue here. No, what concerns me is that these humans, orcs, elves, etc. are crossing my borders and falling dead in my towns, creating an awful sight and stench which, in the end, I am left to deal with. Not only that, but my denizens are becoming worried that I might gather my army again and attempt to take the few provinces I have allowed them to keep. I have worked hard at gaining their newfound trust in the last few years following the end of my campaign, and your actions are threatening the fragile halcyon of my new kingdom.

If you would kindly see to it that more of your soon-to-be subjects did not escape your borders, or at least died within them, I would be most grateful. If you do not comply, a few thousand of my most sickly denizens may somehow find their way into your lands just when you think you've established yourself in your new domains.

Yours to the west and north,

Lord Belus III

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

So I used to write. A LOT. Before fanfic, I was an aspiring fantasy novelist, and I wrote pretty much all the time. I'm trying to get back into it, so I've been looking at my old pieces and taking stock of what I like/don't like. This is one of my all time favorite pieces so I thought I'd share!

#fantasy #writing #creative writing #shorts #medieval #fantasy humor #funny #craigslist #drabble

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tortie-cat · 3 years

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Ok so quick update before i go into the story: i decided that im going to get a degree in computer science and then make a video game. Yay!

So my mom and I were at taco bell in the drive through. And we were talking and stuff and then we pulled up to the window. The dude (and i say this in the most gender neutral way because i have absolutely no idea what their gender is) at the window told us our total. And upon hearing their voice I felt a sense of familiarity, like I had known them for a while. I thought to myself 'wow they have a really good anime character voice. Or a video game character' and then I got excited because I remembered that I am going to make a video game.

My mom dropped a penny was she grabbing the change and they were like "do you want me to get that", to which I immediately said "no thats ok" because its a penny and its fine and im not gonna make you walk outside to get a penny. But my mom didnt hear so she asked them, and they told her that a penny dropped, and she said it was fine.

And Im just sitting there so excited because. Im gonna make a video game! And their voice immediately made me think of a baker, no an innkeeper.

I do this thing where when Im excited, I make intense eye contact with whoever is the cause or whoever Im talking to. And oh the poor taco bell person was both the cause and the person i was talking to. I was staring into their soul.

I was making so much eye contact. The entire time all i was thinking was stuff about video games. An innkeeper, the hero's closest companion, most trusted person.

I stared into their eyes when they handed my mom our drinks. I only broke eye contact when i grabbed the drinks from her.

Then they handed us our food and I was so so excited because i got food AND i got ideas for a video character. And I was staring into their eyes and I was like holy shit they would be the BEST innkeeper. And then they winked at me.

And that would be even BETTER IMAGINE A FLIRTATIOUS INNKEEPER. AMAZING.

And then halfway home I realized that they sounded exactly like Gother (goather?? The pink haired sin) from the Seven Deadly Sins

#i will make that video game npc #they will be flirtatious and amazing

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ameasureofpower · 4 years

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Which Fictional World Do You Think You Belong In

Tagged By: @cyberxbun (Muchas gracias senorita! Did you know this is one of my favorite questions to bounce off other people? Now, I get to answer it!)

I will be answering this as the mun since I don’t take Walton as someone who is imaginative enough to think of an answer beyond his own ambitions. “I will create the world I want to live in. It will not be fiction.” Etc. Etc. I’m also interpreting the question to mean “what established fictional world” rather than something of my own making.

My Fictional World: I would like to live in a wide variety of fictional worlds, but because of who I am I think I probably belong in something akin to Terry Pratchett’s “Discworld” or “Fable” because their worlds have a sense of humor... Out of the two I’d choose “Fable”, which, for those of you not familiar, is like an alternate-fantasy universe-England. If possible I’d prefer to have “hero-blood” in me which grants me to use Will or magic, and to be a guard to a traveling merchant/pilgrim. My pastimes would include blacksmithing and volunteering for the autumn harvests. I’m not about fame or glory at all. The most illuminated thing I’d do would be viciously prejudiced against hobgoblins, demons and bandits.

Friend Group / Best Friend: Beyond a smattering of villagers, innkeeps and pie salesmen, I’d like to think my charge would be my best friend whether they are knowing of it or not. I’d like to help them achieve whatever goals they might have. It would be neat if they were the true hero of the land, and I was just with them along the way.

Outfits: Something practical: weathered boots, flexible pants, a cotton shirt and gloves or bandage wrappings around my hands/arms (or leather guards). For battle: put me in mail and a surcoat. Think Russian peasant or ~1100 C.E. knight.

Weapon(s) of Choice: Warhammer and a bow. Will: healing and blades. I LOVE that spell so much you don’t even know.

Playlist: Lol, like a theme song? Hell knows. Hopefully something peaceful in a minor key. I love the ehru, so an instrumental in that would be cool, but I really think a theme song is something someone else chooses for you.

Favorite Place: Oakfield and Knothole Glade. Beautiful farm fields next to an ocean and a rainy evergreen forest town? Yes, please.

Quick Headcanon: I’m going to beat the shit out of Reaver.

Tagging: @agentannakelso @1787537593 @ericveik @kaospersona @fuukonomiko

#OOC of Fail #(Thank you!)#(I actually have a whole story in my head but I'll leave it at this.)#Fable #Fable 2 #(especially)

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daughterofelros · 4 years

Text

Roswell Witcher AU

This one is in thanks to all the folks on discord who helped me figure out that I should do a Witcher AU for Day 2 of Alex Manes week. Here’s the first part!

“Witcher.”

The voice belongs to a woman. Low, insistent, and neither the tone of a woman seeking to refill his mug of ale nor one offering her bed for the night in exchange for his coin and a story she can tell for years to come. He glances up slowly.

She’s an uncommonly beautiful woman- wearing an uncommonly fine black gown laced with coppery-gold embroidery, dark hair that falls in loose curls around her face, and a black cloak with a hood that frames that face in shadow even as it spills to skim the worn pine floorboards of the inn. Sorceress, then. And one who recognizes what he is when he’s doing his best to go unnoticed.

He says nothing, waits for her to talk. Tries not to flash his eyes. His swords aren’t visible at the moment, tucked away as they are. His medallion lies beneath his shirt. He looks younger than many of his rare brethren, and he’d taken pains to conceal his identity before entering this village. They’re prone to both suspicion and superstition around these parts, and he’d wanted to avoid anything that got between himself, a hot meal, and a warm bed.

His last job had paid well enough to afford the room, but not entirely enough to feel like fair compensation for the wounds his body had yet to finish healing. A few nights of inns and comfort are going to go a long way toward being back in fighting form. As plans go, it’s a perfectly fine one that gets a good deal harder if the innkeeper or the other patrons here perceive him as anything more than a weary traveler on the road. When people get curious, they ask questions and don’t always like the answers. And if she speaks any louder or stand here much longer, curiosity will be unavoidable.

“I’m Maria of Konik,” she introduces herself, “and I have a message of the utmost importance for you.”

He gestures for her to sit, and she does with grace and elegance of movement not often seen in roadside inns of this size or reputation.

“What is this message?” he asks tersely.

“Less a message in the strictest sense.” She hesitates. “I…have visions, sometimes. See the future.”

“A useful skill.”

“Sometimes,” she allows. “Other times confounding or infuriating. But this time clearer than most, at least. Your friend is in danger.”

“What friend?” he guards his expression with long practice.

“I see enough of the future to know we will become good friends over our immortal lives, Alexander of Brud, and one of the few you have. But as this is our first meeting, I know you bear little confusion as to who I could mean. The bard is in peril.”

This time, it takes effort not to allow his eyes to widen or his lips to move. But his heart still hammers out a few extra beats.

“Where is he?”

“Far from here,” she says swiftly. “Weeks of travel, by conventional means. But the danger he faces is far more urgent than that. He has become the target of a spell that unleashes a Hodag upon its victim. It will not cease to attack until it has torn its intended prey limb from limb, and mortal men are no match for its teeth and claws and vicious hunger. I’ve protected him as well as I am able with a spell around the hunting lodge where he is sheltering. But the spell has limits, and loses its potency during a full moon. Moonrise tomorrow is when the Hodag will come for him. Unless it can be stopped. And only witchers have ever succeeded in killing them before.” Her words come out in a rush, and he has a sudden understanding of the terrible urgency of the situation.

“Why even tell me this, if we are weeks of riding away from where he is? What purpose does that serve?” He bites out the words, irritation rising to mask his concern.

“I can bring us there, with magic,” Maria of Konik replies, looking pleased with herself. Alexander is less than convinced.

“That’s complicated spellwork,” he observes. “Taxing. Not the sort of thing most magic-users are willing to perform. What is he to you that you are willing to bear on that cost?”

“Part of every best future I have glimpsed. So long as he survives past tomorrow. So long as you come to his aid.”

“And what of the other futures?” he inquires.

She meets his gaze, dark eyes open and expressive as she slowly shakes her head. Well then.

“I don’t suppose there’s compensation for this task?” he says, reaching for his pack. He imagines that’s indication enough he plans to go with her.

She stands, and he does as well. “We both know you don’t require it, in this case,” she says, brushing her fingertips against the worn tabletop and turning toward the door to the inn-yard.

He has no response to that, so he follows her.

The portal that she opens takes them to a hunting lodge tucked into the edge of an old forest. A small yard that had been cleared a hundred years or more ago has begun to cede itself back to the wood, and the boxy stone structure with its slate roof sits at the center of the yard. It’s taller than it is wide, though that says little. Sturdily built, despite its age, it’s the sort of structure that it seems ludicrous to imagine the nobility devoting their efforts and purses to creating as a fortification like this against bunnies and deer, until one realizes the level of fortification is actually built with the local folk who might want to hunt the bunnies and deer without the King’s permission in mind.

Still, stone walls should help to keep the Hodag from making an easy snack of the bard, so he doesn’t disapprove.

Looking about, he can sense the slight disturbance of the air close to the trees. He narrows his eyes, glad for his good vision in the darkness.

“That’s the boundary of the spell,” Maria supplies. “It will keep anything from physically crossing in as long as it hold, but if anyone steps across it from within its bounds, it will start to dissolve. That’s I opened the portal here, so close to the lodge itself.

“He’s in there already?” Alexander asks.

Maria nods, and leads him to the heavy-timbered door.

The common room is empty, the fire banked in the hearth. But the glow of candle light spills down the stairs, and it’s those he climbs on near-silent feet. And there, standing in the center of the room, drawn from his seat by the sounds from below, is the bard, curls and grin the same as he remembered.

“Guerin,” he breathes, and then his arms are full of bard, forcing him to plant his feet as he returns the embrace. He doesn’t allow himself to cling to the other man, though the bard clearly has no such reservations. But Guerin’s hair is soft under his fingertips, the solid reality of his body a warm reassurance. Alexander allows himself to breathe in his scent

“You’re here.” Guerin marvels, pulling back and regarding him at arms length with astonishment. “How did you know…”

“Your sorceress friend found me, explained that you’d landed yourself in hot water again. Which jealous husband did you enrage this time?”

Guerin grimaces for the briefest moment, but covers it skillfully with a grin.

“That’s not fair, Alex,” he rejoins lightly. “You know sometimes its the jealous wives who send the hounds after me. Or sometimes both parties together if I’ve overstayed my welcome.” He smiles as he says it, but the smile doesn’t quite ease the sense of sadness or exhaustion from his eyes.

He starts to launch into a tale of woe, where he himself will be portrayed as both the put-upon martyr and the daring hero all at once, but Maria interrupts.

“Having heard this bit before, I’ll leave you to it,” she says dryly. “I know a spell that can help to slow a creature, and I believe I can use it to your advantage against the Hodag tomorrow night. But it requires things I don’t have access to here. I need to fetch them, and it will take time. I’ll return by mid-morning. Perhaps by then, you’ll have had a chance to bathe, Witcher. You stink of monster blood.”

He likes her. Possibly because she irritates him even as she makes his lips twitch toward a smile, though his tone remains measured.

“In all fairness, I’m not sure the creature had any blood. It was more of a goo.”

“Were there tentacles? I hate the tentacles, but they’re very dramatic when they have tentacles,” Guerin observes. Maria ignores him, her eyes widening slightly in surprise, and then the barest expression of mirth.

“What do you know- a Witcher who has wit. Bathe, and you might actually be tolerable company.” She tosses her head and trails down the stairs. The door closes behind her with a loud scrape and a sudden air of silence.

