Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Come away, O, human child! 

To the woods and waters wild, 

With a fairy hand in hand, 

For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.”

-W.B. Yeats (Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry)

Ranboo is ten when he understands.

Ranboo’s childhood home is—and he does not put this lightly—enormous.

At least, from what he could remember of it. Which wasn’t much, but in his defense, he has the general gist of it outlined in his head: The light filtering through stained glass windows. The dark mahogany walls. Gold-plated banisters, long corridors. The vague notion of a chandelier. Bookshelves, globes, strange velvet tapestries watching from the walls.

Everything he can recall about the house is hazy and indistinct. He remembers the rooms, not where they were placed. Objects and not what they were used for. He wants to say it’s because he didn’t spend much time in the house, but he has a feeling this was a detail he filled in later to justify his lack of clarity, so he doesn’t bother writing it down.

The grounds around it are clearer to him. The lawns his family tended—he thinks an appropriate term for them would be ‘biodiverse’. They were never neatly-trimmed, except for around the footpath, and even there around it were creeping thistles and purselane engaged in warfare that moved at glacial speeds; struggling to crowd each other out for room around the pathstones. Common sunflowers towered above a fragrant underbrush of briar roses and oxeye daisies, and those were just the ones that Ranboo could name—there were a dozen different wildflowers scattered across the grounds, sweet ones and edible ones and ones that burned you if you grabbed them by the stems.

(He can remember what it feels like to grab them by the stems: 

Painful. He clings onto the feeling, retraces the hurt over and over again in his mind like it would cement the memory deeper each time. In his head, he’s still holding the flower in his hand; clutching it tighter the more it burned.)

There were waters. There were springs , geysers and cascades that dashed animals who waded in too deep on the rocks below. Streams criss-crossing the lawns and flowing right around their house like a moat, insulating them from the outside world. Pumping life through the gardens like it was the water that was keeping the estate alive, as if they were the arteries of something bigger than the house or its groundskeepers or even the ecosystem around them.

He doesn’t remember it anymore, but Ranboo knows he held the memory close at some point because it’s enshrined in his journal, written in the unsteady scrawl of someone much younger than himself. His mother told him that the streams around their estate were deceptive—still on the surface, wild and tumultuous underneath. He thinks that’s a good metaphor for what he can recall about growing up there: a beautiful, dark mansion far away from civilization with an undercurrent of danger underneath its grounds.

Because there must have been real danger there. It was why he wrote down that he wasn’t allowed to step foot into the water, or stray too far into the woods. Why he was told he shouldn’t interact with any animals he found; and, above all, to never tell anyone his name should they ask. 

His parents were trying to protect him from something. Maybe just from the animals in the woods. Maybe from whatever larger, supernatural thing the waters were part of. The line between them is blurred on the estate, or maybe it’s blurred in his head. 

Whatever it was, it wasn’t important—what was was that they were trying to protect him.

He’s not a talented artist. He never was, and it’s obvious in the portraits he drew of his parents' faces when he was younger—by now, even if he had developed the skill, the image of what they looked like is dust on the wind. 

He has their names, though: Ran and Melinoe Lethe. 

He knows, through what he’s absorbed on the internet and heard from foster home folklore that warlocks choose their own names once they’ve found a patron. He eases the sorrow of forgetting their faces with the reassurance that he was remembering the most important part of them: 

The choices they made. What they could control.

Ranboo spends his time in other homes, of course, because nothing lasts. He lets those memories wither away on purpose.

L’Manburg is cold.

Ranboo opens the car door without his hoodie on and regrets it immediately. He’s parked on a curbside right outside of his apartment, and the distance between him, the sidewalk, and his apartment building’s doors instantly becomes too far . 

But he already has a cardboard box in hand, with half of his worldly possessions contained within, and he’s committed to at least moving them inside now, damn it. 

Ice crunches underfoot as he steps out, and Ranboo is glad he wears his sunglasses everywhere, because the glare of the sun on the snow is bright . 

The area is, like so many other cities of magic, breathtaking. Urban magic users always settled in older places with histories attached to them, so it wasn’t uncommon to find miles of urban sprawl surrounding ancient, crumbling hearts. Ranboo wasn’t sure how much weight the stereotype of the glamorous folk being picky about appearances had, but if they were, it came through in the city’s architecture—while you could tell that its metropolitan heart was ancient, the newer parts were built to match: suburbia was miles of rugged-looking dark brick, the outskirts of which were built with flowering flagstone masonry that looked like it was grafted from a ninth-century landscape.

Where he was in now, skeletal-looking oak trees stood rapt at attention, letting their massive branches hang and sway over the street. Curled glass lanterns dangled from garish lampposts, burning brighter than they should have for their size. The sidewalk here had been recently-refurbished, and you could tell, because the road it cradled was made of black cobblestone, striped with cracks and weather-scarred. 

L’Manburg had a city dæmon, so it was always cold, but in the winter season he’d heard that it was even worse—the permafrost that usually covered the roads became thicker, the winter storms harsher, the winds strong enough to invert umbrellas. 

Still, people found a way to celebrate the turning of the year: in the windows of the townhouses lining the street, Ranboo could see multi-colored string lights hung over fireplaces, Solstice trees balanced precariously against walls, stockings draped across the mantle. Outside, untouched glasses of wine were placed on doorsteps, welcome mats, and wrought iron fence gates. 

(He wasn’t familiar enough with the area to know why, but he was guessing they were offerings to the local deity.)

The atmosphere was… nice. The area he was living in was a residential district, meaning the only traffic flooding through was people moving into—or out of—their homes. Since it was in the heart of the city, and everything one could ever need was usually within walking distance, most of that traffic was by foot and not car.

So the sidewalks around him were bustling, while the streets were empty. 

(Probably for the best, anyways—Ranboo almost flipped the rental car over more than once on his way here.)

Ranboo shuts the car door behind him, kicking it closed with the back of his foot, ready to move into his new home. 

He makes it all of three feet before he’s interrupted.

“Excuse me, young man?”

He jumps.

And, oh wow , there sure is a frail-looking old woman peering up at him through massive round spectacles behind him where there wasn’t one before. 

She shivers, pulling the green velveteen shawl she’s cocooned in closer. An uneasy smile settles on her face.

“Oh, pardon me for giving you a fright, dearest one. I was only wondering if I could trouble you for a moment?”

Something about her unsettles him. He can’t place a finger on what, but that doesn’t stop him from trying.

(Maybe he’s just being paranoid. He shoves the feeling down.)

“Oh, it’s- it’s okay, haha,” he says, “I didn’t notice you there! Do you… need help, ma’am?”

She shuffles over to the curb, wobbling the whole way there, looking dangerously close to toppling over. Ranboo wants to take her arm, help steady her on her way, but when he starts inching closer the hairs on the back of his neck begin to stand on edge.

The woman points to a puddle of slush pooling in front of a storm drain.

He puts his box on the trunk of the car, and makes his way over to where she’s pointing. The sound of snow crunching underfoot follows him the whole way there.

“Sincerest apologies,” she says carefully, “But I seem to have dropped my coin purse in this puddle, and my back is so fraught these days. You’re such a strapping young man. Would you fish it out for me?”

His gaze shifts from the old woman to the puddle of water.

It’s deep. It’s cold. He can’t see a coin purse beneath the ice that’s beginning to freeze over it, meaning that he’d have to feel for it with his hand near the bottom.

He looks back up at the woman.

Then down to the gnarled claws clapsed around her cane, swollen with arthritis.

“Of course! No problem. Just let me…”

He bends down over the storm drain, gets into a kneel, and already the snow melting through the fabric of his jeans is causing a burning sensation to flare up on the skin of his knees.

