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softquietsteadylove · 2 years

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Hi! What about Beauty and the Beast prompt? Gil being a hunter and Thena is kind of creature that could turn to human physique? And Gil is hunting her down but there's this incident where Thena saved him and brought him to her place. They developed something along the way but Thena was scared to show her true self because of the thought of him leaving her or worse killing her.

There were other hunters looking to rescue Gil and they told him that she was the creature they're looking for, you decide what will happen next.

Thank youuu (I am loving Passing Notes btw, everything you write!)

They said there was a creature in the high mountains, lurking in the woods for unsuspecting prey. Some said it was a massive wolf, the height of two men and as strong as ten. Some said it was some beast with wings that descended upon its prey and stole them into the sky. Others said it was just a regular old bear.

Hunters would come up the mountain regularly to hunt it. Sometimes it was under the guise of protecting the village further down, or their livestock. Some were clearly just out to hunt the biggest prey they could find and claim its head as a trophy. They were the most unsuspecting when she found them and sent them on their way with even more horrifying stories.

Her name was Thena.

She could barely remember a time before the curse set in. It took no effort at all the shift between her two forms, although her time in her human form had become more limited over the years. She used to be able to appear human for days. Now, she had to spend nearly every night as the Snow Fox.

It allowed her the time to hunt, as well as protect her territory. She knew she stood as tall as a horse when she was the Snow Fox, with a maw of teeth that frightened even the most braggadocious of men. It had served her well in her solitude ever since the castle was attacked.

She never sought retribution from the townspeople who attacked them either, which she thought was quite magnanimous of her. She could have gone down to the village and laid waste to it, but she didn't. She remained in the castle, abandoned by those who had survived the siege and escaped.

No one at all remembered that little Thena - the last of the cursed line - never made it out.

She had always been fine with being alone. Curiosity had brought her close to the village before, sitting disguised in the snow and watching people interact from afar. They were fascinating.

She knew she could try and interact with them as a human if she so desired. But she did not so-desire, for a very long time, in fact.

Then she found him.

He was a hunter, just like the others. But he clearly didn't want to be up in the mountains, stumbling around in a snowstorm. Quite literally--he slipped right off the edge of the cliff in his struggle to see and step along the ice safely. She'd barely been able to catch his coat in her teeth before he fell to his death.

His comrades had fled at the sight of her, abandoning him to her wrath. The cowards.

His name was Gilgamesh.

She'd met him properly as a woman, watching him carefully from across the fire pit she'd built in what used to be a kitchen. He asked what had brought her here and she'd said that she had lived here her whole life.

He shrugged. No other questions, no demand to know how she'd survived as just a woman in the ruins of a castle on a mountain that felt winter eight out of twelve months of the year. He just shrugged and continued eating the roasted quail she'd offered him.

"Call me Gil," he'd smiled at her between bites.

She did.

Gil had healing to do, and Thena soon found herself quite eager for his company. It was fascinating to have someone around, talking aloud to himself, telling the odd joke to the ptarmigans roosting in the rafters.

After she had offered him the most in tact room she could, he'd asked where she slept. She couldn't tell him that she had a nest of matted curtains and remains from beds. So, she'd said somewhere in one of those high-up towers, instead of in the basement, where she could sleep in her larger form if needed. And Gil had accepted that answer, only to to present her with a beautiful blanket stitched together from scraps he'd washed and sewn.

Even as a fox, she slept with it, whether balled up under her muzzle or as a human with it laid over top of her.

Gil continued to do things like that the longer he stayed at the castle with her. He was quite the craftsman, she learned over time. He spent his time sewing up her curtains and bed sheets, then he took to fashioning things out of the rest. He sewed her a new cloak to wear, a robe to keep her warm in the frigid castle.

Once he could walk, Thena was sure he would flee. She disappeared every night to hunt and guard the area as a fox, and she would drag herself home - squeeze through the broken storm cellar door - and settle down in the basement. She dreaded the day she would come upstairs as a woman and find herself alone again.

But one day he presented her with a dress, sewn together from the linen bedskirts and the lace of table runners and the lining of curtains. It was beautiful. It was perfect.

She'd thrown her arms around him, and maybe that was her mistake. Because he had wrapped his arms around her in response, and that feeling--the warmth of a single embrace was enough for her to sign her heart over to him.

She started digging through the library ravenously, searching for ways to break her stupid curse. She didn't tell him, either. She could have, but...the scent of gunpowder and the glint of knives would flash through her mind, and she would resign herself once more.

She started running through the night to other villages and towns, trying to gather answers as a human. Anything to help her stretch out the time she had with Gil. He started noticing, too, asking and worrying about her. But she told him that she must have been coming down with something.

He'd presented her with a thick lined coat not two days later.

How she loved him. She loved him when she was helping him walk through the grounds, admiring the sun like she never did when she was alone. She loved him when she'd curled up in the library, trembling as a storm shook the whole castle at a deafening volume for her ears, only to find herself being wrapped in his arms. She loved him when he sat up with her through the whole night until the winds quieted and she'd fallen asleep on his shoulder. She loved him more than she feared letting him go down to the village for supplies.

"I'll be right back," he promised with a smile over his shoulder.

She'd felt a tight squeeze in her gut, but waved him off with a smile of her own.

