I don't own Hilda.
last chapter everyone here's soft and fluffy father daughter sweetness. I'm not responsible if you get diabetes from this because you chose to read my saccharine crap
After Hilda had signed the paper, she was still crying- perhaps they were happy tears from the situation or sadness from a lingering and rather intrusive desire for things to stay like this.
No matter what the reason was, Alfur sat back down in the little felt chair Hilda made for him and gestured for her to sit, too. When Hilda climbs up onto his lap, he starts cradling her again- just like the first few nights Hilda had spent as an elf. He starts humming that same familiar tune from years ago as he starts stroking Hilda's hair. She clung to Alfur in turn, feeling comfortable and safe as he held her, lulled to sleep by the gentle sound of his voice as he started to sing the song rather than simply hum it for the first time in a while.
"Hold me close and hold me fast,
The magic spell you cast,
This is la vie en rose...
When you kiss me heaven sighs,
And though I close my eyes,
I see la vie en rose...
When you press me to your heart,
I'm in a world apart,
A world where roses bloom...
And when you speak, angels sing from above,
Everyday words seem, to turn into love songs...
Give your heart and soul to me,
And life will always be
La vie en rose..."
By dawn, Johanna had awoken both of the elves for one final trip to the library and back. She explains quickly that, with all the ingredients, Maven will be able to make a potion that Hilda will indeed have to drink to regain her human form. Hilda struggles not to throw up upon receiving such news.
With Alfur riding on Johanna's shoulder and Hilda riding on Twig, they step outside into the light of morning.
Raven flies down from the skies in thunderbird form, a small, familiar weather spirit trailing above him, getting as close to the ground as he could get.
"Hi, Styrmir!" Hilda calls to the baby spirit, who smiles and coos upon hearing her voice. He shows her the special heart-patterned snowflake he made for her, to which Johanna starts gushing over. Even Mum can't handle how adorable Styrmir is, Hilda thinks to herself.
Raven returns to his smaller form, looking down at the soon-to-be-human-again elf girl.
"Are you ready?"
Hilda glances up at Alfur, who was quietly talking with her mum.
"I guess. I was just getting used to this form, too."
Raven blinks, noting her pallid expression.
"You have to drink the cure, don't you?" The question came out blunt and flat.
"Yes," Hilda replies, equally monotone. Even Styrmir looked grossed out by the notion of drinking such an unappealing mixture of normally inedible things.
"I am so sorry," Raven murmurs, as if consoling Hilda over someone's death; in this case, it was bound to be hers.
"Don't be. The one thing I don't want," Hilda admits, "is for my growing interest in paperwork to be permanent."
Maven was waiting for the group at the library's doors, a small, black pot in her hands.
"Hello! Please, hurry inside, we must-"
Styrmir casually drops his contribution into the pot. It glows a pale blue and crackles with magical energy, causing Maven's hair to inexplicably rise as if wind were blowing from beneath her.
"...Thank you," Maven sputtered, in mild shock to see a baby weather spirit floating right before her.
"C-come on, we need to get to the secret section in case anyone else comes in this early." The librarian turned on her heel and led the others inside. Styrmir follows as well.
"Oh! You're coming, too?" Hilda asks cheerfully. The little spirit nods.
As they walked, it felt so strange- Hilda had never seen the library so empty before. If it felt so hollow and eerie in the morning, she couldn't imagine how haunting it looked during the night. Perhaps it was because she was small, but she felt that once she became human again, she would find the idea of the dark library less frightening.
Maven rounds everyone up into the secret section, closing the bookcase entrance.
Johanna, Raven, Alfur, Twig, Styrmir, and of course, Hilda, were present as the candle lamps in the room went alight and flickered by themselves.
"Oh my goodness," Johanna murmurs to herself in amazement, "so this is where that soul-stealing tide mouse enchantment came from, Hilda?"
"Yeah," Hilda answers softly.
"I said, 'reference only,'" Maven mutters as she searches for a book from the shelves. Hilda hoped that she wouldn't pull out Facile Spells For Beginners. Thankfully, she didn't- Hilda then noticed the very book sitting under a panel of glass on a podium, labeled in bold red text: DO NOT TOUCH. Maven did not forget that book after all, Hilda supposed.
Maven finds the book she was looking for, her eyes lighting up.
"Put the rest of the ingredients in the pot and then I will recite a spell so it will be safe to drink," she instructs in a serious tone, though she glances at Hilda and mouths an apology.
"Wait, you can see me and Alfur?" Hilda asks in shock. Maven laughs.
"What good is a witch that can't see what's in plain sight?" she answers.
Johanna, having known Maven's secret use of witchcraft from what she had told her about the elf-to-human restoration spell, and after some prying, about the day she disappeared when they were children, looks up at Maven rather solemnly.
Alfur and Raven gather the other ingredients and pour them into the little cauldron.
The liquid bubbles, now glowing an eerie magenta and steam rises in bizarre shapes and forms. Hilda watches in mild discomfort, as this is what she'd be stuck drinking.
Maven reads off of the page in her spellbook. As she does, her eyes glow as white as Hilda's, David's and Johanna's eyes had been when the tide mouse spell was taking effect. It brought back bad memories to Hilda.
