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Red Queen Fan Fiction - The Flowers of Piedmont Part I

May 13th - Happy Birthday, Diana Farley

A/N: An in-depth new series dedicated to the month around Clara's birth in Piedmont where SHADE IS STILL ALIVE. I don't care about canon anymore, I've imagined this en detail for nine years, let's indulge in the fluff. Fade supremacy.

Companion work to Hidden Intentions and follow-up to A Promise Under Flowers. Connections mentioned in text; can be read independently.

I post this here in one big chunk but splitted it on Wattpad and AO3 - read where and how fast you prefer. The first part features backward storytelling; the second part will move forward in time again.

8660 words

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Part I

The return on May 30th

Shade Barrow had played the spy enough times in his life to become skilled at eavesdropping. So he knew how to stand beside the door of the meeting room casually but close enough to listen in, waiting for the familiar sounds of a gathering concluding. Despite perfecting the timing, he forewent knocking and opened the door, walking in as if pulled by a magnet.

He found the magnet without having to search. Diana rose to welcome him, equally drawn. She moved toward him in step so fluid, he didn’t even think to take in the rest of the room. He was transfixed. No less so when she reached him and grasped his shoulders, offering one playful smile before they lips met.

She kissed him with newfound, unbridled passion – no more delight in secrecy, no public restraint, no awkwardness over commenting the obviousness of their relationship. Over the threshold of the meeting room, Diana took Shade by the chin and kissed him in front of everyone. Put your man in line, she’d confessed jokingly what was whispered about them after Shade had caused a scene with the colonel. This was her reply. A show as intense as the smell of blood-red roses.

He even caught a whiff of fragrance tethered on the buds of her lips. Thoughts strayed to when he last saw her with blood on her face, and his arms tensed. Her fingers traced his jaw, wandering to the back of his neck to tangle in his hair. Her other hand went lower, to his waist, and with his eyes closed, her touch anchored him, lost in the kiss and the image of roses –

But no, he couldn’t get lost, give in as if there was no one else, or he didn’t care. He held in his arms the reason why Diana let go, and how everything had changed. Clara.

Her presence was another kind of anchor. Even now, he knew she was awake when he’d smiled down at her as he’d settled beside the door. Even now, he shivered as her hand grasped the sleeve of his shirt. He still failed to comprehend the might of so tiny a hand.

It didn’t change the way he and Diana were kissing, nor the longing between them. Or – not more since their lives had already shifted dimensions two weeks ago when she was born.

Clara made everything more intense.

Diana leaned away. Her expression controlled to a faint smile. Now she kept her bewitching hands off him.

He blinked as he finally assessed their surroundings. The embarrassed stares and evading eyes of the group. Davidson and his second looking at their papers, Ada too but smiling to herself, the Scarlet Guard generals and aides trying to keep still while the colonel he didn’t grant attention. Shade found Cal, looking back and forth, and Mare, next to him, with her eyes on them and both astonished and grinning. She grabbed Cal’s hand as if to tone down his reaction although she was the one barely hiding her amusement. Shade gladly played lovey-dovey if it lit her up like that.

“Do you have a request, Shade?” Cal asked, saving him with a transition skill Shade thanked his royal training for. Shade had just come to accompany Diana from her first meeting after her baby break, suspecting she wanted to see Clara again as soon as possible, yet he had to grip the offered branch as he had no idea what they were discussing. He fished for anything as he took in the members of the group, desperate to avoid making a fool of himself as he recovered the current issues of the Scarlet Guard. A baby and victory mood had left him lax on attention. “Good afternoon, yes, indeed. Have you fortified the undefensed vehicle garages yet?” he managed at last. Some weeks ago, he’d noticed and reported this issue himself. On their arrival, Diana had been in charge of inspecting the piedmont base to meet their necessities yet she wasn’t fit to walk the complete parameters in the heat. He’d done it instead as her left-hand-man, used to similar tasks for silver officers in the nortan army. But then Diana was promoted to general and gave birth and now the colonel had the job and Shade loved to annoy him.

The attendees mumbled and cleared throats while Diana swallowed a breath. “We’ve been working on it,” she said, “good that you remind us of the need.” She took his arm and threw him a sharp look. She still didn’t appreciate his antics against her father. She returned her attention to the group. “I expect this to be remedied in two days,” she ordered, “the funds and supplies are ready.” With a nod, she bid them goodbye and closed the meeting, exiting the room and pulling Shade along.

With everyone going their ways, the three of them were left alone in the corridor. Time to breathe again. She hugged him from the side, her head resting on his shoulder. Shade cleared his throat. “Are you tired?”

She shrugged yet didn’t even sigh. Only looked at Clara and caressed her face until the baby captured a finger.

He laughed. “She has the fastest hands ever,” he said and Diana fell in. After a few seconds of leaning on him, she took Clara from him, holding her close, cheek to cheek. “My love,” she whispered.

Diana had loved her for months, already the mere idea of her. She was quicker to grasp the meaning of becoming a parent and yet – another thorough change had gone through her still, this passion she no longer tried to hide from others. He’d understood the appeal she found in secrecy but this new facet of her – it unmoored him, and it never failed to amaze him how many sides he discovered in her.

She turned to him and even then, he missed the weight of holding Clara. It had been like this since the first time she was in his arms, and he neither dared nor wanted to put her aside. He argued Diana had had her for months.

He swallowed. It was hard to move his mind out of childcare mode, yet it wasn’t like Clara’s needs would go away while they did other things. This was what this day was about – learn to balance childcare with the Guard, their specific jobs, their relationship, their lives. It seemed like it came easier to Diana to leave Clara in his or his parents’ care. She’d informed the officers and co-councillors she’d bring her daughter along to meetings but she was still so little and as Shade was eager to keep Clara close to him, they’d decided she’d return alone with her full attention.

“You know,” Diana said as they slowly paced, “we did talk about exactly the thing you brought up.”

He sucked in a breath – that explained her reaction. Did that leave his prompt awkward or on point? He hadn’t thought about the urgency of the request when he’d made it, and Diana knew this.

Their stances on the colonel differed, more so lately. Diana was less confrontational and he all the more, suspecting the colonel levelled undue demands at her. Diana was aware of her duties which only increased with her promotion but he thought the colonel’s remarks went beyond that.

Shade realized he turned passive-aggressive-protective when it came to the colonel. Shade couldn’t accept his continued lack of improvement; it was like he was the force urging Diana to work despite the demands of her body and baby to rest. He knew her weak spots and didn’t attempt to avoid them. Diana insisted she couldn’t judge her father too harshly – she knew why he was like this and had gone along with it, for years. When she explained, Shade almost felt bad for causing trouble. Support meant meeting her preferences to spare the colonel. But during those very same moments she told him about this, he witnessed how she’d suffered from his cold, distanced attitude. Shade couldn’t forgive the colonel still wouldn’t amend, not even when Diana had just had a baby. She’d hated living like that! Like functional professionals, comrades with no ties of family. Diana had pretty much admitted to Shade she wanted Clara because the colonel was no family for her.

Shade stopped to stroke her back. “The colonel treated you alright, didn’t he?” He refrained from asking if the colonel had been reprimanded for the unsupervised garages during the meeting.

She freed a hand to cuff his chest. “You’ve caught him alright.” She smirked. “But we mostly talked with Mare about court facilities and conflicts now the Samos have defected while Cal charmed everyone. His mood has lifted decidedly lately.”

“I see why.” His eyes found hers as he twirled a curl of her hair but even as he flirted, he thought of Mare and Cal’s clasped hands. Two more who couldn’t stop touching. Diana gave him an inquiring look but didn’t say anything else. Was it desire or wondering? He pressed his palm against her shoulders. “And are you alright?”

She nodded gravely, yet her face softened, if not fell. Her lips were so rose-red he considered it was lipstick as he traced such remnants left on his own. Her hair was washed and combed to loose curls, also carrying the distinct, sweet scent of roses. Plus her crisp white tunic over her red trousers – she had, most unusually, dressed up to the occasion.

“If this was a pissing contest,” he began, “I thought your tactic is to have them take you as you are?” She never prettied herself up for leisure, only for necessities like disguising on missions. Was this a mission in disguise for her? Maybe her co-councillors needed to be reminded Diana was only up and about already because she had Sara to heal all her infirmities and even that left her so exhausted after the birth that she’d slept for days.

She knew what he meant but shrugged. “Tried something out. You have to surprise them sometimes, get them off their feet.”

With a snort, he spun in front of her, taking her in. “You have flustered me,” he said, and tucked a curl behind her ear.

A cackle escaped her throat and for a moment, she stared at him as if she wanted to kiss him like before, his longing growing until it shifted into missing. Still she looked, and he knew she was playing with him.

She opened her mouth but froze before saying whatever she intended. “She sleeps,” she murmured, pulling Shade’s gaze at Clara’s face half hidden in her shirt.

How come she was cuter every time he looked? She made him feel a pierce in his heart that could kill him. If it wasn’t Clara’s weight alone that bound him, her sight took him over on a new level now that she found into her own features. She resembled him so much, he couldn’t forget she was a part of him with the same colouring in shades of brown, with amber eyes as intricate and sweet as honeycombs.

Angling her head, Diana guided him away, with careful steps. “One meeting is enough for today,” she said with a glint in her smile. Of course she noticed how besotted he was. “I don’t care for work right now. I’d rather”, she went on, but dragged the moment out until he was dying to hear it, “like to go outside again.” That coda would be a cool-down if her eyes didn’t sparkle with excitement.

He glanced through the window into the afternoon sun, playing clueless himself. “But not with Clara.” He was still on the fence on bringing her outside during the day, assuming she was as heat-sensitive as her mother and a generally delicate newborn.

Diana chuckled but her eyes never stopped fixing him. “No,” she said slowly. “She can stay with your parents.” He nodded, still uncertain where this was going, till she added, “so you can finally give me my birthday present.”

He tensed, gasping, and lost his breath entirely when she whispered something so lewd in his ear he’d never dreamed of hearing. “Sure,” he agreed, his voice husky with arousal. “I‘ve promised.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Two weeks earlier, May 13th

In the gym, the light was blinding. Farley squinted against the sunshine falling in from the high windows before adjusting, stepping over the patterns of light and shadows thrown on the floor. The activity in the hall revived an itch in herself, to walk outside, feel every muscle of her body in power instead of heavy and tired out by the heat, days spent sitting through meetings and calculations, and nine months of pregnancy.

Well. She let her arms swing, stretching and enjoying to walk. That was a thing she’d started doing in the meetings, too, standing and wandering and making the other attendees get used to it. It was better this way. She was a general now, her duties heavier than ever. She couldn’t disappoint the leadership that had promoted her, nor the soldiers under her command now. She had to impress the monfortan faction and have them support the Guard making further alliances as she kept together the fragile coalition between red, silver and newblood rebels, in Norta and the Lakelands. But endure and stay unassuming until she collapsed, or insist on her needs and have them accept that. After the daunting experience two weeks ago, enough was enough.

Shade would support. So much that she did it on her own, before she complained to him and he reminded her to go through with what she preferred. She’d begun to feel embarrassed to need him to tell her to trust herself, yet it was encouraging to know he had her back.

Now she found his back in the hall, bent over himself to stretch, just wrapping up his training. For a moment, she could only watch, the brown skin and outlines of his body embraced and gilded by the sun, his sinews and muscles emphasized in lithe elegance as his grown, longish hair fell over his face. She wanted to brush through it. Sometimes, he called her a study in pastel sunrise, but he was the warmth of sunlight and fire, entwined with the shadows they cast. The light in the dark. The strength hidden in shadows. When he looked up and faced her, she bit her lip, caught staring and distracted by his beauty.

He smiled as she reached him. “You done?” she asked.

His fingertips brushed her bare arms, causing the hairs on her skin to rise as if it was still the first time touching. “I’ve just been passing the hours, waiting till your schedule’s over,” he said. As they moved to the edge of the hall, his smile fell. “You had no issue with working the whole of today?”

They passed a wall bar and on a whim, she stopped, leaning against it. She reached up, holding Shade’s gaze. “It was okay, the usual.” She breathed out as her arms stretched above her. Just the memory of sports excited her.

Shade positioned himself in front of her, hands grabbing the bar behind her waist and meeting her eyes. “You’re really alright,” he said, pondering.

In lieu of shrugging, the corners of her mouth twitched. It wasn’t like she felt no strain at all. “It’s neat.”

“Okay then. I wish you,” he grinned, “a happy due date.”

Now she winced for real. “Must you with this again? I didn’t have the slightest cramps today.”

His grin was lingering. He leaned ever closer so their bellies touched, his hand shifting to her waist. Although her body’s shape had changed so much, his touch there was no less enticing and the glint in his amber eyes told her it was the same for him. He inched forward, angling his head to kiss her jawline. “No?” She sensed a nervousness in his whisper, similar to her own. “I must’ve mixed this up.” He looked up. “Happy birthday, I mean.”

For a moment, she just wanted to drink in the love in his gaze. Then she shifted to nuzzle his cheek, maintaining her grasp of the bar, enjoying the kinky restraint of it. “Thank you,” she murmured, as she breathed in. His other hand joined the embrace of her waist and she thought this was it. She had worked despite the imminent birth of their child, expected by today, but being with Shade, right here right now, erased the stress and exhaustion.

As they broke apart, she gasped. He considered her. “If you want to work out,” he said, “a coach might have recommendations.”

She shook her head. “Never mind. We can go swimming again tomorrow.” She relaxed and let go of the bar but Shade still held her so tightly as if to pretend he was lifting her down. They stayed close, brows meeting. Her now free hands couldn’t decide where to touch him first. Only the idea of letting go and part was unimaginable. She reached for his hair and almost anticipated someone in the gym making a lewd comment.

“I’ve promised you a present,” Shade said, and the memory of it fired up, despite all that had happened in between. She hesitated.

His lips grazed her ear. “I want to show you something.” And before someone could interrupt their romantic mood, she followed him out with delight.

He had left her outside in anticipation of kisses and “promises” to wash. Quickly, she hoped. Foolishly, she’d exited the gym and stood outside, rolling on her heels and massaging her back. Despite the shade of the entry and its awning, the heat of the late afternoon made her sweat again. This time of the day the warmth of Piedmont accumulated the most. She had found it hard to tolerate it the first time she was this far south years ago, and she found it even harder right now, pregnant and, although she disliked to combine the words, sadly swollen. Just the weather, she comforted herself, just the last days.

“Diana.”

Her name whispered from behind made her shiver her like a welcome breeze. Shade’s fingers slid over her shoulder, along her arms, before joining their hands. “Sorry you had to wait,” he added.

She glanced at him, cleaned and his hair messy but glittering with water drops. His face was concerned, even as he led the way.

He knows I hate the heat. Touching but it was her fault for going outside. She shook her head. “No matter,” she replied. She leaned over and kissed his cheek, watching him swallow afterward. That was what he got for teasing – he wanted to give in, too.

The base wasn’t completely awful – the landscape was in full bloom, all green trees with flowers along the way, fresh and sweet scents accompanying their walk. Farley was stunned such a peaceful place existed, even considering it was a military base. Its silvers creators combined function with beauty – or rather, luxury. It felt unreal, like a dream or refuge and it woke memories in her, letting her imagine a different time. Or world.

The beauty seduced one like a trap, only she had been on guard the moment she’d set foot here, and the heat was a further warning to keep her mind clear.

And she needed to, as Shade wove them along the side paths and quieter, less used buildings of the complex. To set and keep the base running, she’d poured over lists and maps and found the spots they walked now on paper before she had sent people to inspect, guard or man them, if their purposes were required. One day, she’d tried to walk over the base herself until she admitted it beyond her strength. Shade had been doing it for her and now he showed the fruits of this tour. He navigated them easily and experienced around corners she wouldn’t have guessed led anywhere and despite the maze-like trip, it was one of shortcuts, as it only lasted a few minutes before he stopped.

He turned to her, grasping her shoulder. “You alright?”

She patted his chest. “I’ll survive.”

He smiled in response, guiding her into the small building in front of them, which was, indeed, a porch on the backside of a house, overgrown with wisteria and lilac bushes around it.

Stepping inside, it had remained surprisingly cool and was rather dim, the jalousies half down and the windows covered with pollen. The seats inside were invitingly cozy, a few chairs with a couch and a bench surrounding a low table.

Shade presented it all with a flourish, letting her choose a favourite seat. She sank into the couch, resting her arm on the edge of it. “Could you have foreseen this thing?” she said. “This place is exactly …” Her hand lay on the cusp of her belly, and her head fell back. Above, thick and dark wooden beams intertwined with tangles of the wisteria tree growing beside the walls, almost like a pillar. The scent of the bloom enveloped her while Shade opened a cabinet. He produced an array of food on a painted plate. Numerous snacks up for the taking, like bread, dips, slices and several sweet desserts.

Already, Farley lunged for a waffle as soon as he set it down.

“Wolfish hunger.” He cackled, then sat, sideways and only on the edge of the couch. “I’m glad to match your tastes.”

“Thank you,” she mumbled after she’d swallowed.

“Though, I could organize a grill for warm food if that provided you more satisfaction.”

She froze in her tracks of eating another cake. “You brought it all here before?”

He shrugged. “Well, you prefer to walk but I have quicker ways.” He winked. “I’ve had the whole day you were working to prepare.” He bent over to align a dish anew and Farley’s head spun.

She caught his hand and fixed his eyes. “Really, thank you” she repeated.

“It’s simply dinner.”

“But you knew I’d want it this way.” Her eyes burned with feelings. She wouldn’t cry over it. Skies, her emotions these days. He only returned the favour of celebrating their birthdays but she’d given him a surprise party in February. She had hardly been sure he’d like it until he did, glad to make his guests happy with a party.

Today, he acted with the certainty she wanted it quiet and intimate.

The same certainty he watched her with right now. She was still captivated as he sank before her, kneeling and resting his hands and chin on her knees.

His eyes were on fire.

“I’ve promised,” he said.

“I’m eating,” she replied. Still overwhelmed.

For a moment, he was aghast, his jaw dropping. Then laughter rose deep from his chest and lasted as he buried his face on her legs. Farley reached out, grasping his hair, again, giving in to another craving. As she brushed through it, she considered to add eat me, despite her comment. But like the time he’d made the promise to explore and taste every inch of her under the shadows of flowers, it was more image and idea, more fantasy than real.

Her knees parted just slightly, accommodating him. She lifted the back of his head, searching his gaze. “No kidding,” she said softly, “but no.” She still played with his hair, savouring every touch. “I’m not up for it. I feel, like, primed for childbirth.”

He took that in, even as she grimaced. Taking his hand, she invited him to rise again and he did, cuddling into her side on the couch.

“This is enough,” she whispered, then gave him a side glance. “For now.”

He smirked. “You’ll hold me to it?”

“I’ve waited so long.” She sighed dramatically. “But you can give me another present. What about the boy name you wanted to come up with?” They had decided on Farley-Barrow as the family name and as she wished to call a girl for her mother or sister, she left the choice of a boy name up to him. He’d agreed but offered no clues.

He looked ridiculously scandalized. “Out of patience? I’ll tell you when we meet them.” He paused. “If they’re not a girl.”

She tsked. “So you wouldn’t tell … ever?” She hesitated to point out the other option – another child after this one.

Neither did he, only smirking more mysteriously until it turned into giggles. The sound was as delightful as the butterfly kisses he placed on her shoulder and arm. His fingertips danced over the curve of her belly and although she eyed another snack, she was caught in fascination over the elegance of his long and nimble fingers.

Even as he kept it up, his face shed playfulness. He glanced up. “Are you afraid?”

She blinked, stunned to standstill. “Way to kill the mood,” she said. “I thought you meant to celebrate my birthday.” She turned her head away and reached for the pistachio-chocolate cookie. Anything but to look at him.

“I meant –”

“You could’ve waited until tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow you might be in labour.”

“Maybe it’s not a good question to ask to begin with.” She chewed.

“Diana!”

She swallowed her snack and let the delicious taste linger in her mouth. It harmonized with the fragrance of the bloom.

He sighed, his brow sinking against her temple. “You’re afraid for them,” he said. His hand splayed on her belly.

She had been afraid for their baby every day. She let work distract her, believing in the cause that would protect the future of their child. Still, now everything could trigger a bout of panic that only feeling it move could unwind. Sometimes, she dropped so deep she needed Shade’s comfort to assure her, his embrace holding her up when she doubted she’d have a child to hold.

I can’t be so lucky to have a living child.

It might make it to full term but be stillborn after all.

To invest all this love and effort might be the riskiest plan I’ve ever made.

When half your family had been taken from you and the rest chose to ignore you, it seemed presumptuous to start your own.

When she wrestled death every day, her own survival through all this time felt like cursed luck as her friends and comrades kept dying.

“We’ve talked through that already, didn’t we?” she said quietly. “That I’m emotionally preparing for the worst.” She added her hand to his, fingertips touching. With perfect timing, the baby shifted.

