closed event para. feat. merlin.
minnie had never been the kind of person who expected the worst. she liked to believe there was always an explanation for strange things, that even the darkest situations had some kind of answer waiting at the end. elias was full of magic and impossible things, and she had learned that sometimes the impossible was just another part of life.
but nothing could have prepared her for that night.
she remembered the quiet more than anything else. the strange stillness that settled over the streets, the way everything felt just a little too empty. she remembered the sound of footsteps behind her, the instinctive feeling that something was wrong before she even had time to understand why. then came the panic. the confusion. voices she didn't recognize.
and merlin. he had been there. she remembered seeing him, remembered the brief flash of relief when she realized she wasn't completely alone. whatever was happening, whatever was going wrong, surely merlin would know what to do. he always seemed to have an answer. always seemed to understand the magic around them better than anyone else.
but even he didn't have a chance to stop it. everything after that happened too quickly. a blur of movement, a sharp wave of fear, and then darkness swallowed them both.
when minnie woke up, she had no idea where she was. the first thing she noticed was the cold. it settled into her bones, creeping through the stone floor and the walls surrounding her. the second thing she noticed was that she wasn't alone. merlin was there too, but even that didn't make her feel safe. if he didn't know where they were, if he didn't know how to get them out, then what chance did they have?
the cellar was nothing like anywhere she had ever been before. there were no windows, no obvious exits, no clues about where they were or who had taken them. every noise from above made her freeze. every distant voice sent another wave of fear through her.
she hated not knowing. she hated that someone had taken them without explanation. that someone had decided they could just disappear them from their lives and leave them trapped somewhere hidden away. she hated the helplessness most of all.
time became impossible to track. minnie tried to stay hopeful. she tried to remind herself that someone would notice they were gone, that someone would come looking. but the longer they stayed there, the harder it became to hold onto that certainty.
and now... now there were rumors of a ball.
a celebration happening in elias. music, lights, magic, people gathering together as if everything was normal. under any other circumstance, minnie would have wanted to see it. she would have wanted to get swept up in the excitement, to pretend for one night that the world wasn't as terrifying as it had become.
but then came the visitors. two people. two people who looked exactly like them. one who looked like her and one who looked like merlin.
they came with a potion, with words that were meant to sound reassuring but only made more questions pile up. minnie couldn't stop staring at them, unable to understand how someone could wear a familiar face without being the person she knew.
she didn't know who had taken them. she didn't know what they wanted. she didn't know if the ball was a distraction or a part of something bigger.
all she knew was that somewhere out there were two strangers wearing their faces, and whatever was happening, minnie was terrified that she had no idea how it would end.
note: hello friends! i wanted to make a short note that in character no one knows minnie is missing. there has been someone or something parading around the city pretending to be minnie and merlin for over a month now. but, others don’t now that. so keep that in mind for your threads.
