#the very end- lmaooooo | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

deus-ex-mona · 2 years

Text

Fantasia LOVE&KISS: Introduction

yay worldbuilding ig

Legend has it that, in a northern mountainous land, there exists a jewel that is guarded by a dragon. That jewel has the ability to grant a single wish, no matter what it may be.

As of the present, there exists not a single soul to pass on the tale to future generations. That tale has since become a long-forgotten legend of the distant past.

If one were to venture to that far-off land, descend upon their knees before the fair maiden who would welcome them in with open arms, and place a kiss of a vow upon her, she would bestow good fortunes and blessings upon their very hands.

This is a story that would lead to the world of “Hopes”—

The flames of the candles atop the round table flickered in the breeze.

Several patrons were seated throughout the pub, conversing softly with each other as they downed their beverages.

Usually, downtown pubs like this would be filled with joyful, tipsy patrons. However, the patrons of this particular pub were visibly gloomy, without emitting a single laugh from their throats.

All they did was cast wary glances at the traveller, who was seated at the counter.

Ever since Yujiro set foot into that town, he had the nagging feeling that there was something strange about the place, which had only seemed to grow exponentially stronger with each passing moment.

Not only was that town a small country town that seemed to be rarely visited by travellers, it was also the royal capital of a small country. He had been able to catch a glimpse of a castle with a spire that was erected beyond the city gate, after all.

Despite having heard that it was a country with prosperous trading opportunities that many travellers and merchants would frequent, Yujiro had found that most of the stores along the main street were closed, with nothing but old signs blowing in the wind. Furthermore, the streets were fairly devoid of pedestrians as well.

When he had stopped by the marketplace in the daytime, the only things that were being sold were shrivelled up vegetables. He had been befuddled when he had not even been able to hear the voices of local children.

“I heard rumours that this town is rather lively, but it’s pretty quiet around here, no?” Yujiro commented casually to the barkeep as he took a sip out of his drink.

The man eyed him suspiciously, even as he continued to pour sake out from a barrel, but he shook his head in response. “It’s not like that at all. It’s just that the roads have become impassable thanks to some demons. Things became this way all because they decided to appear.”

“I see…”

(Demons, hm…)

Such stories were not uncommon. In fact, demon encounters, however rare, were just part and parcel of travelling. Even so, encounters with wild beasts, which resided in the mountains, and with bandits, who would attack travellers in their attempts to rob them of their money and goods, were more far common than encounters with demons.

In any case, weapons for self-defence were undeniably a necessity for one’s travels. If one were to take a single step out of the city gates, they would thus find themselves in a danger zone, where they could be attacked at any given time.

“Things were fine during the reign of the previous king. But after the princess ascended to the throne…” the barkeep suddenly fell silent, a complicated expression marring his face. “Well, you should get out of here as soon as you can too…”

With that, the man turned his back to Yujiro, as though he was closing himself off from further questioning. Finding it pointless to continue to press him for answers, Yujiro placed a single silver coin upon the counter, alongside his half-empty cup of diluted grape wine.

He picked up his longbow, which was wrapped in some cloth, from where it had been leaning against his chair. Slinging it over his shoulder, he departed from the counter.

“Thanks for the food.”

The other patrons suddenly fell silent as they stared at Yujiro as he made his way out of the pub.

A damp breeze blew into Yujiro’s face as he stepped outside the pub, closing the door behind him as he went. Rain poured down from the overcast skies above, pelting against the cobblestone pathways, which were completely devoid of other people.

“I didn’t get to hear anything of note, huh…”

Donning his wide-brimmed hat, Yujiro began to walk along the streets, which were gradually getting wetter thanks to the rain.

He had talked to a few people since he had arrived in the town, however, they were all rather tight-lipped and refused to tell him much. Considering the nature of the townsfolk, he figured that he would have to stay in town for a few days and gather information patiently if he wanted to get anywhere.

(Guess it can’t be helped… Even so, there’s no one else around.)

Yujiro looked around the quiet, dark streets, but not even the lights of the houses seemed to be turned on. It was rather eerie, almost as though it was a ghost town. Despite the fact that the sun had just set for the day, it was probably still too early for anyone to turn in for the night.

Upon hearing the soft creak of a door, Yujiro turned around to meet the gaze of a child, who was peeking out of the doorway, only for the child to immediately withdraw into the house with a loud slam of the door the very second their eyes met.

“Didn’t I tell you not to go outside?!” the child’s mother scolded from behind the door.

(It’s not like there’s anyone outside, though.)

