Word Count: 3,422
Disclaimer: No.
Notes: This is the first section I managed to save from the drabble project I lost a few weeks ago. For now, I'm keeping things on the down-low and real innocent (they're still like 11-years-old, chillax), but future chapters are going to find drabbles that kick the ratings up a notch when appropriate because teenagers swear and like to get touchy. But for now - I give you book 1.
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section i: Time To Begin, Isn't It?
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a. just a moment of change; sabrina
This shouldn't be too hard.
Whatever is at the end of this train ride can't possibly be worse than their entire orphaned lives thus far. Or at least, Sabrina hopes not. She's pretty confident that their caseworker, Ms. Smirt, is helpless when it comes to doing her job but she's pushing it a little too far this time. Their grandmother? Really? Sabrina's almost a little offended that Ms. Smirt would take her for such a fool. Actually, she is offended. She's very offended that, this time, Ms. Smirt would seriously hand them over to a dead woman.
The bright side? If this old lady actually is just a crazy old lady claiming to be their grandmother for the government-issued benefits, she shouldn't be too hard to ditch. The not-so-bright side? Sabrina doesn't know where the heck they're going and wouldn't know the first thing about getting back to the city or finding shelter when they do manage to break away from this impostor. Watching the view rush by through the rain-splattered window of the train, Sabrina's positive that Ms. Smirt is purposely dropping them off literally in the middle of nowhere. Probably so no one will ever hear them scream while they burn and die when their new grandmother "welcomes them home."
How exciting.
Sabrina's shaken out of her thoughts when her little sister shifts in her sleep against Sabrina's shoulder and mumbles something incoherent about pancakes and sausages. Sabrina takes a second to forget the escape plan she's already concocting in her mind and reaches up to tuck some loose hair behind Daphne's ear, something she's seen her mother do countless times. It's always had the same effect, including now. Daphne snuggles up closer to Sabrina's shoulder and her mumbling halts instantly.
Watching Daphne slumber peacefully only hardens Sabrina's resolve to get them out of this mess once and for all. If she can help it, she'd drag them both out of the state if it means keeping them away from their pathetic excuse of a caseworker and all the crap she's put them through. Sabrina had made a promise to herself the night she realised her parents weren't going to come home: she'd protect Daphne at all costs, whether or not they'd ever get their family back. Whatever's going on, with her missing parents, with this "grandmother" of theirs – it's up to her now to keep Daphne safe.
Sabrina looks out the window again and resumes her plotting. Her patience is stretched as thin as paper after two years of being orphaned. She's just about had enough. Whatever's at the end of this train ride better be ready for Sabrina Grimm. She's got a promise to keep, and no way on God's mighty earth is she going to break it.
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b. first impressions are so important; sabrina, daphne, puck
Of all the things that could happen to her – of all the things that have already happened to her, meeting this no-good, foul-breathed, rotten lettuce of a boy had to be the worst.
He actually tied her wrists up. With real ropes that scratched at her skin and hands bent painfully behind her back and everything. Was this kid for real?
She had wanted to spit a thousand different similarities he had with Peter Pan because Daphne's earlier comparison seemed to seriously tick him off. The only reason she hadn't done so was because she'd been on the plank and she had the suspicions that if she did say something to anger him, he would've just lit the whole plank on fire, along with her and her poorly timed insults.
This was the pathetic excuse of a neighbour Granny and the old man had been talking about? No wonder he kept himself hidden away in the depths of the forest so no one would ever find him. No one deserved to have to find this little dweeb and deal with his pranks and awful jokes. And his smell.
"Hey, Sabrina." Daphne nudged her as they walked towards Granny's house while the fairy loop-de-looped in the air ahead of them. "What did he say his name was again?"
"Puck," Sabrina said distastefully, one corner of her mouth turned downwards. Even his name tasted bitter and awkward and unpleasant to say. "Or something."
"What story was he from?"
"Something Shakespeare wrote. I'm not sure and I really don't care. As soon as we save Granny, he's out." And she meant it. There was something about that stupid, shaggy-haired blonde that lit her up and practically encouraged her to fight him, verbally, physically, you name it. It was unhealthy, completely throwing her off, and totally weirding her out.
