Haley Thistle
patreon
Osgood the Teapot Mimic: Part One (complete)
🕑 Added 2022-04-27 19:01:02 +0000 UTC
Female Main Character x Male Monster (both cis)
I feel a yearning for my home when I wake up in the mornings. I lay there in bed, missing the feeling of being cradled high up above the ground. I hadn’t seen my family in a few years, not since I left to explore the world.
Before that I had never met another human, which was part of the initial journey. My family didn’t want me to leave the nest, but they thought it would be best for me to spend time around my own kind. They gave me some clothes and treasure from their hoard and sent me on my way, though not without a fight from some.
While it took me time to adjust, I found that flashing the treasure my family had bestowed me with usually got me my way. Though there were some, I had to teach a lesson or two. I was taken in by a lonesome old woman who said it was improper for young women to go around fighting and shredding my clothes.
Lady Blackwood had a similar attitude like my mother, so I took to her in a protective way. She was widowed with no children, and had a lot of treasure as well. This caused her to be hounded by much younger suitors and distant relatives sniffing around her money. I decided to protect her, as I would want someone to do for my mother.
“You look forlorn, Tiecia,” Lady Blackwood tutted as I came from my room. “You’ve been looking rather bleak these last few days.”
“I keep missing my family,” I sighed.
“Then why not invite them?” She asked.
I furrowed my brow at her. “Here? In your home?”
She patted the seat beside her. “Is that a problem?”
“Considering how you met me, aren’t you curious about how I was raised?” I hadn’t told her much about my family, only that it was an unconventional childhood compared to what she knew.
Lady Blackwood smiled at me with that knowing twinkle in her eye. “I am curious, my child, to know your past. You seem to keep it so close to your chest.”
I frowned and nodded. “It’s not something most people would be understanding of. My mother told me some people wouldn’t take kindly to it, let alone believe me.”
“I don’t see why you would lie to me,” she chortled. “Besides, I would like to meet them so I could tell them how I plan to take care of you.”
“I know my mother would appreciate that.” I fiddled with the ends of my long hair, coiling it around and around my fingers until I could no longer close them.
Lady Blackwood smiled. “Then let’s send them an invitation to come to our home.”
I shook my head. “No. I would have to go get them myself. I doubt anyone would deliver a letter to them.”
Lady Blackwood gasped in mild alarm, placing her small hands over her chest. “My goodness, do they live somewhere dangerous?”
I squeezed my face together and hummed. “You could say that.”
“No wonder you’re a fighter! Alright then, I will send you with the carriage, you can go fetch them yourself.” She looked very happy about it.
I took her hand in mine and held it gently. “My lady, I really don’t think you understand. If my family comes here, it could cause quite a stir. I wouldn’t want to take advantage of your hospitality.”
“How bad could they be?”
“They eat people.”
She was silent for a moment. “Well, some people need to be eaten.”
I watched in complete silence. “They live in Tulgey Wood. The deep parts. The parts with really bad creatures.”
Lady Blackwood squeezed my hand back. “But they raised you. They must be better than the fools who abandoned you there.”
I smiled. “My lady, are you nuts?”
She nodded her head with a simple smile.“Years of being hounded by the supposed civil beings around me have led me that way, yes. I would much rather spend the rest of my days watching you bite solicitors and scaring fairweather friends than anything.”
“Well, only if you’re sure.”
“I have never been more certain,” she chortled. “I would love to meet them, and I would love for you to have them here.”
I thought for a long moment before I agreed. Once I nodded, Lady Blackwood had the carriage prepared for me. I don’t think such a fancy thing had ever been through the Tulgey Wood before, and I would probably have to make my way on foot at some point. I was excited nonetheless, as I was getting to visit my home.
It was a long journey to reach the section of Tulgey Wood where my family lived, and because of the danger in the area, I hadn’t passed a soul. I parked the buggy just outside, releasing the horses so they could graze as they pleased. If they ran, that was fine, I wasn’t worried about the journey back to Lady Blackwood.
I ventured into the forest, whistling my mother’s lullaby as I did. The forest was lush and dark, and the earth here was soft and moist. My feet sunk into the soil as I walked, so I removed my shoes and left them on a stone.
As a baby I had been left here, or so my mother told me. She said she found me in the soft, warm earth screaming my little head off. I was soiled and filthy, and she said I smelled worse than a rotting corpse. She had considered eating me, but my smell was revolting so she decided to wash me off in the river. But then, she told me, as I smiled up at her and held my little hands up, her heart changed. She took me home and, rather than eat me, she found a way to feed me.
I heard something scuttle through the trees, whipping the branches back and forth. Then everything grew still again. Birds stopped singing, the breeze stopped humming with me. I kept my breath steady and my ears focused on any noises set to reappear. I turned my head slightly, seeing something glow from the corner of my eye. The flash of light vanished as soon as it appeared.
