A Curse Upon Thee 2-1
“FINN!”
He looked up from the black mouth of the wishing well, the empty stone bottom yawning back at him with a depth he couldn’t measure with his eyes.
“FINN!”
His mouth fell open at the sight of her as she pushed through the trees, her face red and eyes watery under the light of the setting sun. ‘Bee…’
Finn hated seeing her cry.
There were no tears in her eyes yet but Finn didn’t need to see any to hear it in her voice. Raw and desperate, Ruby was already running his way, tearing up the hill as fast as she could. His own pain forgotten, the haze of his tearing stitches meant nothing as Gold held his arms tight with strength the old man really shouldn’t have.
Whether or not he should have had it, it didn’t stop Gold from holding his body over the dark hole leading to the bottom of the world that was the well.
“I am sorry, little Rose. Truly…” The pawnbroker shook his head with a murmur. “But some sacrifices are simply… necessary.”
Hands vanished as gravity grabbed him.
Gold’s face leaned over the crumbling stone edge as Finn plunged backward into the suffocating dark. “Goodbye, Mr. McHale.”
The bottom dropped out of the world.
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
Blue eyes blinked open.
Son of a… His spine complained before he could, the uneven ground pressing dents into his back as his thoughts forced their way back to the waking world. What…
‘FINN!’
He blinked again, slower this time, as a groan spilled out his lips.
‘Goodbye, Mr. McHale.’
They snapped open, eyelids forced open as the feeling of grit and grime vanished from his eyes and the rest of his body. He breathed in and stared up, light shining down on him with the pale glow of a moon.
…a moon?
Yes, because that wasn’t his moon.
Too big, ridiculously so, and way way way too bright to be anything close to real. What…
It hung suspended in the pitch-blackness of the sky; a massive blinding spotlight silvering over jagged tips of towering pines that looked like they’d been growing in place for a good five hundred years.
“What the actual…”
His first words slipped out of his mouth without any strain, Finn working his jaw as he realized his voice was perfectly clear… somehow. As if the world was determined to make him even more confused, he realized he didn’t taste anything.
Not that he couldn’t, but that he didn’t.
The rattle of blood in the back of his throat and coating his tongue was gone, nothing to make him gag or feel like shit after what Gold had done to him. In fact…
He rolled over, off his back and onto his stomach, palms planting themselves a half-inch deep in damp loamy earth. It wasn’t the packed dirt of the forest he remembered or the sterile waxed floor of Storybrooke General, but that wasn’t important right now.
Not as important as the lack of pain.
He expected it.
Hell, he was still expecting it as he shoved himself up off his stomach, core braced for the feeling of pain and nausea that was bound to send him face-first into the dirt but… “Seriously, what the hell?”
Nothing. Not even a twinge in his gut beneath the bandages that he could still feel packed tight on his chest.
A frown forced its way on his face. Too many questions. And they were all hunting for whatever answers he could find as he kept his head on a swivel under the too-bright light of this strange oversized moon.
Whe-wait, what is… That hunt almost slid out of his mind for a split second as Finn’s right hand shifted in the dirt, four fingers and a thumb closing tight around something incredibly cold and just a little bit heavy.
A flinch ran through him, from fingers to frown, before Finn finally looked down. Huh… Thick red eyebrows pulled tight together as he took in the weird-looking weapon resting in his grip like it was born there.
The blade was wide and thick too, not built like anything he’d ever seen before. Structurally, the blae sat somewhere in the spectrum of sharp objects in between a heavy butcher’s cleaver and an oversized combat knife. Two holes in the middle don’t make any sense, though. That was the least of what didn’t make sense about the wood-handled weapon, especially considering that same wood grip was wrapped in a guard of black fur that was — even weirder — really soft to the touch.
He’d definitively never seen the ugly damn thing in his entire life.
Slaughter Demon.
Which made even less sense than he knew it’s fucking name.
A groan spilled out of his lips, confusion taking the place of pain as Finn held his head in his free hand. What is going on right now?
“Ruby?” His voice echoed in the night, sounding incredibly small and entirely inadequate against the sprawling backdrop of the massive woods surrounding him on all sides. “Bee? Emma? You guys out there?”
