[Puck/Meghan Chase] - [Iron Fey] - [The Rogue's Rival]
Title: The Rogue's Rival
Fandom: Iron Fey
Character/Pairing: Puck/Meghan Chase
Prompt List: Wanderlust
Prompt: Neo-Tokyo
Rating: PG13
Word Count: 2381
Author's Notes: A little different from usual, but alright.
Summary: Puck meets his rival for princess escort.
"Well, this is a little colder than I'm used to, but I guess it could be nice if you enjoyed frostbitten toes and unsightly gangrene." Puck sniffed, pushing open the doors to Tir Na Nog. "Shall we begin this adventure, princess?"
But before Meghan could answer, another voice cut in.
"I don't think that you'll get very far."
Standing before them, his black hair tousled by the chill winter wind whipping in through the doorway, was a figure clad in silvery white armor with a sword that shown like ice stretched out before him. He was a dark mark on the pristine landscape, his eyes boring into their group like a spear.
"Ash." Puck said, like he tasted a rotten fruit. His hands found Meghan's shoulders and ushered her behind him. "You have this great habit of showing up exactly when no one wants you around."
The prince shrugged, nodding. "It tends to come in handy. Shall we, then?"
Puck snorted derisively, his smile becoming more dangerous. Meghan could feel the muscles in his back tense as he reached to his boot and pulled forth a dagger whose blade was clear as glass with designs swirled into it. Through it, she could see the barren, snow-covered landscape, unmarred by passage of man or beast.
But not for much longer.
"Puck," she whispered, her head close to his ear, "you don't have to do this. Ash is-"
"Not the kind of guy you want to get too close to, princess." Puck whispered back. "Trust me, we've met."
She bit her lip. There had been something between them, she was sure of it. They hadn't danced together at Elysium, hadn't felt that connection, strange and treacherous though it had been, for nothing. She refused to believe that it really was as simple as everyone was making it out to be, winter versus summer, locked in a constant battle. Puck was always simplifying things, forgetting to tell her important details...
But as she watched them circle each other, Meghan realized that this altercation went a lot deeper than a feud between courts.
"Everyone has some personal baggage." Grimalkin groomed his tail as Puck and Ash took up sparring positions. "These two more than most, but it's not to be helped."
"You always were pretty dumb." Puck grinned manically. "But if it's a fight you want, then I am more than happy to oblige."
He stretched his shoulders, trying to loosen the muscle. It hadn't been all that long since his fight with Shard, and while redcaps were normally easy fare, he'd also been employing a significant amount of concentration in order to evade getting stomped by a troll, not to mention having to fly a while after a long term stay as a raven on Oberon's chair. Ash was an obstacle that generally required all the tricks he had up his sleeve, and that was what had always made their sparring interesting in the past.
These days, though, it just seemed to prolong the inevitable, that, one way or another, one of them was going to die.
"Kiss for luck, princess?" Puck looked at Meghan hopefully.
Hey, a faery could dream. It wasn't like he was going to get all that many opportunities with a cait sith watching over their every move to the ice fortress like a hawk. Puck knew Grimalkin too well to doubt that the cat would allow his query to go off anywhere interesting or do anything gossip-worthy without him. That was just one more reason why he'd been less than thrilled about Meghan bringing him along.
"After all, if I die," for once, he spoke his thoughts aloud, "when am I going to get another chance?" He winked at her winningly.
It was always this way. He always lied a little more, pretended and acted with a little more bravado when something like this was at stake, when he felt himself getting serious. A true trickster never showed his hand.
Still, Meghan frowned. "I don't want you to die."
"Sad to say, it's common fare in duels to the death." He stuck out his tongue. "That's why I need the luck."
She hugged him, and she realized that since their frenzied ride through the wyldwood when he was a horse, this was the first time that she'd hugged Puck as a human. His body seemed like something long lost, familiar that she hadn't expected to come back to, something calm, calling back the memories of the last time they were like this, when he'd saved her from the kelpie and then spent the night by her side.
He was always saving her, she realized, always doing this, standing between her and trouble and often getting himself into even more trouble on her account because of it.
She brushed her lips across his cheek. "It's like you're my knight in shining armor."
For a moment, she thought that she must have said something wrong, because Puck started, and then his smile turned strangely sad.
"Of all the things, princess, I can never be that." He grinned, all traces of sadness gone, replaced with fierce determination. "Faeries and iron don't mix well, remember? Let's just tackle one problem at a time, ice boy for instance."