Everything was silent and far too still. I bit my tongue between my teeth, focusing as hard as I could to have the predator announce itself to me. I had lived in the Tulgey Wood’s most hidden depths long enough to know how to handle myself. But after a few years in Miror society, had I grown soft? That small grain of doubt was enough to make me take one wrong step forward and I was suddenly whipped into the air, flung into the trees and the bird continued to sing.
I was suspended in the branches of an old tree. The limbs had been shucked bare, allowing the web to be strung tightly between them. I exhaled loudly in frustration and waited for whomever was going to show themselves.
That flash of light came to the corner of my eye. I squinted, glaring at it as the bright red light flooded over me.
“Are you done?” I scoffed.
The light flickered and went out so I could see the outline of the great teapot on the limb across from me. Legs unfurled from the base, stretching out to reveal coarse fur, long fingers, and sharpened claws painted gold from the sap of the tree we were in. The top of the teapot opened and long, gangly arms stretched out.
“You were way too easy to catch,” he laughed.
I scowled at him. “You sound way too smug.” I sat down within the web, waiting for him to stop his showy reveal. “Nice to see you, Osgood.”
The red eye on the center of the teapot glowed again and Osgood came closer towards me. “Tiecia, where the hell have you been?”
I took his hand, standing on the strands of his web. “Out and about.” I broke into a smile, flinging myself against the teapot and his arms grabbed me up tight.
“It’s been too long though. I thought for sure you’d get sick of humans.”
I laughed, sitting on his forearm. “I am one.”
His long finger poked into my chest. “But in here you’re a teapot, and you always will be.”
I grabbed his hand before he pulled it away. “What are you doing so far from home? You’re not having to hunt here, are you?”
Osgood started climbing to the top of the tree. “My mother keeps insisting on me finding a mate, I had to get some space from all that nagging.”
I gripped onto his arm that wrapped around me as he went diagonal. “I’m surprised you didn’t take her offer.” His hand gripped onto my rear to hold me upright.
“Yeah, well-” he scoffed. “It just doesn’t seem like my thing. At least, not with anyone in the pack, you know?”
We came out onto the canopy of the trees and the sky had become a shimmering sheet of candy pink.
“I have missed this view,” I murmured.
Osgood placed me back into the crook of his arm. The lid of his teapot opened and a tongue reached out and tapped my cheek.
“You’ve been missed.”
I rubbed my wet cheek with a gracious smile. “Actually, I came here to invite you to my new home.”
He raised one of his four legs and pointed a claw at himself. “Me?”
“Not just you,” I chuckled. “Mother for certain, and my sisters. My caretaker, Lady Blackwood, insisted.”
“You need a caretaker?” Osgood snorted.
I shook my head. “You would not believe how weird the rules are out there. Apparently, a young woman can’t be on her own?”
Osgood jerked. “How else does she learn to hunt?”
I flapped my arms out to express my frustration about this topic. “They don’t! That’s the thing! Me fighting people was seen as weird!”
“That’s what's weird!”
I was overcome with how much I had missed Osgood and how much I had missed home. I hugged him again, resting my cheek upon the cool, smooth surface of his teapot.
“I’m so glad to see you,” I murmured.
“Don’t get too soft on me now.” His arms tightened around me. He then let me go, tossing me up into the air and grabbing me as he slung himself forward.
“So tell me about this new home of yours!”
I squealed in excitement as he tossed me around, swinging from tree to tree before we descended back into the forest.
“It’s this great big house. Lady Blackwood has no relatives and she keeps getting hounded by supposed relatives and solicitors. She took me in and I kept them at bay.”
“So you haven’t lost too much of your edge,” Osgood chuckled.
“She’s a very sweet woman and she’s really interested in meeting my family.” The forest grew dark and the light from Osgood’s eye grew brighter and brighter.
I breathed in and my whole body relaxed. That dark, thick scent of earth and decaying wood brought me back in time to when I was small and would ride on Osgood’s back.
More red lights appeared, flickering on and focusing upon us. From the darkest depths, a teapot that was twice the size of the carriage emerged.
“Mother!” I rushed forward, slipping down from Osgood’s arms and dashing along the limbs of a tree until her hands reached out to hold me.
“My child, my Tiecia!” Mother embraced me then held me aloft to get a look at me. “What have you been doing out there? You’ve not grown at all.”
“Humans stop growing at a certain point,” I laughed.
She pulled me back in, cradling me in her arms like when I was a baby. “It doesn’t matter, you’re home now.”
Whistles emitted from around us as the rest of the pack cheered for my return. I was greeted by my sisters, who swarmed me with questions of Miror and my time there. I was hugged and tossed around between them, carried to the canopy and back down as they filled me in on all I had missed.
“My friend wants to meet you all,” I said. “She’s invited you back to her home.”
Mother growled. “We’ve never been far from Tulgey Wood. How do we know this isn’t an attempt for her to hunt us and steal our treasures.”
I took hold of Mother’s great big hand. “She’s already got treasure, and Lady Blackwood wouldn’t harm a fly. She cares about me and she wants to meet my family.”
“It would be fun to see,” one of my sisters whispered.
“But we can’t just leave, what if our nest gets taken over,” another hissed.
“I know it’s a strange request, and one you might not consider. But I would really like you to meet her, or at least, let her understand how I was raised.”
“She does know we eat humans like her, right?” Mother asked.
“She doesn’t seem too bothered by it.”
Mother whispered to some of the other teapots. “It’s getting too close to when the leaves change, and we’ll be preparing our nests for egg-laying. How could you have forgotten this?”
I pouted. “I guess I was just excited to see you.”
“Why not stay?” Mother held out her hands to me. “This is where you’re happy, isn’t it? This is your home, your family.”
“I know, but-” I felt a sinking guilt. “I feel as though I have a responsibility to Lady Blackwood. She has no one and I protect her. As much as I would love to stay here, I fear I can’t. Not for long anyways.”
Mother sighed. “I cannot complain about you wanting to protect the weaker of your own. That is how I raised you. But I do miss my child horribly.”
I wanted to stay home more than anything, but I also didn’t want to leave Lady Blackwood alone. She had made me feel so welcomed and loved, even without my family.
“I can go back with her,” Osgood spoke up.
“No, you can’t! You have to find a mate!” His mother hissed as she lurched forward from behind my mother.
“No, no,” Mother said gently. “This would be a good idea. We can spare Osgood.”
His mother sputtered and whipped around. “You cannot be serious!”
“I am. Osgood is unmatched, he has no nest to build, no eggs to tend to. Having him go and be our representative for Tiecia’s friend would be beneficial.”
“He needs a mate! He’s not a child anymore!” His mother roared.
I heard Osgood grumble under his breath beside me and an old thought popped into my head. “What if I become Osgood’s mate.”
There was a whittling through the pack and Osgood jerked at my arm to pull me closer to him.
“What are you saying?” he hissed.
“You’re human!” His mother squealed.
My mother yanked her back, tossing her back into the trees behind her. “I had always hoped you would mate amongst the pack. A human would not have done well enough for you. Osgood, do you accept this?”
“But she-” Osgood’s mother struggled as she tried to make her argument.
Osgood stammered, fumbling with his hands and words. “I mean...I had always hoped it would be Tiecia.”
I tried my best not to react, but my heart kicked to life. I had always wanted Osgood as my mate, but since he was my closest friend I kept that thought close to my chest until now.
“Do humans even lay eggs?” Osgood’s mother huffed.
Mother sighed and patted the top of my head. “We will find out, won’t we?” She stroked my hair, curling a few strands around her fingers. “Then as mates, it only makes sense Osgood should attend to you out there.”
“I will,” Osgood was breathless.
“Are you sure?” I whispered.
His red light focused upon me. “It’s always been you, Tiecia.”
My whole body surged and tears sprang up into my eyes.
“Then it’s settled,” Mother announced. “Stay here a few days, and when you must, return to your little human back in Miror.”
Late that night I was laid down, resting but very far from sleep. My heart had not stopped beating wildly since Osgood said those words. I then felt something brush against my cheek. I rolled over, opening my eyes to Osgood’s red light. I held up my hand, allowing him to pull me up into the trees.
“I know you must be tired,” he spoke quietly. “But I can’t get what you said out of my head.”
I nodded. “Did you mean what you said?”
Osgood’s long fingers brushed against my cheek then cupped around the side of my neck. “I could never think about anyone else,” he confessed. “That’s why my mom was so adamant.”
I smiled shyly and nuzzled my cheek to the side of his hand. “I’m not used to humans. I don’t think I could ever be comfortable with one.”
“Well, I could,” he laughed. “But, just one.”
My cheeks grew warm and I moved his hand so I could kiss the pad of his finger. I felt him flinch, but I kissed again.
“That’s weird,” he muttered. “But nice.” His tongue stretched out, tapping my cheek then gliding over my lips. He jerked it back in a hurry.
I touched my lips and smiled. “See, humans just don’t get romance like that.”
Osgood chuckled. “Such a shame.”
I curled up against his side, resting my cheek upon his teapot. The glow of his eye dimmed and his big hand curled around my back to cradle me.
“I’m glad you came back,” he murmured.
“Me too,” I said dreamily. “I can’t wait for you to meet Lady Blackwood, I think she’ll like you a lot.”
Osgood was quiet. He placed both arms around me, holding me up protectively. I rested in his arms, quickly falling asleep, feeling safe and warm.
