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thepersephonecabin · 6 years ago

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Red

So I finally finished my @festivebastion fic for @greaseonmymouth! Sorry it took a while, but hopefully you like it!

read on AO3!

Pairing: Alcibiades/Caius Greylace

Rating: General Audiences

Summary: Returning to life from exile has good days and bad days for Caius Greylace, but Alcibiades is always there for him to lean on. After a particularly bad breakdown, Alcibiades decides that Caius needs some good old-fashioned rest and relaxation in the country air. How will Caius take to life on the farm and meeting Yana and Al's family?

They had a code for when one wanted to see the other. “Red.” It was a nostalgic way of remembering their time back in Xi’an, daring to wear red to the peace talks while also continuing their relationship, their this, whatever this was.

Caius had been the one to come up with it. Over their time together, Alcibiades had realized that Caius was actually rather sentimental in his own way, although he wouldn’t have thought so at first. After all Caius had gone through as a child, Al had expected him to destroy all the reminders of his time with the Esar, but it hadn’t been the case. The first time he’d been allowed into Caius’s Miranda apartment in Thremedon, he’d been surprised to find one such remnant in display.

It was an ornate vase, porcelain blue with gold leaf, sitting atop a white pedestal. The flared top narrowed before flaring into a globe-shaped bird’s cage which broke up the glass top and bottom of the base with delicate, gold bars, trapping a glass bird within. It was the only blue in the purple scheme of Caius’s lounge, making Alcibiades wonder how Caius, ever conscious of the surrounding color scheme and always the first to criticize the clashing tones of people’s clothes and interior design choices, could stand the way it stood out in the room.

Upon inviting Al into the flat, Caius had disappeared into the kitchen to bring out tea and pastries, leaving Al to wander around the lounge. When Caius reappeared, he’d been bending down to pear through the bird cage vase, internally remarking at how he could wave his hand behind the vase and see it through the cage.

“Oh, do you like my vase?” Caius chirped. Without waiting for an answer, he went on, “It was given to me by the Esar when I was barely eight. It had been part of the Bastion��s blue wing, and I spent so much time admiring it, he said I could have it if I did well enough in my velikaia training with Antoinette.”

Ah, Antoinette. That explained it. Of all the people Caius looked back on from his youth, it was his old mentor that he remembered most fondly. He’d always seemed to have a soft spot for her, even going back to their period sequestered in the Basquait with the plague, when he seemed to be hurt at finding out Antoinette had spent all that time in the same building quarantined with them, but never coming by to see Caius.

“It’s ridiculous. You couldn’t put anything in it,” Alcibiades said.

Caius tsked at him, “Not every vase is for carrying water. Can’t it just be visually appealing?”

“No,” Al argued. “A vase is a container. It’s meant to contain things.”

Caius sipped his tea. “You needn’t insult my belongings just because you are incapable of appreciating the aesthetic, dear.”

And that had been that. That had been months ago, and by now, Alcibiades had been to Caius’s apartment enough times that he didn’t pay the vase any mind. He hardly remembered it existed until the day he received a one word note from Caius- “Red.”

Something about the message worried him. It wasn’t unlike Caius to send vague notes, but the handwriting was all wrong- shakey and near illegible. Caius’s normal hand was looping, impeccable cursive. Alcibiades supposed that Caius could have asked a servant to pen the note, but generally, Caius preferred to keep his correspondence private.

“Did he say anything else?” Alcibiades asked, turning the parchment over in his hand.

The courier, a young lad in a flat cap and gloves with holes in the fingers, shifted from foot to foot, scratching his back. “No, sir, will there be anythin’ else?” He held up a hand for payment, and Al scrambled in his packet for a chevronet.

“No, thank you,” he said, dismissing him. He’d better just go straight to Caius, not bother with a reply.

By the time he got to Ciaus’s apartment, it was approaching the afternoon. He knocked on the door, only to be met with a muffled, “Come in,” from inside.

Al entered, finding the foyer empty. “Hello?” he called.

A choked, “In here,” called back from the lounge.

Something was very wrong. Caius sat on the floor, head bowed. Alcibaides couldn’t see his face through a curtain of white-blonde hair, but by the shaking of his shoulders, Al knew he was crying. He cradled a bloody hand in his lap, the blood staining his immaculately pressed silver trousers and frilly white shirt. In front of him were the shattered remains of the bird cage vase.

“Caius… what’s wrong?” Al asked, moving forward cautiously.

“I… I broke the vase,” Caius said, flinching as the glass crunched under Al’s boots. “I didn’t know what to do, who to call.”

Al knelt down, reaching out for his hand. “It’s just a vase. Come on, let me see your hand and get some bandages.”

“It’s not just a-“ Caius began before cutting himself off and looking away. “No, you wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

But Caius stayed silent. Al sighed, and stood up before moving to the bathroom to find the first aid kit. Caius didn’t offer any further information as Al came back, cleaned away the blood, and bandaged the cuts on his hand.

When he was done, Al pulled Caius up and said, “Come on, pack a bag.”

“Where are we going?”

“Home.”

Al didn’t need to say more. He kept a small flat in the city where he stayed whenever he needed to deal with the Basquait or Magician business, but he and Caius both knew his home was hours from Thremedon.