“It’s lively,” she said, the eternal relief making her smile at Shade. He had to feel it, too. It always surprised him, usually mixed with amusement, yet this time, he appeared rather amazed. Stunned, like swept off his feet.

It happened sometimes, that he showed it – how overwhelmed he was, uncertain what to make of becoming a father. He’d told her, once, and regretted it afterwards. Not wanting to cause her a bad conscience as she had been the one to choose, convinced, and he followed along. He did his best, caring for her, supporting her every day, and she understood. He did for her.

Shade cleared his throat. “But what about you?” he asked, returning to his initial question.

Her head feel back. “Ah, me.” She smiled weakly and enmeshed his hand with her fingers. “I’ll live,” she said, turning to him. At his frown, she went on. “I have Sara to take care of me. We can rely on her.”

Shade inclined his head, accepting this, but still waiting. She sighed. “She is a relief,” she insisted. “She can’t do nothing if our baby isn’t … but I trust she can keep me safe.”

Shade opened his mouth. “Don’t worry,” she said. His lips shut in a tight line. He’d keep fearing for her like she did for the baby, for the worst, without believing it. They couldn’t help it.

“But …” she swallowed. “I’m not sure how it’ll be, of course. I like to think I know pain and endurance, yet who knows? Maybe it’ll be so much worse.” He squeezed her hand. “Or how long it’ll take. It could take days.” She grimaced.

“That would be …” He didn’t like that either.

“Yes, but Caroline says …” Caroline was the nurse who worked with Sara and had treated Farley the last months. “That long births don’t have to be a bad thing. That the body takes its rest and slows down. Better to let it work on its own time than interfere.” She shrugged. “Well, if it’s safe for us? Doesn’t sound like fun though.”

Shade leaned up and kissed her temple. “The baby will be fun,” he said.

She chuckled. “I hope so! And a lot of work, too.” She wanted to stroke her belly again yet didn’t want to let go of Shade’s hand either. So she just looked down. “Maybe I enjoy the waiting too much,” she said softly. “For now, it lives in some way.”

“Dee …”

The fear never left her fully. She shook her head, lightly. “Some pregnant people can’t stand these last days. Totally uncomfortable. I don’t know. At least I can move now. Once I’m in labour, or after the birth, I can’t be sure. I could be too weak to do much of anything.” She faced him, drawing in his gaze. His golden eyes held such warmth, love and determination, despite his own insecurities.

He wouldn’t leave her side. He trained and she was a general of his but he wouldn’t go anywhere that brought him further away than one jump. He hadn’t done so since the day they’d freed Mare.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Two weeks earlier

Early, on May 1st, they rose in the dark to start an attack. It was the day of the royal wedding, an auspicious date, one celebrated in old worlds and new. But who would celebrate today?

Hitting on the event amused Shade tremendously. Even as he and Farley were getting dressed in their ridiculously sumptuous, formerly silver lodgings that Shade had bargained for them in the piedmont base, he was electrified with excitement.

Farley didn’t share it. She couldn’t relate to the spring in his step, the way one slice of bread was enough for him for breakfast while she could’ve devoured a full table. She was exhausted and weary. The Scarlet Guard had arrived at the base no whole two days ago and as she had wondered aloud how safe the place was, she had been quickly asked to examine it. That alone would’ve been enough work for her but she also had to acquaint herself with their new monfortan newblood soldiers, their leader Davidson, the Guard’s own reinforcements and the battle plans themselves, deciding who fit into which specific task. She couldn’t bail on that. The international alliance of red leaders was a triumph by itself, one she’d played a vital part in brokering. At least she had no role in assigning everyone else to their beds.

So she hadn’t had time to sleep her due since they’d arrived and even when she’d closed her eyes, what she’d learned of Davidson’s secrets and schemes kept her awake. It had flustered him how pregnant she was when they met, although he’d known it before. Seeing that made a difference, as well as her face when he admitted how he blackmailed the piedmont rulers. By their children.

“You disapprove,” Davidson had said.

“We’ll have to make the most of your efforts,” she’d deflected. At his unflinching stare, she added, “it heightens their motivation to retaliate. And who will be their target?” She’d breathed heavily. “I don’t plan to give the enemy more reason to target our children than they already do.” The nortan draft had wrought enough damage. She’d held up a hand to Davidson. “I understood what it does to them.”

“Dee,” Shade called her now as she still sat on the bed, too high, too large, too richly embroidered. Behind her, he massaged her shoulders, a knee on the bed.

With a sigh, she fixed her gun and straightened. “Coming.” He reached for her hand with an encouraging smile, helping her up.

They clasped hands as they walked to meet the teams before take-off. The twilight before dawn stroked Shade’s features, drawing out his eagerness. He possessed a deadly beauty on this morning as he looked ready to kill. And all that time, this smile. How she had wished to bring that smile on his face, since he had told her how he’d tried but refrained from freeing Mare by himself three months ago.

Farley did think it had been too risky to just try at a random chance. She dreaded lose him, then and today. Still she felt guilty she and their baby stopped him from saving his other family. She owed more to him. She owed more to Mare. Doing nothing for six months was a shame for all of them.

So she relished the smile he showed in anticipation, at the prospect of acting. They stopped in a corner in front of the meeting point, turning to each other. His eyes, so warm and hopeful, were bright and golden as the sun – or more so, before sunrise. She looked so long she drowned in his eyes before he kissed her goodbye, cupping her jaw. On hand on her midriff, he attended to their child. But it was still all too casual to be a farewell. They both avoided to make it one, to acknowledge defeat, that he might not return. She couldn’t deny him this yet a part of her didn’t want to let him go, afraid it’d be their last touch.

He broke off, smirking, grasping her hands. “We’ll show them fire,” he said.

“And burning bright,” she added, their private battle motto taunting the Calore fire. Now she smiled, matching his mood, until he let go to join his comrades. Ending their moment. There was more to say, countless things, but Shade was too optimistic and thrilled, and she – she couldn’t, wouldn’t scare him. They’d gone through the alternate plans during the briefings, and she wouldn’t ask him to come back, no matter how much she wished.

Then he stopped, went back in his tracks and returned to her. Hugging her. “My love,” he whispered. “you’ve made a masterplan.”

Now she couldn’t help it, she grinned from the bottom of her heart even though her eyes grew wet. “Obviously,” she replied.

She arrived at the control room once their soldiers were sent off to Archeon. She nodded to fellow officers and assistants staying behind as she dropped in her chair, relieved. Every step of the walk had felt heavier. The exhaustion only increased her dread, the anxiety about the operation, and this place.

Theoretically, they wouldn’t really have to run things from here, as they didn’t have the means to interfere. They gathered just to watch and communicate with the fighters and their sources on location. Farley relied on their information, already going through preparations to set up if all went awry. Not only the mission. Eventually, Maven would counter.

And his new lakelander allies? She was sick when she heard of the wedding and saw the prideful appearances of the royal Cygnets beside Maven. Norta and the Lakelands, finally at peace, after all the killing they’d forced their red populations into? The Scarlet Guard’s plan, her own work, had been about uniting the red populations the silvers in charge were turning into enemies and this alliance tried to make it look pointless. Like Maven knew, foresaw. It was hardly a surprise, he had met Farley himself and could identify her as a lakelander. And what he tortured out of Mare –

Farley couldn’t find a comfortable position in her seat. She glanced around the room, decidedly not pausing on her father. He was looking at her, of course. Her cheek twitched as she suppressed a wince.

The Cygnets would’ve shared with Maven intel on the Guard to fight them. It made their situation so much more precarious. It made this mission so important. Maven believed he had the upper hand and the Guard would punch him with this offensive while the allies from Montfort were the major surprise.

If only Davidson hadn’t provoked Piedmont …

They wouldn’t have attained this base without the provocation though. Still, that did nothing to reassure Farley. She imagined Piedmont taking it back. She thought of the mission failing, no one returning. And even Maven having them roused this same day, countering immediately once he learned of the infiltrated base, Piedmont happy to help him.

While she watched the notifications come in, listening to the officers’ comments and making replies, she tapped her fingers on the table. Her pulse wouldn’t calm. It wasn’t only the hole ripping her heart at the idea of losing Shade. She felt, all around, profoundly unsafe in this place. She couldn’t trust it. She didn’t want to stay, the richness of her rooms only stressing the presumptuousness of the move here. It was a risk she wouldn’t have taken.

The first thing she did here, even before checking what the base offered, was planning how to evacuate, how to notify everyone and to assess –

A tightening in her lower back surged so viciously it took her breath. It returned with a silent curse.

She fisted her hands in reaction, holding herself up with her arms on the table. Don’t bend over. Her gaze flew over the room. They hadn’t noticed, had they? She’d already looked worn when she arrived, after all. Her heart beat even stronger and her breathing grew quicker. She tried to check herself. She felt still tense, but it hadn’t hurt that much. Maybe it was a one time thing. She cleared her mind, brought herself back on track, caught up on anything she missed. Nothing, it had been that short.

But another cramp came, even as she was prepared. She grinded her teeth. She couldn’t go into labour now, not with all the dangers to anticipate.

She waited it out. Waited for her body to settle again and took a swallow from her water. Then she rose. “Excuse me,” she announced, “I don’t feel well.” She endured their shocked, wary stares with a straight face. “I’ll be in my room, should the situation change.”

She ignored their replies, couldn’t stand more of them and see what lay behind them. How they must take this as confirmation she was unreliable, someone to worry about, who, obviously, visibly, had other priorities than the war.

But sometimes you couldn’t choose what was priority, sorry not sorry. Some needs of the body were too strong to be denied, and she wasn’t any less committed for it. She had done everything they wanted, everything to serve and impress outside of fighting. The pain and stress only increased her anger. The way to her rooms was short, even as her gait was stiff and careful, expecting another cramp. Even when it happened, at the door, she could manage with heavy breathing.

Possibly, the lodgings were worth Shade’s bartering. It was central, cozy, and featured a bathroom. He reminded her to worry for herself. Not to push herself too much. But she couldn’t help having to prove herself. She couldn’t give up the work, had to use her position so their child would have a future. A position she could only hold by doing more than less.

“That’s unfair,” Shade said.

“I know!” she agreed. But it wasn’t the whole truth. There was talk of a promotion and she wanted more. So she could ask more for herself – like their rooms, or a rest. So she could make up for when she’d failed. So the newbloods maintained the attention of Command, and the leadership wouldn’t give up on Mare, drop Shade, Cal, Kilorn, Sara, Cameron or the other Barrows who helped her and the cause so much.

She owed too much to turn away.

She leaned on the velvet couch, closing her eyes. Did she imagine the cramps lessened? She breathed in and out, slowly, focused, calming herself. Fixating on the room. Despite the salmon wallpapers with printed patterns in pink and white, it remained cooler than its warm colouring suggested. It was a north-facing place with two large windows looking over the woods with heavy awnings over a balcony featuring escape stairs. She hadn’t set foot on the balcony but Shade had checked. He had mainly picked the apartment for the coolness, to ease her time in the hot and humid weather here. He also insisted they’d need rooming fitting a family that was close to the command center with control and meeting rooms as well as the infirmary. That left only this apartment filled with silver luxury, so ridiculous in its splendour Farley had wanted to object. “We don’t know how long we’ll even stay.”

Shade didn’t bend. “We don’t know when we’ll need the space,” he claimed and went on to order a second desk besides the massive dark wood table before the windows. He asked if its chair met Farley’s needs before adding a more useful table between the couches, a bed for a newborn and wondering if she desired anything else. She disagreed with the four-poster bed hangings and the heavy extra blankets piled on the bed and those he removed in a minute before cataloguing the bookshelf and picking one book with delight.

In a moment of uncertain ease, she got a glass of water and a wet towel and settled on the couch. She still hadn’t made peace with it – the decorative explosion destroyed the comfort in her opinion; the embroideries were scratching. But carefully, she laid down, head on the seat, her butt propped up on a thick, tasselled and equally embroidered pillow. She hoped that helped to relax her womb. At least her appetite was gone, though she wasn’t sure how hunger would later go with actual labour.

I should have known not to give in, she thought, with the wet towel over her eyes. Not to the demands, not to her pride. But nothing would return her control over her body when it came to this. At some point, she would give birth and would offer all her powers to that alone.

Wasn’t that a job big enough?

“Are you okay?” she whispered to her belly, showing aside the towel and found a stucco ceiling above her. She had no idea how this must feel to her child. She remained alert, waiting for an intensifying to call on the infirmary. Sara wasn’t even here, going on the mission despite – or because of – any horrors she’d suffered at the palace. Farley understood that all too well, yet it left her even more unsafe.

If she had to be honest, she expected to manage the birth without Shade holding her hand. She didn’t want to. She craved his attention, relied on his support, sank into the relief he provided as love tokens. He would’ve helped her examined the base yesterday, too, versed in similar tasks he’d done for the nortan army as an aide. But he’d had his own preparations and training to go through before the operation.

Last afternoon, after Shade had returned from training and she’d needed a break from her papers, she’d prompted to defile the bed with him, one more lovemaking they wouldn’t call a goodbye tryst. One memory to cherish and cheer her up.

She didn’t dare to imagine he would fall in battle, but his absence left its mark anyway. What truly scared her was Shade not there to remove her from danger. That was why labour right now appeared so threatening. She’d be immobilized and in pain, and afterwards thoroughly exhausted, maybe injured, and with a crying, helpless newborn to care for. It was the one time she couldn’t protect herself, no matter how many weapons she carried.

She’d avoided teleporting with Shade for months, as the ongoing pregnancy only increased her nausea caused by jumping. But it was also the sole guarantee of safety she had should they come under attack. She’d have to do it. Yet he wasn’t here to help her when she feared Maven’s and Piedmont’s vengeance. She sucked in a breath, feeling a pierce. Waiting. Calm. Distraction.

She reached for Shade’s book on the table (already replaced and fortunately higher than the one before). Trying to read it proved to be in vain rather quickly – it was the sequel, not beginning, of a complicated story and oddly erotic. She really couldn’t afford thoughts of arousal at the moment. Instead, she returned the towel over her eyes, still wet enough to cool. Under its comforting darkness, she decided to ask Shade about his book, and why he was so excited to have found it. If only they had more time to talk about books. But had they not chosen this life …

I should have known not to give in. Maybe they could’ve had other lives, but in those they would’ve never met. And if she wanted more ways to live for their child, she had to do this. If they both got to meet and make it safely through this day.

Thumping. Rumbling. Stepping. She twitched in her dreams, the sounds a part of them before she shifted into waking. Her eyes opened, blinking, unseeing, until she felt a touch on her cheek.

“Dee.” A whisper to rouse her that rose into urging. “Diana!”

Her eyes finally saw. Shade was bent over her, flushed and panting. She groaned weakly, slowly lifting her hand, reaching for his. “Hm?”

He released a breath. Checked the pulse in her wrist. Looked up, then closed his eyes and rested his brow on hers.

Her mind recovered from sleeping, realizing. He was back. Safe. Her heart fluttered, first from waking, then with gladness. The light had changed to a warmer colour, the sun low and on the other side, gilding the contours of Shade’s face as the rays fell on him. Bless the room for its coolness, sparing her the heat of the day. She’d slept into the late afternoon and her body felt … loose. Not tense with cramps nor heavy with exhaustion. Her heartbeat eased. All was well.

The cramps caused a false alert and Shade was here and alive. As his other hand found her other, she squeezed it. “Hey, how did it go …”

But he was still over her, panting. Why was he panting? Was he injured? Didn’t he get healed? Why would he be so out of breath when he could teleport?

Finally, he lifted his head. Examining her face. “They said you weren’t well,” he said with a frown. “Left the control room. Are you okay?”

She shrugged. “I had cramps.”

Immediately, he was alarmed. “Cramps? You didn’t tell me? I’d never have left if you told me!”

She winced at his outburst and his face softened. His thumb caressed her cheek. His panicked worry still flustered her. “It’s over. Nothing happened. It was, like, preparative?”

That didn’t relax him. His frown remained and he kept that stare up, like the hold on her face. As if he needed to hold her for certainty.

“For a moment, I feared …” he began. Shivered. He didn’t continue as he sank lower, turning to crouch before the couch and not letting go of her hand. He grasped it with both of his, and she felt it touching his brow and lips.

Here he sat crumbled in front of her and clasping her hand like a lifeline. As if she might not have been here to find - alive. Was he even shaking?

She tried to pet his head but didn’t have the reach lying down. She was dazzled. He imagining something terrible had happened to her couldn’t have lasted more than five minutes yet it stabbed him to his core. She sighed and her hand fell on her chest. The baby stirred, unconcerned. At least one of them was at peace.

Maybe it was the mission. Mare. Farley didn’t know anything about it and the tension of the battle must linger in him. He acted like pregnancy was an illness that could suddenly kill them both. She was inclined to dismiss that though – you never knew. Nobody had checked on her all day, not even to inform her about the accomplished mission as she’d requested. It both angered and chilled her. It was as she suspected and feared – she had to function or she didn’t matter.

In the end, she preferred Shade’s fussing.

This wouldn’t do, and her appetite was returning. She wriggled the pillow away and then slid, ungracefully, off the couch to squat beside him. That startled him.

“Dee? Don’t –”

She put a finger on his mouth. “I’m okay because you came back to me.” Although in this position, she noticed something had changed. Thanks to the cramps, the weight of her womb sat lower. “If I feel bad, you can jump me right to the infirmary.” She should go there, period. She’d longed to be alone and lie down but what if the cramps had affected the baby? She’d never forgive herself to have waited. It was like the very real pain had chased away her paranoia.

Shade’s eyes widened at the unlikely offer of teleporting her. He rested his forehead on hers and she hugged his back, grasping his shoulders as if to claim him as hers. Her hands moved along with his heavy breathing. She needed to feel his presence as much as he needed hers.

“I think,” she began, “we can walk to the infirmary to be sure.”

Shade sighed loudly. “Can you?”

“We can try.”

He nodded slowly, then turned to her belly. “Don’t worry us like that,” he said to the baby.

“It’s not its fault,” she disagreed. “My body does that work.”

He gasped, caught off guard, and then – finally – his mouth formed almost a smile. “I’ll help you,” he said and carefully, they rose.

To no one’s surprise, she was a bit shaky on her feet. He stabilized her, and she fell against his chest. “You still haven’t told me about the mission,” she murmured.

He kissed her temple, fingers stroking her hair and back in an embrace. “It went well.”

That was all? Perhaps he also began to spare her now. But she could pester him later, because relief won over the need for details.

“And Mare? Losses?” That wasn’t a detail.

He altered his stance, to meet her eyes. “Mare is with us.”

Farley grinned like a fool and he grinned right back. How that elated her. She grabbed the fabric of his shirt. “I want to see you tell her you got me with child.”

He raised his eyebrows. “I thought we agreed we did it together?”

“We can be embarrassed together.”

He sobered. “Nothing embarrassing about it.”

Then he had a different recollection of all those times they told people. Delusions. Yet. Maybe he meant something else. His hand was on her belly again, right when the baby moved and he felt it, too. She saw his gladness, as well as excitement.

“I won’t leave you again,” he repeated with determination. A promise. She believed to find something important had shifted in him.

“Let’s go,” she said, not letting go of his arm to whole way to the infirmary. Mare lingered there, tapping her feet, likely waiting for something or someone.

“Mare, I’m sorry I just vanished –” Shade began but Mare didn’t hear a word as her jaw dropped at their sight.

Shade had been right. Farley didn’t feel embarrassed or ashamed this time. She was exclusively happy now Mare could be shocked by something as delightful as their baby and she laughed.

A/N 2: So, the book Shade's reading is acomaf, basically. Or an alternate universe version written a 1000 years in the future by a silver because fairy porn will never die. I'll elaborate on that in To Break A Storm.

@elliemarchetti @nortaeventcouncil @mareshmallow @maudthebookeater @lilyharvord @lucy-the-cat @justagirlwholovesstories @averyboterham @eliimaii @unknown198913

#red queen #red queen fan fiction #red queen fanfiction #shade x farley #fade #diana farley #shade barrow #imagine shade was still alive #victoria aveyard #mare barrow #childbirth #cal calore #sara skonos #dane davidson #happy birthday #clara farley barrow #the flowers of piedmont

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elane-in-the-shadows · 3 months ago

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Red Queen Fan Fiction - To Break a Storm Chapter 2

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

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Roman Eagrie wasn’t like other silvers. Shade watched him glide through the fortress, at silver gatherings, dinners, meetings, drills; in the offices, parlours or training yards. Always friendly and sociable. And always aloof. Even when he showed to care, considering reds like actual people, it was like proof he didn’t really give a damn.

Like he only acted out of spite, Shade suspected.

Roman riled him up, certainly. Shade couldn’t categorize him properly and that threw him off his feet. He couldn’t ignore Roman’s pull while he felt drawn into a trap.