No answer.
“Please tell me I’m dreaming and everything I remember was just some weird fucked up painkiller nightmare?”
Again, his only answer was the low, rushing sound of the wind moving heavily through the high branches and the constant chirping, buzzing, and creaking of the usual forest-born nightlife.
“GOLD!” Anger bubbled up incredibly fast and violently hot as Finn threw his head up, the volume echoing off the tree trunks as he roared at the absolute top of his lungs. “YOU SHITTY LITTLE IMP!”
He jumped to his feet, muscles bracing for anything as he held the dagger out in front of him ready and waiting. His body still didn’t protest, ribs hale and hearty and stitches not stretching in the slightest.
None of that managed to calm him down at all, though, “WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?!”
The question wasn’t just for Gold, but nobody answered him back.
Absolutely nobody.
“It’s okay.” He shook his head slowly, red locks whipping him in the face. “This… this… this is all okay. You’re o-kay.”
He didn’t just seem okay.
Finn’s body felt brand new, like he’d never been shot or had to fist-fight a psycho; like he hadn’t been in surgery or shot in the heart or pumped full of painkillers or any of that. For one, he was… incredibly light, heartbeat stronger than he ever remembered it and more alert than he felt since he first woke up in Storybrooke. Like someone plugged me in a wall. More than that, like they just left him there to aggressively overcharge for a solid week.
“Alright. Okay. Real funny, Gold. Real cute magic trick, you creepy little freak.” He spun around in a tight circle, blue eyes scanning the dense suffocating tree line for any sign of a fancy tailored suit or a silver-handled cane. “I know you’re out here watching this! What the hell is this, some kind of twisted fairy tale bullshit?! You throw me down a well and what, I wake up in Narnia?!”
Nothing.
With another grunt that was equal parts anger and confusion, Finn just gave up and picked a direction.
“I swear to god, Gold.” Slaughter Demon slashed out in front of him with a threat to no one present or listening. “When I find you…”
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
“Motherfucker!”
Nature was not a bad place to be.
It really wasn’t.
It was just an annoying place to be in, especially a nature he’d never been in before with only the light of the moon to go by.
“Shit.” Another hissed curse slid free from his lips, a branch snapping back into this face almost enough for him to swallow it.
He’d started walking for a solid fifteen minutes, shoving his way through thick brush and aggressive thorns that snagged and tugged on his clothes. That first fifteen had gone by quick enough, but it was really the next forty-five that proved a problem.
Red sneakers crunched loudly on fallen twigs, rubber soles slipping on wet leaves with barely any grip to them. He’d been on the lookout and seen absolutely nothing that could lead him to civilization in the whole hour or so of walking. No paved county road or the distant hum of highway traffic, or even a single flickering light off in the horizon.
Apparently, that was just too much to ask for, meaning Finn was left with just suffocating ancient trees stretching out in every single direction without even a path in sight. “God DAMN it!”
His fist lashed out before he could even think to stop himself, Finn whirling around with a hard punch driven by nothing but frustration and doubled up with anger. A split-second later, his fist met with the trunk of a still-growing pine.
Bark exploded under his knuckles as the baby tree groaned, a splintering sound echoing out through the clearing as the thing — a tree at least twice as tall as he was and nearly as thick around — listed a full forty-five degrees; root system tearing up through the topsoil with a loud rip.
Finn yanked his hand back fast, staring wide-eyed at his own knuckles in the silver light of the moon. The fuck? No blood stared back at him, nothing fresher than the dried stuff already dark along his arms. His hand wasn’t even bruised, and barely red at all. If it wasn’t for the dull throb already fading away, Finn would have swore on his life he couldn’t have been the one to do something like that.
“Huh…”
He blinked down at the tree and back again at his hand as he flexed unmarred knuckles, still sure it didn’t add up even with the proof staring him in the face. Something like that, even with all my Cursed Energy Reinforcement… It shouldn’t have been able to knock a tree like that down, even one that was still kinda small. “…okay, maybe I am in Narnia.”
Shaking his head to keep the crazier thoughts at bay, Finn kept on moving deeper into the forest, hoping going in the same direction would eventually get him somewhere.
