for the prompts list! "I just want to see you smile again." for callie & sol if you so desire
great one! took me forever, though, and i'm sorry
send me a sentence prompt + character(s)
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“Callie, are you okay?” Sol’s voice rings out across the silence of the night, despite the fact that he is whispering.
Six days.
They are six days into an easy ten day journey from the Living Wood to Irondeep, and Callie is already sick of it.
The company is fine. Sol is great, of course. And she had not thought she’d ever get the opportunity to meet the famous pixie exterminator, Hardwon Surefoot. But she hates hiking.
And misses the hell out of Calder.
“No.” She whispers back, her voice echoing just as loudly as Sol’s.
They both wince and glance quickly at Hardwon’s sleeping form. With bated breath, they wait to see if he will wake up, if they are being too loud, but the only response they receive is a loud snore and him rolling over to his other side.
Callie sighs, glad to not ruin another one of this man’s nights, and turns to face Sol.
“Can you tell me what’s wrong?” Sol asks.
“What isn’t wrong, Sol?” Her reply is snippy, and she almost feels bad.
He gives her a look, full of both concern and annoyance, but says nothing. She hates that.
He is too good, somehow, at knowing exactly what to say and not say to her. Sure, he os brash and impulsive at times. He doesn’t know when to shut up other times. It has and will get them into scrapes because of how people react to it.
But with her? And with Calder? He almost always knows what they need. Whether it be with words or with actions.
It is the most supported she’s ever felt, being someone in his close circle of friends. Being understood like that.
So why can’t she talk to him now?
He still doesn’t speak, clearly alright with just looking at her, like he’s trying to read her thoughts. Maybe that would help her to understand them, honestly.
“I’m so tired, Sol.” She finally says, after too long, after her thoughts circle enough times in her head to stop making any sense at all.
“Well, Callie,” He says, “Now would be the time to sleep.”
From anyone else, it would feel patronizing. But this doesn’t. She knows he’s trying to help, that he is calling her out without actually calling her out.
“I’m tired of everything, not just physically tired. I wish I’d never met Glen. I wish I didn’t set up Calder to be trapped like that. It’s all so fucking tiring and I want it to be over.”
“Hey, hey, hey, Callie, come on,” Sol moves so he’s more in front of her, so he can force her to actually look at him. “None of what happened with Glen is your fault. He was pretty clearly going to go after the Crick all along.”
“Yeah, but…”
“But, nothing, Callie. You won’t let me blame myself for Calder. I won’t let you, either.”
“Alright, but I still…”
“You getting possessed by a worm wasn’t your fault either. It just happened. Sometimes things just happen.”
“But why do they have to keep happening to me?”
“Shit, Callie, I don’t know. If I could stop things from happening to you, stop the world from making you feel like this, I would.”
“You would?”
“Of course. I’d do anything for you.” He answers sheepishly, like he’s said too much somehow.
“Why?”
“Because I’m your friend? Because I care about your happiness? I don’t know, Callie, I just want to see you smile again. And if there is anything I can do to make that happen sooner rather than later, I will do it.”
Callie doesn’t say anything for a while, taking in his words, willing herself to believe them.
“Thank you.” She breathes.
“You’re welcome.” He wraps his arm around her, pulling her into an awkward side hug that feels like the most perfect thing in the universe. “Try to get some rest, okay? Everything will look a bit better in the morning.”
!! oh id love to hear about ur neverafter au ideas O.O
Oh boy, I'd love to tell you!
Rn I'm uh. slightly shaky on how the marionette gang happened. My current background is this:
Once upon a time, all of the heroes died right before they reached the turning point to the canon story. Rosamund chokes on her briars and never gets out of bed. Mother Goose faces a Gander that's just strong enough to strike true. Prince Gerard dies in the siege. So forth.
But before all that, a man named Gepetto thought it would be a delightful idea to make marionettes based on figures he's heard stories about. The Sleeping Beauty, of course, and the Prince Who Was a Frog, and the Wolf Who Could Become Anyone, and so on. So he builds them, and then out in the world, their true counterpoints die.
They should move on. They do, and yet they don't. Instead, five marionettes wake up. I don't think they quite retain their memories at the start--this isn't like the death they experienced in the other version of the story--but they come with their personalities mostly in tact.
And Pinocchio, finished with his original adventures and not yet tricked by the Wicked Fairy or the Stepmother, has to deal with them now.
He doesn't tell his father they're awake like he was. Gepetto may have taken him in, but he had said that all he wanted was a son, and Pinocchio could be that. What use could Gepetto have for a Princess or Prince with no royal ties, an old man, a little wolf girl, or a cat?
He can't be sure his father will react as well to them as he did to Pinocchio. And when you are a child who has gone through the things Pinocchio went through, you don't tend to trust situations you can't account for. So, he keeps them quiet.
After all, if Gepetto doesn't know the marionettes are alive, Pinochhio won't ever have to lie to him about it. Pinocchio cannot afford to lie.
On that, here's details on the Marionette Gang:
--Rosamund has a mechanism in her body that lets her create tunes that were meant to represent her humming in her sleep. It can be caused by turning a key in the small of her back. She likes to turn it and sing on top of the humming sound.
--Gerard was Gepetto's first attempt to create marionettes that could be transformed. Gerard can take off his hands, feet, and head, and originally had human features and frog features to switch between. The human version has somehow been destroyed or lost. Gerard insists that having to wear the frog parts is "only temporary."
--Ylfa was the second attempt, and more sophisticated. On the back of her head is a collapsible wolf's face, and her head can be swiveled around to pull it out and reveal it. That's why she has the hood--to conceal it. (As for the color... it just seemed correct.) Her feet are clawed and furred beneath her boots, and she has a tail tucked in her dress' skirt.
--Mother Goose and Pib are the most standard of the marionettes. Gepetto also based them on the vaguest recountings he's heard. There's trickster cats everywhere, and by the time word of a man who made all the children laugh with stories came to his village, the fact that the man called himself "Mother" was forgotten. Tim will have to re-figure that one out himself.
:o I need more of ur human calliope!! She’s so pretty!!
HKSJFHSKDJFHKASJF I AGREEtho she’s technically not my calliope. she’s my s/o’s! @kin-machine-brokebut here she is none the less bc i love her w all my loife
only a couple minis bc im a lil low on spoons @anethiawoods