Caius had enjoyed his time back, relearning the city after years in exile, but Al had long suspected it had taken a toll on him as well. Having missed so much while he was away, combined with the vicious rumors of Thremedon’s elite had left Caius reeling some days. The worst, in Alcibiades’s opinion had been the first ball Caius attended at the palace following the end of his exile. No one had been pleased to see Caius return, never mind the fact that he had saved the peace talks by preventing Emperor Iseul’s attempts to sabotage them and the failed assassination attempt on his younger brother, the new leader of Xi’an. While Alcibiades and the other Magicians returned from Xi’an as heroes, Caius was still regarded as dangerous pariah. The other nobles never faltered in sharing their opinions of him, the freak who nearly killed another Magician ages ago. The night had ended in Caius accidentally shattering a champagne flute with his grip, then leaving near tears. Alcibiades had no doubt living in the city had continued to push Caius’s mental health to the limits. He only hoped that Caius would benefit from being removed from the city for the time being, not relapse even harder from being in the country as he was in exile.

The carriage ride into the country was more quiet then Alcibiades could imagine Caius could be. Usually Caius was so chatty and full of life, even in the most needless and incessant of conversations that Alcibiades had no idea how much he’d grown used to Caius’s voice until now that he remained silent.

Finally, around an hour into their journey Caius spoke, “He was going to have me killed, you know. For the Magician.”

Alcibiades didn’t need to ask who “he” was. The Esar had never been especially well-loved by the people of Volstov, at least not more than any other ruler. However, following the news of his sudden decline into a comatose state and Esarina Anastasia’s rise to the throne, more and more people had begun seeing the areas where his dedication to the empire had been left wanting. As a former member of the Esar’s inner circle of Magicians, even, or perhaps especially, at his young age, Caius had seen the lengths the Esar could go to for success, even when it came with great cost- a cost so frequently paid not by the Esar himself, but rather by one of his endless line of expendable pawns.

“How do you know?” Alcibiades asked.

“Another Magician acquaintance of mine who was also in his service at the time. She had been there when it happened. Apparently, the only reason he decided against it was because Antoinette threatened to abandon him if he did. I’m told he agreed with the stipulation that she cut ties with me,” Caius explained.

“That’s good, though, isn’t it? It means she hasn’t been avoiding you because of you. She was probably just trying to protect you from what he’d do if she tried to contact you after you got back.”

“It’s been months since he fell asleep, though, and she still hasn’t said anything,” Caius refuted.

“She’s a busy woman. What with the change in power, I’m sure she’s got a lot of ground to make up seducing the new empress,” Al grunted, rolling his eyes.

Caius scowled, “Really? What would poor Yana think to hear you speak of a lady like that? Besides if you think she hasn’t already made progress on that front, you aren’t up on your court gossip.” Alcibiades gaped at him and Caius scoffed, “Oh, come now, surely you didn’t think you were the only one in the empire to be interested in more than one sex.”

“Of course not, I just thought she’d wait until the Esar’s throne got cold before moving on to the next monarch.”

Caius hummed. “Yes, well, Nicolas was hardly the most attentive partner one could ask for. I could hardly blame the Esarina for wanting someone to fill the gap.”

“Now that I can see,” Alcibiades relented, just as the carriage began to roll to a stop. “Seems like we’re here.”

It seemed that “poor Yana” was a misnomer. Yana, though barely five feet in height, was a whirlwind of a woman. As soon as he met her, Caius realized he had been mistaken to ever think she was “poor” anything.

Upon first stepping out of their carriage and looking on to Alcibiades’s family farm for the first time, Caius broke out of his sadness long enough to worry that he’d be intruding. After all, Alcibiades had been too busy taking care of Caius’s nonsensical meltdown to send message ahead to let Yana and his other family that company was coming. Not to mention, if Caius had known he’d been coming to a farm in the country, he would have surely have worn something more appropriate and less made for the fashions of Thremedon. He should have worn something more sensible and humble. As it was, he was draped in a blue, satiny dress. He supposed to someone more familiar to the countryside’s overreliance on cotton and burlap he practically looked like a painted member of Our Lady of Fans.

Though, if Yana thought anything like that of him, she sure didn’t show it. She simply took one look at him, then slid her gaze to Alcibiades and said, “I wish you had told me you were bringing your special friend. I would have gotten out our nice china.”

“You have plain china in addition to fancy china?” blurted Caius. “How quaint! Al just keeps the plain kind, and I just keep the fancy kind. Oh, I’m sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself. I should introduce myself, I’m Caius Greylace.”

“Oh, don’t worry, child, I knew the moment I saw you who you were. My boy has told me so much of you, I knew you must be the famous Caius. I’m Yana.”

“Yana…” Al said reproachfully.

Yana gently whipped his arm with the washcloth she held in her hands, “Oh, don’t start with me. Dinner is nearly ready, bring your Caius in to the dining room and say hello to your siblings.”

It turned out Alcibiades had many siblings, though he explained that not all of them were siblings by blood. Yana never failed to take in someone in need of a home, and had taught her children and grandchildren to do the same. This resulted in a large, loud group of seemingly endless siblings and aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews.

One woman, brunette and smiling wide, tried to deposit her toddler in Caius’s arms but he had been too shocked to respond, so Alcibiades plucked the child from his mother’s arms, swinging him around and tipping him upside down, eliciting happy giggles and squeals from the boy. “He isn’t used to being around kids,” Al explained. “We’ll break him of that soon enough.”

Another child, this one appearing to be a girl, ran up, clutching Al’s leg. “Uncle Al! Uncle Al! What did you bring me?”

“What did I bring you? I brought you a person, isn’t that enough? This is my friend Caius.”

“Oooo, your friiiiieeeend,” the girl chorused, before looking to Caius for the first time. Her eyes widened at the sight of him. “Are you a princess? You look like a princess.”

