#Maybe I should have drawn “department of missing royalty”??

[hathousehappenings]

84. The Royalty Trap.

This is when they decided that the Duchess was going to have a plain old mean streak. This and "Take the Bunny and Run" is when she's at her most cruel, I think.

Having said that, there's this moment in the middle when she's helping Caterpillar get ready to be on television? I have no idea why she does it, it doesn't really seem like something she'd do. Unless maybe she and he go back a while. I know it was just a way to shoehorn in Caterpillar's storytime, but still. So I decided to illustrate it.

On a side note, I love "Department of Missing Royalty". It has my favorite long pan and camera work from the whole series. You can tell that it was all handheld and I just... I enjoy it too much.

[cant-think-of-anything]

All my energy was used on the fic, you don't get a title

Basically I took the scenes of lord of shadows and replaced the characters

( @littlx-songbxrd helped me develop the plot a lot so thank you Zia)

TW: descriptions of blood and injury, mentions of homophobia and ableism

Thomas had quickly come to the conclusion that he hated the land of Fae. Not because the location itself harboured ill experiences, but rather because of his travel companions.

He glanced at said travel companions. Alastair and Christopher were attempting to assemble a fire, struggling greatly because London wasn't exactly a place of forests. Alastair's face was stern with concentration, eyebrows drawn together as they always were, a permanent appearance of disapproval. His lips were turned down slightly, frustration causing him to scrunch up his face.

It wasn't adorable, Thomas scolded himself, it was intolerable. And entirely unenjoyable. He breathed a sigh, turning away from them and back at the rushing waters of a river. They'd been sent to be audience to the Seelie court and request their assistance to defeat Belial. It was a useless excursion, the Faerie wouldn't intervene unless their own land was being threatened. But the Clave had sent them regardless.

Christopher called his name, his voice a whispered yell as to not draw attention from whatever lurked in the forests. He picked his way back, settling on his sleeping mat and looking up. Without a fire, only moonlight made anything visible. Christopher had curled up already, but Alastair was awake. He was staring up at the stars his eyes wide with something like wonder.

The sight was disarming, but Thomas turned away, before Alastair caught his stare. Nothing good could result from that. The Sanctuary was a few weeks past, and what had started as longing glances and tortured pining turned into short tempers and quick annoyance. They hadn't talked, not the way Thomas desperately wanted to, but they had argued and bickered nearly every time they crossed paths. And he despised it.

Curling his hand into a fist, he turned onto his side and willed himself to sleep.

____

Alastair was fairly certain they were lost. It was as if Faerie shifted everytime they were on the correct path, and it accomplished nothing but adding to his frustration. And apparently, Thomas's.

"We should go north." He said, his eyes glinting with annoyance.

"Are you stupid? Do you want us to get killed? We'll end up there either way."

"Your method would take longer and time is something I don't fancy to waste."

"And your brilliant solution is to- what? Traverse through an entirely unmapped territory? It's far too dangerous, and I would like to keep my head adjoined to my body."

"Maybe sometimes it would do you some good to do something dangerous."

"Oh?" Alastair whirled towards him, their faces inches away from the other, each sparked with anger. "Do something dangerous? Like you? To my memory, it got you imprisoned!"

"Perhaps it would suit you to travel in solitude! Since you always seem to prefer that anyway!"

"I do not-"

"I really do not think we should be causing this much of a disturbance," Christopher chimed in, his face twisted in confusion, head swiveling between both of them. "They're simply... directions?"

"Without directions." Alastair said, "you end up lost." His eyes stayed locked with Thomas's, head tilted to meet his infuriating height.

"We won't get lost," he hissed back.

"For someone with a tattoo of a compass you truly have a horrendous sense of direction-"

"We could just," Christopher started, flipping the map over, before looking up with wide eyes. "Go through here." He gestured at the map.

"Absolutely wonderful. Let's leave, I wish to depart as soon as we're able."

A few moments passed before a loud screech like noise emerged from the forests. Because why, Alastair thought drawing out his weapons, would anything ever be simple for him. Christopher and Thomas pressed closer when the creature burst forth from the trees. And really creature was the only world he had for it. It appeared as a demon but not one Alastair had ever studied, and from the looks on the others faces they hadn't either.

"Do we-"

The creature lunged faster than any demon could, a flash of the murky green that colored it's scales. It's claws flashed, charging at Thomas. Alastair briefly registered slipping in between the two, lodging the wooden shaft of his spear between it's jaw. He sought out Christopher sliding under the thing to stab it with his blade, killing it quickly but not quickly enough to prevent when the creatures claws raked against the top of his chest.

Air rushed out of his lungs and he felt familiar arms wrap around him, catching him before he could fall. His eyes fluttered shut on their own record. He fought to regain conciusness, he refused to be unconscious around the likes of his companions, but he felt himself dragged into blackness regardless.

---

Christopher was accustomed to his friends odd relations. He had certainly gained enough practice observing the spats they often had. But whatever anger his cousin held towards Alastair was always a puzzle to him. He was sure it was a puzzle to them too considering their never ending shifts in emotion.

He looked over at Thomas who's face was twisted in something between intense worry and sorrow. His eyes dropped to Alastair who had still not woken up, bandages covered the scratches that stretched from his shoulder to the top of his neck. He winced remembering the injury, bleeding profusely with no runes to stem it. His own worry for Alastair had occupied much of his mind. James and Matthew would be furious at such a thing but Christopher found he didn't care.

"I'll go stand watch," Christopher offered, making his way to the outside of the cave they'd taken shelter in.

Thomas hated being in debt, he remembered. When they were younger he would never accept help unless it was forced upon him, his stubborn nature preventing it. And now after Alastair had risked his life twice to help him, he must feel like he owed something.