“She means it, you know,” Guerin eventually says. “There’s a bath tub here- fit for a king. She’ll have filled it by magic just now. Hot as if it has just been heated on the hearth and lugged up here.

“I could use it,” Alexander admits. “I washed the worst of it away in a stream yesterday, after I had been paid, but it was no finely heated bath. And tonight, she dragged me from my inn after I had eaten, but before I had called for a wash basin or had a chance to rest.”

“Is Maria is right, there’s no real danger tonight. That will come on tomorrow’s moon. So…you have time. I can…help you with your armor, if you desire.

Alex nods, not trusting himself to speak.

True to Michael’s claim, there is indeed a wash tub- deep and luxurious- set behind a screen, already draped with linen and filled with water hot enough that he can see the steam curling into the air.

He loosens the straps and laces of his armor, lets Guerin ease the pieces of it from his body. It’s a ritual they’ve performed many times before, when they used to travel together. Before… Just, before.

He keeps his breathing even, every time Guerin’s deft fingers brush his arm, or his torso, whisking away another piece of the armor he wears like a second skin. But it takes effort.

Guerin turns away when he goes to pull his shirt over his head, perusing the bath offerings on the table against the wall, and keeping up a stream of even chatter that belies the skill he has in caring for people behind the glib, attractive facade.

“Chamomile, I think, for soothing and relaxation. And you’re favoring your right arm a bit, which means it’s paining you, so I think we should add calendula as well. Not Lavender, I think, but perhaps the geranium oil, for the tension in the sore muscles?” he adds the selections to the bath water, the steam making the scents dance across the room. Alex takes the time to pour water in the wash basin and scrub the worst of the filth of the road from his arms and chest, not wanting to foul the bathwater that Guerin has so thoughtfully prepared with scent and soothing herbs.

The delay means that by the time he reaches for the buttons that fasten his trousers, Guerin is finished preparing the bath. They meet each other’s gaze for a moment before Guerin makes to turn away.

“I should give you your privacy,” he says.

“You can stay, Guerin,” he says without particular forethought. “It’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”

He regrets the words almost immediately. It doesn’t do to remind Guerin of what has transpired between them, the gulf that has yawned between them ever since. It doesn’t do to remind himself. Guerin’s jaw clenches.

“You have wounds that haven’t healed yet. I have some of my salve in my pack. I’ll go and get it.” He ducks around the screen.

Uncertain if he truly intends to come back, or if the thoughtless words have sent him running, Alexander strips off the rest of his clothing and steps into the bath, letting the heat soak into his weary muscles, the steam rise into his nostrils. He rests his head against the high edge of the bathing tub, lets himself enjoy the sensation of the deep water and the soothing scents, the last of the dirt dissolving from his skin.

Long minutes pass and then suddenly Guerin appears again, a small carved pot in his hand, and a wary expression in his eyes.

“I wasn’t convinced you were coming back,” Alex admits. “I…wouldn’t have faulted you.”

“Between the two of us,” Guerin observes, just a hint of a bite to his tone, “I’m not the one with the tendency toward leaving.”

#alexweek2020 #alexappreciation2020 #malex #fic #my fic #Alex Manes #Michael Guerin #Maria DeLuca #Witcher AU #Day 2

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phykios · 4 years

Text

the marble king, part 7 [read on ao3]

A rare show of contrition, Annabeth conceded that she had been wrong. There were not, in fact, seven rapids to traverse; in total, there had been nine. Unfortunately, Percy could not enjoy this little victory nearly as much as he wished.

Annabeth had been clearly rattled by their encounter several days prior. Once more she retreated into muteness, passing the time by fingering the edges of her shorn hair, a permanent frown delicately carved into her face. He did not like to take pleasure at others’ pain, but he knew that, short of either producing a sign from her mother or tripping and falling into the river, there was not much he could do to make her smile. Hopefully, a real bed on which to sleep in a real inn with an actual roof over their heads would lift her spirits somewhat.

They sailed into a thriving river port city which Annabeth had called Kiova. He rolled the word over and over again in his mouth, wrapping his tongue around the odd sounds. It was a slippery sort of word, he thought, softly repeating it to himself under his breath as though it would fall from his lips entirely if he did not keep it close.

To his great dismay, it seemed as though the people of this city did not speak Italian. Nor did they appear to speak Greek, nor Latin, nor any other language with which Percy was familiar. Though she would not show it, it was plain to anyone who knew her to see that Annabeth was struggling as well. Her conversation with the innkeeper was slow and awkward, stilted, involving a great deal many strange gestures and repeated phrases in both Greek and another several languages he did not comprehend, which clearly made sense neither to Annabeth nor her conversation partner, and Percy was afraid the whole thing would collapse until a bystander, apparently moved to pity, was able to cobble together their shared knowledge of languages in order to rent Percy and Annabeth a room for the night.

She thanked the stranger profusely for his assistance, and he smiled at them, his blue eyes sparkling, something familiar in the curve of his lip.

“It was no trouble,” he said to her, the words colored by his thick, dark voice. “You and your husband--take care.”

He wanted to correct the man. But if he and Annabeth were to share a room, then it would be better for her reputation for her to be a married woman.

When they entered their room, a small, cramped thing with a single lit candle, fairly decent for the amount of money they still possessed, which was not much, she collapsed on their one bed, quite exhausted. “How mortifying,” she groaned, her voice muffled by the thin pillow. “It was like I had forgotten every bit of language I had ever learned. And when he called you my husband!” She huffed, turning over. “It appears as though you were correct; even without my hair, I will never pass for a man. Then what, I ask, was the point of its removal?”

Percy did not say much, distracted by the single bed. He stared at it, equal parts anxious and excited, which was rather silly of him--he had slept close to her several times before, had shared sleeping quarters with her plenty of times, and all of them strictly platonic. Why should this time be any different?

And yet, it was, for reasons he could not name. Perhaps the bed was smaller, and they were so much older. Perhaps it was those terrible, wonderful dreams which plagued him every night, dreams of soft fabrics and softer skin. Perhaps it was just his foolish heart, awakened once more by love.

At his silence, she continued. “Well, it is no matter. It is gone, and I am glad to be rid of it, truly.”

Still, he said nothing.

Perturbed, she looked at him, sitting up on the bed. “What is it? Is something wrong? Is there a monster nearby?”

“No,” he said, quickly, to dissuade her from any fears. “No, nothing of the sort.”

She gazed at him, a queer look in her eye. “What do you think?”

“Of what?” He asked, cautious.

“Of your handiwork.” With a shake of her head, she disturbed her golden crown, some curls falling down her forehead, framing her large, large eyes. “You are not usually one to hide your thoughts, therefore--please, share.”

“Oh.” He was quite certain she would not want to hear his thoughts, yet he sensed that continued silence would be the wrong choice. “You look… well, you look very… comely.” he offered, eyes tracing the line of her neck, and the curves of her ears, so sweet, that had previously been hidden from his gaze. Had he been a more poetic man, he would have the compulsion to dedicate several sonnets to those ears.

Whatever answer she was seeking, it was clear that Percy did not provide.

She scowled, her lips pursed.

“I--”

“Well, I happen to find it very freeing,” she said. She reached up and felt at the ends, for the hundredth time in the last few days, her lips tightening, as though she were unhappy with what she found. “Without all of my hair, I feel as though I could outrace even Atalanta herself.”

Then, she did something he did not expect; she shivered.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

“Of course,” she sniffed. “I just--I had forgotten--it has been so long since I cut my hair, that I did not realize.”

“Realize what?”

Her fingers once again reached up to play with her short curls--then, midway through her gesture, she caught herself, and brought her hand down again, faintly embarrassed. “Well,” she said, almost shyly, “it can be… quite cold, without so much hair.”

“Indeed?” That was never something he had considered before. Of course, he had spent the vast majority of his life in the warm embrace of the Aegean Sea, where the cold was largely something of a far off myth.

She nodded, drawing her thin shawl tighter around herself. “I will grow used to it with time, I had merely… I had forgotten.”

Though she had not asked him for anything, he made to take the blanket on the bed and hand it to her first, before he remembered. “One moment,” he said, crossing to the corner where he had placed their dwindling amount of supplies, crouching down to rummage through them.

He could not believe he had forgotten this.

Well, on the one hand, he could. It had to have been several months since that day in Athens, since they had ended their little feud. He had seen so much more of the world since then, had traversed farther than anyone he had ever known, save for her.

The color was still as lovely as he remembered, the cool, deep blue of a starless sky. He held the parcel out for her to see, felt the smooth threads between his fingers, spun in a tight, graceful weave. “Here,” he said, pulling out his prize. “This is for you.”

In his search, he had not noticed how she came to stand behind him, peeking over his shoulder, so he was quite surprised when he turned to see her looming over him.

She stared at him, wide-eyed, grey eyes turning silver. Her brows rose up to a point, almost joining together at the wrinkle of her forehead, lips parted in a prolonged, silent gasp. He might have thought she had been turned to stone, were it not for the gentle rise and fall of her chest. “This…” she faltered, licking her lips. “For me?”

He nodded.

“How…? When?” she asked, shocked beyond all language.

It appeared he had accomplished yet another feat worthy of the greatest epics; he had rendered Annabeth Fredriksdotter speechless.

Flushing further, he stood. “In Athens,” he admitted. “I--well, I was walking round the old agora, and I saw it, and I thought to myself, well, I imagined that this color would look rather fetching on you, and I had some money to myself, so I… purchased it. For you,” he finished, lamely.

He had nearly forgotten how enthralling it was to be so close to her, to see her stormcloud eyes as they reflected the candlelight, to see every strand of the soft gold of her hair as it ringed her face. He wondered if she should hear how quickly his heart was beating, as it strained to free itself from the confines of his chest and place itself in her hands.

It was like they existed in a glass bubble, a whole world unto themselves, so beautiful. So fragile.

“May I?” she asked, no louder than a puff of wind, and he nodded.

Taking it from his hands, she rubbed her fingers against the thread grain, her eyes taking on that familiar calculating expression. “It is very well-made,” she murmured, rolling it out to its fullest extent.

“I’m told it was for a noble lady,” said Percy, possessed of a sudden coyness he did not know he had. “I received it for a good price, but I had thought it should go to the kind of client for whom it was intended.”

The look she cast him nearly made him want to crawl into a hole and never come out.

Still, she drew it around herself, layering it round her neck and her head, and Percy barely had the time to imagine his hands in its place, before he was struck by the full, glorious image which presented itself to him.

He had been correct in his assumptions; the dark blue fabric looked lovely against her tan skin, but her short curls ringed her face in a halo, like the mosaics of the lords and ladies of St. Sophia, like the depictions of the holiest men and women on the walls of every church.

Percy had never considered himself to be a religious man. He performed the sacred rites and made his offerings to his father and his extended family, but not out of any true sense of theological devotion, and certainly not with the same passion as the Christians or the Ottomans whom he had seen. He did not throw himself to his knees at the thunder and lightning, nor the many miracles he had witnessed in his time, for he had come face to face with the king of the heavens, and had, sadly, found him wanting. He had met and known the gods and goddesses of earth, sea, and sky, and had discovered that they, too, were plagued by the million petty disagreements of mortal living. In some ways, it was a comfort, to know that even those who were all-powerful could be laid low by the simplest of deceptions, that they required great heroes as much as the heroes required them--and perhaps even more. Yet, of course, in other ways, it was quite the disappointment. After the war, after Lukas, after all that he had suffered, it had been difficult not to look at his fellow soldiers, at their prayer ropes and golden images and holy words, without mild distaste.

Looking at Annabeth, though, at the halo of her hair and the dark blue of her shawl, her large eyes, her lips so close, the heat of her body against him… well. Looking at her now, he thought he could teach them a thing or two about devotion.

She felt even closer than before, somehow. Perhaps he had moved towards her. Or perhaps she had. Between them, Thalia’s lightning.

She had kissed him once before, many many years ago, caught in the grip of a volcano, and he would be lying if he claimed he had not thought of it often since then.

Then, she leaned back.

“It seems my siblings were wrong about you,” she teased, her voice half-strained.

“How… how do you mean?” he asked. His head felt as though it were full of air, soft and hazy.

“They all swore up and down that you could never be so thoughtful.” Then she smiled at him, so sweetly, gazing up at him from beneath her honey-colored lashes. “Thank you, Percy.”

His mouth curved upwards in a smile, though he did not think to do so himself. “It was no trouble,” he said, wobbly and weak.

The glass had broken. The moment had passed.