When his hand plunges through the ice, the burning sensation that follows is immediate. For a blissful moment, it’s dull enough for him to feel the pavement brush against his fingertips, but after a few seconds of dredging the bottom it started intensifying rapidly. Like he’d stuck his hand into a fire ant’s nest or picked up a bough of stinging nettles.

It didn’t phase him, though. The sensation was familiar—that was how him and water always went.

It got to the point where the feeling had crossed over from tolerable to my hand is literally being roasted over an open fire before he managed to find it, but eventually, he brushed something rough and textile sitting at the bottom of the puddle. He clasped a finger around it, feeling for the surrounding fabric, before pulling it out. 

The coin purse was absolutely soaked, but as he held it up by the drawstrings he saw that the green silk of the fabric was still intact.

“You have my- oh! Your hand!”

Ranboo laughs, shaking the water from his hand, willing it not to tremble. The skin that had made contact with the puddle was already stained a pitch black.

“Yeah, it…”

He stopped himself. No point in explaining.

“It happens whenever I touch water. Weird allergy.”

The woman gives him a quizzical look, and it makes him want to shrink away, but he just holds the coin purse out to her with a nervous smile.

“Well, here you go, ma’am! Hope you, uh, didn’t have any cash in the-”

At that exact moment, the bottom of the purse splits open along its seam, and a torrent of loose change pours from it— directly into the storm drain.

Ranboo watches pennies, dimes, nickels clatter through the sewer gate in a glittering silver cascade; the sound of iron clashing against iron rings out in the air, sharp and cold. Beneath his glasses, his eyes are wide in horror.

When the bag is emptied, they both stare down the yawning darkness of the storm drain that just ate the change in silence.

 Ranboo breaks it first.

“I’m- I’m so sorry. Oh my god, I’m so sorry.”

The woman’s hands clutch her cane tighter, and she purses her lips.

“It’s alright. Couldn’t have known it would have broken, young one.”

Ranboo awkwardly hands her the torn bag, and she tucks it away somewhere underneath her shawl.

He opens his mouth to apologize again, but before he can, she speaks first.

“You still have my goodwill, for trying,” she says, fumbling around her pockets with a newfound strength, “Would you accept this as a token of my appreciation?”

And, to his horror, she pulls out a brilliantly-polished golden ring from her pocket.There’s a small, black stone embedded in its crown that glistens too brightly to be glass.

It looks more expensive than anything he’d ever seen in his entire life. 

(Well, anything that he could remember, that is.)

He looks up at her eyes—it wasn’t a joke. She was being completely serious.

He can’t possibly take something this valuable. He couldn’t possibly take something from an old woman at all.

“Oh, uh, no- I couldn’t-” he sputters, “I don’t want anything in return!”

The woman frowns, tucking it back into her pocket.

“Well, I can’t just leave your kind favour unrepaid,” she says, and his eyes widen in shock as she pulls out an even more ornate-looking gold medallion from her coat.

Ranboo’s first thought is: Does she just- carry around fine jewelry in her pockets?! 

His second thought is to scan the area to make sure no one saw a senior citizen tucking away expensive valuables into her coat.

This is how people get robbed!

She holds out the medallion to him, urging him to take it with the utmost aggression.

“Go on, take it!”

His third thought is: this woman is probably, in the nicest way possible, missing a few screws.

He holds his hands up with nervous laughter.

“No- No thank you. Really, I can’t possibly accept something like that. You should keep it!”

And something about his rejection makes her send a scathing look his way. She clenches the medallion with a white-knuckled fist, twists her face into a glower, recoils with her whole body. She actually takes a few steps back, as if Ranboo had said something so obscene that the force of it had actually knocked her off of her feet.

“My word!” she cries, slipping the medallion back into her pocket, to Ranboo’s great relief.

She turns her walking cane away, beginning to scurry awkwardly down the street in the opposite direction.

But not before she casts him one more offended look.

“Young man!” she calls, pausing on her way, “Tonight’s a very special holiday, for us in L’Manburg. You’ll want to be out late near the heart of the city to see the celebrations!”

And, just like that, the old woman, the coin purse, and the medallion are gone, fading into one more face among a bustling sidewalk crowd.

Ranboo puts a hand to the back of his neck, writing it off as one of the strangest encounters he’s ever had.

Snow begins to fall around him. The hands of his arms stand on end. His mask and sunglasses are, thankfully, still safely covering his face, as he stares after the direction of the woman in green.

“I’m… Sorry?” He says, to no one in particular.

Just as he says that, he hears the sound of cardboard scraping softly against metal, and by the time he turns around it’s too late: the cardboard box he’d set down on the trunk of his car had already fallen from its perch, and was making a rapid descent down into the storm drain.

“ NO! Oh, no, no, no!”

Well, his words don’t do anything, nor does the fact that he swoops down as fast as humanly possible to catch it: the box lands on the metal gate, and it splits open like ripened fruit on the ground because of course he hadn’t remembered to duct tape the top of it shut.

His belongings pour from the box in a deluge: winter socks curl and wind through holes in the gate, his birth certificate flutters away from under his last paycheck, and his laptop lets out a death rattle as it splits in half, slides down the drain, and plummets into darkness.

He manages to slam his hand down on his new apartment key before it falls, but instantly flinches away as he feels the rivulets of street water draining into the gate sear his hand. It goes through the gate anyways, and lands among sewage below.

He doesn’t even get a moment to mourn it. The key is swept along the current at violent speeds, and when he blinks it’s gone.

Ranboo crouches above the storm drain for a few contemplative seconds to comprehend what had just occurred.

One of his two boxes—the one containing his most important belongings —had just emptied its contents into the sewage system of L’Manburg. With it went his laptop, which was his connection to the internet and potential job interviews, his pair of winter gloves and socks, which would be greatly missed—the money he was supposed to use to pay his first month’s rent, his apartment key, and every document that proved that he ever existed.

He takes a deep breath, and feels for the worn journal kept within his back pocket.

Almost every document.

He stands up, plucking the cardboard box from its place in the snow, and looks around for the nearest trash can (because he wasn’t going to just leave it there on the streets, to make some poor person’s job harder in the winter weather.)

He walks over to it, dumps the box inside, and begins to violently shiver as the temperature drops and the winds picks up.

When he goes to grab his hoodie from inside of the car, he realizes it’s locked. When he can’t find the key, ( because he can’t remember where he left it, if it was in the box he just dropped or inside of the car or still in the ignition switch letting heater purr along, because if he doesn’t write everything down he forgets- )

When he can’t find the key in any of his pockets, he presses his face to the glass of his driver’s side window—disappointed, miserable, and utterly cold.

He doesn’t scream. He doesn’t hit the glass in frustration. He doesn’t even start to tear up, which is really saying something, considering how well-hidden his face was behind his glasses.

Because —he reminds himself, no matter how miserable the situation he was in was, no matter how cold of hungry or hopeless the outlook seemed— it could always, always be worse.

When Ranboo stumbles his way into a café twenty minutes later, he’s uncomfortably damp and his skin is mottled with black and white spots.

On the bright side: he can’t feel his fingers, so he’s no longer cold.

He considers this an absolute win. 

The warm air hits him like a train when he steps inside, before simmering down to a pleasant warmth that razed the chill running through him. It’s a nice change from the wintry weather he’d been trying to escape.

On the down side:

It seems as if everyone in the neighborhood had the same idea, because the line to order spans from the counter to the front door and every seat in sight is taken. 

Ranboo feels his heart sink into the floor.

He supposes it’s his fault for going into the first building he saw outside of the residential area, and wearily makes his way into the line before anyone else could join and make it longer .

