BAM! BAMPIRES for my au. I'm making my own au "Cruel cruel world" ccwau for short. Honestly, I'm treating it more like dress to impress. The outfits are not definete, what fun would that be

The Wilderness was an unusual type of forest. Most forests typically had a monster or two living in them, like a lone Lycan or a small brood of vampires, but the Wilderness was positively crawling with magical creatures of all stripes. Some even claimed that the Wilderness itself was magical. 

And the longer one lived there, the more one would come to think that.

Gem stared out at the woods sprawling before her, dusted with powdery snow. She remembered how they had filled her with so much wonder when she was a child, how she had longed to return to that feeling every day she spent in the military. And now she was here. She was free of her duties. 

And yet, she couldn’t bring herself to feel anything. Her chest felt hollow, like she had lost the place for that feeling somehow. Was there something wrong with her? Had the military really changed her that much?

She shook her head and snapped back to attention. The chicken coop needed to be mended and the reindeers needed to be fed, and the surrounding forest wasn’t going to scout itself. 

Gem grabbed her supplies and headed outside, then stopped in her tracks when she heard a ruckus near the barn. 

Near the coop.

She slipped back into her house, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, as she had done a thousand times. She felt her spirit leap out of her body, taking the form of a fox spirit, nimble and invisible to human eyes. 

She creeped through the snow, her paws making no sound as she prowled, then peeked into the barn. Next to the chicken coop, a hunched figure held something feathery and lifeless in their hand. Gem didn’t stop to identify it, just let her spirit fly back into her body as quickly as possible. She grabbed her bow and quiver, stalking back into the barn, ready to fight whoever dared to touch her livestock. 

And crouched next to her coop, there was a man, his clothes dirty and tattered, his messy mop of dark hair streaked with green and covered in feathers. In his hand was one of Gem’s chickens, its neck drooping limply.

“What — what on earth are you doing?” Gem said, not lowering her bow.

“S-stay back!” The man said, taking out a small knife and pointing it at her.

Gem huffed, amused by this strange man. She grabbed his wrist without hesitation and jerked upwards. The man yelped, and his knife clattered harmlessly to the ground. 

“What’s your name?” Gem asked, kicking the knife to the side.

“I — what?”

“What’s your name,” she said again, a bit exasperated this time.

“…Joel.”

She could hand him in, if she wanted. But that was too big of a risk. If someone recognized her, she could be locked away for deserting the military, or worse, be put right back in the thick of it. 

Then she had a better idea.

“Well, Joel, so nice to meet you, but I’m afraid you’re guilty of trespassing and chicken murder. Now, I could hand you over to the authorities, but we’re not exactly on speaking terms right now, and I’m guessing you're not either. So how about this: you help me with some manual labor, and when you’re done, I’ll send you back to town, and we can just forget any of this happened. Deal?”

Joel scoffed defiantly. “And why would I do that, again?”

Gem raised her bow at him. “Yeah, I’m not exactly giving you an option.”

Joel crossed his arms. “Fine, whatever.”

“Great! You can start by cleaning up this mess.”

Joel worked alongside Gem the rest of that day. It felt strange, to have someone else at the farm when she had been so used to doing everything on her own. She appreciated the help, but it irked some small part of her, the part that wanted to keep this small haven where no one could touch her all to herself.

Eventually, they reached the reindeer’s stalls. “And here we are!” Gem said, guiding the two reindeers out of the stable. “This is Dave, and this is the Baby.” Dave nuzzled the Baby’s head gently. She was his daughter, after all, and Dave cared for her fiercely. 

Gem promptly handed Joel a pitchfork, shovel, and wheelbarrow. “Well, get to work!”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Joel muttered, but obeyed nonetheless. Gem trimmed the reindeer’s hooves as Joel cleaned, finding some satisfaction that she didn’t have to do it herself anymore.

“So, Dave is the other one’s dad?”

Gem looked over at him. “So now you’re interested in all of this.”

“What, am I not allowed to ask questions?”

Gem chuckled. “No, go ahead.”

“If Dave is her dad… did she have a mother as well?”

Sadness filled Gem’s eyes. “She did. She was killed by a monster.”

Joel stilled for a moment. “Oh. I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s fine. That sort of thing happens all the time. I thought you were a monster at first.” She straightened herself. “Well, let’s not just stand here. Let’s get back to work, shall we?”