Without further discussion, they prepared themselves for bed. Extinguishing the solitary candle, he laid himself down beside her. The bed was too small for them to be at a respectable distance, unfortunately, and he hoped she would forgive him.

Their room had one small window, shuttered close. Not even a hint of moonlight penetrated the slatted wood. Through the door, he could faintly hear the sounds of the tavern under them, a cascade of footsteps here, a sudden bark of laughter there, the whole of this strange, strange world beneath their feet. Eyes opened, eyes closed, it made no difference. Were it not for the noises of the people below, he would have thought they could be under the very earth itself, once again descending into the darkness of the underworld.

All of twelve years old and sent on a fool’s errand to retrieve Zeus’ weapon, contending with the notion that he might not return, that he might fail and bring war upon the world, that his mother would be lost to him forever, he had braved the halls of Hades with this woman at his side, just as afraid as he.

In the darkness now, as he drifted off to sleep, he nearly jumped back to wakefulness at the brush of her hand against his. He turned his head to her, but he could not make out her features, could not see her eyes to determine if it was conscious or not, if she had reached for him for comfort or if her hand had simply moved of its own accord.

On their first quest together, in the land of the dead, she had slipped her hand into his, desperate for a friendly touch, for assurance that there was someone else alive with her. Swallowing, closing his eyes against the blackness, he laced his fingers with hers, squeezing. I am here, he thought, sending it to her through the pulse of his hand. I am here.

After a moment, she squeezed back.

***

Percy was tired.

No, that did not entirely sum up precisely how tired he felt. Percy was exhausted. He was so exhausted, it was as if he had participated in a week’s worth of war games without any rest. His body ached as though Thalia or Iason had struck him with lightning, a constant, thrumming pulse of pain throughout his whole body. He felt as though he had been emptied of his vital insides, hollowed out and replaced with naught but a deep, deep fatigue.

It was, he knew, due to the endless days of sailing they had undertaken.

He did draw his power from the water, this was true. However, they must have been sailing for at least several months by now, day after day after day, Percy commanding the Empress through the tides, headed against the current, traveling ever North on the windiest road known to mankind. So far from the ocean, not even the Danapris could sustain him for as long as they had been traveling, and he could tell that his strength was wearing thin.

And it was not just him. The Empress wobbled beneath his feet, her hastily made bark splitting along the seams. If they did not stop for a rest, and soon, it was very likely that their canoe would capsize, taking both Percy and Annabeth with her.

Thankfully, Annabeth seemed to understand his exhaustion without him having to explain. “Just a little further,” she assured him. “Miliniska is close--not more than a mile or so.”

Percy could not even reply, so depleted he was.

It certainly did not help that a storm was about to roll in.

The clouds above were black, heavy with rain, the wind buffeting their poor little canoe, tossing it this way and that. The sail was nearly useless at this juncture, Annabeth’s stitches slowly unraveling, the fabric whipping in the growing gale.

Though the river flowed wide and steady, Percy felt as if they were sailing through a lake of mud, a thick, sticky marsh which impeded their progress to the point of death. His eyes burned, the harsh wind stinging; his spine could no longer hold his weight; he panted, open-mouthed, like a dog in the height of summer.

Perhaps he would break alongside his boat. He would not mind so much. Even a week spent unconscious at the bottom of this foreign body of water would most likely do him some good.

But he could not do that to Annabeth. She had trusted him with her safe return, and by all the gods he no longer knew, he would see her home.

“Che cazzo, how much further?” he asked through gritted teeth, letting slip a sailor's curse.

“Not long,” she assured him. “Just a little more.”

“Is it possible,” he gasped, “you could be a little more specific?”

The Empress rocked from side to side.

“Percy!” called Annabeth, grasping the sides of the boat.

“I know!” he shouted back. He squeezed his eyes, poured all of his thought into keeping them afloat.

The waves themselves seemed to fight him, the water striking the sides with such force as to send Annabeth careening from one edge to another.

He could not hold it for much longer.

“Percy!” Annabeth shouted over the roar of waves. “Port bank!”

The ship turned sharply. With a yell, he shot his hands out, splitting the water before them, steering the Empress towards the shore like a shot out of a cannon.

It wasn’t enough.

The canoe tore wildly beneath them, the seam of the tree coming apart with an almighty crack. As he had done in Constantinople, he summoned a great wave from the depths of the river, wrapping it around Annabeth, and hurling her the rest of the way to the river’s edge, onto the sandy shore.

Then the Empress split apart under his feet, dropping Percy into the water.

So drained he was, he could not even enjoy it.

He was in no danger of drowning, of course, but he was in danger of losing all consciousness, a terrible idea even when one was not in the middle of an unfamiliar territory. Who knew what sort of spirits lurked in this river, so far from the ancient sea? The water nymphs of the rapids had recognized him for what he was and had made no attempt to hide their distaste; he did not wish to try himself against further unknowns.

If he did not make it to shore, he would not die, no, but only the Fates knew where he might wash up, and he would be lost. He would be lost, and Annabeth would be alone.

Summoning the last of his strength, the blackness of exhaustion flickering at the corners of his vision like smoke, he reached deep within the core of himself, to that place that pulsed with the pull of the tides, that place which shook apart the very stones. With the last of his muster, the son of the sea god, the former Praetor of the Twelfth Legion, the lost little Hellenos issued but one command to the northern river: Take me to shore.

Then nothing.

***

When he woke, there was solid ground beneath his back.

The sky had cleared, the stormcloud grey giving way to a fiery sunset, a smooth, slow gradient of orange and purple and blue. No longer was the air thick with the scent of rain, but now cleaner, and bright.

And, he realized with a jolt, he was starving.

He groaned, a purposeless noise, yet it would prove to be a useful one all the same.

“Percy!” cried a voice to his right.

A form scuttled over to him, crowding his vision, and he had to blink through the fog of his eyes to realize that it was Annabeth. Her hands patted him up and down, from forehead to neck to chest, and she was babbling a mile a minute, far too quickly for Percy to comprehend. “Oh, thank goodness, you’re awake, I knew that you were not capable of drowning, but you have been asleep for so long, and I was so worried--”

“Ungh,” he said, most intelligently.

Annabeth hauled him up from the ground, her strong hands clutching at his shoulders, crushing him to her chest. He felt her hitched sob against him, then, just as he was thinking to bring his arms around her, she pulled back, and did something very, very strange.

She kissed him. Chastely, just a press of her lips to his, but desperate, her fingers still digging into the meat of his shoulders.

Had he been more awake, he would have opened his mouth to her in turn. As he was now, he could not even pull forth the strength to deepen the kiss, or even to react to it in a positive manner.

Then, her eyes widening, she dropped him back onto the ground.

“Oh, forgive me!” she cried at his sudden grunt of pain.

“Guh,” was his eloquent response.

“I--I am sorry, I did not--I would never--”

“Urgh,” he said, his lips tingling, the phantom feeling of her mouth on his potent enough to draw him the rest of the way from his unwilling slumber.

There must have been water lodged in his ears. Or he was still sleeping. Or perhaps his brains really had turned to seaweed. Because there was no way, no possible way, that that had just happened. She did not just kiss him. No.

He tried to sit up, only for his head to spin in a sudden vertigo. Curling onto his side, he shut his eyes until the sky above him stopped swirling in such nauseating patterns. “Easy,” said Annabeth, calmly, with the air of someone who has done this many times before. “Do not strain yourself.”

Hissing in effort, for his muscles still felt stretched and thin, far too overworked and overused not to ache, he sat up, raising himself on unsteady arms. “Are you alright?” he asked, casting a quick look up and down her person for any injury.

A respectful distance away, she blinked at him. “You have been asleep for near on a day, and you are concerned for me?”

He--he must have imagined it, the kiss. She did not look on him any differently than she had before. She did not linger at his side, forlorn and desperate. She did not shed any tears for his safe return. So he had to come to the conclusion that he had almost certainly fashioned the whole incident in his memory from thin air.

Then, of course, Percy replied to her question without considering the ramifications of his words. “Yes.”

She was silent for a moment, then shook her head. “Ridiculous,” she said. “Truly ridiculous. Come, phykios. I’ve got a fire going.”

With all her considerable strength, she was able to half-carry, half-drag him closer to her campsite. “You say,” he grunted, doing his best not to wince with each step, “that I have been asleep for a day?”

“Nearly two.”

She deposited him near the small fire, and he shivered as the warmth washed over him, enveloping him in its comforting embrace. It was a meager display, her rumpled bag of supplies propped up against a rock, a few thin, little fish, blackened by smoke and ash resting on a flat stone by the fire. “I apologize,” he said, bringing his arms around himself, rubbing the feeling back into them. “I did not mean to tire myself out so.”

“You apologi--” Cutting herself off, she stalked to the other side of the fire, angrily stoking it with a stray branch. “You apologize, when I am the one who forced you to sail every day, nonstop for over two months, dragging you all over the world on a handful of hazy memories of a road long which has since fallen out of use--”

“Annabeth--”

“You have no reason to apologize, Percy. None at all.” She stood behind the flames, the blue shawl wrapped tightly around her shoulders. “It is I who must seek forgiveness from you.”

“I do not require--”

“I know that you cannot drown,” she said, watching the smoke rise, “but I--I knew that the road would be long and hard, and still I pushed you, day after day, watching you wear yourself thin on the river, and when you would not awaken, I was afraid that… that I had forced you to give too much.” Taking a shuddering breath, she threw in a bit of fish to the fire. He thought he saw the flames leap a little higher--though his vision was still a little fuzzy, and he may very well have imagined it. “I apologize, Percy. My pride had taken precedence over your health, and in return, you nearly died for my sake. If you cannot find it in your heart to forgive me,” her eyes squeezed shut and she turned her face away, “of course I will understand.”

“Of course I forgive you,” said Percy, without hesitation. “There is naught to forgive, Annabeth.”

“You could have died.”

“A little exhaustion is not enough to rid you of me.”

“Percy--”

“Enough,” he said. “You have done nothing which requires any absolution. I promise.”

When she finally turned back, there were tear tracks, clear as day, streaking down the grime of her beautiful face, and he just barely held himself back from confessing that to die for her sake would be the easiest thing in the world for him to do.

“I swore that I would see you safely home, and I shall. Though perhaps I should be insulted,” he teased, “that you think so lowly of me. A mere river, overcome the son of Poseidon? Come now, skjaldmær. You of all people should know better.” This line of banter, how familiar it was to them. His head still spun from earlier, and he longed for the solid ground of their partnership to steady him.

But she would not rise to such taunts, not this time. “I would rather that you stay by my side and we never make it home,” she said, so serious, “than return to my father without you.”

Oh, how her curls moved in the evening breeze, the golden-copper shine of her hair stark against the encroaching night sky, her mouth set in a stern line, the delightful little divot on her forehead when she frowned a whorl of shadow against her skin. He loved all Annabeths equally, but this one, who so casually and easily spoke truth from her heart, he liked this one very much.

“Where are we?” he asked, rather than pursue that line of thought any further. “You said we were approaching Mil--Milani--”

“Miliniska,” she said. “And we are not far; a few hours’ walk at most, by my calculation.” Though she did not seem pleased at this assessment.

“What is it?”

Lips pursed, she sat down heavily upon the stone. He could not see through the smoke, but he imagined her playing with the edges of her blue shawl, the way she did when she was anxious. “I… I am unsure of our next steps.”

“We continue along the river, do we not?”

“I had thought so, yes.”

“Then once we have reached the city of--of--” he cursed as his tongue tripped over the strange sounds, his mouth not at all fit for this slippery, slick language of the North, “Holmgarðr , then we turn West to Svealand. Is this not the way?”

“Well, yes,” she said, “but I do not--I mean, I am uncertain--oh!” She raked her hands over her head, mussing up her wild hair even further. “I do not know where to go from here.”

He frowned. Her words made no sense to him. “But you know everything.” This was no mere romantic declaration; it was a truth that he had carried ever since he was twelve years old. No matter what questions he had about this strange, strange world, Annabeth would have the answer, or she would be able to seek out the answer, precisely because she was Annabeth, and because she did, indeed, know everything there was to be known.

She turned red beneath the dirt on her face. “Would that were true, then perhaps I would not have led us here.”

“How do you mean?” he asked, a cold, sinking pit in his stomach, despite the warmth of the fire.

