Character Focus: Glen (Oswald) Baskervlle, Jack Vessalius, Vincent Nightray, Gilbert Nightray, Kevin Regnard, Oz Vessalius
Summary: Jack, Glen, Vincent, and Gilbert thought they were going on a relaxing vacation in the mountains, but a creature from The Abyss has a bit of an adventure in store...or is it a warning?
(Written for the Phmonth19 Tragedy Trio prompts "Wolf," "Ruins," and "Winter.")
(For those who’d like some Glen, Jack, Vince, and Gil cuteness. There's at least a little of that here, which was super fun to write. )
Notes: If you can believe it, this is actually a fic for Phmonth19! It was for the Tragedy Trio prompts "Wolf," "Ruins," and "Winter."
I liked a lot of the prompts during Phmonth19, and wanted to find a way to use multiple simultaneously. I liked the idea, but ended up struggling with where I wanted to go with it, and having too much to do during Phmonth19, so it didn't get written then. But I liked it enough to continue it and return to it eventually.
I hope you enjoy it even so!! Please know that when you comment you are both making my entire week, and motivating me to keep writing more fics like this one!!
Premonitions
A young boy weaved in and out of the crumbling artifices, hopping down from a half-broken wall to a mossy ledge on a lower level of the ruins. It was probably a room in the past. It wasn’t now.
They’d warned him not to go in here. But if forbidding something was incentive for most kids, it was practically a command to him.
They told him it was dangerous, unsafe, that anything could fall and crush him, or crumble beneath him, not to mention that there was a sort of energy here: it infected people, made them into madmen and monsters, and if said monstrosities didn’t attack and kill you…you might just become one yourself.
As if he needed a better invitation.
Most regretfully, he hadn’t found any horrifying monstrosities yet. Just a bunch of cracked stones and sewer rats looking for corpses to clean off. Occasionally something shimmered in the dirt, but more often than not it was just a rusted piece of metal, or cracked bit of glass.
He kicked up a board to see a dagger laying there. He frowned, considering it, before picking it up, examining the details on the hilt. Might make a nice souvenir if he could manage to clean the rust off.
He couldn’t help but wonder what happened here. People said this place was dropped into the Abyss, that it had become a hole to swallow all that dared to enter. But what exactly did that mean? He’d heard of the Abyss, and the Chains that lived within, but never of anything other than sinners being dropped into it. What kind of atrocities had everyone there committed to warrant the whole city being dropped into the Abyss?
He kicked another rock, before glancing up, his red eyes widening.
A wolf sat in front of him.
He hadn’t even heard its footsteps. It just sat there on the wall above him, swishing its tail. He took a few steps back.
It was gold and ethereal, its tail long and wispy, like a gust of wind frozen into flesh. Said tail flicked back and forth. White eyes left trails in the air—like slits in a mask, only letting the golden light inside it break through the eyes—yet they held no mal intent—(he’d learned to be able to see that, to feel it, almost). It seemed intelligent.
Was this one of the monstrosities they warned him about?
His hand tightened around the dagger.
The wolf stood, but after it took a few steps forward it looked over its shoulder as if to ask “Are you coming?”
The boy took a step forward himself, to run after its disappearing tail, compelled by some inclination; he knew he ought to follow it, that it wanted to show him something.
“Kevin! Kevin!” A familiar voice called from far away. “I’ll not have you sullying the Regnard name with another one of your insolent games! If you get eaten by some Chain you’ll only have yourself to blame!”
When Kevin looked back the wolf was gone.
*****
Jack breathed deeply through his nose, as he entered the cabin, then breathed out just as noisily.
“Smell that mountain air! I just love the snow, don’t you? I always feel like something’ amazing is going to happen!”
Glen rolled his eyes, dropping their bags—(which Jack had made him carry inside, citing the fact that he was carrying Vincent).
“Say, Jack…” the boy sitting on his shoulders spoke, “do you think we’ll see the northern lights up here?”
