(warnings ahead for implied/mentioned domestic and child abuse, please be sure to take care of yourselves)
*.*.*
The building looked just like the rumors said it would, haunted and decrepit. Like a prop for a horror movie.
The tooth of time had clearly found it's favorite chew toy and while you could see attempts at repairing things here and there, it hadn't been enough to combat the building's slow decay or to chase away the strangely unsettling feeling that surrounded this place.
The only upside was that it was so cheap it was ridiculous and after getting away from your old home, leaving a terrible relationship behind, you could not afford to be picky.
It was just for a little while, you told yourself as you dragged your suitcase up the stairs, your duffle bag so heavy it's strap across your shoulder dug in painfully.
The stairs had chipped edges and stains you didn't even want an explanation for and the same went for the hallway, the floor there looking like it had sustained some sort of damage over the years and was in dire need of some professional cleaning and renovating.
You'd just stay here long enough until you got back on your feet so you could move on to a home that didn't look like it might carry diseases from forgotten times.
You had read plenty of rumors online about this place, on the site where you had seen the ad for available apartments. People had ripped this building to shreds in the comment section, talking about moaning and screeching at night, at feeling stalked and watched, at things vanishing and reappearing elsewhere.
They talked about bloody footprints left outside in the hallways, a neighbor gone, never to be seen again while all their belongings were left behind. Some also complained that the landlord didn't bother to fix anything unless someone hounded him relentlessly beforehand.
When you had called the man, asking if any apartments were still available, the landlord had been downright ecstatic, reassuring you that you had numerous apartments to choose from, since there were almost no residents.
It seemed people only came here if they were down on their luck and even the desperate ones didn't stay long.
There also wasn't an elevator, because this building was really damn old and had never gotten any sort of significant overhaul. Those who couldn't take the stairs chose one of the apartments on the first floor.
You reached your apartment and dug out the key your landlord had given you upon arrival. It looked a little bit rusted around the edges, faint scratches covering the surface. It smelled strongly of wet iron despite being dry.
Unlocking the door, you were braced for mold in the corners and for the smell of damp oldness or something worse, only to pause.
The inside looked surprisingly...fine. Nothing fancy and there were discolorations along the walls where clearly no one had bothered to give it a new coat of paint in a couple of years at the very least, but there was no mold, no rot, no water damage and it didn't smell bad. You had expected far worse, if you were being honest.
The floorboards creaked under your feet as you set down your luggage by the door, but as you cautiously explored your new home you were pleasantly surprised to find that everything worked as intended. Sure the faucet squeaked like it had never gotten oiled and the water rushing through the pipes was loud, but the light bulbs didn't flicker and the little oven and stove in the kitchen worked just fine.
It was, all in all, not as bad as you had expected.
It didn't take long at all, however, until you felt it. A presence in the air, invisible and unseen and yet you swore someone, something, was there. You stood still, your suitcase and duffle bag just set down in the empty living room and you downright held your breath as you waited.
But nothing happened and so you slowly started to move again, cautiously and stiffly, like you were trying to avoid provoking something bigger and far, far more dangerous than anyone could ever hope to be. It felt like razor sharp teeth were holding your entire apartment between their jaws, debating if you should be crushed or not.
Before long you started to play some music over your phone, trying to combat the oppressive silence.
It worked, to a degree. The presence didn't vanish, but it seemed to...settle, for lack of a better word, like it was listening. It almost felt like having someone in the apartment with you, in another room and neither of you were speaking. Someone who, you knew down to your very core, could shred you like flimsy paper.
It wasn't quite as...bad, after a while. Unsettling and creepy, sure, but you'd rather endure this chilling presence than go back to your ex. Your life would only turn into a guaranteed hell if you did.
Since this place had a small if very old kitchen installed, you left briefly to get some groceries and you bought an air mattress on a discounter a few streets away, along with some blankets and paper plates to tide you over. You had left only with your most important possessions and savings, your life squished into your luggage until nothing else had fit inside anymore.
You ate a cold, quick dinner, eyeing the sinking sun worriedly. In the slowly spreading darkness of the approaching night the creepiness of the whole building grew, like dark paint getting poured over an untouched canvas.
At night things really did get worse. You could hear it, the scratching and moaning outside your apartment, the creaking as doors opened and then slammed closed and you swore you heard something move in the hallway right outside your bedroom door.
You curled up tight under your blankets and you played the music on your phone a little louder and slowly, as the hours passed, the apartment building seemed to settle again, the noise growing softer until you could pretend it was just an annoying neighbor banging around their cabinets and generally being noisy.
Your sleep was fitful and restless as you barely dared to doze off. You were exhausted when your alarm rang and you dragged yourself out of bed, your head aching. You blearily got ready for the job interview you had today and by the time you were good to go you had managed to wake yourself up enough that you felt as ready as you could be.
You took a calming breath and then you felt it again, a little bit of a chill in the air and that presence creeping through your apartment once more.
You stared at yourself in the spotty mirror left behind by a previous tenant and you told yourself that you hadn't gotten away from one horror only to cower at the feet of another. However, you also weren't foolish enough to think that you could actually chase away whatever lived here.
This thing had been here before you and it was something...otherworldly. You had no idea if it was a ghost or some kind of eldritch creature or whatever else.
"There's crackers in the cupboard if you want any," you said, putting on a brave facade as you talked to the air around you. "I'd appreciate it if we could get along, if you don't mind. I'll be off to find work now, wish me luck."
It felt like the presence had paused and you felt watched all the way out of the apartment and that sensation only vanished when you walked down the street and around a corner, disappearing from sight.
You were indeed lucky, for the interview went very well and to your relieved surprise, you were hired right away. Not many people moved into this area, however, and you were willing to bet that it had to do with the creepy apartment building that seemed to drench the entire street with it's presence, spine chilling and shiver inducing.
You were very relieved about your success when you returned to your new home, a small, celebratory dinner bought with some of your savings.
As you entered the apartment, that presence was in the air once more, almost anticipatory, lurking above and around you all at once.
"I got lucky," you told your apartment and a small, hesitant smile appeared at your face despite the prickle of unease that tickled at your neck. "You must be my good luck charm."
As you entered the kitchen you saw the empty cracker box in the trash and blinked in surprise. Huh, whatever was here it already had more manners than your rotten ex did.