Sighing, she slumped even further, the point of her chin nearly level with the flames. “There are many river-roads here,” she said, haltingly, though the flood of words could not be stopped, “and--and they get all jumbled up, in my head, you see. When I--when I ran away, my plan was to trace the Dúna to--to--” she screwed up her face, stamping her foot in frustration. “Oh, even now I cannot remember the name in Greek! There are so many names, Percy, in Greek and Norse and this strange, strange language that I cannot speak, and Lukas was the one who spoke them all when I was little, and I fear that I will have brought us to ruin, for I cannot make sense of it all.” She gazed at him, her large eyes glistening once more with tears. “I know not where I am, and all my faculties have deserted me, and I have dragged you here with me, into the unknown, and now our ship is gone, and--and--”

Then she performed the action which Percy had come to fear most: she began to weep again.

“Annabeth,” he said, as gently as he could, “you cannot blame yourself for what happened to the Empress. She would have given out eventually; it was merely our misfortune that it happened to be now.”

Still, her shoulders shook, her head dropped into her hands.

“We can find our way North again,” he promised. “We still have the stars, do we not? And surely we can craft another vessel.” Though it would take them much, much longer, as they no longer had any of the tools which they had left behind at Sigeion.

She did not respond.

“Annabeth, please.” He was not above begging or pleading, if only she would cease her weeping, if only she would smile again. “Please, it will be all right. Annabeth, my lo--”

Percy very nearly slapped a hand over his mouth, for he had almost let slip a sweet little endearment from his lips. However upset she was now, she would certainly not appreciate a declaration of romantic affection at this moment. She was in no position to accept it, and he would not wish to take advantage of her emotional upheaval.

“Oh, Annabeth,” he said, keeping a close watch on his words. “I do not blame you. I do not blame you one iota. Everything will be all right, I swear it.”

He could not reason with her to draw her out of her despair. All he could do now is wait for this to pass, and pass it would.

And pass it did.

Her sobs weakened, eventually, short, painful little things giving way to long stretches of quiet sniffles. Through the flames, he observed her shoulders still, the tension in her hands fading away, her whole form collapsing in on herself as all her sorrow deserted her. For some time, there was no sound but the crackle of flame, the gentle rush of the river, the whispering noises of nature which surrounded them, birds and insects and the breath of the land itself. What a boon, for Percy and Annabeth so exhausted, for there was nothing left but peace. Tranquility. Time for rest, healing, and safety, things the absence of which they had long since felt.

“I apologize,” she said, after a while. Her voice was rough, as though she had swallowed a mouthful of earth. “That was… I did not expect that.”

“Think nothing of it.” All warriors had limits, and all warriors had a point at which they could take no more. There was no shame to be felt in such a release.

Though as she continued to avoid his gaze, he wondered if perhaps she was not ashamed of the act of grief, but at the simple fact that he had been present to bear witness to it, that even though they had traveled together for so long, had endured so much together, there were still parts of her she did not feel comfortable baring to to him. The thought made him profoundly sad. He trusted her with his life--and he always had. At the close of the second Titanomachy, she had leapt in front of a poisoned blade which had been aiming straight for his unprotected flank; after such a debt owed to her, did she think he would still find any part of her shameful?

Then, she surprised him yet again. It was starting to become a pattern, it seemed.

“I know you must be angry with me,” she said, her eyes hidden from view.

It was only with the greatest strength of will that he kept himself from bursting out laughing at the sheer absurdity of such a statement. Percy, angry with her? For showing emotion? “What ever for?”

“For getting us lost.”

“We are not lost,” he chided. “This nearby town, Mal--Miliano--”

“Miliniska,” she said, a weak grin gracing her features.

He shook his head. “Yes, that one, surely someone there will be able to point us in the right direction.”

“And if there is not?”

“Then we put our teachings to use,” he said. “We have been trained for this, have we not?”

“For battle, yes. For wandering around the northern wilderness, less so.”

He waved a hand, carelessly. “I am certain some skills will overlap.”

But she would not stray from her course. “I had thought you would be displeased with me,” she said. “I know you were concerned about the agoge, about your mother, but I convinced you to accompany me instead. Would you not rather be searching for her, instead?”

Annabeth knew firsthand how he adored his mother. Though clearly it had been the right decision, sending her away from Constantinople had been one of the hardest things he had ever done in his life. Hardly a day went by when he did not think of his mortal family. To be parted from them in this manner, so precarious, was a kind of agony he had not known existed. And yet, he could not very well admit to Annabeth that he would rather be here, now could he? “Wherever she is, I know that my mother is safe.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I have faith.” His mother was a resourceful woman, always had been. She had survived for years under the thumb of her hateful first husband; to pack up, flee the city, and then begin anew with a man who truly loved her would be no large undertaking.

“I wish I could believe as you do,” said Annabeth, softly.

Percy would never quite describe himself as a man of faith, but he had his moments. “It is not so difficult if you choose the right people to believe in.” A simple truth, yet Percy had been blessed with such wonderful people in his life, such ample resources. People like his mother and Paul, Chiron and their friends. People like Iason and the Legion.

People like Annabeth.

“I suppose, then, I have a bad habit of choosing the wrong person.” Through the fire, her eyes turned dark, bitter, sad. “Everyone I have ever believed in--my father, Lukas, my mother--they have all of them left me behind.”

He wished he could refute her claim, but he found he could not. He had seen the temple of Athena, cannibalized for Christian men, and the court of Poseidon, a cold, dark ruin.

Still. “Surely not everyone?” he asked.

She lifted her gaze to him, locking eyes from across the blaze. “No,” she said, thoughtfully. “No, I suppose not. Not everyone.” Then she frowned, as though something had suddenly occurred to her. “You said… you named our ship the Empress?”

Oh. He had hoped she had not heard that part. Flushing lightly, he nodded. “I did.”

“I see.” And she blushed in return.

The moment felt big, somehow. Large, like a fork in the road, or the moment before sunrise, where the world held its breath and anything could happen. Endless possibility.

Perhaps now was the proper time. At such a declaration, had he the strength, he would have gone to her at once, taken her in his arms and demonstrated just how deeply his affections ran.

Alas, he did not.

He yawned, hugely.

She huffed a laugh. “You are still tired?” she asked.

Nodding, he rubbed at an eye. “Though I do not see how. I feel as though I could sleep for yet another day.”

“Perhaps you should rest a while longer,” she said.

Roughly scrubbing his hands over his face, he said, “No, no, we should not waste much more time, if we are now relegated to walking.”

“Tomorrow,” she insisted. “The hour is late.”

“I would like to sleep in a real bed for a change.”

“We do not have enough money to rent a room for the night.”

“Then I can pay in manual labor, or--”

So faint, he nearly missed it, the slight tickling in the corner of his mind.

Noting his pause, Annabeth stood up, her hand automatically going for her weapon. “What is it?”

Slowly, he turned towards the woods which bordered the river. “I am not sure,” he said, slowly. “It… it sounds like…”

It was not sound, not as men typically understood it. The voice did not travel through the air, into the ear. Rather, it seemed to emerge from within his mind, a thought that was not his own. The tone, the timbre, sincerity behind the words, it was all so familiar, so comforting. This voice belonged to a simple kind of creature, hardy and tough, and what was more, it belonged to a creature Percy knew.

“It can’t be,” he said.

And yet, it was.

From the forest emerged a horse, a beautiful, brown thing, who trotted over to them without hesitation. Bypassing Annabeth entirely, the horse came to a stop next to Percy, dipping her head--for she was a mare--and with a start, Percy realized that this was the very same horse which had carried them to the safety of Prosphorion Harbor, in the thick of smoke and battle.

“How are you here?” he breathed, one hand coming up to stroke her nose.

“What?” asked Annabeth. “What is she saying?”

In astonishment and wonder, he could not help but smile. “She says she heard your call.”

“What call?”

“And,” said Percy, turning to her, “she says she will take us wherever it is we need to go.”

Her eyes widened, mouth open in shock and delight. “Truly?”

As if to answer Annabeth’s question, the horse nodded in assent.

“Can she take us to the Dúna?”

He relayed the question to the horse, and then translated for Annabeth: “She does not know the name, but if you can direct her to the place, she would be more than happy to carry us there.”

“Oh, oh, magnificent!” Annabeth rushed over, throwing her arms around the horse’s neck. “Oh, you blessed animal!”

The horse--whose previous rider, several months and hundreds of miles past had named her Theophanu, as she had told him--gave a short huff, pressing her head against Annabeth’s.

“We haven’t a moment to lose,” said Annabeth, releasing Theophanu with a pat on her nose. “Let me grab the supplies; you can sleep on the way.”

He had thought to assist her in dismantling the camp, but, truth be told, he was simply too exhausted still, and the thought of sleep was a welcome one. Seated as he was, he felt himself swaying gently, a leaf caught in the wind, succumbing to large, painful yawns as often as his body could produce them.

Theophanu swiveled her gaze to him, large and piercing, and asked him a question.

He blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

She asked again.

His cheeks flushed. “Of course not.”

The horse looked at him, unconvinced.

“We are only traveling together for the time being,” he said, weakly. “She is not my w--”

“Did you say something?” asked Annabeth, turning towards him.

If possible, Percy flushed even further. “Ah, no! Nothing to report.”

She held his gaze for a moment longer, then shrugged.

Before he knew it, they were all packed up and ready to go, Theophanu loaded down with their meager supplies. “Here, Percy.” Annabeth came round to his side, taking his arm and slinging it over her shoulder, using his own body as leverage to lift him up from the rock where he had nearly made his bed again. “Allow me.”

Together, they clambered onto Theophanu’s back. Annabeth sat before him, clutching the makeshift reins she had cobbled together out of what remaining rope they had left. Overcome with fatigue, his head bent forward until it rested against her shoulder, his nose pressed into the joint of her neck, her short curls brushing against his skin.

So tired was he, he could do barely more than mumble an apology into her shirt.

“It is fine,” she assured him. “Here, put your hands round my waist so you do not fall off.”

Her skin was hot. Or perhaps he was merely cold. He could no longer tell.

Drawing himself closer to her, he draped himself against her back, following her instruction. “Sleep, Percy,” he felt her murmur to him. “I’ve got you.”

Rocked by Theophanu’s gentle movements, the scent and feel of Annabeth all around him, there he fell asleep, a stray lock of her hair inching its way towards his mouth.

When he awoke the next morning, he would swear it was the greatest night’s sleep he had had in quite some time.

***

The nearer to the city they were, the stronger Percy felt.

Certainly, they were much too far from the port, but still Percy swore up and down that he could smell the sea. “I promise you, I can smell it!” Cresting the little mound, he thrust his arms out to the sides, taking in a large, large sniff. “The smell of salt, of fish, wet wood and smoke--” he sighed, full of ardent passion. “Thálatta, thálatta !”

“We still have quite a ways to go, phykios,” Annabeth grumbled, though he could see her fighting down a smile. “Are you certain what you smell is not your own most tender perfume?”

But her taunts could not bring down his mood on this day. After months of travel by river, from one end of the world to another, at last, at long last, they had returned to the sea.

Annabeth had called this city Riga, another strange word, but at least one that he could say without much trouble. They had let Theophanu free a few miles back, choosing to make their way into the city on foot, as Annabeth did not think they could bring her with them to Svealand, and she did not wish to sell their friend to some heartless man who might treat her poorly, despite the fact that Theophanu could, most likely, fetch them quite a handsome price. For services rendered, two weeks of her time and who knew how many miles, she deserved to be set free once more, to roam in peace and contentment, and thus, Percy had sent her off with the blessing of the little Horselord, as she had so fondly called him.

But now, now--the sea was within his grasp once more. The city of Riga rose up in the distance, the castle towers dark against the late afternoon sky, like trees rising above the red slanted roofs.

Even to his untrained eye, the difference in architecture was stark. The towers, thin and spindly and sharp, seemed to be reaching towards the heavens. The tallest had a cross placed on the very top of the spire, and Percy wondered how a man could even reach such heights so as to take care of it. Clearly this tower rested on top of a church, though it was the oddest church Percy had ever seen before. He supposed he had grown too used to the domes of St. Sophia and its ilk, yet to him it was still stranger than the church in Athens which had once been the mighty Parthenon.

By the time they entered the city proper, the sun hung low in the sky, a slight chill in the air. Percy shivered beneath his cloak, marveling at everyone around him who seemed unaffected by the cold. “Nothing like an unseasonable bit of chill, no?” he asked, hoping to spark some conversation after such a long silence.

She raised a brow. “This is not cold.”

“Of course it is,” he scoffed. “It is barely mid-September. Surely the seasons have not yet changed.”