“I don’t know! …What do you think, Glen?”
“Probably not.”
“Aww!” Vincent pouted, bumping his fist on Jack’s head.
“Ow!” Jack reacted in an over exaggerated way.
“Eh! I’m sorry!”
When Jack had found out about the cabin the Baskervilles owned in the mountains he knew it would be the perfect place to spend a few days relaxing and playing in the snow—and what better way to remember how to have fun than to bring Gilbert and Vincent along?
When Jack brought up this idea, Glen had blatantly refused. Ever the responsible leader, Glen didn’t take vacations from his duties. But lately he had started having conversations with the rose bushes, and everyone agreed he could stand a few days off.
Glen was just starting to unpack their stuff when—
“You guys want to go sledding?” This was Jack’s voice, of course.
It was a resounding “yes,” from the kids, complete with jumping up and down and shouting.
“We just arrived,” Glen grunted. “Wasn’t the point of this trip to relax?”
“And what better way to relax then hurling yourself down a snowy mountain on a thin piece of wood?”
Glen blinked. “Reading.”
Jack grabbed his arm, pulling him out into the snow. “Don’t be such a fuddy duddy. Come on!”
Glen glared at his friend as he promptly dragged him off into the snow.
Soon they were flying up to the tallest hill they could find on Raven, then, after they successfully reached the top, they proceeded to push each other down it on sleds, with much giggling and whooping (from everyone except Glen). When they reached the bottom, they would fly back up on Glen’s chains—(who seemed to enjoy the show).
At one point, a little while into the festivities, Vincent was waiting for his turn when something in the corner of his eye flickered. He turned to see in the woods, behind a tree, a creature.
Vincent froze when he met the wolf’s gaze, a shiver running up his spine, more than just the cold, his face twisting in fear.
“What’s wrong, Vince?” Jack put a hand on his shoulder, glancing from the terrified boy to the empty air he was fixating on.
The wolf ran in a figure eight around two of the trees, brushing up against them, its form leaving tracks in the air. Then it paused again to stare at the boy with white, smoky eyes.
It didn’t look completely there.
Vincent pointed shakily towards it.
Jack put a hand on his shoulder. “…Where?”
He pointed more emphatically.
“I’m sorry Vince, I…I don’t see anything.”
“What’s going on?” Glen asked, hopping off Raven and landing beside them with Gilbert in a flurry of black wings.
Vincent just kept pointing, his finger a vibrating signal.
Glen’s eyes widened.
“What is it?” Jack demanded.
“It’s a wolf. Or at least…” he paused, noticing the strange color, and misty nature of the creature.
“I don’t see it,” Gilbert said softly.
“That’s okay,” Jack crouched down by him, “Neither can I.” He stood back up to his full height, reasoning with Glen, “If you two can see it, and we can’t…”
Glen nodded at him, before taking a few steps forward, and finishing the thought:
“I think, more likely than not, its something from the Abyss.” He squinted at it, watching it playfully thread the trees. “I think it wants us to follow it.”
Vincent tensed at the idea.
Glen looked over his shoulder, his eyes flicking to the boy. “I can always go after it by myself if you’d like to return to the cabin.”
“Oh it’ll be fine! Don’t worry!” Jack took the hands of both boys. “With Master Glen with us, nothing’s going to hurt us!”
Glen rolled his eyes, but Jack’s words seemed to comfort them.
Un-summoning Raven, Glen walked in front, the other three following a short distance behind.
When the spectral wolf saw they were going to heed its call, it moved further into the forest, always dancing around the trees as it waited for them to catch up.
They followed it quite some ways—(especially since they were tired from all the sledding)—until the trees stopped abruptly in a cliff edge. Jack had to put his arms out in front of the boys to keep them from walking any further.
As they raised their eyes, they saw across the gorge a plateau.
“I-Is it still there?” Gilbert asked softly, looking all around them.
