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b-does-the-write-thing · 3 years

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The Unforeseen, Unanticipated and Unexpected: A Tale in Three Parts

Dear @moonlight91 Your prompt was so amazing (I do like a challenge) that I wrote a million different stories before I finally settled on a bit of fairytale hilarity with a little bit of the fake dating trope thrown in just for fun. So, thank you for your patience these last two weeks, and a big thank you to @rumbellesecretsanta for allowing me to help out.

Merry (belated) Christmas- I do hope you enjoy it!

Read it on AO3

At the seventh stroke of midnight on the seventh day of the seventh month, the Dark One found himself summoned with blood, ash, and bone to a deep, dark grove.

All this pomp and ceremony was unnecessary, but if he didn’t go about setting weirdly-specific conditions, he would be summoned left and right and would never get anything done. As the summoner rose from the make-shift altar, the moonlight bounced silver off the figure revealing the Dark One had been called forth by, by his least favorite thing in this world and the next, a knight.

Said knight was already peering down his nose, clearly unimpressed. Rumpelstiltskin knew the type. He could have shown up as a fire-breathing dragon, and this fool still would have been disappointed. “Do I have the honor- “ the knight’s tone made it clear it was anything but- “of addressing the Dark One?”

Rumpelstiltskin cracked a particular toothy grin. “Present!” he trilled, adding a flick of his wrist for a pop of flair. Knights loved pageantry; it always helped to give them a bit of a show. “And who might you be exactly?”

“I am Sir Gaston LeRoux, the First Sword of Avonlea, and I have need of your aid.”

“And what help could a great warrior such as yourself possibly need with little old me? Can’t be ogre problems. I got rid of those things centuries ago.” Rumpelstiltskin tipped his head back and forth in consideration, mulling it over. “Perhaps you are in need of a magic sword, that sort of thing?”

“I have no need for magic weapons,” the knight managed through a clenched jaw.

Rumpelstiltskin picked a moonflower from a low hanging branch. It must have just bloomed, for the scent was ripe and sweet as he plucked first one petal off and then another, and another- “Then, tis a woman.”

He knew he was right. True, this Sir Gaston was more handsome than the usual lovelorn sort and well aware of his good fortune judging by his perfectly styled locks, but men of the sword were often hopeless when it came to affairs of the heart.

The knight bowed his head in acquiescence. “Thou speakest true. I am betrothed to the Lady of Avonlea, but my heart belongs to another.”

Rumpelstiltskin tsked. How boring. He ever only got involved in this sort of nonsense on the off chance he stumbled upon a case of True Love. And there was no chance this vain peacock knew the first thing about love. “Then, why not just break it off?”

The knight cleared his throat. “It is no easy feat. I have tried, but….the reason I have come to you is...in truth, I suspect my betrothed is, herself, a sorceress. She has bewitched all those around her to do her bidding. Her father has stepped aside to let her rule in his stead. Why even I was briefly under her sway. I fear, not for myself, but what she would do to my love if she ever uncovered my heart is no longer a slave to her spell.”

For the first time in the conversation, Rumpelstiltskin’s interest was piqued. A sorceress was rare. Sure, the occasional noble lady did pick up a spell or two here and there, but more typically, they just had a magical heirloom of sorts at their disposal. Perhaps this wouldn’t be a colossal waste of his time after all. “I do like a challenge,” Rumpelstiltskin acknowledged, already mentally listing possible lost artifacts he might acquire. “What’s in it for me?”

The knight grew even more somber, impressing, considering he had yet to show any actual emotion. “I have heard of the monstrous price you require. So be it.” He inhaled deeply, then as if it pained him to even speak the words, he said,” For the Dark One’s assistance, you shall have my firstborn.”

Oh, great. This again.

Rumpelstiltskin had rather thought he had put an end to this rumor sometime last century. Honestly, he had no idea where people kept getting the fantastical notion that he wanted their children. It had just been the one time, and he hadn’t even been serious then. Besides, any halfway decent looking man was sure to have a litter of bastards in every kingdom. “I hardly want your byblows,” he scoffed. “You shall have my help. But first, I require three truths from your lips, and afterward, a favor.”

The knight hesitated. “You...you’re sure you don’t just want my firstborn child?”

Oh, for the love of - It had been a slow decade and growing more monotonous by the minute. There was no excitement anymore. Rumpelstiltskin couldn’t even recall the last time he had been called upon to partake in some great struggle between the forces of good and evil. It was just the same thing day in and day out. What he wouldn’t give for a good war right about now...

Rumpelstiltskin snapped his fingers, and a rather long, intricate scroll appeared, the terms of the deal neatly inscribed upon it. “Three truths and a favor. Do we have a deal?”

These were words that could change a life forever, especially when said by the Dark One himself. Only the truly desperate or truly deluded ever agreed to them, and the man before him did not appear desperate.

As anyone could have predicted, the fool agreed to the terms of his demise without so much as reading the fine print. There, in the heart of some nameless swamp, the knight committed to his ruin. He finished signing his name with a flourish, only for it to shift and change in a shimmer of light and magic.

“Gaston LeGume,” Rumpelstiltskin read aloud. He bared his fangs in a mockery of a smile. “My, my. A baseborn son of a landless farmer has styled himself the First Sword of Avonlea.”

As expected, his companion’s mood darkened in an instant, a hand descending to the hilt of his blade. “I warn you, sir- do not mock me!”

Rumpelstiltskin almost wished the knight would draw his sword. It had been ages since he had turned anyone into a frog. But business was business, and he was confident he could not only profit here but have a little fun with this destined-to-be bullfrog. So, he simply wiggled his fingers, adding in a giggle for good measure.

(That always threw these types off.)

“Touchy, touchy,” he admonished. “What do I care about your birth? You owe me three truths, and the first one has now been collected. Count yourself fortunate. Now, for the second truth, who is this paragon of beauty that has awoken you from the sorceress's spell?”

Gaston hemmed, and he hawed, but the magic got the truth from his lips in the end: Princess Allissa Óir, the only heir to the throne, riches, and lands of the great kingdom of Ormiston. Gaston waxed on a bit about her beauty, grace and the usual nonsense men said about women they barely knew before Rumpelstiltskin cut him off to ask the question that truly mattered. The third and final truth: “And this paradigm of a woman- does she love you as well?”

The knight clutched passionately at his breast again to drive the point home. “Most ardently. Her father has even blessed the union.”

No wonder this fellow had gone to such desperate lengths as to summon the Dark One. With just his good looks and silver tongue, the son of some carrot farmer had transformed himself to the next king of the most powerful kingdom of the age. There was just one thing in his way, his betrothed, the Lady Belle Levasseur of Avonlea.

The Dark One knew Avonlea; it was a minor holding on the edges of Ormiston. Which explained why the false knight could not just disappear into the night and emerge as a king. The two lands were neighbors, and if the Lady Levasseur was indeed capable of magic, the new King and Queen of Orimson would pay dearly for their marriage.

Yes, yes, an almost interesting case. A king in his pocket would do nicely. After all, Rumpelstiltskin had been purposefully vague on what “a favor” entailed. First, he had to deal with the one responsibility that fell to him: removing Lady Levasseur from the equation.

It was best to get it over. So, Rumpelstiltskin made his way straight to the small fort that the inhabitants of Avonlea called a castle. It was an odd, misshapen thing with a sloped roof tower by the gatehouse that looked like someone had been drunk when designing it and even drunker when building it. The rest of the hold appeared stable enough, though there was not one taller than an adolescent ogre amongst the five turreted towers.

There was a light in the gatehouse, but the lone watcher was none the wiser of the wolf lurking in the shadows. To ensure it stayed this way, Rumpelstiltskin swept his hand up and over his head, and oblivion helpfully draped itself about his shoulders, rendering him as visible as a spiderweb in the dark.

Inside was no better in terms of architecture. Every wall, both exterior and interior, was composed of an assortment of gray cobblestones, held overhead by low hanging wooden beams that even someone of his low stature would risk walking straight into. Though he was loath to call this hovel anything more, the inhabitants of the castle had done their best to make the place look respectable. Rich tapestries hung in strategic spots, and the candelabras upon the wall were pure gold, equipped with beeswax candles that had been neatly wicked.

In a residence of this size, it was easy enough to spot the Lord’s Tower. It stood in the center of the courtyard; a royal insignia stamped helpfully upon the wooden doors. A simple snap of his fingers and the doors were gone.

It was easy enough to make doors disappear, but he had not quite determined how to handle the disappearance of the lady herself. For to ensure his end of the bargain was met, she would have to be removed. Perhaps he could turn her into a swan; that had been rather popular last century. Or a sleeping curse was always an option. The lady could stay young forever, and perhaps after a hundred years or so, some prince would wake her with true love’s kiss. Oh, there were endless options. All of them were as easy as the right words and a snap of his fingers-

He just had to find the lady first.

Because despite the hour, she was not in her chambers.

Her bed had been slept in or at least laid upon. The windows had been drawn and shuttered, and the fire had dimmed to embers. He stood in the doorway for a moment, considering the scene, when he noticed a small drop of wax right inside the door. He shifted and then spotted another drop, a larger one out in the hallway. Both were hardened but not scuffed. Not fresh, but made this night.

To his left, there was a staircase descending back down from which he had come. To his right, a long hallway. Had the lady gone to visit a lover? How droll. Perhaps he could simply expose them, allowing Gaston to annul the betrothal and marry his princess without penalty. It was hardly titillating, but Rumpelstiltskin had long ago learned to keep his options open…

The hallway dead-ended into another door, no doubt the Lord’s Chambers, judging by the heavy snoring emanating from it. To his left, there was another staircase, but this one ascended. And there was a faint drop of wax on the third stair.

He followed it to the top of the turret, only to find one last door. This one was ajar, and from within, a light was burning. The tip of a turret was always a popular spellcasting spot, but there was nothing he could sense in the way of magic. Nor was there any sound of passion, no whispered words or bubbling potions- just silence—a conundrum.

He paused, considering for a moment. This task was proving to be a bit of something different. If pressed, he would almost admit he was enjoying himself. He made a careful note to keep the door from so much as making a squeak lest it announce his entrance.

But of all the things he might have imagined, he could not have predicted he’d find himself in a makeshift library of sorts. The rounded room had books piled along the walls, large and small, with spines of every color, carefully stacked in orderly rows. There was no fire to keep the night’s chill at bay or brighten the darkness, nor was there any tapestries or rugs to make the room inviting.

Besides the hundreds of books, there was just a single desk with a candle nearly burnt to the last. There was a lone cloaked figure at the desk, but they had fallen asleep, their head upon the desk’s surface, dead to the world. There were no cauldrons, no familiars, not even a vial of something foul. The only clue to the figure’s identity was a mass of auburn curls spilling out across the desk from beneath the hood.

He made his way closer. The floorboards silent; knowing better than to so much as creak underneath his weight. Outside, an owl hooted as if sensing a fellow predator. The call was followed by the sound of wings as it swept down from the roof upon its helpless prey down below-

And just as the Dark One reached out his own talons to squeeze around the neck of the sleeper, she stirred. He prepared for a gasp or even a scream- but he was not, however, prepared to find a dagger pressed into the underside of his jerkin.

“Another move, and your entrails will be on the floor.” The dagger pressed deeper as his “prey” slowly stood. She was a head shorter than him, but the light of the almost extinguished candle was too meager for him to make out her features. He could only see the fine-boned hand currently wielding what looked like to be a letter opener.

As annoying as it was to find himself in such a predicament, he had to admit it was rather masterfully done. If he were any mere ruffian, he would be entirely at her mercy. But the Dark One was not in danger of something so trivial as a dagger in the dark. He snapped his fingers, and in a heartbeat, her weapon turned into a single red rose.

It’s thorns bit into her white-knuckled fingers, drawing first blood. She hissed in surprise, dropping the flower to bring wounded fingers up to her mouth. “Magic,” she mumbled around her hand, sounding rather impressed. She lowered her hand with a sigh. “He must have paid a pretty penny. It’s almost flattering, truth be told.”

Rumpelstiltskin chose to ignore the insinuation he could be bought with something as trivial as money. As if he needed gold.

He whispered a simple charm and a twist of his finger; the candle burned back to full life. “You know for what purpose I have come?” he demanded. The lady nodded, and in doing so, her hood shifted and finally slid down to her shoulders.

