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KHR Rarepair Week, June 19 - Arranged Marriage
The day that her parents decide to sell her off as a sacrifice to the fae, Nagi cannot say she is surprised at all. She feels hard pressed to say if she feels anything.
Many other people in the town try to spin it prettily for her, hiding betrayal and stench in lace and flowers. The mayor of the town tells her that she is a bride, a hero, that she is doing a great deed for many people. The tailor tells her that this choice means she is the most beautiful girl in town, that someone would want to hoard her beauty for themselves.
Her parents, her mother and father, they tell her nothing. But through the walls of their home, from underneath the cracks of doors, she hears them call her what she is: a sacrifice.
On the day of, they dress her in white lace and a dress that ruffles. They braid her hair, pull it back, arrange flowers with in it. There is a festival that goes all through the day and into the night, an enormous bonfire raging. People dance, as though with enough movement and smiles, they can forget the soul they are abandoning. And then, when all is said and done...
They send her off, down the path into the deep dark woods, and her white dress soon fades from view as the shadows claim her.
Nagi wonders if it makes them feel better, to lose sight of her to darkness. If it lets them move on all the quicker, back to their merrymaking. Well, she supposes it's not longer her problem. Her problem... is the dark forest that stretches far ahead of her.
When she had first pondered the news, Nagi had pondered just succumbing to an inevitable death. Traveling alone in a dark forest, clad in a fragile wedding dress? That was just begging to succumb to cold, or hunger, or any kind of wild animal or venomous beast. And did she truly have anything else to live for? Maybe she'd find something better in the soft embrace of death, in the light that was on the other side.
Or maybe she could find something in the forest, on the other side of that.
It's what she does after she's walked a good amount of time, when she's certain that not even the sharpest eyes in the town could spot her through the trees even if it were daytime. No one in town gave her anything besides a dress that's useless in the forest, although no doubt her own mother chewed through her tongue in envy at seeing her own daughter wear it, but Nagi learned a long time ago to only rely on herself for the things she wanted to do. So it's through her own subtle hands and careful consideration that, underneath her dress, she has a knife strapped to one garter, and a box of matches to the other.
If only she could have hidden something a little more substantial underneath her dress, like a tent, or a lantern. Unfortunately, while she almost felt she had enough room, such things certainly would have been noticed - for the noise, if nothing else.
Complaining gets her about as far as her dress does. Much better are the dirtied but sensibly flat white shoes she wears, and the match she lights in the darkness.
The trees loom large around her, shadows seeming all the deeper with such a fragile light now there to give them context... But she doesn't mind. Even if it is only a few feet around her, in front of her, it is better than nothing. Hitching up her dress, Nagi carries on forward with her ghostly pale hand outstretched, holding a small and inconsequential light to guide her.
Back in town, the townspeople had spokes of the Fae like they would greedily snatch her up the second she entered the forest, and that would be that. All the troubles they blamed on the presence of Fae would be done away with.
Is it really so simple? If so, then the way she troops through the forest, hoping to reach the other end of it and leave for some other far off town, might very well doom them all. Yet that's not her problem, and that's not even going into how she doubts it has anything to do with the Fae to start with. She knows the rules, knows how they only appear in certain places, how they can just appear in certain places. She doesn't plan on going into the heart of the forest... So it should be fine.
That's what she thinks, all the way, up until she sees the shimmer of water up ahead through the trees.
It's a new moon, which is why the town sent her off tonight of all nights. A new moon to act as a whole in the world, for other creatures to step through. So why is there a lake shining so brilliantly when she steps out from the trees? The sky is empty, when she cranes her head to look toward it... but down in the water's reflection, a full moon shimmers.
There is also a young man laying face first in the muddy shore of it.
Nagi pauses, and takes in the situation. She's heard about kelpies, horses so beautiful that one cannot help but want to ride them, only for the steed to drown them in the depths of a river or lake. There are numerous water spirits that do very much the same, without even trying to bribe a soul into foolishness. Is this another such creature, trying to lure softhearted people into helping, only to kill them instead? But on the other hand, if it is another actual person... Then she might be leaving them to die, laying there.
