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rainbows-fanfics · 4 months

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All'inzio (Chapter 29) EPILOGUE

Summary: A soldier-in-training, Valerie hopes to join the Valencian Army to avenge her father’s death under the wing of General Rooke. But when she happens to catch the attention of Commander Kane, her plans take a different turn.

Human AU of the Armada from Pirate101, where Kane meets his Queen.

Pairing: Kane/Queen

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Note: The title translates to “at the beginning”.

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A figure trailed down the dark corridors of King Casimir's castle. At this point in the night, the rooms were illuminated by candles and lanterns carried by the Valencian guards stationed on duty. The colors from the flames shone on the woman's silhouette as she passed by two men guarding the doors, who dipped their heads in her presence. The only sounds were the steps of her heels pressing against the gray marble flooring. Things were silent otherwise, as others were reasonably long into their slumber.

Queen had to slow down when she found herself exhausted. She held onto a nearby wall for support as her other hand came to her stomach. Her fingers lightly pressed against the area just above her belly button before slowly trailing down the small curvature that formed within these weeks. Beyond her palm was the source of fatigue, sickness, and worry she kept bottled up for two months. She managed to hide it through careful planning and sheer luck. But the inevitable time this secret would show in a physical form was one she hadn't exactly prepared for.

She continued on until she arrived at the last door of the long hallway. She practically collapsed on its surface and removed herself before any more noise could be made. She lingered a few seconds for any activity. Hearing silence, she knocked her knuckles a couple of times gently. A muffled voice replied from the other side:

"Enter."

Her small hand pushed the door open. While such a task would normally be done with ease, she was short of breath. She darted in the small space and stepped into the room. She was surrounded by stacks of paper and miscellaneous machinery sprawled out on the floor. Her brown eyes found a figure of a man hunched over his desk, his face obscured by a small prototype his gloved hands were currently tending to. Queen stepped forward and hesitated to speak. Rarely would she enter one of her husband’s work rooms and interrupt him for trivial matters.

Normally, she would be in their proper bedroom right now, waiting for Kane’s eventual return to the mansion. But he informed her he’d be working late tonight. And she so desperately wanted to spend time with him. He’d been so busy lately - cooped up in his work again, even though she scolded him countless times before for sacrificing his sleep….

She took a long breath, attempting to not sound as exhausted as she truly was. "Darling, I was wondering when you'd come to bed..? It's awfully late."

He acknowledged her with a wave of his hand. "-Shortly. I'm nearly finished with this for the night."

She bit her tongue. He had a habit of getting absorbed in things when the time became late. She grew lonely the longer he remained away. She was unusually restless tonight. It was becoming more difficult to hide her showing through her nightgowns - their transparent layers doing only so well at concealing her stomach. Even the one she wore now, a golden garment with white trim that loosely came to her ankles, effectively covered only half her abdomen. A long slit in the middle created an opening that would reveal the long curve of her tummy if one stared too long. She discreetly brought her arms down to cover the region as she approached his desk.

"Kane, it's getting colder the longer you're not beside me. You barely got any sleep the other night, amore mio. I think it's time for you to rest."

Kane paused in what he was doing and laid down a piece he planned to glue. He stood in his chair and her hands quickly came over her stomach again. She caught this habit and allowed her arm to rest while the other uncertainly found its way to the edge of his desk. He turned and fixated his eyes on hers. She was thankful his gaze did not wander any lower, and whimpered when his gloved finger found its way to her face. He used his thumb to stroke his wife's chin lightly.

"I apologize, cuore mio. I've spent too much of my time here again. I hope you'll forgive me for not remaining by your side when you most need me."

Her chest grew warm when his face came closer to hers. She could feel his mask press against her cheek while they kissed. She enjoyed every second until he pulled away. Her hands naturally reached for his own, but he passed by her to approach the door. She followed and found herself tired by the time they were in the doorway. Her legs grew weak as she rested a hand on his back. She looked at Kane with pleading eyes.

"Would you mind carrying me back to our room..? I'm tired staying awake for this long. It's so far way..."

