Once A Tale (MXM, BXB)

Diamonds & Toads: Bonus Short II

A/N: a lil aside starring Magnus... he's actually a super proactive king of a love interest but he doesn't get a lot of screentime cause he's a snake through most of the story fgfjgh

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When he came into being, he knew that he was 'different' from other snakes.

He knew it intrinsically, viscerally, knew deep down in his stomach, in every single scale on his body that snakes did not think the way he thought. They did not realise their situation the way that he did, swiftly and sharply, and they did not look at a beaten, bruised human and think 'how pitiful'.

He thought he sensed violence in the man, hatred, when he neared him and touched his tongue to his cheek. He tasted of sweat, of exhaustion, of the grime of more than one night's outside. He looked at the man and the man looked back, evaluating him, perhaps, a unfathomable loneliness and aching need in his gaze—

Perhaps seeing something in him the snake knew that he himself possessed. He didn't fight the man's hand and soon he would learn his name:

Rolf.

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Initially, it had been pity. That had been the sensation that moved him to act as he saw the man laying, beaten and bruised, face covered with filth. He pitied this poor, pathetic human, he saw in him not an enemy or a threat like the men who he had scared away. Yet he had not given up, his attitude was defiant even when he lacked the strength to follow through.

What a pitiful, pitiable life.

Rolf worked and toiled, he spat venom without speaking it, his eyes flashing fury and indignation when treated with even the mildest bit of distaste. The snake knew, somehow he knew, that this boy, barely even a man, came from a place of privilege. Where he could triumph and have others listen to him while barely lifting a finger.

He was stupid. Ignorant. The snake still pitied him.

But, Rolf would give him his identity.

"You're Magnus," he rasped one evening, making their sleeping space in a densely forested grove. No outsiders would chance upon them here, and no baying of wolves hinted there was danger otherwise. The snake lifted his head and gazed upon Rolf, tongue flitting the air.

Magnus tasted his name. He liked it. He was Magnus now.

Magnus—it meant 'great', so Rolf had managed to tell him—grew stronger and knew that he was Rolf's protection. Even as he saw that his once-skinny arms thickened and grew strong, that he no longer wobbled when he worked and his face changed from hateful to neutral, stoic. He was Rolf's protector, Magnus decided, for Rolf needed one.

He slept uneasily at night, even when Magnus curled his full bulk around him and stared with luminous eyes at his clenched-up face. His mouth would move soundlessly, protesting horrors new and old, indignities and memories that Magnus knew burned fresh.

When Rolf awoke one night, saw him watching, his eyes crinkled and his mouth softened into the first tender smile of its like that Magnus had seen.

Ah, the snake thought, I love him.

"Thanks," Rolf whispered, stroking his head, running his palm down the length of the serpent as his eyes closed. He somehow knew that he was being comforted, Magnus thought, and the love grew. He had a sense that his pity had been changing as of late, but to be in love.