“He’s a bo- Ow!” Alcibiades began, but Caius slapped his chest before he could finish. Whatever he said would only be half true anyhow. Caius’s relationship with binary gender was precarious on the best of days.

“I am,” Caius said, “and what is your name, sweetheart?”

“Antigone,” she answered. “I like your dress and your shoes.”

“Thank you, darling. Maybe if your parents say yes, you can come over tomorrow and try on some of my dresses,” he told her. “Though, they may be a little big on you.”

She let out a pleased noise, before running back to her mother , presumably to ask permission right away.

Yana pushed her way through the swinging doors, a steaming pot of stew in her hands. “Alright, alright everyone settle down so we can say grace and eat.”

And they did, and it was good.

It stayed good until the next day after lunch. Caius was in good spirits after meeting everyone and in his new habitat. They had enjoyed dinner and retired to Alcibiades’s childhood bedroom. After a rough day and being introduced to so many new people, he had thought it was best to let Caius have a nice quiet night just the two of them, and Caius had been downright affectionate with gratitude for Alcibiades taking care of him, and they had cuddled all the way into sleep.

The next morning, Caius had been reasonably accepting of being woken up by roosters at dawn once he was awake enough to get excited about being in close proximity to roosters. He had eagerly gotten out to try his hand at feeding the chickens, then nearly wiped out, slipping in the mud. Then Antigone and her sisters had come over to play dress up. Caius was thrilled when they all curtsied to him, as the news of Caius’s supposed status of being a princess had spread, and the troop spent hours marching around in Caius’s high heels and skirts before Yana called them to eat sandwiches for lunch.

No, the trouble had started after lunch, when Caius was helping Yana wash and dry the dishes. He’d insisted in helping because he was a guest in her home, after all. It had all went wrong when under the soapy water, Yana cut herself on a knife. She yanked up her hand, and Caius, unthinking, grabbed it to help.

Alcibiades could see the change from across the room. Yana’s entire body went relaxed, and Caius’s eyes contracted as hers dilated. He was halfway to them before he even realized it, but Caius raised a hand, motioning him to stop.

Caius looked like he was ready to crack, but he took a breath to steady himself and spoke, “Yana, dear, everything is fine.” Tears welled up in his eyes, and his voiced cracked on his last word. “I need you to remain calm. I’m going to leave now, and you need to stay here. Alcibiades will take care of you.”

Caius bolted, running at top speed to Al’s room. Al caught Yana as she snapped out of Caius’s trance. “Yana, are you alright? I’m sorry, I didn’t know he’d do that.”

She shook her head, “You need to go to him. Al, you don’t understand… when he touched me, I felt him, this profound sadness. A sadness like that shouldn’t come from a boy so young. I’ll be fine. It’s just a little cut. He’s hurting far worse than I am. Go. Go!”

Alcibiades went. Caius in his bedroom was doubled over sobbing into his hands. At seeing Al he sobbed even harder, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to I swear. I just wanted to help.”

Al took him into his arms, “It’s okay, Cai. You didn’t hurt her.”

Caius buried his face in his chest, and repeated, “It’s okay, it’s okay…” like a prayer.

Caius and Alcibiades didn’t always stay at the farm, but it never seemed to stop Caius from carving a place out there. Caius helped take care of the animals. He had even refused to leave the barn when Bella, one of Yana’s cows, had her calf in the fall. Caius seemed to have an uncanny way of making the animals calm around him. Alcibiades was half tempted to credit it to some velikaia mind trick, but Caius simply waved his hand at Al and said, “Don’t you recall that I had a pet tiger for a time? Taming a horse or a pig should be short work comparatively.” This was immediately followed by Caius encountering horse dung for the first time, but he never let Alcibiades tell that part of the story.

Caius had also been readily accepted by Al’s family, which wasn’t necessarily a surprise given Yana’s “We take all kinds here,” principles. He had especially bonded with some of the women of the family thanks to their similar reading habits. Every time Caius and Al visited, it seems that the hens of the house gathered for an informal book club meeting in which males, Caius excluded, were prohibited from joining because they, “just wouldn’t understand.”

Al had made the mistake of sneaking a peek at Caius’s book when he laid it down once. He made it through half of one sentence- “Floriana’s chest heaved as she reached down to stroke the man’s girth and-” before he dropped it in disgust, just in time for Caius to re-enter the room and see it.

Caius tsked wordlessly at him, picking the book off the floor and bending the pages that had been bent in the fall back into place.

“You read that filth?!” Alcibiades exclaimed, fighting the urge to wipe his hands against his clothes as if they were dirty.

Caius gasped in mock offense, placing a slender hand to his chest. “This is literature, General. I’m sorry you can’t appreciate it for its worth.”

“Worth?! It’s dime and nickel trash!”

“I do not criticize your testosterone-rich war novels, I shall expect you to respect my reading choices as well. This is why we don’t invite your brothers to sit with us as we discuss our books,” Caius said. “You big strong men have no taste.”

“You mean this is what you talk about with all my sisters?” Alcibiades looked horrified.

Caius rolled his eyes, “I don’t see why you should be so surprised. There’s nothing to be ashamed about some harmless fantasizing. Maybe you should join us, sometime. I think the average man could do well to learn from these books about what their partners want. You would make a rather dashing romantic hero yourself.”

“Thanks, but no thanks,” Alcibiades said, blandly. “I’ll take a rain check.”

“Suit yourself, general. We meet next Thursday afternoon if you change your mind.”

