It’s alive, almost sentient, like those giant forests that is actually one specimens, grows across the grown with thousands of different heads.
Like the Fae that live in it, it’s mischievous, sometimes malicious. It hears and it sees, it makes travelers get lost, rearranges itself at random when it feels. And Gilbert is it’s chosen one. That doesn’t mean it’s always good to him, His woods like to see him suffer.
And because you are Gilbert’s mate, it loves you. It's really is unlucky that at the point where chapter 14 leaves off, you're stumbling through the Woods, lost and alone!
It’s chosen one’s little mouse, so sweet and curious, so clever! It's quite fond of Gilbert so it won't let you stray too far or get hurt, but it also isn't going to send you back to him until he calms down. It's going to taunt him a little, drive him a little crazy while Gilbert tries to find you.
This fanfic exists in the same universe as “it will come back” my fae!prussia x reader. It is NOT necessary to read that before reading this.
summary: After escaping the Unseen World, you tried to piece your life back together. You moved to a small town, found a house in a nice neighbourhood and tried to stay hidden. It’s been years and the fae you’ve been running from, who claims he’s your soulmate, has found you.
preview: a sneak peak at how you and fae!arthur met. It’s not a meet-cute. At all.
content warnings: mentioned kidnapping and harm to reader, mentioned foot injury, injury is not really described, guns, death to the people who hurt reader via one protective and kinda villainous fae!Arthur
When they took you, you didn’t know what they were called. Now, you know that they were Fae, otherworldly immortals with a love for trickery and cruelty.
You could still smell the mildew in the air, and feel the dampness under your body. You pulled at the iron chains until your wrists bled. You kicked and screamed at the creatures, bit and clawed at them. They repaid you in kind, with bruises along your body and deep, bloody lashes shredding the bottoms of your feet to prove it.
But this was only the beginning. This was the day you met him.
You heard the screaming and struggling start above you. You snap to attention. You shut your eyes and shrink into the back of your cage to get away from whatever was coming.
The sounds grew closer. Screams and gunshots rang out, the pounding of footsteps reaching the door before it breaks open with some invisible force. One of the faeries that took you, a scrawny, ugly thing with a pushed-up nose and pale skin is thrown pathetically in front of your cage.
From your vantage point, you can only see the legs of a mysterious figure walking into the brig after him. The fae on the ground shrieks and claws to get up, to grab the bars, to grab for you and you panic. A scream leaves your throat like a wounded bird and then you try to get away.
A shiny leather boot pushes the creature’s head down into the oiled floors in front of you.
“I’m sorry, m’lord! I’m sorry, we didn’t know! We didn’t-“
Bang! The creature’s head exploded and his body falls limp. His corpse is kicked away like sidewalk trash and a gloved hand lowers the ornately carved flintlock pistol to rest at the figure’s side.
“Shit! No!” You cry out, trying pointlessly to scramble away from them. You’re going to die here! You’re going to die and you’ll never be able to get home.
The figure kneels and you see a handsome blond man, with granny smith green eyes. They’re so vibrant that they glow. The colour cuts through the darkness and holds you in your place. His gloved hand reaches out and this the touch of a finger, the door to your cage unlocks and swings open.
“No, please! Please don’t!” Your voice is raw and shrill. You’ve been crying a lot, over the past 24 hours.
The man reached in and you wheel back a bloody foot and try to kick him away. He catches it before you can, grasps firmly around your ankle and pulls.
You scream as you’re yanked out of the cage and pulled up into a sitting position.
“Shhh. It’s okay. It’s okay.” He mutters, his voice is soft like velvet. You jerk your arms against his chest and his hands wrap around your wrists and hold them gently.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
Your breath still comes in hiccups as you sit, nearly in the lap of this stranger. You tremble slightly as you look up into his eyes. “You’re not?”
His eyes are so green, so beautiful. And maybe familiar?
“No, my love. I’m not.” One of his hands runs over the side of your face. He wipes something off your cheek, maybe tears, possibly blood before taking his hand away. You sit back and make the mistake of trying to stand up on your sliced-up feet.
You cry out, the sound that you make doesn’t sound like you.
“What’s wrong, love?”
“Ah- it’s my feet-“ you try and shift to keep them from touching the dirty floor. “I can’t- I-“ you feel the distress bubble up in your thought. “I can’t walk. They did with to me so I couldn’t run away and now-“
He grabs you again, smooshes your face in his hands and presses his lips to your eyes lids and holds you.
“It hurts! I can’t-!”
”It’s okay, Rabbit,” he says. “Tell me what I can do. I’ll do anything. Anything.”
You bury your head into the crook of his neck. The nickname that fell from his lips, ‘rabbit’, sinks into you. You barely register its, aside from the fact that it’s comforting.
“Tell me what you need, Rabbit, and I’ll give it to you.”
From where you're curled up into him, you mutter, “Please, get me out of here. Take me home.”
Without another word, the blond fae, with piercing green eyes and pointed ears gathers you in his arms and walks you out of your cell.
