I haven't written fic in 80 years and I come out of retirement for this? smh
anyway this is a Christmas gift to my girl Cass. She warned me not to read these books but I DID IT ANYWAY and now look at me, listening to Mr Brightside on repeat and crying about how horribly these characters were treated. We had like 30 conversations about this and when I read The Iron Knight I narrated my suffering... Guys, Ariella, is an actual angel cake she did not deserve to be shunted off to the side as a plot device for this dumb love square I hate it I hate everything I hate that Puck and Ash were always being compared to one another. Ash is terrible and Meghan is terrible everything hurts and then Ariella DIED FOR A GUY WHO TREATED HER LIKE TRASH, LIKE WHY DO THIS TO ME
so, au where Ari survives and she and Puck go on a trip together
alternatively titled "MERRY CHRISTMAS CASS, MEGHAN IS A DUMB FUCKING HO**"
**actual line from a chat we had
when your baby leaves you all alone
and nobody calls you on the phone
don't you feel like crying, don't you feel like crying
well, here I am honey, come on, cry to me
when you're all alone in your lonely room
and there's nothing but the smell of her perfume
don't you feel like crying, don't you feel like crying
don't you feel like crying, come on, come on, cry to me
"So," Ariella says, stepping easily over the branches and underbrush. A strand of hair falls into her eyes, and she tucks it back. The air here is crisp, clean, sharp enough to sting your teeth on an intake of breath. It feels like life. She loves it. "Did you have any brilliant ideas where we should take this adventure?"
Up ahead, Puck reaches to a low-hanging branch, snagging an apple. "There's this mountain range that exists between the wyldwood and the mortal realm," he explains, taking a bite of the apple and talking around it. Ariella winces. "Almost completely born by mortal dreams. And it's new."
This makes Ariella straighten with interest. New? For something to be new and dreamed by mortals, and not be made of iron and poison… "What is it called?"
Puck's grin is sharp. In the sunlight, his hair glints all the colours of fire. "The Misty Mountains."
A worm wriggles out of the white space of the apple Puck had bitten. He stares at it, then tilts his head, considering.
"Don't you dare," Ariella starts.
The sound of a hunting horn causes them both to fall silent. Puck drops the apple. It falls to the dirt, softly vibrating and rolling with the pounding of approaching horse hooves.
"Call me crazy," he says slowly, "and believe me, I probably am. But does that sound like the Wild Hunt to you?"
The pounding grows louder. Ariella swirls around, drawing her bow off her back. "I thought you said Ash was leading the Wild Hunt."
"He was." Puck and Ariella stood back-to-back. He slipped out his dagger. "But he's definitely not anymore. Which begs the question: who is leading the Wild Hunt now?"
Ariella has an idea, and she knows Puck has the same one. It's written over his face, brows drawn together warily. There was a fey who used to ride at the head of the Wild Hunt, lifetimes ago, wilder than Ash could ever be.
"Do we run?" Ari asks, breathless. There are sparks in her stomach.
Puck shakes his head. "Let's stay and have a chat, shall we?"
The hooves are too close now to run anyway. A grin stretches itself across Ari's face.
She has missed this.
Horses burst through the brush, foaming and slathering, blacker than night, twigs and brambles in their manes. Astride one sits a tall, proud Unseelie face, blue-skinned and red-eyed.
"Well," she says, voice like glass and screams. "Puck, how nice to see you again."
Puck gives a shallow curtsy. "Nicnevin."
Ari hasn't seen Nicnevin since long before she died. Old stories would make her out as the scourge of the North, painting barbaric swirls over her face in the blood of her fallen foes. She brought her hunters across the mortal boundaries, hunted children in the night. She caught boys who snuck out to see girls by their hair and dragged them screaming back into her camp. Nicnevin is terrifying. Nicnevin is electrifying.
"Hello," says Ari.
Nicnevin's eyes turn on Ari, sharply. She sneers. "Oh, it's you. I thought you died."
"I did," Ari agrees amiably.
"She did," Puck chimes in.
"Now I'm back."
Nicnevin's eyes are burning holes into Ariella. Ice statues weren't meant to withstand a firestorm. "I see. Little Ariella, melted the frozen heat of our Unseelie prince. Then you died and it froze all over again. I hear it melted again….that wasn't you, now, was it?"
Ari's heart misses a beat. "Goodness," she manages, "does everyone know?"
"Everyone knows," Puck whispers. His voice has lost its playful edge. Ari thinks, oh.
Nicnevin is still talking. "And you, Puck. That girl. The Iron Queen."
"Please, please, Nicnevin, your graciousness." Puck spreads his arms. "Let's not talk about me. Let's talk about you! What have you been up to the last few hundred years? I must say, you haven't aged a day. Not a wrinkle in sight. Is it all that blood?"