Yujiro continued to walk, donning a rather perplexed expression across his face. Some of the greyed clouds above him had the slightest tinge of red, which was probably due to the light of the moon, which was concealed by said clouds.

Just as Yujiro was crossing a stone bridge that extended over a river, he noticed a faint figure of a person, who was appearing to be following him from behind. Glancing at their reflections on the surface of the water, he deliberately slowed down his walking pace.

The person continued to pursue him even as he walked through a narrow street, where a drunken old man was lying fast asleep against the wall, cradling a bottle of liquor in his arms.

As Yujiro rounded the bend in the street, he tossed a single glance over his shoulder before sprinting forth. The sound of the footsteps of his pursuer also quickened in turn, as though he was in a hurry.

With the rainfall having intensified without him realising it, Yujiro found that his cape and hat had somehow become completely soaked through.

A wall at the end of the street sealed it off as an evident dead end. Yujiro drew a dagger he had kept concealed by his waist as he turned around. The blade of his dagger sliced through the air, edging real close to the throat of his pursuing opponent. However, the reflexes of said opponent were slightly faster, as he ducked to dodge the blade, seemingly on instinct.

Upon seeing the momentary unsteady state of his opponent, Yujiro kicked the ground as he tried to go for a roundhouse kick.

“Ho-hold on!” his opponent hollered in a panic, raising his arms in a gesture of peace.

Judging from his height and facial features, he looked to be of about the same age as Yujiro. With a wide-brimmed hat pulled over his head, and a cape draped around his shoulders, he seemed to be a traveller as well. His broad shoulders, coupled with his strong-looking limbs evoked the impression that he was a well-built young man. His hair was tied back with the use of a ribbon, and rainwater was dripping off the brim of his hat.

“Don’t spring an attack on me without any warning. Ain’t that unfair?!”

“There’s no need to show courtesy to hooligans who sneak after others, no?” Yujiro smiled with a smug scoff, still clutching his dagger in his hand.

“I’m not a hooligan. Can’t you tell just by looking at me?”

“You look pretty much like a hooligan to me, though.”

“Huh?! How so?!”

“Your face and the air you give off. Though, if you’re not a hooligan, just what are you? A bandit? A robber? A mugger?”

“Aren’t all of those the same things?!” he heaved a sigh of resignation.

Suppressing a laugh at his opponent’s ever-changing expressions, Yujiro returned his dagger to its sheath at his waist. He figured that his opponent was not lying about not being a hooligan. With that being the case, he was now somewhat curious about why said opponent was even following him in the first place.

(I guess I wouldn’t mind hearing him out for a bit…)

“So… What did you want with me?”

He looked up at Yujiro and levelled him with a serious gaze. “It’s because I heard that… there’s a guy in this town who’s looking for the only jewel in the world that can grant a wish. Just like me.”

The sound of the raindrops thudding against the ground of the alleyway overlaid his soft-spoken words.

The two of them fell silent for a few seconds as they looked at each other.

“Yujiro” slowly tugged the brim of his hat downwards, a mutter of “I see…” being the only thing to slip past his lips.

(He’s just like me, huh…)

#this is a very questionable tl bc it was partially done on public transport lmaooooo #i was bored on the train you seeeeeee #i threw in tons of additional words and stuff in an attempt to help it to ~flow~ better (and to make it slightly less boring lmao)#the bold text is intentional bc that's how the novel seems to separate real world events from this fantasy thing ig #leaving this out of the main tags bc it'd be nice if better translators picked this up as well (hint hint)#well. in any case... this is gonna be my tl tag for this nonsense ->#will they or won't they love&kiss by the end of this?#it's unnecessarily long lol. perfect for an unnecessary tl wouldn't you say? ;)#fun fact: chapter 1 is soooo long that it's cut off in the preview lmao. thanks fantasy segment </3 #it is suiyoubi my dudes

17 notes · View notes

chryzure-archive · 2 years

Note

18….wif anyone you want for the traces of you prompts 0w0….

18. A letter you never finished

ALT TITLE: who let these two people going through the worst breakup in their lives talk to each other. there’s going to be blood on jacks’s shitty carpet. somebody, please, break up the fight.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: help…….. you somehow hit the perfect nerve w this prompt and i wrote all this in one sitting. my brain is melting out of my ears.

———

Chrysi’s eyes were so dry that they itched—the first time that week that she could say that.

She couldn’t say that she’d been expecting It. The great, unsayable It. And she would imagine that would make her bad at predicting things—or at least that she’d let herself be blinded to the facts. In her line of business, that never meant anything good.