~~~
“run, rabbit, run!” is coming hopefully in Jan of 2023.
it will come back | chapter 13. how to run from your problems | fae!prussia x reader
'it will come back' masterlist and summary
chapter summary: oh no...
word count: 3.5k
chapter warnings: poisoning, mental distress, slight!suicidal thoughts (more for spite than anything)
@jtownraindancer, @redrosesociety1, @xxruinaxx
chapter 13. how to run from your problems
There’s a reason 13 is an unlucky number.
You whirl around the corner as your mirror image passes by. The illusion dissipates as you take its place, falling into step as if you had never been gone in the first place. He still leads you along the sides of the halls, and when the two of you turn into a smaller wing of the castle, nearing the kitchen, he stops abruptly as his name is called.
“Georgi? Who is it you have there?” A voice calls, clouded by a heavy accent.
He stiffens and turns. “No one, M’lord. Just a traveler asking for a night’s hospitality.”
The hair on the back of your neck stands up as your gaze settles upon the face in front of you. All of the things that Gilbert and others had told you were correct. Vladimir Popescu was a strange man.
He was a fae of average height, with a thin, wisp-like frame. Vladimir was dressed in a black shirt and pants, with a red coat buttoned all the way up and a bowler hat on his strawberry blond head. His eyes are red, but not like cranberries or wine. His eyes are so red, they’re almost pink, with slits for pupils like a cat. They unnerve you.
Vladimir tilts his head as he studies your disheveled disguise.
“But of course,” he says, an impish smile on his lips. “My home is far removed from any city or town, I’m sure she’s had a trying journey.”
“Oh course, sir. I’m just delivering her to the staff's rooms for some dinner. I didn’t mean to disturb-” Georgi says to his master, but Vladimir cuts him off.
“Nonsense! I’m just about to sit down to my own meal,” he all but purrs. “Why don’t you join me, my lady?” His awful red eyes focus intently on you.
“Oh!” You clear your throat. “I could never, M’lord. I would hate to inconvenience you.” You turn your gaze to the stone floors in a play at bashfulness or respect. Anxiety pools in your stomach, heavy and persistent. He knows! He knows!
“Please, my dear. I insist!” With a wave of his gloved hand, you are pulled along behind him, forced to follow as he glides down the large gothic hallway. You’re feet stumble and slide as you try to slow yourself down, without success.
Double doors push open on their own, and Vladimir enters the grand dining room where he deposits you. You manage to catch yourself as you’re freed, but before you can think about turning around and escaping, the doors shut with an echoing sound behind you.
Vladimir takes a couple more strides toward the expansive table before turning back to you.
“Why don’t you take a seat?”
The two of you watch each other, tension filling the space between. Both of you wait to see which one will break, who will admit that they are only waiting for the other to reveal what the other knows. Your eyes scan the rest of the room and you take a seat. The middle of the long table is filled with food. A roasted bird sits on a bed of what looks to be carrots and onions. Delicious-looking vegetables sit next to it and a bottle of red wine and two glasses are set out.
Oh, fuck it. You could use a drink.
You settle into the ornate wooden chair and look across at Vladimir. Your host doesn’t look at you, choosing to fork food from the centre platters onto his plate.
The wine is bitter-sweet on your tongue. It's smooth, and quite delicious as far as alcohol goes. If you weren’t in such a tense situation you might’ve enjoyed the drink. You glance at Vladimir and try to keep a calm demeanour. This is hard because he’s begun to smile.
His sharp fangs peek through red-stained lips. The smirk is gleeful, and he’s watching you in a way that makes ice collect in your arteries like he’s expecting something to happen and he can’t wait until it does.
Something’s not right.
Vladimir swirls the wine around the sides of his goblet. The gesture is subtle, to anyone it could be inconsequential, but it lights a blazing trail in your mind. You look down at your wine glass. Its colour is a familiar, horrifying red. Your eyes shoot to the table. There, right in front of you is the wine bottle, made of dark green glass with a label tied to its neck like a collar. The wine label shows an illustration of red berries hanging on a bare, thorny bush.
Spirit Berries. The wine was made from Spirit Berries.
With the realization that’s probably dawning on your face, your host starts laughing.
“Lukas had told me you were so clever,” he laughs. “but I guess you aren’t clever enough huh?”
You go to speak but can’t. Instead, you crumple over in your chair. Debilitating pain flares through your stomach and something bubbles up into your mouth. It’s the tangy taste of iron, and when you look down onto the cold stone floor below you, you see drops of the dark-red leak from your mouth. You scream out. Your hands go cold and numb, and the pain worsens.
“I wonder if this will put me in his good graces?” Vladimir wonders aloud. His wood chair slides across the stone. As you crumple onto the floor beside your chair, you watch as he strolls around the large dining table. “Do you think Gilbert would lessen his wrath if I give him back his precious human, wrapped pretty and unable to leave him as she planned? Or maybe I should keep you? I wonder what Gilbert would give me in return for you?”
