Moominvalley (Snufkin x OC)

Tiny Guests

"Porcupine quills, snake fangs, horned slugs." Lulamoon named them off as she looked through her shelves of ingredients. "Add six snake fangs to the mortar. Crush into a fine powder using the pestle. Add four measures of the crushed fangs to the cauldron. Heat the mixture to 250 for ten seconds." She mumbled the instructions from memory as she worked.

Meanwhile, Snufkin had came out of his tent and stretched. It was beautiful day today and he needed to go through and clean his supplies. As he was taking his lantern out of his tent, he looked up and saw smoke rising into the air from over the hill.

His heart dropped to his stomach when he remembered that's where Lulamoon's house was. He put his lantern down and ran in that direction and eventually he could see her house coming up. He saw her burst from the front door hacking and coughing, tumble down the porch steps and hit the ground.

"Lulu!" He called out when he finally reached her and knelt down. She was still gasping and coughing. "Are you alright? I saw the smoke. Is there a fire?" He stopped his frantic questions when she shook her head.

"It's just a potions accident." She managed to say. Her voice a bit raspy. "I let the potion brew for a bit to long and now the whole batch is ruined." She coughed a bit more before continuing. "There's no fire or anything, the smoke is coming from the cauldron. I just need to let it air out before going in to clean it."

Snufkin let out a breath of relief and all the tension left his body immediately as he processed that there was no danger and she was fine. Lulamoon stared at him as he sat back on the grass and took a couple deep breaths. "Snufkin," she finally said. "Were you worried about me?"

"Of course I was!" Lulamoon flinched at the tone. "I thought there was a fire! I thought you could have been trapped inside or hurt! And no one would know because you live so far away from everyone else and when we did find out, it'd be to late and-!" Snufkin was cut off by the witch letting herself fall forward onto him. Wrapping her arms around his middle to hug him as she smiled into his green coat.

"Thank you." She mumbled.

Snufkin calmed down and placed a hand on her head while the other wrapped around her back and held her close. He seemed relaxed on the outside, but side his heart was going haywire and he hoped the witch couldn't hear it. "Come on." He muttered. "You can hang out with me until your house airs out."

~~~

Snufkin was sat at his campsite cleaning his lantern while Lulamoon layed on the grass next to him. Moomintroll came over and sat to the other side of him and started telling them about their new guests. "We've had some very strange people staying at our house, but I think these two are really weird." He told them.

"Well, they're northerners." Snufkin said.

"I guess so, with names like Thingumy and Bob."

"And that suitcase..." Lulamoon muttered in thought.

"They look a lot like fugitives to me Snufkin." Moomintroll stated.

"Perhaps they're dangerous criminals on the run."

"You wanna see them?"

Snufkin finished cleaning his lantern and turned to his friend while Lulamoon sat up. "Yah! I wouldn't mind."

~~~

Snufkin, Lulamoon, Sniff and Moomintroll were all sat in Moomin House while the sky started to darker outside. Moominpapa came downstairs and they all turned to him. "Ah, there you are." He said.

"What are they doing now?" Moomintroll asked, referring to their guests.

"No idea. I couldn't hear anything so they must be asleep."