But the fact of the matter was this: there was nothing that she had been blinded to. She knew everything that she needed to—and most importantly, above all else, and something she understood deep, deep in her soul, she knew that Azure loved her.

He did. He loved her with all his heart.

She looked over the narrow hallway with those dry, itching eyes. Her body screamed at her to close them and to finally get some rest, but she couldn’t.

Azure LaFaye loved her enough to work with her as her close confidante, her perfect equal, her partner-in-crime. He loved her enough to buy them this narrow, long house, even though he’d been shy and nervous, worried that it wouldn’t be enough for them in a place like Valenda. He loved her enough to sweep her aside at that opening night ball, get on his knee, and remove all of her rings to replace them with a new engagement set he’d commissioned for her, iridescent as a pearl and bright as the moon.

The pictures on the walls mocked her. Rare photographs, made with a special piece of equipment called a camera that Azure knew much more about than Chrysi herself did. He’d been the one to take them and put them up. Chrysi had augmented the framed photos with tiny sketches, stuck to the edges of the photographs.

The itching graduated to burning, right at the corner of her eyes. She knew precisely what that feeling announced.

Chrysi dug her teeth into her bottom lip to fight back what would follow. The unnatural sweetness of her blood flooded her mouth.

Not that he loved me enough, she thought dully, but maybe more that he loved me too much.

Maybe it had burned him out, until he couldn’t bear it anymore. Or maybe it frightened him. Or maybe…

Or maybe nothing. None of that sounded like Azure in the first place.

Neither did It feel like Azure, nor a choice he would make.

So much of him was unreadable to Chrysi. It had been from the start. She’d thought they’d moved past it, but this empty, narrow house told her otherwise.

Stiffly, feeling distinctly like a wooden puppet, Chrysi walked down that hallway. She desperately tried to ignore the way the walls leered down at her. Each step, it felt as if they squeezed in closer, as if to crush her amongst the rubble of her past happiness.

This was a path she’d walked countless times, since last week. Since everything fell apart. Chrysi didn’t know precisely how she’d walked it so many times, when most of her recent memories were hazy and blurry-eyed and curled up in her sheets, but it was seared into her memory now. Hell, this could’ve all been an elaborately-envisioned daydream, and Chrysi hadn’t moved from her bed at all. She wouldn’t know one way or the other—only that it was vivid enough that it didn’t matter.

Down the stairs—each step a little too high for comfort, as Chrysi had found the first day she tripped up them and Azure had reached down to straighten her with a laugh—through the suffocating hallway, with all its gloating photographs, and into the study.

The study.

Chrysi stopped referring to it as Azure’s on the third day after It. She thought that if she continued down that path, she would’ve ruined herself.

It didn’t matter what its name was—this house had stood before Chrysi, and she knew it would continue to stand after she left. The study had probably possessed multiple owners, countless of people pushing a desk in its corner with its chair and erecting twin bookshelves like sentries, with a small daybed and a piano to top it all off.

To have named it Azure’s Study was an ephemeral concept from the start. Chrysi just hadn’t expected it to relinquish its title so soon.

But even though it no longer was described as his, it still looked like his.

Chrysi hated that the most. His neat stack of books and his absently-listing pen on his desk, the slightly-rumpled pillows on the daybed, the sheet music patiently sitting on the piano for her—it all made it look like Azure had just stepped out, and any moment, Chrysi would turn to see his smile and his bright red eyes full of his subtle mischief.

He wouldn’t, though.

Azure is gone for good.

That burning in her eyes spiked, and for a second, she worried the dryness of her eyes would quickly become teary.

She let her eyes drift shut.

No, she had to come to terms with it. She had to repeat that statement, over and over and over again, until it no longer held meaning for her and she was desensitized to the loneliness. She wasn’t going to sit by the front window all day, in hopes of seeing Azure’s familiar form, tall and elegant, come home. Chrysi Solstice was not that kind of person.

Once the threat of tears abated, she pried her eyes open.

The study. Yes, the study. And that was all it was: the study in the house, a room in a building in a city. There was nothing special about it at all.

Chrysi stumbled toward the desk (the desk, just a desk).

This, finally, was the first deviation she’d taken from her monotonous pacing through the house (the house, just a house). Chrysi hadn’t dared to get this close and look through his papers, his letters (Damn. Not his. Just some papers, just some letters. It was hard, trying to retrain herself in referring to these new objects, in their divergence from her pattern.) She was, truthfully, terrified by what she might find.

Her heart had already been shattered, but she knew that it could get worse. It could always get worse.

