Chapter Text
Tommy doesn’t remember unhooking the horse from the remains of the cart, or leaving the cart to the side of the road by the gate. He doesn’t remember the trip from the gate to his uncle’s house, dragging the horse behind him by the halter. He doesn’t remember slamming open the house’s front door, uncaring of the noise he makes, or running blindly into his sparsely furnished bedroom.
He does remember the feeling of the coarse, thin fabric of his rucksack that he was grabbing when his uncle’s bedroom door opens wide. He does remember the cold sweat pooling in the middle of his back as his uncle loomed in the entrance of Tommy’s room, backlit by the watery dawning sunlight. He does remember the stale, sour smell of beer on his uncle’s breath when the man hauled him up by the collar of his shirt, spitting and snarling.
“Ungrateful BASTARD!” He rages, shaking Tommy like a marionette on tangled strings. “I give you a roof over yer head and food on the table, and this is how you thank me?! I should’a knocked yer block clean off years ago!”
The cold, fear-filled stone lodged behind Tommy’s ribs cracks and shatters, letting a burning, fiery fury leak through the bones into his blood. Years of lingering hurt, of bruised shins and black eyes and hateful words, boil over and burn . With a strength he’s never known, Tommy rips himself out of his uncle’s grip, sending the drunken fool stumbling backwards into the hallway. “Then do it, you fucking prick! Or are you too much of a coward to look up from the bottom of that bottle of yours to do anything. God, you’re so fucking pathetic. It’s no wonder the only person you could ever hope to beat is a fucking kid . Why don’t you fucking grow a pair and –”
Tommy doesn’t see the strike coming, but his head snaps to the side with a stinging crack. The skin on his cheek burns, prickling where the blood starts to pool under the skin. A warm wetness trickles down his lip into his mouth, the taste of iron overwhelming his senses. Tommy says nothing, stunned by the hit. His uncle stands over him, chest heaving and eyes wild, a broken bottle clenched in one fist.
“Get out.” He snarls. He steps forward, gait sure and steady. The boiling anger withers in Tommy’s chest, leaving only thick tendrils of cold fear strangling his lungs. Tommy stumbles backward, desperate for an escape. There’s not a shred of inebriation in his uncle’s gaze. For once, there’s no drunken haze or cloud of clueless cruelty. Only stone cold, sober hatred. His uncle means every word he spits. “Don’t you fucking come back. If I ever, ever, see you again, I will kill you. And no one will ever even notice. No one misses worthless, useless, ungrateful brats.”
His uncle lashes out with the bottle. Only Tommy’s fear-fueled adrenaline rush lets him avoid the vicious edge, though not completely. It catches on his cheek and drags up, just barely missing his eye. Tacky red fills Tommy’s vision as he runs, ducking under his uncle’s arm and running through the wide open door into the woods beyond.
The horse is still there, grazing quietly under a grove of maple trees, and Tommy grabs onto the reins with desperation. Gracelessly, he swings himself up and onto the horse’s back and shouts for it to go . Seemingly sensing the urgency of the situation, it breaks into a gallop. Tommy just barely manages to stay on as his uncle stumbles out of the cabin, screaming obscenities into his retreating back. The blood on his face cools as the wind whips past, and Tommy buries his face into the horse’s neck. His fingers tangle into the dark mane and he hopes beyond hope that he won’t fall from its back.
The familiar thud of hooves against packed dirt paths and stone gradually fades into the rustling of foliage and the crunch of twigs and broken branches, and the horse slows from a gallop to a trot to a cautious walk. After a while, it stops completely, shifting from hoof to hoof in the cautious quiet. When he’s sure he’s safe, Tommy lifts his face from its neck.
When he’d fled from the house, the sun had just barely peeked over the horizon, reaching pale fingers of light over the river valley. Now, though, everything is bathed in a dusky gloom. An endless carpet of trees stretch their thick branches, heavy with vibrant autumn leaves, to the sky, blotting out almost all light from reaching the floor far below. The air is chilled as it brushes across Tommy’s bare skin and through his tangled hair. The horse’s breath clouds around its nostrils, weaving looping swirls under the canopy’s darkness. There’s little sound, save for the heavy panting breath of the horse and Tommy’s heartbeat in his ears.