If Alcibiades had been smart, he would have remembered to steer clear of the den Thursday, but going about his daily business it must have slipped his mind that Caius’s perverted, little book club was meeting until he walked in with freshly cut wood logs hoisted over one shoulder to find half the females of his family gathered in a circle with books on their laps.

“General, what a pleasant surprise. You aren’t here to join us are you?” Caius asked from his favorite wingback chair, ankles crossed and with the close-lipped smirk he always had when he’d found something to toy with.

Al bit back a snappish retort, and replied, “Nope, just here to put some fresh kindling in the fireplace before it gets any colder outside.”

“How gallant of you, dear. I’m sure we’ll all enjoy the heat,” Caius said, earning a chorus of giggles from the women around the room. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to pull up a chair? We were getting ready to discuss the part where the protagonist is whisked up into the man’s arms and thrown over his shoulder, rather like all that wood you’re carrying.”

Al felt his face flush, turning to Caius once more now that he had deposited the logs into the fireplace. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” More giggles came from around the room. “For me to join, I mean.”

“You know I always enjoy your company, General.”

The next time they sojourned to the farm, it was the beginning of winter and time to celebrate the winter holidays.

Once more they found themselves talking for great lengths of time during the carriage ride from the city, this time surrounded by all the shiny, foil wrapped presents Caius had insisted in bringing for all of the family. Even with as crowded as the carriage was now, Caius had fretted for days that he hadn’t bought enough to give to everyone, despite Alcibiades trying to assure him that if anything he had gotten too much.

“I haven’t embarrassed myself, have I, Al?” he asked, gazing at the presents as the carriage took them further away from Thremedon. “I was so worried that I couldn’t possibly repay your family for their kindnesses over the past year that I didn’t consider that I might make them feel bad for not being able to afford such expensive things for me.”

“It’s a bit late to return everything,” Al grumbled. “Everything will be fine. The presents aren’t the real meaning of the holiday anyway, so I’m sure everyone will be pleased with what you got them.”

“Of course, they’re the meaning of the holiday,” Caius scoffed. “You don’t expect me to believe in that tosh about Regina-“ He paused suddenly. “I apologize. Of course you do. You’re the most pious man I’ve ever met.”

“What you don’t? Believe in Regina and the holiday and everything?” Alcibiades asked.

Caius smiled thinly, “No, I never have. I can certainly see the appeal in it. It must feel rather comforting to believe that there’s a higher power looking out for you, controlling your fate. That if things are meant to be they’ll be. But, no, I’m afraid if there is anyone is to blame for my mistakes in life, it is me.”

But, when it came time to exchange gifts, Caius showed no lack of enthusiasm for the holiday celebrations. As expected, the gifts Caius received were significantly plainer than what he had given everyone else, but he was no less excited to get them. Yana had sewn him some nice, cotton dresses to match the ones more common to the countryside farm life. He immediately had tried them on and loved every stitch and seam put into them.

“Al, Al, look!” he exclaimed, sticking his foot out at Alcibiades. “You can see my ankles!”

“Yeah, now you won’t have to worry about all your ridiculous skirts getting dragged through the mud and filth all the time like the rest of us,” Al said, making room for Caius on the couch.

“You love my ridiculous skirts,” Caius replied, pushing the foot he’d displayed earlier at Al’s face in retaliation.

“Yeah, yeah, well, settle down, you’ve got one more present to open.”

Caius cocked his head to the side, “Do I? I thought that was the last of them.”

“This one’s from me,” Al said, handing Caius a box.

“A present from the General. I do hope it’s appropriate to open in front of the family,” Caius teased, already pulling at the box’s ribbon and wrapping paper. He pulled open the box and stilled.

“I hope it doesn’t upset you. I knew it meant a lot to you, so I got it fixed. But if the memories are too much, you don’t have to keep it,” Alcibiades explained, watching Caius pull the once broken vase with the bird cage from the box. The cracks had been sealed with gold-dusted lacquer.

Caius hugged the vase to him for a moment, before reaching for Al and pulling him in for a kiss. “It’s perfect. Thank you.”

After returning to the city, they saw each other again at the Esarina’s New Year’s ball. Alcibiades was dressed in a new red military uniform coat given to him by Caius to replace his “ratty” older one. At first Alcibiades had resisted the new coat, insisting that his old one was perfectly fine, but he had to admit that his old uniform had seen better days. After all, what better way to show Caius his interest than by appreciating the gift he’d been given?

On his third glass of champagne, he finally found Caius among the crowd, and he was dazzling.

Dressed in head to toe in scarlet, Caius sported a floor-length gown bejeweled in rubies with a long cape flowing down his back from his shoulders. When he caught Alcibiades looking, he quirked his blood red painted lips, and with a single finger beckoned Alcibiades to him. Alcibiades took one step to him, and he turned, weaving through the crowd, then down the winding palace halls to somewhere more private.

By the time Alcibiades caught up to him enough to wrap his arms around Caius’s tiny waist and pick him up, his ears rang with Caius’s laughs, and all he could see was wonderful, beautiful red.

#volstovic cycle #havemercy #alcibiades #caius greylace #festivebastion #greaseonmymouth #rebloggable

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darlingriezmann · 2 years ago

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globalatomic · 7 years ago

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chubbysparrowdesigns · 7 years ago

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indianlacesandfabric · 6 years ago

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shesaluckybutterfly · 8 years ago

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thepersephonecabin · 6 years ago

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A Very Adamo Family Christmas

Happy holidays! This is my gift for @foxesonstilts for the 2019 @festivebastion gift exchange. They requested Adamo/Laure, snapshots from their life at the Greylace estate, and Adamo and Royston being bros.