"Thanks for cleaning up after yourself," you told the apartment and you started to get your dinner ready. You hesitated for a moment, before setting aside an extra serving. "For you, if you like."
By the time you finished eating, the extra food had vanished and you blinked when you saw the paper plate in the trash. You hadn't even heard anything. You cleaned up after yourself, talking to the air about your day, both to combat the unease that still clung to you, that made you feel small and squishy and like prey and because you hadn't really had anyone listen to you for a long while.
Your ex boyfriend had managed to isolate you completely from your friends and family and you were too ashamed to try and reach out to them again. A part of you was also convinced that they wouldn't want to hear from you again, that you had caused them enough grief already.
You fell quiet at that thought and you silently went into the bathroom to wash the stress of the day and night away, the stress of leaving your old life behind, only to immediately decide that there was no way you were going to take a bath without thoroughly cleaning everything.
"Be back in a bit," you told the apartment as you left, heading to the very same store that had just hired you to buy cleaning products. Returning with your small haul, you set to scrubbing every inch of the bathroom and you felt the presence hover over your shoulder all the while.
"I will not risk getting sick," you told the air as you scrubbed the bathtub. "Do you know how long it takes to get rid of foot fungus? I am absolutely not risking that."
Once you were done cleaning to your satisfaction, you were covered in sweat and exhausted and you realized that you'd have to ask the presence to leave. You did not want to bathe while feeling watched.
"Would you mind waiting outside?" you asked the air. "I want to do this in private."
There was a long, heavy second of stillness, as though something around you was thinking and then you felt the presence pull back and you only realized how tense you had been when your breath rushed out of you with relief.
"Thank you," you called with a raised voice, only to jump when you heard scratching down the outside of the bathroom door.
You scrubbed down swiftly only to realize that you hadn't brought a change of clothes.
"Uh, would you mind not looking as I get dressed?" you called out into the hallway and weirdly enough, you got the impression that something was turning away from you. Still there but not paying you any attention.
You scurried down the hall to get dressed and as soon as you called out that you were done, the feeling of something looming over your shoulder was back.
"Want to watch something on my phone with me?" you asked after a long moment of heavy silence that ended up feeling a little awkward and quiet tense.
You settled down on the air mattress and you swore the shadows around you darkened and when, from the corner of your eye, it looked like some sort of large, clawed shadow hand was creeping over the edge of your mattress, you resolutely ignored it, even as your stomach clenched uneasily.
Your exhaustion caught up to you halfway through the third movie and you woke up to moaning and scratching and doors creaking open and banging closed again.
"What's wrong?" you blearily asked the air around you, still hazy with sleep and the noise quieted for a moment, before it felt like something was leaning over you, all darkness and numerous eyes and razor sharp teeth and you didn't dare open your own eyes to look back at it.
It seemed to stare and wait until you fitfully fell asleep again and while you jerked awake a few times throughout the night, the unsettling noise was distant, like a drunk neighbor two doors down acting like a dick.
In the morning you got ready for your first shift and you told the creature, that this place absolutely belonged to more than the landlord, that you'd be gone for a while and you'd bring back dinner.
While you had hoped to find distraction at work, it seemed as though everyone knew you lived in the haunted building and everyone wanted to talk about it. It seemed you couldn't get away from the thing you shared your home with even now.
Where you had been unsettled but not completely frightened before, now you heard more stories about people turning up dead in that building. Most died in very bloody, gruesome ways.
"A man was torn to shreds just last month," an older woman told you as you bagged her purchase and she sighed, "You look after yourself, that's no way to die."
Indeed not, but it wasn't like you could go anywhere else either. Your savings wouldn't allow for anything better and you were not going to go back. In the end, that thing in your new home wasn't worse than your ex. Not yet, at least.
You bought the food you had promised to bring after your shift and you grabbed one of the cheap books set up on the side as well. The kind that your grandpa had referred to as dime novels, smiling in victory whenever he had found something for your grandma, who loved them to bits. The cheesier the better.
You really missed them.
You felt the presence settle around you the moment you set foot onto the property, the apartment building looming ahead and you returned to your dingy little flat, finding it undisturbed. Nothing had vanished and nothing had gotten broken.
You cooked another meal for yourself and whatever monster lived here and you set down the novel beside the extra serving you had plated.
"In case you get bored," you told it and you looked away for just a moment, but the food and novel were both gone when you glanced back, the paper plate once more neatly put into the trash.
As you ate you thought that your unexpected companion was a bearable houseguest. Sure, it's night time manners were atrocious, but otherwise...it could have been worse.
Especially since you couldn't get rid of it anyway, you might as well figure out how to live with it instead.
*.*.*
If you want to read more, be sure to check out my website or give the masterpost a whirl!
Back when I was in forensic anthropology undergrad, one of my favorite units we did was on teeth. We received a mint tin full of teeth, and we had a plastic tray we taped a grid onto with a space for each tooth position, and then we had to use the wear patterns on the teeth and other factors to determine what position each tooth had held when it was in a person. I’ve always thought teeth were cool, when I was a kid and one of my silver-capped baby teeth fell out, I wore it around my neck as a pendant until I lost it somewhere, so I loved this unit.
At the time, I was also working at a pawn shop, and people would sometimes sell us teeth that had gold fillings, and one of the employees would remove the gold and then we were to dispose of the teeth, but I collected them in my own little tin at work to practice with(ethically-dubious, keeping people’s teeth without permission). One day, someone was at my desk and found my little tin of teeth and freaked out and threw them all away and I was very sad.
I also briefly worked as a dental assistant for a time, that was also fun, but I didn’t get to keep any teeth.
This reminds me of the time I found a bag of teeth in my glovebox!
On break one day, hiding in my car as per usual, I innocently attempted to shove a handful of loose tip money in my glove compartment, i.e. a Later Me problem. However, when the door fell open, a bag of absolutely wretchéd (human?) teeth shamelessly presented itself with a hearty CLUNK as the drawer slammed open from the weight.
I contemplated the bag of teeth as it settled, gently clacking, telling me... something.
First thought: Well, of course there's a bag of teeth in my glove box. Not a modicum of shock. It felt... inevitable. Oh yeah, here's the teeth. The teeth compartment. There they are. A mysterious bag of (extremely filthy? HUMAN??) teeth is confusing and potentially threatening to most, sure. But I know who I am.