It’s the farthest Tommy’s ever been from the edge of the village. Even as a child, he stayed where he could see the cottage peeking through the leaves, emboldened by his family waiting at his back. However, now he’s untethered, unmoored in a sea of rustling leaves and whistling wind. His parents are long dead and buried, his uncle wants nothing to do with him anymore, and his only true friend is lost somewhere in the pitch black. The thought of Ranboo, missing and alone somewhere, steels Tommy’s resolve. He might not have anything behind him, but he still has something ahead. Something worth saving .
He nervously pats the horse’s shoulders, trying his best to wipe the blood from around his eye. Hissing as his fingers prod the open wound down his cheek and forehead, he swallows the nerves rising in his throat. “Alright, horsey. Time to find Ranboob. Lead the way.”
Tommy has no idea whether it’s been minutes or hours or days since he entered the forest. All around him, the trees blend into one another, melding into a mass of dark wood and darker shadows. He shivers from where he sits hunched over on the horse’s back, his clothes barely a barrier against the elements. The wind chills the air even further, and Tommy’s breath has steadily become more and more visible as time ticks on. He hunches closer to the horse, who he’s nicknamed Henry, in a desperate bid to conserve just a little bit of warmth.
The longer he rides, the more he takes stock of his shitty situation. Everything hurts. The blood on his face had dried a while ago, stuck to his face in a flaking, itching patch. The wind burns the edges of the wound, sending needles of discomfort through his face. He’s pretty sure he has a nicely purpled eye to match, if the tenderness around the socket is anything to say. His uncle must have gotten a few lucky hits on his back while he was fleeing too, as any little movement sends pangs down his spine. And he’s never been much of a horse guy. His uncle had pawned off his parents’ old draft horse after their deaths, and Tommy had never had the chance to ride one before. His inexperience has come back to bite him as he sits bareback on Henry, unsure of what to do and in too much pain to do anything.
Henry at least seems to have some idea of where to go, given that she’s taken the lead. Tommy holds the reins loosely in one hand, gazing around the forest in search of some sign of Ranboo and his family. Maybe a scrap of clothing, or a broken branch, or something that could point him in the right direction. All he sees is the same trees and dirt and vegetation as the last hour? Two? However long they’ve been out here for. He doesn’t know anymore. His face is nearly numb from the cold, and his hands shake uncontrollably.
Head spinning from the cold and the shock, he barely registers the sound of footsteps in the darkness of the trees. But Henry does. She stops walking suddenly, ears pinned back and head tossing in agitation. Tommy nearly falls from her back, only saved by the reins tangled around his wrists.
“WOAH! Easy, Henry, easy!” He pats her flank in what he hopes is a comforting way, now far more alert and aware. Now he can hear it. A twig breaks just to their left. Henry shies away from it, snorting and pawing at the dirt. “It’s okay, you’re okay. It’s probably just a squirrel or something.”
A stone skitters across the dirt, clattering against something with a solid thunk. “Or not a squirrel. Something bigger…” Tommy giggles, more than a little delirious and nervous. “But nothing’s bigger than me, not Big Man Tommy, no sir! Or ma’am. Or whatever you want to be called, I don’t judge. They call me Mr. Judgemental because of how much I don’t judge.”
A low, rumbling growl echoes in the dark, bouncing off the trees. Henry shies back again, whinnying and tossing her head more violently. Tommy’s breath sticks in his chest, his heart beating wildly behind his ribcage. With wide eyes, he stares into the surrounding shadows, desperately searching for whatever it is just beyond his sight. He snaps his head towards any slight movement or sudden noise, every sense stretched past their limits. Henry grows more and more agitated with each passing second.
Another growl sounds from the shadows, but when Tommy looks towards it, he doesn’t see empty black space between the trees. He sees something glowing in the dark, a piercing green that splits the gloom in two.
Eyes . A pair of glowing green eyes stare at them with a predatory hunger. Another pair blinks into existence next to them. And another. And another. The once empty forest comes alive with growls and green eyes, encircling them. Prey caught in a trap. Helpless.
Tommy doesn’t know what to do. Or what he’s up against. Are they wolves? He’s heard stories about the wolves that call the forest home, but never in this number. Or with these eyes. The things, whatever they are, move with a fluidity and grace that a normal wolf just wouldn’t possess. He’s fucked.