"C'mon Sabrina, he's probably nicer than he seems. I mean, he's helping us get Granny back, right? He can't be that bad," Daphne reasoned with her sister. Sabrina huffed but said nothing.
Daphne was right. This Puck fellow couldn't be that bad of a character.
He was the worst.
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c. gramps is pretty hardcore; sabrina, mr. canis
The door of the rusted, old jalopy slammed shut behind Sabrina and when she looked back at it, her first instinct was to kick it open and run out again. There had to be some way she could help Mr. Canis, if she thought hard enough. He was an old man, and only ageing with every second, and she was -
- she was just a little girl.
Okay okay okay okay okay, relax. Sabrina took more than a few calming breaths. This is real, this is so real, and Mr. Canis is getting the realest part of it.
Sabrina had been more than afraid when the three thugs showed up to threaten the Grimms and their old friend, but she felt far more terrified now that she, Granny and Daphne were safe in the car while Mr. Canis was out there fighting and probably losing. While she never actually ran to him screaming "Grandpa!" cheerfully or even consider him part of the family (for real, who was he anyway?), he'd stuck around from day one. He'd been there for Granny, Sabrina and Daphne from the very beginning, and now he was sticking his neck out for them. And for what? Proof that "the bad guys were getting nervous"? Sure, Sabrina could tell something weird was going on, but even if she for one second believed that fairytale characters were behind the mysteries in this town, the fact that culprit was sending goons to take out her family and their resident bodyguard was not a good thing and Granny Relda could have acted a little less psyched about the whole situation.
Sabrina only breathed normally when Mr. Canis finally stepped into the car, completely unharmed. He even looked a little smug, and when Sabrina caught the look on his face, she wanted to reach over and smack him for worrying her so much. She would have too, if Granny Relda hadn't spoken first and informed Mr. Canis that the girls - including Sabrina - had been worried for him.
Mr. Canis looked the slightest bit guilty for troubling the girls and far more embarrassed and definitely a little shocked when Daphne reached over to give him a big, sloppy kiss on the cheek. Sabrina didn't communicate quite as boldly as her sister but she was able to catch Mr. Canis's eye in the rearview mirror as her grandmother chatted on about leads and what this all meant about the case. She hoped he could understand what she was trying to convey, but something told her he wouldn't have any trouble figuring it out.
Don't you ever do that agin.
But thanks.
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d. he's not lonely, you're lonely; puck
He kind of just sits there on top of some tree's highest branch and watches the scene unfold below. It's not as interesting as he'd hoped it would be, and he leans back against the tree trunk, interlocking his fingers and using his hands as a cushion for his head.
He could do something and give the sisters a hand, but he's really not in the mood for getting into anyone else's business, and why would he even want to, especially if it means helping another living being.
But there's something peculiar about these two that fascinates him, and it's probably the same something that dragged him away from the warm, gloriously pungent safety of his throne and up to this hill. He hasn't really thought about it, but while the girls are trying to outrun the pig down there, he figures he has a bit of time to let his thoughts wander.
His biggest theory is that it's because they're the first kids he's gotten close to in an awfully long time. A lot of the other kids he sees around this irritatingly small town aren't Everafters, which means they're a hazard to his existence and probably wouldn't find his jokes as funny if they saw the very real, very pink wings sprouting from his back. For the past few years, he's been limited to fooling around with the other Everafters stuck in the barrier and only really interacting with the old lady and the wolf. So, yeah, it's been fun.
Not.
It's been so boring and recently, he's been getting more and more claustrophobic episodes whenever he thinks about the barrier for too long.
So, of course, when a pair of dumb, dirty-brained, dog-faced little girls have the audacity to enter his kingdom, a lonely kid's bound to get interested. Not that he's been feeling lonely or anything. Just a little… solitary. Isolated. Friendless.
But he digresses. Below him, the situation's starting to get a little more lively and the scene's starting to look like a bit too much for the girls to handle. He chooses that moment to stick his hand into his pocket to retrieve his flute and call his pixies to help them out a little (if he's going to give them a hand, he's not going to do any of the dirty work himself). With the pixies as a distraction, the girls manage to get away from the pig with no problems, and he grins, mentally patting himself on the back. So talented. He can't wait to hear their praises and gratitude.