More importantly, I know who I'm married to.
Gathering up the precarious bag of (fake human? yes??) teeth, I sent my spouse this image and the following question:
So there I sit, baking in my hot car, a bag of Somebody Else's Teeth on my lap, awaiting a reply from my spouse like an urgent telegram. Against all sense and propriety I open said bag and start fishing through my treasure, holding them up to the light like a jeweler for inspection.
The teeth (pleasantly cool in my sweaty palms) are upsettingly - and unquestionably - human. Heavy as pearls, hard as hell, slick as bone china. The base of each tooth is coated in a sticky red substance, which I scrape off to properly examine. Somewhere, the Law and Order theme is playing. Ice T shakes his head at my folly.
The phone, and my spouse, remain silent.
After a very thorough examination, I come to a comforting conclusion: these are, in fact, (almost) entirely fake human teeth, likely blanks to use as replacements for the unteethed. The red substance is apparently wax, possibly to sort and display said chompers. This does not at all explain why they are, again, in my fucking glove box.
The phone finally beeples, and I shove the handful of teeth in my jacket pocket: another Later Me problem. Right now, knowledge is paramount.
The first message is not enlightening.
Spouse: OH NOOOO YOU FOUND THEM
me: ????????????
Spouse: I'll explain when you get home
me: ??????!!!!!!!!
SPOILER ALERT: My spouse purchased the teeth at an estate sale for a dentist who'd recently passed. They happened to borrow my shitbox car that day and shoved the bag in the glove box to keep it hidden. A clear failure, as I don't know how you forget a bag of teeth in someone else's car, but that's not my mystery to solve.
It turns out my spouse had a plan for those teeth. And O! what a plan it was! You see, we'd recently purchased The Property: a strange house built by an unbelievably creepy (and now thankfully deceased) mechanic in the early 50s. Not fun creepy, like my bag of teeth. More "Why is there a hatch cut into your roof" or "What is that secret compartment for" and "Why are there printouts of police codes everywhere." This is important, because...
...The Spouse's plan was to take these teeth and hide them throughout The Property. The very large, multi-structure Property we'd barely explored. They swore up and down they would never have shared their provenance with me; it was intended I would find each tooth over the course of years, growing more frustrated and confused every time a molar showed up in the attic or garage or Hatch or any number of infinite hidey-holes we now possessed.
This was a great plan, for sure. 10/10. And it might have worked, if they could hold it together long enough to fool me (doubtful). But I don't think it would have, because after all:
Adelia hadn't expected her morning to start with a thud and horrible, snarling screech loud enough that she was awake and moving between one moment and the next, throwing herself out of bed in startled fright. Dizzy nausea from waking in a flash and getting up so quickly swept over her for a second, her heart pounding hard and fast.
Peering past her bed, thick, down-stuffed blankets in disarray and spilled half onto the floor, she saw a dark shape slumped on her balcony. A shape far too large and bulky to belong to a mere human.
A monster had crash-landed on her balcony, and she saw massive, leathery wings arch against the early dawn sky as the monster shifted from its sideways sprawl onto its front. One of those wings was easily twice her size and its huge body was hidden beneath a big, formless cloth so thoroughly she couldn't even guess at what kind of creature it might be.
It tried to move, only to collapse. She heard it wheezing even through her closed balcony doors and saw blood spilling forth between folds of the cloth as it used its wings to push itself up, leaning onto them much like a bat would. The blood poured onto the ground so thickly and quickly it looked as though someone was upending a wine bottle.
She caught the glint of silver between the folds of blood-soaked cloth and knew this monster must have escaped a hunting party by the skin of its teeth. It was unable to get up, she realized as she watched it writhe, trying to rise only for its wings to buckle again. It just barely kept from falling onto the silver thing protruding from its chest.
Adelia had to admit that she wasn’t as well-versed when it came to the monsters of this world as she would have liked to be. Her father considered such interests beneath the concern of nobility since they had hunters for such things and he especially thought that no womenfolk should get involved, either.
What little bits of knowledge she had, she had scraped together through eavesdropped conversations and from people she spoke with on market day. The latter, as much as she loved the people of their town, weren’t entirely reliable either, for their information revolved heavily around rumors and the retellings of stories no one knew the origin of anymore.
There was one creature in particular, however, that the people in her hometown knew a bit more about: werewolves. Their town had had a problem with those when she had been a babe and people still spoke about it to this day, especially since monsters hadn’t really been an issue before or since then. At least, she could rule out werewolves, because no one had mentioned them having wings in any of the stories she had heard.
Monsters were the most frightening, unnatural things that people had to face outside of war, so any happenstance burned itself quite firmly into the memories of the townsfolk.
There were, of course, plenty of fairytales, as well, though Adelia had to admit that she didn't know how much truth there was to them. To golden geese and strange little men fulfilling wishes and shapeshifters luring young maidens to their doom.
There were, most likely, plenty of big, winged creatures in the world, so without further information and seeing more of the monster unveiled, it would be impossible for her to even start guessing what kind was currently bleeding out on her balcony.
A raven suddenly tumbled down atop the creature, looking half dead on its feet, one wing limp as it tried to stumble-hop across the beasts back, which had stilled at the raven’s arrival.
The raven cawed and weakly plucked at a fold of cloth with its beak, only for the monster to hiss. It slowly sank down onto the stone floor of the balcony, wings shivering strangely as it tried to use the claw-hook at the top wing joint to get at the silver deeply imbedded in its flesh. It was still losing a lot of blood at a startlingly fast rate.
Adelia knew she should run. She ought to go and get the guards so they could finish the job. With how hurt the monster was, there was a good chance that they'd succeed. A normal duke’s daughter might have promptly fainted or at the very least screamed properly, scrabbling around helplessly while waiting for aid to arrive.
Adelia felt frozen in place, heart thundering in her chest like a herd of horses, her eyes wide. She should do something. Monsters were scourges on humankind, an evil left over from times when the world had been wild and chaos had reigned. Before magic had been tamed and humanity grew past the confines of small villages and little hovels.
She finally forced herself to move, opening her mouth to shout for the guards while cautiously inching towards the door, when she saw the monster catch the raven as it overbalanced and fell, its massive, leathery wing cushioning the bird gently.