It takes ten minutes for him to get to the front of the line—ten minutes of listening to the blurred caterwaul of everyone’s voices in the cafe, of checking his phone for a response from his landlord about the missing key, of growing hungrier and hungrier as the minutes passed by—and despite having what he wanted to order memorized by the time he was second-in-line, he still manages to draw a blank.

“Hi! What can I get started for you today?”

The girl at the counter is sweet, succinct, and friendly. She had short, dyed hair and lots of piercings and radiated a kind of cool that Ranboo had wanted to give off all his life, and, predictably enough, when he goes to compliment her for it (in a platonic way because he’d never want to hit on someone while they were just doing their job and he was too tired to even think of doing that anyways-),

When he goes to compliment her for it he completely forgets his order.

She smiles—and he reads it as tentatively more genuine than the one she was given before, score! New friend?—and he takes a few agonizing moments to read the menu.

“Can I get a… tomato mozzarella wrap? And a hot chocolate. Please.”

She chimes an absolutely! Will that be all for you today? And he nods and she rings him up.

“Alrighty, your total’s going to be fifteen fifty-eight.”

Ranboo’s eyes nearly pop out of his skull. Good god. He’d forgotten that city living was, supposed to be expensive.

“Uh, right! Let me just, get my wallet out real quick.”

He pulls it from his side pocket, and opens the compartment he kept his cash in.

It’s all ones. All of it.

He counts the change, going over the bills with entirely too much awareness of how many people were waiting for him to order. 

He has four dollars.

“I’m,” he stutters, “I’m so sorry, I only have… four twenty-five…”

And he feels like sinking into the ground because he knows how difficult it was to work a customer service job in the middle of a rush hour and he knows that the operating system they’re using to take orders only gives the total after the receipt was already printed and that she was going to have to scrap everything now and that the entire interaction was going to take even more time and that it was probably going to frustrate the people behind him, who were probably going to take out that frustration on the girl behind the counter, and.

The girl gives him a sympathetic look, which surprises him.

“It’s okay!” she reassures him, “We have stuff under five dollars. I can just get you… an americano?”

“Ah… Sorry, no thanks. I think I’ll just… go.”

“Oh! Okay… are you sure?”

He winces, stepping out of line.

“Yeah! Sorry about that.”

He gives her a little wave as he walks away.

He probably would have only taken up more time in line trying to decide what to order anyways, and he’d rather stick his hand into a blender than take up more of anyone’s time than he should have.

The shopkeeper’s bell chimes above him as he steps out of the café, and he wraps his arms around himself to keep away the cold. Ranboo starts to walk, scanning the area for a fast food chain that was- anywhere nearby. He wasn’t picky.

“Hey!” someone calls out from behind him.

He brushes it off. There were plenty of other people on the street.

“Hey, mate! You in the mask! Wait up!”

And that- that catches his attention.

He turns around to see a blonde, rugged-looking man making haste to catch up to him.

That’s not even what catches his eye first:

The man is rough-looking and a good few inches below Ranboo’s height, but he’s also decked out in the most ostentatious green robes Ranboo had ever seen. He’s wearing a striped bucket hat, and layers of thin fabric drape from his limbs—from a distance it looks plain, but when the man gets closer Ranboo can see it gleams in the familiar way that only silk can in the sun.

Behind him, a cape that must have been custom-tailored fluttered in the wind. That, too, looks plain—until a particularly strong breeze reveals the inside on the updraft, showing off the white, flowering filigree stitched into the inside. It seems to emblazon him with dark wings, and for a moment, Ranboo feels an unsettling sensation slither up his spine.

It’s dispelled when the man holds out a paper bag in front of Ranboo with a grin.

“Hello, there! I was waitin’ behind you in line. Saw you didn’t have enough change for a meal.”

Ranboo stands there, looking awkwardly back at him.

“This is for you!” the man continues, shaking the bag up a bit.

And, could Ranboo just, go a few hours without people trying to give him things?

“Oh, I…”

Ranboo shuffles from foot to foot, eyeing the bag.

It was still sealed, branded with the café’s logo on the sticker, so the man obviously hadn’t tampered with it.

It was tempting, but Ranboo held up a hand, and smiled on instinct—even if it couldn't be seen behind the mask.

“No, it’s alright. Thank you, but I’m good. You should- you should keep that for yourself.”

The man winces, clicking his tongue sharply.

“Ah, you’d better not say that around these parts. Very rude.”

“I- what, that you should keep it?”

“ ‘Thank you’.”

Oh.

Suddenly, it clicks why the old woman had looked so offended, earlier.

“Oh. I’m… sorry, I didn’t know that.”

The man waves him off, holding the bag out even closer to him.

“Ah, it’s fine. Not everyone’s as nice as I am, though, so watch out. Now, come on- you hungry or not? Hope I didn’t buy this extra sandwich for nothing.”

Ranboo backs away, trying to avoid taking it.

“No, really, I’m fine! It’s-”

And it’s at that exact moment that Ranboo’s stomach growls, loudly enough both for the man in green to raise an eyebrow at and enough to be completely mortifying.

“Just take it.” The man growls.

Ranboo still hesitates when he takes the bag, but it ends up in his hand anyways, and he’s grateful for it.

But he’s at least not going to do so for free.

She frowns, tucking the golden ring back into her pocket.

“Well, I can’t just leave your kind favour unrepaid,” she says.

That’s what must have offended her! He thinks, in a moment of clarity— people around L’Manburg must have had some custom he didn’t know about, about paying things forward and back...

“It’s not much, but…” Ranboo starts, fishing around inside his wallet for something to give back, “Would you take this in return?”

He holds an antique silver dollar up to the light.

“It’s a 1901 Morgan dollar. Worth probably, like, enough to pay for the sandwich if you pawn it off?”

The man in the bucket hat smiles with narrowed eyes, and the cape seems to flitter about in the breeze. It gives the mental image of a bird ruffling its feathers in delight.

“Learning quick. Guess I couldn’t get you, huh?” he crows.

Ranboo has a feeling he’s missing out on something very, very significant about that interaction.

“Sorry, what?”

“Don’t worry about it!” The man says easily, before weaving around Ranboo and walking ahead. 

The cloak lifts and brushes gently against his hand for a moment, and he realizes that they were wings—or, the closest thing to it. The outside of it was covered in overlapping layers of black feathers that were painstakingly sewn to the fabric, piece by individual piece.

“Good luck, mate! See you around!” he calls behind him, waving a hand.

And Ranboo pauses for a moment, still tentative, still tempted to just let the man go without troubling him further.

And then the wind starts up again, biting at his skin with an unforgiving chill, and Ranboo curls his hands around himself and takes a cautious step forward.

“Wait!” he calls out to the man, just before he fades out of sight. The man in the bucket hat turns to look at him with questioning eyes.

“Do you, uh, know anywhere I can sit for a while? Out of the cold?”

The man puts a finger to his chin, scratching it with some thought.

“Somewhere warm?” he calls back, “Yeah, I do!”

And then, he walks away without a second glance back.

Ranboo’s chest tightens at the callousness of it, and he huddles the sandwich bag close to his chest.

Right.

He was just a stranger. Just because he’d shown him some scrap of kindness didn’t mean Ranboo should expect anything more than scraps—that would just be unfair, after all.

Everyone had their own lives to lead- everyone was busy doing their own thing, in their own world, and that was completely understandable, and-

“HEY!” The man in green turns around when he’s halfway down the street, motioning at Ranboo once more, “ARE YOU COMING, OR NOT?!”

Chapter Text

"O weary night, O long and tedious night, Abate thy hours! ...And sleep, that sometimes shuts up sorrow's eye, Steal me a while from mine own company."

-William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream (Helena)

Acanthus watercolor by Ruth de Monchaux.

