#just a princeling with some violent thoughts

[shadowhandss60]

The Fandom: “Dorian is such a nice, soft sweet man ☺️”

*the Dorian in question*

“I should have sliced Cain open the minute he laid a hand on you.”

“Dorian would have gleefully killed Chaol’s father.”

“You said that last summer and I almost punched his teeth out.”

“A smile danced on Dorian’s lips as he unleashed his magic again, as chunks of Wyvern and witch fell.”

“I killed my father. I purged my own court, I have no doubt that I would do the same once more-across this continent.”

“He smiled at the spider, then he struck. Invisible hands wrapped around her neck and twisted.”

“He chuckled, letting a wisp of his fire burn her, wrapping around her pale throat.”

[rufflesandbows]

In the Den of Dragons

Aegon II Targaryen X Reader

As a maidservant in the Red Keep, you’ve learned how to tip toe around ‘dragons’. How to keep the royalty placated and stay out of their petty drama while you do your simple chores. However, due to the shock of your sudden arranged marriage, you make a fatal misstep.

Warnings: 18+ mentions of non-con, heavy petting/grinding (It sounds super tame but the LANGUAGE. Not for minors) Word Count: 2600

They began to send only you to his room. He’d been pitching the hips of servants and leaning into their faces for an impromptu kiss since he was ten-and-three, the princeling all too charmed with himself. Most women within the Keep avoided Aegon completely at this point. Even those who were sly enough to see the benefit of catching the eye of royalty. His appetites were simply too great for one woman to appease.

Quietly you opened the door to his room, finding him sleeping of course. Moving it wide, you motioned the three others in. They lightly stepped despite the large pots of hot water on their hips. Once they were headed for the tub behind the divider, you moved around his bed and stood just before where his head was nearly hanging off the edge. 

He was a mess. That wasn’t a secret. He appeared the fool but frightened many who knew him too long. Still, sometimes in his quiet moments you thought to run your fingers through his hair. To tickle your fingertips along his neck and cup his cheek. He was sweet looking and soft, when he wasn’t awake.

The first pour of water came, then the second and he began to stir, the third and Aegon was made aware of someone looming over him and startled. 

You held back a giggle watching him shove himself up, only to look groggy and bewildered at you. “Her Grace desires your presence. We’re having a bath prepared for you.”

The most you got out of him was a grumble before he rolled over away from you and closed his eyes again. The three left to retrieve more hot water, while you started picking up his dirty clothes from the floor, repositioning various things he knocked over on his way in. The things you were willing to touch anyhow. 

It was a few minutes of busy work, your hands in his closet and picking out some clothes for him to wear when he voice came across the room. “You seem a bit dour today.” 

You were surprised he noticed. Looking over your shoulder, he was lounging in the shade on the bed, a clear beam of sunlight between you and reflecting in his eyes. It would have been easy to tell him it was nothing, but you found Aegon was very responsive to any vulnerability on your part.

“I’ll be leaving in about a month.” You sighed, and said more softly. “To be married.”

Aegon perked up, his eyes considerably wider. “Married? To whom?”

“Lord Barston.” Seeing the great lack of recognition in Aegon’s face, an amused grin took you as you explained. “Otherwise known as Keeper of the Clay Fort.”

He gawked, offended. “He’s so old!” 

“Tell that to my father.” You muttered. Lord Barston was sixty-and-seven. Lived through three wives before you, two children and rumors of impotence he reacted violently toward. And he was to be your lord husband in a month. “I am to have lunch with him today.”

“Was it all worth it then?” When you looked at him in question, he eyed your body, “Saving yourself?”

You rolled your eyes, shaking your head. 

“Was that a head shake of no it wasn’t worth it or-”

“I’ve already explained this.” He’d nearly jumped you a long while ago. The other ladies had warned you not to turn your back on him, and you were able to catch him and explain why it was imperative you save yourself. He’d been annoyed, pressed you hard despite your clear discomfort, but shortly relented with a scathing word under his breath. He hadn’t tried forcing himself on you again, only whined about it incessantly. “Reputation is everything to a noble woman. If I don’t have that than I have nothing.”

“Than why aren’t you happy?” Refusing to humor him on this, you clenched your teeth as you decided between belts. Though it didn’t go by you he’d started chewing on his thumbnail. A nervous habit of his. “Surely this will be a great alliance for your house. Your wedding day is to come. You’ll lay with a man for the first time. Get to have your hands all over his stinking wrinkled body.” It was hard to listen to him, a panic making your heart sick. No, this was not what you imagined for marriage. Aegon continued to reminisce, “Probably has bad breath too.”

“Sounds like you before a bath.” 

“Hey!” He pouted.

You chuckled as you turned around, clothes in hand. “Which, by the way, is ready for you, my Lord.” You motioned behind him toward the divider and the steaming tub, setting down his clothes and accessories for the day at the foot of the bed. As you pulled away his hand snatched your wrist, startling and making you jump. There was such intensity in his gaze, heat brewing beneath the surface, his grip firm.

“My offer still stands.” You became very aware that you were alone with him again, though the door was cracked and Erryk was just outside. Some nights you’d break into a cold sweat remembering the way Aegon kept forcing your skirts up, nudging himself between your trembling thighs even as you locked your hand against his chest to keep him back. It was the only experience you had with intimacy, and you loathed that it had been so distressing. His thumb, damp from his chewing, lightly caressed you, his voice dropping low. “My generosity knows no bounds.”

“I have other duties to attend to before my lunch with Barston.” He didn’t like your dodge, his brow falling steep. You slipped your wrist from his rigid fingers, his gaze falling to the bed. “I hope you enjoy your bath and what I picked out for you.”

With a respectable bow, you turned and left for the door, Aegon calling as you exited, “You’ll regret not taking it!”

~ ~ ~

The lunch was one of the worst you ever experienced. Barston talked on and on, never letting you get a word in or listening to your responses. He talked of you taking decoctions to better get pregnant with, that you’d start this next morning that way a month from now, his seed would take at the consummation. He laughed at the shock and horror in your face. And his breath was bad.

It was late at night now, your day having been filled with the rest of your duties and other girls pointed out, are you okay? You look like you’re going to be sick. But your nervous energy certainly made for quick work. 

Aegon had demanded his ritual need for more wine, and instead of being the one asked to take it, you grabbed the prepared cup and decanter without a word. The halls a blur as you slipped into his room. 

It seemed wherever he’d been hanging so late at night had already given Aegon, in spite of his request, his fill of wine. The prince was half disrobed, fiddling with his last boot before flopping on the bed with a sigh. “Jus’ leave it on the table.”

As soon as you set the wine on the small round table and began filling the cup, he lifted his head enough to see it was you and frowned. “So how did the courting of the Clay Keeper go?”

Just the mocking name was enough to strike you. You picked up the cup you just filled and gulped it down in one go. Ending in a loud gasp, barely able to taste it. “It’ll only be a few years, right? He’s so old, surely he’ll die soon.”

Aegon gave an absent-minded hum. “That’s for the Gods to decide.” 

You poured another cup and drank that down as well. 

“He’s so old.” You said again, gaze glassy and dazed as you looked off. “And I hate marshlands. They’re filled with flies and rot, and their rivers are ugly and full of leeches.” The more you thought of it, the more fearful you became. Your breath growing shallow and chest tight. ”I’m gonna be miserable.” You admitted in horror. “I’m gonna be miserable for the rest of my life.”

“Well, no one knows the future. But…” You looked over at him, still laying on the bed and motionless as if he’d fallen asleep mid sentence. It was only seconds but it was hours watching him. You were waiting for a decent argument. Some hidden silver lining. He shrugged. He just shrugged. 

Would a lie have been so difficult? You lied all the damn time in this court. You huffed at him, your finger tapping the cup before pouring one last drink. This time having calmed down enough to find the taste of it more complex than you anticipated of the Arbor Red. A sweetness that faded to heat at the back of the throat. It was actually quite nice.

Setting it down, you sighed. A month- a single month! To be young and be happy, one month to savor any remaining joy in your life. Gods be good, it felt like you only had a month to live. Whenever your father said he was looking for a good match, you had assumed he meant for you. Now you see it was nothing short of naive. He was a hungry man. For power, for wealth, for prestige, he was never satisfied. However he didn’t possess the intellect to be any great schemer to earn these things. Much as he imagined he did. You were his girl, his only girl, and for so long he made you believe that made you special to him.

With a pout on your lips and a lightness in your head, you moved toward Aegon, his legs draping off the edge of the bed. You were sure this time he had fallen asleep for when you made your way closer, he didn’t move. 

You got a good look at Aegon, candles having been left lit for his return. Soft golden light danced on his tired features. He looked so soft, so young and supple. You were sure if you touched him it would be as silk, and if he touched you, he’d be full of vigor. A month. A single month. In a month it would be Barston against you. His mean wrinkled hands tearing at your clothes and forcing you down in his stale bed. His bad breath wheezing in your face with every thrust. His withered body, writhing above as he feebly mounted you as he did those poor women before you. The very thought made you cling to this moment. 

In your melancholy daze, you leaned forward, placing a hand on either side of his shoulders, your knee between his on the bed, looming over him. Aegon stirred lightly, feeling your weight on the bed, the heat softly surrounding him.

Swallowing thickly, you gradually leaned down, your gaze on his lips until you were a breath away. The heat of him called to you, your curiosity beckoning. Lightly, you pressed your lips to his.

They were lightly damp, stained with a different wine from wherever he’d been, and plush against your own. It was nice, enticing to stay there. Aegon was certainly brought to awareness quickly, shifting underneath you just as you parted. The light was low but you could see stray strings of his hair flinch as his lashes flickered. 

Any confusion he had didn’t last long. His hand cupped the back of your head, and before you could even get a breath in you were forced down onto his mouth again. Aegon moaned, his body coming alive underneath yours as his other had wrapped around your waist, his legs blocking you in, desperate to have you fall onto him completely. A wild flush consumed you, your body having been tense with anxiety finally releasing. 

Against your own mind telling you to stop before going further, you melted onto him, pressing your body along his, whimpering when he wrapped his arms around your back, his thighs clutching your sides and warming you. With a wet smack you were able to breathe, getting out a flimsy, “Aegon, wait-”

But he captured you again, swallowing your words on his tongue. It sent a wave of pleasure through you, a shiver down your spine to feel the laving waves in your mouth. You rolled needy hips against his, feeling his hardening arousal along your front, making you want more, want him more. To hitch up your skirts, mount him before Barston could mount you, again and again and again until your month was up and the Stranger would mercifully take your life.

You ran your hands up his sides, savoring the heat he radiated and infected you with. How Aegon keened into your touch, raising his back to press his chest to yours. You bucked again in your eagerness to bury yourself in him, the headboard ground loudly against the stone. Aegon grunted from the forcefulness, you felt his cock jump from the sensation, pulsing beneath you. 

“I-I should let you rest.” You said breathlessly, before kissing him again, grabbing at and petting him as if you were meant to map him out. Aegon chuckled deep in his throat, rumbling against your breast, gripping your hind and forcing your hips down on his, bidding you to keep grinding as you had been. 

You did a few more times, savoring each languid stride because it very well may be your last. Drinking in and committing the way it pressed all the air from his lungs in strangled sighs. The last you earned a sweet whimper from his lips. 

Gods above, what a fiend fear had made you.

In a panic you pulled yourself from Aegon, straight up to a stand at the base of the bed. You covered your damp and kissed-swollen lips with a trembling hand, still tingling with Aegon’s generous attention. He was a mess before you. Plush lips red and glistening. His gaze dazed as he looked up at you, trying to catch his quick breath. His erection peaked and needy. Because of you. You could still feel the imprint of it up your fluttering stomach, hard and hot and ready for you.

“I shouldn’t have done that.” You whispered under your breath, pulling further back, a flush of embarrassment slamming through you.

“Wha- wait!” He reached for you, calling your name but you ran out the door, shutting it tightly behind. 

“Oh I shouldn’t have done that- I shouldn’t have done that.” Quickly you fled the scene back to your room. Lucky that no one seemed to be on that floor to start rumors. Except Sir Erryk, watching you scuttle away without saying a word to you. Once all the way inside the servants quarters, the girls ready for bed all looked at you, their attention peaked. You were in a fit of shakes, thrill pounding through you on every heartbeat. Your skin was sensitive with deprived attention as you tore off your red and cream servants gowns and got into your night shift. Your mind lit up to every little flutter of curtains on the wind and scratch of rats hiding under furniture, your ears burning with the sound of Aegon’s pleasure echoing in your mind. 

When you crawled into the small bed, you curled up, staring at the stone wall in the dimly lit room. Your entire body pulsing still. You swallowed thickly, could still taste him on your tongue.

None of the girls said anything. They had their assumptions, you knew what they were, the dark places their minds were reaching but you couldn’t bring yourself to ease their worries. It was far more dangerous to your reputation if you did.

(Part 2) (Part 3)(Part 4) Hey, let me know if you enjoyed the read! ♡ Art by Pierre Auguste Cot

[tennessoui]

democratic fic part 3

(democratic fic masterlist) (2.5k)

Anakin breathes in for a count of three and out for five. Obi-Wan Kenobi is the single most vexing creature in the entire galaxy.

Not a small part of him wants to grab the boy by his throat and shake him, make him look at him. How dare he look away. How dare he test Anakin’s control so casually. It is untenable, the way the boy smirks and flutters his eyelashes and begins to walk as if Anakin’s compliance is a matter already resolved. 

“No,” Anakin steps forward and reaches out to grab his arm. Before his fingers can curl  around the bone of his wrist, Kenobi has snatched his hand away, curling it to his chest protectively. The boy turns and glares at him, all hints of sweetness washed away from his face. “I said no, Obi-Wan.”

“Alright,” Obi-Wan says, tone as far from alright as it can get. “Then have a good rest of your night, Senator. I will, I am sure, see you again during my stay on Coruscant, though I will not inflict my company upon you any longer—”

The boy cannot be serious. “You are throwing a tantrum,” Anakin snaps. “I will not be beholden to the whims of a spoiled princeling—”

Obi-Wan throws an embittered, fierce look over his shoulder at him. “I am the grandson of a Count, Senator, I am not a prince—”

“Then stop acting like one!”

“And no one has asked that you accompany me—”

“You just did—”

“Yes, and I have taken your rejection with aplomb—”

“Sith’s hells you have,” Anakin mutters, working his jaw furiously as his thoughts fly rapidly through his head.

Everything he knows about Obi-Wan Kenobi points to the boy being made of soft stuffs; he is bratty and rude, no doubt about it, but he does not possess the spine that would be necessary for him to truly venture into the Lower Levels of Coruscant by himself. He is simply testing Anakin’s patience for the fun of it. Perhaps the thrill of it. But a failed Jedi turned spoiled servant of the Court would never have the guts to go alone somewhere so violent and dark.

“Fine,” Anakin says, turning away himself. “Do send me a comm tomorrow morning so that I know you are alive.” “I didn’t realize you would care,” the boy sniffs, his head held incredibly high when Anakin peeks back at him. For someone apparently not born into aristocracy, he has taken to it quite well. It sets Anakin’s teeth on edge, and his whole body twitches forward, filled with the urge to put his hands on the boy’s body, ruffle him up and tear the cold mask of indifference off his face. 

These are very, very dangerous thoughts as he is quite sure that the boy would welcome those sorts of advances and Anakin has already committed to not allowing the boy into his bed. If not for the scandal should they be found, the questions of propriety, the fact that Kenobi is a ward of a foreign Count, then simply for the reason that Obi-Wan Kenobi is a spoiled little brat of a princeling, and Anakin is old enough to know better than to give into his demands.

He listens to Kenobi’s footsteps move further away from him, towards the elevator at the ends of the gardens that would take him to the speeder lot. He’d probably get into a speeder and fly back to his grandfather, pouting the entire way.

Yes, Anakin can see it now: Kenobi in the front seat of the speeder, full and pink bottom lip pushed out—perhaps even wobbling slightly, spit-slick too—hair a bit tangled and mussed from the wind, eye makeup smeared slightly from rubbing his hand over his face, pointing his speeder back to his grandfather’s apartments because he would never in a million years venture into the Lower Levels without some sort of guardian.

But—

What if Anakin is wrong?

After all, he only met the boy a few days ago. He has impressions of Kenobi, but that doesn’t mean the boy can’t surprise him. He’d been unexpectedly catty in the presence of Padmé: what if he could be unexpectedly brave and direct his speeder down far below the safest levels of Coruscant?

Dressed as he was, he would be noticed immediately. He’d be a target before he even stepped out of his speeder, and if anything happened to Kenobi, the blame would fall on Anakin’s shoulders.

Stars and moons and blasted suns, Anakin thinks to himself. 

He turns around. He follows Kenobi’s disappearing figure with his eyes. It’s rather easy to do at least, with how the boy glimmers and glows in the light of the lanterns as he kriffing sashays along the garden path to the elevator bays.

Anakin gnashes his teeth; Anakin’s feet start moving.

—-------

The kriffing idiot goes to the Lower Levels.

Anakin barely has time to hijack a parked speeder and point it towards Kenobi’s when the boy flies his own over the edge of the lot and down at a steep angle.

Too steep of an angle to be going anywhere but to the Lower Levels—alone, looking as he does, dressed as he is.

Anakin curses once more and follows him over the edge.

—--------

He’s just going to make sure nothing bad happens to the boy, that’s all. It’s practically his duty. And as long as Kenobi doesn’t feel him in the Force or see him following him, it won’t be giving into the boy’s whims. As long as the boy doesn’t know he’s there, then he will not think he has won, which is of the utmost importance. 

He has not won. 

This is the thought on repeat in Anakin’s head as he jumps down from his stolen speeder and lands on the ground of Level -214 solidly. Kenobi has already dragged his bike, a lithe, slim model of a speeder, into the crook of an alleyway, as if that’ll be enough to keep it safe.

Anakin lets out an explosive sigh as he watches the glimmering blue and silver figure disappear into the crowd. “Hey,” he barks to a street vendor leaning against the wall next to the mouth of that same alley, lazily using a long stick to stir a pot of foul-smelling, iridescently blue liquid. He tosses him a roll of credits. “That’s, uh. Fifty-eight credits. I’ll give you a hundred more if that bike is still there when I get back. Alright?” 

He doesn’t actually have one hundred more credits, but he knows he certainly looks like a man who does. The vendor seems to believe him, if the eager way he nods is any indication. Good. He can’t let the kriffing princeling’s speeder-bike be stolen, else the idiot would probably ask someone to give him a ride back to his apartments and either end up stolen himself or dead in a gutter.

Speaking of the princeling, Anakin can hardly see him anymore in the crowd, which obviously cannot stand. He throws the hood of his cloak up to cover his face and stalks after the boy.

Kenobi is already turning heads, just as Anakin knew he would, and while he takes a sort of sick satisfaction in being right, the feeling is mostly swallowed by a darker emotion, one that’s much harder to name. His feet pick up their pace as he watches Kenobi round an upcoming bend in the main street, eyes turned upwards as if basking in the neon lights and flickering signs. 

Fucking tourist, Anakin thinks to himself uncharitably even as he follows doggedly, eyes glued on the shifting muscles of Obi-Wan’s back and shoulders as he walks instead of the sentients on the streets around them.

Where is he even going? What does he even want to get out of this little excursion save for a layer of muck and grime on the hems of his robes and the perfume of smoke and liquor and stars know what else clinging to his skin? 

When Anakin visits these levels, it’s for a specific reason, to complete a specific purpose. He does not wander through the levels, he does not need to stop at the vendors or skulk inside the cantinas—though he has been known to indulge in the Lower Level clubs, moreso a decade or two ago than nowadays. 

It’s strange cutting through the crowds of this platform, feeling the slight sway of it beneath his feet as his ears are overwhelmed by the clamor of the inhabitants, as his eyes begin to strain under the barrage of flickering neon lights.

When he’s down here, he is usually heading towards a podrace or coming off the high of one, and this—following Kenobi in his useless, aimless trek—does not feel similar to either scenario. It feels more like he has already lost just by being here, traipsing after Kenobi’s figure like a dog on a leash.

Anakin is so distracted by his thoughts that he almost misses the moment that Kenobi stops.

Or is stopped.

Between one moment and the next, a tall, hulking form melts from the shadows of the cramped alleyway Kenobi has chosen to wander down. It’s a Zephrian, long purple horns curling around their thick and proud forehead, shoulders wider than two Kenobis put together. Their hands fall onto Kenobi, bringing him to a halt at the same time that Anakin realizes that he’s not the only one who has been following Kenobi as a much smaller figure darts forward from just in front of Anakin to launch itself up to land on Kenobi’s exposed and unguarded back, claws sinking into pale flesh and pulling a pained noise from Kenobi’s lips, high-pitched and soft, filled to the brim with surprise.

Its voice begins to chatter loudly in the narrow alley, and the Zephrian’s voice joins in, but Anakin cannot hear any of it over that sound Kenobi had made.

His feet are moving of their own accord, his body pushing roughly through the thin remnants of the crowd to get to Kenobi. 

“I—I don’t carry any credits on me,” Kenobi is saying, voice wobbling from fear or pain, Anakin doesn’t know.

The smaller figure, a Kowakian monkey-lizard, lets out a sound akin to a cackle, and its claws leave Kenobi’s skin to dive into the waves of his hair, grasping at a hair ornament—sapphire and twinkling diamond—and pulling it out of the locks with enough force that it pulls another cry from Kenobi’s lips as his hands raise to defend himself.

A moment later, Anakin is there, hand clenching down onto the Kowakian’s neck and ripping it away from Obi-Wan, the sound of his pain deafening even as it fades from the air. The Kowakian goes flying—Anakin hasn’t used the Force consciously in years, but that has to be what rises up and responds to the push of his hand, that has to be the reason the monkey-lizard slams so hard into the wall of the alleyway that the plaster cracks in multiple places as its body snaps.

“Oh,” Obi-Wan says, a punched-out, instinctual noise that Anakin has no idea how to interpret. He cannot turn to look at him either, because the Zephrian’s hazy red eyes go wide as he focuses them with what looks like great difficulty on the monkey-lizard’s rather unmoving body.

“Go,” Anakin commands, voice low and quiet, his body carefully moving in front of Kenobi’s as the boy shifted towards him, curled up on himself with one hand pressed to his face as if terribly injured or frightened. The Zephrian steps backwards, mouth twisting, and then steps forward with his mouth stretches into an angry snarl, eyes hazy with drink. The Force reverberates around them with a warning, and the Zephrian takes another aborted step forward, chest heaving.

“Anakin—” Obi-Wan cries, and Anakin’s hand shoots out. The Force runs up and down his arm, like a loth-cat batting at him for affection. You’ve returned, it seems to murmur in the air around them, nuzzling against his mind, his soul. 

He pushes out, picturing the Zephrian going flying as far and as hard as the Kowakian had, and the Force obeys with glee. The would-be attacker’s feet lift off the ground as he’s thrown into the same cracked wall as the monkey. Anakin hears his body connect with the duraplast, but he doesn’t watch it, swinging around fully to glare down at Kenobi.

“What the fuck did I tell you?” he’s growling out before he can stop himself, vision turning red as he glowers down at stubborn, willful, beautiful Kenobi. He takes a step forward, and Kenobi does not move except to tilt his head further up.

His eyes are dilated. Fear?

He should be afraid. Anakin has just—Anakin does not know what he’s just done, but there’s no undoing it. The Force is swirling around him like a churning whirlpool, the sort that sucked souls in and spat them out on Kamino for thousands of years. There had been a reason the Jedi warned him against using the Force. A reason he hadn’t touched his connection with it in decades, had simply suffered through its warnings and nudges and prods.

Now all his reasons lay in tatters around him, and the Force is so fucking loud.

Obi-Wan isn’t so much as breathing as he looks up at him, pink lips wet and parted as he allows him to approach, to back him up against the other side of the alley wall.

“What did I tell you?” Anakin snarls, hand falling to rest on Kenobi’s shoulder while the other makes a fist at his side. He’d fucking said—and now someone’s gone and made a mess of Kenobi’s hair; someone’s gone and clawed at his dimpled chin, leaving a long scrape up one cheek, leaving marks across the play of muscles on his back, leaving his eyes wide with fear which never would have happened if he’d just listened. His hand jumps up to smooth out the messy tangle of Kenobi’s hair, tenderness in the face of his fear warring with righteous anger.

“Is that what you wanted to see, princeling?” he murmurs, tightening his grip on Kenobi’s shoulder. “Was that enough of a Lower Levels experience for you?”

The boy shivers.

(Link to the corresponding poll for this fic)

[whump-me-all-night-long]

Vampire Royalty Story - Chapter Three

alright y’all it’s time for the next installment. this one is a bit shorter than the previous ones but i didn’t want to write the next chunk because i felt like this was a clear stopping point. anyways...

CW: intimate, royal, vampire, lady whumper, human, royal whumpee, aftermath of whipping, painful wound cleaning, whumper as caretaker, creepy comfort, blood drinking (dubcon?), begging, listen idk what happened here

taglist: @freefallingup13 @kim-poce @panic-and-chaos @susiequaz12

Masterlist

---

At some point during the whipping, Adelio had passed out. He wasn’t quite sure when; all he knew was that one moment he was in agonizing pain, the cold sun beating down on him and the next he was laying on his stomach, on something incredibly soft.

Blinking a few times, Adelio let out a soft groan, attempting to sit up. Immediately, fiery pain coursed through his back and he grunted, falling back down.

“Oh, princeling, don’t do that,” the queen said in a saccharine tone. Focusing his gaze on her, Adelio could tell he was laying on a bed and she sat in a cushioned chair next to it.

Drawing in a breath was a struggle. “What- what happened?” he asked hoarsely, throat raw from screaming.

The queen reached out a pale hand and began to softly stroke through Adelio’s hair, plastered to his skin from sweat. “You passed out, darling. The pain must’ve been too much for you.”

Adelio hated how nice the touch felt and shook his head slightly. “No,. why did you do that to me?”

She smiled at him like he was a child or a cute pet. “Why? Because I wanted to. And I need to make sure we start off on the right foot, of course. You need to know who’s in charge and what happens if you disobey.”

He couldn’t help but flinch at her words, sugary sweet despite the threat in them. He thought about begging but he knew, deep down, that it wouldn’t change her mind. If anything, it would make her want to hurt him more, probably.

“Now,” the queen said, picking up something from the floor. “Let’s get you cleaned up and bandaged.”

Adelio could only watch with wide eyes as she unloaded various medical supplies on the small table next to the bed. His back was on fire; every small twitch amplified it and even breathing sent aching waves through his body.

Once everything was unloaded, the queen resumed stroking his hair. “I won’t lie to you, darling,” she said. “This will hurt. But just remember that I’m doing this for your own good. We wouldn’t want these to get infected, would we?”

Adelio didn’t have time to answer before she dampened a cloth and pressed it to his back. 

Immediately, it felt as if he was dying. He gave a bloodcurdling scream, his back arching against the bed. After a few seconds, she lifted the cloth, still petting him softly.

“You’re doing so well, my golden prince. So, so well.”

Adelio gasped into the bed beneath him. “No more,” he pleaded. “I can’t take any more.”

“Yes, you can.” The queen’s tone left no room for arguing, and it was all Adelio could do to not black out from the pain of cleaning his back.

After what felt like an eternity, the queen finally lifted the cloth, setting it aside. “All done,” she murmured. “We’re all done with the hard part. You did absolutely perfectly, my princeling.”

Adelio just sobbed, tears flowing out of his eyes and soaking the bed beneath him. Around him, the room was spinning violently, and he felt like he couldn’t get a full breath of air in. He was too breathless to even beg.

The queen picked up a roll of clean white gauze and easily maneuvered the limp human so she could wrap it around his wounds. Once all the welts and cuts were covered and she was sure the wrappings were secure, she knotted the end of the gauze and put the rest of the roll away.

“We’re all done, princeling,” she said, stroking back his hair. “We’re all done.”

Adelio’s lip trembled and he let out a soft whimper, “It hurts,” he breathed. “Hurts so.. so much.”

The queen nodded sympathetically, and in his pain-addled state, Adelio couldn’t see the gleaming look of hunger in her eyes. “Would you like me to help with the pain?”

Adelio stared up at her, his golden eyes wide and foggy as he nodded slightly.

She smiled, baring her fangs, but Adelio didn’t notice them. “If you want help with the pain, all you have to do is ask me. Can you say please, darling?”

Adelio vaguely remembered her asking him something similar while he was being whipped raw. He remembered his hesitation, and her anger at his hesitation. Now, with breathing even a struggle to do painlessly, he didn’t let things like pride or reputation hinder him.

“Please,” he begged, voice rough as sandpaper. “Please, Ma-Majesty, help me with, with the pain. I.. I need help, please.”

Obviously pleased, the queen sat back raising her wrist to her mouth. “Of course, my golden prince. I’m so glad you asked.” She bit into the tender underside of her arm, fangs easily puncturing skin. Once she was sure the blood was flowing properly, she lifted Adelio’s head to her bleeding wrist.

At first, Adelio didn’t comprehend what she was doing. He resisted, weakly, as the blood was forced against his mouth. Then, the first drop of it hit his tongue, and he let out a moan, beginning to drink deeply.

The blood was delicious, sweeter than the finest wine, savory and warm like mulled ale. It easily slid down his throat, warming his body and creating a wonderful tingling feeling throughout his body, as if he were floating. Almost immediately, the pain eased and then disappeared from him, leaving a soft warmth encasing his body.

Once Adelio’s eyelids started to droop, the queen pulled her wrist back, swiping her tongue over it to close the puncture wounds. She continued stroking his hair, admiring the way a few stray droplets of blood stained the corners of his mouth.

“Sleep, princeling,” she gently commanded, allowing a bit of her compulsion to seep into her tone.

Immediately, his eyes closed and his breathing deepened. The queen remained sitting next to him, petting him and admiring him, long after he’d fallen asleep.

[alarawriting]

52 Project #24: The Princesses and the Peas

(Inspired by a post on Tumblr and if I can ever find it again I will link it here.)

(Not proofread, beta’ed, or even read through a second time because this is massively late and if I don’t post within the next hour it will officially be next week everywhere in the United States and I will have failed in my mission. I’ll try to re-read and proofread and edit next week. Also this note is highly unprofessional, but I learned my relationship to my audience through fanfic, so this is how I roll.)

***

Surely you have heard a similar tale before, almost but not entirely like this one, of the queen who sought the perfect wife for her son, the crown prince.

The queen had ruled the land alone since the death of her husband. She was praised for her wisdom and her benevolence toward her people. But she was no longer young, and it was time to make sure her son made a politically beneficial marriage, to strengthen his position when it came time for him to take the crown. Many in the land whispered that the young man would make a terrible king, and wanted him to abdicate in favor of his younger sister, who was beautiful and bright and smiling. Celia, the young sister, could look anyone in the eye and make them believe that in that moment, they were the most important person in her world. Arien, the prince… could not do that.

The prince had a talent for mathematics, and it had expressed itself very young. Some said he should be the chancellor of the exchequer rather than the king. But Queen Leyta knew her son would make a compassionate and wise ruler as well as a prudent one. He also had a gift for seeing the humanity behind the numbers he calculated, of being able to think of the impact they would have on the people he would one day rule.

Once, when he was a child of six, his nursemaid lost him. Leyta found him behind the kitchens, picking through the garbage bins to find table scraps. She would have punished the kitchen staff for allowing such a thing, but Arien insisted that she should not. “It’s not their fault, Mother. I ordered them to let me, and I’m the prince, so they had to obey me. I told them that if you became angry at them I would tell you that they were only obeying my orders. They can’t get in trouble for obeying their liege.”

Leyta sighed. She could punish them for obeying their liege, when their liege was 6 and the thing he wanted to do was eat garbage, but she wouldn’t, because she knew why they obeyed. When the prince was thwarted, he would ask why. And if he received an answer, he would argue with it and present his position. Sometimes, this debate would lead to him accepting the necessity, and calmly going about his business, seeming to forget all about what he’d asked. More often, if he didn’t get an answer to “why”, or he didn’t like the answer and thought it didn’t make sense, and he was still thwarted, he would start to scream and hide under tables, or scream and run around and break things, or scream and slam his head into the wall, and he wouldn’t stop even when offered the thing he wanted. It was very, very hard to calm him once he started shrieking. So instead of punishing the kitchen staff, she asked Arien, “Why were you eating garbage?”

“Our food is bought with the taxes we take from the people,” he said seriously. “If we wasted less food, we wouldn’t have to tax the people as sorely as we do, and they would have more money to buy things for themselves.”

So she took him aside and told him that the scraps were fed to the dogs, who helped the palace huntsmen bring down game, or the goats and fowl, who gave the palace milk, meat and eggs, or they were tilled into the ground to make the fields around the palace more fruitful. They did not, in fact, go to waste; food that wasn’t wholesome for humans to eat could still feed animals, who would turn it back into wholesome food.

Then she had a lengthy discussion with him about tax policy, and listened gravely to his suggestions as to how they could ease the burdens on the people, and told him what the problems with his ideas were. And when some of his ideas didn’t have significant problems, she told him so, and discussed them with him, and even implemented a few as policy.

Arien also had a great love for bugs. He spent much of his days wandering the grounds, sketching every insect he saw, capturing some to study them and figure out what they ate. When Leyta learned of this, she found a learned scholar of insects, and hired him to be Arien’s tutor in the matter of insects, only. The man was at first openly resentful of being required to work with a small child, assuming that Arien would be a spoiled princeling with no real interest in learning, but when he discovered Arien’s love for the tiny creatures, he embraced the boy wholeheartedly and tutored him as well as he could.

The prince had few friends. He was open and innocent, happy to make friends with any child close to his own age, but the honest children who truly wanted a playmate were put off by Arien’s tendency to talk about bugs and math almost constantly. The children who put up with Arien’s chatter were, to Leyta’s eyes, obviously coached by ambitious mothers, pretending to friendship with the strange young prince to improve their position at court. She arranged for most of these children to be sent away – either their mothers dismissed, or the family sent to one of the crown’s holdings with some duty to perform or another. Arien was saddened by the disappearance of his playmates, since he didn’t realize they saw him as mere stepping stones to power. Celia knew, and would comfort her brother as well as she could… but she didn’t have a lot of patience for math, tax policy, and insects either.

As he grew up, Arien continued to display a strange mixture of wisdom and childishness. He would run around the palace grounds, playing with children far younger than he was, and they were not old enough to try to manipulate him, so Queen Leyta left them alone. He enjoyed riding his horse and taking care of it, and was often found at the stables, for he believed his horse needed to cared for in just the exact way he did it, and he didn’t trust the stablehands to follow his instructions exactly. He would spend hours discussing the politics of the land and the problems facing various groups of his subjects with Leyta and her own advisors, and then he would scream and throw himself on the floor at dinner because a chef had put visible onions in his soup, and he would need to be put to bed with his favorite blanket and a knitted doll of a dog that he’d had when he was four.

People said that the boy was touched in the head, that he was slightly mad, and also, that a future king who threw temper tantrums over onions was not to be trusted. But they weren’t, exactly, tantrums, as Leyta saw them. They didn’t stop when the problem was solved, they usually didn’t include demands – in fact, usually it was hard to get the prince to explain what was wrong, because he seemed to lose much of his ability to speak when these fits came on him. And she could see in his eyes that he was terrified and overwhelmed, not angry and demanding. Arien needed the world to work a certain way, and when it did not, it left him adrift, frightened and lost in a world that seemed to make no sense to him anymore.

Some of these ways that the world needed to work involved food, and the importance of not being able to see onions, for an onion large enough to see was large enough to crunch in his mouth in a way that apparently was so disgusting it would make him lose his ability to eat all day. There were similar rules regarding peppers, and certain cream dishes. Other ways the world needed to work regarded his mother’s advisors treating him like their future king, not in terms of obsequious deference but in terms of actually listening to his ideas and explaining things to him – even when he was merely eight. And then there was the care of animals – his own animals needed to be cared for in an exact way, and if he saw anyone being cruel to an animal, he might actually become violent to that person. The same was true of stronger people being cruel to weaker ones. When he was fourteen, he heard a maid crying, and asked a kitchen maid to find out for him what had happened. And then, when he learned that a nobleman under his roof had ill used her and cast her aside, he went to his mother and demanded the man be whipped for his crimes. The political explanations she gave for why that couldn’t be done fell on deaf ears; he was a cruel man and he’d harmed someone he had power over, and that was all Arien cared about. Leyta only managed to satisfy him by sending the man on a probably futile sea expedition to try to find a cheaper source of rice.

This was the boy that Queen Leyta had to find a proper bride for.

Her mother-in-law, the Dowager Queen, had ideas, but it had been many years since the Dowager Queen had actually held any power; she was one of Leyta’s advisors now, nothing more. So the idea would have to be one that Leyta agreed with, herself.

A ball to introduce eligible young women with powerful families to the prince? No. The prince didn’t handle crowds or parties well, or meeting a lot of new people in one evening.

A series of daytime salons, where a small group of eligible women would converse over luncheon with the prince? No. That was still too many people and the prince  was self-conscious about people watching him eat.

Individual visits from each eligible young lady and her chaperones, to the palace, to meet with Arien, and also to be approved by Leyta? Yes! An excellent idea. Leyta had her secretary write up the invitations, to all the young women whose parents had written to her or the Dowager to express an interest.

In the palace was a suite of rooms that had been Leyta’s, once, when she’d lived in this palace to learn its ways before marrying the then-prince. She had that suite cleaned and prepared for the guests. Sleeping quarters to either side for the princess’s guards. Ladies-in-waiting to sleep in the antechamber outside the princess’s bedroom. And inside the princess’s bedroom, a bed heaped with several thick eiderdown duvets and pillows, incredibly soft, with sheets made from the finest linens.

And under the second eiderdown duvet, dried peas.

Queen Leyta tested the peas. When she sat on the bed, she couldn’t feel them. If she laid in the bed, she could barely tell they were there. But when she had Arien try it, he said, “You’re going to take them out before the guests come, right? The peas make the bed much too uncomfortable.”

“The peas,” Leyta said, “are to test whether a girl is right for you or not. It’s magic.”

Arien looked at her skeptically, unsure whether he believed in magic or not. “How are dried peas supposed to find me the right wife?”

“Magic,” Leyta said. “I can’t tell you exactly how it works. But it’s very important that you not tell them about the peas, or the magic won’t work.”

“Mother, I’m sixteen. I’m not a child. This whole story sounds ridiculous.”

“All right,” Leyta admitted. “It’s not magic, but I won’t be able to explain it to you until after it’s proven that it works, or doesn’t. But it is very important that you not tell any of your guests about it.”

Arien looked like he wanted to argue some more about it. Leyta said, “Trust me,” and he sighed, plainly remembering the number of times his mother had stood up for him or had come up with some scheme to help him.

“All right, Mother, but I’ll want that explanation afterwards.”

The Dowager Queen had her own theories. “You want to see if they can tell the peas are there?”

“To a certain extent,” Leyta said.

“You know that old wives’ tale about princesses being true and refined if they’re extremely sensitive is just a myth. I wasn’t a fragile flower who’d lose petals if you looked at her hard, and neither were you. And neither will Celia be.”

“I know that, Mother,” Leyta said – it was custom to address your mother-in-law as Mother, and Leyta’s own mother had died shortly after her wedding. The Dowager Queen had been the closest thing to a mother she’d had the entire time she was Queen. “I’m not testing for extreme skin sensitivity. Trust me.”

“It’d be hard for him to get an heir on a princess that fragile, don’t you think?” The Dowager chortled.

Leyta sighed. “No need to be crude about it. I have my reasons, and I’ll explain them to you, eventually. Let’s see if it works, first.”

***

The first princess was from the west. She had long straight hair and delicate-looking eyes with folded lids that left them shaped like almonds, rather than the eggs that the people of this realm wore in their face. She had pale creamy skin with a golden undertone, and she was demure and very polite, her etiquette perfect. She sat with Arien for hours, smiling at him with a face that expressed great interest, as he explained to her the complexities of life in a beehive.

In the morning, Leyta asked her, “How did you sleep?”

“Oh, wonderfully,” the princess said. “The bed was perfect! So soft! Your hospitality is wonderful.” She bowed her head.

Leyta saw her and her entourage off. When she returned, she asked Arien, “What did you think of her?”

“She was nice,” Arien said. “She listened to me. I’ve only had a few friends who listened to me, and they all moved away.”

Privately, without Arien present, the Dowager asked, “So what’s your verdict?”

“Unless none of them pass the test, she’s a no.”

***

The second princess was from the land immediately to the north. Her skin was tree- brown but as smooth as a tranquil lake, her hair floating around her head in a soft, curly cloud. Arien talked to her about beetles. She made excuses of not feeling well about half an hour into the beetle discussion.

When Leyta asked her how she slept, she said, “Your rooms are very nice. And the food last night was excellent, I’m so sorry I had to cut the evening short. But I feel fully rejuvenated today.”

Arien said, “She seemed okay, but she kept looking around while I was talking to her, so much that I think she gave herself motion sickness. I think that’s why she got sick.”

Leyta said to the Dowager, “A definite no.”

***

The third princess was from the far south. She had beautiful straight golden hair, cut short and asymmetrically, where it was shorter in the back than front and where it was parted on one side rather than in the middle.

She complained about her soup being cold. She complained about her roast beef being too bloody. She complained that the dessert course had small portions and also that it was too sweet. She screamed at servants for not bringing her wet towels for wiping her hands quickly enough and for refilling her wine glass too quickly. She insisted on talking to the seneschal about the servants who had served her, demanding that they be banished from the castle for incompetence. When Arien tried to talk to her, her demeanor was sweet, but every time he tried to talk to her about something he liked, she insisted that he show her another part of the castle. She made plans for room redecoration as if she had already become Arien’s queen.

In the morning, she was sickly sweet with Leyta, saying it was only a minor thing, really, but surely more competent servants could be found to make the bed? It was extremely lumpy. Leyta found out that she’d woken the chambermaids at 1 in the morning to demand an additional five featherbeds piled on top of hers.

Arien didn’t look at his mother. “Um… I don’t want to be impolite, but… I didn’t like her very much.”

The Dowager Queen said, “Please don’t tell me you’re considering that young harridan just because she could tell there were peas in the bed.”

“Oh, no. Not even for a moment,” said Leyta, and drew her quill through the name “Princess Carinna” on the list.

***

The fourth princess was actually the daughter of a powerful merchant, not an actual princess at all. She had deeply tanned skin and thick black hair, and beautiful dark eyes. She and Arien talked for hours about tax policy and accounting techniques, and she seemed genuinely interested.

She said the bed had been wonderful, and there was nothing wrong with it. Arien liked her. But Queen Leyta marked her as a provisional choice, the first on the list if no one passed her test.

***

And so it went with princess after princess. Most of them showed at least some slight sign of impatience when Arien monopolized the conversation, but none of them admitted to it, and few even tried to change the topic. No others were as rude as Carinna. No others admitted to detecting the peas, either. Leyta was on the verge of contacting the merchant to make an offer for his daughter to wed Arien. And then Princess Inaya arrived.

Princess Inaya was from further north than the second princess had been, her skin darker and her hair in braids that lay directly against her head, with ribbons and beads woven into them at the bottom. She didn’t look Leyta in the eye – or anyone else, really, keeping her head bowed demurely. She picked at her food, more or less eating only the potatoes, and she barely spoke… until she met with Arien.

He offered, diffidently, to show her the garden, and she accepted. He started to point out interesting bugs that he saw in the garden… and she began to point out interesting rocks. They soon began an animated conversation that sounded to Leyta more like two separate threads, where Arien would say a sentence or two about insects, then yield to Inaya, who would say a sentence or two about rocks. Sometimes they had a genuine back-and-forth when they talked about the habitats of pillbugs, who lived under rocks, or other areas where rocks and insects somehow intersected. Arien showed Inaya the notebook where he drew bugs and made his observations, and Inaya seemed to be thrilled with his artistic skill. She showed him her own notebook, with no art at all, where she wrote down the properties of rocks she had discovered and outlined the tests she did on stones to see what they were made of. Arien was fascinated with the efforts she’d gone to and how thoroughly she’d documented her findings; he’d never thought of doing anything to research the insects aside from looking them up in his tutor’s books.

At no point did she ever look Arien in the eye. At no point did he seem to care. He relaxed enough with Inaya to flap his hands when he grew excited; Inaya had a chain of polished stones that, instead of wearing around her neck, she tossed in the air as she paced.

In the morning, when Leyta asked Inaya how she slept, she squirmed.

“I, um. The bed was mostly very nice. Very good linens, nice soft down. But, uh. It felt like maybe there were… tiny pebbles in there somewhere? I’m not sure, I didn’t want to be rude and strip down the bed to look, but, uh. It was kind of uncomfortable.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that,” Leyta said.

She made arrangements to ask Arien his opinion before Inaya’s entourage left, this time. He spoke very simply. “I love her. Pick her, she’s the one.”

“I thought you would say that,” Leyta said, and she finished drafting the offer to Inaya’s parents, and signed it. “Take this to her lady-in-waiting before they leave, to give to Inaya’s parents.”

“I can’t!” Arien said, looking all around. “I can’t be the one to do it because I have to give her a parting gift if I see her and I don’t have any nice rocks!”

So Leyta gave him a bracelet with a large inset opal, and smaller jades all around it. “Take this to her and tell her which kinds of stones are in it, and tell her she can wear it as a bracelet if she wants, or take it apart for the stones, whichever she prefers.”

Later she heard that Inaya collapsed on the ground crying when he made the offer, but that her lady-in-waiting reassured Arien that this wasn’t abnormal – that she did this whenever her emotions were too strong to control, even if they were happy emotions. Inaya confirmed that she was crying from relief and joy, because she had always thought that no man would ever want to marry her and if one did, he would hate her rocks and want her to do normal womanly things like embroidery or something, which she wasn’t good at in the slightest because her coordination was bad and she was always poking the needle into the wrong place, and she had never imagined that she would ever find a man who understood her and didn’t demand that she look in his eyes and liked to listen to her talk about what she loved. Then Arien asked her very gravely if she liked hugs, because most of the time he didn’t like hugs, especially when they were a surprise, but if she would like a hug he really wanted to give her one. They hugged, and declared mutual love (“as far as I can define the feeling of love, anyway,” Inaya said, “because I don’t think I’ve ever been in love before, so how can I know for sure that that’s what this is?” Arien had agreed with her, but said “I think that even if what we’re feeling isn’t the same kind of thing as other people feel when they’re in love, it’s close enough that we can use the same word, because who wants to have to make up a new word?” And then they spent several minutes amusing each other to the point of hysterical laughter in making up new words that sounded ridiculous, sometimes repeating them to each other ten or a dozen times.) When Inaya finally had to leave, Arien cried.

Leyta wasn’t there for any of that, but her spies were everywhere in the castle.

***

When the Dowager demanded that she explain her test, Leyta summoned Arien, who had washed his face so it looked more as if he had had a terrible runny nose and sneezes than that he’d been crying.

“You asked me about what it would prove, to put peas in the bed,” Leyta said, “and I was looking for two things, but one was more important than the other.”

“What were you looking for?” Arien asked.

“Arien… you know that you’re a special young man, and different in some ways than other people your age. I’ve consulted with many scholars. Children like you are often strangely sensitive to things that other people don’t notice… often to the point where it’s unpleasant. Such as your feelings about onions.”

He shuddered. “Please do not remind me of the existence of those devil vegetables.”

Leyta laughed. The Dowager scowled. Leyta knew she preferred that a king, or a crown prince who’d just been betrothed, have a serious demeanor. She also knew that Arien would be who he was, no matter what anyone asked him to be.

“So I thought, the peas might be noticeable to some of the girls, but they would be especially notable to a girl who was like Arien. More importantly, if a girl noticed it but claimed she didn’t… Arien, I know you are often taken off guard by lies, and you’re a very honest man yourself. I know you would prefer a wife who will tell you when something makes her unhappy, rather than her trying to guess how you feel about it and then telling you what she thinks you want to hear.”

Arien nodded. “Nobody can see inside someone else’s mind, so why would anyone even do that?”

“I wanted a girl who would be honest about something she found unpleasant, even if she had to offend her host to admit it. But, obviously, kindness and compassion and a lack of malice about it were necessary as well… we don’t want a Carinna anywhere near the rulership of the kingdom.”

“You can say that again,” Arien said. Leyta suspected he was setting her up so she could tell a joke.

“But I won’t, because I know you heard it the first time,” she said, smiling.

The Dowager frowned. “So you picked a girl who has the same kinds of problems as Arien? Was that wise? The kingdom may need rulers who understand the idea of telling lies when they must, who can be charming and adept with politics. I thought you’d pick a girl who would cover Arien’s weaknesses, not one with the same issues.”

“Your son understood me,” Leyta said simply. “It was an arranged marriage, but we quickly grew to love each other, because we respected and we understood each other. I don’t want the kingdom to have a queen who resents her husband because she thinks he’s strange… who may play politics behind the scenes to have him killed so she can take power. Or who takes lovers, so we don’t know if the royal blood is even in the heirs. It’s more important to me that Arien’s wife respects him and understands him, and that he understands and respects her, than to have rulers who can detect all the subterranean undercurrents of a conversation. That’s what spymasters are for… and Dowager mothers and grandmothers, and perhaps even younger sisters.”

“Mother,” Arien said, “thank you. I know the people think I’m strange, and maybe I am, but you’ve always watched out for me. I didn’t even know I needed to find a wife who wouldn’t lie to protect my feelings until you pointed it out, and now it’s obvious.” He looked at the Dowager. “And Grandmother, Inaya does complement me. I understand mathematics, and finance, and things like that. She was trained by her parents to understand logistics, so she could run the castle, but she went deeper with it; she understands things about what kind of weather will do things to the crops and what will happen to the farmers when that occurs, things I never even thought about asking. Together I think she and I can make our country one of the most prosperous and happy nations in the world.”

***

And so it came to be. Prince Arien and Princess Inaya were wed in a lovely ceremony that they immediately fled to go on their honeymoon as soon as the marriage vows were taken. They understood the economics of the nation, and other nations, as few kings and queens ever did, and when they needed someone to tell them that someone else was lying, they had the Dowager Leyta and Princess Celia. The country prospered as it never had before, with no beggars on the streets of the cities, because the King and Queen gave homes to those who had none, and living expenses to those too sick or weak or lacking in some ability so that they couldn’t work.

It would be a lie to say they lived happily ever after, because no human can be happy all the time, and they had arguments and problems in their relationship from time to time. But even Arien the Honest and his Queen would agree that we can say they lived mostly happily for the rest of their lives.

[lucienlowell]

Done some translatin.

So I did mention I was translating from the Chronicles of Light novel, yes?

Finished the side story with smol!Zenos, and oh god I didn’t need these fucking feels yet here they are--

Ahem. Observe.

Until These Fists Are Dyed With Blood

To be born as the prince of a great nation that intends to rule over the whole world; is that truly a blessing, or is it a curse? To Zenos, the great-grandson of Solus zos Galvus, the first emperor of the Garlemald Empire, it was a curse. Though perhaps more accurately, he had no reason to think of it as a curse, but nor was it a blessing, as he was unable to make that judgment. To begin with, Zenos was a lonely person. Hardly had his mother given birth to him before passing away from illness, and due to the strife in the imperial court and the constant campaigns into foreign lands, he almost never even saw his father's face. Though he was surrounded by servants, to him they were little more than soulless automatons, the very same as any magitek construct, and he did not think of them as "human". Even those attending the same lessons as him, to the gifted and brilliant Zenos, were relentlessly boring, and he much preferred to spend his time in the company of books, finding them far better conversants. Living in such a manner, of course one would know not the innocence of a usual childhood. And so to Zenos, every day until the time he was fourteen years old held nothing more than "boredom".

"Draw your blade." That was the order the man gave him, when first they met. On that day, as part of his studies in becoming the nation's leader someday, Zenos began to undergo military training under the supervision of a teacher brought to the royal palace. However, this man was no well-known soldier, but an unknown figure. Though they resided in a frigid land, his skin held a deep tan baked into him by the sun, and his body was kept in excellent condition. Notably, as well, he did not have the familiar third eye on his forehead. Yes, he was not a Garlean, but from one of the provinces. However, that noted, that was where any possible interest ended. Once he had given the man a distant once-over, any shine of intrigue promptly faded from Zenos' eyes. Silently, he nodded his head. Just like all his other studies, he found training a source of naught but boredom as well. Even so, he diligently allowed himself to be taught the proper way to grasp a sword, and how to place his hands and feet. In the very depths of his heart, he was already intolerably bored, but to refuse would be too troublesome, so Zenos tightened his grip on the blunt training sword he held - and the next moment, the man was on the floor. He didn't understand. One moment he had been standing, and the very next, he could not rise again, his vision a blur. He hadn't even seen the sword move, yet he knew he had taken a crushing blow to the head. "You have perished." Saying only that, Zenos turned his back on the man he had been looking down on. "W, wait...your training is still..." Staggering to his feet, though he was still very off balance, the man spoke to Zenos. However, Zenos did not look back. "Dead men can teach nothing. They can only sleep."

After the shock of that meeting, Zenos' life was forever changed. He was to undergo training three times a week, but instead of waiting for two days to pass, he was summoned the next day instead. "Draw your blade." Given the same bland order as the previous day, Zenos considered it thoroughly. He had no wish to repeat the same unsightly technique as before. Not taking his eyes off of the foreign man, he carefully drew close to the sword leant against a nearby wall, and just as he took hold of the hilt, he was forced to fend off an unexpectedly violent assault. However, it was futile. Before he could even come within striking range, he was felled by a fierce blow to the chest. Now it was he who could not even see the attacking blade. From that day forth, that was the way things would be. This was the first time Zenos could remember that his existence had ever had meaning. Apart from his father, every last one of the adults around him had treated him with the honor and respect befitting a prince. Therefore, in his training and his studies alike, Zenos seized upon every opportunity to try and shock those around him. But from this mysterious foreigner, he received not even the slightest bit of respect, nor could he read even the tiniest of hints in the man's stance. And as he was overpowered again and again by this strange and crushing technique, the torment within Zenos grew. Ten days passed in much the same way. Stretching his sore shoulders, Zenos was returning to his room after finishing a training session when he was summoned by his father, Varis. "Is your training progressing well?" Of course, he didn't need an answer. There had been detailed reports from all the servants, and he could see the wounds that had been left behind. Yet even if not for that, the obvious aftereffects would have told the story all on their own. "Yes, Father. Nothing to worry about..." Zenos answered with a thin, emotionless smile on his face. The situation around this trial, such as it was, that Varis had bestowed upon his son had become more than a little warped, yet Zenos felt no anger or humiliation. This was the first time he'd ever had a situation he had to fight to overcome, and the foreigner now had value to him as a challenge and an enemy. Perhaps he could consider this a gift from his father, and he was certainly the type of person to take in every last bit of something given him. Questions and answers, one by one - after several months of the usual back-and-forth between father and son, their conversations were full of only cold indifference. This was what the Galvus legacy had become.

Three weeks had passed. Zenos had still been unable to land so much as a single counterattack, even though he was now able to track the man's every swordstroke. Therefore, using the opportunity after the foreigner had returned home for a time, he took matters into his own hands. Making frequent visits to the library inside the royal palace, he lost himself within every relevant book he could get his hands on, seeking to discern the origins of the man's strange methods. It was there, within the wartime memoirs of a seasoned soldier, that he came upon the tale of trying to learn a certain technique used in Corvos, the southern region of the continent of Ilsabard - something called the "Unyielding Blade", passed down through generations but never taught in any school. From then on, he ceaselessly sought for any possible way to learn about the Unyielding Blade, but his efforts there came to naught. He could find no books from that foreign land.

Since he could not learn the necessary information from any book, he had no choice but to try his hand at it physically. The next week, he threw himself singlemindedly into watching every one of the man's movements as closely as he could. His footwork, the way he wielded his sword, even the way he grasped its hilt...one by one, Zenos brought every last factor to light and committed them all to memory. Finally, after a month's time had passed, and after being so sorely beaten countless times, Zenos felt he could at last defend himself against the man's swordsmanship.

That day's training began just as usual. Coldly ordered to "Draw your blade", Zenos casually made his way to where the sword left for him to practice with was leant up against the wall. However, today, he had a plan. As soon as he took the sword into his hand, he turned his back and slashed out behind him. The man had not even made it within a distance of ten steps before, eyes wide, he was forced to jump aside. It seemed meaningless for Zenos to have turned away, but beyond the visible portion of his sword, a formless shockwave of a blade had leapt forth. "You bastard, how did you..." It was no wonder the man was so surprised. That was a technique passed down only through word of mouth to a select few. Though Zenos had been unaware of this, the man was a great swordsmaster from the subjugated region of Corvos, and the last in existence to know that technique. He and those like him, the wielders of the Unyielding Blade, had risen up in revolt against the imperial army - yet before the might of Varis' army, they had been rendered powerless, their numbers reduced to nothing. As the greatest of them, he had been taken prisoner, forced to follow Varis' orders to keep his family safe, and hence he had been brought to serve at the royal palace. In truth, he was there to teach Varis' firstborn son the meaning of failure. Apart from him, there was no one else in the world who should be capable of using the technique. And furthermore, if it was to be taught to someone, they would have to be capable of manipulating aether to perform it successfully, as it was an art reliant on magic. As Garleans had little to no innate ability to manipulate and utilize aether, it should have been impossible for Zenos. However, even without being taught, the Garlean boy had managed to pull it off. Somehow, he had done the impossible. "I have figured it out." Seeming bored to tears, Zenos spoke coldly to the shocked man. "Do not make light of the history of Corvos, whelp!" The man's fury was boiling over. To him, to bear this knowledge alone had been his mission; never had he intended for such an impertinent princeling to steal the secret from him. Truth be told, if he had thought himself capable of it, he would have slain Varis and made his escape from the palace long ago. And if not for the lives of his wife and daughter hanging in the balance, taking revenge for his deceased allies would have been the only thing on his mind. At that very instant, however, the man threw all his plans aside, wanting only to slay the boy who stood before him. For the art that had been so carefully passed down from generation to generation to be used so readily by a Garlean - and the son of his enemy, at that - was an insult to his pride that he simply could not bear. He could be patient no longer. "You are not worthy of the Unyielding Blade!" In the hands of one well-trained in the arts of the sword, and of manipulating their own corporeal aether, the technique could easily kill a man. And the swordsmaster from Corvos was prepared to kill. As he looked at the blindly furious man, Zenos began to laugh. He did not make to dodge, only to strike. Raising his sword, he wielded the invisible blade, rendering the man's own attempt nothing but dust. From there, it was decided. Dogs in the vicinity began to howl, as they would when chasing prey. Over and over again, Zenos let fly the Unyielding Blade with calculated ease, and it was not long before the man was backed into a corner. Though he was seeing it firsthand, the man could hardly believe his eyes. Zenos' martial ability was truly unparalleled. "That may be the way of it, but--" The swordsmaster's blade swinging down as if he was praying for it to reach its destination, its final cruel strike wavered, then dissipated. Zenos' training sword was now embedded deeply into the man's chest. "Dead men can teach nothing. They can only sleep...isn't that so?" Though the man heard that quiet murmur, somehow he could not understand it. And the next moment, he collapsed. Zenos held out his bloodied palms to the dead man, who lay wide-eyed on the ground. In them, fragments of crystal were embedded. "Yet while you lived still, you taught me one thing. Being unable to utilize one's own corporeal aether is unexpectedly inconvenient. In order to use the Unyielding Blade technique, I am forced to rely on cheap tricks." Zenos plucked the shards free, brow furrowing at the sharp pain. In order to use his aether to bolster his abilities, he had driven them deeply into his own flesh. Utilizing a crystal containing a very high concentration of aether would theoretically allow one to surpass their own limits, but it was an extremely risky procedure. Therefore, just so he would be able to properly wield that technique, he had done all the dangerous but necessary research on his own self. He continued speaking eloquently to the corpse that lay before him. "After all of that, it seems nothing else will ever live up to the thrill of this battle. I expected this, and yet... Having now experienced it personally, I find myself quite disappointed. That is what you taught me." Using a fingertip to toy with the crystal shards, Zenos flicked them to the ground next to the man's corpse. "This is my thanks for that lesson. Hold onto it for me." And that was how the first "worthy" battle that Zenos yae Galvus ever fought was ended. After leaving the training hall, he washed away the sweat, changed his clothes, and as he ate his dinner, proceeded to completely forget the man's face. Perhaps someday he would find another foe, like the heroes whose names were etched into the annals of history, who would grant him another thrilling battle - it was with that wish that he settled into his bed. And that night, for the first time in a long while, Zenos was able to sleep soundly.