The monster let the raven slide down to the ground with the utmost care and seemed to inspect the limb wing, the softest of noises rumbling forth from the creature's big chest, barely audible through the balcony doors.
The raven made a low noise as the clawed wing joint touched its feathered head very, very gently. Almost... mournfully.
They both appeared utterly exhausted, the monster breathing hard and still losing blood like an upended bottle. The raven was standing in the ever growing puddle of blood, little black feet painted crimson now, an air of helpless desperation surrounding it.
Adelia took a deep breath and shakily gathered her courage as much as she was able. She straightened to her full height, which still made her feel far too small. It drew the attention of first the monster and then the raven. The head of the monster was covered by a part of the cloth, as well, like a makeshift hood, but something shifted beneath that made her think it may have ears like a dog or a horse. Just a whole lot bigger.
The monster, despite its clear pain and injury, shifted protectively to lean over the raven, who squawked in a warning way, the same way crows in town cawed down at cats lying in wait at the bottoms of their trees.
This was foolish, this was not what she was meant to do, but Adelia found herself inching forward anyway. Her heart was still racing, hard and fast, and her hands were cold and trembling a little.
But she had vowed to herself three years ago, as she had watched her father condemn a begging, starving man to having his dominant hand chopped off for having hunted a hare in his forest, that she would not ignore someone in need.
She would be better than the entitled royalty who smiled benignly at their subjects and did nothing to improve lives that weren’t their own. Who would sooner punish the desperate than ease their burdens.
She had no idea if monsters counted as people, but a creature that cared so obviously for something so much smaller and weaker, something it could crush without further thought, couldn’t be entirely evil. At least, she hoped so.
The monster was growl-hissing, low and dark and sharp, when she opened one half of the large balcony wing doors. It was a truly fearsome sound, but Adelia forced herself to slide forward another careful step.
"I want to help," she said, proud when her voice didn’t shake as she stepped out onto the balcony.
This close to the monster, she couldn't help the small, downright instinctive shiver that raced down her spine. A distant part of her wondered if this was what it felt like to come face to face with a bear or a mountain lion or a pack of wolves in the wild.
This feeling that reached deep into her being, into the very weave of her heart and soul, and made her aware of just how mortal she was. How easy to kill. How very weak and helpless she was should the monster decide to attack.
Thick, dark blood was smeared all across the stone like a spilled paint bucket and the monster stilled, the raven falling quiet. She couldn’t see the creature's face, it was hidden far too well beneath the cloth, but the warning tensing of its bulk had stopped.
Wetting her lips nervously, she added, ignoring the faint tremor in her hands and just how painfully hard her heart was still beating, "If you will let me."
There was a small scrabbling sound, and the raven emerged from behind the wing, warbling at her and jerking its head at where the silver was visible. Not just a simple bird then, but something that must've been touched by magic.
Adelia warily glanced at the monster, which looked like a massive, misshapen creature of cloth and wings, and carefully stepped closer. It did nothing to stop her, nor did it lunge at her.
If anything, the moment she was close enough to touch, it lowered itself with a strained groan so she had an easy time reaching its chest. There was fine fur, matted down with blood and the scent was so heavy in the air she could ever so faintly taste it on her tongue.
Three silver bolts were buried deep in the monster's flesh, one right by the joint necessary for flying, which explained why it had crashed on her balcony in the first place. She swallowed, finding her mouth suddenly dry, and took hold of the first bolt.
Getting it out was unexpectedly hard, and while Adelia didn’t shy from lending a hand to help the servants where her parents wouldn’t se and had gone on horseback rides whenever she was allowed until recently, she still wasn’t as strong as the baker or the scullery maids.
If anything, her mother scolded her for any bit of muscle she built, for the current trend was for women to be properly dainty and to at least act faint should anything horrible ever befall them.
After long moments of grunting and straining and the monster enduring her ministrations, she finally got the bolts out one after another, letting each drop onto blood-wet stone with a metallic clang.
She thought her task done when the monster shifted, tipping its head back with great reluctance to reveal an even worse wound, hidden near its head beneath a swath of torn cloth. A large, silver coated blade, broken off at the hilt, was stuck at an angle below its clavicle. As if someone had tried to take its head off.
Adelia had to use her entire weight and all her strength to yank the broken blade out without losing any fingers in the process and she would have fallen backwards onto bloody stone if a large wing hadn’t caught her, carefully righting her.
Looking at the monster, she noticed that the strained, wheezing breaths had slowed down to something more normal. The pouring blood flow had slowed to nothing as well. The creature exhaled softly with something that sounded like relief.
The raven made chirping, warbling noises and seemed glad as well. The monster appeared exhausted, but it turned its head towards the sky, clearly gauging if it could still fly.
Adelia glanced up as well and noticed that the sun had risen far enough to start peeking over the horizon, deepening the shadows across the balcony. There were a few minutes left, at most, before even the balcony would be bathed in pale light.
The monster stared until one long sigh escaped it. It sounded unexpectedly grim, the raven shifting on its bloody feet and warbling in a distinctively distressed and worried manner, staring pointedly between the monster and the rising sun.
The monster made a low noise at the bird before it shuffled a bit to the side to squeeze into the most protected corner of the balcony, tucking to hide beneath its gigantic cloth until it was nothing but a big, misshapen thing. Even the wings weren't visible anymore.
There was no way for the monster to just fly off without being seen, not with how large it was. Looking at its injured state, she doubted it could fly well, anyway. If the monster hunters were still nearby, it would most likely die.
It was clear neither the monster nor the raven were able to leave, but staying out on the balcony wasn’t an option either. Someone would spot them once the sun rose far enough to illuminate everything.
Adelia eyed them, then the balcony doors. The monster could fit through if she opened both doors wide, but then what? She could hardly squeeze it partially into her closet and request that her maid ignore the black cloth mass hanging out like it was merely a misplaced, ugly cloak.
She could ask that everyone stay out of her rooms, she had built a good enough rapport with the servants that they were quietly loyal to her, they would respect such a request. So long as her father never found anything out, never suspected anything and never gave opposing orders, no one would tell on her.
Even then, the closet was hardly the right place for the creature.