Christopher pulled himself onto one of the rocks resting outside of the cave and tipped his head back. He missed his home. Not whatever had overtaken it in the months past, he missed Henry, he missed his parents who he'd barely conversed with since before the killings had happened. He missed Alexander even if the child cried a storm. He glanced up at the sky, noticing the first rays of dawn breaking through the clouds. He pulled himself off of his rock with a sigh. He wished for normalcy more than anything. But he doubted it would grace them anytime soon.

He ducked under the entrance of the cave, opening his mouth to call out for Thomas to get ready to depart. But Thomas wasn't awake.

He was curled onto his side, facing Alastair, both evidently asleep. Their hands stretched out the distance between them and were laced together.

Christopher sucked in a breath. "Oh, Thomas," he breathed.

He'd known of his cousin's vauge feelings for Alastair from the time that Thomas was quite a bit shorter than him. But he hadn't fully understood what the two felt towards each other. He knelt between them, gently attempting to pry their hands apart, but both their grips tightened. As if through the small action they were able to pour every unsaid emotion they'd held.

Christopher wasn't a stranger to the way the Clave treated anyone they viewed as different. The way they shut down every attempt Henry had made to better the Shadowhunter world, the way they would continue to deny any of his own attempts. They claimed to want happiness and order for all but the moment someone proved to differ from their standards they would shut them down and rid of the evidence. They would remain under the pretense of fairness while they claimed credit for any accomplishments him or his uncle managed to force into them.

Thomas never had chosen himself, never his own happiness. Christopher let go of their intertwined hands, then looking at Thomas's face. It was almost drawn up in concentration. He stood, glancing at them once more before returning to the front of the cave and yelling for Thomas to wake up so they could depart to the castle. It wasn't as much as he wanted to do, but it was all he could.

___

Thomas dumped their small pile of belongings near the foot of the bed. The Seelie Queen had apparently chosen graciousness that night and permitted them two rooms. Christopher claimed the first one, leaving Thomas and Alastair to occupy the other. Not that Alastair had woken yet.

Thomas crossed the room, refusing to look where Alastair was laying on the bed, where he would soon need to lay next to him. He made his way to Christopher's room, too tired to truly marvel at the tall marble pillars and regal decor adorning the halls and bedrooms. Christopher was cross-legged on the bed, scrawling something into a notebook under the dim lights that shone through the waterfall close to the wall.

He pulled himself onto the bed next to him, worrying at the material of his nightshirt. Christopher looked up after a moment, fixing his peculiar eyes on Thomas.

"Are you all right Tom?"

The question shouldn't have startled him as much as it did. "I'm okay."

Christopher lips tightened. "You're lying. You usually do when people ask you."

Thomas breathed a soft sigh, pulling his legs up onto the bed. "I know."

Christopher studied him for a few moments, debating something in his mind before saying "You don't have to sacrifice yourself to make us happy Thomas. Anyone who truly cares for you will not love you any less for your decisions."

Thomas startled, looking at him with widened eyes. Something in his heart sped up, as if a weight had lifted from it causing it to beat faster in it's absence. "I don't- I don't understand-"

A hand gripped his forearm. "Go back to your room Thomas. I suspect he'll wake soon."

___

When Alastair woke he wasn't in a forest. He had known the Faerie were images of royalty but the room seemed ridiculously extravagant. He wanted to pull himself up in the bed but a sharp sting on his neck forced him back down.

The door swung open then, Thomas entered with a odd look on his face. It switched to overwhelming relief when he saw Alastair.

Swallowing, Alastair rose a hand his neck. The Faeries must have worked on the wound, it had healed over somewhat but not enough to relieve him of the pain.

He heard Thomas clear his throat. When Alastair looked up again, he'd moved to the other side of his bed. "You had gotten injured in the forest. We're in the Seelie Courts now, you've been indisposed for a few hours."

"Oh." He wasn't sure what else to add.

Thomas stared at him for a few unnerving moments before making a frustrated noise. He slid onto the bed, folding his legs underneath him and giving Alastair an imploring sort of look. "I'm sorry. For everything I've done. And I'm sorry I couldn't give you the right words in the sanctuary. I'll try to give them now."

Alastair inhaled sharply, from surprise rather than pain. "I don't understand. You shouldn't be apologizing-"

Thomas half smiled before cutting him off. "Let someone apologize to you for once. You deserve as much after the way we've treated you."

Biting his lip and looking away, Alastair noticed the pile of clothes and other luggage in the corner of the room. Oh. He turned back.

"Well Mr. Lightwood I find your apology to be satisfactory, despite it still being unnecessary."

Thomas smiled fully then and something in Alastair's chest loosened.

"Does this mean I am permitted to use the bed alongside you?" His voice was teasing.

"As long as you manage to stay on your side of it."

But that rule was quickly broken, Thonas shifted close and carefully curled his body around Alastair, his head resting on in his curls and limb wrapped loosely around him. Alastair breathed a small breath of relief before pressing his face into Thomas's neck and sleeping peacefully for the first time in years.

Happy birthday Zia!! Ilysm and you deserve literally every good thing in the world, you're amazing and very talented and yeah <33

Tagging: @adoravel-fenomeno @thewarthatsavedmylife @eugeniaslongsword @alastair-esfandiyar-carstairs1 @foxglove-airmid @littlx-songbxrd @alice-got-the-blues @writeforjordelia (lmk if you want to be added or removed)

I'll tag @youngreckless for thomastair week

[blossom-hwa]

Danger: Crown |1| - JUYEON

Pairing: Juyeon x gender neutral!reader

Genre: fluff, angst, fantasy, royalty!au

Triggers: death, semi-graphic depictions of blood

Word Count: 3.7k

Lesson 7: allies can be found in unlikely places.

Previous: Onyx >> Crown: Part 1 | Part 2 >> Next: Stalemate

TBZ Masterlist | Danger | Kingdom

[ Taglist will be reblogged! Send a dm or an ask to be added! ]

They end up in front of the palace.

“Seriously?” Kevin hisses, hidden in the shadow of a large building. “We went through all those weird alleys and streets when we literally could have just taken the straight path here?”

