Some (old) Arcana drabbles (f)

[Sitruuna]

So I wrote some drabbles/ficlets as a part of a speed writing challenge back in 2020, around the same time I also posted a couple of longer fics here, but then I only shared those on tumblr. I figured I could put them here as well. There's also a longer thing (feat. Lucio) but I'll post it separately since it's, you know, a full length story.

For those not all that familiar with Arcana or Morga: Lutz is her (canonical) husband (who has been dead for some decades by the events of Arcana's like. main timeline?), the other two characters mentioned are just some OCs since there aren't really any canon characters to pair her up with and I'm just not going to not write romance and such just because of that. I have more stuff (unfinished) with Tansy, including a couple of longer stories I hope to some day finish and share.

The first drabble obviously takes place before the events of Dawn of the Grub, the second one pretty much at any point in time before Morga lost her clan, the third one after that but still pre-canon and the last one is set in some version of post-canon times. Just to give you some idea of what the settings are considering these are just some drabbles lol.

 

~¤~

 

"How's your cold?" Lutz asks Morga, whispering near her ear as he leans into a light hug from behind her. Morga shrugs him off and turns to glare at him sharply. She matches Lutz's playful smirk with irritation, looking like she's ready to argue him on the whole situation even though it's clear she's not well. Lutz assumes he was the first to notice it when a few days ago Morga came back from a hunt sounding just a tad bit off, but the symptoms have been far from subtle since the following day. Her voice is unusually deep and weak and when she raises her voice it's obvious her throat is hurting. She's clearly congested and her nose keeps running near constantly and her attempts to control it have only managed to turn the skin around her nostrils red and irritated with liquid still glistening right underneath her nose. The evening of a late autumn day offers him little light, but Lutz can still see the exhaustion drawn on her face. Lutz can feel the same exhaustion weighing down on his own body, after all they did just return from a short trip to ambush a group of traders foolish enough to try passing through their lands, but she must feel the weight of a day's worth of fighting and travelling in a whole different level. 

 

"Maybe you should get some rest before the feast? I can come wake you up when the fire's started and the food is roasting."

 

"Mind your own business, Lutz." 

 

Her voice is a low growl, or as much of a growl her throat can handle, and it's clear to Lutz she isn't in the right mood to try having a discussion of this nature with. Lutz backs off, his mouth a thin line, and mutters a quiet "fine" as he leaves to help set up the dining tables around the soon-to-be bonfire.

 

As expected, Morga doesn't take Lutz's advice of getting some rest during the preparations. She doesn't help much, though, mostly just standing and watching as the others make everything ready for a small village celebration. Not that Lutz himself would help a lot; once the tables are in place and the food and drinks are carried out, he gets himself some ale and focuses on socialising. When he glances at Morga again, she's holding her own horn of ale. 

 

“Don’t even start”, Morga says when she finally joins Lutz by the table. She’s found herself a plate of food and doesn’t even look at Lutz before turning her attention to it and her drink.

“I wasn’t going to”, Lutz says, earning a muffled “good” in response. It’s half true, maybe, but Lutz plans to wait until Morga has eaten. What he has on his mind isn’t strictly about Morga’s illness, but she’s likely to take it that way regardless. He eats his own food slowly while watching Morga down hers and by the time they are both finished, the people around them have started dancing and singing. Normally they’d be joining in but Lutz isn’t sure Morga is in the mood for any of that.

“I’ve got a gift for you”, he says when he thinks the moment is right. Morga turns to look at him, looking more relaxed and content than Lutz assumed she would. Apparently seeing him washes some of the good mood away, but she’s still not nearly as tense as she was before.

“Do you now”, she says. Lutz almost hesitates, afraid the gift will ruin her mood further due to circumstances, but pulls the neatly folded, woolen blanket out from underneath the table where he’d tucked it away from her eyes. She looks at it with an unimpressed expression for a few seconds before reaching out to grab it.

“I found it in the backpack of one of the traders. Fine work of some north-eastern weaver, I believe", Lutz explains. Morga feels the fabric with the exposed tips of her fingers and inspects the design and the intricate pattern carefully. 

 

"I saw it and thought you would like it. I didn't… it's not because of… you know." 

 

Morga looks up at Lutz with slight amusement in her eyes. She sniffles through the congestion, then dabs her nose with a rough, not too absorbent sleeve. 