At first glance, it looked the same as it always did. Thankfully, Azure had been better at keeping his desk tidy than a certain annoyance they knew (no, a certain annoyance Chrysi knew. No more “they”. No more “we”. No more collective, no more partnership.) It didn’t take long for her to sort through it all.

But as her search proceeded, Chrysi grew more and more agitated.

There was nothing. No hints. Nothing.

She’d been begging—praying, really—that she would find a hint. Anything to point to why Azure had chosen to leave as he did. A tiny puzzle piece that would fit conveniently in the Azure-shaped hole left behind, something that would make everything fall in an orderly line.

Nothing.

Chrysi’s eyesight became blurry and her cheeks overly hot. Her breathing became ragged.

Not even the book titles gave anything away. Not a scrap of paper with a scribbled word.

Nothing.

She tore through his drawers. Inkwells, stationary, a smaller version of that fucking camera.

Nothing, nothing, nothing.

A ragged scream ran a serrated blade along her vocal chords. Chrysi slammed the last drawer shut and collapsed onto the carpet.

Now tears coursed down her face, and Chrysi didn’t fucking care.

“You don’t get to do this to me!” she screamed, crumpling in on herself, wrapping her arms around her waist as if she could hold her shattering pieces together by sheer tenacity. “You don’t get to waltz out of my life like none of it mattered! You don’t get to leave without a fucking explanation! Azure!”

But like all the other times, Chrysi got no answer.

Chrysi didn’t know how long she stayed like that. Another blur of aching agony, overwhelming her until she felt on the brink of disintegration.

But by the time her tears began to slow—so dehydrated, that she felt they were more salt than water—she still existed, still in a familiar form, still coalesced in a single, heartbroken person.

She swallowed thickly and pressed her forehead against the floor. The hardwood cooled her hot skin effectively, until she realized she was shivering.

Head spinning, Chrysi straightened, lifting exhausted, burning eyes to the watery grey light filtering in through the window above the desk. A film passed over it, but rather than casting shadows, it merely looked as if the light decided to become static. A second passed before she realized it was snow.

Right. It was still the cold months in Valenda.

Chrysi wondered if she’d even bothered to heat the house once since it happened. It was the first time she’d even considered it.

Good God, she thought deliriously. What if I have become a ghost? Would that happen to me? Would I slip into death unknowingly?

If ever there were a time for Chrysi to not realize her own death, it would be now.

And yet, her heart still beat in her chest.

She dropped her eyes.

What a ridiculous thought. Yes, she was heartbroken over Azure, but to die from the heartbreak? How humiliating would that be?

With a sniffle, Chrysi resolved to kindle a fire in the bedroom fireplace, as soon as she got the strength to climb back up those stairs.

She struggled to stand, but as she did, her eye caught on the wastebasket.

Her heart jumped in her throat.

It held a crumpled piece of paper. And on the corner of it was Azure’s familiar spidery handwriting, slanted and spelling out J-A-C—

Her vocal chords protested at the way her heart began to beat against them.

Chrysi crawled forward and unceremoniously tore the crumpled paper from the basket. She unfurled it as best she could, then ran it over her knee in an attempt to further smooth the wrinkles out of it.

A half-written letter.

With trembling fingertips, Chrysi traced the familiar curve of Azure’s handwriting. It felt forbidden, this hint of him he’d left behind. She knew that he was normally far more particular about throwing out unsent missives. Azure didn’t believe in people reading his thoughts, except those that he’d specifically written them for. Chrysi was aware that Azure often inlaid magic into the paper, so that he’d keep the letter’s content from prying eyes—and, she remembered, he could ink in binding promises between him and the letter’s recipient.

Either he’d been too overwhelmed to magic this letter, or he hadn’t bothered to get around to it.

One way or another, it was precisely the hint that Chrysi had been looking for.

She feverishly began to read.

Jacks, it began, and her heart hammered even harder. Chrysi could not fathom a reason why Azure would willingly reach out to the Prince of Hearts.

I do not write to you willingly—

Well, that answered that. Chrysi knew Azure well, even after all this.

—but there is nobody else that would have the information I want. As we both know, you are a spider, a leech, and a cockroach, all of which puts you in the position of having more pieces to the puzzle than most.

She smiled faintly, even though her heart ached at the familiarity of Azure. He’d never liked Jacks—hated that Chrysi used him as an informant more than necessary. But as he mentioned, Jacks was the one to manipulate the web the most efficiently.

