Chapter Text
Zam woke up.
And Ro—wasn’t sure how to reveal to them what it truly was.
(What if they hated it? What if it damaged everything too much and it would lose everything it cared about again?)
(it was ignoring the way it’s brain wanted them to be more they didn’t it was fine. Just friends was fine. They probably didn’t look at Ro the same way after all.)
But the choice was taken out of its hands (wings?), which was great! Now Ro didn’t have to make the decision!
The means of doing so were. Less good though.
Since it involved somehow being kidnapped by the randomest people on Earth, and brought to the randomest place on Earth.
Oh and also, it was stuck in its human form. Which normally, wasn’t a problem. But magic was weird, it couldn’t switch so the energy was draining, and it was fairly hard to breathe (breathing wasn’t necessary, but Ro had gotten used to human functions). Dying wasn’t on the table, but what was on the table was all the pure energy that made up Ro exploding outwards and destroying…
A lot.
So basically, Not Good™.
Very much, Not Good™.
Ro wasn’t even sure how these mortals accomplished this, let alone knew that it was a Soulmate Goose.
And, the cherry on top of this non-existent cake, it couldn’t escape this since the restraints used were fucking enchanted. And not basic enchantments, highly powerful enchantments, made with the SPECIFIC intent to trap a Soulmate Goose. The materials had probably been reshaped, but the enchants were retained. Hell, judging by how effective these were at restraining it, Ro wouldn’t even be surprised if these were made specifically for it.
So yeah, really fucking bad.
Not Good At All™.
It kinda wished Zam or Mapicc were here, they always made things feel at least slightly better. But they weren’t, and Ro would have to fucking cope.
This was really annoying though. And if they buried the thread of fear that ran through their mind under layers and layers, no one could say anything. No one would ever know.
It couldn’t let its composure slip.
Dude1 decided to walk in at that moment, traipsing in like they owned the world.
“So you’re the legendary Soulmate Goose. The one who denied me of my rightful wife!” Ro squinted at them, did it know this guy?? Really? This guy? It didn’t normally associate with weirdos. “Don’t tell me you don’t recognize me!” Maybe if they squinted— tilted their head in a specific way—
… yeah Ro didn’t recognize them.
Not like they could say that, with the fucking muzzle on their face, but that was fine!
(nope)
“I’m… Gerald.” Ro waited for them to say more.
…
…
…
… was that supposed to- mean something?
A noise of frustration escaped Dude1. “You know, Gerald? Gerald Connard? Was supposed to marry Hannah, and then you made that buffoon take her from me?”
Hannah was supposed to marry someone? She’d never—
Oh.
Oh right.
Fucking—
Come on! Ro thought it had gotten rid of the weird stalker guy that had been hell-bent on marrying her! Dropping people into the Underworld was supposed to permanently make sure they’d never be a problem again! That was the way it worked! What the fuck?
Annoying.
“There we go. And I’m sure you remember how you ruined everything, bitch. It took me and everyone else you unjustly banished centuries to claw our way out of Hell. Thanks to you! We just wanted what was rightfully ours, and you decided to take it from us! Well now, we’re back to repay the fucking favour.”
Ohhhh so these guys were hell-bent on revenge. Huh.
Really boring actually. Been there, done that.
“What, not scared now? You will be.” Cliche line, 0/10. Did not inspire fear whatsoever.
Without warning, he pulled out a knife and stabbed straight into the table in front of it.
Oh ok.
Seemingly off-put at Ro’s lack of reaction (apart from a slow blink, which was more for show than anything), he scowled.
“No one can save you now, asshole.” At that, Dude2 walked in.
Blah blah, evil villain monologue, Ro was bored.
Like, really bored.
It vaguely noticed Dude2 walking behind it, while Dude1 leered above it (it was making its skin crawl—) twisting its arm out from behind it and slamming it onto the table thing.
Ow.
If Ro could, it would so bite one of them. Or both. It really wanted to bite them, they deserved it!
