Wander over, Loverˏ The Fall
BarbarianKatsuki! x Fem!Reader, In which an ordinary Reader tumbles through a portal into a realm of ancient magic and whispered prophecies.
Lost and world away from home, she finds herself accompanying the Chieftain's son and his sworn sword on a journey to save both his world and hers.
(Note: Im finally back!!!! Hopefully I can keep up with a consistent upload schedule )
Word count: 1,914
CHAPTER ONE: The Fall
A myriad of blazing fireflies whirl in the open air. Spinning and twirling. Never ending. Everlasting; the sheer glow of distant stars dwarfed by their radiance. Thousands of bodies betray their elegance— their movements blurred and erratic— swarming the tall grass. They zip in-between emerald blades, the flora blooming towards the lustre. A billion suns illuminating the sky as if it were day.
They conjure their form closer. Floating tightly now. Descending down, forming a silhouette. Delicate and enchanting, the figure resembles a woman, dazzling in all her glory. And out of pure brilliance the shapely figure comes to be, stepping out of the dispersing fireflies. Willing herself into existence. Born from flaming resplendence, she steps down out of the air and onto the grass. Idiosyncratic skin burning bright with the luminance of molten lava.
A trail forms. The glowing luminosity from lingering fireflies light a path ahead. Each footstep the woman treads is followed by a blooming bud, one after the other each flower grows. Alien petals infused with a blistering shimmer, gleaming scarlet and clementine. In the near distance stands a tall warrior with red-hot eyes fixated on the approaching entity. Gleaming carmine locked to glowing vermillion waves of light matter.
And then you awake. Jolting yourself out of slumber, cold sweat trickling down the back of your neck. Your eyes flicker down beside you, a dull ache behind them as your gaze lands on your phone. You tap the screen, 2:03 AM. Huffing, your chest rises with inhaled tension as you pull out the earphones lodged in your ears. Groaning as you feel the shadow of a headache growing darker.
Shoving your head down into your pillow, your mind drifts to faint memories of the dream you were just having. You can’t exactly remember what it was about. All you can see in your minds eye as you sink into sleep once more is the faint glimmer of a blooming bundle of petals.
It’s hours later now and it’s the weekend. You find yourself sitting in your less than comfortable chair. Confining in its nature, you’re hunched over your desk. Fingers tapping subconsciously against the wooden surface. It’s dimly lit in the room. Sheer curtains mask the cloudy sight of the sky, filtering the light into a veiled haze of dull blue. A crisp gentle breeze wafts through the room.
You’re waiting to leave for your friend’s place. Today was the first day of the new campaign you and few new friends were running of some tabletop RPG game. Flutters of excitement run rampant in your stomach, unable to tear your eyes away from the screen of your phone. Manifesting the voracious desire into patience for the slow passage of time. The excessive stress of it all makes your head hurt more. You didn't know these people well, you were taking a leap of faith in hopes you would bond with them. In hopes you would make a connection.
Foot bouncing, fingertips fiddling— you slide your notebook in front of you. Flicking through the book until you land on a double paged spread. The page contains an intricate watercolour design for your campaign character. Eyes dancing over the page, you read over the annotated notes and splashes of colour, smiling.
You can’t help but think back to all the late nights you spent racking your mind for ideas; trying to come up with all the features and characteristics. Every. Single. Detail. Looking at it now, you notice how much the drawing resembles yourself, only more dramatised. Like an alternate version of yourself, fitting the fantasy setting your party had debriefed you on.
The buzzing of your phone draws you out of your trance. Slipping your phone into your hands you practically bark with excitement at the message previewed on the screen. Collecting your things with practiced efficiency, you shove your notebook into your bag. Bouncing through the house and down the staircase, feet fumbling in front of one another as you skid through the hallways and out of the house.
You stagger in the doorway, bouncing on the balls of your feet.
"—Going out to see my friends, mum." You whisper into the open air.
You make your way, winding through the labyrinthine streets of concrete and gravel. Monotone hues as far as the eye can see. Still. Joyless. Even the horizon looks lifeless. Once a spectacle now reduced to faded pastels drowned by brutalist monoliths. Buildings squat, some towering. Like a forest of solid bleakness. A canopy of dejecting melancholy, so thick and impenetrable that the light of the sun wouldn’t dare to pierce it. Your eyes wander the surrounding area, flicking to your phone screen every other moment.
Then something catches your eye. Between two buildings, across the street, a distorted reflection of light flickers. Like a kaleidoscope but splintering and warped.
It disappears. And then appears again. Each time refracting, more contorted, but brighter now. It looks alive almost. The way it moves is unnatural, garbled as it twists. As it grows larger. it jitters and twitches and writhes. It pulls you in. Like gravity has been flipped on its back and you're falling towards it.
