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xbraveheartx · 7 months

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WARNING !! Contains spoilers for Lies of P! If you haven't beaten the game, be warned! This is just a first draft !! I might change it... I might not. I'm just testing the waters and seeing how far I'll get. I think I'll just post the prologue for now and then proceed solo in google docs after. But I wanted to see how people are feeling about the idea ♡ I'll upload the rest most likely on AO3 A "I don't care what canon gave us, I'm bringing Romeo back" fic that'll end up in a romance between our favorite real boy and his bestie ♡ It takes place post-canon!

Prologue

The sun had barely risen when they set off on their mission, a gentle shower coating the city of Krat in sleek rain that took little time to drench every stone and tile. Only once they had reached their destination did the skies suddenly open, a hint of blue smiling down on the otherwise desolate buildings. One couldn’t avoid puddles under such conditions, but there wasn’t any true concern to be had over them.

There were far greater things to worry over. He only hoped they were still there.

“Jeepers. It sure is creepy being back here again.” Gemini chirped, effectively breaking the silence that blanketed Krat Central Station. “Now that the monsters aren’t as much of a problem, everything just feels kinda…” He trailed off, causing the boy’s head to turn just slightly in an effort to toss back a glance in the lamp’s direction. “... Spooky? Haunted is the word, maybe? Almost like something is hiding just around the corner, ready to just– Jump out at you!”

“You’re being dramatic.” Slender digits rose to tuck a long, grey lock behind an ear, palm rubbing a stray droplet of water from a freckled cheek.

“And you’re being careless, pal!” Gemini countered, ignoring the eye roll given in retaliation. “I’m just saying, even if we can’t see the monsters all around like we used to, I’m sure there’s bound to be some still lurking around! Just be more careful, okay, Carlo?”

There was a pause in his steps, the echo of the last dying out shortly after as nothing but the dripping of water and creaking of pipes met their ears.

Carlo… it was still strange, hearing that name, and while he felt it was just right, it felt strange in the same breath. It was familiar yet foreign; He was still learning.

He felt his heart beat.

“Did I say something wrong?” Came Gemini’s chirps once more, the sound coming off as one of concern. Carlo shook his head, lashes fluttering rapidly as he came back to himself whilst lips tugged into a slight smile.

“No, no. Sorry, just… Thinking.” It wasn’t necessarily a lie. Gemini seemed to accept the excuse regardless, trilling gently in a way that Carlo could just picture a real cricket practically vibrating with eagerness.

“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go! Er– b-but! … Y’know!... Carefully.” The guide seemed to beam, and Carlo couldn’t help but beam right back, hopeful that their journey would be fruitful in the end.

There, in the dimly lit station, was their target. Track C, train number three– The Blue Fairy. It was funny, looking back on it now, but there was no stopping to admire any form of happenstance. The train itself had been subjected to all manner of bile and questionable fluids, but otherwise, remained intact. The boy hesitated just before entering, hand rising to touch the door frame as he stood at the entrance and listened. When nothing but silence rose to greet him, he pressed onward, stepping over forgotten luggages and shattered glass.

“You really think something like this’ll work?” Gemini spoke again, chirps blending with the crunching of a wineglass underfoot.

There was no immediate response, not until they had made it to the back of the train where a familiar chair sat in the middle of the aisle. He stepped around it, choosing instead, to make his way into the hidden workshop behind.

“I don’t know.” Carlo confessed, fingers trailing across abandoned notes and papers left atop a messy desk. Blueprints were among the litter, notes bookmarking heavily written pages of journals, their fine leather covers worn and frayed. He gathered it all, leaving nothing he deemed important behind. One of many discarded suitcases was chosen among the piles, and with its original contents discarded, was used to house the very legacy his father had left behind. “But I have to try.”

Venigni thumbed through the blueprints, eyes roaming through Geppetto's old notes that had been laid out before him. It was a daunting task, to say the least, and they both knew it.

"This is... beyond my field of expertise."

The moment of silence to follow after felt far too long, seconds seemingly to stretch into hours that didn't exist. Finally, the boy's lips parted, voice heavy with newly gained emotion that unashamedly manifested as a beg.

"I believe you can do it." Came the quiet encouragement, brows drawing together to further accentuate his plea. "Please?" Yet another pause followed after whilst muted blues fell for but a moment, until finally, they resettled on Venigni. "For... a friend?"