But wasn’t he, and all the reds, trapped all along?

Shade followed and observed Roman, if only to maintain his own safety, and yet wondered how it’d be to believe. What even? That Roman was just nice?

Roman rippled the proceedings if his and Aude’s circle. He questioned how things were run yet offered to take over very little – he merely contradicted them with a smirk. At times, Shade imagined he smirked at him, in the shadows, as if they had an inside joke.

Shade remembered the cigarette they’d shared, how the trace of Roman on it didn’t taste differently than a red, and how Roman had voiced his dislike of Aude. Now Shade guessed if that had been part of the bait as well. Aude didn’t seem all that antagonistic toward Roman – Shade was stunned to glimpse the uncanny amusement on Aude’s face at Roman’s antics. Did the haughty Aude like to be challenged by her nephew? Had Roman exaggerated their rivalry in inheritance?

Roman was the son of Aude’s deceased twin brother, Edward; Roman had told him that much. His mother was Charlotte Haven, Aude’s despised sister-in-law. It left Roman the firstborn of the firstborn of Lord Julius Eagrie and heir apparent. Aude didn’t seem to take that as a valid argument, maybe because she and Edward were twins in the first place.

But it appeared like Aude spared Roman some tender feelings for her brother’s sake.

Well, it didn’t make it all that likely that she planned to have him killed, so Shade regretted to have worried about Roman’s safety. What a waste of care for a silver.

“Barrow? I told you that’s my job now?” And there he was. Roman Eagrie intercepted him on the way to the training yard, and the drill of Storm Legion, parcours this time.

Shade swallowed a sigh, gripping his papers tighter. “I’m to support you with recording during the instruction, sir.” He gazed back at Roman, without a waver.

Roman breathed out loudly. “Indeed, you have made excellent preparations and set up great templates. As the instructor, I can do the rest myself.” Switching from ease to ramrod-straight, he reached out for the papers.

Shade hesitated. Maybe he was beginning to figure it out. Silvers wanted literate reds to do the annoying bureaucratic work for them. Possible that Roman was one not content about this transition. “Will you run the drill and take notes, sir?” Shade asked innocently.

Roman’s eyebrows twitched, the only break in his more formal demeanour. “Yes,” he said. “I need you to check and order equipment.”

Shade kept his eyes on him for a second longer. To show he know that Roman had changed tack. They both knew. “Yes, sir,” he finally agreed and handed over the papers, letting go at the same time he turned to walk away. He didn’t worry. Roman would be ready not to drop them.

In fact, Roman’s presence left Shade with more spare time. He was effective, instead of disrupting activities. Perhaps Roman wasn’t that much of a force of chaos. Or, Shade allowed himself to consider, he cared enough not to make it harder for everyone.

If anything was not hard for reds conscripted to war. Then again, the same applied to Shade.

The last months, he couldn’t believe to be in this position instead of bleeding and shooting in trenches. He was too busy to keep it this way to ask what he supported. He lived, but other youths like his brothers were dying. Aude didn’t offer a glance at dead red soldiers. Nor did her lieutenants. Along with organizing the regular soldiers’ wages, it was up to Shade to write and send letters of demise and transfer money as small compensations to their families. Another task silvers must be glad to delegate to reds. They were better equipped to understand, didn’t they? So silvers weren’t confronted with grief, pain and results of their politics.

Aude had barely listened when Shade had approached the topic of sending the payments in time and in correct amount. Shade had a budget to use for the payments and couldn’t overdraw it. If the costs were bigger than the budget, he had to delay payments and Aude told him where to save. She didn’t care, ignorant of what delays meant for families in need – the soldiers were dead, in the end. Did they matter anymore?

The Storm Legion wasn’t engaged in the choke’s frontline for now, and no one had died. Would Roman grieve for the soldiers he had trained?

With his arms crossed, Shade looked down from a window at the parcours just for the end of the drill. He might curse himself later, but he didn’t have enough time to go somewhere else anyway. More bills and payments waited to be approved and fulfilled, hours of doublechecking every item ordered because Selene Eagrie had a personal paranoia about swindling traders.

Shade winced against the sunset over the training yard. One thing was being replaced, another his unsated curiosity, the urge to look Roman in the eye. From above, the soldiers and their instructor appeared all the same. A union, as even as one was running the exercise, Roman took part like one of them. An illusion, created by distance, certainly, and Shade wouldn’t fall for it. He hoped it helped his comrades to get along with their instructor, made them less afraid but prepared for the choke.

Maybe Shade was envious, too. He talked with his comrades too, of course, heard what they said about their silver officers, the fortress, the war, their daily needs. But they didn’t know what to make of Shade. They asked him for things, and also those he’d have to deny. He partook in training often enough, though in the end, he would be called back to his more important tasks on silver requests.

He had a knack to befriend people but it promised to be a hard case with Storm Legion, new people all over again who all knew him as aide. When he had arrived, he got close with Cecilia, another conscript, before he was promoted, but now she was still with Spear, their old legion, while Aude took him with her to Storm.

As Roman wrapped up, he glanced up, and Shade could’ve sworn he found him watching. He blinked and blamed it on the sun burning red behind Roman. It was time to leave.

The crimson sunset followed him the way along the main corridor around the fortress, blazing in the corner of his eye. Unnerving him, scorching the sight of Roman’s smiles into his mind, red as blood.

When he reached the stairs at one spire, the spur of the moment made him choose, differently than planned: Not up and left to Aude’s office and his broom closet of a bedroom, but down and right, to the barracks, the red living quarters. Once he decided, he accelerated from his usual swift walk into a run. He couldn’t be fast enough, and it came so oddly easy to him. It was like he competed with the sunset, needing to keep up with it to complete his plan. It didn’t matter anyway – if he procrastinated his leftover tasks now, a few seconds wouldn’t save him from finishing them in the night or morning instead.

Maybe he only wanted to enjoy the sunset when it was so beautiful. Not the overcast, smog-and-dust-filled grey that eternally drowned the sky over Corvium. It was an urge, a reminder he couldn’t name. As he arrived at Spear Legion’s dorm, the sun had already sunk beneath the horizon, leaving the sky in a bruised teal, green and dark blue. The last light of dusk clung to him as he entered, panting.

Few soldiers were there, barely paying him attention. Shade released a breath in relief. It was awkward to meet the comrades of his former legion, the one he’d first joined under Aude’s command. He had been taken along with the general, transferred to Storm, leaving many behind. He kept scanning the hall, more living room than dorm as the beds were in smaller rooms adjoining, searching for someone he knew.

If she isn’t here, I’ll look for my brothers. He should’ve gone for Bree and Tramy first, having not seen them for so long, though a visit daunted him for precisely that reason. He didn’t know what to say to them. But to Cecilia, he was always comfortable to talk to or hang out with. He crossed the hall and was about to turn around when Cecilia came out of her bedroom.

“Hi!” he greeted her enthusiastically and then laughed at himself.

She snorted and hugged him, equally glad. The first glance at her revealed a somber expression.

Shade and Cecilia had been conscripted and brought to Corvium at the same time last March, just a year ago. They shared basic training and both joined Spear Legion. Helplessly, they’d clung to each other on the first deployments on the battlefield, before Shade was recruited as aide and Cecilia as a medic.

Still, it left them working together, as Shade coordinated the operation and recorded their losses and injured, as well as providing Cecilia’s resources. Their comrades were killing and surviving, as he and Cecilia had to take care of those who failed. Witnessing the worst, the dismembering, the lost limbs, the blood, the bodies. Cecilia had to drag off unconscious soldiers bigger than herself, looking after the gravest wounds, all while the enemy kept attacking. Often, she was in no less danger those at the guns.

Cecilia leaned back, still squeezing Shade’s arm as she took him in. “Come,” she said, “let’s sit down, though we have no coffee left.”

Shade swallowed, realizing it meant a lack of provisions. He could ask for something else, but understood the frustration she implied.

She seemed well though, even if weary. The low light of the lamps warmed her dark skin, her long pristine braids swung as she walked. Shade had never seen her braids anything other than perfect – she’d soon met other black soldiers who helped each other with braiding. Taking care of her hair prevented officers from demanding a military crop like Shade had undergone, to his regret. To Cecilia, keeping her long hair meant keeping a part, a feminine one, of herself intact when war reigned over their bodies and minds.

As they sat down at a unpractically round table, Cecilia spoke up. “Many are off to settle their business before we go to the choke tomorrow.”

Shade startled, deep shocked. “Tomorrow? But nothing was planned for weeks.” Command of the legion was switched in so little time that he hadn’t expected changes of decisions to this degree.

“Under Eagrie, yes.” Cecilia offered a defeatist shrug. “New general Lerolan has other opinions.”

Shade tried his best to suppress his shiver. He hadn’t had to hide his emotions from Cecilia before, but was now unsure if his rage would only take her further down. His transfer had disrupted even their friendship. He’d still be present at the choke as aide, but less on the direct front as she would be, and what Aude intended to do with the rarely deployed Storm legion, he had still no idea.

And he was no less afraid for Cecilia who was to go without him at her side.

He took his friend’s hands. “You know how it is,” he said quietly. “Did it all before.”

“Sure,” she agreed, and angled her head with a fake smile.

Shade inclined his head. “Spear was merged with General Lerolan’s Stone Legion.”

“With his depleted Stone legion.” She raised her eyebrows. “You know a lot.”

Well, that was the least he could do. Knowledge was his job and he gathered what he could find, but he wouldn’t drill this in. “Do the legions merge well?”

Cecilia’s face remained unmoving, emotionless. Her lips parted, then hesitated.

If General Lerolan’s legion was depleted, it doesn’t look auspicious for his new soldiers, Shade concluded.

Cecilia didn’t voice that, didn’t confirm the suspicion, just shook herself in a display of relaxing. “Killing is surviving is winning, right?” she said.

He nodded, resisting to glance down, meeting her eyes as she pretended her undaunted confidence. They were both aware her behaviour was a show but Shade understood. It was a part of reassuring oneself. She returned his squeeze of her hands in reply. “Remember when I brought the lakelander to first aid by accident?”

He did. He’d tried to help her disguise her “mistake” of helping the enemy, planning to pass the women off as a prisoner. “She died,” he said. That had left their attempts unnecessary.

A heavy silence fell as Cecilia paused. “But I did tell the general. When you were elsewhere again. She said we don’t take prisoners. No reds, at least. Then she ordered me to kill the woman.” Cecilia swallowed as Shade’s blood froze. “I wanted to tell her to do it herself. Ask her how. With a knife? Opening her wounds? Injecting air in her veins although I didn’t know painful that may be?” She shook her head, her eyes shimmering. “I knew Eagrie wouldn’t want me to waste painkillers and somehow, I agreed. Couldn’t bring myself having to deny them to our own soldiers. The woman was barely conscious, not aware where she was, but she must’ve had an inkling I was supposed to help her.” She closed her eyes, pausing. Opening them again, she went on. “In the end, I did nothing. Left her to die. Still, her blood was all around me. Red as mine.”

Shade’s gaze had never left hers. All four of their hands joined, they finally broke eye contact, foreheads touching. There was nothing to say. He understood. That was what “winning” meant. And surviving. It was a sick, rotting thing.

Cecilia sniffed, leaning back. Fingers swiped at tears that had never fallen. “I’ve wanted to meet lakelanders since. Talk to them. Remind myself I don’t see them as enemy monsters but just like me.”

Her brown eyes spoke a message he struggled to decode. “I understand. I … I’m curious, too.” Was admitting this already treason? But it was freeing to say after the horror Cecilia had conjured.

Cecilia offered a weak smile, back to her pretense. “Then, until we meet again. Don’t make me wait too long for it.”

“Promise,” he replied, forcing a smile. “Good luck.”

That night, he pounded the numbers and names on the remaining bills to work off into his head. He scanned the papers until he forgot all else, so long his eyes fell shut and he eventually retired. And yet, his sleep remained fitful, waking sweaty and too early, barely rested, because he had to. He made himself finish the task, pulling himself together with willpower. Shade wouldn’t underestimate willpower.

Only it also strengthened his own will.

As he went to drop or send off or archive the papers, he didn’t stand still. He merely took the chance to look outside, away, into the woods beyond the fortress. It was early morning still, many activities dormant yet. Lack of sleep left him with a slot of time to himself, too. Somewhere, cooks would prepare food or soldiers run for their lives but here, Shade was alone, calm, like in the eye of a storm.

The walls were pressing on him and again, he wanted out, more and more often. This morning, no sunrise greeted him, no lively red dawn unlike the sunset last evening. The sky had lit yet stayed grey, overcast, thick. No colours to disguise the smog and odours of bodies, weapons, explosions.

Here, it was strangely quiet. Inside his head, he almost heard the noises of the battles he’d survived. He was sick thinking about Cecilia getting ready. Shade wished to walk until he breathed fresh air again. No, not walk. Just get away. Look into her eyes once more to see she was alive. It was impossible. So he did the only thing to compare.

Getting lost in exertion had to help, a similar kind of focus to forget as last night, as well as an illusion to reclaim his body.

He strode into the training yard and met Roman Eagrie, alone, to his surprise.

Shade dared to smile and found a reflection.

If he couldn’t run, he would fight.

@elliemarchetti @nortaeventcouncil @justagirlwholovesstories @unknown198913 @lilyharvord @mareshmallow @lucy-the-cat @eliimaii @loudywonderland

#red queen #red queen fan fiction #red queenfanfiction #victoria aveyard #shade barrow #king's cage #glass sword #war storm #shade x farley #original character #mare barrow #cal calore #maven calore #steel scars #to break a storm #bree barrow #tramy barrow #scarlet guard

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elane-in-the-shadows · 5 months ago

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are you done with the fade oneshots? I loved them💜

Aww, thank you! Always glad to receive feedback and see people enjoying my work *__*

I wouldn't say I'm done with anything - I could always write another one-shot. But while I wrote a lot in 2016 to 2019 one can check out here, I've been less inspired since then and the ideas I do have might not be easy to shape into a (short) story. I'll focus now on To Break a Storm (which will have Fade), but I'll never let go of Fade or possible one-shot ideas.

#regina writes #ask #shade x farley #to break a storm #red queen one-shots

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elane-in-the-shadows · 5 months ago

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Red Queen Fan Fiction - To Break a Storm Chapter 1

February 2nd – Happy Birthday, Shade Barrow!

A/N: Coming together with the ten-year anniversary of Red Queen, I return to the beginning with a new fan fic series – To Break a Storm! Meet Shade before the start of Red Queen navigating the Corvium garrison and the trenches of the Choke as the aide to a silver general. How does one survive against superpowers and oppression? With guile, rebellion or the secret talents Shade only begins to dive in?

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

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Chapter 1

Today, she was to be called Lady Aude. The General Aude Eagrie discarded her uniforms and had her badges reattached to a sash while Shade had to provide her with gown and jewels – fortunately, only from storage, not making him buy them. Asking his general for money was a dare on its own, fulfilling her demands with pushing and insistence was enough of an ordeal. Getting her fancy attire from the storage in Rocasta 50 kilometres away from Corvium in a few hours was a sudden upheaval of plans that set her staff aflutter. Though, it infected all of the Corvium garrison, not just General Eagrie’s circle. The queen was visiting, and every silver wanted to kiss her – metaphorical – ass to win royal favour. It was merely especially pressing for the general as she already had a confirmed meeting with Queen Elara and planned to host a royal feast.

Shade, as her aide, found it easy enough to acquire the food and dishes, if only because the general’s silver aides had already won the game against the other silver officers to take charge of a common dinner. Shade had just to wave a paper around in the kitchen. Not that the paper meant all that much. Too many of the red staff, like most of those his parents’ age, couldn’t read well. That silvers deigned to improve red education was a boon Shade wasn’t sure to feel glad or ashamed about.

He loved to read and write, to find a well of words, knowledge and ideas on his own and use them. But as he trained his mind, it created a rumbling in him like distant thunder, when he couldn’t help asking, why only for me, and not before?

He could, no, was expected to give commands in the general’s name. He tried to stand and move evenly and firmly, clear his face of emotions as he did so. Give nothing away, not to reds resenting you for your safe and favoured position, not to silvers derailing you anyway. Be dignified, with the grace of hidden pride like the stylist Suzanne Ripley he’d called on to prepare the general for her royal dinner.

He managed it. He hated it.

Upon entering the general’s rooms, Suzanne curtseyed as effortlessly as in rehearsed motion and went to work. She was so perfectly at ease like she wasn’t daunted at all.

The general was already in her dress, a sleeveless white A-line with black printing and embroidery highlighted with clear gemstones. White and black were her Eagrie house colours, but her pattern were not pretty flowers or orderly stripes. The irregular and wild black shapes resembled clouds or smoke, a darkening sky before the storm. As severe as herself. The general was in her fifties and cared little for fashion beyond what her authority required. Her body was still athletic and fast, her brown arms leanly muscled.

Shade stood in the living room’s corner as Suzanne finished pinning up the general’s wavy black hair, using jewellery. The general wasted no time getting up as Suzanne stepped back, striding out and Shade followed. Of course. General Eagrie was an eye, foreseeing the immediate future. She knew what you’d do before you did. It made her the picture of grace as she treated you like air. That didn’t mean she thought you were air – she expected you to do your job anyway, often without words, as if everyone was as prescient as herself.

Sometimes, Shade could wing it by doing as she did, as the general knew best. That seemingly applied today as well. Moments after General Eagrie, Lady Aude, found her spot to greet the queen in the fortress’s great hall and nodded off the banquet preparations, Elara Merandus arrived.

In a uniform. With just one attendant instead of a whole retinue.

The silvers, at the table but rising for the queen, blinked around. Shade had learned to keep still.

“Lady Aude,” the queen said as the general curtseyed. “You have a feast planned?” the queen went on as if she didn’t know this was prepared for her. “Then let us finish this matter quickly in your office and you can return to your party.”

To her credit, the general didn’t look completely offended. But the whisper queen must be reading all her rage in her head anyway. With delight, probably.

Maybe she even read how this thought crossed Shade’s mind before he reminded himself to meditate on the tiles he stood on. Or a red like him was beneath her notice as the general marched off behind the queen.

Shade waited in the general’s living room after her lieutenant Selene Eagrie had called the diners to begin, if they hadn’t lost their appetites, or hoped for the queen to mingle for casual company. Cancelling it completely would be a sign of defeat and Aude Eagrie couldn’t have that. She would’ve liked to, though, as she threw her jewellery around the room as she arrived.

“Storm legion,” she cried to her second and right hand, Tayfun Iral, rushing in after her. “I wanted command of Corvium and what do I get? A no-name legion while letting go off the one I trained years to succeed.”

“We’ll have to establish what other orders Elara brought,” Iral said.

The general nodded, taking a seat before her vanity and sparing a glare at Shade. He’d already missed the moment. He glided to her and helped her remove her attire. Or rather she removed it and he put it away. He glanced at the spot where she threw her necklace, reminding himself to find a second to pick it up later. Just now, he was busy getting up and opening her making removal kit to hand her cotton pads.

“It’s all Charlotte’s fault,” the general complained. “My bloody sister-in-law pissed off the queen again and Elara gleefully takes it out on her relations.” The general dropped the cotton pad and fixed her gaze on her face in the mirror. Green eyes as brilliant as emeralds stared at themselves. What did they see, looking at themselves in stillness?

Nothing was a surprise to the general that happened directly in front of her but it only increased the terror of the unknown further afield, such as today’s.

A woman and soldier of her age should be able to deal with the results of her hubris.

The stillness must be her method to calm herself. “I could recruit Charlotte’s bastard girl again,” the general said quietly after a while.

“I’ll send for her,” Iral agreed, relieved about the general’s resolve. He saluted and Shade had just found the bloody necklace right when Iral called for him. “Barrow, you can serve in the hall and observe conversations,” Iral commanded.

He nodded and saluted, bowing to the general and dropping the necklace in a case. At least Tayfun Iral talked to him, aware of his usefulness, sometimes even explaining things. Shade could guess they wanted to know if the silvers gossiped with the queen about the general or if anyone else was promoted. Almost out of the door, Shade asked Iral, “could it really be about Charlotte?”

A hiss passed his ear before a pain burned in his cheek like a flash.

A dagger had hit the wall in front of him. “Barrow,” the general said, “a silver lady is not just ‘Charlotte’ to a red rat like you.” The corner of her mouth twitched. “Remember your station.”

Shade used the dark sleeve of his uniform to swipe the bleeding wound in his cheek. But it was too late, and not enough. His red blood was the reminder of who he was. “Apologies, madam,” he replied with a salute and left to his work.

Despite the implied demotion, Aude was determined to examine her new force the next two weeks. Shade did it for her. It was one of his tasks to collect data and present the summaries and results to Aude, whether by attending drills or going through the army records. He considered it one the perks of his positions, as it offered Shade to research Aude’s other issues and also to check on his brothers Bree and Tramy.