Rumpelstiltskin was rather lucky he had not dropped the cloaking spell yet, as he found himself at an utter loss for words. This was the woman Gaston was spurning? He understood the man had been ambitious, but good lord, was he blind? In his long lifetime, Rumpelstiltskin had seen the great beauties of lore, the ones who the bards still sung of- none of them had ever struck him as half as lovely as the woman before him. Her features were delicate, classical, and yet there was a strength in the set of her jaw and intelligence in her manner that set her apart from the usual vapid emptiness that so often accompanied the truly beautiful.

She laid the rose upon the desk, subtly casting her eyes in his general direction. “Of course. You’re not the first to come. I wasn’t naive enough to think he’d stop trying.” If she was afraid, her eyes didn’t betray her. She looked more put-out than anything. “You’re the first with magic, though,” she added, in what sounded oddly like a compliment.

He held the cloaking spell in place. He wanted answers, and if the Dark One were to materialize before her, he was not sure Lady Belle would continue cooly discussing her brushes with death. Well, she might. This did not seem like a woman prone to hysterics, but he wasn’t taking that chance quite yet.

(He really loathed hysterics.)

“Why wait for death? Why not use the magic you possess-”

She began to laugh. “Wait- magic? Magic I possess- Is that what he’s telling people now?” To his complete befuddlement, she collapsed back into the chair, wiping away tears of laughter. “Me! Magic!” She fought to regain some iota of self-control but was failing miserably. “Oh, that’s a good one. As if I wouldn’t turn him into a toad first thing-”

“He’d make an impressive bull-frog.”

She made a genuinely horrendous noise like two gears grinding, and he realized she was laughing. “He would, wouldn't he?” she managed through laughter. “I can just see him sitting on the side of the lake, all puffed up.” She helpfully mimicked this by puffing out her chest and filling her cheeks full of air.

He had somehow completely lost control of this encounter. There was nothing to do for it. He discarded the cloaking spell, and her laughter died in her throat. “Oh,” she breathed, eyes widening. He was gratified. Most ladies tended to faint, scream or try and attack him, so this was at least a nice change of pace, if nothing else. “Oh. You’re-”

He sneered. “That’s right. So, if you are quite done laughing- you should know I have struck an agreement with your betrothed. But-” and here he raised a finger, “figuring as I’m in a good mood at the moment, I shall gift you a boon. You may choose your fate.”

His anger rarely ran hot. This self-control had served him well, allowing him to contrive and dole out some truly horrendous forms of revenge in his long life. Gaston would become king. He would rule, safe in the knowledge that he had gotten away with it, that he, a lowborn knight, had hoodwinked the most powerful creature that had ever existed. Only then, would the Dark One drop the Lady Belle back into play, reveal Gaston’s true nature, take all that he had gained, and leave him in the dirt. Possibly as a bull-frog. He’d have to see how he felt in a decade or so. There was nothing quite like a fate delayed. Ask Oedipus.

“You have three options. The first is that of the air. You shall live as a swan for a decade and a day, free to roam the world as you see fit. The second is of the earth. I shall turn you into a statue, and leave you here to watch over your people for a decade and a day, and on the second day, the sun shall rise upon you as a human once more-”

Just as he was about to explain the fire option, which was an excellent spell that involved the sun’s rising and setting- she, to his utter and complete astonishment, raised her hand. “If I might-”

Oh, for Nimue’s sake-

“Is all of this necessary? I have no interest in marrying Gaston. His precious princess is welcome to him.”

He sucked his teeth. This woman was making it impossible to get anything done around here. “Then, why, pray tell, is he trying to kill you?”

She made a sweeping gesture as if encompassing everything around them. “For Avonlea! Why do you think- Ugh!” She pinched her brow, and he could hear her counting to ten under her breath.

He hadn’t needed to ask. He was well aware of how these things worked. With Belle out of the way, Gaston would claim there had been a marriage. The elderly Lord of Avonlea would soon pass either from a broken heart or a knife in the back, and then Gaston would be Lord and Ruler of Avonlea, a fitting husband for a neighboring princess. Their union would unite the two lands...and Ormiston would continue to grow and prosper.

There was no earthly way that the knight had thought of this himself, which meant the King of Ormiston had gotten someone else to do his dirty work. Rumpelstiltskin ground his teeth. He had been played for a fool.

But a deal was a deal. He’d make sure they’d all pay in kind, but the fact of the matter was...this Belle would have to first pay the price.

“You can no longer remain here as the lady of this land.”

“Fine,” she huffed, standing abruptly. “I have to go away for- what was it? A decade and a day? Fine, so be it. I’ll go with you then. Surely, you need….I don’t know some sort of assistance. You have a castle, don’t you?” He opened his mouth, but she did not need an answer to continue the conversation. “Wait- no. Hold on, answer me one question. The deal- was Avonlea a part of it?” He mutely shook his head. “Oh, good. Here’s what we’ll do-”

And then, she laid out in very clear detail her master plan.

It was beautiful in its simplicity, calculating and cunning in its execution, and nearly diabolical in terms of vengeance. By the time the sun rose upon the Lady of Avonlea and the Dark One, a new alliance, had been forged. One that would change the landscape of the world forever.

It went as thus. On the evening of the eighth day, at the eighth hour at the eighth minute, the Dark Lord came (back) to Avonlea. His arrival was not expected at the pre-nuptial feast of Sir Gaston LeRoux and Lady Belle Levasseur, so his appearance was met with (alas) hysterics.

“I hear there is to be a wedding,” Rumpelstiltskin crackled. He rubbed his hands together briskly, clapping them at the end in glee for good measure. “I love weddings.”

Gaston was quite taken aback, but he rallied to put on a good show. He drew his blade, proclaiming loudly and for all to hear that he would protect his lady love. As for the bride, she simply sat in her seat, finishing a custard while an older man with a halo of white hair tugged at her sleeve, urging her to flee.

“Begone, foul beast!” Gaston roared, but he was slowly backing away from the dais, leaving the lord and lady of the castle unprotected. Not that anyone noticed. The entire hall had fled or was cowering under trench tables lining the room. “I shall strike you down before I let you so much as gaze upon my fair lady.”

“Pretty words for a pretty boy,” Rumpelstiltskin cooed up at him. He took another step, baring his teeth in a smile. “I came to allow you to mend your mistake, Lord Maurice.”

“My-my-” The old man was stuttering, white with fear, but he had not let go of his daughter’s arm.

“I had rather thought my wedding invitation must have gotten lost,” Rumpelstiltskin supplied helpfully, starting to pick at imaginary lint on his sleeve. “But then I started to think perhaps I wasn’t invited-”

“You were not!” The knight demonstrated a few fancy parries, and then with a little fancy footwork, he danced his way to the opposite side of the Dark One, blocking the remainder of viewers from the rulers of Avonlea. “Begone from this place at once!” Gaston crowed and had the audacity to wink. The fool, he was still playing checkers; they had moved onto chess.

Rumpelstiltskin waved his arm in a lazy arc, and the knight-who-would-be-king was stopped dead in his tracks, frozen with his sword raised overhead in a rather wickedly uncomfortable position. “Now, then, where were we? Ah, yes. I’m sure it was not your intention to purposefully slight me, was it, Lord Maurice?”

The older man’s jowls were quivering, mouth opening and closing with no sounds coming out. Belle took the opportunity to rise, placing herself pointedly between her father and her conspirator. “There was no slight meant, sir,” she assured him. In the light of the candelabras overhead, her golden dress glowed warm and bright. “What can we do to atone for this grievous oversight?”

A few of the party-goers were starting to creep out from beneath the tables and from behind pillars, their self-preservation losing out to their curiosity as he knew it would. Happened every time.

“You know, I’d rather like a wedding of my own, come to think of it.” He turned to the gathered, huddled masses. “Good people of Avonlea, I shall spare your lands from pestilence and pandemonium on one condition.”

“Good heavens, but name it, sir!” Lord Maurice exclaimed. “Anything and everything I have in my power to give is yours!”

Rumpelstiltskin whipped around, a huge grin spreading across his face. She had worried things might not go according to plan, but he had told her it would be easy. People were so predictable. Well, most of them. The ones not named Belle, at least.

“A bride!”

The entire congregation moaned in horror, and Lord Maurice collapsed in his chair.

“But-but-but-”

They had worked it out carefully; each knew their lines as well as each other’s - but Rumpelstiltskin always did love a bit of improvisation. “Let’s see,” Rumpelstiltskin sang, already descending the dais towards a group of young women huddled in a corner. “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?”

The girls, predictably, descended into sobs. They clutched at each other, but he turned away sharply, peering under a table at two serving wenches. “And who do we have here?”

One screamed and started to push the other at him.

“Enough, sir.” Belle had descended after him. “ As I am the only bride here, and it was my wedding which so slighted your honor, ” with a court curtsy, she prostrated herself before him, “I am the only one suitable.”

When Belle had suggested this ploy, Rumpelstiltskin had nearly swallowed his tongue. She made it clear she had no interest in marriage, and while she would like nothing more than to roam the world to explore new and far-flung places, her place was here in Avonlea, and if she could, she was honor-bound to remain. As a married woman, wife to the most powerful creature in the world, she could do just that.

After nearly an hour of debating, threatening and whining had not changed her mind; he had finally relented. Rumpelstiltskin would be free to come and go in the decades the lady lived, and Belle would be free to do as she liked as Lady of Avonlea.

The terms of his deal with Gaston would be met, with his betrothal to Belle broken beyond repair. Of course, without Avonlea to bring to the table, Rumpelstiltskin rather doubted a crown was in Gaston’s future, but as Belle had so cleverly seen- Avonlea had not been part of the bargain.

That was why you always read the fine print.

“Done!” Rumpelstiltskin proclaimed, and taking her hand, he helped raise her to her feet. Around them, the crowd began to whisper and moan, a few of the ladies having fainted. Belle met his gaze, bright blue eyes twinkling in mischief. Rumpelstiltskin realized he hadn’t known what color her eyes were, but he was reasonably positive he would never forget again. “We shall be married here, and now, that is unless anyone objects?”

“Belle!” her father moaned. “My dear girl-”

“It’s fine, Papa,” she assured him, but she never took her eyes off Rumpelstiltskin. “I know what I’m doing.”

There was utter conviction in her voice. Rumpelstiltskin had to suppress a shiver as he was still holding her hands. Some little voice in the back of his head was starting to wonder if he was way over his head in this after all, but he ignored it.

There was a clatter of steel on stone as the spell containing Gaston dissolved. The knight pitched backwards, down the stairs, and onto his back. There were gasps, and the crowd began to murmur, even louder this time as their favorite son, and would have been lord raised himself to his feet.

His beautiful face was twisted in rage. “WE HAD A DEAL!” he bellowed, already charging at them. He swung his broadsword, fully intent on cutting them both down where they stood. Rumpelstiltskin instinctively drew Belle to his side, sheltering her from the swing even though a crook of his finger was all it took for the Dark One needed to send the sword spinning into the air.

Even weaponless, Gaston was not cowed. “This isn’t how it was supposed to go!” he railed, far too lost in his rage. His perfectly styled hair fell into his face as he thrust a finger at them. “We had a deal, Dark One. She was to die, and Avonlea was to be mine! I was going to be the king, you-”

Now, the words died in his throat as the murmurs of the crowd swelled into a furious chorus. It appeared the First Sword of Avonlea might have been well-loved but not more than their lady.

“Scoundrel!” an older woman called out, ignoring her husband’s attempt to pull her back behind the safety of a suit of armor. “Blackguard!”

Belle took charge. Rumpelstiltskin hadn’t realized he had still been holding her tightly to his side until, with a squeeze of his hands, she stepped out of his arms and towards the man who wanted her dead. “Sir LeRoux, you are to leave this hall and this land at once. Return to your master of Ormiston and tell him Avonlea has a new lord. But first, I believe it is only fitting that you bear witness to our union, seeing as you had a rather large hand to play in its arrangement.”

“You b-”

Gaston did not get to finish those words. His hands, already reaching out for Belle’s neck, went to his own throat as invisible hands cut off the oxygen. There was no humor in Rumpelstiltskin’s voice now, all acting had gone out the window. “That is my bride you are speaking to, sir. Have a care what you say, or I will feed your tongue to the dogs.”

As Gaston struggled to breathe, Belle turned to a portly gentleman who was tightly wedged between his seat and the table. “Good Uncle Bartholomew, will you read the bans?”

The man looked from Belle’s calm and collected face to Gaston’s purple one, to the Dark One. Then, he turned to where Lord Maurice sat, still collapsed in his chair upon the dais. “My lord?”

