会うは別れの始まり

The forest taught them so much, but it also taught them so little. It was funny really, how they kept surprising one another with things they should have known. Nokken Norway, Vietnam. NorViet.

会うは別れの始まり-Japanese origin; lit, to meet is the beginning of parting

I: The Pied Piper's Violin

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Slipping pass berried bushes, hunter footsteps skim their way pass stepping stones of a gurgling stream, disappearing into thick trees on the opposite side. Two pairs of padded footsteps hurry after her, vanishing into thick bushes as an oncoming breeze disguises rustling as swaying. The woods are quiet today; the bird calls more distant and cricket chirps less resounding, and that prompts the hunter to move with even quieter precision.

In the undergrowth something squeals, and an arrow lands into the space within two bushes with a sharp slicing thunk. A brown blur shoots out from the cover of leaves, drawn out by imminent danger, but it does not get far before a set of bone-crushing jaws clamp shut over its back and bites down hard.

The hound shakes the catch within his grasp, wagging his tail in ecstatic victory as he carried the limp creature to his master, who had bent down between the bushes to retrieve her fallen arrow.

Mouth twitching into a smile, Lien takes the hare carcass from him and gives him a good scratching behind the ears. Siew Bao (An odd name, but for as long as forever the hound has always remembered his master's littermate calling him that fondly. Soon enough his master did too, and now he only answers to that name. But her littermate is gone now, to someplace far away where neither of them could reach.) licks her fingers as she stands to pocket the kill. In silent understanding the duo leave the scene of crime, journeying deeper into forest where the air was richer with birdsong to begin the hunting anew.

They repeat until their third pheasant, where by then Lien spares a look into the sky hidden behind beech oaks. The sun is a quarter short of completing its daily semicircle, and bright light still showed no signs of dulling. With satisfaction, hunter hoists the bagful of animal game over her shoulders, and her hound leads her home. Or it would have been like this, if not for the faint echoes of violin floating in the air.

It is a particular occurrence, but not one that is entirely surprising. The forests of the North were magical, infused with enchantments since the beginning of time. It was a dangerous place, and besides the few solitary hunters with no village to call home no one dare enters its realms. It is also the reason then, why game meat and forest herbs are so sought after and traded for clothes and necessities that the hunters need to survive.

Lien is of the former, having been forced to learn the forest's comings and goings and taught how to survive and resist its magic pull since she was a child, but when the occurrences happen, she cannot help but be unnerved every time. Invisible voices laughing within trees, a shape-shifting doe leading her on a wild goose chase, luminous flowers growing in caves where light does not reach.. Always she leaves the woods with unease in her heart, reluctant to go back, but her hunts never go wrong and she must hunt if she is to feed and clothe two, so always she returns.

This day however, would change all of that.

Siew Bao sniffs in the direction of the haunting melody, wariness in his eyes. He paws at the ground, whining, and Lien knows immediately that something is wrong. There is a small pulling in her chest, tugging her insistently towards the direction of the music. Quickly she brushes away the trail of haze in her mind and takes a few steps away. The tendrils round her chest squeeze tighter and her breath hitches. In rising awareness Siew Bao barks sharply, the loudness shattering the tranquil atmosphere and echoing through the patch of woodland they were in.

For a second, Lien thinks she hears the strings waver; and in that moment of hesitation she breaks free of the enchantment. She turns and sprints her way back to the familiar hunting path, black hound snapping at her heels.

Their presence fade, and the violin does not continue its melody.

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Lien does not hear music again until weeks later. She had been fishing by a river, far away from the woodland area from the initial incident, but the sound of strings in the air are undeniable and the melody is unmistakably the same familiar haunting tune.

Unconsciously she fidgets, and her metal hook jerks abruptly, scaring off a curious trout who had been circling the still bait for the past fifteen minutes. Lien grounds her teeth before sighing in exasperation, pulling the makeshift hook out of the water before standing up to stretch her tired legs.

