Falls the Shadow (Hunter!Germany x Reader)~ Part 3

You stood with your mouth open- for a moment, all you could do was gape at the gleaming crossbow in Ludwig's hands.

"I-"

"I told you to go home!" Ludwig said angrily, his deep voice loud in the darkness, "Vhere you not listening to me?"

He glared down at you, with all the fury of an avenging angel, his features like marble, gaze piercing. You forced yourself to straighten up, even though you could feel the urge to back away and cower tugging insistently at you.

"You shouldn't have turned me away," you retorted, body automatically on the defensive and you folded your arms across your chest, a poor barrier between the two of you.

"So you thought you'd just vander into the forest alone?!" he demanded. "You could have been killed!"

You said nothing to that- not because you had nothing to say, but because he was right. You gritted your teeth for a moment, trying to quash the flare of anger at his reprimanding- as far as you're concerned, this wouldn't have happened had he not been so stubborn.

"I would appreciate it if you lowered that crossbow, now," you said, evenly.

After a second, Ludwig lowered his weapon, never taking his eyes off you, as if expecting you to go bolting deeper into the forest to avoid his wrath. If you weren't so shaken, you would be tempted to roll your eyes at his overzealousness. Still, the absolute silence around you is profoundly unsettling- you can't even hear insects or tiny nocturnal creatures skittering about in the undergrowth. Did they, too, sense the presence of the horrifying thing that you saw and got the hell out of there while they still could?

You'd quite like to run away, too, with an angry hunter glaring down at you as if any moment he intends to pull out a knife and gut you like a squealing pig.

"Come on," Ludwig growled, tucking his crossbow back into its holster.

"What?"

"I'm taking you back to ze village," he said, gruffly, like you're an idiot for asking.

"You're not taking me anywhere!" you said, affronted. "I'm perfectly capable of walking back myself. I'm the one who grew up here."

"You vould have your throat torn out if I hadn't found you vhen I did! Do you really think it's safe?"

"What was that thing?" you asked, ignoring his scolding. "It's some kind of monster, isn't it? That's why they needed someone from the city who had experience- catching a human isn't a task beyond the watchmen. So do you have blessed weapons? How many monsters have you killed?"

"Are you listening to me at all?!" Ludwig demanded, incredulously.

"You're not saying anything worth listening to!" you snapped, and his nostrils flared in umbrage. "You know how to track these things down, don't you? It went-"

You didn't get to finish your rapid-fire questioning, because suddenly, apparently growing impatient with your amateur sleuthing, Ludwig surged forward, clamped his hands around your waist and hauled you over his shoulder.

"Ah, what?!" you yelped, winded as your stomach pressed against his hard shoulder, your cloak tangling around you. "What are you doing?"

Ludwig didn't dignify that with a response; instead he simply started walking, his heavy boots crunching through the tangled undergrowth. His grip was like steel, so you didn't bother trying to struggle free, feeling rather dizzy from suddenly going from an upright position to going virtually upside-down, the forest floor bobbing in your line of vision.

"I'm going to be sick," you announced, groaning as an acidic, sickly sweet taste gathered in the back of your throat.

Ludwig ignored you, much to your surprise- that threat usually worked, but you were rapidly becoming acquainted with the fact that Ludwig seemed to operate very firmly outside the realm of what was considered normal.

"I'm only trying to help!" you snapped, trying a different tack. "Why are you treating me like this?"

"Vhat can you possibly do to help me?" Ludwig growled. "Do you have veapons training?"

You grimaced.

"No."

"Do you have any experience vith hunting monsters?"

"That's hardly a-"

"Isn't it?" Ludwig interrupted your feeble protests, jolting you a little. "So tell me, zhen...vhat exactly can you do to stop zis creature?"

For a few minutes, there was no sound except for Ludwig's loud footsteps crushing leaves and twigs. You could hear his question ringing in your ears, like the tolling of a bell. And even though admitting it is like slowly stabbing yourself with a needle, you know that he's right.

Because really, what are you? Some girl raised in the middle of nowhere with a dead sister and shell-shocked parents. You don't have fancy training or weapons...hell; Ludwig could probably kill a monster just by snapping its neck. The only way you'd be able to kill one is if it accidentally choked on you.

What could you do?

You didn't know- you just didn't want to sit idly by while some stranger did all the work. You couldn't help your sister when she met her untimely, bloody demise, but you wanted to avenge her. Sometimes, it felt like vengeance was all that kept you going.

You owed her that, at least.

You may have said some of this out loud, lost in your thoughts and uncaring of what he might think, but Ludwig abruptly stopped walking.

"I know how it feels to lose someone you care about," he said thickly, his voice rumbling in your ears, "But vould you parents feel, had you been ripped to shreds tonight?"

You said nothing, hating him for being right, hating yourself for falling short- both of Dagmar and your parents, but most of all, you hated whoever (or whatever) did this.

The rest of the journey was silent as Ludwig took you back home. By then, it was lightly drizzling and a fine mist had settled, casting a melancholy, dreamlike quality about the village, as though you and Ludwig had wandered into a parallel version of it. There was a light visible in the front window of your rom and your stomach lurches unpleasantly- you really hadn't expected your parents to be awake.

"Let me guess," Ludwig said, dryly- you thought that it was the first time you'd heard anything even remotely resembling a sense of humour in his voice, "You neglected to tell your parents where you vhere going tonight?"

"That's a good guess," you muttered, abashedly.

Ludwig smirked.

"Zat vas a poor decision on your part."

You decided that you hated him.

~

You were grounded.

Forever, it would seem.