[rufousnmacska]

Goodbye and Hello - 8

Manon and Dorian said goodbye in Orynth. But for them, saying hello again is only a matter of time.

Previous chapters (and a recap)

Part One: I Wish…

Part Two: Another Day

Part Three: Those Two Words

Part Four: Breakfast in Bed

Part Five: Waiting

Part Six: Confessions (nsfw)

Part Seven: Old Friends

*****

Part Eight: Light in the Darkness

“I know you prefer goat but tonight it’s cow.”

Abraxos replied with a low, disgruntled noise.

“Keep complaining and you won’t get anything.” Manon moved to leave, towing the haunch of meat behind her. But her wyvern’s growl morphed into a whine. With a triumphant grin, Manon turned around and threw the meal towards his waiting snout.

Too cold for normal snow, ice crystals floated in the air, reflecting the soft glow of the moon. Pulling her cloak tight and her hood up, she ignored the temperature and sat to watch Abraxos eat. Any excuse to delay going to bed.

Tomorrow would be hell.

Perhaps if she stayed awake, it wouldn’t come. Perhaps this evening would go on indefinitely. And she wouldn’t have to wake knowing it had been one year since that blinding white blast. One year without the Thirteen.

There was to be a remembrance ceremony tomorrow in Morrigna. Bronwen and Petrah had handled the planning, along with a Blackbeak witch named Claryn, who’d risen through the clan to serve as one of Manon’s advisors. Manon would speak, briefly, but she just wanted to spend as much of the day alone with Abraxos. 

Her wyvern finished his meal, nudged the bone towards her, walked in three  circles, then curled up to sleep in a fresh pile of straw. The summertime scent of the plains briefly filled her nose as he settled down. 

Did he know? Manon knew he still grieved the loss of his mate. Whether or not he sensed this milestone in the passage of time, it was impossible to say. With his scarred, triangular head hidden underneath a wing and his earlier grumpiness, she suspected he understood. If not the date, then certainly the mood. Her own, and the city’s.

As she went to comfort him, something swooped into her peripheral vision.

She’d had his aerie situated so it could be seen from her rooms. When she couldn’t sleep and it was too cold to go to him, she could at least see him. And vice versa. The light from her window told him she was near.

Which meant she could clearly see the raven that landed on her window ledge. Its head twisted back and forth, looking in the window. Ravens were smart, but this behavior showed more than just bird intelligence.

Leaning on the railing, she whispered, “Dorian?”

She felt like a fool. But when it hopped around to face her, then took to the air, her heart sped up. A few flaps of its wings and it was in the aerie. Abraxos didn’t stir as the tang of magic buzzed through the air, and with a pop, Dorian was standing in front of her.

Startled, Manon stared at him wide-eyed, convinced this was some sort of dream or hallucination. “Is this real?”

Dorian closed the space between them and pulled her into a hug.

If this was a dream, she didn’t want to wake up from it. He smelled real, like the fiercest winds in an open sky. He felt real, blessedly warm and squeezing her tight in his arms.

“Hello witchling.”

He sounded real. That was his breath in her ear.

Manon stepped back to look at him. “How did you... I don’t understand. We weren’t supposed to meet until the spring. At the Ferian Gap.” She was shaking her head, trying to make sense of how he could be here. How he could have flown over the Fangs with its violent storms, and across the Wastes and its deathly cold.

Dorian smirked in that way that equally frustrated her and set her heart beating faster. “I can go if you’d like. We can wait until-“

She didn’t let him finish as she lunged back into his arms. “Hello princeling.”

Keeping his presence a secret, he shifted and flew back to her window. Once they were both settled in her warm room, Manon demanded answers. Listening to him talk of Aedion and Lysandra’s visit, she grew impatient. He had only a small rucksack with him, nothing to suggest proper travel supplies. So, as interested as she was to hear how the couple and their daughter were doing, she struggled to keep still. It looked like he was finally coming to his point when he sat down across from her at the small table she used as a desk.

“Do you remember in the battle, when the Wolf Tribe and Fae reinforcements appeared out of nowhere?”

"Of course.” The new ground forces had taken out several legions of archers aiming for her witches. She’d assumed they were late arriving allies of the Khagan’s armies.

His eyes were brighter than she’d ever seen them, and his grin threatened to stretch from ear to ear. “Did you know they came to the field through wyrd gates that Aelin and the cadre created?”

It took a moment for the truth buried in his question to reveal itself. Had he...? But no. “No,” she said, trying to remember every detail that he’d told her about helping Aelin forge the lock. Meeting his gaze, she said again, “No. That’s impossible. You said Aelin closed them. For good. She made it so they could never be reopened.”

“That’s what I thought,” he said, looking more than a little chagrined. “But she only ended our ability to travel into and between other worlds. Not within ours.”

“Is this...” She trailed off, not wanting to mention it. But she asked anyway. “Is this something you took from Maeve? Is this her power?”

The falter of his smile was almost imperceptible. Almost.

She’d despised the female the moment she’d first laid eyes on her in Eyllwe. But the hatred reached new depths when Dorian told her the full story of his time in Morath. Manon had not responded well to learning of his bargain with the valg queen, an offer much too similar to the one he’d rejected from her. And even though it was done to outmaneuver the valg, and even though she’d secretly been impressed by his quick thinking, Maeve was still a touchy subject between them.

“No. In fact this was a gift from Aedion,” Dorian said. “He taught me how to open a gate to anywhere. It took all of my effort to keep from barging in on you the moment I knew the proper wyrd marks.” Placing a letter on the table between them, he said, “And this is my request to barge in on you.”

And with that, she laughed. “You are...” She had no words. No words for what she felt, having him appear from out of thin air and sitting across from her. No words for what this discovery might mean for them. For the future. Pushing that aside, she asked, “Why were you a raven?”

“I opened the gate outside the city and flew in so I didn’t end up impaled on a sword by one of your guards.” And before she could ask, he said, “I’ve had Chaol talk to my guards. He said they’ve been thoroughly reprimanded, and to thank you.” Dorian reached for her hand and stood, pulling her around and into his arms. Quietly, he said, “And thank you for the books. They’re shelved with my most loved volumes.”

Manon sank into him, savoring the feel of him, the heat and solidity. “Is that why you came all this way? To say thank you?”

With a soft laugh, he stood back, not letting go of her. “It wasn’t very far. And actually, that’s not why I’m here.” He answered her questioning look with a sad one of his own. “I know what tomorrow is, and I didn’t want you to be alone.”

*****

The light in her eyes flickered out with his words and Manon turned away to examine the sheaves of paper on her desk. He’d expected anger or excuses, or even acceptance. Instead she was silent and cold, apparently hoping to avoid the topic altogether.

“I’ve come to either spend the day here with you...” He didn’t finish, waiting for some reaction. 

With a slight tilt of her head, she asked, “Or?”

“Or.” Bracing himself, he said, “We could make a gate to Terrasen. To Theralis.”

Manon went back to organizing her desk. It wasn’t avoidance this time. She wasn’t trying to hide her feelings under an icy shell. The struggle, he realized, was in deciphering them, not containing them.

“It’s your choice,” he said, slowly approaching her. “If you want me to go back to Rifthold, I will.” Manon shook her head, still not looking at him. “If you want to stay here, we’ll do that instead.” Taking the papers from her hands, he said, “But, if you want to go, we can go in a manner that ensures no one will see us. No spectacle or crowds.”

She stood in silence for a long time, still trying to puzzle out her emotions. “I should go. For them,” she finally said, her voice raw as if she’d been crying. “But I don’t know if I can.”

He led her over to sit on the bed.

“I thought it was getting better,” she admitted. “After the Ferian Gap, it was easier to think about them. Remember them. But the closer it got to tomorrow... When I close my eyes, when I try to sleep, it’s all I see.”

Hoping it might help her to keep talking, Dorian asked, “What do you see?” He’d heard versions of what happened, Lysandra’s being the most heartbreaking. Manon had never spoken of it in any detail.

Staring at the far wall, Manon said, “The yielding. The white light. It’s burned into my memory.”

“Why was the light white? Instead of darkness?” What little he knew of the yielding came from her, and she’d described it as a burst of deadly darkness, consuming all around it.

“It reflects what is in the witch’s soul.” The tears that had been building in her eyes began to roll down her cheeks.

Dorian reached for her hand, holding it with both of his. “Their goodness,” he offered as explanation, wanting to soothe her pain. “Their love and loyalty. Their desire for a better world.”

Nodding, she sniffed. “That makes sense. They never belonged to the Matron. Her world of brutality, discipline, obedience. If only I’d seen it sooner.”

He wanted to argue with her and tell her it wasn’t her fault. But his own guilt at not stopping his father sooner rose inside him. It was like her grief, and like his own. Popping up during the most unexpected moments to remind you of who you’d lost or what you’d done. Or didn’t do, in his case.

At Manon’s mention of the Matron, he realized, not for the first time, but in a way that hadn’t struck him before, that the witch had died in the yielding too. Did Manon mourn her grandmother? Not in the way she did the Thirteen. But, he grieved for his father sometimes. 

“She died that day too,” he said, his words tentative, testing the waters. “Do you ever think of her?”

*****

“Do you think of your father?” she asked, a bit harshly. She’d asked it once before and knew the answer, but he nodded anyway. Softer, she said, "I suppose it’s like that then. I think of all the things she did so that I may not make the same mistakes.”

His unasked questions hung heavy in the air. Manon’s natural instinct was to ignore them, refuse to answer. If this was anyone else, she would have. But he alone might understand.

“Sometimes though, I feel like... like I might miss her.”

She half expected Dorian to flinch away. He didn’t move, except for the light back and forth of his fingers on her hand.

“I don’t miss her, exactly. More like the thought of her. Or, what she should have been. She raised me. For good and ill. Even though she spoke nothing but lies, she knew me for my entire life.” Manon huffed a laugh, hoping to make light of what she’d just said. “What kind of person feels that way? Missing a monster like her?”

“A person like me,” he replied, his words firm and sure. “I miss my father, despite all he did. It’s not something I can make sense of.”

Manon couldn’t understand her feelings either. But that was nothing new. Some days were still a struggle, leaving her wondering if there was actually something wrong with her. Or was it normal for emotions to go from high to low and around a loop and back again? Was it supposed to feel like flying?

His touch moved up and down her arm, sending a shiver across her skin.

“She may have been in your life since you were born, but she didn’t truly know you.”

“Maybe she did. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have kept me leashed and under her control.” It felt strange to admit. Despite everything, it was hard to blame the Matron instead of taking it all upon herself. But there was plenty of guilt still weighing her down. “What she did to Asterin though...” Unable to let him look at her, she ducked her head. She had to force the words out, force herself not to choke on them. “I can take what my grandmother did to me. But Asterin, and the others... When I miss her, when I realize part of the emptiness I feel might be for her... It’s such a betrayal.”

The warmth of his touch spiked. His magic always seemed to react to her emotions. Right now, she wasn’t sure if it was meant to be soothing, or if he was finally disgusted by her.

But then he was hugging her, whispering soft, unintelligible words into her ear. Soon, they became more clear. I know. I know. He was repeating it with every stroke of his hand down her back.

Manon pulled away and met his gaze, so full of understanding. She had to ask. “How?”

“There’s no one I can burden with this. Not Chaol, or Yrene. They both suffered at the hands of my father. I can’t tell them how I pity him. Or that I don’t know how to feel about him giving me his name. That was a moment when he fought back. Something I could never do. When I think about that, I can’t completely hate him.” Dorian fell quiet, as if realizing how much he’d been keeping buried. Finally, he said, “Manon, you are the only one who might understand. You’re the only person who won’t see me as a monster.”

Despite his apprehension, she was fairly certain neither Chaol nor Yrene could see him that way. But, she understood. Not just the confusion and guilt. She understood the fear of what others would think, of what it meant to still care about those who’d done so much harm.

“We are a good match then,” she said, swallowing back all that threatened to overtake her in that moment. “Monsters need to look out for one another.”

“They do.” Dorian smiled sweetly as he held up his hand and unsheathed a full set of iron nails.

The ease with which he shifted forms always amazed her. She pretended to inspect them, even going so far as to reveal her own for comparison. She held her hand to his, palm to palm. “Not bad,” she teased.

He entwined their fingers and brought her hand up to kiss. Something about the gesture, the feel of his lips on her skin, the way his eyes penetrated her, sent a bolt of courage through Manon. “Will you take me tomorrow? To Theralis?”

Another kiss, this time on her forehead. “I will.”

“And, there’s something else I’d like your help with.” She’d been thinking about it since the Ferian Gap. Since becoming friends with Orghana, and since retrieving Ghislaine’s library.

“Anything,” Dorian said.

“I want to tell their story. In a book. So they’ll never be forgotten. But,” she cringed, thinking of the few attempts she’d made writing things down. “I can’t write. Not like they deserve.”

Dorian looked at her doubtfully. But he hadn’t seen what she’d written so far. Dry, straightforward descriptions of each witch, their mother’s names, a few odd fights and adventures. Nothing to match the writing in the books she’d given him.

As if he had seen what she already wrote, he said, “I think if you start with the facts, make some lists and outlines, just get things down on paper, then you  can expand it from there.” His eyes shifted over to her desk. “Can I see what you have so far?”

She hesitated, them remembered she’d asked him to help. There was no way to do that without handing over the jumble of pages. Before passing them to his outstretched hand, she said, “Be gentle.”

With a wink, and an eager gleam to his eyes, he said, “Always, witchling.”

*****

The gate burst into existence as Dorian added a few drops of his blood to the wyrd marks. The ring of light widened until it was large enough for them to walk through. Only, Manon couldn’t walk through. She couldn’t move at all.

The icy plain was barely visible through the opening. It was early enough that the rising sun hadn’t yet cleared the mountains. Dorian placed an arm around her shoulders and she felt him shiver from the cold that blew from half a continent away to join the winter winds of the Wastes. Or, maybe she was the one shaking. He squeezed her into his side, making no move to go forward or back. He only waited until she made the decision.

It was the thought of Asterin’s broom that gave her the push to step into the wyrd gate. The broom her cousin had made during a happy time of her life. A life that deserved to be honored, even by something so small as a walk into the past. Manon was beginning to truly heal. But this place, this moment she was revisiting, threatened to undo it.

Dorian’s arm dropped to his side as she took a step. Grasping his hand, she stepped through the barrier.

The bowl-like depression in the Plain of Theralis was still there, deeper than she remembered. That thought made her heart sink. How could she have forgotten? Every detail was seared into her brain. Or should have been. As they made their way carefully down the snow covered slope, Manon decided that was one more reason it was good for them to come here. If she was going to tell their story, she needed to remember properly.

By the time they reached the center, the sun had just crested the mountains, tinting the bands of clouds in the dark blue sky with vivid pinks and oranges. Making a mental note of the colors and the mountain scenery, she thought that despite what had happened here, what had been lost, the place had a unique beauty and wildness. One that suited her coven.

Dorian lightly patted his chest, where an inside pocket of his cloak held a small ceramic pot. “Are you sure you want to do this now? It might not survive. We could come back in the spring.”

The purple flowers which signaled the lifting of Rhiannon’s curse were still, a year later, blooming in small patches along the wall surrounding Morrigna. Glennis theorized that perhaps they’d always bloom, a constant reminder of a future full of hope and peace.

Because they were low growing with tiny blooms, they were ill-suited for a bouquet. Manon had thought this was a better idea anyway.

Kneeling, she used her iron nails to dig through the snow and into the frozen soil. Outside of medicinal uses, her knowledge of plants was negligible. What little she did know told her this was probably foolish and a waste of time. The saxifrage would likely shrivel up and die within minutes of being exposed to this temperature. But for whatever reason, an extra sense she couldn’t explain, it felt right.

Once the hole was large enough, she worked the hard, brittle dirt through her fingers to make it more accepting of a plant. Dorian knelt to help, adding some heat to it with his magic. Soon, it was ready. He gave her a questioning look, and she said, “Go ahead.”

"Okay.” He pulled the plant from beneath his cloak and Manon saw him wince, as if he expected it to explode. When nothing happened, he handed it to her.

It made her laugh, which also felt right, albeit in an odd way. Similar to how the sunrise had spread something like absolution across this place of violence, leaving her with a budding sense of peace she’d never known.

As she tipped it out of the pot, Dorian slid the soft, warm dirt back into the hole and made a space in the middle for the plant. Manon placed the little saxifrage into it’s new home. “Until the Darkness claims us,” she said, the words low and quiet, mostly breath, which misted the air and settled on the tiny leaves and petals.

“We can come back in the spring to see if it’s taken root,” Dorian said as they both hovered over the plant like new parents with an infant.

As they stood, Manon again felt touched by that curious sense of rightness. “It will.”

*****

The ceremony that afternoon, inexplicably attended by the King of Adarlan, was not as difficult to sit through as Manon had expected. The entire kingdom was present, and the entire kingdom stood in reverent silence for several moments in honor of the Thirteen and their mounts. Manon should not have doubted Abraxos. He knew what was happening today, and as alpha, he led the other wyverns in impassioned howls and shrieks of mourning and remembrance, ending the silence.

A witch from each clan spoke, receiving strong applause. One spoke of unity, another of peace, and another of the future, all things made possible by the Thirteen’s sacrifice. Throughout, Dorian clutched Manon’s hand, giving her the extra little bit of strength she needed. Even if her heart felt as though it had doubled in size with pride for her coven and all her people.

When it was her turn to address the crowd, she kept her promise of brevity. With a trembling voice that still carried across the city center, Manon repeated the words spoken centuries before by Rhiannon Crochan. The curse that was broken with melted iron, blinding white light, and tiny purple flowers. She spoke of hope and gratitude, and with a quick flick of her eyes to Dorian, she spoke of love. The part of her that had always been terrified to think and feel these things, let alone say them, was still afraid. But her soul felt a little lighter. Especially at the sight of the witches and witchlings of three clans gathered together as one.

And as one, they bowed when she was done, two fingers on their brows. It was a sign of respect she’d only ever seen the Thirteen make. But now, it seemed her kingdom had adopted it as their own.  

Food and dancing and music lasted into the long, cold night, with witches moving between homes and the Keep. And the next morning, when Dorian kissed her goodbye and disappeared through a flaming circle drawn in empty air, Manon smiled, happy to know she’d see him again soon.

To be continued...

*****

Note - Within a couple of years, there is a huge circle of purple saxifrage blooming on the Plain of Theralis. It never grows outside that slight depression in the ground, and is named the Witch Queen’s garden by residents of the nearby city (and @itach-i​). Unlike the plants in Morrigna, which are sustained by magic, these are seasonal and don’t bloom year round. Except for a small patch of flowers in the center, that bloom for only a single day each winter. The same day each year when, in the early dawn, a flash of light opens to reveal two figures, who stay for as long as the weather allows, before disappearing back into the light.

Note 2 - My assumption in this fic is that there are only Blackbeaks, Bluebloods, and Crochans remaining, and the Yellowlegs clan was effectively wiped out at the Battle of Orynth. There are still some Yellowlegs witches out there, but they have yet to make their way to the Witch Kingdom and join the other clans.

*****

Tagging - @itach-i​ @nestasbucket​ @blackhavilliard​ @monstrousloves-explodinggalaxies​ @sierrareads​ @chloe123love607​ @manontrashbeak​ @over300books​ @bookishwitchling​ @jimetg98​ @mis-lil-red​ @yourfacesickens-me​ @awesomelena555​

If you’d like to be tagged in future fics, let me know :)

fanfic master list (includes the link to my fics on AO3)

[ashintheairlikesnow]

ADSOM Drabbles: Why Don’t I Hate You At All?

(For the Anon who requested an ADSOM drabble! This is pre-canon, but does include some spoilers for the first Shades of Magic book, so if you haven’t read it yet, you may not want to click on the Read More link!)

You know what your problem is?” Normally stoic, Holland Vosijk was feeling exactly enough of the kick from his third goblet of the odd dry Arnesian wine he was drinking to jab his finger at the air in the direction of the man sitting across from him.

“No,” Kell Maresh replied. He was on his fourth glass. Around them, the bar’s patrons pretended with great effort not to be obvious about their unease that they had not one, but two Antari sitting here being infinitely dangerous right in the middle of them. “But I imagine you are about to tell me.”

“Someone should.” Holland’s accent was thicker when he drank like this - normally he prided himself on speaking with a polished, very slight roundness to his consonants, on not flattening his vowels. But drunk, he slipped into the Kosik accent he’d grown up with - rough-and-tumble, the accent of men who took up business in dark buildings and who would have paid a lot of money to have an Antari to steal, enslave, and sell. 

Kell looked at him, and Holland did not notice the high color in the other man’s cheeks - pale redheads, he thought, held their liquor in their faces, and that was never a problem he’d had in his life. Maktahn men started drinking in childhood and never stopped - what else was there to do, as each year was a little colder?

“Please believe me,” Kell said, dryly, “That you don’t really need to worry about that. My own mother tells me what is wrong with me every time I turn around, some days.”

“She’s not your mother,” Holland said, and took another drink.

He expected Kell to snap at him - he had before, when he’d said similar things. Instead, the Maresh princeling - prince in name only, Antari in Arnes couldn’t hold property or real titles or be in line for the throne - only sighed and said, “I know. She could have been, I think, but it was never her intention.”

“That’s not what we get to be, is it?” Holland said, and laughed - dark and bitter, and in his chest the curse did not burn but was a weight, ever-present. A hint of stone to sink him under the Sijlt, under the claws of the white king and queen in the world of bones that waited for his return. 

They had given him the night off, and because he was a glutton for punishment, he’d sought out the person he hated most in the world, after them.

“No,” Kell said evenly, and he looked at Holland oddly with the blue-and-black eyes, and Holland met him head on with his own faded, dry-grass green. “It’s not.” There was a hesitation, and then Kell leaned over, finishing his wine with a flourish. “Tell me, Holland Vosijk, exactly what my problem is.”

Holland brightened, a little, at the opening. “Your problem,” He said, and jabbed his finger again, because that felt like the right thing to do. “Is your world’s problem.”

“My world’s problem,” Kell repeated, deadpan. 

“Right. You’re spoiled. Fat vitun worms. Eat and eat and eat and the world makes more magic to soak you in, and you don’t even notice it. When I am here, I feel…” He trailed off, and looked down into the vibrant dark red of his wine. The mead in Makt, and the sweet wines the Danes drank by the barrel and licked the red off their fingers (when they weren’t mixing it with Holland’s blood for quite the drink, indeed, Holl) - none of them had so much color.

“What do you feel?” Kell looked more curious now, his eyes glittering and bright with the drink, the flush in his face making him seem like a painting, like one of the portraits Holland saw when he walked the marketplace here. Artisans using paints that would cost more than Holland’s life was worth with reckless abandon because they could simply get more. 

“I feel like I wish I could tear the whole thing down and give it to my people. Glass this city to the ground and use all the magic in your kurat river to feed ours. But I’m not sure we deserve it... or that I do.”

Neither of them guessed at the confession until it was already out, and both of them went silent in the sudden realization of what Holland had said.

Kell, so much younger and with a life blessed with almost everything he ever wanted, a life with few hard choices and cursed with almost no choices at all, shifted uncomfortably. “Why… why do you say that?” He asked, with the air of someone who wished the ground would swallow him whole and who could not stop himself from asking the question, anyway.

“Makt is violent. We are a people who bleed each other dry-”

“And try to bleed your visitors, too, you know,” Kell added, and Holland huffed a laugh, nearly soundless. 

“Fair. And my king and queen would have us both kneel at their feet if they could. Power is not enough - they must have more power, and more, and more.”

“They’re in the wrong world if more power is their only ambition,” Kell murmured, but he took the warning, Holland thinks - or maybe he didn’t, and he’s just drunk enough to look solemn because he thinks it makes him seem dignified.

It doesn’t.

Holland only watched him, for a long moment, and then he shifted to dig into a pocket sewn into the underside of his half-cloak, a pocket that sits directly over the curse carved into his chest. He has his commands, and it’s not time for this yet, but…

“Kell.”

“Mmmn?” Kell looked over at him, and Holland was definitely drunk, because he caught himself liking the line of the younger man’s jaw, the hint of freckles on his pale face, a single darker one under one eye. 

If things had only been entirely different, Holland thought, we might have been friends.

A thought he allowed to exist only in whispers, because it was Holland’s own fault that they had never gotten further than antagonistic. He’d been arrogant, before the Danes, when he stood by the side of a man he thought might change everything. And he’d had that arrogance bled out of him, day by day, bone by broken bone, knife in his ribs with his head in Athos Dane’s lap, back whipped to shreds. 

No more arrogance, in Holland Vosijk, at least not when his king and queen were near.

But maybe a little, when he was drunk with Kell Maresh.

“If I gave you this… what would you do?” Holland dug the necklace out of the pocket and laid it on the table between them. Kell blinked at it, clearly not recognizing the carvings on the pendant. He didn’t know what it was, and Holland breathed out slowly, trying to steady himself.

If Kell had known, this might have been over, now.

Instead, Holland thought bitterly, what promised to be the worst days of Kell Maresh’s life hadn’t even begun yet.

“If you… gave it to me?”

“Ja. I mean yes. What would you do, if I came to you, and I offered you this?”

“I’d wonder what poison you soaked the pendant in to kill me,” Kell answered quickly, and quirked a smile.

Holland fought the knowledge that he rather liked the way Kell Maresh looked, when he smiled.

“If you could know it wasn’t poisoned. If all it was, was… a gift.” He had his orders. I have been to your father for business already. I come to you for pleasure. Astrid had coached him until he could say it with a straight face, ordered him to do whatever it took to get that necklace over Rhy Maresh’s head. 

Holland was hoping, deeply hoping, it wouldn’t have to be anything more than handing it over. His body would do as Astrid bid, but his mind recoiled at the thought of bedding the Crown Prince of Arnes only to ensure that the young man’s body became Astrid’s, afterward, instead.

If he had to bed one of them, he’d rather-

“I’d take it,” Kell said decisively, and Holland’s thoughts all scattered.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“I’d take it, if you offered it. I mean, I’d be suspicious, but…” Kell hesitated, then held up his hand. When the barmaid stopped by, he asked merely for two glasses of water, and to put the whole tab on the Crown. The woman smiled, nervously, bowed a little bit, and scurried to do as he asked. “I’d still take it. I don’t know if I’d wear it, though. Might just hold it.”

“I don’t think I’d want you to wear it,” Holland said, honestly. Not that it would work on you, but that’s not the point.

“Really? But you just-”

“It’s just a hypothetical,” Holland said quickly, and put the necklace back in his pocket. “And I am entirely too drunk to have this conversation.”

“I’m glad you did,” Kell said, and maybe that was his own confession, because his face reddened further and he looked away as the water was set down before them.

Holland downed his glass and pushed himself to his feet, feeling a sudden rush of alcohol, the world shifting uneasily around him. “I must away, Kell Maresh.”

“What? Already?” Kell tilted his head, looking up at him, and Holland could have sworn he looked sad. “You never talk to me like this.”

Holland swallowed, looking at his face, at the blue eye and the black. “We’ll talk more,” He said, slowly, “In the future.”

When you belong to my queen, when we both cut ourselves open for them, when she rules Arnes with her brother and you rule nothing, not even your own veins. When you suffer alongside me - and Kell Maresh, may you never suffer as beautifully as I do.

Prince Rhy Maresh’s birthday was nearly here, and Holland was going to destroy Kell Maresh’s world. He’d felt he owed the man a nice conversation, first.

The next conversation would be… harder.

He bowed his head, only slightly, to the younger man, who looked a little wistfully back up at him. “You’ll come back soon enough, Holland?” Kell asked, and there was a second question under the first, a vulnerability. 

Holland only looked at him calmly, a man life had emptied out of every ounce of hope for anything like the real answer Kell wanted. Will you come back to see me, like this? When we talk like men and not like enemies?

“I’ll come back,” Holland said carefully. “For your brother’s birthday.”

He turned and left, Kell sitting and drinking the water in sips, and felt the prince’s eyes on his back until the door closed behind him.

I am going to ruin you, you spoiled selfish soft thing. I have hated you as long as I’ve understood you. I have spent seven years in degradation and filth while you drown in your luxuries and whine about how your parents don’t love you enough.

I am wrecked - I am a tombstone in a magic-less London, an angel carved of rock with empty eyes. I am hollowed-out with their knives and their laughter and their curse. I am nothing and no one but the magic that flows in my veins. I am nothing but a well of power they draw from.

I am not a man, only an Antari, and you have had the absolute luck to get to be both, haven’t you?

hate everything you have been raised to be. I loathe your world, and its color and life at the expense of mine. I will hand your brother his doom and do it with a smile on my face.

Because they told me to smile.

I hate you.

So why don’t I hate you at all?

[the-darklings]

—we’re good at bad ideas, my love;

pairing: loki x reader

4k drabble celebration: [o6/22]: “I can’t wait any longer.”

word count: 2.1k+ (what can I even say?)

warnings: nada

notes: All prompts for this challenge come from “Super Sappy Lines Prompt List” created by @tiptoe39. Sadly, I can’t link the list without Tumblr sniping this post but you can find a link to it on my tumblr.

. . .

You were surprised you managed to sneak up on him.

Either he was losing his touch (doubtful), or he was too preoccupied with whatever he was scheming (more likely).

The blade slid against the elegant curve of his neck and he stilled.

“You shouldn't be here, silver-tongue,” you hummed behind him, and pressed another dragger against his ribs when he made a move to grab his own weapon. “It’s a dangerous place for a princeling like you to venture to.”

Loki had always been fast—annoyingly, brilliantly, fast. He pivoted on his feet, his own dagger pointed at your throat in a blink of an eye before he flattered upon taking in your face. The piercing hostility melted from his features and into soft disbelief and confusion.

“(Name)?”

You heard the ring of relieved disbelief in his voice, and suppressed a smile at the immediate and calculating way his green eyes started tracing over your features.

“I thought you dead,” he spoke after another moment, and his words felt heavy despite their softness.

“Likewise,” you countered coolly, taking in how different he looked from the prince you once knew. “Last I heard you were dead. Clearly, that’s old news. Though I suppose I should have known better than to trust the word of mouth.”

“Indeed you should have,” he noted, and there was a bite to his words that made your jaw clench.

You wanted to ask him a thousand things: how he had ended up in Sakaar, what happened in Asgard, where was Thor, and most importantly, if what the whispers said about him was true.  

If he had truly aligned himself with the one individual whose name no one dared to speak out loud. If he had truly tried to take over Midgard, and served under the Mad Titan himself. The Titan was practically a myth on Sakaar, yet no one dared to speak ill of him—at least not in public. His influence hung over the universe like a dark shroud, and the thought that Loki had…

“Well, it’s truly difficult to keep up-to-date with Asgard news when one is banished,” you pointed out drily, and the subdued iciness of your tone made Loki’s eyes narrow. He looked different; somehow hollowed out and torn down all at once, unmade. There was a new sharpness to his gaze—still cutting, still far too clever for his own good—that pierced you though. “It wasn’t exactly easy or pleasant news to hear—”

“Did you mourn?”

A million things were packed into the quiet question. His face had smoothed out, giving away nothing as always. He was far too good at this game of words. You had an appreciation for his methods but little patience for them. You had slowly learned how to adapt his method for your own survival. That tends to happen when you spend all your spare time around someone like him though. Or you did.

Once you had been inseparable.

But now—even though you hadn’t been this close physically in years—it felt like a bottomless chasm had opened up between you.

“Yes.”

It felt uncomfortable to admit it. Neither of you had ever been much for heartfelt exchanges of sentimentality. The closest he had come to sentiment was the day you were banished. You could still recall the fervent burn in his eyes when he swore that he was going get you back no matter what.

But that was then.

Years and years of waiting and bitter longing stood between you now.

And here you both were. At the edge of the universe, reunited once again.

“What’s the deal with your new outfit?” you finally forced out, realising that he wasn’t going to say anything else. You couldn’t quite read his expression, and it felt safer to fill the silence with something. Loki always loved to talk.

“What’s the deal with your hair? It looks abysmal.”

A strangled—and dare you say it, relieved—laugh slipped past your lips, and his expression softened too, a smug grin tugging his own lips upwards. And just like that, the suffocating tension disappeared, making it easier to breathe.

This. This you had missed terribly. The easy, near antagonistic relationship between you. And the trust and the respect, and…

Perhaps just him too.

“What are you doing here, Loki? Where are the others?” you spoke, sheathing your blades, and noting that he had already put his away. Still quick with his hands too. “How did you end up in this garbage dump?”

Eyes crinkling, he approached you with that familiar swagger in his step, “They’re not here. And maybe I can’t wait any longer for them to show up, and came to take over and rule this planet myself.”

You made a thoughtful noise at the back of your throat, folding your hands over your chest, and gazing at him for a long moment. Loki always liked being clever. Always liked explaining his grand schemes and seeing how quickly you managed to catch on to all the little nuances in his plan. It had been one of his favourite games to play—aside from making Thor’s life a living misery. Once it had been harmless fun, but now…

“Well for one, you should not underestimate the Grandmaster,” you told him mildly, watching his expression sharpen with interest. A new source of information, that's what you effectively just made yourself, and this felt familiar too. How many times had you both done this routine before? Too many times to count. “He’s far smarter and ruthless than you think. Don’t let the frivolous act fool you. And taking over this world? Have you forgotten what happened in Niflheim?”

Loki’s eyes twinkled with mirth, and in that spark of life, you saw the mischievous prince you once knew so well.

“Oh, Niflheim was a delight,” he practically purred, his smile all teeth like the memory woke up something buried deep down; something dear to him.

And you could understand it. It was a simpler time then. Just you and him, with Thor and Warrior Three, sometimes joining in. The Nine Realms had seemed like your playground then. But that was a long, long time ago.

“No. Niflheim was most certainly not a delight,” you pointed out incredulously, your expression twisting in disbelief. “Did you hit your head or something? I was thrown to prison because you were a little shit and decided it was a good idea to—”

“Help me take this place,” he cut you off, grabbing you by the shoulder, and you felt the air in your lungs burn. Loki’s eyes were aflame with that familiar fire, the drive you once believed would get him the throne. You had never expected this though. “You and me, just like the old days. We take this place for ourselves and the rest of the universe can rot for all I care. Just like Niflheim,” he added, softer, and you exhaled sharply.

Niflheim held many memories for you both. But there were some that needed to stay buried.    

You stared at him for a long moment, and you saw the flicker of realisation in his eyes—perhaps even disappointment—as his hand dropped from your shoulder suddenly. “You’re not going to help me,” he pointed out flatly, but much to your surprise it lacked malice.

“Loki…” you began unsurely, before you swallowed heavily, shaking your head and turning away. “Things are not what they once were. We’ve changed. Perhaps not for the better. I can’t just close my eyes and forget everything that has happened to me. I can’t just go back to the way things were between us.”

“And why not?”

Sharper, colder. This was a tone that matched the man all those rumours talked about. A maniac who tried to destroy Jotunheim. Who obeyed the order of the most hated and feared individual in the galaxy.

“Because you abandoned me,” you snapped angrily, turning to face him. A violent throb of rage and bitterness pulsed with every escalated beat of your heart, and you swallowed shakily. “Left me behind when you swore that you were going to get me back. I sacrificed my freedom, my home, so you could walk away unscathed because I cared for you. Because it was you and me against the universe, remember? I—I trusted you and you threw that trust back in my damn face.”

His face went slack at your outburst. You wished you had a moment to gloat at the fact that for once in your life, you managed to render Loki speechless, and not the other way around. But instead, the rage you had harboured for years crumbled to nothing in your chest, leaving a hollow hole in you that made you feel—

Lost, lonely, helplessly adrift.

If nothing else, you had always had your unlikely, improbable—never should have worked in a million years but somehow did—friendship with Loki.

Even when you had nothing else—a real home, fancy titles, or riches of any kind—you had your trickster. And for so very long, it had been enough.

You were each other’s number one choice.  

Loki envied and loved Thor in equal measure, but you had always known in the way you often exchanged secretive looks and unfailingly had each other’s backs, that you were irreplaceable to him.

And you were wrong.

You had been so stupidly, naively wrong, it made you feel ashamed.

“I searched for you,” Loki’s voice was low but serious, “I did not abandon you. I searched for you.”

Something that didn’t even resemble a smile twisted your mouth, “Not hard enough. Not nearly hard enough, and you know it.”

You saw his jaw clench, eyes blazing but before he could spin you another pretty lie, you reached out first. Your fingers brushed against his cheek and you felt him still under your touch. So helplessly caught in the moment, you almost forgot to speak.

“My trickster,” you addressed him quietly, and hated the note of affection that bled into your words. “I am not cruel, and I will not punish you for this. For old times’ sake, I will help you survive this place, gain a foothold too, if I can. But nothing more and nothing less. I want to be free of you after this.”

His cheek was cool when your lips brushed against it, and you felt his strangled exhale at the contact. You savoured the moment too. The last one you would ever allow yourself.

“I’m glad you live, trickster,” you told him honestly and pulled back, giving him a sad smile. “It would be an awfully boring universe without you in it.”

Loki’s lips were parted slightly, his eyes flickering quickly over your features.

“Thief…”

Your heart stuttered in your chest at the old, teasing nickname he had bestowed upon you so long ago. He rarely called you by it, but he always managed to weave some muted, teasing fondness into the word that once upon a time made you grin and shove him playfully.

Truthfully, there was nothing you would not give to go back to that time.

But you had no such power, and never would.

“We should go,” you stressed weakly, looking away from his keen gaze. “This is not the most secure location, and we have work to do.”

He grabbed your wrist before you could step around him, and when you turned to him, his gaze was gutting in its intensity. Loki had always been full of chaos and mischief; it often felt like it was in his very blood, like he was born for it, ready to unleash it upon others and revel in the chaotic mess after.

But you saw how different he now was too. It was true that some things were unchanged. But some things, you imagined, would never be truly recovered. For you or him.

“This conversation is not over,” he said easily, all matter-of-fact and so sure of himself. It almost made your heart ache. Once, you had taken so much comfort from his quiet confidence: in his plans, in himself, in you. “We will speak of this again.”

“Still a demanding princeling bastard, I see,” you replied dully, forcing the teasing tone into your words.

There was a glimmer of something like relief in his eyes, but it was a gone in a blink. “It’s king now, actually.”

“Hmm...no.”

“You would disrespect your king?”

“Sure I would.”

“Witch.”

You swallowed a sob, your grin almost pained, but it was tinged with relief too, “Bastard.”

Maybe some things could never be recovered.

But maybe better things could be built in their place.

. . .

an: I somehow wrote this whole thing in one sitting in a span of few hours, and you all know I love backstories and angst so this was my favourite type of story to write. Ahh, I might write more for it, I found this dynamic highly enjoyable. Thank you for reading! <33

[lightshielded]

spoilers and very VERY long, so below cut. 

tl;dr - jarv is a character going through a lot of emotional turmoil caused by the lose of trust in close friends, lose of his family to the very magic they were working to promote ( suggesting to him it was the wrong idea to promote it ), having little healthy support network, and around him is a game of politics where those older and more experienced on the council are influencing him heavily in his altered state of mind. however, he is still a character who cares for his people, wanting to protect his people from future catastrophes cause by magic but also knowing they aren’t all bad so is also shown tentatively reaching out to foreign advisers of allied nations which have advised his father in the past on the subject of magic and is trying to do his best despite being king far younger than anyone should and thrown into the position in a truly horrific way.

important - all is subject to change as we are provided more info, this is just a pouring out of my first impressions and my attempt to understand and rationalise everything under the current state and info provided. also important to note, this includes mentions of suicidal tendencies, depression, ptsd and other like matters. please read with caution.

so as you may know ( or don’t and do not care about spoilers ) our dear prince, or rather king now, has had a very bad day. like he was almost made to eat a rat, and marvel didn’t want to draw him in his actual armour and did in the ceremonial / ig armour instead so i got big cucked out of my hopes and dreams, he got hit with a morg ult when trying to gank mid lane . . . oh and the mid laner killed his dad. what a wonderful day for our dear prince, i mean king.

so a couple things that are unrelated to what i am about to talk about but things that are true in my mind. riot removed jarv’s capture and torture by noxus just so they could have sy/las say he has no idea what he has experienced. just saying. 8 years of basically the exact same lore only to have one of his key points removed at the addition of the character? who then mocks him for it? just saying it’s true. tho i personally still go by that he was capture on my own blog and all, but i have cracked riot’s code.

also like where was shy? i think jarv kinda mentions her but like she is his bodyguard. that’s her whole thing. where is she? i get she tries to lay low but she is meant to be on jarv’s personal guard, but she wasn’t there. now i have a short theory on this. for those who don’t know, shyv is genetically a dragon, her real magic is the fire rune inside her. but otherwise she is a dragon that some how fucked up and became a human ( prior to sy/las it was caused by magic so the magic is technically making her human not a human becoming a dragon and after sy/las the shitty lore we don’t like is that it is the weather ). 

so my theory is, since her dragon - ness isn’t magic but is like genetics, she would just eat him and he actually can’t use it against her so they had to remove her. some how. cause plot. and jarv is mopey that she isn’t around, for a reason they wont say :///// that or riot doesn’t care about her or forgot she existed :)))))))

so the actual things i wanted to talk about, jarv’s very harsh language and actions in the comic and short story. they seem so violent from what we know of the prince of the past. and while that might be true i would like to point out a couple things about jarv as a whole before we begin:

jarv was never brought up to fear or dislike mages - ( though would have heard stories i imagine ) which is evident in his father’s own opinions and his lore. this makes his point of view here seem obscure, he seems to hate very strongly despite not doing so before. this is true, but i believe i can provide some enlightenment on this. something similar to this has happened in his lore before. his first conflict with noxus he was introduced the harshest realities of war, it is the innocents that die first. in both new canon lores ( prior and post syl/as changes ) it is stated there were only a handful of survivors out of dozens of towns. it is said what he saw deeply affected him. the carnage there so deeply troubled him and he could not forget the faces of the dead. the atrocities he witnessed were far greater than he had anticipated and it left him very shaken and unable to correctly reason. this caused him to ignore all rational plotting and sense, pushing away all his advisers’ ideas, wanting nothing more the avenge those who died. and this ends badly for him. like jarv really, really loves his people and would do anything to keep them safe. in fact, it is known from other stories jarv doesn’t ask of his soldiers to do anything dangerous he himself isn’t doing. if they must face the risk of death he will do so too. and he has earned himself a lot of respect for that. so we know, jarv is deeply affected by his people’s deaths and is not unknown to react mindlessly out of rage when they are hurt, and thinking the ‘villain’ need to be punished.

our now king is younger than you all probably think - if you take demacia’s lore and the dates / ages we are given, he is quite young. low 20s with a max of about 25 but even that is generous. it is noted he doesn’t know what to do, his mood fluctuating like rising and falling flames, his lore says he needs to be ready but not that he is. this is not to say he is incompetent or emotional because of he age, but with age comes experience that he has not had the chance to garner yet. he is not ready yet in his own opinion and i would agree as well.

jarv loves his family, a lot - and his only family was his father and xin. i think it is important to note, jarv has a lot of love for his family for they are the only people that really see him as a person. his closest friend even had to be reminded to call him by name. so to lose the closest people to you hurts man. his dad just died. okay.

jarv’s part in turmoil - there is actually a story which occurs after the time frame of the lu/x comic ( unless they are going to say the events of the last volume cover a full month? ) which has some interesting links and i’ll summarise all that with my conclusions at the end.

so. onto the main part. why has our fair king turned from someone who sees ‘ the true strength of the Demacian people—standing together as one in defense of their homeland, no matter their differences or misgivings. ’ to ‘ Mages? . . . We should have executed them all. ’ it is shocking. even xin is shocked by how much he has seemingly flipped noting, ‘ Indeed, he knew the prince had always been troubled by Demacia’s treatment of its mages. But that was before. ’ note, xin is saying he was troubled once and these anti - magic outbursts are new. though, i will like to point out, i don’t think the outbursts in the short story or the comic are particularly anti - magic as they are anti - syl/as and anti - murderous rebellion. so from now on, i am going to work through the sections of the comic and then the short story and kind of evaluate jarv’s thoughts and feelings and what i think is happening with him. wow, i hope you like your posts long. ( oh, and i recommend turning the pages along with me since i will not be posting pictures unless it is very important to save on length )

so to begin, we first see jarv at a meeting with a mage - seeker, some council members and his father, reacting to what happened several hours ago. honestly here he is as normal, he is thinking first and foremost for the people and with a very strategical focus to his thoughts. he is trying to both reassure his own father while working to capture the murderers. truly nothing remarkable other than him being a little taken aback by his father chiding him. i can talk a long time how jarv was brought up with very zealot ideas despite the king’s best intentions but that is not for now.

next page is mostly focused on the riots outside but does show jarv’s priorities. protect my father, fight for my people. heck this is even brought up in his ( now very outdated ) voice lines ‘ for my father, the king. ’ ‘ protect the faithful. ’ also cue me getting excited they would show jarv’s actual combat armour since they have the guards all in that good shit but nah they didn’t and i am big sad. i get they set all the demacian champs to their in game stuff ( and for jarv that’s the for show / ceremonial armour ) rather than their lore stuff for accessibility but still i am sad.

and now we get to the fun stuff. wow look at jarv straight beating the shit out of people. legit knocking several people down, making someone into a kebab. the come at me stance. that face he makes when sy/las calls him princeling. so many people call him that in lore. is it even a unique insult at this point? get new material you chain gremlin you.

in the next page we do see him angry tho, at first he is controlled and stoic with his speak, not too many emotions showing on his face. but it is when he puts a threat on his father do we see his brows furrow and leave him quite angry in the last panel of this page. tho, while obvious mad at the threat on the king he is actually keeping his cool. rational thought based on what he knows of the magic syl/as has. but he is a bit ticked off. ( OH ALSO THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART DON’T @ ME BUT JARV IS TALLER THAN SY/LAS WHILE BENDING DOWN AND IN A FIGHTING STANCE AND SY/LAS IS UPRIGHT BY LIKE AN INCH. HE IS PROBABLY SEVERAL INCHES TALLER UPRIGHT. I STAN THIS TALL MAN. )

so the next page is very interesting, we see syl/as talk of ancient and powerful struggles then conjure fire from the pillars. so as far as i am aware this is meant to be a reference to our favourite angels but i am trying to work out when this would have been. i thought they fought in a small town which was all but destroyed and not in the capital city. it is possible that the petricite keystones were at the town and those keystones moved to where the capital would be considering their reverence of kay/le and stuff but idk. super cool tho! it might be explained in the future, or not but i think what i have there is the most rational ( or maybe they mean like various conflicts involving them but not them against each other ??). anyway, we also see jarv getting madder obvious from the last page and then the language he uses, gone from the neutral ‘ mage ‘ to negative terms such as ‘ thugs ’. so the fire heavily wounds or kills the guards and jarv jumps head long into the flames.

the next page continues with their fight which is frankly brutal but they really skimped on detail here. it is shown that jarv cut syl/as in the chest and stuff but 1) no blood and 2) it is no where to be seen later in the comic which is unfortunate. would have been cool. other things which is cool, jarv pinwheeling kay/le’s fire away. i love the dumb ways jarv is shown to use his lance in various media, just spectacular. but yeah, syl/as going for blows in calling him ignorant about the heritage he loves. cause we know how much our man loves demacia. but i think he is trying to goad him. like i said before, jarv wears his heart on his sleeve a lot. he is an emotional man, but emotions can make you sloppy.

so on the next page, we see morg’s magic and again i love this touch but who really knows how it is there. so jarv is taken down by that which is interesting because it affected him a lot more than kay/le’s? i have theories about the magics and how they affect people based on their judgements but again that’s for discussion for another post. so with the guards taken down and then their prince, syl/as finds himself victorious.

so skipping through gar/en’s bit, we next see jarv tied up and being walked ahead of some of the mages. notably he isn’t wearing his crown helm. but also, he is very calm. jarv doesn’t really fear his own death much, he has faced dying before and to him it is simply a risk a soldier faces. so he is rather calm on the walk while syl/as threatens him. though, likely also subdued by the magic from before. but he is also talking a lot of sense, this does end badly, really sy/las doesn’t get what he wants out of this venture, not really. sylas however thinks this funny and mocks him about eating rats ( which honestly i question what he actually ate because 1) idk about you but i didn’t see rats in these panels of his cell and 2) he looks very fit and healthy for a man who eats rats. personally i think they feed the prisoners but since their magic is being sapped constantly by the petricite that they likely get hungrier faster, like they are constantly exercising, and so he ate rats. but also again, lets be real, they removed jarv being tortured so he couldn’t reply ‘ well no, but i survived being tortured by noxus. i have eaten much worse. ’ ( also syl/as uses incorrect style of address here which is either an accident or an interesting hint to the next page - majesty is for kings, highness for princes ) anyway, he drags the prone jarv to the door and...

surprise. the king is already dead by the time they get there. now jarv is obviously shocked and horrified and sy/las is too but i think that is because someone is stealing his thunder and hello his plans aren’t going to plan. this is when things start going down hill for jarv’s mental state. before he was mad but controlled, jarv’s expression on this page are wild eyed. and very much lacking of any confidence he had prior. for once, the prince looks as young as he actually is, rather than acting a stoic faced prince.

now the next page is actually the one i think the artists drew the best for jarv. i really love his eyes in the first panel. jarv’s hunched posture, the looking over his shoulder and upwards, got to say i love the composition. also i didn’t mention it yet but jarv and syl/as’hair almost look the same and idk if that is intentional but i like the idea that it might have been cause it makes our fair prince look very rugged and references his position as a prisoner. anyway. but just jarv’s silence in the last panel, before he was confident and speaking and now his words are trailing off and he has nothing to say. he lost his family and the idea of mages being monsters comes to his mind here. ( also note, while i have cut this out of the image, when syl/as is asking about who killed the king the mages say it wasn’t them but possibly another mage that came with them. this is probably true since it is anarchy at the moment but also there is no blood so unlikely to have been caused by a weapon and poison doesn’t make sense since the guards were dead too. )

but that isn’t the end of it, that is for sure. syl/as lost the king to his own anarchy so he needs a new star of his show. and so jarv continues to have a bad time. he is dragged from his grieving and through the citadel ( and past some really fucked up and burnt bodies wow trying to give jarv flash backs are you? ) and here jarv is starting to have doubts about his father and his own views. ‘ my father was wrong about your kind. he thought he could make peace with you. and you murdered him. ’ jarv puts the barrier between his people and mages at this point, condemning any thought which would have allowed this as wrong. now syl/as then insists that the king could have changed this at any time but we also know the council of demacia is quite powerful itself and the king leaves it to a more democratic style of coming to decisions together and actually regrets letting them have so much power. and jarv is marched outside to be made an example of and executed.

passing over ‘lu/x being a bad ass part one’, we return to jarv being cuffed to this really fancy chair. i like it, but also how extra can you be sy/las. anyway, as this page goes on we can really see the prince’s loss of confidence and despairing states. he starts strong when syl/as claims he has been complacent on things ( finally confirmation that he hasn’t cause riot wont tell me anything !!!! ) and he denies that neither he or his father have, and syl/as knows nothing about either of them. but his words trail off, he is stuttering through his words, head bowed, skin clammy. 

what he is talking about is 1) his backstory where he fought noxian invaders of demacia’s outer borders and allied lands, 2) meeting with exiles and we know in demacia their exiles tend to be mages as magic use is given imprisonment or exile - this quite happily aligns with my own head canons that he meets with them to help provide safe passage and resources similar to j3 to the noxians in his and xin’s story - 3) now we can assume he is talking about the same person from before in the earlier comic but he is really dodging around a name. i’m inclined to think shyv right now based on the ‘not so different’ so implying similar but not mage but magical creature. but really we don’t know. though that’s cute. but syl/as simply laughs this off, deeming any effort they have made and mocking his relationship. anyway, jarv just looks really sad and upset man.

and so the next page goes on and sy/las is calling for the crowds opinion on if he should be executed. some ( likely the rebels ) say yes and some ( likely town folk ) say no and beg for someone to save him. syl/as of course listens to his own people only and takes execute as the option, and starts firing up the mages on that. some call for him to be bled ( oh i see this is where they wanted to put the noxian blood letting torture. they got rid of it to be put here i see. ) and another to behead him. and up until the end, jarv simply seems like he is simply given in, accepted his death. eyes closed and almost willing it over. he has already had to deal with one drawn out (near) death before, he doesn’t particularly want another. he only seems perturbed when syl/as tries to force him to eat a rat before he dies. again he is wide eyed, and very disgusted by the prospect. 

he is already in a state where his father has been murdered, he has been pulled away from him and forced to march past the magic warped remains of his people both soldiers, councillors and innocents, his death is being made into a sceptical and now he is also being humiliated. also important to note is that he is alone in all of this, his uncle is nowhere to be found, his father is dead, when forced into an arranged marriage with someone he considered a trusted friend he was given no answer but abandonment, and his two friends are no where to be seen. that mixed with the people he loves so dearly gathered to watch him die and some even calling for his death. he is hurting really badly, and if he didn’t want to be sick at the sight of burnt bodies he now wants to be sick at the thought of eating a live rat. 

and now we have ‘lu/x being bad ass part two’ and ga/ren rushes in to save them both. the comic doesn’t say and what exactly happens next is likely a flash back at the start of the next comic as i believe the next comic occurs after the short story, as it was released now and not then. but i imagine two things occur in jarv’s mind during this event of him being saved ( which he know he is ). 1) gar/en is right. he can always trust ga/ren. we know his friend is vocal in his dislike of magic and belief in the laws in place, so jarv after these events probably takes to leaning on this view point as it comes from on of the only people he has left and feels safe with him after all he has gone through. 

