Caring about people never seems to do them any good, though.
[her voice cracks a little as she says it, voicing a small, childish fear. caring about rin, caring about rang lee and buzen and matsui, caring about shenhe, caring about livio and amelia and simon, caring about kaveh - all of those impulses, leading her to decisions that again and again only hurt someone. to kill like a wolf, like a monster, like a heron, to eat because it is prey and feel nothing about it, and in doing so to only eat what is needed to live, might be better. maybe her mom was right to drive her away, to recognize her as a thing wearing the skin and clothes of her daughter and to recognize the danger inherent in the creature belonging in the woods still trying to hold onto this disguise.
but she did want him to say it, to hear him say it. the truest friends will love the wolf in you, her grandma said, but that isn't quite it, either. she needs them to love both the wolf and the girl.
she reaches to take his froggy hand in her paw, leans her head against him.]
I know. That's okay. I think you're brave for trying.
[ he doesn't know quite how to tackle "caring about people never seems to do any good" - it doesn't, does it? everyone ends up hurt somehow. but you've probably got to keep trying anyway.
as she reaches to take his hand, though
You move down the path, keeping your bearing through the forest. You arrive at a lake, and you can see some of the lines coming in. There are these wicker fish traps. They sort of are little baskets that fish swim into and can't get themselves turned around to swim back out again, a couple little clusters along this icy lake surrounded by thick conifer trees. You see some of them have some sort of trout in them, this is the chore you were assigned to do. It seems simple enough. Flying overhead, you see a white shape, and landing a little ways along the beach, you see a heron land.
How big? You can’t really tell from here. Are you worried about it being larger than normal? You’re not scared of herons anymore. Not at your size.
But this one - it’s pretty big.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
You throw yourself into the rushes by the edge of the lake, going to lay low, and you can feel yourself kind of hiding, and you look around. You still seem like your normal - human - size, but you see other frogs around you hiding here by the side.
“You guys got to get the fuck out of here. You see that heron? I could fuck it up, but you guys are toast.”
You hear a voice of sort of tittering laughter coming from the water. `Hello, Gerard.` You hear a familiar voice. Your eyes are big enough that you can literally turn them down without having to move your head to look into the water. Peering out from the reflection of the water is someone who immediately looks like, from their reflection in the water they should be standing right behind you, but swiveling your eyes to see, you see they are just a reflection in the water. You see the Princess Rapunzel - long, long, long blonde hair, dark eyes, cold expression behind a drawn smile - looking at you. You look frightened.
“What are you doing here?”
She laughs again. “Spying on you. You struck me as one of the less magical of your companions.”
“Okay, well, there's a huge bird over there, and he's kind of freaking me out, so go fuck yourself? See, I'm hiding from the bird. I'm spying on the bird. What you're doing is not spying. You told me what you're doing. I don't need to be magical to see you.”
“No, I don't believe you do. Is the bird sort of magical, or is it doing any spells?”
“He's big.”
“That was a nice trick, getting the book away from us. How much did it cost?”
“It cost a new friend.”
“You're a prince. Friends are probably pretty expendable, right? How many friends have you really had, other than Elody?”
“I mean, overall, not very many, but recently, like, seven or eight?”
“That's miraculous. Your friends seem to really value you as a person. I'm sure it's a comfort to know that they're not just sort of putting up with you because you'll tag along and swing your sword, prove a little bit useful.”
“I like to think that we have a rapport. We have snowball fights and whatnot.”
“Well, I'm not sure what your plans are. I was hoping to get an image of you up to some kind of scheming rather than hiding from a bird on the edge of a lake, but I suppose I can't be too surprised. I have seen some titanic feats of strength from my companions, the Beast, Cinderella, Snow White. Truly impressive acts of heroism.
I do not think I have seen any of my sisters strain more greatly than the Princess Elody to find something kind to say about you.”
You look up at the bird from where you’re hiding, and not at her in the reflection in the water anymore. “ I don't... I don't doubt that. But I haven't seen the Princess Elody in a while, and I think it's telling that I'm seeing you in this lake and not her or any of the other princesses. I think you're manipulating people, or not telling them the full truth.”
““Truth. You have a sword that tells the truth, right? …. Why don't you take the sword out and ask it if Elody still loves you?”
You don’t know if it works like that, but … you reach to take it out anyway. My master!
You see the heron whips its head around and starts to walk over.
You retreat further into the rushes. Bravely.