Vincent and Oswald looked around but the wolf wasn’t anywhere close to them.
“There!” Vince pointed after a moment. The wolf was across the gorge, weaving in and out of a stone ruin on the plateau.
“Are you sure that’s safe?” Gilbert asked nervously. “Maybe we’ve followed it far enough…”
Glen had already summoned Jabberwocky, and was currently climbing on its back.
“You coming?” He asked the group flatly, holding out his hand.
The three glanced at each other, before Jack helped the kids onto its back, and hopped on himself. Jack hugged the boys tightly, as Gilbert held just as tightly to Glen’s coat.
The wind was cold and biting as they flew through the air, but the ride was very brief, and they landed moments later in a puff of dust in the center of the ruins.
“What is this place?” Jack asked the air, and no one answered.
They ventured cautiously into the ruins, at first sticking together, but soon curiosity overtook them, and they each wandered in separate directions, captivated by different rooms. The place wasn’t too vast though, and thus didn’t allow them to stray too far from each other.
Glen found the throne room, or where it most likely once was; a huge empty room in the center of the ruins, empty, save for the collapsing chair, backed by the skeleton of a large window, holding broken pieces of colored glass. He slowly marched up to it, running his fingers along the ghost of the chair, looking out the window at the now frozen water far below, wondering what sort of king ruled here.
When he turned around, the wolf was sitting in the center of the room, swishing its tail at him. Glen was sure it wanted him to understand something, but he couldn’t quite discern what.
He noticed at the side of the room there was a large structure. At first he mistook it for a collapsed bit of wall, but upon closer inspection, he realized it was a piano. He set his fingers on a few of the notes, but they only gave a croak.
It’d been too long.
He lifted his head and raised his voice to ask the wolf about the place, and learn if it could respond, but it had moved on.
Gilbert found the old kitchen, the food there long since turned to compost for rats and roots. Then he found the servants’ quarters not too far from there, full of rotting bedframes and hungry mice, wondering what sort of servants were here, and if their king was as noble as Glen-sama.
He didn’t see the wolf pass beneath the doorframe behind him.
Vincent found a room that likely belonged to a child. It was faded, but there was paint on the walls: designs of flowers and vines. He almost stepped on a clay sculpting of a bird that may have served as a toy, once.
On a broken dresser he found a box which, once opened, turned out to play music, the notes discordant after years of rust and neglect.
He thought he saw something else, and lifted up the half-bug-eaten board. He immediately dropped it, wishing he hadn’t, the something that was there making him cover his mouth in shock and horror.
He felt a nudge at his back, and almost screamed, whirling around to see the wolf behind him. Fear glued his lips, welled his eyes with tears.
The wolf cocked its head to the side, as if confused by his fear. It licked his hand, and Vincent drew back, though it felt like a brush of wind.
“W-W-What do you want?!” He stammered.
But he could not understand the wolf’s words.
Jack descended a staircase a bit further out of the way and found—more in tact than much of the buildings—a dungeon.
It was a large stone room, lined with cells, sectioned off by rusting bars. He pressed one open with a creak and found an empty room, and a skeleton. He continued on until he found one without a skeleton, whose bars were bent, as if the person within had managed to escape through them. He entered through to find there was a journal in this one. He picked it up, brushed and blew off the dust and frost, the pages just as creaky and unwilling to budge as the doors.
He sat on the floor where he found it and began to read. Many of the pages were too damaged by time to read, the ink fading, the pages crinkling and crumbling, but he could make out at least bits of the story. It seemed the writer was in love with a girl, but, due to her being the ruler of this kingdom’s queen, they could never be together. As the pages continued, the writer seemed to grow more and more obsessed with her; his phrases containing less and less sense and sanity. Jack couldn’t tell exactly how he ended up in the dungeon, nor how he apparently broke out—if the bends weren’t made by weather or time—but in his not-quite-sane state, he must have done something very stupid. Maybe a lot of things.