2) can lu/x really be trusted? jarv isn’t blind nor deaf. he heard syl/as and lux talk about them used to being friends, and that he used her to kill people. he doesn’t know about her magic i don’t think, but could clue it out from that maybe, and it is unsure if he knows her involvement with syl/as but he now knows she wouldn’t even deny the proposed arranged marriage to his face and she was apparently friends at one point with the one who lead to his father’s death. this cuts him a bit. ( also i see again, the trying to insert jarv lore into here? with gar/en saving him? interesting but not nearly as emotion jerking as gar/en finding his armour blood soaked and empty next to an executioners post with the pin signifying them as the closest shit in each other’s lives in the bloody mud c’: )

now, we do not know much until the events of the aftermath short story. this story, told through xin’s point of view, is honestly very depressing and provides a lot more focus on jarv’s collapsing mental state. while in the comic he is hurt and distressed, struggling with the idea of his own views on the matter and then the significant pain cause to him by magic and the possible danger it could cause his people, aftermath shows us a prince who has been stewing on it for the night. occurring the day after, it is told to us he does not look like he has slept and his emotions are raw at the surface. i suggest reading the full story but i will only be talking about jarv’s mentions in this.

so our encounter with jarv in this short story occurs with xin finding him at the training fields. he is described as already breathing with exertion and drenched with sweat, a suggestion that he has been doing this for some time now, and his emotions wild and clear. he is also attacking wildly at the dummy, very much venting but also showing us he isn’t poised or in control of himself. yet when he speaks, calling xin uncle, it seems uncertain. i surely read it with a tired and tentative voice in mind. yet, after a pause, his emotions re-flare and he becomes angry again (something which happens several times over the course of the short story). he speaks coldly, harsh, trying to find someone to take the blame for the events, shifting rapidly from seeing xin as family to seeing him as a simple bodyguard ( something from the previous flash backs show the later of being untrue, and that xin is extremely close to jarv ). i also see this as him struggling with his own thoughts and passions, a war of heart and mind - xin being family vs xin being his father’s bodyguard, in extension we have seen mages murdered my father vs not all mages are guilty, i hate them vs i hate them all.

the prince then decides the best way to interrogate xin is by also trying to vent his frustrations with sparing. in jarv’s short story ‘ ebony, ivory, jasper ‘ we see him as a very level headed tactician which is controlled and ultimately able to see the right plays and choices in things where others can not. this is not that jarv. he is literally striking first, thoughts and questions later. xin mentions he is also not taking his strikes lightly, that he is swinging hard enough to break bone, something one wouldn’t do unarmoured or with someone you care about. he is pacing like a stressed animal, gripping his weapon like it is only lifeline, and forcing xin to fight him like it is his only reprise. another point made which shows jarv’s very altered state of mind is how xin also notes his form is sloppy, jarv is a good fighter, one of the kingdoms best, yet he observes there to be ‘ little finesse to the strikes ’ and that ‘ at any other time he would have berated the prince for his poor form—he was thinking only of attack, and leaving himself open for ripostes and counter-strikes ’. now since we know xin trained him and considers this poor form for him, it is likely jarv is definitely not of these traits normally, something further confirmed when he notes these are something he wouldn’t do now or take advantage because he sees them as caused by his justified anger.

skipping past the first flash back, jarv continues to press xin and eventually just tosses his weapon away when he doesn’t get an answer he wants. the frustration and anger is palpable. the prince isn’t the kind of person to discard something so carelessly, to be so disrespectful as to throw something of his to the ground. jarv has been raised to have the ideas of honour and respect and personal value and virtue as being very important, and the disrespect of tossing one of his weapons, staring at it while someone else picks it up, isn’t something jarv in his stable mind would do. yet he does such and grabs his lance - a sharp and deadly weapon in comparison to his blunted sword - and xin protests using them because jarv is unarmoured. now i have not heard anyone cover this exact fact but i want to talk about it for a bit, xin is armoured but jarv is not. jarv is attacking and not caring about his defence. and now he is making xin fight him with their actual sharpened weapons while only xin is armoured. either of these weapons could kill him, even his own by his own hand if he isn’t careful as noted by xin. and just, he doesn’t care if he gets hurt.

i think this exemplifies one fact about jarv, the first fact i mentioned above. he experiences a great amounts of survivor guilt in the time he failed his troops as a youth and now he sees himself as failing his people and his father by not saving them. he couldn’t even beat syl/as. and now he has to live with that fact, and very alone with it now. he is both trying to find someone else to blame to share in his own self torment or at least have someone either take him out of his misery or give him a punishment that jarv thinks is fitting for his failure. and i think perhaps, while not explicitly noted, xin acknowledges it ‘ “You are not armored,” . . .   “I don’t care,” . . . Reluctantly, his heart heavy, he retrieved his spear and moved back out into the open area in the center of the hall. ’ after all, it was xin in jarv’s earliest lore which remarked on the prince’s altered mental state as one of the people that knew him best, i would say that perhaps this is our new lore equivalent. and perhaps bring another down with him. ( jarv has always had a slight discard for his own life - see his quotes and his colour story - but this is quite excessive. the others can be seen as brave, this is different )

one more flash back later, they are fighting and we know jarv is not holding back. none of the fighting right now is casual, he is serious and very angry. this is contrasted with memories of xin with jarv and how jarv once idolised heros and here he is wielding the weapon in a very non-hero-like way. and yet drakebane itself moves in conjunction with his own actions like a perfect extension of his body. we are told that drakebane ( as obvious by its name ) was forged by the great weapon smith orlon, the same who made pop/py’s hammer, in order to combat a powerful frostdrake named maelstrom and her brood. perhaps digging into it too much, but i do see in essence that while the sword was not working for him yet his lance remains faithful is by his conviction in its original purpose. this lance was created to slay great beings of magic, to kill dragons, for the great kings of demacia to wield against the mages of the runewars. and this fits the mindset this king currently has.

another flashback passed we come back to a xin who is facing a new set of concerns, before he was worried about fighting the prince with dangerous weapons while jarv are unarmoured and now he is concerned that maybe the prince getting horribly wounded is not the only issue. here we see another drastic flip in jarv, he would never hurt someone he cared about, he is especially known to put himself in harms way before anyone else. and yet. he cut xin and xin is reasonably concerned but also unafraid. while it is only explicitly stated that xin thinks there is balance in dying here but it surely seems jarv also has this opinion. they both seem to think death is what they deserve. yet ( as angry as jarv is ) he doesn’t to want kill xin as much as xin wishes not to harm him. he stops as the blade ghosts xin’s skin, begging xin for answers but upon receiving it ( if not by xin’s confession but by his own reasoning ) he just deflates. he works out xin was sent away and so he is left as the only one at fault for ‘failing’. xin was fulfilling his duty, while he failed in his.

instead, jarv is just remains tired, tired and grieving and alone. through the next two flashbacks and jarv’s reaction to them we learn the late king was a stubborn man about what he believed in and that he often put his work ahead of himself and his family despite his love for his son. and just as quickly did jarv sober did his temper re-flare, upon hearing about the rebellion again he declares that they should have killed all the mage prisoners instead of imprisoning them. xin is shocked by this for he remarks that once jarv used to be concerned with the treatment of mages in demacia like his father but acknowledges that this was before what they did to him and that his anger in the moment is justified. but he still reminds him that his father wouldn’t agree with that, as he wouldn’t have once agreed with that. here it is key to see one of the great hurts in him right now is he feels both a failure and he feels betrayed, he snaps back ‘ and they killed him. ’ the lightshields had been working towards making things better for mages and in jarv’s angry thoughts and he feels betrayed by the ones they were working to help, he feels as if his good nature was taken advantage of and hurt by those he cared about. ( also note, canonically, execution is a murderer’s punishment. killing another is punishable by death and this is shown in some stories. )

just as quickly as this outburst begins does it end however, his fire dies and he sheds any mask of princely facade and anger, revealing he is simply lost, scared, sad and confused again. he grips feebly to support, and weeps. likely not the first time given his earlier description, but likely the first true time where he might realise the full emotion and weight of the situation. and he tries to hold strongly to it, he doesn’t have confidence or stability so he is all but begging xin to be it for him. when he is told that xin sees his life as forfeit, jarv grips at strings to keep xin with him. while desperate it is still very controlled though, controlled and thought out. begging wouldn’t work, but xin’s sense of duty would. and once xin starts to relent, he asks formally, appealing to the formal requirements. and once that digs at him, he appeals to the side that is his uncle, for he needs him as much as his kingdom. strategic in all things but it also shows his reliance on xin emotionally in this point. i strongly believe, if xin denied him he would crumple and things would be a lot worse. even if xin thinks he looks more composed after his breakdown.

and the short story ends with xin accompanying jarv to a council meeting. xin remarks at how controlled jarv is compared to his outburst, likely due to two things: 1) he had his outburst and is now not bottling up his emotions as much and is able to control himself better, and 2) jarv is required to look regal. xin notes that demacia needs a strong leader right now and jarv likely knows that just as well ( which will play a part in his next actions ) and so is portraying himself in such a way regardless of how his emotions might still be. i think this is shown well when he asks to see the note xin was to deliver, the contents of which anger him. it is a reminder of his older self, of his old ambitions and everything that he lost. and so he wrings its neck like he has to his old self and what he wishes to do to those that caused this. this shocks and disturbs xin and he is concerned. it is also important to note that the mageseekers are trained to combat magic so keeping them with greater powers, he increases arrests while the note wished to limit them, is advantageous to his wants.

after this point lu/x 5 will fill but we don’t know much of it so we shall skip over it for now. lastly, we have turmoil, a short story i really suggest reading which takes place one month after these events. as not much is relevant other than a few details and the laws of stone i will summarise. in turmoil, it follows a group of demacian soldiers as they are sent to escort a foreign dignitary to the capital, a mage from arbormark called arjen. the soldiers are uneasy with this and some wish that they could be out hunting the rebellions in the woods instead. two mageseekers accompany them as is now required by the laws. as they escort the mage they run into trouble. fearing the villages of the town wish to hurt the mage they are escorting, the soldiers form a tight perimeter and try to escape through a passage and a building. however, it is revealed the mob is not mad about the mage but one of the mageseekers with them. this mageseeker, under the new laws of stone was made to remove a young girl who he had been working with prior, he laments he didn’t want to remove her for she was innocent and he wouldn’t have required to prior but the laws have changed to become stricter and so all mages are considered guilty. the mother of the young mage tries to kill him but she is talked down but the crossbow still fires in a shot which would have killed one of the more vocal mage hating soldiers but arjen carefully uses his magic to deflect the bullet with only that soldier and the main character noticing. the mage hating soldier is conflicted and says nothing, implied to be having a turn of heart. the mother tells the mob to disperse and the envoy continues to the capital.

now from this we learn a couple things: 1) is is now illegal to BE a mage. prior to sy/las it was only illegal to USE magic and so benign mages were actually educated on how to control themselves at times and we treated more of a sickness at other. but now you’re life is a crime. 2) some of the mageseekers themselves are uncomfortable with this. while mageseekers have often been portrayed as horrific people, it is shown in this story as being more a magic focused police service which holds some corruption in higher ranks but also employs people who simply want demacia kept safe and don’t agree that magic is bad but rather bad mages are bad people. 3) that demacia has a lot of allies due to their defence of realms beyond their boarders and also that they understand demacia’s place and don’t condemn them for it. they understand the position of demacia based on its history. 4) these allies are sending who they think will help advise the new king of demacia best including mages and jarv is NOT denying them entry, which shows a willingness to listen which is a step beyond his much more aggressive stance one month earlier. 5) the punishment for being a mage is exile or imprisonment. currently the prisons in demacia are overloaded and there are prison camps in the outskirts. also exile is seen as one of the worst punishments in demacia. and 6) the rebellion is being hunted by the demacian army.

so, after all this, what can be conclude? it is obvious jarv is GREATLY affected by the barrage of death around him. his pre-existing survivor’s guilt is further exasperated by the failure to protect his father and those he swore to and he feels greatly betrayed by many people in his life ( lu/x for claiming to be a friend of the one who killed all these people, the mages he was trying to help striking when he is most vulnerable ). he is greatly alone with losing many friends and family and others being seemingly absent from the events, giving him only those with views which would increase his own anti-mage sentiment if he listens to them. he is lost in his grief and his depression and his anger, his empathetic nature stretched to its breaking point and he has no respite. in the end, jarv is doing what he thinks will protect his people, note he likely does not think mages among his people anymore, and will do anything for their safety. but he is also trying to be reasonable by reaching out to his allied nations as a new king and accepting the advise of mages on these topics. he isn’t murderous, but he is hurt and alone and his actions in his hurt are making him more alone. it’s a vicious cycle demacia has always been in, and now our dear newly crowned king has fallen into it.

a little extra: i do think there is a bit of jarv’s lore MISSING given the situation with shyv. i hope this will shed light on what he was doing and how that also affected him before this happened. i also hope they eventually show us jarv being redeemed for this is FAR from the jarv that the bio shows us on his page and i think that is his true self. just, if i can recall, someone i know once said at your lowest you become your opposite and i think this is true here.

[starscreamloki]

My King

Chapter Ten - Frost and Fire

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Imagine: You were a very powerful Queen, whose husband was killed when Loki, invaded and attacked yours and his realm. In order to become king, Loki found a way to force you to marry him, and he was a terrible husband. You weren’t used to being ordered around or subjugated until you had no choice but to obey him and prevent things from getting worse. But your rebelliousness was starting to grow on Loki, so much he actually found himself very attracted to you as time went by. He actually started to court you, in his own, brusque and proud way. All this time, he hadn’t laid a finger on you, but after an awkward dinner served for the loveless king and queen, he showed up in your bedroom. Sat on your bed, gently caressed your arm until you woke up. You thought about playing along, thrusting a dagger into his heart when he least expected it. But you realized that all your hatred was slowly vanishing, the more he touched you. You ended up succumbing and having the most intense lovemaking session that only bonded the two of you for life.

Warnings: Dom!Loki, NSFW, predatory!Loki. Mentions of every horror that comes with war, battle, mischief, darkness and plain out malicious intent. No happy and fuzzy feelings, just raw darkness and a God who wants to rule the universe and will beat everyone in submission in order to get it!

Words: 5022

A/N: WARNING, WARNING, WARNING! Sadly I have to spoil this chapter somewhat but a firm warning is in place for this one! If you can NOT bear to read about torment in any way for whatever reason, I seriously advice you to skip this chapter! There is absolutely no shame in that! This is also the reason why this chapter is longer than the others because I wanted to contain it in one chapter so it can be skipped. You have been warned! And one more thing, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry!

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Loki opened his eyes and a pang of pain went through his skull. A grunt escaped his lips and he wanted to rub his face with his hands, but he could not. He felt cold metal around his wrists as his arms were pinned above his head, the chains attached to the wall.

He let out a sigh of annoyance. How stupid could his captivators have been? He was a God after all, and even though his strength couldn’t match to that of Thor, some meager chains would be no match for him. He gave the shackles a tug, fully assuming they would bulge, but the metal bit deep in the flesh of his wrists.

Loki raised an eyebrow and sighed while his irritation grew some more. If he couldn’t rip the chains of the wall, then there was always the second option.

Loki summoned his seidr so he could break the shackles but his magic wouldn’t come to him. A confused look washed over his face as he tried to use his Seidr again, but to no avail. It was only then he realised that he might be in some trouble. If he wasn’t able to get the aid of his Seidr, this wasn’t going to be pleasant stay.

Again he tried to tug at the chains while trying to call his Seidr, but no matter how hard he tried, the chains wouldn’t give and Loki grew frustrated. How many more times in his life did he need to end up in shackles and chains? Hadn’t it been enough? Hadn’t he suffered enough? Would this be the ever present circle of his life?

Loki’s frustration turned into anger. He felt that the anger of last night still hadn’t left his system and he bared his teeth. He pulled at the chains once again even though he knew it was to no avail and the metal viciously bit his wrists again.

Weak...

Loki scowled at the thought and kept pulling the chains while trying to use his Seidr.

Still weak.

His anger turned into rage and burned hot in his veins.

This is what happens if you act out of love.

Alexis’ face flashed in front of his eyes.

This is what happens if you show sentiment.

Thor’s face flashed in front of his eyes.

In the end you are the one who gets hurt, and nobody else.

Loki could feel how his rage crept toward the dark culprit he had been harboring and feeding for his entire life.

When will you ever learn!

The rage hit the culprit and tore it open wide, letting out everything that Loki had put there and he got battered with every feeling he had ever buried in there. He tried to coop with them as best as he could, but he didn’t know how and thus he ended up screaming and thrashing his chains. He could feel his Seidr burning in his veins, but it couldn’t get out, for something prevented that, and thus the magic ate away through his muscles, straining them and pulling them tout.

Suddenly a door opened and someone stepped into his vision. It took Loki a while before he stopped screaming and thrashing, and he had a hard time to find his focus again through his seething rage. When he was finally able to focus, and the red in front of his eyes had vanished, he was able to see the Kha’os Alvish standing before him, a wicked grin on his face.

Loki returned his grin with a feral, angry and ugly snarl, and pulled at his chains once more just for good measure.

“Not so strong without your magic, are you now?” the Kha’os Alvish laughed at him.

It took a few moments before the name of this one sprang to Loki’s mind again. Rak’ash! And it was only now that Loki had a chance to have a good look at him. Rak’ash missed multiple teeth and his left cheek had a nasty scar in the form of a circle. A longer scar ran from his forehead down to his cheek on the same side and Loki saw multiple scars on his arms and even a missing finger on his right hand.

Rak’ash noticed Loki looking at him and grabbed Loki by the jaw, nails digging in his flesh and Rak’ash leveled himself with him. “Those are your doing albeit it indirectly,” he snarled and Loki could feel the hot breath on his face, and the smell of blood and death.

Loki grinned wickedly. “As you deserved,” he said sassy and he felt the nails dig deeper into his flesh.

“My scars will be minor compared to yours when I’m done with you, Trickster!” and he violently shoved Loki’s head back, his claws raking flesh and drawing blood. Loki only laughed, almost like a madman. What would this creature do to him? He already had the worst when he had fallen into the hands of the Titan. Surely this creature wouldn’t know what to do to a God like him, how to hurt him.

Rak’ash must have caught on to Loki’s line of thinking as a wicked smile spread across his face and he produced the staff he had used to burn Loki only hours ago. “I wouldn’t be so arrogant if I were you,” Rak’ash sneered and pointed to staff towards Loki’s face once more, the heat radiating from the gem. “Yesterday was painful and quick. This time will be slow and pure agony.”

Loki felt a little bit of dread creep into his heart for he had not forgotten what the gem had done to him yesterday. “What do you want?”

Rak’ash laughed. “I just want my sweet revenge. The Frost Giants however...”

Rak’ash didn’t finish his sentence on purpose and Loki felt the dread rooting more in his heart. It wasn’t the fact that he was a stranger to pain or even afraid of it, but dealing with the Frost Giants more than necessary, dealing with this dark page of his past and heritage, that wasn’t something he wanted to. He had tried to bury that particular part of his life as long as he could, but now they would force it upon him and he almost shuddered at the thought.

“Take him,” Rak’ash ordered as Loki had been lost in his thoughts and hadn’t noticed Rak’ash had walked away from him, opening his cell where two Frost Giants stood by the door.

Loki growled at the sight of them and Rak’ash turned sharply, staff in hand, advancing towards Loki. “Now, let’s not make a mess out of this… Yet” and he pushed the gem against Loki’s stomach.

Loki felt the magical intrusion again and it started to boil his blood and blister his skin once more. He screamed, not in pain but out of frustration and anger, but soon the magic enwrapped him and he couldn’t control his slamming heart any longer.

Darkness engulfed him once more.

***

Loki screamed as agony coursed through his body, paralyzing him and rendering him unable to control his convulting body. Slowly he felt the pain deprive and he gulped in gasps of much needed air.

For the past hours a Frost Giant and Rak’ash had been torturing him. They had chained his hands, feet and neck to a table upon which he lay, their metal riddled with the same magic that kept blocking his Seidr.

Loki hadn't thought anyone would ever be able to inflict the same agony upon him as the mad Titan once had, but he had to admit, they didn’t stray far behind.

The worst part was the fact that he wasn't able to control his shiftings as the Frost Giant touched him, and thus his eyes were red and his skin blue, making him very vulnerable against fire and such sorts. And his tormentors were well aware of that and using it to their full advantage. His shirt was slick with blood, his hair matted, and burn marks and oozing wounds covered his skin.

He had tried to fight his Jotun form, but it had been to no avail, and fighting it kept draining his energy so much that in the end he just had forfeited his attempts.

The gem on the staff pressing against his temple, burning his skin once more, made him loose grip on his track of thoughts, and a searing pain crept from the side of his head to his jaw, along his windpipe and double tracked to the major artery in his neck. Once the heat got it grip on his Jotun blood in the vein, he felt as if thunder marched his way through his arteries, striking his heart as the fire rapidly shot through his blood.

Loki screamed and he tasted blood in his mouth, his throat raw and unable to breathe.

“Where is it,” the Frost Giant asked him again.

Loki said nothing as he spat the blood from his mouth at the Giants feet.

The Frost Giant looked unimpressed from the spittle at his feet to Loki and he grabbed Loki by the throat, sealing of his airway. “Lost princeling, we've been at this for hours and we can keep this up for hours more. The question is however, can you?” The Frost Giant released Loki, and for what must have been the hundredth time in the past hours, Loki gasped for breath.

Loki panted heavily. “I. Can. Try,” he managed between rasps. If he could stall their torment for mere minutes, his body would be able to heal itself somewhat, but apparently they knew about his ability to regenerate and thus they had kept the pressure on wounding him, not granting a moment of reprieve.

The staff hovered close to Loki's face, the gem glowing furiously and he tried to recoil but the shackles around his neck prevented him from moving his head. A little bit of dread crept into his heart and he braced himself for the anguish that would come.

“You can prevent this,” Rak’ash cooed. “Just tell us what we want to know.”

“I don't know where it is,” Loki said, his heart pounding.

“You and I both know that is a lie, Lost Princeling,” the Frost Giant interjected.

“Is it?” Loki asked as he eyed the staff warily. “Had I known wh- aaaah,” Loki’s sentence broke as the gem touch his forehead, wrapping him in a burning sensation.

“God of Lies and Silvertongue is what they call you. We've seen you use the Casket of Ancient Winters as you tore open the portal between the realms. Stop your lying and we might cease your torment, maybe even grant you the sweet salvation of death,” the Frost Giant threatened and made a gesture to Rak’ash who pulled the staff back a little bit, breaking contact with Loki and stopping its painful assault.

A dry and painful laugh escaped Loki’s lips. “I don't even know how I opened that portal, let alone where I put the Casket after you trying to scorch my brain for hours,” Loki venomously bit back. Not an entire lie. He indeed didn't know how he had opened the portal, and if they would keep up this torment he was sure he would forget where he had left the Casket, albeit it for a couple of hours.

“STOP PLAYING!” the Frost Giant bellowed as he plunged an icicle in Loki's stomach, making him gasp. The Giant placed his face close to Loki's and Loki could feel it's hot breath and then smell of blood as he spoke. “Lost Princeling, if your body cannot be broken, we will move on to your mind and see what we can pull from there.” Slowly he retracted the icicle and Rak’ash wasted no time to put the staff near the fresh wound.

“You already have a challenge with breaking my body,” Loki said between biting his lip to keep a grip on the pain in his stomach. “Pray tell me, how do you ever think you can conquer my mind with your meager grip of the universe and its workings?” His answer had been very bold and costed him immediately as the staff made contact with his wound, but the look of astonishment on the Frost Giants face had been worth the pain.

The giant took a step back and composed himself, a malicious grin spreading across his face. “Creating heat and fire isn't the only thing the staff can do,” rang his ominous words. “My friend, if you'd be so kind to indulge us all.”

Rak'ash retrieved the staff and fiddled with the gem placed on top off it, closing his eyes as he did and muttering words that were lost to Loki's ears. A red light engulfed the gem and silver light wrapped around the staff. Soon both colors touched and started to mingle. The red light crept down from the gem to the staff as the silver light crept towards the gem. When Rak'ash stopped muttering, the light dimmed and the red stone had turned silver, supported on a red staff that moments ago had been silver.

Loki had looked in fascination and when the shift had occurred he had been sure he had felt a shift in the magic in his shackles as well. Even in this dire situation Loki was intrigued by the object and its imaginable possibilities.

Rak’ash put the staff close to Loki’s face again. “Last chance,” he said casually.

Loki wasn't planning on telling them where he had put the Casket of Ancient Winters, and he was actually very curious what the staff would be able to do now, and thus he only looked at Rak'ash deadpanned, a shine of amusement and a taunt in his eyes, challenging the Kha’os Alvish.

Rak'ash shrugged and let the staff make contact with the shackle around Loki's neck. Immediately it became hot, and within mere moments the shackles around his wrists and ankles followed suit, their heat building rapidly.

The latter wasn't something Loki had expected and he screamed in pain, trashing the chains which only fed to his pain.

Magic leaked from the metal and started to creep around him, creating a darkness at the edges of his eyes. Still the heat rose and Loki could smell his own skin burning. He forced himself to stop rattling his chains for it only intensified his anguish, and as he tried to gain control, he briefly caught a glimpse of the metal around his wrist. This time he felt fear lodge into his heart as the iron was colored white from the intense heat.

The darkness at the corner of his eyes started to creep in rapidly and soon filled his entire vision.

Then the pain stopped.

***

Loki saw Alexis in his mind's eye. She smiled at him and said something, but he couldn’t hear the words as they tumbled into the darkness surrounding him. He tried to talk to her, but his words didn’t make sound, also lost in the darkness, and Loki sighed.

She smiled at him. Not one of sadness, or fake, like she had done so often, but a genuine smile filled with warmth and mirth.

Loki swallowed. He didn’t know how to respond to that. He had locked his heart away on purpose and he didn’t want this. Especially not now, not when-- Not when you are being tortured and she might be a possible weakness? Loki’s expression dropped at the thought and he let his head hang.

Currently he had no idea how he would escape his martyrs, and he figured he just had to hang on until an opportunity would arise or a plan would form in his mind. Maybe you should just forfeit. Why do you think you are worthy? Of anything? Of her!

Loki’s had snapped up at the vicious thought. He looked at Alexis and he felt utterly and completely lost at that moment. Just give in, live on your knees and all will be over. Loki bit his lip and mused on the words.

No! He wasn’t weak. He wasn’t going to give up, no matter what! He would fight till the end, even if it was the last thing he would do. Because he’d rather die standing on his feet than to live on his knees! He wasn’t a weak mortal, and he would never act like one! It would be easier however… Loki pushed the thoughts back.

He looked at Alexis, and this time he smiled back at her. His smile also genuine although it lacked the warmth and mirth she had shown him.

Suddenly a Kha’os Alvish appeared next to her and frost crept around Alexis’ feet. She looked around, fear in her eyes while she felt the threat. “Loki,” she mouthed, her eyes pleading. He wanted to reach out to her, grab her, run to her, but he couldn’t move and he heard a metallic sound as he trashed unseen restrains.

A blue hand covered Alexis’ mouth, grabbing her from behind. She trashed at her assailant but the Frost Giant was to strong.

Let them have her.

Loki went frantic, trashing his unseen restrains more vehemently then before as Alexis got dragged away, a silver light glowing around her. Then she vanished into the darkness, leaving Loki alone.

She will be your downf--

No, no, NO! Loki felt his heart break, something he hadn’t felt since-- He pushed the thought of his mother away. His breath came in quick short gasps and anger took over.

Just when he wanted to scream he heard a voice.

“Death is the easy way out.”

***

Loki hung in his chains in his cell, head down, sweat mixed with blood dripping on his legs.

They had intruded his mind, Loki had felt it, and they had tried to wreak havoc.

Loki had felt how something had pulled at his thoughts, trying to enter his memories, but they hadn't gotten anything more after the weird illusion with Alexis. Loki had been so enraged that they had hit a wall of so much hate, the power of the gem hadn't been able to penetrante it.

When they couldn’t get passed his mind they had reversed the gem back to red and had tortured him physically again, after which Rak’ash had reversed it back to silver and had rampaged through his mind once more.

They had kept switching the gem for some more hours, but Loki’s lips had been sealed, not giving them what they wanted to know. Eventually someone, he didn't know who, had entered the room and had brought a message which Loki hadn't heard because he had been delirious.

After the messenger had gone, they had freed him from the table and dragged him back to his cell. Loki had tried to put up a fight but every move he had made hurted in ten places at once, and thus he had forfeited his attempts for that moment and had let them put him in his cell.

After that it had taken him an hour before he could shift back to his Aesir form again, and it had taken him hours more to heal enough to be able to move without agonizing pain biting through his body.

His clothing was drenched in blood and sweat and clung to his skin. He wasn't sure what they had done, but he couldn't cool down for something was keeping the heat trapped in his body.

Someone opened his cell door but Loki lacked the interest to see who it was. The person talked to him but he didn't register the words, nor was he interested. He couldn't care less who or whom had entered his cell or what they would do to him. He needed time to let his mind wander and process what had happened if he wanted to form a plan to escape this situation. And thus he tuned out, turning his mind inward and blocking the world outside, drifting on the currents of his thoughts.

The person nudged Loki with its feet, even grabbed his jaw to make him look at the person but Loki didn't see the face for everything in front of his eyes was a hazy blur, his eyes moving rapidly as he followed his track of thoughts.

The person let go of his jaw after which Loki's head limply fell down and a soft darkness swirled in front of his eyes. He felt a tug at the back of his mind. Something was calling him. Something that needed exploration for it was hurting him in some way. Loki edged closer to the call and carefully reached out. He probed at it and focused his attention so that he could see it from multiple directions at once.

Yes, this was it! He had found--

Suddenly he felt his heart stop and kickstart itself violently, cramping his muscles and making his blood run cold. Loki was brutally pulled from his mind back to reality as he felt icy water dripping from his hair down to his spine. Just as he opened his eyes a second wave of ice cold water hit him and he sputtered and coughed as water entered his mouth.

His body had been holding on to so much heat that the icy water had shocked him back to reality, the shock enraging him and he pulled his chains as he wanted to attack his assailant.

“Ah, what a pleasure. You're awake again,” Rak'ash said sarcastic.

Two Frost Giants walked to Loki and unchained him from the wall and cuffed him with some others. Without control Loki shifted to his Jotun form as they grabbed him by the arms and hoisted him up on his feet. For a moment he tried to call to his Seidr, but he needn’t have tried for his magic was blocked by the chains.

His hair and clothing still dripping with water and blood, Loki tried to stand as tall and proud as he could while Rak’ash hovered the staff in front of his face again. “Don’t think about making any rush moves,” he said threateningly.

Loki answered his threat with a sharp toothed grin and a defiance in his eyes, but said nothing.

They led him through hallways and past chambers, all the while Loki tried to pay as much attention to his surroundings as he could, trying to map the place in his head and looking for ways out. Sometimes he stopped walking, trying to shrug his captivators off, but it was only a display from his side as he stalled for time so he could examine certain points of the place a little bit longer.

Eventually they stood in front of the doors he had entered earlier when they had tortured him, and anger mixed with dread took a hold of him. He dug his heels in and tried to shrug of the Frost Giants but to no avail.

Rak’ash laughed malicious as he saw Loki’s reaction. “You can prevent this if you’d just tell us what we want to know,” he soothingly said.

Loki scoffed. “I’d rather take my changes with what is behind that door instead of giving you want you want to know,” he boldly said while meeting Rak’ash’ eyes.

This time Rak’ash laughed like a madman. “You will break eventually,” and with that he pushed open the doors. Loki’s breath caught in his throat and his heart dropped in his stomach at the sight of Alexis lying chained on the table where he had lain earlier.

***

“Loki...” Alexis said softly as Loki came into her view while he was being pushed to his knees. He could see the hurt in her eyes as she looked upon him and he tried to look away. Suddenly he was very aware of his blue skin and the blood on his clothing that must have complimented his fiery red eyes.

“What have they done to you?” she whispered unaudiable and Loki tried to swallow the lump away that was forming in his throat. How had they found her? He had send her away through the portal, that place should have been safe!

“How?” he whispered to no-one particular but Rak’ash answered him.

“You told us where she was. Or better said, you showed us,” he said while he snickered as he saw Loki’s head snap up and the puzzled look on his face drop to one of pure disbelief.

Loki bit his lip, his sharp teeth digging in his flesh, drawing blood and he let out an angry grunt. “No!” He looked at Alexis.

“Don’t tell them anything” she said softly. His heart beated rapidly in his chest at the sight of her being in this predicament because of him. Apparently it showed on his face as a little smile tugged at the corner of her mouth and she spoke warmly to him. “It’s not your fault--”

Yes, it is! His mind berated him.

“--and I’m sorry I doubted you.”

Loki opened his mouth to answer, but he was cut of as the Frost Giant grabbed him by the throat, sealing off his airway. “Last chance to prevent her from getting hurt,” he spoke while pushing his face close to Loki’s. “Tell me what I want to know or there will be a lot more sentimental nonsense between the two of you when we are leaving this room.”

“IF you ever leave this room,” Rak’ash said emphasizing the first word.

The Frost Giant let go of Loki and he coughed. Carefully he looked at Alexis but her gaze was stern, her eyes telling him he shouldn’t give them what they wanted.

She's strong in ways you'd never even know. Loki heard the words Thor had once spoken to him about Jane in his mind. Loki gritted his teeth and curtly gave her a small nod, confirming their unspoken words. They wouldn’t yield no matter what they would do to them.

“Neither of you is going to talk then? Neither of you is going to tell us where the Casket of Ancient Winters is?” Rak’ash sighed while laughing.

“I don’t deal with monsters,” Alexis said defying. Loki tried not to cringe at her words.

