Betrayed by the Person You Haven't Admitted to Yourself You're in Love With

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/32485684.

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Category: F/M
Fandom: The Adventures of Ledo and Ix (Cartoon)
Relationship: Ix/Princess (Ledo and Ix TV), Ix/Ledo (Ledo and Ix TV)
Character: Ix (Ledo and Ix TV), Ledo (Ledo and Ix TV), Princess (Ledo and Ix TV)
Additional Tags: Unicorns, Loyalty, Denial of Feelings, Implied Sexual Content, implied
dubious consent, Betrayal, Crack and Angst, We Die Like Fen: Time
Loop: Bullet Round
Language: English
Collections: We Die Like Fen: Time Loop
Stats: Published: 2021-07-10 Words: 1,002 Chapters: 1/1

Betrayed by the Person You Haven't Admitted to Yourself

You're in Love With
by Gammarad

Summary

Ledo and Ix (and the Princess) find a town. There's a unicorn outside. Ledo is the only one
who can ride it.

This turns out not to be as great a thing as Ledo initially thinks it is.

Notes

The canon - Season 1 has eight five-minute episodes : Adventures of Ledo and Ix (Season 1
playlist) on YouTube

Season 2 has two complete episodes and a bunch of bits of what would have been Season 2,
Episode 3: Ledo and Ix Season 2 playlist

See the end of the work for more notes

This new town had a unicorn right outside. Ledo had been ready to fight it, but it was Not a Thing,
or maybe it was an animal rather than an opponent.

"It's a mount," Ix said. "We finally found one!"

"Then try to ride it." The only mounts Ledo had ever seen were already supplied with riders: NPC
riders (NPC stood for Not People, Clearly -- only she and Ix were PC, People Clearly, and the
Princess was NPP -- Not People, Probably). Equippable mounts were probably a myth.

"But it's a Unicorn." Ix stepped closer to it despite his protest. It blocked his path. So a Thing, at
least enough of a Thing to have a boundary box.

"What's the problem?" Ledo watched with interest. Maybe she should try to ride it? If equippable
mounts weren't mythical, they might have cool status effects.

"I don't think I'm qualified to ride a Unicorn." Ix seemed embarrassed. Even more than when he
was explaining one of his weird dreams about her.

"See if you can walk past it so that the Princess gets on."

Ix tried that a few times. The Princess passed in front of the unicorn on each try, but never bounced
on the way the brunette princess had onto the horse with the NPC bandit rider. No glitching, either.
"It's not working. I guess she's not qualified either."

Why did he sound happy about that? Ledo checked through her inventory menus for something
that might be useful. Nothing looked especially promising. She might as well try getting on the
unicorn before making a random selection. To Ledo's astonishment, her attempt was successful as
she mounted the unicorn on her first try. "It worked! Look at this, Ix!"

Ix didn't even answer her, but entered the town, disappearing from Ledo's view. The Princess
followed, also vanishing. Ledo tried to enter without dismounting, but was blocked. She didn't
want to dismount yet; she was still getting the hang of riding, and, well, it was the first new thing
she'd done in a long time. It was a better distraction than drinking more mead.

Ledo rode the unicorn back and forth in front of the town, trying out the controls. She wondered if
she'd be able to fight from unicornback. Now she regretted not trying to fight that NPC bandit
who'd taken the brunette princess. At least she would've seen the mechanics of mounted combat if
she had, though it might not work the same way for a PC on a mount. But it would've been a hint.

Ix finally returned, Princess following him as usual. "They want to talk to you in town," he said.
"Come on."

Something about how he said it (even though his vocalization looked exactly like always) made
Ledo hesitate. "What for? Is there a quest?"

"It's always a quest. And you always want to complete them, don't you?" Ix really didn't sound like
himself. Ledo wondered if he had brain fungus. Maybe she should try the brain fungus cure?

But it didn't seem to do anything. Ledo turned her unicorn toward the town entrance. "It didn't let
me in before, Ix. But I'll try it again," she said, still not ready to find out if the unicorn would
vanish when she dismounted. Which she didn't need to do, yet, since this time she was able to enter
the town while still riding on the unicorn.

"I think it worked because I took the quest," Ix said.

"Was the quest to bring them a unicorn?" Ledo asked.

"Sort of. Not exactly." Ix looked from the Princess to Ledo and back again. "I wouldn't have, but...
I'm sure you'll be fine. You're always fine. There's not a fight you can't win. Right, Ledo? And the
 reward for this quest, it sounded like," Ix looked between her and the Princess again. It was starting
to annoy Ledo when he did that. "Like they might have something that would let her talk. Finish
what she was going to say. You know."

"Of course I'll be fine," Ledo said, answering the only part of Ix's whole speech that had made any
sense at all. "But there's nothing NPC villagers can give you that'll fix the Princess. There's
probably nothing there to fix in the first place."

"Oh, you admitted there might be something to fix! That's wonderful, Ledo." Ix did the annoying
looking-back-and-forth thing again.

Ledo imagined his head spinning right around and falling off. Of course, that'd be horrible. But it
would a little bit serve him right. She could just bring him back to life if it happened. It would
definitely still be the same person.

The unicorn carried her right up to the village mayor building and then inside. They were in front
of an NPC man behind a desk, a little less common than him being on a throne, but she'd seen
similar setups before. "Thank you for bringing us the requested virgin sacrifice," the man said.
"Here is your reward." He gave Ix a bottle.

Ledo tried to check her inventory menus but found that she couldn't. "Hey, what's going on here?"
she said. Now she was ready to get off the unicorn. But she couldn't figure out how to do that,
either.

Virgin... sacrifice?

When Ledo finally walked, not rode, out of the town, Ix and the Princess were waiting. Ix started to
say something, but she blocked his speech bubble with her own. "I'm not going to talk about it,"
she said.

She was never going to try to ride a unicorn again. Because now she understood why she had been
able to before, and why it wouldn't work again.

It wasn't like Ix had ever said he intended to try to protect her. It had always only been the other
way around. And Ledo supposed that was all right with her. If only he'd stop looking at her and the
Princess the same way, she thought, then it would be. Maybe. Eventually. She needed more mead.

End Notes

Inspired by, if not actually entirely incorporating, the following request tags (in addition to
the one the fill is for, Betrayed by the Person You Haven't Admitted to Yourself You're in
Love With):

unicorn apocalypse
An (unspeakable) (shared) backstory that nevertheless colors everything
Competent Characters Being Very Good at What They Do
Don’t You Dare Make Me Feel My Feelings
Human sacrifice to save others that requires sex instead of death
Usually Powerful Character is Helpless Due to Drugs and at the Mercy of Someone They
 Don't Trust
Stoic character with occasional violent outbursts
They're so strong and powerful but they've been starved and abused oh no
Inadvertently dubious consent (or is it?)
Consummation
Trying not to let anyone know you're crying
Boundaries are for pushing
Penetrations whether literal or metaphorical or somewhere in between
The sublimation of the self
Bad Guys Win

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