Call me Hope. She/her, 21, cis lesbian. I like to write about pretty girls prone to hiccups. I write primarily for video games or generic fantasy, but I’m in a pretty wide variety of fandoms, and nothing’s entirely off-limits, so anything could happen.
Minors DNI. I don’t write smut, but this is still very much a kink blog, and I don’t want to interact with minors on it. That’d just be creepy.
If you think you know who I am, no you don’t. I’ve taken great pains to not be recognized, so please just forget any connections to anyone else. Besides, what were you doing at the devil’s sacrament?
i kind of want to establish a species and background for my roók for my next hicfic with her but i’m worried about being recognized. anyone got any thoughts?
So, there’s this medieval fantasy video game series I like. Let’s call it Wyvern Era. It has three great games and one terrible one, and this story is for the terrible game. Better writers than me are attempting to rewrite the game, but I don’t feel like committing to that, so I’m just writing a hicfic for it instead. Possibly more than one.
Principal characters:
Roók: The game’s protagonist. Can be male, female or nonbinary, and can be a variety of fantasy species. Mine is female, but I am paranoid about being found out, so I won’t be specifying her species or appearance or background at all beyond that, especially because the romance I picked is not popular. Picture her as whoever or whatever you want. All you really need to know about her is, she’s a human/elven/dwarven/Qunári disaster, and a lesbian.
Béllara: An elven mage obsessed with ancient magic and relics. She has ADHD, she’s pan, she’s a huge nerd, and she’s a literal ray of sunshine. Love her.
Without further ado, enjoy!
Roók has a problem.
To be specific, Roók has a multitude of problems. This one isn't her biggest. It doesn't even break the top ten. Top twenty, maybe. But it's a frustrating, embarrassing problem, and it's bothering her far more than it has any right to.
The problem is this: she has the hiccups.
Well, the hiccups alone don't constitute the problem. They're a problem, but the whole problem is that she keeps getting them.
Hiccups have always given Roók trouble, more than she cares to admit. She got them constantly as a child, and though they'd decreased dramatically as she grew into adulthood, they've never stopped completely. She's still quite a bit more prone than the average person, and she's learned to live with that.
But it's never been as bad as it is now. Since this nonsense with the gods started, her hiccups have been worse than ever. Anytime she's anxious, or upset, or just existing, as of late, there's a good chance her body will respond by making her burst into hiccups. This is her third case this week, and she's getting really, really sick of it.
Her only saving grace is that so far, the others don't seem to have noticed. Not much, at least. They've no doubt noticed her hiccupping at times—they're difficult to hide, each one jerking her whole body—but no one's said anything, and presumably no one's noticed that it's a recurring thing. She knows, logically, that it's only a matter of time before that happens, but foolishly, desperately, she hopes that if she keeps concealing this to the best of her ability, she can put that off indefinitely.
Which leads her to her current predicament.
One of Ńeve's notebooks has gone missing. The work of the wisps, no doubt. Roók volunteered to try and find it two hours ago, a mission derailed half an hour ago when she started to hiccup. Since then, she's been keeping to the empty areas of the Lighthouse, where the others won't spot her, but at this point, she's confident the notebook isn't in any of those places. In fact, out of the likely suspects for places the wisps like to move stuff to, there's really only one spot left for the notebook to be. Unfortunately, it is also where Roók least wants to be when she's like this.
But she told Ńeve she'd find the notebook, and she can't very well wait the hiccups out—that could take hours. So she'll just have to suck it up.
Roók takes a deep breath and knocks on Béllara's door.
Béllara answers. "Oh! Roók! Hi! What's going on? Not that you need a reason to be here, of course, you're always welcome. But I'm assuming you have a reason."
Roók nods and smothers a hiccup. "Just looking for Ńeve's notebook. *hmk!*" Shit. Please don't notice. Please don't notice. Please—
"Oh, you've got hiccups? I hate when that happens. I can get you some water if you'd like?"
She blushes and stifles another jolt. "No. But *hmf!* but thank you. Just, have *hnk!* have you seen one of her *hmk!* notebooks anywhere?"
"I don't think so." Béllara shakes her head. "But I've got a lot of stuff in here. And it's kind of a mess. And wisps like to put stuff in the middle of messes. So, I mean, it might be here somewhere. We can search for it together?"
Roók nods again, lungs spasming painfully with a suppressed hiccup, the force of it making her jerk. "Sure."
This could take a while. But hopefully, two will be better than one. And hopefully, Roók won't embarrass herself too catastrophically.
They begin to search separate boxes in relative silence, Roók continuing to muffle hiccups that make her chest and shoulders jump. Béllara, of course, never leaves a room quiet for long. (It's sweet.) "So, is this one of the secret notebooks? Or are we allowed to take a peek?"
Roók restrains a giggle, knowing even that runs the risk of making her hiccups worse. "It's case notes," she answers. "Old *hmph!* old ones, so yes, we *hnk!* we can take a *hmk!* take a look inside if we *mk!* if we so des*hic!* excuse me, desire." She's definitely blushing again. There's nothing worse than letting loose an unmuffled hiccup in front of someone, especially gorgeous elven experts in ancient magic. In Roók's opinion, there's no sound more humiliating.
"Oh, you don't have to apologize," Béllara says lightly. "Everyone gets hiccups sometimes."
