Holding Curses with gentle Hands

Lune had been born a little different, two minutes before her identically odd twin brother Luc, into a world teeming with magic. She grew up like any other little girl, playing and roughhousing, splashing through mud with her brother. They learned how to climb trees with all the fearlessness of those who had not quite yet learned how painful falling could be.

She was bright and inquisitive and always pulled her brother along towards her next imaginary adventure, showing him snails and flowers and bugs and bees. Luc came up with stories of all kind as they played, creating crafty trolls and sweet little fairies as they swung sticks around and made dolls out of acorns and twigs and leaves.

They came back home with skinned knees and rips in their clothes and grins so wide and bright they might just rival the sun. They were, indeed, very happy children.

It was only when school began for them that Lune and Luc learned that they were different. In a world where their neighbor grew enough strawberries to fill a bucket in the span of a week, where the grouchy mayor always looked sparkling and perfect, and every child learned at least one or two cantrips, they were very, very ordinary.

Not a single spark of magic could be found in their veins.

At first their parents were very concerned, worried that something had happened to their beloved children. That someone might have cursed the babes out of jealousy. Their mother sought out everyone she might have accidentally insulted to apologize, while their father reached out to old friends he lost contact with, worried he might have offended them.

But when an expert came by, he told them the children were fine. They were just ordinary. As bland as old lettuce, he said.

"They’re bright children," their neighbor said while bringing them a bowl of strawberries. "It doesn’t matter if they have magic or not. At worst their lives will be a little boring."

"We’ll adjust their classes," their kind and cheerful teacher promised. "Don’t worry, we’ll compensate for their lack of magic. They could become great, um, scribes! Or scholars!"

"They don’t understand what they’re lacking," the mayor said offhandedly during one of his rounds through their little town. "They were born without magic, they didn’t lose it. That’s a good thing, it will cause them less grief."

Lune and Luc heard their parents cry at night and looked at each other, deciding that if they had no magic, at least they could be kind. They would make sure their parents wouldn’t have to be so sad all the time.

They became some of the hardest-working students their school had ever seen, and the entire town had nothing but praise for the friendly twins always willing to lend a helping hand. Their parents got used to their magic-lacking children, and while everyone in town knew and never failed to inform travelers and traders about the unfortunate twins while trading gossip, it bothered them less and less over the years.

When the time came that Lune and Luc were old enough to leave the house, their parents were incredibly reluctant to let them go.

"There are a lot of dangers in the world," their mother worried, wringing her hands. "You have no magic to defend yourselves with."

"We’ll be careful," Lune promised. "And we’ll stick together."

"How will you avoid bandits and rogue mages and magical beasts?" their father fretted, packing daggers into their bags.

"We’ll stay on the road," Luc answered. "The queen’s road is safe and regularly patrolled. We’ll stick with other travelers and traders so we won’t be alone."

Their words soothed their parents, and while they were sad to see their children go, they gave the twins everything they could possibly need and sent them on their way.

For the first time, Lune and Luc left their hometown, and soon, they realized how freeing it was to meet people who had no idea who they were. What they were lacking.

They reached a big city after a couple of weeks, getting lost among winding streets and big, bustling crowds. They met mercenaries and adventurers, and at one point, Luc started to write down stories inspired by those adventurers if they agreed to speak to him. He soon accumulated a big book full of daring tales, of dashing heroes and wicked foes and wondrous places. Of loss and love and what it meant to be brave.

They settled down in the city after a while. Luc learned to play the lute from an old bard and spent his nights in taverns, chatting up travelers and earning his keep by playing music and telling his tales. As well as fleecing drunkards in games of dice whenever he could get away with it.

Lune, in the meantime, found herself working at an antique store that doubled as a pawnbroker. Many of the adventurers came to get rid of odd trinkets and pretty, shiny knickknacks they picked up during their travels.

Sometimes the items they tried to pawn off were magical, and that made her boss leery without fail. He always refused them, sending the adventurer on their way.

"It just means shit’s cursed," he would grumble into his majestic beard. "They wouldn’t come to us if they could sell magic items to mages instead. Don’t touch those things, even the best spell casters can’t always defend themselves against curses."

"Can’t curses be broken?" She had heard enough of those tales from the stories Luc told her. He liked to read things he wrote out loud, getting her opinion on his wording and descriptions.

"Aye," the shop owner rearranged one of the stained glass decorations he had been trying to sell for a while now, before he continued, "But you can only remove the curse from the person, not from the item. That’s what makes curse casters so much trouble, they fuck up perfectly good merchandise. The best you can do is destroy the item in question and hope that the curse lets go instead of latching on to something else."

He made Lune promise to never accept magical items from anyone, and the very next day she unwittingly broke that promise. She had no magic and therefore no sense for magic either.

She accepted a plain gold necklace from a mercenary while her boss was in the backroom, unpacking a crate of goods. The woman had handed the necklace over in exchange for money with gloved hands and a relieved look in her eyes.

Lune chalked that relief up to her having debts to pay off, as many adventurers did, and looked up when her boss returned, only for him to start cussing.

"Stupid girl," he hissed, staring at the necklace in her hand while the woman bailed before she could be stopped. "That’s magic, cursed magic! Do you have any idea what that will do to you?"

Startled, Lune dropped the necklace onto the counter and they both stared at it as though it was a living, poisonous snake.

"Get rid of it," her boss grouched. "You already touched it, after all. And then go see if a mage is available to cure you."

