Shudder, or, The Fine Art of Fear by soserendipity for <user si

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Title: Shudder, or, The Fine Art of Fear
Pairing: Team Free Will & Jody (gen)
Rating: G







Once upon a time, in a kingdom far far away, there reigned a king and a queen, both gentle and just. They had a young son who loved the castle’s parks and gardens, spending many a day frolicking there. When the prince was old enough, his father took him on a journey to show him their kingdom, but outside the castle grounds, the trees were old, the forests were dark, and the roads were controlled by bandits and dark-eyed traders from the south. The royal guard could not defeat their sheer numbers and in the end, the whole party was killed for the sake of the horses, gold, and carriage.

When note of the tragedy reached the queen, she vowed to honor her son’s love for nature and her husband’s gentleness by changing her land for the better. She pleaded for help from the few masters of forestry that still practiced their craft and she found others who could teach their ways as well. Over the course of many years, these masters and their apprentices lightened and softened the landscape, turning dangerous shadows into welcoming greens.

Tending to flora, no matter which kind, became the most honorable and respected profession in the kingdom. Soon, their work outshone anything known throughout the civilized lands and trade spread word of this new mastery even further. The strongest wood, the tastiest bread, flowers with a scent so sweet that if kept close enough to a table, people could taste – everyone wanted part of that for their own. The need for stone gardens, masonry, and gemstone embroidery slowly faded away as the people’s fascination with nature grew.

One day, in a fit of enraged jealousy, the most powerful stone master wove a spell so dark that the ground itself tore open and swallowed everything light and good in the queen’s kingdom – the trees, the weeds, the flowers, even the gentle soil itself. The master then damned the dying spirits, binding them to the castle grounds, and turned the queen and all her court into statues of white marble. He vowed that the undead would only become more terrible to behold, scaring to death whoever would try to put them to rest and turning them to stone, too. And so, as long as the spirits roamed free, nature would resent all mankind’s intrusions and the queen would be denied her breath for all eternity.

Many brave heroes tried to break that spell, but all were turned to stone. Two centuries later, the curse was stronger than ever and no hero in their right mind dared come close to the castle grounds.



On the edge of a black forest, there lived a hermit in an old and empty house. He had lost his wife to bandits and to ease his grief, he had started surrounding himself with things made of metal: strange twisted approximations of trees in his yard, a windowless room in the ground, and a tall fence around his property. He wanted nothing to do with people anymore. But he was of a knowing mind, and so the hopeless still turned to him for help and he did not have it in him to turn them away.

One day, a father who had also lost his wife knocked on his door. He brought with him his two sons, and although the father never said as much, he needed the hermit's help. He carried a disease that was generations in the making, and once it got hold of someone’s heart, there was no escape. It only got stronger, a slow-spreading ignorance that shrouded common sense and decency until the worst fate of all befell: the loss of fear; leaving the mind open to deception and bravado, inviting early death.

Over the years, the father grew hard and angry, proud and distant; he left the children to care for each other until he finally didn’t return at all. From then on, it came upon the hermit to raise the brothers and they became as close as anyone had ever seen. The children grew into young men, tall and strong, but all the old man’s hopes that the sickness would pass them by were for naught. The malady already itched at them and, for all his wisdom, the hermit could not find a cure.

“It doesn’t matter,” the brothers used to say. “We are not afraid.” And the old man could only nod and redouble his efforts.

Life was a hardship at those times. People had grown poor and even travelling elsewhere to make a living was dangerous because the roads were worse than ever. The traders were the last that still dared to journey, and only because they were the best at what they did. Rumors said they could talk common folk out of house and soul if given the chance. Even the bandits feared them and the old man shuddered whenever talk of them reached him.

But the brothers just said, “Don’t worry, they will not scare us,” and the old man knew they spoke the truth. And so he fashioned a pair of sharp daggers from the trees in his yard, and made gifts of them to the brothers.



One evening, there was a knock on the old man’s door, and when he opened it, he came face to face with a strange man with even stranger eyes. But they were blue, not black, and as the hermit bade him inside, the stranger told them of his quest.

“My father went missing” he said, “and for a long time I searched for him to no avail. The last hope I have is to use the seed of Buceria Torquataena. But no matter how much I offered, no one was willing to sell such a flower to me. I hoped you could help me find one.”

“The flower you’re searching has long been extinct,” the younger brother said, “and were this land’s soil not damned, growing that plant is still a thing of great difficulty. It needs horn in its soil and brass in its water, lest there be no magic in its seeds.”

“I feared as much,” the stranger said to the hermit, “but you have made word of yourself as a wise man and a master of metal. On my travels I have already acquired powdered brass and ground horn. If I were to lift the curse from the castle, your craftsmanship and this land’s magic might suffice for the flower to take root. So I ask you now, master, will you help?”

“I admire your determination, searcher,” the old man said, “but no one can face the castle and live. The spirits have scared the bravest to stone. The curse cannot be broken.”

“I value your advice,” the searcher said, “but my blade is sharp and my father’s strength runs through my veins. I will go no matter the cost. All I ask of you is help with the seed.”

The brothers had exchanged glances throughout this and they knew what the other was thinking. The old man had taught them to be kind and prudent, and they could not bear to abandon the searcher to his quest.

“If you go to the castle,” the elder brother said, “we will come along. We don’t scare easily and we wish to help.” The younger nodded his agreement. The old man sighed, knowing that once their minds were set, nothing would keep them.

“Very well,” the hermit said to the searcher, “if you lift the spell, I will help.”