He didn't pry, much to her relief. Without a word, he swept Queen off her feet and carried her bridal-style. Her hands came to the ends of her gown and layered them to hide the bump. Kane was too busy closing the door to notice. He started the trip back to their temporary bedroom. Queen closed her eyes and relished this moment where she didn't have to say anything. To enjoy his touch after all these hours of being alone...

She snapped back into reality when she was gently laid on the bed. Her eyes followed him as he changed out of his uniform. She chewed on her lip, thinking how she could uncover the news to her husband. She wondered if he would even be happy to learn they were…expecting. She imagined how the situation would transpire if the news wasn't taken so greatly. She reasoned with herself that he wouldn't get upset. She took a deep breath and prepared to tell him...

------------------

Kane had a lot on his mind tonight. He was so swept up in his work that he hadn't realized how much time passed. He was thankful Queen interrupted the process, otherwise he would've worked himself into the morning. He didn't fancy missing an entire night with her. How could he have been so neglectful? He grew disgusted with himself just thinking about it, and decided tonight that he would not spend another moment away. He realized how fatigued he was the longer he continued to sit still. It was for the best they'd sleep now, and another night he could make it up to her...

When he climbed into bed, he found a strange look on Queen's face. There was something on her mind. She edged closer as her hand fingered its way to his chest, where it remained as she pressed herself against his side. He usually grew touch-starved after not seeing her, but the reasonable part of him was somewhat wary at the coy gesture. He knew his wife well after being married to her for years, now.

"Before we sleep, I have something important to tell you. Some news I've keeping from you..."

"-From me?" He asked. It was unusual for her to keep any secrets. "What for?"

"I didn't exactly know how to tell you. I was a little afraid you wouldn't be too happy about it-"

She knew he wanted to question her on this, so her finger went to his lips to hush him down. He was about to ask what unfortunate news she was about to deliver. But seeing her insist on continuing kept him quiet. He allowed Queen to gather her thoughts. She was hesitant to relay whatever it was, confirming Kane's suspicions that this was serious. He attempted to think of anything unfavorable that happened between them lately.

"Honey, do you remember when we went to the King's masquerade party months ago?" He nodded. "And that night, when we...celebrated such a good time?"

The dots were beginning to connect, but to what, he didn't exactly know. He motioned for her to continue despite the long pause. She began to fidget, toying with the tassels on his clothes and looking away from him. He passed this moment by taking a proper look at her figure. She positioned herself differently than usual, and wore a gown that was loose on her. Before his eyes could wander any further, Queen decided to cut to the chase and inhaled sharply.

"Kane...I'm carrying your baby," Those words left her lips bluntly. "I have been, for a couple months now. At first I thought I was ill, but when it prolonged, I...I realized-"

He felt too astonished for words, but to his surprise, they slipped right off his tongue: "-You're... pregnant?"

She winced. "I am."

Now the dots were connected. He had an answer to the questionable habits of hers lately. They never went unnoticed with him, but he hadn't pried, as he trusted she would've let him know if something was wrong. All the times she politely declined alcohol, how long it took her to get dressed in the mornings, the extra trips she made to the restroom, and how easily she grew tired....they made sense.

He rested his hand on his chin as he absorbed this news, his eyes quickly darting over to her stomach. Queen realized what he was looking at and slowly moved her arms so he could see. That's when he found the small baby bump she'd been concealing this entire time.

"I thought," He began quietly. "I thought we were careful…"

"We drank a lot that night, remember? It was the only way we could cope with the night," She sighed. "We weren't really thinking…"

He continued to stare at her stomach with widened eyes, trying to imagine his child growing inside of her. It had been many years since he experienced the expectancy of fatherhood, but it was... different, now. This was his wife. Granted, he ceased taking certain precautions at times...But he never imagined receiving this news - not with her. And now that he was, he wasn't exactly sure how to respond...

He was taken aback when he found his hand being led to her stomach. He fought against her grip, but stopped after he saw the look on her face. He was mesmerized when his palm touched its surface. He was left to carefully trail his fingers over the small curve that existed on her abdomen. His baby was there beyond his touch - in the woman he loved dearly...

