Nail: Stop thinking whatever you're thinking.
Yuga: Huh?
Nail: You always make that face when you're about to say something stupid just to piss me off. So cut it out-
Yuga: I love you.
Nail:
Yuga:
Yuga: Also, cereal qualifies as a soup.
Nail, sighing: I knew it.
there are twice as many stars as usual beside the white moon tonight.
Written for the 100ships Challenge on Dreamwidth
Prompt #37 White
Ship: Providenceshipping | Neil/Yuga
Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh! Sevens
Word Count: 2,279
Rating: T
Warnings: No Warnings Apply ?
Tags: Alternate Universe - Greek Mythology, Pre-Slash, Interspecies Relationships, Aged Up Characters, Dehumanisation, Minor or Implied Bestiality, It/Its Pronouns for Neil
A long, long time ago, there was once a boy who was an inventor.
He was a strapping young lad by the name of Ohdo Yuga. Though he was purportedly small and tried his best not to make a big deal of himself despite his cleverness, his wits were quite storied. His feats of ingenuity had helped him cross seas and lands with the aid of various bits and pieces that most could only do half of what he thought to do with him.
His reputation did not escape the notice of a royal couple in an opulent, festive city and so, they summoned him to his palace, if he wished to dare. They taunted him with the allure of yet more challenges to put him through and ever eager to “have fun”, Yuga could not turn down such a writ of invitation and so, he appeared before them in court.
Their challenge was simple, they declared: slay the minotaur of the labyrinth.
Yuga was sceptical at first of this challenge. He had defeated many monsters before, fooling them with roguish tactics but ultimately, he was a good duellist and was confident he could fell one more monster with his enchanted blade in combination with a brilliant strategy. Though, it almost sounded a chore to him after the adventures that he had in the not so distant past.
Thus, he was, however, intrigued by the setting of the labyrinth beneath the very castle they were at the feet of. The royal couple explained further his summons to kill the minotaur and why it was enshrined in the labyrinth at all which had been crafted by a master inventor, one whose name when dropped caused even Yuga’s eyes to go wide and starry.
But first, he asked for an explanation of the monster and how it had come about into the world at all. He deemed knowing his foe greater than knowing the elaborate, ornate tools they offered him to kill the beast with. And so, per Yuga’s request, the royal couple relayed unto him a story of their shame and they had lived in fear of it long enough. Yuga was sworn to secrecy as he was let into over a decade’s worth of marital secrets. Ones that Yuga promised to take to the grave with him, regardless of the outcome of this writ of challenge.
The King had come into power by praying to the gods, calling them down from their celestial mountaintops and they sent their approval in the form of a sacrificial bull who was pristinely white. He was meant to kill the bull on an altar to the very gods who had validated his birthright to the regency but the bull was far too beautiful to make waste from and so, he killed an imposter and its stead, angering the gods who were not quite so dull as to be deceived so bluntly.
To punish him for his folly, they chose not to revoke the very right to power they had installed him with at the blessing in the bull, instead they cursed his wife. She became enraptured with lust with the white bull and committed the greatest taboo between human and animal with it.
Nine months after that torrid union, the Queen gave birth to an abomination. A creature that was both a baby and a calf. It had the body of a human and the head of a bull. No one knew what to do with such a creature aside from sealing it in secrecy. For the first few years of this child’s life, it was hidden away in the castle and the Queen’s pregnancy had, officially, never happened. At first, the child was easy to placate with food and tepid attention but it soon proved far more uncanny than its appearance might imply.
It was intelligent. Scarily so. And hungry, so hungry, all the time. At first the minotaur had been content to eat bale upon bale of hay but then it got a taste for meat and it didn’t seem that such a gluttony for red meat could be sated after that. No matter what they gave the creature, it made its carnivorous hunger poignantly known. It even tried to attack one of the manservants who had looked after it for so long and thus, that was the last of it. A single room - more like a pen - in the Castle was not enough to contain a dangerous beast and so, the labyrinth was crafted and the young minotaur was entombed inside it.
