#maybe the something unexpected is the fact that i actually updated this story hah! i'm not funny it's fine

[miniscule-meow]

Something Unexpected (24)

Masterpost Wordcount: ~2.7k Warnings: Mentions of non-con touch? First Part | Last Part| Next Part (Soon)

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Tucked inside Deckard’s pocket, Lark is sheltered from the majority of the action happening at the docks. There are more humans here than she’s ever experienced before, and she can tell that just based on the sound alone. Even compared to the lavish ball in the castle, where everybody who was anybody was in attendance. Even compared to the lively hall of the tavern, where anybody who was nobody gathered that very same night. Overwhelming would be an understatement. Just beyond one wall of fabric, the whole world.

That’s the sort of thing that makes a person feel awfully small.

There’s a whole wide world out there, more people than you can fathom, more places than you could dream up, and then there’s you. Huddled in the bottom of some bastard’s pocket, like a handful of spare change.  

The wide world outside her little pity-party is bustling. People are shouting, calling out to one another across the docks, living their lives to the fullest. As Deckard’s confident footfalls carry him forward, she’s able to hear snippets of passing conversations. Two ladies complimenting one another on their fashionable choice of hat. An awkward first date that might not be going so well, they pass by before she can really tell. A patron haggling with a seller over the price of the catch of the day, claiming that, by the smell of it, it might have been the catch of last week.

Despite herself, a smile blooms across her lips. Just judging by these bits and pieces of conversation, one might think that humans and fairies aren’t all that different after all. Ladies gossip about the latest trends. Young love takes its first, albeit shaky steps. Thrifty, or perhaps, frugal shoppers try to get the best deals. Such conversations she’s hearing now could easily be heard while walking through the markets back home.

Home.

The thought brings a sharp twinge of sadness to her. It reduces any mirth she finds here into something more bittersweet. She hasn’t felt a wave of wanting home this strongly in some time now. Or maybe it’s just that the constant want became overly familiar to her. The pain simply bled into the background, varnishing every situation that she’s found herself in since she left with a thin layer of homesickness. Like a fabric that’s off-white, but so close that you can’t truly discern the difference, until a closer match is placed by its side, she’s been feeling off, but couldn’t put her finger on it until this moment. That’s how she’s felt then, tea-stained. Steeped in misery.

Ugh, she’s waxing poetically again.

Flowery metaphor aside, she feels a fresh spike of loss thinking of home once more. It’s such an unfortunate thing, to be homesick for a place you can never return to.

Even if she could return, it would never be the same. She wouldn’t have the child-like innocence, or perhaps the better word would be naivety, that she possessed before. Never again would she be able to fly through the forest and race up to be the first to reach the highest branch. Even something as mundane as sharing laughter with her friends, that’s gone. All she’s left with are the people who’ve sent her to the wolves- no, it’s worse – they’ve sent her to the humans.  Her entire kingdom has turned their backs on her. But ask any one of them, they’ll probably tell you that she turned her back on the entire kingdom. Upon her return, the court would simply send her right back to the humans. She has a duty to fulfil after all. That’s the best-case scenario. The worst-case scenario would be… probably execution, if she had to guess. She has to be wanted for at least two different counts of treason at this point. Abandoning her people, toppling the treaty they’ve worked so hard for generations to establish, making an utter fool of herself, and of her kingdom. Her list of failures is starting to become more impressive than her list of accolades.

No, Ilek, the Fae Kingdom, that’s not her home anymore. It never will be her home again. She's grown to accept that.

And yet, she still aches.

The word home has almost lost meaning to her now. It’s supposed to be a respite. A place of warmth. Somewhere where you are surrounded by people who love you, and who care about you. Home is where the heart is, that’s what they say isn’t it? So, where then is her heart?

She doesn’t know.

She supposes her heart is… well, just right there in her chest. So, for now, home will have to be what she makes of it. That would be the optimistic approach anyway. Though it makes her wonder, is optimism supposed to leave this hollow sting in your chest like that?

She shouldn’t get all introspective like this. It never leads to anything good anyway. But when you’re stuck in a blasted pocket, it will give you plenty of time to think, and to think, and to overthink. And with that, there might come a little bit of introspection.

