Chapter Text
‘There is a legend that our parents used to tell us in order to keep us from wandering too far away from our homes and prevent us from misbehaving. My brother and I have heard it many times and as we grew older, he began dismissing it as a mere children’s tale but I still find it dreadful enough to keep glancing behind my back whenever I’m alone while scouting the area.
In summary, the legend speaks of ancient beasts called ‘Fomorians’. They were said to be wild and unpredictable people who fed on the flesh of our brethren. The Fomorians did not have a fixed appearance as a species, which meant they could adapt to the environment that surrounded them, so they could interact with every society they pleased and slowly take control over it without being noticed. These beasts took advantage of innocent people’s resources and kidnapped children so they could drain their vitality, killing them in the process. And even though they were once subdued by the mighty Dragon Lords of Tuatha de Danann, a great catastrophe that occurred thousands of years ago allowed many of them to escape from under the watchful gaze of our Lords. Our parents told us that the Fomorians even dared to challenge Tuatha de Danann’s authority and tried to establish their own order but the current great Lords along with our last High King kept them from running amok once again.
They hate the members of Tuatha de Danann with great ferocity and are bent on hunting and killing the last of us without mercy. Some of them wander around settlements during the night and look out for lonesome youngsters, and members of our tribe so they could capture and feed on them, in order to become more powerful. Nowadays many of them are nearly indistinguishable from humans, however, a lot of them also look like dragons- like us.
I am remembering their tale now, that I am alone in our camp. The night has fallen and there is only a light from an oil lamp that keeps me company at this moment. To think that such a calamity could sneak up to us at any moment under the guise of an innocent passerby in need of help only to destroy us for its own gain when our guard is down. What if one is nearby right now? Roaming the woods as they search for another target? Would they be attracted to the glowing lamp in my tent? Would it come up to me pretending to be someone else or maybe even someone I trust? I heard that many travellers went missing recently, could it be that they became victims of the Fomorian monsters? Would they use me first for Gods know what if they captured me, or would they tear my body apart limb by limb to crunch on my bones and swallow my vit -
‘Mika-’
‘EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!’ Both pen and diary that the young man was writing in were abruptly hurtled at the entrance of the tent and the temperature inside fell so fast that the fire in the lamp went out in an instant. Mika, who had been startled out of his wits, jumped to his feet in an attempt to flee and pulled the fabric walls up along with him as he spun around, making their tent fall apart and twist around, trapping along with him the two other people who just entered.
‘No offence but I can’t stand you sometimes. How are we even related?’ Huffman grumbled under a pile of thick heavy fabric as he rubbed an area on his head that got hit by a wooden pillar that used to support the front wall.
‘Klee thinks this is something you would do too, actually.’ Said Klee, who wriggled next to him. She tried to free herself from the mess of linen and ropes but unfortunately ended up even more entangled than before.
‘I’m not so extreme!’ Huffman straightened up on his knees; an action which made the tent jerk up with him and almost pulled Klee up by her ankle. She yelped in surprise and instinctively kicked her legs, one of them landing a blow straight on his ass. ‘Ow! What was that for!?’ He turned around to look at her but none of them could see much of anything in the darkness.
‘I’m so sorry!’ Mika’s voice came from the other side of the ruined tent. ‘I thought it was a monster! I’m really sorry!’
‘How could a monster come this close to you with all the jumpy dumpties Klee left lying around?’
It was a valid point, and also something that Mika completely forgot about. He was so absorbed in his reminiscence of an old tale about ancient horrors that he completely dismissed the literal minefield that surrounded their camp. 'Well… I'm very sorry. I just remembered the story about Fomorians our parents like to tell once in a while and there’s been rumours about a series of kidnappings making rounds recently....' He said as he sat down under the pile of fabric and ropes.
If it was daytime and they would not be covered by a ruined tent, Mika would see his brother roll his eyes in exasperation. But Klee on the other hand was very interested in hearing more about this story that was scary enough to make Mika scream at the smallest sound of grass rustling in the distance. ‘What is fomfonians?’ She asked while her small hands tried to untangle the rest of her body from the fabric.
Mika looked in Huffman’s direction in unison. That story was an old tale told within the boundaries of dragon tribes and anything that had ties to their true identities should not be easily shared with people from the outside. But Huffman did not consider a dragon’s fairytale to be of great importance. In fact he tried to distance himself from his dragon blood and made an attempt to consider himself wholly a human long before he joined the knights. Which also led to him choosing to spend most of his spare time in the tavern, drinking along with his ~fellow human friends~ instead of helping at home.
