#I hope we're ready for tangentially related stuff

[numericalpie]

WCW 1: Iced Coffee and Unwritten History

Prompt: High Lords, Ladies, and Emissaries @wintercourtweek

180142. 2 wraps, wool, for Morana. 25 coins.

180143. Food for Solstice Fest. Audria - 180 coins, root vegetables. Morgi - 300 coins, bread and pastry. Boris and Varvara - 500 coins, wine, ale. Total: 980 coins. {Must remember to switch vendors next year. Ridiculous} 

180144. Musicians, SF. 600 coins. 

180145. SF gift for V. 64 coins. 

180146. Candles. 120 coins.

180147. Weekly foodstuffs. 47 coins. 

180148. OT staff for SF. 300 coins. 

180149. Preserves, cranberry, for [next 40 lines obscured]

181021. Apothecary, 20 coins.

181022. Text, Isalfar, for V. 40 coins. 

181023. Sled repair. 40 coins. 

181024. Court dress, for Morana. 1800 coins. {V insists it must be dyed. M disagrees. Dye? Extra [obscured. Subsequent pages missing.]

Viviane slammed her laptop shut and winced immediately. The cover didn’t come off, thank the Mother, but the little track on the bottom that was already fucking broken flew across the table and into Kallias’s forehead. 

“Ow,” he said, monotone. It hit the floor and stuck, rubber and tacky, but in her head it shattered like a dropped plate.

Viviane groaned and let her head droop to the suspiciously-warm top of her computer. The fan was going, whirring oddly softly. 

So it wasn’t mad. Nice. 

“Having fun with your fragments?” Kallias asked. She didn’t look up, but in her mind’s eye he  was looking at her that way he always did, a little I told you so and a little really, what’s wrong?

Which was only fair, because actually what was she doing, and why did she think this was a good idea? Why was she doing this degree? What the fuck was wrong with her? Where had she gotten the audacity - 

“No,” she said, picking her head up. “That is the Devil speaking.”

Kallias looked up from his code. “What?” 

She flapped an arm in his direction and he looked back down. 

“I told you the material was awful,” he said, very quietly. 

“You know,” she said, trying to decide if the sticker on her laptop - ihtfp - was thick enough to imprint itself on her cheek if she went back down. Four hours of sleep had not been enough, thank you very much. 

It probably wouldn’t. Maybe. And would it matter? Mor wouldn’t care - if she was even in the dorm. Probably she wouldn’t be. She practically lived with Azriel and Cassian, which was the sort of mess Viviane was firmly not getting into, thank you very much. 

“If my partner actually bothered to work on our project, my computer would still be in one piece,” she drawled. 

Kallias frowned. “I don’t think the track counts. And I thought you said it was broken earlier.”

He looked very nice under the white library lights, which was not even a little fair of him, for fuck’s sake, why - nope, nope, nope. 

Viviane was not blushing. 

“I’ve done everything,” she complained.  “You agreed to do this topic -” 

“Because you thought it’d be fun to write about our namesakes! Viv, the assignment has been live for two days. We have a week.” 

She glared. 

He held her gaze for just a minute, which was admirable, but she knew he was going to drop and he did, which was significantly more satisfying than it should have been. 

Kallias sighed, and Viviane could not help the smile - the spark of delight - she won, miracle of miracles, she had seen him stare down their polisci professor twice, but he folded!  

“I have a deal,” he started, leaning back in his chair. Not enough to tilt it back, but enough that it made the line of his neck look - nope. 

“Go,” she said, sitting back herself. 

“I” - he held up a finger “- run for coffee. I get your order.”

“You don’t know my order,” she protested. 

He wagged his finger. “Large. Iced, and you don’t care that it’s snowing. Three sugar-free pumps of vanilla. Unless they have white chocolate. If they do, white chocolate, and don’t ask questions about the sugar.” 

She scoffed. “Clearly,” Viviane began, “you don’t know my order, or you would remember -”

“No room for whipped cream,” he interrupted. “An extra handful of napkins so you don’t have to buy them. And a dollar in the tip jar to justify overconsumption of plastics, which doesn’t make very much sense, if I’m honest -”

“Shut the fuck up. Also I would like a pain au chocolat.” 

He paused. “Those are the chocolate croissants?”

She nodded. 

“Good,” he continued. “That. And then” - a second finger “- I will spend at least an hour in defense of Lady Viviane’s political career.”

“Two,” Viviane countered. “I’m going to have to explain everything to you, first.”

Kallias frowned. “I’m sure -” 

“I have plans, Kal,” she insisted. “You’re going to change the font size or something if I don’t -”

“I would never,” he said, hand over his heart, affronted. “Viviane, I swear before the Mother, I wouldn’t dare.” 

“If you’re sure,” she grumbled. 

“I promise. And then we’ll go back to mine or yours and watch the episode of - what was it?” 

Viviane laughed. “How could you forget the beauty of The Ultimatum?” 

Kallias shook his head. “Acceptable?” 

Viviane considered it. “I suppose.” 

She drew it out, sup-pose. He jumped from his seat before she finished the word, slipping away from their cubic-whiteboard-cubby in seconds. 

The moment he was gone, she dropped her head back to the top of her laptop. It wasn’t fair, it just wasn’t fucking fair. 

Ihtfp, she could feel it, sinking into her skin. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. 

“I never asked,” she whispered out into the air. To the Mother, to - it didn’t matter, actually, none of it fucking mattered, because he was her best friend and nothing was ever going to happen. 