“Okay, Sword of Truth, settle a bet. It doesn't have to be you know, love love, but does the Princess Elody love me?”
“My master. The Princess Elody cares for you deeply.”
You hear a sort of chuckle from the water. “Not quite the same thing.”
“It's not, but seeing as the last thing she saw of me was me running away after I had already done that, I'm grateful that she still cares for me at all.”
The water shimmers, and looking towards Rapunzel, you see your reflection. You are at the most froglike you have ever been, and Rapunzel's words become almost like a hissing in your ear, and it's almost like you wonder if Rapunzel's somehow reading your mind or there's something deep in here that she has some ability to know, or perhaps more frightening, something that Elody has confided in her.
“Gerard, what do you think the odds are that it got into Elody's head that the virtuous thing to do was to fall in love with a cold and slimy frog, and that every kindness she has paid you in your life has been a testament to her charity rather than anything about you that would bring her joy?”
“I don't know that I can answer that.”
“It doesn't seem very fair to Elody that you can’t.”
“I agree.”
As you say, "I agree," you feel a sort of quaking of the Sword of Truth in your hand. You almost feel some kind of knightly sorrow coming from the sword, as though it feels like it's been manipulated into hurting you. You feel the stalking of this bird coming nearby. You're looking at your reflection and just wondering. You know that the way your fairy tale is supposed to go is that love is greater than all these other things, and true love comes, and you don't look like a frog anymore. You wonder, there's a deep convenience to the fact that the moment that the person looks past your curse, they are rewarded by you no longer being under the curse, and suddenly you're handsome, and suddenly you're not a frog anymore. How very convenient that in the moment of learning the lesson, you no longer need to have learned it. You hear on the wind, and it breaks it up so that Rapunzel's connection to you is severed because the water ripples across, you hear, Oh … the bird is getting very close.
A voice. Not Rapunzel’s. The Baba Yaga. What would you be willing to give for what you seek, and would you give it to me?
“I would give it to you. I would give you my name, my humanity, for hers, for her name.”
You feel, somewhere within you, a book moving. You've accepted your own story. You don't even have a name in your own story. You're just a frog who becomes a prince. And you feel a change, and somewhere out beyond the edges of the Neverafter, you have asked that Elody's story be hers. Ribbit. You become enormous, much bigger than a frog. much bigger than a man. You split out of your armor, and the heron, frightened, flaps away.
You try to snatch it up.
A whole bird into your massive, frog mouth. It’s gone.
[im so sad i and ylfa both hate rapunzel so fucking much. i do think when this memory ends he gets the dreaded staring and not knowing how to respond but worse because it's accompanied by the face of a very sad little girl who loves him very much but knows that loving him just isn't enough to heal everything that this memory brought up.
they did have a rapport. they did have snowball fights. gerard isn't even that useful, swinging his sword around, it couldn't have ever been that. they were a little family, and they all loved each other. but caring about people - sometimes it just isn't enough.
maybe that's the difference between caring deeply and true love. maybe true love is the love that does fix you, heals every broken and damaged part of you and makes all of your flaws beautiful. she's on the cusp of thirteen and she still doesn't understand and rejects the idea that there's some sort of lesser quality to the love she has for her grandma, for mother goose, for their friends, for gerard versus the love between two people who fall in love, but she's beginning to see that true love may be another matter entirely. if she knew how to love all of the people she loves truly enough, she would, but that seems like a princess and prince thing, not a wolf thing. not a frog thing.]
Gerard...
[what does she even say? even if she knew, it's too late, he already gave himself up. and she can't blame him for it. elody does deserve her own story. it's a beautiful thing to do, a true love thing to do, a prince thing to do.
but she doesn't care about elody. she kind of hates elody. she'd give almost anything to be someone who could be loved the way elody is loved and elody doesn't even fucking want it.]
[ she's on the cusp of thirteen but she probably has it right here actually. that there is no lesser quality to any type of love, that true love itself is an impossible, undefinable standard that exists only in stories. love isn't something that just happens to be true. you don't magically fall in love and never have to work for it ever again. ]
You'll have Tim and Rosamund, and also Tom Thumb will hopefully be sticking around? He's-- a very solid guy. You'll be able to, um, lean on him as well.
No, I don't - nevermind. This is so stupid. I'm just going to be sad in a pond forever alone. No! Why! You don't deserve that! I'm going to come with you to your pond and we're going to hang out every day, so there!