“And then all of her change fell right into the storm drain! Right into the storm drain.”

“Oh, no! ”

Ranboo paused between the bites of his sandwich to recount the tale with equal parts fury and zeal. Across from him, sitting at the opposite side of the table, the man in the bucket hat tried (and failed) to stifle a laugh.

“Goodness gracious, I shouldn’t be laughing, but- you’ve had a real shit day, huh?”

Ranboo hadn’t known there was a public library just down the street from his apartment, but he was immensely grateful for the fact, considering he could bask in its warmth for as long as he wanted. The man had brought Ranboo through the glass doors earlier, and then he’d guided him through the labyrinth of bookshelves to get to an alcove of rosewood tables where they could ward off the chill outside.

And ward off the chill they did, with great enthusiasm.

“Oh, yes, sir. Absolutely. But, uh, I guess that’s how all first days of moving into a new place go, right? Something always goes wrong.”

When Ranboo turned to look up again, the man in the bucket hat was leaning back in his chair, sitting with one leg crossed over the other. The feather cloak was splayed luxuriously over the opposite side, falling down over the seat of the chair in a dark cascade. 

Despite seeming relaxed, he was jittering—the foot he had on the ground was tapping away at a metronomic pace, sending the quiet clicking of patent leather echoing around the walls of the alcove.

“Ah, but it goes even worse in L’Manburg,” he said with credence, “It’s a product of the city dæmon! I reckon she’s the one behind your stroke of bad luck, mate.”

Ranboo nodded, like he knew enough about magic to understand what the man was talking about.

“Yeah. I’ve uh, heard of that happening.”

The man gave another gentle smile, but his eyes were focusing elsewhere. 

“Don’t take it too personally! She hazes everyone that comes to the city for the first time. She’s real old-guard, thinks of visitors as a danger to her flock. She’s just trying to keep her protectorate safe, you know."

Something about the way he was speaking of it—of her?—sounded unusual. He was speaking of her like she was an old friend, moreso than some lofty otherworldly being tethered to the city. 

Behind his glasses, Ranboo raised a brow.

“You… Do you know the city dæmon? I thought they were... uh, not corporeal?”

The man laughs easily.

“Well, sure, but that doesn’t mean we can’t see her in dreams, or hear her voice on the wind,”

 And here, the man’s face softened and his voice took on an almost romantic lilt, “Oh, she’s really wonderful. Spectacular. I hope you get the chance to see what she can do up close sometime.”

“Can I ask you something?”

The man's eyes snapped back to focus on him.

“Go ahead, shoot. I’m not in a rush, or anything.”

“What… exactly is a city dæmon? Because like, I’ve heard the term thrown around on the internet, but the wikipedia page was kind of vague, and I couldn’t find much on, uh, L’Manburg’s, specifically.”

A moment later, he added,

“I actually, uh, don’t even know her name.”

The man gave him a quizzical stare from beneath the brim of his hat, turning his head.

“Oh, mate, that’s… that’s basic knowledge, isn’t it? That’s what we teach elementary schoolers around these parts.”

“Uhh…”

Ranboo was, very suddenly, regretting pulling his mask down to eat.

He tried to wrack his brain for a memory, something to spin into a believable narrative to explain the marks around his mouth.

“My parents were warlocks. Probably. But I didn’t grow up in a magical area, so I was never really connected to the culture. So I have the scars, but not the abilities.”

L’Manburg was making him realize how little he knew about magic, anyways. One thing he did know, however, was that it was rare for warlock clans to live in cities without a dæmon—and rarer still for them to abandon the practice altogether to raise their offspring without magic.

 And, the marks on his face- that was evidence that raising a child without access to their patron’s magic wasn't in their game plan, at all.

Ranboo keeps rambling, because he can never shut up when he’s nervous and there’s only one other person in the room.

“I mean, I know that ‘dæmon’ is an umbrella term, but like, no one ever explained what the difference between a city dæmon and a… regular one, is?”

The man gave him a sympathetic look, and Ranboo shifted in discomfort. He didn’t need- didn’t want the-

He regretted bringing up a sad subject matter. 

Ranboo pulled the mask over his nose, folding the remains of the sandwich into the wrapping.

“I guess I moved here so I’d feel a little more connected to it, haha!” he said, trying to lighten the mood, “God, I still have a lot to learn though. Right?”

“Well,” the man responded after some time, tapping on the armrest of the chair with a finger, “If you don’t know what a city dæmon is, then I’d say fuckin’ so, yeah!” 

The man cracked his knuckles with a manic grin.

“Don’t know much about city dæmons, do you?"

Ranboo mumbled a little noise of affirmation, thankful he didn’t pry further. 

Suddenly, the man slammed his other foot down on the floor, leaning closer to the table. The sound was loud enough to make Ranboo flinch away. 

(It might have been in his head, but at that moment, the temperature inside seemed to drop. Ranboo let his gaze flicker to the ceiling for a moment and noticed ice crusting around the fluorescent bulbs for the first time, shrinking the glowing filaments within and darkening the alcove. The snowfall beating on the window glass became louder, the bookshelves a dark and looming palisade, the library more devoid of people.)

When he spoke again, it was in a hushed tone.

“Back before this land was industrialized, it was all lush forests and huge, unsettled stretches of prairie, right?” 

“... Right.”

“But I’m guessing you don’t know much more than that, if you lived in an area with a less magical culture.”

Ranboo shook his head, huddling closer into himself with a shiver.

“Well, back then, human settlements were spread farther away from each other. Less of them, too, and it took longer to travel between them, with greater difficulty. So you’d end up with these small human cities surrounded by vast expanses of negative space, where the old forest gods still ran wild, fightin’ over territory and who gets what in their demesne…”

Ranboo could hear the fluorescents above them crackle and die as the man continued, but the light from the windows was more than enough to compensate on their behalf. Some strange, electric field had seeped into the air, giving the emptiness of the room a presence—making the wind flowing from the air vents seem alive.

The hair on the back of his neck stood on end. 

It felt- to stay here felt dangerous. Ranboo had spent his entire life trying to avoid danger, as often as possible, unless he was truly desperate.

But he was nothing if not desperate. Hell, he was always desperate.

He might have shrunk into himself a little—no easy feat, considering his height—but the man continued talking, and Ranboo continued listening with wide eyes and rapt attention.

“Well, eventually, the industrial revolution came. Aqueducts made it easier to travel up and down the continent by boat, and then the train made it more convenient to travel by land and killed that. Forests were razed to make room for cities, smog was injected into the atmosphere via smokestacks, you know the drill. The wild gods didn’t like technology, at first- found it too close to their own powers. They didn’t like being overthrown by the, ah, by the people that were once at the mercy of their whims.

“Because, you know, back in the day, humans really were at their mercy. A fickle dæmon could destroy one year’s harvest with bad weather, or block off an important trade route with natural disasters. When the industrial age came along, they managed to seize some autonomy for themselves. Get the dæmons to stop pushin' them around so much.”

The man in the bucket hat motioned with his hands as he cut himself off.

“But I’m digressing! Old gods aren’t old for no reason, you know- they’re adaptable little bastards, and crafty too. When humans started pushing them out of their lands, the dæmons went from livin’ in the wilds to living in the cities, and they adopted our territories as their own. Right smart move, too, since once they switched their power sources from the natural environment to the city ecosystems they got a lot fuckin’ stronger. Like, these bastards got really cracked, because humanity these days produces more energy in one acre of a power grid than hundreds of miles of forest.”

Ranboo’s eyes widened.

“I read a study about that!” he blurted out, “They, um- they feed off of the energy produced in an environment, and produce magical energy in return.”

His face heated up as the man across the table from him chuckled.