“Belle, my dear, surely we can-”

“Papa,” her voice was steel. “I’ve made my decision.” She half-turned to Rumpelstiltskin. “All of you have borne witness to Sir LeRoux’s words. On the eve of our wedding, he has plotted my death to take over Avonlea as his own. If the price for my life and the prosperity of our lands is to wed the Dark One, who has saved me though he may not have known it at the time- then so be it. It is a price I will happily pay for you and all of Avonlea.”

“Here, here,” came a voice, and another echoed this and then another. The people closest to them were still eying Rumpelstiltskin warily, but with Gaston now on his knees, no one was daring to make too big a fuss.

In the end, the bans were read. It was an odd wedding. The bride’s father cried the entire time, the guests were somber and morose, and the man who should have been the groom was prone on the floor, barely able to breathe, much less object when that part of the bans was read aloud.

As for the bride and groom...Well, Rumpelstiltskin had been married once upon a time, and while this was in name only, the usual flutter of anticipation was in his belly, and he couldn’t quite help the lopsided grin on his face. He would tell anyone who dared ask it was all an act, but in truth, he couldn’t help smiling at his bride, who was positively beaming at him like a cat who caught the canary.

The guests would tell anyone who would listen (and everyone wanted to hear the tale) they had never seen a happier bride. Others would swear the groom looked almost nervous, but no one believed the Dark One could be nervous.

Gaston fled to Ormiston, only to be flogged, denounced to a hedge knight, and banished from the kingdom forever. That was the last of Gaston they ever heard of, and the princess of Ormiston married some other lordling’s second son who had more interest in farming than war. Rumpelstiltskin always denied he had a hand in it, but after that, Avonlea and Ormiston’s kingdoms were at peace.

As the bans concluded, and after Gaston had long made a run for it, Rumpelstiltskin was walking his new bride out towards the Lord Tower to her chambers. He would lock them both inside and then depart back to the Dark Castle, returning in the morning, and rinse and repeat for the remainder of the fortnight to ensure no one challenged the union. “So,” Belle said, her arm neatly in the crook of his own. “Told you it would work.”

“Yes, yes,” he grumbled. “Your clever plan has left you wed to the most fearsome creature in the world. Just wait. Scores of knights will show up to defeat the evil dragon and rescue the fair lady. You simply tell me which one you like, and I’ll play dead so you two may run off into the sunset. Do we have a deal?”

Belle considered this for a moment, tipping her head back and forth. Then, her blues eyes twinkling as bright as the stars overhead, she said, “No. I’m afraid I never much cared for courtiers. Besides, being a married woman comes with some advantages. No one can tell me what to do anymore, and if anyone gets too out of hand, I have a husband to sic on them. No, I’m afraid you’re stuck with me. I’ll remain wed as long as you don’t behave too beastly.”

He shook his head at her, but internally, found he was rather pleased. “I’ve been told I’m incorrigible,” he warned. “Impossible and ill-mannered.”

As the lock on her door swung shut, she simply grinned at him and quipped, “I do like a challenge.”

If you were wondering, it took Belle five months and five days, but she finally got it through to her husband that she was perfectly happy being his lawfully wedded wife. He relocated permanently to Avonlea having fallen very much in love with his wife, though it took her seven months and seven days to make him understand she felt the same way and was very much ready to be his lawfully bedded wife, but that dear reader is another story.

(and as always a big thank you to @prissyhalliwell for being a wonderful friend/sounding board0

#rumbelle secret santa #rss 2020 #rumbelle #rumbelle fan fic #b does the write thing #for the first time since 2019

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typinggently · 4 years

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7) a theater at midnight, golden jewelry, a whispered secret - alfie/tommy (listen you can't post this and expect me to NOT ask for tolfie for it)

An anon requested the same prompt - it was a delight to write!!! Thank you two so much!!!!

As some might know - I certainly know that you are aware, Maggie – I claimed a prompt on the Shelomons prompt fest for the Les Liaisons Dangereuses AU. This prompt really inspired me in that regard, so let’s say it takes place in that universe, where Tommy and Alfie are both social climbing, scheming manwhores.

Warning: Vague mention of straight sex

Baroque AU

In general, Alfie wouldn’t say that many instances render him speechless. This, however, comes close. “My dear, would you hand me the opera glasses for a moment, please?” James hurries to comply and thusly armed, Alfie glances once again at the balcony of The Duchess.

Pretty thing, soft and full of wine-sweet smiles, but Alfie is more interested in her companion. Ever since her marriage, she’s been guarded like a particularly nice bone and her husband, ever the snarling watchdog, is right by her side any time she goes out. The poor, soft little peach has not a single moment to herself the second she steps out of the house and she certainly isn’t allowed to invite men into her box. However – “Oh, that little rat.” Alfie shakes his head, laughing to himself, and gets up. “My sweet, I’ll be right back. I saw an old acquaintance and I’m afraid I’ll have to make polite conversation.” With that, Alfie drops the opera glasses in James’ lap and runs a gentle hand through his hair. “You stay here with the gentlemen, I’m sure they’ll take care of you.”

Considering the fact that he’s supposed to introduce James to a certain circle of respectable friends of his, just dropping the poor thing to go hunt for his own adventure might seem a little rude, but Alfie left him in the caring company of four friends of his and while they might chew on him a little, he won’t be lonely. Which means that Alfie isn’t all that wrong about seeking his own amusement.

At the box, he thankfully meets Mrs Denver, who was kind enough to trust him with her daughter a few years ago. Lovely girl, she was, if a little cold at first. The mother’s had a soft spot for him since, which means he is smuggled right into the box for friendly introductions.

The Duke – tall, eyes like a hungry dog – regards him with a cold look, which isn’t surprising. The Duchess up close has a quite different sort of hunger glinting in her eyes and oh, Alfie almost changes plans when Mrs Denver introduces him as the former teacher of her daughter and that little peach face flushes so sweetly. But no, no. He didn’t come here for that.

“And who’s your friend, if I may ask?”

Oh, these eyes are ice cold. Half hidden in the darkness, the mysterious companion of the Duchess rises and extends a hand. Alfie makes sure to miss the ring, kissing the back of a trembling hand instead. Warm silk against his lips.

“Oh, that’s Lady Violet, a dear friend of mine.” The Duchess is pink and sweet, giggly at her husband’s side. A heavy hand on her round, lovely little shoulder.

“Lady Violet?” Alfie squints, steps a little closer. The faint rustle of silk as the friend presses herself into the corner. “I dare say I almost didn’t recognise you. We met before, didn’t we? At the- the garden party, last May?”

The Duchess fidgets a little, he can see it out of the corner of his eye. “Please, she has a cold, she can’t speak, but – I don’t think –“

“I remember.”

Now, if Alfie had been speechless before, he certainly is now. The softest little whisper, delicate like spun sugar. He nods, bites his tongue to make sure he doesn’t grin. “How glad I am to hear it. But I’m terribly sorry about the cold, my dear friend. Would you allow me to accompany you to the bar downstairs? I’m sure they’d be more than thrilled to offer you a little whiskey and honey for that throat of yours.”

It’s almost too much, but he knows he’ll get away with it. Lady Violet nods while The Duchess tries to argue, tries to step out of her husband’s grasp to shield her dear friend from Alfie. But all rescue attempts are pointless.

In a flutter of blue silk, the Lady has melted out of the shadows and kissed her friend on the cheek, then she puts her hand on Alfie’s arm and forces him out of the box. Outside, Alfie keeps up some nonsense conversation about honey and whiskey and lovely pale throats, then Lady Violet pulls him down a flight of stairs into the bowels of the theatre. Here, their steps quicken and Alfie really isn’t all that surprised by the familiarity with which his blue-silked companion leads him through the hallways.

At one door, they finally stop, a silky hand on the doorknob.

“In.” Not all that soft a voice, now.

Alfie stumbles when he’s shoved and laughs. “What the fuck are you doing?”

It’s the first thing he can think of, the only thing on his mind now that they’re alone. A strange rush of adrenaline burns through him and he laughs again, watches as Tommy leans against the closed door, breathing heavily. “What the fuck is all of that?”

It takes him a few seconds to catch his breath and open his eyes and Alfie uses those seconds to their full extend. They’re in a changing room, rows of costumes in the back and glittering mirrors on the wall. The candles on the two candelabras fills the room with multiplied, flickering light and beeswax-scented heat. It catches on the silk of Tommy’s dress, making it shine like crushed and molten sapphires, wet and shimmery. A terribly fetching contrast to the powdered white of his chest, his throat. There’s a hint of blush on his cheeks, softening the sharp angles of his face. His Adam’s apple is hidden behind a heavy necklace, gold flickering in the candlelight, while his waist – he has to be wearing a corset, all optical illusions and cleverly arranged lace aside, there is simply no way his waist is naturally that tiny.

“Now, how did this little costume idea come to be, I wonder?”

Tommy opens his eyes just a little and he huffs, squaring his shoulders. Alfie has never seen him in anything but royal layers, so the sight of his collar bones is terribly enticing. “It seemed like the most practical option.”

“What, instead of hiding with the chambermaid you construct this disguise and go to the theatre with them? You could’ve walked back to London in the time it must’ve cost you to do your hair.” At its mention, Tommy reaches out to touch it, a delicate pat against powdered strands. It can’t be a full wig, some of it has to be Tommy’s own, but Alfie can’t tell. He’s never seen him bare-faced. A soft curl rests on his shoulder, once again leading the eye to his collarbones and skilfully distracting from the unusual broadness of Lady Violet’s shoulders. “And where did you find a dress in your size? Does she always put the men she sneaks into her bed into those? I had no idea she was this wicked. What fun you two must’ve had.”

Tommy huffs and finally steps further into the room, passing Alfie. The faintest hint of rose and lavender. Alfie turns to watch as he sits on one of the wooden stools to check his hair in the mirror. “Judging by the way she opened up, she hasn’t had male visitors in a good while. It took me two months to get there, she’s awfully timid for such a soft nymph.” There’s a little line of silk roses braided into the back of his coiffure, their colours matching the pink dress of Lady Violet’s conquest.

Alfie takes a moment to consider it, the wine-sweet mouth soft and hot, little fingers digging into Tommy’s shoulders, her peach-softness bruised by his hands. Finally, he steps closer to meet Tommy’s eye in the mirror. “Two months, huh? And all the while you planned to put on a dress to escape?”

Tommy raises a brow at him. “Something like it.”

It’s pure vanity, then. It’s pure foolishness. A story to tell. Alfie huffs and runs his fingertips along Tommy’s powder-smooth collarbone, tickling his neck with his fingertips. “You better watch out, Lady Violet, your performance might be too convincing. What do you do if the Duke gets curious about his wife’s friend?”

“I doubt that will be a problem,” Tommy says, but his voice is light, distracted. He tilts his head a little and Alfie’s fingertips run along the edge of his heavy necklace, pearls and gold, skin warm.

“No?” From this angle, Alfie can see the lace-trimmed neckline, roses and ruffles making up for a distinct lack of volume. Still, it’s a little loose and Alfie can just barely make out the pale shimmer of Tommy’s chest in the shadows. “Will you leave with them? All piled up in their carriage, him not knowing that you’ve gotten your knuckles wet in his wife –“ Alfie would go on, the image is quite appealing, but instead he slips his hand from Tommy’s shoulder down into the open neckline of his dress, cold fingertips on warm skin. Tommy draws in a harsh breath, involuntarily pressing his chest against his curious fingers. Another breath and Alfie finds his nipple, pinches it. It’s a lovely view, his hand buried to the wrist in silk, but then he looks up and catches Tommy’s expression in the mirror and oh, that’s even sweeter. His cheeks are dark, lashes heavy, eyes glittering and unfocused. Alfie pinches him again, watches him shudder, then pulls his hand back.

It’s only now that Tommy meets his eye, lips sigh-wet and pink. Alfie pulls him up by the shoulder, spins him around to press close, feel the trim, silk-smooth waist under his hands. When Alfie reaches for the lacing of the dress, however, tangling his fingers and pulling, he reaches out to hold his wrist, leaning in so close that his lips are brushing Alfie’s, smearing them with red as he speaks. “It took us an hour to get it on.” Tommy’s flushed, breathing heavy. The corset must be tight, poor thing.

Alfie reaches down with his free hand, squeezes his sweet little waist and listens to the stutter in his breath. “It’ll take me ten minutes to get you out. At most.”

With that, he kisses him, tasting wine-sweetness and rogue. Tommy’s grip on his wrist loosens.

Together, they manage in seven.

