(In my defense, I saw that it was rare pair week and this has been one of my favorite crack ships for a long time. Also dgm is very Halloween themed so I felt obliged to write something as a fan. Anyways, I own nothing and I hope you enjoy! Good day, have a scary Halloween and God bless!)
Miranda Lotto was twenty six years old and never once did she ever experience what it was like to be a child.
Don't be mistaken. She was born and she grew up like most girls.
Technically, she was a child once but she never experienced what most would call a "Childhood".
Allow me to elaborate. A childhood is what most civilized society would describe as the time one experiences as a young youth in which they spend their days on imagination and believing in dreams, barely having a care in the world. These are days of goodness and innocence. They are necessary for building a healthy foundation for one's person.
By this definition, the woman called Miranda Lotto never experienced this.
Having lived the first ten years of her life with her abusive drunkard of a mother who could care less for her, the term is quite unfamiliar.
Her mother never loved her, never encouraged her, never once told her she had done good. She did not like her and the only reason she kept her was because it was her husband's dying wish. But don't worry, that woman did everything in her power to, after the abuse, be it verbal or physical, make Miranda wish her father had never made her promise that.
Some might think that Miranda's life would have gotten better when that awful mother of hers finally gave up and killed herself, but they would be wrong. Miranda's life only got worse.
She went into an extremely poor orphanage with people who seemed to care even less about her than her mother did if that were even possible.
It was there that Miranda received all the emotional, physical and mental trauma she needed to build a foundation for herself.
She left that orphanage and got a job at a circus when she was fifteen.
Eleven years had passed and Miranda was now a woman.
Those same wrong some before might think again that Miranda got a job at a local and rather wealthy bank through turmoil and hard work. If they asked the young woman themselves how this came about, she'd be quick to tell them that it was just a favorable turn of events, luck and some of the only luck she had ever had in her entire life.
Even if she was just a cleaning lady, she still thought it incredibly lucky.
And of course, littler did that poor woman know, the eve of Halloween was the perfect time to jinx herself.
To be perfectly blunt, Miranda Lotto hand a good heart but she was a massive clutz. She tripped on the air itself. Her feet were tangled up. Some might be right in assuming she never quite learned how to walk when she was a baby.
That being said, this habit acted up at the worst of times so when a very wealthy patron of the bank walked up to the front desk to make a withdrawal, who should come around the corner but Miranda and her bucket of dirty water from the restroom.
Long story short, Miranda received a gold cane to the face about five times and she lost her job.
That's it, end of story.
Miranda's job, her only source of income and the only one that would take was lost that day. The bruises on her cheeks were swelling but that was certainly not the reason why she wept bitterly.
In the dead of night, she walked home to her awful rat infested studio apartment where rent she couldn't pay was already due, her minded weighed down by a thousand and one worries.
For a moment too long, she highly considered just taking a right turn to the bridge and just ending the pain once and for all.
It wasn't as though anyone in this life would miss her and she heard that it was very cheap to live in heaven. The people there were God fearing and she heard that some were even rumored to be, believe it or not, real live angels.
At that moment, the idea of suicide sounded sweeter than candy.
She didn't hesitate. Through a heavy storm of tears, she turned a sharp right down the stone path to the short bridge over the raging river.
It would end soon, she was sure.
She wasn't afraid when she faced the water, gushing till its surface was coated in foam.
She took as deep breath and stepped onto the railing, fully prepared to end the depressing and pathetic story of Miranda Lotto then and there.
She closed her eyes.
"Whatcha doin'?"
The woman's eyes flew open on reflex only to find she was looking into an eye of vibrant and lively green just a few inches away from her face. At this, the poor woman nearly died of a heart attack.
She shrieked so loudly some might think the whole town would wake and lurched backwards.
Unfortunately, she had forgotten she was standing on the railing of the bridge. She began to fall backwards and she quickly began to panic, flailing her arms around to catch herself and screaming all the louder.
But to Miranda's surprise, she did not hit the ground.
She just paused in motion, her eyes squeezed shut in terror.
Ever so slowly, they were opened only to find further to her absolute horror, she was levitating thirteen feet off the ground, but worse than that, she was being held by someone and that someone, whoever they were, was laughing lightly.
Slowly, she dared to look up and see the face of whoever it was who held her.
To Miranda's surprise, she was not as scared as she thought she would be because the person who held was a rather kind looking young man.