And then the battle was joined.
Meghan could hardly follow the blur of sword and dagger as Puck and Ash parried and dodged. A crisp mountain breeze cut through the scene like a harbinger of endings, setting Meghan's teeth chattering but not slowing the combatants in the least. While she couldn't track all of their moves, she could see their strategies. Ash was tactical in close combat, drawing in his opponent with bombardments of icicles until he could lure Puck into a swordfight, where Meghan surmised, his true strength lay.
Puck, on the other hand, seemed to prefer keeping the battle as far away from him as possible. He fought defensively, either through hurling small balls of fur at Ash, which turned into animals and fought in his place, or through cunning manipulation tricks that saw several Puck doppelgangers all leering down at a surrounded Ash.
She thought that she could make some sense of it, their delirious dance, but then, just as Puck and Ash were drawing closer, beginning their steps in the hand to hand combat part that she knew would signal the fight's end, something swept underneath her like a wave.
"Puck, help!" Meghan cried out as the strange creatures, the same gremlins that had invaded the computer lab at her school and then sent her that haunting message in the kitchens of Arcadia swarmed her en masse, flowing out below her like a blanket of water, and then bearing her upwards like she were some sort of rock star being carried away by her legions of adoring fans.
Only this time, from her experiences in the Nevernever, she was pretty sure that her "fans" were less the autograph-and-picture variety and more the life-taking kind.
"Help me!" She tried to call out again, but this time, the gremlins rushed over her as they tumbled away, a wave of metal cutting across the clean, white hills, and she could speak or see no more.
-o-
"Well." Puck stuck his hands on his hips, his glass dagger still grasped in one fist. "This makes things a little awkward."
His nose was burning from the ozone-spiked vapor trail that the gremlins had left in their wake. Throw in the fact that the patch of land that they'd traveled over was blackened as though it had been razed by a small army, and you got one very nasty (and very lethal) enemy to chase after.
"Goodfellow." His opponent still had his sword at the ready, was ready and willing to continue where they had left off. But Puck just sighed, frowning at the dark path cut into the snow. "Will you run from accepting responsibility for Ariella's death yet again? How like you."
Puck dug his foot into the snow, solidifying his position. "Oh, believe me, pretty boy, we aren't done yet. But I have bigger fish to fry. Specifically, whatever the hell those things were that stole Meghan."
"If you two would stop posturing," Grimalkin said with sniff, "I believe their trail leads into a cave."
"Why do I have the feeling that I'm not going to like what comes next?" Puck muttered, rubbing his cold hands but keeping his dagger at the ready. They found the place easily enough, and no other creatures seemed willing to go around it, which made sense, considering the harsh smell of sulfur that cut through the air nearby.
Ash scouted the entrance, then gingerly poked his head in. The winter prince's eyes widened as he withdrew and Puck groaned, slapping a hand to his forehead.
"Great. Don't tell me, it's another dragon."
"It was a wyvern, you ass. Can't you even remember that?" Ash gave him a look of pure venom. "And no, it's not."
"Oh!" Puck's eyes were steely. "Well, should be no problem for a prince of Winter to kick it to the ass-end of Faery then, right?"
"It's a fire-breathing steel horse, actually."
Puck was silent. After a while, he sighed with a little laugh. "Damn. Well... damn."
-o-
Sometimes, he did dumb things.
"Dumb" was usually getting a little tipsy in the company of phoukas or hesitating a little too long before reporting back to Oberon. "Dumb" was even an excuse for what he was doing now, leading Meghan into enemy territory for the sake of her younger brother. But what he was doing right now, as he dodged between shots of fire and the clattering stamp of Ironhorse's hooves, that wasn't dumb.
It was abject stupidity, brainlessness boarding on suicide.
Ice boy had run out with Meghan when Puck had given them an opening. Her captor and then gremlins had roared with rage and their strange Iron glamour trickled along his skin and cut into him, but Puck had to hold them back, keep them from following until Ash gave the signal that they were clear.
Ironhorse's hooves burnt into the cave walls; all around the horse, the ice cave seemed to be collapsing as the winter magic unraveled in the maelstrom of fire and falling ice. Metallics cut into him; even as a raven, when he flew to evade his pursuers, he knew that he would not be able to last long, not if the spurts of fire kept coming at him like this. As Summer fey, he could evade fire like a second skin coiling on his nerves, but this was different.
