Chapter Text
“I really don’t mean to be rude, but why do you have sticks coming out of your head?”
Storyteller watches the two girls out of the corner of his eye, pretending to tune his fiddle and not pay them any mind. He had found young Fran this morning, covered in grime and blood and sniffling sadly about her kitty as she flopped out of the hollow of a tree and onto the leaves beneath it. He saw a flash of something in the hollow behind her, a tooth or maybe an eye, but when he himself leaned into the split trunk to check he found nothing but a few scattered berries and a little jar of pills he promptly returned to the young lady. Throughout the day she would take one here and there, eyes going hazy for a moment while she looks around in unease and seems to wander in patterns that only make sense to her, before taking another pill and settling back down. She spoke to a tree once or twice while they walked, a full conversation that seemed to leave her quite satisfied with the little "shiny insects” she says she sees there. Something he perhaps would have found alarming a few years before, but he has seen enough odd magic by now that the idea of some strange creature beyond his sight seems a fair enough thing to accept. She says the insects are nice, at the very least. Fiona tactfully ignored those episodes, occupying herself with The Storyteller’s horse whenever her new friend would take a pill and start babbling to trees.
“Did you fall into a bush? I could help you get them off if they are stuck!” Fran is quite earnest in her concern, leaning ever so slightly towards Fiona from where the two girls sit by the fire. Fiona, for her part, just giggles.
“No silly–well yes I fell in a bush a little bit this morning but Daddy already helped me clean up from that. These just grow out of my head, see?” Fiona leans in as well, shoving the crown of her head towards Fran while drawing her hair back so the older girl can see where her branches sprout from either side of her head. “My Daddy has them as well!”
Fran prods gently at the base of Fiona’s branches, as though afraid they might be tender, then jumps back with a giggle.
“How silly! My Daddy only ever grew a mustache." She pauses for a moment, looking over at The Storyteller curiously. “Is he not your Daddy?”
Storyteller pauses at the question, ready to try and explain, but Fiona answers simply.
“No, he’s just The Storyteller! He’s my best friend and he takes care of me sometimes.” She grins at him. “Right Story?”
“Right indeed Fiona.”
“Oh, I’m very sorry sir I thought you were,” Fran mumbles, a bit embarrassed. The Storyteller smiles.
“Nothing to forgive, young Fran, don’t worry yourself about it.”
Fran seems satisfied with the answer and her and Fiona return to their trading of little stories and jokes. It is quite something, to see the two of them play and giggle. Fiona has so few friends, and Fran seems quite unaffected by her oddities, he can’t help but feel a small relief at the two of them getting along. They played a long game of hide and seek that evening, ducking in and out of brambles and behind trees as The Storyteller set up camp. Every now and then he could hear a shriek of laughter from the distance as one of them caught the other. It was certainly a nice sight, and he can only hope the departure isn’t too bitter when they manage to reach The Tavern and can try to find one of Fran’s companions. Her lost kitty, or perhaps the man with the strange flying machine she had described earlier. Anyone, really, to help her get home.
Fiona is yawning before too long, another busy day catching up with her, and The Storyteller takes the chance to maneuver the two girls into some bedrolls. Side by side. Fiona falls quickly to sleep, but Fran hesitates, clutching her bottle of pills and looking out at the darkness of the woods.
“Excuse me, Mr Storyteller?”
“Yes, Miss Fran?” he hums in response as he tucks Fiona in.
She hesitates for a moment, looking down at Fiona then back into the dark, before speaking. She has a rather gaunt face, matching her almost sickly frame, and the firelight casts alarming shadows on her cheeks.
“The shiny insects told me not to sleep in these woods. They said there is a beast here that will cut me to pieces and grind me up into oil if he catches me. Is there really a beast?”
The Storyteller sighs, fixing Fran with a long look. Her eyes are deep and tired, the eyes of young child who has seen horrors she was not ready for. He has seen those eyes elsewhere, in the children of war-torn distant lands. In the children of violent homes and desperate towns. It may look like madness to those who do not know better, but The Storyteller knows. Most woods have monsters, if you are unlucky enough.
“They spoke the truth Fran, these are The Beast’s woods, but he will leave us alone tonight. I can promise you that.”
And he can promise that, for the most part.