Somewhere that wasn’t just more forest, at least.
Even still, as he kept walking, another question slid into his thoughts as the night went by…
Why the hell am I not tired?
He’d been on his feet for almost an hour now, even if his count was a little off, walking on unsteady ground going who knew the fuck where. So, why didn’t he feel even the drain in his muscles he knew should be there at least a half hour ago? I’m a sorcerer, not a horse.
No questions came for that either, and Finn’s frown only turned deeper at another cause for confusion.
It only took the sound of rushing water for him to perk up, Finn picking up the pace as he finally spotted a riverbank. Leaning over the rushing river, he caught his own reflection in the moonlight bouncing off the water and his frown only got worse. I look like an extra off a slasher movie. His black tee was a mess of dried blood, dark jeans just as crusted over with the dark stuff. Damn it.
One hand reached up to find the familiar weight of the weird heart locket, the thin chain digging slightly into the back of his neck. Grunting, Finn gripped the ruined hem of his t-shirt, pulling up the blood-soaked cloth and yanking it up over his chest. “C…come on, get off.” With that off, his fingers went to work, peeling away the red-stained medical bandages wrapped tightly around his torso.
The thick gauze finally fell away, dropping into the mud at his feet.
Pale skin stared back at him, completely unmarred with no thick black surgical thread holding his chest-meat together. Just smooth unbroken flesh exactly where three high-caliber bullets had violently torn him apart just two weeks back.
“Okay. Right.” Finn bit out a sigh. “Cool. Cool cool cool. Love that for me. Just heal the bullet holes but leave me completely covered in the blood, thanks, Gold, really appreciate that.”
Wasting no more time thinking about that, Finn stripped down right there on the muddy riverbank, blood-soaked clothes and red sneakers left behind in a foul-smelling heap on the rocks.
He waded directly into the dark water, completely naked except for the red locket still secure over his chest. “….okaaaayyyy.” Ice cold water bit bone deep, skin shuddering by the time he was already waist-deep. “Oooookaaaayyyy.” He could manage, though.
It wasn’t the worst thing in the world.
Gritting his teeth, Finn submerged and started to scrub the dried blood and general grime from his skin. Soon enough, he didn’t even notice the chill.
Unfortunately, he still had other things to think about.
“Fuck you, Gold.” Freezing river water splashed into his face as Finn ran his hands through messy red hair, washing the smell of copper and sweat away. Even as he cursed the old imp-man-whatever, his mind was moving at bullet speeds, cycling through every single magical loophole, or whatever jagged memory of Kyoto-born Jujutsu theory he could possibly think of to explain the sudden, massive upgrade in his physical baseline. “Fuck you, fuck your stupid, creepy little pawn shop, and fuck your shitty Cadillac. Second I find my way back, I’m breaking both your legs and shoving that cane so far up your ass you’ll taste the han-.”
The words on his lips vanished as the silver light shining down on him suddenly vanished out of nowhere. Wha…
The soft glow on the river surface was gone, snuffed out by a towering shadow that stretched slowly out over the muddy bank. Finn McHale froze dead in the water, the freezing river tracing icy lines down his bare back.
He turned around, water dripping slowly from his red hair and tilted his head up.
And up.
And up.
…oh.
Blue eyes went wide at the side of a giant walking nightmare, a bald knotted head sitting atop a sickly green monstrosity. Oh nooooo. Rancid breath, hot as the river was cold, washed over Finn with the taste of vomit. Built out of nothing but bulging slabs of thick muscle stacked on top of each other, the face that loomed over him looked like any mother it ever had bashed him over the head in an attempt to fix ugly.
Clearly, she failed.
Finn blinked up at the towering monster, dark water rushing past his waist as a lopsided smile pulled hard at the corner of his mouth.
“…hi?”
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
They Have Layers – 100 GP
Meet your first ogre.
ROLL: Status Page (0) [Fate] {Divination}:
A natural boon of a Master, this allows you to perceive the abilities of your Servant and other beings in the form of an RPG-like status page. It does not reveal anything you do not already know, but it organizes that information into a clear and easily understandable format.
Grimoire Points: 850