There was no magic at play today, the strange haze in her mind suspiciously absent, but she cannot help wondering about the source of music and whence it came from.

Then, something invisible disturbs the calm air subtly as Lien notices Siew Bao standing up with ears pricked, sniffing the air. Her senses alert, she remain still, sharp eyes darting about to scan her surroundings. River undisturbed, birdsong present, bushes and overhanging branches swaying gently, no unnatural causes..

Brown hair pooling over her shoulder, she rotates her head uphill and spots it; along the same bank and upwind of the breeze, a stag with full grown antlers bending down near the water's edge.

With silent grace she stalks her way over, pulling out an arrow. Closer, closer, until just bushes separate the hunter from her prey. From her vantage point she sees the buck drinking, its grand posture relaxed. She draws the arrow...

And freezes at the crunching of fallen leaves.

She has no time to check for the culprit before the buck shoots away, lightning quick as it bounded into the cover of trees. There is an explosion of leaves and broken twig as Siew Bao leaps out from some bushes, wolfing in sharp staccato as he gives chase. Lien follows swiftly, boots thudding noisily against the forest floor as she tears away all resembles of discretion in her form.

An arrow whizzes past running shadows and strikes dead centre on the trunk of an old tree. Another lands inches away from the fleeing buck, startling birds into the air. Lien lowers her bow and runs faster as both deer and hound disappear behind leafy branches. In the endless green and brown, Siew Bao's barks act like a beacon for her as she followed their trail, taking note as the terrain slopes up and the spaces between trees widen considerably. Sunlight streams down easier here, but that is the least of her concern as she brings thumb and finger to her mouth to give a high-pitched whistle.

From a distance comes an answering bark, faint and muffled. Again Lien whistles, walking to the direction of the calls. Whenever they hunt boar and deer, it had always been with the element of surprise and an arrow as the finishing blow, but now the buck is out of sight, and they have covered a considerable amount of forest into unfamiliar territory. With only one dog, even the most amateur hunter can see that the hunt is lost.

Avoiding gnarled roots, she hastened her pace Northward. She is about to whistle again when the wind changes direction, bringing with it the gentle strands of violin.

Lien trips.

She falls with a surprised yelp into a clumsy heap on the forest floor, bow and quiver digging painfully into her back. Rough twig and bark rub into the hands and arms that sprung to steady her, and Lien notes vaguely with stunned resignation that she has gained wounds under the clear sound of scalar notes and complicated melodies.

The violin rings louder, and Lien notices with an unpleasant shiver that it sounded much closer now than when she was by the river. Hurriedly she stands up, ignoring the sting of her palms as curls them as she whistles again.

They need to get out of here, the violin player be damned if they realise that she is already here.

A louder bark echoes, and throwing caution into the wind, Lien runs toward it, whistling again. Her heart beat erratically as she searched for Siew Bao between the trees. Every second spent lingering heightened her fear of the violin casting its spell over her again. There is sudden rustling, and Lien spots a black tail from within a hidden thicket.

Noiselessly she runs over, calling out for her hound in harsh whispers. Siew Bao does not scamper to meet her, but his tail wags slowly, tongue lolling out of his mouth. Lien presses grazed hands into the hound's fur, and he licks her repeatedly, but he stands silent and still with ears pricked and Lien has a sinking feeling she knows why.

The violin's melody is coming from behind a thicket. With little noise Lien reaches for her bow and an arrow, moving soundlessly into the shadows of leafy branches. Siew Bao disappears into bushes away from her as she sneaks in deeper until she finds the opposite end. Crouching down, she peeks out, and instantly widens her eyes at the sight of the sparkling crystal lake.

Sunlight streams down undeterred due to a sparse canopy, and it immerses the water with an unearthly glow. Daisies and purple heather littered the ground plentifully in spots where sunlight hits the earth. In all her years of exploring the forest she had never come across a place like this before. It was almost surreal.