“Oh, Percy,” she said, almost pityingly. “We are in the North, now. To those that live here, the coldest nights of Sigeion would seem the height of the summer heat.”

His eyes nearly bugged out of his head. “It can be colder than this?”

With a sad, mockingly sorrowful shake of her head, she pressed on, leading them through the crowded docks.

“Annabeth,” he near-pleaded, jogging lightly to keep apace. “Please. Tell me it does not grow colder than this, I beg of you.”

She put her hand out, stopping him in his tracks. “A moment.”

They had come before a little cargo ship, her captain speaking at length with another man. Annabeth narrowed her eyes, her lips moving slightly as she whispered to herself in that expression Percy had come to recognize as the one she wore when she was concentrating very intensely on any given task, usually a war game strategy of some manner or other, before grabbing a hold of his hand, and dragging him with her as she stepped up to the captain, before engaging in a lively conversation with him.

A conversation that Percy could not follow, naturally. He could pick out a few words here and there, just by virtue of having known Annabeth for so long, things like “farbror” and “pengar” and “Grikkir,” but they flew by so quickly, he could not be sure if he had truly heard them.

A far, far cry from the stilted, unsure exchange she had shared with the gentleman in Kiova, Annabeth was well and truly in her element as she spoke with the captain. The words flew back and forth between them, faster than he thought would be possible with such a liquid, languid tongue. Occasionally, she would refer back towards Percy, and he would straighten his spine, lifting his chin in an attempt to look more dignified. There was not much he could do about the unfortunate length of his hair, nor the travel-worn state of his clothing, but he did his best to take on an air of importance, following Annabeth’s lead as she spoke, most haughtily.

Yet the conversation dragged on. It was several minutes of increasingly heated exchange before Annabeth turned away from the captain, bristling with anger. “Percy,” she said, imperious, “do you think you can sail this vessel?”

He flicked his eyes to the ship. It was small-ish, double-masted, well taken care of. “Most likely.”

“Very good.” She turned back to the captain, sneering, and said, “I trust you’ll help me steal it, then?”

Percy started. “Perhaps it would be best not to discuss this with him present?” It wasn’t that he was not agreeable to a little theft--quite the contrary, he would be happy to assist--but, well, the man was right in front of them.

But Annabeth just scoffed. “He does not speak our language; he cannot understand us.”

True to her word, the captain merely blinked at them, uncomprehending.

Very well. “Your orders?”

“On my mark,” she said. Then, she turned back to the poor man whose livelihood they were about to overturn, and, quite theatrically, burst into tears--great, heavy, cacophonous wails, which drew the attention of every man who surrounded them. So pitiful were her sobs, the good men of the port stepped up to comfort her, to see if there was some boon they could give or act they could perform to ease her sorrow, and so taken were they with her, a feeling with which Percy could certainly empathize, that none noticed as Percy quietly backed away, slipping onto the docked ship.

***

It was very early in the morning, but Percy had not felt so awake in months. Even in such a foreign place as this, the sea filled him full of power, sharpening his senses and lifting his spirits. They were making excellent time, the breath of Notus firmly at their backs, propelling them ever northward, and Percy felt so fine, he could not help but sing. Now, if only it had not been so damned cold. “Hýdōr thélō genésthai, ópōs se chrō̂ta loúsō,” he hummed, a song for a young girl he had heard once upon a time, “ópōs, ópōs, ópōs se chrō̂ta loúsō.”

“I do not know this one,” Annabeth commented, her hands curled around the lip of the wood as she kept a lookout--for what, she would not say--but her face was not turned out to the sea, rather, she looked at him so curiously, her head tilted. “From the Anacreontea?”

Percy shrugged. “I know it not, but heard it from the docks in Constantinople.” A lesser known talent of his, he seemed to have a nearly limitless memory for sea songs. If it were able to be sung on the water, then Percy would remember it perfectly. He could sometimes forget the shade of his mother’s hair, but he could remember these silly little sea songs. “If it is not to your liking, I am certain I could find another. Or, I could cease entirely.”

“No, no, it is very sweet,” she said. “You can sing to your heart’s content.” Then she sighed, wistful. “My father tried to teach me sea songs, once.”

“Oh?” he asked, delicately. The subject of her family was a sensitive one, he knew, but he confessed a deep curiosity for the man who helped make her into who she was. “Songs for when you went a-pillaging the coasts of Gallia and Anglia?”

Her pretty face twisted, the familiar frown she wore whenever she felt he was being particularly stupid. “You are aware that the age of the Vikings has long since passed, yes? Svealand is now as Christian as Constantinople. As it was,” she corrected.

Sensing that they were about to embark on a very sad road, he sought to change the subject before they did. “You mean to tell me,” he said, injecting as much of a teasing lilt as he dared, “you were not once the littlest of the shieldmaidens? You did not sleep on the longboats, with the dogs of war, ready and eager to fight?” He’d seen visions of Annabeth as a little girl, traveling the world with Thalia and Lukas, already such a fierce fighter, and though he knew what kind of pain she had borne, the picture in his head still made him smile, a pretty little girl with golden curls and a fierce gaze, brandishing a knife entirely too big for her. “

“How I wished I could,” she sighed again, near-dreamily, seeming as if she had been struck by Cupid’s arrow. “I used to dream of the great shieldmaidens of yore, of Freydís Eiríksdóttir and Brynhildr Buðladóttir, of fighting alongside them, but alas, it was not meant to be.” The smile slipped from her face, and she grew pensive once more. “My step-mother put a stop to those dreams once she deemed me to be too old to have them.”

“She did not appreciate the honor of shieldmaidens, then?”

Annabeth snorted, entirely unladylike. “Certainly not. She sought to bleed that part of me fully, as leeches to a festering wound, until I was sufficiently empty to be made full of the Christian god. When I was little,” she said, staring out to sea, “she brought me with my brothers on a business trip of sorts. She told my father that she was taking us on a pilgrimage to the great churches of the continent, but when we sailed into Riga, she…” Trailing off, she tightened her hands on the wood of the ship, her gaze hardening. Percy adjusted his grip on the rope, easing them more into the direction of the wind. “She attempted to leave me there,” Annabeth said, each word as heavy as a stone, dropped into the great, black deep. “She thought to consign me to a convent.”

A convent? “Rachel studied at a convent for a time,” Percy said. From what she had told him, it had not seemed so terrible. “I, however, cannot possibly imagine you in such a place.”

“Neither can I--I never actually set foot in it.” A small smile graced her features, then, barely visible in the dim light. If he had not been so attuned to her every move and muscle, he would not have seen it for himself. “As soon as I realized what she had tried to do, I ran. I took off, following the length of the Dúna for a fortnight, until I crashed right into Thalia and Lukas. And, well… you know the rest.” She looked at him, so fondly it made his heart skip a beat.

“You--” he swallowed, his tongue numb, his mind somewhat in pieces. “I remember, after our quest for the Master Bolt, you mentioned you were going to write to your father?”

She looked away. “I did.”

“And?” He prompted. “Did you ever receive a reply?”

“I did not.”

“Oh.”

“Not, I think, for a lack of trying,” she conceded. “You know as well as I how difficult it can be to send a letter. You were very fortunate to have your mother so close by.”

“I was,” he said, for there was no reason to deny it.

“But I suppose if you did not like your mother, that could have been a burden.”

Such a concept was unthinkable, truly. Percy paused for half a second, weighing his words, and then asked, “Would it have been a burden for you to be closer to your father?”

Pursing her lips, she blew out a hearty breath. “To tell you truthfully, I do not know. After… after our little adventure with Atlas, I should very much like to have gone home even for a short while, even just to tell him that I forgave him, and Mary, for all the perceived wrongs of my childhood. But, as you can see,” and she gestured South, “it would have taken far too long.”

She was not incorrect. War had been brewing, and they simply could not have spared their chief strategist for months on end. There had only been a handful of weeks in between that adventure and their journey into the depths of the Labyrinth; without Annabeth, he was certain that particular quest would have gone up in Greek fire.

“Tell me about him,” he said. “Your father. You know so much of mine, and yet I know so little of yours.”

Another small smile lifted her features. “You have forgotten already what I have told you of him?”

“I know he is a scholar of some renown,” said Percy, “and that he must be a singularly clever man in order to attract your mother’s eye.”

“He is,” she nodded. “He is… was… very dedicated to his studies, something which I always admired about him. Unfortunately, it left him little time to tend to his family.”

“Hence how you found yourself in your stepmother’s care.”

“Yes.” She faltered, tapping her fingers on the wood. “I… I do not know if he knew of her plan to send me to the convent. If he approved of her plan.” Her shoulders hunched. “If it was his idea in the first place.”

Percy shook his head, letting go of his ropes, commanding them to stay their current course. He stepped up to her, boldly knocking his shoulder against hers, pleased when she did not stumble or crumble before him. “Now, that cannot be,” he said, “for no man, no matter how wedded to his letters he may be, could consider you to be anything but the finest of warriors. If your father is as clever as you claim, surely he could not have authorized such a mistake.”

She stretched her lips in an attempt to smile, but that was all she could muster at this time, it seemed.

The dawn had yet to break, yet Percy could make out every line and angle of her face, indelibly marked, as they were, in his mind and heart, bathed in some otherworldly light that turned her more radiant than any goddess he had ever romanced.

He swallowed.

“I must confess,” he said, “something that has been weighing on me heavily.”

She turned to him, eyes wide and expectant. Her hair had grown out some since her unfortunate haircut, coming down to dust at the tops of her shoulders, nearly obscuring her gaze, and he had to grip the wood of the ship in order to keep himself from brushing it from her face.

“Why…” he trailed off, distracted by the flecks of silver in her eyes. By the gods, man, pull yourself together. “If you and your father did indeed have such a contentious relationship, why did you want to see him now?”

For a brief moment, he felt she looked… disappointed, almost. But it passed, more quickly than a thought, and he put it aside for the moment. “Despite it all, he is my father. My mother, the agoge, Constantinople--they are all gone, yet still he remains. He may be the only thing I have left in this world,” she said, glumly.

Something in his heart tugged at her words. “Not the only thing, surely,” he jested lamely. “Have I not been sufficient company on this odyssey of ours?”

“You have been,” she said, looking him square in the face, “the greatest companion I could ever have asked for. As long as I live, I shall never forget the thousand kindnesses you have paid me over these last few months.”

She was so close. He could feel her breath, hot against the freezing air, see the upturned tip of her nose. “It was my pleasure,” he mumbled.

There was no sound, save for the wind, the creak of the wood, the beating of his heart, so loudly he was certain she could hear it--or perhaps it was hers, throbbing in return. One, two, three heartbeats in succession, she twitched, he jolted, they moved imperceptibly closer, then--

Annabeth gasped. “Percy, look!” she cried, pulling back.

“Huh?” he blinked, lagging a few seconds behind.

Her outstretched finger pointed upwards towards the heavens, but all he could see was the open, naked wonder on her face, her dropped jaw, her eyes as large as the extravagant pendants of rich nobles, the way her curls seemed to bounce of their volition, charged up in awe and in wonder. Only after he had taken his fill of her visage, a seemingly impossible feat, yet one he accomplished nonetheless, did he follow her finger to the object of her fascination.

And he gasped in turn.

High in the sky, ribbons of light and color swam about, mixing and mingling with the clouds and stars, as if Eos and Iris had joined forces, the rosy-fingered dawn and the golden-winged messenger entwined in a magical dance. “Oh,” he breathed, “oh, how beautiful!”

“I can’t believe it!” she laughed, delighted. “The bridge! Percy, look! The--” Then she said a word which Percy must not have heard correctly.

“The what?”

And then she said that word again.

He frowned. “Bee-vroast?”

“No, the Bifröst.”

“Is that not what I am saying?”

“Most certainly not,” she said. “It is the road between Heaven and Earth, connecting Asgard to Midgard.”

“Asgard?” he asked. “Midgard? What do these things mean?"

She gestured around them. “This. This is Midgard, everything you see before you, the land in the middle. Asgard sits up above us, at the top of Yggdrasil, the World Tree. It is a long, long way, passing through Alfheim , and… well, regardless, it is quite the journey.

“I see,” said Percy. “Similar to how Olympus was perched on top of St. Sophia, yes?”

Annabeth tilted her head, considering. “A little. Though, rather than a staircase or a mountaintop, there is a bridge.”

He looked back at the display--unfortunately, all he could see were hazy, formless colors, stunning, but about as solid as the mist itself, nothing nearly so weighty as a bridge, yet so sublime and unfathomable still. “A bridge?”