“Sorry, for er, interrupting.”

The man waved his apology off.

“No, no! It’s good that you know that. You did your research, huh?”

Ranboo thought of the long hours he’d spent scrolling through wikipedia articles and forum posts, trying to piece together every bit he’d learned about magic into one linear thread.

Then he thinks about how confusing it all was; about just how expansive and impossible to grasp magic seemed, until all of the fragments he’d been carrying around with him had been made into one cohesive narrative within the span of one conversation.

“Something like that. I really don’t know much, though.” Ranboo says softly.

“Well, you’re right. L’Manburg is the demesne of the dæmon Mumza , and it has been since the bronze age. The reason why cities don’t change dæmons is because every city dæmon you’ll find now was an early adopter of the city-dæmon relationship,” the man supplies, seeing Ranboo’s interest in the subject, “They used to be territorial as all hell back when humanity was in the dark ages, though! Constantly switching up territories, fighting over inconsequential shit, like ponds or roads.

“But that was when they were all more or less on the same foot. Well, the ones big enough to defend territory, at least- but the convention of cities and dæmons forming bonds kind of, threw a wrench into that, I think. The dæmons that took up residence in human cities started holding unprecedented amounts of power, so it caught on and every dæmon kind of scrambled to attach themselves to a human settlement.

“So it became like this: the biggest cities were inhabited by the strongest dæmons, and the protection they received allowed them to thrive- the weather in dæmonic settlements was fairer, the harvest more plentiful, disease never found its way through the walls. So there was this sort of feedback loop, where the more a city thrived as a result of dæmonic protection, the stronger the dæmon attached to it became, and the better able it was to tend to the human garden it was growing.”

“So… so they’re like, magical gardeners that we can’t see? And we’re the plants?”

“Precisely. It’s why the oldest cities are the most magical- because their dæmons have had the time to deepen the attachments it has to its people, to extend the bounds of its garden outward with them."

Something clicked in Ranboo’s head.

“So that’s why magicians settle in older places!” Ranboo says excitedly, “It’s not, like- I thought it was just a taste thing, but the older cities actually have stronger magic because of the dæmons."

The man's lip curled with amusement.

“You catch on quick, child.” 

“Not a child, but the compliment’s appreciated!”

The man in the bucket hat raised a brow, but didn’t deign to comment. Instead, he leans back in his chair with levity.

“Well, that’s the short of it, I suppose," he says roughly, "There are other dæmons too- much weaker ones, with smaller territories- but they’re big on not trespassing in each other's demesnes. Forgot the human term for it, but it's like, an open declaration of war, or something. So the ones that never got the chance to attach themselves to human settlements when they were still small fucked back off to the countryside to form more personal bonds with the magicians that choose not to live in cities, like warlock clans."

Ranboo opens his mouth to ask something, but he pauses.

"Is that why," he starts, but swallows the words.

"...Ah, is that why what, son?"

"... Is that, why there's no magic in the, uh, suburbs?”

 "Oh. Oh, yeah! Of course. I mean, in the magical cities there's some , but even when they're part of a d æmon's demesne they don't usually bother supplying much to those parts. Cities expand outwards from a heart over a long, long time, you know? So the magicians kind of cluster around the center on principle because they're so old and the magical ley lines are already so deeply entrenched. The suburbs are new, especially the ones with the whole Levittown aesthetic going on, so the magical pulse is weaker and most of it’s goin’ towards just keeping the weather nice and the people happy. Just, not much to spare around those parts.”

Ranboo's brows furrow beneath the sunglasses.

"Yeah, I had a feeling…"

He brings a hand to his face, massaging a temple. When he looks at the man again, he’s absolutely glowing. Ranboo’s seen the same look in his middle school teachers when he’d caught onto a particularly difficult subject—it was the pride a mentor vested in their students.

Something about it makes his chest ache. He wants to keep the man in conversation, desperate for more knowledge to cling onto- maybe even more so for someone’s approval. 

He doesn’t.

"Well, that was- that was a lot to take in, haha. I tried researching on my own, but I couldn't find much, and what I did find was pretty, um- it was all really specific stuff, like the fair folk politics of Brighton or really hyperspecific offerings to give to the naiads of certain rivers. I've never heard it all laid out like that in a way I could understand, so. So I really appreciate you sticking your neck out for a stranger."

Ranboo tucks the sandwich away into the paper bag, feeling very grateful that the man had taken the time to explain- and very indebted.

"And, uh, also for the sandwich, obviously, of course! Can I… buy you a coffee sometime?"

Something about the question makes the man’s demeanor shift.

He leans away, the crinkles around his eyes disappear, but he’s still smiling with all of his teeth.

The distance between them both becomes a chasm, and Ranboo’s heart sinks at the sudden change.

(Always, always overstaying his welcome.)

"Ah, I don't drink coffee, I'm afraid. I'd stay to chat longer, but," he says, shooting a look at the window outside, "I'd best be off. I've promised a friend I'd get him a copy of a book he wants before the end of the day, and it looks like the sun's going to set soon."

The man in the bucket hat rises from his chair, cape fluttering as it follows him like a velveteen shadow.

Ranboo follows suit, tucking the uneaten part of his sandwich into a particularly deep pocket in his shirt.

"Wait!" He calls out, and the man looks quizzically back towards him, surprised by the outburst.

"I… can help you find it?" Ranboo offers.

As much kindness as the man had shown to his thus far, as much as Ranboo had wanted to like him, Ranboo wasn't an- he was somewhat-

He wasn't dense. He'd caught onto the L'Manburg custom of give-and-take, and if how scorned the old woman had been when he'd refused the token of goodwill was anything to go by, he didn't want to find out what being indebted to someone entailed.

The man's eyes reflect a strange sort of light as he stares Ranboo down across the table. The shine of his cloak, for a moment, shimmers green.

"I spent a lot of time in libraries as a kid!" Ranboo continues, rife with nervous tension, "I'm really good at picking out books. Literal, uh, superpower."

The longer they stare each other down, the more the offer feels less like an extension of goodwill, and more like a bargain.

And then the man gives another smile, and the odd undercurrent of tension between them dissipates. The lights above them come back to life, flickering back on with sputtering breaths. The snow stops beating its hands against the windows, settling for gently tapping its many, many fingers on the glass.

The bookshelves relax like soldiers in a line ten hours into a shift. The air begins to feel less haunted, and Ranboo becomes aware of the sound of people’s chatter echoing from somewhere outside of the maze of books.

"Sure, mate, if you want," the man says easily, " Much appreciated ."

“Uh, sir? I found what you were looking for.”

The man in the bucket hat jumps when Ranboo creeps up behind him, The Art of War in hand.

“Jesus, mate! It’s been two minutes! ”

Ranboo shrugs in return.

“Superpowers.”

Ranboo finds himself walking all the way to the front desk with the man with a few books of his own. When Ranboo had found The Art of War, the man had recommended a few titles on the principles and history of magic, and that had inevitably turned the conversation towards why Ranboo didn’t know the difference between Warlock and Magician and what do you mean there’s an actual difference, I thought they were different words for the same thing?

The important thing was—Ranboo was carrying a stack of books, and he didn't have the library card to check them out. So naturally, the man had shown him how to register for that too. And then, well, that was a debt, right? A small one, granted, but that was totally a debt. So Ranboo had ended up using Google Maps to pull up the location of the place the man was delivering the book to for a friend when he’d mentioned he didn’t recall where, exactly, it was.

So Ranboo had ended up standing just outside of the front doors, pointing up the street. The snowfall was sparse enough now that they were able to read the floral gold signs containing the street names, but everything was still cloaked in white; from the towering spires sprouting from the city’s aureate heart to the scarred, weather-battered roads.