“You want to try tracking magic?” Jacob retorts. His snippy look disappears, though, when he turns to the marble palace glinting softly under the cloudy moonlight. “It’s here. I’m sure.”

Juyeon brings a hand to his face. “Figures,” he mutters. “Anything else would be too easy.” He sighs into his palm. “Kevin, do you remember how to get to the west gardens? I remember there was a tunnel there that’ll let us into the palace.”

“Tunnel?” Kevin’s expression clears. “Oh, right. That one.” His eyes turn wistful and Juyeon knows he’s remembering better times, when they were younger, free to play around and explore, not stuck on a dangerous quest to find a handful of jewels stolen by an intelligent, murderous, power-hungry queen. He doesn’t say anything, though, just closes his eyes for a moment. “I think we need to go around back. Might need to knock out a few guards on the way.”

“Not a problem,” Juyeon replies. Next to him, Jacob looks to be in similar agreement.

His heart stings. No one was in the prison with him, not a single person other than the assigned guards and later Jaehyun. No prisoners, no rebels, no knights…

And no certain Valkyrie, the one whose missing whereabouts have twisted Jacob’s kind eyes into sharp slits, soft lips thinning to pale lines as he stares at the gleaming palace just ahead.

It’s still unnerving, Jacob’s transformation since the last time Juyeon saw him before this quest. Gentleness used to emanate from his gaze, but now, even when he smiles, an edge of desperation and fury lodges itself into the set of his jaw, in the fingers curled by his sides. Not for the first time, Juyeon wishes none of this had happened, that all of the deaths and crown nonsense will just turn out to be some long, drawn-out nightmare. When he pinches himself, though, it hurts.

No dreams here, except those of jewel-toned roses and shades of the departed.

Kevin leads the way, slinking through shadows untouched by the few torches lit on the sides of buildings for light. As they shift around the palace walls, Juyeon’s hand reaches up towards his throat, clutching the gold insignia still wrapped around his neck. He’s been doing that more and more often since his visit to the gray mage’s shrine, grasping at the last memory of a dead best friend like the small symbol of a king and queen will bring him luck.

Though if it’s lucky, it certainly hasn’t given any sign of that just yet.

“Here,” Kevin finally whispers, jerking his head towards a white-gated expanse of grass and flowers. It looks so different in the cloudy night, colors muted and darker than Juyeon remembers. It could just be the lack of moonlight, but the fact that Somin is now the one in charge of it and not her sibling, the former queen, probably has something to do with it.

Swallowing, Juyeon peeks out from the building they’re hiding behind. Two guards stand at attention. Not too bad. A shake of Jacob’s head tells him there’s no immediate danger from magic either.

Well. He looks down at his hands, lined and crusted with blackened blood from taking out his anger on a set of iron prison bars. They sting, but he can still wield a sword with some proficiency. Not the dual blades, though. Besides the fact that he left them at the arena, Juyeon would be perfectly happy not holding the traditional ivory weapons ever again.

“Need to get closer,” Juyeon mumbles, almost to himself. He steps forward –

Two more guards appear around the corner of the palace just as he’s put a foot out. He sucks in a breath and Kevin pulls him back, elbow hitting the building wall with a dull thud.

Ow.

Rubbing his arm, Juyeon peeks out again, careful to keep himself in shadow. They must be switching shifts. Good news, for once. Changing the guard now means more time before the next set of soldiers comes along, so less chance of discovering unconscious bodies before Juyeon has managed to get deeper into the palace.

The original two guards peel off from the gate, leaving their spots to the new ones. They begin to walk in the direction of Juyeon’s building.

They’re talking, but too faintly for Juyeon to hear just yet. He brings a finger to his lips, looking expectantly at his friends, as the guards come closer. And closer.

“– so boring,” a disgruntled voice says.

The other snorts. “You haven’t had crown duty yet. That’s so much worse.”

Crown duty?

Juyeon doesn’t dare look back at Kevin or Jacob for fear of missing something more. He leans forward, ears straining to catch anything else.

“You really think that’s worse?” the first guard asks.

“At least outside, there’s a little change in scenery. If you’re standing in that hallway for hours…” The voices fade away, leaving Juyeon to stew over their words in silence.

“Crown duty,” Jacob whispers.

Kevin nods. “The crown must be in the palace, too.”

It could be a stroke of luck. If both the onyx stone and the crown are in the palace, if they could manage to take both in one go…

“Come on.” Juyeon pushes himself off the wall, trying to tamp down the hope rising in his chest. No sense in hoping for good luck just yet, but there’s a chance they could pull this off, a chance he has to take. “Let’s knock some guards out first.”

. . . . .

One sneak attack and two unconscious guards later, Juyeon and Jacob have dragged the bodies behind a large bush and Kevin has found the tunnel opening, a hatch under a large boulder. He slips in after Juyeon before Jacob closes the hatch from outside. A faint scraping noise sounds as he shoves the boulder back into place, and then the mage shifts into the tunnel, landing right on top of his cousin.

Kevin groans from the tunnel floor. “Jacob, why.”

Juyeon can almost see the apologetic smile in Jacob’s voice as he helps Kevin up in the darkness. “Sorry.”

“As you should be.” Kevin huffs. “Where do we go now?”

“This tunnel leads to a few others.” Juyeon traces a hand on the walls, feeling tiny bits of packed dirt crumble against his fingers. “I don’t remember exactly where all of them go, but…” He stops, turning to where he thinks Jacob is. “Jacob, is there magic on the crown? Could you sense that? Or is it just on the stones?”

Jacob shifts in the dark. “It’s not as strong without the stones, but there is some magic on it. Probably a little more than normal, given that several mages took the jewels out, so their traces are there as well.” A pause. “Do we split up?”

“No.” Kevin’s answer is immediate. “There are only three of us. If we split up, one person goes off alone, and if something happens the other two won’t know anything about it.”

Juyeon agrees. “None of us know the tunnels very well, either. I think our best bet is to follow your sense of where the magic is, Jacob. We’ll try to find one, then the other.”

