Thank you to Pigmy Annon and @gt-zel for the C/inderella B/oy tiny!Buddy AU, it made for a really fun warm-up today. :)
---
Snow flutters through the air, the sky a morose gray. Aside from the flurry-filled breeze, the air is still, muffling the sounds of an entire landscape beneath its weight.
Muffling all, of course, except for the hurried crunching of footsteps through the frost.
Chase is on the verge of sprinting, only held back by the desire to not trip in the snow that is currently up to his ankles. He brushes past a pine tree, roughly pushing aside a snow-laden bough as he frantically looks left and right.
As he takes off again, the bough snaps back and–
“OW!”
Chase’s brows furrow sympathetically, but he doesn’t stop.
Deacon huffs loudly even as he stomps after Chase, shooting a scowl at the offending pine tree as he passes by.
“I… ugh. Slow down, Chase! I’m not running after you; it’s freezing cold, dude–”
“No! I can’t find him!”
Deacon raises a brow, taken aback by the desperation in his cousin’s voice. “Wh– find who?”
“Buddy! He should be here, so where is he?”
“Why does it matter?”
“He missed. A. Scene!” Chase hisses, starting to peer under the trees when they finally reach a thickly-wooded area.
Deacon pauses, though his shivering continues. Despite Bronze fitting him out with decent winter clothing, he can’t stand the cold. Can’t stand the fact that they should be inside of a cabin right now, sipping hot chocolate… “...And?”
“Buddy doesn’t miss scenes!” Chase snaps, suddenly kneeling and digging his gloved hands into the snow like it isn’t unbearably freezing out here.
Deacon just stands there, shaking, thoroughly unimpressed by Chase’s frantic searching as he hugs himself tight. “Since when do you even read the books? I’m sure he’s fine, probably just sick of you.”
“Hey.”
Chase bites his lip as he looks around the bases of the trees, looks for any suspicious lumps of snow, anything– and when he doesn’t see anything, he finally gets back to his feet and shouts, projecting his voice as far as he can.
“BUDDY!”
A faint shout in response catches his attention, and Chase whips his head around looking for the source.
“--ase! Chase!”
“Buddy?”
“I’m down here!”
Chase’s eyes finally catch on a little movement– the rustling of a plant, one that had stubbornly managed to hang on despite the snow weighing down its leaves. And sure enough, while the face is too small to make out… Chase would recognize that tiny, emo bundle of all-black clothing and deathly-pale skin anywhere.
“Buddy!” Chase suddenly flops on his stomach, lowering himself as much as possible to Buddy’s level. “Hey, where were you, man? I was worried!”
Buddy crosses his arms, keeping his hands tucked into his armpits and slightly hunching his back. “I was a little… busy…”
He shivers, his nose wrinkling in disgust as his breath comes out in a plume of steam. “And whose bright idea was it to pick this book? I don’t produce as much heat as you humans! I’ve been so cold I can barely move! If you ever pick a story like this again, I swear, I–”
As Buddy’s impassioned rant continues, the concerned look on Chase’s face slowly shifts into exasperation. And finally, watching as Buddy trembles through the whole thing, Chase lets out a sigh… and gently slides his hand behind Buddy, sweeping the small man off his feet and scooping him up in one smooth gesture.
“Ah–!”
Chase holds Buddy up in front of his face, frowning. “Hey, come on, dude. Don’t wear yourself out… and I’m sorry, Deacon wanted a winter book.”
As Deacon starts to make an indignant shout– because that was such a big, fat lie– Chase leans in closer, taking up most of Buddy’s field of view. “Are you okay? Here, I’ll… I’ll help warm you up.”
Buddy scowls, leaning back against Chase’s fingers. “Eh? Warm me–?”
And suddenly, Chase’s fingers are loosely curling around him, pressing on all sides– almost enough to give Buddy the shivers, if he wasn’t already shaking out of skin– and–
“H-huh?” Buddy croaks, as Chase’s face draws closer, closer, still closer… and after pursing his lips, he carefully exhales hot air into the gap between his hands.