Pain shoots through you again and you cry out. You lift your head to look at him and take a deep breath. The hilt of Gilbert’s dagger is cool under your fingers. You watch as Vladimir walks closer before your eyes catch a glimpse of something metallic from the centre of the table. One clammy hand grips the edge of your chair and pushes you up. You heave with the effort it takes to keep yourself standing, but the pain is worth it because you see what you’ve come to this god-forsaken castle from.
Hidden under the lush spread of food, is an ornate great sword, a polished steel blade and a silver cross-guard in the shape of eagle wings. It’s Ausdaurnd.
Your eyes flick back to Vladimir, who has finally reached you. He leans in close, his slitted eyes glowing magenta. You tighten your hold on the dagger hidden in your robes. His gloved hand catches you by the throat and you choke out a surprised gasp. He pulls you into him, his breath fanning over you and he whispers, “Let's find out, shall we?” before he grunts in sudden pain. He chokes on his breath and looks down to see your hand, plunging your knife into his stomach.
“Fuck you,” you snarl through your pain.
As you stumble past where Vladimir kneels, injured on the ground, you grab the sword, clutching the red and black hilt in your hand and making a break for the large doors. Vladimir laughs as you do. The sound is dark and terrible. His cackles shake the very foundations of the castle.
“Well done!” He calls, as he pushed himself to stand, his hand removing itself from where he was clutching his stab wound, now healed as if it had never happened. “You’re going to make this more fun than I thought!”
Darlin', don't you, stand there watching, won't you
Come and save me from it.
With the sword clutched in your hands, you stumble through the hallway. The hard soles of Vladimir’s boots tap on the floor, following behind you at a leisurely pace. Even with the pain shooting through you from the spirit berries, a thought crosses your mind that worries you.
“Where are you?” He calls. You press your hand over your mouth and grip the sword in your other. You hear Vladimir’s footsteps walk past, and dart behind another column.
“Whatever charm hides you from my magic won’t keep you safe for long. This is my castle, and I will find you eventually.”
Vladimir doesn’t seem too worried about you having the sword. He’s as calm as he was during dinner, amused even. His laugh bounces off the stone walls.
“I knew you would come for that sword eventually, no doubt to try and your mate’s powers,” he sings. “Silly thing! Gilbert doesn’t need that toy to restore his powers. He was restored the moment he found you. I mean, don’t be mistaken! It’s a powerful magical weapon, Gilbert was right to go to such lengths to get it back, but putting his soulmate in danger to get it? I mean-”
That word rings out into the air. Soulmate. Soulmate. Your heart stops. ”What the fuck are you talking about?” You gasp. Your voice bounces through the vast hallway before you can think to catch yourself.
“Oh, that’s right! You think you just fell into Gilbert’s prison on accident.”
Your mouth feels like there’s cotton in it, and you don’t know if that’s because you’ve been poisoned, or the result of what Vladimir is about to tell you.
“It’s half true,” Vladimir continues, as you make another dash behind another column. Popescu Castle’s main staircase is just in front of you, along with your exit. “You did fall through the veil, well …” he pauses to tap his fingers on his mouth in fake pensiveness. “Maybe ‘pulled’ is a better choice of word.”
You think you’re going to be sick. Your head swirls. “You’re-!”
In a puff of black smoke, Vladimir appears behind you. “Remember, pet! My kind can’t speak anything but the truth!”
You gasp and scramble back as he reaches for you. Without thinking, you swing Ausdaurnd in a wide arc toward him. The sword hums in your hands, but before it can hit its mark, Vladimir vanishes again, and you take your chance to escape.
You rush down the marble steps of the grand staircase. You try to put together all that Vladimir has told you, your breath quickening as you begin to understand.
“I mean, come on now! Humans rarely ever stumble into the Veil. Do you know what’s more likely? A Fae stumbling upon their soulmate and deciding to keep them.”
With the taste of spirit berry wine in your mouth and a sinking feeling in your gut, you make it to the large front door, push it open and run out of the castle. Outside, the air is cold, and it bites at your tear-stained cheeks.
Darlin',
don't you,
join in, you're supposed to
Drag me away from it
The original plan was to meet Gilbert back where you left him, but with what’s been revealed, you can’t do that. Without knowing how far behind you your pursuers is, and with no real plan of what to do next, you just run. As you do, the three facts that have just been revealed to you repeat in your mind like flashing lights.
The first fact is that you and Gilbert are soulmates. The second is that Gilbert kidnapped you and trapped you in the Unseen World because of this.
What Vladimir had said played on a loop in your mind, mocking you. “Silly thing! Gilbert doesn’t need that toy to restore his powers. He was restored the moment he found you.” The third fact, which you’ve now managed to piece together, is that Gilbert had always been able to send you back home, but didn’t.
The truth had been so close. You had asked so many questions, but never the right ones. You asked Gilbert how you were pulled into the Unseen World, but never who did it.
When you asked about the soulmate spell, you had never put the pieces together. Gilbert was locked away for 75 years and had done his spell a couple of years before that. Of course, it came up blank, you wouldn't have been born yet, and you never thought to ask if that was the last time he’s performed the spell.
Even in his prison when you first met him, when he kissed you to escape, he’d made a joke about true love’s kiss. In a way it was. It was the magic that the fae was granted from their soulmates.