For that reason, I have come to you to utilize that first favor you owe me. The second favor is enclosed in a letter I hope I do not have to post—but if you fail to assist me, then rest assured that it will find its way into your hands. In addition to your hardly-reliable word, I have enacted a fail safe in its paper. Pray that you don’t have to learn what it is.

Chrysi raised a brow. Her ruthless Azure, facing down a fully-powered Prince of Hearts like it didn’t matter. For a second, a glimmer of pride sparked in her chest.

Then she remembered that it wasn’t her Azure anymore.

Pain cloaked itself over her.

She read on.

I ask of you to uncover for me alternatives to that horrible future we discussed privately. No matter how outlandish the other options, I will listen. And you will give me all of the alternatives—no hiding information for your own amusement. I will not face this unprepared.

In addition to this, I beg you to inquire after Mistress Luck again on the matter of my own misfortune. Surely there must be something to be done about its worsening. If anything else were to become of—

And here, Azure began slashing through whatever he’d written, his hand heavy and ink blotching in spots. There was something shaky to it—his precise lines turning into scribbles. She strained her eyes in an attempt to read the writing underneath.

What words Chrysi could make out between Azure’s abrupt editing included only curse, in the blood, and, in a far shakier hand than the rest, Chryseis.

She lightly touched the curlicue of C in her name. Azure always wrote it like that, even when his other capital Cs did not have the same honor. It hurt, the reminder of his precise care.

Around the confusion and fear and pain tangling in her chest, Chrysi glanced down at the final line Azure had written—this one free of the earlier mauling.

Please. Do not speak a word of this to Chrysi.

“Oh, bunny,” she whispered to the paper, a tiny glow beginning to creep up at the end of the tunnel, “beginner’s mistake. You know that’s the wrong thing to say if you don’t want me to find out.”

She folded the page once, twice, and slid it into her pocket. Glancing down, she decided the heavy cardigan she wore would be enough to battle the elements outside. That was for the best, for Chrysi knew she had to hurry.

She had a soon-to-be-exiled Fate to meet.

—

Jacks didn’t look very pleased to see Chrysi at the gambling den. In fact, he looked very startled, then very, very irritated.

“How’d you know that today was the day I came back?”

Chrysi tilted her head to the side. Absently, she glanced over his room.

In a short amount of time, he’d already stripped it bare. All his books were jammed into three boxes—not very neatly—and a small trunk sat in the corner, nearly filled to the brim already.

She smiled grimly. Yes, she’d been right—Jacks was on his way out of the empire. The Dragna sisters vaulting to a royalty status didn’t mean anything good for him—especially not after he’d taken control of the Princess Donatella. He’d spent the last week in hiding, only now risking to return and pack everything up.

With a mirthless flicker, she found she could perfectly picture Jacks skulking around in his hideaways, growing colder and crueler as all his plans shattered to dust around him.

Crossing over to the trunk, she distantly said, “Call it intuition.” She leaned forward and peered inside. It was nothing more than a tangle of clothes and a battered collection of papers.

“I think her name’s actually Mistress Luck,” he muttered. “She can’t help but meddle.”

Chrysi hummed and returned her gaze to Jacks. “She likes me.”

Jacks scoffed, his eyes like chips of ice. He turned his back to her to begin rifling through his desk drawers, pulling out an odd trinket or two and placing it on his desk.

“Why are you here?”

The way he asked it had a wintery-cold bite, one that Chrysi wasn’t accustomed to.

She arched her brow at him. Taking the breakup from the princess badly, was he?

Too bad. Chrysi was taking her own breakup just as poorly, if not worse, and she could be much, much meaner than Jacks.

“Before he left,” Chrysi began, but Jacks shot up before she could finish her statement.

“I’m not telling you anything,” he said, his eyes silver with irritation. He stepped forward in an attempt to push her to the door. “Go investigate elsewhere.”

Chrysi did not.

Instead, she peered at Jacks thoughtfully, though the action felt more like muscle memory than a true choice she’d made.

“You’re not as intimidating as you think you are,” she finally drawled. Loosely crossing her arms around herself, she lifted her jaw. “Azure saw you before he left. Is that much true?”

Jacks narrowed his eyes down at her. “Yes. Is that answer enough? Leave.”

After having spent a whole week in that tiny house full of the ghosts of happy memories, Chrysi had an over-abundance of agitated energy. This butting of heads was horribly, deliriously wonderful. She had so much anger and pain that she could turn into knifed words.

She grinned a skeleton’s grin. “Absolutely not.”

His eyes flashed and his jaw set. Jacks stepped forward once more, until she could feel the icy chill radiating off his skin.

