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lovelyladyabsinthewrites · 2 years

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Promises

Pairing(s): Oberyn Martell x Targaryen!Reader, Oberyn Martell x Ellaria Sand, Rhaegar Targaryen x Elia Martell, Rhaegar Targaryen x Lyanna Stark

Warnings: mentions of Elia's r@p3, mentions of child death, PTSD, trauma, niece reader

Words: 2535

Summary: Having witnessed the brutal murder of your family, your uncle Oberyn is the only one to fend off your nightmares and the only one you could ever feel an attachment to.

Like any other night, you woke up with sweat dripping down your body and soaking into your bedsheets. You felt stuck between your world of sleep and the real world which you had thrusted yourself back into. A jolted mind made the shadows in your chambers writhe like the bodies of your mother, sister and baby brother. Worst of all, in the looming corner looked like the form of Gregor Clegane, the man whom people fearfully called the Mountain. A mountain he was indeed and you felt powerless even if you knew he wasn’t actually there.

You shook uncontrollably, tears rolling down your face as you were forced to experience the worst night of your life over and over again. It was enough to make any person go insane. The screams of your mother Elia, the sickening crushing sound of Aegon’s skull. . . You could even smell the blood.

You covered your nose and mouth, rocking back and forth in your bed as you fought the sob.

It was just a dream. Just a dream.

But it wasn’t. It was a cruel memory and a reminder of why you were now living in Sunspear with your mother’s family. Your’s had been taken from you.

Thankfully you had someone constantly watching over you, at the ready to calm you. Your uncle Oberyn Martell. You didn’t know how he was always seconds away after you’d wake up from your nightmare, but there he was storming into your room. Bare chested and long black hair tousled from sleep and having abruptly woken up.

He was slightly out of breath, hastily lighting a candle to illuminate your room and scare off the shadows.

“I-I’m sorry.” voice muffled against your hand, it was the only thing you could do to hide the quivering of your voice. Every time, you were embarrassed. After all you were already a young lady at the sweet age of ten and six. You shouldn’t require the comfort of your uncle to calm you down like a fussy infant.

“Sssh, do not apologize.” You couldn’t refuse his gentle tone and safe embrace. He was all you had left of your mother and vice versa. Oberyn approached your bed and you slid to make room for him. Easily, Oberyn takes the spot next to you and gathers your trembling body in his muscled arms. “I am here, (y/n). I won’t ever leave your side. No one will hurt you as long as I’m alive. I promise.”

The kiss he gifts you on the crown of your head was enough to dry your eyes. You trusted him. Trusted him more than anyone in the entire world. His promise was good as gold.

You clung to him tightly. The memories of that night haunted you and you knew they would never go away. It was too terrible to ever erase no matter how hard you tried. Something you and Oberyn had in common. He was the one who had found you locked in your mother’s chest that was at the edge of her bed; wide eyed and traumatized. The things you had heard and witnessed from the lock’s keyhole prevented you from sleeping the following weeks after your rescue. A rescue that you had given up on after hours of being cooped up in there. That was until you heard your beloved uncle’s voice. When you heard him you cried out loud and banged your little fists against the wood walls of the box. Your body had been missing when Tywin had presented your family’s bodies to Robert Baratheon, the new ruler of the Seven Kingdoms.

The question was immediate: where was the first born daughter of Rhaegar and Elia?

You remembered Gregor Clegane roaring as he raped your mother “Where is the other girl?!” Elia refused to tell him, despite her horrendous screams that had made you sick to your stomach. In the end, Gregor gave up and crushed her skull like he did to your newborn brother Aegon.

If you had wept during their murders you knew your fate would have been the same. So you quieted every bit of heart break that you experienced.

Burrowing your face into Oberyn’s chest, you take a deep breath to calm down your heart. He was your lifeboat. Your anchor. Patience wasn’t usually part of Oberyn’s personality. For you though, he would be whatever you needed him to be. He was patient and gentle with you always with his words; even when he lovingly cradled your face in his battleworn hands. The same gesture he offered you when he opened the chest you had been hiding in. Even though you were covered in your own vomit and urine, Oberyn held you close to him and refused to hand you off to anyone else.

“Has the storm ended?” He whispers against your dark hair which you had inherited from your mother.

Sniffling, you nod. “It’s over. . . I’m sorry.”

He chuckles softly. “I told you not to apologize. It’s not needed. I told you, I will always be right by your side.”

You lift your head up a little to wipe your eyes. “It’s been eleven years. You’d think it would have stopped by now.”

“Eleven years or twenty years, it does not matter to me. No matter how many years, you will always have me.” The pad of his thumb helps to dry your cheeks. “No one expects you to ever forget about what has happened. There is no shame in grief, (y/n).”

Oberyn always knew how to make you feel better. Like he could read your soul and had the remedy at the ready.

He doesn’t leave when he knows you’re fine. Instead he continues to hug you tightly, the both of you returning to a sweeter slumber. Your dreams were always filled with pleasant scenes when Oberyn slept beside you. Even in sleep he protected you.

Despite having been rushed to Dorne the moment your uncle found you, Robert Baratheon still viewed you as a threat just because you were half-Targaryen. The last surviving child of Rhaegar. He had kicked up a storm when your body wasn’t among your murdered family. You had been five at the time of Robert’s Rebellion and even now meant him no harm, but he still desired your head. It had caused a massive rift between Westeros and Dorne, nearly leading to another war. Righteous Eddard Stark of Winterfell was the one to stop any more bloodshed. A close friend of the new king, he talked some sense into Robert. There were to be conditions: you could never set foot in Westeros and no Westerosi lord was allowed to take you as a bride.

That was all fine by you. You had absolutely no desire to go back there, the land where your loved ones had been annihilated. You were content to spend the rest of your life at Sunspear, out of harm’s way.

Matters were different for Oberyn. He wanted revenge. Every time he looked upon you, he was reminded of his sister’s rape and Rhaegar’s callous betrayal. Years could not heal the wound that your father had caused. All this sorrow was because of the affair he had with Lyanna Stark. If you could renounce your Targaryen blood, you would have. To be part Targaryen would forever be a stain on you. Nothing good ever came from the Targaryen name. You couldn’t change it as much as you wanted to. Inheriting Rhaegar’s lilac eyes made bile rise in you yet there was no hiding that part of you.

It caused a lot of self-hate to develop in you at a young age and no matter the praise everyone around you gave, you would always hate looking in the mirror just to be reminded of the man who abandoned you. As she had died, your little sister Rhaenys had cried out for Rhaegar, for her father to come save her.

Much to your shame, at the age of ten Oberyn had found you with a dagger about to pierce one of your eyes. You had hated them that much that you couldn’t stand it anymore. Oberyn had easily wrestled it out of your small hand and you witnessed the big man break down. You had made your own promise to him, that you would never try such a stunt again.

Understandably you were a melancholic child growing up. You stuck close to Oberyn, lost and fearful of everything. Any man that resembled the Mountain made you break down crying. Doran, while as understanding as he could be, didn’t know what to do with you. He saw you as getting in the way of Oberyn’s duties. Oberyn wouldn’t hear any of it. He offered you time, patience, and unconditional love that helped you greatly in your recovery. While it meant he was restricted in his social outings, he made it a point to carry you around with whatever task he needed to do. And when he would have to venture to the more unsavory areas in Dorne, it was his lover Ellaria Sand who would watch over you. While you didn’t trust her as much as you did your uncle, Ellaria was sweet with you and sympathetic to your trauma. One of Oberyn's young daughters, Tyene, who was around your age helped in breaking you out of your shell. Her mother having been a septa, Tyene had much of her compassion and empathy. She was able to sense when you were about to break. When times like that happened, Tyene would pull you aside and have you recite a prayer from the Seven Pointed Star. You had lost your faith in the gods long ago, but reciting from the book along with Tyene somehow soothed you. Being the same age, you revered Tyene as an older sister even if she was technically your cousin.