There's a tightness to him now, an urgency, and Ariella recognises it suddenly. Remembers it from the old days. When it was her and Puck and Ash, adventurous and flirting with danger. Remembers it from the time they ran from the ogre on the south side of the Tamlin River.
Briefly, she taps her fingertips against his palm. She understands. He responds by closing his hand, squeezing her fingertips.
"I didn't know blood could be a decent moisturiser. I mean, I spent sixteen years in the mortal world. I could have been a billionaire! All you have to do is become a serial killer, right? Not so hard. Christian Bale did it."
Puck is talking circles around Nicnevin. Ari sees it, watches her face closely, as Nicnevin tries to decipher whether Puck is complimenting her or insulting her. While she is distracted, Ari ever so gently pulls back the arrow on her bowstring.
"Although," Puck finishes, "now that you mention it, I do see some crow's feet around the eyes there. Just in the corner. In all that bloodbathing, did you maybe miss a spot?"
Nicnevin's face tightens into anger - there it is. Ari pulls the arrows taut and fires. It whizzes past Nicnevin's cheek, drawing a single line of blood, and the momentary confusion is all it takes.
Puck and Ariella burst into the woods, running for all they are worth.
"This way!" Puck grabs her wrist and tugs her off to the side, and Ariella follows happily. She is elated, her bones are buzzing. This, this is what she has missed. The joy of the run, the thrill of the chase, every moment stretched out and too fast and too slow all at once. While being dead, she had so sorely missed being alive.
Ari turns over to see Ash, tease him to run faster. Ash isn't there.
She clamps down the pain and runs faster.
By the time they reach the border of the Misty Mountains, they have been running for hours. Days, maybe. They split off from one another so many times, Ari is amazed that they ever managed to find their way back. But here, they are, and Puck scouts around in the sky. Nicnevin is nowhere to be found.
He lands with a flourish, arms out. "Ta-da! Didn't I promise you a good vacation?"
Ari cackles. "Now that takes me back.
-x~X~x-
They climb the mountains with some difficulty. Pieces of it are easy, trails cut into the mountainside. Pieces of it are treacherous – covered in ice, or a sheer rock wall, or a vine that they must grab and use to hoist themselves up. Ari knows, at any given time, Puck could turn into a bird and fly ahead, reach the top with no effort and no danger. But he stays by her, the whole time.
Ari doesn't think this is entirely out of kindness. Though she does appreciate, she also knows that Puck simply doesn't want to be alone, at this moment, any more than she does.
They talk. To forget about Ash and the hole he leaves in their adventuring party. To forget about Meghan Chase and her summer-gold hair. The two of them are probably together, right now, locked in some kind of embrace. Ari hates to think about it, so she doesn't.
"How exactly did this place come into being?"
"New stories." Puck sidesteps a rock. "You know most things are iron now, all fancy and modern, but I sort of forgot how mortals were always so capable of telling a good story. Like this one. It's not a story like we're used to, it was written by this one guy, sixty years ago? Everyone knows it. Total fantasy."
"Fantasy?"
"Oh, yeah, it's a thing. What we are to mortals, now."
Ari stretches out her hand. She is so pale, translucent. The sun seems to shine right through her. Fantasy. She likes that word. Like they are fantastical.
"Is there anything else new?"
"Sure! If you go far north enough, I'm sure you'd find a wall of ice nine hundred feet tall."
A rock gives way under Ariella's foot. Her ankle wobbles and then she slips, nearly falling over the edge. There isn't even any time to panic – Puck's hand snakes out and grabs her by the back of her shirt, leaving her precarious over the edge.
"Saved ya," he says.
It's a joke, and it's not. Ariella died the first time because of him, and neither of them have forgotten this. She doubts Puck ever will.
He tugs on her shirt and pulls her back onto the path. Ari opens her mouth, to talk to him, because they should finally talk about what happened. Really talk. But Puck is two steps ahead of her on the path, face shadowed. "Come on. We're almost there."
-x~X~x-
"Remember – remember that time with the morgen," Puck cackles, "when you – when she tried to seduce you?"
Ari giggles uncontrollably over the bottle. They sit cross-legged on the peak of the mountain, flush from the summerwine Puck pulled from inside his jacket. A lake glimmers off to the side, still and silent, reflecting the moon. "Yes. And she – she – remember she thought she was so pretty?"
"They all think they're so pretty," Puck snorts derisively. "Morgens. Honestly. They're like…those teenage girls in the bathrooms in high school, who like…stand in front of all the mirrors so you can't see yourself. And scare you out."
Ari shakes her head, still giggling. "I have no earthly idea what you are talking about."
"Right, right." Puck shivers, tossing his hair about. His eyes glimmer, and maybe it's just the summerwine, but they seem brighter than ever. "You spend sixteen years in the mortal world and you end up talking like one of them. Yeesh."
