Tangled In Strings

Chapter 19: Binding Spell

It started with a ring.

Well—technically, it started with Snatcher yelling, “THIS ISN’T A CURSE, I SWEAR!” while chasing a sentient velvet box around his treehouse.

Hat Kid watched from a bookshelf, eating a cookie.

“You’re really gonna do it?” she asked. “Like…marriage-marriage?”

“Do not say it like that!” Snatcher snapped. “This is a very serious, ancient binding ritual that just so happens to involve jewelry and maybe crying.”

The ring inside the box glowed softly—silver, lined with broken moonstone and threads of spectral energy.

“It’s perfect,” Snatcher muttered. “Now if only I weren’t emotionally defective.”

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✦ The Setup ✦

Snatcher planned the whole thing down to the second:

Moonlight? Check.

Forest whispering with cursed romantic ambiance? Check.

A thousand floating contract-scrolls shaped like hearts? Also check.

Backup speech written in glitter ink on his palm? You know it.

He’d even set the scene near the half-repaired moon—just poetic enough to make Moonjumper weak in the metaphorical knees.

Now he just had to show up without combusting from nerves.

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✦ Moonjumper Arrives ✦

Moonjumper stepped into the clearing, head tilted.

“You’ve decorated.”

“I’ve transcended,” Snatcher declared, voice cracking slightly. “Also I may have set a few contracts on fire, but it’s fine. It’s aesthetic.”

Moonjumper blinked at the ring-shaped formation of mushrooms and the floating scrolls bobbing in the air like balloons.

“Is this a battle? A ritual? Or—”

“A proposal, okay?!” Snatcher shouted, throwing his hands up. “You made me feel things! And now I want to be—like—stuck with you forever, but in a sexy, ghostly, non-creepy binding way!”

Moonjumper just stared.

Snatcher conjured the velvet box, opened it, and levitated the glowing ring between them.

“Look—I don’t do traditional. But I do you. And I wanna keep doing that forever.”

“…That came out wrong.”

“Let me try again.”

He floated closer, voice soft now.

“Marry me, Moonjumper. Bind your weird glowing soul to mine. Be mine. Officially. For eternity. Or until we explode in magical fire.”

Moonjumper stared at him for a long second.

Then he burst out laughing.

“You absolute disaster of a ghost.”

“Is that a yes?!”

Moonjumper stepped forward, cradled Snatcher’s face in his hands, and kissed him with so much force they both floated two feet off the ground.

“Yes,” he whispered against his lips. “Gods, yes.”

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✦ The Ring ✦

The engagement ring slipped onto Moonjumper’s finger with a magical hum, glowing brighter as it settled.

Spectral threads burst into the air like fireworks—spiraling around them, sealing the promise with wild, tangled love.

“You’re mine now,” Snatcher said, dazed. “You said yes. That’s binding.”

“You’re lucky I like cursed men.”

“That’s mister cursed fiancé, to you.”

---

✦ Hat Kid, Uninvited but Present ✦

Hat Kid peeked from the trees.

“Do I get to be flower girl or ring gremlin?”

“We’re eloping,” Moonjumper said without missing a beat.

“You’d have to catch me first!” she laughed, running off into the woods.

Snatcher blinked. “Is it weird that I kinda want her to officiate?”

“A little. But it fits.”

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✦ End Scene ✦

The clearing quieted again.

The moon glowed.

Two ghosts—bound by threads of love, pain, and way too much sarcasm—stood hand in hand.

No curses this time.

Just a promise.

And a future.

Together.