“So that’s where you should be going!” he finishes off, “Do you, um, want me to draw you a map?”

“Oh, no, I think I’ve got it.”

“Because I totally can. I don’t mind.”

“Really, I’m fine. Go up this street, take a left, then a right up near Carterhaugh Lane.”

“I have the paper right here.”

The man holds up a reassuring hand.

“Mate, you’ve done enough.”

Ranboo steps back, looking towards the ground in embarrassment.

Right. People didn’t usually forget things as easily as he did.

“Oh. Cool! Just, you know, making sure.”

The man tucks away The Art of War somewhere behind his cloak, shrugs it closer around his body, and looks up at Ranboo from underneath the brim of his hat with a gentle smile.

“I appreciate it, though,” he says, “All of it. It’s been a long time since I’ve had the opportunity to teach anyone about history. Or about Mumza. So, really, consider everything between us evenly balanced.”

And Ranboo- Ranboo is certain the man in the feathered cloak has the situation twisted, because Ranboo should be thanking him. For paying for his lunch on an otherwise miserable day, for teaching him more about his roots than anything he’d been able to read online, for making him feel far less alone in a terribly large city.

“Yeah, no problem! Glad to help.”

The man shivers, and pulls the hat down over his ears. 

The silence, to Ranboo, is deafening.

“Any other questions you have for me before I’m off?” the man offers, before Ranboo can speak up, “L’Manburg’s an awfully dangerous place to be out on your own.”

“Nope!” Ranboo replies, too quickly. “You’ve, uh- I’ve bothered you enough, I think, haha. Good luck finding your friend.”

The man dips his head in a bow.

“Good luck with finding yours ,” he says, cryptically, before beginning to walk away.

“It’s been an absolute  pleasure, kid!” the man calls out behind him, “You read those books cover to cover, now! Later!”

Ranboo waves after him, and it takes all of five seconds for Ranboo to pull out his memory book from his back pocket and check it compulsively for things he’d forgotten—only to find one that he had.

“UH, SIR? WAIT! I HAVE ONE MORE QUESTION!”

The man is a good thirty feet down a busy street from him now, and Ranboo has to yell, very awkwardly, down the lane.

“SORRY!” he grimaces, before continuing,

“IS TODAY, SOME SORT OF HOLIDAY AROUND HERE, OR SOMETHING?”

The man’s face twists in confusion, before a look of recognition flits across his face—and then one of impish delight. He cups his hands, and yells back.

“OH, YEAH! IT’S A REAL SPORT AROUND THESE PARTS! MAYBE NOT FOR YOU, THOUGH- STAY INSIDE IF YOU CAN!”

And with that, Ranboo gives the man a thumbs up. The man waves back, and continues on his way down the street.

Stay inside if you can? That’s not what the old woman said.

Something about the conflicting warnings makes a flower of dread unfurl in his chest. 

Well, it’s not like he was going to be outside anyways, he thought to himself, running his hands up and down his shoulders. He was going to do his best to avoid being outside in this weather.

Ranboo turns around towards the direction of the library, beginning to walk back inside. As he goes, the snow crunches underfoot every step of the way, and he realizes what unsettled him so badly about the woman in the green shawl.

He hadn’t heard the sound of snow underneath her boots as she’d walked away. He hadn’t heard a sound at all, save for her own yelling.

It is with a small degree of unease that Ranboo realizes that the man in the bucket hat had walked away in ghostly silence.

Here’s what they don’t tell you about foster placements:

It’s always the last resort. If you have any other remaining family, you go to them first. If there isn’t any room in their household, or if they treat you worse than your birth family, you’re shuffled around emergency shelters until your original caretakers are able to get back on their feet again.

Only when the list of your extended family is exhausted, when the home you’re taken out of really and truly dissolves, when your birth parents make the active choice to stop taking care of you, are you put into the system.

Lucky for Ranboo: his list of ‘extended family’ was exhausted before he’d even met them, and his home, quite literally, dissolved into the night air.

Here’s what they don’t tell you about foster kids:

To them, the life of last resort is normal. After enough time bouncing around from place to place, a stable home environment stops becoming a necessity, and starts becoming a pipe dream. They cope with navigating the tumultuous waters of adolescence in different ways — some learn to surf the waves. Many more are battered by them, and sink underneath.

Ranboo thinks he’s floating pretty comfortably atop the surface. He’s no scholarship success story, but he’s got a driver’s license, and enough money to settle the down payment on his apartment. He’s managed to find breathing space in a city with suspiciously low living rates and a wealth of prospects to learn about his past. 

Sure, he might not be going to college, but that was never an opportunity he deluded himself into thinking he had in the first place. He might be alone, but it was better than being surrounded by people who didn’t want him. 

Because it’s not lonely if it’s all you’ve ever known. It’s not if family ties stopped being a necessity a long time ago, and started being a pipe dream.

Ranboo decides that his landlord might be dead.

He’d gone as far as calling, and his landlord still hadn’t replied, which is the real nail in the coffin. Ranboo had managed to get away with loitering inside of the library for a few hours longer, but eventually the custodians had found him curled up in a corner—and, despite their sympathies, were forced to vacate him from the premises. 

If L’Manburg was picturesque in the daytime, Ranboo reflected, it was resplendent at night. Contradicting its old appearance, the heart of the city was a beast of electric burden, and more high-voltage cables were nestling into and weaving out of buildings here than anywhere else. Neon lights dotted the skies in place of stars, incandescents glimmered from within cathedrals. 

He’d found his way into an empty market plaza, at the center of which was a defunct fountain. It was never dark in the epicenter of a city, but the snowfall had covered the streets with a reflective blanket, amplifying the brightness of street lights and casting a warm, yellow glow over the sidewalks. 

Unfortunately, the beauty of it didn’t make the cold any less biting, nor the snow any less smoldering on his skin.

Ranboo shivered, shoving his hands further down into his pockets, trying to chase some of the warmth there. Still at a loss for where to spend the night, he’d gone further and further downtown in search of… well, anywhere with heating, honestly. But ever since he’d left the library, every establishment he’d come across had been closed. 

He paused, stopping underneath a streetlight, and began to realize that after trying to duck into the fourth café he’d come across only to realize the door was locked, that he might not actually be able to find anywhere to go .

The thought made his legs go weak, and he swayed, propping himself up on the light to keep his balance. 

Oh, god, why did he choose the city? Why did he choose a magical city?

He dropped to the sidewalk, hugging his knees in exhaustion.

He was starting to realize that coming here without knowing anything about magic was. Was probably, kind of dumb, in hindsight.

The snow started to melt around the cuff of his jeans, and he bit back a whine of despair.

He’d gone this direction because he thought there might be shops open for whatever holiday the old woman had mentioned, but the streets were close to vacant, and only getting emptier the closer he’d gotten to the city center. The few people he had met were in such a hurry to get home that he hadn’t managed to stop them in time to ask what was going on.

(Was the woman just offended enough to mislead him on purpose? If so, why did the man in the bucket hat corroborate her story?)

After a solid half-hour of walking in subzero temperatures, however, he just didn’t care. The chill was cutting through his shirt like cheesecloth, he couldn’t get into any buildings, there was no one around in sight to ask for help, and he wasn’t sure if he could make it back to his apartment to break open a window with a brick or something without collapsing on the way there.

He curled his fingers around the metal pole, like if he clenched it with enough desperation, he’d find comfort there. 

Focus, focus. Now isn’t the time to panic, Ranboo!

Slowly, he managed to get back up on his feet again, and put one foot in front of the other. Then he did it again. 

His footsteps were slow, and it felt like he was wading through a jar of molasses, but the progress quelled his racing mind. He willed himself to ignore the pain and moved on.