Now that was fun to write, but it took rather long. It feels more like parts of a fic than a Drabble, I have to admit, but I wanted to give a proper taste of what I imagine for the Les Liasons AU. Also: The secret is that Tommy’s a guy..that’s..all. Idk.

Also (2): I did research for the makeup and was harshly reminded that all that shit was toxic. We’re ignoring that.

Also (3): In this universe, Tommy basically just whores around and gets into the good graces of various families because he’s “charming”, while Alfie at least pretends to be a teacher. He teaches them something alright. Also I’m not saying James is getting gangbanged in that box while Alfie is off to make “polite conversation” butttttttttttttt you know

Again! This was fun fun fun! I hope you enjoyed it too, I’m aware I went a little wild w that one

the prompts 🥰

#alfietommy #shelomons #tofie #drabble #lady violet

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brendamariesmith · 4 years

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What TO Stock for An APOCALYPSE, PART FOUR (Updated)

After the grid goes down, If you want to survive well, you’ll need light and refrigeration, and for that you need SOLAR and/or WIND POWER.

8. SOLAR POWER:

Building your own solar power system is an endeavor fraught with potential failure, so be sure you know what you’re doing before you embark on such a project. And it will be costly, no matter how you go about it. For more information on how to do it, try these links (and there are scores more if these don’t help you enough): https://www.solarreviews.com/blog/how-to-build-your-own-solar-panel-system and/or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHYVhNdlYM4.

For my own solar-powered home, we hired professionals, although we were fortunate to live in Austin, Texas during a time with the City utility was offering substantial rebates. Federal tax credits were also available, so our net cost per set was about $5,000 for each $25,000 system. We have two sets of panels, one installed in 2007 and the other in 2013, with a total capacity of 6 Kilowatts.

Here’s a view from Google Earth of our house from the backyard (notice that the panels get plenty of sun—no trees or chimneys in their way—and they face to the South, Southeast & Southwest):

We love our solar panels. They save us gobs of money on our electric bills, around $2,000 per year. But make no mistake—we do NOT live off the grid. To run our air conditioners and keep marginally cool in the Texas heat, we would need a lot more panels. And to run lights, fridges, TVs, and computers at night or on rainy days, we would need a battery system that we were told would cost at least $60,000 (in 2013). Just like Bea in my novel, I can’t run this system off the grid without a substantial investment and a ton of work. And since the City utility system paid for most of these panels, I doubt they would allow us to go off-grid.

There are smaller systems that will run power in an RV—400 watts. They certainly won’t run a big A/C system, but they should at least give you some lights and radios and maybe even a medium-size fridge (only in the daytime unless you have battery backup). You can find out more about them here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRRKHYwB3Uo and dozens of other places online.

Whether or not you have solar power, it’s best to stock up on candles, too, and lanterns plus the fuel to run them. And if the power stays down for years, you’ll need to learn to make your own candles. Here’s a link for how to make candles from shortening (so stock up on that and/or candle wax, or learn how to render your own lard from hogs): https://macgyverisms.wonderhowto.com/how-to/make-long-lasting-wax-free-candles-for-your-home-0159878/. You can also make candles from beeswax, but they burn awfully fast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urjpaIGDvao

There’s a great series of books called FOXFIRE BOOKS that tell you how to render hog fat, how to make soap, and hundreds of other tips for survival, all gleaned from our recent ancestors. Better buy the full set in advance of an apocalypse and read them so you’ll know what else to add to your stockpiles. https://www.foxfire.org/shop/category/books/

9. WIND POWER:

A wind power system big enough to run an average American home will cost you $48-$65,000 and will require you to have at least one acre of land, because the towers are too tall for most urban neighborhoods. Towers need to be as tall as 140 feet to get up high enough to capture the strongest prevailing winds.

But you can use windmills for smaller projects, like pumping water—if you have a well, a pond, or a lake to pump it from. Those of us who are old enough remember windmills as a common sight throughout the countryside. These babies, many of which are still in use today:

From what I’ve learned through my admittedly limited research, windmills don’t appear to be a good option unless you are a landowner or have very tolerant neighbors and city codes. It’s probably a good idea to pressure your local governments and utility providers to invest in wind energy immediately, and to make the power grids impervious to an electromagnetic pulse.

In Texas and other places around the country, we have wind farms with hundreds of huge wind turbines.

And then there are the Dutch, masters of wind power for centuries:

To see how my unlikely apocalyptic hero, seventy-year-old Bea Crenshaw, shepherds her grandkids and neighbors through the aftermath of a solar pulse, check out IF DARKNESS TAKES US on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Darkness-Takes-Brenda-Marie-Smith-ebook/dp/B07WK9BQHN or order it from your favorite indie bookstore:

The sequel, IF THE LIGHT SHOULD COME, will be out June 2021 from SFK Press.

STAY TUNED FOR FUTURE INSTALLMENTS OF “WHAT TO STOCK FOR AN APOCALYPSE.”

NEXT UP: KNOWLEDGE AND FORGOTTEN SKILLS

#apocalypse scifi thrillers survival dystopia stockpiling novels

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buttsonthebeach · 5 years

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Lovers, Triumphant

When @roguedreadwolf came to me with the idea for this commission, I immediately said YES PLEASE. Who doesn’t love angsty, worshipful, post-Here Lies the Abyss sex?? Thank you for trusting me with your idea <3

My Ko-Fi || My Commissions

Pairing: Aelyn Lavellan x Solas

Rating: Explicit!

**********

Everything hurts.

When Aelyn Lavellan first became the Herald of Andraste, and then the Inquisitor, her mind was so full of buzzing thoughts that she could hardly track them all. Now, in the world after Adamant, there was only that one thought.

Everything hurts.

Her ribs ached where they had cracked, and her arms and her back and her neck, too. But it wasn’t only that. Aelyn hurt all the way from her throat down into her lungs, into the pit of her stomach. She hurt somewhere deep inside her chest, somewhere she could not touch, something she could not clear even with her deepest breaths.

She had been in a realm of nightmares, and even though she could feel the stone of the fortress beneath her palms, she was beginning to think she hadn’t actually woken up from it.

Her physical injuries were already healed by the potions and spells. She knew from experience that the soreness would fade, that still feeling some even after being healed was normal. But she had no idea what to do with the other aches as she sat in the bedroom Cullen had set aside for her, declaring that there was no need to move out immediately, that she needed rest. It was a dank, dark place, but the bed was comfortable enough, and the ceilings were high, and someone had made sure plenty of beeswax candles were lit, and so Aelyn shouldn’t have felt as trapped and scared and unable to breathe as she did.

Her eyes drifted upwards to the Warden banner hung above her bed. Her stomach lurched. She made the right decision. She did. Alistair was the leader the Wardens needed now more than ever. And how could she take him away from his partner, another Dalish elf who’d been called on to save their world?

But then Aelyn thought again of the look on Varric’s face when she returned without Hawke.

She moved to the edge of the bed, planted her feet on the floor, and ducked her head between her knees. In, out. All she had to do was breathe.

Everything hurts.

The wooden door of her room creaked open and a chill desert breeze snaked through. Then there was the soft hush of bare feet on the stone floor, and then Solas’s arms were around her.

Aelyn did not even lift her head to see him. She just went to her knees and let him catch her, carry her there. She buried her face into the crook of his neck and breathed in the smell of him.

“Ma vhenan,” he murmured, nearly crushing her with the strength of his embrace. “Aelyn, I -”

“Everything hurts,” she said, and it was the first time she had spoken the words aloud in the hours since the chaos ended.

As she shook in his arms, Aelyn realized that it might have been the first time she truly broke down since becoming Inquisitor. She was physically exhausted by the retreat from Haven, nervous when they chose her to lead them, and infuriated by the politics of Orlais. The last few months had not been short of tension and high emotion. But she had borne it all. She had shoved her own needs down. Everyone else mattered more than she did. That was what it meant to be Inquisitor.

Now she found she could barely stand, that each time she closed her eyes she saw the many eyes of Nightmare, saw Hawke framed against that arachnid silhouette, going towards her death unafraid -

“Atisha, ma vhenan,” Solas murmured again and again. “Atisha, atisha. I have you, Aelyn.”

But Aelyn did not fail to notice that there was a tremor in his own voice, and in his hands, for all that he was trying to comfort her.

She rocked back onto her heels, creating just enough distance between them to look him in the eyes. He was searching her face too, his eyes darting this way and that. He was as frightened as she was. Aelyn cupped his face in her hands, feeling the warmth of him, the softness of his freckled skin.

“Are you alright?” she asked, though she already knew the answer.

Solas laced his fingers around her wrists. She felt the calluses from his staff. She studied him in turn. There was a purpling bruise along his collarbone from where a terror demon had struck him while they were in the Fade. She could just see it through the loose neck of his tunic.

“So many times,” he began. He had to shake his head before he could go on. “I thought I lost you today. Over and over and over again. And losing you -”

His breath hitched, and Aelyn’s heart was a stone again - not a hammering, living thing but a dead anvil inside her chest, pressing all the breath from her body. She leaned her forehead against Solas’s.

“I do not think I can bear it.”

He said can and not could - like it was something that would happen no matter what. Maybe he was right. Aelyn felt the foreign magical hum of the Anchor in her left palm, saw the green glow that outlined it where she cradled Solas’s face. If it was not that archdemon - if it was not Corypheus - if it was not one of the Venatori or one of the Red Templars or a godsforsaken bear - there was every chance that she would not survive her time as Inquisitor.

There was every chance that Solas would not survive, either. His magical power and prowess confounded Bull, and Cole said a sadness deep as the sea lurked behind his grey-blue eyes, and when he had nearly fallen to that terror demon, Aelyn had felt her own soul leave her body.

She sat up onto her knees, taller than him now, and kissed him hard on the mouth.

Solas went to her like a drowning man towards the surface of the water, or a flower bending towards sunlight. He leaned back, swaying, groaning, his hands tight on her back, nearly clawing down her own loose tunic as she deepened the kiss. A flicker of tongue, and then another, their mouths opening and closing. She was in his lap now, straddling him, kissing him until she could no longer breathe, until the pain spiked sharp in her ribs and she pulled back, hissing.

Everything hurts.

That thought was not as all-encompassing when Solas was there, pressed against her, eyes bright in the darkness, mouth still parted, all open desire in her arms.

“I need you,”Aelyn said in a voice that did not quite sound like her own. Surely she was not so scared. So raw. “I need you, gods, vhenan, I need you.”

Solas stood and she rose with him, and they both winced and bit their lips, and then they both found each other again. For a moment there was nothing but hands and bodies - her hands pushing up Solas’s shirt, finding warm muscle beneath, tracing paths she had known before with a desperation she had never known in her life. His were on her shoulders, her back, her buttocks, the laces of her leather armor, the bottom part of which she had not yet removed. She got his shirt off of him first, and found a constellation of bruises her fingers had not been able to feel. His pale skin was dotted with them. She made a sound in her throat, or thought she did - she was still certain those noises had to be coming from someone else - and bent to start kissing them one at a time, like that would heal them.

“I put you in so much danger,” she murmured when she was on her knees again, her lips against his belly, her hands on his hips.

“Stop,” Solas said, his voice harsh now, his full pink lips a slash against his face and not a gentle bow. “You could not have kept me from your side if you tried.”

He was in the leggings he wore beneath his armor. Aelyn could see the shape of him, swelling up, against his left thigh.

“Aelyn,” he said, fingertips grazing her cheek. “It is alright. You did everything you could today. Let me take care of you.”

Aelyn did not want to be taken care of. She wanted to feel the truth of his words. That she was good, that she did good for others.

She hooked her fingers into the waistband of his leggings and began pulling them down, watching him all the while, watching the rise and fall of his chest as his breathing quickened, the prickle of gooseflesh up and down his stomach as the cold desert air hit his naked body. She watched the moment when he yielded, already half undone, when she wrapped her hand around his shaft and stroked him once, slowly, root to crown. He was full hard when she was done, shockingly hot in her hand, the skin soft as velvet, the head of him flushed red with his need.

“Aelyn,” he gasped when she wrapped her lips around him there. “Vhenan, I - ah -”

She loved this moment. Her body still ached and there was still the press of tears behind her eyes but she loved the moment when he was rendered speechless by the touch of her body. Her eloquent, intelligent lover, lost for words in any language. There was heat between her legs now too, stoked by the little gasps and moans spilling from his lips like rain as she took him further in her mouth, tested the thickness of him with little swipes of her tongue, cradled his sack with her other hand. His knees trembled when she drew back, sucking.