So she takes the safe option as she crouches down, and starts throwing riverstones over at his still body.
It takes around a dozen before the body finally stirs, and the man turns his head to stare at her in quiet exhaustion while his dark hair sticks to the mud. He has pale eyes, like lavender, and absolutely no energy apparently. "Stop that," he mutters.
At least it turns out he's alive. "Are you a water spirit?" she asks bluntly, because there's no reason not to be honest as far as she's concerned.
"Hardly," the man says.
"The lake's reflection shows a full moon, but there's not one in the sky."
"It has to go somewhere if it's not in the sky," the man yawns.
"Why are you in a lake?"
"These questions are getting tiresome," the man mumbles, and somehow it feels like an actual truth instead of just him trying to brush off the topic. He hasn't pushed himself up yet, or gotten his face out of the mud. "If you can move enough to throw rocks at me... Go find some things of mine."
Frankly, the last thing she wants to do on a dark night like this is try to find something for a strange man who's refused to pull himself completely out of the water, and who might just be using it as a trick. Despite that, Nagi tilts her head to the side and considers him. "What sort of things are they?" she asks, curious despite herself. There can't be any harm in asking.
The man props his cheek against one open palm, elbow sinking into the mud. "A hat, and my glasses," he says simply. "They ended up in the forest somewhere..."
"...This is a really big forest."
"They shouldn't be far."
"It's the middle of the night, and the moon only shines in the lake."
"Ugh," the man says, but doesn't argue her points. "Come here, then, and I'll give you something better to light the way than those matches... Although I'll expect it back."
He could still kill her, she thinks, but sometimes one must take a risk. She's already done that enough, simply by deciding to make her way through this forest despite all the dangers. So Nagi steps forward, the trail of her dress dragging through the mud, until she can crouch before the man. When he moves his hand, it isn't to grab her. Instead, he goes into a pouch he has on his belt, and pulls out... what looks like a fang.
"Cut your palm open with it," he says, in such a bland tone of voice that one would not think he is telling her to hurt herself. "When it's fed on that, it'll shine with all the power of a sun. That should lead you to wherever you need to go, and you shouldn't miss a thing.... Like my hat, or glasses."
Accepting the fang, Nagi looks down at it, and then up at him again. "...You're really suspicious."
"Just find me my stuff already, ugh."
And what can she say in the face of that, really? So Nagi pushes herself up, and she turns away from the mysterious lake, back towards the dark of the forest. Her wedding dress still drags, and branches still catch at it, but she surrendered to that long ago.
The fang stings, as she digs its sharp tip into her finger - a more sensible option, she thinks, than hurting the palm itself. As crimson stains it, a heat pulses inbetween her fingertips, and, indeed... the fang begins to glow, hard and bright enough to put any lantern to shame. Fascinated, she holds it out in front of her."I wonder what kind of creature has teeth like this," she asks softly to no one at all.
With the fang, it's a simple thing to find the man's hat. It's indeed hanging from a branch, a simple cap of sky blue, and it takes easily to her hand. It's such a plain little thing; most would have been content to leave it behind if they lost it.
The spectacles are a little harder to find. It takes her what feels like ages, dress tearing at the skirts as branches dig into it and she impatiently tears them along. Mud gathers at the front, a sacrifice made as she kneels amongst the brush. All the while, the sky remains dark, and it occurs to her that it's very possible she could have wandered into the realm of the Fae entirely by accident at some point. Is this a test, of some sort? Is that man meant to be her suitor?
She cannot think of many brides who have to pass what almost seems like some sort of test in order to be wed.
Eventually, luck shines on her, just like the fang shines off of the glasses' reflective surface. They're hidden in a patch of moss, closer to the hat than she thought they would be. Closer to the hat than they felt like they should be.
"So you found them," the man says to the sound of her dress tearing further along the branches around the lake; there are more rags than skirts around her legs now.
"I found them," she agrees, since there's clearly no point in lying about anything now. She holds them in front of her, shows they exist. "What will you do when you have them?"