Your feet begin to move before you can think. Stalking closer, apprehensive but curious. Clutching your phone to your chest you whisper to yourself.
“What the fuck is that?” Lips parted. You suck in a breath of air.
You’re seeing colours you didn’t know existed. Unsure if you are seeing or dreaming. If you're seizing. Your eyes light up at the sight. You don’t know whether to be afraid of amazed. You don't think to identify the anomaly. It’s paradoxical in nature. Eyes locking onto it as you enter the alleyway, careful not to step too close.
The rapid beating of your heart warns you to back up against the alleyway wall. The thing is constricting and twitching faster now. More aggressive in the way it snaps from one position to another. You itch to flee. To step back and out of its path. You raise your foot to tread away only to hesitate when it warps directly below your foot. Panic settles within you, eyes tracking it as it flickers. Back and forth. Left and right. You wait for an opening.
The window of time is closing. The gap thinning as you watch it grow. it has you locked there. You begin to envision what will happen if you come in contact with the visual cacophony. Looking directly into the core of it is like looking at the sun. A light of bright and otherworldly hues. Like a portal swirling in on itself.
You bite the inside of your cheek, wincing with trepidation as you force yourself forwards. Your heart drops fifty feet as you land on the concrete. There's solid ground below your feet. Then there isn't. Then you're dropping.
Falling.
You awake from a deep brooding pit of black. Light shielded by your eyelids cast you from your unconscious state. There's a thunderous thumping of what can only be described as a thousand heartbeats sounding from within a ribcage of earth. Shuddering waves of repeated battering on a drum of solid packed soil and stone. You tremble and your eyes crack open.
Your senses return. Your ears ring. You make a horrible wheezing sound — the air knocked right out of you. You're blinded by a relentless white light, vision spotted with patches of black. Dirt is pressed up against your face, you raise your head.
Cavalry, overwhelmingly present, two sides of beating hooves charge towards a meeting point. An invisible wall of devastation directly aligned with your position. You clutch your head, locks of hair tangle in your digits. One breath, two. You need to move.
Time is running out. The ground shakes. You make a noise like a growl mixed with a whimper of urgency. You either move now, or get trampled into a mass of dirt and bone.
You fail to pull yourself to your feet, legs far to wobbly to stand fast enough. So you bring your forearms over your face and roll. Pebbles press into your stomach. Your hair gets snagged on the dry grass. But you go on, rolling and rolling , the ground beneath you looses its solidity. You feel the plush cold damp of mud and murky clay.
You keep going, the sound echoes closer but to the left of you. You're further from death. Though you're too late to realise you've sunk into a bed of peat and spongy earth. It's cold and it shocks your stiff body into motion.
"What the fuck— is happening?!" You croak, arms fumbling amongst the chunks of olive and cedar. Your is body encased in a thick sludge, your only want to flee. Trudging, wide eyed and panting you struggle backwards, straining and squinting to see the mass of bodies colliding just in front of you. You're so close to it all you swear you can feel a gust of wind from impact.
It takes you a few moments to register the grizzly state of the conflict.
The cavalrymen on one side are a vulgar sight. Teeth snarling and sharp, ornamented by braces of copper and bronze. Their hairless bodies vary in shades of deep purples and sickly greens, taut and stretched thin over their robust frames— nothing like you've ever seen. But the most grotesque feature is their uncovered brains — sun baked and shrivelled, a dull pinkish hue— that act as a frame for their eyes.
Awful, the strain the horses have to endure at the demand of their riders. Many of them are wildly snorting and writhing under the weight of the beasts on their backs.
You are unable to peel your gaze away as one of them, one of the beasts, one with a beak, brings his fist down on a horseman on the opposing side. The dull thud of the impact is long lost to the song of the battle, the hymn of blood spilled. You watch as the man falls from his mount. His bare back decorated with streaks of war paint ruined as he is trampled in the dust and dirt.
You fear for your own life as you watch the masses. The line along the field where they meet breaks off as a wave of arrows fly down from the south. You duck, though luckily, you aren't hit. Stray arrows fly over your head as you're submerged deeper in the pit, the chill reminds you of your predicament.
You reach for your phone. The viscousness of the muck makes it extremely difficult. You can feel yourself slipping deeper in the more you move. You take the plunge, clothes weighing you down, you are suddenly regretful of wearing such a loose outfit.
As you claw your way out of the soil, your attention is stolen by a shrill gurgling roar. You snap your head in the direction of the battle.
"The hell?" You whisper, voice trembling from the cold and the shock. You lock your eyes onto one of the deformed horsemen as its struck down by a blade. The strike is fast and powerful and is announced by a war cry. The yell rattles you. You can't reason with what is unfolding in front of you.
Your eyes lead you along the blade as it strikes again, to the hand, the arm, you glimpse a head of blonde hair before loosing the figure in the crowd.
read part two here!