When all the outdoor work was done, Gem set to work making a soup for the both of them. But when she set the bowl in front of Joel, for a moment all he did was stare at it.

“Well, go ahead,” Gem said, nodding towards him.

Joel continued to look at the bowl. “I didn’t know people who did manual labor got treated like this.”

“Look, some of those ingredients were kind of expensive, so if you’re not gonna eat it…”

Joel scooted the bowl towards himself irritably and began to slurp down the soup.

The branches rustled outside. An owl’s haunting cry echoed through the night. Gem tapped her boot against the floor.

“Well, at least tell me something about yourself.”

There was another long stretch of silence, almost too long for Gem to bear.

“…What do you do for a living?” She asked, stirring her soup with her spoon thoughtfully.

“I’m a thief,” Joel finally said.

“Yeah, I kind of gathered that. We’re living in a forest full of ‘em.” She paused, eating a spoonful. “Also, I caught you stealing one of my chickens, like, this morning.”

Joel snorted, taking a bite of his soup. 

“If you don’t mind me asking, why, exactly, were you trying to steal my chicken?”

“Oh, you know how it is in the winter around here. Everyone squabbling for resources and whatnot. I even heard some group of bandits managed to pillage an entire carriage, and won’t let anyone else have the stuff they got. Everybody’s out for themselves, I guess.”

“A carriage? What was that even doing in the Wilderness?”

Joel shrugged. “Don’t ask me. That’s just what I’ve heard. They killed a ton of people to get to it, too.”

Gem shuddered, taking another bite of soup. She tried to shake off flashbacks from the military that had bubbled to the surface — all the senseless violence, fighting and killing just to keep your feet on the ground, walking through fields of bodies splattered with mud and blood.

“…Can I ask a question now?” Joel asked.

Gem stared for a moment before responding. “Sure, I guess.”

“How did you even manage to put together all of… this? And in the Wilderness, of all places?”

Gem looked down at her bowl sheepishly. “Well, my great-great grandfather built this cottage, and the barn, back when there weren't as many monsters around. And when it got more dangerous, we adapted, learned how to fight against the monsters. It’s hard work, but it’s worth it to just… have land that’s all your own, raised up by yourself.” She looked back at Joel. “Well, we better eat up. We’ve got a big day tomorrow.”

“…Why?”

ccwau Lizzies vamp outfits are so much fun. I love her aaaaaaahhh. Bampires needed a bit of a redo even tho it was just a month.

Oh boy, the lore is loring. The angst is overflowing. Love the Spanners a lot, wish they were better at the game :> ccwau is starting to form

Transcript:

Scar: What are you guys doing?

Lizzie: I can't let my makeup skills get rusty! So I'm practising on Jimmy.

Scar: CAN I TRY??!

Lizzie: ummm...sure

Scar: I never did makeup before! So let's do eyeshadow first.

•She looks like she has a black eye

Jimmy: Applying blush on the cheeks can really change how a person looks!

Scar: ye-yeah

•Now it looks like she was hit twice

-

I might write a fanfic how Bampires came to be. These are one of the first interactions between Scar and the siblings. I hate drawing interior and I might change it. Had a pretty hard time deciding between mansion and castle.

I love these two so much I hate them. I made like 20 different outfits each, I worked on them for a month and I'm still angry. Aaaaaahhĥehfdj

Gem Lore:

Gem has a special ability "astral projection" her spirit takes on a fox form and leaves her body (yea we making it canon). Humans are unable to see it.

All she ever wished for was to live a peaceful life, have a nice cozy cottage in a forest where she grew up and raise some animals. But she was forced to join the military, and low and behold she was pretty good. Who would have thought that hunting and growing up near monsters would also make you a decent fighter.

That's where she also met Pearl!! They became close rival besties, and then due to unfortunate reasons, they and up betraying one another.

After that Gem runs away from the army and tries to fulfil her dream life, picking up odd jobs which mostly consist of hunting monsters.

One day she finds a strange dirty man in her barn, eating one of her chicken (The audacity). She could just hand him over to the authorities but making him do a free labour, seemed like a better idea.

She teached him the ways of the cottage core life and even took him on a few monster hunts. Due to strange monster activities near the Wilderness they are both hired by the villagers to fix the problem. Who knows what awaits them there...

Joel's goals list: