Why am I writing about an AU about an 8-year-old game that I hadn't played since I got it in 2014 until about three days ago?

Good question, let me know when you figure out the answer 'cause I sure as hell don't know it lol.


Vella Tartine was a baker. Plain and simple. There was nothing more to say about her.

Except that she could also kick someone's butt if really inclined to, but she tended to keep that part of her secret.

For the most part, her neighbors and friends knew her as the spunky, outspoken baker who protested the system of sacrificing maidens to the beast at the top of the mountain.

Okay, perhaps not so secret after all.

"Why don't we just kill Mog Chothra?" she asked for the umpteenth time as her mother tied up the corset of her dress, preparing her for the ceremony that would see her descend into the castle's depths. "We don't have to keep sacrificing maidens to him."

Her mother gently took the bandana off her head and ran a comb through her bouncy hair, trying to tame it into a fancier style than Vella was really used to. She was having some success.

Which was to say, very limited success.

"Please, Vella, this is hard enough as it is."

Vella's father patted Vella's shoulder. "Who knows- maybe you'll knock Mog Chothra dead with your beauty," he said jovially, though Vella could read the faint sadness in his eyes.

She rolled her eyes, trying to pretend this was a perfectly normal thing she was getting dolled up for. "Daaaad."

Rocky scrambled over the couch to hold out a cupcake with red frosting. "This is for you Vella!"

"For me?" Vella escaped her mother's attempts to tame her hair to accept the cupcake from her little sister with a warm smile. "Why, Rocky, I thought all of these were for you. Isn't the red frosting your favorite?"

Rocky scuffed her shoe on the floor, tilting her head. "Well, yeah, but you're going away, so..."

Vella's smile slipped slightly. "I... guess so."

She took the cupcake carefully from Rocky's fingers. Beautifully frosted- probably the work of her grandfather.

Vella looked over to him to thank him, but he was facing away from her to stare out the window. She knew he hated the Maiden's Feast too.

"Dad, don't sulk. You're going to have to see Vella off soon," her mother chided, carefully sliding a pin into Vella's hair.

"Eh?"

Her grandfather always became conveniently deaf whenever it was something he didn't really want to hear.

"Curtis is a bit disappointed to hear about it," her mother said, pinning a rose into her somehow-tamed hair. "He was hoping you'd see his new metalworking business up and running by next market."

"He finally got tired of the talking trees, I'm guessing?" Vella asked, reluctantly letting Rocky tug at her corset- and she meant reluctantly, because with the next tug Rocky gave half of the air in Vella's lungs got squeezed out.

Her mother chuckled at that. "Oh, most certainly. Twyla's glad about it, though."

"About?"

"The competition at the market, sweetheart. She said it was starting to get stale without Curtis's stall for competition across the way."

Twyla had been skipped over in the selection for the Maiden's Feast about four years ago. She'd been pretty disappointed for a while, but Vella's mother had eventually coaxed her into starting a seamstress shop.

She usually did custom outfits- to be honest, Vella was pretty sure her dress was one of Twyla's, just without the trademark feathers Twyla was so fond of- but she'd also sell ready-made things at the weekend market.

Vella nodded as her grandfather came over and proceeded to roughly hand over a sheathed object, pressing it into Vella's hand.

"... the ceremonial knife?"

"Dad, Vella won't need that where she's going," her mother said gently.

Her grandfather shrugged. "Oh, she will. She's got enough spit in her that Mog Chothra's gonna have to fight her if it wants her to go quietly."

He mimed punching Mog Chothra, which Vella laughed at for about half a second before her corset decided that laughter was forbidden and she'd run out of air.


The ceremony wasn't exactly... solemn.

Sure, it was a more somber affair, but there was music playing and Vella was just being escorted up a flight of stairs to a carriage that looked as though it had been taken right out of a storybook.

God, she hated her dress. It was so big and took up so much space and damn this corset she swore she was going to have lung issues after this.