Much like Ellaria and her father, she protected your wellbeing to ensure that your mental recovery was steadily coming along. Certain incidents that involved Arianne set you back. Having witnessed the rape of your mother had put you off of any sexual activity; something in which both Tyene and Arianne partook in. You knew Arianne had just been trying to help you when she learned you were still quite the virgin at the age of fifteen. She had you tag along during one of their rendevouz with potential sexual partners. When your 'partner' put his hand on your knee you had immediately freaked out. Tyene took you back home much to your embarrassment. A part of you knew that Arianne never looked at you the same again.

You didn't want to be around men. Even if they looked nothing like Gregor Clegane, you feared the strength men naturally possessed. They could crush your skull without a moment's hesitation. The only men you could tolerate being around were your uncles Oberyn and Doran. Which Oberyn didn't mind too much. It proved that he was special to you, not just any other man.

It put extra stress on your uncle Doran though as it made finding you a suitor even more difficult. Not only would a potential suitor have to get past your walls, but would also have to face off with Oberyn. Being of a fragile constitution, Oberyn was incredibly protective of you and took it upon himself to be your personal knight in shining armor. Any man that wanted to get close to you had to receive Oberyn's approval, which he never gave to anyone much to Doran's frustration. He had lamented that at that point you would never get married. When he had said that you had partially joked that the only suitable man you would ever dream of marrying was Oberyn. You had meant it as a joke but you knew it was your secret truth.

Doran didn't think it was very funny, worried that the Targaryen trait of incestuous relationships would arise within you. The brothers would often butt heads about your future.

If you never married you were fine with that. Oberyn had promised to be by your side for as long as he lived. You didn't need any other man in your life except for him.

"What if Doran forces me to marry someone?" You asked Oberyn the next day as he took a break from training with Obara. Your older cousin twirled her weapon around, her stern expression permanent on her brutal face.

"He wouldn't dare do that." Oberyn replies watching as other men joined in the sparring ring with Obara. He lounged next to you in his seat, refusing the water that was offered to him and instead reached for the goblet of wine that he really wanted. Tied back in a ponytail, his hair moved slightly along with the calming breeze that offered respite from the blazing sun.

You stare at the tiled table that your hands rested on. "He's Prince of Dorne though. He can do whatever he wants."

That caught his attention, dark eyes narrowing at the idea that his older brother would dare do something like that. Placing his cup down, Oberyn sighed. "He knows better than to follow through with such an idiotic plan. He can't even marry off his own headstrong daughter, he can't possibly think he could wrestle you from my grasp. If he insists upon it then I will just bring up the fact that if anyone needs to be married off it's Arianne." You noticed his fist clenching, knuckles straining against his skin. "Doran knows better than to take you from me. He tried it before, he won't do it again."

You regretted being the source of contempt between your uncles but you felt so grateful for Oberyn. A small smile from you was enough to make Oberyn relax his fist and return with his own charming grin. "You really do spoil me."

He laughs loudly. "Elia wouldn't have had it any other way. I'm pretty sure she would come after me from the dead if I didn't take care of you. Your place will always be in my arms."

A coy blush makes your already warm cheeks burn slightly. "Is that another promise?"

Oberyn reaches into a hidden pocket that was in his vest. "Here is a testiment to my promise." In his palm was a golden ring in the shape of a coiling serpent. Small glittering rubies were in the place of its eyes. He beckons you to give him your hand. Initially you offer him your right but he shakes his head. "No, the other one."

Your heart flutters a bit when he places the ring on your left hand, slipping it easily on the digit next to your pinky. Of course it fit perfectly. You grinned, holding up your hand to watch it shine. "It's like a wedding band! You better be careful with such tokens, Doran is already worried about our relationship being misconstrued."

"Who cares what he thinks." Oberyn scoffs and leans back in his chair, watching you with a pleasant smile. "As long as it makes you happy I don't care what Doran thinks. Whatever it takes, I want to keep that smile on your face."

#fanfiction #fanfic #please read with discretion #x reader #got fanfiction #got fanfic #game of thrones fanfiction #game of thrones #asoiaf fanfiction #asoiaf fandom #oberyn martell #oberyn martell x reader #oberyn martell reader insert #oberyn martell fanfiction #reader insert #oberyn martell x ellaria sand #oberyn martell x you

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meganechan05 · 27 days

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"I just want you. All of you. Would that be a request you can fulfill?"

My thought process while sketching it a couple days ago involves figuring out what would be said... and I ended up writing a fic for it 😂

#Rita is coatless for a reason #i have the fic as rated M but it's pretty tame #just the implications and such #please read at your own discretion #kingohger #king ohger #ohsama sentai kingohger #rita kaniska #rita kanisuka #himeno ran #hymeno ran #himerita #hymerita #kingoh doodles #one shot #fic linked

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the-owl-tree · 2 months

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i like that my headcanon that tigerstar and leopardstar were conniving with one another long before tigerclan has some weight to it now but i also kind of wish tigerstar wasn't written so obviously bad. like thanks writing team, i could never have figured out this guy was up to no good.

#deer reads leopardstar's honor #some discretion please #“the clans needs fresh energy to sweep old beliefs” hey writing team u know what tiger's ideology was right

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gatheredfates · 4 months

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Tonberry - Tell a story of a time you were blinded by rancor! Is it still ongoing, did you act upon it, does it compel your actions?

Hi, my name is Sea, and I have a lot of thoughts about how utterly fucked up Ishgard is as a nation. I'm putting it under a readmore because there's a lot of dark topics involved (and I ranted a bit).

I've explored bits of it here, here and here, mostly through Elandervier's perspective, but when you actually look at the control enacted by the Holy See, perpetrated by members of the High Houses, it's honestly horrific. Here is a nation overseen by powerful factions ruled by men, in which those beneath them are granted power and prestige based on their politics, money and gender. If you are not rich, cunning or cruel, you will be fed straight into that war machine. Before the Warrior of Light, it didn't matter how 'good' you were or how hard you tried. Aymeric was a good man and still got a knife in his belly because there were people in Ishgard desperate to hang onto a world where a few powerful men held complete control. They wanted to keep doing whatever they wanted to populace so brainwashed by propaganda they didn't have time to see that the call coming from inside the house.

People see Garlemald as being the 'evil' militant faction and, while that is true, I think it comes at the cost of overlooking just how similar Ishgard was towards the dragons. In my opinion, there is so much environmental storytelling indicating young peasants were militarised and drafted into war whether they liked it or not — especially if they were hyur — and high society was strictly regulated to keep the status quo. Garlemald may have been upfront about its fascism but Ishgard has a lot of demons they still need to exorcise.

Both Elandervier and Alaice are products of that machine, and both deal with that in different ways. El is nothing if not rancor. She is the daughter of a middle-class house desperately trying to rid themselves of their Gelmorran roots, and her entire childhood was a lesson in abuse from a mother too frightened to break the machine if feeding her daughter to it make her more comfortable. She had to smile to lordling boys cruel to her because they were lordlings — because going against them was to be branded a heretic at best and a trip to the Brume at worst. At least those outside of Ishgard did not risk the Temple Knights enacting their 'justice' late at night because they were bored or looking for a bit of sport.