No one argues in the pause that follows. Juyeon nods. “All right, let’s go. Jacob, we’ll follow you.”

They walk in silence, footsteps padding softly on the tunnel’s dirt floor. One fork comes, then another. Each time, Jacob holds out an arm, barring the other two, before heading in one direction or the other. With every turn they take, Juyeon grows less and less sure of where they are. He’s been to the palace many times, but even then, he hasn’t seen it all. Underground, there’s no chance of him being able to keep the layout in mind.

But something tells him they’re going the right way. A tug in his gut, a slight nudge pushing him forward…

Juyeon stops suddenly. Kevin crashes into him from behind, but he doesn’t move, not even when Jacob’s footsteps pause and asks what happened.

The tug. The subtle, familiar push in his mind, moving his feet for him.

The stone is calling him.

“Juyeon?”

He shakes his head. “Sorry,” he says, swallowing. “I just… I feel the stone. I think.”

“Getting closer, then.” Jacob shifts in the tunnel, then grabs Juyeon’s wrist and pulls him forward. “We’re following you, now. Your sense will be a lot more accurate than mine.”

Back at home, when Juyeon’s father would wear the crown for official proceedings, the pull of the stone always felt comforting to him, a reminder of his lineage and his family. Now, though, it feels cold. Sinister. Tainted, maybe, tainted with the fact that with every step Juyeon takes, he walks into deeper and deeper danger. Only Jacob’s hand on his wrist and the steady sound of Kevin’s footsteps keep him from stopping where he is and bolting out of the tunnel.

He doesn’t notice the tunnel sloping upward, doesn’t notice his breaths becoming more labored as he walks up, up, up. In fact, he nearly runs into the hatch at the end of the tunnel, only stopping just in time.

A hatch.  

They’re at the surface.

“Great,” Kevin mutters. “So do we go out or…?”

Juyeon swallows. “It’s only the king and queen in residence, right? Younghoon and Somin?” The fewer people they encounter, the better.

“Servants,” Kevin says. “And guards. What if we come across them?”

What if they come across them, indeed. Will Juyeon kill them? Knock them out? Let them pass? What will he do if some unsuspecting, innocent servant has the bad luck to pass Juyeon by?

“We’ll see,” Juyeon finally says, hand drifting to the sword at his waist. He hopes he won’t have to use it, but better safe than sorry. “We need the jewel.”

Feeling around in the darkness, Kevin finds the latch that secures the door. He flips it and Juyeon slowly pushes up the slab of wood, squinting into the room.

It’s dark. He can’t see much. There are no sounds, however, and if nothing is lighting the room, that probably means no one is in here. Juyeon lifts the door further. “Come on.”

Relief floods Juyeon’s mind when he pulls himself out of the tunnel and no random voices yell in surprise. Kevin follows, then Jacob. “Where are we?”

Juyeon frowns, trying to think. He can’t see much, but even then, the room doesn’t look very familiar. Next to him, Kevin seems similarly confused.

Then the door opens.

. . . . .

It takes less than a second for Juyeon to leap at the newcomer, sword flashing through the air. A choked sound issues from the servant’s throat – his attire looks like that of a servant, anyway, Juyeon can’t really tell since the only source of light is the lantern the servant is carrying – as the blade comes to rest under his chin. The door shuts with a soft bang.

Adrenaline courses through Juyeon’s veins as he holds the sword in place, arms shaking slightly with terror. “Kevin, watch the door.”

“Juyeon?”

Head whipping back to the servant he’s holding at sword point, Juyeon blinks once, twice, trying to recall the semi-familiar voice that just spoke his name. Where, and when…

He nearly drops his sword with the realization. “Haknyeon?”

A trembling smile begins to spread across Haknyeon’s face. “It’s really you?”

Juyeon wants to mirror Haknyeon’s smile, he really does. But he can’t tell just yet if that’s the smile of seeing someone he once knew or the smile of knowing exactly who to report this to. The sword doesn’t lower. “Depends on what you’ll do with that information.”

“I thought you were in prison,” Haknyeon breathes. “Queens, you…”

Well, that’s a bit of good news. At least word of his escape hasn’t spread to the palace just yet. Though it doesn’t change the fact that Haknyeon could very well betray them at this moment with a loud enough scream.

And from a singular experience that he does not want to repeat, Juyeon knows the boy has the lung capacity to pull it off.

“If you scream, I won’t hesitate to cut your throat,” Juyeon says lowly, refusing to let any semblance of relief creep across his face. “I’m serious.”

“Oh, I know.” Haknyeon’s smile turns into something like a smirk. “You’re looking for the crown, aren’t you?”

Behind Juyeon, Kevin sucks in a breath. Haknyeon’s smirk grows wider. “It isn’t exactly news,” he says, sounding almost giddy. “The queen’s been steaming about all the other jewels going missing, even though she hasn’t said anything explicit. She was the happiest she’s ever been when you were captured, but now that you’ve escaped…” He almost laughs, a hand coming up to his mouth to muffle his snort. “This is perfect.”

Juyeon glances at Jacob, at Kevin. Both wear similar expressions of bemusement.

Is Haknyeon actually someone to be trusted?

“Why are you so happy about that?” Juyeon asks carefully.

Haknyeon’s gaze shutters, the smile disappearing from his face. “Being the leverage for Her Majesty to control her king has the surprising side effect of making me hate her very much,” he says, eyes dark. “Younghoon isn’t supporting her of his own free will, you know. Somin knows who to keep close so he stays under her hand.”

Memories of visiting Younghoon’s domain, seeing the friendship between the current king and his favorite servant – not even a servant, really, more of a close companion in the wake of his parents’ deaths – rush through Juyeon’s mind. It makes sense, choosing Haknyeon to keep Younghoon in place.