 

"It's fine, Lutz, relax. You are being ridiculous", Morga chuckles, then coughs and presses the sleeve back against her nose to sniffle against it. "I thought you were going to give me another… nevermind. I do like the blanket, thank you."

 

 

~¤~

 

Sometimes aspects of another person just hit you, breach into your conscious mind and shock you like a bucket full of icy water downed over your head without warning. Bera almost has to bring a hand up to physically still her heart when it happens this time and she feels the slightest bit embarrassed about how cliché the situation is. Of all the things that could cut through her guard and make her face heat up and heart beat like it’s trying to hammer its way through her chest, her muscles turn limp enough for her to brace her arms on her legs where she sits, it has to be something as basic as Morga’s laughter. Slightly raspy from the cold she’s refusing to acknowledge, with the dull resonance of swollen sinuses and growing congestion. Bera isn’t sure she should find those aspects adding to her infatuation but she has to admit they do bring in their own layer of endearing.

The laughter beside her dies down and Bera takes a deep breath to collect herself. She catches Morga looking at her when she looks up, a faint and relaxed smile still on Morga’s face and an affectionate twinkle in her eyes. To Bera’s surprise Morga doesn’t look away or even change her expression to something less open, less intimate. There’s the feeling again, a warm wave of something light and good expanding from her chest and washing over her entire body.

“Did you know”, Bera says, “you are cute when you laugh.”

The flustered expression on Morga’s face is enough to drive off most of Bera’s own nervousness. Her lips pull into a smile and she bites her lip to try and control it but there isn’t much she can do. Not that she really wants to.

“Am I?” Morga responds. It’s clear she isn’t questioning Bera’s statement even if she was thrown off guard by the comment. Deflecting compliments isn’t like her anyhow, and there’s something attractive about the confidence she tends to take them in with.

“Mm-hm. Very much so.”

There’s a moment of comfortable silence as they both just look at each other. They’ve done this whole thing before and likely will do it again, and again. Sitting by a campfire with no one else around to disturb them after a long day of trekking, dinner eaten and bedrolls waiting, chatting and joking and venting out all their frustrations… some time off of their usual duties, rarely enough for the magic of it to not have dissipated in the slightest. Bera moves closer, leaning in to go for a quick kiss.

“Wait”, Morga says, raising up a hand to halt Bera’s approach. Any bafflement Bera had is washed away in an instance when Morga’s breathing grows uneven, her lips part and eyes squint, the hand moves closer to her face. Despite the dim light and dancing shadows, Bera can even see her nose quivering as she dangles somewhere on the edge of sneezing.

“hh-TSHO! Hh-h-htsho! Hh-! Hh… hTSHO! tSHO! Hh-h… Hh…” Morga sneezes, twisting away from Bera so as not to bump into her by accident. The fit ends with a few hitching breaths and a sigh, leaving Morga’s expression still looking vaguely sneezy.

“Got away?” Bera asks with sympathy. Morga stays still for a few seconds as she waits to see if the itch really is gone, then sniffs hard and rubs her nose.

“Yes? N-no, wai-hh… Ugh. Maybe?” She sniffs sharply again and massages the bridge of her nose. The itch seems to be waxing and waning in intensity and nothing Morga does quells it nor pushes it over the edge. There’s nothing Bera can do either, at least nothing that she could think of, so she just watched Morga sniff and rub and sigh in irritation until her breath catches again, this time resulting in another sneeze. It’s particularly harsh and violent and seems to finally free Morga of the persistent itching. She sits bent over her lap with hands tentet over her face for a moment, then gives a tentative sniff and straightens up.

“Prosit, Morga”, Bera says. She finally moves to sit right next to her, cupping a hand over Morga’s cheek and gently turning her face toward her own. Despite knowing there’s a risk of setting the itch off again, Bera kisses the tip of Morga’s nose. She expects Morga to pull away and to reach with irritation, but instead she leans her head against Bera’s.

“I hope the cold isn’t too exhausting. You know, we could have postponed the trip until it’s cleared up.”

“It’s fine.”

 

~¤~

 

It’s moments like this that make Morga consider staying at the villages, towns or even cities she visits longer than strictly necessary. Usually she only ventures to such places for supplies she can’t get from elsewhere, satisfying whatever social needs she has in brief moments at taverns and such, never staying for more than a night except on special occasions. No matter how brief her visits are, she always seems to wake a day or two after with a sore throat or a runny nose or sometimes an ache in her stomach. It’s inconvenient and sort of uncomfortable but nothing she can’t handle.

