So
What's up
well I haven't written anything in two weeks because I was gone at a sleepaway camp, and the camp was awesome but it's been two weeks since I wrote anything
and it's been two years (I think) since I wrote about the topic I'm writing about now
and I haven't played Fantasy Life since February so I ask that you bear with me if I get every single aspect of the game wrong, although maybe I won't get Every Single Aspect wrong since I know Damien's name is Damien, Yuelia's name is Yuelia, etc etc
Anyways, this is about my Fantasy Life OC Nyn, she's blind and mute so she talks through a chalkboard that she wears around her neck. Also I ship her with Damien. Also also, if you read my other oneshot about them, this one's gonna be a smidge more sillies and supposedly less serious backstory stuff.
Okay that's what I said, but after I wrote this it ended up getting serious too
so
oh well
What I Want to Do
"Nyn I have a pretty bad feeling ab—"
And then she ducked right on into the cavern. Nervously fluffing his cape, flicking a hand through his tangled violet hair, Damien slowly followed suit. The moment he turned his back to the peaceful nighttime scene of sandy beaches and sparkling stars he knew he'd made a fatal error.
Ha. Hahaaaaa.
Damien Helbourne, scared of spooky, cramped spaces, especially in the night. Damien Helbourne, Prince of Darkness, Constantly Pursued By Would-Be Assassins, Mega Doof-Head, Supposed Powerhouse, Odin the Impenetrable Knight's Sole Liege. Damien Helbourne, frantically snagging his tiny and totally much stronger and braver girlfriend's tiny pale hand the second he heard a baby squeak-sound in the cavern.
The scuffling of maybe rocks maybe footsteps nipped their heels. Damien felt his face punch into a flush, knowing exactly why.
"Nyn are you sure about this."
They stood—well, Damien was slouching—in the awe-stealing maw of a massive black hole. The horrific amounts of black magic that it took to split the very fabric of the cavern into a portal into a black dimension harbored by who-knows-what made Damien's hairs stand on end. And he was still holding Nyn's little hand like he would die the second he let go. Something sort of sad about the scene was how much his palm was sweating, and he felt bad for Nyn's sake but he was also too terrified to care much about it.
Damien Helbourne, cowering behind his to-be Dark Sultaness. She had to be the least scary thing in the entire universe, her fist clutching a shimmery little dagger, her round features soft and unassuming. And she was blind, so the only reason she knew how to stop was the massive, choking sensation of black magic swirling about in front of them.
Carefully Nyn extracted her hand from Damien's and pulled out her little piece of chalk. She wrote, painstakingly in the dark, in tiny white letters, we got this. Somehow this did not make Damien feel any better whatsoever.
She held her head unwavering. Her silver braids, whirling in the spell's self-created wind, somehow caught a sliver of light that seeped out of the portal, like a window cracked open in the middle of the night. Her eyes she scrunched shut, her fingers little harmless fists, her chalk trembling between two squishy fingers. Pouting, she added, if youre scared...
Damien's fingers snapped around her wrist. He bit into his lip and tried to pretend he was not terrified even though he one hundred million percent was. His eyes, sharp and lavender, the complexion of broken glass, attempted to settle on the giant whorl in front of him. He could feel his cape lifting up from his back in putrid anticipation.
And the scuffle of feet behind them, akin to that of falling rocks.
"Nnnhhh, nah, we, we got this. T-Totally, yeah."
Nyn hovered. She reciprocated his expression, whether she realized it or not, her finger plunking hard against her chalkboard. Why didnt you—she detected she was running out of space—say u wr scard.
His eyes scuttled for the floor. "B-Because I know you wanted to do this..." He struggled, very much so, to force the whimpering out of his mouth. "And it'll be a g-good bonding experience." He swallowed. "And... And the shadow monsters keep... hnnnnnn..." Images flashed over his self-absorbed gaze of families and homes left in tatters. Damien clenched his teeth together.
He could do this. On his own.
He was not going to tell Odin he needed help, he was not going to tell Odin he needed help, he was not going to let Odin know how scared he was, because he was a big freaking boy who could handle this on his own with his girlfriend on his own and not ask Odin to carry his sorry butt all the way through the dungeon.