Lien makes to stand up, but she falters, hunter instinct growling at her to keep down. She can hear Siew Bao somewhere in the undergrowth, paw scraping restlessly at fallen leaves on the ground. Observant eyes scan the horizon one more time, and with no sign of immediate threat, she pushes her way out of the thicket, drawing herself up from her crouch warily. The bow is still in her hands, the arrow held loosely in her grip as she takes slow steps out into open ground.

The violin is still playing, its amorous notes slowing in tempo as it neared the end of its song. Lien ignores it as she moves closer to the water's edge, eyes flickering nervously as she took in the crumbling stone monument that flanks a third of the lake's dimensions. The water surface twinkles at her and hesitantly she bends down to dip the tip of her fingers into it. Droplets tainted with dirt and blood trickle down her palm as she brings her hand back to herself, noting with quiet unease that there were no magic properties as far as she had been taught to tell.

"You are like a doe, aren't you?"

Golden eyes start, and Lien stumbles away from the lake, her knuckles turning white as the grip on her bow tightens, the sudden hum of enquiry pushing her rattled nerves into overdrive. There is a man, no, creature standing in the middle of the lake. -Impossible, because the lake looked to be metres deep, but only his feet were submerged.- Even though foreign and strange there is no mistaking the nobility of his clothes; loose silky robes that fell elegantly into the waters below.

He was fair-haired and navy eyed, eyes a deep swirling whirlpool of secrets, but what catches Lien's attention is not his amorous looks, but rather the violin and bow in his hands, its strings still vibrating from its last note.

"Nøkk.." she breathed his name as the creature started walking towards her, his serpentine movements causing ripples throughout the water. How could she be so foolish? It is the Nokken that lures the humans to them, not the other way round. Shame and horror ebbs through her still body as she chided herself for even entering the thicket, ignoring her warning instinct when usually she would have done otherwise. Her eyes keep track of the spreading ripples, dread drowning any previous emotions as she thought desperately for a way out.

She does.

The Nokken had barely taken another step before he sees the human stand abruptly. He stops in kind, curious of her reaction...before blinking in surprise as she turn-tailed and ran back the way she came from. He hears the harsh force of branches being pushed apart and barking before all returns to serene silence. He blinks again, momentarily confused.

The forest, he notes with returning amusement, remained undisturbed by their cacophonous leave, cricket chirps and soft breezes filling in the awkward silence that the intruders left in their wake. The Nokken stared musingly before turning towards an alcove of trees where a pair of antlers peered out, the creature finally emerging into the open.

A lone buck returns his stare, lowering its head in reverence to him before crossing the clearing to reach the other side. Quietly it disappears behind the trunk of a tree, heading for a destination unknown. Alone once more, the Nokken lowers his gaze to his violin and sighs inaudibly.

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Embarrassment and fear keeps Lien away from the woods for many days. When she had ran, she had betted her life on the tactic of surprise to buy her precious time to escape. She had not expect it to work, but it did, and it was only when the aftermath hit her back in the sanctuary of her small cabin had she realised that she got lucky; she had feared the echoing sound of violin pulling her back in. There had been none.

Now she spends the hours moping around her house, practising her archery and gathering what little edible food grew at the edge of the forest, waiting for time to tick by. But before long rational thought overcomes her, and she finds herself adorning hunter garb again when meat stocks grew low.

The forest is a symphony of voices when she chooses to stray from the usual route. She does not go far pass the gurgling stream today, instead focusing on catching smaller game. Siew Bao sniffs and leads, and by sunset he brings her two skinny rabbits to join her quail in the pile of meagre spoils. Lien yawns, disappointed but unsurprised, and calls it a day.

Hunter and hound trudge towards the sound of bubbling water in companionable silence, and Lien finally lets down the carefully constructed guard she had put on all day. But in the moments that follow, she would wished that she hadn't. There is a dizziness in her head, irritating her since late afternoon, aching and throbbing and unsettling. A bark sounds beside her, and Lien shakes her head slowly. She wasn't aware she had stopped. Strange, her bow is on the forest floor too. She must have dropped it.