They weren’t in the Storm legion, had never had any connection to it. But as Shade looked up the legion’s deployments, numbers, successes, losses and fallen, he searched for his brothers as well. It assured him they were still alive not too injured or ill to be withdrawn. Yet it told him nothing about their experiences, how they felt, what they saw or endured on scales not impacting their fighting ability. Silvers didn’t keep records of red pain. As much as he reaped the advantages of his job, it ate him up as well as time and chances to visit his brothers, to talk to or hug them. He hated what kept them apart. He not so much yearned to escape but to step over the chasms between them.

Today a training was scheduled with the Storm legion. It was non-descript indeed. They were rarely sent to the hardest battles in the trenches of the Choke, and had little winnings to show either way. Yet with this miniscule activity, they presented a surprisingly high number of losses, whatever caused them.

One more matter consuming his attention were the Eagrie family ties he finally deemed unavoidable after the Lady Aude attacked him. Guessing wasn’t enough, but soldier records hardly included family trees and gossip provided few gems and partial knowledge that gave insecure help without the full story.

He gathered the papers for the drill; he was already running late. Aude’s expectations of timeliness applied to everyone although at least it was something to rely on. He dashed from the records office to the training yard, barely noticing his way until the glaring eye of Aude’s other lieutenant fell on him as he arrived. The lieutenant had a way of turning her head to him like an owl. No wonder, as she was also prescient. Selene Eagrie, his research said, was Aude’s twenty years younger half-sister. They looked nothing alike as Selene was pale with dirty blond hair, with a hint of red, and muddy hazel eyes. Their father was Lord Julius Eagrie, the head of the house, and married for the third time. Aude had six siblings who might all be married with children to whoever the fuck. He’d grunted as he realized the bottomless well this promised to be.

Aude’s main second and first lieutenant was Tayfun Iral, a maternal cousin. He shared Aude’s colouring with brown skin and black hair but not the brilliantly green eyes – those were special. “I have my father’s eyes,” Aude said once with meaning, although, as Shade had gleaned, the colour had little to with strength of ability. That was just a regularly treasured family heritage.

Now all three of them were seated on the elevated platform by the yard, to Shade’s surprise. The Eagrie sisters avoided the drills in most cases. He figured it bored them, already knowing what moves the soldiers would make, or who’d win in sparring. Therefore, usually an instructor lead the exercises as Shade watched and wrote down the gist of it while Aude, Tayfun and Selene sparred with one another, in matches more equal and unpredictable. Iral silks were so fast and hard to catch that foreseeing was a limited advantage and vice versa. Shade had seen them once and made it his matter to guard his face even better than usual. Aude was his parents’ age but despite her 50 years of honing her body for battle, she displayed perfect skill. Spry as a deer and fierce as a wildcat while the war had left Shade’s father so injured he lost a leg and half his lungs. Whereas Aude’s every bruise must be skinhealer-treated to let her remain this athletic.

Maybe Aude planned to make a show to her new soldiers to properly intimate them. For now, the center of her attention was a new instructor. A tall man in training slacks running the drill. Aude nodded it off as her focus stayed on the instructor. Shade followed suit in concentrating on the instructor as Aude’s thoughts stayed indecipherable. The man was leanly muscled and even taller than Shade’s brothers, over 1,9 meters. His spiky black hair cut a sharp silhouette against the white late winter sky. He stood straight yet playful, with an easiness to his demeanour.

“Do one on ones now, Roman,” Aude ordered then, later switching to group battles and varying the sizes of opposing teams. Instructor Roman would correct their moves or fight himself, against several soldiers.

His advice seemed earnest, but he took none of the battles seriously. It was all about the lessons, Shade reminded himself and made his notes, yet he itched to assess Roman’s strength. He was the new element to figure out. After a while, Aude had Shade take part in the drill and he hurried to fall into the exercise and team rhythm, watching his comrades, watching the officers, watching Roman, until it was his turn to fight the instructor.

As they faced off, Shade stood still and met Roman’s pitch-black eyes. With an incline of their heads, they began to move, circling each other before the attack. The instructor’s breathing had become heavier, due to the on-going drill, and his bare brown underarms showed he was cold from the weather, yet hot from the exertion.

Shade charged first, and Roman evaded as expected. Shade followed with another kick that took more time to avoid, but Roman jumped aside with no effort. As Shade had observed, Roman seldom attacked unless to uncover a glaring miss of defense, and Shade wouldn’t let this happen at all costs. He wanted to make Roman attack, though in another way, and so he tried a few dirty moves which only earned him a smirk.

Daring, he had to be daring, yet it might turn into showing a glaring miss of defense. No matter. He only had to be surprising enough. He went down to get Roman off his feet, but Roman cartwheeled away. Shade rolled aside and got up but now it was Roman’s time to retaliate. Already, Shade believed to feel the hit on his back when he’d spun around, in the perfect position to go for Roman’s neck. And so he did.

Roma caught his hand just after Shade touched his skin. He blinked, irritated by the defeat, and squeezed Shade’s hand, locking his gaze.

Shade didn’t think to pull away.

The corners of Roman’s mouth twitched and he moved their joined hands down and before Shade knew it, they had let go. “Well done,” Roman said, as several times today.

“Sir,” Shade nodded and, forcing his lingering eyes away, returned to his post.

Afterwards, they abided in the training yard. It was a different place, with just Shade and the instructor, and Shade intended to overpaint the changed atmosphere with task following task. He’d seen off several of the soldiers, tidied, finished his statistics, as Roman controlled the rack of arms they’d exercised with later on. Weapons were a limited resource, under the responsibility of higher-ups. Even Shade needed a permit from a commanding officer to touch arms.

The work enabled him to avoid Roman as either of them maintained nonchalance unless their gazes crossed. It startled Shade every time and he felt an odd satisfaction when Roman looked away first.

It was both of them and Shade wondered why. Could he be proud to have bested the instructor who was left needled by it? He kept trying to read Roman, even as his expression stayed blank and thinking as he did his counts.

Shade could curse himself. He delayed leaving for his dissatisfied curiosity yet he didn’t trust himself to hide it – as when asking the instructor directly.

If he wanted to remain inconspicuous, he would have to wait for the next chance, he decided, as Roman spoke.

“General Eagrie is as keyed up as ever,” he said. He rested with his back against a wall, legs stretched out. He fumbled for a cigarette and lit it, taking a deep inhale. And another. Roman’s eyes found his and Shade swallowed.

“You know her longer?” Shade asked. “Sir,” he added, to stay on the safe side.

Roman looked away as Shade approached. He leaned on the wall next to Roman, but only sideways with the shoulder, to be quickly and on the run again.

“All too well,” Roman answered and sighed. Shade could watch the smoke rising in swirls from the cigarette in his hand, a hand Roman lifted for another draw. “Aude wants to be the next house head, but she’s not first in line. So she burns to impress.”

Now that was the kind of information Shade had dug for. Roman was in possession of exclusive intelligence. Or was it just a guess? One more time, Shade looked him over and when the silence lasted oddly long, he noticed that Roman had called her Aude. Out loud. Shade suppressed a frown. What did that mean?

“The general doesn’t show a setback,” Shade said, neutrally. Apart from throwing jewels and cutting me.

Now Roman swirled his hand, causing spirals of smoke in a gesture for vaguely. “She does appear pinched,” he said, and, titling his head, focused on Shade. “You stare like that. Want to try?”

Shade did, indeed, stare at the cigarette. And the smoker. And his hands. He shrugged, hoping that was reason enough to seem nervous. “Cigarettes are hard to get for reds here.”

“I’m a bit of a rule-breaker,” Roman said lightly. All of him was so lightly, lofty, almost careless. Maybe you could only say things like that lightly.

Right here, right now, Shade wanted to be the same. Just for a moment. To relax.

“It’s a special blend. My brother’s girlfriend grows it,” Roman explained. His dark eyes fixed on Shade, like a dare to sink into them. “You might not know it.”

“Please,” Shade said, and reached out, expectant. It was a dare to figure him out. When their fingers met, Shade didn’t know if the cigarette or the touch would singe him deeper. But those weren’t light thoughts. What was he thinking? He quickly took a draw he barely tasted.

“All this for a family position,” Roman said. “Warring to be able to command relatives around and anticipating her father’s death.”

Exploring the new sensation on his lips, Shade needed a moment to get he was talking again about Aude. The stuff must be strong after all. “Sil – officers have their own guidelines,” Shade replied.

“Morbid ones,” Roman muttered. “House here, family there, rank everywhere.” He’d already lit another cigarette as Shade was finishing the other. That fast? But it was only a half.

Roman didn’t appear so airy anymore. Glaring in the distance, his throat bobbed, fast, while he took several more inhales. “I came here because I couldn’t let Aude bring my sister here again.”

Shade cackled. “As if that was so easy.” Now Roman turned to him, puzzled. “I wish I could keep my sister away from the army. At most I might look out for her, but … I hardly see my brothers here either.”

Roman still stared. “It might be little help,” he agreed. “The last time, my sister almost died. With 12. I found her just fast enough, and she’d only survived so long due to her ability.”

12? Ability?

Shade wanted to blame the cigarette for every second too much he needed to connect the dots, finally. As he grasped it, he felt immediately sober. He inclined his head, calculating if he could still obfuscate his ignorance. “That’s horrible, sir.” Was the “sir” too much, a giveaway? Probably, or it had been too late anyway.

Roman flashed him a weak, almost pardoning smile. “Yes,” he said softly. “But it might work out for us after all. As I’m the heir who stands in Aude’s way.”

Roman and his sister were silvers. And for a moment, Shade was terribly afraid Aude wanted them dead.

A/N 2: The first chapter is a bit longer to get you into the story before you’ll wait for the next chapter. Ahem. And yes, this is easter-egg fanservice for my veteran readers. Thanks for your loyalty and attention <3

@lucy-the-cat @elliemarchetti @lilyharvord @maudthebookeater @mareshmallow @nortaeventcouncil @averyboterham @justagirlwholovesstories @freaky-friday @eliimaii @nortaeventcouncil

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elane-in-the-shadows · 1 year ago

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Red Queen Fan Fiction - A Promise Under Flowers

May 13th - Happy Birthday, Diana Farley

A/N 1: Here’s also a new story for her! Featuring Jealous Shade included for @elliemarchetti who��s been asking for this for years. Taking place during Glass Sword chapter 19.

4215 words

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A Promise Under Flowers

Lightning surged from Mare’s hand through the sky and when it hit their silver hunters and their transports, it exploded with Cal’s fire setting them alight. Curses burned Farley’s tongue. Combined, Mare’s and Cal’s powers covered a distance that secured their escape, yet the necessity of escape meant another failure to save newbloods and their families, a loss against Maven.

Farley had stayed a little apart, up on the lookout for more enemies, gun ready. Now she joined the running team, still peeking over her shoulder as Cal and Mare reached her.

Both were out of breath yet appeared awed by their own co-work, Cal nicely rumpled and Mare frizzy with electricity, a shine in her eyes that could turn into a happy smile, if they didn’t face defeat.

Cal approached Farley, touching her arm. “It’s a trap, a tactic I recognize. We have to retreat.” Quickly, he shared rough instructions to proceed, keeping to glance at Mare. Casting aside thoughts of the newbloods they’d at best leave behind to fend for themselves, to maybe be killed or taken hostage, Cal was all professional, knowing what to say, if not for the touch of her arm. Strange he touched her, not Mare, when their longing was palpable. Yet so were the sparks around Mare. Not the time to set her on fire.

“Okay, get the Blackrun ready,” Farley concluded.

“Shouldn’t Shade be back yet?” Mare interjected.

Farley froze. She’d relaxed about him, trusting in his self-preserving ability but if the silvers set a trap, they could’ve caught him with the newbloods.

“… I should’ve gone with him,” she muttered.

Mare gestured. “We get to him now.”

She nodded even though Cal looked dubious. He shook it off; they couldn’t leave Shade behind. Farley handed him a radio. “You know our codes, message us if necessary.” He understood, adding further directions on how to move through the town.

Hopefully, Farrah and Harrick could hide the plane long enough. Hopefully, Shade was alive.

Dashing through the unknown streets was difficult enough, having to rely on the prince’s military teachings. What if Maven’s people varied the scheme? But Farley trusted Cal’s instincts, having learned his and hers worked the same way. She ran with Mare to the newbloods’ home, recalling their data. A man, 58, a woman, 29. A house on heather street. They twisted around corners and climbed fences, hoping to evade any sentinel pursuers. Fighting back would just draw more foes.

Yet as they arrived at the place, they found only two corpses, an elderly couple.

Farley cursed. She was already on the stairs when Mare called her – to the outside. She rushed away – finding Shade bloody and unconscious on a street two houses away.

“Check him!” Mare demanded in a whisper-snarl. She didn’t dare approach, again loaded with sparks. She’d planted herself on the earth to ground herself and charge off. Mare was seducingly powerful yet every day Farley witnessed how it isolated her.

Farley was already next to Shade before she realized how she’d moved there, her hand on his neck. “You promised me forever, you liar,” she hissed.

Nervously, Mare glanced around as Farley was desperate to find his pulse. “We need to get away, we should carry –”

“Before we know how injured he is?” Farley retorted. She could call Cal back, with a few others, though how long would that take? But Shade was breathing, his heartbeat singing to her. She noticed no strongly bleeding wounds yet when he finally reacted, looking into her eyes, it almost melted her heart.

“Silvers …” he groaned. “Attacked … took them out.”

Mare had finished charging herself off and risked a dash around to recon. “Two dead,” she confirmed, and joined them, gripping Shade’s hand. Her gentleness hit Farley.

“Dee,” he urged, slightly recovered. Almost more than me. Farley had to wash it off for good, he was alive.

“Yes,” she agreed, “Get us gone.” Despite their fears, he appeared relieved.

Back on the Blackrun, they could only conclude Shade fainted because of an ability, not a hit or concussion. He would not be able to teleport with such an injury, he said. But he was covered in bruises and his still healing ankle again so twisted he’d need get his crutches back. Farley was thorough with her ministrations and could hardly bring an end to them, even after checking their comrades, to Shade’s irritation.

“Don’t look at me like I might drop dead,” he chided.

Could she be sure he wouldn’t? He’d been hit by a strongarm before he jumped away to kill them and their companion.

They shouldn’t have sent him alone to gather the newbloods but their forces – if they could call them such – were spread thin with several defeats in a row, resulting in injuries, now including Shade. Farley was embarrassed his near loss affected her so, after so much death. When she tried to remember their marks that day, she couldn’t imagine the corpse seen in a hurry was the young woman on their list. Where was she, had she hidden in the town, left behind by Mare and their team, barely escaping Maven?

They didn’t have time to wonder. Mare was as protective as Farley when she pressed for another mission the next day – and leaving Shade behind. Only to arrive to dead bodies again. The day after, they were trapped by their own Whistle associate and found a whole murdered family. Mare freaked out over the dead baby so Farley could barely process it herself. Instead the memory settled in her bones and when she felt sick, it began to taste differently.

She knew she couldn’t afford to chew – or choke – on that. Even if … no matter.

Shade held her at night, aware of her own dead, and shared the weight of his. His pride gambled with his ability, letting him miss how strong he was. How fatal, like the day of his newest injury. He despised using it to kill, and did it anyway.

She could tell him there might be more than duty between them. How she wished for it. Still she let that option wither like she was afraid to answer herself.

Mare had another newblood on their list, reminding them of urgency, the chance to be quicker than Maven.

“Only after confirming his movements,” either Cal or Farley would insist each time, soon flowing back into their routines, Cal with the research, Farley maintaining the notch.

Going through the base’s corridors, she followed Nanny bringing out provisions to the rooms until she closed up to the old woman and stopped dead. “Not need to exaggerate my diligence, Nanny,” Farley called out with a chuckle when she faced her.

Wearing Farley’s features.

Nanny raised her hands, empty now. “Well, I’m done anyway.”

Farley shook her head. “Your ideas for mischief know no bounds.”

“My deceit, my dear,” Nanny countered, lifting one finger to chastise. “I am a weapon with many skills.”

“Absolutely.” Farley bit back a laugh and tucked Nanny by the sleeve. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”

Nanny’s brows rose in expectation and Farley supressed her irritation about the topic, as well as facing herself. Her own surprised face was an unusual sight indeed.

Just get it done and say it.

“Your family didn’t appear on our list,” she began, “and as no newbloods, the Guard evacuated them.”

Nanny’s face clamed, waiting.

“So you never … none of them, your children, or grandchildren, showed any abilities?”

Crossing her arms, Nanny stared. “If they weren’t on your list?”

I’m not cowed by my own glare. Farley shrugged. “It was the first time anyone looked for newblood markers. They might be more to it we don’t know yet.”

“Hm.”

“No sign ever, Nanny?”

A shift moved through Nanny, having nothing to do with changing shape. Her gaze went over Farley, toe to head and when their eyes met, Farley didn’t see herself, but the old lady, giving her, undeniably, what had to be called a mom’s stare.

“Why would you, of all people, be so curious about this, Captain?”

She met her own face, so similar to her dead mother, when no had looked at her like that, with this mix of caring and teasing, for several years. Startled, Farley stepped back, barely managing to catch herself. Not fast enough. “I have to plan ahead, take responsibility,” she offered, poorly.

Now Nanny grabbed her by the arm. Her voice was quiet. “And are you doing that …?”

She only felt blood rushing to her head. She needed space to breathe, to think. Even though she knew. Looking down, she said. “I have to be sure.” In truth, she had preferred ignorance, not having to choose. Not worrying over nothing or a misassumption, or rashly reject when she craved to embrace. Not getting attached to what might get lost before it thrived.

This period of waiting should’ve ended with the dead baby yesterday.

Farley straightened, returning to business. “No need to hurry about this topic, Nanny. But if you remember anything –”

“I have no issues with my memories, ma’am.”

It pulled a chuckle from her throat. “Of course not,” she said, and turned around – to run into Shade.

Nanny laughed out loud and Farley, her hand grabbing Shade’s jacket to keep each other from stumbling, glanced back to find Nanny finally returned to her own form. “I’ve been waiting just for this,” Nanny said.

“What?”

With a pat on her shoulder, Nanny made to leave. “See true love recognize the right bride,” she whispered, as if she was narrating a fucking fairy tale.

“I’m not –”, Farley snapped but Nanny was already gone and Shade, right in front of her, blinked as he stabilized his footing, even as he had let go of one crutch.

“What was that?” he asked.

“She –” Farley gathered her bearing, helping him put weight off his weak side. She shook her head, taking Shade’s free hand. “She was delighted to test if you could tell us apart.”

“Hm.” He freed his hand and raised it, his fingers gliding, awfully slow, to her jaw, cupping it as if to inspect her to be sure. An excited shiver ran through her. “The face is flawless, now that you say…” He smirked and one long finger lifted her by the chin so her mind went through the times those fingers made her body sing. His face inched forward, neither closing the distance to a kiss, nor finishing his sentence.

She fixed his eyes in return and that was all they did for then, a pull that froze time.

She swallowed eventually and felt his fingers twitch in reply, his thumb stroking her jawline. She indulged to stay in the frozen moment, to sink into his amber eyes and drink the longing shining in them. “You can have me in whichever way you want,” she said.

His fingers twitched and he blinked. He didn’t retreat but time went on again.

She frowned, stepping back and glancing away, reaching for the dropped crutch. “Did you walk here?” she asked as she handed it to him.

“No, I …” Awkwardness had fallen between them and Farley regretted her advance. It had felt so true to her. In that moment, it was the one right thing she wanted to say. Was it wrong?

Shade pulled himself together, fixing his hold on the crutches. “I teleported. So I cheated, I guess, Jumped straight to you, rather than Nanny.”

Farley nodded, already moving away, back to her lists, preparations and schedules. And yet. “You couldn’t tell us apart by sight?”

He only smiled. It was a promise.

One duty pursued the next. When Farley wasn’t checking the notch and its inhabitants, she organized their training, looked for news on Maven’s movements and assaults, relocated people and ordered their resources. Another assignment loomed for the evening, Mare insisted on it. No one could talk her out of any of them, and what could Farley say? Gathering intel before striking was the only reasonable argument. She already had a hard time moving on from the people they failed to save. She understood Mare’s rush, knew how it was to prefer the fire of action over freezing hesitation – until it burned you.

The demand of their work began to sizzle, she realized even as she went through several lists at the same time just checking their food supplies before the operation. She needed the mundane distraction of it. The sight of that dead baby … it had hit Mare more than anything else in the last weeks. When they’ found it. Afterwards, Mare had returned to steel. That shocked Farley. That moment, Farley’s battle mind was still on as she urged Mare to escape. Only later, the memory made her sick as it ate through her, mixing with her own worries. To witness Mare do the opposite was unsettling.