You think of what he promised you after the two of you crawled from the frosty lake and found refuge in his abandoned castle. That he wouldn’t hurt you, that he wouldn’t let anyone try.
He had rushed into the room to save you from Lukas, he had protected you, he held your face in his hands and kissed you like he was starved. He begged you to stay with him, despite being the reason you were trapped in the first place.
Despite knowing that you wanted to go home, to return to your family and life, Gilbert had endeared himself to you anyway, and that betrayal is what hurts more that the Spirit Berry wine.
Sobs escape your throat as you continue running. The pain that fills you, from the spirit berries that burn your insides or from the crushing feeling in your chest, is debilitating. You can’t stop the feeling, and you can’t stop the tears that spill down your face in rivets.
Without the option of returning to the woods, you are left to run down the rocky terrain that surrounds the castle. You need a heading right now. You can’t run without purpose or direction forever and now need to get to safety.
Behind you, you hear something snap, and see the familiar black smoke of Vladimir’s magic begin you. There is a river, just ahead, that will start to flow down the slopes of the mountains and into the Wandering Woods. You remember the map that hung in Ludwig’s cabin when you first met. (God, had Ludwig known that you were Gilbert’s soulmate all along?). Most of the towns in the Woods were built along the rivers. If you follow the rapids, you’d no doubt find a town to hide in.
You hurry forward, sliding and stumbling down the rocky slope towards the sound of rushing water. Behind you, another familiar voice calls.
Taste my disaster
It's heavy on my tongue
It’s Gilbert. He yells from behind you, about forty feet back, and when he does, your stomach lurches. “Maus! Stop! What’s-”
A cruel laugh starts in front of you and Vladimir appears out of nowhere. “Oh yes, Maus!” he mocks you. “Where do you think you're going?”
He grabs you by the back of your neck and pulls you into him grinning. His grip is hard and painful, and you squirm and cry out sharply as Gilbert yells, “No!”
His sword, which you had been holding onto tightly since you fled the castle, scatters onto the ground as Vladimir leans in. You can feel his breath against your cheek.
“Why don’t we tell Gilbert what we just learned?” He sings, before throwing you to the ground away. You scrape against the hard ground and he laughs, Gilbert finally stopping in front.
Now, the three of you stand in front of each other, at the edge of a cliff that drops rapidly toward the cold, white river below. You can hear the roar of the torrent as it races further down the mountain.
Your chest heaves and you force yourself to stand, and your eyes find Gilbert almost immediately. Your face heats up and it stings behind your eyes. Gilbert glares at Vlad.
“What did you tell her, huh? Get away from her!” Vladimir only vanishes in a puff of smoke. His chuckle rings through the air, detached from his form.
“Now, don’t get angry,” he mocks. Gilbert spins around to find where he went. “She was bound to find out eventually, Gil.”
“Maus, listen to me-”
“Is it true?” you bite out. “Were you the one that brought me here?”
He looks at you for a moment. His red eyes aren’t as bright now, more of a wine shade. “Yes, I was.”
“After we escaped the Library, could you have sent me back?” Gilbert goes to open his mouth, but you interrupt. “Did you or did you not have the ability to send me back to the mortal world?”
“I did,” he admits.
“Were you ever planning on letting me go?” Your voice is scratchy and high-pitched from distress. You rip the dagger -the one he gifted you- from its sheath at your hip.
He reaches out to you. Gilbert’s chest aches when he sees you, floundering in front of him. He comes closer to try and soothe you. Something sick and desperate settles in your stomach. “Liebe, please. Give me the-”
“Don’t step any closer!’ You press the knife to your own throat. You can't kill him, but he needs you. You're his soulmate.
Gilbert freezes on the spot. “Don’t be stupid, schatz,” he says softly. “Put it down. This isn’t you. I know you.”
No, you don’t! You want to shriek. But he’s right. He knew you. Before you fell into this wretched world. He found you. He learned about you. He stole you away. And he lied to you, at least you were right about that part. Your hunch was right.
Pity, it didn’t make you feel any better.
“Please, just give me the knife. You don’t want to die, do you?”
From the moment you met him, he had tricked you. He pulled you down to him, determined to use you for the power being his soulmate would give him. You were a power-up that he needed to keep, your wishes, your safety be damned.
“You need me, don’t you, Gilbert?” you ask, your voice hoarse and cold.
Gilbert nods, panicked and desperate as he watches you step further toward the edge. “I do, Maus, I do! More than you could possibly know,” he yells. He has to speak the truth. “I need you! Please don’t do this, please!”
Out of spite, you want to plunge the dagger into your neck. You’ll die, and he will lose the soulmate he tried to trap here. It would be revenge. You’d be able to hurt him the way you hurt right now. But you don’t think you have it in you.
You look at Gilbert, really look. He’s standing 10 feet from you, crouched and reaching out. Your heart throbs. Did he ever feel guilt knowing he was the one standing in the way for your life and loved ones? Did he think of ways he could coax you to remain by his side? If Vladimir hadn’t already done so, would he have forced those spirit berries down your throat himself?