So this is the story about the wild circumstances surrounding the birth of Adamo and Laure’s first child. Sorry, it isn’t as Adamo/Laure centric necessarily as it could be, so much as it’s... general chaos from the whole crew, but I hope you like it nonetheless!

read on AO3

The problem with living in a remote top secret military base disguised as a farmhouse an hour from Thremedon, Laure realized, was that when you went into labor in the middle of the worst blizzard in a decade you would inevitably find yourself snowed in with only a group of the biggest idiots from here to the border as midwifes.

She supposed it was lucky at least that it had happened after their yearly gift exchange for the winter holidays so at least she had Hal and Thom to help bring the collective IQ of the house up, she reasoned, gritting her teeth as another contraction hit her.

Owen was helping her up the stairs to their bedroom, one arm around her waist, the other hand clasped in hers. “It’s okay, breathe through it,” he told her soothingly.

She was trying to, but it was kind of hard with the cacophony that was occurring behind her in the rest of the stairwell.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Raphael was cursing, “How the fuck are we supposed to deliver a baby?”

“Don’t look at me,” Luvander said, “I haven’t seen a vagina up close since secondary school.”

“I GOT A TOWEL,” Toverre announced from somewhere beyond the bottom of the stairs.

“Thrilling. Did you hear? He got a towel,” Ghislain said to Luvander.

“Are you sure you don’t want me carry you?” Owen asked her, gently.

She looked over at him, and let herself focus on him, “Are you sure you can?”

“I’m sure I can try,” he laughed. He let go of her hand so that he could bend slightly, and hook his arms under her knees, lifting her up into his arms and carrying her the rest of the way. A clattering of footsteps let her know the others were following.

As her husband deposited her on the bed, the others filed in, and Adamo turned on them in full chief sergeant mode. “Right, you all can’t be in here or you’ll just wreak havoc.”

Everyone began arguing, shouting about who should get to stay. Laure began dedicating her entire remaining concentration on the arduous task of removing her soaked underwear, an act that she normally wouldn’t have performed in front of everyone, but one that she didn’t see the point in concealing under the current circumstances.

“We can handle this, right boys?” Raphael said to the other first wave members. “I mean, we’ve taken down catapults and taken down tons of Ke-han assholes, fought in countless battles. Delivering a baby? How hard can it be?” Then he caught sight of the pair of panties Laure had just finished removing. “Is that? Bloo-“

He didn’t finish, because he’d fainted. Luvander and Ghislain took a solemn moment to look down at him and not help in any way whatsoever.

“As Adamo’s best friend, obviously, I’ll stay,” Royston was saying.

“Yeah right,” Luvander said. “A fantastic idea. Let’s just put a person known for accidentally exploding things when he gets stressed out in the birthing suite, I’m sure nothing could go wrong there.”

“Well, you know how much it pains me to say it, but Luvander has a point,” Adamo began.

Royston gasped, “Et tu, Owen?”

“Maybe you could try using your powers to get through the snow outside,” Thom suggested. “Then, we could sent Rook or Ghislain out towards Thremedon for a medic.”

“Nope, not going,” Rook said, shouldering his way into the room, carrying a bucket full of towels in one hand and a bowl of water in the other. “Her water already broke, and contractions are less than ten minutes apart. Not enough time in this snow to melt our way out, get to Thremedon, and get back. I’m staying here. Send Ghislain if you want someone to check up on her after it’s over.”

Everyone went quiet, looking at him as he made himself at home at the foot of the bed and began rolling up his sleeves. Luvander gaped at him.

“Hillary, get over here, make yourself useful and pull her hair back as much as you can,” Rook said, pulling a hair tie off his wrist and letting it hang off one hand angled back towards Thom without looking. “Then do mine.”

Thom exchanged confused glances with everyone else, but slowly complied.

“Rook, I’m sorry, I think it might be time for me to get my ears checked again, but are you being reasonable right now?” Balfour asked.

“Shut up, Balfour,” Rook snapped. “I’m delivering, obviously. I have the most experience.” He said it as if it pained and exhausted him to even have to say it.

“Is this really time to brag about how many girls you’ve fucked?” Laure said through gritted teeth.

Rook gave her a warning look and snarled, “It’s not about how many girls I’ve fucked, it’s about the fact that I’m surely the only person in this room who’s helped deliver a baby before.”

“When the fuck did you have time to do that?” Luvander asked. “Thom, when did he do that?”

Thom sighed and began pulling Rook’s hair and braids into a ponytail. “I don’t know, Luvander. I’ve told you, I��m not his keeper.”

“To be fair,” Ghislain said, “You are putting up his hair like a lady-in-waiting right now.”

“Okay, stop,” Adamo said. “Rook, do you really know how to do this or are you talking bullshit?”

Rook looked exasperated, “Do all of you just think the whores in Molly just have doctors waiting on their beck and call? No, they don’t, and even if they did, it’s a tad hard to pay them in sex when you’ve just pushed a baby out of yourself. You just make do with whoever’s there, and you can hardly call yourself a Mollyrat if you haven’t pulled a baby out of someone. I mean, Hillary’s standing right there, isn’t he? Who do you think pulled his whiny ass out of our Mom? Mom? Though, if I’m being honest, if I had known how much of a pain in my ass he’d be I might’ve been more keen to just leave him in there.”

“Wow, love you too, big bro,” Thom muttered sarcastically. No one else really seemed to know how to respond to this statement because Rook and Thom’s shared parentage was somewhat of a touchy subject that no one felt that safe commenting on with any level of seriousness.