“I said,” Jacks hissed, “to leave.”

“No. But thank you.” She flicked a curl from her eye. “What was it that Azure discussed with you?”

“I am not going to tell you.”

“Why?” Chrysi thought of that final line in Azure’s unsent letter: Do not speak a word of this to Chrysi. “Did he make you promise?” The question had an awful, mocking tone to it, and it grated on her throat to even speak it.

For a moment, Jacks didn’t move a millimeter, not even to take a breath (did he need to, Chrysi wondered? Donatella was supposedly his one true love, but he didn’t look very much like he’d met his one true love now. She thought the effects would’ve been a bit more long-lasting if he had.)

When he did, he pivoted on his heel and stalked back to his desk. He dug around in them, but it looked agitated, more for show than to truly find anything.

“No,” he said. “But I still won’t tell you. It’s as Azure would’ve wanted.”

A spike of rage that Chrysi hadn’t expected shot up to her head, blurring her vision and tilting the world. She bit on her tongue to get ahold of herself.

“How very kind of you.” She edged her words like a poison barb. “One might even think you still have a heart, even after Donatella decided to stab it.”

He slammed a metal box down, hard enough for her to hear the crack of his knuckles against the worn surface of his desk. She looked at him from the corner of his eye.

That got under his skin.

Just like that dagger, she thought with sick amusement.

“Maybe,” he said through clenched teeth, “I decided not to tell you because I know it’s going to tear you apart inside, to not know why your supposed soulmate left you without a backward glance.”

She jerked back. It was like he’d shot an arrow directly through her heart.

She whipped around to fix him with a fearsome glare.

Jacks’s grimace shifted to a cruel grin, jagged like a scythe. “Understand, Princess?”

Her eyes shot to the box. Jacks’s knuckles whitened as he tightened his grip on it. She narrowed her eyes at it.

She thought of Azure’s letter, and the mention of his mysterious fail safe, burrowed deep into the paper, and she realized why he didn’t dare open his mouth. “You’re scared of what Azure will do to you.”

Jacks stared at her unreadably for a second, then stood once again. He stiffly walked back to his trunk and threw the box into it.

An ill-placed laugh threatened to leave her. He was jumpy—pacing back and forth, aggravated in his movement, like he was a coiled spring ready to rocket off. It was funny, seeing the Prince of Hearts unmoored like this.

Chrysi followed close on Jacks’s heels, much to his annoyance.

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re infuriatingly stubborn?” he snapped over his shoulder.

“More times than I can count, and much more than you can as well.”

Jacks pulled up short. Chrysi screeched to a halt, for fear of running into his back.

She took her chance.

“What did he say to you?” Chrysi demanded once again. “What about his bad luck getting worse?”

“You’re like a dog with a bone.” He sounded disgusted. “Why should I tell you?”

“I’m his true love,” she mocked.

“And you see where that’s gotten you.”

Her cracked heart ached in her chest, and it infuriated Chrysi. She wondered if Jacks would tear to ribbons beneath her nails, despite how inhuman he was.

Regretfully, she swallowed that urge down.

This was getting her nowhere. Jacks was too preoccupied and ornery, after he failed to seduce the Princess Donatella. Jacks was right—she’d best take her investigations elsewhere.

She glanced back down to that box Jacks threw in his trunk.

Madame Radiant’s Hair Dye: Midnight Blue.

This time, she didn’t bother to mask her laugh. She couldn’t resist one last dig. “Oh, Jacky. I would think a powder blue would suit your coloring better.”

Jacks flashed her a murderous look and slammed the lid of his trunk down.

“Get. Out.”

Chrysi obliged, but not without an agonizing, pointed cackle that echoed through the empty gambling den. She hoped that Mistress Luck heard her derision and that she would take up the charge when Chrysi wasn’t there to taunt Jacks.

—

It didn’t take a genius to figure out where Jacks and the other escaping Fates scattered to. God knew nobody wanted to slum it in the Southern Isles, and Chrysi didn’t think Jacks could brave the outskirts of the Valendan Empire after what he’d done. There were other countries, yes, but Jacks also seemed too prone to his own drama and schemes to find them very interesting.

That left the Magnificent North.

Every time Chrysi thought of the hint of Jacks’s disguise she’d seen before he left, she had to stifle a snicker.

Oh yes, the Magnificent North. He’d fit right in, with that severe blue color and his paper-pale skin. The mental image sent her into hysterics.

