#moonwon

Hardwon would propose several times. Moonshine would keep telling him she doesn't believe in the institution of marriage and/or needs to think about it.

There is so much angst in Bahumia as is, but there’s always an opportunity for more, for a good hurt/comfort angst with a happy ending story (or major character death, to each their own).

A Hardshine Hanahaki AU. More specifically:

Moonshine with Hanahaki. It just makes sense to me. A disease from what one believes to be unrequited love, where flowers grow from the lovesick fool’s lungs. The victim is destined to die from this disease unless their love is returned, or the roots of the flowers are removed, along with the ability to love this person any longer. As a Druid with an abundance of spores and mushrooms… it would make so much sense. Just— okay, here me out.

She can’t hide anything from Mee Maw, Jolene discovers her sickness before anyone else. The flowers are a magic of their own, and though clouded by Moonshine’s own arcane aura, it’s hard to hide the difference from someone as attentive as Jolene. She’s the one who has to explain the meaning of these internal buds to the young elf. It’s not difficult to guess who she’d have such strong feelings for, no fling or distant admiration would bring about such heartbreak for the disease to begin infesting her lungs. Hardwon Surefoot, now a half elf of the Crick, and unknowingly the owner of Moonshine’s heart. Jolene holds her daughter as she cries through this realization, knowing Moonshine would never give up her ability to love, knowing what fate that might bring. She also knows the love that she has felt for her people, her family. It was something she wouldn’t give up either.

Hardwon isn’t sure why Jolene’s smiles towards him hold an undertone of sadness to them.

Instinctively, Pawpaw always knew when something was wrong. He’s distressed and confused, saddened by the fact he cannot help what he doesn’t understand. It’s Lucanus who is told next. Moonshine approached him first as a wizard, seeking his guidance and any spells he might know that would keep the disease at bay as she continued to love, but it was as her father that he pleaded with her to preserve herself. It was something she refused, so he provided what he could to ease her pain.

It wasn’t often that Hardwon made visits to the University, but when he did, he could’ve sworn that Lucanus was actively avoiding his eyes.

Beverly finds out next. Perhaps it had something to do with being a paladin, or maybe he just knew Moonshine too well. He knew she wasn’t okay, but it wasn’t until he had offered her his highest levels of healing spells that she had told him the source. In direct opposition to what she’d been expecting from him, he spoke sincerely of the love he knew Hardwon had for her in return, that if she just spoke to him… there was still tears in his eyes. He’d lost enough loved ones, and even a few that were warm to the touch now, he’d held their corpses, pleading with them to return back to the living with the power of the light. Moonshine— she was supposed to stay with him for a long, long time. He couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t just tell Hardwon, why she’d let herself suffer when it seemed so clear that her feelings were returned.

But Hardwon would die too soon. With any luck, it would be of natural causes at an old age, when Moonshine looked barely a decade older than when they’d first met. Could she really risk giving him all her love, just to know it would be snatched away so soon? He lived with so much guilt as is, and should he not love her as anything more than family, she couldn’t burden him with this guilt as well. She didn’t want to know a world without Hardwon Surefoot. With any of what she believed to be luck, maybe she wouldn’t have to.

Spells and potions help a great deal. But the disease is still ever present, and she’s reminded of it each time she sees his smile and the tendrils of stems and roots scratch at her throat. Moonshine has long since decided that she would not die of heartbreak, that’s not what this was. She would die with a full heart, loving as strongly and as wholly as she ever had. When she had sought to be locked away in hell, she believed she would not be missed, not to the extent that the would would stop spinning. They would go on without her and learn to adapt. A part of her still believes that, or at least she tries to convince herself it’s true now, so that there may be some righteousness to her stubborn attitude in her ability to love.