Her entire early life was a palatable pantomime. Smile like this, walk like that; why are you inspiring their ire, why are you cracking the porcelain? The well isn't fetid. The tart is sweet because there is sugar, just ignore the poison.

Because El wasn't originally from Ishgard she knew she'd never fit in, and the powers that be were happy to remind her if she thought to put a toe out of line. They called her strange and heckled her; they made fun of her and went out of her way to give her attention because they knew the result would be negative, even if their initial attentiveness was 'kind'. They knew they held all the power to rip what little comforts she had because they had the prestige and she had none, and they spared no effort to put her in place.

The difference is, El didn't want the prestige. She wanted to break the wheel. When they tried to take everything from her, she turned it on them and fled. Highborn fathers lost their pedigree sons born from pretty women offered to the machine and, though she knew others would take their place, she at least got hers.

The worst part was, even when she had established herself in Dravania, she still had people come after her. Sometimes they were mercenaries paid for by the high houses, sometimes they were the lords themselves... and sometimes they were women, children and peasants who equally left the city but had nowhere else to go. They learned of a witch in the northern bogs who practiced dark magic and figured their odds were better than the city that claimed to care and protect them. She'd have young girls fall at her door with wild eyes and swollen bellies because going back would be to face objectification and heresy for crimes committed onto them — not by them. The outrage was palatable, she wanted nothing than to rend them from the inside out, but she was one woman against an oligarchy.

It's an anger that is difficult for to put into words and cannot be levelled against a single person, even if she detests most highborn. El has the recognition that even those higher than her were at the mercy of those higher still, and she did not gain any luxuries by defecting. Yet it still influences her every action. She's compelled to violence and manipulation because they conditioned her to savour it. She makes herself malignant and unknowable because she's too traumatised to know who she really is. She might have escaped the machine but its teeth still mangled her limbs. It's hard to live with.

#｡･ﾟﾟ･ — sea speaks #｡･ﾟﾟ･ — 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫 : elandervier #｡･ﾟﾟ･ — sea answers things #i'm not overt about anything but darker themes are implied #so please read at your own discretion

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charleslee-valentine · 2 months

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Should have read that detour sign

Word Count: ~2,000

Warnings: Suicidal ideation, suicide attempt, murder-suicide, graphic depictions and descriptions of domestic abuse, period typical attitudes towards women, child neglect, very dark themes.

This fic was beta read by nov!

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Drayton mentions his woes, casual as he can manage, while hanging the linens over the clothesline.

“Babies are sick again, Mama.”

She’d just bothered showing her face to the world after another bender last night. Normally he’d be making as much noise in the house as he could to get the bitch up and help him some. But those babies are in there resting and recovering today, so he took to doin’ the laundry outside. It could’ve been a nice day to lay the babies in the grass and let ‘em crawl and explore on their bellies, if not for their fevers.

Even with Drayton taking extra special care of those kids, Mama don’t seem all that concerned. Her dull stare is almost scathing, “You do what I told you?”

Right. All her bullshit ‘stop whining’ remedies that didn’t do nothing. He scoffs, “A salt water bath ain’t gonna fix this’n.”

Back talkin’ ain’t a good enough answer for her, “But did you try it, Drayton?”

Something about not being listened to lights the fuse at the end of his temper. Against his better judgement, he snaps at her, “Of fucking ‘course I did! Past three days I tried it! And it ain’t helped!”

“Watch your language.” Mama scolds automatically.

His next response sort of just tumbles out of his big mouth just as quick, “Right. ‘Cause that’s what’s important right now.”

That earns him a thwack. Mama’s long, ringed fingers crack against the back of his skull hard enough his eyes go fuzzy.

“Drayton Sawyer hold your tongue, damn it!”

No tears. No whining. He swallows it down. He’s grown now, damn it. Raising up two little boys like they’s his own. Can’t teach them the cowardice he’s always had in his bruised heart.

Mama hasn’t even named the boys yet. Seven weeks old and they got no names, just in case’n they don’t get better. But what the hell would she know about better, if she don’t ever even hold ‘em?

Drayton’s voice is tense and tight, but he don’t let it waver.

“Mama. Have you checked on them once today?”

His insistence finally gets her somewhat interested. Probably not worried though. She at least backs off just a little from her anger, “They alright?”

“I told you already they aren’t.” Drayton sort of mumbles so it isn’t immediately registered that he’s still pissed. No sense in getting himself hit any more.

Mama at least looks guilty. It’s just for the smallest second, that her deep brown eyes flit towards the house, clearly thinking about the little boys inside. About how to help ‘em.

Doesn’t last long. ‘Cause then she’s looking to Drayton, expecting him to fix her mess like always.

She declares, like she’s all proud of it, “You’ll find a way to take care of it.”

Drayton feels the bitter scowl on his own face even though he don’t wanna show it. Might as well lean into it. Calm like, he takes a few steps towards the door, calling over his shoulder at Mama, “Alright, maybe I’ll ask grandpa.”

The very same grandpa that drank himself into a catatonia now, used to be one mean sonuva bitch. Drayton could mess up once as a kid and fists would start flying. If it weren’t Mama and her claws, it’ve been grandpa and his hatred. His evil. His steel toed boots and warped knuckles.

That man would never even hold the boys, not in the state he’s in, half out his mind in a rocking chair all the day long. But the threat, and what it means, is enough.

Mama grabs him by the arm and digs those nails in. Drayton lets her pull him, never having any intention of actually bothering the old asshole.

“Don’t you dare.” She spits.

“What, it ain’t right to hit on your kids now?” Drayton acts like he don’t know exactly what he’s doing.

But it backfires.

Mama is fierce. Vicious. Boy had to learn it from somewhere, after all.

“Not those babies. They don’t deserve it.”

So he did. She hated him from the start. Even before he grew up ugly and mean and half-an-idiot, she didn’t want nothing to do with him. To this day he’s nothing more than her damn maid. It’s do it or face the consequences, and get nothin’ at all in return.

Frustration boils until it’s more akin to rage, the kind he can’t just push under the surface.

“Why’s that, mama? They too fragile? Too sick? Maybe they should see a goddamn doctor then!”

His ribs are certainly fragile after being broke so many times. Every day his back hurts. Hands shake. Something ain’t right anymore in Drayton’s body because of being beat so bad all his life.

He gets another slap right across the face, hard enough to turn his head full. Mama’s tidy nails catch his skin and leave a cut rifht under his eye. One singular tear of his blood rolls down and drips to the collar of his shirt.

Can’t have that now, can’t go leavin’ the evidence in plain sight. Drayton uses his sleeve to wipe it away. Blood and motor oil don’t look too differently. Nobody’ll know a thing. If they do, well, that Drayton Sawyer has always been no good. Probably deserved it.

Oh but just you ask Mama, and that ain’t her fault.

She seethes, “I know how to raise my children.”

The next thing Drayton thinks doesn’t even need to be said for it to sit heavy in the air. His face must show his skepticism.

Mama don’t like that. Somehow she can read his mind and know exactly what he’s thinkin’ of. She scolds him for it, “Don’t you give me that look, Drayton! I have to provide, don’t I?”

“Walking the streets and providing are two very different things, woman.”