Farley could be distantly pragmatic in the heat of adrenaline and necessity, and she’d repeated the drill countless times in the last 5 years – ignoring her heart. And her heart, horrifyingly, wondered what would be if she saw her own family slaughtered again. Her own child, that might not exist. She couldn’t even start to imagine. Wouldn’t she be better off without? Yet she found no relief in discovering to be mistaken, only plummeting loneliness.

Meanwhile, Mare moved on, striding into mission after mission like it was the sole thing to do. Maybe it was. Didn’t Farley do the same, filling every minute with work –

“I can take it from here.”

Farley’s head spun to Ada, joining her in the food stash. “I have my system.”

Ada chuckled, taking her by the shoulders. “Yes, I’ve figured it out.”

“You … of course you did.” Farley shook her head. Ada resembled Shade, in the way she glided through their unjust world proudly, with a powerful secret. And Ada was smarter than everyone else, too. She had these perfect manners that flustered Mare, Shade and Kilorn sometimes, but not Farley. Ada’s formality paired with her skills made her the queenliest person Farley could imagine.

She sighed, putting down her pen and papers. “You don’t need to double check.”

Ada merely smiled. “No need to double check,” she agreed, brushing Farley’s arm. “But about the Blackrun …”

“Yes, the Blackrun.” Farley rolled her eyes. “Good I didn’t plan for a break.”

“Glad to share work with you, Captain,” Ada said in goodbye.

A queen indeed, commanding and delegating.

Since the operation was already scheduled, Mare didn’t hound her to argue for it. It was a poor relief, aware that Mare had her expectations anyway. Maybe she was training instead, improving what she and Cal and the other newbloods developed as combo attacks, a thrilling advantage against silvers. Meanwhile, Farley was backup, in this case inspecting the Blackrun for water, armour, weapons, clothes, first-aid-kits, maps, cleaning – with the plane newly daily in use, someone had to take care of this. Just get this done and she could have an early meal and catch a nap. Securing the last first-aid-kit, she stepped on the ramp when a gush tickled her neck.

She spun to find Shade, reclined on a seat, legs stretched out.

He looked up to her, both wired and exhausted. “You have a moment?”

She breathed out. “For you, of course.”

He pointed to his injured leg. “I tried to convince Mare to take me along tonight but she refused.”

“And I should check if you’re healed enough to prove her wrong?”

He shrugged. “Please.”

With a tsk, she retrieved the first-aid-kit and crouched in front of him. The thing was so necessary it was already back in use. “I’m not sure who’s more protective of the other,” she muttered as she delicately undressed his foot, bending it slightly in all directions.

“And where do you fit in?” he asked. His fingers tapped on his knee.

“Being objective, I hope. So Mare believes me and you listen.”

“Oh no, you never tease me at all, don’t you?” he taunted.

Her head jerked up from removing his bandages. “What?” Of course she did, joking with him, but obviously so. She was as honest as she could … dare.

“You totally flustered me before, you know, don’t you?” Shade said.

She swallowed. “I …”

“Saying things like that ... what was that supposed to mean? What do you expect me to do?” He was genuinely upset and yet – it felt like rejection. She had meant it, baring her heart. But what each of them understood was another matter.

She continued her examination, testing his bare ankle now. He winced. “I’m … sor – sad to have confused you.” She held on to his ankle, drawing circles on his skin. She had spoken true, and now had to search for other words. She wasn’t sorry, didn’t want to apologize.

She looked up. “I don’t expect anything of you, that’s what I meant. I’d be … glad to hear your wishes. Try them out.” Back to bandaging, she gathered the supports he needed and started rewrapping.

He grunted. “That’s not what I got. I thought, ‘what could she want, this gorgeous older woman? What could she know that I have no idea of? Have I not been enough?’”

“Shade.” Even as she raised her head, she was flushing hot. Could he really have understood the opposite?

His fingers stopped their drumming, reaching for her hand on his leg. “You must have an idea of how impressive you are. Tall, beautiful, strong, a soldier brave and cunning.” He grimaced. “Scary. And experienced.” Meeting her eyes, he froze – and swallowed. “I mean, I didn’t know if you’d even notice me … as a flirt. And you didn’t, for long. I thought you must have lovers in the Scarlet Guard, most of all –”, he took a breath. “You’re so… stunning. How would I compare?”

Listening with growing surprise, she squeezed his hand to end his ramblings. “But I’m not. Experienced. Not in that way.” His eyes widened and she leaned back, crossing her arms. “Yet, aren’t you? From what Mare and Kilorn say?”

“Um.”

“Are they wrong?” She pinned him with a glare. It was uncomfortable and they had to get through this. Be honest, righting misassumptions.

Finally, he breathed out. “I’ve flirted. Kissing. Hookups. Pining. A boyfriend when I was 16. But nothing … out of the ordinary.” His face burned as much as hers. “And you … you were a long chase.” He smiled.

Softened, she inclined her head. “Because I need to. To be … chased.” She let the word hang on her tongue, testing it.

It was accurate enough.

“I’ve admired my girlfriend Giselle for 4 years before I realized I was in love with her. Even longer before we became a couple. After we broke up …” Death. Homelessness. Loss. The Cause. “I focused on the Guard for 4 years. I didn’t want anyone, even when I had sex two times.”

She’d engaged when her comrades celebrated, reciprocated flirting, even kisses at times, and when her arousal aligned with the occasion, she had taken to bed a woman, a man. And yet, despite those seconds of pleasure, she’d registered no desire for her partner, no lasting wish to be with any person, to do it again. She came to conclude her arousal showed as a physical need, a bodily function in line with her cycle she would better take care of herself, like hunger or thirst.

Only Shade had left her divided, confusing her heart so she assumed it a liar. She used to know the truth: Live for the fight.

“In several years,” Farley said, “I’ve only desired to be with you, to touch you, stay with you, wishing for more. You were a risk I had to figure out. And you waited for me as I took time, didn’t let go when I needed a tether. You took me as a I am and yet you changed me, so I wanted to gamble. You challenge me, all the time, and I want you to keep doing it. In every way.” Their eyes fixed on each other, piercing so hard Shade blushed deeply with the insinuation.

He bent forward and touched her shoulder. “But if you don’t like it?”

She snorted, relaxing her posture. “I suppose scary me will say no then. Or if you’re not good at it,” she added quietly.

That took him aback. “And that’s what I meant! Would I meet your expectations? Get close to you when you’re already close with so many others? Was I to your taste? I noticed you liked me, but in what way? Was I a fool to you? You were so easy with Tristan, so naturally physical I thought you must have been a couple forever. How could I ever be what he already was to you? I wondered how I compared to him every time he talked to me. I didn’t have his muscles, am smaller, thinner, can’t carry you or lift you against a wall – why are you looking like that?!”

She had failed to avoid an aghast expression, causing Shade’s suspicion. With a sigh, she reached for his hand yet needed to gather herself before meeting his eyes, “We’re being true today, aren’t we?” she said. “I’ve been with someone else once, but … also with Tristan.”

Shade looked like he’d been stabbed, to her embarrassment. He’d been right with his worries but also … not. “Like, for an hour, and didn’t care to repeat it, ever again.”

It hardly helped, his shock was too great. He must not have expected to have been right. “You and him …” Shade shook his head. “You were so easy-going, trusting, touching all the time …”

Farley sat up, cupping his cheek. “Because there was no desire between us. We … tried, and didn’t want that. We moved beyond it. If we could do that, part ways and still work together …”

“Do that …” Shade repeated and she didn’t like to think about the pictures in his head now. Her hand brushed his skin, and she added her other to play with his soft, ever-growing hair.

“Have you not listened?” she whispered, and pulled more sweet nothings from thin air. "You're so handsome, your sight gets me through the day, until I can't bear any minute I'm not touching you ..." Her words, her touch, sharing breaths, she put all in to dissemble his jealousy until he recovered, clasping her wrists and finally realizing how near she was, close enough to kiss. He almost did, leaning back at the last moment. “I get it,” he whipered.

Their foreheads touched, even as a shiver ran through him and he cleared his throat. “All this about a dead man,” he muttered.

That erased the foolishness of the moment. Farley held on to him tighter, grounded again on the Blackrun’s floor, waiting for a mission to start, with him, injured.

“Can’t have you end like that as well,” she murmured.

“So you finally promise to not get me killed?” he replied, breaking away to find her gaze.

Her cheek twitched. “Well, in this case, I can’t let you join today,” she said. “You still wince from your aches with every move and your ankle should rest another day or three.”

He groaned, his posture slumping. “If you, Mare and the rest look after yourselves.”

She shifted, fingers combing through his hair to cup the back of his head. Now he glanced up to her. “You don’t look enough after yourself. Almost like I can’t leave you alone.”

With a self-deprecating smile, he closed his eyes. “But you can’t say I’m a terrible soldier in every way.” His eyes opening, he added, “I’d ask for something to look forward to, but this wrecked” – he grimaced – “I’m not sure what I can offer.”

She sucked in a breath at his tease. “Your mouth will do,” and while she blushed, he giggled at the – unintended – double-meaning.

Fingers traced her face again. “In every way, you said,” he said, considering. “I’ll tell you an idea, for the time being.” Gliding off the seat, he sank to his knees and embraced her waist.

“In May, on your birthday, when lilac and wisteria bloom, I will find you, lured by the violets in your eyes, into a porch under the flowers whose shadows throw intricate patterns on your skin, tangled with your curls. I’ll kiss you, on the cheek, and trace the blossoms’ shadows down your neck, your breasts, your legs, your belly and – enveloped in their scent – I will taste what’s sweeter: the bloom or the flowers between your thighs.

“Do you like that?”

She’d forgotten everything but his voice and the images he created, despite the stress she’d felt this day, no, the last weeks. When she regained words, she answered, “It’s enough for now.” What a dream that was, to think of seven months from now. That was as good as forever but time and space left as they kissed. She wished he’d always chase her like this.

A/N 2: I’ve wanted to explore Farley being demi for a while since I do think it fitting her yet I was also irked that the label would mark her as a widowed mother who should stay chaste, faithful and single forevermore. I’ve written other stories where she doesn’t do that so it appears balanced to me telling it this way, just adding another angle to her. Writing this for her birthday, I’ve listened about 800 times to my number one Fade song, Lacey Sturm’s “Faith”, for inspiration, and heavily referenced it in the story. It still hits me. I love these two so much.

@nortaeventcouncil @lilyharvord @mareshmallow @lucy-the-cat @justagirlwholovesstories @averyboterham @imsorryistilllovemaven @groysinjapan @eliimaii @readytolearnmore @maudthebookeater @petergrantkavinsky @freaky-freiday

#red queen #victoria aveyard #red queen fanfiction #red queen fan fiction #shade x farley #diana farley #shade barrow #fade #red queen one shots #regina writes #a promise under flowers #glass sword #maven calore #cal calore #mare barrow

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elane-in-the-shadows · 1 year ago

Text

February 2nd - Happy Birthday, Shade Barrow!!

A/N 1: The deeper I thought about writing more Imagine Shade Was Still Alive stories, I realized I had to confront a certain aspect that soon revolved a specific image (guess which). This alternate concept takes place roundabout the King’s Cage chapters 16/17 (stress on alternate – I picked a date here but I can only assume when exactly it was in KC so the changes make it happen right then 😉).

Now in full length here on tumblr!!

Find this on Wattpad

Hidden Intentions

This door posed no resistance. Voices drifted through and became louder as Shade jumped inside, cleaving to the corner of the room as he counted three persons sitting on a bed crammed into an office. “… You’re sure this works? It’s not too demanding?” “It was your idea to ask, I just saw to it!” A helpless laugh escaped her throat and Shade startled as he recognized his sister. Before her brown eyes found him, the third touched her hand, winning her attention. “I’ve checked the supplies myself, we can do it,” the third, Cameron, agreed. She smiled at his sister who, despite smiling back, looked up just enough to notice him. Their gazes locked, freezing them both yet likely for very different reasons.

Shade sank into her eyes, wanted to. To see her safe, to see her at all, and, for the fragment of a heartbeat, to imagine Gisa’s eyes, so similar, were those of Mare who had been a hostage for three months now. “What are you doing here …?” Gisa whispered and truth be told, he could’ve asked her the same. But no one replied as Gisa started to giggle like a fool, a habit that felt so awfully normal like home that it hurt. Everyone was blushing as his entry became obvious to the other two, also the first speaker, who finally turned her head over her shoulder, not the least bit surprised to see him. “That’s inaccurate,” Diana said. “The real question is, what took him so long?” She smirked at him yet despite her amused tone, worry showed in her frown that Gisa and Cameron couldn’t see from this angle. An angle, he couldn’t help noticing, becoming her marvellously with the way her chin-long curls framed her cheek. No, he wasn’t beyond being left speechless by her beauty when she glowed like this. He had no idea how long the awkward silence lasted until he snapped out of it and stepped over, resting his hand on Diana’s shoulder before she rose and went to him. After quickly exchanging glances, strangely nervous, Cameron and Gisa jumped up, shoving together the papers on the bed. Diana slammed shut the folder and Gisa hugged him. “I’m glad to see you”, he told her quietly although he still didn’t know what she did here in the Rocasta base, so near to military operations. “So am I,” Gisa replied, released him and left, taking Cameron by the hand. “What was going on here?” he asked as he dropped behind Diana on the bed, unstrapping his boots. “Classified information,” she answered but he heard – she couldn’t hide it from her tone, he knew her well enough now – that she wasn’t all business. He snorted, done with the shoes, and inched closer until their legs met and his chest was to her back. She sighed, but his digging she must’ve expected didn’t come. Indeed, he didn’t care, not right now. What he wanted was just this, leaning on her, his face on her neck breathing in her scent. His arms embraced her from behind, hands resting on her six-months-belly. An instance of grounding, only strengthened by the tiniest flutter he could feel of their baby. He longed to forget his shame by holding his world in his arms. This part at least. Diana weaved his fingers with his, her posture shifting ever so slightly until he couldn’t say who leaned on who. “I really wondered what took you so long, you were expected back half a day earlier,” she said eventually. He hmphed. “Not unusually late.” “You’re so quiet.” “Classified information,” he murmured. She stirred while he hugged her closer. “Maybe better this way,” she said. She must be rolling her eyes. “That I don’t give you orders anymore.” But her pulse was quickening against his cheek. He’d been sent on missions she wasn’t responsible for, true, and it left her scared for him despite everything. He understood that well enough, his own worry for her currently quelled knowing she held back due to her pregnancy. Still, her reaction flustered him when, ironically, she was wrong in this specific case. “You needn’t have worried, Dee,” he said, and she released a relieved breath, likely thinking of a relatively harmless operation. Well, it had been, and he yearned to leave it at that, to stay a few minutes longer in this intimate cocoon. He doubted he had the right to make a wish right now, when he’d already chosen safety. Just one more second, one kiss on the bare part of her shoulder, and he broke the embrace, sinking on the floor to his knees to face her. He met her eyes, then lowered his gaze, gathering himself once more. His fingers playing with a loose curl of hers. Looking up, he confessed. “I strayed from orders.” She raised her eyebrows. “Now that’s nothing new but it doesn’t sound – ” “Safe? It was completely, utterly reckless. I could only hope not to be too stupid. “Because I aimed to free Mare.”

The Scarlet Guard used Shade as backup for escapes sparingly, regarding the limits to people he could bring with him. When he wasn’t assisting in the taking of Corvium, his new handler Blake sent him on reconnaissance missions. Shade kept waiting for assassination orders though they never came – so far. Due to his ability, it tended to be spotty work, often including theft and sabotage rather than infiltration. Between jobs, that left him chances to see Diana who planned altogether different operations. Growing enmeshed with Command as she was, who knew how far she was aware how he was tied into the greater picture. Unlike during their first cooperations, Diana appeared fine with it now, him under another’s orders. He felt less so and as Blake had Shade follow the front movements and searching Corvium for weak spots, he’d been itching to approach the royal progress. It happened that he was to visit the same locations – afterwards, to listen for whispers of treason against King Maven. Bitterness filled Shade as he was close but carefully kept away from Mare, who was always on the screens beside her captor. Shade had believed it reasonable. He’d seen the brutal results of Nanny’s infiltration. He’d stayed behind during the failed pro-Cal coup. But while the banished prince was reined in, he’d helped the Guard win Corvium, cheered with them as Cameron’s brother Morrey was freed even as everyone chewed at still seeing Mare as the king’s trophy and mouthpiece. When he received the orders three days ago, Shade had had enough of waiting and playing safe. He had this ability that had proved so useful, had saved his loved ones’ lives so many times, he had a duty to Mare to at least try. Would she not expect him to try? He would grind his teeth no longer and enter the royal party. The opportunity sounded almost a ploy, find out who the king was meeting at the Choke, implying that Shade would evade Maven and come from the other side. This time, he picked the confrontation.

“I’ve learned to master standing around silver residences without notice. Even before I stole a sentinel uniform, no one took issue with me. It was almost too easy, eavesdropping for the official mission in the meantime. I only had to teleport when no one would wonder at sudden appear – or disappearances. Everyone knew where the royal party was staying, and this residence had little difference to others, and they love to gossip about Mare. It hurt to hear, but I needn’t care when I’d succeed, right?

“Security increased the closer I got but I still came through in the disguise. And then I knew. I didn’t see the door, I felt it. The wall of silence beyond the door.

“I was hit by it just by starting to teleport. I never … It happens in a blink, usually. There, I noted how every bit of me would materialize and I wasn’t sure if I’d be just slow or appear in bits. What I knew was that it was impossible to bring Mare with me. She’s shackled in silent stone! No idea how they manage it. How she endures. I …” But he had no words for the thought. It expressed itself as a sob he tried to swallow.

Diana never let go of his hand as he told her – his dominant left clasped by both of hers. It didn’t help either of them to keep from shaking.

“I just stopped. Stood there, about to get caught after all, calculating if there wasn’t a way, any way.” He shook his head.

Diana’s hold grew tighter. “You were alone. You couldn’t have expected …”

Shade faced her and she must’ve grasped his meaning in his eyes as she startled. She still didn’t let go, like a buoy. He straightened. “So I left. Ran away. Jumped out of their base and barely hid my disguise on my way back here.”

She shifted closer, face inches above his. “It’s as you should’ve done. Shade. The only thing you could.” She swallowed. “You gathered intel and retreated before you were trapped and arrested. To know how Mare is kept –”

He pulled his hand away. “Don’t talk about this like such an officer.” She blinked. “I know that. I’ve tried to explain it to myself the whole last day. And I haven’t felt a drop less guilty for it.”

“You …” Diana moved to hug him and he prevented her by cupping her cheeks.

This moment, he needed his gaze to hold on to her eyes. “I didn’t think practical,” he whispered. “I went, selfishly, out of desire, and ended it for it as well. It was pure need to survive. For you. I couldn’t bear the risk of not coming back to you, leaving our child behind. Not even for Mare.”

Diana slid off the bed, hugging him as she sank to sit on his knees. A sob escaped his throat.

“There was no chance,” she reminded him.

He closed his eyes, resting his head in her chest. “You said you wouldn’t pick – us or the cause. You say you’ll do both, both is important. With only one absolute – keep our baby alive. But I did. Choose. I picked us over Mare.” Tears wetted her sweater. “It’s my shame and yet I don’t regret it.”

Her hands rubbed his back, through his hair. “We’ll do better. I promise you, we’ll do better and free her.”

Her words were a lifeline, a tether that did little to diminish the raging waves of his heartbeat. “You hate promises,” he said.

Diana snorted faintly. “I’ve kept working on it.” She kissed his temple. “You don’t know all progress we make. Mare is fighting, and we’ll come from the other front.”

He woke to the smell of coffee. Its vitalizing odour filled his nose, steam warming his face as he opened his eyes.

Diana smiled at him, already unfairly groomed. She stroked his arm. “A drink to get you up, but breakfast waits in the mess hall.” The corners of her mouth dropped. “Did you even eat last evening?”

Shade struggled to find his limbs to rose and sip the coffee. They’d stayed cuddled last night, barely managing to undress before he fell asleep. He shook his head, exhaustion clinging to every part of his body, eyes sore from crying. Tentatively, he tested the first swallows of the brew. “I had a bite. When I was debriefed.”

Diana patted his leg. “You still had something to report?”

“Enough. The ones around ... well, they know enough.”

She narrowed her eyes. “What?”

He downed the rest of the mug. “I thought we professionals keep quiet?” He made light of it but no grin entered his face. “What’s the plan for today?”

She sat down next to him and put an arm around his waist, looking at him inquiringly. “Work out. A meeting. Supply chain check, finances, the usual. But fresh up first, then breakfast.”

They held hands on the way to the mess hall and after a shower, Shade felt almost alive. Yet he was glad of Diana’s pampering and idle conversation.

“Gisa has applied to the guard a while ago, with your brothers,” she explained when he asked. “Only the support we task minors with and … it was chance she was called to Rocasta while we are here, too. Yes.”