They went on and on with lecturing until you thought your ears were going to start bleeding. You struggled to remember a time when they were this angry at you, but what made it all the harder to bear was that both of them looked as if they were going to burst into tears the moment they stopped shouting.

So you were under house arrest, in effect, mainly stuck either doing chores or sullenly pacing from room to room, a silent protest against your extreme curfew. (Just because you understood their viewpoint didn’t mean that you had to willingly suffer in silence.) Time had slowed to a crawl and you found yourself drifting through the house in a daze.

Since that night in the forest, your dreams were filled with visions of eyes in the dark, heavy ragged breathing and the putrid stink of decay, strong enough to make you shudder and retch, hard enough to jolt you awake. Thanks to the constant nightmares, half-memory and half imagination, you slept in fragments and your days seemed broken and fuzzy.

Perhaps tired of your silence or feeling that you needed to get out of the house before cabin-fever set in, your parents finally elected to cede their embargo and allowed you to go out to the market by yourself, with the edict that you came straight home after shopping.

You had to admit as you headed into the center of the village; it felt good to get some sunlight on your skin and fresh air in your lungs. Despite the recent tragedies that had struck, the market was lively and the people seemed to be in good spirits, cheered, perhaps by the unseasonably sunny day.

You scanned the shopping list given to you before you left the house, indifferent, when you heard your name being spoken and glanced over your shoulder.

“Hello, Carina.”

Carina Richter smiled at you, inclining her head a little. As the only daughter of the Mayor, Carina was something of the town darling, a pretty, affluent girl with long, strawberry-blonde hair and large grey eyes. Despite that, however, she didn’t let the fact she was the Mayor’s daughter go to her head and for that, you couldn’t help but like her.

“I heard that you were out in the woods, that night…” Carina said, biting her lip and lowering her voice slightly. “I was wondering if you saw anything.”

“Well, sort of…” you demurred, slightly startled by how quickly news had apparently spread, a cold prickle starting at the nape of your neck, thinking of the stiff, pale hand hanging down from the maw of that…thing. “It was dark. I couldn’t really be sure what I was seeing.”

Carina nodded, looking worried, and you wondered exactly how much information she was privy to. You doubted that Mayor Richter told her everything, but there was only so much a person can hide. You had no doubt that Ludwig had been discussing that night with the Mayor in great detail.

“Hm?”

As you stood there, the two of you started to notice that the crowds of people surrounding the market stalls were slowly moving away, all in the same direction, to where a crowd seemed to be gathering. It was as if they were being pulled magnetically towards the town center, like fish dragged by the tide.

Moving about the town center like clockwork figurines, were several watchmen, who apparently were putting up posters, much to your bemusement. One of them stepped up onto a stone platform that held the town statue to address the crowd of onlookers- you were vaguely sure his name was Ansel.

“Attention, please! Everyone, quiet down, I have news!”

The murmuring onlookers eventually stopped talking, shushing each other as they waited, eager to pounce on any potential news.

“There have been recent developments on the search for the culprit behind these vicious attacks. I know that you’re eager for any news. There have been rumours and I can confirm that these attacks are not the work of man. Mr. Beilschmidt has explained that these attacks stem from an unknown creature- we believe its base is located deep within the forest.”

Even with the crowd gasping and bursting into frightened chatter, you couldn’t help but snort derisively at his presumptuousness. Who was ‘we’, anyway? The only one with Ludwig that night was you, and somehow you didn’t think that the watchmen were going to mention that. Carina glanced at you, looking as though she was suppressing a smile.

“We urge everyone to exercise caution during these troubled times! Stay away from the forest when possible, travel in groups, do not walk alone at night and report anything suspicious to a watchman, Mr. Beilschmidt or Mayor Richter himself. We’re doing what we can to ensure the safety of the village! Thank you.”

As the crowds reluctantly dispersed, muttering to each other in tones that implied that they were less than satisfied with that little speech, Carina lingered for a moment, looking anxiously at one of the posters.

“So monsters aren’t just things in stories…” she said, shivering. She glanced up at Ludwig, who had joined Ansel on the platform and was talking to him with a grim expression.

“Do you think Mr. Beilschmidt will be able to track this creature down?” she whispered to you, but you spotted Ludwig glance in your direction and so you raised your voice as you said;

“Him? I wouldn’t get your hopes up, Carina- he could barely catch an escaped pig.”

A look of utter indignation crossed the blonde man’s face, there and gone in a mere instant, but you knew he’d heard you and bit back the urge to laugh.

“Come on,” you said to Carina. “I should finish shopping.”

But you couldn’t get rid of the satisfied little smile on your face as you walked away, leaving an aggravated huntsman in your wake.

~

Ludwig Beilschmidt sat in his room that evening, shadows dancing on the wall as the candle beside him flickered periodically. It was almost drowning in wax, rivulets of it dribbling down the sides, but he was too engrossed to pay it any heed. Mounds of textbooks sat on the desk beside him as he went through each of them. It was tiring work, but he refused to be deterred. This was why he was here, wasn’t it?

Still, something nagged at him, returning intrusively to his thoughts as if it had a will of its own.

You weren’t the only one plagued by that night in the forest. Ludwig had replayed it over and over again in his mind, circling around one question: Why?

Why had the creature not attacked you?

He didn’t know, and it drove him half mad. The pattern of the monster’s attacks and its victims seemed utterly random, almost haphazard, not localising in one specific area. Its victims didn’t all know each other, as far as he could tell, they all were different ages. The only consistency was darkness- the monster only attacked as night fell.

So much yet to solve. So much was unknown. Yet Ludwig knew he had to continue on- human lives depended on it.

With a sigh, he leant forwards and pinched the candle’s wick with his thumb and forefinger, snuffing it out and plunging himself into darkness.