“Sit down,” she murmured, kissing each of his thighs. “Sit down on the bed. Let me take care of you. “Emma lath, let me take care of you. Please.”

Solas did as she asked, sitting on the bed, making room for her between his legs, and Aelyn returned her mouth to where it was, to tasting and sucking and swirling, to losing herself in these ancient, primal moments, to the little jolts of pleasure that made him twitch against her lips when she rubbed them against the plushness of his head.

“I love you,” she murmured, trying not to see the bruises now, trying to pretend this was any other night, that she had not left Hawke to die, that she had not seen every one of her worst fears play out before her eyes. She kissed everywhere she could reach on Solas’s body, took him in her hand, started up long, slow strokes of his shaft. “I love you, Solas, I -”

The tears were sudden, unexpected, unwelcome. They spilled down her cheeks and Aelyn hated herself for them. She buried her face in his stomach, ashamed.

“Atisha,” he said again, tugging at the hand she had balled up in the comforter of the bed. “Come here. Let me love you.”

She stood and Solas was there, quickly, pulling off her shirt and the last of her armor and her breastband and her smalls, each touch deft and sure. He kissed her while he did it. Her collarbones, each breast, each stiff nipple. He ran his nose down the center of her stomach, towards her belly button. His fingers skated along her buttocks again, down the backs of her thighs, and he pulled her onto his lap once more, and there was so much skin, and they were pressed so close together, and Aelyn felt so whole and so sad that there was nothing to do but cry again.

“I have you, I have you,” Solas said, again and again. He kissed her through her tears and turned them, and they were lying on the bed together now, legs twined.

“I’m sorry,” she managed. “I want you. I want to make love to you. I’m sorry I keep crying.”

“There is no apology necessary.” Solas kissed each of her cheeks, and then her eyelids when she closed them, and then left one long, lingering kiss on her forehead. “Come under the covers with me.”

They burrowed in, and the world was a warm nest, narrowed only to the space of Solas’s arms as he held her, as he moved over her, kissing her on the lips once more, long, deep kisses. She accepted the weight of him gratefully. It grounded her in the moment, kept her mind from spinning out. He’d softened since she stopped touching him but he grew hard as he rocked against her. She felt the stickiness of the fluids leaking from him and onto her belly. She was starting to get slick between her own thighs, to need more than just the aimless friction of their bodies rubbing together.

Something in the sounds she was making - the moans and restless whines - must have given her need away. Solas drew back and looked down at her. His thumb followed the contour of her cheekbone.

“Let me take care of you now,” he said. “As you cared for me.”

Aelyn nodded. She was swollen, too, aching between her legs, and the first touch of Solas’s finger against her bud was like lightning in her veins. She forgot there was anything but the pad of his thumb and the slow, resolute circles he drew around her hooded clit, the tease of his fingers against the lips of her sex.

“Beautiful,” he murmured. “You are so beautiful, Aelyn.”

One finger slid inside her, and then another. A near-perfect fullness. She groaned and pressed towards him. The sound he made was pleased. He shifted to his side to give himself more room, hooked one leg over hers to spread her wider, and to press his cock against her. Whenever she made a sound he pressed it harder into her thigh.

“Beautiful,” he murmured again when he shifted over her once more, when he began to kiss her all over. And again and again between the kisses.

Sometimes it was vhenan instead. He wrapped her up in his arms and with his words and he kissed her all over and even though it hurt sometimes, it was worth it. It was worth it to be so close to him, so lost in the powerful sensations of her own body that she forgot everything else. The pain in her chest was still there but it was manageable, now, because Solas was here, here with her, kissing her everywhere and telling her she was beautiful, marveling at the strength of her thigh as he put it over his shoulder, breathing in the smell of her when his nose was against the mound of her sex. She was not alone.

Solas licked her open, his tongue flat and warm and wet, and Aelyn forgot to think at all. There was nothing but him, and the way his hand clung to hers in the sheets as he licked and sucked and hummed against her until she came, the pleasure rippling out and out and out from her throbbing cunt to the ends of her fingers and toes.

He kissed her all over on his way back up to her. He pressed his forehead hard against hers.

“I do not want to lose you,” he said, once more as if it was something already written, like there was no way around it.

Aelyn looped her arms over his shoulders, pulling his body down against hers. She guided his head to the crook of his neck and held him there.

“You won’t,” she said. “You won’t, you won’t.”

That was dangerously close to thinking again, to acknowledging the bruises and broken bones and the people left behind. So Aelyn kissed him when Solas raised his head again, and when his own tears escaped him. She ran her hands over every inch of him she could reach, trying to memorize the strength of his shoulders, the way the muscles in his back bunched and moved as he centered himself, as he reached down to guide his cock into her waiting warmth.

The gutted sound he made when he pressed all the way into her nearly made her come again, her cunt fluttering tight around him. He gasped at that and thrust a little, two quick in and outs, trying to get as much from the sensation as he could. Aelyn was full of him now. Whole. There was nothing but this. Nothing but them.

“Stay still a moment,” she said.

“Is all well?” Solas asked, brushing some of her white hair from her sweat-damp forehead. “Are you in pain?”

“No,” she said. “I want to hold you.”

So Solas lowered himself again, and they held each other. It was perfect stillness. They began to breathe the same breaths. There was pain, yes - he was heavy on top of her, and there was the sweet ache of where they were joined, the longing for him to move within her, but mostly there was just the stillness. She could feel Solas’s heartbeat against her chest.

“Ar lath ma,” she said, quietly.

“Ar lath ma,” he replied.

He raised his head - their lips met - and then they began to move together, her hips a rising tide against his, each thrust slow and controlled and exquisite. Solas braced himself on his hands, getting more leverage. Aelyn wrapped her legs around him, deepening the angle. Her heart sped up when his eyes slipped shut and his mouth fell open at how good that was.

“You’re beautiful, too,” she said. “You’re beautiful like this.”

His thrusts stayed long and powerful, made his stomach ripple. Aelyn could feel every inch of him rubbing against every inch of her. He readjusted, and the root of his cock rubbed against her already sensitive clit with each careful stroke. She gasped, threw her hands over her head, and Solas found one at once, and laced their fingers together, and held on tight. He stretched himself out over her, and the angle changed again, and then he really went to his work, the shorter, sharper thrusts that left him a groaning, panting mess. He kissed her. The kisses were sloppy and Aelyn loved them, loved how his whole body stiffened if she bit his lip, if she feathered her lips along his jaw. She loved how wet and alive she felt. She loved the flexing of his buttocks as he made love to her.

“I cannot last like this,” Solas said against her throat. “I cannot last like this, you feel so good -”

“Let me make you come,” Aelyn said. “Let me make you feel good, vhenan.”

A scrambling, a quick rearranging, muscles protesting, and Solas was on his back, and Aelyn was above him, and she got to watch his whole lovely body as she rode him with slow rolls of her hips. She got to watch him toss his head back, and claw the sheets, and study every inch of her as she rode him.

“Vhenan, vhenan -”

He repeated it again and again, each repetition more desperate than the last. He held tight to her hips and followed each rolling motion of her body, and that was how she brought him over his edge. His whole face went slack with relief. He jerked his hips up into her and she ground down onto him, trying to make each moment perfect - and it was perfect. It was perfect because they were together. It was perfect because she could drop forward when he was done and lie there with him, cheek to cheek, and feel the twitches of his aftershocks within her body. She could lie there and feel safe and whole as they both came back down to earth. She could lie there and ignore the green glow of her left hand, and the Warden banner above them both. Solas put his arms around her at last, drawing the covers up and over them, completing their cocoon. The world outside it did not exist.

Except that Aelyn woke up much later and it was all still there. Her memories of Nightmare’s realm, of Hawke as they left her behind, of the constellation of bruises all over Solas’s body. She sat up, and she looked at him, soft and sleeping at her side, and he was a wonder, and that filled her with dread.

For the first time in her life, Aelyn Lavellan had something truly worth losing, and that was a beautiful and terrible thing.

Solas woke eventually, and drew her back down to his side. He kissed her temple.

“I am here,” he said.

Everything still hurt, inside and out - but that simple acknowledgement from the man she loved made it all something that Aelyn could bear.

#beach writes #beach does commissions #aelyn lavellan #solavellan #roguedreadwolf #idk where that title came from #my brain just screamed it at me

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foxofthedesert · 6 years

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OGA: Ch2

Chapter 1 – Flames on the Horizon

From her seat at the head of a massive oaken table, Queen Regina smolders with tentatively restrained fury. She sweeps her eyes over the room, taking in a dozen familiar faces, all pinched with discomfort.

In a futile attempt to calm herself, she breathes slowly through her nostrils then averts her gaze to the banner draped across the far wall bearing her family crest. Once it was the black and silver of her father's house, a rearing stallion bearing a sword wielding cavalier. Five years ago she abandoned that link to a lineage she has as little use for as her fellow members do for her. Xavier's spawn hold her father in contempt to this day for allowing Cora's poison to spread unchecked through the kingdom, having banished him after his conniving wife took her schemes too far. Regina, naturally, was caught in the crossfire. She has not been welcome in her paternal ancestral lands since she was seven winters of age. The estrangement did not prevent her from shamelessly using her father's coat of arms as an additional means to solidify her hold on power after Leopold was treated to his just desserts. When marrying Red presented her an opportunity to finally erase the bitterness of being disowned by her royal grandfather and many uncles by founding a kindred all her own, she leapt at it. Together, she and Red designed a new coat of arms – upon a pitch sable background, a crimson crescent moon hung over a sprawling apple tree. A most fitting emblem for their new house, she thinks.

The walls of the council room, a sprawling stone-constructed space large enough to host a party of forty with ease, is decorated by twelve such crested banners. Each represents one of the houses belonging to the Council of Nobles, one of few carryover cabinets Regina did not disband upon assuming power. The council has diligently and wisely advised the monarchs of Misthaven for more than five hundred years, and she had seen no reason to hastily eliminate a body comprised of highly influential individuals that would only help her maintain control of her realm so long as she exerted the right amount of leverage over them. Since attaining and retained leverage is one of her specialties, they have been kept in check and thus served her well over the years. Mostly. And when they have failed in that, such as today, she does not hesitate to remind them of their place.

Other than the banners, the chamber boasts a row of thin rectangular windows set into shallow alcoves against the outer wall. All six are taller than they are broad with matching panes divided by exquisitely engraved brass. Pure, unfiltered light streams in through the clear glass, the crimson and black curtains tied off by thick golden cords. Were it night, the numerous gold-plated sconces containing fat beeswax candles would provide illumination along with the polished brass candelabras tucked into each corner of the room which feature inverted conical cups whose tops are fashioned in the shape of a many-bladed diadem.

The grand table at the center of the space, also rectangular in shape, is so thick and dense that it could likely survive a ceiling collapse. Spanning three quarters of the chamber, it dominates the area and provides ample room for councilors to spread out notation parchments along with various reports, ledgers, and reference tomes. Regina commissioned it a year after taking the throne, having disliked the old table, a perfect square that projected an equality between the nobility and the Crown she was unwilling to abide as her doddering former husband had. So enormous and heavy was the magnificent piece of furniture that it had to be brought in unassembled then painstakingly reconstructed and reinforced on site, which rendered the chambers unusable for a week. Encompassing the whole width and length of the midsection is the centerpiece, a master artwork fashioned by the most skilled jeweler in Misthaven. Formerly it was a giant onyx carving detailed with silver displaying the stallion and cavalier capped with transparent crystal. It was installed to provide a gleaming focal point punctuating the realm's extravagant wealth and did that job admirably for many years, stunning a plethora of dignitaries and royals from abroad. Having it replaced by another onyx carving with ruby representations of the new family coat of arms and similarly sealed with crystal cost a pretty penny. But the cost was worth it if only for Red's reaction upon getting her first glimpse of the finished product.

If only the memory of that moment was enough to curtail the steep spiral of frustration Regina is currently descending.

The dozen men and women assembled around the gargantuan table are currently holding her hostage, further fraying an already anorexic tether with each passing second. Their scheduled business was supposed to have concluded with the unanimous passage of security measures to bolster defenses near the border with Drakkenhall, where they are by far the weakest. Misthaven has a longstanding affiliation with that nation that she renewed upon usurping the throne, so there has been no need to reinforce the region until recently. Alarming rumblings have surfaced that a number of villages in Stefan's realm located close to Misthaven have been attacked by some unknown assailant. Excessive caution being far preferable to unanticipated disaster, she thought it wise to cover her bases in arranging reinforcements in the region. The council readily agreed.

