How did Milo and Scott meet? What is the Witching World and how it relates to the Overworld? Who were these two before the domestic bliss found in Scott's flashbacks or in the tragedy of necromancy that came after?
[1006 words]
[quick tw for discussion of past child abuse]
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“Every scar a new story, huh?” Scott snorts, fingers tracing idly over Milo’s body, with its skin exposed under the twilight sky.
“Yeah, of course!” Milo chuckles, yet another tale of fighting off beasts in the great untamed woods of the Witching World ready to leap from his tongue. He’s had so much fun already just telling Scott about his adventures.
He hadn’t meant to brag, didn’t feel like much more then nearly dying at the time. He knows more than anything his mother would hate it, if she could see the way he throws himself into danger.
But Scott throws his head back with a laugh from where he’s propped on his arms looking down at Milo, touching him carefully. A shiver between them for the sentiment. Gentle touch, what a wonderfully foreign thing. Milo hasn't had that since before his mother died.
He imagines Scott hasn’t been too acquainted with it either, for as little as Milo really knows about him.
“I’m sure you have some stories of your own,” Milo murmurs, his own stories falling from his tongue. He instead reaches for Scott with his own hand, smiling as Scott merely raises a brow.
Milo grasps Scott’s palms from where they lay on his chest, turning them over to see the old scars he knows are there. Scott stills over him, the coyness of his expression dropping into something a little more guarded as Milo leans up to kiss the palms gently.
“It’s not much of a story,” Scott says, after a long moment. Milo just shrugs.
“Something left its mark on you. That isn’t nothing,” He says, though his tone neither pushes nor retreats from the conversation.
Scott is quiet another long moment before he takes his hands from Milo. Then he lays down, settling his head on the hunters chest and facing him. His expression is pensive, holding his own hands and clutched protective near his chin as he thinks. Milo doesn’t disrupt him, instead reaching to run a hand through the others hair and smiling as the green eyes he’s grown to love so much stare up at him.
“People in the Overworld are scared of magic. You know that,” He mutters looking away again into the clearing.
“I know,” Milo agrees softly.
“My town wasn’t very appreciative of my talents,” Scott huffs, as if attempting a dry laugh. He reaches and, though his hand shakes, beckons a lily from the earth.
“Their loss,” Milo murmurs with a smile, reaching for the flower and plucking it up to tuck behind Scott’s ear. The man snorts with some small amusement. The small glow of affection settling warmth in Milo’s chest amidst all the ache of seeing Scott so wary again.
“I didn’t know to hide it when I realised I was… good with plants,” Milo doesn’t correct him, letting Scott call it what he wants. “I showed off a lot. So my parents took a belt to my hands hoping it would free me. Or maybe just stop me from doing it again.”
Milo has heard of cruelty, he understands it uniquely through his mothers spiralling paranoia and the stories she spun. Of witch hunts and the dangers of man, the cruelty of a life he hasn’t any memory of.
Here, Scott presents him with a new kind of horror. One he can’t even imagine, especially as Scott speaks so calmly. Guarded, as if talking about it could cut his hands anew. Or even that he is embarrassed by the confession.
It doesn’t make sense to Milo. His mother in all her paranoia had never hurt him on purpose. She had been smothering, raised her voice at times, but she was never cruel. She would have given anything to protect Milo from pain, and she ruined both of them for it. But the point stands, she had tried.
The easy smile on Milo’s face drops more tense than he has been in a long, long time. He stares at Scott. At his hands.
“Your parents,” Milo parrots, voice broken. It’s what finally takes Scott's gaze from the clearing back to Milo, frowning.
“Sorry, I told you it wasn’t much of a story,” he murmurs, tucking his hands clasped again to hide the palms. As if he can just put them away after Milo knows what's been done.
“Your parents tried to beat the magic out of you?” Milo sits up forcefully. Scott yelps, his head falling into Milo’s lap instead.
There’s a wild look he finds in the hunter's eye. It makes him gulp nervously just as easily as it flushes his cheeks.
“And my teachers, with rulers or pointing sticks,” he says, though he can’t imagine why. Milo already looks horrified.
“Why?!” Milo asks, suddenly desperate. Because he has known cruelty in theory, but this beyond anything doesn’t make sense. “You were a child, and they hurt you. Tried to take away such an important part of you!”
“Didn’t work well, now did it,” Scott mutters, lifting his hand to touch the lily still in his hair. “They were scared, I guess.”
Milo lets his mouth gape before closing. Unable to find the words. Nothing worth saying comes to his mind.
Milo knows what fear does to people. He knows what it did to the villagers who so greatly betrayed his mother, and he knows how it warped his mother herself. He gulps, mouth feeling dry. He understands, he does on a technical level alone. What Scott has said makes sense. Afraid people do drastic things.
Scott’s parents scarred his palms for fear of his magic and what he was capable of.
Milo’s mother isolated him for fear of the world, and what it might do.
“Well, that's not a very good reason,” Milo mutters, throat unusually tight. Scott shifts in his lap, squinting up at him for a moment before the expression softens impossible.
“No, I guess it’s not,” He agrees quietly, almost as if the thought had never occurred to him before. Not with such empathy at least.
Okay I know everyone is celebrating Scott’s happy ending and Milo still loving him and whatever. But.
Does Milo know about the human sacrifices? Or the dungeon literally in his basement? Or that Scott keeps jars of the blood of all the other competitors? Or that he has summoned and killed and enslaved several demons and a god?
How much does he know? How far do you think his love will stretch before it breaks under one of the many, many terrible sacrifices Scott made to bring him back?
I was apart of the @mcytblraufest this year in which I created this piece featuring a d&d inspired au of Milo & Scott from Witchcraft SMP!
@handstotheskye wrote THIS absolutely wonderful fic:
On a Quest to On the Run
which I absolutely recommend checking out! I had a lot of fun with the event this year and everyone should go look through the collection on ao3 and the linked art :]
thinking about a post canon wcsmp plot where Shelby tries to reach out and bring the competition around for a reunion of sorts for funsies. Its help in Glimmer Grove with hosting from her wonderful probable wife Katherine and maybe there's some ulterior motives in trying to get the witching world and the overworld more acquainted with one another to help dispel rumours and stuff that she's been dealing with alone for over a decade.
Nearly everyone is able to come (not sure where Cleo wanders off too at the end of her series I feel like she went MIA in a sense idk) but its silly goofy to me for the simultanious reunions of everyone seeing shelby and realising she's married to a princess and has been in the overworld for such a long time and thats got all kinds of info.
and also Scott showing up powerless, still deep in his physical healing process from being semi-undead to magicless and human once more (headcanons in my brain go brr) and with his resurrected lover and just,,, theres so much about this i think would be funny and deeply angsty for this reunion i just think it would be fun <33
was rearranging my fic files and found an outline for a comic I forgot about and promptly went to find it.
It was about how I imagined Milo and Scott met in wcsmp. The outline honestly trailed more into fic territory and explored a lot of how I entwined wcsmp with my empires world building and where Milo and Scott were in all of that.
Not sure how I'm feeling about their designs here even though I know why I put them in those outfits lmao. Honestly considering revisiting this at some point because I really like the stuff I had written for them and I also like sharing my worldbuilding which, tbh, this was mostly worldbuilding exploration lol.
anyways, if anyone has any thoughts or questions about this feel free to say so :] i miss wcsmp