They were both quiet for a moment before Mika finally spoke ‘I don’t think this story is suitable for children your age. I’ll tell you about it when you grow a little older.’
‘Why? Is it one of those stories where heroes die?’ She asked and before Mika could answer Huffman took the opportunity to speak instead.
‘No, it’s not like that, but it’s a kind of a story that is supposed to stay in our family. Actually all it is about is some monsters that appear in the middle of the night and eat children. I, in fact, know that this is not entirely true and our parents made the monsters sound scarier than they actually are. Mika should know what I mean. ’ Huffman explained. He summarised the story conveniently omitting most of the scary and confusing details as he untangled Klee from the tent’s ropes with a few swift movements of his hands and shot his younger brother a glare. Of course the tale about Fomorians was not entirely made up, but Mika should have realised by now that the monsters it spoke about were none other than Vishaps, and last time he checked, Vishaps didn’t eat people.
They fumbled with their tent for a while to free themselves but once everybody could move around without restraint the brothers tried to assemble it once again; unfortunately, to no avail. It turned out that one of the main poles that supported its roof broke in half when Huffman and Klee both fell onto it while they tried to get out, so the party was forced to make a decision to go back to the city. They were on the outskirts of the Whispering Woods and not far from Mondstad’s main gate so the journey wouldn’t last long; and if Klee got tired, Huffman would just carry her back home.
After they agreed on what to take and what to leave behind, Mika suddenly remembered how Klee had installed her jumpy dumpties around their camp and asked her if she could point out the approximate locations of her bombs. Obviously Klee’s answer was positive at first but it quickly turned out that she had no recollection at all where most of them were supposed to be. The whole situation was also trickier because the sky was very cloudy tonight and even the light of the moon could not aid them with trying to at least guess the bombs’ approximate locations.
Huffman turned his head back and forth as he attempted to recall where Klee was playing in the dirt before they made their way back to the camp. Unfortunately, while they were out he got too distracted by his concerns regarding the weather and if they took enough blankets with them, to pay attention to what exactly she was doing as they were strolling around the area to check for the last time if there were no suspicious entities nearby. Back then everything was good as long as she didn’t walk too far away or put anything on fire. Now, he could no longer regard their situation as anything even remotely close to ‘good’.
Mika pulled on Huffman’s sleeve a few times to get his brother’s attention and beckoned him to bend down so he could whisper in his ear ‘I think I can vaguely smell them.’
‘The gunpowder?’
Mika nodded ‘You should be able to smell them too. There’s no use pretending that you don’t, if I can do it, so do you.’
At that moment Klee, who tried to feel if any of her explosives were nearby, decided to turn her attention back to their conversation and spun around to look up at Huffman. ‘Smell what? Klee can’t smell anything.’ She tilted her head in confusion and narrowed her eyes as she sniffed the air.
‘The slumber man’ Huffman immediately replied with a very serious expression, he internally cursed her ability to hear all the things they didn’t want her to know. ‘He quietly sneaks up to children and makes them go to sleep just by looking them in the eyes.’
Klee gasped, she never heard about this monster and began glancing around with suspicion written all over her round face. ‘Is it friends the monster you were talking about before, the fomofans?’ She asked. ‘Must be a super scary monster, Klee will keep watch!’
‘Uh, yeah, maybe …’ Said Huffman, not entirely sure how she thought that using one’s eyes to watch out for an entity that could put one to sleep by meeting its gaze was a good idea, nonetheless he was glad that there was no need to explain any further.
'How about we start moving? It's pretty late and I'm sure we're all equally tired.' Mika reached out to take Klee's hand into his own and began leading them out of the minefield of her own making. They shouldn’t have gone out camping so early in the spring anyway, and the case of mysterious disappearances bothered him enough to keep thinking about scary scenarios. What was Captain Kaeya thinking when he agreed to Klee’s request to go out and build a tent? And why was it always his brother who got assigned the weirdest tasks? Sometimes Mika couldn’t tell if Kaeya liked Huffman or hated him.
They barely made it about ten steps away from their camp when Huffman stumbled over a particularly large root that had been sticking out of the ground, and fell face first on one of the jumpy dumpties that lay half-buried in the soil. He was fast enough to get up on his feet before it exploded but soon enough they had no choice but to run as fast as possible between flames and dirt flying around in every direction. And just like that, nearly half of the Whispering Woods stood aflame just as the clock on Jean’s desk struck midnight.