To that end, she assured them that she would dispatch General Mulan to inspect the relevant outposts and would bestow upon the General whatever latitude, including the redistribution of troops from elsewhere, was necessary to shore them up. There is no one she trusts more to perform this task. That the council shares that opinion shows how adept Mulan is at her job. Since she was promoted to Chief Military Commander, she has greatly streamlined the deployment capacity of the realm's forces and has by all accounts doubled their combat effectiveness. The army has never been in as good a shape as it currently is. There is little doubt in her mind that under Mulan's capable leadership, the southern corps – previously left largely ignored at Regina's insistence, a potentially catastrophic mistake in hindsight – will be operating at peak efficiency in no time.

The reason for her poor mood has nothing to do with the potentially dangerous state of the southern region and everything to do with having looked forward to retiring early for once. With Red having decided to delay until tomorrow her plans to visit Waldeck, the densely populated town located around the base of the mountain the Dark Palace was built upon, they were supposed to spend the rest of the afternoon and evening together. This past month has been busy for both by any standard of comparison, leaving them with little in the way of interaction outside of an unsatisfying few minutes before retiring to catch up on a shared lack of sleep. With that being the case, she is of a mind they are both long due a recreational allowance to spend as a couple.

Sadly, it isn't to be. As if sensing her anticipation at the many pleasurable activities she could potentially indulge in with her wife late this afternoon and evening, the Council decided to it was an appropriate moment to test her faltering patience. Her mood sours even further as the spokesperson chosen to broach whatever topic they felt could not wait until next week stands and haughtily clears her throat.

"My Queen, please forgive my boldness, but there is one last matter we must discuss before convening," Lady Tremaine says, tone conveying as much criticism as possible without subverting the respect her sovereign is due.

Regina has long fostered a hearty disdain for Tremaine, and being chosen as the mouthpiece for what is bound to be bad news is doing the shrewish woman no favors. Nonetheless, Regina waves her permission to continue, which Tremaine immediately seizes upon.

"I mean no disrespect in informing you that the Council is in agreement on the longstanding concern of the kingdom lacking a legitimate heir. We must insist that you provide one with all due haste. Too long now we have mediated on your behalf with our fellow Lords and Ladies without providing them the assurances they require to continue their longstanding, incredibly generous support for the Crown. Two days ago via official written form, they unanimously demanded results from us on this issue. As sympathetic to your unique situation as are all within these chambers, we can no longer stem the tide of unease. If something is not done promptly, those with the means and influence to do so will surely intervene and seek their own solution."

With each condescending phrase, Regina feels her blood pressure elevate. "What you mean to say," she sneers, "is that the brazen demand is meant for me alone and that if I don't cow to them, they will commit treason and go behind my back to procure an heir favorable to them. Only they lacked the spine to face me directly." Rising, she leans over the table imperiously, hands splayed out over the finely polished surface of a furniture piece that weighs as much as a small horse. "Well, you can tell those yellow-bellied, blue-blooded bastards I won't stand for it. If they really feel so strongly, perhaps they should level those threats in person tomorrow morning. Rest assured, I will answer them with extreme relish!"

Though she has not spoken to the Council so harshly in many months, she is impressed by her ability to contain a seething rage that threatens her carefully constructed self-control. She had wanted to do so much more than verbally rail against them, even though this situation is not wholly their fault. They are merely the messengers of a faction of powerful nobles who simply refuse to let this exhausted topic die. Honestly, she should have slaughtered them all for their insolence years ago.

The last time she was confronted about her lack of a viable heir, she and Red had been together for barely more than a year. Although her life was sweeter than it had ever been, she began growing ever more irritated about the increasingly conspicuous looks of disapproval from the Council. As the body of representatives that maintained equilibrium between the Crown and the nobility that underpinned her political authority, it was imperative she at least lend a perfunctory ear service to their concerns. As much power as she wielded, they served a purpose she couldn't afford to overtly undermine.

Also, she knew without needing a formal declaration the reason for their intermittent censures. She wasn't getting any younger, and without an heir the future stability of the kingdom was in increasingly serious jeopardy. Added to that, she had taken a woman as her partner. With natural procreation eliminated as an option, her advisers began to murmur in discontent at what must have seemed to them a potentially dismal future. That disquiet was a symptom of an underlying illness among the entire upper class, noble and gentry alike, which left untreated would eventually fester into borderline rebellion. Which is precisely what is happening right now because she was, at the time, unwilling to confront it with her typical finality.

One day during an otherwise routine meeting, the Council confronted her directly. To the last member, they insisted she should take a husband to sire an heir – they hadn't known at the time that she was barren, not that it would have mattered as insistent as they were. It was for the good of the kingdom, they argued, with Snow in permanent exile and Regina otherwise childless. They even had the gall to suggest that she could keep Red as a lover on the side if she so wished after the farce of a wedding. Just so long as she put the welfare of the realm above her own personal desires, they didn't care what 'seedy activities' occurred behind closed doors. Enraged past the point of logical response, she disbanded the Council for an entire month on the spot and then issued an insistence of her own that if anyone dared to denigrate her relationship with Red in such a way ever again, they would be roasted on a spit in the square as an example. She had wanted to do so much more but held back out of respect for Red's more sensitive scruples.

The threat worked insofar as it put an end to the open sedition, though Regina knew it would not stop the nobles' discontent. However irate she was at them for daring to pose such a disgusting solution to the glaring problem of her lack of a suitable heir, their worries were legitimate if viewed from an objective lens. The power of the nobility depends upon the favor of the monarchy, a monarchy whose succession was by no means secure. So long as she remains childless, their futures are uncertain. Uncertainty breeds anxiety. Anxiety produces paranoia. Paranoia begets recklessness, which if left unchecked usually erupts into violence. It is a vicious progression the kingdom cannot afford to reach its natural conclusion. Thus the nobles' implied threat. Regicide is not off the table for those whose vested interest lies in the continued stability of the realm. It has happened before, many times. History books are littered with examples of kings and queens whose refusal to play the game pushed the nobility to the limit and then paid the ultimate price for their obstinance.

The problem was not that she was, or is to date, wholly indifferent to their restlessness so much as she felt such conviction about the subject that she could honestly say she prefers death to the alternative. However desperate the kingdom is for an heir, she will be no one's broodmare. That she is incapable of becoming pregnant and that there are possible fixes for her self-inflicted infertility is beside the point. She will never, ever betray Red and had assumed that sentiment was reciprocated.

To her immense shock, upon being informed of the council's suggestion later that night, Red actually agreed with them. To a degree, anyway.

"The kingdom does need an heir," Red said sorrowfully, plucking absently at her skirts as they sat at the emptied dinner table. Regina had waited to broach the subject until they had eaten, believing the ensuing discussion would likely ruin both of their appetites. Sadly, as usual she was correct. Her stomach curled into a knot at Red's next statements. "They're not wrong about that. The nobles need to know their future isn't insecure and so does everyone else. For that reason alone, their point isn't unreasonable. Before you go telling them a second time where they can shove their suggestion, you should give it some serious thought. And besides, you not having an heir negatively impacts the entire kingdom. I'm not worth sacrificing the welfare of so many innocent people over."

"You are sure as hell are to me," Regina insisted, perturbed that Red was defending the absurdity in the first place. She didn't care a lick that the kingdom would undoubtedly be plunged into chaos should something happen to her before she could somehow produce an heir. "Don't you realize by now that nothing else is more important to me than you? The crown, the sniveling nobles incessantly pandering for my favor, the unwashed masses I've no practical use for...they are meaningless in comparison."

"That's not true," Red passionately countered. "You care, you just won't – or can't – admit it. How many times have I seen you intervene on behalf of the helpless? When there is a famine and people are starving in some remote corner of the realm, you send grain and corn from the castle's surplus reserves. You have lightened the tax load on the common folk, transferring much to those who can more ably bear it. Real justice is being dealt now. Corruption is being weeded out everywhere. The people's voices are being heard again. You are becoming a champion of the disenfranchised, and it pains me that you can't see how far you've come. Your people are learning to love you, and I know you love them, too. You can deny that until you're blue in the face and I won't stop believing it."

Regina had sighed and stood to briefly turn away from her wife's insistent gaze. "Even if that were accurate, and I'm not saying that it is, to keep the throne and concede to these absurd demands would mean losing you." When Red began to protest, Regina hushed her with a raised finger. "I know you think you could bear sharing me, but I assure you sooner or later the strain would break you just as surely as it would break me. I would just as soon relinquish the throne and keep you than the opposite. My feud with Snow is no longer my primary reason for living, so I've no need anymore of the power and reach the crown affords me. You make me happy, which is all I've ever really wanted. I won't give that up just to appease a flock of gluttonous, honking geese who've been fed too much for too long by my apparently excessive generosity."

"I'm glad I make you so happy," Red said. Rising herself, she sidled up behind Regina and slid her arms around her waist. She then pulled Regina back flush with her body so that she could rest her chin on her shoulder. "I'm also glad you've stopped hunting Snow. And while I agree the council needs to be put in their place on some issues, I think you're wrong about not needing the throne. You do, just not for yourself. The people need you."

When Regina scoffed and tried to extricate herself, Red pulled her back and fixed her with a stern gaze over her shoulder. "You don't believe me, huh? Well answer me this: who would replace you should you abdicate? What would happen to the kingdom under the care of someone bound to be made of lesser stuff than you? In my unsolicited opinion, things would go back to the way they were where the poor had no voice and no power and were used and abused on a daily basis by nobles and rich merchants who only care about furthering their own agendas. You're changing things here, slowly but surely making them better so that this kingdom exists not just to serve the wealthy but all of its citizens. So as much as I hate to agree with the council on this, they are right that you have to do something. This is my home and these are my people, too, and I love them. I want what's best for them, and that is you being their Queen. For that reason alone, you should listen to what they are trying to tell you."

Shaking her head in the negative, Regina swiveled in Red's arms and grasped her lover's face between gentle yet unyielding hands. Her face stern, she said, "Absolutely not. I will not allow anyone in my bed except you. Should the need for an heir prove urgent, we can discuss other means such as adopting, but I won't entertain any further debate on the matter of me marrying anyone else. You are mine and I am yours. End of discussion."

The definitive nature of her assertion concluded the argument for the time being. Red enjoys many liberties with her no one else did, but she also knows when it is unwise to press her luck. That was one such occasion. Two weeks after, Regina proposed marriage to seal the deal, forever ending any further schemes of the nobility to import a pliable husband of station for their unwed Queen.

That decision garnered a fair share of opposition, even from her most trusted advisers, who could see only the negative ramifications of a triply taboo union. Not only was their Queen slumming so low as to crown a peasant, but she was doing so strictly for love and that with a member of her own sex. The outrage lasted well beyond the wedding, which took place less than a year later. Some of it has yet to die down to this day.

For the most part the nobles came around, if not due to Regina's sincere threats than to how competent a co-ruler Red proved herself to be. All the same, the rumblings over the lack of a suitable heir are beginning to grow audible again, which indicate she is facing a potential crisis lest she address the unrest with all due haste. The nobles have shown remarkable restraint in failing to confront her head on, but they won't wait forever for her to solve the problem at her leisure. There is simply too much power and wealth riding on its successful resolution. If she continues to drag her feet, they will more than likely attempt to resolve it for her, resulting in a lot of unnecessary drama. Perhaps they may even foster a spark of rebellion she cannot afford to quash with a heavy hand as she would have in the past. The Dark Days, which has become the preferred appellative for her reign of terror as the Evil Queen, of her ruling primarily through fear and violence are over. She's shown everyone her soft underbelly, now she's reaping the bitter harvest.

That said, as Red pointed out so many years ago, the expectation for her to provide an heir is not unreasonable. However annoying and unfair, it is her duty as sovereign not only to secure the kingdom's present prosperity but to do so without sacrificing its future. As much as she'd like to maintain the current situation indefinitely, doing so is no longer feasible.

Deny it as she might, she is not getting any younger, nor is Red, though no one can tell Red has aged a day in the seven years they've been together. Regina is not so lucky as to escaped the ravages of time. The subtle hint of crow's feet around her eyes and the plodding escalation of fragility in her joints offers irrefutable evidence that she is a woman frightfully close to cresting over to the wrong side of the hill. The time for raising a family is about to pass her by and everyone – especially the nobles – is painfully aware of that undeniable fact.