Rook seemed to notice Raphael lying on the floor for the first time, “What happened to him?”

“He saw the bloody underwear and just gave dead way,” Balfour said.

Rook looked at the unconscious body for a moment, and just said, “Pussy.”

Adamo was pinching the bridge of his nose, “Okay, obviously Raphael can’t stay. Luvander is out because by his own admission he doesn’t know jack shit about the female reproductive system. Royston, how about you use your explosions to push the snow and work on trying to clear an exit to the stables, and once we get out there Balfour can see if his girl is willing to melt a path for Ghislain to get a horse out to the road.”

“That won’t be a problem, the problem will be getting her to stop,” Balfour promised.

“Well, as long as she doesn’t set the house on fire she can melt as much snow as she wants, there’s certainly enough of it. Laure, are you okay with Rook doing this?”

“Honey, I cannot express to you how little I care about who takes it out as long as someone does,” Laure said, resting against the pillows and closing her eyes. “Not Toverre, though. Love him, but I’m already stressed out enough. I can’t worry about how many sheets I ruin right now.”

“Fair enough,” Adamo said. “Rook, how much help are you going to need?”

“Maybe one other person,” Rook said with a shrug. “Besides you. Your job is to keep her calm. I don’t care who else stays as long as they stay out of my way. Just make a decision so I can look at her. I doubt your bride wants me to flip up her skirt with everyone here.”

“Okay, Thom, help him since you know how to handle him,” Adamo delegated. “Hal, why don’t you stay so you can pass on every scintillating detail to your husband. We can pass anything dirty to Toverre as they come to keep him busy and make him feel included. Everyone else, you have your jobs or you can standby for one.”

“Sir, yes, sir,” Luvander said, with a mock salute, and lead the way out.

The first child of Owen and Laure Adamo, was born at nearly one in the morning, and Bastion-blessed, she was a big one. “The fattest fucking baby I’ve seen since Thom came out,” according to Rook, in fact.

And she was. 12 pounds, 2 ounces, with chubby, little cheeks and rolls upon rolls of skin, but she was completely and utterly perfect.

“I don’t know that she’s necessarily fat,” Luvander said, leaning over Toverre’s shoulder, though he was definitely talking to Raphael. “I think she might just be built like a square like Adamo is.”

“You think?” Raphael asked.

“Can you two please quiet down? I’m having a bonding moment with my niece,” Toverre complained. He was leaning over the bathroom sink where the baby was squirming in the baby bathtub he’d gotten Laure as a baby shower gift. It was supposed to be the best baby bath on the market, and Laure had honored him by giving him the task of washing the baby for the first time since he’d been so excited about the gift.

Raphael gave him a mock apologetic look, and said, “Oh, so sorry.” Then he stage-whispered to Luvander in the most obnoxious way he could manage, “I HOPE FOR LAURE’S SAKE THE REST OF THEIR CHILDREN AREN’T THIS BIG.”

Luvander gave him a wicked grin. “WE SHOULD BET. HOW LONG BEFORE THE NEXT ONE AND HOW MANY THEY END UP WITH?”

“IT’LL BE RAMANTHINE TWINS FOR SURE. I MEAN WITH THEIR FREQUENCY OF LOVEMA-“

“Okay, that’s it, get out!” Toverre yelled at them.

“Or what?” Luvander asked.

“Or I’ll tell Adamo the way you were talking about his wife,” Tovere said.

They got out.

Back in the bedroom, Thom was staring at Rook again.

“What the fuck are you lookin’ at?” Rook hissed at him, shoving dirty sheets into a basket, then doing a double take. “What are you smiling at?”

Thom blushed, looking away. “It’s nothing. It’s just… you know, the last time I saw you with blood up to your elbows like that it was in the desert after you massacred that tribe with Kalim.”

“So?” Rook asked.

“I don’t know. I just thought it was nice to think about. It’s like you’ve graduated from taking life out of the world to bring life into it.”

“I’m gonna take you out of this world if you don’t shut up.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Thom sighed. “But seriously, you did good. I’m proud of you.”

“Do I get any gold stars or special points, Professor?” Rook snarked in mock happy voice.

“Rook,” Adamo said from the bed beside Laure, “you were doing so well, don’t start being an asshole now.”

“Bold of you to think I ever stopped.”

It was then that Toverre re-entered the room with the baby in his arms. “Well, she’s all clean, even though she did splash me about a million times in the process.” They could see his shirt was covered in dark marks from the water as he went to sit at Laure’s bedside and pass her daughter to her. “She’s beautiful, Laure. She’s perfect.”

Laure smiled, “Thank you, Toverre.”

“What will you name her?” Hal asked.

“Well,” Laure said, looking at her husband. “We needed to talk to Rook and Royston about that.”

Rook paused for a moment at the mention of his name, then shook his head and passed the basket of soiled linens to Toverre for him to take care of.

“I’ll, uh, take these downstairs and send the Margrave up then,” Toverre said awkwardly. “If you need anything, just yell.”

Rook leaned against the window, looking out at the snow for the sake of not looking at Adamo, Laure, and the baby, which he had privately decided to called The Interloper. In the distance he thought he could see a light down towards the end of the driveway. Seemed like he’d been right about them not having time to get a healer if Ghislain was just starting to get back.

It didn’t take long for Royston to bound in. He’d gotten a quick glance of the baby with the others, but they all knew he wouldn’t be satisfied until he was able to take her on a whole damn uncle-niece shopping spree. Sure enough, he was grinning ear-to-ear when he came in with barely contained excitement. “Congratulations,” he said, giving each of the new parents big hugs, then staying attached to Adamo with an arm around his friend’s hip.

