Pairing: Young!Bard/Fem!Reader
Based on this request by Anon.
“Game’s over you son of a bitch! Tell me where she is!”
A/N: Angst. Kidnapping. Angry confrontation. Name calling. (See what I did there with the title? Giggles)
Bard had been standing in the rain for three hours now, knowing with each minute he was closer to catching a cold. But by the first hour, he had started to worry. The second, he felt a touch of anxiety that perhaps something horrible had happened. The third, he couldn’t stop pacing back and forth on the dock that connected the section of town you lived in, to his own section.
You were never this late, and if you had something come up, you always sent a note with one of the children that worked at your seamstress shop. Bard stared up at the sky, pausing in his pacing, to see that the rain was not relenting, and the sky was growing darker.
He made the decision then. He navigated the boardwalks with effortless ease, every turn one that he had done a thousands times over, until he found himself at your shop. The door was open, signalling it was still open for business, though he knew that it always closed much earlier - the time that you two had agreed to meet.
It was when he first felt the anxiety growing at him, clawing at his chest that something was very wrong. And when he stepped through the shop, he saw that it was completely vacant. The candle was still burning on a table over where you had been doing embroidery for a dress someone had ordered.
The embroidery loom was on the ground, with the needle and thread still attached. And the chair, as he got closer, was kicked over. A struggle. Bard called your name, more frantic and hoarse each time, and looked around for any more clues. And then he was rushing out of the shop, onto the dock. Every other shop was closed, the candles long burned out and the doors locked to bar anyone from entry.
Looking up and down the dock, Bard couldn’t see anyone. Until a much too happy Alfrid turned the corner. Perhaps he was much too happy because of Bard’s frantic feelings growing. He looked like he did every day, but it especially bothered Bard in this moment. How could he be so calm? How could he be this close to your house, and not notice anything wrong?
Before Alfrid knew what was happening, Bard seized him by the collar, throwing him against the side of the shop. “What have you done to her?” Alfrid’s look of genuine fear did nothing to make Bard feel any better, which he was sure it would have any other time.
“What are you talking about?” Alfrid snapped. “Get off of me.”
“Game’s over, you son of a bitch. Tell me where she is!” Alfrid raised his eyebrows.
“I haven’t any idea what you’re talking about! Beside’s that’s no way to speak to-”
Bard shoved him against the damp boards again, silencing him. He was seeing read, like fire that was supposed to come from the mountain, hazing his vision. “Don’t play games,” Bard warned. “What have you don’t to Y/N? I’ve seen you following her, following the pair of us. Where is she?”
“Did she not show up?” Alfrid asked innocently, his smirk curling his lips in a way that made Bard’s stomach turn painfully. “How awful. It must be such a pity that she doesn’t love you-”
Bard growled, tightening his grip on the wool coat lapels. “I will not hesitate to throw you in the water and let you drown, you rat. Tell me what you’ve done to her.”
“I haven’t seen her,” Alfrid admitted smugly. “In fact, I came by earlier to offer my congratulations, but she wasn’t here. Thought I’d come by again-”
“How long ago did you come by?” Bard demanded.
Alfrid seemed to think about the answer for much longer than necessary, his eyes darting to the rain-slick sky with forced thought. And then he glanced down to Bard with a shrug. “Dunno. Coulda been a few hours, coulda been a few minutes.” Bard growled in frustration, letting the rat go, and huffed in anger as he glanced up and down the boardwalk. Surely someone had seen something.
Surely someone had seen anything. “Maybe she just doesn’t love you like you had thought. She was always a wild one. Never know who’s been in her be-” The punch to his face silenced Alfrid immediately, and Bard shook out his hand, the pain only masking his panic temporarily. “Ow, what the bloody hell was that for?”
“Get out of here, you rat.”
“And just how are you planning on finding her? No one’s seen her.”
Bard glared at Alfrid, daring him to say more. “Because I’ll find her.” Leaving the man with a bleeding nose and pain in his jaw, Bard pulled his coat closer, his hands digging into his pocket, in an effort to stay warm in the wet and cool weather. In his pocket, his hands came upon a pouch that he had been worrying over for the last three days.
Inside contained the ring that he was planning on offering you. He would find you, even if it meant searching every home in Laketown for you.