He all but threw her out and Lune stared down at the necklace she nervously held with her fingertips. It looked normal to her, very much so. She didn’t feel cursed either, but that didn’t have to mean anything. There were curses that needed months, sometimes even years, before they took effect. Those were usually deadly.

Lune had no idea how to get rid of the necklace, worried that someone else would find it again sooner or later. Maybe someone down on their luck or someone who wanted a pretty trinket. Shoving it into her pocket, she wrung her hands together, feeling worried and yet unchanged.

She ended up walking home, where Luc was nursing a vicious hangover. He had been drinking with a group of rough-and-tumble orcs to get their stories and he was now squinting at his notes.

"The fuck did I write?" he muttered. "The bell’s jail? What? Oh, bull’s tail! Damn my handwriting is shitty."

He blearily looked up when she rushed inside, then paused. His haziness cleared up nearly immediately and he straightened from his slouch. "What’s wrong?"

"I touched something cursed," Lune said, feeling frazzled and a wee bit frantic. "My boss said I should get rid of it and get help, but I don’t know where to put it."

Luc leaned across the table to grab their flower vase. He got up and tossed the half-wilted flowers along with the water out the window. When someone outside cursed at him, he flipped them off before shoving the window closed.

"Put it in here," he said, returning to the table. Lune dropped the necklace inside and Luc put the vase beneath his arm. "We’ll figure the rest out later, come on, let’s get you to a mage."

It took four hours until a mage trained in curse removal had time to see them, only for the woman to frown at Lune in a puzzled manner.

"I can’t detect a curse on you," she said, accent posh and crisp. "Someone must have tricked you. Do you have the item in question with you?"

Luc presented the vase and the mage’s brows rose. "That is indeed cursed," she confirmed. "But you were lucky, it seems, you must have avoided touching the amulet itself. The curse is centered there, and it’s one of those fast-acting ones. You’d have an hour at most before turning into a slug. Get rid of it as soon as possible without touching it."

They forked over the money for the mage’s time and were sent out of her office with another warning to never touch the amulet.

"Did you touch the amulet?" Luc asked as they stood on the street, waiting for a carriage to pass them by.

"Yeah." Lune flexed her hands. "I held the entire damn thing in my palm."

"Huh." He looked baffled and unsure.

Neither of them had an idea what to say and they returned home in silence. Luc put the vase back on the table, staring at it critically.

"We could bury it," he suggested, only to grimace, "but someone will find it again sooner or later. Magical items don’t like being hidden for long."

That was a fact that many a mage struggled with. The easiest way to appease something magical, cursed or not, was to wear it often enough that it got some use. Lune frowned and after taking a bracing breath, she reached out.

She ignored Luc’s startled squawk and his hand smacking her arm in warning. She touched the necklace, pulling it out to place it on her palm. She didn’t feel any different.

"If you turn into a slug, I will call you Wilbert and you will have to live on my hat," Luc snapped, worried and exasperated in equal measure. "And I will teach you to do slug tricks and you’ll have to earn the money for the curse removal that way. Don’t think I wont!"

Lune knew her brother would drag her to a mage without a second’s hesitation the second she started to transform, just like she had helped him home after long nights at the tavern countless times. If he wasn’t back by dawn, she usually hunted him down before she had to go to work.

"How do you feel?" he asked, sounding tense and worried.

"Fine." Lune turned the amulet between her fingers. It was on the smaller side and there was a delicate flower etched into the front. It would have fetched a pretty penny if it hadn’t been cursed. She hesitated, then put it around her neck.

They stood in tense silence for long moments, then Luc reached out to poke her cheek. "Hm, you’re not getting slimy." He scowled at her. "Idiot."

"It can’t hurt anyone else now." Lune tucked the necklace under her shirt. The gold was cold against her skin like any other piece of jewelry would have been. It didn’t feel cursed to her.

Luc just sighed, sounding aggravated and still worried. "I’ll go get new flowers."

"You’re not the only one who gets to make bad decisions," she called after him as he stepped towards the kitchen door that led to their tiny backyard. When he glared at her, she added pointedly, "Drinking contest, last month."

He made a face and disappeared to go get flowers from their flower pots, not bothering to argue further. They were both idiots, Lune decided with a wry smile. Twin menaces down to their cores.

The necklace truly didn’t curse her and Lune returned to work the next day, not mentioning that she hadn’t gotten rid of the jewelry. She had to explain to her boss, however, why she hadn’t sensed the magic on the necklace in the first place. He seemed a bit miffed to have someone without magical abilities in his employ but let it go with a sigh.

Afterwards he insisted on being present for every transaction and made sure she wouldn’t pay for something cursed again. A fortnight after buying the necklace, Lune picked Luc up from a tavern on her way home from work. He was drunk and kept fidgeting in a way that told her he had gotten into trouble. His coin purse was still there, however, as were his boots, hat, and jacket, so he hadn’t run into thieves or someone cheating him at a game of dice.

"What happened?" she asked, and he grimaced.

"My stupid big mouth," he said, voice a bit thick and his speech slurred as he leaned against her. "I talked about how you could touch something cursed. Then I got this shoved at me."

He clumsily fished something out of his jacket pocket and held it out to her. It looked like a set of earrings. "Now I’m cursed," he groaned. "Help me."

She took the earrings, but once again she felt nothing. "Huh, are you sure?"

He nodded. "It’s supposed to turn people into cats. For, like, ever." Then he frowned down at his feet, confused. "But I’m not a cat."