Drayton don’t usually talk about mama’s type of business. The oldest profession, one unfit for a mother who had no right to ever leave behind her own dying babies.

Never home, and when she does coming back random hours of the night, doin’ all kinds of drugs and remedies to flush her system of the random men who touched her. Clearly all her pseudoscience bullshit didn’t work none though, or the boys wouldn’t be on the brink of death. The disease she gave them was through her tainted blood. Venereal.

Mama’s only pretty sure the twins and Drayton got the same daddy. Not one of her vile clients, just an old fling who never stepped the hell up but she crawled back to anyhow.

Drayton hates them all. Hates mama, hates the men who buy her, hates their daddy for not sticking around to help none, hates grandpa for watching it all go down from behind the bars of his self-built mind prison. Hates God for not dealing him a better hand.

Every goddamn day he works to keep his two brothers alive, just because it’s right. And deep down, he thinks he hates them too.

Mama don’t appreciate that not one bit. She refuses to even acknowledge it, “If I could just get some damn help-“

That’s more than enough for Drayton. He’s done with goin’ on like this. Can’t take another minute of not being appreciated for working himself bloody and broken and still taking care of those kids in between.

If his slaving away don’t mean nothing, then he’ll just go.

He leaves Mama on the porch, storming inside. Oughta pack a bag and leave right now, a baby under each arm.

“Where are you going?” Mama’s thick voice shrieks at him, and the tiniest hint of panic there drives him to keep going.

He wants her to be afraid.

Turning on heel, he yells back at her, “To tend to your bastard children, since you’re so unbothered with it god damn all!”

The noise ain’t good for the twins. Slamming doors and booming arguments and all. Drayton certainly ain’t calming down any time soon, and Mama won’t leave once a fight’s started. Leaves only one thing.

Nothing more than a light blanket around each baby, Drayton leaves. Didn’t have time to make a plan and execute it. All the way down to his truck he leaves.

From the stoop, Mama screams at him, “Get your ass back here!”

But Drayton ain’t gonna listen this time. Won’t or can’t, actually that’s not really clear. Fact is, he just needs out.

Babies are in the back on their little blankets, cuddled up to each other for heat between them, even though it’s goddamn 80 something degrees out they’re cold, and Drayton just drives.

Don’t know where he’s going and don’t care.

Every now and again, he’ll check all the mirrors, make sure hell ain’t coming for him. One call to the state from Mama and he’d be done for. But it ain’t him she should be worried about when grandpa still ain’t dead yet.

They try to ruin him and take the babies back, well he’s got his own fair share of family secrets. Things a hell of a lot worse than getting the kids away from their monster whore of a mother on a rampage.

Then again, might not matter in the end.

He’d rather be dead than lose the only family he had the chance to care for instead of them hating him first.

Going 70 miles an hour on a curved stretch of road, Drayton considers it. Death, that is.

Could save them all three a whole world of heartbreak if they just went out together now. It’d be quick. Just take his hands off the wheel for one second and then-

A tanker flashes its lights and blares the horn when his truck crossed the centerline. Whatever evil took over Drayton’s Sawyer’s impulse to survive is gone and blinded, in the exact same moment the babies start wailing their little heads off.

Drayton slams on the brakes before they get so far off the road they’d crash. Crossed into the wrong lane, sure, but they’re safe on the opposite shoulder now.

The loud noise spooked the babes though. Only sound now is their crying, but even that is muffled in Draytons ears under the sound of his own heart racing.

One look back at those sick little boys, and all Drayton can feel is shame. He’d almost killed them. All three of them.

On purpose.

Looking back at them there, bare-chested, covered in rashes, sobbing so hard they’re pink in their little faces, Drayton wishes he could strike himself down for what he almost did. Except, striking down is what he wanted. Death was the end goal. He’d failed to go through with it, for one, but his biggest failure was as an older brother.

Something’s gotta change. Living this life will be a worse punishment than ending it. Carrying on and raising up those kids, guiltily remembering all his life what he’d almost done, that would be much worse than whatever death was like.

Still, subject him to hellfire for even thinking it, but he’d still end the suffering now if he were strong enough. Pull the pin and let it all burn up now, instead of waiting for hell to do it first.

They’ll always be miserable. It comes with being a godforsaken Sawyer.

Drayton lets the babies wail.

Shaking hands and ghosts of impulses won’t change their pain. Their fear. The twins’ll have to learn to soothe themselves eventually anyhow.

Still as a spectre, Drayton starts the car back, and he drives. The only acknowledgment of the dreadful children’s screams an occasional, violent twitch of his hand, when he fails to block it out and almost snaps.

In his head, he thinks it could be worse. They could be wrapped in tangled metal, instead of their warm blankets and each other's frail little arms.

But he doesn’t say a word, and as he brings them home, takes them inside. He just lays them in their little cot and walks away. Mama is gone again already, no doubt drinking away the argument from earlier. If she won’t bother, why should he? His age, he should be moving out. Settling down. Making something of himself.

Instead Drayton feels like a monster. A hateful beast.

Like his grandpa. Like his mother. Like a Sawyer.

No sense in quitting tradition now, he supposes.

#my writing #please read the warnings up top and view at your own discretion #tw suicidal ideation #tw sui ideation #tw abuse #drayton sawyer #nubbins sawyer #chop top sawyer #bobby sawyer #tcm fanfic #draytons in his early 20s here!

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somer-writes · 3 months

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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms Rating: Mature Warnings: Major Character Death Relationships: Twilight & Warriors (Linked Universe) Characters: Warriors (Linked Universe), Twilight (Linked Universe), Original Hylian Character(s) Additional Tags: Febuwhump 2024, Helpless, Torture, Poisoning, Character Death, Captivity, Vomiting, Seizures, Hurt No Comfort Series: Part 1 of The Realities of Being My Favorite Character During a Leap Year (Febuwhump 2024) Summary:

Held captive by a traitor in Wars' era, the captain can only watch as Twilight succumbs to poison.

----

day 1 :D

character death fic to get us started XD dw whatever happens in each of these fics applies to that fic *only*

#somer writes #lu fanfiction #lu twilight #lu warriors #please read the tags #reader discretion advised

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confetti-cat · 1 year

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Each, All, Everything

Words: 6.5k

Rating: PG

Themes: Friendship, Self-Giving Love, Romantic Love

(Written for the Four Loves Fairytale Retelling challenge over at the @inklings-challenge! A retelling of Nix, Nought, Nothing.)

The giant’s daughter weeps, and remembers.

—

She remembers the day her father first brought him home.

It was a bit like the times he’d brought home creatures to amuse her while he was on his journeys, away on something he called “business” but she knew was “gathering whatever good of the land he wanted”. Her father had brought back a beautiful pony, once—a small one he could nearly carry in one huge hand. One for her, and not another for his collection of horses he kept in the long stables. She wasn’t as tall as the hills and broad as the cliffs like he was, so she couldn’t carry it easily, but she heaved it up in both arms and tried nonetheless. (And—she thought this was important—stopped trying when it showed fear.) She was gentle to it, and in time, she would only need speak to it and it would come eat from her hand like a tame bird. She’d never been happier.

(The pony had grown fearful of her father. Her father grew angry with anything that wasted his time by cowering or trying to flee him. There was a terrible commotion in the stables one day, and when she sought her pony afterward, she couldn’t find him. Her father told her it was gone, back to the forest, and he’d hear no more of it if she didn’t want beaten.)

(There was a sinking little pit in her stomach that knew. But when she didn’t look for the best in her father, it angered him and saddened her, so she made herself believe him.)

The final little creature he brought one day was so peculiar. It was a human boy, small as the bushes she would sometime uproot for paintbrushes, dressed in fine green like the trees and gold like her mother’s vine-ring she wore. He seemed young, like her. His tuft of brown hair was mussed by the wind, and his dark eyes watched everything around him, wide and unsure and curious.

When he first looked at her from his perch on her father’s shoulder, he stared for a long moment—then lifted a tiny hand in a wave. Suddenly overwhelmed with hope and possibilities (a friend! Surely her father had blessed her with a small friend they could keep and not just a pet!), she lifted her own hand in a little wave and tried to smile welcomingly.

The boy stared for another long moment, then seemed to try a hesitant smile back.

“This,” boomed her father, stooping down in the mist of the morning as he waved away a low cloud with one hand, “is what I rightly bargained for. A prince, very valuable. The King of the South—curse his deceitful aims!—promised him to me.”

“He looks very fancy,” she’d said, eyes wide in wonder. “How did the king come to give him to you, Father?”

“How indeed!” the giant growled, so loud it sent leaves rattling and birds rushing to fly from their trees. He slowly lowered himself to be seated on the weathered cliff behind him and picked up his spark-stone, tossing a few felled trees into their fire-basin and beginning to work at lighting them. “Through lies and deceit from him. When he asked me to carry him across the waters I asked him for Nix, Nought, Nothing in return.”

The little boy shifted, clearly uncomfortable but afraid to move much. Her father scowled, though he meant it as a smile, and bared his yellowed teeth as he laughed.

“Imagine his countenance when he returned to find the son he’d not known he’d had was called Nix, Nought, Nothing! He tried to send servant boys, but I am too keen for such trickery. Their blood is on the hands of the liar who sent them to me.”

Such talk from her father had always unsettled her, even if he said it so forcefully she couldn’t imagine just how it wasn’t right. Judging from the way the boy curled in on himself a little, clinging meekly to her father’s tattered shirt-shoulder, he thought similarly.

“Nix, Nought, Nothing?” She observed the small prince, unsure why disappointment arose in her at the way he seemed hesitant to look at her now. “That is a strange name.”

Her father struck the rocks, the sound of it so loud it echoed down the valley in an odd, uneven manner. He shook his head as he worked, a stained tooth poking out of his lips as he struck it again and again until large sparks began alighting on the wood.

“His mother tarried christening him until the father returned, calling him such instead.” He huffed a chuckle that sounded more like a sneer, seeming to opt to ignore the creature on his shoulder for the time being. “You know the feeling, eh, Bonny girl?”

The boy tentatively looked up at her again.

The fire crackled and began to eat away at the bark and dry pine needles. A soft orange glow began to creep over it, leaving black char as it went. With a sudden, sharp breath by her father, a large flame leapt into the air.

“It is good that she did so. He is Nix, Nought, Nothing—and that he will remain.”

—

Nix Nought Nothing grew to be a fine boy. Her father treated him as well as he did the prized horses he’d taken from knights and heroes—which was to say that the boy was given decent food and a dry place to sleep and the richest-looking clothes a tailor could be terrified into giving them, which was as well as her father treated anything.

Never a day went by that she was not thankful and with joy in her heart at having a friend so near.

They spent many days while her father was away exploring the forest—Nix would collect small rocks and unusual leaves and robin’s-eggs and butterflies, and she would lift him into high trees to look for nests, and sometimes stand in the rivers and splash the waterfalls at him just to laugh brightly at his gawking and laughing and sputtering.

Some days she wished she was more of a proper giant. She wasn’t large enough for it to be very comfortable giving him rides on her shoulder once he’d grown. She was hesitant to look any less strong, however, so she braided her golden curls to keep them from brushing him off and simply kept her head tilted away from him as they walked through the forests together.

He could sit quite easily and talk by her ear as they adventured. Perhaps she would never admit it, but she liked that. Most of the time.

“I’m getting your shoulder wet,” he protested, still sopping wet from the waterfall. He kept shifting around, trying to sit differently and avoid blotching her blue dress with more water than he already had. “I hope you’re noticing this inconveniences you too?”

“Yes,” Bonny laughed. “You’re right. I hope there’s still enough sun to dry us along the way back. Father won’t be pleased otherwise.”

“Exactly. Perhaps you should have thought that through before drenching me!” he huffed, but she could hear the grin in his tone even if she couldn’t quite turn her head to see it. He flicked his arm toward her and sent little droplets of water scattering across the side of her face.

Her shoulders jerked up involuntarily as the eye closest to him shut and she tried to crane her neck even further away, chuckling. Nix made a noise like he’d swallowed whatever words were on his tongue, clutching to her shoulder and hair to steady himself.

“You’d probably be best not trying to get me while I’m giving you a ride?” Bonny suggested, unable to help a wry smile.

“Yes. Agreed. Apologies.” His words came so stilted and readily that she had to purse her lips to keep in a laugh. As soon as he relaxed, his voice grew a tad incredulous. “Though—wait, I can’t exactly do anything once I’m down. Are you trying to escape my well-earned retaliation?”

“I would never,” she assured him, no longer trying to hide her smile. “I’ll put you in a tree when we get back and you can splash me all you like.”

Somehow, his voice was amused and skeptical and unimpressed by the notion all at once.

“Really? You’d do that?” he asked, sounding as if he were stifling a smirk.

She shrugged—gently, of course, but with a little inward sense of mischievousness—and he yelped again at the movement.

“Well, it would take a lot of water to get a giant wet,” she reasoned. “I doubt you’ll do much. But yes, for you, I would brave it.”

He chuckled, and she ventured a glance at him out of the corner of her eye.

“Bonny and brave,” he said, looking up at her with a little smile and those dark eyes glimmering with light. “You are a marvel.”

It would probably be very noticeable to him if she swallowed awkwardly and glanced away a bit in embarrassment. She tried not to do that, and instead gave him a crooked little smile in return.

“Hm,” was all she could say. “And what about you?”

“Me? Oh, I’m Nothing.” The jest was terrible, and would still be terrible even if she hadn’t heard it numerous times. “But you are truly a gem among girls.”

If by gem he meant a giantess who still had to enlist his help disentangling birds from her hair, then perhaps. She snorted.

“I don’t know how you would know. You don’t know any other girls.”

“Why would I need to?” His face was innocent, but his eyes were sparkling with mirth and mischief. “You’re the size of forty of them.”

The noise that erupted from her was so abrupt and embarrassingly like a snort it sent the branches trembling. She plucked him off her shoulder and set him gently on the ground so she could swat at him as gently as she could—careful not to strike him with the leaf-motifs on her ring—though it still knocked him off his feet and into the grass. He was laughing too hard to seem to mind, and she couldn’t stifle her laughs either.

“Well, you are really something,” she teased, unable to help her wide smile as she tried futilely to cast him a disapproving look.

That quieted him. He pushed himself to sit upright in the grass, and looked out at the woods ahead for a long moment.

“You think?” Nix asked quietly.

She smiled down at him.

“Yes,” she laughed softly. “Of course.” When he looked up at her, brown eyes curious, she held his gaze and hoped he could see just how glad she was to know him. “Everything, even.”

A small smile grew on his own face, lopsided and warm. He ducked his head a bit and looked away from her again, and embarrassment started to fill her—but it was worth it.

It often weighed on her heart to say that more than she did. She supposed she was the type of person who liked to show such things rather than say them.

She had a cramp in one of her shoulders from trying to carry him smoothly, but the weight on the other one—and on his—seemed far lighter.

—

She remembered the day her father came home livid.

She couldn’t figure out what had happened. Had he been wounded? Insulted? Tricked? He wouldn’t say.

He just raged. The trees bent under his wrath as he stamped them down, carving a new path through the forest. He picked up boulders and flung them at cliffsides, the noise of the impacts like thunder as showers of shattered stone flew in all directions.

She was tending to the garden a ways off—huge vines and stalks entwined their ways up poles and hill-high arbors made from towering pines, where she liked to work and admire how the sunset made the leaves glow gold—and suddenly had a sharp, sinking feeling.

Nix was still at his little shelter-house at their encampment. Her father was there.

Dread washed over her.

“Riddle me this, boy,” her father boomed, in the voice he only used when he wanted an excuse to strike something. “What is thick like glass and thin as air, cold but warm, ugly but fair? Fills the air yet never fills it, never exists but that all things will it?”

There was silence for a long moment.

...Silence. The answer was silence. Her father was trying to trick him into speaking.

Her hands curled around the bucket handle so weakly it was a surprise she didn’t drop it. Her father could crush him if he felt he had the slightest excuse.

Hush, hush, hush, her mind pleaded. Her hands shook. For your life and mine, hush—

There continued to be silence for a moment—and then, Nix must have answered. (Perhaps in jest. He tended to joke when uncertain. That would have been a mistake.)

There came the indescribable sound of a tree being ripped from its roots, and the deafening thunder of it being thrown and smashing down trees and structures.

Her whole body tensed horribly, and all she could see in her mind’s eye was nightmares.

No, she thought weakly.

Her father kept shouting. But not just shouting, addressing. Asking scathing rhetorical questions. She felt faint with relief, because her father had never wasted words on the dead.

I should have brought him with me. The thought flooded her body and left room for nothing else but dread and regret. I could have prevented this.

The stables were long and broad and old. Once, they had housed armies’ steeds and chariots. Now, they were run-down and reinforced so nothing could escape out the doors. The roof was broken off like a lid on hinges at intervals so her father could reach in to arrange and feed his horses.

Her father had seen no reason to keep the stalls clean. When one was so packed with bedding it had decomposed to soil at the floor level, the horse was moved to the next unused stall. There were so many stalls that she barely remembered, sometimes, that there were other ways of addressing the problem.

“The stable has not been cleaned in seven years,” her father boomed. “You will clean it tomorrow, or I will eat you in my stew.”

She couldn’t hear Nix’s response, but she could feel his dread.

Her father stormed away, more violently than any storm, and slowly, after the echoes of his steps faded, silence again began to hang in the air.

That night, it was hard to sleep. The next morning, it was hard to think.

She did the only thing she could think to do in such a nervous state. She brought her friend breakfast. His favorite breakfast—a roast leg of venison and a little knife he could use to cut off what he wanted of it, and fried turkey-eggs, and a modest chunk of soft brown bread.

When she arrived with it, he was still mucking out the first stall. There were hundreds ahead of him. He was only halfway to the floor of the first.

“I can’t eat,” Nix murmured, almost too quietly to hear and with too much misery to bear. “I can’t stop. But thank you.”

The pile outside the door he’d opened up was already growing too large. Of every pitchfork-full he threw out, some began to tumble back in. He was growing frustrated, and out of breath.

Why would her father raise a boy, a prince, only to eat him now? Her father was cunning; surely he’d had other plans for him. Or perhaps he really was kept like the horses, as a trophy or prize taken from the human kingdoms that giants so hated.

Was this his fate? Worked beyond reason, only to be killed?

Pity—or something stronger, perhaps, that she couldn’t name—stirred in her heart. A heat filled her veins, burning with sadness and a desire to set right. Would the world be worthwhile without this one small person in it?

No.

This wouldn’t end this way.

She called to the birds of the air and all the creatures of the forest. Her heart-song was sad and pure—so when she pleaded with them, to please hear, please come and carry away straw and earth and care for what has been neglected, they listened.

The stable was clean by the time the first stars appeared. When she set Nix gently on her shoulder afterward, he hugged the side of her head and laughed in weary relief for a long while.

—

She remembered the lake, and the tree.

“Shame on the wit who helped you,” her father had boomed. He’d inspected the stable by the light of his torch—a ship’s mast he’d wrapped the sails around the top of and drenched in oil—and found every last piece of dirt and straw gone. Had he known it was her, that she could do such a thing? She couldn’t tell. “But I have a worse task for you tomorrow.”

The lake nearest them was miles long, and miles wide, and so deep that even her father could not ford it.

“You will drain it dry by nightfall, or I will have you in my stew.”

The next morning, soon as her father had gone away past the hills, she came to the edge of the lake. She could hear the splashing before she saw it.

Nix stood knee-deep in the water, a large wooden bucket in his hands, struggling to heave the water out and into a trench he’d dug beside the shore.

When she neared him and knelt down in the sand, scanning the water and the trench and the distant, distant shoreline opposite them, Nix fell still for a moment. She looked at him, hoping he could see the apology in her eyes.

“Can I help?” she asked.

He shook his head miserably.

“Thank you. But even if we both worked all day, we couldn’t get it dry before nightfall.” He gave her a wry, sad smile, full of pain. “The birds and the creatures can’t carry buckets, I’m afraid.”

It was true. They could not take away the water.

But perhaps other things could.

She stood and drew a deep breath, and called to the fish of the rivers and lake, and to the deep places of the earth to please hear, please open your mouths and drain the lake dry.

With a tumult that shook the earth beneath them all, they did. The chasm it left in the land was great and terrible, but it was dry.

Her father was livid to see it.

“I’ve a worse job for you tomorrow,” he’d thundered at Nix as the twilight began to darken. “There is a tree that has grown from before your kind walked this land. It is many miles high, with no branches until you reach the top. Fetch me the seven eggs from the bird’s nest in its boughs, and break none, or I will eat you before the day is out.”

She found Nix at dawn the next day at the foot of the tree, staring up it with an expression more wearied than she’d ever seen before. She looked up the tree as well. It seemed to stretch up nearly to the clouds, its trunk wide and strong with not a foothold in sight. At the top, its leaves shone a faint gold in the sunlight.

“He is wrong to ask you these things,” Bonny said softly. Her words hung in the air like the sunbeams seemed to hang about the tree. There was something special about this place, some old power with roots that ran deep. “I’m very sorry for it.”

“You needn’t be,” Nix assured her. His countenance was grey, but he tried to smile. “But thank you. You’re very kind.”

She looked up the tree again. Uncertainty filled her, because this was an old tree—a strong one. Even if it could hear her, it had no obligation to listen. “Will you try?”

He laughed humorlessly. “What choice do I have?”

None. He had none.

He could not escape for long on his own—he could not be gone fast enough or hide safely enough for her father not to sniff him out. The destruction that would follow him would be far more than he would wish on the forests and villages and cities about them.

She, however, bit her lip.

She slipped the gold vine-ring off her hand, and rolled it so that it spiraled between her fingers. It was finely crafted, made to look like it was a young vine wrapping its way partly up her finger.

“This is all I have of my mother,” she said quietly. “But it will serve you better.”

Before he could speak—she knew him well enough to know that he would bid her to stop, to not lose something precious on his account (as if he weren’t?)—she whispered a birdlike song, and pleaded with the gold and the tree and the old good in the world to help them.