This time it was a brief visit to a south-western port to trade some of the valuables she has collected to a new pair of boots and a nice, warm cloak. It’s winter and it’s better to keep your gear in shape unless you want your toes to freeze off or the night’s chill to take you. Exchange goods, have a little fun with a sailor on a Nevivon ship, be gone before all the people start getting on her nerv too much. Wake up two nights later with a combination of a terribly runny nose and a head heavy with congestion. The next Northerner who dares to suggest there is no correlation between human contact and falling ill, that it’s all innate and due to an imbalance of something or the other in your body, might get a taste of her fist. Or her spear.

The congestion only gets worse during the day and the irritated feeling somewhere deep in her nose grows to a painful burning by nightfall. Her whole face aches with the combination, the pressure making the pain spread further back and up until every corner of her head is either throbbing or burning. She’s been traveling the whole day despite knowing maybe she shouldn’t, but the tracks she spotted in the fresh snow that day left her with little choice. There are other people in the area and, her history considered, the moment they recognised her would likely be the moment any friendly or neutral feelings they have turned into open hostility. It’s an encounter she would rather avoid. Even with a day of nothing but travel behind her, Morga knows she’s still too close to these other people to allow herself to relax and let her guard down. Jæger is on alert too, perched on a nearby tree rather than keeping her company in her little shelter.

All that would be tolerable, though. The pain pulsating through her sinuses and up her nose all the way to her forehead might be uncomfortable enough to keep her awake a little longer than usual, but it’s the violent shivers of a rising fever that make it all a little too much. Or the fever itself, maybe. She should be comfortably warm in her camp despite the bitingly cold air, and on surface level she is, but there’s a chill set deep in her core, making her shake with uncontrollable tremors. It’s a form of discomfort she would rather not experience while alone in a wintery forest with no option to seek friendly company. It’s a little ironic, maybe, considering how much she wanted to avoid the company and affection of her tribesmen at times like this back when she lived among them. Now, buried in furs in a snowy shelter, days away from potentially friendly faces and a month’s journey from any definitely non-hostile village, Morga finds herself wondering if maybe the pretty sailor she met at the port might have kept her company through this had she stayed for a couple of days longer. If maybe Morga could have slept on her ship, in her private quarters, on the bed they had shared for a moment. If maybe she wouldn’t need to decide between huddling in her shelter for the following day or days while waiting for the fever to go down and hoping no one will find her, and packing the camp to put another day’s distance between herself and the others while the fever still burns inside her. If maybe, instead, she could have allowed herself to relax in another person’s care.

 

~¤~

 

"Is everything all right?" Tansy asks carefully. It's a rare moment of cuddling in bed before Morga gets up, dresses and is on her way to who knows where once again. An unusually relaxed and comfortable one, even. Morga's still a little tense as she holds Tansy, and as quiet as always in these situations, but until a moment ago she seemed more at ease than usual. At first it's hard for Tansy to say what has changed, but then she notices the change in the rhythm of Morga's breathing. The tension grows more obvious, her breathing turns a little uneven and shallow until it feels and sounds almost like she's trying to hold back sobs. 

 

"Everyt-hh-ing's f-hh… fine", Morga says in an airy voice, her words punctuated by hitching breaths. She lets go of Tansy, shifting the slightest to make room for her hand between their bodies. Tansy can't see what she does, of course, but it's not hard to guess she's rubbing her nose rather violently. Not overcome by a mysterious wave of emotion then.

 

"You would be done with it faster if you didn't fight back", Tansy comments. Morga responds with an irritated huff but either she listens to Tansy's advice regardless or the itch in her nose grows too strong for her to keep fighting it. There's a slow, wavering inhale as Morga leans her head against Tansy's back, followed by a loud sneeze that seems to shake the whole bed. Morga draws in more air and sneezes again, then again. She sniffs, rubs her nose, waits for a second and sneezes one final time. 

 

"Are you all right? Do you need a handkerchief?" Tansy asks. Morga lets out a shuddering, post-fit sigh and wraps her arm back around Tansy, pressing her nose against Tansy's bare upper back. 

 

"It's fine. Just a passing itch you should pay no mind to", Morga says. It isn't really an answer to either of Tansy's questions but she lets it be. Pushing it wouldn't do any good, and Tansy would rather keep enjoying the moment of peace and the gentle, affectionate contact she so rarely gets.