He'll admit it. He's pretty interested in those two, especially since they seem to be natural magnets for trouble. Besides, didn't the wolf say something about them being "vital" to the future of all Everafters? If that's the case, he thinks it's about time he acquaints himself with those girls and let them know who the biggest, baddest Everafter happens to be.
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e. like a jealousy complex; puck
This is unacceptable beyond anything he's ever had to deal with.
She has the nerve! The audacity! The - the guts, the stupidity, the idiocy! How dare she just brush him off as if he hasn't done everything in his power to get her butt and her sister's butt out of certain sticky situations for the past few hours! How dare she turn to that big-mouthed, pompous Englishman for help when she clearly has all the help she needs. Obviously she has no idea what his pixies are capable of, and they're definitely quite competent at far more than lounging and napping on the Grimms' couch, like Jack the So-Called Giantslayer's currently doing.
Puck's not sure why it bugs him so much that Sabrina's practically handing out her undivided attention to this Jack fellow, but he doesn't give it a second thought. All he knows is he's pissed that he's being treated less like a king and more like "just another kid."
He is not just another kid.
The front door doesn't slam nearly as hard as he would've liked when he ditches the old lady's house and quickly flies back to his lair. He likes to call it his "lair" because it's where all of his evil plans and horrible concoctions occur. He's a villain of the worst kind, and his kingdom's nucleus deserves to be called a "lair" to match the terrible deeds that happen within it.
But sometimes, it's his thinking spot.
There's a really tall tree with a branch right at the top positioned in such an angle that if he sits at the last stretch of wood, his head and the tops of his shoulders peek out above the canvas of leaves and he can observe the expanse of the little town of Ferryport Landing. Sitting up there makes him feel like he's on top of the world, as if that tree is a proper throne instead of the one made of marble and gold back in New York or the one he's built out of scraps of junk in his lair. He feels a lot bigger than he normally acts around people up here, and he soaks in every second of that feeling before realising for the first time tonight that it's actually kind of lonely, too.
Ugh.
So maybe he does know why it's so bothersome that Grimm and her marshmallow of a sister aren't really … relying on him as much as they're relying on Jack. He hasn't felt this needed or useful in so long that every helpless glance from either sister shoots a rush of adrenaline in him and, like the boy he is, he sucks it up and uses it to fuel his actions, his energy, his snarky comments, and all his denial that maybe he's not such a bad guy.
And really, he's not such a bad guy. He's just a kid, looking out for other kids, whether he'll ever admit it or not (probably not).
He just wishes certain other kids would just make up their minds already and stick with one saviour.
That would make his life a whole lot easier.
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f. kinda hard to think with all this fur in my face; sabrina
She's a bear.
…What the heck.
She's a … bear.
And she's not just any bear, she's that Momma Bear character from the Goldilocks story. "Not too hot, not too cold, just right"? That bear.
Does this mean that, while she's borrowing this form, she's famous?
She blinks, and her eyelids feel heavier than they were two minutes earlier. Even her eyelashes are browner, longer, and fuzzier than her original thin, blonde lashes were. And her eyebrows - no, she doesn't even have eyebrows. Her entire face is covered with hair. She doesn't need eyebrows.
How is this even possible.
She has half a mind to swipe her hand (claw?) at Daphne for choosing such an impulsive and ridiculous form but she doesn't want to give into her bear-like instincts, lest she risk actually becoming a bear, mannerisms and wild nature and all.
God, this is so embarrassing.
Whatever, she thinks. We'll get in, get the information we need, and get out, then I can be my regular self again.
Why Momma Bear? Of all the characters Daphne could have picked out of thin air, she had to choose a massive sharp-toothed mammal whose only advantages are her claws and her keen sense of smell, and whose biggest disadvantage is probably the fact that it'll be so hard to hide and sneak around with all this … mass.
She looks behind her back and just as she suspects, there's a small, fluffy little tail poking out of a hole in her pink, polkadot dress. It would've been cute if it hadn't been coming out of her own rear.