The sigh of defeat to follow the request said enough.

"I shall do what I can, but I make no promises, compagno!" As if a switch was flipped, suddenly a black gloved hand rose with a snap. “Pulcinella! Some fresh parchment, if you would! I must get started immediately! And you!” Once more did the man’s head snap in Carlo’s direction, a finger dramatically being pointed all the while. “You still carry the most important component, do you not? All that’s left is the body– Go and bring it back here. I will give it my all, for I am the Incredible Lorenzini Venigni, and I will settle for no less than my one-hundred percent!... But again, no promises.”

The emotion to grip at his heart was almost overwhelming, the heavy THUD THUD of the organ pounding against his chest in a mixture of anticipation, joy, and above all else, hope.

“I’ll be back.” He announced with a nod, though he made no move to leave just yet. Instead, he gave the man a smile, brighter than any he had expressed in the past. “Thank you, Venigni. I appreciate your help.” The words were met with a nod and something akin to that of a mutter and a hum. Already was the other absorbed by the notes before him, ink meeting paper in rapid scribbles from the very moment Pulcinella had provided the writing tools.

“Let’s go get your pal… pal!” Gemini chimed in, spurring the boy into motion with a nod. “Leave the technical stuff to the professionals! Rosa Isabella Street awaits!” A trip that would surely be a bit more eventful than their visit to the train station, knowing full well that the puppets would still be prowling around their fallen king’s domain. Please let this work… The silent prayer was sent skyward.

#Lies of P #Lies of P fic #Lies of P Spoilers #I won't ramble in tags much but-- I'm excited to get working on this. I just wanted to get my initial idea/thoughts out #So I'll probably build onto this. Change some stuff around. Add stuff. Etc etc... but for now. Baby's first draft ♡#WHAT DO I TAG FOR THE SHIP?????#Promeo #????#Carmeo #????????????? WE NEED AN OFFICIAL SHIP TAG!!! Fandom friends please help a brother out #We need to come to an agreement on a ship tag so I can effectively flood it (lovingly) with art and writings

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incomingalbatross · 1 year

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Below: my attempt at a retelling of Tam Lin, with a little more emphasis on the Baby as a central concern.

---

The first time Janet goes to Carterhaugh, in the early spring, she wears a green cloak on her shoulders and a gold ring on her finger. She's curious, not stupid. She knows the prices Tam Lin is said to demand for trespassing, and she is prepared with every option.

The second time Janet goes, in the later spring, she wears her cloak but does not bother with a ring. She is more confident now, since her first meeting with Tam Lin, and thinks the cloak is a price worth paying to meet the fairy man again.

The third time Janet goes, it is summer. She wears no cloak, and wears no ring; and when she plucks the rose and Tam Lin appears, she sees him notice this even before he meets her eyes.

She smiles at him.

Later, when she wakes in the wood, she wakes alone. She finds her way home by moonlight, and wonders if she will ever go to Carterhaugh again.

There is no future there for her, she knows, no future with Tam Lin but these woodland meetings. He may never even appear to her again, now that she is no maiden... and she may never seek him out again, now that she has proven all the tale.

Time goes by, and Janet puts the memory of those hours in Carterhaugh away. There's much to be done about her father's court—sensible, daylight things, of the mortal world and not the fairy one.

She did not reckon with the fact that those hours might not be done with her...and so even after a week of sickness, when her father said, "I fear you are with child," it was Janet who was most taken by surprise.

That should have been one risk lessened, she had thought, by chancing herself in Carterhaugh and not with one of her father's knights.

Now she was struck with fear; for it had been one thing to take this affair upon herself, but what had she done to this babe inside her? Was it a mortal babe, sired as it had been by a fairy creature, and one she barely knew? Even at the best, what would the babe do in the life she had made for it, growing up fatherless and in dishonor?

Her own father, always kind and mild, did not press her when she said the father would not be found among his court. He frowned mournfully at that, but gave her time, to consider what the child's fate might be.

She was still considering, though, when the oldest, grayest, dourest of her father's men shook his head at her and said, "Ah, and now our lady is with child? It's us knights who'll bear the blame for it, Lady Janet, you will see."

"Hold your tongue!" she snapped back, thoughts broken by her scorn. "As if," she said, "I'd let any child of mine be claimed by you—or any of your company—or ever give any of you reason for such a claim."