Vladimir is still there, watching the scene as a spider watches a fly in their web. He’s even smiling. It’s twisted and gleeful and it makes you sick to your stomach. This is bullshit. You’re not going to be anyone’s plaything. You’re not going to stay here.
Below you is the sound of the rapids. You know what you need to do.
(You always hate to say that you’re afraid of heights because it’s not the height that you're afraid of, but the possibility of falling. This isn’t your only fear, you’re afraid of lots of things, but it’s the most pertinent to what you are planning. You feel the earth crumble just behind your heels, fear grips your stomach, and you remember the advice your dad gave you when you were eight years old.
You were at the playground with him, at the top of the fireman pole, too scared to slide down when your dad told you, “sweetie, here’s what you need to do,”
You looked down to where he was waiting on the mulched ground.
“Just count to three.”
“What?”
“If you’re ever scared, and feel like you can’t do something, you count down to three and do it. Then you’ll be able to prepare but not overthink it.”)
Your eyes open and you look down at the sword still gripped in your other hand. The edge of the cliff is just behind your boot.
“1…”
You look back at Gilbert, who’s taken another step toward you. You slowly bring the knife down from your throat. Gilbert relaxes, he thinks he’s talked you down, but Vladimir is angry.
“2...”
You drop Gilbert's sword on the ground before you. Your knife slides back into its sheath.
“3.”
And like that day at the park with your father, all those years ago, you close your eyes tight and fall. The wind rushes by your ears, but you can still hear Gilbert yell out to you.
What is stronger than the human heart
which shatters over and over
And still lives
author’s note
Hello!
I am so sorry for how long it took to get this chapter up! Hopefully, the next chapter can come out quicker but I can't promise anything! This final scene is one of the first moments in the story that I thought of, so it's satisfying to finally get to its part in the fic! I hope you all enjoy it, and please leave me some comments/reblogs if you like it! They are so lovely! Wishing you all a happy holiday, and to stay safe! My area is being pounded by some pretty nasty weather!
it will come back | chapter 12. how to be a convincing beggar | fae!prussia x reader
it will come back Masterlist and Summary
chapter summary: You think of all that's happened, and prepare for what needs to be done.
word count: 3.6k
content warnings: none
(if you want to be added to the tagging list, please reply to this fic or message me)
(In philosophy, the question of nature vs. nurture is often asked. Are we who we are because of DNA, or is it our environment that forms us into who we are? In your academic opinion, it's probably both.
You come from a long line of intellectuals, starting with your father’s mother. Growing up in the 50s, her access to education was restricted. Despite expectations from everyone around her to get married to her childhood sweetheart and have children right after high school, she instead went to get her masters in folklore. She joined the faculty of a prestigious university to teach literature and folklore analysis and opened the family bookshop in retirement. Your father inherited her love of books, either by nature or nurture.
Your mother was also involved in academia in the 80s and met your dad in that bookshop as she joined the same university his mother worked at as an English professor. The rest, of course, was history.
You do not doubt that the genetics you inherited from both sides of your family had a say in your intelligence, but the way they raised you moulded you into who you are. You remember spending time after school in the shop, doing your homework at the front counter as your dad talked with a customer. You can still smell the powdery musk that filled the aisles of bookshelves.
You remember visiting your mom’s office at the university, and the TAs and professors taking you around the campus, allowing you to sit in on lectures and play in the rows of seats while your mother taught.
You remember the books your grandmother would give you for birthdays when you were little. She gifted you your first copy of the Chronicles of Narnia, Frankenstein, and Dracula, and a plethora of Jane Austens. She still sent you things in the mail while you were away at university. Even when you moved to a different town for university, despite her and your mother’s wish for you to go to the one where they use to work. Every month or so, a book wrapped in brown paper, and decorated with dried flowers, ink stamps, and familiar cursive writing would show up in your mailbox.
You are a scholar because of them. You love to read because they read to you every night of your childhood. They are your home, your safe place. There is nowhere you’d rather be than sitting at the dining table with your parents, or sitting in the floral-patterned living room of your grandma’s home.
That is why you know in your heart, that you have to get back to them again.)
You close the door to the library behind you and scurry down the hallway. Your hair and clothes are dishevelled. Your lips feel swollen and tingly and your face is hot with embarrassment.
God, you are an idiot. A stupid, ridiculous idiot, you mutter to yourself as you all but run down the dimly lit hallway. You blink away the harsh sting of tears and try to cool down.
You reach the room Francis had you set your stuff in earlier. It has a beautifully-carved white bed with four posts and a sheer canopy. There’s a lit fireplace in the corner and blankets piled at the end of the bed. You sigh.
As you lay in bed, listening to the crackle of the fire and staring up at the ceiling, you think of many things.
You think of Gilbert. Your skin still tingles when you do. Unlike the safety you felt with your family, Gilbert makes you feel as if you were in a free fall. He looks at you and smiles, sharp and cunning and you feel a great tightness in your chest, so strong your heart could burst. You couldn’t deny that he had grown on you over the past five days.