Oh yeah, it did actually recognize Dude2. This guy had been another fucking creep, constantly flirting with Jumper even when she rejected him like- 7 times? Might have been 8. It had convinced Jumper to beat him up finally since it was sick of this guy interfering with its matchmaking (it hadn’t wanted him to do the same to—), and then dragged him down to hell (and it looked like his nose had never set right, which ha), but.
Still.
Annoying.
And now he was back, which fuck that. It would have to tell Mapicc (he was definitely finding out about Ro what would he think would he be—) to fucking get better at his job. Or hire someone else. Like Spoke!
Maybe not Spoke actually.
Ro was brought back to reality by a light pressure on its arm, something vaguely cold trailing its way on its skin.
Oh hey, that was a Celestial Dagger! There were only 10 of those in the world, cool!
And also, useless. Those didn’t work on harming Ro in any way. The only thing it did was lightly rupture its human skin. Kinda like if someone cut your clothes with a knife, not actually painful or anything but still noticeable.
Not like it would be telling anyone that fact. Looking up, Both guys had obviously been waiting for a visible reaction which—not how it worked.
0/10 execution so far. Boring, hadn’t even managed to cause it any pain.
“Alright, we can do this the easy way or the hard way! Either tell us what we want to know quickly, or draw it out! Either works, really.” Ro just stared at them (like it could do anything else).
This was boring. Like really boring.
And.
That did not change for the next- some amount of time.
These dudes tried intimidating Ro, some others came in, they attempted to actually get reactions out of it, but they were also dumbasses.
Like. If you’re going to torture someone, do it effectively? Use your brain? Don’t use inefficient techniques?
It was clear none of the torture was about this so-called ‘information’ that they wanted. It was more just a haha “you put us in hell so WE’LL make you feel what WE felt.” (quite literally what they said) thing.
Dumb. As fuck. And boring as fuck.
If the torture was supposed to be being bored to death, than it was working really well.
Amateurs. It was fucking hilarious actually, how bad they were at this.
And then they decided to become somewhat smart.
See, Ro was an interesting being. Like all other immortal beings, it could only be harmed by specific things. These specific things, for Ro and Spoke (both the second oldest beings), happened to be Enchanted Iron.
Now, iron had been one of the first things created. And once you wove enchantments into them, baked them into their very core, they became part of the world in ways other items and materials just couldn’t achieve.
And well… like kills like.
So Enchanted Iron was the only thing that could weaken (or kill) a Primordial being such as Spoke or Ro. Even the Universe itself could be harmed by it (though not killed, never killed).
So, yeah.
These guys had figured that out, evident by them using Enchanted Iron to weaken it. However, it seemed like they’d just put together that they could also harm Ro with it. Dumbasses.
Made one wonder… where were all these resources coming from…?
Well, that was something Ro could think about after they stopped torturing it. Torture really wasn’t as funny when it was actually causing pain and slowly tearing your body and soul apart.
(it burned it burned it burned it burned it burned it burned it burned it burned—)
.
.
Ro was missing, and someone would be fucking paying for it.
Zam had been recovering, and Ro had gone out for what it swore was like a minute, and then poof.
Never came back.
Which Mapicc knew was definitely not voluntary.
He knew that Ro had major self-worth issues, didn’t think it ‘deserved’ Mapicc or Zam, and a bunch of bullshit like that. But that didn’t matter, it still wouldn’t just leave.
Both he and Zam were sure of that.
They had been focusing on figuring out where Ro was over everything else, because nothing else mattered like Ro did. It never had. Never would.
Apart from each other, of course.
And with two immortal beings searching for it? Well.
It really wasn’t that hard to figure out where Ro was and who had it, since tracking energy signatures was child’s play.
Now, the question was why and what.
Either way, they’d die, but sue Mapicc for being curious!
.
.
Ro was pretty sure it was hallucinating when it saw Mapicc.
Which in its humble and never-wrong opinion was a valid reaction to have when you were bleeding golden ichor everywhere and couldn’t think straight without intense bouts of dizziness and the urge to keel over and die!
Also really ironic since dude had just said “your friends aren’t coming for you…” like a dramatic bitch, and Ro’s brain loved imagining things like that.
So hallucinations made vague sense!
What didn’t make sense was that the hallucinations could interact with The Dudes™? That wasn’t normally how hallucinations worked, was it?
