#rose huntsgirl | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

we-are-all-of-legend-now · 6 months

Text

Fictober Day 24: Is It Over? Is It Really Over?

Prompt number: Prompt #24

Fandom: American Dragon Jake Long

Pairings/Characters: Jake/Rose; Huntsman; Cecilia (OC)

Rating: T

Warnings: death (s); child death (s); violence

You can read under the cut or click here to read it on fanfiction

Rose pressed her ear to the heavy door, knowing it wouldn’t make a bit of difference. It was not only the best security door that money could buy but it was riddled with enchantments from wizards they could trust. The whole of the panic room had been designed like that so they couldn’t be heard and so they couldn’t hear. Rose hadn’t liked the idea but there were things little ears shouldn’t have to hear.

And Rose was worried that if she opened that door, Cecilia would be exposed to everything that she and Jake had tried so hard to protect her from.

Rose looked over her shoulder, taking in Cecilia’s sleeping form and wishing that she had all of the answers her daughter believed she did. Then, Rose checked her watch. They’d been in this room for two days and they were going to need water. The room wasn’t designed to be inside for this long. Someone was supposed to be here by now. Rose touched the door again, paralyzed by indecision. They couldn’t spend much longer in the room but if everything was going as it should Jake or Haley or Lao Shi would have been here long before now. Rose knew she had gotten the alert out properly.

Rose also knew that someone had managed to get into the house.

Rose hadn’t stopped long enough to find out who or what or why or how. She had grabbed Cecilia, sent the alert out, and was now sealed in the panic room of the safe house and all Rose was able to do was wonder.

Had no one come at all? Or was whoever had broken in strong enough to kill a dragon and was now sitting out there waiting to grab the only person in existence who had dragon’s blood and a Huntsmark?

“Mama?”

“I’m right here, baby,” Rose said, dropping onto the small cot and pulling Cecilia into her arms.

Cecilia snuggled into her. “Is Daddy here yet?”

“Well, I was thinking about going to check for him.”

Cecilia perked up. “Is it over? Is it really over?”

Rose wished the world was that easy. “I don’t know.”

Rose wanted Jake here. He knew what to say to Cecilia in a way that was easy for her to understand but also appropriate for a six-year-old. Rose as so haunted by her own upbringing of knowing too much too soon that she often ended up tongue-tied and saying the wrong the anyway.

“Are the bad guys gone?”

“Mama’s going to go check.”

“But the bad guys! You said we can’t leave here without Daddy?”

Rose bit her lip. Daddy might be dead. Jake might be dead on the floor outside, fighting for their family to live. Rose didn’t think that she would ever be able to breathe again if she saw Jake’s dead body but she bent her head and inhaled Cecilia’s hair. She had to do this, for her daughter. They were going to run out of water and eventually food and Rose needed to take the chance now, when she was at her strongest. There might be something to fight against out there.

“I know and it is very important you only go somewhere with Mama or Daddy but Mama needs to go make sure Daddy is okay.”

“But, Mama, what about me?”

“You are going to be a very good girl and you are going to stay on this cot with Malibu Stacy and wait for Mama or Daddy, okay?”

“I can’t be by myself! I’m just baby!”

Rose kissed Cecilia’s forehead. “I know but you are strong and wonderful and you can sit here and wait all by yourself. I know you can. Look, Mama will even tuck you in, okay?

Cecilia looked like she was on the verge of tears as Rose gathered the pink blanket around her shoulders, spreading it all the way down her body, and then made a game of kissing her toes, the way that they did every night at bed time. Cecilia giggled and then looked to the side. Rose dutifully placed Malibu Stacy in Cecilia’s arms.

“I’ll be back, okay? I love you and Daddy loves you.”

“Come back together?”

“Yes,” Rose said, desperately wishing that it was true. “Mama and Daddy will come get you together.”

Rose kissed her daughter again and then stood from the floor. Rose went to the weapons cache and pulled out one of the long, deadly blades that were reminiscent of her staff from the Huntsclan. She stared at it, hating every moment. She was a wife and she was a mother; she wasn’t a woman who wielded weapons anymore. Except, she was married to the American Dragon, who was under constant threat, and she had started a family with him, making everything even worse. Rose squared her shoulders, pushing her emotions away in a move that would have made the Huntsman proud. Then, she put her hand on the knob of the panic room door. She felt like she was about to open Pandora’s box. This door could only be opened by herself or someone from Lao Shi’s bloodline.

Right.

Okay.

Let’s go.

