Archive of Our Own ^beta

Mine, the darkness, the shiny things, yes, yes, they are.  Special, the shiny things, in piles and in pieces.  Shiny things make the smell go away, yes they do.  Sometimes they are sharp and they cuts, and the red tastes like a memory.  Ruck hates memories, yes I does.  They makes Ruck feel bad.

Under the ground I am, dark like night all the time.  Hides from those dark ones, yes I does, those monsters that tickle Ruck’s blood and make it sing like mother used to sing, but Ruck hates memories I does.

I looks for more plunder in the dark.  Crawlers not shiny, crawlers full of smell and goo.  Ruck hates crawlers, hates their claws on the dry stone floors.  Click, click!  They smell like rotten, and when they die they smell like what comes out of Ruck after stomach ache. 

Yes, more shinies!  Gather it to Ruck’s chest I does, pretty silver, pretty shiny.  Mine it is.  My claim!    Not theirs.  Not these people who come to Ruck’s house in the stone.  I drove out the crawlers, not them.  I say to them to go away but they do not.  Branka, they say.  I remember that name, Ruck does.  They say Branka lived here.  I do not smell Branka, not any more.   Not for one night or maybe fifty, five hundred.  Ruck does not know.  My plunder now.  Mine.

Not here to steal, they say, so Ruck wonders why they are here in the dark, I do. 

Pretty lady, she is, pretty eyes, pretty hair.  Ruck wants to touch the pretty lady’s hair, I does.  Almost like shiny.  Pretty lady smells like fresh, like steam on stone.  Smells like home.

Ruck remembers.  I wants to tear out my eyes so I cannot see home any more.  Pretty lady knows, she does.  She talks to Ruck about mother.  Ruck knows mother.  Heart hurts, it does, all twisted inside like what Ruck is become.  I have water come from my eyes, I do.   Ruck remembers warm and the feeling of arms, the smell of bread and raisins.

Pretty lady wants to tell mother what Ruck is, no, no, no.  Mother must never know.  Mother still thinks Ruck is bright eyed boy, strong and handsome he is.  I knows I did such a bad thing, Ruck did, a bad thing which would make mother want to die, die like Tarris did oh yes.  The boy is dead, he is, and Ruck is dead.  Mother must not know that I ate the flesh, no, how it burned.  I tell the pretty lady no, no, no.

Pretty lady is kind, she is.  One like Ruck, she is, darkness in her but not ugly like Ruck, no she isn’t.  Filda mother will know I died bravely, she will, and I will always be Ruck with the bright eyes and the hammer, like my dad I am to her.  I let pretty lady take some shinies and she gives Ruck some coin she does, all bright and gold like her hair.  Ruck wants to touch her hair.

When pretty lady is gone, Ruck thinks about her for a long time, I does.