Monster!

Rak’ash shrugged and walked to Alexis, a malicious smile on his face. “As you wish,” he said while he made the red staff hover above Alexis.

Loki tried to shrug the hands of his shoulders that kept him on his knees, but they grabbed him tighter, locking him in place while pushing down.

Sentiment!

With a last look at Loki the Kha’os Alvish lowered the staff, making contact with Alexis.

NO!

Alexis’ screams filled the air and Loki squeezed his eyes shut.

***

Alexis felt the dried salt of her tears on her cheeks and she could not remember any other taste on her tongue than the taste of blood.

The Kha’os Avish and Frost Giant had been hurting her for some time. She had screamed, cried and even pleaded them to stop, but they hadn’t for Loki wouldn’t tell them what they wanted to know. With tears in her eyes she looked at him.

The first times the staff had touched her, Loki had tried to fight off the Frost Giants holding him, but they had punished him every single time for his attempts and eventually had given up on wasting his energy to break free. He hadn’t made a sound other than the occasional grunt of displeasure at Alexis’ screams during the entire ordeal, however he had closed his eyes a couple of times or had looked away.

Loki had promised to Alexis not to talk whatever they would do, but Alexis was willing to talk, even had talked, but she wasn’t able to tell her tormentors what they wanted to know, and thus they had not relented.

A painful sensation took hold of her body once again and she screamed. “Loki! Please, tell them!”

Loki’s jaw was set tight, and anger burned his red eyes, but he didn’t say anything, not willing to give these creatures what they wanted.

“This is not working, Pointy Ears,” the Frost Giant berated Rak’ash. “Maybe we should just kill her,” his raspy voice said while he looked at Loki.

Loki bared his teeth. This was the first reaction they had gotten out of him for some time and a sly smile milled around the Frost Giants lips.

“Lost Princeling,” the Frost Giant cooed as he took notice of Loki’s reaction. He created a crude blade made of ice in his hands and laid its sharp edge on Alexis throat. “Maybe we should just end this. We will get our answers, with or without her.” A small drop of blood formed on Alexis’ throat.

“Loki...” Alexis pleaded, the fear audible in her voice. “Please. Just tell them where the damn thing is!” But Loki spoke not.

“Tell me where the Casket of Ancient Winters is or I’ll slit her throat,” the Frost Giant threatened.

“Loki! PLEASE!” Alexis screamed as utter distress took over and the end of her life hovered in front of her eyes.

Loki looked at Alexis and they locked stares. Loki felt his heart break as he looked into her eyes, the fear and plea so raw he almost gave in. He quickly collected himself. “I do not care for her,” Loki said with no emotion in his voice as he saw a shock of horror wash over Alexis’ face. Loki was sure their captivators were only bluffing, they wouldn’t kill her! Would they? “Take her life if you want, she means nothing to me,” his voice still cold as ice and completely emotionless.

Alexis’ eyes widened at his words, and it was written all over her face she was wounded by his words. Loki’s cold glare did not waver and his jaw was set firm.

“You are a monster,” she whispered and looked away as tears streamed down her face. Loki briefly flinched at her words and had to muster all self-control to not show any form of emotion.

“As you wish,” the Frost Giant said and the bladed crossed Alexis’ throat.

Next Chapter

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[ambivalentangst]

Face the Gods on Your Knees

First of all I’d like to say for basically all of May I was dead and now that it's summer I feel productive and rejuvenated and lovely. With that in mind I came back to a WIP I let breathe for awhile, and here we are. This is based on the idea that an Altean can’t live without their scales, and on that note, this is pretty dark. If that’s alright with you, I hope you enjoy!

tw: kidnapping, blood, graphic descriptions of violence, mild gore, torture

Prince Lance had long known, as all of his people did, that when an Altean died their souls ascended to be one with the gods, and their scales fell from their cheeks as a token to their loved ones of what once was. Still, never had he been more acutely reminded than with the bite of the rope on his wrists, staring up at wooden walls that bore cases upon cases full of the markings that had once adorned the cheeks of Lance’s people and the people of his forefathers.

It was a morbid rainbow and had what Lance suspected to be a drug not already forced him to expel the contents of his stomach, he would’ve retched. Lance swallowed, his throat dry and sore. The tutors from Olkari had often told Lance about different poisons an assassin might try to slip into his food, so he might know how to treat himself in turn. As obstinate as Allura claimed he could be, he truly didn’t wish to inconvenience anyone. He tried to pay attention, but a pulsing ache was developing in the empty space between his brows, splitting his head open and robbing him of any chance to calculate just how quiznacked he was.

Lance tried to recall what had happened.

They were with visiting dignitaries, at a feast. Shiro was doting on Allura as always in his own way, cutting an imposing figure at her shoulder. Pidge and Hunk had been (against his parents’ better judgment) seated next to him while Keith tried to remain stoic despite the way the corners of his lips twitched up whenever the three of them said something particularly stupid or clever. Typically, it could be both. They were gifted that way.

Lance couldn’t remember thinking anything was amiss. The dignitaries were delightful, and his food and drink were both served as normal. Lance had gone to sleep in his own bed, and when he had woken up his entire body ached from, apparently, sleeping on the floor.

What recollection he had of past events didn’t do him any good, and Lance was quick to move on. He didn’t need to know what had occurred to get him where he was, he just needed to leave as soon as he could. One of the first things he’d noted since waking up was the absence of weight dangling from his ears, and Lance cursed his luck. If he’d at least had his earrings he could communicate his location, but they must’ve fallen off somewhere during the journey from the palace to wherever he was. He pushed past his annoyance and shut his eyes, concentrating on the slide and crackle of bone and flesh that he’d grown accustomed to when he shifted.

He’d always been quite good with the Altean skill set, he’d always been told, and Lance expected no problems with his actions. However, as he tried to shift, he found something like a wall in his mind, brutally blocking him when he tried to access his abilities. Lance yelped, panting as his will to change evaporated into thin air.

“Quiznack,” he hissed under his breath. Why had that hurt, like scraping his fingers raw on some rock? Not being able to use his own abilities made his skin crawl, and Lance swallowed back the bile that had risen in his throat. Fine. If he couldn’t accommodate to make the ropes smaller for him, or even to break them from the sheer size of a transformation, he’d just use plain old grit. He began to flex, trying to use the strength that had never come to him naturally in the first place. Where he outpaced Allura in shapeshifting, she was by far physically stronger, and Lance—as usual—thought about how she would’ve already been free and on her merry way in the same situation. Instructors had also told Lance, for as long as he could remember, that Allura, the eldest and the heir, was an honorable fighter. Lance, with his slight form and how sickly he’d always been as a child, would have to kick dirt into eyes and use every dirty trick in the book to give himself the upper hand.

Lance spent quite a long stretch of time fighting with the ropes brutishly, and when that failed, collapsed over his knees, chest heaving as he blinked back tears. All he’d succeeded in doing was rubbing the skin off his wrists from twisting around so much. It made his bonds a little slicker with his blood, but not enough so to actually be helpful.

Lance cast a fearful look up towards the cases of scales, most lined with a rusty color that made Lance’s stomach turn. Scales fell off naturally in death, yes. Tales differed based on region, but the scales were universally agreed to be the mortal connection Alteans had to the gods. When the soul moved on they were no longer needed and detached naturally. Lance wondered how much pain the scales’ owners had been in as they were forcibly severed from their cheeks, and shuddered at the thought. There was no Altean without their scales. Even losing one brought on madness, and Lance touched his own shining turquoise pair to his shoulder for the sole purpose of remembering that they were still in place.

As his eyes darted from pair to pair—largely against Lance’s will, but he observed the macabre trophies with a horrified fascination—he saw a pink pair that looked far too similar to his sister’s, and managed to heave onto the ground beside him, wriggling away from the spreading waste once the deed was done.

Allura was okay, right? Lance felt awful for not thinking of it sooner. He hoped to the gods that she hadn’t been taken too. How long had he been out, anyway? What if they really—

Lance shook his head and firmly cut himself off. He was not going to finish that thought. Nobody would touch Allura. She was strong and beautiful and someday she would be queen. Shiro would keep her safe. There was no way—or at least, not any way Lance would allow himself to entertain—she could be in this situation with him. Lance’s continuous reinforcements had just begun to calm his racing heart when he heard footsteps coming from somewhere beyond the door, drawing closer and closer.

Lance shuffled forward, closer to the door. If he could just get the drop on whoever was coming, he could escape. His knees were already plenty bruised from his previous attempts at freeing himself, but Lance shuffled forward, throwing his back against the wall to pull himself to his feet despite the faint whimper the action pulled from his lips. However he’d gotten where he currently was being kept, he had not been transported with care, and his entire body ached. Lance’s heart pounded while he listened to the door slide open. He rushed forward, fully prepared to give whoever was there a good head to their chin and to maneuver himself past them towards freedom. Lance was instead greeted with a scaly hand locking on his wrist, and slamming him back onto the floor with a crack of, presumably, Lance’s skull.

Lance only barely saw two faltering versions of the same door close behind the hulking mass of muscle that had come in. White sparks exploded behind Lance’s closed eyelids—a precautionary measure, because if Lance dissolved into hysterics now, he would lose any shred of dignity he still maintained. A voice permeated the fermenting silence, darkly pleased and fruitful in the blackness that seemed to follow its presence.

“Not the king, no, but maybe a suitable substitute. Certainly with the potential to become so, and the matching scales don’t hurt,” the creature mused, and Lance shivered, wiping the blood trailing from his mouth on the ground. It was not the only place he was bleeding, the back of his head felt plenty wet and he cringed to think of the red muddying his pearly locks, but there was nothing he could do about that.

“Who are you?” Lance growled, thinking again of Allura. She was a force to be reckoned with, and their father always described her as a viper presented like a ribbon. Still, Lance wasn’t sure even she could escape someone so overwhelmingly, for lack of a better descriptor, large. His captor laughed, and Lance got his first good look at him as he crouched before him.

His eyes were gaping sockets in his face with what looked like coals smoldering in their depths, his cheeks harshly cut and glinting in the lighting from the scales covering his skin.

“You don’t recognize me as one of my people, princeling?” Lance felt an oily fear wash over him, adding to the mounting sickness he felt as he watched the creature’s lips move. Massive teeth—almost unnoticeable at first, they so blended in with the darkness of his skin—hanging down to his jaw moved with them, and it was rightly, highly unnerving to Lance.

“No,” Lance admitted after a moment, despite it instinctively feeling like it was not something he should’ve done. The alien’s features contorted wrathfully, and Lance jerked violently to the side as a strong arm, just as solid as the rest of him, landed with violent gravity to crack the floor where his head had been a moment previous.

“Of course you don’t,” the alien hissed, standing to pace around the room with footfalls that were heavy enough to shake the ground he trodded over. “When do Alteans ever own up to their mistakes, let alone teach their young about them, and how not to repeat them?” Lance’s shoulders scrunched up to his chin as a bitter, humorless chuckle passed through the air, suddenly sounding hair raisingly close as the sound bounced ominously in the shell of Lance’s ear. He yelped, turning and slamming his head back onto the ground with enough momentum to make the world blur yet again for a few long seconds, during which the alien strode back over and hefted him by his hair.

The sharp nails just barely avoiding his scalp tore out tufts of silky locks that Lance meticulously maintained, and he yelped. “Oh, is there a problem, princeling?” the alien hissed, his voice that Lance might’ve found beautiful in a different setting sending chills up his spine. “Is there something wrong with my voice?” Lance didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of an answer and didn’t respond.

“My people, in their dying moments, had screams that could shatter eardrums and burst heads. I was never very good at that, but I was resistant to it.” Lance didn’t understand why there was so much vitriol in the alien’s tone. Why was he doing this? “The conquerors who came to our formerly peaceful planet stuffed rags down our throats and cut off heads to save themselves from it.” Despite the situation, Lance had it in himself to be horrified. What an awful fate, and he gritted out, despite his anger and confusion,

“I’m sorry for your loss.” That was apparently the wrong thing to say. The fire needling away in the core of the stranger’s eyes blazed to life, and Lance gasped for breath as the hand dropped him onto the floor, pinning him in place as it latched brutally around his throat.

“You’re sorry, princeling? Sorry for what exactly? That when my planet sent distress signals to Altea—the mighty, peaceful Altea that was advanced beyond any other world in the quadrant—your father turned us away in the name of remaining pacifist? Sorry that my planet burned at the hands of an empire defeated mere quintants after attempting to seize Altea? Tell me, princeling, just what your apologies mean.” The force the words were uttered with was overwhelming, acid and hatred seething from the abyss of gouging teeth and flaming expression. Lance gagged for breath desperately, drool spilling from the corners of his mouth while his face purpled. He’d always said that it wasn’t his color, much to Keith’s chagrin. He wasn’t as entertained with his snide comments now, and the moment the alien seemed to calm and unlocked his grip, Lance gasped for breath desperately, coughing over the floor. He was sure if he’d had anything else left in his stomach, that would’ve come up too.

Lance didn’t know what to say. He was entirely unaware of everything his captor had told him, but admitting that would just get him killed, probably even faster than the fate already barreling at him if the circlet of rapidly bruising marks on his neck meant anything. Lance bit his lip, only to draw blood as his teeth sunk in faster than he wanted when his captor twisted his bound arms brutally in his overpowering grip. Lance felt him lean in close, the same ricochet and all too loud effect occurring as the creature hissed into his ear.

“Answer me, princeling, or you can rot here with one scale before I come back to finish the job.”

Lance was not a creature accustomed to begging. Not for his life, not for a break from his tutoring, not even for an extra pastry or two from the palace kitchens, but the thought of going insane while surrounding by the trophies of his lost kinsmen lit an insatiable fear at his very core that had him croaking out between pained gasps, “I’m sorry for not knowing.”

He heaved in relief as his arms were released, throbbing as the blood returned to the limbs.

“That’s what I like to hear,” the creature told him, and Lance reminded himself that if he ever got out alive, he was going to have to research species with the ability to send their voices rattling through his skull. He never wanted to encounter anything like it again. The creature and it’s scaled body skulked along the walls, fingertips tracing over the displays with an anger Lance could see was barely kept in check.

“I realize that, unless I get truly lucky, I will never see the Alteans burn,” the alien mused, a long tail that Lance hadn’t taken note of before thrashing wickedly. His claws scraped along the glass with a horrific shriek, but Lance was grateful that the sound, for the most part, was benign. Lance shivered, sprawled stomach down on the floor, cheek pressed against the ground for so long it had gone numb. “Still, I must try and do something, and though I was aiming for the king, I think it’s suitable to see the beloved, charming prince who has been known to love his people so, be torn apart.” Lance shook his head, working up spit on his tongue to fling when the alien next decided to get too close for comfort.

“You won’t,” Lance swore, and though his voice was hoarse and reflective of his pain, he was proud of the flinty pride still within. “Allura or Shiro or Keith will find you, and then you’re a dead man walking. You can run, but Keith’s got ears like satellites, Shiro has his arm, and Allura can bench press them both without knocking her crown out of place.” The creature stiffened, the scales covering its body lifting reflexively before settling again.

“Big words from a prince who can’t even shapeshift.” Lance tasted something bitter in the back of his mouth. His magic had always been a sore spot. His father had scolded him for banishing tutors that had been particularly harsh about it, but Lance’s ears were too hot and the scornful looks they cast his way too fresh in his mind to care.

“What did you do to me?” he demanded to know. Another settling of scales.

“A simple block, as provided by the tonic slipped into your drink.” Lance’s mind—always hyperactive, as father often said—worked furiously to jejune what servant despised him enough to betray him to a serial killer. Lance had always thought they were kind masters, but things were not as Lance had once believed if the alien’s rage meant anything.

“In one way or another, I’ll escape.”

“I doubt that, princeling,” the alien snapped, striding over with his fiery eyes flared up again, so hot the core of them was tinged blue. “That’s what the others said, every single one. You Alteans are an arrogant breed, you know? Always so keen on your gods and magic, and then when they desert you it is a matter of two little hooks on your cheeks to undo you entirely. Like pulling a thread from an unknotted seam, you will unravel, just as they all have.”

Lance gulped. His head pounded, but he recognized that the more he persisted and the less fear he showed, the angrier his captor got. That was no good. He needed to stall. Lance would not survive if he insulted the man too much. He would simply lose his cool and flash those wicked claws or the barbs on his tail—they glinted unnaturally—to slaughter him where he laid. It pained Lance, who could not deny the claims that he and his people were perhaps a bit too confident in themselves. Submissiveness did not come easily to Lance, but he was running out of options. His captor had the son of his most hated foe, and if Lance had learned anything from the history lessons he endured, it was that a moment of revenge often required nothing but a strong enough emotion to seize the mind.

“Please,” he groveled. “I’m just the prince, not my father. I’m sorry for what happened—may the gods bless their souls—but doing this won’t solve anything. Let me go, and I will make amends.” It pained Lance, truly.

“Oh, shut up,” the creature snarled. “I had plans to kill your father, yes, but Alfor is not the true prize. You are not a daughter, but you serve the same purpose as mine did, lovely as she was. A placeholder, though beloved. I don’t want your father. To kill you and send your scaleless body back to the palace would be the sweetest prize of all.” He forced Lance against the wall and knelt down in front of him. His breath was hot and sour in Lance’s nose, who gagged and subsequently lost the saliva he’d been working up.

Lance’s entire body hurt, but the claws tipping the stranger’s hands were drawing close to his face. They caressed his jaw in a manner that did not cut, but let Lance know that was only because he was didn’t want them to yet. The alien growled, again in that voice that chorused its discords within Lance’s pointed ears.

“I’ll enjoy this, princeling. I already have a pair just like your sister’s, but now I’ll have the real thing.” Lance felt panic really and truly hit, as he snapped his teeth at the hand coming to rest on his cheek, grazing the skin and pushing the alien to yank his head hard enough to rip out a chunk of white hair.

“Stop it!” Lance kicked, hissing as he felt the first prick of pain blossoming from the gouge being slowly made on his cheek. The alien grinned, showing off a full set of black teeth.

“I am owed my justice, princeling.” Lance hated the word from his lips. Nobody called him that, not even Lotor when he was in a mood. Even so, as much as Lance wanted to live and return home to dance with an unwilling Keith, run through the palace halls with Pidge and taste test Hunk’s cooking, hug his father, sister, he wondered if the alien was wrong. Lance was not so vain to deny what he said. If Altea had defeated the people who had destroyed his home so quickly, he couldn’t say the creature, angry and full of hate as he was, was wrong in desiring his revenge. Lance kicked harder.

“Stop! Please, just let me to talk to you for a tick.” The creature snorted.

“You cannot spare your life with your silver tongue.” Lance nodded.

“I don’t know what happened to your people and your planet, your family. I’m sorry for that, but please, this has nothing to do with the common Alteans. Once you kill me, stop, please. Leave them out of it. You’ll have everything you were ever deserved. They shouldn’t die for what my family did.” The creature hissed.

“A sacrifice for your people? How noble.” Lance tried to hold his head high, chin jutting out proudly.

“I’ll even go quietly if that’s what you want. Just please, stop going after Altean civilians.” Lance trembled from where he was pressed into the wall, biting back a scream as a nail hooked under one scale. Altea was not free of crime, murder, serial killers, but very few chose to kill as the alien did. It was not a simple process, tearing off a scale.

“I’ll take you up on your offer, with one modification. Just like every other filthy one of you I’ve killed, severing your people from their gods, I want to hear you scream.”

Lance wished he had his earrings, and braced himself for the pain. It was worse than he could’ve ever imagined.

His back arched unnaturally, cracking bones in places Lance didn’t have the presence of mind to think about as he screamed to the heavens, to whatever deity was out there to listen. His body tried desperately to shift, but he kept running into the block that lit a fire behind his eyes and electrified his entire body anytime he tried to fight it. The pain was blinding, leaving him to focus on nothing but it and the claws severing nerves and muscle and power that was integral to the very core of Lance’s being.

He howled, eyes rolling back into his head while his hands raked down the wall, splitting nails and scraping his fingers with absolutely pathetic pain in comparison to the agony engulfing Lance whole.

At the beginning Lance had said he would’ve gone quietly if that was what the creature wanted, but when the world was crashing down around him in galvanizing agony that had his head cracking back against the wall while tears streamed down his sob twisted face there was nothing to be done but scream, an unrelenting cry to just let it end.

Words were unthinkable, an impossible concept Lance couldn’t imagine utilizing in his current state, and they’d only just begun.

Lance could faintly hear the dark laughter of his torturer ringing horrifically in his ears, but that was quickly overpowered by his own shrieks, almost animalistic in nature. The pain was all there was, all there ever had been, all there ever could be, and Lance did not stop screaming even when he became aware of the sound of heavy blows landing on the door, nor when the creature hissed and withdrew his talons that left Lance a sobbing mess on the ground.

He heard someone gagging, likely at the sight around them as Lance had, but Lance couldn’t be bothered with caring. There were strong, furred arms around him, a furious hiss that made the hair on Lance’s arms stand up as it rattled his brain in his skull, and then nothing at all.

Lance’s eyes opened slowly, and with no small amount of effort. His eyelids felt like they’d been cemented together, and his cheek burned painfully. Why did it hurt?

Lance gasped and sat up quickly, hands flying to touch his face. Oh god, did he still have his scales? What would the people think if their already defective prince, told so many times by so many different people that he’d never be as strong as Allura, was lacking a scale. They’d never take him seriously, he’d be banned from the council that already hated him, and—

Allura’s voice, urgent and worried cut into Lance’s spiraling thoughts, her dark hand landing on his arm.

“Lance?” His tear stained face turned to meet her eyes.

Frankly, she looked horrible.

Dark smears of color hung like the most depressing set of drapes Lance had ever seen under eyes, and those—Lance had always thought her eyes were beautiful, and no artist ever got them right in portraits—were shot through with red. Lance could be quiznacked if he cared. He threw his arms around her and didn’t mind in the slightest that her grip was all but crushing the breath from his lungs.

“I’m so sorry we didn’t get there sooner, you started screaming and I thought we were going to be too late.” It would’ve been hard for anybody who hadn’t known her for their entire lives to make out what she was saying through her sobs, but Lance was just as much of a mess and shushed her apologies with an easy smile.

“You made it, I’m fine, ‘Lura. How did you guys even find me?” She sniffed and even though Lance was getting snot on her dress, didn’t let go.

“Your earring must’ve fallen on the ground when that thing,” she said the word with unexpected venom, “Dropped you originally. We started getting transmissions of your location immediately,” Lance praised the gods for emergency protocol, “But the signal was absolutely awful and kept copping out.” She drew back for a fraction of a second to unfurl a palm, the little purple gem lying in the center of it. “We found it off in the corner.” She shoved it onto the nearby nightstand and embraced him again.

“I was so scared,” Lance murmured into her hair, which was another part of her that he was speculating to be actively trying to strangle him. Allura rubbed his back and kept him close as she nodded.

“I know, but you’re here now, and we’re never going to let anything like that happen again.” Lance gave pause for a second.

“We’re?” Allura didn’t remove her head from over his shoulder to yell,

“Keith, Shiro, you can come in now, I’ve hugged him enough.” The door slid open almost immediately, and with previously unprecedented speed Lance had two very concerned Galra soldiers at his side. Keith’s ears were swiveling frantically like they tended to do when he got nervous, and Lance was surprised to see a very relieved smile on Shiro’s part.

“It’s good to see you alive and well, your highness. You had us all worried.” Lance grinned, waving him off.

“You know me, Shiro. I’m hard to keep down. Anyway, drop the formalities. You know nobody cares when we’re alone.” Allura socked him on the arm, and Lance winced for effect.

“Ouch, hitting a man while he’s down, I see how it is.” She rolled her eyes, and Keith bent down to give him a very uncharacteristic but not at all unwelcome hug, brief though it was. When Lance raised a brow, he shrugged and looked at the ground.

“I’m glad you’re safe, is all.” Lance hummed knowingly but didn’t argue with him, which he found to be something of an accomplishment, personally. He flopped back on his bed, able to relax with the strongest people he knew safely stationed around him.

“So am I, lemme’ tell you,” Lance replied, and upon seeing the somewhat nervous laughter that followed, was quick to change the subject. “Anyway, I feel sane and all, but am I, like, okay?” He kept his eyes up and a mischievous upturn to his lips, but the concern he felt for the subject was real. Allura nodded.

“The palace physicians were able to reattach the part of your scale that had been—ah, shall we say, upended?” She smiled, but Lance didn’t miss the worried furrow of her brow. He’d have to talk with her later. “The only difference is, well,” she sighed, and waved a hand. As per usual, the lights in the room switched off, and Lance was made acutely aware of the turquoise glow being emitted from just under his left eye.

“Ah,” Lance managed after a moment, but wasn’t exactly displeased. It was unusual, but privately Lance remembered the stories of the truly gifted alchemists that endured the same effect and wondered what that made him. He pushed the thought to the side. That was something to be saved for later, probably reckless, experimentation. Lance sighed dramatically, a hand flying over his forehead as Allura turned the lights back on.

“I’m never going to be able to turn the lights out during a ball and slip away again,” he groaned. It was then Keith’s turn to roll his eyes—to be fair, he was usually the one tasked with tracking Lance down again—and Allura’s to look sympathetic. Meanwhile, Shiro took a glance at the holographic update coming from his wrist.

“King Alfor, Pidge, and Hunk are on their way,” he announced. Lance grinned.

“Great! More people to dazzle with my new glow.” Collective groans ensued, and Lance found that as long as nobody was truly hurt, he was just fine with that.

[diveronarpg]

Congratulations, KAITLIN! You’ve been accepted for the role of LAERTES with an approved FC change to KENDRICK SAMPSON. Admin Rosey: Ladies, gents, and all other mob members I am so incredibly happy to announce that we finally have our BAERTES (this is the one and only time I will condone the usage of that nickname). Kaitlin, I am just so incredibly happy that you have brought to us our golden, flawed boy who will likely be the reckoning of us all. You captured the smallest moments so well, where the nuances of his voice crept in and destroyed us all. Verona has longed for the boy with the broken crown who carries the weight of a dead legacy on his shoulders. Please read over the checklist and send in your blog within 24 hours.

WELCOME TO THE MOB.

Out of Character

Alias | Kaitlin.

Age | 21.

Preferred Pronouns | She/her.

Activity Level | You guys should be pretty familiar with my activity by this point, but long story short I tend to wait a few days and then write replies in one fell swoop when they collect! But it definitely varies on my mood.

Timezone | EST.

Current/Past RP Accounts | La principessa, in case you forgot. ;)

In Character

Character | Laertes; Lawrence Federico Vernon. I’d love to use Kendrick Sampson as his FC, but I can roll with Michael if you guys prefer!

What drew you to this character? |

I was really completely head over heels in love with Lawrence the first time I gave his biography a true and proper read through, but the more and more times I’ve read it, I kind of think that I had him all wrong when I first fell in love. Which, I think, is kind of the entire the point. For the sake of avoiding onion metaphors, I’ll just leave it at saying Lawrence is a character with a lot of surprising layers that I didn’t really see the first time around. I think it’s really easy to kind of take him at face value (which to be fair, I think he probably uses his name a lot to make people take him as a god immediately and then uses that preconception of him to bolster his status as a god even further, but that’s besides the point) and say that he’s the golden boy son who was made in his father’s image and is now out for blood because his father has been murdered. That’s the cut and dry of it, and it’s easy to love Lawrence for the cut and the dry. He’s miraculous in that way, sun-haloed and dripping gold, with a tongue like honey and blood like fire, but for all that he was made by his father he is not actually made from his father’s image. He’s been molded and crafted into this kind of Alvise-adjacent sculpture that’s just as clever, just as much a general and a tactician, a politician in every way except for the personal willingness to spill blood for his own cause. I think, if it were his own glory that Lawrence was fighting for, he’s never spill a drop of the stuff. But he is responsible for the ichor that flows in the Montague’s veins, and in his eyes, responsible for the well being of Verona by proxy. And I think it’s kind of easy to miss this disjuncture between him being his father son, and wanting nothing more than to be his father’s son, with the man that he actually is in his marrow. A chaotic good fighting with a lawful good, if you will. And I’m nothing if not a sucker for characters who suffer heavy internal conflict, even if they’re unaware of it, so, here we are.

What is a future plot idea you have in mind for the character? |

GOLD-COLORED BOY. I am just, first and foremost, super interested in connecting Lawrence with an array of people. He is such a people person, entirely someone who has defined himself and his self worth on the things that he can make other people think about him, the ways he can force himself into their lives by making them be unable to stop thinking about him. He’s got this haloed-in-gold and holier-than-thou thing going on, but you kind of have to wonder how much of that is what other people put on him and what he actually projects himself. Obviously it’s some degree of both, but Lawrence has built himself upon other people, upon the things he inspires other people to do. There’s no malintent in his own actions, only this desperate need to embody the tactician that his father is, and so he plays off of others, molds himself into what situations need of him. But there’s this struggle between who he is, the lionheart, and who his father is, the red hand to Damiano’s bloodied crown. So many of the connections that he’s made over the years have been positive in nature where they can be, and violent and fear-driven only where they absolutely must be. An international agent, he is no vagabond, but he is someone who gets restless, and yet? Never reckless. Part of this is conditioning from his father, knowing that anything reckless would result in Alvise’s intervention and likely his call back to the homefront. Part of it though has to just be who Lawrence is. He’s got this unshakeable commitment to doing what he thinks is right, and I’m really interested to see how his commitment to his vision is going to shift now that his father has died and his motivations will have to shift from finding pride to finding revenge. We’re already starting to see the devolution of his rationality with his investment in Cyrus as an informant. His father would tell him that it’s foolish to trust the Capulet’s princeling, that Lawrence should take anything the boy says and assume that near-on the opposite is true, and yet here he is recruiting him anyways. I’m definitely someone who tends to be a lot more intrigued by devolution in my characters than I am in positive revolution, and I’d love to watch some of Lawrence’s long-fought and hard-won connections start to crumble because they start to feel like he isn’t the same man that they met once upon a time.