Thom went by the window and elbowed Rook until he went over to the bed.

“Well, Laure and I talked about it extensively before tonight,” Adamo began giving his wife a smile, “and against our better judgement, we decided to ask you two, Royston and Rook, to be her godfathers. Royston, you’ve been my closest friends since we were pieces of shit in college together. You were really the one person who encouraged me to go after Laure, you officiated our wedding. And we agreed that neither of us would be here, holding our daughter, if it weren’t for you. And Rook, since the day Amery dragged you into my office you have been nothing if not a pain in my ass, but you’re also maybe the strongest and bravest son of bitch I’ve ever met. And I know if there was one person I could count on to protect my daughter if for some reason Laure or I couldn’t, it would be you.”

“So for those reasons, and in thanks to all your help tonight, we decided to name her Royce Rook Adamo. Rory for short,” Laure said. She looked at Royston. “Do you want to hold her?”

Royston laughed, wiping tears from his eyes. “Of course, I do. What kind of question is that?”

Finally, now that she was in his arms, Royston had a good look at her. She had Adamo’s brown skin, and the croppings of what promised to be curly red hair. He thought she might also have her mother’s smile and cheeks, but a wider nose like her father.

“I’m in love with her already. You know, I rather have a feeling that she’ll be a marvelous handful, this one,” Royston said with a soft laugh, carefully moving away Rory’s tiny fist as she tried to grasp ahold of his beard. “And a fighter to boot. I hope you’ve both gotten your beauty rest.”

Adamo laughed, “Really, I think you and Hal should get yours as well. After all, you’ll have to babysit her eventually.”

“Of course,” Royston agreed. “I’m sure you’ll be ready for some alone time soon enough. Airman Rook, would you like to hold her?”

Rook wasn’t sure what he’d like, but he could feel enough eyes on him that accepted he baby into his arms anyway. He had to admit, now that she’d calmed down and stopped crying she wasn’t so bad. But he wasn’t sure it made her not bad at all yet. It had been many years since he’d held a baby in his arms, and he wasn’t sure he was a fan of having someone to take care of considering Thom gave him enough trouble already.

“Well, Rory,” he sighed, “sorry your parents gave you such a shitty name, but I suppose I can try to make it up to you by teaching you a few swear words, and the important things like holding your liquor, winning bar fights, and maybe if you grow up and end up taking after me in other arenas I can show you the art of wooing ladies and by wooing ladies I mostly mean getting laid, of course. Now, if you really cooperate with me, we might be able to teach you how to say ‘fuck’ before anything else, and wouldn’t that show Mommy and Daddy?”

Rory responded by gurgling spit at him, which he took as a yes. Dumb bitch still doesn’t know how to talk, he joked to himself and almost laughed.

“Yeah, that’s about as good as I was hoping to get when we had this conversation,” Laure said.

“Honestly, I expected it to be much more vulgar,” Adamo confessed. “He could be losing his touch.”

“Rory, can you tell Daddy ‘fuck off’?” Rook asked the baby.

Rory gurgled some more.

“Fine, we’ll work on it some more,” he promised. “We have time.”

#havemercy #volstovic cycle #owen adamo #laure adamo #margrave royston #festive bastion #rebloggable #texting my friends like is it inappropriate for me to post a gift exchange present at like a minute after midnight on the first day #generally with the adamo children i just imagine all the airmen #leaning over them like foulmouthed poorly behaved fairy godmothers

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neversandnowheres · 6 years ago

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Okay so I’ve been trying to figure out how Caius Greylace’s Talent works because it’s been a few years since I wrote Caius Greylace meta and frankly it’s overdue and also it’s been driving me mad trying to figure it out.

His Talent seems to work in three ways: Visions, Random Extras, and Persuasion, and sometimes these things need blood, sometimes they don’t, and, as ever with Caius Greylace, it’s impossible to know whether he’s been sneaky at any point and acquired himself some blood without mentioning it, at which points he’s actually telling the truth, and when he’s exaggerating. For the purpose of this post I’m assuming he hasn’t been sneaking into Al’s room in the night to make him bleed and I’m (stupidly) assuming he’s being honest:

Visions:

Whenever Caius explains his Talent, he describes it as creating visions:

I was a velikaia, and even though my Talent lay in creating visions and not reading minds, I could still sense the animosity behind each impassive face.

I myself was nothing so fancy: raised in the palace due to some lingering fondness for my mother on the part of the Esar, until one of his men had caught me practicing my Talent in the eastern wing of the palace. I was seven at the time. “Fernand tells me he saw you with a tiger in the eastern corridor,” the Esar had said, his beard the color of spiced wine. “Not a real tiger,” I’d admitted, to my great disappointment. “I made him.”

He obviously doesn’t need blood for this, because a guard stumbled across him playing with one of his visions. I’m not going to question why Nico thought that would be ideal for torture, and how they figured out what happened if blood was exchanged and so on, because it’s Nico mate, of course he Went There, but the point remains: to create his visions, he doesn’t need blood.

Random Extras:

I’m adding these in here because they could very well relate to the previous:

“Think of his brother, poor creature,” said Caius, his voice taking on an odd quality, like it was coming from inside my head instead of outside of it. His lips were moving, though, and Josette was on the edge of her seat, so I could tell that she was listening, too. He was using something, though, some particular brand of his Talent. My head felt clearer, like I’d got a full night’s sleep instead of a full night’s interrogation. As Greylace dealt only in illusions, I was sure it’d wear off soon.