He’s done more than grow on you, you can’t help but think. Gilbert has all but taken a dagger and carved a space for himself inside you. You feel like an idiot, but it’s true. His quick wit and confidence, the pure intelligence and cunning had warmed him to you, and his strength, his softness, the way he comforted you and protected you has only made you like him more.
So in the library moments ago, you let him kiss you. Even if it was a terrible idea, even though you knew that something between you could never possibly work, you had threaded your hands into his star-spun hair and kissed him back.
Gilbert kissed you like he was drowning. Like you were his only source of air. He held you between his hands like he never wanted to let you go.
“Please, stay,” he had said, and god, you had almost said yes.
You felt the thrumming, the warm pull that Elizabeta warned you about. When your foreheads were pressed together and your breaths mingled in the air between you, you had felt the chest-crushing want that she had warned you of.
It’s not real, this feeling. It’s not actual affection, it’s the spirit world and its magic. A trick is being played on your heart. You just need to get back. You’ll return to the mortal world, return to your old life and it’ll stop. It couldn’t work with the two of you anyways. Gilbert would be here fighting a war, protecting his court from invaders and leading his people and you would never want to abandon your life to stay in the Unseen world forever. You had a degree to finish, a life you wanted to build, and people who cared about you in the mortal world.
You think of your mother, and her kind face and greying hair. You think of your father and the crows-feet that are appearing along the edges of his eyes. Your parents were getting old, your grandmother, even more so. When you were still in your own world, your grandma didn’t have much time left. She had done so much for you, her love for the family bookshop, for novels and stories, and fables made you the person you were. You don’t think you ever thanked her.
You owe her that. She deserves to be told thank you. Your parents deserve to be told thank you, deserve to hear an explanation as to where you disappeared to, even though you’ll have to lie.
He said, "Hey, darling, hey,”
“Hey, darling, hey"
"I'm the hardest goodbye
that you'll ever have to say"
The next morning, you wake up early. It’s not hard. You barely slept all night, so instead of trying for the millionth time to fall back into your bed, you throw the blankets off of you and get up. You stand up and drag one of them over with you to the window seat and wrap it around yourself.
You rub the sleep out of your eyes and look outside. The temperature has dropped even further. A layer of frost covers the grounds below your window, and swirling ice patterns cover the edges of the glass in front of you.
After getting dressed, you open your room door slowly and are met by someone outside your door. It’s Gilbert. His white hair is still messy and slightly damp.
“I was just coming to get you,” he says softly. “There’s food downstairs.”
You don’t say anything, just try to ignore the way your stomach flips when he looks at you. You walk beside him and smell the clean, soapy scent that wafts from him, hoping he won’t notice it.
Gilbert leads you to the sitting room you had been in last night, where Francis and Antonio wait for you.
The morning sun streams in, and a silver pot of coffee and food is spread out on the low table in the middle of the couches. Muffin nestles herself on your lap and you give her a good scratch on the top of her book cover. Gilbert’s hunting hawk isn’t with him, being banned from inside Francis’s seasonal home after an ‘incident’ which neither Francis nor Gilbert cares to elaborate on. You can see the large bird, perched on the stone railing on the other side of the window, looking offended as it eyes the food that sits on the coffee table in front of its owner.
After pouring yourself a cup of coffee and giving Muffin a slice of bacon from the silver tray in front of you, you bring up what is on everyone’s mind.
“We haven’t discussed how we’re going to get your final item,” you say to Gilbert, who’s sitting on the couch with you, instead of one of the available chairs. He’s not crowding you, in fact, he seems to be trying to give you some space, but you can feel his leg brush against yours.
“It’s Gilbert’s sword, correct?” Antonio asks.
He nods. “Vladimir Popescu has it in his castle on the northeast border of the woods. We’ll take the Standing Stones to get there. That’s the easy part…”
“But then there’s sneaking past Vladimir.”
“What’s he like, this Vladimir?”
You’d heard of Arthur, and you had the misfortune of meeting Lukas Bodevick in the flesh two days prior, but Gilbert hadn’t spoken much of this Vladimir character.
Antoni sighs, before saying, “Well Gilbert would know better than I would but he’s… eccentric, from what I heard.”
Gilbert continues. “Vladimir is well versed in magical studies and incredibly interested in the study of occult magics. He allied himself with Arthur to have control over the Wandering Woods himself. If Arthur and the North Isles could do as they please, he would get free reign over everything else in the Woods, and the magic properties of the forest and its people make for good studies.”
“And uniting the Woods under your court meant that he couldn’t conquer it.”
Gilbert nods. You reach and pick a small pastry to eat while you think. “There’s no way that you could sneak in and steal back you’re sword?” you ask Gilbert.
“No,” Gilbert says. “Years ago, I lead an assault on that castle and managed to run him out of it. No doubt that after he re-took the keep, he warded it against me. If anyone were to try and sneak inside Popescu Castle, it won’t be me.”
You think. You think of meeting Basil in Arbourwood, of sneaking Gilbert into the grounds of Eldenstien Manor. You remember the Laws of Hospitality.