When she tossed the ring at the base of the tree (was it shameful that she had to quell a sadness that tried to creep into her heart?), it writhed. One end of it rooted into the ground, and suddenly it was no longer gold, but yellow-green—and the vine grew, and grew, curling around the tree as it stretched upward until it was nearly out of sight.

Nix stared at her with wide eyes and an emotion she couldn’t quite place. Whatever it was, it made her ears warm.

She smiled slightly and stepped back, tilting her head at the vine.

“Well?” she said. He was still staring at her with that look—some mix of awestruck and like he was trying to draw together words—and it made her fold her arms lightly and smile as she looked away. She quickly looked back to him, hoping faintly that her embarrassment wasn’t obvious. “You’d best hurry. That’s still a long way up.”

He seemed to give up finding words for the moment. Nix glanced up the tree, now decked with a spiral of thick, knobby vine that looked nearby like uneven stairs.

“Give me a boost?” he asked with a bright grin. “To speed it up.”

She laughed and gently scooped him up in both hands. “A boost, or just a boost?”

He beamed at her. “As high as you can get me,” he declared, waving an arm dramatically.

She laughed and shook her head. ”Absolutely not. Ready?”

Nix nodded, and she smiled thinly and poured all her focus into a spot a good distance up the tree. With a very gentle but swift motion, she tossed him upward a bit—and he landed on his feet on the vine, one shoulder against the bark, clutching to the tree for support as he laughed.

“A marvel!” he shouted down to her as he climbed. “Never forget that!”

The sun was nearly setting when he descended with the eggs bundled in his handkerchief. He was glowing.

He triumphantly hopped down the last few feet to the ground.

A moment after he landed, a soft crack sounded. He froze.

Slowly, he drew the bundle more securely into his arms against him and looked down. There, by his foot, was a little speckled egg, half-broken in the grass.

She put a hand over her mouth. Nix clutched the rest and stared.

A grievous pain and numbness slowly filled her heart, and she knew it was filling his too.

His shoulders began to shake, and his eyes were glassy.

“Well,” he laughed weakly. ”...That’s it. That’s... that was my chance.” The distress that overtook him was like a dark wave, and it threatened to cover her too. He only shook his head. “I’m so sorry. Thank you for—for helping me.”

For everything, she didn’t give him a chance to add. He was looking at her with the eyes of one who might say that. She couldn’t afford to be overcome with the notion of saying goodbye now.

“No,” she said. Her voice was quiet, at first, but it grew more resolute. “It won’t end this way.”

He blinked up at her, still clutching the other eggs to his chest. She looked down at him, then across the stretch of forest to their home.

Without a word, she gently picked him up and set him on her shoulder. Her jaw tensed as she strode quickly through well-worn paths of the forest, walking as fast as a horse could run.

Once home, she set him down. He was still looking at her questioningly. Her heart beat faster in her chest, and she hoped he couldn’t see the anxiousness rising in her and battling with the excitement.

“I will not let him have you,” she announced firmly. The trees and hills all around were witness to her promise. “Grab what you need. We’ll leave together in the hour.”

—

She‘d barely had time to fix her hair, grab her water flask, and decide it would be best this time of year to go south.

Her father’s footsteps boomed closer across the land.

—

They fled.

They ran, and ran, and struggled and strove, and she called for the help of anything she could think of that would have mercy on them.

Her comb grew into thorns, her hairpin into a hedge of jagged spires. Neither stopped him. Her dress’s hem was in tatters and sweat poured from her brow when they were finally safe.

Her flask lay behind them, cast down and broken, its magic used up.

Her father—her father—lay stretched out motionless in the flooded plain behind them, never to rise again.

—

There was a tiny spark of hope they had that they clung to. A hope of a future, of restoration, of amending the past and pursuing peace—of a life worth living, perhaps far, far away from things worth leaving behind.

(“I’ll go to the castle,” he’d said, his voice brimming with nerves and hope and uncertainty and sadness and an eager warmth. It made her heart try to mirror all those emotions alongside him. “I can tell my mother and father who I am. I’d still recognize them, even if they don’t know me. They’ll take us in, I’m sure of it.”)

He set out into the maze of village streets, assuring her he’d ask for directions and be back promptly. She stayed back by the well at the edge of the town so not to alarm anyone, too exhausted to go another step, but full of hope for him. She would wait until he returned.

(And wait. And wait. And wait and wait and wait and dread—)

The castle gardener came to draw water, and—as if she weren’t as tall as the small trees under the huge one she sat against—struck up a conversation with her about the mysterious boy who’d fallen unconscious across the threshold of the castle, asleep as if cursed to never wake up.

(The spark didn’t last long.)

—

She remembered when he could move.

“Please,” she whispered, as soft as her voice would go. “Please, if you can hear me. Wake up.”

(“Oh, dearest,” the gardener’s frail wife had murmured to her when the kind gardener brought her home to partake of a bit of supper. “I’m afraid they won’t let you in as you are. Would you let me sing you a catch as you eat?”)

The gardener’s wife was frailer by the end of it, but her heart-song could change things, like her own. Instead of towering at the heights of the houses, she was now six feet tall by human reckoning, and still thankful the castle had high halls and tall doors.

(Their daughter, a fair maiden with a shadow about her, had watched from the doorway.)

Nix Nought Nothing lay nearly motionless in the cushioned chair the castle servants had placed him in. His chest rose and fell slowly, like he was in a deep sleep.

He was still smaller than she was, but not by much. He seemed so large, or close. She could see details she’d never noticed before—his freckles, the definition of his eyelashes, the scuffs and loose threads in his tunic.

The way his head hung as if he could no longer support it.

She held him gently—oddly, now, with both her hands so small on his arms and an uncertainty of what to do now—and wept over him. She sung through her tears, her heart pleading with his very soul, but to no avail. He did not wake up.

He didn’t hear her—likely couldn’t hear her. All around him, the air was sharp and still and dead. Cursed.

Still, her heart pleaded with her, now. Try, try. Don’t stop speaking to him. Remember? He never stopped trying.

“You joke that you are nothing," she said, with every drop of earnestness in her being. "But I tell you, you are all I had, and all I had ever wished for.”

There was power in names. She knew that. But was his even a proper name? It really wasn’t—though it was all he had.

It was all she had as well. She had exhausted everything else close to her. There was nothing left to call on, to plead with, but him.

“Nix Nought Nothing,” she said softly. “Awaken, please.”

Her voice, no longer so resonant and deep with giant’s-breath, sounded foreign in her ears. It was mournful and soft like the doves of the rocks, and grieved like the groan of the earth when it split.

“I cleaned the stable, I lave the lake, and clomb the tree, all for the love of thee,” she said, her voice thickening with tears. A drop of saltwater fell and landed on his tunic, creating another of many small blotches. “And will you not awaken and speak to me?”

Nothing.

—

She didn’t remember being shown out of the room. Her vision was too blurred, and her mind was too distraught and overwhelmed. The next thing she could focus on enough to recall was that she was now seated on a stiff chair in the hall. Someone had been kind enough to set a cup of water on the little table beside her.

The towering doors creaked softly behind her, and at last, someone new entered. She looked over her shoulder, barely able to see through the dry burning left behind by her tears.

A man and a woman stood in the door. They were dressed in fine robes, and looked like nobles.