“Hm. I don’t like it still. Can’t you make an exception and put in a word about what she does?”

Diana drew in a breath.

He sighed. “Okay, okay, spare me the lecture.”

“A bit protective, are we?”

He squeezed her hand, glancing at her. “Increasingly.”

She bumped his shoulder. “She gets along with Cameron really well. They met before we’ve freed Cameron’s brother and they feel similarly, apparently. Being the same age and with a sibling as hostage.”

“Just ‘feeling similarly’?” he teased.

She grinned. Maybe more than that.”

“I really didn’t notice.” He shook his head. “I overlooked her, with all other things.”

“We have a lot to shoulder.” Having reached the mess hall, she turned to him. Her other hand splayed on her belly, the first time since he returned. She must’ve refrained to absent-minded touches until now, to focus on him. That was hard for her, he knew. She already loved the baby so much, the mere anticipation shaped her into a new, lighter-hearted person, a hidden aspect of her he hadn’t been aware of.

Himself, he wasn’t so sure. Her excitement carried him along, his love for her had him follow her everywhere. The thought of letting her down pained him. He didn’t know what to expect while he also couldn’t wait to meet their child and he felt an undeniable duty to them, yet the shape of this duty remained beyond his grasp.

“Don’t you want to go in?” he said, glancing to the mess hall.

Again, she looked at him in this strange way of this morning and sighed. “Are you ... ready for the world?”

He cackled, clasping the door handle. “What else is there?” He stepped over the threshold, even as Diana stood still for an eyeblink.

“Wait –”

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SHADE!!”

He stumbled at the loud cheer, his hand going to his heart in exasperation. He almost fell against Diana who’d sidled close again. Gladly, he leaned against her as he calmed himself, assessing the congregation.

The party.

Everyone was there, or so it seemed at least. Gisa, Cameron and her brother Morrey, his brothers – even his parents! People he knew from the Notch and other comrades he’d recently worked with. Some weren’t there, of course, like Kilorn and Cal, but he saw Sara and Julian and even Diana’s father, skulking around … that dick. Maybe Diana was gracious he tried but Shade couldn’t stand the way the colonel was so clearly uncomfortable behaving like, well, family, and Shade hated how that had hurt Diana over the years and she didn’t dare addressing that openly.

Diana clutched his arm, whispering into his ear. “I’m sorry, I decided to tell you just a moment too late …” He nodded, helplessly. “I thought you were aware, of the date, and just didn’t make a big thing of it …”

His disbelieving gaze wandered from the assembly to the filled tables, back to Diana.

“I …” Indeed, he had been aware of his birthday on February 2nd, not expecting anything of it. He wasn’t certain Diana would remember the timing or prepare anything, regarding the one or two times they’d mentioned birthdays … but it was him who’d forgotten about what day it was entirely the moment he’d stood before Mare’s gilded prison door and panicked.

He was relieved Cal wasn’t there, right now. To look at him, after what Shade and attempted and failed at, knowing that Cal wanted the same – he needed time to process that.

Shade straightened, borrowing posture from the steel in Diana’s eyes. Then he cupped her face and kissed her, hard.

The others clapped.

Letting go, swallowing a laugh caused by the silly clapping, he cleared his throat and spread his arms, doing his best of playing the role of the stunned and grateful birthday kid.

Glossing over them staring at him expectantly for likely minutes now. “What have you bleeding done here!” he exclaimed. “Thank you so much!” Already, they rushed to hug or shake hands to congratulate him and he swam into the flood. It was easy to do, go with the flow to drown the shame he’d arrived in. Shade excelled at pretending and blending in and today, they deserved a happy reaction. And he wanted to, to enjoy friends, family, and comrades. They had gathered here, bringing and preparing all that wonderful food he just about realized he was starving for.

The mess hall looked like a silver bakery in Harbor Bay, tables laden various warm breads, all different shapes, sizes and toppings, a spread of meat and cheese slices, eggs, cakes and puddings. The first bite of dark bread with grated carrots, still soft, fresh from the oven, warmed his entire self. The guests recommended snacks and he followed the advice gladly. Cakes fluffy like clouds, excitingly crunchy or tasteful compounds of nuts and fruits, he took every bite as he fell into the chatter and remembered they’d all come despite knowing Mare wasn’t there.

Could they not celebrate despite her captivity?

Could Shade deny them this?

His father, the last one he’d expected to meet here, told him how Sara was looking at replacing his leg and improving his lungs and Shade didn’t want to stop embracing him as his father commented on the frontlines.

Bree teased him that he’d barely escaped becoming a teen dad, now that he was twenty, and Tramy embellished an adventure about procuring the food and preventing a disaster when making the cakes with Gisa, Cameron and Morrey. It sounded so similar to chaotic past birthdays, at home, in the Stilts, where one midnight after the party, Shade asked Kilorn to practise kissing as a present and Kilorn complied.

Julian tapped his shoulder and offered him fried apple rings in dough, and, self-deprecating as Julian could be, confessed he put in extra efforts because it was his birthday, too, and they shared hilarious mirrored congratulations.

The colonel told him his first name was Willis and Shade made himself say it.

The talking and feasting went on until his mouth strained and, looking for his mother, he finally found Diana again, sitting next to her. His mother, smiling like the sun, hugged him tight and yet it was she alone who openly bore that heavy sadness in her eyes that Shade was only hiding. He didn’t have to pretend with her. Yet she also understood the meaning of celebrating right now.

In the end, as the congregation shushed them away to clean up, Diana rose and cupped his cheek. “Do you forgive me?” she asked.

He blinked. “Didn’t I show you?” he countered, and kissed her again, softer but longer. Their brows rested against each other. Both of them the same height – with Diana slightly taller –, it felt so clear how equally matched they were and with the arms around each other, they started to sway as if there were music to dance to.

“The next time – ,” he began, “ – when is your birthday again?”

Diana groaned, chewing her lip. “In May … you know, the due date …”

He grinned. “You’re still embarrassed about that?”

She gasped, slapping his chest. “You remembered all along!”

He grabbed that hand that bumped him, rising it to his lips to kiss. “No one knows if it’ll be the same day for real, calm down.” His smile faded. “But I want one thing to be certain.” She found his eyes, questioningly. “To have Mare at the next party.”

“She will be,” Diana confirmed once more but apparently less convinced than last night.

Shade nodded, his gaze striving away. Maybe they didn’t need assurance, and hope had to be enough.

After today, he thought he could start with that.

A/N 2: CAMISA SHOULD’VE HAPPENED

For a long time, I was a bit uninspired for Shade’s birthday post this year until I had an idea this Sunday morning. It’s weird, it feels like I teleported into Fadeland since I have created this in five days after I spent almost eight joyful months in Fadeland last time, happily procrastinating! ^^° I will continue the Shade/Farley birthday posts at least until next year for the 10 year Red Queen jubilee.

However, I have to apologize:

For excluding Cal, I’m so sorry for those who hoped for him but just considering to include him in the party is so awkward. Having Shade look into his Cal’s puppy eyes wishing his brother(-in-law) happy birthday while he must be thinking about how everyone chided Cal for impulsively making Mare a priority in risky operations with Shade then doing the same to utterly fail and be comforted by his very present pregnant girlfriend – the party would’ve crashed right then (or Shade would’ve filled his mouth with food and just replied with a “hm, thanks”). But Shade will confess this to him later on and they’ll have a deep bonding talk about Mare and love and siblings!

For the off-handed mention of Shade kissing Kilorn – I’ve considered both Farley and Shade as bi for years but never grasped the chance to state this for Shade (maybe in my Calorn AU, a little) and thought today, now or never, even though it became just a tiny bit. I hope to do better in future, should not another writing block or technical problem happen.

My inner bread snob jumped out, sorry not sorry. I thought about how often characters – usually girls – can describe delicious food in books only to not eat it in the end and while it’s a man here, I wanted to say fuck that, go binge

They’re so angstily dramatic

I hope you enjoyed, and once again:

CAMISA SHOULD’VE HAPPENED

@elliemarchetti @lilyharvord @mareshmallow @maudthebookeater @justagirlwholovesstories @freaky-freiday @evangeline-of-montfort @hannaharies @nortaeventcouncil

#red queen fan fiction #red queen #red queen fanfiction #victoria aveyard #shade barrow #diana farley #shade x farley #imagine shade was still alive #red queen one shots #happy birthday #hidden intentions #link #camisa #angst meets fluff #hurt/comfort

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elane-in-the-shadows · 1 year ago

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Hahaha so I waxed poetic about how much I LOVED writing last year and then never posted again - it was because of a technical problem that axed my opportunities and inspiration and then my Ghost obsession replaced and swallowed half my mind okay it was fun - anyway the problem is solved (hopefully staying that way) and the Fade love resurfaced like a season and something's coming tomorrow

#regina writes #personal #still fangirling ghost af though papa emeritus is so hot #fade #don't know if i come back to the eve story that popped up at the same time as the problem sigh

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elane-in-the-shadows · 2 years ago

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Red Queen Fan Fiction - Off-Duty

February 2nd - Happy Birthday, Shade Barrow

A/N: This year, not fun edit-making but the finalization of the fic of pure self indulgence I laboured in love for 7 months. It was a marvellous joy, based on two old shit posts of mine (x y) I now offer to share to celebrate Shade’s birthday. (How much I enjoyed this, seven years after Glass Sword, shows me how much this character and couple still mean to me. Maybe I can believe in lasting love after all. For them.)

5504 words, it is long

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Off-Duty

The rain pounded a rhythm on the makeshift balcony roof both irritating and comfortable. The first because of its dissonance with the ball’s music wafting up, the latter as the sound was certainly more homely than the howls of the storm ruling the skies of the Monfort capital for the last days. It was its own kind of uplifting, despite the wetness and still dark horizon, that Shade gave up keeping Clara indoors and set up their picnic on the balcony. The light at least was shining in a warm red from the gathered night lights beside them, reflecting the colour of the rain protection foils above. To keep them dry, Shade had scavenged umbrellas, wires and canvas and fumbled them into the resemblance of a roof through some risky ledge gymnastics relying on his teleporting ability to save him in case of falling. He hoped the same ability made him fast enough to grab Clara should her constant, curious skygazing lead her to lean too far over the ledge. In fact, he didn’t trust on teleporting alone when it came to her, as he was too nervous to leave her out of his sight for a second too long and eat in peace.

He tried to lure her away with some of the food he’d sacked from the snack buffet for the party downstairs in the palace. Though Clara did turn around, she ignored the orange-glazed yeast cake he held out in favour of a tiny rice and vegetable bowl. Shade exhaled with relief, but Clara seemed barely so. When he offered the rice pudding with cherries next, she shook her head. “For Mama,” she said. “Sure,” he replied with a forced smile. Clara could be more perceptive than he expected at her two and a half years. Did she understand Diana was missing her own party? Or had he been too exact about her anticipated return from the Lakelands? It wasn’t officially “her” party, more an annual ball to remember the fallen and the veterans, but in Davidson’s circle, it was known that General Farley was to meet with representatives from Prairie who finally showed the start of an interest in brokering an alliance – with Monfort and the Scarlet Guard, no less. Diana wasn’t the usual choice for diplomacy though given Ella’s advice, the warlord from Prairie would rather be convinced by a brusque military leader. More so if she brought as a negotiating feature intelligence on the latest lakelander movements. As she’d been engaged in them. Or still was. As of, right now. Shade bit off some spicy bread with a slice of smoked ham. He supposed he would’ve heard of it if things had gone that wrong and Diana’s unit was still tied in battle. But if the situation was that dire, anything could’ve happened and with the communication cut off. No wonder Clara stared at the sky as if she could see the light of the plane returning her mother. He couldn’t wait for it, either. Diana had been set to be back two days ago. Leaving them three whole days of family life before his own mission to Ciron loomed and whose preparations he felt less and less inclined to proceed with. While Mare was with Cal in Piedmont and Kilorn and his brothers in Norta, Shade had been recommended to scout in the western country for possible allies, ideally to initiate first contacts together with other high-profile spies he barely knew. The opposite to quality time with his longed-for beloved and their daughter couldn’t be harsher when the lack of contact also made him worry - if not freaking out - about the well-being of the rest of his family. He felt terribly egoistic and also almost unashamed of it. He was fed up. It broke his heart enough to see Clara staring after a glimpse of her mother, how could he abandon her now, without Diana to relieve him? As if it could be called relieve, like a battle strategy, but it was the plan the two of them had come up with: Just one of them would be engaged in operations at one time, and this had lasted for almost two years now. Only Shade doubted the system more and more. He hardly wanted to leave Clara out of his reach and miss her growing each day. He’d also wanted to welcome Diana, had dreamed of her skin, her smell, her voice. The way she only smiled at Clara. Yesterday should’ve been theirs and this pitiful picnic should’ve included her. In the sunshine. Climbing the hills as if on a vacation, to forget the dangers they were in or just escaped even though she would’ve questioned him about his mission in her way to see him off safe. Thanks to the storm, any part of this became impossible and Clara’s glare at the cloud didn’t lessen in concentration. If she could, she’d challenge the weather itself. Shade risked a second to dip a pig-shaped cake in caramelized milk and devour it in one go before trying to offer another to Clara. This time, she took it, dipping it absentmindedly, yet on the way to her mouth, she let it drop. “There!” she pointed, jumping up. Shade was too startled to think and, still struggling to swallow the food, simply reached for Clara. She grinned, pointing again. But he didn’t see, too relieved to have Clara secure against his chest. Then he heard the aircraft approaching the palace. When he grasped its meaning, his grin mirrored Clara’s. The storm drove rain in his face before Shade was fully materialized, and the ground swayed beneath his feet. The truth about teleporting was that the dizziness never went away, not even for a teleporter himself. The irritations and imbalances coming with contradicting the corporeal world had to be fought with resilience, willpower, and focus, whether you were sneaking behind an enemy or escaping them. Now, though, he was grounded by Clara on his shoulder and before him – Her eyes, bright despite the dark, finding them immediately – The surety of her gait, approaching – Her smile, growing clearer and broader with every step – She was a woman in parts, and he longed to have her whole in his arms, and so he strode to her – until Clara heaved and then he stumbled for real, glancing at his daughter, trying to shift or steadying her. But to no avail, as she puked all over his chest and he was thrown out of his dreamy desires and stood there, frozen and dumbfounded. He jerked his head to the sound of a snort and there she was, Diana standing right before him. “Come here, dove,” she said, taking Clara from Shade and already comforting and cleaning her with her scarf, as efficient as ever. “Mama,” cried Clara, and Diana was quick to answer with soothing phrases. He searched her eyes darting between Clara and him and around and when their gazes locked, he found her glance full of joy and amusement as she bit her lips to keep from laughing. “Well, Dee,” he said finally, “the ball’s food we ate was better than it seems right now.” “Was it?” she asked, smirking, and reached out to caress his cheek with her thumb. It sent a shiver over his whole body. He hoped there wasn’t vomit on his face, too, and he cursed the rain for interfering with the intensity of her touch. He wanted to take her hand and pull her close, despite it all, because who gave a shit, but then her hand was back to hold Clara whose temple she kissed while he was still full of sick. He decided he didn’t care after all and shook off his freeze, just when Diana changed direction. “Ah, there’s Grandma, dove, let’s greet her and Grandpa,” she said as she walked ahead where, indeed, Shade’s parents approached, supposed to have Clara while he and Diana attended the ball. Diana looked over her shoulder. “So we all have to get changed,” she said to him. Winking. “I bring Clara to Ruth and Daniel and we meet upstairs, okay?”

“Bye, Papa,” Clara said. “Okay, bye,” he replied with a sigh filled with deprivation as he crossed his arms – wet and dirty. He’d make do with a shower for now.

He'd hurried cleaning up in the shared bathroom but long hair had its demands, especially in case of an event. With his long hair just dried and out of its bun for the ball, Shade found Diana in their apartment, mistreating a dress uniform in front of a mirror. At the second of his entry, she glanced at him, currently forgetting her battle but revealing the sum of the mess frontally. She couldn’t stop fidgeting with the clothes just for a second, always dragging the sleeves this way or that. The uneven buttoning revealed her bare throat down to her skimpy undershirt, making her look as unstyled as Cal in his workshop clothes and the medals she tried to pin were all over her chest, but not in a becoming pattern. He burst out laughing, in revanche, louder and freer than Diana earlier without a sick Clara in vicinity. Diana flushed, increasing her visible contempt for the outfit. “I suspect medals are really meant for punishment if they come with this horrible dress uniform.” Shade wiped his mouth, stepping closer to inspect the horror. As he touched the jacket where Diana had experimented with shifting the alignment of buttons and buttonholes, she sucked in a breath. He swallowed in turn, a shiver running over his arms. He felt the ghost of their missed welcoming hug. Now, as near as they hadn’t been for weeks, the yearning for reunion was overwhelming. As it was for cupping her breasts. Another swallow ended in a cough. “First of all, try a proper shirt, loose on the shoulder, not a tank top.” “But – “ “I’ll leave the top buttons open and fix your tie in a fancy knot. And the pins I can use to keep the collar from your throat.” Assessing her styling kept him cool. Even as her eyes bored into him. Eyes that should match her style. So he should look – He stepped back but Diana caught his hand. “Help me take it off.” “It is already more off than on,” he said with a snort, pulling away for good to search for the right shirt. Some women were okay with clothes fitted for most men but curvy and broad-shouldered Diana was not one of them. He did not glimpse at her. “I left Clara with your parents,” she called to his back, “as usual at these blasted events. Tsk. As if I wouldn’t rather stay with her right now … she fell asleep before I could barely talk to her.” He heard her walking around. A hand on his shoulder. “You're right,” she said, glimpsing over his shoulder and eating a dish of rice pudding. “The food is great. I hope your parents got some snacks, too.” "I'd be surprised if they didn't." He smirked. "Clara wanted to leave that rice pudding for you, you know", he told her. "Really?" Diana beamed. "She can be so sweet." "Or almost grown up." Diana sighed, the remark nagging at her for a few seconds. He felt for her hand and squeezed it. “Was she better, no more throwing up?” he asked. She shook her as she took the shirt. “It just exhausted her. Maybe she’s just like me, uncomfortable with teleporting.” The thought amused them both, even as they cosseted and worried about Clara the immediate moment. The daughter of a teleporter couldn’t stand the ability. Did that mean she didn’t have the ability herself? He sighed. Suddenly he strongly wished to hold Clara and solace her. Indeed, a blasted event upsetting the millions of things they could better do tonight. Least of all tracing the curves of Diana’s body beneath the formal attire as she changed. Instead, he could talk. Neutrally asking about her recent operation. How did her mission go? Diana seemed hale and whole enough but the relief at the first sight of her washed over him again as she confirmed it. So, what about the rest of her unit? What was left out of the reports, what would affect the negotiations to take place? Would there be repercussions, also on his mission – the very next day? Diana was dry in her replies even as she chattered along nonetheless, playing along if Shade wasn’t open to “taking off” her uniform. He knew they wouldn’t leave the room this night if he gave in to that. As he produced his own dress uniform from the closet and moved to put it on, he cursed at their deal simply cut for unpredictable schedules. He should refrain from his missions. The thought, once appeared, dropped like a stone. He couldn’t imagine abandoning his comrades-to-be on a whim. But he was unable to unthink it. To stand back and steal the time for their family to stay together appeared like a goal. He straightened his posture, the reflection of his prim, military outfit belying his true resolution. “That we should have to steal the time to be together,” he said aloud. She met his eyes, softly for once. “We do it for Clara.” At first, he said nothing as he returned to dressing Diana and paced around her. “Clara needs a lot of things,” he replied finally as he put her jacket back in place. “You've been great with her the last weeks,” Diana whispered as the jacket almost glided onto her with the silky and loose-fitting tunic beneath. It was her favourite pretty shirt, one she hardly had chances to wear. "She already misses you," she said, glancing for the corner of his eye rather than his reflection. As do I, she mouthed. Why don't you say that aloud? he wondered. Her eyes in the mirror sparkled with something unsaid. She felt for his arm and squeezed. “I’ll look after her first thing in the morning. Rise with the dawn, and all that.” “I know, I know, you never forget about the Guard,” Shade answered, though with a dose of humour. He could see before his eyes how Diana would spend the next day spoiling Clara while staying alert for new military developments. He’d rather see it for real than imagine it, though. As he stood behind her, both before a mirror, he stretched out her arms, settling inner and outer sleeves. The he felt for her front for the buttons, watching their reflections as his fingers went up, pressing against her belly. “You’re so nimble,” she whispered. Finished at the front, his hands glided along her arms to entwine their fingers. “You’d know,” he answered quietly into her ear and his lips were just about to kiss her neck when he froze in the act. From the corner of his eyes, he saw Diana’s disappointment flash in the mirror. “I won’t undo my work right when it’s complete,” he said and, without letting go of her hand, spun around as if in a dance. If Diana was still flustered, she didn’t show it but only a wicked, dazzling grin as she swayed along with him. “See, you can move in it,” he said. “More elegant than you claimed once.” She snorted in affront. “These dress-up things are an insult to those who fight in the field, with how little movement they offer.” He increased the pace of their dance. “I find it quite comfortable right now.” Despite her complaints, she went along with the faster, more complicated dance moves he started. “Well, obviously the uniforms have been designed with your body types in mind from the start, all lean and straight.” “Straight.” He tsked. “Only outwardly,” she clarified and initiated a new step. “In a more – most – desirable way,” she added under her breath. “Glad to hear you still find me beautiful.” “Hm. You should say that to me,” she countered before he twisted them around, one, two, three times, until he let go of the dance pose to cup her face. “Has the gorgeous General Diana Farley of the Scarlet Guard and mother of our child finally become vain?” he asked. Her eyes sparkled with amusement. “Just that I’d enjoy to hear it, as a general, mother and your …” she bit her lips. He blinked. “What?” She took his hands to remove them from her face and pull away, turning to the mirror to control whether her outfit had survived. Or to check how deeply red her cheeks were. “A miracle,” she muttered. “Of course you are.” She smiled at him. “When did you even learn that?” Did she really think this obvious shift of topic would work? “From Gisa, for a start. Had to serve as her mannequin and model and you know she had to work for silver tastes.” He rolled his eyes. “But yeah, she also said the basic styles are like designed for sticks like me.” “A beautiful stick.” She cackled. “But good she had other customers and body types now.” “Like you? Truly.” He bit his lips. “Though there were always stockier silvers, too,” he said absentmindedly, though he was already thinking about someone else. Diana noticed. She waited for him to continue, merely blinking once or twice. She was never so calm or patient with anyone else but Clara – or him. It encouraged him as he took to his time to consider his words. “It was before we met, when I was newly conscripted to the nortan army. As an aide, I had to manage an officer’s supply including his clothes. “He treated me like a butler at times. Missed the luxuries from home but didn’t have the chance to bring them. Including servants.” Diana winced. “You only told me he was an idiot before, though smart enough to hire you.” “Smart?” Shade grimaced. “Not so rewarding for him given where we got as he went lost.” “So is he? Lost?” Shade shrugged and Diana prodded further. “I know you’d check what became of him.” Shade glanced away and quieted, listening in for the faint waves of the sound barely reaching them. They were more felt than heard. “It was a dark time I don’t take pleasure in telling and reliving,” Shade admitted finally. She hugged him back as he stood still for good. “But I'm here to listen when you need me to.”