This fire seethed like a curse, something that bit into him and wasn't willing to let go. Puck knew at once that this was a battle that he would be fighting on the defensive side.
He could not hope to turn the battle in his favor.
But hey, he gasped as another burst of smoke clogged the air and his horse opponent reared, at least he wouldn't have to put up with this long.
-o-
"Puck!" Meghan cried into the flames rounding out of the cave. There was no response, save Puck's taunts at Ironhouse and the Iron faery's growling whinnies of frustration. She struggled even as Ash held her, her lips cherry red in her ashen face.
"Come on." Ash implored, tugging at her arm, moving her further and further from the entrance to the cave. "You need to get away from here and fast."
"Puck's still in there!" She protested. "And if you think that I'm leaving my friend, you've got another thing coming-"
"Puck will die." Ash said very calmly. "Unless you are away from this place, far enough away, he will continue to protect the entrance. So, move away."
Meghan scowled at him, her face a mixture of confusion and distress. Her best friend was possibly being roasted alive for her sake and the boy that she (maybe) had a crush on since dancing with him at a faery ball was telling her that his death would be all her fault if she didn't move back fast enough. If Puck had been in her position, would he have retreated when she was in danger?
The answer to that seemed to be right in front of her.
"No!"
It burst from her like a bird, like an orchid sprout breaking through earth. She was almost surprised at herself; her hands found their way to her mouth as though they were attempting to cover it, but then a voice from behind her made her jump.
"Appreciated at last," a very weary Puck chuckled, voice warbly. "Well, princess, you've made my day."
And then he fell over into the snow, black feathers poofing out from him in a wispy cloud.
For a moment, Ash and Meghan just looked at each other. And then the prince of the Unseelie Court fell to one knee, clutching his stomach.
"Looks like it got me, too." He grunted, his icy eyes flecked with pain as he attempted to stand again and failed. "Gods."
"Oh dear." Grimalkin raised an eyebrow. "Are both of you out of commission so soon? I had expected better."
Meghan looked from one fallen boy to the other. "Um, Grim?"
"What?" The petulant feline shot her a miffed glance, as though she'd interrupted something important.
"How are we going to move them?"
Fandom: Iron Fey
Character/Pairing: Puck/Meghan Chase
Prompt List: Wanderlust
Prompt: Neo-Tokyo
Rating: PG13
Word Count: 2381
Author's Notes: A little different from usual, but alright.
Summary: Puck meets his rival for princess escort.
"Well, this is a little colder than I'm used to, but I guess it could be nice if you enjoyed frostbitten toes and unsightly gangrene." Puck sniffed, pushing open the doors to Tir Na Nog. "Shall we begin this adventure, princess?"
But before Meghan could answer, another voice cut in.
"I don't think that you'll get very far."
Standing before them, his black hair tousled by the chill winter wind whipping in through the doorway, was a figure clad in silvery white armor with a sword that shown like ice stretched out before him. He was a dark mark on the pristine landscape, his eyes boring into their group like a spear.
"Ash." Puck said, like he tasted a rotten fruit. His hands found Meghan's shoulders and ushered her behind him. "You have this great habit of showing up exactly when no one wants you around."
The prince shrugged, nodding. "It tends to come in handy. Shall we, then?"
Puck snorted derisively, his smile becoming more dangerous. Meghan could feel the muscles in his back tense as he reached to his boot and pulled forth a dagger whose blade was clear as glass with designs swirled into it. Through it, she could see the barren, snow-covered landscape, unmarred by passage of man or beast.
But not for much longer.
"Puck," she whispered, her head close to his ear, "you don't have to do this. Ash is-"
"Not the kind of guy you want to get too close to, princess." Puck whispered back. "Trust me, we've met."
She bit her lip. There had been something between them, she was sure of it. They hadn't danced together at Elysium, hadn't felt that connection, strange and treacherous though it had been, for nothing. She refused to believe that it really was as simple as everyone was making it out to be, winter versus summer, locked in a constant battle. Puck was always simplifying things, forgetting to tell her important details...
But as she watched them circle each other, Meghan realized that this altercation went a lot deeper than a feud between courts.
"Everyone has some personal baggage." Grimalkin groomed his tail as Puck and Ash took up sparring positions. "These two more than most, but it's not to be helped."