She pointed again, leaning in close, so as he could better see the angle of her finger. “There, do you not see the three colors?”

He could, indeed, see three colors: hot reds, cool blues, otherworldly greens, like streams of pure light floating down from on high. “I do.”

“And there,” her face was nearly pressed to his, the heat of her body welcomed only in that it helped to ward off the cold somewhat, “see you not the point where it vanishes?”

He squinted. The lights seemed to disappear beyond the horizon line, trailing off above what surely must have been Ultima Thule. “I… I believe I do, yes.”

“There,” said Annabeth, her face all lit up, “there is the home of the gods of my father’s family: the Aesir.”

“Aesir,” he repeated. Aesir, Asgard, Midgard, so many strange sounds. “Well, then,” he said, taking a step back. “Shall I follow this Bifröst of yours?”

How strange to think that, merely a few months earlier, they had set out from Piraeus, nearly antipodal to where they were now, surely. It seemed near a lifetime ago. Even now, he found that the streets of Constantinople had faded from his memory, somewhat, the towering churches and ancient squares no longer quite so towering in his mind. How he longed to return to that place, that time, before his gods had abandoned him, before his family had vanished into the air, before he realized that he was in love with a woman who despised him, and before he realized that, sooner than he would have liked, he was about to lose her forever.

“Not quite so far,” said Annabeth, taking a step back in turn. “We go to seek my uncle, Randulf.”

“Not your father?” he asked, once more picking up the ropes which had not gone slack.

She shook her head. “My father is but a scholar; on the contrary, my uncle is… well…” Flushing lightly, she bit her lip, looking away. “He is something of a local lord.”

“Really.”

She flushed further. “He does possess certain titles and lands.”

“You really are a princess,” Percy concluded, a smile growing on his face. “And all this time, I thought that you simply detested to be compared to the fairest of the fairer sex.”

Harrumphing, she crossed her arms. “I am not a princess,” she pouted.

Holy Aphrodite, surely she must not have known the effect that she had on him. “Oh, of course,” said Percy, “I had forgotten. Your majesty.”

“Enough.” But, as the lights of the Bifröst gave way to the breaking dawn, he could see a smile on her face, as plain as day. “Be ready, captain, for there are many islands between here and Stadsholmen.”

“Of course, your majesty.”

“Percy!”

***

When she related to him the news, she seemed oddly calm regarding the situation. “It appears,” she had said, “that my uncle has since passed away.”

“My deepest sympathies.” Percy did not have much in the way of an extended mortal family--his mother had been a single child, and his step-father had not spoken much of his own family--but he could imagine the kind of loss she must have felt.

“It seems that his title and holdings were transferred to my cousin, Magnus.” She had had a sort of faraway look on her face, as though she were lost in some kind of waking dream. “He and my father have gone to Birka, to see to his properties.”

Goodness; they had docked the boat from the poor man whom they had thieved in Riga not just this morning, had barely been in Stadsholmen a day, and once again they were setting off. “How far?”

Blinking, she had seemed to physically pull herself together before his very eyes. “Not very,” she had said. “I can find us passage.”

Now they floated serenely on the waters of Lake Mälaren, as she had called it, inching ever closer as the nice captain brought them to the island in the middle of the water. It felt odd not to be in control of the vessel for once, and Percy could not stop himself from fidgeting, his leg bouncing up and down incessantly.

The captain shot him a dirty glare, and Percy looked away. “So,” he said to Annabeth, desperate for something to fill the weighty silence which had descended upon them. “Your cousin, Magnus--what is his character?”

“I wish I could say.” Staring straight ahead, Annabeth focused all her considerable attention on the island which was slowly coming into view, emerging from the mist. “I have not spoken with him since before I ran away.”

“I see.”

“I remember,” she said, softly, “that he loved nature. That when I told him of my plans, he did not go and report them to my father. In that way, I know that he was a stalwart friend, and I cannot imagine that much could have changed him.” Tossing him a glance, he thought he saw her lips turn imperceptibly downwards. “If he has not changed much, I daresay that you will quite enjoy his company.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Oh?” he asked, awaiting further explanation, yet she did not provide any.

Before very long, they had arrived at the shores of Birka, and Annabeth had given the kind boatman the very last of their coin. They stood at the bottom of a little hill, the dirt path before them winding its way through the tall grass, like a snake, yet Annabeth made no move to go forward.

“I cannot believe I am here,” she breathed. “It has been so long, I… I never thought I would see it again.” What ‘it’ could have been, she did not specify, though he could guess.

Though the house on the hill was now within their grasp, he found that his feet seemed to be as heavy as hers. “Perhaps we should wait until tomorrow,” he said, “and find somewhere to rest for the night.”

But then he observed as Annabeth summoned all her courage, drawing herself up to her full height, squaring her shoulders and narrowing her eyes, a little goddess of war here on Earth, and began the long march up the hill. Percy was powerless to do naught but follow her.

The house was built with dark wood, a deep, nutty brown, an inkblot against the soft blues and greens of the land which surrounded it. As they grew closer and closer, it seemed to multiply in size, as though stories and wings were added to the existing structure before his very eyes, an ever expanding sculpture of rough-hewn wood and grey, slanting roofs.

As Annabeth stepped up to the great, wooden door, and knocked, Percy stepped back a ways. It would not do, he thought, for him to hover over her, not during such a precious moment of reunion.

A handful of heartbeats, then the door opened, with a great, creaking groan. “Ja?” asked the man who popped his head out, a mop of drab, grey hair on his head. “Vem är det?”

“Jag heter Anja Elisabet Fredriksdotter,” Annabeth said, “och jag är här för att träffa min far, Fredrik Randulfsson.”

The man looked her up and down, before retreating into the darkness of the house.

There, on the grass outside of the door, they waited.

Not a minute later, the door opened again, nearly coming off its hinges as another man barreled forth, his wild, grey hair shooting off in all directions, glasses perched delicately on his nose. “Anja!” he gasped, as though he were in pain. “Anja, är det verkligen du?”

Annabeth gave a single sob, then threw herself at the man, who wrapped her up in his arms, squeezing tightly. “Jag är hemma nu, papa,” she wept, muffled by his shirt. “Jag är hemma.”

As one, they crashed to the earth, their knees striking the packed dirt, and despite the chill of the afternoon air, Percy could not help but feel warm at the sight of Annabeth--Anja--as she embraced her father for the first time in fifteen years.

#this one is a doozy #marble king #pjo #percabeth #the rivalry ends here #my fic

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unfortunatelysirius · 5 years

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The Runaway Bride // Robb Stark [Part I of II]

「 ❁ 」PROMPT 「 ❁ 」

Y/N is the niece of Roose Bolton, and when he requests to arrange a marriage between her and his bastard son Ramsay, she does the only thing she knows how. She runs.

「 ❁ 」AUTHOR’S NOTE 「 ❁ 」

This idea was stuck in my head so here I am writing it idk. I HOPE IT’S NOT TERRIBLE???? Tell if you all would like more Game of Thrones imagines! :)

「 ❁ 」WARNINGS 「 ❁ 」 Angst, violence, swearing

「 ❁ 」WORD COUNT 「 ❁ 」 3900+

IT WAS LIKE ANY OTHER DAY AT THE DREADFORT.

Y/N Bolton had been readying for a bath, the water boiling as she carefully undressed, when there came a knock at the door. It was frantic, like the person behind the door was in a hurry. Y/N buttoned up the front of her dress once more, skirts rustling beneath her bare feet as she shuffled to greet the visitor.

She unlatched the door, pulling it open just a smidgen. Behind the wood was a young girl—perhaps just a few years younger than Y/N—with skin like paste and eyes bluer than the sea. “Lord Bolton has asked for you in the dining hall, Lady Bolton,” she said.

Y/N nodded, trying—and failing—to hide her distaste. “Thank you,” she said, a polite dismissal. Only when the girl took her leave and the corridor silenced did Y/N think herself safe enough to breathe a sigh.

Her lord uncle had been pestering her for more than a fortnight, asking her to consider his offer. Or so he called it; what it truly felt like was a threat and a demand. She was to marry his bastard son Ramsay, on the first moon after his legitimization. Lord Bolton was unmarried and heirless, an aging man desperate to solidify his claim to the Dreadfort, before another family could usurp it. Y/N’s mother and father had died more than a decade ago, during a time when illness plagued the land. Her father was Lord Bolton’s brother, her mother from a lowborn Northern family. When they were on their deathbeds, their final wish was for Roose to take Y/N in and raise her as his own.

Y/N was raised right alongside Ramsay. They bathed together and played together. It was wrong for her lord uncle to have them wed, when all she had ever known Ramsay as was a cousin. A bastard cousin, but a cousin, nonetheless. Though, Y/N knew Ramsay thought differently.

A sick feeling in her heart, Y/N put on her slippers and took her leave from her sleeping chamber. She walked to the dining hall, where she knew Lord Bolton to be.

Lord Bolton was a formidable man—not near as formidable as any of the Umbers, but still a great danger to anyone who crossed him. He was grey-haired and grey-eyed, with a body both tall and muscled. His eyes bore a certain coolness to them, a void look that promised unspeakable cruelty. He was known for it.

It was what made Y/N the most afraid. The thought that he would hurt her, if she did not grant him his demands.

“Dear niece,” said Lord Bolton, unsmiling, as he caught her entrance. Those cruel grey eyes watched her every move. “Have you thought any more about my offer?”

Offer. It was not an offer. It was a threat. Y/N swallowed thickly, failing to disguise her fear as deliberation. “Yes, uncle,” she said. “When would our wedding day be?”

“I plan to ask that Eddard Stark legitimize him as my heir,” said the man, watching her carefully. “You know Eddard Stark, I assume.”

“Lord Stark,” murmured Y/N. She had met him on a few occasions, but only with her father when she was very, very young. They had never been formally introduced, nor her to his wife and children, not while her uncle kept her confined within the Dreadfort walls. “When would he be legitimized?” How much time do I have left?

“Soon,” Lord Bolton said. It was a simple answer. One that was meant to make her frantic, as she contemplated how many moons she had before her wedding night.

“Soon,” Y/N repeated.

“Preferably before winter,” said Lord Bolton. And it was a cruel, cruel joke, meant to snipe at the Starks and their house words.

His smile was that of a king, of a man condemning someone he cared very little for to a terrible fate. It showed Y/N how alone she was.

In a land where daughters were little more than cattle, Y/N Bolton had to be her own hero, lest she be left in the fall to wither.

It was decided, on the night before her uncle went off to a meeting with the Karstarks, that she would not marry Ramsay Snow. Even if he were legitimized, he was still a sadistic monster, one who continued the banned practice of flaying men alive and found pleasure in methods of torture. He could have defeated his bastard name and made himself a man of honor, but instead he chose a path of destruction—one that Y/N did not want any part of, whether that be watching it unfold or following in his footsteps.

As a child, Y/N dreamed of marriage, of knights and rescues from ivory towers. Her mother and father had a love only found in fairytales, and in the books Y/N was read at night, that same love was found. A love that made men victims of the heart, and women into senseless dolts. Her uncle ridiculed it, and her Dreadfort friends did not believe in it. But into youthhood, Y/N continued to dream of it, wishing she could find what her parents once had. It was only when Y/N had her first moon’s blood, when her uncle began to arrange plans for marriage, when she became aware of the ogling stares, that she felt her hopes diminished.

Y/N L/N was much less naïve. She knew what awaited her into adulthood. Even so, a bastard whose only passion was found in destroying pretty things was not a fate Y/N wanted. He would take great pleasure in breaking her, that much was certain. Y/N, though young and inexperienced, was not stupid. She knew what kind of man he was.

Y/N was going to run away.

A foolish plan. One that could go wrong in so many ways. If she were to be caught, punishment was sure to follow. Y/N was terrified of what consequences awaited her. But the worst fate she could face was a marriage to Ramsey Snow.

That thought was all that kept her from reconsideration.

On a night where her lord uncle was sure to be unconscious and her bastard cousin under the same effects, Y/N gathered her things. Her greatest obstacle came in the form of finances, as she had only a little bit of loose change; a handful of coppers, at the most. It would buy her a night at an inn, and maybe a couple meals to accompany it.

But she wouldn’t last.