She can hear Siew Bao's barks turn louder as she closes her eyes, struggling against the binding haze beneath the hoods of her eyelids. Something tugs at her heart. There is a faint melody in the clearing now, unbeknownst to her, and the black hound whines softly as he watches his master succumb to the spell, walking into the opposite direction away from their home.

He barks several more times, picking up the fallen bow as he ran to her, prodding her leg in a futile attempt to get her to stop. The bag of game loosens and falls off her back, spilling onto the forest floor. Siew Bao whines, distressed, but he does not go back to fetch it, adjusting the bow in his mouth as he resumes staying with his master as she moved with an unsteady gait through the trees.

Darkness has uncovered the blanket of stars in the night sky by the time they reached the thicket, and the faint sounds of distant wolf howls and unknown critters walking through the undergrowth keep the hound silent as he followed his master's lead. The hound tries his best to push and pull bushes so that thorns do not trouble his human; with clever manoeuvring he pulls the branches apart with the bow in his mouth before running though and letting go, avoiding the painful whiplash of sharp branches.

The music diminuendos, drawing to a close, and immediately hound throws the bow aside to step between his dazed master and the creature by the lakeside, snarling warningly. In the darkness, the crystal lake glows luminously, casting warped shadows over both Nokken and hound. The former lowers his violin and takes a step out of the lake, moving cautiously forward.

Siew Bao growls, but there is uncertainty and unwillingness to follow through with his threat as he starts to back up to his rousing master. Lien lets out a groan as her feet gives in, sprawling her on both knees, and the hound finally breaks eye contact with folded ears to nuzzle his master worriedly.

The hunter blinks tiredly, bringing a hand to her head as the fog dissipated from her conscience. With bleary eyes she presses the other shaking hand onto her loyal hound and ignoring his cold nose, tries to take in her surroundings. Siew Bao barks and growls again, and with widened eyes, Lien notices the darkened surroundings and the figure of a familiar Nokken staring down at her.

It is instinct that acts when she whips the hunting sword from her belt and makes a sudden lunge at him, half delirious in her muddled state, and it is instinct that makes him drop his precious violin to grab her wrists, twisting the blade out of her hands easily as he pushes her half slumping body backwards until she is leaning awkwardly against air. Lien drops her head against him, breaths coming in quick gasps, and the Nokken picks her up with ease and sidesteps, dodging a snarling hound as he puts distance between dog and master.

Yelping, Lien jabs elbow into flesh and hears a grunt, but foreign hands do not loosen their grip as they hoist her body into a position where she cannot fight back. She hears the splashing of water and widens her eyes as she watches the Nokken takes steps back into the safety of the lake. The water level does not rise above his feet even as the lake's depth grew deeper the further he moved away, and she struggled to contain her obvious panic as she flailed helplessly in his grip.

His clothes are stained with the scent of fresh rain and something exotic, cooling to the touch and lulling her to slumber. Siew Bao is wailing now, growls reduced to quiet begging noises as paws scrapped the ground, trying in vain to reach his master who was now in the arms of a dangerous stranger standing metres away from shore. Fisting her hands into his robes and vest, Lien pushes weakly, swallowing hard as she tries to speak.

"Why?" She mumbles. Why didn't you kill me then? Why aren't you killing me now? Why are you doing this?

The Nokken's eyes drops to look at her and she sees him contemplating something in his eyes. "You left without saying goodbye," he finally murmurs out, and even in her sleepy state she is able to muster enough energy to look at him incredulously. The Nokken simply resumes gazing at her with such intensity that she has to look away.

"Put me down." She says angrily, both mortified and terrified as she drops her gaze from dull blue. Her pride is wounded, but she can do nothing when she is at the mercy of a being who can drown her if he so pleases.

"If you promise to calm your pet and not run away."