“Does Vladimir have any staff for his castle?”
Gilbert nods. “A handful, I think.”
“Fae are superstitious creatures…” you turn to Gilbert and he understands your plan right away.
“Laws of Hospitium don’t apply when you know the person. And Vladimir has definitely been told who you are.”
“But the staff wouldn’t know who I was, especially if I was disguised. ” You look to Francis, who’s sitting forward in his seat, hands clasped over his mouth as he thinks.
“Fae glamour could work. I could make you look different, use it so you don’t look familiar.”
“And the magic could make her seem like a fae to any magical scrying.” Antonio supplies.
“Basil had said something about how the Laws of Hospitium come from a story of one of your gods dressing up as an old hag as a test of someone’s hospitality.” You turn to Gilbert, who doesn’t like what you’re suggesting.
“So you’ll disguise yourself as a beggar, in hopes that one of Vladimir’s servants will let you into the castle out of paranoia?“
You nod.
“It barely worked with Vash at Eldenstein Manor,” he reminds you.
“But it did work at Tallest Tales in Arbourwood.” You remember the way the air around you and Basil had tingled when you had asked for their help. Gilbert shakes his head. You look back to Francis.
“Could you do it?” You ask him. You already know he can. You’ve seen the magic that powers this villa, the Glamour that disguised it from outsiders. The blond fae nods, but he doesn’t look enthusiastic.
“No one will know it’s you, Cherie.”
“Then let’s do it.” You say, before standing up and brushing the crumbs off yourself.
And if the world don't break
I'll be shakin' it
'Cause I'm a young man after all
The Eastern border of the wandering woods is mountainous and cold. Tall, coniferous trees fill the landscape, and white frost covers most of the ground. When you appear in the standing stones, the familiar wooziness floods through you.
You manage to step out of the stone circle without tipping over and try to gather yourself. You’re still deep in the woods, a little ways away from Popescu Castle. The sky here is covered with gray, and the pine trees stretch high above you.
“Are you sure you can handle this?” Gilbert says. He’s also stepped out of the Standing Stones and stands a little ways behind you. “You don’t have to do this,” he says.
“Is there any other way?”
“There’s always another way, Maus,” He tries to convince you. He steps forward and squeezes your shoulders, holding you gently for a moment. “I could think of something if you give me time.” He leans into you as he says it and you sigh.
“We don’t have time.” You say. “Arthur and Lukas arrived in the Woods days ago, and every moment we wait only gives them more time to prepare.”
“I won’t be in there to…”
“I know, Gilbert. But we’ve already come so far. It’s so close to being over. You’ll have your Woods back, and I can finally go home.”
Stretching in between the silence, the wind rustles. You have come a long way since the first few days in the Unseen World. Growing on a bare, thorny bush, you see familiar red berries. Spirit berries that those fae men had tried to force into you on your first day. Despite the effort to trap you here, it would seem you would be on your way home soon.
The two of you walk past the spirit berry bush, its thorny beaches reaching your to try and snag your clothes. The pine needles crunch under your feet as you walk to the edge of the forest.
“Are you sure you’ll be alright?” he asks, reaching to tug your cloak around you more securely, his hands resting around your shoulders.
“I’ll be back in no time, I promise,” you say. Gilbert quirks an eyebrow. “Making a promise to a fae, little human? Be careful or I’ll have to hold you to it.“
You roll your eyes and laugh. “Just take care of Muffin while I’m gone. Don’t let her get in too much trouble.”
Gilbert gives a low chuckle. “I’ll take good care of her, Maus.” And with that, he pulls you in to press a kiss on your hairline before you turn away from him. You trek to the edge of the tree like and take a look at the large castle at the top of the cliff.
And then I can tell myself
What the hell I’m supposed to do
And then I can tell myself
Not to ride along with you
You walk up the mountain towards the looming castle. Its tall spires stretch up into the dark sky. Mist obscures the dried-out gardens and rocky cliffs that surround the sides of the keep.
With a dirty cloak wrapped around you, you walk up the mountain to a small path that wraps around to a side entrance. There are large doors in the back that look to be for moving large amounts of items into the castle, and beside it is an unassuming door, which is most likely for servants coming and going.
You walk up to the door. The wind blows through your cloak, lifting it up and swirling the heavy fabric around your body. You swallow and knock loudly on the solid wood door. It's quiet for many moments after. You knock again and still nothing. You contemplate knocking again, and the swings open, making you step back.
A young man, with pale skin and dark hair, opens the door. He’s definitely fae, telling from the pointed ears and otherworldly feeling you get when you look at him.
He looks at you with sharp, forest-green eyes, unimpressed by you.
“I need help,” you blurt out. You hadn’t really given much thought to what you would actually say, so you guess what’s spilling out of your mouth will have to do now.
The man knows immediately what’s going on.
“Don’t you dare! No, no, n-“
“I need help!” You force out one final time, and feel the air tingle familiarly around you, with the power of faerie-magic-mandated politeness.
The man rolls his eyes. “What can I help you with.” The words are pulled out of his mouth by some mysterious force.