The monster couldn’t fit beneath her bed, either, like some sort of storybook specter, but she could squeeze it into her bathing chamber. It was honestly the best place for it, quiet and dark. It was also the best hiding spot she had, on the off chance that someone did peek into her bedroom.
The window in the bathing chamber was barely big enough to toss bathing water out of and could be covered entirely so the creature could rest in complete darkness to recover its strength.
"Can you move?" she asked, the cloth around its head shifting in her direction, and the raven, who had nestled close, stared at her as well. She gestured at the balcony doors. "You may hide in there until you can leave unseen, so long as you hurt no one in this castle or the surrounding town."
The monster seemed to stare at her for a long moment, since Adelia certainly felt a piercing gaze on her, then dipped its head in unexpectedly graceful acceptance.
Thankfully, she didn’t have to help the monster move, since she was sure she’d sooner buckle beneath its sheer bulk than ever manage to move it a single inch. The monster dragged itself into her bedroom after the raven clambered up to sit securely on its hunched back.
The monster just barely managed to squeeze through the door to her bathing chamber, smearing the doorframe with more of its blood.
Adelia covered the slim window of her bathing room with a wooden slat, something she had requested made after realizing that people could peer through the window from the tower across the small courtyard. Not that she had noticed anyone staring so far, but the thought was discomfiting regardless.
The moment all sources of light aside from the open door were cut off, the monster slumped with a long, heavy sigh and stayed still and unmoving. Adelia had no idea what else to do and stepped back outside, quietly closing the door.
Then she stared at the blood that pooled on the balcony and had gotten smeared onto the floor all the way to the door of her bathing chamber. Her nightgown was as good as ruined, sleeves soaked in blood and the hem and bodice splattered. Her feet were nearly entirely covered in red.
She took a deep breath and began to figure out how to deal with this. She dipped back into the bathing chamber to grab a bucket and filled it with water from the jug by the washbasin.
Father had wanted to get a plumbing system installed by a mage, but he hadn’t been able to afford the fees any of the independent ones who took contracts from anyone with enough coin. So their family made do by keeping some water in their chambers, and otherwise had servants carry water up for bathing.
Snatching one of the rags she usually used for her monthly bleeding, she started mopping up the mess. She threw the bloody water onto the balcony once she was done, washing some of the pooled blood away.
She hid the silver weaponry and her bloody nightgown and rag beneath her bed. A glance at the rising sun told her she only had a handful of minutes left before a maid would appear to help her prepare for the day.
Adelia quickly cleaned up with the small washbasin in the corner of her bedroom, an extra bit of luxury Mother had insisted on, and she was glad for it now. She got dressed in one of her favorite dresses that she could lace up herself and stepped out just in time to meet Julie, the maid tasked with looking after her, with a smile and a polite incline of her head.
"My Lady," Julie dipped into a curtsey, and the smile she offered was honest and friendly. Julie was one of the youngest maids in the castle and one Adelia's mother had let her interview herself so she could practice handling her own household.
Her parents had insisted on this in preparation for her upcoming marriage to ensure she wouldn't shame the family by hiring incompetent servants. They hadn't let her hire a maid of her own yet, her father citing that she was not going to spend any of his money needlessly. She could do that once she had a husband and someone else would be responsible for her finances.
While Father gave her an allowance, it wasn't enough to pay people for their services, and so Adelia had used most of it for personal projects. In the future, her money would come from Tirn, her fiancé and Baron Warren’s firstborn son.
Adelia had been engaged to Tirn since they had been five years old, and over the years they had worked out a satisfying agreement for their future marriage together. Nobles very rarely married for love, and they both wanted to make the best of the fate their parents had handed to them.
Besides, there were far, far worse people to marry than Tirn, who was kind, if forgetful, and despite his bouts of laziness, he did largely care about the people around him.
She and Tirn had decided one evening, should either of them want to take lovers once they were married, they were welcome to as long as they wouldn’t cause a scandal. Adelia doubted she would look for someone to warm her bed, but Tirn had offered her the option anyway.
He had done so a little awkwardly, after admitting that he enjoyed a woman’s touch too much to deny himself the pleasure, and he was a good enough person to not force his attentions on her should she not want it.
As long as they produced an heir or two to appease their parents, their necessary bedroom duties to each other would be fulfilled.
They had grown thick as thieves over the years, helping each other get out of trouble and covering for each other. Adelia had helped him sneak off with a chamber-maid who had been enamored with him and in return, Tirn had snuck books into gifts he had sent her so her father didn't notice. Which had been one of two things that had allowed Adelia to further learn the art of clockwork inventions.
Adelia, therefore, could have had far less luck with her future husband. Tirn would never actively, willingly mistreat or ignore her or otherwise belittle her; if anything, he'd be a great friend and ally.
There were some horrible men out there, walking freely among the gentry, like Lord Emmertal, and she was very glad he had never been considered as an option for her.
Lord Emmertal had been married thrice already and each wife had ended up dead some time after the wedding. He was still treated like a respected member of society, for he was rich and powerful and knew how to make allies, and last Adelia had heard, another girl had been offered to him as a potential wife.
She hoped the poor girl managed to convince her parents to not marry her off after all. She hoped the girl was not to Lord Emmertal's taste and he’d decline.
"You’re up early, My Lady," Julie said. "I hope you slept well?"
Adelia had, until a monster had decided it could fly no further and had crashed so violently and loudly it had startled her straight out of bed.
"Of course, will you accompany me to the kitchen?" Adelia asked, and Julie was quick to join her. "And if you could tell the others to spare my rooms their attention today, I would be grateful."
Julie blinked in confusion and nodded, though she seemingly couldn’t resist whispering, "May I ask why, My Lady?"
This was thankfully something she could lie convincingly about. "I dedicated some time to my hobby before going to sleep and I haven’t managed to hide everything away yet," Adelia whispered back.
She liked to make things no proper young lady was supposed to, especially with her father's very narrow-minded views. Adelia loved to build clockwork designs; she loved the intricate details and fine little tools she worked with.
How she could make something out of a pile of metal and gears and little screws. The first time she had successfully made something move, she had pressed her hands over her mouth to muffle her glad, joyful laughter.
Her passion had begun when King Harold had bragged about getting a clock tower built in his crown city when she had been a child, showing it off to everyone upon completion.
She had been utterly fascinated with how the gears worked and had wondered if it was possible to create something like this at a far, far smaller scale as well. What wonders one might create with a bit of ingenuity and skill.
Father had never realized what the clock tower visit had sparked within her or that Tirn had secretly gifted her what few texts existed on the topic. She had found herself caught in a sea of ideas since then.
If he ever saw the sketches of her ideas or found her inventions, most of them little toys, he would have everything destroyed and would ensure she’d never so much as draw anything unseemly ever again.
When Julie nodded with understanding, Adelia changed the subject, "Tell me, how is everyone today?"
Julie distracted her with gossip as they headed down into the kitchen. Adelia was seated and served breakfast as soon as she arrived, listening to the chatter around her, the playful ribbing and joking among the staff.
Adelia honestly enjoyed being here more than she ever enjoyed sitting at the dining table with her parents. She was smiling as she sipped the watered-down wine the scullery maid Sabina had given her with a little wink. In all honesty, after the shock and scramble of this morning's events, she certainly appreciated something to calm her nerves.
All seemed to be well and once she finished eating, Adelia spent some time teaching the people around her their letters and numbers. She had never believed in keeping the common folk ignorant, and everyone kept her lessons quiet from her parents.
Neither Father nor Mother would ever allow this to continue if they found out about it, and they would become quite furious with her. Adelia would find herself grounded, and the kitchen staff would lose their jobs, possibly also getting severely punished beforehand. No one wanted any of that to happen, so it was a dear secret they all shared.
After she wrapped up her little lesson, she went about her day, and in the end, it was surprisingly easy to focus on her duties and activities despite the early morning scare.
Adelia knew she would only grow busier the moment her parents announced the wedding date to Tirn at the next gathering of nobility and was doing her best to prepare accordingly.
She was determined to avoid becoming some doll on a shelf, sitting around prettily while exchanging petty gossip and cutting words with other noble ladies. To avoid having to act as though, outside of running her household and spying on others for her husband, only the latest fashion trends and whose child had been born ugly was important.
Tirn knew a bit about her hopes of living a good, meaningful life, enough that she was sure he’d not stand in her way. It was honestly more than she could have hoped for from other noble sons, considering some of the conversations she had been unfortunate enough to be part of over the years.
She did not look forward to the consummation of said marriage, however, no matter how much she may like Tirn as a friend. It would be a duty she’d bear with as much dignity as she could and hope that once or twice would be enough to produce the necessary heirs.
Though, if she was being honest, she didn't look forward to being a mother either. It was a necessity of her station and demanded by society, her parents, and certainly her noble-born husband-to-be, but personally? She could do without. Children were cute enough when she interacted with them, but she was always glad to hand them back to their parents at the end of the day.
By the time evening rolled around, she had almost forgotten about the monster and its raven she had hidden in her bathing chamber. Almost.
She entered her bedroom as the sun set outside, the sky cast in deep gold and dark pink-orange, a beautiful play of intense colors. When she opened the door to the bathing chamber just enough to peer through the crack, she noticed that the monster was still there, unmoving and silent.
The raven was sleeping on the creature's back, and it didn’t stir, either. Closing the door again, she wondered about what to do.
The creature couldn’t stay here, and there was no way she’d be able to hide it elsewhere in the castle. She’d have to ask it if it could leave once it woke again. If it had nowhere else to go, she knew of a few ruins where it could hunker down for a while. She’d have to figure out what to do with the bloodied nightgown and silver bolts as well.
In the end, she burned the bloodied clothing in the fireplace, since it had dried enough for such an endeavor. Since the approaching night was certainly warm enough to not need the additional heat of the crackling flames, she opened the balcony doors wide to compensate for the stuffy air.
Adelia lit a candle to take care of her personal correspondence while the sun set, answering the letters of her friends, smiling at their stories and responding with tales of her own.
She didn’t have many friends, not true ones at least, and Katrina and Izabel were near and dear to her heart. She sketched flowers onto the corners of the papers, secret little messages they had come up with back when their letters had been proof-read by their parents during their teenage years.
Their parents had wanted to ensure nothing foolish or rebellious would be written, and while they had stopped controlling the letters a while ago, Adelia and her friends had kept doodling flowers, just in case their letters would be read by a third party again one day.
When the time came to retire, she found she was unable to. She had donned another nightgown, braided her hair for bed, and paced, thinking about waking the monster to speak with it.
She was about to go knock when the door opened on its own and the creature squeezed through. It moved as though it had never been harmed in the first place, walking forward on its wings and the raven no longer nursed a limp wing. In fact, the bird seemed very content with its spot nestled into the monster’s cloth-covered neck.
The monster paused, keeping as much distance between them as her room allowed, and dipped its head in what was an unexpected sign of gratitude.
"Safe travels," Adelia found herself saying, and the monster made a low humming noise. It didn't sound threatening, so she offered it a small smile in parting.
It climbed out onto the balcony and paused, glancing back for a moment. Its wings started to unfurl, though the tattered, thick cloth continued hiding the rest of it entirely from view. Adelia had no idea what she had harbored beside her bathing chamber during the day, but the monster was a kind one, at least to her and the raven, and that was what mattered.
It flew away on huge, leathery wings and disappeared with astonishing speed, the raven ducking down to avoid being blown off. Adelia stared after the creature and wondered what had happened for the monster to get attacked by hunters, considering how gentle and quiet it had been. Or maybe it had killed people before and had only spared her because she had saved its life. That was entirely possible.
Now, she had to figure out how to get rid of the weaponry beneath her bed once she had cleaned up any leftover blood in the bathroom. As she scrubbed at the dried stains she wondered if she could melt the silver down into tiny gears and springs and little, decorative plating.
While she usually had her ways to get her hands on things to tinker with, hunter weaponry would draw unwanted attention, for there were no other people who used silver bolts. It was probably unwise to just hand them over to someone else.
For a moment, Adelia wished she could operate a forge herself, before she gave up on that dream with a sigh and a pang of guilt and hurt. Her father would never let her do such a thing, and the blacksmith he had previously employed, who had been so kind as to teach Adelia a few things, had been tossed out and banished from her father's lands for that very transgression.
Adelia had been punished herself: her precious, beloved horse send to slaughter because her father had wanted to make sure she would never do something so unseemly and forbidden ever again. Mostly, though, he had been enraged that she had broken his rules, that she had rebelled against him in his eyes. That she had done something without permission.
She had tried to beg forgiveness, had sunk down to her knees even, but her father had remained hard and unforgiving. Something like genuine hatred had gripped her heart for the first time that day. The hatred hadn't been enough to eclipse the despair and grief over the loss of both her beloved horse and a good friend and mentor, but it... lingered.
She was lucky enough that one of the goldsmiths in town felt indebted to her after she had paid a doctor for his wife’s treatment and was willing to supply her in secret every couple of months in exchange for money. It was the only way she could keep experimenting around with clockwork creations.
Adelia had made sure to keep his involvement secret and leave delivery and payment arrangements to Julie, so Adelia herself never received any packages. Her maid brought her the deliveries hidden among washed clothing and bed sheets. A clever little trick that kept anyone from suspecting anything.
It was probably for the best to hand the silver over to Julie as well and request she dump it somewhere where no one would see her, as much as it pained Adelia to discard valuable material. But this would save Julie from being asked any questions she did not wish to answer and Adelia from subsequently explaining just why she had monster hunter arrows in her possession.
If that happened, her father was sure to have her rooms searched and then all her carefully and meticulously hidden secrets would be uncovered.
She didn't dare to think about what he'd do if that ever happened.
If you want to see my general info (and also which tags to look at my other art, click here)
FAMILIAR FAMILIAR is a self indulgent TOTK AU where Link and Zelda traverse the wild lands of Hyrule together. There are ruins to be discovered and monsters to be eaten.
This project is a linktober challenge that will extend past the month of october. Please be patient with me as this is entirely being funded by a hyperfixation and the support of beloved patreon backers (ty patreon backers). Pls note fanart, fanfics, and spinoffs are perfectly fine as long as credit is due!
Chronological Order (updating as we go!)
1. Blood Moons and Headaches
2. Basement Adventures
3. Basement’s Adventures Haunted
4. Basement’s Extra Haunted
5. Lost (and found)
6. World’s Endin, Purah’s Stressin
7. Concern about Death Mountain
8. Goron City and Yunobo
9. Death Mountain vs Oversized Railgun
10. The Sage of Fire
11. Interlude
12. Goodbye Eldin!
13. Rained In
14. Skyview Towers
15. Close Call
16. Welcome To The Swamp
17. A Guide Named Yona
18. Sidon’s No Good Very Bad Two Months
19. Authority Issues
20. Lab in the Sky
21. The Water Sage
22. Reprise
23. Century Idol
24. Safe Travels
25. It’s Free Transportation
26. Song of Perseverance
27. Crack in the Maze
28. Looking for Lunch
29. Pirates, in MY Hyrule?
30. Ghost Ships
31. Great Fairy Cotera
32. Arm Collection
33. Mushrooms and Cheese
34. Three Headed Public Menace
35. Back into the Basement
36. Spider Jumpscare
37. It’s Free Spine Residue
38. Song of War
39. Wet Sand
40. Fight or Flight
41. Flooded Desert
42. Gut Conductor
43. Riju’s Bug Zapper 9000
44. The Shroud Bringer
45. Weight of Responsibility
46. Ghost Nap
47. Restless Dead
48. Lightning Sage
49. Surcease
50. Kept Promise
EXTRAS:
- Link and Zelda Reference
- Spotify
- Oneshot ficlets
(EDIT; Due to work and bills, Familiar Familiar will be returning… sometime. Currently on HIATUS!)
The thing was a mound of flesh and mottled skin, as big as a barn and the shape of a pumpkin. Four tentacles as thick as trees hung limp at its sides; teeth ringed the gaping mouth at the top of its head like a crown.
A huge, sad whale eye the colour of wine stared at the knight. She could see her reflection in the jelly surface.
“We don’t know what it is,” she heard. “Some kind of monster that makes a perfect copy of whatever it eats. They think that was how the Dark Lord made his armies, feeding his minions to it so that it would make hundreds of copies of them. Do you recognize it?”
The knight opened her mouth. She hesitated. “Yeah,” she murmured, drawing out the word. “We found it in the Dark Lord’s tower, right?”
“That’s right. That’s where it ate you.”
The knight turned around and looked at her other reflection. This one appeared to be about ten years older, and had doffed her armor for a loose blue tunic and breeches.
She was holding a cup of tea. She had pressed another cup into the knight’s hand when she woke up here. It had been a shock finding herself suddenly out the obsidian dungeons of the Dark Lord’s tower and into this tall room of stone and straw. The warmth of it in her hands steadied her a bit.
“Everyone else in the party was worried, but then it started making copies of you,” the copy went on, staring up at the tentacled thing. “And all of the copies helped fight against the Dark Lord, and we won, and peace was restored across the land, but then nobody could figure out how to kill the damn thing or just to make it stop. Dozens of copies of us in a day, hundreds in a week, and then someone decided that the only thing we could do is just bring the thing here, seal it off and hope it starved to death.”
She sipped her tea. “Anyways, that was two-hundred years ago and it’s slowed down a bit. It can only make a new copy of us every few weeks now.”
The knight looked down into her tea. The copy had also draped a blanket over her shoulders.
“I have so many questions,” she said.
“I figured.”
“How can it be two-hundred years? I can still remember breaking into the tower. That feels like it was just minutes ago.”
“It was, basically. Your brain is a perfect copy of the original you’s brain at the exact moment she was eaten.”
“But the quest is just — done?”
“Yep. You missed some of the things that needed tying up afterward. There was a war, and a dragon, and some business about a ring.” She waved a hand. “It was before my time. Things are pretty settled now.”
“My parents?”
“Passed away about a hundred-and-fifty years ago. I’ve been told that they were very proud.”
The knight nodded. “Um. I don’t know if you know — we had an elf in our party—”
“I’m aware.”
“I — right. Obviously. Um. It’s just, after everything was done, I was going to ask her—”
“One of us did. She said yes. She outlived her. A couple of us have tried to reach out since then, but she wants to be left alone for a while.”
The knight considered this. “Uh — right,” she said eventually. Her fingers tightened around the tea cup. “Um. What do I do now?”