Lark sighs, and even stifled in the pocket, she can catch a hint of salt on the air. They must be getting close to the ocean. She shifts, desperately wishing she could see it for herself. There will be plenty of time for her to experience the ocean when they’re on a boat in the middle of it. She’s never seen the ocean before, and she’s never been on a boat before, but she imagines she’s about to be well acquainted with both of those things very soon now. When she asked Deckard about it, he talked about the salt in the air, and how the water reaches out to touch the sky, and how being on a boat can be one of the most terrifying and one of the most freeing feelings you could ever experience, all at the same time. Maybe for someone who can’t fly it is, but for her, the thought of being caught out in the middle of that much water just makes her grimace.

A gentle pressure forms around her from the outside of the pocket, pulling her in and making the cramped space even tighter. Her repositioning must have reminded Deckard that she’s there, causing him to place a hand over her.

“Almost there,” he murmurs. Likely due to her position in the inside pocket of his coat, his gentle voice cuts through the noise of the docks and vibrates straight through her. This feels weirdly intimate to her, practically snuggled against his chest. She knows that to him, it's nothing. The difference between placing a hand over her, and searching idly for his pocket watch would be virtually indistinguishable. There is no warmth in this gesture to him. She’s just another article littering his pockets. It’s dizzying to think that something could be so substantial to her, and be nothing more than a passing thought to him.

That’s the sort of thing that makes a person feel awfully small. Wait, she’s thought that before.

Well, maybe it’s just that when you are ‘awfully small’ it doesn’t take a lot for you to feel like it.

Deckard’s hand falls away, returning her containment from claustrophobic territory, back down into merely stifling.

“Oi, there he is then! Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes!” A deep voice calls out.

“More like a sore in the eye, I’d say,” a woman’s voice laughs in return.

Lark’s about to go back to playing her game, imagining the lives of these strangers from the one sentence she hears from them in passing, when the rhythm of Deckard’s steady footfalls comes to a halt.

“Hey! Behave. Don’t you know you’re in the presence of a genuine member of the royal court here?” the first voice responds, barely containing his own amusement.

“Hm, I don’t know if court jester really counts as being a member of the court,” The two of them dissolve fully, and Deckard joins in, his chest rumbling with laughter. Lark finds herself tossed around and squished against the solid wall of Deckard’s chest as the three humans hug greetings to one another.

This simply punctuates the fact that though she is inside his pocket, she exists entirely outside this conversation.  Whoever these two are, they seem awfully happy to see Deckard.

“So, what brings you crawling back to us?” the deep voice asks teasingly. “Did the royals finally get tired of you and throw you out?”

“How much did you bet on that? I'm not answering unless i get a cut,” Deckard retorts with another laugh. “Really though, it’s the sort of story I’d like to tell after settling in, and getting a stiff drink.”

“Understood. Well, come on then,” the feminine voice chimes, and with that the three of them are off. Well, the three of them plus one stow-away fairy.

---

The steady sway of motion doesn’t cease once they leave the dock. At first, she thought it was just Deckard, but come to find out, this is just what being on a boat is like. An endless pushing and pulling, movement beyond your control. It’s interesting. She thought that there was no way a human could experience anything remotely similar to the loss of control that comes with being held in a pair of hands, but it seems as though this could be close. Close. It’s not like the ocean has a mind of its own, or dexterous fingers that could pinch and prod and manipulate and ravish you. Though, when on a boat you are subjected to the whims of the currents nonetheless.

It seems as though humans have a sense of awe for this sort of thing. Perhaps, it’s their hubris. They think there is some possibility of them feasibly taming the beast, the ocean. They think they could harness its power and wield it as their own. To that, she says, humans are thick, foolhardy creatures. She’s never seen it, but she can already tell, a human has as much of a chance at taming the ocean as she does at taming a human. It’s a truly laughable thought. And yet, humans seem to rejoice and to fear it altogether. Maybe they have a respect for its power. Maybe they find a way to work together. Maybe they set out into the middle of an uncaring void of wind and waves, and their little ships are crushed to bits, and dragged to the bottom of the ocean, and they’re never heard from again. Then, other humans see that and think, wow I can’t wait for my turn to try that. It’ll be different for me.

No, she does not think she likes the ocean. Not one bit.

She just wishes she could have reached that conclusion before being smuggled onto a ship.

“Alright so,” Deckard hesitates. “Well, you probably won’t believe me unless I just show you so… We’ll start here I guess.”