His fingers drummed with the music as Shade glided through the ball. At times, he was about to start humming before stopping himself. At least it managed to distract him; almost too well. He didn’t have the nerve to spy tonight, to chat and deceive while the pressure of the next day loomed over him. Still, as his blood pulsed in anticipation of Diana’s return from conferring with the Prairie warlord, Russell. He had considered following Diana to hide and listen, but for what reason? She knew him too well not to notice and he wouldn’t bother her that way. And he trusted her. She’d succeed in negotiations and either way, he couldn’t look after her from tomorrow on –

“Thinking about me?” he startled and choked on his drink as Diana arrived that very moment to take him by the arm, entwining their fingers. She wasn’t one for public affection, so this display of closeness was as demonstrative as a kiss. It certainly felt almost as intimate as he glanced over the crowd in her grasp, aware of the people who saw them. He set aside the glass and completed their embrace, already pulling her along to sway to the rhythm of the song. “For sure,” he replied with an exaggerated drawl. “I longed to resume our dance where we left off.” She raised an eyebrow in amused doubt as her hand roamed over his back and he sucked in a breath. His own hand on her waist began to prove a temptation he tried to battle by focusing on intensifying the dance steps. He listened for the first beats of a new song, changing into a different dance and he was ready for the shift. A taxed Diana followed his lead. Despite her flush, she enjoyed the challenge of the dance. “You do seem eager.” He shrugged, smiling. “And you seem smug. You have the warlord wrapped around your fingers already?” She made a scale gesture with her fingers. “He’s predictable enough, as was his reluctance before. I know the type. Doesn’t want to state his offers, so I let him dangle and stay vague myself. He’ll spill soon enough.” He let her twirl under his raised arm.” And we have the time?” Her mouth twitched after the spin, unperturbed by the move, dancing as fresh as if just woken from sleep instead of locked in a tumultuous flight. “In this case. He’s so eager for the edge in an alliance he doesn’t grunt about efficiency in meetings.” “So he’s spying.” She mock-hit his shoulder. “Of course he’s spying, Shade Barrow. You’d know best.” He chuckled and she went on. “As I said, I’m acquainted with the type. I know where to bring his attention and Davidson knows how to appear generous.” “But do you want me to shadow his retinue?” Between the quick steps and the movements of the other dancers, speech was limited between catching breaths. Only as the song rolled out and slowed, they did as well, into a lazy motion staying on the spot, two people in their own pace and place, careless of the rest. Their grip on each other grew firmer and their gaze shifted from playful into serious. Diana swallowed, without losing sight of him. “You’d rather stay?” Her grasp became even tighter, almost hopeful. Could she be agreeing with his doubts? Shade traced her face with his figners. “If you hadn’t arrived this eve – right when you did – I wouldn’t be joining my mission tomorrow.” Diana’s eyes widened. “It’s exactly the promise we mode, isn’t it?” he went on. “One would always stay with Clara. So she’ll never see both parents dying in one battle.” For once, Diana hesitated to meet his eyes as she chewed on that. He shook his head. “Even if I’d spoken to you the day before, when your operation was over and you’d only have to return. Anything could’ve happened still, your base attacked, the airplane crashed – it wouldn’t matter. I couldn’t go on if we’d lost you, not knowing what’s become of you.” He stopped, his brow leaning against hers. Diana covered his hand on her face, her eyes aligning with his. “You would fight no longer … without me?” Shade broke her grip, stepping back. “It’s not like anyone can make me fight for them, can they?” he said, glimpsing Diana’s irritated frown before he teleported away. A silly joke, he knew. Jumping exactly out of reach but still in eyesight, urging Diana to follow him through the rush of partygoers. He could hear Diana calling his name, just not enough under her breath to avoid attention. She sped up, her instincts winning over the chaos. “Are we being dramatic now?” she spat, panting, when they’d reached the empty stairs outside the ballroom with only meters between them. The doors slammed shut behind her. He glanced over his shoulder; she was climbing up after him. “But you didn’t ask…!” she said, still panting, and quieter now. “What we could do differently …” She swallowed while her gaze continued to burn at him nonetheless. “Or if you believe our promise is for the gutter. “I’d rather spent this evening watching Clara sleep, too. Relaxing after being stuck in a plane for hours, delayed because of the weather as well as fake threats. Then hear how you and Clara spent these weeks together. How she grows, what she learns. Quarrel about who of us gets to do what with her. “I want so much, Shade. I’m full of it, so full I can only act to live with it. I understand what you say, I'd do the same. But not … forever. I want Clara, and us, any children we might have, our people, to have it better. I can’t and won’t stop before we win. Or we might lose it again.” She pushed through the final step and reached him at arms’ length. Her fingers fluttered against his back until he spun. “Why do you run away?” she muttered. “As long as it’s needed to make you talk as much as this,” he replied. She snorted but grasped his arms tight, nearly ending their balance – or just about keeping it. He gasped, and she leaned her head against his chest. They were rarely in this position, with her being taller than him. The unusual feeling of it both flustered and elated him, as he imagined her hearing the fast throb of his heart, or how that thought alone made it beat even faster. He started to caress her hair almost automatically. “I know you might not…”, Diana began eventually, lifting her face right so he could see her warmed gaze. “Maybe you don’t see it like that anymore.” What? He nearly said it aloud, having forgotten their topic for their embrace. “Maybe you wouldn’t fight no matter what anymore,” she went on. Ah. “Because we have Clara.” “I never said that,” he replied after clearing his throat. Quiet but sharp. Determined. “I can’t give this up no easier than you. But if – if– I lost you, I couldn’t go on like before.” “Then I want to know that!” she cried out, then exhaled until she caught herself. "There're always other jobs to do either way. I have to know. You could do anything, it doesn't have to in the field." She shook her head, pondering. His hand was on her waist, hugging her closer and closer. Indeed, Shade wasn’t sure himself if that was the solution he craved.

Finally, she lifted her piercing eyes. “Will you join your mission tomorrow?” she asked, her voice low. He sighed. He was here, at an event for soldiers and veterans, celebrating success as well as survival while they were about to broker a new military alliance. Diana stood before him, decked in medals earned in spilled blood, her own and others’. “A recon operation in Ciron,” he said. “I confess, I wonder about the point of where it all might lead.” Diana frowned. “Reconnaissance isn’t a coup.” “It might lead to one,” he countered. “So you’d rather leave it wholly in the hands of others?” “Well, in yours,” he admitted. “And you listen to me.” “I’m not sure if that flatters me,” she said with an ice-cold smile. The general’s smile. “Would you be as reluctant if Mare came with you?” His face fell, caught guilty as charged. No wonder she smiled like that. “No, I wouldn’t,” he confirmed. “I’m a terrible soldier, I suppose.” Diana straightened while he only longed to maintain their embrace as a cackle escaped her throat. “Inclined to blatant favoritism,” she said. “Disobeying orders and acting on his own advice. Questioning officers but without intention to take command yourself. Up for the sneaky jobs and avoiding supervision. Expecting personal relations to cover up misdemeanors.” For all the sharp accuracy, Diana listed the call-outs with an amused grin. “You’ve always been an awful soldier, Shade Barrow,” she concluded. “But I think that’s what brought us together in the first place, isn’t it? You aren’t cut to obey but would follow me lead anyway. To be honest, I’m very glad how you’ve kept running after me – ” Shade blushed at the memory he couldn’t deny. “Umm – “ “Indeed,” Diana went on, “I’ve been honoured to follow you as well. To be with you, as we watched each other’s backs. To see new options – to be made to see new options, because of you, as you insisted on my attention.” She took a deep breath. “I’ve changed for meeting you and I don’t regret a minute of it. Whatever you’ll choose, whoever you become, I want to be with you. I ... won't give you orders if you'll disobey in the end." He grimaced at that remark but Diana paused, puzzled until resolve flashed over her face. "I won't command you where to go but I promise to never leave you behind. Whatever the future holds for us or how we’ll react to it.” She swallowed and goosebumps rose over his skin as blood rushed through his head and her voice was warped by a ringing in his ears. “We’ve … made a promise after Clara was born. That one of us will always stay back for her. And maybe this promise doesn’t work out as well as we thought. But we can make other, new, … different promises. Or vows. A vow …” Her face shone with a flush. “Like?” he breathed, barely audible. “Like, Shade Barrow, would you marry me?” And her eyes sparkled as she said that, despite the way she’d stumbled over the words with insecurity. For a moment, he thought it was the bravest speech she’d ever held. As if she didn’t know what he’d reply. Nor did he, actually. “You never cease to surprise me,” he managed to utter and cursed himself next to her heaving breaths. She deserved a better answer. So he grabbed her by the waist and, as she didn’t kneel but still stood below him, lifted her up to the same stair as him and as she yelped, he embraced her so tightly he could bury his face in her neck. He panted now, harder than her, and not only due to the effort of lifting her. Her arms, hugging him back, were force stronger than gravity, so powerful he forgot he even could teleport. It was just what she always did. After he prodded and urged her to come closer, she’d give more than he’d even imagined asking for. Marriage had sounded so plain and formal, it felt pointless for them. They were comrades in arms, relying their lives on each other, as well as parents raising their little, lovely child. Any considerations to deployments or housing were granted them due to that; their intimate relationship no one else’s concern and he thought that only just. Silvers could keep their conjugal restrictions to settle their finances with marriages; any of Diana and Shade’ s endless but fruitless discussions about a second baby felt more significant. Until she asked him and it suddenly was significant, lighting a flame in his heart that filled him with an energy he craved without knowing what to use it for. They were in love, and it mattered. They became who they were and got to this point, in a palace with leaders on their side because of it and if anything, this flame should keep on burning for the world see and feel as they celebrated it. Shade startled, to look into her eyes and finally give her her bleeding reply, but this time, nothing could save their balance as a distraught Diana jerked as well and they would’ve tumbled down the stairs if their hands didn’t find each other, without thinking, and they maintained footing only to fall over each other with Diana on top of him, both loudly exhaling after the shock. Diana tore at her rumpled uniform. “All your work, undone again,” she exclaimed and laughed. “I’ll help your out of it,” he answered and their eyes met, filled with longing, and the centimeters between them broke into kisses like breathing, until they required real oxygen again. "Did you just come up with that?" he asked quietly, nuzzling her neck. Diana grasped his face to make him look at her but didn't say anything, only blinked. Shit. Guilt settled in his belly. “I didn't mean –” An uncertain smile appeared on her face in slow motion. "Partly?" she offered. Almost like she was prepared if he was taking it as a joke. Her flush intensified, but not just from kissing. Her nervosity heightened, too; he could feel that in her pulse. "I mean, it, the idea to ask, came over me in the heat of the moment, but ... well, I did think about it for a while but if it's all too much of a surprise for you, or not your preference at all-" A laugh rose in his throat, a laugh of elation he just about managed to swallow. "Diana, no." Her face froze. "No, sorry, I didn't mean – sorry!" He took he deep breath. Not a breath of hesitation, but one like drinking in the love for this woman. He found her gaze again. “I'll hold on to you for every minute we have. And I'll still rise before dawn to wake Clara with you, before I'll go to Ciron, for one final round of our plan and then I absolutely do want to marry you, Diana Farley. And throw a bloody royal feast for it.”

A/N 2: I hope that was a surprise for you! It sure was one for me that I managed to write something that made Me The Aro not disregard marriage as a repulsive patriarchal tool to control money and female sexuality let’s stop here but beam along with my OTP. As I worked really long on this, some things were changed and I want to make a honourary mention of the dancing montage bringing Fade from their room to the ballroom including a time skip - it’d work better in movie version ;-)

@elliemarchetti @lilyharvord @mareshmallow @maudthebookeater @king-maven-calore @samanthaslytherin @evangeline-of-montfort @farleydiana @scxrletguardsdawn @freaky-freiday @petergrantkavinsky @inopinion @hannaharies

#red queen #red queen fan fiction #red queen fanfiction #shade x farley #shade barrow #diana farley #victoria aveyard #war storm #glass sword #king's cage #broken throne #post war storm #death by cuteness #happy birthday #clara farley-barrow #general farley #imagine shade was still #off-duty #steel scars

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elane-in-the-shadows · 3 years ago

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To be honest, I like to procrastinate finishing the Fade fic I’m working on. For half a year now. I’ve had a writing block for so long while it’s a joy to be back thinking about my favourite ship of all time, I hesitate to close this chapter if I can spend more time in Fadeland. Fadeland is my escape. Fadeland is my paradise.

But I’ve finally made some progress (which was an even bigger joy!) and plan to present it by the end of the year.

Because I have an idea for a follow-up fic to occupy me further^^°

#regina writes #shade x farley #red queen fan fiction

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elane-in-the-shadows · 3 years ago

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Now also on Wattpad and AO3 !!

Red Queen Secret Santa 2020: Nightmare (affectionately) - Part 1

A/N: This is my present for @evangeline-of-montfort and the first part of my Evangeline soccer AU! I would’ve liked to wrap it up in one story but I felt to better do the characters justice, I need a few more pages and time to brew over it. Bear with me until the next part arrives, I promise not to make you wait too long.

This idea was largely inspired PVRIS’s recent album Use Me which is why the record is alluded to in the text as I’ll also name-drop all the songs’ titles en passant.

PS: Nightmare is not on the album but a song on PVRIS’s last year’s EP Hallucinations and I couldn’t pass the chance for the wordplay and thus made it the title of whole story.

Happy holidays!

Part 2

Mare

The chance flashes before me like a lightning strike; not stunning but charging me as Iral passes me the ball and it comes to me. I don’t dribble, don’t let the opponent grasp what I see. I kick immediately to Captain Samos who meets my eye as much as the ball, sharing the moment with me.

#why was i too lazy to make it a new work on wattpad ...? I'm sorry i should have u.u #red queen fan fiction #nightmare affectionately #evare

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elane-in-the-shadows · 3 years ago

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Here is Regina and this is my fic account, I thought it’s more readable with the hyphens^^°

And those tags are the motivation I didn’t know I needed *___*

in the fade ask from about 4 days ago, who is regina that you talked about (does she have an @?)

Of course! My bad. Regina is @evangelineartemiasamos who used to have another @ that is no longer active (I believe? Or I’ve been spelling it wrong every time I try to tag?). Anyway, enjoy her work. It’s absolutely lovely. She also has a Wattpad. Unfortunately I’m accidentally permanently locked out of mine because I goofed and lost my password and now Wattpad is a hellish landscape with ads and pay to read stories and other nonsense.

#regina writes #tumblr friends #links to wattpad and ao3 are in the bio #still have to upload my eve x mare fic there #i also struggled with the new wattpad and my password but it was doable -.-#yeah fade is still so active in my mind #my otps are lasting ones

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elane-in-the-shadows · 4 years ago

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Well, the ugly truth is that I gathered some thoughts and wrote them down (still back in May) but making summaries just never helps me getting the real thing started and so my concept frayed at the seams.

But. But. I did finish a full draft for a Farley and Kilorn talking thing yet the problem is that is refers to the unfinished Shade and Kilorn talking thing so I can’t post one until I’m done with the other, well shit.

I hope to get back to the Shade and Kilorn fic if only out of nostalgic reasons (I’ve always been fic writing during mid-December the last years) but I can’t promise anything and I’m also afraid to repeat myself because well, Shade can only do so much in his final days (Q__Q) and I’ve already covered a lot of them.

I’m currently so deep in a fawning over Fade hole I’m re-reading my own fics to get over it yet I wonder if I’m not rather making it worse

#maybe one day i'll truly go fuck canon and have shade be alive to raise clara #it still feels self-indulgent though #or focus on my original things so they start to exist not only in my head but also on paper #regina writes #shade x farley #personal

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elane-in-the-shadows · 4 years ago

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Oh dear, you flatter me -

Thank you so much but of course I’d like to read other Fade fics as well!

Hi!! When do you think you're posting the last chapter of The Chain? Do you plan to write a fanfic about Farley and Shade? 'cause that would be awesome. And what about Maven and Thomas?

Hi love!! So for reference, I'm a first year vet student and am in week 2 of that. So I'm adjusting and trying to figure out my schedule plus how much time I have to do things. I want to try and finish the chapter sometime this week or weekend. Not sure on that though. ):

As for Farley and Shade, I do love them. I should write a fic about them. I'm a coward though because @elane-in-the-shadows writes such wonderful Fade fic.... as well as Farley fic in general, and I am terrified to post next to her XDDD

As for Maven and Thomas... Maven is such a hard character for me to write. Writing him in Heaven Hath No Fury actually made me break out in a sweat some times. He's so deliciously complex, and I'm not gonna lie, when I write fanfic I turn my brain off sometimes and writing him requires my brain firing on all cylinders. But I would love to have some Thomasven. (Fun fact.... they appear in SotP... IF I EVER GET AROUND TO WRITING THAT FIC 😬)

#and good luck at studying! <3 #tumblr friends #regina writes #i should get back to writing myself i know ...

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elane-in-the-shadows · 4 years ago

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Red Queen Fan Fiction: Nightmare (affectionately) - Part 2

A/N: This is the second part of my Evangeline soccer AU for @evangeline-of-montfort. I hope the waiting is worth it and I’m sorry for the delay.

This idea was largely inspired PVRIS’s recent album Use Me which is why the record is alluded to in the text as I’ll also name-drop all the songs’ titles en passant.

PS: Nightmare is not on the album but a song on PVRIS’s last year’s EP Hallucinations and I couldn’t pass the chance for the wordplay and thus made it the title of whole story.

Also on Wattpad and AO3

Part 1

Mare

The kick-off whistle reverberates through my body but as much as I crave the sound, my strides, or the action of the match to drown it out, none can stop to hammering of my heart.

My last exchange with the captain in her car returns to pierce me at any moment I’m not preoccupied. So I provide just that, focus on all I can achieve for the team in this match. See every player, sense the ball like a part of my body, anticipate its movements.

And yet, Evangeline Samos remains a presence in the back of my mind, like I’m tethered and drawn to her by a golden cord.

Captain Evangeline Samos cannot but stay gold. The star of the soccer team, the top of the science classes, the daughter of prestigious families with at least half a dozen college and sport scouts vying for her, likely proud to award themselves brownie points for her japanese-greek origins by recruiting her. Even her art class projects – ambiguous metal sculptures – make it into school exhibitions. She’s so perfect she’s asking for resent.