"You always were pretty dumb." Puck grinned manically. "But if it's a fight you want, then I am more than happy to oblige."
He stretched his shoulders, trying to loosen the muscle. It hadn't been all that long since his fight with Shard, and while redcaps were normally easy fare, he'd also been employing a significant amount of concentration in order to evade getting stomped by a troll, not to mention having to fly a while after a long term stay as a raven on Oberon's chair. Ash was an obstacle that generally required all the tricks he had up his sleeve, and that was what had always made their sparring interesting in the past.
These days, though, it just seemed to prolong the inevitable, that, one way or another, one of them was going to die.
"Kiss for luck, princess?" Puck looked at Meghan hopefully.
Hey, a faery could dream. It wasn't like he was going to get all that many opportunities with a cait sith watching over their every move to the ice fortress like a hawk. Puck knew Grimalkin too well to doubt that the cat would allow his query to go off anywhere interesting or do anything gossip-worthy without him. That was just one more reason why he'd been less than thrilled about Meghan bringing him along.
"After all, if I die," for once, he spoke his thoughts aloud, "when am I going to get another chance?" He winked at her winningly.
It was always this way. He always lied a little more, pretended and acted with a little more bravado when something like this was at stake, when he felt himself getting serious. A true trickster never showed his hand.
Still, Meghan frowned. "I don't want you to die."
"Sad to say, it's common fare in duels to the death." He stuck out his tongue. "That's why I need the luck."
She hugged him, and she realized that since their frenzied ride through the wyldwood when he was a horse, this was the first time that she'd hugged Puck as a human. His body seemed like something long lost, familiar that she hadn't expected to come back to, something calm, calling back the memories of the last time they were like this, when he'd saved her from the kelpie and then spent the night by her side.
He was always saving her, she realized, always doing this, standing between her and trouble and often getting himself into even more trouble on her account because of it.
She brushed her lips across his cheek. "It's like you're my knight in shining armor."
For a moment, she thought that she must have said something wrong, because Puck started, and then his smile turned strangely sad.
"Of all the things, princess, I can never be that." He grinned, all traces of sadness gone, replaced with fierce determination. "Faeries and iron don't mix well, remember? Let's just tackle one problem at a time, ice boy for instance."
And then the battle was joined.
Meghan could hardly follow the blur of sword and dagger as Puck and Ash parried and dodged. A crisp mountain breeze cut through the scene like a harbinger of endings, setting Meghan's teeth chattering but not slowing the combatants in the least. While she couldn't track all of their moves, she could see their strategies. Ash was tactical in close combat, drawing in his opponent with bombardments of icicles until he could lure Puck into a swordfight, where Meghan surmised, his true strength lay.
Puck, on the other hand, seemed to prefer keeping the battle as far away from him as possible. He fought defensively, either through hurling small balls of fur at Ash, which turned into animals and fought in his place, or through cunning manipulation tricks that saw several Puck doppelgangers all leering down at a surrounded Ash.
She thought that she could make some sense of it, their delirious dance, but then, just as Puck and Ash were drawing closer, beginning their steps in the hand to hand combat part that she knew would signal the fight's end, something swept underneath her like a wave.
"Puck, help!" Meghan cried out as the strange creatures, the same gremlins that had invaded the computer lab at her school and then sent her that haunting message in the kitchens of Arcadia swarmed her en masse, flowing out below her like a blanket of water, and then bearing her upwards like she were some sort of rock star being carried away by her legions of adoring fans.
Only this time, from her experiences in the Nevernever, she was pretty sure that her "fans" were less the autograph-and-picture variety and more the life-taking kind.
"Help me!" She tried to call out again, but this time, the gremlins rushed over her as they tumbled away, a wave of metal cutting across the clean, white hills, and she could speak or see no more.
-o-
"Well." Puck stuck his hands on his hips, his glass dagger still grasped in one fist. "This makes things a little awkward."
His nose was burning from the ozone-spiked vapor trail that the gremlins had left in their wake. Throw in the fact that the patch of land that they'd traveled over was blackened as though it had been razed by a small army, and you got one very nasty (and very lethal) enemy to chase after.
"Goodfellow." His opponent still had his sword at the ready, was ready and willing to continue where they had left off. But Puck just sighed, frowning at the dark path cut into the snow. "Will you run from accepting responsibility for Ariella's death yet again? How like you."
