Go check out my crossover buddy! @oldspruceinn has a really great world full of wonderful characters, and I had fun working on this with them!!
Contains: broken bone, past child abuse/capture, accidental harm to child (iron burn), threats of dismemberment, and plenty of cute <3
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After more than a month in this strange world, Nightcaller finds a furry legged person-creature on a hunt.
A whisper-whimpering creature with a broken, bleeding leg caught in metal teeth. Tipping thons head at it, thon asks, “Can you understand me?”
Louder whimpering. Tears.
Leaking tears the way mimics don’t, ey speak. Quickly and choking, so thon only picks out ‘ran’ and ‘please’ and ‘hurt’ and ‘help’ and something about being trapped. Of course this creature—this pup—is trapped.
Opening thons mouth, thon echoes as much of the voice as thon can to identify the rest “—ran away and they’ll—again, please don’t let—find me again. I—I—I had to— Help, please, I ca—please I can’t go back, please, they ca—caught me before… hurt last time and I don’t know what to do—”
No packmates. No one worth searching for.
Prying the teeth open, thon holds the strange pup to thons chest under thons cloak. A louder cry and the scent of burning until thon puts em down and shoves the iron-leather neck guard into thons bag.
A four legged prey animal (horse?) stares at thon. Thon hisses.
Unfortunately, it’s by someone’s den, which means it belongs to someone who might be sad if it vanished.
Also, Nightcaller’s prey-pup eats plants, and carrion makes young pups sick. It’s too big not to spoil before it can be eaten, so thon can’t kill it even if it’s unclaimed prey.
The den is an option.
The pack there might know how to feed thons strange pup.
How to feed em well, not just show em different plants and ask if they’re safe to eat.
Thons pup said people are scary and not to trust them.
Thon is a well armed adult mimic with bone-breaking teeth.
Shoving open the door, thon finds a tall horned person with red hair and a shorter horned person with curled horns. People like thons pup. Hopefully allies.
Growling softly, to not disturb the pup, Nightcaller stares up at Tall. Bares thons teeth.
“If you don’t help this one—” thon opens thons cloak to reveal the sleeping, wounded pup— “I will eat you. If you hurt this one more, I will bind you with iron and eat you limb by limb.”
“I’ll be right back.” Short’s voice wavers, slightly, but ne returns with a blanket.
“Can I have her?” Her. Gender is strange, with these people.
Tall offers thon a meal.
“Can… have,” thon echoes in nir voice, handing over the pup. Watching to be sure ne’s gentle with the pup.
“I’ll eat. Anything meat, even carrion. I’m not from this world, so I didn’t know what to feed the pup other than plants and soup.”
Might as well admit the insanity of ending up somewhere with barely anything familiar.
Might as well admit to not knowing what to feed Bugchaser.
Might as well pull off thons hood and veil to introduce thonself properly.
Might as well introduce thonself, since Short—who is apparently not a healer like thon thought—already gave thon two new names.
“Nightcaller,” thon says, offering a hand to Spruce. People here like doing that for some reason. “I’m a… library, for my people. A guardian of history.”
They bare their teeth.
Only a few days of practice with Bugchaser has thon slow-blinking in response instead of hissing.
“I’m Spruce—the owner of this inn. It’s nice to meet you, Nightcaller.” Ce shakes thons hand. “I’m glad you’re here—wherever you came from. You saved that little satyr’s life.
“I’ll go see what Felix has stashed in the fridge.”
“The satyr answers to Bugchaser,” thon corrects softly, borrowing cir voice for the new word. It isn’t a traditional name, but she accepted nothing else.
“And thank you.” The food looks nice.
Bugchaser makes a poor imitation of the finding-call thon taught her. Thon answers. Curses in thons language, rushing towards the sound.
“Bug?”
“You said—” she sniffles, making that awful cry-choke sound. “You said you’d stay. You promised.”
“I know, pup, I did. And I will. But you need someone to help with your leg, and I’m not a healer. I didn’t even know iron hurt you until it did.
“You need more than I have.”
Healer Katy watches Nightcaller. Thon ran into her nest, after all. “You are welcome to stay down here while we work. She trusts you—stress only makes things hurt worse and heal slower. Just wash your hands first, please.
“There’s a sink over there, with a few kinds of soap in case one is toxic for you.”
They’re labelled, but thon can’t read their words well. Picking one that smells like medicine, thon listens to her words.
Bugchaser was hurt by humans.
“If that hurts you, Bugchaser, I’ll eat them.” Thon bares thons teeth, touching thons forehead to hers with realistic prey-crunching noises for effect.
She giggles, taking thons claim braid in her hand. “Don’t be scared, Nightie.”
Better. Thon stands back, trying to place the odd scent in the room. Slightly off from human: metallic and sickly-sweet, masked by medicinal herbs. Are the herbs masking it on purpose, or is it just convenient?
“Healer,” thon says after a moment, “are you a sick human or something else?”
Her teeth are slightly sharper, and the scent of fear creeps into thons awareness. A pair of eyes on thon. Felix.
Felix knows, then.
Felix knows, and it’s something that doesn’t get calm reactions.
She hums, “No one has asked me that in a long time.
“I used to be human. Humans now would call me a vampire.
“While I do have the parasite, I’ve been successful at preventing its growth for over two hundred years now. I wouldn’t quite call myself either, so I just call myself a healer.”
“New question: what is a vampire?” It sounds like a thrall, but a pup’s venom isn’t a parasite.
“Oh, your world doesn't have vampires? How interesting,” she says, explaining what she means. Explains what the parasite does, how it spreads, and how she has a treatment humans are too afraid to learn about.
“Thralls?” Thon tips thons head. “We can make thralls, too.
“If a pup bites a human, it will prioritize the pup’s life over its own. Until it dies, or the pup finds a proper guardian.” It isn’t thons voice. It’s a close translation of healer-lorekeeper Lifetracker’s words, and it would be disrespectful to speak them as thons own.
“We usually return them so they can be cured, but I’m not sure how it works.”
Many questions. A hailstorm of questions. Thon echoes her words, trying to pick out something coherent.
“Mimicry?” She writes something in her book (where did the book come from?), muttering something containing the word ‘cricket’. Which is a bug. A delicious, creak-chirping bug. What crickets have to do with thon’s voice, thon doesn’t know.
“Talk later?” Thons food might spoil if thon leaves it any longer, and prey is fragile around spoiled food. “Bugchaser needs to eat, and—
“Felix, you’re the same kind of prey as her. What does prey eat?”
Old Spruce Inn Masterpost | Nightcaller Masterpost