"I know. I *hmpk!* I just—" I just think they're the most embarrassing thing in Thedaś and I hate how often I get them. "I prefer to keep *mf!* keep them quiet."
"How come? I mean, it's just you and me in here, and I don't care about them."
But I do. I want to jump into the void beneath us knowing that you're seeing me like this. If I don't mitigate it I think I might actually drop dead. "Call it *hmk!* habit."
"Got it. You're sure you don't want water or something?"
"It *hnk!* it wouldn't help," Roók admits. "They stop *hmph!* when they want to." It's always been that way with her hiccups. She can go for hours on end, and nothing helps except time. "I'm sorry *hk!* if they're irritating you." She swallows a hiccup.
"Irritating me?" Béllara repeats disbelievingly. "Roók, you're the one who has to deal with them! I just—I feel bad for you. I wish I could help."
Roók grimaces, a stifled hiccup thumping against her ribcage. "I don't need your *hnk!* pity." The less attention anyone pays to her consistently malfunctioning diaphragm, the better.
"No, I—it's not pity, Roók. You're my friend. Friends help each other out, and I wish I could do that now. Nothing more to it than that."
You're my friend. The words shouldn't sting. Roók knows there's nothing to their relationship beyond that. Béllara doesn't feel the same way she does, and even if she did, she certainly wouldn't now, not after watching her bounce around like an idiot. She'd do well to accept that.
"Understood," she says, suppressing a hiccup that jerks her head back. Maker, she hates this.
Focus, Roók. She has a notebook to find, and the sooner she finds it, the sooner she can hightail it out of here and stop making a spectacle of herself in front of beautiful, brilliant Béllara. She redoubles her efforts.
For a little while, the only sounds in the room are Roók's stifled hiccups and the two of them searching through Béllara's things. Under just about any other circumstance, Roók would be happy just to be around Béllara, especially alone, but under this one, she's just frustrated, and embarrassed, and miserable. She hates her hiccups, and she hates that she has them now of all times, and she hates that they just won't stop. No matter how hard she tries, how much she wills herself to not hiccup, they just keep coming, incessant. Her breath keeps hitching and her body keeps bouncing and jerking and she keeps making those stupid, humiliating little noises, halfway between a gasp and a gulp.
They continue like this for some time, until Béllara speaks. "Are you alright?"
Roók arches a brow, not looking up from the box she's searching. "Aside from the *hmph!* obvious?"
"Well—yes. I just mean, you look upset. Is something wrong? Beyond the hiccups?"
She hesitates. "I just *hmk!* feel like such an *hmf!* idiot right now," she admits, another hiccup thumping her chest.
"You're not an idiot!"
"I mean…" Roók shrugs, then jerks with another hiccup. "I am. Maybe not *hnk!* because of these, but *hmpf!* I'm not exactly *hmk!* brilliant." Not like you. "Pretty much all *mk!* all I do is make *hk!* make bad decisions."
Béllara frowns, stepping closer to her. "Roók, you shouldn't talk about yourself that way."
"Trust me." She grins ruefully. "Once *hmf!* once these stop, ask me *hmph!* about how I joined up *hmp!* with Varrić and Hárding. It was *hnk!* pretty stupid of me. But I'm *hmk!* not recounting it like this."
"I don't blame you," Béllara concedes. "Just—you aren't dumb, Roók."
"Okay." She doesn't feel like arguing this point when she can barely talk. "I just *hk!* just look dumb right now."
"No, you don't."
"No?" Roók swallows a hiccup. "What do you call this *hmf!* this predicament, in that case? *hmp!*”
"Honestly, Roók? It's kind of cute."
Roók's heart stops. She doesn't know what she was expecting, but it was absolutely, categorically not that. "Cute?" She muffles a hiccup.
Béllara's face has colored. "Not in, like, a demeaning way," she clarifies. "Not like a pet, or a child. Just, uh—sweet. Endearing. I mean—um." Her lips move soundlessly for another moment before she turns back to her box, rifling furiously through it. "Found it!"
Roók blinks. "The *hmk!* the notebook?"
"Yeah!" she confirms. "Wisps put it in the middle of my original notes on the Nádas Dírthalen. Don't know why they did that, but I guess trying to figure them out is sort of a fool's errand. You want me to bring it to her?"
Roók's brain is still stuck on you think I'm cute? but apparently the time for that is past, and frankly, with each passing second she's becoming more and more certain she imagined the whole thing. "Sure."
"Great." Béllara starts edging towards the door. "Awesome. I'll go do that. Feel better. I think that's appropriate to say here. I have no idea. Um—bye!" She darts out, and Roók is left alone to contemplate what the hell just happened.
Cute. Béllara thinks her hiccups are cute. This humiliating little quirk of hers that pops up at the worst times, that's increased tenfold in the past month, and Béllara thinks it's cute, sweet, endearing.
Roók's diaphragm settles down about twenty minutes later, but for the first time, she's only mostly dreading the inevitable next bout.
God, I can’t believe I’m doing this. I’ve been a lurker in this community for months now, maybe even years. It’s way past midnight, and I’ve impulsively made a sideblog to participate. Was this a good idea? I guess we’ll find out.
But, yeah. Call me Hope. I’m 21, I’m a lesbian, and I’m here now. I should be posting a story here sooner or later. Hopefully sooner.
