Chapter Text
Gem was born under a moonless night, the creatures of the forest completely silent as she arrived.
She knew this because it was always the reason her parents used to explain her. They used it when she snuck behind people without being seen or when she was able to climb a tree without a sound. She could recite conversations from memory between her mother and her neighbors, trying to apologize for Gem stealing a pastry or knocking on their door and running. She had always been a problem child, bright but not in the right ways.
“Gemstone, you have to learn how to plow,” her father would ramble in frustration. “We’re farmers . You don’t get a choice. It’s plow or starve.”
A part of Gem had cursed that damned moonless night. Maybe if it had been bright, the reflection of light over the ponds and lakes shining, she could be like her family. She could walk loudly and be proud of the farmwork and no one would bat an eye.
“Seriously, Gem, you can’t just go around sulking all the time. You look like a ghost.” Grian gave her a rough shove. They were on their way to the marketplace, running errands.
Gem had met Grian by accident. He was a ward kid- his parents abandoned him on the doorstep of the Redmond Orphanage, and Sir Impulse had added him to the rest of the possibly gifted kids in his personal ward. Because of it, Grian got the chance to pick whatever future he wanted. She had been off in the woods throwing a tantrum about her parents' unfairness, but it had happened that the forest she chose to scream in was directly on the path of the battle school students. Which Grian had chosen, for some reason. She had tried to ask him why, but he had simply said it was because it was noble. He claimed his parents were messed up people, and this was his way of repaying the country for their wrongdoings.
“I’ll sulk all I want, thank you.” She said, tilting her nose up.
“Yeah, yeah, of course you will.” Grian rolled his eyes, then stopped suddenly.
She turned towards him in confusion. When she looked at him, his ruffled dirty blonde hair and dark eyes, she knew that look immediately. He was planning something.
And when Grian planned something? Well, it was always bad news.
“Grian, whatever you’re thinking, stop it.”
He frowned. “I didn’t even say anything yet.”
“I don’t need you to say anything to know that it’ll get me into trouble,” Gem said. “Remember the raccoons?”
“Hey, they were cute and you loved it!”
“That didn’t matter when Sir Skizz decided to ban me from the market for a week! My parents were so angry.”
Grian shook his head in disbelief. “You enjoy it, so I don’t know why you’re acting like you’re going to say no. Meet me at that weird cabin in the woods tomorrow night?”
Gem looked him up and down suspiciously. “And why would I do that?”
“Because you- oh, would you look who just showed up?” Gem turned her head back to the main path, seeing a girl with long brown hair and a flower crown come up to the two of them. She walked funky- a mix of graceful and childish, some kind of in-between skip that Gem couldn’t quite describe. She wore a plain canvas dress, but she couldn’t help staring at the girl.
“Pearl!” Gem ran up to her, meeting her halfway for a hug.
“Gem! God, I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages,” Pearl said, her accent uplifting her words slightly. Pearl had been raised in a smaller, more southern part of Clonmel, her parents having moved to Araluen due to the strange cult-like conspiracies. Gem had met her when she moved into town and they had clicked immediately.
“You two saw each other yesterday.” Grian deadpanned.
Gem pouted. “Yeah, ages ago.”
He shrugged, allowing Pearl to pull him into the hug. Gem gave him a good elbow into the side, causing him to yelp. The three of them began giggling, Gem first and the other two quickly following. Her parents were going to be upset that it was taking her longer than usual, but when did she ever do anything perfectly?
*
It was far past midnight the next day when she spotted Grian on the pathway out of town. He looked more like a robber, and her heart had actually stopped before she had realized it was him. She could sense before the ‘adventure’ began that it wasn’t going to end well.
But, she had already snuck out and traveled across town for this. And she was anything but a coward.
“Gem!” Grian whispered, motioning her over to him. “Why are you dressed like that?”
“What, my regular clothes?” She questioned. “You didn’t tell me what we were doing, you idiot! How was I supposed to know that I was meant to dress like I was about to kill someone?”
“We are not about to kill someone. Y’know that weird guy we sometimes see in town?”
Gem nodded, confused about where this was going. She peered down the pathway, seeing the small structure of a cabin far down. The lights were out and there was no smoke coming from the chimney.
“Well, he lives here. And I want to see why everyone is so afraid of him.”
She scoffed. “How about you just ask?”
“Eh, boring. This is more fun.”
“I cannot believe you actually dragged me into this.”
“I didn’t drag you into anything, you came here on your own will. We’re not going to get into trouble,” he said, voice still quiet. Gem was about to make another remark when he began down the path, right toward the house.
“Oh, we are so fucked.” She whispered to herself, following quickly behind him.
The cabin itself was small, only a bit bigger than the farmhouse. It looked well put together, probably older than a lot of the other buildings in the town. She took notice of the small horse pen not far from the house, a shaggy pony wide awake.
Grian took a step up the stairs on the veranda. It creaked with the effort, making Gem wince, before she rushed and grabbed the back of his shirt, pulling him back down.
“What the hell?” Grian asked, harsh but quiet.
“You’re so loud,” Gem told him. “Let me.”
“So I can miss out? No way!”
“You’re not gonna miss out on anything if you get us caught!” She was starting to really question why she agreed to this in the first place. Grian said nothing, arms crossed as he motioned for her to get on with it.
Gem took a careful step up, tiptoeing across the wooden planks. Times like this were the ones where she felt truly alive- not when she was doing farmwork or running errands for the morning, but when she could stay silent, the excitement of trying to avoid being observed. She would give Grian shit all she wanted, but he was right about her enjoying it.
The veranda went all the way around the cabin, so when Gem tried to peak through the front door and saw nothing, she began making her way around. She saw a small kitchen, wildflowers in a small vase on a table. There was a cozy fireplace and a stack of letters, all with a strange oakleaf stamp. She wondered why she had never seen one of those before.
The next window was dark. It must have had a closed curtain or something of the sort, blocking her sight from the room. She still hadn’t seen the strange man who supposedly lived there, so Gem assumed that this was a window to a bedroom.
She circled back to the front, spotting Grian sitting on the grass. The pony in the pen stayed quiet, barely a huff from it's mouth.
“G, I couldn’t see-”
She was cut off abruptly by a sharp pain in her arm, the wooshing of… something that Gem had a hard time identifying. Within seconds Grian was at her side, holding her arm, and she felt panic rise to her chest.
“Gem, what the- what the fuck?” He turned over to look in the doorway, and Gem followed his eyes.
A man stood there, a deep green cloak covering his face. He had a bow in his hand, arrow drawn taunt, ready to shoot again. Gem realized suddenly that the woosh she had heard had been him shooting an arrow. Shooting an arrow at her .
God, she was going to be in so much trouble.
“Hey, man, you just shot a kid!” The adrenaline made the pain in her arm something she could handle later. Right now she was more shocked at the situation itself.
“You’re trespassing on private property. I have full authority to shoot whoever I need to.” He shrugged, cloak swishing with the movement. “You’re lucky it was only your arm. Next time it’ll be your chest.”
She felt Grian tense, probably about to jump the man and get himself killed. She grabbed his arm and pulled him back. “Grian, no, whatever you’re about to do will only make this worse.”
He inhaled, exhaled, repeated. He was still holding her arm, which was now beginning to ache. How could she not feel it one second and the next be hyperaware of it?
The cloaked man put down his bow, muttering something to himself. Then he walked over, Grian and Gem flinching back subconsciously.
“Come on,” he said, voice lower and more threatening than anything Gem had ever heard in her life. “You two are going to have a talk with the Baron.”