He felt an usual moisture in his eyes. He ignored it until it crawled down his cheek. He stopped to rub his eye and found a teardrop on his bare finger. He froze, attempting to comprehend the sight.

Queen gaped at him. "Kane...you're crying… "

"Ah," Was all he could manage. He clenched his jaw and attempted to control the sensation, but failed as another one fell. He rubbed it off with more insistence this time.

She placed a hand on his shoulder. "Are you alright..?"

"I'm fine," He insisted. He tried to understand why this was happening. He changed topics in the meantime. "Are you keeping it?"

"The baby?"

He nodded.

She looked down at her stomach and felt the small bump again. His words repeated thoughtfully in her head. This question hadn't been on her mind so much as it was just spilling this news to him. She was ashamed she hadn't put much thought into it prior to this moment. After a moment, she stopped moving her hand and smiled.

"I want to. Darling, I know you have your sons...and I love and appreciate them deeply. But I never experienced motherhood. I would like to, with your baby that I'll carry…"

She kept her stare on him to see his reaction. He was still tending to the moisture in his eyes. He stiffened at her words. A sound of relief left his lips. His posture loosened as he finally dried the tears.

"Valerie, I've never had a proper partner to share my children with, until now." He took her hands into his own and clutched them tightly. "Perhaps that's why I reacted like this...I feel quite happy."

"..You do?"

"Bearing a child with the woman I love...how could I not be?" His words made her smile. "Not to mention, they'll be as beautiful as you."

The tears began to leave her own eyes. She hastily wiped them away. "And I thought you wouldn't want this…Not another, I mean, with your family-"

"They're far into their adulthoods now. I didn't expect more, but if you want, I will father again." He tilted his head slightly. "It’s not just about that, anyway. It's about raising a child with you, my Queen...and I would be honored to do exactly that."

"Kane…"

She embraced him and began to weep, elated at this news. Seeing the family dynamic they all shared...she longed to have something like that of her own. She was well-accepted into their lives - treated like a mother to Bishop, Rooke, Deacon, even Phule....but she still couldn’t help thinking. The quiet curiosity she’s had, wondering what a child between her and Kane would look like...

"Do you know anything about it?" He asked. At her confused look, he elaborated. "Have you seen anyone at all to know how it's doing?"

"No…I was nervous telling you as it is. I needed to know what you thought before I did anything.”

"--Not entirely my decision.” He chided. “We'll see a doctor as soon as possible. To make sure it's healthy before making any haste decisions."

He pulled the blankets over their figures, allowing them to get comfortable. He was calm with this news, which relieved her. She was mindful of her stomach as she moved closer, resting her head on his chest. They were met with peaceful silence. She sighed as the tension left her body. She’d never tire sharing this closeness with him.

"I am curious about the gender…" She confessed. "I know you have the boys, but wouldn't it be nice to finally have a girl?"

His breath hitched in his throat. His eyes watered again. He tried not to make it obvious as he looked away, holding a hand over his mouth to keep his composure. It went unnoticed as Queen rambled on:

"I have plenty of names I can think of for a daughter. But a boy would be just as delightful..! We'd love it no matter what, right?"

He swallowed dryly. "Right."

“Not a chess piece’s name, dear." She teased as he moved to pull the lamp’s handle. “What do you think of Carina? Or Aurelia?”

The names struck something inside of him pleasantly. But he wouldn’t tell her that, for now. “We’ll decide when we know it’s healthy. Rest.”

He turned the light off and watched the room darken. He waited before laying back on the mattress, where she clung onto his side. Moonlight peeked from behind the curtain, lighting the lower half of the bed. He was thankful for this - otherwise, she would have noticed the tears drying on his face.

A daughter. A little girl as beautiful as Queen, and as smart as him…it was hard not to desire. He shouldn’t have hope - it wouldn't be right, if an expectation formed - but he couldn’t help it. If there was anything he learned from parenting his Elite - boys were rowdy, especially together. It was a nightmare, at times, but…he knew all the imperfections to fix. To do this right, for certain.