Just one foot in front of the other, then we’ll duck into an alleyway and see what we can do.

He had to lean against the brick masonry of a nearby shop for support, but he turned into one moments later. His vision was getting blurry, and he could feel the cold radiate from his eyes into his skull. They were sitting like ice cubes in his head.

Just move one foot in front of the other, and then another, and then another.

He spotted a dumpster just behind the shop and almost cried in relief. It wasn’t ideal, but the inside would be well-insulated by the rubber of the trash bags if it was full- and if it wasn’t, it was still shelter from the wind and snow.

It was only a matter of getting to it, now.

He put a leg out in front of him, and immediately collapsed into the snow.

No problem , he thought, he could just- he could just crawl.

Just one foot- one hand, in front of one foot, in front of… hand… foot. Somewhere. Just move.

When he heard the howling, he thought he was hallucinating. He didn’t bother turning his head up to check.

Which was his mistake: it came from the distance at first, so soft that he could barely tell it apart from the wind, but soon after the first howl rang from somewhere farther out did its answers come from much, much closer. The sound was rich; a velvet choir woven from many, many different vocal tapestries, and it pierced through him and echoed inside of his chest. 

(They didn’t sound like dogs, but it couldn’t be wolves, right? Not in the city… right?)

One wolf, two wolf: one howl would ring out from somewhere in the distance, the others closer by. The pattern repeated until the caller was virtually indistinguishable in volume from the answerers. 

(Okay, probably not housepets. Stray dogs? Coyotes? Coyotes could howl, right?)

It was when the howling sounded close enough to be coming from the alleyway beside him that Ranboo got onto his feet again. Adrenaline began to flush his synapses, the hair on the back of his neck stood on end, he propped himself up on shaking legs and listened.

In the distance, he heard the sound of bells, and a strange, many-legged clopping on stone.

His pulse quickened, and he flattened himself against a wall.

When he dared to peek from behind the corner, he lost his breath entirely.

At the center of the plaza, perched atop an enormous brown horse, was something that looked like a cross between a pig and a man. Wicked-looking ivory tusks were on display, protruding from its- his?- jaw. Beady eyes were turned away from Ranboo to scan the area with a lofty indifference. Behind it trailed an elegant royal mantle, atop its head sat a golden crown. It was difficult to see through the snow, but the glimmering that gave away true gold from the false shone from every part of the horse and saddle.

The beast sat in the center of a sea of hounds, an island unto itself, and as terrifying as it was it was nothing compared to the dogs. Each one came up to Ranboo’s waist, with shining, stygian pelts and sharp-looking teeth. They panted and wrestled and wandered back and forth within the plaza, their own cavalcade, awaiting some future command. There were enough of them to obscure the base of the fountain from each side.

Atop the fountain—something else was perched there, some sort of enormous black bird with iridescent feathers, but the snow was too thick to tell.

Ranboo felt dizzy. He stood petrified, not daring to make a move, sure they must have been able to hear the beating of his heart.

He’d heard the tales of magical cities through the grapevine, knew that seeing creatures like this was an everyday occurrence for some—but no amount of research could have prepared him for seeing one in person. 

As if it couldn’t possibly get worse, something happened: the air rang with the shrill sound of metal scraping against metal, and the pig pulled a golden sword from where it was ensconced in its scabbard and raised it in a high arc. It caught the light of the street lamps as it went, a glistening torch in the wind.

The beast seemed to clear its throat, before speaking.

“A-HEM!” It called, voice resonating through the plaza, “AS THIS YEAR’S LORD OF YULE, I WARN- Oh, Phil, do I really have to do the entire speech? The whole thing?”

The creature atop the fountain seemed to flutter.

“ Yes! Yes, Techno, you have to do the whole thing! Good god!”

“ Fine . GOOD NEIGHBORS OF L’MANBURG, I ADDRESS YOU NOW: AS THIS YEAR’S LORD OF THE YULE, AFTER A FAIR AND JUST CYCLE OF EVACUATION, FROM SUNRISE OF THIS MORNING TO SUNSET OF THIS EVE, I DECLARE ANY AND ALL TRAVELERS NOT SEEKING SHELTER ON THIS NIGHT FAIR AND JUST-”

“Human, animal, or not!” the bird chimed in.

“Heh? Oh, right. ALL TRAVELERS NOT SEEKING SHELTER ON THIS NIGHT—HUMAN, ANIMAL, OR NOT—FAIR AND JUST GAME AS OUTLINED WITHIN THE TREATISE OF CARTERHAUGH. Blah blah blah, lawyerspeak lawyerspeak lawyerspeak, important details that won’t come up in court later if you know what’s good for you-”

“ Techno! ”

“LET THE NINE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-FIFTH WILD HUNT BEGIN!”

And with that, the beast threw the sword at the base of the fountain. It lodged itself into the stone, and immediately the air changed—the bite of the cold was given a new dimension, the wind a new weight. Ranboo felt as if he was being watched from all sides.

And then he was: he made the mistake of trying to back away, slipped on a patch of ice behind him, and fell into the snow.

The consequences were instant. The ears of the hounds closest to him perked up, and their heads turned to the alley he was sprawled out in. The pig’s gaze followed.

“Aw, what’s that, Eyebite? See something in there?” he asked.

A cold hand of fear clenched around Ranboo’s heart, and he prayed to whatever divine powers that were up there that the darkness would keep him hidden. 

It didn’t: the hound launched into a run, and Ranboo scrambled to his feet.

“Woah! Rare to find something this early in a hunt. Usually it takes a lot longer…” 

The bird’s commentary was lost on him as he made a mad dash down the alleyway. Behind him, as one dog leapt to the forefront, so too did the rest: the hounds flooded the enclosure, a black, roiling sea.

The jingling of bells formed a death rattle behind him. Ranboo was fast, but he wasn’t faster than a dog- wolf- whatever those monsters surrounding the rider in the royal mantle were, and he knew that, so he’d have to look for something to jump onto the roof to safety.

Ranboo leapt onto the dumpster, using all of his strength to heave himself up onto the roof, and he almost succeeded.

Almost.

One of the dogs caught him by the foot, sinking its teeth into it with enormous pressure.

Around it, more yipped and wagged their tails. Ranboo tried to wrench his limb free from its mouth, but it held steadfast—and when he let the edge of the roof go with one hand to bat it away, it took the opportunity to jerk its head back further, tugging him away. 

At that moment, Ranboo saw the faces of everyone he had ever loved in his head. His first foster siblings. The middle school teacher who’d stay after class to watch him. The emergency home nurse he’d only grown to appreciate years after he realized he’d never see her again. His parents .

It was also then that he realized that the list in his head was, miserably, brief. 

The hound tugged at his limb again, sinking its teeth deeper into his shoes, and he heard a bone crack but didn’t feel it until his strength gave out and he let go of the rooftop.

He fell the hard way onto the dumpster, and then the harder way onto the concrete. The hounds descended upon him, a flurry of sharp teeth and violent delight. His blood pooled onto the snow. His new life was over, extinguished the very day it began to burn.

And then it wasn’t.

“Oooh, Techno, mate- come look at this.”

The voice was hazy and indistinct above him. 

The adrenaline was starting to give out, and he could feel the pain begin to seep into his body, but it was coming from a distance—like he was remembering how much it hurt rather than feeling it in the moment.

“Hey! Shoo! Shoo! C’mon, bad dog!”

One of the hounds that had its jaws clenched around his shoulder let go with a whine, padding away.

Ranboo couldn’t feel the wind from the beat of wings above him, but he could hear the sound of some avian creature fluttering down and landing next to him on the concrete. He opened his eyes, seeing a blurry vision of the man in the bucket hat he’d seen earlier. The sea of hounds parted before him, giving him room to land.

