Title: Midna: A Typical Faerie Tale

Genre: romance, drama, hurt/comfort

Rating: T+ for language, slight drug usage, and violence (rating might go up)

Pairings: YamiXYugi (puzzleshipping); BakuraXRyou (tendershipping); KaibaXJonouchi (puppyshipping); MarikXMalik (bronzeshipping)

Summary: 16-year-old Yugi Mouto lives with an alcoholic rock star mom, whose lifestyle lends itself to travel and minimal attachment. The only consistent thing in Yugi's childhood is the visitation by his faerie friends, and his ability to make strange things happen, inhuman things like making a decrepit merry-go-round horse come to life. He is a sarcastic, sometimes bitter, edgy young man with a hidden innocent side struggling to find his place in a world that offers little in return. Then one night, following a disastrous, rainy night with friends, he rescues a Faerie Knight named Yami on his way home. In this brief but pivotal moment, he tricks him into revealing his name, fully aware of the power this gives him, and then finds himself in the throes of a crush on someone he knows is not of this world. But Yugi's trouble truly begins when he discovers that he himself is not human, having been "glamoured" to hide his true, shimmering green, pixie self. He then becomes a pawn in a rival war between two distinct faeries...

Me: Okay, my sweet readers! This is a story we have both been planning for a little while! We wanted to get it, but we didn't have time, but here we are with the story!

Lucy: Anyway, this is a puzzleshipping story inspired by the two amazing tales, "Tithe" and "Ironside" written by Holly Black.

DISCLAIMER: We do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! or Tithe or Ironside. They belong to their respective creators.

Me: This is a story of love, friendship, darkness, horror, and more importantly, it shows the dark side of faeries, who people usually label as sweet and loving! We all know what their hidden side is like!

Lucy: Please enjoy!

Prologue

Yugi lit another cigarette and dropped the burning nicotine stick into his mother's beer bottle. He figured it would be the perfect test to see how drunk Era was tonight—see if she would swallow a whole cigarette whole without retching. A smile played with his lips. He loved it when his mom was drunk enough to drink whatever he decided to slip into her drink.

They were up on stage still, Era and Bill and the rest of Moonlit Blade. It had been a bad set and watching them break down the equipment, he could tell that they knew it. It didn't really matter, the sound system was scratchy and loud and everyone had kept drinking and smoking and a few even yelled, so he doubted the manager minded. Some people, drunk as they were, even got up and started dancing. Yugi had laughed all the while during that whole spectacle.

The bartender turned to him and offered him a drink on the house.

"Sorry, man. I don't drink," Yugi smirked, brushing back his ragged, three-toned hair and pocketing a couple of matchbooks when the bartender's back was turned.

Then his mother was next to him,taking a huge swallow of the beer before spitting it all over the floor, coughing up the wet cigarette Yugi had dropped in. He couldn't help the wicked series of cackles that flooded up his throat. Era looked at him in disbelief and then glared, wiping her mouth free of the taste of swallowed cigarette.

"Hilarious," she said, voice hoarse from singing. "Now go help load the car."

She was smoothing damp sweat-covered black hair back from her face. Her purple lipstick was rubbed off the inside of her lips but still clung to the edge of her mouth, smudged a bit. Yugi noticed that she looked extremely exhausted, so he decided to play the "good child" and go help load the car up.

Yugi slid off the counter and leapt onto the stage in one swift movement. Bill glared at him as he started picking up stuff randomly, so Yugi tried to grab what was only his mother's.

When his back was turned to Bill, Yugi couldn't help but grin evilly. He knew why Bill hated him—he was jealous of what Yugi could do. It took fat ol' Bill at least five minutes to climb onto the stage each night, whereas Yugi could leap up a ten-foot high stage in one simple leap. Once, in a fit of jealousy at Yugi's nimble movements, Bill had reached to grab his ankle when he jumped, as if to drag him back. Yugi had glared at him when he saw his hand move, and then Bill was on the ground, screaming that his hand was broken. Sure enough, his first three fingers were broken, due to the fact that he'd grabbed Yugi's shoe when he kicked, meaning that Yugi had kicked his fingers and broken them. No one blamed him for it, but Yugi had always know that there was something wrong with Bill's story, and with the logic to it all.

He hadn't touched Bill when he broke his fingers.

Bill turned to him when Yugi looked back. His eyes were glazed. "Hey kid, got any money on you?"

Not in the mood to argue or protect his stash, Yugi shrugged and slipped a ten out of his back pocket. He had more, and Bill probably knew it- he'd just come from his job at the Chinese restaurant. Delivering food might have paid crap, but he earned more than his mother and Bill did by playing in a band.

Bill took the money and flopped off the stage toward the bar, probably to get some beer to go.

Yugi picked up Era's stuff and started hauling it off through the crowd. People mostly got out of his way when they saw Yugi's abnormal amethyst eyes and his strange elfin face flash in their direction. He smiled. His friend Jonouchi had often told Yugi that at first glance, one could mistake him for an imp or an elf.

The cool autumn air outside the bar was a welcome relief, even stinking as it was of iron and exhaust pipes. To Yugi, the city always reeked of the scent of iron.

It took him only a few moments to load up the car. He went back inside, intent on getting back to the car before someone tried to break in. In this town, it was impossible to leave anything inside the car without expecting it to be stolen. The last time Era's car had been broken in to, it had been for a secondhand coat and a roll of paper towels. Yugi wasn't usually angered by that, but he had glared after the direction he felt the thief had gone, and sure enough, moments later, a man came running through the parking lot with the paper towels and the coat, chased by a mass of evil bees. To this day, Yugi still didn't know how he had known where the thief had gone, and he always felt like the bees had been his doing. But that was just crazy.