"You mentioned that earlier." Ari sways where she sits. "Being in the mortal world? Why? It's poison."
He shakes his head.
Ari pouts and leans forward, shaking his knee. "Puck, tell me…"
"Fine, fine. But give me the damn bottle."
Ariella watches as he drinks the summerwine, watches the way the muscles move in his throat. He's…handsome. He's never been handsome to Ariella before. Maybe she just hasn't been looking right. Maybe it's the summerwine.
"Okay. Okay, so Oberon tasked me to watch over his half-human daughter. Meghan. You know." Ari hums. "Yeah, that one. Anyway, I watched over her as she grew up…watched over isn't right. I was her best friend."
He gets quiet. Ariella takes great notice that he says was, and not is.
"Sixteen mortal years is a long time," he adds, in nearly a whisper. "Longer than you think…longer than it seems."
And he loved her. Ariella remembers this part. Puck loved her, and she loved Ash, and so did Ari.
It all hurts too much. Ari takes the bottle back and drinks deeply. Puck yells, a wordless cry of annoyance as she near drains the bottle.
She starts laughing, choking on the wine, and he starts laughing too. They get up and dance, letting the mountain winds guide them around, singing the bawdiest songs they can think of. Their heads buzz, and as she grasps his hands and swings him around, Puck's eyes look like fireflies.
"I love you, Puck," she says, resting her forehead on his shoulder.
"I know," he agrees simply. "Me, too."
She had missed him. Ash might have been the greatest love of her life, but Puck made her laugh.
-x~X~x-
Sometime in the quiet of night, a low sound wakes Ariella. Her dreams had been laboured, dark, full of sharp shadows and iron smiles. She sits up, head spinning, and tries to make sense of the noise.
It's a voice, coming from the lake. Ari clambers to her feet and wanders over, rubbing salt out of her eyes. The voice is becoming familiar, an old tune she knows like her own breathing.
Ari's heart plummets into her stomach.
It's Ash.
Standing there, in the middle of the lake, the water reflecting up into his clear eyes, turning them into a beacon. He's so handsome, the way Ari sees him in her dreams.
She thinks the summerwine may have gotten to her, like maybe because she's Unseelie it has burned into her blood like poison. She blinks, slowly, but Ash is still there. Smiling that cold, beautiful, ice-prince half-smile.
"Ariella," he says, and all the choirs of the angels above begin to sing.
"Ash," she says, stumbling forwards.
Two hands circle around her, and she's pulled back. "Ari, don't," Puck says in her ear, hot and quick and lopsided. "That's a kelpie."
He's had too much summerwine. Ari pushed at his arms, but he won't let go. "Puck, no! Please, it's Ash! Please!"
"Ariella," Ash says again, closer than before. His hand stretches out to her. Ari sobs, sagging against Puck's arms.
"I know." Puck's voice is rough and ragged. He swings around, pushing against Ari, eyes too green, too bright. "I know. I know. But Ari, it's not him."
"It is!"
"It's not! It's a trick!" Puck presses his face against Ari's stomach, cries muffled by the fabric of her shirt.
"Am I really a trick, Puck?"
The voice on the lake has changed. It's higher, clearer, softer. Puck's entire body shudders. He and Ari cease their struggling.
Meghan stands out on the lake, golden hair blowing gently in an unseen breeze. Warm and kind and everything Ari is not. Puck is shaking, clutching to her like a lifeline.
"Tell me," Meghan Chase says, "that I'm not really here."
Puck looks up. Ari nearly dies all over again when she sees his face. A hundred years etched in pain, eyes brimming with unshed tears, a sob halfway out his mouth.
"You," he forces out, "are not really here."
Ari looks between Puck and Meghan. The agony on his face, the soft smile on hers. It's unbalanced. The scales are tipped in Meghan's favour. He cares more than she does. And Ariella sees, for the first time, what it looks like on the outside. It is so easy, suddenly, to gently wrap herself around him and say, "Puck. Let's leave."
It is Ash standing on the lake again, looking just as he did the day they met. It sends a heavy iron lump down into Ari's stomach, tightens her throat, burns into her lungs. But Puck is still shivering in her arms, and she has seen this now from the outside. Seen what it is to love someone so deeply, so truly, and have them take you for granted. Take you for a second option. Treat you like it were any sort of choice at all.
And suddenly, she hates Ash to the very fibre of her being.
"Fuck you," she says, voice caught on tears.
The kelpie was closer than she realised. Its face contorts into loathing and it lunges, catching Ari around her wrist. Puck screams, "No!", and the two of them go plunging into the icy lake.
Waters close over her head, writhing and grey and angry. She tosses and tumbles beneath the surface. Her wrist is free, but the hand of the kelpie has closed, slimy and horrible, around her ankle. Ari looks down at the creature, which smiles a smile full of malice and bubbles. It begins to tug.