"What is the matter, dear?" the woman asked, looking over her appearance with eyes soft with pity. She came close, and her presence was like cool balm, gentle and comforting. "Why do you weep?"

The gold roses woven in the green of the woman's dress swam in her vision as she dropped her gaze, unsure what to say. These people seemed kind. But were they? Would they send her out from here, unable to return to him?

They would be right to do so. She was a stranger here, and Nix could not vouch for her like he'd planned.

"No matter what I do," she finally said softly, "I cannot get Nix Nought Nothing to awaken and speak to me."

In one moment, only the woman stood there—in the next, the man was beside her. The air was suddenly still and heavy like glass, and it felt as though there was a thread drawn taut between them all for a moment.

"Nix Nought Nothing?" they asked in unison, their voices full of something tense and heavy and sharp. When she looked up, nearly fearful at the sudden change in their tone, their faces were slack and pale.

Something stirred in her heart. Look. What do you see?

Green and gold. Their wide eyes were a familiar warm brown.

—

Now, things are changing.

According to the servant who'd been keeping an eye on him, all from the kingdom had been offered reward if they could wake the sleeping stranger, and the the gardener's daughter had succeeded. It was a mystery how it had happened—by whom had he been cursed? Her father? Then why could she not wake him, but a maiden from the castle-town here could?—but now, with the King and Queen hovering beside her and unable to stay still for anticipation, no one cared.

The gardener's daughter was fetched, and bid to sing the unspelling catch for the prince. (Prince. He was a prince, while she was a ruffian's daughter. She kept forgetting, when she was with him.) It was a haunting one that grated on her ears, as selfishly-written magics often did—and as if bitterness still crept at the girl's heart at the sight of all who were here, she left as soon as it was finished.

Nix Nought Nothing awoke—he awoke! He opened his eyes and sat up and looked at her as if seeing the sunrise after a year of darkness, and how her heart leaps high into her throat at the sight—and true to form, only blinks a few times at her as he seems to take her in before coming to terms with it.

"You look a bit different," he remarks, tilting his head slightly. "Or did I grow?"

She chokes on a snort.

"Hush," is all she can say. What had been an attempt at an unimpressed expression melts into a wavering smile. "Are you done napping now?"

He opens his mouth to retort, but a grin creeps onto his face before he can. He snickers. "Have I slept that long?"

"Nigh a week," the Queen says—and when Nix turns his head and sees her, his eyes grow wide. The Queen's smile grows broad and wavers with emotion, and the King's eyes are crinkled at the edges, and shining. "It has been a long time."

Her own father had never shown love like this—like the way Nix tries to leap from his chair at the same moment his parents rush to hold him, all of them laughing and sobbing and shouting exclamations of love and excitement and I-thought-I-would-never-see-you-agains. So much joy rolls off of them that she thinks she could have stood there watching forever and been content.

The first thing he does, after the first surge of this, is turn and introduce her to his parents, who had barely finished hugging him and kissing him and calling him their own dear son.

"This is the one who helped me," Nix says, already gesturing to her in excitement as he looks from her to his parents. "She sacrificed much to save me from the giant. Her kindness is brilliant and she blesses all who know her."

She tries not to look embarrassed at the glowing praise as Nix comes and stands beside her as he recounts their blur of a tale to his parents.

"Ah! She is bonny and brave," says the King. By the end of Nix's stories of their escapes, they're smiling warmly at her with such pride that she dips her head and smiles.

Nix Nought Nothing glances sideways up at her and raises a brow, a knowing smirk tugging at his lips.

"I've tried to tell her that," he agrees. "I don't think she's ever believed me."

She purses her lips and glances down at him. "I'll believe it the day you believe you are not nothing."

"Alright." Simple as that, he folds his arms and raises a brow at her. "I believe it. Fair trade?"

"Fair enough," she decides, with a crooked little smile. He beams, as if she's done something worth being proud of, and looks to his parents, who indeed look proud of them both.

"We would welcome you as our daughter," the King declares heartily, and both the Queen and Nix brighten, which makes her too embarrassedly fixated on the thought of family? Starting anew? to register what comes next. "Surely, you should be married!"

Nix looks at her, arms still folded, his eyes twinkling. There's something hopeful in his eyes that makes her certain this diminutive new heart of hers has skipped a few beats.

"Should we? Surely?" he asks, as if this is a normal thing to be discussing.

She works her jaw and swallows a few times, unable to help how obviously awkward she still likely looks. A flush tickles her face, and the queen seems to put a hand over her mouth to smile behind it.

"I... don't... suppose... I would mind," she manages, and—with those bright eyes so affectionate, and on her—Nix starts snickering at her expression. It's rude, but so, so warm she can't mind. She only discovers how broadly she's smiling when she tries to purse her lips and glare at him but is unable to. "Oh, go back to sleep!" she chides, too gleeful inside to truly mind, even as she makes a motion as if throwing one of the chair-cushions at him.

"Never!" he declares, pretending to dodge the invisible pillow. He makes broad gestures that she presumes are meant to emphasize how serious he is about this. When he stands straight and tall and sets his shoulders, she thinks that the boy she's explored the forest with really does look like a prince. "I have my family and my love all together in safety at last. We have much to speak of, and much time yet to spend with each other." He's a prince, but of course, he's also still himself. He immediately gets a mischievous glimmer in his eyes and puts a hand to his chest nobly as he does what he's done for as long as she's known him—jokes, when his emotions rise. "I shall never adhere to a bedtime as long as I live!"

My love, her heart still repeats every time it beats—as payback, likely, for her calling it diminutive. My love, my love, my love.

She doesn't let it out, for she doesn't know what it will do. But the words weave a song within her, so vibrant and effervescent and strong, brighter and clearer than any she's had before.

"I am glad to see you are certainly still my dear son," the Queen says, her own eyes twinkling. "I'm certain you both need fed well after such a journey. Come, perhaps you both can tell us more of it as supper is prepared."

They fall into an easy tumble of conversation and rejoicing and genial planning, and her heart is so light she thinks it must be plotting to escape her chest.

On the week's end from when she brought him here, Nix Nought Nothing and his family welcomes her into their home. It feels natural. It feels warm, and homey, and so pleasant and right that she often has to stop tears of weary joy from welling up as she considers it all.

Once upon a time, she thought she'd known happiness well enough without him. She had known what it was like to be without a friend, and without love.

Now, it’s hard to remember it.

#inklingschallenge #four loves fairy tale retelling challenge #each all everything #theme: philia #theme: eros #story: complete #Nix Nought Nothing #fairy tale retelling #And there we have it!! A THING that is now FINISHED #Some changes have been made from the original fairytale #such as: no one’s losing their toes like that on my watch!!#please note that having everyone keep their toes actually improves the story #by letting the characters be happier thanks to having toes #you’re welcome #edit: I forgot it was fingers AND toes #oof??#this is an extremities-safe zone #Bonny and Nix #There are some parts of this I’m not sure are the best they could be BUT it’s FINISHED and that was my main goal!#(I don't finish things I start writing near often enough; so whoo! Small victory!)#wait a minute did I include all four types of love??#I DID #that's hilarious that was not intentional #at the discretion of the contest runner to include; as doing all four sounds a bit extra:#theme: storge #theme: agape #This was supposed to be a friendship/romantic love combination that would surprise no one who has read my writing #imagine my own (retrospectively unwarranted) surprise when it turned into an excuse for me to write all the kinds of love??#Anyway this was so much fun to write! I hope you enjoy! <3 #salt and light

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