It was approaching nightfall. She'd paced around the front gate all day, too anxious for his return to do anything else. She'd trusted him--she had, she did. But the longer he was gone, the longer she wondered how long he had been waiting to escape her.

Her: the cursed beast in the mountains.

"Thena!"

Her ears pricked up, hearing him even at the distance he was from her. She took off in his direction, focused on the distress in his voice. She could smell other people with him, too. Had they followed him? Was he leading a group of hunters right to her?

He sounded so worried.

Thena pressed on, twisting herself in the air to run on four legs instead of two. Her svelte white fur caught on the trees as she charged forward.

A gunshot split the air, shaking the snow from the trees. Thena yowled as it grazed her side, but she didn't come to a halt until she slid in the snow, Gil on the ground between her front legs. She growled at the hunters staring them down, baring her teeth in all their glory.

"What the hell is that thing?!"

Gil scrambled to his feet, gripping a handful of her fur as he stood. "Thena?"

She didn't look away from their attackers. She couldn't afford to.

"Gil, get away from it!"

"No!" he turned to them, spreading his arms and holding his hands out. He wasn't nearly tall enough to block her from their aim, but the intention was clear. "Leave her alone!"

"What kinda hold has she got on you?!"

Thena snapped her teeth at them, but Gil did just as much to hold her back as he did to keep the others at bay.

"Back off!" Gil repeated, his voice rough as he shouted. "She won't hurt you!"

"The fuck she won't!"

"Not if you leave!" Gil countered, pointing back down the mountain. "Leave and don't come back."

"Gil-"

"You wanna live?!" he bellowed at them. "Then run!"

One took aim rather than listen. Gil tugged on Thena's ear, dragging her down to the ground. But crouched down, he could stand some chance of protecting her. "Move, Gil!"

"No," he stood steady, one hand between Thena's eyes and the other held out to the hunters. "And if you shoot me, I can promise that you'll only live long enough to suffer."

Thena snarled at them again.

Rifles lowered with disgusted sighs. Looks were traded. "Fuckin' succubus got him. There's no reasoning with him now."

Gil kept his eyes on them until they were out of sight again for a few minutes. He was still coming down from his adrenaline when he turned to her, still with her head in the snow. He knelt down, patting between her ears. "It's really you, huh?"

Thena flattened her ears back and whined at him.

"Hey, it's okay," he chuckled, still running his fingers through her pristine white fur. "I guess this would be kind of hard to bring up over dinner."

Thena looked up at him, staring at him through different eyes but seeing him the same as she did as a woman. This was the man she loved.

"Come on," he smiled at her, leaning down to kiss the freezing cold tip of her nose. "Let's go home."

Thena's vision turned to white, and then...nothing.

She awoke in Gil's bed. He had made the room into a liveable space--almost pleasant, despite the castle crumbling around them. She turned to look at him, seeing him sitting beside her, sewing something. "Gil?"

"Hey," he grinned, beaming at her with all that warmth he always had. She loved him so much. "You okay?"

"What happened?" she frowned, recalling the feeling of his fingers in her fur. Her tail had wagged and swished in the snow.

"It's, uh, hard to explain," he glanced away, his cheeks turning a charming pink. "But, one second you were a giant snow fox. Then I, uh, gave you a little kiss..."

He was so shy about it. How could she not be in love with him?

"And next thing I knew," he leaned closer, picking up her - very human - hand in his. "You were human again."

Thena looked down at her hand in his. She couldn't feel the pull that she had been feeling for the last months, or even since before finding him. She couldn't feel that tenuous connection to her other form running under her skin. She ran her tongue along the inside of her mouth, no longer finding sharp teeth. Her fingernails were short and rounded. She no longer felt like she could wag a tail if she had one. Because she didn't.

Gil brought her hand up to his lips. He felt warm, and she felt colder than normal. Were all humans this susceptible to the cold? "I don't know what that was. And I don't care, so long as you're okay."

Thena smiled at him, her head heavy on the pillow. It smelled like him, but humans couldn't smell much either. This would be an adjustment. "I'll explain everything."

"Later," he nodded, pulling the covers up higher over her. "You must be tired."

She felt exhausted. "What about you?"

"I'll be here," he promised, picking up his sewing again. Thena rolled over onto her side so she could look at him, even as her eyes drooped more and more.

"Gil?"

"Yeah?" he whispered, looking down at her.

"Will you get my blanket from the basement?" she asked with her eyes closed, already half asleep.

He stood, leaning over to kiss her cheek, "I'll be right back."

#Thenamesh AU #I loved this prompt so much #I love that Thena is this creature #I thought it would be too easy to make her a wolf #solitary nature and all that #and wolves are pack animals anyway #but a fox #Gil wanders into the woods #wakes up to a beautiful woman living in the dilapidated ruins #and goes #yeah that's fine #he starts to notice that her cloak is all ragged on the bottom #probably from being worn everywhere #so he looks at the velvet curtains #twelve feet tall in the massive windows #and goes yes #I will sew away my worries #it's his love language #so he makes her the cloak #and the blanket #and he notices her dress is torn up at the bottom just like the cloak #as if she's always walking through the trees with it #so he starts making this dress #and it starts out simple #but he keeps adding strips of lace he finds and little flowers and buttons #because he keeps looking at it #and looking at her #and thinking #it's not pretty enough for her #Thenamesh Beauty/Beast AU

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