There’s no way he can be sure that Haknyeon’s telling the truth. He has no proof, no evidence to back up his claim that he’s merely an unwilling pawn of the queen being used to keep her king in line. But the loathing in his eyes when he speaks of Somin, the suppressed rage when he talks of leverage and his best friend, the king… they speak volumes for what he feels.

Juyeon pulls his sword back slightly, decreasing the pressure on Haknyeon’s throat. “If I lower this sword and let you free, what will you?”

“Ask if I can help you.” Haknyeon answers without hesitation. “You came in through that tunnel, didn’t you? I know this palace and the tunnels inside and out. Younghoon showed them to me when I was brought here – he wanted me to know how to escape if Her Majesty ever decided he wasn’t performing up to standard. I don’t know where the crown is exactly, but I can tell you where you’re going and help you avoid guards and places that are busy even at night.”

It sounds too good to be true. A personal guide, a guide who knows the palace like the back of his hand, ready and willing to help him find the jewel and the crown? Juyeon wavers, on the cusp of letting Haknyeon free, but doubt forces him to stay his hand. 

What if he betrays them?

“Oh, come on.” Haknyeon crosses his arms, looking supremely unfazed by the blade still under his chin. “You know how to use a sword. I don’t. We’ll be in a bunch of tunnels, where you could kill me the second I do anything weird. Not saying I will, because I won’t, but you have the upper hand here.”

“He has a point,” Kevin says, stepping next to Juyeon. “We know the direction we want to go. Haknyeon is only going to tell us how to get there the fastest, and we’ll know if he’s betraying us. Right?”

Right. The tugging in Juyeon’s stomach, the pull that keeps him stepping forward – he’ll feel it growing stronger or weaker as he gets closer or further from the stone. If Haknyeon decides to mess with them, he’ll know.

At Jacob’s nod of agreement, Juyeon lowers the sword. Haknyeon massages his throat, smiling easily even as Juyeon stares him down with heavy suspicion in his gaze. “One wrong move and you’re dead.”

“I know, I know,” Haknyeon replies flippantly, already heading toward the hatch in the floor. “Now, are you going to follow me or not?”

. . . . .

It doesn’t seem like a mistake to trust Haknyeon. Once Juyeon pinpoints the direction in which he feels the tug of magic, Haknyeon effortlessly begins to navigate the tunnels, leaving the rest of them scrambling to follow. And he isn’t leading them astray – with every step he takes, the pull of the stone only grows stronger in his gut.

He almost relaxes. Almost.

And then he hears footsteps down the tunnels.

Haknyeon doesn’t stop walking, just keeps going forward until Juyeon grabs his wrist and spins him around. “You betrayed us.”

“What?” Haknyeon’s eyebrows furrow. “I didn’t –”

“Who’s there?”

The servant’s eyes go wide as Juyeon’s narrow. “Kevin,” he snarls in a whisper, “keep watch over him while I see who’s paying us a visit.”

A knife flashes in Haknyeon’s lantern light, coming to rest at his throat. Juyeon draws his own sword and steps forward once. Twice.

“Who –”

Juyeon lunges. His body hits another. They fall to the ground and whoever the other is tries to roll away, but Juyeon has the upper hand and he pins the man down, raising his sword.

“NO!”

Juyeon turns around as Haknyeon yells. “No – Juyeon!” The servant’s eyes flicker wildly in the light of his lantern. “Younghoon isn’t with the queen!”

Younghoon? Why’s he yelling about –

Haknyeon raises the lantern as far as he can without Kevin running him through. Enough light falls on Juyeon for him to realize who is staring back.

Kim Younghoon.

The Ivory King.

Harsh breathing fills the silence that follows as Juyeon tries to pull himself together. He has the king pinned beneath him, either by accident or by Haknyeon betraying them. Juyeon doesn’t want to believe the second, but the chances of the former are much slimmer.

“How did you contact each other,” Juyeon snarls, hand shaking around the handle of his sword. “How.”

“We didn’t,” Younghoon gasps. “I didn’t even know you were here.”

“Juyeon.” Jacob steps forward, putting a calming hand on Juyeon’s shoulder. “I think he’s telling the truth.” His voice lowers to a whisper. “Look at Haknyeon.”

He turns around slightly, fixing his gaze on the servant. With wide eyes and a trembling stare, it certainly doesn’t look like he expected any of this.

Juyeon glances at Kevin, who nods, just barely. He loosens his grip on Younghoon but doesn’t let go completely. “Give me a reason I shouldn’t kill you now.”

Behind him, Haknyeon lets out a strangled gasp. Juyeon ignores it.

“I’m not on Somin’s side,” Younghoon gets out, eyes still fixed on the blade glinting above his neck. “Never have been, never will be.”

“Leverage,” Haknyeon reminds. “I’m her leverage on him. She has people on all the mages, too.”

“She’s smart.” Younghoon swallows. “She knows that if she can keep some loved one hostage, even the most powerful mage has the potential to fall under her control. And sadly, I’m no exception, though I at least have some room to maneuver under the guise of protecting Ivory citizens.”

“I understand.” And Juyeon does, he really does – what would he do, after all, if Kevin or his sister was being held hostage by someone as intelligent as Somin? “But that doesn’t change the fact that if I let you go, you could easily run up a tunnel and tell someone, purposely or accidentally, that we are here.” His grip tightens on the sword. “So unless you give me a really good reason –”

“I know where the crown is.” Younghoon takes a breath. “And the onyx stone.”

“… Where.”

“The crown jewels.” Juyeon can see the truth in Younghoon’s unwavering eyes. “They’re with the crown jewels.”

The crown jewels.

Oh, Juyeon is about to lose it. Somin stole his crown, pulled apart the gems, hid two, put one in a necklace, threw another in a rose bush at the shrine where she had one of his best friends and her sibling both killed, and now she has the last one and the crown locked up with the Ivory kingdom’s crown jewels?

When they don’t even belong to her?

Juyeon doesn’t realize his hand is shaking until the sword begins to slip out of his sweaty grasp. His fist clenches around the handle. “How do you know?”