The temperature around Buddy is steadily climbing, but he’s… fairly sure that’s not why his face is heating up. His heart slams against the wall of his chest as Chase’s lips almost brush against him, and his own breaths quicken as a result.
Completely surrounded… but for some reason, he doesn’t feel any sense of impending dread. Completely surrounded by Chase, feeling overwhelmed but not horribly so, getting lost in his overpowering presence, feeling his heart in his throat, pounding in his ears, blood rushing–
…And all too suddenly, it’s gone, even as Chase’s fingers slowly uncurl and his head pulls away, putting some distance between his face and Buddy.
…Why does that feel so… depressing?
“Feeling any better?” Chase asks gently, his head tilted like a curious… cute… dopey dog, and ohhh no Buddy’s face is too warm again.
“U-uh– I–”
Buddy is sure he looks like he’d just eaten a lemon. He hastily pulls his arm over his face, settling for the makeshift solution of hide face in elbow and act like none of this ever happened. “Y…yeah. Come on, we’re… we’re late. For the next scene.”
Buddy and Chase both jump as a loud sigh comes from behind.
“So are you guys done yet, or can we get out of the cold now?”
“Y-yeah! Yeah, good idea,” Chase stammers, drawing his hands up close and holding Buddy close to his chest. “I’m coming!”
Buddy sharply exhales as Chase bolts after Deacon, clutched tightly to the boy’s chest– though at least nobody can see his face down here, this is still… ugh.
Contains spoilers for the almost-end of Act 5, after the first boss battle.
This was part of a shifter!Siffrin AU I was rolling around in my brain for a while, largely inspired by @miniature-knight's banger ideas and really cool art, and also something something I'm just legally obligated to make an emotion-based shifting AU for everything I touch lmao
You hadn’t thought it was real.
Waking so suddenly from the hellish nightmare you’d been trapped in, seeing your family standing before your face, facing down the King— looking positively minuscule compared to the King, compared to you, and yet—
The sound of a mirror breaking— of Mirabelle deflecting the King’s attack completely— almost actually manages to snap you out of it.
The King wails about your country. About your home. The details are fuzzy in your mind already even as he utters them, but something in the back of your mind fills with yearning as he sees what no one else can— and perhaps, what no one else will ever see again— of your country.
And then, he is frozen in time.
And then, he is suddenly just as small as the rest of your family.
And you
Are left
To stare, incredulously. Wondering how he was able to do that. Did you do that, too, when you were frozen in time? Shrink back down to what you think was your height before—? It feels so long ago, you can’t even seem to remember a time when you were smaller than all of them…
You notice that they’re cheering. You’d… automatically tuned it out. You’d heard it before, heard the cheering when you’d killed the King before, but this time is… different.
Isabeau suddenly turns to face you, a scowl on his face.
You blink, as he points a finger directly at your face.
“Now, you—”
Ah…
Mirabelle interrupts by brushing past Isabeau, marching up to your face and balling her hands into fists at her side.
“How could you say all those horrible things to us, Siffrin?!”
You wince. There it is.
“Yeah! That wasn’t cool,” Bonnie adds. “Not cool at all!”
They’re lecturing you for what you said, for coming here alone, but you can only stare. This is new. All of this is new— you don’t know how to respond.
Your brows furrow. Your head feels fuzzy.
“Um… Sif?” Isabeau asks, his frown almost immediately shifting into a concerned look.
Bonnie comes up and stands directly in front of your eye. So close, that they seem blurry… wait. They all seem a little blurry, don’t they?
You slowly blink.
“Frin, are you listening?” Bonnie asks. “Hey Dile, is it normal for the black thing in their eye to be so big???”
Odile slowly approaches behind Bonnie, an unreadable expression on her face.
You wish they wouldn’t stand so close. It’s hard to see them properly like this.