Unnghhhhhhhhh.
"Odin am I gonna die."
The footsteps abruptly started up again.
Immediately an entire section of the cavern wall split away from the shadows and stood to salute by the dark sultan's side. It turned out that the entire section of the wall was actually an incredibly still knight. His elaborate armor, despite the great care placed into its black-and-red carvings, all but melted into its surroundings. "No. I will not allow you to die."
"Th-Thanks, buddy."
Nyn snorted, then wrote after frantically erasing with her palm—you brought him!
Damien choked. "Yyyyep I brought him!" Then he tried not to cry.
"Do my prior instructions remain?" asked the stoic knight, his deep tone causing the very walls he was once a part of to shudder.
"No." Damien dry-sobbed into his hands. "No, you're coming with us and carrying my sorry butt."
Odin gave a second salute, then unsheathed a disgustingly massive sword nearly as tall as its wielder. The arcane markings on its hilt were unreadable by the current generation—and the last twenty. Odin liked to say that they meant Undying Loyalty. When Damien was, like, five, he'd told Odin they meant My Best Friend Is Cooler Than Your Best Friend Because He Has This Here Sword.
S-See, Damien had a friend before Nyn. An immortal, overpowered friend, bu-but a friend nonetheless, a friend who every-once-in-awhile would laugh in this winded stoic voice at his jokes.
Damien sucked in a long breath. "I-Is it okay if we take Odin."
Well... Nyn thought about it, and in those tiny seconds Damien felt the entire universe breathing, and he could hear Divinus laughing at him. Thats a good idea.
"J-Just wondering, but is there a chance you brought Yuelia with you? Li-Like, just in case?"
Another snort from his pleasant dark sultaness. With a soft finger she wiped out her chalkboard and wrote, nah.
Damien swallowed. "Figures." He tried to share a glance with Odin, but Odin was busy staring at the giant portal. The way the dark knight's head was positioned, upright and brooding—always, always brooding—his helm shivered as if overcome with the emotions of all it took to get here, even though it was literally a five minute boat ride, then a ten second stroll through Cacto Cove.
Like she could read his mind, Nyn wrote, I came here earlier with Queen Ophelia and the Dragonslayer, actually. She swayed to some music in her head as she erased her sentence. Damien's self-esteem dropped. We already defeated the other two shadow monsters, so the only one left should be the shadowsaurus.
Damien threw his hands in the air. "Awesome. This is exactly what I wanted." He managed to speak without his voice fracturing into a million tiny terrified pieces of his own lack of self-worth.
She... paused, her hand hovering before her chalkboard. Quietly Nyn continued, her head low. I wanted to finish with you. But if you're scared, we don't have to. I can ask someone else to—
"N-No, no, please... don't." A rush of heat flooded up his chest as he took his girlfriend's little hand. "I-I'm sorry I'm being this way. You're right. I'm scared." He literally couldn't back out now though, that would literally be the most pathetic and regretful thing he could ever do in his entire life. Damien swallowed. "B-But we can do this. You and me...
"And O-Odin," he lamely finished, realizing that his so-called best friend had been demoted to the third wheel of the party. An overpowered third wheel who would certainly carry the team, but a third wheel nevertheless.
Glancing up at his friend, Damien tried to find the words to apologize without sounding hopelessly awkward. Then he saw that all of it had gone over Odin's antisocial head, and he wouldn't have to apologize for something Odin wouldn't care for, let alone recognize on his own.
"Okay, okay, le-let's go." Before Damien had another panic attack. Before Damien made someone else become the fourth wheel of the party, someone with actual social skills.
Before he let Nyn's hopes down.
He wouldn't regret this. He couldn't regret this. No, no, no...
Sucked in a breath. Took Nyn's hand. Stepped into the whorl of darkness seeping out before them, swallowing them wholly and unbearably. The only spark of warmth Damien felt was the tiny trickle of heat in his palm, the one he squeezed so tightly as they ran through a thick fog of foreboding.
A mist, thinning, enshrouded them, concealing a massive weight that sat horribly in front of the party. Wings extended, maws split open, teeth swimming within the mist like mountains—then snapped shut.
rrrrrrrrrruuuuUUUUHHHOOOOOOOOOOORRGHHHH!