She wore her warmest dress, with a fur-lined cloak encapsulating residual heat. In her bag was the barest necessities. A few dresses, with matching slippers. Food she’d stolen from the kitchens. A canteen filled to the brim with water. Her purse of coppers. And a knife. The knife had been taken from Dreadfort’s blacksmith’s shop. Y/N hoped she would have no use for it. However, she knew that the North was full of Ramsay Snows. She would not run far before encountering one.

Y/N snuck down to the stables, where she woke her horse, Axel. He startled, neighing softly, only for Y/N to shush him. She petted down the back of his head like she would the nape of a newborn. To soothe and to comfort. “You’re coming with me, boy,” she whispered.

She saddled him quickly, fingers shaky and mind abundant with worries. She didn’t know where she was going, or what she would do. Maybe this was all for naught, and she would face consequences much sooner than she’d intended. Lord Bolton could have saw through her façade easily, and through her intents even quicker—it was only a matter of waiting and seeing.

Y/N fled the castle through a series of snow-covered paths, ones unseen by the stationed guards. Fallen flakes fell along her cloak, some in her hair—and the crisp air gave her the impression she was in a snowstorm. She knew it was merely an illusion of the ride, caused by the speed in which her horse ran, but that did not change the feeling.

She was out of the Dreadfort before she could counter the thought with another. Only when she made it to a neighboring town did she allow herself to feel relieved.

I made it, she thought foolishly.

Y/N stayed a night in the inn, and broke her fast with her water canteen and a loaf of bread she’d brought from her Dreadfort thievery. It was contenting, to know she was safe and fed for at least until the sun set. Only when she was sat and watching strangers go about dillydallying did she realize; she didn’t know where she was.

“Where am I?” she asked the innkeeper.

“Moleskin,” the innkeeper told her.

Y/N felt stupid. “Where exactly is that?”

The innkeeper’s eyes narrowed. “West of the Dreadfort. Are you lost, kid?”

“No,” said Y/N. She wasn’t a very good liar. When the innkeeper continued his scrutinizing stare, Y/N finally broke. “I want to find the Kingsroad, but I don’t know what direction it would be.”

The innkeeper jumped from his seat behind the counter, and beckoned for Y/N to follow him. She did so reluctantly. They left the inn, going out into the busy atmosphere of Moleskin. The innkeeper grabbed Y/N by the shoulder, then pointed out north of them. They were at the westmost part of town, and the point of the innkeeper’s finger led straight toward the end of town, where open grassland was in sight. “That’s the west. West is where you’ll find the Kingsroad.”

“How long a walk?” asked Y/N.

“Five, six days,” he said.

Y/N chewed her lip. She had enough money, food, and water for a three, maybe four-day trip—but five was cutting it close. Six was not imaginable. “Thank you,” she told the innkeeper. She put the hood of her cloak over her head, gave the man a farewell, got Axel from the stables, and began the final step of her journey.

The first day was easy. The second day was less so, but still simple. On her third day, Y/N begin to feel weary. It was not because of her resources running low, or because she got little sleep from laying on hollow dirt, against the leg of her horse. No, it was because of something much, much worse.

She was walking alongside Axel on a forest path just as the sun was coming up, when she heard sudden voices. One was familiar. Very familiar. Heart ablaze with worry, Y/N hid, hid herself in the shrubbery. She hit Axel in the rear to make him manic and watched as he ran away at breakneck speed, knowing she was silly to think things would ever be easy. She lay herself flat and shut her eyes tight. Foolishly, she sent a prayer up to the Old Gods and the New that she would not be found.

The men grew closer and closer, until she could hear them breathe. The man with the familiar voice was closest, and now that he was in breathing distance, she found why he was so familiar.

It was Ramsay.

“My darling wife-to-be is close,” he said, to his company. Y/N knew by the sounds of their rustling armor and serious voices that it was a scouting group. Bolton men. “She could not have gotten far.”

“How can you tell?” said one of the scouts, in a skeptical voice.

Ramsay laughed. His laugh was repulsive, like a cross between a witch’s cackle and a pig’s snort. “I’ve been tracking her,” he said. “She must have heard us, jumped on her horse and ran. The only tracks are that of her horse now.”

Y/N’s heart stopped. He does not know that I am here, she thought, chest burning with the realization. She could only hope they were foolish, and did not stop to think she might have parted with her horse.

Her hopes were answered.

“She’ll be heading for the Kingsroad. We’ll stop her before she makes it there,” said Ramsay. His voice was fierce, like there was never any doubt that he wouldn’t find her. The group of men went on, their footsteps echoing as they went.

Y/N fell into the mud and wept from relief in their absence.

The Kingsroad was found on the fifth day, when Y/N had run out of food and coppers as well as all her energy. She had but a tiny bit of water left in her canteen, but she would not last as long as necessary without nutrients. There was not a soul in sight as she got onto the Kingsroad.

Until she had stopped to sit and rest. Until she was dozing under the dying sun, and a hand grabbed her by the collar of her cloak. She went up screaming.

“Lookie here, men—a little bird,” crooned the stranger. Y/N’s terrified gaze snapped from the ground, to the trees, to his face, growing more and more scared at the ghastly sight that awaited her. He was scruffy and dirty, oozing with a putrid odor that foretold of many moons without a bath, with a scratch across one eye. He was balding and skinny from malnutrition, teeth more yellow than ivory. Now, those teeth gleamed, tucked inside a smile too wide to be friendly. “What are you doing out here all alone, little bird?”

The man’s hand was unwanted as it touched her, as it went further to grope at unadorned skin. “Get the fuck off me!” screamed Y/N, as it finally became too much. With the pressure on her neck, she could barely think, and all she could assume was that she was alone, weaponless, afraid. “Bastard—fucking bastard—”

“My, my—what words from a lady’s mouth,” he teased her. The fucker teased her. He pulled her up to her knees, where she became conscious of the other men there. One man, two man, three man—four. There were four of them. More than Y/N could fight at once. The man put his hand over Y/N’s mouth, as though afraid she’d try to alert any passersby of her predicament. In response, she bit him. “Ow! The bitch bit me!”

Y/N took the chance to shake from his grip. He had taken away his hand to look at it and to feel where she’d bit him. One of his lackeys yelled, “She’s getting away!”

Y/N originally was planning to take out her knife and kill the man who’d laid a hand on her, but now that he’d mentioned it, she knew this was her only chance. Taking up her skirts, damning the men to Hell, to Hell and back, Y/N tucked tail and ran.

The men shouted and cursed her, all before footsteps sounded from behind. Y/N ignored it, caught in the desperation to slip away. She ran into the nearest path, a forest path, where the open air became trees.

There wasn’t a chance to absorb and admire the scenery. She knew there was green and white, a contrast of snow and trees, and though Y/N was fast and healthy where the man behind her was clumsy-footed and malnourished, that did not change that distraction could have her trip, distraction could get her killed.

The stranger continued to yell insults at her. “Come back here, you little cunt! I’ll cut you right open!”

Oh, how Y/N wished she were at the Dreadfort. At least her uncle and bastard cousin had the human decency not to flay their own family alive.

She was so caught in her thoughts and her desperation to get away that Y/N did not realize her and the man were not the only ones in the forest. She ran right into the chest of another stranger, this one taller, broader, and a lot stronger.

Y/N yelped, and flailed backwards—only for the stranger to catch her and pull her back into his chest. He smelled of woods, of fresh leather and pine. Oh gods, what am I thinking? She quickly ducked under his arm, and hid behind him. She was not fool enough to be at the front, for when the man who’d given her chase came into the vicinity. She would use this man as a shield from the monster who’d tried to take advantage of her.

And he did come. Y/N peaked out from behind her savior, who had twisted his head back to stare at her, and watched with a pounding heart as the man came from around the trees. He was heaving and cursing, in his hands a dagger, one he bore as a token of his rage against Y/N.

“Stupid bitch—” he’d been saying, but whatever threat was going to come from his mouth died when he saw the stranger. Instead, his eyes turned wide, and he dropped into a bow of the head. The knife went behind his back, hidden from sight. “M’lord.”

“Why were you chasing this girl?” said the stranger. He’d turned his head back the moment he’d heard the man’s voice and he sounded angry, of all things, when he spoke. He had a heavenly voice of his own; it was both deep and manly, signifying a maturity Y/N had not heard in a long, long time. “She looks terrified.”

“I’m so sorry, m’lord!” the man rushed to say. “She was—she just—”

“She what?” The stranger was unimpressed. Y/N craned her neck a little to see his face—and gods, that face. He was handsome. That handsome face was cinched into a frown so deep it could leave wrinkles. “What did you plan to do with her, when you caught her?”

“She—stole from me, m’lord.” The man’s face was frantic, as were his eyes and mouth. Nothing sat still in his expression, all moving too fast to count. “Thieves shouldn’t go unpunished. I woulda…” He went quiet.

“Stole what?”

“I…” The man closed his mouth, then lowered his head. He was caught in his own lie.

The stranger took a quick glance at Y/N as she hid behind him, then looked back at the man who’d threatened and chased her. “What’s your name?”

“Er, Erik, m’lord.” He kept his head bowed.

“This girl is under my protection now,” said the stranger, and he pulled Y/N into his side. The warmth of his leather was both a comfort and a discomfort; her face flushed with blood at the company of his hand on her shoulder. “If I see you near—if I see you touch her—I’ll take three fingers. Next, it’ll be your head. Do we have an understanding?”

Erik nodded his head frantically. “Yes, m’lord.”

“Go,” demanded the stranger. He and Y/N watched, one solemnly and one anxiously, as the man stumbled back from which he came from. And his legs were like that of a chicken’s—awkward and ungainly.

“Thank you,” said Y/N, once she was sure he was gone from both sight and ear. Her chest burned, as did her throat. When she said her thanks, she felt her voice catch. It left an itching sensation where her vocal fold met her esophagus.

“Did you steal from him, truly?” The stranger had removed his arm from around her shoulder, and he turned to face her. There was amusement in his face, as well as his mouth, which tilted up into a smile.

Y/N did not have the energy to return it. Though she may have made a quip another day, today was a day of lost wits and fatal battle scars. “No. He came upon me when I was resting, and took me up by the scruff,” said Y/N.

The stranger’s brow furrowed. “I should have brought him before my father,” he murmured to himself, before growing serious. “What is your name?”

“Y/N,” she said. She did not want to say her surname, in fear that he would take her before her lord uncle. She had no knowledge of the lords around these parts, nor their affiliation to House Bolton. “Yours?”

“You must not be from Winter Town,” said the stranger. “I am Robb, Robb Stark.”

Stark… Robb Stark… “Eddard Stark’s son?” Y/N was surprised. And more than surprised, she was scared. Her lord uncle was one of Eddard Stark’s bannermen. If he truly were as honorable as Westerosi travelers claimed, then by knowing Lord Bolton’s niece were in his midst, he would have a raven sent to him immediately… he would let the man take her, regardless of what caused her to run in the first place.

She would have her freedom stripped away, before she even had a chance to taste it in pure.

“Yes, I’m his eldest,” said Robb, seemingly oblivious of her growing panic. “Are you lost? You cannot be from Winter Town, if you did not know me by my face or name.” He seemed amused, yet also worried. He probably realized she was alone and homeless, with barely a possession to call her own.

Y/N toed the ground. “I am useless with directions,” she admitted, in a sheepish voice.

He appeared to look closer at her—at the top of her cloak. It was only too late that she realized—her house emblem adorned it as a pin. She took it off for every town she visited, but left it on when alone, or walking abandoned paths. It was the last gift she had from her father, a dainty metal thing rusted from years of continued use. She had not thought to remove in while in the presence of a lord’s son.

Stupid, she thought in a panic, but it was already too late.

“I thought Lord Bolton did not have any children,” said Robb, cluelessly. Where he’d once seen her as a lowborn peasant girl, he now had a closer scrutiny; he saw her as important, rather than a harmless trifle. He was smart, though she couldn’t expect any less from a lord’s son. He was raised up on knowing Westerosi houses, of knowing their house words, of knowing their flag depictions, of knowing their lords and their heirs. Whether they were extinct, or facing extinction. It would have been a great pity if he did not realize the extent of her privilege, by the emblem on her cloak.

“I—” Y/N began to panic. “He… he doesn’t.”

Robb saw the look in her eye. The look of a deer caught in sights by a wolf. “Hey, I’m not going to hurt you,” he soothed—well, attempted to soothe was more like it. “You have to be highborn, with an emblem of that making and stitching that fine. Why are you near Winterfell?”

It all suddenly became too much. The way he stared at her, the way her legs trembled under the weight of her exhaustion, the way her world had begun to crumble down—it was too much.