“Siffrin?” She asks, her voice… unusually soft. So quiet. Almost too quiet to hear. “Anyone there?”
You… can’t lift your head.
You can barely move. You can barely muster the energy to breathe.
You
Are so
Impossibly
Tired.
…When was the last time you’d slept? You can’t remember. You don’t think you’ve been able to even fit in a bed for… for a long time. Only in that stupid, blinding clearing…
Your eye
Involuntarily
Starts to close.
A nap… you just want a nap…
“Sif?!”
“Siffrin!”
“What’s wrong, do you feel sick?”
You can hear their worried voices around your face, can feel small hands touching your cheek. You don’t flinch. You don’t think you’d have the strength to do that even if you wanted to.
“…skin feels so warm, there’s something wrong—”
“…burning up…”
“…even with Loop’s help, it was hard getting here…”
…Loop? You manage to crack your eye open, giving your family a questioning look. They’d met Loop…?
Odile notices first, and she (correctly) guesses what you want to ask. “Oh, your friend Loop— I think you two know each other, somehow.”
“We met them earlier!” Bonnie pipes up. “We were looking for you so we could talk to you, but we couldn’t find you anywhere, and we even asked all the townspeople, but they hadn’t seen you, which is crazy because you’re like the size of Godzilla! So we wound up going to the Favor Tree, and Za asked it to help us find you, and then this weird star showed up, and they told us they were a star, which is why they were spiky and glowy—”
Odile rests a hand on Bonnie’s shoulder, seemingly taking pity on your attempt to process Bonnie’s rapidfire spiel.
“They helped us find you,” she says simply. “We couldn’t have made it here without their help.”
They start explaining how Loop helped to guide them through the House, and you feel a wave of gratitude wash over you. Loop had guided them, in your stead. Made sure they didn’t get crushed by the first trap, made sure they knew where to go, when you had been wandering blind for what felt like an eternity through the warped, distorted version of the House. Blinded by rage, blinded by your desperation to kill the King… to escape…
You listen intently, and you think that’s why they keep talking. Because you’re trying to stay awake for that much, because this is all still so new. You don’t know the lines they’re saying. You don’t know your lines you should be responding with.
But, inevitably, your eye starts to flutter closed once more. You can barely lift your head.
“…The Head Housemaiden should be up ahead, yes?” Odile asks, and you hear Mirabelle respond with an affirmative.
You hear them argue over how they might be able to get you to her, or maybe one of them can run ahead and bring the Housemaiden back to you so she can help.
You sharply exhale. Your family hasn’t split up before, when going through the House. They shouldn’t split up. You need to… get to the Head Housemaiden, but you know you can’t walk, can’t even drag yourself along, but you have to get to her—
…A sense of familiarity washes over you. There is one way your friends can help you get there, isn’t there? You remember a little.
Your body shifts, and suddenly, your stomach drops, like you’re falling, falling, falling…
You open your eye, even as you continue to fall. Your family members are no longer beneath your gaze, but standing above it, standing over you, but…
…Oh. Oh you’re still falling. Still getting smaller, because it felt like exhaling and you may have held it a little too long because you’re so tired, and now they’re all looming over you and—
Oh stars you think you’re going to faint
You see a blurry figure kneel down, the fabric of a long jacket’s sleeves billowing, swallowing up your vision, feel something moving around you, touching your entire body, moving you—
A whimper escapes your lips.
The movement pauses, and you feel something gently touch your back.
“Shh… it’s alright, Siffrin,” you can hear Odile’s voice washing over you, all around you, so close and so massive and—
—you’re starting to realize why they had all looked at you with such fear, earlier. When you’d berated all of them, loomed over them, acted like a monster.
And yet, Odile is holding you so gently. She’s looming over you, but you feel… safe, even as she starts to march her way towards the Head Housemaiden, as the towering figures that are the rest of your family members surround her on the way, nervously twittering about the unfamiliar shade outside the windows, as they block her sight from the long way down.