He placed his hand over hers. Fatigue hit him like a brick. He was out in only a few minutes. Queen smiled as her thumb trailed over his cheek, wiping the last of the moisture from his face.

#pirate101 #p101 #pirate101 kane #pirate101 queen #kane x queen #all'inzio #epilogue #fanfiction #fanfic

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save-the-spiral · 1 year

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for the numbers game, 43

(buy me coffee?)

Content warning for violence, gore, eye trauma, trauma in general, suicidal ideation, death, murder, implied torture.

oops who expected Alexander's fight against Kane? I didn't.

A steel boot presses into Alexander's chest, crushing his lungs and forcing him to wheeze and gasp for air in a display of complete indignity.

He does not beg, nor scramble to fight. He knows when he cannot fight back and the pathetic scrabbling for survival is something he had always hated to see in others. He won't lower himself that far.

Instead he lies on his back, the marble's cold seeping through the layers of finery and leather armor. He doesn't have the breath to beg with, and he wouldn't if he could. The leather band that tied his hair back was long gone, and so black hair fanned around him in a halation of darkness.

Around the battlefield, allies and enemies alike turn to witness the scene. Rooke, Queen, Bonnie Anne, Ratbeard, Tytonidae.

Kane's saber gleams in the light, its steel blade reflecting bronze from the mechanisms surrounding them. The clockwork man could move any second, slashing Alexander's throat with brutal efficiency and leaving him to bleed out like a slaughtered pig.

Alexander grunts in pain as Kane grinds his heel into Alexander's sternum. He can almost feel his bones creaking and straining.

Kane's head tilts, and those empty eyes stare at Alexander's face.

"Pathetic, really." He says, a metallic hum resonating from behind the porcelain mask. "The terror of the skyways, reduced to nothing more than a bug beneath my heel. Not quite the challenging game I had been hoping for."

Alexander wants to spit out curses at the clockwork, but the steel boot on his chest stomps onto his stomach as Kane backs away. He almost vomits at the sudden pain, wheezing as his lungs recover. He grabs at the knives hilted at his belt on instinct, desperate for some measure of control.

"Come now, little pirate." Kane says condescendingly, waving his saber grandly. "You and I can settle this, pirate to clockwork. Surely the tales of your prowess were not falsified? Or are you as fallible and weak as your pirate captain parents were?"

"They were cartographers, not pirates." Alexander snarls, rolling to his side and coming up in a crouch.

Kane hums, tilting his head one again in an infuriating show of casualness as he slips something out of his sleeve.

A banged up compass on a chain swings like a pendulum, held between metal fingers. Some time during their battle Kane must've stolen it out of Alexander's breast pocket on his coat. The burnished brass gleamed faintly, scratched and dented as it was. The silver arrows of the compass spin lightly as it sways on the chain.

"Give that back!" Alexander shouts. He draws his glowing daggers from his belt.

"Worthless mapmakers. No wonder you are such a disappointment." Kane says, and drops the compass.

Its scratched glass face shatters against the marble floor, and Alexander lunges for Kane.

The resulting fight is a dance more than anything, Kane deftly moving out of the way, keeping distance so his much longer weapon still gives him the advantage. Alexander slashes with his daggers, then throws his last knife from his bandolier and steps with his back foot to avoid a stab of Kane's saber.

A beast tamer and the lion, the bear, the monster. One always calm and cool, the other running on instinct and fear.

Neither of them give any ground, always pushing back and forth. Something has to give.

And it won't be the automaton created for battle. Kane is unyielding, an efficient machine that utilizes logic far beyond many people's capabilities.

Darling Alexander Dove is just a man at the end of the day.

Kane's saber slashes upwards in an unexpected turn. Alexander tries to step back and is too late. The blade slices upwards, blood pours across his face, the pain searing and sudden.

Kane steps forward for another attack, a stab that slams into Alexander's gut like a punch from a boxer. Alexander chokes on it and moves forward, feeling the blade push in deeper. He stabs downwards with his knives, catching in Kane's wrist joint and forcing the sword to fall, slipping out of his wound and onto the floor with a clatter. Alexander's hands falter and he stumbles back.