She’d let her prodding rest after Jacks had unceremoniously demanded her exit before he’d run off, primarily to lull him into a false sense of security. She wasn’t halfway done with interrogating him. Not in the slightest.

Azure’s half-written letter haunted her every moment, waking and sleeping. Sometimes, she wondered if Azure had written to Jacks with the goal of ridding himself of her. Other times, she knew with painful certainty that her Blue was merely trying to protect her by any means necessary.

Chrysi wished that he hadn’t deemed these means necessary.

But knowing his intentions didn’t matter. Chrysi needed to know the specifics—she needed to know what had scared Azure away, what had possessed him to cash in not one, but two favors Jacks owed him. Chrysi doubted Azure had any more favors held in reserve. The Prince of Hearts did not like making himself beholden to others.

That was why Chrysi had packed up everything in that narrow house that once held such promise (no longer hers, and certainly no longer theirs, and it put a rest to Chrysi’s struggle to marking everything in the house with the ghost of Azure). She kept her own baggage light—and was on her way to a friend’s house to drop off the remainder of what had been in the house for storage.

She’d especially tried not to look at the boxes full of Azure’s things. She’d merely marked them with a crescent moon—it hurt too much to specify which was what and what was which.

The sky carriage drifted to a stop in a familiar district. Chrysi was, once again, grateful that Filly and Pleck had found a place to stay that was close to the line. It meant that she only needed to take four trips to lug her stuff from the old house to the Decksetter residence.

Filly was the one to answer the door this time, sporting a soft, flowing blue day-dress. She blinked at the box in Chrysi’s hands, probably mesmerized by the spiraling galaxy Chrysi had sketched in a fit of restlessness.

She tore her eyes away to give Chrysi a sad smile.

“Well,” Filly greeted.

“Well,” Chrysi repeated, nodding once.

Neither of them said anything for a beat. Somewhere, deep in the house, Chrysi heard the tell-tale sound of things falling and a cry of frustration.

A flicker of guilt twisted in her stomach. She was asking a lot of the newly-married couple, by shoving the packed-up remains of her own house into their arms right as they tried to settle in.

But Filly wouldn’t have it.

Upon seeing the familiar glint in Chrysi’s eyes, she stepped forward and took the box from Chrysi’s arms.

“Come on in,” she said kindly. “Would you like coffee? Tea?”

Chrysi didn’t know what to do, now that she didn’t have the box in her hands. “No, no, that’s alright.” She wiped her hands down her shirtfront, though she didn’t quite know why. Suddenly, she was very nervous about this goodbye. It didn’t feel right on her tongue, and she didn’t know how else to bring it up. “Um, the ship… it takes off…”

“Soon, yes.” Filly jostled the box around, her shoulder shifting up in an attempt to push her spectacles up on the bridge of her nose. A wrinkle formed her in her brow when she failed.

From the depths of the house, Pleck emerged. He, too, blinked at the galaxy on the box, then shook himself out of his haze.

“Here, Fil, let me get that for you,” he said gently.

He reached forward and very, very delicately pushed Filly’s glasses up. Filly jolted, her eyes widening. The tension passed quickly with a silly, lovestruck smile.

“Where did you come from?” she asked, a laugh in her voice.

“From behind you, obviously!” He sounded delighted. “I decided I needed a break from settling in.”

Chrysi felt a smile freeze on her face.

Though it wasn’t their fault, she sometimes hated watching them settle into a new life together. She hated seeing that happiness, the blissful adoration, and think of how she and Azure should’ve had that too. It should’ve been them, newly-married and laughing at each other and kissing.

Her heart twisted over itself and Chrysi tore herself from those thoughts.

That’s why I’m doing this, she reminded herself roughly, if not mostly to tear off those painful what-ifs from her consciousness.

Jacks had all the answers for her, and she would track him down to the edge of the earth to find it. But, for the moment, Chrysi was happy that Jacks was in a slightly more convenient place for her to access.

“You know,” Chrysi said, interrupting the lovey-dovey chatter with a much more convincing smile pasted on her face, “I think I could go for a quick drink before I have to take my leave.”

—

This wasn’t the most glamorous way to find passage into a royal ball, and it certainly wasn’t the one Chrysi had to take, but she still figured it best if she flew under the radar for the moment.

You’re like a dog with a bone, he’d said.

Grim satisfaction curled up in the space left behind by her heart cracking.

Chrysi wanted to see Jacks’s face when he saw just how right he’d been.

She heard him before she saw him. His voice was notable, even though she couldn’t say what it was about it precisely. A nearly-forgettable lilt to his words, maybe, instilled after he’d learned the Fated language fluently. Chrysi wondered if she, too, had that ghost of an accent.

