Subcon Lindworm Au - Blog Posts
How dare he. How dare he give his affection to some random child instead of his own blood. How dare he not even search for his brother. It isn’t fair. It isn’t fair that Marcus has love and adoration, while Snatcher has nothing but fear. Sure he ate a few (dozen) people, but it isn’t his fault he was hungry. He couldn’t help it. It just wasn’t fair. Well, maybe it’s a little fair, he has been terrorizing the kingdom for over 2 decades now after all. It doesn’t really matter anyway. His reputation isn’t the point here. The point here is that Marcus is about to add another member to his family. Now, Snatcher can’t let this happen for a few reasons.
1. It isn’t fair that Marcus has people to care for.
2. It isn’t fair that Marcus has people who care for him.
3. Even if Marcus does do his best to care for people, Snatcher could DEFINITELY care for people better. He is the oldest after all.
Maybe he should demonstrate that. He could be wayyyy better at caring for a child than Marcus. He could prove it. All he needed was a child. Luckily he knows where to find one, holding onto his dear younger brother’s hand. It should be pretty easy.
This is an approximation of The Subon Snatcher’s thoughts as he began to slither alongside the two figures walking down the forest path back towards the manor. If he wanted to do this, he would have to do it soon, as the shrubs would stop being thick enough to hide him a few yards away.
A large creature slithers out of the brush. It is unlike anything Marcus has ever seen before, with glistening long yellowed fangs, elongated eyes the color of slightly dirty gold, a long sinuous body covered in feathers a shade or two darker than the skin of a plum, and two long and thin legs with claws on the end.
“A child for me before a child for you.” The creature hissed.
It’s arms darted out to grab his new little girl, who Marcus had recently discovered was named Beatrice.
“Stop!”
The shout echoed through the trees. It took Marcus a moment to realize that the exclamation had come from his own mouth.
“You want a child? I can get you one, please just leave Beatrice alone.” A pleading tone leaked into the king’s voice. Of course he would never actually give The Snatcher (as that is the name of this beast in front of him. Marcus had heard complaints of him for as long as he can remember) a child. He just wanted this serpentine avian to leave them alone.
“Will you now?” The Snatcher hissed coldly.
“Of course!” Marcus replied, a little too quickly. “I’ll come back as soon as I can with a nice juicy little girl for you.”
“I don’t believe you.” A skeptical expression, or as close as you can get with such a monstrous form, slid onto the snake’s face.
“R…really? Perhaps you could come back to the city and help you pick one out?” Of course, this was Marcus just trying to buy time, There’s no way this thing would be stupid enough to come to the village with him, right?
“Alright, but you’d better walk fast. You humans are all so slow.” Aaaand nevermind then. Apparently he’s doing this.
The Subcon Lindworm
Once upon a time there was a wooded kingdom known as Subcon. Subcon’s monarchs wanted children, but even after many attempts, they remained childless. One day the king went out into the woods, lamenting his fate, when an odd cat-like creature appeared before him. “What’s wrong sugar?” she asks the king. He replies, telling the being of the kingdom’s woes. The Cat tells him of an ancient ritual they could perform to ensure the queen is with child.
They must place an old well-loved pot in the north-east corner of their garden on the night of a full moon. The next morning there will be two roses under the pot. One rose will be blue, and the other yellow. These roses are to be plucked of petals and made into a tea. If the queen drinks the tea made from the blue flower, she will have a boy, and if she drinks from the yellow flower she will have a girl. She must not drink both teas, or things may go wrong.
The king follows these directions, giving the queen both teas, and allowing her to choose. After pondering for a time, she drinks the yellow tea, but as it was so delicious, she decides to drink the other one too. All seems well for a time, but after 9 months, it is time for the princelings to be born. As the first child comes into the world, it is immediately obvious that not all is as it should be. In place of a human child, something resembling a purple snake covered in vibrant violet plumage slithers out of the womb. The queen cries in distress, and spooked by the noise, the creature later to become known as the Subcon Snatcher crawls away on a pair of clawed, thin arms out the window and into the forest. His twin, on the other hand, comes into the world a perfect mix of the king and queen.
Years pass. Rumors of a giant purple beast living in the woods spread. The queen and king investigate, searching for their lost child. Snatcher is so hungry. He hunts and he hunts, but he never feels satisfied. One day, he comes upon a pair of people, dressed in fine clothes, with bizarre rings of shiny metal upon their heads. He eats them before they can even scream.
Life goes on. The second child, now named Marcus, becomes king. He falls in love and marries a florist who lives in the village. They are content for a time, but eventually they begin to feel like something is missing. They want a child. Marcus grew up with the story of the kind cat lady in the woods, so he knows where to go when all else fails. Something goes wrong though. Upon hearing his plea, the cat can only respond, “I’m sorry sugar, but last time I tried to help, people started going missing in this here forest.” And that would have been that, if it were not for the fact that on his way back to the castle, Marcus finds a little girl, one with a beautiful bow in her hair, trying to get her cat out of a tree. After helping her, they begin to talk, and the king realizes that this bow child is without parents, without a home, and without food. He visits her from time to time. Their rendezvous become more and more frequent. One fateful day, Marcus asks the child to come home with him, completely unaware of the sun yellow eyes glowing brightly in the bushes.
Well. I’m too tired to continue right now, and I’m aware that this isn’t very good, but it’s something. Background set up! Wooo!
Sooo…. I’ve been thinking on it, and so, in the original fairy tale the lindworm has a twin brother, and that slot could be taken up by moonjumper, who would be wanting to adopt bow (leading snatcher to get jealous and start up the main conflict) the witch who ultimately causes AND helps solve the whole giant dragon worm thing could be several people, but the ones I’ve narrowed it down to is Vanessa, Cooking Cat, or the Florist, but Vanessa could be well suited for one of the people the lindworm eats, cooking cat could very well suit the helpful maid, and the florist could be hat kid’s relative (aunt?) who she lived with before becoming prospective monster chow. Of course, all this is my own opinion, and if you’ve got something else I would be more than willing to listen!
If all of this made no sense to you, the people over at Overly Sarcastic Productions on YouTube did pretty good coverage on the Prince Lindworm myth, and there are also several good interpretations on ao3.
I think that a really cool au idea for a hat in time would be one based on the prince lindworm fairytale. Maybe not romantic, but there’s some dadcher potential… like it’s a story about a worm monster with no back legs who is secretly a prince who becomes human through the power of love/being hit with a really big stick, so I think that would be neat to do something with. I’m nowhere near talented enough to do anything with it though lol