Life as a Skeleton Sitter

chappy 20

warning!!!!! some serious feels man!!!!!!! however its very important to the story!!!!! 

Grillby sighs rubbing his face before heading to his room. Making sure he's alone he opens a small wooden box and inside is a music box that's awfully familiar and a glass doll with a pyre monster design. In fact it looks exactly like him. The golden etchings are old and well worn and the dolls paint is chipped. He picks up the doll and sets it on the top of the music box making sure to match the odd slotted wholes in the box with the nobs on the dolls feet before winding up the key in the back. A familiar tune plays and the doll comes to life looking for its dance partner. "Sorry about that little one. She doesn't know yet. I just wanted to get to the picture." The glass flames flicker sadly and it sits on the edge of the dresser. He sighs at the same time as the doll and opens the box. Inside are three things. A ring, a lock of ____ hair, and a photo. It's more of a drawing really and truly ancient. It's a sketch of a beautiful yet familiar woman. You. It's a drawing of you. The way you two met back then is almost exactly the same as this time around.

It was a mere ten months before the war changed everything. He ran a bar and inn back then to that he ran with his sister and her husband. He knows everyone in the town and around it's borders so to see such a lovely new face in his establishment was a pleasant surprise. You had moved from the capital in ebott hoping for peace and quite. This was a place you wanted to settle down. You spent four days in his inn before you moved into a cottage by the edge of the woods. During those days you had made his life interesting. You were rambunctious and loved to laugh but knew how to be regal and ladylike when needed. You were smart as a whip and not afraid to put a man in his place. You knew a fake alpha when you saw one. You would often stay up with him in the late yet early hours telling him stories of your adventures and what city life was like. But what really made you light up was your love of the quiet life. You'd tell him about your first time seeing a live deer or petting a rabbit that got stuck in your fencing that you healed. You would always ask to touch his hands or face in these quiet hours when no one was awake. His flames fascinated you. It wasn't a surprise when he became smitten and asked you to be his promised lady. Of course then the war happened. He refused to sign up for the army because you were going to have his baby soon and he needed to be present for the first spark. He didn't expect his human neighbors to turn on him and you his beautiful wife. They alerted the human army and he....... he didn't make it home in time from the market. The inn was in flames and your form was still and crumpled in front of where the doorway once stood. ..........after his eyesight returned the entire human village was tinders ash and corpses. In his blind rage he had killed everyone. They killed his sister and her husband to. The only living thing he has left to care about was his niece who had been staying with the rabbits in the woods. Needless to say he joined the army. He wanted no needed to forget.

He met you a second time after his second surface bar was built. You moved from a town surrounded by towns. You liked the city life but also the forest so you moved here where there's a big mountain and forest on the edge of the city. You couldn't tell but he looked like he was seeing a ghost. Kinda hard to go pale and tremble when your an eternal moving flame. When you introduced yourself he didn't know if he should cry or laugh. Of course your determined tenacity filled soul would come back to him to spite death and the mages that killed you. It pained him to pretend like he didn't know you as well as he does. You came in everyday for a specific drink. Its not on the menu but you thought it was. It was your special drink he made you on your honeymoon. Flaming swan. You loved swans. He still made it for you. When you were down on your luck where jobs were concerned and needed a place to stay he let you take the spare room. You moved through the bar and worked like it was nothing. You knew how he liked it to be run. Luckily you weren't there when the bar got attacked. You were at a week long babysitting job. That's the first time he saw the music box. When you came back that is. When he saw you in front of the dilapidated scorched building he couldn't stop himself from hugging you tight and crying cold magma. Then he saw a gleam of gold in your bag. Is that? It was indeed the very music box he made her as a proposal. It was a set. She was to have the ballerina and him his little pyreman. When both play next to eachother the dolls come alive and dance together as long as your willing to wind it. She didn't have the ballerina. She was given the box by her grandmother who believed it was magic. When the second one was built he kept a closer eye on the word on the street fearing next time he wouldn't be so lucky. He didn't want to lose you again. He CANT lose you again.