ⓜⒶŁＬⓔΔᗷˡ𝔼 M𝕖𝐭ⓐ𝕃ş (Golden Guard x reader)

Oneshot: The Wild Woodlands

 Just a weird little post-Hollow Mind oneshot I typed up the week after it aired and then proceeded to forget about

*******

The funny thing about living in the woods is that nobody owns you, and you don't own anything.

It sounds strange, I know, but if you've been out there- with the wind in your ears, the vines 'round your wrists, and your tired feet never quite tired enough to stop walking- you know what I mean. You know of the moss, of the trees, of the bones of those who came before us and the stories they'll never tell, and the bones of the Titan beneath them. You know which berries will kill you and which will save you, you know which risks are worth taking and which paths had best be left untouched.

Nobody owns you, for you've reached the fabled 'waters and wild'. And because of that, you don't own anything either. You don't need to. You're left with no debts to pay, no apologies to make.

To say the least, I had a very different life story than the boy I had found in the woods last night.

Allow me to rewind a bit. I live in the forest just outside Bonesborough with my father and a handful of cats. But it wasn't always that way.

Once upon a time, my father taught bard magic at Hexside School of Magic and Demonics, and we lived with my mother and my little siblings in this house in the woods. I used to complain about the noise- my Pa played music well into the wee hours of night, and my siblings' favorite pastime was screaming. My mum would joke that we were a family straight out of a comedy, and I'd begrudgingly admit that she was correct. I never got any peace except for when I was deep in the forest, on a trail to nowhere. The trees listened. The trees understood. And it wasn't just the trees- it was the mushrooms, the dirt, the bones of the Titan...

I grew accustomed to enjoying the sound of silence, so perhaps I didn't notice anything wrong when my home grew quiet.

My mum grew ill when I was thirteen. She had always been, though you wouldn't know by looking at her- a strong, tall, burly woman of the Potions Coven, not even she noticed the disease. And when she did, she was lucky. She was moved to the Bonesborough infirmary, where she had been for years now, waiting to be fully cured. We don't see her much anymore.

And then father began to work on something else. He didn't say much about it- he is a jovial man, laid-back and yet theatrical, so I assumed it was insignificant.

But then he quit his job at Hexside.

And set down his horn.

And began to teach me healing magic.

*******

And thus leads me to the aforementioned boy in the woods. I was drawn out of the house to begin with by the sound of hyperventilating and chaotic running. At this hour, I was usually the only one awake, fully dressed and ready. Not for school, but for stargazing and watching the dawn....but anyways.

I curiously headed the direction the noise came from, only to hear the sound of a crash. It was followed by a strangled sob.

There was someone out there, someone in trouble.

I certainly knew the feeling.

I ran through the woods. The world was too dark, too blurry, too- too much. There was too much, and it wouldn't let me be! My feet stung, my lungs stug, everything hurt, I should've worn shoes, why didn't I wear shoes-

No, (Y/N), breathe. One, two, three, four, five, in and out. It'll be fine, we'll be fine.

The adrenaline slowed, and the world spun around me. The stars...the stars were there, so it would be fine...