He had messy flaming red hair, a kind eye and if he wasn't Wearing an eyepatch on the other she was sure it would be equally as kind, and one of the most lively and real smiled she had seen in a very long time.
For a moment, she had completely forgotten about the levitation.
"That's quite the healthy scream you've got on ya. You're also quite pale." He laughed, "Could you, perhaps, be a banshee?"
She paled a bit, "...A-A-A b-b-banshee….?".
"Yah!" He said but he quickly caught sight of the fear in her eyes, "I'm a faun, myself so I don't discriminate. Hey, what's wrong?".
" W-W-Who are you!" She screamed, suddenly finding herself flailing again, "Put me down!".
"Oh right." He said very calmly like he had forgotten something minor, "Man that was impolite. Gramps would kill me for that. The names Lavi. Lavi Bookman. It's a pleasure to meet you. What's your name miss?".
If you asked Miranda her defense for giving her name immediately to a complete stranger who called her a banshee, called himself a faun, and levitated several feet over the ground, she would say that it wasn't her fault because it would be impolite not to say her name, but truthfully it was simply because no one had ever been so nice to her before and she felt herself immediately trusting the young man.
"M-Miranda Lotto…" She breathed.
"That's a beautiful name!" The young man declared with a childlike enthusiasm, but he quickly brought his face closer to hers, making her feel quite uncomfortable and embarrassed, "Say, for a banshee, you're quite beautiful. You're actually the most beautiful banshee I've ever seen."
"Pardon?!" Her face flushed at the complement. Honestly, she was more embarrassed at acting like a lovestruck little girl than she was at the complement.
"You know, Miranda, this might be sudden," He said suddenly bringing his face even closer to hers and she tried to back away but she couldn't, "But will you be my date?"
"Date?!"
"Yah, to the party."
"What party?!?"
"The grand Halloween fiesta, of course! What else?! Everyone is going!"
"Okay, sir, I've had a rough day and I don't need to be made fun of like this." She said suddenly, crossing her arms and her face growing stern, "Even if there was such a fiesta as you say, I am twenty nine years old. I am much too old to be frolicking around on dates of all things with young men like-!"
"Young men?!" He looked shocked, almost a bit insulted, "Miranda, I was six hundred years old twenty nine years ago. I think if I'm old enough to be frolicking around in one of the greatest gatherings of monsters all year, I think a banshee like you certainly is more than capable of doing so. Haven't you ever celebrated Halloween before?"
"No!"
"Not even when you were alive? Surely you did!"
"I've never celebrated anything, Lavi!" She screamed at last, not knowing that tears were once again looting down her red and puffy cheeks, "Not Christmas, not Easter and certainly not Halloween!"
At the end of that outburst, she was out of breath but more than that, she was fighting to hold back a heavy sob.
She hadn't realized up until this point that never experiencing the joy that came with a holiday had taken a toll on her. Now, she could not stop the tears.
A heavy silence followed and all she could think was that this kind young man was judging her and would drop her pathetic self to the ground at any moment and leave her so that she could continue with her suicide.
Miranda waited for it, fully confident it was coming but to her surprise, it never did.
Slowly, she raised her eyes only to see that rather than angry, Lavi just looked sad and yet still kind.
Why was he able to look at her that way? Who even was he to her that he could treat her with such kindness?
"Then," He said with a slight childish tilt of his head, "Isn't it about time you start? It only comes once a year, after all."
She paused. For the first time in a long time, Miranda's felt a sort of peace fall over her. Her heartbeat slowed and her body loosened.
She suddenly thought to herself, what did she have to mind, Hadn't she come to this bridge to die to begin with? Even if this handsome young man did hit her over the head with a shovel and leave her dead in a ditch, at least she wouldn't die alone.
But on the chance he was telling the truth, when was the last time she let herself have fun?
What time would be better than here and now?
When would she finally let go of all that weighed her down?
And with that thought in mind, she let the most putrid frown overtake her face, feeling fear overtake her but she would not let her determination fade .
"Okay," She groaned miserably, her voice half horse, "But make sure to bring me back here when the night it's over."
The look of joy that passed over the young man's face almost made it worth it but when he proceeded to levitate even higher above ground and began to fly in the direction of whatever fiesta he was referring to, she almost completely regretted it.
But little she know that he was honest and magic was especially strong on Halloween night.