"Put them on, go home, and go to sleep," he deadpans, even though he seems to have been doing that last part plenty enough already, both when she arrived the first time, and then just now. "But I'll give you something for them."
Something is better than nothing. Despite that, Nagi tilts her head to the side. "I want three somethings."
"How troublesome... a greedy girl."
"I'm not that greedy," Nagi corrects. "But for helping you, I want to know that I will be safe in giving you the items back. For the hat, I want one thing, and for the glasses, I want something else. I think the trade should be fair enough."
There are tales about Fae angered, about how easily they take offense to those who ask for more than they are gifted... But this isn't a gift. This is an exchange.
Fortunately, it doesn't seem as though the man seems to be particularly bothered... or, at least, if he is bothered, it isn't enough to make him act up in any way. He just lets out a breath, and blinks slowly at her, like a cat. "I won't do anything. That isn't the sort of thing I do. But fine... Do you even know what you want, or if I can give it?"
She doesn't. "What could you give me?" she asks.
And for a long, long moment... The man simply stares at her, into her, as though he knows far more about her than he has any right to. "I could give you a name," he says at long last.
What a peculiar offer, and she tilts her head to the side again. "I already have a name."
"But this would be a new one. I'd take the old one... and put it to rest. It would be attached to you no longer. No one would think of it when looking at you. You'd be someone new." There are no grand gestures to accentuate his words, no impressive roll of his tone. It's simple, and bland, and his gaze sweeps over her form: that of a woman tromping through a forest in the middle of a moonless night, wedding dress torn to shreds.
Still... "That sounds like you're getting something of mine in order for me to get something of yours," Nagi points out.
Another "ugh", but this one almost sounds like a death rattle. "The act of transformation would be the exchange for one of my things," he says. "So it's fair. You make a terrible bride."
"Thank you."
There is no laugh, or anything of the sort. Not even a smile. But his eyelids do lower a moment, only mere slits watching her, and she thinks that must mean something. What it could possibly mean, she has not the slightest idea. "The favor to your old name would be in exchange for the hat," he says at last. "For my glasses..." And he pauses, watching as she lifts up the still brilliantly glowing fang. It's so bright, it almost drowns out where the moon rests in the water. "Oh. That?" She nods her head. "Fine. But... its owner is going to come looking for it eventually..." He squints at her, which is different from lowering his eyelids. Somehow. "And also you have to cut yourself."
"I know."
"You complained about that... Ugh. Anyway, fine. I don't care..." He yawns, not even bothering to cover up his mouth and instead stretching out that hand towards her.
She's guaranteed safety. She's guaranteed a new life. She's guaranteed a way to make her way through a dark forest and not be completely lost. Leaning over, Nagi places the hat into his hand first. "My name is Nagi," she says, and the name seems to slip out of her tongue, and go... elsewhere.
Where is elsewhere? She doesn't know. She didn't even know how it would feel to be without a name, and yet the feeling is tangible, almost. It's like wearing a cloak for so long, and to hang it up is to miss its weight. Yet she - whoever 'she' is, now - does not have to wait for very long. The man's tongue flicks out just a bit from between his lips, and he considers something. "So," he says. "That. I think.... Chrome."
It is a strange word, a peculiar one, but she recognizes it for a name by the way it wraps around her, gives her new armor that the worn out Nagi was too tired to truly become. Chrome closes her eyes, and breathes in the sensation. "Alright," she says, and she hands over the glasses next.
This exchange, at least, is much easier. All he does is take the glasses back, and slide them onto his face. Somehow, it looks more natural on him. "Finally," he mutters, as though he has been waiting longer than maybe part of a night. For the first time since she has met him, the man pushes his palms into the mud, and himself up onto his feet.
From the open collar of his shirt, there is a class case, and nothing within it.
Chrome can't help but stare, seeing nothing in there but perhaps what almost seems like crystal where flesh should be forming the cavity. She doesn't have much time to stare. The man looks at her again, and somehow, at some point, all the mud just left his person. "Do you still want to be a bride?" he asks. "Or do you want to go somewhere?"
Well. For that, the answer is rather simple, and Chrome takes his hand when he offers it.
