Summary: Response to a writer's challenge for LA Knight's "Once Upon A Time" fic, starring Nuada and Dylan (LA's OFC).
*quote*
Also, a CHALLENGE! I would like all my devoted readers to write a double-drabble (two drabbles, back to back), one from Nuada's POV and one from Dylan's POV, set during the time in this chapter where they don't see each other. If you need them to be longer than drabbles, they can be, but no more than 600 words, please. And then send them to me so I can read them! I want to read them so bad! Please, please, please? And then I'll select 2 winners who will receive their choice of fic cameo or spoiler questions (or, if they have something that isn't graphic and full of porn/swearing/blood, I'll review a chapter of their work). So let's do it, yeah? Just put "Once Upon a Time Shorts Contest #1" in the summary. I want to see! Pwease? This challenge ends on August 30, 2011. Gives you a whole month from when this challenge is posted.
*end quote*
So this double-drabble will be a little bit about what Dylan and Nuada were occupied with in the time they initially spent apart. Also, I will be posting all of my "Once Upon A Time" based shorts under this fic, as individual chapters, so be sure to subscribe to this fic if you want to see more of my playing around with things out of LA's head, hee hee. ;)
DISCLAIMER: Hellboy, the comics, the movies, the characters, and the fanfiction that this is a fanfic of ARE NOT MINE!
PERSONAL DISCLAIMER: I am in no way at all a fan of Nuada/OC. Period. I am even less a fan of Nuada/Human-OC. BUT for the challenge of a decent writer and a decent buddy, I write this piece. :) Just don't judge me a hypocrite for it; I am still a die-hard canon-enthusiast. ;) Though that should tell you a lot about the quality of writing in "Once Upon A Time," if it's enough to get me to actually read and enjoy a pairing that I typically hate. *hint, hint, wink, smile*
DYLAN
She recovered all right enough. There would always be a hitch in her step and she would have to walk with a cane, but she was alive, and she was healed. Well, healed enough in body, that is. What kept going on in her mind was another kettle of fish entirely. Scarred was not really a word she could use for it, but she certainly was not healed either, as it were.
How exactly does one go back to a life that was all routine, after it's been shaken up and turned outside-in? Again?
Wash the dishes, take out the recycling, feed the cat.
Faeries were real. She could deal with that. It was a fact that she had always known since she was a little girl, ever since she found she could see them and interact with them. Ever since she was essentially punished for not denying them, as everyone around her told her to do so.
Appointment at 2pm with the boy with the cute little whistling lisp, review client progress and business records for this month, then grocery shopping.
Rape was monstrous. She could even deal with that. Somehow her soul was a lot stronger than she supposed that it should be, given the fact that she was only one frail human being - and human beings are nothing if not frail. Her faith and her fortitude seemed to know no bounds, lately, it was a wonder that she wasn't completely shattered still. As if she were being held up by a thread that, amazingly, didn't seem to care enough to break.
Laundry, call Anya and Joyce to see if we're still on for the out-of-state camping trip this weekend, read tonight's study passages from scripture.
But then she would always come back to the crux of the matter...
Brush teeth.
Somewhere, out there, was someone incredible. A man. An elf. Her rescuer and one-time host.
Shower.
And unlike so many of his hidden kind, he was neither indifferent towards humans, nor was he fond of them.
Thrown on cozy flannel pajamas.
He hated them, was outright disgusted with them, and had no faith in them at all... Not even after what he had been through with Dylan. Even knowing that she was one of the large few who were quite unlike the vast flocks of "civilized" masses. From what she could make of him, he did not even seem to recognize, nor be able to accept within himself, the fact that there even was such a few that even existed.
She didn't really understand why that hurt. Just that somewhere in her, it did. Very much. It always slid out to stab at her whenever she wasn't looking, or forcing herself to think of something, anything else.
Breathe in, breathe out.
It hurt even more when the very likely reality that she would probably never even see him again slapped her in the face on top of it all.
Lie in bed and stare at the ceiling... pointlessly.
NUADA
Questions are a nuisance. Even moreso when it's your own mind that pesters you with them and demands an answer, just one, that makes sense. Questions are like curses, they hover over you until something practically breaks itself in order to resolve it.
And that's what Nuada does now, question and curse, and he can feel his skull almost cracking apart as his thoughts shout loudly in his brain; whirling around and around, like his lance when he trains, or the delicate gears of a fine piece of goblin-work, like the one that he tries to work on now.
Damn her.
-*Hold down the spring here, turn, flip the fastener*-
She did nothing wrong, she is blameless.
-*Hook the second lever under the primary gear-work*-
Why did she have to be different?
-*Push down on the catch, making sure the gear winds down with it properly*-
She has suffered for all of us, because she wanted to help.
-*Tighten the peg there, clamp the catch with the fastener*-
Couldn't he just forget about her?
-*Turn the peg gently, carefully*-
Why couldn't he just throw her in with the rest of the lot and just hate her?
-*Wait for the catch to snap*-
If anything she was well-worth saving.
SHUT! UP!
-*snap*-
Nuada grabs his lance as quick as lightning and throws it savagely, and it sticks, jutting out of a crack in the stone wall like a silver dart in a wooden plank. And before he puts his head in his hands, before he breaks himself again against all these thrice-cursed thoughts, the one question that he hates most and always fights to push down and away, out of sight out of mind, whispers delicately up from the quiet black before he can ignore it again.
Why does the idea that he might never see her again leave a bad taste in his mouth and make his insides cold and heavy?
A/N - Anya and Joyce are just names I threw out there. They're not actual characters of anything, so far.
- The piece of goblin-work that Nuada is working on is not the same gadget as in the movie, but was inspired from something I read out of the Hellboy wiki. *snip!*
"Hobbies and Interests: Nuada differed greatly from the majority of his own kind in his appreciation for the other magical races. He seemed to enjoy time among trolls, goblins, ogres, and other breeds of fairy (yet somehow felt humans were vile creatures). He also bears a distinct fascination with goblin-mechanics. Nuada can be seen, therefore as a sort of magical 'techno-geek' who loved making and fixing things himself (the film shows an array of tools in his possession including an anvil). It can be inferred by the viewers of the film and readers of the novel that he also created the mechanical hand for his man at arms, Wink."
- I did not check for max-600-word-length per drabble of this two-part one-shot, but oh well, if anyone liked reading it, then my goal is accomplished. :)
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