Another twig breaks as the first pair of eyes, the largest and most wrong , moves closer. It stalks forward with a predatory hunger, and when it steps into a patch of moonlight, Tommy’s heart seizes in his chest. It’s almost wolf-like, in a twisted misremembering of what a wolf should be. The bones sit under the skin in disjointed, crooked formations, shifting and reshaping before Tommy’s horrified gaze. The skin itself swells and sags, puckered and scarred in countless places. What should be fur is coarse, patchy, and gnarled like the roots of the trees around them. Despite the wrongness of it all, it moves smoothly in the shadows, poison green eyes locked onto Tommy’s blue. They hook their claws into Tommy, like it knew he’d be here. Maybe not today, but someday he’d breach the forest’s edge and find his way to them. Like they were expecting him to come.
Like he was being called to them.
More of the shadowy not-wolves step forward to block any exit, the jaws of the trap snapping shut. The largest, the first of them, does not break its gaze as the others twist together in the shadows, dancing around Henry’s sharp warning stomps. Tommy’s numb fingers hold her mane in a shaking, ice cold grip, his lungs caught in a vice. The pack of shadows stops moving, pressing against one another in a seamless mass of living darkness. Those piercing green eyes stare unblinking, pinning Tommy in place like the butterflies on the baker’s daughter’s bedroom wall. There’s no sound except the thunder of blood in his ears, and the barely-there whisper of breath through his nose. Tension lays heavy over the forest, a spider-silk string straining against the weight of it all.
The thread snaps.
The thing lunges for Tommy, its maw a gaping void stark and endless. Half rotted teeth snap closed inches from his face as Henry rears back with a shrill scream, bucking and kicking at the horde of them nipping at her heels. Tommy shrieks as she leaps over the mass, clutching onto her for dear life. The cold autumn wind whips past, clawing at his nose and mouth and stealing the breath from his lungs. He squeezes his eyes shut, trusting that Henry has some idea of where she’s going. The howls, with voices that edge just close enough to human to be disquieting, echo from behind them.
The sudden shift from dirt to stone startles Tommy, who uncurls himself from his spot on the saddle just enough to look. Instead of the miles and miles of monotonous, uninterrupted forest that had been a constant up to this point, Henry gallops across an overgrown cobblestone path winding its way through the trees. The eyes flash from the trees on either side, but don’t move to step on the cracked and weathered stones. Emboldened by their retreat, Tommy sits up a little more, looking up over Henry’s head with wide, awed eyes.
Henry skids to a stop just before crashing headfirst into a wrought iron gate, ivy-draped walls disappearing into the mist on either side of it. Tommy gazes up at the massive doors in awe, taking in the intricate filigree and thick bars, before a bark and snarl forces him to refocus. He slides off Henry’s back, her coat slick with sweat, and scrambles for the lock. Hoping beyond hope that he can somehow pick the massive lock on the front, he nearly cries when the gate creaks open with a slight tap. He uses every last bit of his waning strength to shove the gate open wide enough for Henry to squeeze through, keeping an eye out for the not-wolves behind him.
Just as he slams the door shut, the largest not-wolf braves the cobble path and slams into the iron, shrieking in pain when it makes contact. The sound tears at Tommy’s eardrums, and he barely pulls down the latch of the lock before the pain has him doubled over with his palms pressed to his ears. The not-wolves pace on the other side of the gate, shadow’s whispering in a language that almost makes sense. After what feels like a moment and an eon, they melt back into the forest beyond, green eyes flickering out one by one. The largest lingers the longest, staring Tommy down from the edge of the trees. A shiver snakes its way down his spine as it stands there. It almost seems… pleased. The thought sends an icy feeling over his skin, leaving goosebumps prickling behind. It finally turns and disappears with its brethren, and Tommy sags against the stone wall in defeat, utterly spent. Sliding down to the frozen ground, he puts his head between his knees and struggles to breathe .
After taking a moment to catch his breath and collect his racing thoughts, he wonders why the hell there’s a random gate in the middle of the woods. Where the fuck did he end up? Steeling himself, he lifts his head, preparing to see a witch’s cottage or a decrepit village or something of that nature. What he’s not expecting to see is a massive castle emerging from the mist, with arches and towers reaching higher than anything he’s ever seen before.
Well , he thinks as the weight of the last day slams into him all at once, if I’m gonna die, I might as well die in a castle rather than a courtyard.
He staggers upright, using the wall behind him for balance, and hobbles towards the looming entrance doors.