She'll be no bride... but there are places beyond even the forest she was thinking of crossing, and she wants to see who "Chrome" is.
Many other people in the town try to spin it prettily for her, hiding betrayal and stench in lace and flowers. The mayor of the town tells her that she is a bride, a hero, that she is doing a great deed for many people. The tailor tells her that this choice means she is the most beautiful girl in town, that someone would want to hoard her beauty for themselves.
Her parents, her mother and father, they tell her nothing. But through the walls of their home, from underneath the cracks of doors, she hears them call her what she is: a sacrifice.
On the day of, they dress her in white lace and a dress that ruffles. They braid her hair, pull it back, arrange flowers with in it. There is a festival that goes all through the day and into the night, an enormous bonfire raging. People dance, as though with enough movement and smiles, they can forget the soul they are abandoning. And then, when all is said and done...
They send her off, down the path into the deep dark woods, and her white dress soon fades from view as the shadows claim her.
Nagi wonders if it makes them feel better, to lose sight of her to darkness. If it lets them move on all the quicker, back to their merrymaking. Well, she supposes it's not longer her problem. Her problem... is the dark forest that stretches far ahead of her.
When she had first pondered the news, Nagi had pondered just succumbing to an inevitable death. Traveling alone in a dark forest, clad in a fragile wedding dress? That was just begging to succumb to cold, or hunger, or any kind of wild animal or venomous beast. And did she truly have anything else to live for? Maybe she'd find something better in the soft embrace of death, in the light that was on the other side.
Or maybe she could find something in the forest, on the other side of that.
It's what she does after she's walked a good amount of time, when she's certain that not even the sharpest eyes in the town could spot her through the trees even if it were daytime. No one in town gave her anything besides a dress that's useless in the forest, although no doubt her own mother chewed through her tongue in envy at seeing her own daughter wear it, but Nagi learned a long time ago to only rely on herself for the things she wanted to do. So it's through her own subtle hands and careful consideration that, underneath her dress, she has a knife strapped to one garter, and a box of matches to the other.
If only she could have hidden something a little more substantial underneath her dress, like a tent, or a lantern. Unfortunately, while she almost felt she had enough room, such things certainly would have been noticed - for the noise, if nothing else.
Complaining gets her about as far as her dress does. Much better are the dirtied but sensibly flat white shoes she wears, and the match she lights in the darkness.
The trees loom large around her, shadows seeming all the deeper with such a fragile light now there to give them context... But she doesn't mind. Even if it is only a few feet around her, in front of her, it is better than nothing. Hitching up her dress, Nagi carries on forward with her ghostly pale hand outstretched, holding a small and inconsequential light to guide her.
Back in town, the townspeople had spokes of the Fae like they would greedily snatch her up the second she entered the forest, and that would be that. All the troubles they blamed on the presence of Fae would be done away with.
Is it really so simple? If so, then the way she troops through the forest, hoping to reach the other end of it and leave for some other far off town, might very well doom them all. Yet that's not her problem, and that's not even going into how she doubts it has anything to do with the Fae to start with. She knows the rules, knows how they only appear in certain places, how they can just appear in certain places. She doesn't plan on going into the heart of the forest... So it should be fine.
That's what she thinks, all the way, up until she sees the shimmer of water up ahead through the trees.
It's a new moon, which is why the town sent her off tonight of all nights. A new moon to act as a whole in the world, for other creatures to step through. So why is there a lake shining so brilliantly when she steps out from the trees? The sky is empty, when she cranes her head to look toward it... but down in the water's reflection, a full moon shimmers.
There is also a young man laying face first in the muddy shore of it.
Nagi pauses, and takes in the situation. She's heard about kelpies, horses so beautiful that one cannot help but want to ride them, only for the steed to drown them in the depths of a river or lake. There are numerous water spirits that do very much the same, without even trying to bribe a soul into foolishness. Is this another such creature, trying to lure softhearted people into helping, only to kill them instead? But on the other hand, if it is another actual person... Then she might be leaving them to die, laying there.
So she takes the safe option as she crouches down, and starts throwing riverstones over at his still body.