Some of those within earshot laughed; but one, a younger knight, shot back, "And what manner of man is it, then, who is so preferred to us, but who has not claimed the child?"

Janet looked at him, and all those around, and thought of Tam Lin. Strange, uncanny Tam Lin, of airy form and shifting mood, remote and strange and dangerous—but Tam Lin, still, whom she had sought out once, and again, and a third time, for more than the mere adventure of it all. Tam Lin as she had come to think of him, fair and brave beneath his strangeness, with a hidden warmth and gravity in him—she thought—that had come out for her, more and more in the short times they had spent together.

Janet could, perhaps, be fairly dense in recognizing uncomfortable truths, but when she did recognize them she faced them squarely and without flinching.

"He is the one who holds my heart," she said to the younger knight, clear for all the world to hear, "as well as the naming of my babe—and if he were a mortal man, and not a fairy strange, he'd be a better knight than you could ever hope to face!"

In the silence, she swept away to her own rooms.

---

Once there, however, she fairly collapses into her seat, picking up her sewing automatically simply to occupy her hands. (It is the finishing work on a mantle, green as leaves and grass; a replacement for the one she left with Tam Lin, some months ago.)

Despite her words down below, she is keenly aware that Tam Lin is not a mortal man. A fairy cannot serve as father to a human child (and again, she thinks with a thrill of unease, is her child going to be human?), and yet Janet knows now that she will not—cannot—consign herself and her child into the keeping of any other man she knows. She will not give her child, or her heart, to any man but the one who has true claim to them...and he is no man at all.

Or...

Well, what is he?

As she sits and finishes her seam, Janet becomes uncomfortably aware of how little she knows of Tam Lin. Perhaps, if he knew, he might be able to propose something she could not—if, that is, he is human enough to care.

"Well," she says aloud, jumping up, letting needle and thimble fall to her feet. "There is only one way to learn.

So she braids up her hair and straightens her skirts and sweeps the new mantle around her: and again, for the fourth time, Janet goes to Carterhaugh, to the well where they met before.

This time, though, she does not pluck one of Tam Lin's roses. She looks around her, thoughtfully, and spies a patch of herbs she knows full well a pregnant woman should not let near her mouth. She bends, and gathers some in her hand...

And is stopped by a small, cold hand upon her wrist, the hand of a fairy knight.

"What are you doing, Janet?" Tam Lin demands, voice urgent, face pale and set. "What are you doing to our child, the child we got between us?"

And that answers half of her questions, right there.

Janet straightens to face him, a rush of warmth chasing out the chill that's been following her. "I would not harm our child," she said, hand resting on her belly, "and truly, Tam Lin, I would carry this child through day and night, summer and winter, for love of it and love of you."

Her face warms, but she sees his eyes soften in surprise, and it is worth it.

"But," she says then, and watches him stiffen in wariness, "but, Tam Lin, I must know whose child I bear."

She stops for a moment, watching him; but he only watches her back, his slim shoulders set back, unearthly face still as the hills. Only his eyes show feeling—a flicker of some intense feeling, far beneath the dark surface, like a caged hawk waiting for a door to open.

"Tam Lin, tell me," Janet says, with a breath taken in silent, desperate prayer. "Did you ever pass through the church-door, or feel the water on your forehead? Were you ever earthly knight, or any kind of man who rode beneath the Cross?"

At her questions, that feeling leaps out of his eyes, and Tam Lin's face comes alive with all the warmth and laughter she has ever seen in it.

"Yes, Janet, yes," he says, and Janet sits down hard on the curb of the well. "I was a man like any other," he continues, taking her hand, "a youth of this country trained for knighthood, until the day I fell from my horse into the Queen of the Fairies' hands."

Her love has a soul, like to her own—and a heart, what's more, for her and the babe. This, Janet thinks, is the most important thing. Everything else, they can manage.

Of course, this is before her love goes on to tell her of the fairies' tithe to Hell.

"Tonight?" she asks incredulously. "You ride to pay the tithe tonight?"

He smiled at her. "If you had decided to see me a little earlier, perhaps..."

"Perhaps if you had told me sooner," she said, "that the Fairy Queen meant your soul to go to Hell, I would have—" But then she stopped herself.

"I did not think," he said gently, "after your last coming, that any reason would arise for you to see me here, let alone to miss me."