She looked at the carriage.

If she survived this, she amended.

The castle's exterior was worn and gray, but periodically when Vella had looked up she'd seen flashes of warm color- orange, or gold.

Once or twice, she'd seen a figure in a window, silhouetted by the warm light, far far away, and wondered if they were watching Mog Chothra do all these things.

She wondered if they hated the people down in this small town, a tiny community cobbled together by the former citizens of Meriloft and Shellmound and Sugar Bunting, slowly dwindling because of this monster.

The carriage door closed behind her; she didn't quite remember sitting.

She stole one glance back.

Her mother was looking at Vella with pride (and sorrow), her arms laced together with her husband. Her grandpa was scowling, but he tapped his cane to his leg.

Vella became acutely aware of the sheathed knife she'd stuck to her thigh- good thing her mother hadn't paid attention to when she'd quickly made a small slit in the fold of her dress to form an impromptu pocket, or else she would've probably gotten a last lecture about how Twyla had worked hard on her dress, even if she was peeved that they'd requested no feathers, and it was rude of her to purposefully ruin the dress.

She made a mental note to apologize to Twyla if she ever saw her again; she was about to do much worse to the dress.

Rocky was riding her father's shoulders, waving at Vella frantically even as Levina (a wizened little old woman who ran the Maiden's Feast) scolded her in a sharp, annoying voice that Vella could still hear from here that she was destroying the sanctity of the Ceremony and all that sort of nonsense.

Vella waved back.

The carriage didn't lurch or suddenly launch into movement- instead, without any warning, Vella found it suddenly moving, almost floating, with nary a jolt or even any noticeable change that Vella could identify.

She waited. Trying to see Rocky's frantically waving form and her grandfather staring through his one good eye and her mother leaning over to try to maintain sight of her daughter and her father trying to keep Rocky from falling off his shoulders for as long as she could.

She didn't know if she'd see them again.

They vanished behind a tree and Vella immediately sprang into action- she swiftly sliced through the dress, leaving something of a tattered hem and a ridiculous amount of lace and ribbon on the floor of the carriage.

She tore off the too-tight corset, sticking her head out the window. If there were any branches nearby...

Vella was distracted, suddenly, by the sight of a looming beast above her.

Mog Chothra was more hideous than she'd thought- a huge, looming beast that looked like a mauve brain with hundreds of glowing red eyes, lips, and tentacles that were waving and blocking out the already dimming sky. If anything, the setting sun washed Mog Chothra with almost blood-like red and orange light.

How would her mother put it?

"Oh, salt nuggets."

No, that wasn't quite strong enough. How about her grandfather?

"Steel-tipped boots and an axe!"

That was better.

Vella could've sworn there was a strange, wolf-like figure standing atop the beast- but that drew her attention towards a large, blue bird that was currently flying, a scroll attached to its leg.

There was her ride.

Vella seized the moment to throw a corset over the bird's neck. It squawked, alarmed, and tried to rise higher- dragging Vella out the window of the carriage and into the sky.

She hastily wrestled her way onto the bird's back, though after the initial panic it seemed to be pretty chill about her being on its back, and rose into the sky, so high that the clouds almost brushed Vella's head.

Vella wondered if Meriloft had really been in the sky, like Twyla and Car'l- Carol, she always forgot that the woman had changed her name- always said.

Without much warning, Vella was suddenly being dumped through a window- thankfully she'd resheathed the knife, or that could've been very nasty.

She lifted her head to get her bearings. The floor was soft- the texture felt like a knit of some kind- and the walls were orange, with perhaps some redder tints as accents. But the walls were damaged- destroyed, even, in places...

Vella's eyes widened.

"Oh, salt nuggets."

She was inside the belly of the beast.

So to speak, not quite as literally as she would've thought...

But she had found her way inside the castle after all.


A/N: Time to speedrun writing a fic! Maybe this summer I'll actually have the time and energy to write more fic, lol.

See ya, so long, and g'bye!