“Somin told her mages that she was leaving the stone with the crown in a place only accessible by her. One of them relayed this to me.” Younghoon swallows. “The only place she could be speaking of is the room of crown jewels – she is the only one who has the key.”

The crown jewels. Juyeon curses internally. Of course Somin has the key – only one exists for each set of regalia, held by the queen of each kingdom.

Wait.

Juyeon’s heart hammers. There is one other key that can unlock a kingdom’s crown jewels, the key that Mage Han Younghyun used to steal his crown away.

And it’s hanging around Juyeon’s neck.

He resists the urge to look down at a gold king and queen glittering faintly in the lantern light. “Why do you trust this mage?”

“Not all of us are as loyal to the queen as we appear.” Disgust crawls into Younghoon’s eyes. “Some would prefer reporting to me rather than her. I trust him.” He sets his jaw. “Do you trust me?”

One beat passes. Two.

Juyeon sheathes his sword. “Lead us there. And we will keep Haknyeon with us as a hostage, in case you try anything.” He unpins Younghoon from the ground. “I want to trust you fully. But I have no reason to.”

“Understood.” Younghoon stands. “Come with me.”

If you enjoyed, please don’t forget to reblog and leave a comment to tell me what you thought! Thank you for reading and have a lovely day <3

(1 reblog = 1 prayer for younghoon bc juyeon is this || close to going feral)

[kalee60]

@larkboyd Larissa! I'm sorry you're having a really crappy, awful day! I get you, I honestly do, the last few weeks have been really... Well... trying is probably a polite way of putting it.

So therefore in response to your cry for a distraction and a little care and love - I present you with this little one-shot - I quickly threw it together in the last hour so apologies for any mistakes.

I hope your day gets better and that when you get home tonight you can relax, put your feet up and remember that even though we are all on opposite sides of the world @darter-blue @iamsherlockedondoctorwho and me (plus so many more) are always there for you 😘

Enjoy this Merthur fic made just for you!

*~*~*~*~*~*

Merlin sighed heavily as he hung his coat over the back of his chair, seeing that he was the only one in the lab's office once again. Frustration didn't even begin to cover it, especially when his phone started to ring almost immediately. 

Eyeing the most hated piece of technology on his desk critically, Merlin tried to work out telepathically if he could figure out who was calling.

A rap on the partition window between his office and the next made him jump. Gaius was staring directly at him, giving him the Eyebrow of Contempt, a phone to his ear and pointing towards Merlin's, which hadn't ceased it's relentless mating call.

"Welcome to Camelot Labs, this is -"

"- Merlin you fool, it's me."

Merlin looked up to see Gaius run a hand over his face tightly, oh right. Maybe he shouldn't have gone out the evening before.

"Were you at the tavern again last night, are you still drunk?"

Looking heavenward, Merlin finally sat down, booting his computer up and wedging the phone between his ear and shoulder.

"It's called a pub, Gaius, and what do you need, I'm extremely busy." He proceeded to place each of his three coloured pens (blue, black and red) neatly next to his blank notepad, adjusted his takeaway coffee so the pattern on the cup faced him, then picked up the red pen and wrote his name with a flourish on top of the page. The heart over the I, probably the best one he'd ever drawn.

"You're on your own today."

"What?" Merlin yelled, dropping the phone to glare at his boss who just shrugged in return, the Eyebrow suddenly looking a little more friendly in the presence of Merlin's plight. He picked up the god awful device to exclaim hotly, "You can't do that to me! I can't hold the fort down by myself, take all these calls, I'm not a wizard that can magically conjure a second Merlin."

Gaius did not look impressed at his sarcasm, Merlin grumbled some more and took a long pull off his coffee. It ceased to satisfy.

"I'm trying to get one of the boys from marketing down here to help."

"Oh no, no you don't. This is why you're calling me through the window? Isn't it? You're too scared to stand before me and tell me - I'm telling you, you can't send me one of those lunk-heads, those clotpoles who wouldn't know their arse from their -"

"- their what Merlin?"

"Gaius no!" But Merlin was speaking to nothing, Gaius had hung up and was suddenly nowhere to be seen. Gritting his teeth, Merlin spun around to watch Arthur fucking Pendragon walk over and put his bag down at the desk… the desk right. Next. To. Merlin.

He wasn't having it. Arthur was the biggest douche to walk the hallways of Camelot, always pushing Merlin's buttons in meetings, and generally acting like a Prince holding court. It didn't help that his father Uther ran the company.

"And what brings you down to the bowels of the Camelot Labs?" Merlin snarked, then opened up his emails only to see a hundred new ones. Oh god, his day was over and it hasn't even begun.

"Gaius said you needed help, so here I am. I can go if you like."

Merlin gave Arthur the side eye, "can you read reporting figures to let departments know their results?"

Arthur nodded and sat his coffee cup down, seeing that it was from the same place Merlin bought his. Huh, maybe his taste wasn't that awful.

"Can you use the online filing system for collections and batch records?"

The nod came again, while Merlin watched Arthur place two pens either side of his notepad. Rookie. He wouldn't be lending his red pen out, even if Arthur begged. And that was not an image Merlin needed to see in his mind. Arthur on his knees, walking towards him… begging and naked.

"Fuck," Merlin exclaimed, noting how Arthur raised a brow sardonically at him. "Can you use a phone?"

"Can I use a… really? Look, just tell me what you need me to do and I'll do it. And don't be a dick about it."

Scowling, Merlin quickly showed Arthur the phone, the programs and what he needed done. He ignored the crisp, woodsy scent that clung to Arthur's skin as he leant over him, and he most definitely ignored when Arthur's arm brushed against his then left it pressed there, for almost a minute. Not that Merlin was counting.

Yes, Arthur was helping, and it was much better than being there alone, but Merlin, although very vocally did not like Arthur, had always found him unfairly attractive. And that set him on edge, made him feel itchy under his skin, knowing that Arthur, who was basically royalty on the London scene wouldn't even look twice at someone like him. So it was much easier to be an arse.