Y/N’s eyes began to flutter, and her legs fell underneath her. As Robb swooped to catch her, as he called for her, as he showered her in useless apologies, she found very little in herself to care.

The darkness swept her into its current, and all awareness of the world, of Robb Stark and his questions, was lost.

She only prayed that Lord Bolton would not be there to damn her in her wake.

#game of thrones #got #robb stark x reader #robb stark imagine #robb stark fanfiction #robb stark #robbstark #direwolves #house stark #game of thrones imagine #jon snow #ramsay bolton

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random-imagines-blog · 4 years

Text

Behind the Crimson Door {Pippin x Reader Oneshot}

Requested by: Anonymous Wordcount: 2741 Summary: Pippin shows you around the shire. Notes: I am SO sorry that this has taken me so long. I have no excuse. :(

You were not a big part of the journey that saved Middle Earth, but you were still proud to say that you were a tiny part of it. Well, tinier than tiny, anyhow. When the hobbits had made it to the town of Bree, and entered into the Prancing Pony looking for shelter, you had been the one to serve them after your boss disappointed them with news of Gandalf not being there. Most of the men in the place looked down at the hobbits, and not just because they were short. The four in their home-spun clothes with their goofy grins and short curly hair didn’t belong in such a dark and dingy place like the Prancing Pony, or Bree in general. When they ordered their drinks, you had brought them over, large pint glasses filled with the finest beer that you could find in the place. Wherever they had come from, wherever they were going to go, they probably deserved that beer.

“Are you from the Shire?” You asked the shortest of them. It was the only Hobbit settlement that you had heard of, and even catching snippets about that was rare. It was from the wizard that they were seeking, Gandalf, that you had heard of the place. It had stuck in your head because it sounded like a perfect place. Green grass, sunny skies, cute little houses built into the hills, and no fights are clanging around. A good place for some peace and quiet - which was something that you never got in Bree, the place that you had been born and raised.

“Why yes!” He spoke proudly, holding up his pint glass which was about half the size of him. “Have you been there?”

“No, I’d like to though,” You smiled, seeing his excitement. It was nice to see a happy face around here. They were so unbelievably rare. “I’ve heard about it, from Gandalf.”

You and Pippin made introductions to one another and he spent the next fifteen minutes going on about his favorite things about the Shire. It painted a really pretty picture, especially the gardens that he’d often steal vegetables from, a story that made you laugh. You were sad to see him go, but you were glad to hear that he escaped safely. You managed to avoid the Dark Riders who came into the Prancing Pony, because thankfully, you didn’t actually live in the inn. You had a small place to yourself on the other side of town which one of the other bartenders would escort you to after your shift was over. You thanked the stars that night for keeping you safe, as well as those hobbits, and that it was only the gatekeeper who ended up hurt - but not dead.

Those Dark Riders had brought fear into the darkness of Bree. Word was always coming around, since it was a travellers town, and people were always coming and going. People trying to escape the wars in the east and south came through, looking for shelter and the inn was full to capacity each and every night. You managed to keep your job, but ended up leasing out a room in your house to a family in need from the south. All throughout this time, you thought of those hobbits, and Pippin in particular, despite only sharing a small amount of time with him. You hoped that the darkness of this world had not sunk into the Shire, the perfect place in your mind.

For months, the world lived in fear as forces beyond imagination streamed out of Isengard and Mordor. But then word came to Bree that Isengard had been defeated - by nothing less than two Hobbits and ents! You had heard stories about ents in the past, but didn’t know that they were still around, much less getting involved in the wars of the world. You weren’t sure if it was Pippin, or any of the other hobbits that you had met that night, but it had seemed like they were on the start of a perilous journey which could very well end up in such an awful place. When you had heard that news, you and the owner of the Prancing Pony had hugged each other with delight for it brought a lot of hope into the world.

And then a while later, it was heard and rejoiced that Mordor had been defeated, and fell into a desolate ruin, the orcs being swallowed up by the earth. The ring of power that had started this whole war had been destroyed, and all of the hobbits had returned home to the Shire. You were thankful for all of that, but you did wish that they may have stopped by on their way home, just to show that they were alright. But alas, they did not, so you took matters into your own hands. You wrote a letter.

The letter contained a reminder of who you are, your plan to visit the Shire because the war had made you realize that life was far too short to not live out your dreams, and of course, a thank you for his part in saving the world. You received a letter in return weeks later, with Pippin’s messy handwriting. It looked as if it was written in a rush, and reminded you of how he had spoken to you. Stumbling over his words because he liked to speak his thoughts as he thought them. The letter contained a date that he could meet you on the Bucklebury Ferry, and take you on the best tour of the Shire that you would ever get.

There wasn’t enough time to compose another letter before the date that he had listed. You packed, and gave a notice to the innkeeper that you were going away for a little while, but you would definitely be back. You packed some clothes into your nice little packing case that was a gift from your parents long ago. Your name was hand painted on it, and just managed to fit everything that you needed.

The road, which you hit as soon as the sun started to ascend, was not hard to traverse. It went over valleys, and woods where the leaves were crunching underfoot, and before too long, you found yourself at the water, looking for the ferry that Pippin had told you about. And there he was - coming closer across the water, holding onto a large stick and using it as an oar to control the wooden ferry. You smiled, holding your trunk in front of you as the Hobbit came closer.

“Get here alright?” You asked as you stepped onto the surprisingly stable surface.

“Course!” He said, enthusiastically. With that, he smiled goofily, looking up at you. When you noticed his eyes on you like that, a small flush came across your face. His journey had matured him, you could see that, but he still had the spirit that you had admired when you two had met all that time ago. “Y/N, good heavens, we might make it in time for supper!”

“Well, what are we waiting for then?” You asked. Immediately, he used the stick to back up from the shore, and go back over the lake, towards the Shire. A feeling of anxiety and excitement was bubbling up in you stomach, and your hands tightened around the handle of your suitcase. You were getting ants in your stockings, as your mother used to say, for you were fidgeting and couldn’t stand still. “You know, I don’t even really know what you eat in The Shire,” You said to break your silence. Pippin hadn’t broken his, he was rambling on about the farmer who had chased him out of his garden once more. He had ended that story with how things just haven’t changed despite him being a hero.

“All sorts of stuff! I’ve got a salted pork in the oven, just waiting to be eaten! And some carrots. They might be stolen though but that won’t get rid of their flavor!” He seemed more enthusiastic about the dinner than about anything else. That was one thing you’ve definitely learned about Hobbits - they love their food.

You smiled, strolling along with him through the pathways after leaving the ferry. “I didn’t know that you could cook,” You said, keeping your arms in front of you, holding the suitcase securely, but you felt relaxed enough to look at your surroundings. Unlike Pippin, you were about as tall as the cornstalks and could see your way through them just fine. But you didn’t need to look, for the Hobbit by your side knew this place better than the back of his hand, and didn’t lose his footing once.

“Why’d you assume I couldn’t?” Pippin asked with a cheeky smile that matched the youthful curls. He seemed to radiate a sort of childishness that you couldn’t help but admire, but you knew there was something more behind those rosy cheeks. You knew that he was a hero, who had saved this Earth. You knew that he was part of the reason the Shire was still the peaceful place that it is.

“No, no, I didn’t assume anything.” You said with the same smile. “Don’t think for a moment that I would assume anything about you, Pippin. No, I just didn’t know that knights could cook at all.” You brought up his past in Gondor and saw a flush go across his cheeks. “Is that saying too much?” You asked, hoping that you didn’t say the wrong thing.

“No, not at all, though I didn’t have to cook much while I was there. I’ll be honest with you though...” He said, looking around to make sure that no one was listening. “I just took a lot of Denethor’s food when I had to serve him. He left so much waste, I felt it was my duty!”

“I’m sure the gardens thank you for not letting their food rot,” You said, holding in a grin.

Your thoughts on the Shire being beautiful only grew while you were on the tour. As the two of you passed by his many neighbors, Pippin always did a bow to his head to them, while they looked away grumpy. Having the saviors of the world in their city, as their neighbors and friends, wasn’t enough for these people? You were surprised to say the least but Pippin took it all in stride until he took you to a hobbit hole with a red door and a near-immaculate garden.

“You don’t seem to be the most popular guy in town,” You said in surprise as the Hobbit started to dig in his pocket for his keys. He laughed, his curls bouncing around his face.

“People from the Shire don’t know how bad war is,” He explained.

“That’s probably a good thing,” You sighed, understanding what he was saying. He grinned at you then put his key into the lock, revealing his own home to you.

“I think so,” He said, and walked inside, bare feet against the soft wood flooring. You stepped in after him, having to duck a little to get through the round door frame but you were comfortable inside the main house, which was more spacious than it looked from the outside. Pippin took your hand and excitedly showed you his favorite room - the kitchen, of course. “Gandalf always keeps me supplied with the best!” He said, showing you his pantry, the top shelf of which was just pipe weed, which made you giggle. As you looked around, you felt Pippin’s eyes on you, looking for any sort of judgment on your features. The only thing on your face was a smile.

“Why is the Shire celebrating?” You asked as Pippin took your hand and was dragging you towards a sprawling piece of land that was adorned with streamers and balloons. The Shire had been a quiet, peaceful place during the day but now, you were going to be experiencing the nightlife.

“It’s Samwise Gamgee’s Birthday!” Pippin announced grandly, getting the attention of some of the other Hobbits. “I had to tell them I’d introduce ya-”

“Because he’s been talking about it since you met!” A friendly faced hobbit popped up beside the two of you. You recognized him as Merry, and your eyes lit up at seeing him again. “Well, did you bring me a pint?” He asked with a broad grin.

You laughed and continued to smile as you were brought into a hug by the Hobbit that you had heard the most about since you arrived here. It was clear that these two were the closest out of all of the hobbits - even closer than brothers, since they did a lot of things together. “Not today, but stop by the Prancing Pony anytime, it’ll be free for you.”

“Marry this one, Pip,” Merry winked, then made his way through the crowd, leaving both you and your companion blushing.

“You’re uhh -” You stammered, trying to think of a way to get off that topic. “Oh - is that food?”

“Food?” That was always a good way to get a Hobbit into a different way of thinking, apparently. But it also made him grab hold of your hand and tug you over to a table ladden with different fruits, and a couple of different fruit pies as well. And ale, of course.

“Pippin, don’t go eating everything, it’s for all the guests!” A male voice came from behind a pile of apples.

“Fine, Sam,” Pippin sighed. “Just a couple of delicious pies maybe-”

“Pippin!” The same voice said, and another head of curly hair, sandy blonde this time, came with a grumpy expression. “I’d promised Rosie that there would be enough for everyone.”

“The birthday boy!” Pippin said, leaning in to hug Sam while shoving a few plums into his side pocket while the other hobbit was distracted. Oh, how that made you grin, just because it was such a Pippin thing to do. It’s only been a day with him but you felt like you had leaned a lot. “Please, tell the ol’ lady I say hello.”

“You’re not staying?” Sam asked, face contorted into confusion.

“I’m taking y/n to the best place to see the fireworks!” Pippin said, looking at you with pride as he spoke his idea out loud. It was a pleasant idea, and you were excited to see the fireworks that were described to you. Sam looked between the two of you, and you stepped forward to re-introduce yourself, but he must have known that you were coming since he gave you a big smile and said he was more than happy to have you here.

It didn’t take long for Pippin to take you out of there, and then onto the hill where his crimson door was embedded. What was surprising was that you didn’t go inside, but rather, he set you up on the top of the hill, viewing right where the party was. You settled in right away though, your suitcase safely stowed inside, your thoughts only on what was ahead. When you and Pippin sat next to one another, the height difference seemed barely there anymore. You inched just a bit closer to him as the sky darkened quickly, and he gently took hold of your hand with an eager look on his face. Whilst the fireworks were going on behind you, you were looking at the colors that splashed across his face with every burst. You thought that he was one of the most beautiful people in this world, and you’d seen humans, elves, dwarves and three other hobbits.

Deciding to take a chance, you got a little closer and leaned your head on his little shoulder. He did the same in return, resting his head on yours, hands still being held, and together you watched the show.

What would happen next while you stayed in Hobbiton, you weren’t sure, but you weren’t nervous at all to find out since you had the best company possible.

#Pippin #Pippin x reader #Pippin oneshot #The Lord of the Rings #The Lord of the Rings oneshot #LOTR #LOTR oneshot #request #oneshot #oneshots

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