However, as of late, there had been reports that the minotaur was coming closer and closer to solving the puzzle of the labyrinth. The thought of a beast, now large and scorned, escaping was a hazard to all the kingdom and so, it had to be slain.
Yuga hummed to himself as the King and Queen’s story petered out. They seemed regretful that their son - unnamed, a monster - had to die but it was for the best, they believed, untruthfully. It did seem simple enough. Solve the labyrinth and kill the beast but still, Yuga had his doubts. He just had this little wonder in the back of his head but even so, he accepted the job and he was certain that he had more than enough to solve the labyrinth.
He was shown the schematics the servants used to navigate it so they could leave food out for the minotaur. It was very impressive, Yuga had to admit. His eyes were dazzled and confounded by the interlocking pieces of paper that built up to be the map but he was certain all that he would need was a few balls of string and a torch. He rejected all the fancy equipment the royal couple wanted to give him at his insistance that all he would need was so little.
Despite their concern that Yuga was wrong in his preparations, the King and Queen had a servant produce Yuga the items that he requested. He was given them and he accepted them with eager gratitude, doing little to assure the dubious stares that he was given that he would be fine inside the labyrinth with just string and a source of light. Vehemently, Yuga assured them it would be all good, just show him the way to the entrance and so, despite the anxiety that they were sending a promising youth to death, they did have Yuga escorted to one of the entrance hatches hidden in the castle.
He dropped down through it and found himself standing in the thick of the labyrinth. It was gorgeous. White marble all the way down, Yuga realised how he illuminated the corridor. Though, there were scuff marks and even shattered tiles as he wandered through, the ball of string unwinding in his hand as he drifted through the halls.
Though there was danger at every turn - or so he was told - Yuga felt that it was privilege to be down here. He admired the creator of the labyrinth greatly and so, he absorbed all that he could as he traced the yarn around the various walls, backing away from dead ends and keep his senses alert. Every once in a while, he heard the shuffle of hooves and the sniffling of a bovine nose. They were faint, ominous noises but they did little to incite Yuga’s nerves. He was calm every step of the way as he found himself at the crux of the labyrinth.
He turned one last corner and Yuga’s eyes widened, “I found you.” he said, delighted, like it was a game.
The minotaur blinked. It was disarmed - and even perplexed - by the casualness in which Yuga displayed unto it. Yuga just smiled cheekily as it sized him up and he did the same under his veneer of mirth. The minotaur was exactly as he was promised: it was a monster. It was beautiful.
The minotaur had a coat of snow white fur, the muzzle of a bull and eyes that shone like rubies, even in the dark. It wasn’t big and bulky but rather malnourished with a frightened, reactive stance. It just looked wrong because of how the bones were bare beneath what human skin that it did don like apparel, cladding itself in a wrongful, maternal heritage. It was more its father beast than its human mother but Yuga could still see the humanness in its hands as it held onto the cornerstone of its den, curious about this interloper it had never seen before.
“So, you're the big, bad bull, huh?” Yuga poked fun at the minotaur, cautiously drawing in closer and it just watched. He held his torch steady and the flicker of firelight appeared to spook it, so he moved his hand slightly away, taking the fire and shadows with him, casting them away from where the minotaur awkwardly stood. “I hear you like eating humans, is that true?”
The minotaur mumbled something but Yuga didn’t quite catch anything distinct. It all sounded like the lowing of a cow to him, just softer. Messier.
“Do you have a name?” Yuga asked next.
The minotaur shrugged, true to its past as a calf rejected by its mother.
“Or a name you want to be called by?” Yuga tried rephrasing the question and he tilted his head the other way.
There was a flash of red beneath the shaggy, white mane of the minotaur and for a moment, Yuga thought he might have been done for. He stiffened, fight or flight trying to decide what he should do, before the minotaur pulled back, not a cause for concern at all.