Damien could feel the cold cut of tears in the edge of his gaze. Grunting, he twisted back, his footwork spinning, his hands opening, widening, strengthening with the shadows that surrounded him—then slashed outward with fingers the sizes of the sword his knight had brandished.
Fire the color of ashes spilled into the mist, quickly dissipating any potential hiding places. Tiny, monstrous bulbs of teeth sprung out from the shadows, spindly with the prowess of demonic little dancers. Damien slashed out and then forcefully clapped his hands, sending a stream of bright-periwinkle lightning down upon the baby dinosaurs.
In puffs of smoke, the shadows fell apart, sewing back into the ground.
A long, hard breath shuddered out of his thumping, thumping lungs—then Damien swiveled over to watch the tail of the monster swing down and catch Odin in his armored stomach, sending him reeling over into the other side of the black chamber. Tiny sparks sprung up where he fell.
Then, casually, the dark knight pressed a hand to the ground and stood himself back up. He hefted his sword and tossed it, hitting the eye of the beast with the sort of precise that caused chills to jump up Damien's feet and spin all along his body.
While it frothed and moaned in place, a silvery blur cloaked in white darted behind the shadowsaur and stuck a gilded weapon into its oozing hide—a dagger with all the worth of a needle when compared to its undulating target. Damien gasped as the saur's wings spread out—larger than the ashen sky above their stricken silhouettes—and it took flight, shaking as it dislodged the petty man-made weapons that could not nearly subdue such hell-born glory.
Damien, fingers shaking, took to Nyn's side. Her pale cheeks had flamed over and she hurriedly snagged a bottle out of her knapsack. Some scrabbling—she couldn't find the cork at the top—and she gave up, sunk her dagger into the glass, then drank long and hard from the bottle's new puncture wound. Green tincture dripped a little down her chin.
Just like that she got back up again, the color returning to her flushed face. She listened, carefully, her feet shivering on the ground, then shoved the dark sultan aside and fell with him onto the broken floor. An ugly THURK landed near them.
The saur's split maw, crooked, bleeding black ink, cracked into some sort of ugly grin. Its tongue slithered out as if to devour its latest challengers when Damien's hands shot forward palms-out and he unleashed a blast of swirling purple-black energy straight up the shadow's throat. Coughing, it fell back only to land in Odin's wicked blade.
But one shaking thrust from the saur sent all three reeling backwards. Damien felt more than saw his head crack against the wall, from where he stumbled to his feet, shaking... shaking. Breathing hard, wiping at his bloodied cheek, he stared through dizzy eyes at the darkness closing in from everywhere in sight. He tried to stand in... in place, when he...
A rush of warmth forced his surroundings to clear. One of Nyn's potions.
G-Geez, this guy was tough. U-Usually Damien was pretty okay, wh-what with him being a ranged attacker an-and all but... even Odin was flopping over, constantly, and he kept getting back up because he was an immortal beast but... how long would he continue to...
Nngh.
Damien shook himself, then raised his palms. Magic pooled from his veins into his hands.
All of the light in the chamber had fallen into his palms. The dimension had grown endlessly darker with each second spent within, and Damien hadn't even seen it coming until now.
He kept his shaking palms stubbornly held outwards.
Every magician—if they got good enough—had a place on their body where their magic released from within the soul. Two tiny scars, one per palm, marked Damien's. He stared at them, mesmerized, for a split second too long as the saur's massive wing knocked him aside once more.
All magic took something out of you, some sort of exhaustive reserve that regenerated, albeit slowly. Slower, depending on the magic. And sometimes damage was permanent. J-Just look at his father, the previous dark sultan... Or King Erik, who was still cursed to be a child. Whether or not he was freaking fine with it.
Places like this, where horrendous beings festered—
Damien threw his hands forward and black palms nearly as large as Shadowsaurus slapped it backwards. Once again, the monster fell against Odin—and Nyn, who stood faithfully beside the dark knight as they pelted petty attacks against a thing this in-tune with the magical realm.