Kane kicks Alexander in the chest, bones snapping from the force and the world upends itself in Alexander's limited vision as he falls back. He's instantly winded, gasping for air, agony spreading from whatever is wrong with his chest.

Distantly Bonnie Anne screams. Alexander can only stare at the vaulted ceiling, blurred movement of bronze and golden gears captured in his gaze. He can feel the pulse of blood pouring from his face and gut. He has no weapons.

Alexander spent so long being helpless. The orphan street rat begging for a scrap of food. The cabin boy taught things he didn't wish to learn. The captain who could barely control his newfound crew.

Violence fixes every problem he has had. And now that he cannot fight back, he understands that all he has done is make others helpless, fearful, just so he could have a modicum of control over his life and emotions for a brief moment. Only to lose it again and again, so his victims' torment and lives were in vain, because he could never do anything but follow the same patterns.

And for a while, he had broken those patterns. He had someone.

In death he has nothing. He'll die just as any of his victims had, ignoble and suffering for nothing more than entertainment, for being in the way.

Had his parents felt this way?

Were they this scared?

For the first time in years, he distantly hopes he will at least see his parents again.

He hopes it all stops hurting.

For so long the pain, caused and felt, was all Alexander could use as an anchor. At least the pain made it all real. Now the pain was fading, agony slipping away as shock and bloodloss set in. He wheezes up at the ceiling and wonders why it's all taking so long.

Metal clashes and scrapes against metal, and Alexander can barely process it. He lies there and gives up because it is easier than continuing to suffer, because the darkness and warm sleep of death beckon him. It is the sway of the hammock on his parents' ship, it is the hum of distant drinking songs in a tavern, it is the embrace of someone who has been waiting for him.

Alexander has been waiting for death nearly as long as it has been waiting for him. At twenty-four years old, he's finally given the opportunity to die with the most honor he'll likely ever be given, bleeding out and felled by an enemy far greater than he.

He won't have to continue coping with the damage he's done, the lives he's taken, if he dies now and it becomes his repentance. He won't have to continue to fail at becoming a better person if he dies a martyr. He has long been beyond redemption, he thinks, so why not die before he worsens his already tarnished legacy, the legacy his parents had left him.

"I've got you." Someone says. It's a deep metal hum. Alexander can feel it in his bones as his vision fades. Strong, unrelenting arms hold him as if he were small and fragile.

He remembers this. It must be his father carrying him to bed after he fell asleep watching the stars.

It must be his mother cradling him after a nightmare.

It must be death's arms that carry him, merciful and finally here.

Alexander lets himself slip away, head pressed against their chest, hearing the clicking of gears rather than the thud of a heartbeat.

Tytonidae stands among the wreckage he made after destroying Kane and the remainders of his court. He holds his... he holds Alexander gently, his large battleaxe holstered across his back once again now that the battle is over.

Bonnie Anne grabs at Tytonidae's arm and pulls him along, out of the battlefield and into the warm Valencian sunlight. Alexander looks paler than ever, chest rising and falling minutely.

"Get him into the infirmary. I can save him." Bonnie says.

Tytonidae will lay Alexander to rest on a sickbed, staining white sheets a dark red as he does so. He will stand vigil at Alexander's side through the long surgeries and procedures Bonnie and the other crewmates do to save Alexander's life.

He will watch them all put the work in to save Alexander that the pirate captain would never do for himself.

Late at night he will watch over Alexander. A bandage will cover half of Alexander's face, the eye a lost cause according to Bonnie Anne.

Tytonidae watches the man resting, recovering. No longer does Alexander appear to be on death's door, but merely sleeping. He looks younger than his twenty-four years, and his mouth upturns into a slight smile as he dreams.

Tytonidae wishes he could weep. Now seems like the perfect time for such a thing.

#ask #kattmeithmath #writing #pirate101 #pitty101 #p101 #Darling Alexander Dove #Tytonidae #my ocs #Bonnie Anne #Bonnie Anne Pirate101 #Kane Pirate101 #Kane

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