Puck dug his foot into the snow, solidifying his position. "Oh, believe me, pretty boy, we aren't done yet. But I have bigger fish to fry. Specifically, whatever the hell those things were that stole Meghan."
"If you two would stop posturing," Grimalkin said with sniff, "I believe their trail leads into a cave."
"Why do I have the feeling that I'm not going to like what comes next?" Puck muttered, rubbing his cold hands but keeping his dagger at the ready. They found the place easily enough, and no other creatures seemed willing to go around it, which made sense, considering the harsh smell of sulfur that cut through the air nearby.
Ash scouted the entrance, then gingerly poked his head in. The winter prince's eyes widened as he withdrew and Puck groaned, slapping a hand to his forehead.
"Great. Don't tell me, it's another dragon."
"It was a wyvern, you ass. Can't you even remember that?" Ash gave him a look of pure venom. "And no, it's not."
"Oh!" Puck's eyes were steely. "Well, should be no problem for a prince of Winter to kick it to the ass-end of Faery then, right?"
"It's a fire-breathing steel horse, actually."
Puck was silent. After a while, he sighed with a little laugh. "Damn. Well... damn."
-o-
Sometimes, he did dumb things.
"Dumb" was usually getting a little tipsy in the company of phoukas or hesitating a little too long before reporting back to Oberon. "Dumb" was even an excuse for what he was doing now, leading Meghan into enemy territory for the sake of her younger brother. But what he was doing right now, as he dodged between shots of fire and the clattering stamp of Ironhorse's hooves, that wasn't dumb.
It was abject stupidity, brainlessness boarding on suicide.
Ice boy had run out with Meghan when Puck had given them an opening. Her captor and then gremlins had roared with rage and their strange Iron glamour trickled along his skin and cut into him, but Puck had to hold them back, keep them from following until Ash gave the signal that they were clear.
Ironhorse's hooves burnt into the cave walls; all around the horse, the ice cave seemed to be collapsing as the winter magic unraveled in the maelstrom of fire and falling ice. Metallics cut into him; even as a raven, when he flew to evade his pursuers, he knew that he would not be able to last long, not if the spurts of fire kept coming at him like this. As Summer fey, he could evade fire like a second skin coiling on his nerves, but this was different.
This fire seethed like a curse, something that bit into him and wasn't willing to let go. Puck knew at once that this was a battle that he would be fighting on the defensive side.
He could not hope to turn the battle in his favor.
But hey, he gasped as another burst of smoke clogged the air and his horse opponent reared, at least he wouldn't have to put up with this long.
-o-
"Puck!" Meghan cried into the flames rounding out of the cave. There was no response, save Puck's taunts at Ironhouse and the Iron faery's growling whinnies of frustration. She struggled even as Ash held her, her lips cherry red in her ashen face.
"Come on." Ash implored, tugging at her arm, moving her further and further from the entrance to the cave. "You need to get away from here and fast."
"Puck's still in there!" She protested. "And if you think that I'm leaving my friend, you've got another thing coming-"
"Puck will die." Ash said very calmly. "Unless you are away from this place, far enough away, he will continue to protect the entrance. So, move away."
Meghan scowled at him, her face a mixture of confusion and distress. Her best friend was possibly being roasted alive for her sake and the boy that she (maybe) had a crush on since dancing with him at a faery ball was telling her that his death would be all her fault if she didn't move back fast enough. If Puck had been in her position, would he have retreated when she was in danger?
The answer to that seemed to be right in front of her.
"No!"
It burst from her like a bird, like an orchid sprout breaking through earth. She was almost surprised at herself; her hands found their way to her mouth as though they were attempting to cover it, but then a voice from behind her made her jump.
"Appreciated at last," a very weary Puck chuckled, voice warbly. "Well, princess, you've made my day."
And then he fell over into the snow, black feathers poofing out from him in a wispy cloud.
For a moment, Ash and Meghan just looked at each other. And then the prince of the Unseelie Court fell to one knee, clutching his stomach.
"Looks like it got me, too." He grunted, his icy eyes flecked with pain as he attempted to stand again and failed. "Gods."
"Oh dear." Grimalkin raised an eyebrow. "Are both of you out of commission so soon? I had expected better."
Meghan looked from one fallen boy to the other. "Um, Grim?"
"What?" The petulant feline shot her a miffed glance, as though she'd interrupted something important.
"How are we going to move them?"