It takes around a dozen before the body finally stirs, and the man turns his head to stare at her in quiet exhaustion while his dark hair sticks to the mud. He has pale eyes, like lavender, and absolutely no energy apparently. "Stop that," he mutters.
At least it turns out he's alive. "Are you a water spirit?" she asks bluntly, because there's no reason not to be honest as far as she's concerned.
"Hardly," the man says.
"The lake's reflection shows a full moon, but there's not one in the sky."
"It has to go somewhere if it's not in the sky," the man yawns.
"Why are you in a lake?"
"These questions are getting tiresome," the man mumbles, and somehow it feels like an actual truth instead of just him trying to brush off the topic. He hasn't pushed himself up yet, or gotten his face out of the mud. "If you can move enough to throw rocks at me... Go find some things of mine."
Frankly, the last thing she wants to do on a dark night like this is try to find something for a strange man who's refused to pull himself completely out of the water, and who might just be using it as a trick. Despite that, Nagi tilts her head to the side and considers him. "What sort of things are they?" she asks, curious despite herself. There can't be any harm in asking.
The man props his cheek against one open palm, elbow sinking into the mud. "A hat, and my glasses," he says simply. "They ended up in the forest somewhere..."
"...This is a really big forest."
"They shouldn't be far."
"It's the middle of the night, and the moon only shines in the lake."
"Ugh," the man says, but doesn't argue her points. "Come here, then, and I'll give you something better to light the way than those matches... Although I'll expect it back."
He could still kill her, she thinks, but sometimes one must take a risk. She's already done that enough, simply by deciding to make her way through this forest despite all the dangers. So Nagi steps forward, the trail of her dress dragging through the mud, until she can crouch before the man. When he moves his hand, it isn't to grab her. Instead, he goes into a pouch he has on his belt, and pulls out... what looks like a fang.
"Cut your palm open with it," he says, in such a bland tone of voice that one would not think he is telling her to hurt herself. "When it's fed on that, it'll shine with all the power of a sun. That should lead you to wherever you need to go, and you shouldn't miss a thing.... Like my hat, or glasses."
Accepting the fang, Nagi looks down at it, and then up at him again. "...You're really suspicious."
"Just find me my stuff already, ugh."
And what can she say in the face of that, really? So Nagi pushes herself up, and she turns away from the mysterious lake, back towards the dark of the forest. Her wedding dress still drags, and branches still catch at it, but she surrendered to that long ago.
The fang stings, as she digs its sharp tip into her finger - a more sensible option, she thinks, than hurting the palm itself. As crimson stains it, a heat pulses inbetween her fingertips, and, indeed... the fang begins to glow, hard and bright enough to put any lantern to shame. Fascinated, she holds it out in front of her."I wonder what kind of creature has teeth like this," she asks softly to no one at all.
With the fang, it's a simple thing to find the man's hat. It's indeed hanging from a branch, a simple cap of sky blue, and it takes easily to her hand. It's such a plain little thing; most would have been content to leave it behind if they lost it.
The spectacles are a little harder to find. It takes her what feels like ages, dress tearing at the skirts as branches dig into it and she impatiently tears them along. Mud gathers at the front, a sacrifice made as she kneels amongst the brush. All the while, the sky remains dark, and it occurs to her that it's very possible she could have wandered into the realm of the Fae entirely by accident at some point. Is this a test, of some sort? Is that man meant to be her suitor?
She cannot think of many brides who have to pass what almost seems like some sort of test in order to be wed.
Eventually, luck shines on her, just like the fang shines off of the glasses' reflective surface. They're hidden in a patch of moss, closer to the hat than she thought they would be. Closer to the hat than they felt like they should be.
"So you found them," the man says to the sound of her dress tearing further along the branches around the lake; there are more rags than skirts around her legs now.
"I found them," she agrees, since there's clearly no point in lying about anything now. She holds them in front of her, shows they exist. "What will you do when you have them?"
"Put them on, go home, and go to sleep," he deadpans, even though he seems to have been doing that last part plenty enough already, both when she arrived the first time, and then just now. "But I'll give you something for them."