"This shall pierce the veil between truth and falsehood,
Which is well hidden beyond what the eye can see-
A short drink from a certain fountain should;
Return a human's form to thee."
The potion stops steaming and bubbling as the rhyme was spoken. Maven's eyes returned to normal- and she leaves momentarily to fetch Hilda a cup to drink from.
Alfur gives Hilda a warm smile, now standing on the carpet before her.
"This is it, dear. ...May I trouble you for one last elf hug?"
It takes a moment for it to hit Hilda that this was the very last opportunity she had to hug Alfur. Without hesitation, she leapt into his arms and let him catch her, letting her tears flow freely as he strokes her hair again.
"It's not like we have to say goodbye, you know," Alfur states, "but I understand. I'm going to miss these, too. It was nice to see eye-to-eye with you, Hilda, even if it wasn't for very long."
"Al-" Hilda stops, correcting herself, "Dad?"
Alfur clearly liked the new name.
"Yes?"
"Can I still call you that, even when I'm a human again?"
Alfur just laughs, putting Hilda down as Maven returns with a thimble.
"What a silly question- of course you can."
Raven pats Hilda with one wing.
"This is the last time I can be bigger than you no matter which form I'm taking. So I need to make a joke about it while I'm here."
"Okay," Hilda replies.
Raven thinks hard.
"I... got...
Absolutely nothing. You're tiny. Ha ha."
"Thank you, Raven. But... not for long."
Maven fills the thimble with the potion and gives it to Hilda.
The elf girl gazes at the purplish liquid in the cup. It smelled horrible and definitely tasted worse. But she was finally going to be human again, so she closed her eyes -after one last glance towards Alfur- and drank. As she expected, it tasted like molten manure sliding down her throat, but she still drank it. She could hear Raven chanting "chug, chug, chug" at her but it suddenly stopped. Hilda kept her eyes closed, but could see a bright light, shining even through her eyelids. Sounds became quieter within her hearing range and as she put her hands -indeed, her hands- to her ears, she felt no point. She had all of her fingers, and all of her toes, and as the glowing wore off, she saw her mum and Maven above her, Twig sniffing her face.
They were no longer giants.
The used thimble lay beside her, now minuscule to her eyes, a tiny puddle of purple oozing out from the remnants of the potion.
A few seconds ago, that thimble was the single thing that she could carry.
As she slowly sat up, Twig started licking her face and Styrmir pressed up against her in a hug, making happy little sounds. Johanna and Raven both took a moment before hugging her, too.
Maven smiled as she watched the scene, though her eyes were full of melancholy.
Hilda gagged a bit from the nasty stuff she'd been drinking. As she was released from the hug, she saw Alfur standing in the same place where he was before, now small again, now back to looking up at her instead of down.
"Ah, just as lovely as I remember, I see..."
Hilda blushes, rolling her eyes. She cups the little elf in her hands, lifts him up, and kisses him on the forehead.
Alfur still smiles, but coughs. He presses a nonexistent hand against Hilda's cheek.
"I appreciate the gesture, but to be blunt, that potion made your breath reek like nitten litter," he whispers, voice cracking a bit.
"Ah! I'm sorry," Hilda gently puts Alfur back down.
"But I really wanted to say thank you to all of you, for helping me become human again... I couldn't have done it all alone." She looks down at her hands, feeling her fingers move around. She picks up the thimble with her pointer and her thumb, relishing in how easy it was to hold it now. She'd missed that.
"We all love you, Hilda," Alfur states, his voice just as warm towards her as it was before, "we're here to help you when you need it because we want to be there for you. Besides, I'd rather see your smile and write a seven-page report about it than report about most other things that happened this past week." With that, his face becomes noticeably red again.
Hilda can't help but beam brightly, even with the disgusting taste of the potion still lingering.
David and Frida would be so ecstatic to see her. Woodman wouldn't admit it, but he would be proud. And her current Tontu... probably may have forgotten this ever happened at all. But she still couldn't help but be happy.
Maven somberly gazes at a faded picture in a silver locket as the rest celebrate Hilda's restored humanity as they start to exit the secret section in the still-empty library. That is, until Johanna takes notice of her.
"Is that... him? Your brother?"
"It is," Maven answered, "he'd be much older by now, though."
"What was it like, being in the body of a troll?"
"It was... startling, to say the least. I wanted to feel the sun again. I didn't know why that troll wanted us. I should've saved him, too, before it was too late."
A curious Hilda, Alfur on her shoulder, peers at the little picture of a vaguely familiar dark haired little boy. Her eyes widen.
"We met him."
"What!?" Maven exclaims incredulously.
"Remember, Alfur? The strange looking troll that saved me from drowning? It looked just like him, but older, and a troll..." Hilda tilts her head.
"How's that?"
"Changelings, Hilda," Maven states, "they swap human children with their own. The humans become trolls and the troll children become humans in their place. The troll that me and my brother encountered had taken both of us somehow. It might have been some sort of twin thing. I learned what the troll did to make us change places and I tried to change it back. The problem was... that it only worked on me. I barely escaped the Stone Forest alive, but... my brother's been there all these years. I learned magic to try to find a way to save him. But as of now, I never could. He... saved you from drowning?"