With that, he held his boys close for a long breath. The elder brother rolled his eyes but did not break away and the younger whispered, “Don’t fear, everything will be well."



During their journey, the three became good friends, sharing food and talk and laughter. But it was a long road to the castle and every day, the three men fought bandits or traders or both. The searcher was truly a skilled fighter; so quick that it seemed he could appear out of thin air exactly where his blade was needed. But despite his prowess, their foes were plenty, and without the brothers, he would have died a hundred times underneath the forest’s black canopy.

The brothers were battle-wise, too, and their daggers cut through necks like scythes through barley. Over time, the searcher noticed that the two did not even shudder when the fight was upon them, and he could not hide his astonishment.

“We’re proficient and strong,” the younger brother said then, “and we know each other’s movements. Nothing can come between us; there is no reason for fear.” The elder just nodded and kept cleaning their blades with a rag.

When they finally reached the castle, the searcher had long been let in on the brothers’ illness, but he shook his head when the younger said, “We should go in alone.”

“No. I might scare easier than you-”

“We don’t scare at all,” the elder grumbled.

“True," the searcher conceded, "But I will not let you fight my battles. Just having you with me will be courage enough.”

And so it came that when the three walked onto the castle’s grounds, they did so with warmth in their hearts.


The tree spirits’ uproar was instant and fierce. They attacked the men with gnarled limbs and ungodly howls – nightmares designed to rip them to shreds. They tore at them, tried to pry them apart, but the three friends would not have it. They hacked and shredded and soon enough, rivers of sap trailed down twines of bark, and the ground underneath their feet turned to sludge. The spirits wailed in anguish, but the men stood strong until finally, the last drop had been wept onto the earth.

For a moment, everything fell silent.

Then the shadows around them dusted apart, a faint yellow-green glow bleeding into statues and soil where it settled. Suddenly, there came a collective gasp as all around them, color rushed into stone and a carpet of green started spreading underneath their feet. The spell was broken.

The friends were hailed as heroes, and the queen ordered a great feast in their honor to be held in three days time. To her dismay, she had no gold to reward them with, poor as her kingdom had become. Instead, she offered each a set of fine clothing and anything that lay in her power to grant. The brothers declined, for they desired nothing, but the searcher took the queen aside and told her of his friends’ malady, wishing for a cure so they would not die from their own recklessness.

When the day of the feast came, the queen was sad to say that the healers had come to the same conclusion as the old hermit: their ailment was incurable.

The searcher was devastated, but the queen said, “With how they look at each other, those brothers remind me of what precious love I lost. I wish to try something. Will you help me?”

“Of course,” the searcher said. So they consulted for a while, and when they went to bed that night, both dared to hope.



The next morning, the queen’s seamstresses separated the brothers to lay last touches on their new clothes. When the elder brother was done, he was given a fine horse – which, due to an inattentive stable boy, took nearly an hour – and he rode to the gate to meet his friends and bid the queen farewell. Just as the gate came into view, another rider hastened away, and the queen and all her court looked after him with sorrow.

He hurried forwards and asked, “What happened?”

“Your brother just left,” the queen said.

“That doesn’t make sense,” he said, “why would he leave without me?”

“When you were nowhere to be found,” she replied, “he was sure you’d taken off already and was eager to catch up with you.”

“But he’ll certainly stop at the Crossway’s Inn,” one of her courtship added, “The woods are too scary to travel without company.”

That was when a sudden, merciless cold swept through the elder's veins and straight into his heart.

“He won’t wait; he won’t fear,” whispered the elder as he mounted his horse, and gave it the reins; hooves like thunder as he rode through the forest. By the time the Inn came into view, the frost within him had spread, leaving him shuddering and weak. But inside the tavern, the only faces he met belonged to that of the royal guard.

“Has my brother come through?” he asked and when the men shook their heads, he turned straight for his horse.

One guard caught him by the shoulder, though, and asked, “Where are you going?”

“Back home,” he brushed them off, but with a sleek hiss of metal, all the guards lowered their pikes.

“By the queen's orders we cannot let anyone pass,” a guard said. “The roads are not safe at night.”

“Which is exactly why I have to leave! My brother is out there, on his own. I must reach him before he gets any further!”

But the guards didn’t budge, and all the elder brother got for his attempts at escape were bloody scratches where their weapons bit into his skin. He couldn’t breathe very well anymore as he felt his senses fade, thoughts of his brother alone in the woods turning his chest into a block of pure ice.

All of a sudden, the door was thrown open and everyone in the room jumped with the sound.

“What were you thinking to ride on without me, you fool?” the younger yelled, his eyes wide and his face pale. “I feared you would die!”

“As I feared you would,” the elder retorted, “I saw you leave, ignoramus, I only gave chase!”

They both fell silent, and the younger shuddered and took a deep breath. The elder could not hold back a tear as he, too, was able to breathe again freely, the cold slowly releasing its hold. Behind them, a throat was cleared.

“Actually, it was me you followed,” said the searcher, stepping out from behind the counter where he’d hidden, “please forgive the queen and me the deceit. It was the only way we hoped we could cure you.”

“There is nothing to forgive,” the younger said, between genuine peals of laughter, “for all is well.”

“All is well, my left arsecheek,” the elder said, cuffing his brother over the head. “Trollop.”

“Numbskull,” came the instant reply, and they smiled at each other in true relief. Then the elder pulled the younger close again, and both their faces shone with happiness. All around them, people erupted into cheers, stamping their boots and thumping their weapons.

And they lived happily ever after, slaying bandits and traders to their hearts' desires, all the while never forgetting that first rush of fear.