Chapter 1 of my fic for the 2024 AA WLW Minibang is up! Featuring post-TGAA2 Susahao, mutual pining, and the greatest family in the world, as a treat.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Thank you to Vivi, Ana, and Te for being my wonderful artist partners throughout this whole process! Their art will be featured in the fic soon enough :]
Finally beat Octopath’s final boss! Took 8 tries, 11 hours, and a whole load of copium in the form of drawing the sucker in an attempt to make him go easy on me 😭
Posting yet another old drabble I wrote a couple years ago, this one is also from my old Shifter!Apollo AU. ^^ I had the idea that Klavier and Apollo were investigating a decrepit building when it suddenly collapsed, forcing Apollo to shift up larger than he’s ever been before. >v> Maybe one of these days I’ll actually be able to combine my ideas into a cohesive fic, but for now, y’all get a snippet from the old patchwork quilt of ideas.
---
His entire body is tensed up, aching where rubble had fallen and left bruises and scratches behind.
Apollo winces and lifts his head from where it’d been tucked in— his ears are ringing, even now, despite the dead, almost-eerie silence in the air. Every movement shakes off a little more rubble at a time, every movement a painful, yet somewhat relieving, reminder that he’d somehow survived an entire building crashing down on him.
He wearily blinks, slowly beginning to register movement against his chest— impossibly tiny movements, squirming and struggling—
...Oh. Right. His grip loosens, giving the small figure clutched tightly to his chest a little more room to move.
“—ce! Herr Justice! Are you alright?!”
Apollo slowly blinks, continuing to process where he is— curled up on his side with his knees drawn almost to his chest, Prosecutor Gavin held protectively in his hands— and whether or not he is, in fact, alright.
He’s not too sure about that last one.
But as he adjusts, shifting his hands so that Klavier is free to step out of his grasp and to the ground, he pushes an exhausted attempt at a smile, anyway. “‘M fine,” he croaks. “‘P-Pollo... Justice is. Fine.”
It’s weak— he probably inhaled too much dust and debris to use his infamous Chords of Steel for a while— but nevertheless, it makes him feel a little better. Klavier, on the other hand, doesn’t look so convinced. The prosecutor pauses before tentatively reaching a hand up and settling it on Apollo’s cheek.
Such a small, delicate touch. It dully registers in the back of Apollo’s head that he’d never shifted up anywhere near this tall before— fifteen feet at the most, maybe almost twenty— but now, Klavier looks so... so small. No taller than Apollo’s thumb— and Apollo hadn’t even meant to shift up this much. Didn’t know how he’d managed it, couldn’t explain it aside from a rush of adrenaline and fear.
“You… you saved my life,” Klavier manages. There’s a tinge of disbelief to his tone. “I... Thank you.”
“Mmmmnnno prob,” Apollo mumbles, unable to resist the heaviness in his eyelids. The adrenaline from earlier was starting to wear off, making way for sheer exhaustion, and with it—
He’s not controlling it, but surely, steadily, he’s starting to shift back down. It doesn’t stop when his eyes are both level with a rather surprised Klavier, or even when the man is now standing over him, both of them at a perfectly normal human height.
No, he doesn’t stop shifting down and he’s almost... almost afraid it won’t stop— until finally, finally, the shifting eases away. And for once, as he notices that Klavier’s polished-black shoes are taking up his entire line of sight— and even as he tiredly watches those all-too-familiar hands reach for him, lifting him up as easily as though he were a feather— he doesn’t feel a single bit of the usual anxiety.
Chalk it up to his own exhaustion, maybe, or perhaps for another, more sentimental reason— but he doesn’t feel like protesting being at Prosecutor Gavin’s mercy. Doesn’t resist even as he’s checked for injuries, his shirt ever-so-gently pushed up by a careful fingertip, doesn’t mind the low rumble of Klavier’s voice— he’s frantically mumbling to himself in a slew of German that Apollo couldn’t hope to understand even if he were fully conscious— and... The man’s thumb lingers against his cheek. Apollo closes his eyes entirely, leaning into the warm, gentle touch.