Fingers dancing over the piano keys, she bent her head low and eavesdropped shamelessly.

“You’ve outdone yourself this time,” Jacks drawled, but to Chrysi, he sounded outrageously bored. “For once, you’ve gotten a halfway decent band.” A pause, then with a wicked smile that Chrysi knew had no hint of warmth to it, he added, “I suppose they sound perfectly fine as well.”

This earned him a hearty laugh in response.

Chrysi rolled her eyes. Parasite.

“I found a brilliant pianist,” Prince Apollo replied, in that slow, haughty way of royalty. “You’re only hearing improvement because of her, I assure you, Lord Jacks.”

That made her playing falter.

Was that truly the beginning and end of Jacks’s new identity? Blue hair dye and slapping the title Lord in front of his name? Even Chrysi had done more than that, and she’d done the bare minimum.

How was this the man refusing to tell her anything about Azure?

It irked Chrysi, that one so miserable at hiding himself could be such an excellent secret-keeper.

“I’m not so sure,” Jacks said in that glacial, bitter tone of his—seriously, how had nobody not noticed the iciness in his behavior? “Sounds to me like she’s not the grandmaster you’re making her out to be, Apollo.”

Another chuckle from Apollo. Chrysi knew that if she were him, she would’ve already taken the opportunity to crush Jacks’s toes under her pointed heels—though she imagined the prince did not, in fact, wear heeled shoes.

“You’re being unfair, Lord Jacks. I’m sure she is merely tense because we’re near.” Raising his voice, as if Chrysi couldn’t hear him clearly in the first place, Apollo called, “Miss Diana, if you would please. You may pause in your playing.” He paused, then slyly said, “I have someone to introduce you to.”

Chrysi raised a brow, but she obliged.

Why did Apollo say it as if he was going to pair the two of them up? The very thought made her stomach clench.

Disgusting.

She smoothed her skirt, and made to stand.

“Ah, that’s not necessary,” Apollo said, and his voice was much closer than Chrysi had thought it would be.

She snapped her gaze up to see the prince leaning over the top of her white piano, grinning cheekily down at her. She stiffened, then lowered her head in a demure bow.

“If you don’t mind,” she murmured, “I would prefer to stand when talking to the nobility.”

“You say that as if you aren’t on your way there.” Apollo sounded clearly amused.

With her curls covering her expression, Chrysi pulled a face.

Yes, no question of it—Prince Apollo was absolutely trying to pair up her and Jacks.

For what reason? Yes, Jacks had latched onto Apollo and become an advisor within the week he’d landed in the Magnificent North, but it wasn’t like Apollo knew Jacks well enough to attempt to get him a girl. They could hardly be friends after this past month.

“Even still,” she muttered, still in the safety of her own hair to make another face.

For Azure. I’m here to figure out what horrible future he’d seen.

“Well, I’m not one to force you to be disrespectful to the nobility,” Apollo laughed. “Stand if you want, Miss Diana.”

She lifted her head and granted him a grateful smile.

She stood with an elegant movement, smoothing the front of her skirts one last time.

She raised her head to find Jacks staring at her, his eyes so wide she could see the whites around his pupils. His eyelashes framed them in just as midnight a blue as his hair—and Chrysi was right about the color not suiting him in the slightest, she thought with a stab of triumph—and his face had frozen in a stony mask. His hands curled up by his sides, unnoticed by everyone but her.

Chrysi, in turn, granted him a wicked smile, complete with her sharp canines and pent-up, righteous rage.

“Lord Jacks,” she said in an innocent voice. “I’ve heard so much about you. I’d love to sit down and talk about things with you one of these days.”

“Yes,” he said, and his voice had gone even colder, “I’m sure you would.”

Chrysi’s grin hitched higher.

She had him right where she wanted him.

#cameras exist in the cara//val universe because i SAID SO #anyway chrysi fucking HATES jacks rn and it’s so fucking funny #.asks #m.moon🎀#w.mine #s.chrysijacks #s.chryzure #rlly it’s primarily chryzure but painful <333 #it’s a fun reminder that chryzure is still endgame in my main chrysijacks plot line LMAOOOOO #sorry jacks but it’s so easy to be mean to you #also very funny that chrysi goes to the magnificent north SPECIFICALLY to get jacks to tell her something #and then they end up getting into countless messes bc both chrysi and jacks don’t know how to leave things alone #jacks bc of his schemes #chrysi bc she wants to help everyone

4 notes · View notes