Lien shoots him another tired glare, but the Nokken is firm and she is exhausted; she cannot run even if she wanted to, so she gives a half-hearted grunt in consent as she grudgingly released the tight grip on his robes.

The clearing is tense as the Nokken nears the water's edge, hovering uncertainly as Siew Bao bared teeth at him with hackles raised, unsheathed claws dislodging dirt into the gleaming waters. Lien strains to keep her eyes open, stretching an arm so that her fingers brushes the top of his head. At her touch, the hound calms instantly, although it keeps angry eyes levelled at the creature holding his owner. Slowly Lien soothes the canine as the Nokken places her limp body onto the soft grass. With heavy fingers she guides the latter's hands until it lays flat on the hound's back.

When Siew Bao does not growl, curled up at her side in similar exhaustion, she sighs in drowsy satisfaction, dropping her hands and fluttering her eyes closed. Cool fingers brushed stray hairs away from her face, but she jerks away and opens blurry eyes warningly. The Nokken stares at her quietly, having retrieved his violin in some period of time when she had her eyes closed.

"My name," he says softly as sleep takes her tired form away, "is Lukas."

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"My name," she said irately, "is Lien. Could you please let me go?" The sky was cloudy when the hunter finally woke up, disorientated and stiff from lying on the soft grass. Jerking minutely in panic, calculative golden eyes scan the clearing as she tried to calm the beating of her heart. The events of last night replays choppily in her mind, leaving her flustered and angered, which brings her here, glaring at the Nokken who had appeared shortly after she woke up, now watching while she gathered her scattered belongings.

"I'm not stopping you from leaving." There was a barely visible smirk on his face as he watched her move, and Lien has to stop herself from throwing a sharp retort back in his face. Smug bastard, he knows she cannot leave; he would only need to cast the enchantment for her to return.

Something splinters in her clenched fists, and she looks down with surprise, the arrow she had picked up split into two at the force of her grip. Why was she so angry when she should be afraid? Carefully she gathers the broken pieces and hides them from prying eyes, dropping them into the quiver quickly with the rest of her arrows.

The undergrowth shivers, and Lien looks up to see Siew Bao emerging from the thicket, a squirrel hanging limply in his mouth. Placing it down in front of her, the hound lifts his head to commence glaring at the now frowning Nokken by the waterside.

"Why does it do that?" Lukas gestures to the dead squirrel in distaste and Lien can't help but feel slightly smug at being the cause of that disgruntled look.

"Because I trained him to."

"Why?" Midnight blue orbs stare at her searchingly and Lien struggles to hold his gaze steady. There was something about his stares that made her feel exposed. It was discomforting and so borderline mesmerising it became unsettling. It wouldn't surprise her if the Nokken himself was aware of it too, and is currently using it to his advantage.

"I am a hunter. It is what we do." Her shoulders lift to form a small shrug as she stretched an arm to stroke the hound. "We kill to feed ourselves so that we can survive."

The bag of game from yesterday is missing, and Lien concurs that she might have most likely dropped it. A sigh leaves her mouth as she drops the squirrel into the spare bag she had brought along. They would have to hunt again.

"Where are you going?" Have you forgotten what I can do? Stoic eyes watch her as she slung quiver and bag over her shoulder. Siew Bao wags his tail, newfound eagerness in his steps as he realised that they were leaving the lake.

"To hunt." She was going home, but he did not need to know that.

His reply does not come instantly, but Lien is not convinced that she has won. He is of the fae; if anything, he would be the one playing the winning move. Sure enough, as her hands brushed against an outstretching branch of the thicket he calls out softly before she can leave.

"Will you stay if you have game?"

Only birdsong answers the clearing. Twisting her head back Lien regarded the Nokken inquisitively. He had his head tilted slightly to the side, looking at her in rapt thoughtfulness, mirroring her very emotion. There was something peculiar in his gaze, and that prompts her to lower her hand hesitantly.

