Work Text:
Once upon a time, there was a child and a snake.
The snake told the child that there was magic in the woods, and all the child had to do to find it was to follow him.
The child was hesitant, their parents told them not to venture close to the tree line. Told them not to mind the voices that sometimes echoed across the fields at night. Not to look at the lights that emerged.
The child told Snake as much,
I cannot go into the woods or I will be taken, the child said.
But the snake was patient. He came day after day after day. Until the child saw him as a friend.
Is there really magic in the woods? The child asked the snake one day as they looked for caterpillars on the tomato plants.
Yes, said the snake, there really is. I can show it to you if you’d like.
I don’t know, the child said.
There’s music and dancing too. It’s a lot of fun. Snake said as he climbed an azalea bush now eye to eye with the child.
It does sound fun. The child thought and finally decided, okay let's go.
So, the child followed the snake into the woods.
Now, Snake wasn’t lying. There was magic. A whole world of it in fact. And singing and dancing. But what Snake hadn’t said was that there was a king in the woods. A king who had asked Snake to bring him a child for him to keep.
You see children didn’t exist in the magical world. Not in the same way they did the human one, and none of the other kings had a human child.
Come sit by me Child. The king said. This is the best place to view the festivities.
I don’t want to. Said the child. I want to go home.
This is your home now. The king said with a laugh.
The child tried to run away. They refused to eat. refused to leave their room. Refused to behave. But it only made the king happier.
Look at my human child! He would cry whenever the child turned over a table or screamed or cried.
Eventually, though, time won. The child no longer remembered what their home was like. They couldn’t remember what the dirt felt like in the garden, or how their house smelled or even what their name was.
They were simply, The Child.
And The Child was happy. Magic was abundant and grew wild. A forest of plants that never withered or died.
But The Child did not belong there. And because of this, the magic grew inside of them. Enabled them to do things they shouldn’t be able to. Turned them from a child into something else.
And because The Child didn’t belong there, and because The Child was something else, they aged.
And grew. And became a wild thing much like the things around them. Until one day, the king said, Enough. Snake take this child from me. I do not want it. It is no longer a child. Take it away.
And Snake led The Child away from the kingdom. Away from the magical forest. And back through The Wood. Back to the old house with the overgrown garden.
But time passes differently in the land of humans than in the magical kingdom.
So there was no family left.
There was no Home.
And The Child was Something Else.
And The Child still had no name.
And that is the story of The Child and The Snake.