Lune gave his back a reassuring pat and helped him home. He was asleep the moment he slumped onto his bed, and she pulled off his boots, leaving them by the door. Fiddling with the earrings for a moment, she decided to put them on. If they both did turn into cats, they could found an underground cat gang and rule the city from the shadows.

When she woke up in the morning she was still a perfectly ordinary human. As was Luc when she made him get up to drink some water and eat a proper meal.

"I think we can’t be cursed," she said when they sat at their tiny, rickety table together, staring at the vase filled with fresh, small flowers. Luc dropped his head onto his crossed arms and garbled something too muffled to understand. She gave his head a pat. "There, there."

He flipped her off halfheartedly, and she snorted, reaching up to play with her new earrings. They were perfectly normal earrings now that she was wearing them. As long as a cursed item was worn properly, they didn’t curse anyone else who might get in contact with them. Usually, only when the item was given to or stolen from someone could the curse could effect someone else again.

Unless the item in question was a chair or something of the sort. The kinds of curses that were put into furniture, or gods forbid, houses, were always the hardest to handle and could affect anyone that interacted with them.

However, for now, it seemed as though the two of them were going to be just fine.

Somehow, shortly after that, people found out that the magicless twins were immune to curses. Before Lune knew it, both she and Luc had items shoved at them left and right.

Daggers that demanded to be fed with blood and armor that grew heavier and heavier the longer it was worn, boots that made the wearer walk until they died and a beautiful crystal head-piece that drove the wearer mad.

"We’re turning our home into a junkyard," Luc grouched as he tossed a cursed tankard onto the table. Their tiny home had grown ever more cramped with every new item. "What’s next, a cursed house?"

When, two days later, they stood in front of a cursed homestead, his expression was caught between frustration and reluctant relief. "At least it’s bigger than our current place."

The owner was desperate to leave his late grandfather’s home behind forever, for it creaked and groaned and everything within it broke. Every tenant who had moved into it had their possessions destroyed by nightfall, and if they didn’t leave within a month, people started to die.

Since mages hadn’t been able to help, the owner was desperate to hand the house over to someone who couldn’t get hurt. He was rather worried that someone homeless might move into the homestead and end up dead if he left it empty.

His grandfather had apparently been secretly involved with some terrible people, and one of them had cursed the homestead, resulting in said grandfather’s death.

The owner was all too happy to have someone else move into the place who wouldn’t get hurt. The man didn’t even want any money; he just wanted to keep more people from dying.

Still, Lune and Luc paid him as much coin as they could afford, and they walked back and forth many times to transport all of their worldly possessions to their new home just outside the city.

There wasn’t anything useful left within the house itself, since everything had been destroyed, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t salvage some things. It took Lune and Luc a month to fix broken furniture or to take it apart and keep what was still useful to make something new out of it.

As soon as they had settled in properly, Luc left in the evening to go on his usual rounds to try to find chatty adventurers. He came back a mere hour later and he looked utterly furious, which was a rare thing. Luc could get annoyed and frustrated, yes, but Lune had never seen him this angry.

He held a tiny black kitten cradled in his hands, the little thing shivering and wet. "Damn fools wanted to drown it," he snarled, gentle hands patting the kitten dry. "Said it would only bring bad luck. That seeing a black cat means getting cursed."

That was how a little kitten soon named Wilbert came to live with them. On Wilbert’s heels followed another black cat that a little girl brought to them with tears in her eyes.

"My Pa will kill her," she said, sniffling but bravely holding out the basket with her cat snuggled up inside. "Please, take her."

Luc turned around and walked away, face like a thunderstorm. Lune took the basket after a moment and when the girl broke down into tears she said, "Why don’t you come and visit? We need someone to help us look after the cats."

The girl’s face brightened with relief and Lune hurried to add, "Just don’t touch anything if you can help it. We have a number of cursed things in our home."

"I promise." The girl wiped her tears away with slightly shaky hands and sniffled loudly.

Lune invited her in while the girl introduced herself as Adeline. "A name worthy of a princess," Lune said and Adeline smiled a little.

"My Ma said it’s supposed to bring me luck." She took the basket back when Lune held it out and introduced her cat Sally to her new home. Lune followed the girl around, making sure to point out everything cursed.

The following week, someone had tied a one-eyed, thin dog to their front gate and Luc spent the morning scrubbing it clean and feeding it. The shivering dog was hesitantly wagging its tail by the end.

"We seem to have become the dumping ground for everything people don’t want anymore," he grouched, carefully massaging the ears of the dog, who flopped its head into his lap with a bone-deep sigh. "People shouldn’t do that."

But people kept doing it. By the end of summer, they had four black cats, two dogs and three donkeys that screamed a lot once they felt safe and comfortable.

Adeline came by every day to help, taking care of the animals with a lot of love and she was a rapt audience when Luc read his stories out loud.

"You should sell them," Lune told him that evening, while he was bent over his socks, mending another hole. "I bet you..." She peered into the kitchen. "Six apples that people will love them."

He frowned and didn’t answer, but Lune had achieved what she had wanted: he was thinking about it. They needed the extra income as well, since her pay from the shop could only cover so much. Luc earned some money singing and telling stories in taverns, but there was no telling how much he’d bring home at the end of the day. Some days his hands were empty.

A week later he grabbed all his written stories and left. When he came back in the evening, his eyes were bright and his grin huge and he grabbed her up in a hug, turning in excited circles with her as he laughed, loud and free.