On a positive note, now that she and Red have settled nicely into their marriage, the concept of adoption no longer seems all that impractical. Their little family is rock solid. The trust they have built day-by-day is only surpassed by the soaring heights of their mutual devotion. No one knows her like Red does and Red can say the same. Their relationship has usurped the maniacal drive for vengeance as the foundation of her very being. It is unshakable and strong and able to weather just about any storm life can throw at it. Adding to it a feeble, needy, greedy human being who doesn't understand the concept of privacy or quiet will not break them. Will a baby hamper them in other areas? Undoubtedly, but she is confident they can handle any hurdles that come along with becoming parents.

The only barrier remaining is Regina herself. Unfortunately, that is a seemingly insurmountable obstacle. There are less minutes in a day than reasons she is not fit to be a mother. Not that the Council should be made privy to those well founded insecurities.

"There is no need for such dramatic measures to be taken," Tremaine says, ignorant of Regina's internal dilemma. "I am positive granting a few minor favors, perhaps extra tax allowances for the year or budgetary increases to relevant districts, along with a simple declaration of your intent to expeditiously resolve the crisis will suffice to allay their fears."

Regina's eyes narrow dangerously. Is the woman seriously trying to blackmail me? In the middle of a Council session? Has she lost her mind? Perhaps, she muses to answer her own rhetorical, little Drizella is leeching more than just milk from her mother's breast as she feeds. The thought of Tremaine losing invaluable brain cells with every wanton suckle of her infant daughter is so amusing she almost cracks a smile. Almost.

"Have you, like your dissident fellows, forgotten who wears the crown, Tremaine?" she asks aloud voice as sharp as her glare as she leans intimidatingly in Tremaine's direction. Tremaine visibly pales. Good, Regina thinks, that conniving hussy needs to be reminded of her place. "Do not presume you have the subtlety or the intelligence to manipulate me. Like me, you won your title with what lies beneath your skirts as much as with a willingness to bloody your own hands. But that is as far as our similarities go. Trifle with me at your own peril. I've outmaneuvered far more brilliant minds than yours. I should also remind you of the warning I issued the last time this subject was referred to me. My opinion on the matter remains unchanged, as do my promises to punish those disrespectful enough to suggest I peddle my wife's dignity for the sake of insuring their purses stay as fat as their bellies."

That was essentially what they were attempting to strong arm her into doing, and though they will never openly admit to it, their aim is the same at present. In royal circles, anything short of natural reproduction is regarded as a last ditch emergency resort to securing the viability of the next generation. As the council has, since the first confrontation concerning this subject, been made aware that she cannot conceive, their focus has shifted. Now they have their sights set on Red, who is in the flower of her youth and whose reproductive anatomy is fully functional. None of the craven members present today possess the spine to state their wishes directly, but it is an unspoken certitude that they would much prefer for her to pick a suitable nobleman that would pass muster and then allow him to impregnate Red. Seeing as Red is a werewolf, she is nearly guaranteed to be of robust fertility and even more so during Wolf's Time. Thus in all likelihood it would only take one encounter to bear fruit.

Logically, it makes a certain perverse sort of sense to permit this travesty, but that does not mean it is ever going to happen. Whether or not Red would be willing to make such a repugnant sacrifice is irrelevant when Regina is not. No, if she is to assure the future of her line, it will be adoption or nothing at all.

Upon registering the Queen's threat, Tremaine returns to her seat without another word as if afraid her legs can no longer hold her up. Regina's victorious grin tragically does not last more than a few seconds.

"With respect, Majesty, Lady Tremaine's suggestion is not wholly without merit," Lord Villeneuve-Beaumont pipes up. A man of some heft, he was an incredibly wealthy merchant who purchased his Lordship by defeating the Ogres during the most recent in an age old series of wars. That he gave up his only child to the Dark One in the process only made the deed all the more impressive, or reprehensible depending on one's point of view. Regina is ambivalent toward him personally, though she has always respected his opinion. Their interests often align, particularly since Red befriended his gobliniphilic daughter. "You know if I agree with the good Lady, it is only out of extreme necessity." This is true. Lord Maurice dislikes Lady Tremaine almost as much as she does, which is why she does not immediately eviscerate him for coming to Tremaine's defense. "The nobility is concerned, deeply so, and I fear if the line of succession is not guaranteed soon, they will have cause to escalate their dissatisfaction. Your Majesty has many enemies of the surrounding kingdoms. They will not have any trouble finding allies with which to conspire."

Regina fixes him with an ugly sneer that does not perturb him a bit. "Let them commit treason if they dare. I'll crush them like the pathetic ants they are!"

"I have no doubt Your Majesty could do precisely that. But what would be left when an accounting is made after that reckoning?" Maurice counters calmly. "We here count ourselves fortunate to be in your good graces, but that attitude does not extend to the majority of our fellows outside this council. As Your Majesty well knows, the nobility is, in general, populated by snakes in the grass. They may betray you with a bite as soon as leave you be, but they do serve a purpose in keeping the vermin at bay."

Aside from his disgust for the common folk being unbecoming a man whose status proximity was much closer to them, he has a point. The nobility plays a critical role in maintaining the stability of the realm's social order. Without them, law and order would break down. Taxes would quickly dry up. Soldiers would soon go unpaid. Factions would soon form and divisiveness exponentially increase. What then? Civil war, that's what. The opinion of the ordinary citizen where the Crown is concerned may have improved dramatically these past seven years, but even their vastly superior numbers could not protect Regina from a violent uprising of the upper classes. Make no mistake, she would send multitudes to the grave before they subdued her, but her magic and skill with the blade are not without limitations. She would be either dead or exiled before any organized resistance could form that might save her.

Worse yet, in the least acceptable scenario involving her assassination Red would likely be captured and kept alive to be sold as chattel for whatever brute the nobles import to sit upon the throne. Regina being betrayed to her death is one thing. Red being condemned to a fate she knows firsthand to be worse than death is another altogether. If she were still unattached, she would have already dealt with this head on, and viciously, but she is not and thus cannot. There is someone she loves more than herself now. Red's safety and happiness is preeminent over her own, which means she is going to have to make concessions, and that galls her to the ragged edges of nausea.

"You're right," she says with a forlorn sigh, collapsing into her chair. "I...I am aware something must be done. I know it seems otherwise, but I am not insensitive to the concerns of the nobility. I have put this off too long and have only myself to blame for being cornered. I should not have put my discomfort over the good of the kingdom. That said, I require more time to come up with a solution that works for both me and my wife. They have waited this long; they can wait another year. I would appreciate if you would confer my decision to them, Lord Maurice, along with this message: my concession is not without conditions. If I so much as suspect they are plotting behind my back again or if I hear a solitary whisper regarding their unspoken but evident desire to turn my wife into a broodmare, I will descend upon them with a wrath that Zeus himself cannot equal."

"I make no promises, but I'll see what I can do," Lord Maurice says, actually showing the sympathy Tremaine had claimed the other members of the council felt for her dilemma. Unlike the rest of the lot, he understands what it's like to actually be in love with a spouse. As a merchant, he was afforded the luxury of marrying for love instead of having settled for a politically beneficial arrangement as virtually all the other nobles did. It's a pity his wife passed away before his ascension. From her infrequent encounters with Belle and the glorified maid's scant descriptions, Regina thinks she would have liked the lovely Lady Colette a great deal. "Perhaps," Maurice adds delicately, "I could make more headway if I had a solemn oath that you will make a decision within that time frame."

Regina nods, all of her energy having drained out of her. It was not easy to admit her responsibility in this boondoggle. "You have it. In front of these witnesses, I swear by the power vested in me by my crown. Calm the waters for me and within a year's time I will produce a viable heir."

At her declaration, the entire council breathes a sigh of relief. Lord Maurice, having taken charge, gives her an encouraging smile. "Thank you, Your Majesty. I will relay the news promptly and inform you as to the response."

She gestures aimlessly at the councilors downwind from her. She is fed up with their presence and wants to be left alone. "Very well. If there is nothing else, you are all dismissed until next week."

Lord Maurice gestures to the rest of the council, who stand and then bow in unison with him before filtering out of the chambers. Once she the last member exits and closes the door behind them, Regina stuffs a fist into her mouth and screams with all of her might. Can't they just let me be happy? Will my efforts never be good enough?

It's just like when she was a child. Everything she did her mother criticized. She clamps her eyes shut against the haughty derision from years gone by ringing in her head.

"Stop slouching, child. You weren't raised to behave like an ogre!" is followed by, "That's the wrong fork for an entrée, young lady. Leave the table at once and go to your room. You can do without dinner tonight." Next she hears, "Are you trying to set a record for most mispronunciations in a minute? This tome is of basic difficulty! I simply don't understand where I went wrong with you. Perhaps we should restart your education at the alphabet." And finally, "Must I tell you a thousand times? You always lower your head and then slightly bend it forward before dipping into a curtsy. Honestly, how am I to ever present you in court? You're an embarrassment to me, your father, and the rest of our house!"

Like with her mother, she's grown tired of having more and more and more demanded of her by people who should frankly be groveling at her feet for the privilege of drawing another breath. Were they unaware that she could snuff them all out in their sleep with a snap of her fingers? Have they so soon forgotten who she used to be? Sometimes she thinks they have, and that makes her want to break out her old wardrobe to go along with a convenient reappearance of her malevolent streak. If she's being honest, the chances of that happening have increased exponentially over the last ten minutes. If the nobles possess any sense of self-preservation, they will accept the peace offering from Lord Maurice and be grateful she has agreed to put up with their nonsense another year rather than deal with them as the Evil Queen would have.

Now, if only she can figure out why she has lost her edge in the first place. Regina heaves out a forlorn, weary sigh. Her mother was right. Love has made her weak. Presently, however, she has no time for self-recrimination. There are urgent matters she must attend to.

#ouat fanfiction #red queen #regina x ruby #it's not always good to the be the queen...

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sundaykaren96-blog · 2 years

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How to Make High-Quality Handmade Scented or Decorative Candles

Know how candles are manufactured and you are likely to choose the best available. Having background knowledge of the manufacturing procedure for handmade scented candles allows you to spot which can be expertly made. Being an additional benefit, you could be able to make basic Gracie Moon Scents. Wax found in handmade decorative or scented candles The type of wax used to make handmade decorative candles have changed dramatically over the past couple of centuries. Owing to the fact that there have been so many variations in the wax of handmade decorative candles, today's materials are fused together to create strong candles rich in melting points. Standard whole handmade decorative candles tend to have around 60 per cent paraffin, 35 per cent stearic acid, and 5 per cent beeswax. There are some handmade scented candles containing trace quantities of carnauba waxes in order to regulate the quantity the candle softens. Handmade decorative candles created from Beeswax are made from only insect wax and paraffin using a trace level of stiffening wax. Wicks for scented or decorative candles are generally made of cotton or linen. Wire-core wicks are frequently used to permit the handmade decorative candles to burn hotter. But handmade scented candles use a number of other waxes apart from beeswax and paraffin. Bayberry wax, as an example, has a very distinctive aroma, rendering it ideal for the usage of Christmas candles. Non-burning wax can be used in those areas of a candle that are not intended to burn.

The Manufacturing Process for handmade decorative candles Handmade decorative candles are made using three basic steps: wick making, preparing the wax base, and moulding and/or extruding the handmade decorative candles. Making the wick of your handmade decorative candle Following the cotton or linen wicks are braided, chemicals and salt solutions are included with the wick. This is because it bends at a 90 degree angle whilst burning, allowing to lose much longer. Otherwise, the wick will burn prematurely and the melted wax will extinguish the flame. An easy method of forming handmade scented candles is always to put the wax in to a mould or the desired shape. For mass output of handmade decorative candles, having an extrusion is the preferred method of moulding so that one continuous length can be cut into the appropriate sizes. By placing a wick bobbin to the centre with the mould, wax will form around the wick. Shaping of handmade decorative candles The wax should be heated and melted into a near-liquid state in metal containers. This is achieved via a direct flame. The molten wax will then be filtered in order to remove impurities. For scented and ornamental candles, desired perfumes or coloured dyes has to be added at this time. In most cases, candle wax comes to manufacturers already filtered and conforming to strict standards. However, many handmade decorative candle companies still filter their wax anyway being absolutely sure of your high-quality finished product. Alternatively, using an extrusion is an option - the location where the wax has through a heated steel die under extreme pressure, where, concurrently, wax consolidates around the wick. The tips of the candles will be formed using rotation cutters.

#Gracie Moon Scents

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shadows-of-almsivi · 6 years

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Moraelyn, what does your family altar look like?