Something is better than nothing. Despite that, Nagi tilts her head to the side. "I want three somethings."
"How troublesome... a greedy girl."
"I'm not that greedy," Nagi corrects. "But for helping you, I want to know that I will be safe in giving you the items back. For the hat, I want one thing, and for the glasses, I want something else. I think the trade should be fair enough."
There are tales about Fae angered, about how easily they take offense to those who ask for more than they are gifted... But this isn't a gift. This is an exchange.
Fortunately, it doesn't seem as though the man seems to be particularly bothered... or, at least, if he is bothered, it isn't enough to make him act up in any way. He just lets out a breath, and blinks slowly at her, like a cat. "I won't do anything. That isn't the sort of thing I do. But fine... Do you even know what you want, or if I can give it?"
She doesn't. "What could you give me?" she asks.
And for a long, long moment... The man simply stares at her, into her, as though he knows far more about her than he has any right to. "I could give you a name," he says at long last.
What a peculiar offer, and she tilts her head to the side again. "I already have a name."
"But this would be a new one. I'd take the old one... and put it to rest. It would be attached to you no longer. No one would think of it when looking at you. You'd be someone new." There are no grand gestures to accentuate his words, no impressive roll of his tone. It's simple, and bland, and his gaze sweeps over her form: that of a woman tromping through a forest in the middle of a moonless night, wedding dress torn to shreds.
Still... "That sounds like you're getting something of mine in order for me to get something of yours," Nagi points out.
Another "ugh", but this one almost sounds like a death rattle. "The act of transformation would be the exchange for one of my things," he says. "So it's fair. You make a terrible bride."
"Thank you."
There is no laugh, or anything of the sort. Not even a smile. But his eyelids do lower a moment, only mere slits watching her, and she thinks that must mean something. What it could possibly mean, she has not the slightest idea. "The favor to your old name would be in exchange for the hat," he says at last. "For my glasses..." And he pauses, watching as she lifts up the still brilliantly glowing fang. It's so bright, it almost drowns out where the moon rests in the water. "Oh. That?" She nods her head. "Fine. But... its owner is going to come looking for it eventually..." He squints at her, which is different from lowering his eyelids. Somehow. "And also you have to cut yourself."
"I know."
"You complained about that... Ugh. Anyway, fine. I don't care..." He yawns, not even bothering to cover up his mouth and instead stretching out that hand towards her.
She's guaranteed safety. She's guaranteed a new life. She's guaranteed a way to make her way through a dark forest and not be completely lost. Leaning over, Nagi places the hat into his hand first. "My name is Nagi," she says, and the name seems to slip out of her tongue, and go... elsewhere.
Where is elsewhere? She doesn't know. She didn't even know how it would feel to be without a name, and yet the feeling is tangible, almost. It's like wearing a cloak for so long, and to hang it up is to miss its weight. Yet she - whoever 'she' is, now - does not have to wait for very long. The man's tongue flicks out just a bit from between his lips, and he considers something. "So," he says. "That. I think.... Chrome."
It is a strange word, a peculiar one, but she recognizes it for a name by the way it wraps around her, gives her new armor that the worn out Nagi was too tired to truly become. Chrome closes her eyes, and breathes in the sensation. "Alright," she says, and she hands over the glasses next.
This exchange, at least, is much easier. All he does is take the glasses back, and slide them onto his face. Somehow, it looks more natural on him. "Finally," he mutters, as though he has been waiting longer than maybe part of a night. For the first time since she has met him, the man pushes his palms into the mud, and himself up onto his feet.
From the open collar of his shirt, there is a class case, and nothing within it.
Chrome can't help but stare, seeing nothing in there but perhaps what almost seems like crystal where flesh should be forming the cavity. She doesn't have much time to stare. The man looks at her again, and somehow, at some point, all the mud just left his person. "Do you still want to be a bride?" he asks. "Or do you want to go somewhere?"
Well. For that, the answer is rather simple, and Chrome takes his hand when he offers it.
She'll be no bride... but there are places beyond even the forest she was thinking of crossing, and she wants to see who "Chrome" is.