Rose opened the door and what was supposed to be fresh air rushed over her. Instead, she smelled death. Rose was all too comfortable with that smell. She went to yank the door shut, even if it meant that she and Cecilia would be locked in what would become their tomb. Before she could get the door shut, a large gloved hand wedged itself between the door and the frame. Rose went to raise the spear but the door was pulled open and she went sprawling out, caught off guard. Someone grabbed her by her hair and Rose was pulled into the arms of the Huntsman, who was sneering down at her with pure disgust.

“This is not who you were supposed to be,” he snarled.

Fifteen years since she had last seen him, and Rose was immediately sent back into being a tiny child again, waiting for him to rain terror over her.

There was another Huntsclan member holding open the door. Rose lunged for him, not caring if the Huntsman pulled out all of her hair and half of her scalp. Cecilia would suffer, locked away and running out of food and water and air, but it was nothing compared to what would happen to her if the Huntsclan got hold of her. There was a blade at Rose’s throat in a flash and Rose only stopped because if she was dead, there was no hope for Cecilia.

“Huntsgirl, please.”

Rose was not the Huntsgirl. Rose had never wanted to be the Huntsgirl. Rose had spent nearly two decades running from that warped part of herself. She turned her head away from Master, not wanting to be cheek to cheek, and that was when she saw the bodies. Not just Jake, dead-eyed in his dragon form, arms outstretched toward the panic room door, but Haley and Lao Shi behind him, bloody and mangled and in a separate heap. Rose threw up on the Huntsman’s feet and then the Huntsclan member appeared again, Cecilia in his arms.

“DON’T TOUCH HER!” Rose screamed. “DON’T TOUCH HER!”

Cecilia was openly weeping, still clutching at Malibu Stacy. “Mama?”

“So, it’s true,” the Huntsman purred in her ear.

“Mama, are these the bad guys?”

Rose couldn’t speak.

The Huntsman pressed the blade against her neck.

“You married a dragon.”

A second Huntsboy was now hold a staff to Cecilia’s temple.

“Yes.”

Rose was not going to let them kill her daughter. Rose was not going to let the last thing that Cecilia ever knew be her father’s body and her mother’s pain and the harsh violation of a stranger.

“That’s his child?”

“Yes.”

“Check her for the Mark!”

It didn’t take long for the two Huntsboy’s to find the Huntsmark, spread out over Cecilia’s belly button.

“Oh,” the Huntsman said, sounding smug. “Look what you gave us! Does she have powers?”

“We don’t know,” Rose admitted, her mouth dry. “She’s too little.”

The Huntsman snorted. “They’re never too little. Guards, make sure she’s transported safely.”

“NO!” Rose threw herself forward, but the Master still had too strong of a hold on her. “Please, let me say goodbye! My baby!”

Rose knew that they were going to kill her. She was a disposable traitor. She couldn’t let them have Cecilia too.

“All right. I’m feeling generous today,” the Huntsman said. “Sixty seconds. Weapons trained on her!”

Rose fell to her knees and then crawled to Cecilia, pulling her daughter down into her arms. Cecilia sobbed into Rose’s shoulder, knowing that something awful and wrong was happening but not knowing what.

“Mama! Daddy!”

“Mama’s here.” And Daddy’s dead. “Mama loves you so much.”

“I love you too,” Cecilia said, the soft hope in her child’s voice that Mama was going to make everything okay again and that this was just going to fade into a bad dream.

Rose kissed her daughter again and again, thinking of Jake dead in the corner and how they got here. All the long nights, making love, praying for a positive on the pregnancy tests. All the bright days, when she was finally here, arguing over if she was going to say ‘Mama’ or ‘Dada’ first, when her first word ended up being ‘Foggy’, which was what she still called Fu Dog. This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. She was going to grow up and grow old. Rose and Jake were supposed to grow old together. There were supposed to be more children and middle school dances and teaching her how to drive and then there would be weddings and grandchildren and then they would go grey, all still a family, all still in each other’s arms. And that was all over now.

Jake was dead.

Rose was as good as dead.

And they were going to take Cecilia as their prisoner.

Rose’s heart broke.

“Time’s up.”

Rose squeezed Cecilia to her one more time and then, with one movement she hadn’t practiced in decades, she snapped her daughter’s neck.

Cecilia’s body fell into hers and Rose clutched at her, still feeling her daughter’s warmth, as the Huntsman’s staff went into the back of her head, killing her too.

#fictober23 #american dragon jake long #jake long #adjl #adjl rose #adjl huntsgirl #adjl huntsman #cecilia long oc #jake/rose #tw death #tw child death #tw violence

4 notes · View notes