... Okay! Alright! Completely removed from the moment I'll admit it's all a bit stupid! There were probably other ways to do that than to make a deal with a horrible witch! I don't exactly want to sit in a pond forever alone either!
I mean, I think we all had to make some pretty bad deals, probably. I'm not judging you. I know I was willing to give up some pretty big stuff.
But it just - I don't think Elody being happy means you have to be sad! She cares about you, the sword said it, and I know that isn't what you wanted to hear, but it means you being sad will make her sad!
[ yeah, well, probably, but maybe elody being sad over this for a little while and then moving on is better than her being sad, forever, tied to him that way. but he doesn't quite know how to explain that to a twelve year old. ]
I don't know that I'll be sad.
[ he probably won't have many feelings about it at all. being a giant frog. ]
Well, you won't be, because I'm coming with you to live in the pond, and I'm a lot of fun!
[and actually it's not even that sad to think about it that way. she's been telling herself this whole time, in a way, that ylfa isn't needed, the wolf is what she's needed for, and maybe it's okay if she doesn't hold onto ylfa so hard.
but the wolf wouldn't hang out every day with gerard in the pond, so she probably does need to stick around.]
[ he doesn't hate this, actually. its kind of nice to think that even after you're a giant, nameless frog who lives in a pond, his friends will still want to come hang out. and it's kind of nice to hear ylfa talk like she's going to be okay after everything. ]
You could at least live on dry land next to the pond.
[she would probably live on dry land next to the pond, especially because she's officially invited now, thanks for the official invite.
i think the idea of an ending where she isn't needed scares ylfa because she's still wrapping her head around her fears of whether she's wanted. she'd rather just be a reaper than contemplate going back and finding out that she's too messed up to fit in, or that looking after a little girl with a lot of problems when she's not also keeping you alive in every combat round feels like more of a burden or an obligation. timothy already has a problematic kid to look after. her grandma might have some mixed feelings about wolves now. she's...she's not going to go back to live with her mom, she's never going to go back there. it's not that she thinks destiny's children wouldn't still want to be her friend, it's just that it's the kind of fear about relationships you depend on changing profoundly that's too scary to contemplate and she'd rather just not.
if gerard still needs her, though, that's easier. she can just fight off any massive herons and enormous dogs that try to bother him in his giant frog pond. so the reaper plan is instantly 100% abandoned.]
[ god help. well, that's fine. it really is better than the reaper plan which is just depressing and sad. mostly gerard hopes that the rest of destiny's children are going to stick around too? he hadn't thought about it at all, actually. especially considering the whole, uh, going to die a horrible frog in the upcoming battle high probability, but. he doesn't hate the idea.
he's sadly gotten used to having a few friends around. and it's kind of nice. he's never had a life other than his one with elody, and he doesn't know what that looks like without her, and this way he doesn't really have to imagine one. being a frog isn't going to be much of one to imagine. ]
[this memory is a lot better to her! it's more normal. she does eat a man at the end of it. but it's normal.]
...Well, it's not so much a matter of wanting to.
[but yes, unlike the rest of them, maybe out of kindness because she was a child and because the wolf is a wolf but he's not a wicked stepmother, she was given the chance not to keep going with them. maybe something a little like being put into the book, living out the rest of her days in a gentle story where nothing could hurt her but she couldn't help.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
[her voice cracks a little as she says it, voicing a small, childish fear. caring about rin, caring about rang lee and buzen and matsui, caring about shenhe, caring about livio and amelia and simon, caring about kaveh - all of those impulses, leading her to decisions that again and again only hurt someone. to kill like a wolf, like a monster, like a heron, to eat because it is prey and feel nothing about it, and in doing so to only eat what is needed to live, might be better. maybe her mom was right to drive her away, to recognize her as a thing wearing the skin and clothes of her daughter and to recognize the danger inherent in the creature belonging in the woods still trying to hold onto this disguise.
but she did want him to say it, to hear him say it. the truest friends will love the wolf in you, her grandma said, but that isn't quite it, either. she needs them to love both the wolf and the girl.
she reaches to take his froggy hand in her paw, leans her head against him.]