His stories, indeed, were loved. How could they not be, she thought fondly, when he put so much work and effort into them? When he chose his words with love and care and spoke with every adventurer with great attention, always respecting it when they said no.

Luc was happy, happier than he had ever been. They built a proper stable for the donkeys over the next month, and a week after that, they found two horses by their gate. One was blind and the other lame and with some love and care both slowly flourished into healthy and happy animals.

Lune was content. She liked her work well enough and chatted with people at market day, accepting more cursed items as they appeared. Traders especially were glad to pawn off their useless wares to her. She was glad to make things a little safer for other people, to know these curses wouldn’t hurt anyone anymore.

By now she had a small jewelry collection, two gorgeous dresses along with three sets of boots, a cloak as black as night and five daggers. Luc had grabbed some jewelry for himself, along with belts and hats and all of the cursed quills and books whenever she brought some home, scurrying them away to hoard them like a happy, curious squirrel.

They wrote home to their parents frequently, reassuring them that they were happy and healthy and doing well.

To Lune’s surprise, one night half a year after she had touched the first curse without repercussions, someone knocked at their door late in the evening. The weather was horrid she and Luc exchanged a baffled, somewhat wary look.

"Lune, no-" Luc hissed when she got up and answered the door.

To her surprise, she came nose-to-chest with a stranger and had to peer up at a nervous face. The young man at her door had a thick, short beard and somewhat wild hair and wore old, worn clothes. He was soaked through, even with the patchwork cloak he had thrown over his shoulders. He looked hopeful and yet a little scared.

"My apologies," he said softly and when he spoke, she saw a hint of fangs peek out between his lips. "I heard you take care of curses?"

"We can’t remove them," Lune clarified right away and his face fell. "But we’re immune to them. If there is something you want to get rid of, we’ll take it."

He huffed a noise devoid of humor, sounding instead wry and solemn. "I can hardly leave myself, can I?"

Lune felt herself grow serious, her voice softening. "I take it that mages were unable to help?"

The man gave a tiny shrug, suddenly looking very tired. "Cursed in the womb, they said. Can’t remove what I was born with without killing me."

That was indeed very unfortunate. "Come on in," Lune said after a moment, stepping aside. "It’s late and the weather is shit. You can stay the night in front of our fire."

"I wouldn’t want to impose," he said, but when she reached out, he allowed her to take hold of his soaked sleeve and draw him in. "I’m Ruben."

Ruben was a very careful big man. His steps were quiet, and he hunched his shoulders as though to try and make himself smaller while Luc fetched some towels with an unimpressed look aimed at his sister. The moment her brother heard the entire sad story of their guest, though, he was grumbling and making tea and shoving some bread and butter at Ruben.

They made up a bed in front of the fire, and the next day, Luc took one look at Ruben’s lost expression and defeated posture and ushered him out to help feed the animals and harvest fruit from trees.

"Such a nice guy, I can’t believe people just tossed him out on his ear when they found out about his curse," her brother grouched later while Ruben effortlessly chopped wood outside.

Lune just hummed and side-eyed her brother. He pretended to be utterly engrossed in washing the dishes before he gave up and started ranting about the stupidity of the common folk.

"Why don’t you write about cursed people and monsters?" Lune asked and he fell silent, staring at his dripping hands with an expression of pure, baffled surprise.

"Won’t that be strange?" Luc asked, voice quiet and a little unsure. "No one writes about monsters."

"Maybe it’s time someone does," she said, drying the bowl he handed her. "Maybe it’s time to give a voice to everyone misunderstood. They might have compelling tales to tell. And who knows who’ll read your stories and change their mind about them?"

"Huh." He finished washing in silence then left with quick steps. Lune caught a glimpse of him scurrying outside a minute later, quill and parchment clutched nervously to his chest.

Lune smiled to herself and began to sing as she dusted the cursed objects in their home, the open window allowing a cool breeze to drift inside. It smelled of rain and wet earth and the sunlight was near golden at this hour.

She wasn’t surprised when Ruben stayed, not in the least. He moved into the spare bedroom and they walked him through the house, pointing out everything cursed and dangerous. Adeline, when she visited, decided he was the best as soon as he let her stand on his shoulders so she could pick apples and cherries from branches too thin to support anyone’s weight.

Luc was scribbling furiously at all times, trailing after Ruben with ink stained fingertips and a dozen questions clamoring to be asked.

"You shouldn’t take in monsters," Lune’s boss told her when she showed up at work. "They’re bad news."

So the gossip mill had caught wind of their new roommate.

"Ruben is a very gentle person," Lune said resolutely, a frown pulling on her brows. How could the man who pet cats with the softest touch and who let little girls muddy his shoulders just to pick fruits be horrible? "I will not hear a single bad word against him."

Her boss shook his head, looking mulish. "Fine, but don’t say I didn’t warn you when he tears you apart."

She almost quit right on the spot, feeling frustration well up that lasted the entire rest of the day. They needed the money, though, so she gritted her teeth and said nothing.

"He’s not wrong," Ruben said carefully when she complained about her boss over dinner. Ruben was an amazing cook, far better than Lune and Luc, who got by just fine, but had never bothered to learn much about the culinary arts. "The full moon will be soon, I should probably leave."

Luc cast him a withering glare. "Don’t run, being a coward doesn’t suit you. You are safe with us, and we are safe with you." When Lune and Ruben looked at him, he grew a little flustered but soldiered on, "End of story."