As they fell into an incredibly careful rhythm, Nyn's inexhaustible supply of potions pretty much the only reason they hadn't yet lost, Damien's mind continued to circle the curses that seemed to feed upon Lunares. Li-Like whatever had created Odin, however long ago. The origin of the dark sultans, the reason they were called dark. The sorts of curses and hexes that couldn't be repealed, no matter how hard one may try...
A gash opened up in Damien's face, and he slipped into the shadows, breathing heavily.
Clutched his head in his hands angrily, tried to get up, couldn't really get all the way up before trembling to the ground once more.
He could feel the tiny universe they had stumbled into rumbling with the weakening prowess of its king. The air had grown thinner and thinner with each blow thrown.
Damien gasped as the corner he'd curled up into... crumbled. He tried to run and found he was terrible at running, slipping on the black liquid that coated the entire surface stretched out in front of him, the dragon's blood on his face, in his hair, mingling in his wounds. It took two, three, four scrabbling tries before Damien fell onto stable ground, only for that to begin to fall away as well.
He couldn't help it and started to whimper.
The world was thinning, blacker, bleaker... he scrabbled, pathetically...
When blessedly, finally, he found a hand, and that hand pulled him up fast. Tiny, soft—Nyn's. Sh-She must've heard him. Damien breathed painfully against her as she leaned him against Odin, as Odin held the dark sultan safe with one hand and casually stuck his sword into the shadowy monster with the other. Behind their backs Damien unfurled his hand, a singular light exploding from his palm.
Nyn healed him, and he found the strength in him to not fall over as Odin sunk his blade into the saur.
Then rumbling. Bad rumbling. Loud, loud rumbling.
They might've not made it if not for Odin throwing them over his shoulders and running like the actual beast he freaking was. I-It made Damien feel better about bringing his knight along.
His heart caught as they landed and light exploded across their dirty, drained faces.
The three all collapsed at the foot of the cavern. Then Damien mumbled something about how scary it was inside and they crawled out into Cacto Cove's starry night sky and sat in the sand, covered in monster goo.
What a sight, huh? Good thing nobody lived here.
"Wouldn't that be hil..." Damien coughed, wiped his mouth. "Hi-Hilarious! Wouldn't it be freaking hilarious if someone randomly stumbled upon us?"
Nyn fell into silent laughter. Odin did that weird thing he did where he went ha, ha, because he literally couldn't handle social interaction.
Damien swallowed, pushing some of his goo-stricken hair out of his face, and decided that he had some pretty cool friends.
But then he halted. He glanced nervously at his girlfriend. Her bruised face, battered and a little bit bloodied, her hair out of her braids and wild in the wind, somehow still beautiful, probably because he was her doofus boyfriend and Nyn just always looked beautiful, or something.
His cheeks heated. His gaze fell to the ground. "Nyn, uh..." Swallowed again. Let the cool comfort of the night wrap around them. "You're cursed... aren't you?" He coughed. "I mean, like. S-Sure, some people are born blind, or mute or whatever, or anything. But... those sorts of things can usually be healed by magic. And your potions are pretty strong, and all... but you always stay the same.
"I just, maybe I'm just worried. I've been... ah, in my spare time..." Oh no, this was embarrassing... "I've been looking into it a little. I haven't... really found anything though." The most expansive library of magic in all of Reveria and still nothing.
He flushed. "I just... maybe you're used to it, and you work really well with it! But it still must... suck a little. And but, but i-if I can heal you, I want to." He bit his lip. "You heal me a lot, so I... ye-yeah, that..."
He remembered Nyn earning the graces of his freakishly overprotective mom, Nyn stubbornly a carpenter, carving out of wood without the eyes to see if her creation matched her instructions, Nyn befriending he and Odin, Nyn...
Nyn scooted over to his side and planted her head against his shoulder, suddenly tired. She wrote without thinking about it in the sand, her strokes wobbly and small. And the letters were... backwards, because she was so used to writing on her chalkboard with one hand, the chalkboard facing her recipient.
ƨƨǝυϱ i bǝƨɿυɔ llɒ ǝɿǝw ˎʞo ƨɈi Ɉυb .bǝƨɿυɔ mɒ γlbɒboɿp i
Damien awkwardly stared at the text for a second, then magically summoned a reflective lavender surface above the sand and read from there. He cringed. "You think we're all cursed, huh? But like—"
γɿɿoƨ
"I-It's okay! I'm just worried about you. Wh-Why're you so cool and nice if you think everyone's cursed? I-I mean, that's a little messed..." Damien caught himself, shook his head. "Now I'm more worried about you..."