Hilda nods. Alfur is noticeably wincing, understandably not wanting to talk about that day.
"He reached in and picked me up!"
"That... that does sound like Mathias," Maven smiles, "there's a little bit of humanity left in him, then..."
"Are you okay?" Johanna asks in concern.
"I am," Maven says, "I'm... actually very happy to know he's still alive. It gives me the motivation to keep trying. Thank you, Hilda. If I can change an elf to a human, I can change a troll to a human. Someday."
"Maybe you could teach me some spells in the meantime!" Hilda suggests.
"No!" Alfur glares at the girl. Despite him being so small to her, Hilda remembered seeing that cute glare up close, which gave her second thoughts.
Maven laughs.
"Maybe when you're a bit older. Or, when I manage to find a way to destroy the living spellbook that caused your incident in the first place."
"Oh, so she wasn't kidding!?" Raven squawks in disbelief.
Hilda rode Raven to take Styrmir back home. The weather spirits congratulated her on regaining her humanity.
As they made their descent back to the library where Johanna, Twig and Alfur were waiting, Raven speaks.
"I'm proud of ya, kiddo. It was a little perilous, but it turned out to be a lot of fun bein' able to get to know you and Alfur more, too."
Hilda leans down to hug the bird.
"Take care of Alfur, okay? Little guy would do anything for ya, y'know. He's like your own pocket size dad."
The girl just smiles, deciding not to say anything about the contract she signed the night before.
"I will. Thank you, Raven. But don't forget, you're like a father to me, too."
She looks down, a human again but an elf in her memories, to where Twig, her mum, and her dad were waiting. Despite having seen them all before, this time felt new and extraordinary.
"Dad?" The blue haired girl stood on tiptoes to reach the little clock where her adoptive father had made up like a little house, doing his reports and sleeping- it made the girl feel a strange sense of hiraeth, to not be able to go through the tiny door like she could mere days before.
The clock's face opens to reveal Alfur, removing his reading glasses and putting them aside.
"Hello, Hilda," the elf greets her, stepping forward as she lays the palms of her hands flat and facing upward for him to walk onto them, trying to stifle her laughs from how it tickled. Alfur tilts his head, looking mildly concerned until she stops. She then shuffles onto her bed, placing the tiny creature on her pillow.
"What's wrong, dear?"
"I need to ask you something," she starts.
"Yes?"
"Can you..." Hilda takes a deep breath, "...come to school with me on Monday?"
The elf stares at her quizzically.
"Pleeeeease?" Hilda begs, "you're invisible, you can stay in my uniform pocket or roam around if you want to, no one but Frida and David would know. You can write a report and I bet the elves back home would love it!"
"A... tempting request, but you still haven't told me why..."
Hilda's face flushes in embarrassment.
"I missed a week of school after getting turned into an elf. I'm kind of scared about going back and facing everyone there after disappearing for that long. I'll probably get lots of homework and the thought of it stresses me out, but you... you're very good at making me feel calm. Besides... it could be the first time I'd be apart from you for a while. I'd miss you. Wouldn't you miss me too?"
Alfur sighs softly, resting his head on one arm.
"You're awfully good at convincing..."
Hilda giggles, a huge grin on her face.
"But if you misbehave at all at school, I'll have to tell your mum all about it."
Hilda's face immediately drops and forms a pout. She glares at Alfur, who is completely unfazed. (She opens her mouth to speak, but decides against making a Christmas joke for her own sake.)
"I'll be good," she mutters. Her mood lifts up again when Alfur nuzzles against her face.
"You're always good, though, so I doubt I'll have much to tell her... ah, besides things she already knows, of course. Like how cute you a-"
Hilda hums to herself, face flushing red again. She nudges Alfur away with one finger irritably.
"I'm not cute."
The elf just knowingly smiles at her before hopping onto the desk and climbing up the string of lights back towards the clock.
"Back to work already?" Hilda asks, slightly disappointed as he puts his reading glasses back on.
"I just have to finish this one report. If I'm not done in ten minutes, you'll have my permission to barge in and say my least favorite word in the dictionary."
Tontu chuckles mischievously as he scrambles through different entrances to Nowhere Space.
"Moist."
Alfur visibly shudders, glaring at the space where the nisse vanished disapprovingly.
"Tontu! I did NOT give you permission to say that word within earshot!" He pouts.
Hilda stifles her laughter again, climbing up onto her desk chair to reach Alfur again.
"I'm gonna go back to the kitchen. I love you."
Alfur plants a kiss on her forehead.
"I love you too."
He watches the child leave, pursued by an excited Twig as she turns the corner down the hall into the light of the kitchen. He can't help but smile.
She never really changed at all.
END
omg thank you all so much for reading
I'm shook that this took me from january to the end of july. heck
in any case you weren't expecting the troll to be maven's brother all along were you? oops
in any case "moist" is a disgusting word and if I ever hear it out of context I automatically assume the worst
Alfur is pure and precious ok. what did we do to deserve him