And that was that. The full moon came and went and the worst that happened was that they had a massive gray wolf shedding on the carpet. The next morning Lune nearly got the life squeezed out of her as Ruben hugged her and Luc at the same time. Tears were falling down his cheeks.

"Thank you," he whispered hoarsely, voice breaking on a sob. "I don’t know what you did, but thank you."

Luc looked ready to combust with how flustered he was and shooed the werewolf outside to feed the donkeys and horses. Her brother bustled away with a fluttery sort of restlessness and yet there was a charmed, soft smile fighting to appear on his face.

Lune leaned back and reached up to play with a new set of cursed earrings she wore today. It wasn’t like Luc and she had done anything special, but something must have gone right last night. Ruben certainly looked as though a massive weight had fallen off his shoulders, and for the first time since they had met him, he smiled.

"End of story," Lune mused to herself. "I guess there is no fighting it if the storyteller says so."

Luc walked into town that afternoon to bring his new story to his publisher and he returned victorious, if exhausted. "People are stupid," he groaned as he flopped onto the carpet. "I need floor time."

Lune hummed and laid down beside him. They stared at the ceiling of their pretty, cursed homestead, surrounded by things cursed and not. With sweet animals no one wanted but who were unfailingly loyal and loving.

"I like him," Luc whispered, sounding despairing and delighted all at once. "I like the big, hairy lug. Gods help me."

Lune just burst out laughing and her brother rolled over to try to put her into a headlock. She kept cackling, because he was really, really bad at wrestling, always had been, and he ended up grinning himself. Ruben and Adeline found them like that, sitting in a heap on the floor, looking too happy by half.

"There are other werewolves," Ruben said hesitantly that evening over dinner. "What if...what if they dropped by during the full moon? So they don’t hurt anyone either."

Luc glanced at Lune, looking a bit unsure. They hadn’t really had many visitors in the past. Lune and Luc had been by themselves ever since leaving home, and their parents hadn’t had guests over often either. Lune suspected that they had been a little ashamed, deep down, of their magicless children.

She leaned back and looked past her brother and Ruben to the back of the house. "If they’re willing to lend a hand, I guess we could extend the house to create a big guest bedroom. That wall there has always bothered me."

Luc hid a smile by taking a bite of his stew, while Ruben looked so relieved he might have just started floating right then and there. Their parents were going to lose their shit, Lune thought with some amusement, once they heard about all this. They might just go gray prematurely.

Just as autumn turned cold and frosty, after Ruben had introduced them to the local pack and the werewolves had begun working on the house in exchange for a place to stay during the full moon, someone knocked at their front door during a dreary afternoon.

Lune opened the door while Luc snuck little peeks at Ruben, who hauled stones and wood around like it weighed nothing, visibly doing his best to show off.

The first thing Lune noticed about their unexpected visitor was their blood red eyes with pupils like a cat’s. Next were the red, perked fox ears and the long, thick red hair and, lastly, a red tail, as bushy as a fox’s, that swished behind the stranger.

The stranger had a fanged smile and a calculating coldness to his eyes. "I hear you are the harborers of curses?" he said in a near purr. He reached up with a clawed, elegant hand and pulled back his thick hair to reveal black veins creeping up his neck. "Got room for one more?"

It took Lune a moment to realize what he was. A cursed spirit, rumored to be born during a black sun. A harbinger of misfortune and death. Those children usually didn’t get to live, their parents either drowned them or left them out in the woods for a slower death. A death they could pretend to have had no hand in.

"If you’re willing to help out," Lune said and as she stepped aside, she saw a quickly hidden flash of genuine surprise on his pretty face. "Come in, I’ll introduce you to everyone."

The stranger tipped his head, his ears twitching as he listened to all the noise inside. Then he smiled, and it looked friendly and charming on the surface, but it expertly hid everything he actually felt at the moment.

"Thank you for the warm welcome." He walked inside with a dancer’s grace. "My name’s Eris, it’s nice to meet you."

Eris was unfailingly polite, spoke like nearly everything had a double meaning, and smiled in the most empty manner Lune had ever seen. Luc and he, surprisingly enough, started a near-friendly battle of words when Luc tried to get a story out of Eris.

The house was rather lively these days, and with Eris planting his shapely behind in the house, refusing the leave again, they soon had to add a new room.

"People won’t trust you if you keep collecting monsters," Lune’s boss told her once he heard about the cursed spirit through the grapevine. "There is only so much you and your brother can handle, and you’re in way over your head with that one."

Lune wished she didn’t need the money he paid her. While the werewolves offered to pitch in, they had little monetary means themselves, and Eris had none at all. Lune was pretty sure all his worldly possessions, of which there were few, were, in fact, stolen.

"I only borrow," Eris said that evening, after she had ranted about her boss, while he watched her wash the dishes, his tail swishing behind him lazily. "I just maybe never give anything back."

She snorted, shaking her head with a wryly fond smile and he watched her a moment longer, his gaze intense. Then he spoke up, "Why don’t you quit? Your boss sounds bigoted."

"I need a job," Lune said, gesturing at everything around them. "Luc earns a decent amount with his stories, but there are a lot of mouths to feed and animals to take care of. And you’d be surprised how few jobs there actually are for someone without magic."

Not when everyone else had magic in their veins. Everyone but she and Luc.