When the final pages became too illegible, he looked up and saw in the waning sunlight, the tally marks on the wall. As he began to dust and defrost them, he realized the whole wall was covered in them. He ran his hand over the grooves, thinking of how long this person must have been left alone inside himself, and what that might do to a person.
He couldn’t see the wolf pacing around his feet, reading over his shoulder, couldn’t feel the wolf trying to nudge him, nor hear the wolf try to ask him voicelessly: “Do you understand? Do you understand?”
“There you are.” A deep voice broke the silence, almost making him jump.
Glen was standing in the doorway, Vincent and Gilbert at either side of him—(Vincent clinging to his coattails rather tightly).
“Did you find anything interesting?”
Jack set the journal on the floor beside him, standing and stretching, yawning the words: “Not really, no.”
Upon noticing the pink light cast on the floor through the small window, Jack asked, “Do you think we should head back?”
Glen gave a curt nod, turning around to leave, and Jack ran to catch up.
*****
A young boy with golden hair and green eyes stood in the midst of a ruin; a caved in part of the city—or what once was the city.
After putting his hand to his chin in thought, and a good dose of looking around, he pulled a watch out of his pocket. When he flipped it open it began to play the soft tinkling notes of a somewhat sad song.
“I still don’t know what exactly happened here,” Oz muttered softly to himself, “but…I’m going to do everything I can to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
He didn’t see the wolf poking its head out from around a wall behind him, didn’t see its ears perk up, nor, now that someone had finally heard and headed its warning, hear its satisfied howl;
The voting period has come to an end, and we have our prompts for Pandora Hearts Month 2019!! A huge thank you to everyone who voted!!!!
For anyone who hasn't seen the other posts, this is an event that regards the main Pandora Hearts trios (Golden Trio, Rainsworth Trio and Tragedy Trio) and a bonus week in which we focus on any ships/friendships/ot3 fans chose and love. You can create edits, fan arts, drabbles, fanfictions, amvs and mms.
You guys voted for there to also be a fifth week for Vanitas no carte this year!! (Also, for anyone who saw my earlier post, i decided to keep VNC as the fifth week. That made the most sense chronologically, and i realized looking over the results that not everyone was interested in it, so maybe it won't be as active as i thought..)
You are free to have fun with this!! As long as you tag it, NSFW is allowed!! (and writing/tagging the ships is nice too, since we have a wide selection of tastes as far as ships go within this fandom). You can pretty much do whatever you want with the prompts!!
In the end, in almost every category there was a tie for the last prompt. I’m not sure how Maddy dealt with ties in the past, but since I liked both prompts for almost all of them, and it was clear you guys did too, I decided to just keep both prompts, and have one day have two prompts (for all except Vncweek). I hope that isn't too confusing. You can create something for one, both, or neither, prompt/s for those days!!
And remember, you can join any time, and use as many or as few prompts as you want during phmonth!! And you don't have to post on the day if you can’t make it!! We’ll keep reblogging through Dec 31st!
There were definitely certain prompts that got a lot of votes, so I worked backwards, putting the prompts with the most votes at the end of the week, giving you guys the most time to work on them, and those with the least votes at the beginning.
I realized as i was making this post that time may be an issue since we live all across the world. (Even though its the evening of Nov 4th when I’m posting this for me, it’s probably already Nov 5th for many of you). You are free to post whenever the day is for you, but i myself will be making posts according to my time, which is Central Standard Time in America. (Maddy and @song-of-amethyst are on the other side of the world though, so they’ll see your stuff when i don't!!)
Without further ado, here are the prompts!