As it is here, now? Or as it was, when I was young and content, and the family hearth was an everyday comfort?

I suppose you must mean the former; what else could you have meant? And even if you do not, child, you are so, so young. What meaning could you possibly wring from my recollections of polishing my grandfather’s neleviso, of straightening the kreshal and lighting fresh candles, of the smell of rendered chitin-wax and guar tallow burning?

All gone, now.

Here, there is none of that. No precious bones and teeth in embroidered silk, no twists of hair cut from mourning kin, no carved obsidian beads slung around the throats of urns like necklaces for the spirits. Nothing traditional, nothing of my kin, nothing essential, and so I must make my way anew.

Over and over.

I do as best as I can. Sigils burnt into lintel and floor with hot knives and my own hands, flowers gathered from the pine needles and stones. There is a slight alcove in the cellar I have pressed into service as a Waiting Door, set with the least chipped of my dishes to receive my paltry offerings. A white wolf pelt takes the place of the kreshal, for now, until I may find something finer. I roll incense out of whatever spices the Khajiiti trading caravans bring to me, the rush-sticks cut and split from the lake grasses just outside; they do not burn the right way, smell not very much like I would intend, but they serve well enough to bring the point of my intent across. I make the candles from hive beeswax, as the men do, and leave the cheap, soot-spitting ox-tallow rushlights for myself, since I need little enough to live by. With lampblack and brush, I stroke ancestor’s names to shreds of linen and parchment, hung on splinters and iron nails.

I whisper my prayers and incantations to their names, my begging to their memories. What food I have, a third is always theirs. What may pass as treasure here-- a songbird’s egg, a broken locket, a dozen golden Septims with their faces struck clean by the poll of my hatchet-- I lay before their names in their mismatched plates and bowls. I pour the best of my cheap wine out for their empty cups. I sing for them, if I can rouse myself to it. I draw what I remember, if I can bear it.

It is a poor substitute for what is correct, what is necessary, and I know it bitterly. I always do. This is hardly the first such shrine I have built; from driftwood and antler and old cobblestone, live vinewood and dead hide, whatever is best to hand and quick to hide or pack away. But what else am I to do? I cannot carve stone, and obsidian is never in reach here. My family’s bones are all a thousand leagues from me, unreachable as salvation.

The only twists of mourner’s hair are my own, and those are already cut and laid. With no ash, no bone, no anchor to ancestral bond, the only blood ties I can invoke are, by necessity, sharply literal. I know it is dangerous, I know it is forbidden for a reason.

I would do it more. I would. I am weakened, but I would.

...It is not so simple, you understand, to call upon individual spirits with nothing but my will and my blood. I have the benefit of, long long ago, having been trained in Temple channelling and the funereal arts to which it may be bent, and a little of the lessons still stay with me, but I am not strong in it like this. Without an anchor to ground and direct me, if I can make any connection at all, I am little more than an open conduit. I am powerless to know who will answer my call, or how they will use this opened passage I will become.

To open myself this other way, to beckon with my own blood as my proof of lineage, is only a little better. There is some faint pathway to be followed, some chime of ancestral ties that calls kin to kin, but by who, I cannot know. I have done this only once, in desperation. It was my uncle, Endalyn, who answered me then, only for a moment. My mother’s brother.

He was... Lost. Mad. His ravings frightened me. I had never even known he’d died, until that moment. I’d last seen him in Ald’Ruhn, a thousand sins ago. I think-- no, I know, he lies there even now.

One day, I know, I will take up the dagger again, scream out into the Pathway Voids for my family again. I will have to weigh the desperation of my need against the terror of what I might learn, after so very long with no response from my kin. I think of my poor uncle Endalyn, once so fierce and so proud, now a howling wreck beneath ashes and shattered barracks-shell, and to my shame, I think: will it be my mother, next? My father? My brothers, my sweet little sister, what of them?

Is it better, or the vilest cowardice, not to call out to them at all?

#translation: kreshal = lit. 'kreshcloth' specifically a woven kresh kneeling mat #translation: neleviso = a triangular golden reliquary clasp from the Ordinator's liturgical vestment #Endalyn #family #Waiting Door #also some things about Morry's history of channelling-work #which he keeps bending the rules of #Morry you're going to hurt yourself #should I cw for cutting? I think I will anyway just in case #cw cutting #Anonymous #asks

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deborahaphillips54303 · 4 years

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Alice Waters' Fascinating and Infuriating Quest for Perfection

Earlier this month, I spent 15 whole minutes watching Alice Waters talk in extraordinary detail about how to put together the perfect bowl of fruit. No chopping, no sugar, no squeeze of lemon or orange juice to try to brighten the taste of the thing—just a plain old bowl of fruit, curated to highlight whatever is perfectly in season on the particular day on which it is served, which is every day at her decades-spanning farm-to-table Berkeley restaurant, Chez Panisse. "It's a way of being in time and place," she says.

In the video—lesson 12 of the American slow food activist and celebrity chef's course on MasterClass—the season is autumn. Today, the butcher-block island at the center of her home kitchen is covered in persimmons. She mentions that she picks them from the trees in her garden; sometimes, she says, the leaves will "become part of the fruit bowl," too. She grasps one juicy orange orb, cuts a perfect wedge, then brings it to her mouth to taste—batting her lashes at the camera as if to underscore the importance of tasting, that the taste of the fruit changes every day.

"Ooo, definitely, I want to put this on the fruit bowl," she says. Later, after placing a few persimmons and a couple curling leaves in the bowl, she glances forlornly at a bunch of plump, burgundy-colored grapes. "Even though it's a beautiful organic fruit, it doesn't look alive to me," she says. "I'll taste it just to make sure it's not worthy of the fruit bowl."

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On the off-chance that quarantine-induced anxiety and incessant targeted advertising ended up convincing you that it was a good idea to shell out for a MasterClass membership this spring, you might have found the most striking thing about this sequence to be the visual aspect: Between the persimmons, pomegranates, and dates of her finished fruit bowl and the cookware on display throughout her kitchen (only wood, iron, and copper, as a rule), you've got a near-complete spectrum of the colors of fall. Or, perhaps, it was Alice Waters' voice that transfixed you: crystalline, drawling, and vaguely mid-Atlantic, like that of women whom you might imagine Kelsey Grammar meeting at the wine club on Frasier, albeit with a noticeable predilection for using the American-English version of words that food people usually say in French, like "rocket" instead of "roquette." (Alice Waters is famous for importing a distinctly French culinary sensibility and re-imagining it as the basis for a new "California cuisine," one that celebrates the links between the food you eat and the soil and the farmers that cultivated it, so this kind of makes sense.)

But for me, it was something else that made this moment indescribably absorbing at a time when I couldn't stop ruminating about lost income and how I was going to find time to clean the house. Like Frasier, which for years has been my go-to sitcom during the moments just before falling asleep, there is something charmingly sedative about these Alice Waters videos—and also absurd, in the way that the customs of coastal white liberals are always pretty ridiculous when you hold them up to scrutiny. Who besides Alice Waters, who has written entire books about fruit, has the luxury of spending a quarter-of-an-hour deciding whether a single Bosc pear proffers just the right ratio of juiciness to crispness, even in the name of her so-called "delicious revolution"? And who—especially right now—has the combined mental bandwidth and reliable produce access to think of fruit not just as something you eat, but a matter of monumental importance?

That disjunct—between the impractibly slow, organic-everything, back-to-the-land lifestyle that Alice Waters has elevated to a gospel, and the material and temporal limits of contemporary life—has made her, as one chef put it to the LA Times, "a kind of lightning rod for Berkeley liberal elitism," while also sparking dialogue about misogynist double standards in the food world, such as in the case of the famous 60 Minutes egg spoon incident. Somewhat winningly, it's a recurring theme in her daughter Fanny Singers' new memoir, Always Home, which compiles recipes from her childhood and teenage years while painting a loving but unsparing picture of what it might actually be like to grow up with Alice Waters as your mom.

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Though the book could be read as a 300-page tribute to her mother's unyielding passion for nature and aesthetics, the 30-something writer and curator is quick to point out the ways in which Waters' dogmatic approach could render her "disproportionately blinkered, even insensitive to the widely held belief that hers is an unachievable romantic existence." In chapter one, she tells us that the Edible Schoolyard Project, the farming and food education non-profit Waters founded in partnership with the Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School in Berkeley, was born after the "school's principal called out my mom for publicly maligning its quasi-derelict appearance." She goes on to share an anecdote that pretty perfectly illustrates the tenacity of her mother's obsession: When a preliminary edible schoolyard classroom was erected in a trailer, she was unable to tolerate the "industrial taupe of the prefab kitchen building," and reportedly dipped into her personal savings in order to have it painted aubergine.

Ultimately, though, Always Home is a book that approaches its subject with the same tenderness and curiosity with which her mother inspects the permissions. There's an entire chapter devoted to the smells she associates with her mother: woodsmoke and beeswax candles and the smell of "garlic warming but never burning on a stove"—but also, for the first 25 years of Singer's life, a "hippy drugstore formulation" of almond oil and collagen that she wore in lieu of perfume. And another dedicated to her hands: small and surprisingly soft for a chef, but with a nimbleness that Singer reads as a "mirror of her determination."

As bewitching as these images are, it can be a bit hard to relate to an author whose mother stocked home-made chicken paillard sandwiches and fruit macédoine from the garden in her lunch box and whose childhood adventures in France were turned into an actual children's book called Fanny in France. But if you spend enough time with the book, you start to understand Waters' over-the-topness both as a source of perpetual frustration for those around her and the thing that makes the world of Alice Waters so magnetic. Ultimately, Singer says, her mother's obsessive attention to the color, texture, fragrance, and an elusive ideal of "perfect ripeness" is little more than her own complicated way of expressing love: love for the person she is cooking for (in this case, Singer), and love for the world of farmers and organic vegetables and wild backyard gardens she has spent a career celebrating as both the beginning and end-point of good food. The perfectly in-season fruit bowl emerges as the logical conclusion of that philosophy, its simplicity reminding you that the natural world is the star of the show; the chef is just the person who selects the frame through which you behold it.

Since the coronavirus prompted restaurants throughout the Bay Area to put dine-in service on hold, Waters has been running a CSA subscription program straight out of Chez Panisse, furnishing customers with boxes of organic produce from local farmers suddenly unable to sell their harvest. (After protests against systemic racism erupted across the country following the killing of George Floyd, the restaurant also pledged to expand its network of suppliers to include more Black farmers and "foster relationships with more Black-owned businesses, chefs, and organizations.) She's also also been making occasional appearances in the press, encouraging people to start their own victory garden—a throwback to the World War II tradition she remembers her mother growing when she was a child, and a way to supplement one's pantry with fresh grown things at a time when quality produce can be hard to come by.

It's a sweet idea, if not the most realistic or time-efficient in a year when Americans are poised to experience record levels of food insecurity (though the Edible Schoolyard Project has demonstrated that there is some potential there, donating all its produce to families in the Berkeley area in need). And though I have had the privilege of being able to get a hold of fresh greens most weeks during quarantine—and even to indulge in preparing them according to Waters' instructions, using fresh-cut garlic and oil and a little bit of red pepper—picking at their droopy, past-prime leaves and trying to figure out of which of them are salvageable will always be a reminder of the impossibility of the Alice Waters ideal.

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Still, I can't keep coming back to the thought that there is something immensely reassuring about the fruit bowl video, even as someone who is not particularly fond of fruit. On one hand, it feels completely out of step with the reality of most people's experiences; on the other, perhaps because I discovered the video when I did, it feels oddly emblematic of this protracted disruption of life-as-usual, a time when every day feels a little unreal.

Maybe doing something as ridiculously impractical as taking 15 minutes out of your day to build a bowl with the best pieces of fruit you are able to find—or pausing mid-walk to contemplate the way that the trees and the critters that populate them seem to be enjoying this moment without us—can be a way of embracing all that surrealness. And maybe if we're lucky, we'll be able find something enjoyable within it, too.

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cyberpoetryballoon · 4 years

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Alice Waters' Fascinating and Infuriating Quest for Perfection

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carolrhackett85282 · 4 years

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Alice Waters' Fascinating and Infuriating Quest for Perfection

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melodymgill49801 · 4 years

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Alice Waters' Fascinating and Infuriating Quest for Perfection

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carolinechanson97838 · 4 years

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Alice Waters' Fascinating and Infuriating Quest for Perfection

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latoyajkelson70506 · 4 years

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Alice Waters' Fascinating and Infuriating Quest for Perfection

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