Four hours into their forced working conditions, Merlin had to admit that Arthur was actually more of a help than a hindrance. And it grated his nerves.

"Maybe next time, you should write the batch into the system before you give out the results."

Arthur's brows were in his hairline as he turned to face Merlin, and he felt a flush rise up his cheeks, it honestly didn't matter the order you did it in, but he had to say something.

"You really don't like me do you?"

The retort died on his tongue when he realised Arthur was serious.

"Err, well, it's not exactly that, I actually think you're -" his phone rang, thankfully halting anything else he might blurt out unintended. 

A few minutes later he was off the phone and typing again, lost in calculations and figures when he heard the chair next to him roll over the floor, and it didn't stop.

Startled he looked up into bright blue eyes, eyes that were only a few inches away.

"You were saying?"

Merlin's cheeks filled once more and he couldn't help the small gulp, audible in the quiet lab. Oh god.

"I was saying that I think you're a complete arse, " Arthur's eyes narrowed at his words, "but if you had a red pen, and stopped taking mine, I'd actually admit you've been a huge help today."

Arthur's face transformed into a grin and Merlin couldn't help mirror it, having never been on the receiving end of it before, or had he, and he'd just blocked it out? But Arthur was still too close, within touching distance and as if realising it for the first time as well, Arthur ducked his head, before looking up again.

"Can I buy you a drink after work, Merlin?"

Startled, Merlin floundered for a moment, uncertain what was happening and why Arthur Pendragon was asking a lab tech out.

"With you?"

Arthur's laugh was deep and fond, another anomaly, "yes with me. I thought you were smart?"

"I am, thank you very much, ask anyone and they'll tell you that I can -"

"- no Merlin, I meant I've been flirting with you for months and you've completely missed it, haven't you?"

Merlin's mouth was agape, he knew it, Arthur knew it, and he snapped it shut. Arthur thought he was...? He wanted to go for drinks and...?

"I'm taking that as a yes on both counts."

"My god you're arrogant..." Merlin started but faltered when Arthur grinned broadly at him.

And feeling off balance wasn't something Merlin relished and as Arthur started to wheel his way back to his desk, he reached out, fingers tangling in the collar of Arthur's shirt and yanked him back. The wheels squealing on the floor.

Falling forward he pressed his lips against Arthur's, feeling the shock run through the other man's body, and Merlin smirked until Arthur's hand came up to cup his cheek, thumb running over the skin softly, reverently then pushed forward into the kiss. Oh. He'd not expected the feel of tongue against his, the slip of their lips as they deepened the kiss, nor hear the small unbidden moan falling from Merlin's throat.

It was the sweetest and most perfect first kiss he'd ever received.

"Well that shut you up for a minute." 

Well it was until Arthur spoke. "One drink, that's all you get Pendragon."

And with a conceited smirk that hit Merlin directly in the guts, and a push of his chair, Arthur put his headset back on and looked Merlin directly in the eye.

"Perfect, I like my coffee black in the morning, preferably before I get out of bed."

And Merlin could do nothing but snort and shake his head fondly as he answered his phone, greeting the person on the other end brightly, holding Arthur's blue sparkling eyes in his gaze. Maybe it wasn't going to be such a terrible day after all.

[eclecticanalyst]

We’re Expecting You...To Boldly Go

[or, a fun exercise in comparing The Love Boat to Star Trek: The Next Generation]

I’ve always had a fondness for shows that aired several decades before I was born. When I was a kid, I loved the TV channel Boomerang, because it broadcasted classic cartoons like Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! and Snorks and The Jetsons. As I entered my preteen years, I graduated to live-action, checking out DVD box sets of The Facts of Life and Fantasy Island and The Love Boat from the library.

I don’t know if other people in my generation are familiar with The Love Boat—it was a television show that ran on ABC from 1977-1987. The show took place on a cruise ship, the Pacific Princess, and a typical episode would begin with the Princess leaving out of its home port of Los Angeles, proceeding to such stops as Cabo San Lucas and Puerto Vallarta before ultimately returning to Los Angeles at the end of the hour. The Love Boat’s claim to fame was its rotating roster of guest stars (with a new lineup in each episode), who were a mix of contemporary actors/celebrities (like Jim Nabors, Florence Henderson, and Sonny Bono) and old Hollywood/Broadway royalty (like Gene Kelly, Ethel Merman, and Zsa Zsa Gabor). These guest stars would provide the Pacific Princess with its passengers. There was a regular cast of characters that helped anchor (pun intended) the show—Merrill Stubing, ship’s captain; Adam “Doc” Bricker, ship’s doctor; Burl “Gopher” Smith, assistant yeoman purser; Isaac Washington, chief bartender; and Julie McCoy, cruise director. Vicki Stubing, the captain’s teenaged daughter, was added to the cast in season 3. In the final few seasons, Julie was replaced by her sister Judy, and the ship gained a photographer in Ace–full name Ashley Covington Evans. (Also, every so often, a guest star would play a member of the crew, like the gift shop manager or the chef, rather than a passenger.)

A standard episode was divided into three storylines that played out simultaneously over the course of a cruise. The vast majority of the storylines were romance-based, but there were others that consisted of family drama or old friends getting together. The regular cast members would participate in the passengers’ stories to varying degrees, sometimes being an integral part of the plot and sometimes only existing on the sidelines. The storylines would all get resolved by the time the Pacific Princess returned to Los Angeles, and the passengers would (almost always cheerfully) disembark, usually never to be seen again. Plotlines did not carry over from one week to the next, and even if a guest star returned in a later episode, chances were they would be playing a completely new character.

