ID: a tag reading "#also I could give you my septimus isn't the first boy Marcia rescues from the young army + give marwick a better backstory au in bullets" /end ID
👀👀👀👀👀👀 ALSO i have a 'marcia rescues marwick from the ya' au and I'm wondering if they're similar :O
so this is assuming that marcia did everything she could the first ten years she was extraordinary wizard, despite the fact that she couldn't really leave the wizard tower. it's a bit long, i'm so sorry. i tried to make this in bullet points but it's like, a cross between bullet points and fic.
· boy four zero nine is nine years old when he is left behind on a do or die mission. he had stayed under the water for too many minutes. naturally, he cannot go back to the young army. they will think he deserted and he remembers what happened to boy three four seven. so he stays where he is and he makes a home in the trees. he is a small, scrawny boy, the way most young army boys are, and all he has is his pack.
· he hides during the day and moves around at night, and during the night he hears the whispers of those fleeing the castle. he hears whispers of the extraordinary wizard and he’s intrigued. he knows all about the extraordinary wizard. in the young army they call her enemy number one. her eyes are cold and dark. her mouth is full of sharp teeth and red with blood. boy four zero nine is terrified of her, but these whispers make him question everything he’s ever known.
· after weeks and weeks, he reasons out that if the young army makes him feel bad and wrong, then they must be bad and wrong. and if they are bad and wrong, then they are wrong about the extraordinary wizard. and if they are wrong about the extraordinary wizard, then perhaps she can help him.
· boy four zero nine desperately wishes to save boy four one two. he knows he cannot do this alone, but if the extraordinary wizard really can end the current regime like the whispers say, then maybe he has a chance.
· it’s easy to figure out how he’s going to get into the wizard tower without getting caught once he starts paying attention. they’re using the tunnels underneath the castle. he didn’t know there were tunnels underneath the castle. he makes himself as presentable as possible. he infiltrates a group of refugees and finds the person in charge and tells him who he is and who he needs to see.
· he doesn’t realize that they take him to the tower to interrogate him, not help him. he is taken to a strange, small room. he doesn’t realize he won’t be meeting the extraordinary wizard here. he doesn’t realize she doesn’t know he’s here. he sits there, quiet and still and polite, asking when he’ll speak with her. his interrogators are nice at first but then they aren’t and he doesn’t understand. he wonders if he was wrong to come here. why can’t he speak to the extraordinary wizard? why do they think he is lying to them?
· and then they here it. “madame do not go in there—” “this is my tower and I shall go where I like.”
· it’s a voice he’s never heard before, beautiful and lilting and full of anger that is not directed at him. then the door is thrown open. his interrogators let go of him and he snaps to attention out of habit. she has a commanding aura, taking up all the space in the room and then some. he trembles. this is the extraordinary wizard. this is enemy number one.
· she doesn’t have cold eyes, sharp teeth, or a bleeding mouth, though her mouth is twisted into a frown.
· she doesn’t talk to him at first. she deals with his interrogators, who insist he may be dangerous. she orders them all out of the room. and then it is just the two of them.
· at first neither of them speak. she stares at him and he stares back, but it’s unnerving because she seems to be staring into his soul. still, he doesn’t look away. he is a young army boy. he is meant to be brave, even if she is towering over him. but then the unthinkable happens. he flinches, but then he understands what is happening.
· she is kneeling in front of him to be at his level. “my name is marcia overstrand,” she says, holding out her hand. she is tired, he thinks. he can see it in the way it pulls at her eyes, her shoulders. he’s familiar with exhaustion and yet she smiles anyway, even if it doesn’t reach her eyes. “what is your name?”
· he takes her hand and gives it a little shake before he quickly pulls his hand back. she is ice cold. “I am boy four zero nine,” he replies. something in her expression changes but he doesn’t understand what.
· she’s looking at him in a way that makes him not want to look her in the eyes, but he won’t cower in front of her. he won’t show any fear in case she decides to eat him anyway, but that seems less and less of a possibility every second he spends with her. “what did you want to tell me, four zero nine?” his number sounds odd in her mouth.
· he needs her help to save boy four one two. he tells her everything and she doesn’t say a word until he’s finished. she asks him if he deserted the young army. he didn’t mean to, please don’t send him back, and there are tears in his eyes and he is terrified.
· “four zero nine, you are never going back there. do you understand?”
· she helps him calm down and just as he’s about to ask her once more if she can help him, his stomach growls. he cant remember the last time he ate, and so she holds out her hand to him once more. after only a little hesitation does he take it, and this time he doesn’t let go. she leads him out of the small room.
· “madame this is not a good idea.” “he is nine years old.” her voice is sharp, cold, but he feels strangely secure. “and when you close the door to your apartment and he slits your throat, what then?” “do you think me foolish enough to allow that of anyone? he is nine years old and if I have to remind you agan—”
· his interrogators step out of their way. in the apartment he eats bowl after bowl of whatever is in the pot on her stove. he eats so fast he’s not sure what it is. eventually she stops him so he doesn’t get sick, and there is a moment where neither of them know what to say or do. then he yawns.
· she has a spare room and it’s his as long as he needs it, she tells him, leading him toward it. “until we save boy four one two?” he asks, and she hums, but he isn’t sure if she is agreeing with him or not.
· when he wakes up his nasty old uniform is gone, replaced by clothes that, if worn and a little too big for him, are far warmer and cozier than his uniform. it makes him feel odd, like this is something that is his.
· he lives with her for six months. every time he asks her when they’ll save boy four one two she distracts him with something else. he likes living with her a lot, and eventually he starts thinking of her as his mother. he doesn’t think she’s particularly motherly, but she’s doing what mothers ought to do, isn’t she? the longer he’s there the more certain he is that the little room at the end of the hall is always going to be his.
· but after six months, there are men he doesn’t recognize and a strange look on madame marcia’s face. stranger still, she is holding onto his pack. she tells him it is dangerous for him to stay here with her and it is an excuse. these men are going to get him someplace safe, where he’ll have a new family to look after him. he doesn’t want any of this. he protests. they are supposed to save boy four one two. they are supposed to be their own family, she promised, except she hadn’t, had she? “you weren’t ever going to help me,” he whispers, and there are tears in her eyes. “I am so, so sorry, nine.”
· the men grab him and she protests that they’re hurting him, but he hardly hears her because he is kicking and screaming. no, he doesn’t want to go. please let him stay, he’ll be good, and he’ll never talk about boy four one two again, but madame marcia turns away from him. he’s dragged out of her apartment, and it is the first and only time he will ever call her mother. but madame marcia doesn’t turn around.
· she cannot be a mother, she tells herself as tears stain her cheeks, as she refuses to turn around because she knows if she does, she’ll never let him leave. she isn’t a mother and she never wanted to be. she cannot be a mother. this is what’s best for everyone. but his screams echo in her ears and hours later she cannot stand it anymore. she gives the order for him to be found and brought back, but it is too late. they tell her he stomped on their toes and ran into the depths of the forest. they never found him. he’s dead then, she reasons, and she hardens herself. no more tears. no more children.
· boy four zero nine runs until he can’t anymore. he runs and he screams, and hours later, when he has screamed himself hoarse, he is found by an old woman. “are you a beast or a boy,” she asks him, and he snarls at her. “beast, then,” she decides, and he does not correct her. he may as well be a beast. being a boy didn’t get him anywhere at all.