I know. That's okay. I think you're brave for trying.
no subject
as she reaches to take his hand, though
]
no subject
they did have a rapport. they did have snowball fights. gerard isn't even that useful, swinging his sword around, it couldn't have ever been that. they were a little family, and they all loved each other. but caring about people - sometimes it just isn't enough.
maybe that's the difference between caring deeply and true love. maybe true love is the love that does fix you, heals every broken and damaged part of you and makes all of your flaws beautiful. she's on the cusp of thirteen and she still doesn't understand and rejects the idea that there's some sort of lesser quality to the love she has for her grandma, for mother goose, for their friends, for gerard versus the love between two people who fall in love, but she's beginning to see that true love may be another matter entirely. if she knew how to love all of the people she loves truly enough, she would, but that seems like a princess and prince thing, not a wolf thing. not a frog thing.]
Gerard...
[what does she even say? even if she knew, it's too late, he already gave himself up. and she can't blame him for it. elody does deserve her own story. it's a beautiful thing to do, a true love thing to do, a prince thing to do.
but she doesn't care about elody. she kind of hates elody. she'd give almost anything to be someone who could be loved the way elody is loved and elody doesn't even fucking want it.]
no subject
It will be okay, Ylfa.
no subject
[this all sounds very silly but her voice is sad, like the silliness of the fear is just covering up bigger worries.]
no subject
[ dark. he squeezes her hand though hopefully she's still holding his. ]
She'll help you too. When you get back. I'm sure she will.
no subject
[she is still holding it sure.]
no subject
[ but that's not who he meant. ]
Elody. I'm going to need your help convincing her, though. I think. If we can get a hold of them in time.
no subject
I'll convince her. I'm not great at it, but I'll find a way to do it.
no subject
Alright. And then, I don't know. Help me find a nice pond.
[ dark ........... ]
no subject
no subject
no subject
Or I'll just go live in the pond with you...!
no subject
[ not his crush on tom thumb again. ]
... It really will be alright.
no subject
[no he seems nice she immediately regrets that.]
No, I don't - nevermind. This is so stupid. I'm just going to be sad in a pond forever alone. No! Why! You don't deserve that! I'm going to come with you to your pond and we're going to hang out every day, so there!
no subject
okay ]
... Okay! Alright! Completely removed from the moment I'll admit it's all a bit stupid! There were probably other ways to do that than to make a deal with a horrible witch! I don't exactly want to sit in a pond forever alone either!
no subject
But it just - I don't think Elody being happy means you have to be sad! She cares about you, the sword said it, and I know that isn't what you wanted to hear, but it means you being sad will make her sad!
no subject
I don't know that I'll be sad.
[ he probably won't have many feelings about it at all. being a giant frog. ]
no subject
Well, you won't be, because I'm coming with you to live in the pond, and I'm a lot of fun!
[and actually it's not even that sad to think about it that way. she's been telling herself this whole time, in a way, that ylfa isn't needed, the wolf is what she's needed for, and maybe it's okay if she doesn't hold onto ylfa so hard.
but the wolf wouldn't hang out every day with gerard in the pond, so she probably does need to stick around.]
no subject
You could at least live on dry land next to the pond.
no subject
[she would probably live on dry land next to the pond, especially because she's officially invited now, thanks for the official invite.
i think the idea of an ending where she isn't needed scares ylfa because she's still wrapping her head around her fears of whether she's wanted. she'd rather just be a reaper than contemplate going back and finding out that she's too messed up to fit in, or that looking after a little girl with a lot of problems when she's not also keeping you alive in every combat round feels like more of a burden or an obligation. timothy already has a problematic kid to look after. her grandma might have some mixed feelings about wolves now. she's...she's not going to go back to live with her mom, she's never going to go back there. it's not that she thinks destiny's children wouldn't still want to be her friend, it's just that it's the kind of fear about relationships you depend on changing profoundly that's too scary to contemplate and she'd rather just not.
if gerard still needs her, though, that's easier. she can just fight off any massive herons and enormous dogs that try to bother him in his giant frog pond. so the reaper plan is instantly 100% abandoned.]
no subject
he's sadly gotten used to having a few friends around. and it's kind of nice. he's never had a life other than his one with elody, and he doesn't know what that looks like without her, and this way he doesn't really have to imagine one. being a frog isn't going to be much of one to imagine. ]
If you insist.
no subject
no subject
You didn't want to go to the story where you could stay with your grandmother?
no subject
...Well, it's not so much a matter of wanting to.
[but yes, unlike the rest of them, maybe out of kindness because she was a child and because the wolf is a wolf but he's not a wicked stepmother, she was given the chance not to keep going with them. maybe something a little like being put into the book, living out the rest of her days in a gentle story where nothing could hurt her but she couldn't help.]
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)