And then, from something in his face, and from the sudden memory of his manner at that time, Janet guessed that, then, they had both been using one another. If she had sought adventure and pleasure that came free of the consequences of her father's court, Tam Lin had perhaps been seeking that same pleasure, and a respite, away from the knowledge of his doom. And then they had parted ways, affection mingled with their half-hidden guilt, never to meet again.

But then another life had entered the affair. Another life that neither of them would willingly see harmed, even by their own foolishness.

"You are not the Queen's," she said at last, meeting his eyes fiercely, "and you are not her court's, and you are not going to any devils while I breathe. So how do I take you from them all, Tam Lin?"

He smiled, like a man who had just seen his first sunrise in seven years, and he told her.

---

When Janet met the Fairy Court riding at the crossroads that night, she had no time for fear. She was repeating his instructions in her mind.

"First you'll let the black horse pass, and then you'll let the brown—"

—and then she leapt for the unfamiliar armored figure on the white steed, dragging him down into her arms while all the procession crashed to a halt.

The figure wavered in her arms, and writhed, and became something small and slithering—

"They'll turn me in your arms, to an adder or an asp."

The snaked seemed to rear and then strike, fangs bared, at her body. Janet stiffened, but kept her grasp tight, refusing to recoil.

You, she reminded herself and it, are the father of my child.

And as its head reached her belly the snake's mouth closed, merely tapping her with its snout—"Hold me fast and fear me not," she almost heard—

Before wavering again, and growing, encompassing her in fur and musk and muscle until it seemed as though her arms physically could not wrap around it.

"They'll turn me once again, to a grim and fearsome bear."

Janet set her teeth, and held fast. You are, she thought again, my earthly mate to be.

And its claws and strength were not turned against her; but just as her grasp began to feel more like a hug, the shape wavered again, to something hard and sharp and searing—

"They'll turn me to an iron brand, red-hot as blazing fire."

Janet hugged the iron tight to her breast, through a pain like none she had ever known before, and concentrated all her will on not letting go.

She could not think, but she could remember.

"But hold me fast and fear me not," her true love's voice had said, "and I'll do you no harm..."

And just like that, the pain was gone. The shape in her arms changed, in a way somehow unlike the other changes, into something real and warm and permanent, solid and familiar.

Quick as thinking, Janet swept her mantle over the naked man kneeling against her, covering him in her cloak and arms as he rested his head on her belly.

Above them both, atop a tall mount, the most beautiful woman Janet had ever seen glared down at them.

Janet stared back, triumphant and unafraid.

"So you are stolen, Tam Lin," the Queen of the Fairies said, her voice frozen with rage.

"Not stolen," Janet said at once. "If I had stolen him tonight, I know I could not have kept him. He already belonged to us."

Her love straightened to lift his head beside her, face clear in the moonlight—like and yet not like his fairy face, she thought, but not unlike in ways that she would miss. His breath was warm on her cheek, as he turned to face the Queen.

Whatever the Queen saw there, she hissed at, a long indrawn breath.

"If I had known," she said, "Tam Lin, what drew your eyes from me, I'd have taken them from your skull this night and changed them for eyes of wood.

"If I had known," she said again (with a poisonous look to Janet), "what pulled your heart from me, I'd have taken it from your chest this night and changed it for one of stone."

But with that, she cracked her reins, and—the court sweeping in disarray behind her—rode off and vanished into the morning mist.

Tam Lin turned his eyes to Janet, smiling wide and joyful.

"And I am father to your babe," he said, taking her hand, "and I will be your mate in life, and I will be your true love, Janet, as long as you will be my wife."

"As my love I claimed you," she said, smiling too, "and as my husband-bound-to-be, and as the father of my child: so, Tam Lin, these things are yours for good, and so too I will be."

Home then they went, and the banns were read, and in due course came the marriage and the child. And the story was often told by their hearth, as that child grew older, of the role it had first played in bringing its parents through peril.

#wrote this in one sitting no editing so. just going to post it #2300 words fyi #(part of me is like 'WHY are you not posting this for the Four Loves challenge when it's RIGHT THERE')#(but this wasn't inspired by the Four Loves challenge and trying to decide and tag it and so on would mean new decisions)#(i don't want to tangle it up in any new challenge-related questions in my brain i just want to get it OUT)#(so here it is :P)#tam lin: all about the baby? YES i think so #my writing

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