...He finds that he certainly doesn’t mind that, especially.
Maybe he’d care later. Maybe he’d throw a fit about having his personal space invaded by those gentle hands later, or object to being tucked into the warm crook of the rockstar’s neck, blanketed by a hand and listening to the soothing drum of Klavier’s pulse, rocked back and forth by the man’s hurried steps away from the ruins of the building they’d been investigating.
But for now, as he drifts off into a deep, contented sleep— grateful that he’d managed to save the comforting, currently-towering presence around him— he doubts that there’s any place he would rather be.
At the behest of a server I’m in, I’ve cleaned up one of my old shifter!Apollo AU drabbles; this shorter one addresses Apollo’s acrophobia, and was going to play into a larger chapter of a fic I had planned about 3 years ago. ^^
—
Apollo frowns from where he’s poring over a book— or, trying to, anyways; it’s harder than he’d expected, trying to read the pages while standing on top of said pages. It’s starting to get frustrating with how long it’s taking, but if he wants to figure out a way to get this— whatever it is— under control, he has to hurry and find something.
He lets out an involuntary, breathless squeak.
Klavier hums as he lifts Apollo to eye level, a good-natured smirk on his face. “Guuuuuten morgen, Herr Forehead. Hitting the books early, are we~?”
And while the prosecutor had been expecting something like yelling, perhaps, or a dry remark— perhaps even an insult or two— he hadn’t been expecting... well. This. Although it should be harder to spy with just how small Apollo is, it’s not difficult to see just how pale the attorney’s face has gone. Those sharp gray eyes aren’t focused at all, wild and terrified, and his little chest looks like it’s heaving from how hard he’s breathing.
Klavier blinks in surprise, the smile dropping from his face altogether. “...Herr Justice...?”
He suddenly winces at the loud, high-pitched noise that comes from Apollo— it’s far too loud to be coming from a creature as small as he is, but it seems as though the attorney’s infamous “Chords of Steel” weren’t limited by size, or lack thereof.
“P-P-PUT ME DOWN—!”
Apollo clutches at his vest, arms crossed over his chest and squeezing like a vice. And while he still seems rather... frantic, at least he seems to calm him down somewhat. He’s staring Klavier dead in the eyes, as though refusing to look anywhere else. “...I... I-I um. Sorry— Didn’t... di-didn’t see you come in, I... j-just...”
Klavier quirks a curious brow, but he’s quick to gently set Apollo back down atop the book. While the tiny man continues to ramble off excuses, Klavier taps his chin, his brows furrowed.
(Strange... he didn’t react like this when Herr Wright was holding him, or even when I briefly held him the other day—)
He pauses, a flicker of realization going through his eyes even as he recalls, just moments ago, the sight of Apollo’s legs shooting up almost to his chest... almost as though he were instinctively trying to curl up. His knees had been practically knocking together, but the last time Klavier had picked him up—
—he’d been using both hands. Even still, Apollo had still acted far more anxious than usual.
Klavier had chalked it up to the height difference— and that had certainly been a part of it, but. That would... explain more than a few things.
(He’s scared of heights.)
Klavier takes a seat, perching his arms on the desk and resting his chin on them so that he’s at eye level with Apollo. He shoots the attorney a small, soft smile, the movement interrupting Apollo’s frantic tirade. “Apologies for startling you, Herr Forehead. I’ll be more forthcoming with my approach next time, I assure you.”
(Note: Be careful when you next pick him up. Make absolutely certain to keep a hand under him and assure him in any way you can that you absolutely will not drop him.)
Pokemon Legends: Arceus OC fresh out of the oven 👏
His name’s Kellan! He looks scary, but he’s just a big softie who wanders the Alabaster Icelands and helps out people and Pokémon caught in the unforgiving weather.