Now, Ro wasn’t the most educated on this. Sometimes, it hallucinated random stuff, but not usually! And it really wasn’t sure what the rules on that shit was. But everything it had seen seemed to tell it one specific thing; hallucinations were not supposed to interact with the real world.
(had they…?)
Weird.
And also not its main concern, because its form felt like it was flickering kinda concerningly? It had never. Done this before. So this entire experience was fairly new (what was happening what was happening what was happening what was—) and awkward.
Bro, was this was being human felt like? Constantly facing new things that they didn’t have plans for?
Respect…
But that was BESIDES THE POINT.
What was the point was that things might be going very south. Like really really south. As in ‘so south we might be wandering off of a cliff south’.
It was hard to focus?
Suddenly the hallucination of Zam was in front of it? When had she gotten there?
These were really weird hallucinations. What the fuck.
… Ro was starting to get the feeling that these might not be hallucinations (but that didn’t make sense why would they—). Because it could feel the ‘hallucination’, she was moving its head (which it couldn’t even find the energy to lift), and overall not. Very hallucination-like.
What.
And suddenly the enchanted iron was sliding off—Ro could feel the influx of energy as it overwhelmed it surged through it destroyed everything in its path rippled through its entire being the illusion made real melting away like butter as its true form was revealed and—
The world went black.
Ro came to with something running through its feathers lightly, clawed hands(?) stroking the top of its head and back.
Oh.
Huh.
That was a new feeling.
It honked slightly, settling in a bit more and tucking its head between its wings, and a small laugh rang out.
“Y’know, it's even cuter like this if that’s possible.” Zam’s voice whispered.
“Shush bro, you’ll wake it up.” Mapicc’s voice purred back.
“You agree with me.”
“... yeah.”
Another giggle, and the hand paused for a second. Which was very bad, Ro did not like that. So they lifted their head slightly and honked their displeasure, which caused it to resume! Great. Mission accomplished.
“Wait d’you think it was trying to get us together the entire time?”
“Oh at the beginning definitely.”
“Now?”
“Bro, have you seen it? We’re definitely like a polycule at this point. Even Spoke mentioned it once.”
Polycule mention? Ro perked up slightly.
“That’s true, very true. AbsoFRUITLY.”
“Oh fuck off.”
“Nope!”
“...”
“...”
“...”
“Does Ro know that we’re together already though? If that was its main objective at the start?”
…
WHAT—
Ro immediately snapped their head up, eliciting a small shriek from Zam and a flinch from Mapicc.
It then honked loudly, staring at them with questions in their eyes.
“I didn’t know you were—yeah uh. We’ve been together for about 3 centuries now I’d say?”
…
Oh it was going to fucking murder The Universe—
And then the rest of everything hit.
Holy shit it was in its goose form. Which meant Mapicc and Zam knew it was a goose. Which meant—
“Ro stop fucking overthinking this dumbass. You might be a goose but you’re still our Ro. Just now with a goose form. A really adorable goose form, why didn’t you tell us this earlier?” Zam poked it in its side lightly. Instinctually it bit her, before quickly drawing back.
“Well fuck you!”
… wait if they acted the exact same around Ro as they did around each other…
It stared at the other two very hard, but they did not seem to understand what it was trying to convey.
Assholes.
So it begrudgingly pulled out its human form (surprising them again actually).
“Wait does this mean we’re together too?”
“... if you’re fine with that?”
Ro stared at the two of them, jaw dropped.
It might be more oblivious than these two. What the fuck.
What the fuck.
Mapicc spoke up this time, from where he’d been silent the entire time.
“I mean—if you want we can like stay the same I dunno we weren’t sure if you like—”
Never mind they were definitely more oblivious than Ro.
“Well fuck you, of course I want to be together?” It blurted out before it could lose its nerve.
Wow.
Apparently this kidnapping/torture/whatever-the-fuck-had-happened had resulted in two new partners.
It was like this was a crack fanfiction or something littered with bits of angst that the author couldn’t resist adding but in the end still crack since this was the most unrealistic thing ever.
Almost as if.
What the fuck