Her older copy shrugged. She had let her hair grow out again, the knight noticed. There were a few strands of grey against the black. “That’s up to you, I’m afraid,” she said. “A lot of us are finding work as soldiers and sellswords. We’ve done it for so long that most armies know we’re reliable and don’t tend to turn one of us away. Most of us are just sort of spreading out, wandering the world. Some of us keep in touch.”
The knight frowned. “What do you do?”
Her copy paused, tea cup half raised to her lips. “Sorry?”
“You said it only makes a new copy every few weeks now. So you just stay here and wait for a new one to show up?”
She lowered the cup. “Well,” she said. “I guess I just — I know what it can be like, waking up here in the dark, and it — it can be horrible trying to figure all of this out on your own.
“So I thought that what I’d do is just stay here with a pot of tea, and whenever I see myself again, I tell her that — that she’s not alone.”
“We aren’t?”
“Of course not. We’re all in this together, you know.”
#stories #:( does the flesh mound know that the dark lord is gone now #does it know that it’s safe #has it been in panic mode making clones for 200 years #just knowing that it’s running out of steam. it can’t keep this up #can the flesh mound get a cup of tea pretty please can someone give it a hug:(
“So do you live here alone?”
“Yeah, mostly. Just me and Moundy, basically.”
The knight stared. “Sorry — do you mean the flesh blob that ate me?”
“It ate me too, you know,” the copy said. She picked up a third teacup. After a moment the thing held out a tentacle, which the copy balanced the cup on. “Making a copy really stresses it out these days, so I try to calm it down when that happens.”
The teacup was raised to the huge wine-dark eye. It did… something to it, something like inhaling through its eye, gave a shuddering sigh and oozed in relaxation.
“It did eat you though,” the knight said.
“That was hundreds of years ago. I don’t hold it against it.”
There is a species of butterfly that lives in the mountains.
When it hatches as a caterpillar, it lowers itself to the ground on a strand of silk, and then produces a chemical that smells like the larvae of ants. An ant eventually discovers it, lured by the scent, and brings it back to the anthill, where it is cared for by the colony until it pupates. After a few weeks, the adult butterfly crawls back up through the anthill, through the dirt and the winding tunnels, and out into the sunlight before it can finally open its wings.
Some say that the caterpillar “tricks” the ants into doing this. I don’t know if I agree – I think it’s too small a thing to accuse of guile, don’t you?
With this in mind: Once upon a time, there were seven dwarves.
They lived and worked in the mountains, mining for gold and jewels and precious things. And one night, after a long day’s labour, they heard a knocking at the great stone doors of their mountain.
Outside, shivering and small, they found a human child.
I’m sure you can guess most of what she told them. Stepmothers were involved – it’s not important. What’s important was that each of the dwarves felt a dire and pressing need to care for the child, and they took her into their home, fed her, clothed her, and gave her a warm bed to sleep in. And many seasons passed around that mountain, with the dwarves raising the child as one of their own, until one autumn’s day.
The girl laid, slender and still, in a coffin of spun glass. And some weeks later, one of the dwarves had the idea to call for a prince. This was of course the sensible thing to do, and the prince of a nearby kingdom who listened to the story thought an ensorcelled girl would be a grand thing to rescue.
Poor devils. It feels cruel to judge them. But there were so many questions they could’ve asked – what was this stepmother’s name? Was she real? Did she exist? Who had made the glass coffin? Surely one of them must’ve thought of the question. And why did it grow more opaque with every passing day?
Were they wrong to trust?
I guess it doesn’t matter now.
The moment the prince stepped into the subterranean chamber with the glass coffin, it shivered with a twinkling, plinking noise. Threads of glass exploded into glittering, razor-edged confetti.
A claw split the great glass cocoon.
The thing that spilled out of it, hulking and huge, knew in the fog of its mind, in a base animal sense that screamed, that it was in a room too small for it to fit. It wanted up. It wanted out.
In front of it was some twiggy little thing holding a sword.
It took its first breath.
The flames were the colour of cornflowers.
The dwarves fled. The thing followed close behind, up, up, up through the stone and the winding tunnels, not to chase, not to hunt, but to get up, to get out, out, out–
It struck the great stone doors at a run. They crumbled like gingerbread. And then there was sunlight, and the open sky…
And it could finally open its wings.
Convergent evolution is a hell of a thing.
The dragon, of course, lived happily ever after with its loot of gold and jewels from a hastily abandoned dwarf mine. Being much bigger than a caterpillar, we could accuse it of tricking the dwarves who were kind to it, had taken it in, had fed and clothed and warmed it.
(Part 1? lol)This got more ridiculous than I intended but here we are, a little rujinu aquarium date shenanigan inspired by @galaxyspeaking ‘s great aquarium date concept! I have a part 2 sketched out that’s more romantic and sappy but we’ll see if and when I get to it 🐠
What, the forest-dwelling entities with imperfect human mimicry who insinuate themselves into groups of hikers? Yeah, we had one of those. Clocked it immediately, of course. Honestly it kind of fell in that so-inept-it's-kind-of-charming range. We just played along until it'd had it's fill of marshmallows and shambled back into the treeline. We might have been violating some kind of killjoy wildlife contact best practices but what the hell, can't plan around every little thing. Why, what happened to you guys
It's a misconception that the mimics are hunting humans when they trail along at the back of hiking groups.
In fact, the creature you'll find suddenly walking beside you and acting as if they've always been there is almost certainly a juvenile, as the adults lose the ability when they reach reproductive age.
Recent studies suggest the forest mimic is less like a preying mantis (mimicry as a hunting strategy) and more like a cuckoo (mimicry as a protective strategy for their young). Adult forest mimics will leave their offspring near a group of hikers while they forage during the day, and retrieve them near trailheads in the evening. Groups of hikers provide safety from predators and allow the parents of the species the freedom to forage more widely.
For this reason, the traditional advice to never let a mimic into your vehicle is still very important, as this would separate the young mimic from its mother. If a juvenile forest mimic does follow your group to the parking lot, you can keep it entertained with trail snacks, dad jokes, and simple goofs. The mother will usually collect them shortly before sunset.
When you notice the woods around the trailhead go silent and feel a sense of nameless foreboding, find an excuse to avert your attention from the juvenile so it can sneak back into the forest to rejoin its mother, convinced it's fooled another party of unsuspecting humans.
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