Is this her life now? Turning into bears and God knows what else to save her grandmother and their strange live-in bodyguard from real live giants in a town run by Prince Charming?
It is. It really is.
Sabrina sighs, but it doesn't sound like a human sigh. She lets out an airy grumble that manages to sound like a bear sighing, and it's only her excellent self control that she doesn't let her new larynx freak her out.
Jeez, she's really a bear right now.
Thank goodness Puck isn't around to see this.
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g. one gigantic baby step; sabrina
She's never once wondered what it would feel like to be invincible, but the split second after she plunges the blade of Excalibur into the giant's dirt-stained and wart-covered hand, a shiver runs from the nerves bunched up at her neck, straight through her spine, and disappears at the small of her back.
The giant looks even more surprised than she does, and Sabrina has no doubt that the rest of the witnesses - Granny, old Mr. Canis, Daphne - are all just as shocked. She wrenches the blade from the depths of the giant's hand and stumbles backwards, still unnerved. When the poor goliath finally loses control of his own limbs and collapses with a thunderous, earth-shaking crash, and when the dust finally clears, only to reveal Jack's raging words, it finally hits Sabrina that this case is officially closed.
And when the giant's brothers take Jack away later to be punished by their queen (to which Sabrina feels next to no remorse), she can only stare up at the sky for a split second before her reality comes crashing back to her, reminding her that this really happened. The giants are up there. They took Jack. One of them alone wreaked enough havoc to amount to thousands of dollars of property damage. This whole Everafter nonsense isn't nonsense at all, in fact, everything's starting to make a little more sense, as if a blinding haze has been lifted from Sabrina's sight, just like the dust that cleared after the giant collapsed. She feels like she can see better now and she's a ready to look directly at what's in front of her. And while this particular case is closed, her parents' case is far from solved, and this is just the beginning.
But baby steps are so important, Sabrina knows, and it's not every day eleven-year-olds get to slay their first giants to save their family and the rest of the town.
So if this - this boldness or stupidity to stand up to gargantuan monsters for the safety of her family - is what it feels like to be invincible, then this is what she wants to be.
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h. probably gonna need a restraining order; sabrina, puck
Some people have good days when other people have bad days.
They could happen at the exact same time on opposite sides of the planet and it still wouldn't matter who's living what because, ultimately, only they would have to deal with it.
Luckily for Sabrina, today seems to be a relatively decent day so far. She isn't categorising it under "good" yet because she's hardly an optimist anymore and she hasn't felt lucky in ages, but hey, at least she's not complaining.
Of course, she could choose to complain loudly and enthusiastically about the strange, vibrant purple colours of the oatmeal Granny had prepared them earlier that morning, but why would she intentionally sabotage her own day when it's been going off without a hitch?
That is, it's gone off without a hitch until she stubs her toe on a nearby box filled with God knows what. All Sabrina knows is that she's never felt pain like this before.
"Ow!" Sabrina yelps in pain, hopping away on one foot and glaring at the box as if it had lifted itself up on its own accord and slammed down on her toe. Sabrina leans over to inspect the contents of the wretched (unlabelled, she notices) cardboard box, and finds it filled with plastic water guns, water balloons, a frying pan missing its handle, some horseshoes, and a short, wide jar of what looks like three-year-old, spoiled mayonnaise.
"What the - " Sabrina narrows her eyes at the suspicious box and its contents and makes her way down the stairs as fast as her injured toe can take her, searching for Granny and demanding an explanation. Of course, the sight that greets her when she gets to the ground floor isn't at all what she'd expected, nor is it anything she'd ever wanted to see.
She has a brief flashback to a scene she saw on a CSI: Miami episode when she still lived in the city with her family. One of the scientists had been reporting to her superior and asked whether he wanted to hear the good news or the bad news first. Sabrina's never actually heard anyone use that line in real life, but in the exact second the Trickster King shoots her a wicked, wide smile so genuinely delighted at her impending misery, she still wonders why all she ever gets is bad news.
"I'm moving in, piggy!"
She's an idiot for thinking that she could have at least one good day. Not in this life.