Eris was silent for a long moment, then he smiled. "You are too nice." He got up and sashayed away. Lune heard her brother’s indignant gasp and cussing before he returned.

Eris set down a sheet of parchment and a pot of ink and started to write with a quill he must have plucked right out of Luc’s hand, for the tip was still wet. Luc appeared in the kitchen, looking disgruntled, but after exchanging a look with Lune, he settled back and waited.

"Here," Eris said when he was done, pushing the parchment towards Lune. "Now you can quit."

Leaning forward, Lune looked at the math, the calculations. The money she should demand for every cursed item she housed and protected. There was even a draft to the local lord, asking for financial support to properly keep curses away from the defenseless public.

"You’re the one who takes in all the curses," Eris told her when she looked up, surprised awe openly visible on her face. "Your brother is the poor schmuck who can’t say no to anything."

Luc didn’t even protest, just shrugged in a vaguely agreeing manner. Eris folded the page and reached out to take her hand, careful with his claws. He pressed the folded square of crinkling parchment into her palm, gently closing her fingers around it.

"Quit your job," he said softly and offered a smile that was all teeth and cold eyes. "And I will play bodyguard and enforcer. I may look very pretty, but believe me, I stayed alive until now for a reason. We’ll get you your money."

When Lune glanced at Luc, he looked at Eris first thoughtfully, then approvingly. When she looked back at the spirit, his gaze was intense, pinned on her and waiting for her decision with almost bated breath.

Lune reached up with her free hand to gently settle it atop his where he still kept her fingers closed on the parchment. She heard his soft, sudden inhale only because they were so close together.

"Alright," she said. "Thank you."

Eris indeed proved himself a marvelous enforcer. For as graceful and beautiful as he was, he was just as strong and powerful. He tossed even the burliest of men to the ground like they weighed nothing.

Adeline adored him, bugging him for fighting lessons, and Lune once saw how he allowed her to touch his ears when he thought no one else was around. His face looked soft and gentle for the first time, patiently keeping his head bent towards the little girl.

Eris preened when the daughters and sons of traders blushed or giggled bashfully at his flattery, his words easily dripping with honey when violence wasn’t necessary.

They started to make good money and when they wrote to the local lord, the man agreed to sponsor them after visiting with his household mage.

Eris and Ruben had stayed in the forest during the inspection and they came back with baskets full of mushrooms and herbs. They held a big celebratory dinner that evening, Ruben quickly running off to fetch the local werewolf pack. It was a lively affair with plenty of drink and laughter, in a cursed homestead that was filled with warmth and the scent of amazing food.

When more cursed folk showed up afterwards as rumor of their homestead spread, Eris was actually far from happy. He was used to the pack, especially since they had been there first, but he seemed to quietly resent anyone else who sought out Lune and Luc for aid.

His tail fluffed up and his ears pulled back and he bared his teeth, but he said nothing when Lune let people in. There were more werewolves, people who saw ghosts and a couple plagued by nightmarish visions every time they slept during a new moon.

Those people didn’t stay long, but they left soothed and with the knowledge that the homestead was a safe haven they could always visit whenever their curses acted up.

The house was bigger and livelier now, second-hand furniture brought in by the werewolves and a second big guest room had been built to house temporary guests whenever they needed it. The werewolves had gotten to claim the first guest room and there were enough of them that they couldn’t share with others. Where Ruben took it all in stride, Eris was more tense than ever.

"You have a place here that no one is going to take away," Lune told him firmly when she caught him pacing around outside.

He stopped, looking frustrated, only to still entirely when she stepped in front of him and reached up to cup his face in her hands. His skin was soft and warm and he smelled of gentle sweetness, like her favorite flowers.

"This is your home," she said, slow and clear and firm, and watched his slit pupils grow rounder as he stared at her intently. "For as long as you want it, your room is yours. You are welcome and wanted."

He swallowed and was tense for a moment longer, before he eased with a long exhale, his face pressing a bit into her palms.

"It’s strange," Eris said, voice hushed and his gaze heavy as he looked at her. His thick hair was tickling her fingertips. "Before I came here, I didn’t think it was possible."

When Lune tipped her head in a questioning manner, he hesitated, then reached up. His hands settled on hers, warm and calloused, his claws not even coming close to touching her skin.

"I thought it was impossible for anyone to love curses," he murmured. "But then I came here and everything in here...I know you and your brother can’t feel it, but all the curses here have mellowed and gentled. They can finally rest. They finally feel...wanted." His pupils were growing a little rounder still. "I feel wanted."

Lune smiled and gently tugged him closer, rising to her tiptoes to press a kiss to the tip of his nose. His eyes widened in surprise, staring at her in quiet, growing awe and wonder.

"You are wanted," she said. "Now, let me pet your ears."

He blinked, caught off guard, and laughed. It was a sort of low, raspy laugh that was nothing like his elegant, practiced chuckles that either sounded threatening or charming, depending on the situation. He suddenly looked far too fond, and with a sigh that was half resignation and half joy, he bent his head.

His ears were very, very soft. If he stayed like this a little longer unprompted, if he shifted his head so her fingers sank into his equally soft hair, and she pet through it, and he let her, they didn’t speak of it.

Afterwards, Eris was, for a lack of better word, finally at home. He dropped the act of suave beauty most of the time, laughed his raspy laugh and didn’t hesitate to drop his head in Lune’s lap for pets and scratches. At one point, he even dared to brazenly drape his long frame across her legs entirely, and it quickly became his favorite place.

