thehuggamugcafe - Tumblr blog

thehuggamugcafe · 5 months

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OKAY SO DON'T @ ME FOR COMING BACK OUT OF NOWHERE FOR THIS JUST @enigma-system AND ENJOY THIS PIC THAT TURNED INTO CRACK THOUGHTS. BLEASE GO AND LIKE AND REBLOG HER LOVELY PIECE. DON'T ASK WHY THE ONLY TWO THINGS I'VE WRITTEN THIS YEAR ARE DUMMY MICHAEL MYERS STUFF AND WHY HE'S THE ONLY ONE WITH A FULL DOCUMENT SCAFFOLD FOR A POSSIBLE HORROR PIECE SITTING IN MY FOLDERS THESE DAYS.

Once upon a time, ages past, a princess fair as snow once ran into this forest to escape her cruel and jealous stepmother upon the death of her father. Here, she found community with a family of dwarven brothers, maintainers of a local mine. All the same, it took little time for her to be located by the queen. The wicked woman poisoned the runaway, who was soon thought of as dead and placed in a glass mausoleum to mourn by the brothers who'd come to think of her as their own sister. A prince, on a royal hunt from his side of the forest, came across the coffin and thinking the princess lovely beyond measure asked to give her body a kiss (a strange request you admit, but perhaps this is that weird warping of history...) only for said kiss to bring the young woman back to life.

These days things tend to go a little different. Sure, princesses and the occasional prince come running out every couple of generations, but their reasons are far more varied. Sometimes, yes, still a step-parent overstepping their bounds, or sometimes a betrothal they simply cannot accept; one time even it was a wild tale of being cursed into the form of an ogre under the full moon. It's not a common event, but the contract of the forest always dictates someone here, in this specific cottage in this specific clearing to welcome them with open arms.

The dwarven family sold it ages ago, when the mine closed. After that it was a witch who held it for several centuries, calling it a 'lovely escape from the city life'. She sold it to a young elf couple who kept it for a few more, passing it on to their son when they decided to move. On and on both this cottage, the clearing it sits in, and to some degree the forest itself has passed from one owner to the next, currently resting calmly in your hands.

Now, exactly how you got it is a story for another day, for it is long and complicated, but suffice to say nobody is willing to play poker with you again after you've had even a single shot of dragonshine. Still, you're pleased with this quiet life. Hunting isn't hard here and the ground is quite fertile, plus, what you cannot catch or grow isn't hard to bring back from the castle city in a day's trip. Thankfully, for the most part you and your lands are left alone, barring one responsibility.

No one's quite sure when, or why, said magic was placed here, but there is no doubt it holds the forest tightly. It is what leads the previous runaways to this very cottage and what holds the specific duties to receive them kindly onto the owner of the cottage. Thankfully, it is never an eternal state, the provision is only until whatever fate the runaway has comes to collect them. You aren't exactly sure what happens to those who fail this job, especially when it's outright signed into a contract sitting in the home upon first entry, but you're in no hurry to find out.

Not that you're concerned. This is a rather rare event and it was the mentor to the wizard you won this place from who most recently fulfilled the task. Nobody's had to deal with a runaway so soon after another so as far as you are aware, you've got nothing to worry about. You get a peaceful life in a lovely setting, kept protected by the magic imbued into the land you live on. Which is understandably why when you return from your monthly trip to the city to bring back a cart of varied goods to help keep your home stocked full to a body laying unconscious in front of your door you scream.

That's a dead lump of a man right there in front of your house!

Terrified and no longer caring the slightest about the cart behind you, you can't help but creep closer to the bloodied body, though you keep an honest distance between it and yourself all the same. The body is large, tall, and certainly well-built; whoever it was could definitely throw a full tree log like a stick, that's for sure. Black boots, dark blue pants and a torn white shirt are both splattered with blood as is... his face?

Is that his face!?

No... no that isn't at all his face. That's a mask, a dirty, white mask that covers the body's whole head, with an eerie, blank 'expression'. As if a dead guy, covered in blood with a knife next to him isn't already horrifying, now he's one of those freaks who hides his whole face on top of that.

Where did he even come from? There were no footprints on the path you followed home, and you don't see anything torn up from this vantage point, no trails of blood leading towards your door. Did he drop out of the sky? No, there's no sign of broken branches or hole in the crown of trees. Then, perhaps appear out of nowhere? What kind of spell would send him here of all places to send a dead man?

'Lips red as the rose, hair black as ebony, skin as white as snow...'

It's when you scan over the body once again that two things hit the corners of your brain in perfect synchronicity. First, and probably foremost, is that the body is breathing. The man is alive. Despite what got him here, it hadn't killed him. However, the second thought feels even more damning than the first: the set of conditions that, for some entirely unspecified reason, all the runaways destined to this clearing have.