Fran furrows her brow. For a moment she seems as though she wants to argue, then she yawns deeply and her eyes droop. She had eaten the supper he had offered heartily, and had played with Fiona for mosy of the day, and he can see the tiredness in her muscles as she nods and finally settles into her bedroll. The Storyteller sighs and takes a moment to tuck her in as well before he returns to his side of the fire and begins to play a simple lullaby. Not a story, nor a song with words, just a simple tune played smoothly. In her sleep, Fiona reaches out blindly and grasping for Fran's hand, their pinky fingers linking. As she herself fades to sleep, The Storyteller sees a little smile on Fran’s face.
The Storyteller will not say he lied to Fran, but he will admit to being wrong.
The Beast finds them late into the night, the moon just past its hight, fading out of the darkness on The Storyteller’s side of the fire.
“Just what have you brought into my woods, Storyteller?”
The Storyteller doesn’t jump, he so rarely jumps at The Beast’s dramatics anymore, but he does scoot to the side to give his old companion more room by the fire.
“More of the question of whom I found in your woods, Beast.” He watches the sleeping girls, keeping his voice low so as not to wake them. “Poor thing tumbled out of a tree right onto the path. I haven’t the faintest idea how she got in there and she seems terribly lost.”
The Beast paces, circling the fire to stand over the children for a moment, towering above them as they dream. Fiona remains deep asleep, but Fran fusses, wriggling in her bedroll and hanging tighter to Fiona’s hand. He tilts his head, eyes flashing from Fran’s face to her pills to where her hand is linked with his daughter’s. For a moment he hesitates, hand reaching from his cloak as though he wants to separate them and The Storyteller begins to rise from his seat, then The Beast draws back. He returns to the other side of the fire. He seems strangely amused. The Storyteller settled back down.
“Far to young…” he muses, standing next to The Storyteller and looking idly back over Fran. The Storyteller waits, he knows The Beast isn’t quite done and to question him now will just get him farther away from answers.
“You will bring her to The Tavern, The Mill, anywhere beyond my woods. I do not care where she finds her door so long as she finds it and leaves this place.”
“And will you tell me why she must leave with such haste?”
“This world does not need the madness she will bring with her. The Unknown’s doorways are already weak enough as it is, always letting those lost and those untethered wander though, this nonsense will only make things…” he hesitates for a moment, thinking “unsteady.”
The Storyteller, to his great regret, does not have the foggiest clue what he means.
“I don’t suppose you’ll explain what you mean by that, will you?”
The Beast is silent. Silent enough that The Storyteller needs to glance over to make sure he has not retreated into the darkness of his woods. He still looms there, watching. The Storyteller sighs.
“You won’t hurt her, will you? She has no desire to stay and I can guide her from your woods easy enough.”
The Beast lets out a single bark of laughter.
“This is not my game, Storyteller, and I have no intention of involving myself in this circus.”
This time he does turn, retreating into the shadowed woods. The Storyteller catches a final mumble as he leaves, more of a musing that a statement.
“Pills for beans. Ridiculous.”
And The Beast is gone. The fire crackles in the quiet, and Fiona mumbles something in her sleep. The Storyteller sits, staring through the fire at the bottle of pills. Fran keeps them terribly close, as though they are a lifeline or a tool she cannot live without. Strange little pills that let her speak with shiny insects and walk strange patterns in the woods. They do not seem to act like the psychedelics and strange concoctions The Storyteller has seen elsewhere. She is still alert, aware and present. She is simply..seeing. Seeing something beyond.
Slowly, The Storyteller rises from his place at the fire and circles to stand over the girls. Carefully, quietly, he reaches down to pick up the little pill bottle. The light is too dim to read the label, but the pills inside glitter in the low firelight.
“Story?”
Fiona’s quiet voice makes The Storyteller start as he glances down, her bright little eyes gazing up past him. Still more asleep that not. He smiles gently down at her.
“I’m here Fiona, all is well. Go back to sleep my dear.”
Fiona smiles groggily, then tucks her face into her bedroll and falls back asleep.
Before he can think about the issue too much longer, The Storyteller pops open the bottle, shakes out a single pill into his palm, and returns the bottle to its place. He examines it for a moment. It does look like a little red bean, he supposes. He looks around the camp once, then pops the pill in his mouth.