Lune found herself growing fonder and fonder of the cursed spirit, her heart turning tender to the point where it felt like it was overflowing a little whenever she looked at him. Eris looked happy now.

It was all going well, until Lune and Luc visited the market and immediately got a baby thrust at them by a frantic mother.

"They’ll kill her," the mother sobbed, a bruise darkening her cheek. Her knuckles were bloody and her gaze wild. "Take her. Go. They won’t let me keep her."

She made sure she had a good grip on the babe, then she drew her cloak around herself and ran. Guards skidded around the corner, and Lune hurriedly turned around to hide the child. The three men kept running after the woman, and Luc looked a little wild-eyed himself.

They both peered down at the bundled up, quiet child, Luc reaching out to tug a piece of blanket out of the way. The babe had little horn nubs growing from her head. When she blinked her eyes open, they were golden.

"She’s born cursed," Lune whispered, clutching the baby a little more firmly to her chest. "We have to go."

Luc walked ahead, letting her stick close to his back to use him as a shield as they hurriedly made their way back home.

The baby only started to cry once they were out of the city, and there was no soothing her for nearly an hour. Eris was the one who finally managed to calm her down by letting her grab his tail, wincing a little when tiny fists tightly grasped the fur.

"She smells a little like wild magic," he murmured, lightly tapping the babe’s nose with his fingertip. "I don’t know if the babe got cursed by an outsider, or if the parents had wild magic in their blood that made the child like this."

"I’ll try to find the mother," Luc said, and Ruben hurriedly got up to accompany him. "They can stay here together."

They left, and Eris swished his tail a bit to keep the babe entertained. His expression was serious.

"The mother won’t be alive anymore," he said into the silence of the house. His gaze didn’t rise from the child. "They always blame the mothers."

His voice was heavy and bitter, and Lune reached out, hugging him from behind. He tensed, then relaxed and sagged back against her with a sigh.

They waited in silence as the hour grew late, feeding and swaddling the babe. Luc and Ruben didn’t come back for a long time, but when they did, Luc’s face was tear-stained, and he was furious.

He didn’t say anything, just stomped off to his room, and Ruben looked tired and sad. He shook his head when they looked at him questioningly and went to get some more milk ready for the babe.

"Will you care for her?" Eris asked, tipping his head to look at Lune. "She likely has no one else."

"Of course." Lune wouldn’t just abandon the little one. She hadn’t abandoned anything that other people had decided was dangerous or unwanted. "She’ll need a name."

"Later," Eris murmured. "It’s been a long day for you. I’ll stay up with her, the rest of you can go to sleep."

Lune hummed in agreement and leaned in to press her forehead against his shoulder for a moment. His hand came up to cup the back of her head.

"Sleep," he whispered. "I vow nothing shall befall this child in your absence."

"I know." She gave him a smile and left, glancing back once to meet calm, red eyes. To her surprise, she fell asleep within moments, too tired to stay awake and stare at the ceiling with restless thoughts.

The next morning she came into the living room to see Luc gently bouncing the baby on his shoulder until it burped.

"We’re keeping her," he said fiercely. "She’s ours now."

"Of course." Lune walked up to gently pat the girl’s little head. "What do we name her?"

Luc was silent for a long moment. "Hope," he said, his face softening as he looked at the baby, "because she’ll never have to go without ever again."

"Will she be yours or mine?" Lune asked, then snorted. "Mom and Dad are going to lose their minds over this."

"They’re both going to faint. Imagine the scandal at home when our neighbors find out one of us got a child without being married first," Luc mused with a crooked half smile. He hesitated. "Can... Can she be mine?"

Lune smiled. "Good. That means, as aunt, I get to spoil her silly."

Luc rolled his eyes, bumping their shoulders together. He sobered up a bit the next moment, however. "Are we dumb for doing this? For taking in everyone who shows up?"

"No," Lune answered and looked up when she heard the stairs creek, watching Eris and Ruben descend. She smiled. "I think we’re building a beautiful family."

Ruben smiled, sweet and warm and Eris looked a little flustered for the first time. The smile that tugged at his lips despite his visible efforts to try to look unaffected was charmed and touched.

Yeah, they were doing the right thing. The best thing.

Hope joined their family as a beloved little terror. She had the lungs of a banshee, the bright eyes of someone not entirely human, and she quickly decided that everything soft had to be hers and hers alone. Lune loved her to bits, and so did everyone else. Even Eris once admitted to caring about the "little wriggler" as he called her.

Ruben seemed ever more entranced with Luc ever since the baby appeared, and Lune watched as they danced around each other with soft looks and stolen glances. Their hands were gentle as they aided each other, and sweet words were spoken that usually left Luc smiling shyly. They both took care of little Hope with great dedication.

"I can’t believe them," Eris sighed as he stood beside Lune in the kitchen. They watched Luc and Ruben at the dining table, Hope asleep beside them in her basket. "They are sickeningly sweet."

Ruben was holding Luc’s hands, carefully cleaning ink off his fingers. Luc looked painfully smitten.

Lune looked up, noticing Eris' briefly swishing tail and the quiet longing in his eyes. Smiling to herself, she shifted her hand until her pinky brushed his. She glanced at him from the corner of her eye, noticing how he stilled, ears perking up. It looked like he barely dared to breathe.

Slowly, with the same careful softness that Ruben showed Luc’s hands, she hooked their pinkies together.