Then Puck is in front of her, red and copper like a fire beneath the lake. He kicks the kelpie in the face, and they swim free.
-x~X~x-
They lie on the shore, gasping, coughing, choking. Ari bends over herself, forehead pressed to the cool mountain stone. Puck rolls to his side, curled up like a child. He does not attempt to hide his sobbing, and neither does she.
"Puck," she manages through her strepped lungs. She crawls over to him, tugging his shoulder. "Puck, you saved me."
He rolls over, just enough. Ari latches onto him, pressing her face to his chest, arms around his ribs that stick out on the side. His heart beats in staccato beneath her ear.
"I loved her," he says, so quiet. "I loved her so much, Ari. I didn't…I didn't mean to, I just…I wasn't paying attention, and one day…one day I loved her laugh and the way she said my name, and the wrinkles on her nose when she concentrated. I loved the mud ender her fingernails. I loved whenever she touched me, I felt more alive than I've ever felt. I loved her like the love Shakespeare used to write about. I loved her like the kind of love I only read about in stories. I loved her like the kind of love I didn't even know existed until…until…"
"I know." Ari presses a hand over his heart. She hates Meghan Chase, possibly more than she hates Ash. "I loved him that much, too."
-x~X~x-
The sun rises over the snow-capped mountains. Ari sits on a ledge, dangling her feet over.
Puck joins her, sitting with a flourish and a kick of his legs. His imp grin is back. But now Ari has seen beneath it, and she knows the two of them will never see entirely the same as they did before.
"Did you sleep?" he asks.
"No," Ari replies.
"Me, neither."
All the mist and the snow glows under the sun, reflecting gold back up to them. Ari glances down at their skin. She and Puck are golden.
"I was thinking."
"Hm?" He tilts his head to the side, listening.
"About Ash. And Meghan. And love." Ari kicks her feet. "About the way we were treated. The thing is, Puck, it shouldn't have been a comparison. There shouldn't have been this grand choice – between me and Meghan, between you and Ash. If you love someone – really love them, like we did – it's not a choice. You don't have to think about it."
Puck is silent for a long moment. A rarity. Finally he says, "They sort of deserve each other, don't they?"
Ari nods, smiles, and snakes her hand into Puck's. "And we deserve more."
They do.
-x~X~x-
Days later, Ari climbs down the mountainside, Puck at her back. They are laughing about something silly, jumping over the loose rocks.
The ground even out below them, soil softer. Puck slings his arm around Ari's shoulders. "We should do this again sometime."
"I mean," Ariella grins, "We don't have to stop. I've certainly got nothing else to do."
"Fair." Puck spreads his arms out to the sky. "So, where do you want to go now?"
Ari tilts her head, considering. There are a lot of things. She wants to visit the mortal world. She wants to see the remains of the Fomorians. She wants to tame a dragon, to dive the deepest ocean. And she has time to do all these things now. She is alive, and unburdened by the memory of Ash.
She wants Puck to teach her how to fly.
"Anywhere," she tells him. "I've been dead for a while. You lead the way."
Puck smiles. Then the smile fades, and he looks troubled. "I got you killed last time," he says, finally. "Are you sure you want to go with me?"
Ari leans up and kisses him on the cheek. "Of course I do. I told you before, I love you. I'll follow you anywhere you want."
The smile that grows on Puck's face is unlike any smile she has ever seen before. It is not mischievous of taunting or silly or any of the things she has always associated with Puck. It is simple, wide, bright, and Ari wonders how Meghan could have possibly not fallen in love with him.
Then again, Ari thinks, as she leans forward and kisses Puck's wide bright smile, she's a little glad Meghan didn't. It's selfish of her. But things work better this way, in the long run.
"Oh." Puck is red to the tips of his ears. He's still smiling. "Uh."
"I love you more than Ash," she tells him, firmly. "And it isn't a choice."
Puck lifts her up, arms around her waist, face pressed into her collarbone. He breathes deeply. "I love you more than Meghan. That's not a choice, either."
Love is better this way, Ari thinks, kissing the crown of Puck's head. She hates that it took them this long to realise. But they got here, eventually, and now they have the rest of eternity to live with it. An eternity in the sun, on the road, an endless adventure that stretches out past the horizon. Free from iron. Free from ice.
Nicnevin's hunting horn sounds over the tree tops. Puck drops Ari, his face alight. "Ready to run?"
Ari grabs his hand.
"Let's fly."
Nothing can be sadder than a glass of wine, alone
Loneliness, loneliness, it is just a waste of your time, oh yeah
But you don't ever, you don't ever, have to walk alone, you see,
Come take my hand, and baby, won't you walk with me?