She doesn’t appear to care about that, of course, as to be expected of any high school queen bee worth her rank. Indeed, she might just see it as preparation for a career in a similarly socially mined field. And thus, I’m glad to be of service to rile her.

Though it shouldn’t rile me so hard, when she’s a year above me. Maybe it’s like my siblings use to say, I’m born to be a thorn in someone’s side. A nightmare, they tease, just what Samos has begun to call me, like a lure I can’t withstand.

If she likes a fight, I grew up on it. What fell into her lap, I had to work for. While she runs and brunches on her Sunday mornings, I look after my impaired Dad as Mom works at the factory. Even her shifts as supervisor aren’t enough to secure college for me. My brother Shade is the first in our family to try and he still complied with the quite average and inexpensive college in the next city.

If I want more, putting my advanced science classes to use for an engineering career, I need the scholarship scouts the captain is so keen to flirt with although she already has every chance in the world at her hand while I’ll need luck to grasp any.

“It could be worse,” Mom would say at times and hug me. I know. I know. Mom immigrated from Mexico as a teen and only gained US-american citizenship as an adult, so my siblings and I could have it easier here from birth. And my parents are proud of me as I am. But there’s no such as wanting too much for me. Can’t I not strive for the best just because?

I curse under my breath as Iral runs offside just when I kick the ball to her; and curse again when the captain loses a vital duel. I’m not demure or silent, not a nice and friendly girl moving smoothly forward without getting seen. I’m raw and full of edges and I’ll use them to climb up – but they make it so hard to enter the soft realms of cliques.

I miss the old team I grew up with and as I struggle to fit in the new, all I’ve got is to give my best, snort and keep running.

Captain Samos, though, does not acquiesce, as if her coolness turned into ice, brittle and stiff. Almost as if she invites me to usurp her place like she told to me last week. I can’t believe the mess she’s making. When she misses a pass and viciously fouls an opponent, the whole team is left aghast and frozen at the shrill whistle from the referee.

She takes the red cart with dignity, throwing back her head and managing to look both subdued and upright as she exits the field and hands Goalkeeper Welle the captain’s ribbon. Her gaze falls on me as we cross. I don’t hear what she whispers but it’s obvious enough – your turn.

I don’t enjoy it, that’s not my place. Yet I make damn sure that we win this match.

Afterwards, the surge of victorious joy stays curbed. It is there, a new level of certainty, of belonging, holding me up and in the team, which, I believe, should leave me euphoric before it settles in like a new normal. I didn’t expect Samos to make me deputy captain, but in this moment, I believe I could be, one day. Still, on the way to the locker room, I brush it aside because my eyes cleave to Evangeline.

She likely received our coach’s scolding already but must be preparing for more – from the teammates. Even if they’re all besties.

Suddenly, my outsider-who-doesn’t-give-a-shit-instincts kick in again. Before I go in to change, I take her by the arm and pull her away, outside.

The late October sky is cold slap without the exertion to warm me but I don’t care. I need this. I need the cold to focus. I need to face her. I –

“Do you want to chide or to gloat?” After coming along easily, Samos’s snap is a lash.

I flinch and let go of her. “I wanted to apologize,” I say.

Her dark eyes burn, from anger or tears I can’t decide. “Now you want to apologize? When I’m down and you’re on the rise?”

Whatever broke loose in her, I feel it as well. “Oh, is that a new feeling for you? Welcome to my life! No matter what you were told, you can’t have everything, Evangeline Samos, so get used to it.”

She sucks in her breath like this hits her harder than anything. She’s taken aback, shocked, enraged, I can’t say, as I can’t say what she’ll do. Hit me, shove me, scream out loud? But then she simply steps back and spins around, as if it – I’m – is not worth it, not worthy to know what she feels. And for me it feels impossible to agree with this, to let her leave as a stranger and never cross the rift between us when I know in my veins the bridge is already there.

I grab her hand and hold her back. She is shivering, I notice, and it’s infective, although mine has another reason than hers. Every time we touch, even by glances, she wakes something in me I no longer wish to ignore and let sleep.

- “Want to come running with me next week?”

- “Weird way to ask for a date.”

“I wasn’t joking,” I whisper to her back. Deep down, it was both and that shames me. A hurtful joke as well as a dare that I hoped she’d accept so she could show me what to do.

It was mean, and coward. I swallow and, trembling, my arm moves to embrace her from behind, uncertain how tight or close I may go. “Evangeline,” I whisper, and this time, speaking her first name leaves my tongue bewitched.

I need a moment to try again. “I’d like …” I start but am too exhilarated to continue.

It’s of no consequence, because Evangeline both turns and leans into my feeble embrace, and makes it real by it. No matter her sorry performance in the game, she’s on the offensive now, as she kisses me.

Evangeline

January rain prattles against the windows of the lake house. I watch the raindrops fall into the water, leaning back in my sunchair and stretching out my bare legs, their summer tan slowly fading to dark beige, glad to be inside and for the coffee in my hands.

“What a grey day,” mutters Mare as she sneaks in and puts our brunch on the table. She’s not quiet about it, though efficient, shoving clutter aside and dropping bread rolls on plates, lastly tossing her wet coat out of the way.

We can afford to, now, and here. Unlike before, this brunch is wholly ours. Private. Alone. Without family attending. The first time we did this I couldn’t believe it’d be so easy, just not to give my Sundays to my family. With Mare at my back, I made this space for me, for us, by taking it.

My gaze follows her motions and soon hers traces mine when I rise and step to the table. The difference is stunning: Me in the revealing but comfortable black nightgown, she in wet and loose jeans. I wonder if she’d like a warming hug. Or the trousers out of the way entirely.

She snaps out of her stare, tucking her chin-long browns curls behind her ear. “There’re cakes as well,” she mumbles and proceeds to place the mouth-watering cherry- and hazelnut cakes, more careful this time while avoiding my eyes.

I see enough of her though. Her blushing cheeks. How she bites her lips. I grab her wrist before she runs off any further. “Thank you, Nightmare,” I say softly as she gives up to hide her smile.

Mare falls on a chair, sighing and covering her face with her hands. “… that you really turned that into a pet name,” she says. She straightens to cross her arms and brown eyes fix me.

I set down my coffee with a clank, trying to subdue my smirk. “It is a reminder,” I say in a neutral voice and close the little distance she put between us. I cup the nape of her neck with my hand. “That you aren’t an unattainable fantasy I dreamt of.” She leans back into my hold. “But real. And here.”

“And a nuisance?” she asks softly, the challenge in her voice swallowed by her trembling – that she stills trembles at my touch! – lips, full lips I long to kiss like nothing else, to test if they taste better than the delicacies she brought.

I grin with a headshake, letting my hair sway. “The best kind of nuisance. The one who succeeds.”

Now it’s her who pulls closer.

Eventually, Mare did get rid of the jeans, to sit crossed-legged on the couch to multitask between eating and doing homework on her tablet while I sit beside her, my feet against her thighs. The food is enough for me as she does physics again, reminding me of our earlier afternoons of learning together when she was still undecided whether to go into engineering. A surprising mutual interest of ours. Mare is certain now, ambitious to take a leading position in the industry where her mother had to work her way in step by step, and only got so far.

We shared a lot of worries and hopes, as well as family memories and secrets in the last months, ignorant of how much we had in common and where we diverged for real, or where we erred about the other. Unlike my former Sunday circles, Mare wasn’t diplomatic about it and I fell for that as hard as I fell for her. She has the teeth to fight but for me, they’ve been a blessing. I want to warn her sometimes, against the industrial high society I hail from and she intends to enter. They’re not more refined, certainly not better than anyone else, but believing themselves so rather makes them – us – worse.

“Captain?”

“What?” I startle, then roll my eyes. “Don’t call me that.”

“And I told you not to call me Nightmare.” She frowns. “I’ve asked about geothermic efficiency factors twice now and you said nothing.”

I grimace. “Yeah, well …” But I fall silent.

“Well, what?”

I open my mouth, sigh, shake my head. Finally, I pull my legs back and straighten my posture. I take a sip of juice, Mare’s full attention grazing my neck. “About that. I let it slide.”

Before more exclaims of confusion rain down, I stare her down and go on. “I’ve decided to sign with a professional team. I’ll start training with them in spring, so.” I shrug.

Mare is completely stunned. “Wow,” she gasps, then smiles all over her face and embraces in a flash. “Captain, I mean, Eve, just, wow.”

I squeeze back, once, but can’t let go. I hold her closer and closer, drinking in her reaction and basking in her support. It takes an age before we break apart and still I want to hold her. My fingers trace her cheek, playing with her hair. “So you see,” I mumble, “I can’t be your captain for much longer.”

“Sure, but …” Although she’s happy for me, she’s struggling to grasp the whole of it. Pursuing a sports career wasn’t a main possibility I considered, not even with her. The weight of it hits me again, sobering me too much for more caresses.

“You were right,” I say, fumbling with my ponytail. “I could be anything. Do everything. So, I realized I should do exactly that: Go for everything and gamble. Start anew and work myself up from scratch, even if I could fail. Take the risky way instead of the straight one.”

Mare can’t help chuckling at that, and neither can I. Before I notice, my resolved declaration is over and Mare takes me in her arms again. “I wish you well, Eve.” My name in her mouth feels like the touch of a feather. “All the best.”

My head leans back on her shoulder as I take her hand. Elane and I, our love was always like a whisper in the moonlight. But Mare is like a lightning strike. She could be the death of me as well as a challenge. Energizing. Illuminating. And powerful all on her own.

I’m tired of fearing to touch old wounds I’ve gathered by wanting to be myself. Even if it hurts, I’ll open up and unfold the person I can be.

@lilyharvord @mareshmallow @samanthaslytherin @elliemarchetti @farleydiana @percelain-doll

#red queen #mare barrow #evangeline samos #evare #red queen fanfiction #victoria aveyard #mare x evangeline #nightmare affectionately #nightmare (affectionately) part 2 #nightmare (affectionately)#modern au #pvris

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elane-in-the-shadows · 5 years ago

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Red Queen Secret Santa 2020: Nightmare (affectionately) - Part 1

This idea was largely inspired PVRIS’s recent album Use Me which is why the record is alluded to in the text as I’ll also name-drop all the songs’ titles en passant.

PS: Nightmare is not on the album but a song on PVRIS’s last year’s EP Hallucinations and I couldn’t pass the chance for the wordplay and thus made it the title of whole story.

Happy holidays!

Also on Wattpad and AO3

Part 2

Mare

Consequently, she evades the opponent’s 9 in a move so simple and elegant as if she were dancing, right before she shoots, still beyond the penalty box yet straight through the gap in the defense and before the goalkeeper can react to prevent our scoring.

Captain Samos roars, once, and so do I. Just as in sync, our team gathers to cheer with her. There I’m slower, keeping it to a half-hearted hug and a few high fives. Still the newbie come from another club, but part of the win.

No time for more connecting when the match goes on and already, the captain emerges from the embrace cluster to shoo her team back into positions. She jerks her chin and a shiver runs down my spine as I realize it’s for me. I don’t know what to make of it. Acknowledgement? Praise? Or rather another, “I’m watching you, Barrow”, as to remind me she is not only the captain, but also the central conductor of the team and no matter how well I filled the same role in my old club’s soccer team, I have no place to challenge Evangeline Samos’s lead.

In the locker room, I wonder if I could’ve passed to another player, and avoid Samos entirely. I couldn’t have made the goal myself from my point, but at least I’d have been recognized for good preparation if Samos’s textbook shoot didn’t grab everyone’s awe by the throat.

She really has enough of that, mine included. Hailing from prestigious families, she’s the star of the Archeon Soccer Club, a talent able to pick pro-team scouts instead of the other way around. But her stardom begins to outshine the rest of the club like we’re the darkness between when –

I startle embarrassingly for a mere hand on my shoulder, a proof my grumbling went too deep when among a group. I can’t help it; I’m frozen even once I’ve turned. Speak of the devil, of course it’s her, the captain.

The perfect and pristine model athlete, from the curve of her thighs, to defined abs and strong arms and not a hair out of place. I’m envious of her magic tricks to fix her hair so short after the match, my short curls would take ages just to get dry.

Not that I intend to bother with her generally elaborate coiffure, with her long ponytail bleached a silvery-white the black roots shift into through carefully dyed, dark-greyish transitions.

She snorts and I cough, finally releasing the breath I’d been holding.

“Good work, Barrow”, she says with a smirk I can’t determine as ironic or genuine which reminds me that I’ve gaped enough. It’s her method, reaching out while never making you sure of your footing, encourage while letting you know her doubts. Like when she offered to drive me to training or matches in her car – our ways overlap expediently – and then never talks with me like I’m not worth the attention.

Too bad I excel at this game as well. A sneer I can return, just like her resolute posture. “I do my best for the team, Captain,” I reply.

She frowns, detecting my tease. Maybe a mistake. Maybe I should bow and flatter to rise in the team but such had never been my strength. I only know success by demanding my due. Now she leans forward, stepping ever closer as if to put me back in place.

When she lays a hand on my chest, I expect her to shove.

I don’t fall back an inch. Only her head inclines to speak in my ear as my heart beats faster with her hand pressing against my collarbones.

“If you want my position, Nightmare,” she whispers, “you’ll have to take it.”

I flinch at the blighting of my name as she shifts aside, smiling sweetly. “Don’t call me that,” I quietly retort, “not among the team.” I’m all too aware of the teammates around us and yet I don’t scan their reactions to our exchange and my hot face. I’ll be glad enough if by tomorrow, not everyone calls me Nightmare.

Her smile doesn’t waver at all. “Sure,” she mouths unperturbed and leaves me standing, back in the game that’s both soccer and not soccer at all.

Evangeline

On autumn Sunday mornings, I enjoy running at the break of dawn when the streets are so empty as if they belong to me alone. I may exert yet it feels like freedom on my strictly scheduled Sundays. After running comes styling for the nearly endless family brunch with Grandmother Éva and Aunt Sofía, followed by the weekly soccer match, the team meeting aka fastfood feast, and another formal dinner while I’m to excel on all accounts, which is naturally impossible.

Grandmother resents the sportive break in showing me off to Mother’s and Father’s business connections in finance and industry, as I resent missing the team’s more outgoing after-match events. There were …the parties in our lake house but they grew rare since last year, like so much. Formal dinners aren’t what they used to be when hardly anyone besides the most loyal friends attend anymore, and even the brunch is make belief the Samos shipyard isn’t in decline.

Sofía and Grandmother are the worst at it, treating brunch and dinner like a family tradition when it’s always only revolved about the prestige they could reap from the family’s success, having never been their own, but always swept up in the gearing of a company that exclusively demanded from, but not encouraged them.

All they see is more reason for “networking”, as Grandmother, Sofía and my parents call their matchmaking, when my college fund was depleted for my brother and the company, as if they weren’t the ones who decided Tolly is more likely to save the company instead of giving me the chance.

Once more checking my straps, one more breathe before I break into a run. I grind my teeth for the first minute until I get used to the cold and the pace. I endure it, as I endure the stress at home. I welcome the first as a distraction from the latter.

I can’t help resenting the company, can’t ignore my aversion to ever work for it. It is not my brother who I’ll always love more that envy, though nowadays I’m almost glad when he doesn’t come to visit and I suffer our family’s reminiscences of our better times alone. He’s expected to present his efforts at connecting in college which means bringing at potential date for me.

Of course, they never call it that, as if my future lies in marriage, certainly not so soon, but what options do I have when Father won’t give both of us a company to rule? I hear Sofía’s voice and want to scream but the exertion does the job of numbing my anger just as well. Pretending must run in my blood, as Grandmother can also very well feign ignorance if I simply allude to the truth of my romantic intentions.

At least Tolly showed his instincts when such a setup couldn’t be avoided, presenting friends not any more interested in “economically advantageous relationships” than me.

Moments like that remind me how close I’ve always been to Tolly, smiles and eye-rolls our secret language. Without him, I have no ally when I can’t keep a straight face as Father rants about Lesbos and greek politics once more.

Tolly played soccer with me first, passing me the ball I never let go of. We both joined clubs, he for fun and friends, me for passion. And ever-growing ambition.

With our money gone, I’ll need a sports scholarship to study and later get a prestigious job, like a proper Samos. Or I give a fuck about the crumbles of our past glory and seek it by becoming a totally unladylike soccer pro.

Imagining my family’s faces at that news first lets me giggle, then stumble in my tracks, just for a second. If the idea hasn’t been growing more and more serious lately, I would’ve burst out laughing.

Elane certainly would’ve, her chirp-like giggling my favourite melody. The memories of her are those I hold dear, where Father dreams of vanished successes. Hallucinations both.

I take in the sight of the prism of sunrise and wish Elane was still with me. She hated my routine, both for the early hour and the work-out itself, but she’d drive with me one town away from home nonetheless, up to the parking lot before we separate so she could wait for me in a bakery-café, sipping hot chocolate until I was done and could join her for breakfast.

Our only dates not in the dead of night in her garden and yet as much out of sight.

In my now loveless days with her in boarding school in paradise – Finland – I can only imagine the feel of her hand, my hand tracing along her spine. There’s just me, the crisp morning, and the performances ahead of me.

Catching my breath, I finish my lap at my car and don’t want to drive home at all. I want to check on Barrow, my reluctant driving companion living in a village along the way, to invite her to jog with me, or her to invite me to her Sunday morning, to pick on me in her very own way, anything but to crouch back under the dead weight of expectations.

I need several more breaths before the illusions of escape vanish and my lungs relax. I lean back against the car. What a foolish notion – the weight has never left; I only need to wait for the afternoon to pick up Barrow for our match.

It can’t come soon enough, but it will come.

“Good to be alive but I hate my life” – I try to restrain from humming along to the song playing in my car, try to evade Barrow’s glances attempting to figure me out, my choice of music.

“Who can’t relate?”, she says with a shrug. A trace of a smile hides in her face as she settles in, stretching her legs and putting her ankle boots up to the dashboard. She fits there surprisingly well, thanks to her short stature. I faux-glare at her, long used to this display. I can’t refuse her the repose, not when I can hardly find the words when once more, I try to unravel the familiar secret of her perfume.

I could ask, but never do. I could tell so such but stay silent. I keep on pretending yet also want her to see me. It’s tiring to no end and still each small but true guess elates me.

Barrow, on the other hand, remains unknowable to me with her eternal frown. If my resting bitch face is noticed, for good or bad, it’ll always be inferior to Barrow’s. Perfection in its own way; perfection my eyes are ineluctably drawn to at every chance the traffic lets me.

I chew my lips at the next song, with its “love like a loaded gun”, to distract myself from brushing Mare’s hand as I use the hand brake. From laying my hand on her thigh. From –

I catch her gaze and avert it, my heart rushing as I rush back into traffic.

Barrow’s ever-apt perception didn’t miss it, of course not, the same perception that makes her so good a player she desires my position, my rank.

I can’t give it up, not when my future hangs from it, but – if she desired something else –

Foolish. Foolish. I’m sick with yearning from missing my ex-girlfriend and listening to sad sapphic songs that make me long to kiss any girl’s lips –

“Already know how to use me today, Captain?” Barrow breaks into my confusion and I don’t know if I want to thank or throttle her. Use me.

Good we’re just arriving at the club house. I lean back and flash her my widest grin. “I always know what to do with my team. Forgotten the tactic?”

Barrow isn’t intimidated. “Thought you’ve come up with something better by now.”

“Dream on, Nightmare. I’m still the number 10.”

She sighs dramatically. “Too bad I’m an 11.” And then she – we – burst out laughing, our sound both harmonious and discordant, different from Elane and me, but as engrossing. Even when the laughter dies down, the mood lingers and I touch her brown hand before I can stop myself.

“Want to come running with me next week?” I ask and don’t curse myself for it, for once.

She is silent. Ridiculously blinking for seconds as if it’s funny. “Weird way to ask for a date,” she blurts out.

Whatever we had for a few seconds is gone. “Are you fucking joking?”, I spit, my voice low like a hiss.

Her mouth opens and closes, stunned quiet.

I can’t decide whether to berate her or scream at her as calmly explaining how terrible a joke it were is out of the question. “Are you fucking joking?!” I repeat, louder, and finally shame begins to bloom on her face.

If only she took me seriously, she could know it to be true. And yet – how can saying the truth out loud feel so disrespectful? I wish, I wish –

“Gimme a minute,” I mutter and storm out of the car.

I am truly a coward. I don’t speak to her until the match begins.

@lilyharvord @mareshmallow @elliemarchetti @samanthaslytherin @redqueenetwork @farleydiana

#red queen #red queen fan fiction #red queen fanfiction #evangeline samos #mare barrow #mare x evangeline #evane #evare #pvris #there's also a subtle note to austra #modern au #nightmare (affectionately) part 1 #red queen secret santa #rqss20 #rq secret santa 2020 #secret santa

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