Her world shifts as he pulls at his coat, his fingers dip into the pocket, pulling it open enough for her to clamber up and fly out. Except she stays put. As much as she would relish in being out of this sweaty prison and into some fresh air… there are humans on the outside of this pocket. Her trust or mistrust of Deckard aside, being kept close to his heart is a good way to ensure her protection. One thing she can be certain of is that he’ll do what he can to save his own skin. Pulling her out in the open is another story entirely. If things went south, would he really do anything to help her?

At her hesitation, Deckard looks down, peering into the pocket. She looks up at him with wide eyes, seeing only a sliver of his face. A whisp of dark hair, a portion of a green eye, a furrowed brow.

“Come on,” he mumbles to her, before looking back at his friends, “Sorry, hold on.” The silence from across the table is palpable. She imagines what this must look like to someone on the outside. The picture of Deckard muttering into his pocket, he must look rather strange. “You’re fine, come on,” he says quietly, talking to her again. She shakes her head fervently. She can’t see much of him, but she would swear that he just rolled his eyes.

“Deck, did you hit your head on something recently?” The woman’s voice questions skeptically.

“No,” he huffs, “She’s being,” he starts to explain to his friends before turning the statement down to her, “You’re being dramatic.” After a pause, once it becomes apparent that she has no intention of leaving this pocket of her own accord, Deckard heaves a sigh and plunges his hand in after her. She sinks down, pressing herself against the bottom seam of the pocket as quickly as she can. She wishes desperately that she would have thought of ripping a hole in the bottom, something that would have given her a backup plan for escape. Instead, she’s quickly left with nowhere to go. His gargantuan fingertips brush against her, and once they found their quarry, she’s scooped up into their grasp. His fingers fumble around her, situating their grip on her, and she’s pulled from the safety of Deckard’s pocket, and placed out in the center of the table.

The ale in their mugs vibrate, indicating the motion of the ship. Lark keeps her wings tucked tight against her back, turning in a slow circle to observe these humans as much as they are observing her. Three human faces stare down at her. The girl, with a round freckled face and sandy blonde hair tossed up in a messy bun looks slack jawed. A man, with a deep skin tone and broad shoulders sits with his arms crossed against the table, he regards her with a look that’s some kind of mix of curiosity and apprehension. Then there’s Deckard, the smug bastard, showing off his little trinket to his friends. She doesn’t dare make eye contact with him.

Her hands grasp the fabric of her skirt, she doesn’t care if Deckard knows this as one of her ‘tells,’ she needs something to keep her grounded right now, or she might just combust. The mugs of ale, the idle chatter around the room, the humans looming above her. It was only yesterday she was somewhere nearly identical to where she stands now, and it was a nightmare. It was worse than a nightmare. Even in her dreams she hadn’t considered the vile depths of a human’s cruelty.

She can still feel the ghosts of their touch. Her body, pinched between calloused fingers, arms pinioned, limbs manipulated. Her skirts torn so they could ‘get a better look,’ If it wasn’t for Deckard stepping in, she could have been entirely disrobed in a matter of minutes. That is, if she didn’t drown in the pint of ale she was plunged into first.

Her heart hammers in her chest. Looking up at these humans, the line between memory and her current reality is blurred just enough for doubt and panic to jump electrically through her.

Deckard wouldn’t let something like that happen to her again, right?

He said he would keep her safe, didn’t he?

“Oh shit,” the blonde finally breathes, “you caught a pixie?”

A pixie?

“Excuse me?” Lark’s attention snaps to the woman, with that one word, her fear is discarded and replaced with a hot flash of anger. Her wings flare before she can think, and in a second, she’s hovering right in front of her face. The woman jerks back, surprise gracing her features. “I am not a pixie. I am obviously a fairy.” Larks feels her face growing warm. “Either you are horribly misinformed, or you are intentionally trying to slight me, and I simply will not stand for that.”

“Sorry. I- I didn’t think there was a difference?” the woman stammers, questioningly. Her eyes dart between Lark’s form and Deckard behind her.  

“You—” she gives the woman an incredulous look, “Of course there’s a difference!”

“Oh. Didn’t know,” she raises her hands in surrender, “I Didn’t know,” she repeats.

“Alright. Let’s rein it in,” Deckard says, “At least let’s get some introductions behind us before we start trying to stab anyone’s eyes out.”