This has two aspects to it - the vision of A Good Night’s Sleep (the dream) which is obviously a vision, but also the voice. My initial thoughts were that this was a vision too, the illusion of his voice coming from inside their heads so they could speak quietly - but this is something Antoinette can also do, seen when she is speaking to Hal in Havemercy:

“You may call me Antoinette,” she answered, and though I’d heard her quite clearly, she didn’t seem to have raised her voice at all.

Is this something all velikaia can do??? Or is it just that both of them can do the same thing but in different ways - Caius creating a vision and Antoinette just generally Being Antoinette?

Then there’s Being Human Paracetamol. Again, not needing blood:

Everything stilled and cooled; the world slowed around me. It was like the night before, with the incense and the wine and the music. It was like being in another place, on the bastion-damned moon, floating out into the night among the stars. For all I felt imaginary at that one moment, I might as well have been a painting on a standing screen: some bowlegged crane or a flower-dusted pine tree, bent and knotty with age. He was pulling his mind magic on me. “What’re you...” I muttered, trying to struggle against it as he pulled a blanket up over my slumbering brain. “Stop that... Tickles...”

This is where things get confusing. Is he creating a vision where Alcibiades doesn’t have a headache, inside Alcibiades’s head?

With that, Caius Greylace removed his hands and my headache from my head.

It seems to carry on after he stops, though? Or is he keeping it up from a distance, because Caius is, as ever, All About The Show? Or is it maybe that velikaia can do extra little Mind Tricks aside from their Main Power? Both Caius and Antoinette seemed like two of the least affected when The Plague was going on, could they have been pulling some of this on themselves? Is it, again, different ways of doing the same thing?

Persuasion

This is the most interesting aspect of his Talent for me, because this is the aspect that seems, to him, to be the most important. This is how he does his job, this is what makes him so excited he starts shaking at the suggestion of using it soon, this is what (usually) needs blood, this is how he breaks people... but this is not visions????? People certainly think it is:

Kept as the Esar’s pet lapdog practically since birth, for his Talent in visions and his lack of qualms about using them to get information.

“Oh, you’re awake!” Caius said, as if Lord Temur were a guest he’d invited for dinner and not a man he’d just spent the better part of the day torturing with visions and mind tricks and bastion-only-knew what else.

But we see him use his Talent from his narration, and we also read him describing it:

It wasn’t mind reading. It was the art of pure compulsion—a charisma no man could refuse. Those under my influence always told me what I needed to know, and that was why I had always been so useful to the crown.

This has nothing to do with visions? This section makes a small argument that it possibly could:

With some men, it was a simple matter of asking the easy questions until they became so used to the answering that they didn’t realize your last question concerning the weather had really been concerning the defenses of the city wall.

If we want to use Caius’s own analogy with his knife-fan, it’s one thing made to look like something else.

But is it really a vision?

My particular Talent would have come in very handy if these talks were less diplomatic—or if they needed to be coaxed along some.

And it’s this persuasion, not the earlier visions, that he needs a person’s blood for:

All it required was a little blood spilled. I couldn’t go about reading minds hither and yon; that would have been so very messy. Once blood was exchanged, however—and this was where rumors of torture, knives, scars, et cetera, came in—it was a different matter, and the mind was, to use a favorite phrase, as open as a book.

We’ve never seen him actually torturing someone, so maybe he utilises visions when things get more intense, but he manages to get what he needs from Temur pretty much pain-free, especially if we’re considering what most of Volstov thinks he does. But to do so, he needs their blood, meaning it wasn’t any sort of natural charm getting him what he wants.

Which splits his Talent into two categories (if we’re going to group his Assorted Extras in with visions, or with Being A Velikaia) - visions, which he can make a person see without their blood, whether it’s conjuring them inside their head or not, and Extreme Persuasion, which he does need a person’s blood for. Which is confusing enough, because that feels like two separate Talents.

To add to it, though, there’s this small part later on:

“She wanted to come in and ask Lord Temur himself whether he had any thoughts, but the poor dear has a temper much the same as yours, Alcibiades, and I felt it best—well, I may have persuaded her just a touch, just the slightest touch—that it would be the best for everyone involved if I was the one to do the questioning.”

I know we can’t really put too much stock into this because we don’t know what happened in that scene, maybe he didn’t use his Talent at all, maybe he did have her blood, etc, but it throws yet another unknown into the mix.

My first guess as to how all this worked was that his Talent wasn’t in visions at all, but in Willpower? He wanted to play with a tiger, so an imaginary one showed up to play with. He wanted to cure Al’s headache, so it vanished. He wants to extract information from people, so he does. But then that obviously doesn’t work because there are plenty of things he wants and doesn’t get (maybe not plenty, it’s Caius Greylace we’re talking about, but the point stands).

Is it actually visions, then, and the Pressure on a person’s mind is just an imaginary force that he’s found to be the most convenient way of getting someone to talk? But that’s not really ‘pure compulsion’?

Is his talent actually in Persuasion and the visions are just an extension of being so persuasive he literally conjures images? But then why does a random guard see it? Why does he need blood for some things and not others?

I know there are no ANSWERS to these questions but!!! I am hoping some of you guys have THOUGHTS????

#volstovic cycle #caius greylace #...sorry #tl;dr - i have no idea #SORRY I GET CARRIED AWAY OKAY #IM SORRY BUT ALSO I WON'T APOLOGISE FOR MY ART #this is my art #Feeling Things A Lot is my art

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