The girl checking IDs at the door took a long look at him this time but didn't say anything. It was late anyway, almost last call.

Era was still at the bar, smoking a cigarette and drinking something stronger than beer. Bill was talking to a guy with short brown hair. The man looked out of place in the bar, too well dressed or something, but Bill had his arm slung over the man's shoulders. Yugi caught a flash of the man's eyes. Ice blue, reflecting in the dark bar. Yugi shivered.

But then again, Yugi saw strange things sometimes. He'd learned to ignore them.

"Car's loaded," he told Era.

Era nodded, hardly listening. "'Kay. Got a cigarette, honey?"

Groaning under his breath, Yugi fished out his mother's pack from his back pants pocket. "Fine, but this is the last one you're getting tonight, got me?" he snapped. Era nodded drunkenly. Yugi snatched one and handed it to his mother. Before she took it, he drew it back. "Ah! I want a verbal promise on this one, Mom."

Era groaned loudly. "Fine," she said. "I promise this is the last one. Now gimme it."

"Good girl." Yugi handed over the cigarette.

Era bent close, the scent of whiskey and beer and cigarettes lingering on her familiar as perfume to Yugi. "Thanks, baby," she said in that goofy way that was both sweet and embarrassing at the same time, touching her pinkie to the tip of Yugi's nose. Taking her lighter from him, she flicked it twice and then her cigarette came to life.

"Ready to go home?" Bill asked, and Yugi nearly jumped.

It wasn't that he hadn't know Bill was there; it was the sound of his voice. It was velvety, a shade off of sleazy. It was a far cry from the normal asshole Bill voice. Not at all like it.

Era didn't seem to notice. She nodded and finished her drink. "Okay."

A second later, Bill lifted his arm as though he were going to punch Era in the back. Yugi reacted without thinking when a strange sensation in the back of his mind screamed, Stop him! He shoved Bill with all his might. It was only Bill's drunkenness that made Yugi's thin weight able to push his fat body off balance. Yugi saw the silver knife as it clattered to the ground.

Bill's face was completely blank, empty of any possible emotion. His eyes were wide, and his pupils were dilated.

Tommy, Moonlit Blade's drummer, grabbed Bill's arm. Bill had just enough time to punch Tommy in the face before other patrons tackled him and a woman called the police.

Somewhere in the back of the bar, Yugi thought he saw the brunette man with ice-blue eyes smiling from the shadows. But when he looked again, the man was nowhere in sight, as if he'd never existed.

By the time the cops got there, Bill couldn't remember anything. He was mad as Hell, though, cursing Era at the top of his lungs.

Yugi turned to him when Era was talking and panicking with the police, and snapped softly, "Stop talking. Now and forever, just stop talking, Bill, no one wants to hear it!"

Bill's screams silenced in mid-curse. Eyes wide, he opened and closed his mouth, but no sound, not even a startled puff came out. Yugi turned to his mother, away from Bill, who stared at him as if he were the Devil himself. Looking back, Yugi saw Bill mouthing a single word. There was no sound to it, but the word sent shivers through Yugi's body. Imp.

I'm not an imp, Yugi thought. He wrapped his arms around his mother, the shock of it all finally getting to her. Era shivered and sobbed against his shoulder. I just didn't want Mom hearing you yell at her anymore. He closed his eyes.

The police drove Yugi and Era back to Bill's apartment and waited while Yugi packed their clothes and stuff into plastic garbage bags. Era was on the phone, trying to find a place for them to stay. Era sighed loudly and hung up the phone. "Honey," she called. "We're going to go to Grandpa's, okay?"

"Grandpa Mouto or Grandpa Sampson?" called Yugi.

"Sugoroku."

"Did you call him?" Yugi asked, stacking his CDs into a plastic orange crate. They hadn't visited Sugoroku at his Game Shop in the six years since they had moved away from Domino. Era barely spoke to Sugoroku, his father's father, on the holidays before handing the phone over to Yugi, not able to talk to him anymore.

"Yeah, I just woke him up." Yugi couldn't remember the last time his mom sounded so tired. "It'll just be for a while. You can visit your old friends."

"Shizuka and Katsuya Jonouchi," Yugi said. He hoped that's who Era meant. He hoped his mother wasn't teasing him about all that faerie garbage again. If he had to hear one more story about Yugi and his cute imaginary faerie friends when he was little, he was going to scream and/or throw up. He closed his eyes and continued to pack up his stuff into the plastic orange crate.

"Yeah, them. Get me another cigarette, hon?" Era tossed more CDs into the crate.

Yugi was about to protest that she had promised no more that night, but after taking one look at her exhausted face, Yugi shrugged and fished a cigarette out of his back pocket and lit it with one of his matches. What's the point? It's not like me stealing her cigarettes is going to keep her from smoking ever again.

Me: All righty! Prologue, and we already have some issues with Yugi and his mom, Era! Era was nearly killed by Bill, her boyfriend. But who was that man who Bill was speaking with? I'm sure we all know who based on the hair and eye color!

Lucy: And what's up with Yugi and his strange abilities?

Me: And as for the name Midna in the story title, this does play a major role in the story. But you'll all have to ready on if you want to find out what the name is and how it ties in! Warning: "Midna" does not have the same meaning as "Tithe" did in Holly Black's stories. Just for those of you who have read Holly Black's stories.

Lucy: To find out more, please review nicely or not at all and we shall update! We are sort of nervous about how this fic will play out!

Me: And now we are off to update more of our stories!