Red lips. Black hair. White skin.

You stand there, mind as blank as the mask you stare into, fingers steepled against each other with your hands in front of your face, pressing against your nose and lips. This is certainly a predicament. You are fully aware of the contract you signed when you bought this place, but you also have to admit you never considered that you'd run into anything regarding paragraphs four or seventeen. Much less anything as strange as the body laying in front of you.

Does...?

Does this guy even count?

Like, really? Does a mask covering a whole head count as 'Skin white as snow'? Yeah, it's white alright, under all that grime, but that's not exactly skin... you hope. But then from what you catch around his neck the man is pretty pale. How often does he wear that mask? Has he ever taken it off? Either way he's not quite as white as a winter's day.

And then there's 'Lips red as rose'. Red lips is one thing, but does blood covering the bottom half of his 'face' count? But what would make that any different from any other kind of substance used to paint a person's lips? Nobody's out there with lips that naturally vibrant, that's for sure, so it's clearly leaving this part open to full interpretation. Whether you like it or not, it seems blood counts.

Which only leaves 'Hair black as ebony', but that seems to track a lot stronger. The miserable mop of tangled hair the man has is definitely a solid black. Could certainly use a wash, though, even if it is fake and tied only to the mask. You could put a proper bet on the last time that hair has even seen an honest cleaning being several years ago.

Part of you, a loud and raucous part, says there's no way this would fulfill anything more than one of the various marks to check off. That isn't his skin, his lips, or his hair. Heck, you don't even know if he's royal, on top of all the other inconsistencies. The most you could kind of say is the guy is probably rather pale, based on the skin around his neck and arms, but that's hardly snow-level white. That's its own level of never going outside nobility. The hair isn't his and you're not willing now to take the mask off and find out what color the man's actual hair is; that would require getting close to him and even unconscious you don't think he's safe to be near. You'll thank the blood splattered across the mask, his arm, and the knife laying on the ground next to him for that.

However, another part of you knows damn well how fae magic works and it was certainly a fairy of some kind who cast the magic over the forest and the cottage. It would undeniably be somehow both vague and specific enough for such an impossible case to count, and the question then turns into if you're willing to gamble against your contract. Knowing this man, technically, hits all three boxes of what everyone living here has always had to watch out for when it comes to runaways, do you feel clever enough to beat a fae's spell in linguistics?

...

Damn it...

It's with a heavy sigh that you cautiously step forward, not willing to startle the man if he wakes under the assumption he'd react the same way a wild animal would. Damn it all to hell. The answer quickly turns to 'no, you aren't going to bet against a fairy's way with words' because you know better than that. If it can be loopholed into counting you best assume it counts, bloody knife and all, and you refuse to be the first idiot to break the magical contract.

Plus, didn't it say something about keeping the owner safe? Or did you not read that contract nearly as well as you should have...

First thing's first and you kick the knife away, into some nearby bushes. You do not want the man to wake up and be armed, not that you think this keeps you any safer. Those arms are pythons and you're pretty sure he could wring you out like a wet rag. But at least you won't be stabbed. It's a thin reassurance but it's better than nothing at all.

Carefully, you step around the man's body with dainty steps until you get to the door to your cottage. You're quite sure he's completely unconscious and not going to wake up soon, if at all, but you've already decided that you're not a gambler. There's no reason to stomp around him and risk waking him up sooner than he needs to be conscious.

Which comes back to bite you with the door unlocked and open. Just how, exactly, are you meant to get him inside? He's no small feat and isn't a lightweight. You definitely won't be getting him upstairs to an actual bed, either. The most you'll accomplish there is bringing down some pillows and blankets, but that would still be better than leaving the poor guy outside here on stone and dirt.

It will all work out in the end anyway, right?

You take a few deep breaths and hope that your body is still limber and strong enough from the trip back up from the castle city to pull this stunt off. You figure if you get a good grip under the man's arms then you can probably drag him inside without too much trouble, and so that's how you start off. Carefully you squat down, weaseling your hands under his arms. It's hard, that's for sure, and you weren't wrong when you figured he was going to be heavy.

Still, you're not going to give up. It takes some work and you've got to lean over the man some to get a proper grip, now kneeling down to not strain your back too badly. The first pull is fruitless, convincing you to tighten your grip and grit your teeth for the second, which succeeds, however little. Progress is progress you tell yourself, even when you look down, from the eyes examining you to his feet in trying to determine how much mo-

Eyes?

Your attention snaps back to the man's masked face and you come to the realization you weren't at all seeing things not there. A blank, frigid gaze meets your own, staring right through your soul.

He's awake.

#halloween movie #michael myers #reader #dragonsinkwell's musing #oh god #oh i love this beyond measure

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