My piece for the @blueseyzine this one was the most difficult for me to make at the time and one of my most fave zine pieces i did last year! Thank you so much to my friend Moira for organizing this zine and to everyone who has purchase it!💙💙
I’m really sorry to bother you, but I can’t stop thinking about (Here there was a big blob of ink)
Sorry about that! I must’ve knocked over my ink canister.
Anyways I can’t stop thinking about Quidditch! You’ve got me very interested in the difference between Puddlemere United and the Chudley Cannons and I need more fuel to tease Marly about so please respond asap.
Shame we couldn’t talk more about it on the train, but I guess we were both busy.
Her thumb puts so much pressure against her pen that she wonders how much longer it’ll be before it snaps. It’s a Tuesday afternoon, and Jude is stuck in one of the longest lectures of her life; some tyrade on Frankenstein and it’s use of women. It’d be interesting - it should be interesting - if it wasn’t for the misogynistic excuse of a lecturer.
But the lecturer isn’t the reason for Jude’s exponentially building frustration. No, that honour belongs to Cardan Greenbriar, whose feet - ever so gracefully resting on his desk - continue to brush against Jude’s hair every couple of seconds.
Going to high school with Cardan had been soul sucking as it was - moving to uni was meant to be a one way ticket away from him and his group of cronies. But I’d didn’t quite work that way. Jude had walked into her first lecture on her first day - and almost walked out again when she saw his dark, perfectly messy hair sticking out against the mass of first years. Two years later, she still wants to batter him until he just stops.
She ignores his little taunts and commentary on the lecture, desperately tries to focus on the notes in front of her instead. It’s only this lecture she finds difficult to focus on. No matter where she sits, Cardan always finds a way to sit in that irritating spot just behind her - even if someone had already sat there. Cardan asks you to move, you do it.
As soon as the lecture ends Jude is shoving her pen and pad into her bag, erupting out of her seat like anger wants to erupt out of her. She feels his eyes on her back, the pinpricks and warmth they always bring. Jude loses it then - feels it build in her throat and clash against her gritted teeth.
Cardan’s expression slips into mild surprise - barely confessed- when Jude wildly spins, fingers clinging to his desk.
“Leave me the fuck alone, Cardan. This is my worst lecture - and it’s all down to you.”
“I’m just sat here, Jude -“
“God.” She mutters, rolling her eyes and reaching for the pen he hasn’t quite managed to pack away yet. “Let me spell it out for you.” Her hand latches onto his at rapid pace, and the pen is on his skin in a matter of seconds. But Cardan doesn’t even seem to want to move away. His eyes stay stuck on where their skin touches, even while Jude draws the words FUCK OFF in her scrawly handwriting. “There. You should get it now.”
By the time Cardan even thinks to react, his hand flexing and unflexing in a desperate attempt to remember the feel of her skin on his, Jude is already walking away, ponytail swinging with every step she takes.
“So are you going to act like a king and execute the little bitch or what”. Nicassia’s grating voice echoes as she storms after the King to the Braugh.
Carden rolled his eyes so hard It was slightly surprising they didn’t roll straight out of his head. Of course he wanted to find who murdered Locke. Of course he wanted his killer brought to justice. But something more pressing dominated his every thought the entire day.
Jude.
She was back. He could feel it. Sometime in the middle of the day, her foot touched the soil of Elfhame and he could feel it. Every fiber of his being shouted it. The earth around him trembled it out in a steady heartbeat. Jude’s home. Jude’s home. Jude’s home Jude’s home. It was a testament to his control to even be here and not tearing down the damn world to find her and demand what took her so damn long.
Months. It had been months since the Queen of Elfhame had left for the mortal world. Months that she could have, should have, been here. By his side. Ruling with him. But has she been? No. She’s been off galavanting around the human lands doing gods knows what.
Currently the only thing Carden was concerned about was getting this damn trial over with.
Maybe she’s waiting for the trial to be over first Carden mused to himself, she’ll come striding into my chambers demanding justice. Perhaps I’ll condemn Taryn. Force her to show herself and I’ll make her come back for her sisters freedom. Perhaps she’s punishing me. Perhaps she’ll..
“Carden are you even listening to me? I refuse to leave your side until you assure me Locke will be avenged and his murderer sentenced to death I swear to all that I hold dear Carden,”
“Enough” Carden sighed. Nicassia’s rampage halted with her step as he whirled around to face her
“The trial will prove definitively whether or not it was Taryn who slayed Locke. She will not be able to lie to us. She will not be able to deceive us. If she is not the killer than she will not be harmed. Am I understood?” His tone left no room for questions. A King’s tone.
Unable to say anymore Nicassia simply nodded and turned on her heel in a huff. Storming through the doors to the trial. Carden heaved another great sigh, this will be more unpleasant than he thought.
Carden threw open the doors to the Baugh, ignoring the courtiers that bowed and scrambled to get out of his way as he strode with bored purpose to the throne. That stupid gods forsaken throne. Jude’s throne a voice in his head whispered, unbidden. His annoyance only grew at the thought. Plopping down gracefully, but not unceremoniously, he lounged and looked on to his people.
The crowd’s chatter died down to a whisper. Eyes fixed on his face in silent waiting. Carden sighed again and glanced up at the ceiling.
“Let’s get this over with shall we?” He says
The Folk scramble to find their seats, more hushed whispers of anticipation lilt through the hall. Until finally the main doors open and in she steps. Carden can’t help the pure excitement that races through him because she’s here, in the flesh, the one and only, Jude.
Carden works fast to mask his face, biting back a smile that rises to his lips. She looks the same as she did the night before he banished her. Her red brown hair is swept up in an elegant chignon, her green dress flatters every curve of her all too human figure, elegant cosmetics grace her delicate human features, and it all looks so…..un-Jude. It almost makes him laugh. He allows a small lazy smile as his eyes trail their way back up her body and finally meet her eyes. There she is he thinks, because as wrong as it feels seeing her parading around as Taryn, there, in her eyes, there’s no mistaking the utter Jude-ness of that blatant defiance and outright anger. Even as she tries to reign it in her eyes shine with it, are practically alight, and even if Carden wouldn’t have known who she was from the way the ground beneath his feet was almost singing at her standing in her true home again, he would know those eyes and their true mistress anywhere.
Her chin juts out as she scrutinizes him right back and that urge to play rears back into him with a vengeance. Is it games you want my most beloved torturer? He thinks to himself then let’s begin.
Detail from the Queen of Mirth scene I’m working on, from Holly Black’s novel The Wicked King. When Jude tells Cardan “I hate you,” I think I laughed out loud. It’s my favourite line from the whole book 😊 Hopefully I made her look sufficiently resentful here!
Okay the scene where Jude falls from the rafters in Queen of Nothing is a pivotal and dramatic scene and my USELESS ASS can only picture the vine of Kermit falling from the roof