Golden Trio Week (Alice, Oz and Gilbert), November 10th—16th:
Day 1, Sunday: Cat, and/or Blue
Day 2, Monday: Gratitude
Day 3, Tuesday: Sleep
Day 4, Wednesday: Clock
Day 5, Thursday: Remembrance
Day 6, Friday: Trust
Day 7, Saturday: Tears
Rainsworth Trio Week (Sharon, Break and Reim), November 17th—23rd:
Day 1, Sunday: Liquor, and/or Wind
Day 2, Monday: Faith
Day 3, Tuesday: Cookies
Day 4, Wednesday: Fireplace
Day 5, Thursday: Nightmares
Day 6, Friday: Flowers
Day 7, Saturday: Laughter
Tragedy Trio Week (Lacie, Jack and Oswald), November 24th—30th:
Day 1, Sunday: Wolf and/or Tradition
Day 2, Monday: Sentimental
Day 3, Tuesday: Lock
Day 4, Wednesday: Breath
Day 5, Thursday: Runaway
Day 6, Friday: Ruins
Day 7, Saturday: Winter
Fan’s Choice Week, aka any ships/friendships/ ot3 fans chose (For example, Elliot x Leo, Lottie x Jack, Elliot, Oz and Leo, Oscar x Sarah, Ada x Vincent, etc. Any characters you wish. But it doesn't have to even be ships, romantic, platonic or otherwise! You can basically use this week to write about whichever characters you want, especially those not represented by the other weeks—it’s your choice!!),
December 1st—7th:
Day 1, Sunday: Candy and/or Sword
Day 2, Monday: Yearning
Day 3, Tuesday: Night
Day 4, Wednesday: Book
Day 5, Thursday: Grave
Day 6, Friday: Knight
Day 7, Saturday: Nostalgic
Vncweek, December 8th—14th:
Day 1, Sunday: Naive
Day 2, Monday: AU
Day 3, Tuesday: Gentle
Day 4, Wednesday: Shadow
Day 5, Thursday: Light
Day 6, Friday: Scars
Day 7, Saturday: Childhood
I also made a collection on Ao3 for writers which will open on November 10th!! So please post your fics to the collection, and/or tag your posts on Ao3 with Phmonth19 so i can find them!!
Also, can you make groups/cabins in Nanowrimo?? If so, i will!!
Oh, and don't forget to either put a link, or a “read more” on long fics if you are a writer (or long posts in general), so it’s easier for us to reblog!
Remember to tag the blog, and/or me @i-prefer-the-term-antihero (or you can tag my writing blog @antihero-writings so you don't have to put in all the dashes XD), @maddyisenough, or @song-of-amethyst, so we can see your posts and reblog them!! And write the day, the name of the prompt, and tag phmonth19 in all your posts!
Feel free to get started on making stuff early!!
We’re so excited to see what you make!!! Thank you for all your support!!
So, I decided I'll try sketching something for at least one prompt of every phmonth week. This one is for the 4th day of the rainsworth trio week and the prompt is "fireplace". I really like these three. Break was my favourite character for a long time, but now it's a tie between him, Lacie and the person I plan to draw for the 4th week 😉
Though pandora hearts is one of those manga where I love almost every character😍
At the moment I'm trying to improve my compositions. But it's really hard to do that 😖
“You didn’t actually expect it to still be intact after 100 years, did you?”
Oz sighed. In his hands laid the remnants of his old clock. Or Jack’s, rather.
“Well, it did survive 100 years, so I didn’t suspect it wouldn’t survive another 100.”
Alice was watching the decaying thing from Oz’s shoulder, a little bit confused by how this seemed important to Oz. She knew where it came from, she was one of the first few people Jack showed it to after all, but she always thought this was a replica (she never questioned where it came from, or why did it contain a piece of her memory). She frowned a little.
“It was meant to be resistant,” she finally said, trying to think about Jack’s description. The vague memory still present in her subconcious. “The batery shoul’ve died down a few decades, but the covering will only need a repolishing and it’ll look as good as new.”
The other two stared at her. She raied a brow, confused at the attention she was receiving (not that she minded, she loved them both so much and she embraced their attention like a starved puppy receives treats, but this was a rare kind of attention). “...what did I say?”