You sigh, but don’t feel much relief. You’re not in the door quite yet.
“I got separated from my travelling party. I just need room and board for the night before heading to rejoin them.”
The words tingle on your tongue as the man steps aside to let you in the threshold. As you step through the door, you feel something wash over you, lingering for a moment before disappearing altogether. You look down at your hands and see that Francis’ glamour is still on them.
“Can I have your name?” The black-haired servant asks you, and you catch what he means.
You raise your eyes and give a knowing smile. “You can’t have my name, but you may know it.”
He rolls his eyes and mutters “Nevermind. This way, just… stay out of sight.”
You are lead inside, and the heavy iron door clangs shut behind you and sends chills up your spine.
The man drones on about where you’re allowed to go and where you aren’t, and you reach into a pocket for the smooth charm that hides inside. You tap on the carved symbol, just like Francis said, and then break off from the man that leads you away, to skirt down a side hall. A mirror image of yourself continues to follow the servant, and you take a deep breath as he’s none the wiser to your scheme.
I know that you hate this place,
And not a trace of me would argue
Honey we should run away
Oh, someday
“Mirror Image isn’t a permanent spell,” Francis had told you as he continued completing your disguise.” My magic can hide the fact that you're human for hours, but the body double won’t make it that long. You’ll only have half an hour until the illusion wears off once you turn it on.”
“I understand,” you said, rolling the activation charm between your fingers. “I’ll make my way to the display room on the upper levels, and be back before the distraction ends.”
“Good luck.”
(Your mother always had quite the opinion on luck. She never believed in it.
“There’s no such thing,” she told you once, during a quiet drive home from some. “We make choices and things happen because of them. Humans can’t see the big picture, and can’t comprehend how everything trickles down into the next. Our egos assign morality to it and call the long-term consequences of decisions “good” or “bad” luck. We distance ourselves to try and relinquish responsibility. Calling it luck protects us.”
We are often at the mercy of our choices, but more often than that, we are at the mercy of other people's choices.)
Right now, you are relying on a good amount of common sense, and the minuscule amount of information about the castle you’re in to find Gilbert’s sword. Vladimir wouldn’t keep it anywhere that was easily accessible to visitors or the staff, which rules out the ground level, and Vladimir being a rich, pompous, evil piece of shit means that like any book villain, he’s probably keeping Gilbert’s sword near or inside his chambers to look at regularly.
You have no clue where Vladimir’s chambers would be, but common sense tells you that his maids would. So you stick to the shadows and follow a pair of servants who chat as they enter a large room on the upper floors of the keep. From the crack in the door, you know you’ve found the master bedroom, decorates lavishly with personal items, paintings, and a cluttered writing desk.
You duck away as the door comes swinging open. The maids exit into the hall, and you slip inside the master bedroom as the heavy door swings shut.
The room is empty, thank god, and you take care to inspect the large space. The ornate red and black bedding is neatly made, with dozens of pillows and ruffly blankets, framed by two gothic bedside tables.
Above the large bed, you find what you’re looking for. Well, kind of.
Hung on the wall is a gorgeously crafted wooden placard, where a large, sword-shaped object is used to hang. The problem was that the placard was bare, with only the dusty outline to prove Gilbert’s Sword hung there.
“Shit.” You whisper. You can feel your stomach start to twist with nerves. It’s not here, and it clearly SHOULD be. You don’t have much time before the mirror image following around the butler wears off. You need to think and think quickly.
The sword is gone, you think, but not the placard, meaning that it's been moved recently, and most likely temporarily, probably by Vladimir himself. You don’t want to think of why he would choose to move it now, at this time, because the most likely reason is that Vladimir is already onto you, so you push that down.
You’ll have to head back downstairs to your guide and hope that the charms that Francis put over you will be enough to fool an incredibly powerful sorcerer long enough to steal from him and get away with it.
It seems you’re going to need a little bit of luck after all.
---
author’s note
*sticks head up from the hole I’ve crawled in* Its been a while! First I’d like to apologize for being away for so long. I’m ok, I’ve just lost track of time.
First I watched the new Top Gun movie and decided that I NEEDED to write a fanfiction for it, then I was pulled back into a Star Wars: Clone Wars obsession by one of the kids at the summer camp I was working at. I made an entire cast of OC’s and have excerpts of fanfic and lore about them, It was a whole thing OMG.
Then of course, Rings of Power came out, and I became obsessed. If you know anything about me, you’ll know I love a good villain, and I’ve been pulled into a Halbrand OBSESSION. Its a problem.
WOOO! Anyway, I was really happy to get back into writing this. I turned on my it will come back playlist and really got back into the world and characters, which felt a lot like coming home. This chapter marks the end of the second act, meaning that there’s only 5 chapters left of this fanfic! I am so excited to publish the next chapter, just because of what I have planned for it!
I hope that I’ll be able to stick to a more consistent writing schedule, but I won’t make any promises. The end of the semester is coming up and I’ll have to complete final projects and paintings.
I loved reading everyones comments, they really make my day. Happy Halloween!