It happens in a moment. A blink of an eye, and Lukas disappears, ripples folding out and distorting liquid surface. Lien blinks, rubs her eyes, blinks again; he is still gone. She sighs and hovers by her place, pondering. In the end she turns around, and the forest sways in tandem as she walked back to the side of the lake where the Nokken once stood. Siew Bao, noticing his master's change of heart, loses interest with the thorny bushes, trotting away instead to watch butterflies flitting over daisy stems.

Sparing glances at the occupied hound, Lien looked back into the gleaming waters, half expecting the Nokken to burst out of the water at any moment. Like salmon during summer, she thinks, restraining her amusement and turning the snicker that had escaped her throat into a trembling quirk of her lips. Her reflection stares back at her in the water, and Lien's smile drops slowly as she notices the worried lines on her face. There were leaves in her messy hair, grass stains on her pants and side. There was a bruise on her cheek too (she doesn't remember getting that) and, she notes mutely as she brings her palms facing up, the cuts across them are still not fully healed, having been reopened from careless endeavours again and again.

Since when had she start getting so negligent in looking after herself?

Another reflection joins her forlorn looking one, and immediately Lien refocuses on the present, curling fists and looking up, hiding weaknesses from the human-like being in front of her. It must be the ripples distorting reality too, because for a instant she thinks she sees wistfulness in his expression. (Why would something like him feel wistfulness anyway?)

With clothes suspiciously dry, Lukas levelled his stare at her, and with no preamble whatsoever, deposit a metre long fish into awkwardly placed hands. Lien does not recognise the species, but still her eyes widened as she tried not to stumble under sudden weight placed on unprepared arms.

"What..is this?" She is vaguely aware that she is stuttering, and a red flush rises further up her face once the image of her unkempt appearance returned from her thoughts to mock her. Immediately she pushes the picture away, brooding on the fact that a lake as such could hold fish like this, that is, if the Nokken got the fish from here at all. White meat like this cannot be kept long, but she is certain that Siew Bao and her would be able to feast tonight. Despite her mistrust of the Nokken, she is thankful and pleasantly surprised.

"Now you will stay?" The Nokken looked mighty pleased with himself even if his tone suggested otherwise, and Lien does not want to admit that in this light he looks less harmful and more human. Then again, the rational part of her mind whispered, this is exactly what he wants you to think.

"Is this..not enough?" Lukas' smile drops at the absence of any reply and he turns to survey something invisible in the clear waters that she cannot see. "Should I get something bigger?"

Slowly, she shook her head, cradling the fish close to her. This...was going to be a very long morning.

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A/N

This is what happens when you put characters that both have difficult but ultimately similar personalities together; your fic spirals into word vomit hell. Hahaha this AU was the death of me. I'm never doing something like this again..maybe. I don't know dammit.

Siew Bao is a Phu Quoc ridgeback, a native Vietnamese breed of hound, used for carting, escort, hunting, and as a guard dog throughout its history due to its impressive appearance and muscular physique. His name is a combination of Cantonese/Chinese. Siew (Cantonese) meaning small, and Bao (Chinese) meaning bun.

His name came from another discussion I had with a friend. I hope they don't mind me using it, because it was actually going to be used for something else. I can't help it though haha 'Siew Bao' is such a cute name. (It's a food name too.) A lot of things in here were inspired by that one friend actually. The music she introduced to me especially influenced the direction I took the plot to an extent. The interactions with Nor and Viet for example, were written to the background of a certain game's ost.

Norway and Vietnam are two of the seven hetalia characters I favour and related to, but ultimately their personalities make it so hard to write short romantic works for either of them. Make them both the love interests and welp, good luck defining 'short'. By right the story would have ended somewhere around here, over four thousand words, but since development is a must, well there you go. Next chapter coming soon...!

Edited as of 28 December 2015: The cover art is done by my old jiji friend xero on tumblr! (Bless ya you old man) He's done a couple more fanart on Norway and Vietnam on his tumblr art page! (Link provided on my page.) Please do check him out!