ORIGINAL SIN. Mistakes certainly take their toll on our characters, but they make writing them all the more fun for us writers, and I am nothing if not in love with writing characters who are riddled with flaws and who allow those flaws to befall them at inopportune moments. For this reason, as much as it might injure Lawrence, I would love nothing more than for him to take his vengeance upon the wrong person. I mean, Lawrence’s soul is bound in gold and honor. What happens to an honor-bound soul when it commits an unforgivable act? When it does something that in the eyes of God and his people can only been seen as dishonorable? I would love for the death of his father to cause this burning need for vengeance in his soul. One of the constant threads though his biography is fire, with him carrying the ‘torch’ of his name and his wanting to “raze” the city to ash for the sake of finding his father’s murderer. He is through and through someone who has been raised to be okay with the committing the dishonorable for the sake of bolstering another family’s name, but at his core he’s very much the golden ‘Lionheart’ character that you all have named him. The first sentence of his bio, after all, is that he was raised to be so much more than he was. Lawrence was born to be the physical embodiment of legacy, of glory, something holy in its unholiness. Like you said, he’s spent his life taking direction from his father, conditioning himself into being the man that his father needs him to be, and without the sort of guiding hand constantly reminding him that there’s honor to be found in the dishonorable, in deceit and betrayal, that fire and glory go hand in hand, I can’t wait to see how this dishonor takes hold in his heart. Like you said, when all is said and done, funeral pyres and prayers will be the only thing to keep Verona warm when he is through with it–does this not apply to himself? Will he not have to hold a funeral for the man his father turned him into? Or will, in this loss, he find himself turning into Alvise himself? Lose himself in his loss and his grief and his need to have his father as his guiding light?

O’ DESSA, MY DESSA. Those Vernon’s. Their hearts on on their sleeves, in their eyes, in their throats—choking them to death. They use their hearts like weapons, wield their passions like anger and teach their love to feed their wrath, spit venom from their left ventricles and use aorta to pump cunning through to each vein. I’m fascinated by them, almost as equally as they are both fascinated with human hearts. What makes them beat. What makes them break. What can they use against their enemies that might allow those Vernon’s to sink their canines through a left atrium into the right. They both know the strength of the human heart, know how it has defined their own lives, and I think that makes them uniquely capable of using other people’s own hearts against them. But Lawrence doesn’t really see this, no matter its truth. They are both wracked with grief, but both of them know how to use their emotions to their own advantage, and I’d love to see them working together to do just that. Lawrence is so blinded by his heart right now, so completely slave to its angers and its passions and I’m interested to see how that will color his interactions with Odessa. He’s got this ‘my sister, my responsibility’ thing that I’m a total sucker for, but Odessa has no need for his protection, has a heart in her chest that beats as strongly as his own. They are made of the same marrow, yet where he could see cunning, instead he sees softness. Firstly, I can’t imagine Odessa really allowing him to feel this way, can’t imagine her allowing him to keep her small any longer. For God’s sake, he’s been gone for months now, gone traveling to build and bolster relationships and he left her behind. The rational part of him knows that she is capable, knows that she can take care of herself, but I think a big part of him feels like he’s just lost his father and the thought of Odessa putting herself in harm’s way to avenge their father is something he cannot even begin to fathom. And yet—I want nothing more than for Lawrence to overcome his misconceptions, to let go of those wings he’s tried to clip and give them back to her. Better yet, make her snatch them from his grasp and make him see his sister’s heart is equally as much a force of nature as he is.  

Are you comfortable with killing off your character? | Bitch…. I might be. (Honestly tho, like, give the guy a break!!!)

In Depth

In-Character Interview: I wrote a para sample, so I’ve only done two of these, but if y’all want more since my para sample isn’t modern, then you’re more than welcome to tell my ass to stop being lazy and ask for them. Anyways!!!

Curled around him like a vine, Lawrence runs his hand through the tips of the girls hair and revels in the quiet moment of after-sex, in the warmth of having another human in his bed. There’s nothing like it, the soft moments of the after, the tender calming moments that come with having shared your body with someone else.

“Tell me about yourself,” she says, and ruins everything. “What do you do all day when you’re not meeting with my uncle?”

Lawrence sighs at the girl’s question, wishes that he hadn’t let her curl herself into his side, but there was something about the human contact that he hadn’t been able to deny. With her head resting on the juncture between his arm and his shoulder, he can feel her breath warm on his skin, and feel strands of her brown hair tickling the skin at the base of his neck. What only moment ago had felt like such a comfort suddenly feels like suffocation, feels like something that should make him run.

But he’s a general. And general’s don’t run.

“Your uncle’s not the only man I work with, you know,” he responds carefully, avoiding her question. He has no desire to discuss his daily routine with the family of one of his clients; even if they aren’t an enemy but an ally, it’s always better to keep your life safeguarded from prying eyes. “Besides, I’d so much rather talk about what you do with those beautiful hands of yours all day than the many tedious business meetings I attend.”

He blushes, and it pulls at something in his abdomen.

He distracts her with stars, makes them shine behind her eyes until he draws that blush across her whole body.

–

Lawrence has just finished securing a new client on the Eastern Russian coast when the client asks him the unholy question, dares to cross a line that he doesn’t yet have the right to cross.  

“Tell me, son,” and Lawrence pretends that being called son doesn’t set his teeth on edge; he is not this man’s blood, and he has no interest in being as such. “This war between you and your, how you say, fellow Veronesi brothers, what do you think of it?”

Lawrence can’t help but pause for a moment when the client asks this, partly because he has dared to ask it, and more so because he can feel himself wanting to shiver at the thought of a Capulet being called his brother. Lawrence is surprised by the question, to be sure, but he tightens his jaw the way that his father taught him so many years ago and looks his clients dead in the eyes. “I assure you, генеральный, you have nothing to worry about from my home front. They won’t touch you.”

“I don’t need to be assured you won’t let them get their hands on my business, gonfaloniere. If I had doubts, I would not agree to work with you.” Lawrence resists the urge to furrow his brows together, presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth to keep his face free of confusion and anger alike. “I asked how you feel about your war.”

Lawrence considering silence in the way of an answer, but something makes him want to reply.

“War is not the word I would use for it, just the Capulets wishing they had the kind of reach that we Montague’s do and being angry that they do not. There’s a reason you’re here talking to me and not some Capulet принцесса. I avoid paying the Capulets any mind; they are not worth my time. I hope that is answer enough for you.”

The general raises his glass in answer, and Lawrence answers him in kind.

They both drink to their dishonesty.

(the two russian words used here are general and princess, respectively.)

In-Character Para Sample;

Lawrence Vernon is sixteen the first time he becomes aware that his father will stop at no one when it comes to manipulation, not even his own son.

He is playing a game of football with some boys from school, an unorganized team that is mostly made up of boys with too much time on their hands and too little to do with them, boys with restless hearts and reckless souls who want nothing more than to find approval in every glance that gets cast their way, who want nothing more than for people to tell them that they are great–some, in spite of it all. It’s Alvise’s idea his son join, encourages him one afternoon when he gets home to eat dinner with his children, tells him over a bowl of bolognese that he saw a group of boys his age playing and he should think about joining them next time.

Lawrence, never wanting to disappoint, joins the next day.

The boys in his class always loved him, revered him like a god walking, each and every person in Verona knowing in their heart of hearts that the Vernon boy was someone you want in your corner. Among them is a boy with golden hair and a heart like steel, and at first meeting Lawrence dislikes him with a kind of vehemence that he can’t understand. Lionhearts do not call to other lionhearts, and their souls were made of the same. Alvise disapproves the first time that Lawrence complains about the other.

The Cesari boy? His father asks him, and when Lawrence nods yes, his father speaks again. You are as powerful as who you surround yourself with, he says, and smiles something otherworldly when Lawrence’s chest swells with shame. Even if you dislike him, do not discredit him.

The boy was the son of a wealthy man who owned vineyards across northern Italy. Everyone knew it, knew about the gold that lined their pockets and the glory that belonged in their bones, every if they were still new money and Verona was built on something ancient. Lawrence decides to give the golden hair boy another chance, and when he does he finds that somehow their golden halos can come together into something miraculous, something like being understood.

One night, they sneak out of their houses and go for drinks at a local bar, and both are leaning on each other by the end of the night, spilling secrets and fears and other things that would make them anything less than gods.

“We’re broke,” the boy says, leaning his head back against the metal fence the pair of them are propped up against.

“No way,” Lawrence replies, turning to look at his friend. The other boy just closes his eyes and nods his head. “No way.”

“My father he just…” the boy trails off for a moment and shakes his head. “Made some bad calls, bought some new lands, and they turned out to be duds. The wine? Terrible. Thirteen year olds wouldn’t even buy the shit those grapes produced.”

“Yeah, but the other vineyards are still producing, right?”

“Yeah, but profits from those paid for the new land, and then he took out debts looking for more new land that would offset those bad purchases, and now he’s just saving face and praying no one at the banks notices what deep shit he’s in before he can figure out a way to make back the money he took out. He thought maybe this harvest season would help, but,” the boy hiccups, and swallows before going on again. “But there’s some competitor I guess who’s edging him out and my dad can barely afford to keep himself afloat, much less ward off competition.”

Lawrence is silent.

“So, we’re fucked,” the boy says finally, then laughs. “Fucked. Such an American curse. It tastes so good.”

Lawrence brings a hand to cover his mouth, almost wants to hang his head for feeling for his friend.

“And your dad couldn’t use the land he bought for anything else?” He asks, lifting his head to look at the other boy.

He just smiles at Lawrence, shakes his head and then waves him off with a fling of his left hand.

“We’ll figure something out,” then a short pause. “We have to.”

They go back to laughing after that, to discussing their team’s win against another local one, to pushing and shoving each other about the pretty redhead that had stopped to watch their game, arguing over who she was really staring at.

The next day Alvise Vernon calls his son into his office before dinner, and Lawrence walks in casually, not apprehensive in the way he should be. He strides into the office without announcement, his shoulders straight and his smile wide.

“You wanted to see me, Father?”

Looking up from the documents before him, Alvise actually looks happy to see his son. It makes something like pride dance across Lawrence’s skin, and he knows that he would do anything he asked of him.

“I hear that you’ve made a new friend,” his father says, and Lawrence laughs, unimpeded.

“Yes, I suppose I have,” he replies, raising his eyebrows. “But how did you hear about it?”

“When you earn the right to know my sources, then I’ll tell you,” Alvise says, a wolf’s grin painted across his face. “Now, I thought you said that you disliked the Cesari boy. You said he was, I believe your direct words were, a ‘pompous ass.’”

Something about seeing his father use air quotes around ‘pompous ass’ sends Lawrence into a fit of laughter.

“I guess I did say that, yes,” he says, still laughing, a hand pressed against his stomach. “And I stand by it. Cesari is a righteous little shit, but now I know he’s a righteous little shit who’s terrified of the future, and that makes me feel better about the whole thing.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Just something he said about his dad.”

“His father? Why would his father make him fearful of the future?” Alvise asks, the tone of their conversation sobering slightly as his brows furrow. “He owns one of the most successful new conglomerates of wineries in Northern Italy.”

Lawrence pauses only a moment before answering. “They’re bankrupt,” he says, pressing his lips together and tilting his head to the side as he raises his shoulders as if to say what can you do?

“How?”

“He made some bad investments, took out loans to pay off the investments thinking his current properties would turn enough profit to pay them off, but I guess the harvest wasn’t great and there’s a new guy on the market selling better product or something. Ergo, bankruptcy. They’re trying to hide it from the bankers and the papers long enough to pay off the debts, but like I said, Cesari’s terrified.”

Alvise purses his lips, then stands up from behind his desk, slowly walking around the edge of it.

“I’m sorry to hear it,” he says, and comes to stand before his son. “I’m glad he had you to listen to.”

He walks away before Lawrence can respond, and though the sentiment brings a slight smile to his cheeks, he can’t help but feel something twist in the bottom of his stomach at the way his father said it.

He doesn’t realize until two days later that he should have listened to his gut.

CESARI EMPIRE CRUMBLES read the headlines, and the shiner Lawrence wears on his cheek, courtesy of a boy who was once his friend and could be no longer, feels like a brand when he storms into the Capital Library in search of one Alvise Vernon, feels like a brand that he deserves.

“You used me!” he shouts, pushing open the door to his father’s second office, caring little for the soldier seated across the desk. A single glance from Alvise is enough to send the young woman running from the room, but Lawrence barely looks at her, honor and loyalty battling for dominance in his chest. He cannot believe that his father would use him in this way, would compromise his son’s honor in such a way, but there’s a part of Lawrence that can never question Alvise, a part of him that would just nod his head if his father were to telling him that murder is no sin.

“Elio Cesari and his money were gaining power,” Alvise starts, leaning back in his chair and placing his elbows on the armrests, the picture of ease. “Perhaps you don’t understand this yet, but power isn’t an unlimited resource, and his posed a threat to some of our allies. Yes, I encouraged you to befriend his son in the hopes that he might give you the information we needed to remove him from the playing field, but Cesari’s misfortunes are self-inflicted. I did not have a hand in his poor investments; it’s not my fault if the man doesn’t have a head for business and just got lucky with his first few. Beginner’s luck has no place at our table.”

“And what about my honor, father? You’ve made my word worthless with this, my friendship worthless,” Lawrence starts, feeling like something inside of him is cracking apart with every word. It goes against everything he has ever known to question his father in such a way.

“Oh, stop that,” Alvise says sharply, shaking his head. “This isn’t about you.”

Lawrence opens his mouth to reply, but Alvise shoots him a look that silences him.

“This is about something much bigger than you,” he says, knitting his hands together before him. Lawrence is still standing, but he can feel some of the tension easing from his shoulders, some of the fight in him dying. The longer he is here, the longer he looks at his father and listens, the less able he is to think of him as the enemy.

Alvise Vernon always had been, and always would be, his version of a savior.

“This is about what was right for Verona, Lawrence, about what Damiano and all the other Montague’s needed. Don’t you understand that yet? This is what we are made for, for doing bad things to ensure that something else good can happen. Verona can’t afford to be led by men who cannot handle their own businesses, and that’s what would have happened had we allowed the Cesari’s to continue lying about their profits.”

Lawrence sits down finally in the chair across from his father, the one that had previously been occupied by a young woman terrified of the man before her. Lawrence could only find awe, awe and terror. And is not that we are afraid of not also beautiful? Does it not also captivate?

“It’s hurt you, to sacrifice the Cesari boy’s friendship, but know that it was done for the good of our people. I’m proud of you for that.”

And that’s when Lawrence crumbles finally, lets go of all of his anger and his hurt and his feelings of betrayal. It’s then that he finally understands.  

“Legacies are what make families great, boy,” Alvise Vernon says to his son, staring at the young man from behind the mahogany desk. His gaze is hard, nothing soft or conciliatory about it. He rules Verona with iron in his heart and in his fists and he rules his children the same way. “They are bigger than men, far bigger than any individual. The Vernon name has been alive since long before you or I, and if you lead our family in the ways I teach you in the coming years, then it shall be around long after you or I as well. What happened to the Cesari’s is one lesson I hope you will remember.”  

And Lawrence never forgets.

Extras:

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A disorganized collection of headcanons.

i. Once there was a young boy, a slight and thin thing that begged for a nickname, begged for something, anything, that might be less of a mouthful than Lawrence. Every time that he tried to slip out of his name and into something else though his father would give him a hard look that spoke more volumes than the young boy ever wanted to interpret. The best he ever came up with was Wren, and for weeks at scuola primaria he got away with it, but then his teacher sent a letter home about ‘Wren’ hitting another student and that was the last straw.

The boy father sat his son down and stared at him hard in the eyes, not for the first time and certainly not the last, and said something that would stay with the young boy for the rest of his life.

“Perception is power, Lawrence. Do you not know that? Have I not taught you this well enough yet?”

“But Papá, it’s just a name–” the young boy starts, but is interrupted by his father immediately.

“There’s weight in a name, son. I named you Lawrence for a reason–don’t ever let anyone make you something you are not, including yourself. Our lives are built on our name; they define who we are, who we might become. The names we surround ourselves with are equally as important. You, my son? You are named for the Saint Laurence of Rome, who refused to turn over gold and riches to the Pope and instead presented him with the people who the Church had been instructed to help–the poor and the disabled, the faithful who had lost faith. To bear your name means that you understand your purpose, sometimes better even than the people who have given you this purpose. We Vernons are the hands used to defend our chosen people. The Montagues lead this city, and it is our God-given mission to stand beside them and make their rule possible. If you must choose a nickname, then be called Vernon, for nothing else would do you justice.”

The young boy could only look at his father with wide eyes, but his shoulders stay straight. The father puts his hands on either of the young boy’s shoulders and bends down so that they are at eye level.

“What’s your name?” the father asks, after a long pause.

“Lawrence Vernon.”

The father smiles then, a half-life thing that paints only the left side of his face in warmth, like even with his child he cannot afford to show kindness, to show softness. The boy doesn’t understand this now, but later, when the father is gone, he will. He places a cold palm on his son’s cheek, pats it gently and says “Good.”

And with that he takes his leave.

ii. Lawrence has three different degrees, two from Oxford and one from Cambridge, just for some balance, all of which he did residencies abroad for and completed on accelerated timelines. One he did in Berlin, while he was studying Organizational Psychology. The second was in France, for while he was studying Political Science. The last, and his favorite, was being abroad in Tokyo while he studied Economics. During all of these pursuits of higher education, Lawrence was simultaneously courting and securing new clients across the globe, and reassuring and reaffirming relationship with clients they already had at the same time.

iii. Lawrence’s sense of dress and style was always a point of contention between him and Alvise, who frequently and loudly disapproved of the garb Lawrence chose to don, but it was the singular thing he constantly held his own ground on. He has a strange affinity for hawaiian shirts and other strange forms of decadence, like the gold necklace with a tiny version of the hands from The Creation of Adam painting he sometimes hangs around his neck, or the ornate guns with paintings of saints on them that he loves to buy even though they usually less accurate than the high-grade weapons the mob buys (what his gun lacks, he decides to make up for in personal skill, call it a challenge). He puts on a suit when he must, but it’s usually Gucci or highly stylized Dolce & Gabbana. He likes texture and the ornate, and he won’t let anyone take that away from him.  

iv. Her name grows unimportant with time, but the way she lingers in Lawrence’s bones does not change. He is eighteen and on his first solo mission abroad, with war and strategy in his marrow but youth in his blood, when what should be a standard check in with foreign clients in France turns into a month long stay for fear of losing them to a local distributor. He wears the weight of expectation heavy on his broad shoulders and has never once bowed to it, never once stumbled beneath its weight, but for the first and last time a girl will make him question his name.

A girl with her head in the clouds and her feet securely on the ground beneath her feet, she smiles like the sun and it makes his heart sing, blinds him every moment that he stumbles across her path. They meet when he finds out that one of his new enemies is the husband of a local artist and he goes into the man’s studio only to stop dead in his tracks at the sight of a woman sitting in the center of the room, a white sheet covering some parts of her, but many not, and when she looks at him it feels like a fire has ignited in his blood, slowly burning away the expectation and the name in his marrow.

They fuck in the room the artist rents to her above the studio that night, and Lawrence stops caring about the world of wars that feels a million miles away, like it’s in another country, in another time, in another life.

Alvise sends men to help Lawrence secure their clients wallets once and for all when he goes silent for over a week, but they report that his strategist son has fallen for a peasant girl. Alvise bids them pay her weight in gold, and Lawrence Vernon comes home, his heart left behind in France where a peasant girl hadn’t even bothered to kiss him goodbye.

Once upon a time there was a girl who he would give away his name for; there never was again.

[dinamicus]

While reading several fanfics, I noticed how fans believed that Frieza used to treat Vegeta in a harsh way, which caused the prince to be traumatized by him and go insane. This they say would explain how he was so evil and ruthless just like Frieza by the Saiyan Arc.

Perhaps, the line used in the…

[heroineimages]

Bree’s date with Becca

So in my first story about my pikewoman OC Bree, Bree mentions going on a date to the theater with her future wife Becca. I went ahead and wrote that scene out, just for the heck of it, if anyone is interested. There’s a few things I’m not super happy with, so feedback is most welcome. (Also, my other Bree story.)

“I suppose it was entertaining, on the whole,” Bree admitted as she left the theater, arm around Becca. “The acting was competent, and I liked that they were able to make the melodrama semi-comedic without it feeling overdone or silly. But at the same time the story and characters felt overly… trope-reliant, and making the elf princeling’s forbidden half-elf lover a lad instead of lass didn’t really add anything to the story.”

“Those’re fair points, but you’re missing a lot of the literary and cultural context,” Becca explained. “The play is high elf in origin, and high-elf society is often highly insular and untrusting of outsiders; stage romances between elves and half-elves or non-elves always serve as cautionary tragedies in high-elf theatre. Human characters are always depicted as near-sighted and reckless, dwarves are always greedy and untrustworthy, wood-elves are flighty with short attention-spans, Halflings are either sneaky or flamboyant to hide ulterior motives, and gnomes are hardworking and trustworthy but ultimately kind of dumb. Half-elf characters, meanwhile, either struggle with their divided parentage in ways that ultimately lead to their tragic downfalls, or they seek disproportionate revenge on their elf-parent out of bitterness for this aforementioned divided parentage—depending on whether they’re a protagonist or antagonist. And keep in mind that all of the characters are traditionally played by elf actors.”

“Sounds like a lazy, ethnocentric set of tropes, to me,” Bree scowled, though somewhat amused at the thought of some elf acting on his knees with a fake beard and dwarvish accent. “But I think I see what you’re getting at. By taking this traditional high-elf play and casting humans as humans, dwarves as dwarves, and half-elves as half-elves, the producers are deliberately satirizing those lazy, ethnocentric stereotypes, thereby thumbing their noses at the original elf writers.”

“Well, and elf theater in general tends to take itself far too seriously,” Becca added. “They’re hyper-focused on maintaining authenticity—especially as far as costume, setting, period, and staying to script—and tend to discourage deviation and experimentation with the original material. Which, frankly, takes all the fun out of their theater and is probably why it’s largely inaccessible to non-elf audiences,” she shrugged. “It’s why I love seeing this kind of experimentation with high-elf drama.”

“Good evening, Corporal,” Lady Theodora’s voice came from behind them. They turned to see the tall Aasimar noblewoman smiling politely, hands clasped in front of her scarlet dress. It was a surprisingly humble gesture that felt out of character to Bree. But then, Bree was used to seeing her ladyship wearing enchanted mithral plate armor, wielding a poleaxe or zweihander, and splattered with blood from some giant-kin or goblinoid. “I thought that was you. I appreciate seeing my people immersing themselves in culture during their leave time—I wasn’t aware that you enjoyed the theater,” her lady said.

“Fair evening, my lady,” Bree bowed in return. “And yes, I’ve enjoyed theater since I was a girl. My father helped build the theater house in my hometown, so we went fairly regularly. He, ah, knew people who could get us free admission. You’ve met Becca?” she asked, introducing her girlfriend.

“I don’t believe so,” Lady Theodora admitted, taking Becca’s hand. “You are Sergeant Orrin’s widow, yes?”

“Yes, my lady,” Becca smiled. “It’s lovely to meet you at last.”

“I apologize that I was unable to give my condolences in person,” her ladyship offered, clutching Becca’s hand in both of hers. “I was on an expedition in the Underdark with part of the company, and didn’t learn of his death until after the funeral had taken place. How have you held up, my dear?”

“I’ve gotten by,” Becca admitted, “though the months since his death have been… difficult, emotionally. And every day it saddens me that my Amya will have so few memories of her father, and Adorabella will have none at all.” She sighed, wiping a tear. Bree slid a comforting hand up and down her back.

“But Bree has been my saving grace,” Becca continued, smiling again and sliding her free arm about Bree’s waist. “I don’t know how I’d have handled any of this without her.”

“I’m pleased to hear that,” her ladyship said, squeezing Becca’s hand once more before turning to pat Bree’s shoulder. “I’d tell you to take good care of her, Corporal,” Lady Theodora smiled wryly, “but I suspect I needn’t worry on that account.”

“Of course not, milady,” Bree smiled back.

“It was a pleasure to meet you, my dear,” her ladyship bowed politely.

“And you, my lady,” Becca bowed back.

“A pleasant evening to both of you.”

They watched for a moment as Lady Theodora left. Bree smirked to herself as her ladyship linked arms with a delicate Moon-elf courtesan with bright blue hair.

Keeping their arms around the other’s waist, Bree and Becca discussed drama and literature as they made their way home. It had been a pleasant evening, all around; the girls were with Orrin’s mother, giving Becca a much-needed night off. On leave for a few days, Bree invited her to attend the local theater. Becca wore a dark blue dress with a black corset while Bree wore her cream-and-crimson surcoat, dress uniform, infantry gloves, and her corporal’s broadsword.

Bree leaned over to kiss the top of her tiny girlfriend’s head. They were such an oddly complementary yet contrasting pair. Both had dark hair, Bree’s the shade of dark chocolate, while Becca’s was more of an obsidian color. Both also had browned skin, Bree’s from her southern-coastal heritage and years on the campaign trail, Becca’s from her wood-elf grandparents. But, gods, their height difference was jarring. Becca was tiny, slender, delicate, and barely as high as Bree’s armpit. Bree was a colossus by comparison: tall, broad-shouldered, and fairly muscular. Lifting Becca in her arms took virtually no effort; in fact, Bree’s chainmail and campaign kit easily weighed more than Becca did.

Becca’s house wasn’t in the worst part of town, but it was as deep into the rougher parts of town as the constables were willing to venture at night. Stabbings, muggings, and burglaries were not unheard of, and both of them felt safer when Bree stayed the night while on leave. This wasn’t to say it was an entirely bad neighborhood—good people lived there and looked out for each other when necessary. But as a small, half-elf widow living on her own, Becca was particularly vulnerable to break-ins, mugging, or even rape. While Orrin was alive, she’d been one of the safest people in the neighborhood, none of the local hoods wanting to mess with a veteran infantryman, nor incur the wrath of Lady Theodora’s company by taking out one of her soldiers.

Hence another reason Bree continued to visit Becca and her daughters. Though not as experienced as Sergeant Orrin had been, Bree was taller, stronger, and more physically imposing. Too, Bree wore her uniform, surcoat, and broadsword when she came to visit: a reminder that she was also part of the company and not to be messed with.

At least, that was the theory.

Bree felt a zephyr of movement as they passed the alley next to Becca’s favorite bakery. It was all the warning she needed for her training to kick in. She stepped back and unwrapped her arm from Becca, twisting to her left to let her surcoat partially deflect the dagger thrust. Gripping her assailant’s wrist with her left hand, she jerked him off balance and stuffed her right elbow into his throat. The sandy-haired half-elf attacker gagged and stumbled, but kept his grip on the dagger. Twisting his arm upside-down, Bree slammed her elbow downward against his, breaking his arm. She finally released his wrist as the half-elf dropped his dagger and staggered back, screaming and clutching his arm.

Not drawing her sword just yet, Bree stepped into an unarmed-combat stance, keeping her body between the alley and Becca. Two more thugs—human teens—stood at the mouth of the alley, daggers drawn but looking hesitant.

“Now, this is interesting,” Bree commented, eyeing her opponents but keeping her senses open for attacks from other directions. She felt Becca’s hand gripping the back of her surcoat. “If you were just random footpads, you’d have either run for it or come to your friend’s aid by now. But you’re hesitating—which means you know something that’s making you uncertain of whether it’s worth trying. Tell me what you know, and you walk away under your own power.”

“Don’t tell her shit,” the injured half-elf managed to grate out. “Get her!”

“I kill bugbears and ogres for a living,” Bree informed them calmly. “Three footpads with cheese knives can’t do much more than annoy me. Trust me that you’ll want to come clean on this.”

“G–Gideon Freeling,” one of the youths stammered. “He–he hired us to take you out. It w–was supposed to look like a mugging turned violent.”

“And then he just happens to show up to ‘rescue’ me at the last moment,” Becca suggested icily. Bree could almost hear her scowling.

“Who the hell’s Gideon Freeling?” Bree asked, not taking her attention from their attackers.

“A yeoman merchant who’s obsessed with me,” Becca explained louder than expected. “He inherited his father’s little trio of merchant scows, but, unlike his father, he gets his lieutenants to do all the work. He used to come around even before Orrin died, trying to bribe or sweet-talk me into running off with him.”

Bree felt the edge of her mouth curl as she realized why Becca was talking so loud.

“The man’s a disgusting hobgoblin-spawn who thinks he’s entitled to whatever he wants and can’t accept the fact that someone said ‘no’ to him,” Becca fumed, though Bree could feel her tiny hand trembling as it clutched the back of Bree’s surcoat.

“My dear Becca, that’s hardly charitable,” a new voice objected, storming in from another nearby alley. Gideon Freeling was a tallish, slightly muscular, basically handsome human male with wavy, dark-brown hair and a neatly trimmed goatee. Bree noted Freeling wore cheap imitations of some of the local nobles’ doublets and hose. She suspected his rapier was an heirloom of some kind. “I’ve been entirely generous with my gifts, but—”

“But my affections can’t be bought!” Becca cut him off with a snarl. “You want to know what I did with all of the gifts you gave me? I sold them! I sold them and used the money to pay for rent or groceries. During a good month, I put the money into a fund to pay for my daughters’ schooling once they’re older.”

