Prumanoweek2019 - Tumblr Posts
Late submission for @prumano-week‘s prompt sci-fi that ended up as a star trek au.
The young woman looked out of the window at the white haired devil, who had once again chosen to walk past the house owned by her family. Chiara could normally be found near the window at the time he walked down the street and then again when he was known to walk past the Vargas home back to wherever he had came from around the usual time. It seemed to keep to a strict time table.
Due to this fact, Chiara had known well in advance that this particular demon was coming their way soon and she had hurried to find her younger siblings in order to get them into the relative safety of their house, where she would have closed all the windows and doors that could grant access to the building.
What she couldn’t have known was that on this day, she could have only hoped to get them all home as she always did. For all her efforts, the she had not been able to find the last one of her siblings. Her younger sister Feliciana. She needed to find her. Who knew if Grandfather would ever be able to forgive his eldest grandchild for losing track of his most favoured and most loved granddaughter.
Trying to find Feliciana, neighbours had seen the older sister running through the street calling for Feli and some had eventually taken hold of her and pulled her into one of their homes. Hiding inside while the young man with hair as white as that of an old man walked passed. Hair like that had to be a mark of the devil.
Once the immediate threat was gone, the oldest of the siblings went back to her home and pulled her younger brothers from the spot she has hidden them. After giving them some food, she had pushed them back in. Telling the boys a few scary stories teaching them to stay together and to make sure they stayed inside the hidden space of the basement until she came back for them. They had soon fallen asleep.
---
Knowing that her little brothers where safe and that they would remain safe, the brunette began searching for her little sister again. After a while she came across an old neighbour, who told her that he had seen Feliciana at the market.
Thanking the former neighbor for his help, the oldest sibling began to make her way to that market as fast as she could.
There Chiara found her baby sister. She was speaking to and smiling at the man her big sister had come to fear. Frozen upon the sight of her darling sister so close to evil, Feliciana had seen her and waved at her.
At the same time she spoke to the devil beside her. Whatever she had said made him laugh. Laugh so much that the man was still doubled over as he tried to wave at her too. As he moved into an upright position the young woman’s heart skipped a beat.
What she witnessed next could not be of human nature. While the man moved and made eye contact with her at the same time, she was certain she saw his eyes turn a deep, bloody red. It might have been a moment or a trick of the light but she was certain that she had seen red eyes. Inhuman eyes.
Feli kept waving at her, so with knees that nearly buckled under her weight, she somehow managed to make her way over to her sister and that man so feared by anyone but Feliciana. Once she reached them, she quickly pulled her Feliciana behind her. Telling this demon to stay away from her little sister. Her poor, naïve little sister. What would the townspeople say when word spread of this meeting with someone so clearly marked by evil.
The stranger looked sad for a fleeting moment before his expression turned blank. Feliciana was quick to turn on her sister and tell her Gilbert was no demon, devil or any threat to her honour and swore to her sister he had done nothing to her in any way.
---
Feliciana then began telling Chiara the story about how see got to know Gilbert. One day she had gone to the market and met a stranger there. After running into each other, which had caused Feli to dropped some things she had bought. The man had tried to apologize and help her gather her belongings, but had been rather awkward about it and they kept bumping into one another trying to collect the items.
This had ended up making Feliciana laugh and the man shyly introduced himself as Ludwig. He was passing through on his way home, which was in the neighbouring town, when suddenly his name was called.
Feli hadn’t noticed how many of the villagers had started whispering or even tried to hide away, but when she looked up she had tried to run away as well. Only Ludwig had grabbed her wrist and told her not to be afraid. As the white haired man approached slowly, Ludwig told her they were used to people reacting this way, but that his older brother was certainly not cursed. Even if many of the people in their hometown believed him to be marked. One of the reasons they bought many of their supplies and often worked in towns other than the one they lived in.
It turned out that Ludwig had come to visit her again after that first meeting and Gilbert had been acting as a chaperon for her younger sister and his little brother. Which is how the town had ended up getting a lot more visits of the white haired man. It had been Gilbert who told them that meeting at the same time and in the same place would be the easiest for Feliciana and it had been. For a while.
People in town, like Chiara, had taken notice of Gilbert’s appearance and which times he would walk through their streets. That had kept the two from being together for the last few times they had tried to meet up. Feliciana had grown tired of not being able to talk to Ludwig and had avoided her sister on purpose.
Only Ludwig had been sick this time and, though well taken care of, been unable to travel that far. So Gilbert and Feliciana had ended up in the position in which Chiara had found them.
---
It was when her little sister began telling her more stories about Ludwig. The kind of stories that, if she had gotten a good impression of his personality, Chiara figured the younger man would have been embarrassed by.
It felt like her sister continued talking about the boy for many hours. In reality it had been half an hour at most, but the brother had managed to make his way into their conversation and save this, to chiara unknown man, sibling of his by asking for stories about a little Feli.
Chiara couldn’t resist telling him some stories about her baby sister, that had the other girl flustered and begging her sister to stop. Gilbert promised the older to tell the stories to ‘Lutz’ when his fever had passed and he would surely be able to remember them. This ‘devil’ was charming. Despite his nature to show off, Chiara could see the charming, kind, generous and welcoming side of him that existed beside the organized, nearly militaristic man.
She wasn’t ready to admit it to anyone,, but she loved how this man could have that many sides to him.
---
She put all the bad omens together.
Pale blond hair.
Which seemed white from a distance.
Brown eyes.
Seemingly red in when the light hit them in the right, or wrong, angle.
He was intelligent and schooled, he could read and write.
He wrote with his left hand.
One time he rolled up his sleeved higher than usual.
She had not meant to notice the dark brown spot above his elbow. A birthmark.
---
Feliciana had not been present the first time Chiara met Ludwig. The blond man was tall, strong and far too serious for her sister. He was also acting as a chaperon for Chiara and his brother.
---
A demon.
Except he was not.
Just a man.
Simply a man, but one that loved her for who she was.
---
She was not going to give him up. No matter what any of the town people said about him or her. Or them.
After talking to her siblings, it became clear it didn’t even matter what anyone said about any of them. They were one family. They, Feliciana and Ludwig. Then Chiara and Gilbert had the blessing of both families.
---
And that is the story of how Chiara met Gilbert.
They didn’t live happily ever after, they went through live with all of its up and downs.
However, they did live happily.
Until.
The End.
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really late submission for @prumano-week‘s day 7 Medieval Fantasy AU // Omens