Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Dear diary,
I've been spending quite a lot of time with Alice, the amnesiac in the village. I think we've gotten quite close but there is something about her that is bothering me.

It's that she always wears a giant pumpkin helmet. Therefore I have no idea what she looks like or what emotions she is expressing on her face. It is quite perplexing.

She often invites me to her "farm" and there is something not quite right about it. First off all is her "kitchen" which consists of a bunch of counters placed crookedly on the back lawn. I'm unsure if this is a sanitary place for food preparation. However, I do not want to hurt her feelings so I have been eating her cooking, with no ill effects so far.

Second, it is the alarming amount of large, dangerous animals. She claims they are her "employees" and "help" with farmwork, but they seem more likely to bite off my arm. I stay well away from them, especially "Griff" the almost entirely untamed griffin with a large, sharp beak and alarmingly razor-like talons. Alice calls him "OP" (which she says means overpowered) and says she was "surprised she was able to capture him." It is true that on her journeys he has managed to murder all other monsters on sight, including supposedly fearsome giant monsters that Alice claims are "boss monsters." This was a bit of a difficulty when we encountered an adorable cat monster that Alice wanted to catch. She ran around trying to brush the cat while Griff proceeded to murder mode. Finally she was forced to send Griff back to the barn and she asked for my assistance. Alice kept trying to brush it while it scratched me half to death. I collapsed on the ground. When I woke up Alice had captured the ferocious feline and named him "Meow."

In general Alice uses many confusing words that I do not know. I happen to have overheard her referring to me as a "DILF" when talking to Pricilla and Lucy. I will have to find a way to find out what this means without tipping her off that I overheard it.

Despite the strangeness, I find myself looking forward to Alice's company. Even if many of the "adventures" she invites me on turn out to be me watching her smash rocks by herself. I am looking forward to getting to know her better.

Chapter Text

It was 3am but Alice was wide awake. Her family slept around her, their house was a crowded one. Now 3 children and her husband Lucas piled into just two beds. She was thinking of earlier that day, when the children had surprised both she and Lucas with gifts they made at the forge. Lucas had remarked “Am I truly fulfilling my role as a parent? I cannot say for sure…” She wondered that same thing about her own parenting.

She didn’t remember her own parents. And Lucas didn’t have parents, since he’d always, she supposed, just existed. The other parents in their village weren’t much help, as they were alcoholics. Lucas was the only father in the village who was actually around. Their role models they supposed were Randolph and Yuki, who were also surrogate parents for most of the children in the village. The village children were nearly always either with them or with Alice and Lucas.

Alice had thought about moving away, but Lucas and the children loved this place so much. And it was a very safe place for them, as god, Earthmate, and their demigod children. They compromised by furnishing the Wind Dragon’s barns as houses and piling themselves with their children on it for summer journeys to eat at the best ramen restaurants in the world while touring as a band. Lucas was the vocalist, Alice played guitar, and their eldest daughter, Sylvia, was the drummer. Currently the twins were getting musical lessons so they could join in on the fun.

It had been difficult to convince Lucas that a band made more sense than a magic show. He could be stubborn at times, though Alice adored the pouty face he made when he was in that sort of mood, but Alice won out, convincing him that his magic tricks were just a little too much for the world and would draw undue attention. He was easy to convince after she praised his singing and it wasn't hard, since he indeed did have a beautiful voice.

They had their share of challenges. Lucas had been unable to close the gates in the backyard to Calamity’s Edge and Cloudheim, leaving them with quite the conundrum should the children wander into them. They solved this as best they could, by arming their kids with the best weapons as soon as they could walk. Surely a Soul Eater sword was a perfectly fine gift for a 2 year old, she thought.

Alice also forged full kits of gear for Hina and Julian. Now they would play “monsters and rangers” in Calamity’s Edge with real monsters. Your kids growing up and becoming more independent in their quests to kill monsters was something all parents faced, Alice thought. But she couldn’t say for sure. Sometimes they did get knocked down, fainted, or poisoned, but they always recovered quickly. She nearly cried with joy when Sylvia managed to tame her own dragon and win 3rd place in the buddy battle. The little girl was growing up quickly.

Alice had read that having kids was a lot of work but it didn’t seem so for her, and she wanted to have even more. Her kids cooked for themselves after all, wandered by themselves all day, and collected valuable drops from monsters that they sold, becoming quite rich. There wasn’t much for her or Lucas to do except play with them. She did think it strange that some books mentioned something called “school.” They had no such thing in Rigbarth so Alice started her own, putting together a gym in the Silo to train all the children in fighting skills.

Lucas and Alice made up parenting as they went along, and their children were happy and healthy. She gazed at Lucas as he slept, tendrils of black silver hair spread around him on the pillow like a halo. He was the best husband and father in the entire world, she mused to herself. And she wanted him to know that.

Chapter Text

Goddess
There was no doubt in his mind that his wife was a goddess. She just didn’t know it. Lucas remembered that day he told her a typhoon was approaching. She just said “nope, it’s not, I’m cancelling it. I don’t like the noise and I have too many valuable crops.”

“You can do that?” Lucas had asked, surprised.

“Of course, typhoons are now banned from this entire town. I hate them” she’d answered. Lucas simply didn’t know what to say.

Then there were the many times she stopped by Heinz’s shop and didn’t like his rotating selection of items. “All junk, I’m reloading” she’d say.

“Reloading? What are you reloading beloved?” Lucas would ask.

“Reality, darling” she’d smile and with a strange blip that seemed to cause the world to stutter for a moment, Heinz’s item selection would change. She wasn’t omnipotent though, often she’d change it multiple times and be disappointed each time before finally giving up and going home.

What kind of god was she?, Lucas wondered. An old god certainly, from before the time he had been on this world. Perhaps she had slumbered before he’d arrived and had awoken some time more recently. Alice was a mystery even to herself.

He asked Livia about it. They had become close friends and he often spent mornings in her study, talking about the types of things only ancients could discuss. Livia didn’t have any real answers though, just that she’d known about Alice for some time and had sought out her power.

Even if Alice had been mortal, her powers were absolutely astonishing. She was a master craftsperson, the richest person in the world, a Porco-rated chef, produced 80% of Norad’s agricultural products, managed and funded all of the town’s infrastructure, and was the greatest Master Tamer in known memory, possessing even terrifyingly powerful boss monsters. Lucas also thought she was the most beautiful woman in all existence.

It was an honor just to know her, never mind to be loved so intensely by her. She was the one who had pursued him. Of course he was in love with her from the moment he met, but he had assumed that such things could not be possible between gods and mortals. Alice wouldn’t accept that. He had been so lucky, especially since the entire town seemed to have also been in love with her and it was a struggle for her to fend off all their advances. Back then she often complained that another “romance event” was holding up their relationship. He had no idea what she meant by that.

And now they were happily married with three incredibly powerful children who she had spared no expense in outfitting with the finest mastercrafted gear.

Lucas chuckled thinking of the times he’s assumed he was the only god in this relationship. How he’d lectured her on how gods don’t intervene many times. Looking back, he felt like a fool. He was using his powers for magic tricks while denying her the use of them to save the world? What a fool he’d been. He was glad she had still loved him. Though he was as old perhaps as time itself, he felt like Alice taught him something new every day.