Gosh, maybe it was true though. As Nyn thought about her words, writing them all backwards—the sight of it tugging at Damien's heartstrings-
oϱɒ ǝmiɈ ϱnol ɒ bǝƨɿυɔ γlbɒboɿp ƨɒw i
"Y-Yeah, you probably were cursed a long time ago, if you don't... remember any of it."
.ʜϱυoʜɈ Ɉi oɈ bǝƨυ mi .biɒƨ υoγ ǝʞil
Here Damien had to stop, staring fitfully into his mirror, his heart shaking in his chest. "Nyn! Don't... say that. Don't stay used to it. That's..." He swallowed. "I—Argh... I shouldn't have said that. That was really insensitive of me. Please don't stay used to it. I don't want you to stay used to it. I mean it's pretty freaking rad that you do all of the things you do, with or without your curse. I don't know how you do it sometimes..."
ʜυb ˎǝʞoɿb ǝɿυoγ liɈnυ ƨnoiɈop γυb
He snorted, then clapped his hands over his mouth and started to laugh—and he tried to stop, but every time he did he started laughing even harder. And then he collapsed into himself, laughing, laughing, tears in his eyes, until he finally let out a long breath and muttered, "I really freaking love you.
Then he pulled her into his arms, his fingers wrapped tight around her back. "But please don't stay stuck. You're... radical, man! We defeated the Shadowsaurus Rex and literally it's all because of I don't even know what but we did!" His throat caught as it registered. "And now that curse is broken. And now our people will be so much safer at night." He squeezed his eyes tightly shut, unknowingly reflecting Nyn's expression back at her, if only she could see it. "We... broke that curse. You broke my curse of a coddled life, stuck in the fortress because of my freaking mom.
Nyn broke into a silent laugh. Mouthed Demona. Grinning like a doof, Damien continued."And we're gonna break your curse too. You... broke mine. Heck, you broke my dad's, and—and then you broke all of Reveria's! And you bet that most of it was because of Yuelia, but I don't even care because I'm gonna say it was all you anyways! Because you did!
"And I want to break yours, Nyn. I really... really do." His lips touched her forehead, and then he remembered his lips were sort of covered in monster goo and that was kind of gross. "But even if I can't break it, even if Noelia or Odin or... nobody ever breaks it, I'll still love you. So please don't feel like you're cursed. E-Even if you are!" It occurred to Damien that he just contradicted himself. "I mean... you're not cursed to me, and you work really well even if you feel really sad because you can't see me or speak to me and stuff. But I'll still break your curse!"
Damien really felt like he was making no sense. H-He felt that way a lot, but... still, this was...
Hah...
He was tired, and he smelled terrible.
And this of course was when Odin decided to rejoin the conversation. "My curse is a nice curse. I like being immortal, but I understand that your curse must be very annoying sometimes, Nyn. I would certainly love to be mute and blind, and potentially unable to use telepathic powers to commune with others, because then I would never have to ever commune with others outside of my lord Damien and my lady Nyn... but unfortunately it was you who was gifted this great responsibility."
It got to that point where they couldn't do anything but laugh.
"Oh shoot! We should try that again though! In all seriousness! Maybe, maybe I can learn a better mindspeak hex that lets our minds, like, communicate! And then I can send you my thoughts and you can see me! That would be so radical!"
Her head wedged against his chest, Nyn quietly smiled.
this got more serious than I meant it to xD But I think it's for a good cause? also I guess this means now I'm gonna have to write another oneshot in the near future about the shenanigans that ensue when Damien and Friends try to use spells on Nyn to help her speak with others
that will be fun
Noelia will have to be in it because I love her and I want her there
also I love Odin dearly, just gonna say that
oh one other thing, please don't feel obligated to read Nyn's backwards text xD I literally used a text font online to write it backwards. Damien mostly summarizes it too? except the last one, if you didn't read it, it's just Nyn saying that she does the things she does by buying potions until she's broke haha