After a few minutes, Oz seemed to understand why she knew so much about this clock. He gave Gilbert The Gaze and then seaweed head understood too.
“Do you, by any chance, know of any clockmaker that lives nearby, Gil?” he asked in his sweeatest tone. Gilbert just sighed.
“We could just go and ask for a new clock,” despite his weak reply, he already knew Oz’s contraargument for that.
“We could do that, but this is probably the most important thing that binds us together.” There were so many memories surrounding that clock. Some unsavory, some better left behind (forgotten in a dark, dark place of their minds they learned to forget about), but some cherished for holding their greatest joy. Their best memories.
“It’s not only about the ceremony, it’s... it’s more than that,” Alice’s fragmented memories, Oz’s true identity, how he felt so connected to the past yet couldn’t understand how, and Gilbert’s as well.
It was the clock that connected them, and it would continue to do so, wheter Gilbert actually provided a clockmaker willing to repair it or not.
He sighed. “There is one clockmaker that can restore it to its original state...” he said, finally relenting. Oz’s and Alice’s smiles were enough to make the rest of the information escape his mouth. “Last time I heard he lived near the Old Town...”
Alice’s smile grew wider. “Then what are we waiting for?”
.
.
.
For Pandora Hearts Month 2019. Golden Trio Week, day 4: Clock.
"Be careful, " Miranda had warned him, one fateful day, "you might as well be walking right into the wolf's den."
She had been right, of course. If he had wondered why her obsession had gone unsatisfied for so many years, he no longer did, seated across Glen Baskerville and surrounded by a dozen of his cloaked servants. He had not stopped to think about it, not at first. Not about how Oswald had knocked him out to get him away from his sister, as quickly and fiercely as if he were protecting a cub; and little more about Glen's eyes and the predator's glint in them, or the dangerous edge of his voice as he mentioned killing the intruder, with about as much passion as if he were talking about the weather.
At times, he found the analogy to be exceedingly fitting. The Baskervilles were not a family, not one linked by blood, yet there was no boundary to their loyalty to the clan. Much like a pack of wolves, they moved as one; protecting the youngsters was their collective responsibility, and all followed the leader with less thought than they'd have given the very act of breathing.
As time passed, they never eased around him, or accepted his occasional visits. He had suspected they never would. Most of the time, he concealed himself from anyone but the friend he visited; he came through secret roads and hid carefully behind a red cloak himself. On occasions, he would let himself be discovered, trying to appear clumsy, careless, and most of all harmless in the hopes of making them drop their wild wariness. It never truly worked, for with the exception of Oswald and his small friends, no one was ever pleased to see the lowly noble wandering about in the manor. Eyes narrowed at his view, and filled with suspicion. Always he remained an outsider. It was not something that he could hope to change; no more than a cat could hope to become a dog. He did not know what he was, but he was definitely not a wolf.
He felt like prey in the middle of predators, although he was not quite prey, either. Still their pack leader had chosen to give him his friendship, and while few approved of Glen's odd choice of company, no one dared question it.
He had been the one who recovered the young ones, and their story had wakened in him bitter memories. He had watched with fascination as the clan adopted Gilbert like a true family would, and as the boy thrived and grew to favor Glen over him. And in the same way, he had watched Vincent slowly grow isolated from the pack. A sad and lonely existence, more an outcast than an outsider, much as Lacie had once been.
And there it was, the one true oddity in this pack, for he doubted wolves killed their siblings. Or forced each other to do it. Maybe that was the part of them that was the most similar to himself, he mused one fateful day as he walked among ruins. He observed to himself that such wickedness could not belong to wild beasts, but to whatever he himself was, capable of something as cowardly as hunting wolves in their den. He wondered briefly if such a creature existed. But of course it does, his thoughts answered shortly, if any thought was truly his at all. Tears blurred his vision as he recoiled from the view of his friend's dismembered body.
The smile that twisted his face then was a wretched thing.