Although the guest cast took up the majority of the screen time, I was always more invested in the regulars, and wished we could spend more time with them—learning their backstories, exploring their dynamics with each other, and watching them actually do cruise ship work instead of pal around with the passengers. Because of The Love Boat’s near-anthology setup, not much effort was put into any sort of ongoing character development. Intense romances on the main cast’s part one week would be completely forgotten the next week, family deaths wouldn’t be brought up until it was relevant to that episode’s storyline, and new details about the crew’s past would be added as plot points, even sometimes directly contradicting a previous episode.

(The Love Boat had other issues that have less to do with my criticism of the writing and more to do with an adherence to certain flawed social practices, like how Isaac's love interests were always Black, or how single mothers were greeted with raised eyebrows, or how people of Asian or Latino/a descent were accompanied by specific musical cues–but these issues are not the point of this post so I won’t get into them at this time.)

Star Trek: The Next Generation premiered the year The Love Boat went off the air—1987—and ran until 1994. I only got into Star Trek in college, and TNG was my first series as it was easily available on BBC America. Although it had been several years since I had watched The Love Boat on a regular basis, one day a connection was made in my mind, and it occurred to me that there were a great deal of parallels to be drawn between a certain rom-com/drama at sea and a certain sci-fi adventure in space. I kept this observation in my head for years, but now that I have a blog (and because I have been rewatching a few episodes of The Love Boat in the past few weeks), I have decided to write out all of these parallels in detail.

First: the basic setup. The main cast is the crew of a ship, but we only really meet a handful of the hundreds of actual crew members needed to run the ship. In The Love Boat, for example, we don’t see the engineering crew, but the Pacific Princess must certainly have one in order to function, and although we do sometimes see Captain Stubing hanging out on the bridge, we don’t even know the name of the first officer. As I mentioned above, occasionally a guest star would play a crew member in an episode, acting as if they’d been there the whole time, but we would never see them again after that one appearance. A few times, one of the main cast would interact with an extra portraying a crew member—Julie would ask a steward to escort a guest somewhere, or Isaac would ask a waitress to carry a tray of drinks over to someone—but for the most part it seemed like our regulars did all the work on the ship. When Captain Stubing would have pre-cruise preparation meetings, it was always just with the main cast, who were not necessarily the people a real cruise ship captain would be meeting with right before sailing. (Take Gopher—he was only the assistant yeoman purser, and yet he was in all those meetings while the chief yeoman purser was not. Actually, I’m pretty sure the chief purser never made an appearance in the entire ten years the show was on the air. I believe Gopher got a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it promotion to chief purser in later seasons, but he was definitely assistant-purser-with-odd-authority at first.)

In TNG, the same sort of thing would happen. CMO Beverly Crusher claimed to have other doctors working under her, but beyond a Vulcan named Selar who showed up in one episode of the show, we didn’t see them. Missions that seemed suited to one of the science departments of the Enterprise, like xenobiology or astrophysics, would be carried out by senior staff members—also known as the main cast. There were a few more named recurring crew member characters on TNG than on The Love Boat, like Miles O’Brien and Reg Barclay, but for the most part our bridge crew did pretty much everything. And while it makes sense on TNG for the senior staff to interact with each other a great deal, they should also be interacting with their respective teams—and yet we don’t really see that happen. Geordi and Data are more likely to address an engineering problem on their own in a given episode than Geordi and the actual engineering staff, and we don’t really see Worf running his security teams through drills or target practice. On The Love Boat, Doc and Isaac for some reason are often seen checking passengers in at boarding, when that should not be in their job description at all and what we should see is Gopher supervising his staff doing those duties.

Both shows are more plot driven rather than character driven. Our main cast members in both shows are meant to serve as respondents to new situations brought aboard their respective ships, rather than personalities to be interrogated in depth. The main cast is defined enough that the audience can have a favorite character and know how a Picard story differs from a Worf story, or a Gopher story from a Julie story. But all in all the draw and focus of TNG was more “What is the crisis on the planet of the week?” or “What common ground can be found with this new alien species?” or “What commentary on the human condition can be extrapolated from this shipwide invasion?” rather than, say, Beverly’s mental and emotional state as a widow working under the man who ordered her husband to his death or the nuances of Troi and Riker’s no-longer-dating-but-still-sort-of-in-love friendship. Meanwhile, The Love Boat was preoccupied with “What sort of antics will this week’s cast of characters bring on board?”. Doc joked regularly about his multiple ex-wives, but we never got a character study about how Doc seemed to like falling in love more than maintaining a romantic relationship in the long term.

The Love Boat’s regular cast were pretty much the same season to season—Gopher was accident-prone and quick to goof around, Doc maintained his Lothario status, Captain Stubing was quick to both rebuke and advise. I didn’t really watch the post-Julie seasons, so maybe some character developments happened that I missed, but generally the passengers were the ones transformed by their time on the ship, not the crew. TNG characters did have a bit more of an arc than the crew of the Pacific Princess—Data got more in touch with his humanity and Picard relaxed more around his personnel, for instance. But that didn’t apply to all the characters—I’m hard-pressed to think of any sizeable developments in Geordi’s character beyond being promoted to Chief Engineer. Speaking of that promotion, once the show found its footing and everyone had the positions they would come to be known for—Geordi as Chief Engineer rather than the helmsman he was early on, Worf as Chief Tactical Officer post-death of Tasha Yar—nothing really changed for our main characters’ situations. The status quo was strictly enforced despite events unfolding that would have naturally led to transitions. After “Best of Both Worlds,” it would have made sense for Riker to ascend to his own command, but instead he stayed first officer season after season. Worf resigned his commission to fight in the Klingon Civil War, but once that was over, he strolled back onto the bridge without even any extra paperwork.

That aversion to long-term change was in keeping with the episodic nature of both shows. Nowadays, we’re used to the need to keep up with each season’s developments in a television show and watch every episode lest we miss some important revelation. In the case of TNG and The Love Boat, for the most part, you can drop a new viewer into any given episode and they’ll be fine. The stories are largely self-contained, and everything is pretty much resolved at the end of the hour.

This TNG/TLB comparison, however, is not resolved just yet...stay tuned for part 2!