"I’m more curse than person," Eris said suddenly, his voice quiet and breaking a little on the last word. "Don’t play with me." In the most achingly soft whisper she had ever heard, he added, "Please."

She let go and before he could look hurt, could brace himself for rejection, she took his entire hand in hers. His elegant fingers fit between hers just right, warm and calloused. She gently pressed their shoulders together, and his exhale trembled a little.

She felt the faintest brush of claws as he ever so carefully pressed his fingertips against the back of her hand. He swallowed, and when their eyes met, his gaze was searching. Whatever he saw made his eyes widen a little, his pupils growing bigger and rounder. His tail swished to settle around her hip, and she let her head rest against his shoulder.

Lune felt so happy that she was certain no magic in the world could ever come close to rivaling this moment, this feeling. This tender, sweet love and this warm, caring home.

Little Hope wasn’t the only child they ended up taking in. A few months into spring they woke up to find a four year old boy huddled at their front step, exhausted and feverish and born cursed. Antlers grew from his temples and he had hooves for feet, his legs thick and covered in fur.

Lune and Luc swept the boy inside and nursed him back to health, and Adeline was downright ecstatic at the idea of having more kids around. Of being an older sister. It was only then that Lune realized the girl considered them her family too.

Adeline certainly took her job very seriously, teaching the boy, Noel, everything she knew, and how to climb all the trees even with hooves.

The house was soon filled with the laughter of children, their shouts and delighted screams ringing out like bells whenever Ruben tossed them into the air and caught them again. He had endless patience and stamina for it, spending entire afternoons tossing the children as high as he safely could.

Lune and Luc barely remembered what it felt like to have no one but each other, occasionally hearing from their parents whenever they wrote home. Now they had a family they had chosen and wonderful friends, and no one cared that they had no magic.

No one thought they were lacking anything.

"Did you notice that the house is no longer cursed?" Eris asked Lune one evening, as they laid in the grass outside to watch the stars, some streaking across the sky as they fell.

Lune turned her head towards him in surprise. "What do you mean? I thought curses don’t go away by themselves."

"They don’t." Eris looked thoughtful, then he huffed and smiled a little. "It’s not that the curse is gone, but we all love this place so much that it changed. And it’s not the only one. Do you know what happens when you love something cursed?"

She rolled to her side and propped her head up on her palm. "I think you’re going to tell me."

He reached over to wriggle an arm beneath her and tugged her against his chest, pressing his nose to her temple. "Being loved is a blessing," he whispered, "so guess what the curse became."

Lune suddenly had to swallow hard as her throat grew tight, and she had to blink back unexpected tears. "Is that so?" she whispered, voice a little creaky.

"Yeah." He brushed his lips against her forehead as he spoke. He pulled back a bit and tipped his head enough for his hair to slide back. Where black veins had once crawled up his neck, they now shone a gentle, soft gold. "And guess what happens when a curse loves you back."

"He lives happily ever after?" Lune guessed, and he reached up to cup her cheek.

"He just might," he whispered and drew her into a kiss, soft and sweet.

They stayed outside and watched the stars and when they returned inside, the house didn’t feel any different to Lune. But that didn’t matter, she reasoned. She loved this place, cursed or blessed or anything else. She had put down her roots here. They all had.

Still, she brushed her fingertips along the wall as she ascended the stairs behind Eris, quietly thanking the house. For being good to them, for housing them, for never breaking, no matter what storms howled outside.

The old owner had said it had creaked and groaned and everything broke constantly, but Lune and Luc had always been safe. How could they not love this place?

And wasn’t love the most powerful thing of all? Looking at it that way, it was no surprise that the curse had changed.

"Hey, Luc," Lune said one afternoon a couple of months later.

Their homestead had grown big and beautiful, sweet smelling flowers flourishing everywhere and animals dozing peacefully in the sun. The werewolves were thatching the roof of another extension of the house and Eris walked around outside, humming and bouncing Hope on his hip as he showed her some flowers.

Their parents were going to come visit today for the first time, and Lune was equally excited and nervous. She couldn’t wait to show them what they had built with nothing but patience and love and being normal.

Luc hummed, half distracted and his fingertips freshly stained with ink. He was busy writing another story, more determined than ever to change the way people thought about anyone cursed. To make the world safer and kinder for their lovers, their friends and family and the children they considered theirs.

"I’m really happy," Lune said, and he paused, glancing up.

He smiled, warm and earnest. "Yeah, me too." He looked outside and she knew that he saw the same things she did. "Looks like our story gets to have a good ending after all."

She smiled as well, knocking their shoulders together. "And we’re perfect the way we are."

His expression softened, something hurt and bruised in both of them finally healing. "We are perfect the way we are," he repeated in the sort of wondrous way that told her he was cradling this realization close to his chest.

Lune’s eyes met Eris’s through the window, and he smiled at her, warm and soft with the kind of love that made her heart overflow and ache in the best of ways. She reached up to press a hand against her chest when he mouthed "I love you" at her, briefly revealing his fangs as he grinned.

"I love you too" she mouthed back, basking in all those wonderful feelings filling her to the brim.

And over the coming years, they managed to make the world a little bit better, a little bit kinder, simply by being very ordinary. Though, if you asked the people who met them, they would not tell you tales of ordinary twins. They would tell you of two people with gentle hands and big hearts and a welcoming home so loved, the curses housed within had, slowly and surely over time, turned into blessings.

And as all good storytellers would tell you, they lived happily ever after.