“Neil.” the Minotaur admitted in the tiniest of voices. “I want to be called Neil.”
“Ah,” Yuga exclaimed, “a good name. I hear it can be champion. Or cloud and you are white like a cloud. It can even mean passion, victory, honour… It's a great name.”
The Minotaur - Neil - perked up at being praised.
“Neil, I get the feeling that you don’t want to kill me and truth be told, I did not come here to kill you but I did come to slay you and here I’m choosing to believe that means liberate you. So how about it?” Yuga asked, unafraid as he put out his free hand to the Minotaur.
“Why?” Neil asked.
“Why, what?” Yuga replied like a blissfully unaware yet rather confounded parrot.
“You were meant to kill me. Why spare me? Why come unarmed at all? I have had many opportunities to kill you but you could not have known my pacifist nature from the rumours my caregivers would have plied you with.” Neil lamented.
Yuga rescinded his hand and stroked his chin thoughtfully. He hummed, “I think… it was providence.”
“Providence?” Neil echoed.
“Or more like a lucky hunch. I was told, yes, of how you attacked a servant-”
“A servant who struck me first for asking for more than the table scraps they give.” Neil darkly interrupted.
“But was skeptical they were feeding you well at all.” Yuga pointlessly finished his own sentence, his thought. He put his hand out again. “So what do you say to providence? To a lucky hunch?”
Neil examined Yuga’s hand carefully. He wore fingerless gloves and his fingers were calloused with proof of Yuga’s passion unto inventions and other oddities of the like. It was very small and very human, compared to Neil’s as he drew in closer, the noise of his hooves on the tiles echoing, and he placed his hand - sliding - against Yuga’s. His nails were hard like his hooves, his hand just out of proportion for it should be but Yuga held onto him strongly.
Neil was quiet but his quietness conveyed his thoughts neatly regardless. He liked Yuga’s answer greatly. Providence. Yes, it was a very good answer, even if Yuga couched it in his nonchalant charade, he was a trustworthy human, one of few, Neil the Minotaur decided.
“I bet you're hungry, right? Let’s go find you the tastiest meat and noodles dishes we can find. The noodles can be for me ‘cause I really like noodles.” Yuga joked.
Neil’s stomach rumbled and he was embarrassed by the noise, especially because Yuga laughed at it but his laugh was so jolly. Neil didn’t dislike it. He had never been around a merry human before, not one so unafraid and unabashed as Yuga.
“I’ve never had noodles before. I would like to try them.” Neil slowly admitted.
“Sounds great then.” Yuga beamed.
Together, they make their escape. Yuga rushes forth where Neil is hesitant lest he stumble but before they realise it, they’re running through the halls as if they were child and calf. The thread along the hallowed halls that become abandoned at the end of the spool. Yuga goes through the hatch first and it's not where he entered from but Neil remembers this place. This field, even if it was day when he was conceived and later birthed in.
Neil lifted his head and it was as though he were seeing the world for the very first time, though it was not. Yuga was by his side, still holding his hand tightly and with great comfort. There is wind in the grass and now in their hair, their fur. It's undeniably a perfect summer night. Balmy, crisp, and exciting. Neil’s heart raced as Yuga trekked forth, hungry and sly, bringing Neil with him as he still looked up at the sky. That bright, white moon welcomed him and there was, undoubtedly to them both, twice as many stars than usual in the indigo sky.
are you doing the shipping bingo or were you just reblogging it
if you're doing it how about Providenceshipping and Thunderstruckshipping ig
I’m doing it, sorry for not clarifying!
(I hope the color coding help you tell which is which)
Providenceshipping is very cute and nice and I can be normal about it. Thunderstruckshipping makes me insane and I hate that it’s a comfort ship so so much.
Also the question marks for Thunderstruck are because most (all, unless I’m forgetting) fics of them either defend Roa or make him a horrible monster and they don’t hit that balance (I know, I’m picky)