Freeling looked taken aback. “Dearest Becca, why didn’t you tell me of your financial—?”

“Because it wasn’t any of your fucking business,” Becca cut him off again. “I love my husband and my daughters—and I love Bree. I don’t know what made you think you could steal me away from them. The biggest mistake I ever made was ever attempting to be polite to you. I should have told you to fuck off that first time we met!”

“But a woman so beautiful as you deserves—”

“For hell’s sake, this isn’t about what you think I deserve!” she snapped. “And it’s even less about what you think you deserve. Stay out of my life!”

“You! You turned her against me,” Freeling accused, jabbing a finger at Bree.

“Really?” Bree cocked an eyebrow. “You’re going to take that track? I don’t think you’re giving yourself enough credit.”

“I saw you at the good Sergeant’s funeral,” the idiot went on, still glaring. Bree didn’t recall seeing him but didn’t really care if he was telling the truth or not. “Already you’re taking advantage of a disenfranchised widow. You’re naught but a thug in a uniform: a common mercenary and an infantrywoman at that. Good for nothing but fodder for goblin arrows.”

“I can also hammer nails and saw boards pretty well,” Bree shrugged, crossing her arms. “Or did you not notice the repairs to Becca’s roof and door?” she asked, motioning her head toward Becca’s house, just down the street.

“Ogreish barbarian,” Freeling mocked unimaginatively, drawing his rapier. “I challenge you to a duel! Defend yourself!”

Bree made sure his hired footpads were staying out of the fight, then shifted to face the lout, adopting a bare-knuckle stance. The footpads were, in fact, in the process of skulking away while her attention was on Freeling.

“What are you doing? Defend yourself!” Freeling demanded, gesturing to her broadsword.

“I am,” Bree said.

Scowling, Freeling adopted a competent fencing pose, a sign that he’d had lessons at some point and maybe practiced a bit. Stepping in, he thrust the blade at Bree’s chest. Bree dodged a step to her right, then stepped in to grab Freeling’s right wrist with her left hand. Gripping his doublet with her right, she flipped him up in the air, over her head, and onto his back hard enough to knock the wind out of him.

Stepping up beside his prone form as he lay gasping for breath, Bree used the toe of her boot to kick his rapier into the air, catching it left-handed.

“I have to ask, Freeling, exactly what were you expecting to accomplish?” Bree wanted to know as she pointed the tip of the rapier at his throat. “Even if you somehow managed to kill me, what makes you think you’re even in the top hundred candidates for Becca’s undying affection, let alone directly after me and Orrin? Just something to think about.”

Raising the rapier, Bree let Freeling pull himself into a sitting position. “Consider yourself lucky,” she warned him. “I’ve no qualms about killing you, but that kind of thing reflects badly on the company. And, frankly, I’ve had entirely too pleasant a night to want to spend the rest of it down at the constabulary. But if you ever come near Becca or her family again, I swear I will beat you until there’s blood in your stool, understand?”

Without waiting for his reply, Becca turned and laid the rapier atop the bakery’s door sign, high out of Freeling’s reach. Down the street she could see the hired footpads slinking away, one of them supporting the injured half-elf. Bree was slightly surprised none of the neighbors heard the ruckus and decided to investigate, though it wouldn’t have surprised her if a few were watching from their windows.

“I’d vouch for you if you did decide to kill him,” Becca admitted, taking Bree’s arm as they continued homeward.

“He’s not worth the trouble I’d get into,” Bree assured her. Behind them she heard Freeling fuming as he tried to retrieve his sword. “I’ll let you watch if I ever find need to beat the hell out of him, though,” she offered.

“I’d pay good money—” Becca cut off in alarm as she noticed blood on Bree’s surcoat. “Oh my gods, you’re bleeding!”

“Yeah, a little,” Bree shrugged, looking at the gash below her left breast. Her surcoat’s crimson dye made it difficult to spot. “That half-elf dinged me on that first stab. Bastard keeps his knife plenty sharp.”

“Gods, you’re lucky the knife wasn’t poisoned,” Becca murmured, blood on her fingers as she examined the wound. “Lucky Gideon didn’t hire some Drow assassin to take you out.”

“If it’d been a Drow assassin, or any professional assassin, really, I wouldn’t have heard them coming in the first place,” Bree admitted.

“You’re not reassuring me,” Becca scolded. “C’mon, let’s get you patched up.”

They were silent for several minutes as they continued homeward. “Is that why you didn’t draw your sword?” Becca asked as they approached her front door. “Because you didn’t want to accidentally kill him?”

Bree chuckled to herself. “No, I didn’t draw my sword because I’ve never fenced against a rapier.”

“What?” Becca stopped, frowning up at her with one hand on the door handle. “But… you’re a professional soldier!”

“I’m trained to fight with polearms or with sword and shield,” Bree explained. “I can defend myself well enough against an opponent with a longsword or broadsword, or a mace or axe, but rapier-fencing is a different art entirely. A rapier fighter keeps their sword arm forward at all times, while an infantry fighter keeps their left shoulder toward their opponent, for example. Plus, his rapier is longer than my broadsword, so drawing on Freeling would have given him advantages I didn’t want him to have. On the other hand, I know how to box, grapple, and wrestle, which let me use my height, strength, and leverage to my advantage.” She shrugged as they entered the house. “When I took his sword earlier is the first time I’ve ever even touched a rapier.”

Becca just stared at her for a long moment. Eventually she grinned and closed her eyes, shaking as she chuckled silently. “I suppose bugbears and ogres don’t tend to carry rapiers very often,” she giggled. “Meanwhile, poor, stupid Gideon is terrified of you because you bested two armed opponents tonight with your bare hands—and you made it look easy.”

While Becca left to fetch bandages, Bree sat at the kitchen table and removed her surcoat and doublet. She was going to get one hell of an icy scolding from Miss Cloven, the gnome woman who was the company’s head laundress, Bree realized as she examined the blood on her shirt. She pulled up her chest wraps to get a better look. The wound itself was more of a poke than a cut, really, she decided as she examined the injury. And it wasn’t that deep a poke.

“I… wow,” Becca murmured from behind her. Bree turned around to see Becca blushing in the doorway, holding bandages, ointment, and a washrag and basin. “You… you have amazing shoulders.”

“Good stock,” Bree shrugged it off as Becca wetted the rag and started cleaning her wound. “My parents, my sister, and my brothers are all tall and sturdy. And I grew up hauling boards and swinging hammers.”

“You’re practically an Amazon,” Becca teased, sitting on Bree’s left knee as she cleaned the cut.

“Not quite,” Bree laughed, shaking her head. “We’ve got three Amazons in the company, and the shortest is almost a half-head taller than me.”

“You’re still my Amazon,” Becca smiled up at her.

Bree watched her tiny girlfriend work, again struck by the size difference between them. Even while sitting on Bree’s lap, Becca’s head wasn’t much above Bree’s shoulder. Bree had been with a few Halfling ladies who were smaller than Becca, but some of them not by much.

“Y’know, it’s kind of funny, I’ve always been so intimidated by people a lot bigger than me,” Becca admitted. “I’m not very strong, and I’ve always been scared of people who could easily overpower me. But I always feel so safe with you. I–I know that you’ll protect me, no matter what,” she said as she finished applying ointment.

“Of course I will,” Bree assured her, kissing the top of her head.

“This isn’t very deep,” Becca said as she looked over the wound. “The bleeding already stopped, and I don’t think you’ll need bandages.” She set the bandages aside and snuggled closer, tucking her head against Bree’s shoulder. Bree wrapped her up in both arms.

“Draxa, that Drow teammate of yours, told me something interesting the other day,” Becca said after a moment.

“Draxa says a lot of interesting things,” Bree shrugged, trying to anticipate where this might be going. With Draxa it was hard to predict.

“She confided that you haven’t lain with anyone since before Orrin was killed,” Becca explained. “She said that the two of you used to visit brothels together or pick up buxom tavern wenches. But you haven’t participated in almost a year. Do you mind if I ask why not?” she asked, looking curious but not accusatory.

“Because I met you,” Bree answered, simply and honestly. “Even though I enjoyed drinking and wenching with the other infantrywomen, I enjoyed my time with you more. Talking with you, drinking tea, fixing your roof, reading stories to your daughters: I found all of that more… fulfilling than getting drunk with my comrades or getting laid with random tavern girls.”

Becca’s big, dark eyes studied her for a long moment. “Even when you’re away on campaign, you still didn’t get laid because of me?”

“I was saving myself for you, and I didn’t want to rush you or pressure you into anything you weren’t comfortable with. And I especially didn’t want to rush things while you were mourning your husband.”

“You don’t have to save yourself any longer,” Becca whispered, leaning up to kiss her.

It was a nice first kiss, Bree decided as they held close. There was something honest about the way Becca kissed—honest in her passion and feelings. She had none of the exaggerated passion of some camp-follower hoping for extra coins nor the nervous enthusiasm of an ale-girl taken in by the novelty of a woman hitting on her. As they broke their kiss, Bree lifted Becca almost effortlessly, carrying her toward the bedroom.

“Please, be gentle,” was Becca’s only request.

Bree chuckled. “I don’t have much practice with ‘gentle,’ but I’ll certainly do my best,” she replied, if somewhat self-deprecatingly.

[adolphuslongestaffe]

Defiant

Chapter 5: The Archer 

The archer stood glaring fiercely up at Jesse, apparently waiting for some kind of explanation. He was an athletically built young man, about five inches shorter than Jesse, with long, glossy black hair that fell over his face and shoulders where it had escaped its restraining tie. But it was his face that had stunned Jesse into silence. His face was perfect. Smooth, pale-olive skin, strong black brows, clear, bright, black eyes, large and almond shaped and shaded by long, sooty lashes. High, aristocratic cheekbones, and pouting, almost insolent lips set firmly above a finely cut chin and jaw.

“Holy fucking shit,” Jesse said aloud, not intending to.

“Holy fucking shit,” the young man repeated slowly in a heavy Japanese accent. “You are American, then. What are you doing in my house, aside from behaving foolishly? I almost killed you.”

“I—I came with Genji,” Jesse stammered, attempting to swallow in a dry throat. “I’m real sorry, but I didn’t know you was shootin’ your—” he broke off abruptly as the absurdity of the situation suddenly called him back to himself. His native pride flared up and his face grew hot with indignation. “Say, what in sam-hell are you doin’, anyhow? Shootin’ at folks with a bow and arrow like you’re Robin Hood or somethin’. Who uses a bow and arrow nowadays?”

The young man stared up at the tall American, his angry expression growing blacker.

“Of course you are one of Genji’s friends,” he said. “My brother has poor judgement in most things, not the least with whom he chooses to associate himself.”

“That’s heavy artillery to level at a fella you just met and almost killed,” Jesse said coolly. He cocked an eyebrow and flashed a rakish grin. “You don’t know the first thing about me.”

For some reason, this appeared to have had a palliative, rather than provoking effect on the young man. That, or he’d simply remembered to restrain his temper.

“You are correct,” he said, his face smoothing into a more placid, though still haughty, expression. “I apologize for my discourtesy. Please be more careful in the future. Particularly when entering the training yard.”

“I think I better apologize too,” Jesse replied, gliding effortlessly into genteel charm. “I was wanderin’ around with my head all in the clouds on account of the place bein’ so beautiful and peaceful, and I didn’t see the targets and things. I didn’t mean no offense about the bow and arrow. I just never saw someone use ‘em before, is all.”

“You find our home beautiful?” the young man said, eyeing him doubtfully.

“I never seen anything half so beautiful in my life,” Jesse replied, gazing steadily into the black eyes.

The young man turned away quickly and appeared to be making some small adjustments to his bowstring. At that moment, Genji’s cheerful voice came echoing across the courtyard.

“Jesse, there you are! I see you have met my brother. Is he boring you to death already?”

“I am not boring,” the archer said, shooting his brother an icy glare. “I am responsible.”

He turned back to the interloping cowboy and bowed stiffly.

“I am Shimada Hanzo, elder son of Shimada Sojiro, Master of the Shimada Clan.”

“Howdy,” Jesse said, sticking out his hand. “My name’s Jesse McCree, only son of Evelyn Harper McCree and whoever my daddy was. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

Hanzo reluctantly took the proffered hand in his and Jesse shook it heartily, more to irritate the arrogant princeling than to be especially polite. The young man gave another stiff bow and departed hastily the way he’d come.

“I apologize for my brother,” Genji said, before Hanzo was out of earshot. “But do not take it personally. He hates everyone.”

Jesse assented politely, but he wasn’t so sure Genji was exactly correct. He wouldn’t bet his last nickel on it, but he’d been almost certain he saw those lofty cheeks flush ever so slightly as the young man had turned away to look at his bow.

He followed Genji to a round, roofed structure in the garden that Genji called a tea house, but Jesse thought looked an awful lot like a gazebo. They sat on mats placed on the bamboo floor, and their meal was served to them by silent servants in black satin kimonos. Genji laughed to see Jesse’s obvious discomfort with being waited upon. He laughed at Jesse’s behavior quite a bit, but there was no hint of ridicule in it. It was obvious that he was delighted with this strange American and the novelty of his cowboy manners. Even if his laughter had been malicious, however, Jesse would not have noticed at that moment. All of his attention was absorbed in the food. He found his senses treated to a series of delicious and spectacular new delicacies, none of which he knew the names for and all of which he thoroughly enjoyed. As they ate, he described the incident with the arrow, to Genji’s boundless amusement.

When they were finished, the servants reappeared to clear away the dishes, and the two boys strolled in the garden. Genji began to inquire eagerly after the details of Jesse’s life. Jesse decided this was the time to breach the second layer of the cover story.

“Look, Genji,” he said gravely, stopping under the shade of a massive, gnarled cedar. “I haven’t been entirely on the up-and-up with you. You been so good and kind, takin’ me under your wing and havin’ me in your home, and it ain’t fair of me to hide things from you.”

The younger boy’s eyes grew wide with curiosity. “What is it, Jesse?”

“Ok, but promise you’ll hear me out before you say anything. Then if you want me to go away and leave you be, I’ll understand.”

“Ok,” the boy repeated, all eyes and ears.

“Well, I been travelin’ under the pretext that I’m takin’ a gap year before college, but the truth is…”

He hesitated for dramatic effect.

“…I’m runnin’ from the law. There, I said it. Now hear me out, you promised. I was orphaned when I was twelve and I had to survive somehow, so I lived pretty rough and tumble, and eventually I took up with a gang of train-robbers. I didn’t want that kinda life, but there wasn’t much choice for a kid like me. I had to do somethin’ or starve. Thing is, I got real good at it and I started to get infamous, like. Sheriffs and whatnot was gunnin’ for me by the time I was sixteen, and I knew I was fixin’ to end up dead or rotting away in jail for the rest of my days. All I wanted was a fair shake, you know? A chance to be someone different. So one night I stole the loot from the gang’s safe and I bolted. I wanted to get as far from Texas as the sun is from the moon, so I wound up here in Japan. I ain’t violent and I ain’t hurtin’ nobody. I’m just tryin’ to live my life as best I can without the Deadlocks and the sheriffs hangin’ over my head. I know I shoulda told you right away, and I hope you can forgive me for hidin’ it at first. But I didn’t mean no harm. I been mighty lonesome and you’re the first friend I’ve made since…well, in a powerful long while.”

Just as Jesse expected, the younger boy was elated with the romance and adventure of the tale. He assured Jesse that he wasn’t angry and swore he’d never tell anyone, then positively battered Jesse with questions regarding train robberies and motorcycles and living like a bandit in the vast Texas wastes. Jesse, who had in very fact lived the life he’d described, proved to be a bottomless source of information on the subject. Before an hour had passed, he’d explained how to board a slow-moving train, how to slow down a fast one without derailing it, how to position your men for an assault, how to control a crowd of panicked passengers, and even how to crack a time-locked safe.

If Genji had any doubts regarding his friend’s truthfulness at the beginning of the conversation, he had none at the end. He had found a real-life Jesse James. An outlaw by necessity turned hero, struggling to walk the treacherous path to redemption. He’d liked his new cowboy friend before, but he was over the moon now. He had never known anyone like Jesse, and he privately thought Jesse must be the most interesting person he’d ever met. He envied the independence and gritty self-sufficiency apparent in the young man. His own life had been one of walls and rules and lessons, and his father’s constant disappointment as he failed to perform as well as his brother at any and every endeavor.

Jesse couldn’t help the sinking feeling of guilt in the pit of his stomach as he saw how much the boy had genuinely taken to him, all the while knowing that he still hadn’t been entirely honest. But his loyalty to the mission, the organization, and the commander who had rescued him from the very life he’d described to Genji overbore his guilt. He wouldn’t have betrayed the commander even under actual torture, and he wouldn’t now. His thoughts flew back to those long days and nights spent in the field together, depending upon each other for their survival. The talks they’d had about their lives and loves. And the secret he’d kept all this time. The thing that bound him even more closely to the man he idolized and adored.

Then the face of the superior young archer rose like a sun above the horizon of his mind and extinguished all other thoughts in its blazing corona. He felt at once that he would betray the mission, the commander, his very soul, if the owner of that face desired it. He was keenly alive and alert, agonizingly awake to a fresh, bleeding wound that gaped at the center of his being and threatened to consume him.

“Hey, Genj,” he said, already using an affectionately abbreviated name for his friend, who he genuinely liked immensely. “I don’t know if I feel so much like goin’ to a rowdy dance club tonight. Would you mind terribly if I begged off?”

The boy looked anxiously into his friend’s handsome face. “Are you unwell, Jesse?”

“No, no, nothin’ like that. Only I’m awful tired from traveling and all that mess and I think I’d rather be quiet tonight.”

“But you would still like to spend time with me, yes? If we chose a more quiet activity?”

“Oh, no,” Jesse said, then corrected, “I mean yes, I’d like that very much, but I don’t want to throw a wet blanket all over your fun just cause I’m out of sorts. You should go.”

“Nonsense,” the younger boy said, his usual cheerful grin returning. “I have been to many such dance clubs many times. I only go because I am bored at home and become restless. But if you are with me, I will not be bored or restless. We can do anything you like.”

After some waffling and indecision (entirely on Genji’s part), they decided upon taking a walk to the hot springs across the small town, and then getting supper at one of the excellent restaurants in the area. Before they departed, Jesse excused himself to the restroom to report in to the commander again. He fitted the mic around his throat and placed the earbud in his ear, then pressed the button to open a transmission. Reyes responded immediately.

“Jesse,” his tinny voice said through the earbud, “do you know where you are?”

“Well, yes, sir I do. I’m in a toilet inside Shimada castle.”

“And you are aware who your new friend is.”

“Yes, sir, I am.”

“Boy, I don’t know if you’re doing something to make luck love you, or if you’re charmed or what. We’re in Japan less than 24 hours, and you’re already in the door of Shimada castle. This is better than the best I hoped for.”

“Thanks, boss, but it really was just dumb luck.”

“Well, keep it up, whatever it is. Let’s stay on this. See where it goes. Maybe we can work out a way to get their help, after all.”

“Understood, sir,” Jesse said. “And boss, we’re on our way to the hot spring and then dinner in town. Just so’s you can stay on top of us.”

“Got it,” the commander replied. “Check in again at 2300. Good work, mijo.”

“Thank you, boss.”

Jesse removed the radio accoutrement and rejoined his friend in his frankly enormous bedroom. Genji was sprawled out on his bed poking disgustedly at his telephone’s screen.

“I hope you are not displeased,” he said, “but my father insists that my brother accompany us. I will not allow him to be so unpleasant this time, though.”

“Oh, no, I don’t mind at all,” Jesse said, looking as though he minded very much. “No. Yeah. That’s just fine with me. More the merrier and all that. Y’all wouldn’t mind stopping by my hotel for a minute, though, would you? I gotta pick up my bathing suit and things.”

“Jesse, it is not permitted to wear a bathing suit in the hot spring,” Genji said, stifling a laugh at Jesse’s startled expression.

Jesse was in a situation now. He had never been afflicted with what anyone would call excessive modesty. His body was universally admirable, and he was not at all shy about nudity. But he found the idea of being seen in nothing but his skin by that particular young man, especially in a public hot tub, little brother in tow and god knows who else around into the bargain, to be a very distressing proposition. But going with the flow had worked out for him so far, so he screwed up his courage and followed the two brothers out the front gate, figuring he’d take the situation as it came.

As they exited the grounds, he saw that Genji’s friends from the arcade had accompanied them once again, and were walking together, a few paces to the rear.

“How big are those hot tubs, Genj?” he said. “Enough to fit all of us?”

The younger boy looked confused. “The three of us?” he asked.

Jesse indicated the group of young men behind them. “With your friends comin’ now, that makes eight of us.”

Genji laughed aloud and his older brother cleared up the misunderstanding.

“They are not our friends,” Hanzo said, keeping his eyes on the road ahead. “They are our bodyguards.”

“That a fact,” Jesse said. “What do you fellas need bodyguards for? I mean, you both look like you could handle yourselves in a scrap.”

“We can,” Genji said. “But our enemies would not attempt to kill us by engaging us in a fair fight. That would be foolishness.”

“I bet it would,” the cowboy said, eyeing the lithe, muscular arms of the archer who had nearly put an abrupt end to his life a few hours earlier. “But I don’t understand. Y’all have enemies that might try and kill you?”

“They will not make an attempt on us here,” Hanzo said. “You need not fear for your safety. It is merely a precaution that our father requires us to take.”

“Ah,” Jesse said. “Dad’s a little overprotective. I get you.”

This elicited no response from the taciturn archer, so Jesse disregarded him and talked with Genji as they made their way across the little town. The actual ordeal with the hot spring turned out to be far less trying than he’d anticipated. He lingered in the dressing room, and the brothers were already in the steaming water when he joined them, so he was able to drop his towel and slip discreetly into the tub without anyone taking notice. Genji kicked his feet and splashed about, chatting enthusiastically with Jesse about whatever popped into his head, and Hanzo rested against the far side of the tub with his eyes and mouth shut. Jesse’s awkwardness wore off rapidly, and the hot, mineral-rich water had a miraculous effect on his body. All the soreness and stiffness of intercontinental travel dissolved from his muscles and joints, and he left the soak refreshed and energized.

He was the first to be dressed, so he went outside and lit a cigarette. The older brother emerged next, and stood against the wall a few feet away, arms crossed and silent as a sphinx.

“Howdy,” Jesse said, exhaling a plume of white smoke into the air and tipping his hat to the stoic young man.

“Hello,” the sphinx in question replied.

“You know,” Jesse said, pushing back the brim of his hat, “howdy don’t mean hello. It’s short for how do you do. It’s a courteous question, and most folks bother themselves to give a courteous answer.”

The black eyes darted up to his face, as if the young man were preparing a sharp retort. But once again, the severe expression smoothed.

“I am well, Mr. McCree.”

“Just Jesse is fine.”

“I am well, Jesse. I trust you are also in good health.”

“Healthy as a mule,” Jesse said affably, taking the opening where he could get it. “Specially after that soak. I feel as fresh as a brand new day. Spry and limber and relaxed all over. I wish I’d known about hot springs before. I coulda been marinating the soreness all out of me for years.”

Did the ghost of a smile pass over the young archer’s face? Maybe not.

“They are quite useful,” he said curtly.

Jesse turned to face the young man. “Tell me somethin’, Han-so,” he said, emphasizing the second syllable. “Why do you dislike me so much? I know I offended you earlier and got things off on the wrong foot and all, but I’m tryin’ my best to be friendly. All’s I want is to have a pleasant conversation, and you’re all spikes and thorns.”

Had the ardent young cowboy known how to read the other man rightly, he would have thought twice before asking such a tactless question. But he did not. Not yet. He saw only the austere, unyielding façade, not comprehending that it had been erected to shield its helpless occupant, who was at that moment foundering in the depths of internal torment.

“My name,” the archer said icily, “is pronounced Hanzo.”

“Alright, Hanzo,” Jesse said, bruised by the dismissive parry of his advance. “Have it your way then. There ain’t no rule that says we’ve got to be friends.”

They waited in silence, the archer brooding and the cowboy smoking, till Genji finally appeared. Jesse observed a silent look of disapproval from the older brother, which was met by an acidic smile from the younger. He began to think maybe he had misjudged the relationship between these two strange siblings, and became more alert to what passed between them from that moment on.

Dinner was a long, lively affair, filled with Jesse’s stories and Genji’s merry, musical laughter. Even Hanzo forgot himself and smiled a few times. But Jesse noted that Genji had begun drinking sake before their food was served, and continued to drink throughout the meal. The fact was not remarkable in itself, since they all did so. What was remarkable was the quantity Genji consumed. Jesse, who’d been brought up to rotgut whiskey like it was mother’s milk, had several glasses of the gentle spirit, and was stone-cold sober. Hanzo didn’t even finish his first glass. But Genji finished several bottles, and by the end of the meal, he was absolutely drunk. As the younger brother grew more intoxicated, the older brother became more withdrawn and silent, till he ceased participating in the conversation entirely. This irritated Genji and he began to goad his brother.

“Look, Jesse,” he said, tugging on the sleeve of Jesse’s shirt. “My brother is so proper. Is he not?”

Jesse attempted to shift the topic. “Weren’t we talkin’ about—”

“He is angry with me,” Genji interrupted. “Because I am irresponsible and he is perfect. But he is jealous because I have a good time and girls like me.”

He was slurring his words together sloppily, and leaned on Jesse for support as he began to sway in his seat.

“No girls like him at all,” he said with a burst of drunken laughter. “Jesse, remember the girl at the hot spring? The one at the counter? Wasn’t she pretty?”

“I don’t know,” his friend said. “I guess in a kind of way, sure.”

“You did not like her?”

“She, uh, she ain’t exactly…my type,” Jesse said uneasily.

“Well, I liked her. And she liked me very much. She came into my dressing room after we—”

“Shimada Genji,” his brother said sternly. “That is enough.”

He didn’t raise his voice above an ordinary conversational pitch, but the effect was the same as if he had shouted. Genji gave a start and shut his mouth. There was a tense beat of silence, then Genji laughed and resumed his disjointed chatter, but he did not return to the topic of the girl at the hot spring. Genji wanted to remain and continue drinking, but Jesse coaxed him away at last with a promise to go and get his guitar and sing them some cowboy songs. He ran up to his room and grabbed it as they passed by his hotel on their way back, and he scribbled a note to the commander, explaining his whereabouts. Then he rejoined his party in the street, and assisted Hanzo in leading the stumbling boy homeward.

When they entered the common hall in the brothers’ shared quarters, Hanzo departed without a word, leaving Jesse to entertain his drunken friend on his own. The two went to Genji’s bedroom, where he produced cans of beer from a small refrigerator and laid on the floor, listening to Jesse play some old, folksy songs and country standards. When it became apparent that the boy had fallen asleep, Jesse lifted him into his bed, disposed of the empty cans, and packed up his guitar.

As he passed through the cavernous main hall, his steps were arrested by a strain of the sweetest, most heartbreaking music he’d ever heard. It was some kind of stringed instrument with which he was unfamiliar, and it was being played by someone there in the building. The melody led him down the darkened hallway across from Genji’s room to an open doorway, from which a light and the music emanated. He set his feet down gently, almost breathlessly, afraid lest he should make a sound to disturb the player, and that music would stop. Inside the room, he could see the older brother, kneeling on the floor with his back almost directly to the door. He was playing a long, flat wooden instrument, distantly related to the guitar, that lay before him on the floor. Jesse was spellbound. He stood rooted to the spot, straining to catch every note of the haunting, exotic melody. As the song ended, he cleared his throat softly, hoping not to startle the young man.

The young man turned his head and looked up at him expectantly.

“Pardon me, Hanzo, I didn’t mean to intrude,” Jesse said. “I just come to let you know Genji’s passed out and it’d probably be wise to have someone look in on him at some point tonight.”

“Thank you. I will inform the servants.”

“And I wanted to say, I…I hope you didn’t think I was laughin’ at your expense or nothin’ when we was at dinner. I don’t think Genji’s right to talk about you like he does, specially not in front of me who’s a stranger to y’all. But there ain’t no sense in arguin’ with a man when he’s in his liquor. Most times it just riles him up worse. So I apologize if I seemed like I was agreein’ with him.”

It had indeed seemed precisely that way to Hanzo. He was surprised to hear such a circumspect and considerate sentiment expressed by this coarse cowboy, who he had not taken to be particularly intelligent. He regarded the tall American with a not entirely hostile eye. Jesse took this for a favorable sign and advanced a step into the room. Hanzo stood abruptly.

“Say, if you don’t mind me askin’,” Jesse said, stopping where he stood and indicating toward the instrument, “what's that thing you’re fiddlin’ on?”

“This thing,” the archer said, “is a koto.”

“Well, it’s the prettiest music I ever heard. I play this old squawk box.” Jesse held up the guitar case. “But I ain’t anything like the musician you are.”

The black eyes gazed up at him in silence.

“I wonder,” Jesse went on, “if you wouldn’t mind too terribly, would you maybe want to show me a little how you play one of those? I could show you how to play guitar in return, so’s everything’s fair.”

“I am very tired, Mr. McCree,” Hanzo said.

Jesse went a bit red in the face, embarrassed by the rebuff of his impulsive request.

“Oh, of course,” he said, attempting to backtrack. “I didn’t mean to…some other time, maybe.”

“Some other time, maybe,” Hanzo repeated slowly. Then, to Jesse’s wide-eyed astonishment, he said, “Perhaps…tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow? Really? Yeah, absolutely,” the cowboy said eagerly. “Any time at all, you name it.”

“Noon?” the archer offered.

Jesse couldn’t quite believe this turn of events. He agreed to the time, said he’d be there with bells on, an idiom that confused his host entirely, then made his escape before the other young man could have a chance to change his mind.