Except now, instead of a black, ornamental cloak trailing behind him, the wings were real —sprouting from his back, black and shimmering and absolutely enormous.

The man clicked his tongue, looking at Ranboo as if he were a broken piece of furniture.

“Ohhh, Technoblade, this isn’t good. I think we got a human this time.” he called out.

Behind him, the pig- now walking, not riding- approached, with a massive golden battle axe in hand.

“What? What’s not good?” it said, “Isn’t that, like, part of the deal? ‘ALL TRAVELERS, HUMAN, ANIMAL OR NOT’?”

The man in the bucket hat grimaced, crossing his arms.

“That’s an outdated clause. More of a metaphor than anything else. We haven’t caught a human in one of these in, what, two- three centuries?”

“Fifty years.”

“Ah, same difference,” the winged man said with a wave of his hand, “Point is- if anyone catches wind of this from the human realm, we’re going to have some issues, mate. It’ll be seven-day-riots and no tithe all over again. Best to let this one go, alright?”

The man lifted Ranboo up by his shoulders, and Ranboo was officially certain this wasn’t a death-dream, or a hypothermic hallucination, because he felt the pain of the man’s hands clasping a broken bone. 

He whimpered, too exhausted and cold to do anything else, and the man dropped him immediately.

“Oh, shoot! Sorry, sorry, mate! You must be in a lot of pain right now, huh? You can walk it off though, right?”

You can walk it off?

You can walk it off?

Ranboo couldn’t even feel his left leg. The right one, felt. Not attached right.

He opened his mouth to croak something acidic, but couldn’t bring himself to.

The pig spoke up.

“I don’t know, Phil, is it really going to be such a big deal? It’s just one human. No one’ll miss him.”

“Hey, now, no need to be rude. Even humans have families. People that care about- oh wait, I think I met this guy earlier.”

With that, the man in the bucket hat- Phil- leaned in closer.

“You’re that child with the mask I met in the library earlier! I totally bought a sandwich for you! Techno, this is the kid who found your book in like, two seconds flat!”

The pig raised a brow. If that were even possible.

“Thanks. Can you die a little faster? You’re kind of, uh, holdin’ up the hunt here. There’s a lot of game in this city. We kind of need to collect all the tithes before sunrise, which is, like, a lot.”

And that was- that was the proverbial straw on the camel’s back. If the cold and pain and exhaustion weren’t enough to drive him to tears, if dying- or not dying- wasn’t either, if the realization that he could walk into traffic and no one that had ever cared about him would know, this was. Because it was just- needlessly cruel.

Ranboo let out a miserable sob, letting his tears cloud up his glasses and drip onto the snow. 

He heard the sound of a slap ring out.

“ You’re so tactless! ” Phil reprimanded, “Look, you made him cry. Good god.”

Phil kneeled down next to Ranboo’s head, brushing the hair out of his face with a warm hand.

“Hey, mate,” he said softly, “You mentioned your parents were warlocks, right? Do you want to follow in their footsteps?”

Ranboo’s response was slurred, too preoccupied with the sensation of the palm on his forehead. The adrenaline was starting to genuinely wear off, now, and his legs were beginning to feel like they were stacked in hot embers.

“What?” he asked.

“Oh, no, ” the pig said, setting the axe on the ground with a firm click of its handle, “Phil. You are not doing this. You have responsibilities. You need to keep your stores of magic, you know.”

“Oh, I’m not. This one’s on you, mate.”

“What?! Me?! Phil, where is the supporting evidence for this argument.”

“Your hounds tear him apart, you stitch him back up again.”

“I can’t afford to support a warlock, Phil. They’re so much work.”

“More work than taking your entire hound army to the groomer?”

“...Well, it’d be more work than I already have.”

Phil shook his head, tutting at the pig.

“Techno, as I see it, we have two options here. Either you fix this kid up with a warlock pact or we let him die here and screw up the political balance of L’Manburg. This could mess with your brother’s election, you know.”

“Oh, of course it’s about Wilbur. He’s not technically elected yet, Philza. Dream and Schlatt are still going pretty strong.”

“ Technoblade. ”

“ Phil. ”

“ Technoblade.”

“ Philza Minecraft.”

“Techno. This isn’t just about Wilbur. Killing a human is… you’ll lose popularity in your own realm, too, mate. Not all of us share the same opinions of them.”

The pig was silent, and Phil- or Philza- continued to speak in a darker tone.

“You’re an unconventional enough candidate for this year’s Lord of the Yule, you know. Plenty of people aren’t fans of how you seized power. Plenty more don’t like the whole ‘no court’ thing. You know I’m here to support you, but-”

“ Alright. Fine. I get the point.”

Suddenly, the pig crouched down closer, leaning over him on the other side of his head. It addressed Ranboo directly, now.

“Hey, kid, your parents were warlocks, right? You know how the old ball and chain works?”

Ranboo nodded, weakly, and then shook his head.

The pig was not impressed.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” it asked flatly.

“Ah, his parents were warlocks, but he’s not connected to the culture. Lost ‘em at a young age. So sad.”

“Oh. Uh. Alright, then,” it said, with some awkwardness, “Ahem. Sorry for your loss... Are you interested in not dying tonight?”

“Very smooth.”

“Shut up, Phil.”

Ranboo tried to speak, but instead he coughed, tasting copper in his mouth. Instead he nodded again.

“Alright,” the pig continued, “The only way that I can do that is by making a warlock-patron contract with you. Is that… okay?”

Ranboo nodded again, with fervor.

The pig shifted, looking almost nervous.

“You know what that means, right? You’re not just delusional because of, the uh, blood loss? This isn’t a hallucination. Or a trick. This is like, a lifetime deal, kid, at least for you. If you agree to this, you’re going to be stuck as my subordinate for life.”

“I…” Ranboo spoke up, but felt something like grief rise in his throat, so he swallowed it—painfully—down.

“I don’t- I don’t want to die,” his voice broke, “I’m not- I’m not ready .”

The pig turned, fumbling around within the royal mantle it was wearing for a moment before sighing and looking back.

“Alright, I don’t have any paper with me, so…”

It held up a hand.

“Take some of your blood and sign here. Right across my palm.”

And Ranboo- what other choice did he have? Sign his life away, or bleed out, miserable and alone, in the snow?

It took all of the strength he had in his body, but eventually, he raised a quivering hand and drew a scarlet line across the pig’s palm. It turned the appendage over, giving it appraisal for a moment, before deciding it was good enough.

“Alright, that’ll do, I guess. Up you go.”

And before he could protest, the pig scooped Ranboo up from the snow by his underarms, and slung him over its massive shoulder.

He bit back a hiss of pain, feeling his skin sting along the points of contact.

“Aye, Techno, you could afford to be a bit gentler, you know. You’re swinging him around like a sack of potatoes. That’s no way to treat your new charge.”

"I don't even think the guy's lucid, Phil. He'll be fine."

"He seems pretty lucid right now," the man in the bucket hat said, noticing Ranboo's alarm.

"Oh. Well, if you are, you should feel better in a few minutes. That'd be my magic that you have access to, now. Should heal you up pretty nicely."

"Droves of it, too. This might be a good thing! Think of the opportunities, what you could do with a human ward…"

Ranboo's vision was beginning to blur, and he slumped down on the beast’s shoulder. True to its word, his fingertips began to buzz before warmth flooded his extremities. The pain of his wounds dulled again, fading into the background like a white noise. He couldn’t follow the conversation between Phil and the pig-beast, but its noise lulled him into an exhausted stupor, and he dared himself to close his eyes.

He left the waking world, uncertain of the chances that he would return.