Two years, Viviane reminded herself. Two years, only two years, and then she could quietly start to cut off contact - go to grad school in Night, or something, Mor would take her in. Nevermind that she’d lose her best friend in the process. He’d be off to the fucking capitol, probably, working for the state department, and she could wither to dust in fucking Night with Mor’s family under a fucking mountain, and everything would be fine. 

Yes. Fine. Very fine. Perfect. 

She lifted her head - the acronym was firmly branded into her cheek, she could just tell - and opened the page again. The rest of the document was more ledgers, apparently, decades and decades from one High Lord’s personal bookkeeping. 

The next link from the Wikipedia article sources looked promising. “Ribbons of blue: the personal communiques of Kallias, lord of Winter, XVII, r.d. 57-107. Trans. Hauk Saudson.”

Viviane,

Do you think I should try sideburns? I think I could grow sideburns if I tried hard enough. Saw a glacier earlier that you’d love. We should come back. Morana could run wild in the tundra and make friends with all the caribou. I cannot help but picture it.

We must come back. When the court is not in session. I know you cannot bear to be drawn away from the visiting emissaries. I wish you could go abroad again - I know you wish to. 

I cannot bear to let you go. This week has nearly been too much to bear. I cannot do without you. The separation drives me to foolery - writing letters in the dark of night. Evidently. 

I love you. 

Kallias

Nothing much of use toward their project, except the bit about the emissaries. That might work well for their paper, might prove the Lady’s involvement in political affairs. That would show her professor. He could not argue against hard evidence. 

The next letter was short and to his daughter, who was - 7? 10? 

Viviane switched to Firefox: how old was HL Morana in XVII 58 

Six. Huh.

Morana,

Have you finished the story I left you yet? If you have, tell your maman. She knows where the next one is. And I hope you have slept well. I instructed all the monsters under the beds to play very quietly, so they do not wake you up. 

Be good for your tutors and your maman, and know I will always be,

Your loving papa. 

Nothing of use. She couldn’t make herself switch away from it, all the monsters under the beds. Viviane clicked to open another tab. The one after looked promising, finally: a letter in the Lady’s own swooping hand. 

Kallias, 

You have been gone for too long. Come home. 

There, I said it. Consider that your permission to leave whatever has given our dearest lord of southern wastes another hernia behind. He can manage it, we both know that, he’s just dragging things out so he can tell all of his holders that he has the favor of the High Lord. Ridiculous male. And ridiculous you, because you’ll laugh at this letter and proceed to suffer through two more days. 

Two more whole days. I cannot believe you would do this to me. How dare you. I sleep terribly without you, as you well know, and I will remind you that until your sleep schedule is improved you cannot criticize mine. 

I would like to visit, though. Dutiful wife that I am, I shall forget you said anything immediately. There, now you don’t get to complain about piecing together something for our anniversary in the midst of the legislative session. Not that you do complain. Nor that I would be upset if something else were to come. Perhaps forget I said anything? I know you won’t, but you could. If you wanted to.  

Of course I am enjoying the emissaries. I won’t write of it - you’ll have to come back so I can tell you everything. Some of the other Courts - well. I said I wouldn’t write of it, and I won’t, but frozen dead, Kal, you’re going to lose your mind. I’m losing my mind. I’ve settled everything, of course, don’t worry over that, but I promise you’ll want to know. 

I miss you. 

Your Viviane. 

PS. If you grow sideburns I will desert for the Continent. I mean it. 

“Coffee,” Kallias said, handing her the plastic cup. “Straw. Extra napkins. Croissant.”

“I found evidence,” she said, not looking up from her screen. She took a drink - nice and cold and sweet. Perfect. 

“Oh?” he asked, setting his own order down. Black coffee, hot - disgusting, honestly, there was something wrong with him. 

He looked good in his sweater, which was not something Viviane was supposed to notice. Fuck. 

“Here,” she said, pointing to the lines. “She’s “settled everything” regarding some foreign emissaries.”

He leaned over her shoulder, which - oh, shit, he smelled very good. Cardamom. Pine. Something that she couldn’t identify and frankly shouldn’t be thinking about. Fuck, fuck. 

“It’s not explicit,” he said, finally, leaning back. “But if there’s more…”

She looked down at the bottom. “Only eighty pages to look through. And sixteen other sources.”

“We could expand beyond Wikipedia,” he suggested. 

The air grew tense. She looked over her shoulder, and he was so close - so fucking close, one of these days she was going to do something stupid and kiss him if he kept getting so close. 

Viviane did not, though, pull away. 

“I hope you’re joking,” she whispered. 

He squinted, and pulled away. “Obviously, Viv. Who do you think I am?”

She laughed, a little higher than she should’ve, but for the sake of the Holy Mother she did manage to laugh like a sane person. And then she wrote until she remembered that her iced coffee was melting, and then she took a break to heckle Kallias while hurriedly drinking half of it. 

(They got a C on their paper, for “overly expanding the role of the Lady Viviane in Court affairs.” Viviane was so angry that she went back to her dorm and railed at Morrigan for an hour about it all. Halfway through she dropped her crush on Kallias - her enormous, boulder-sized crush on Kallias - and though she didn’t notice, Mor certainly did. Hijinks commenced, the sort only drawn up by drunk friends trying to help other friends. Viviane and Kallias were dating by the end of the semester. 

He becomes an economist, or something. Viviane goes on to get a PhD in History, proving in her dissertation that the High Lord and Lady Viviane were corulers, the first known example of a regnant Lady in the history of Winter. 

The vindication is sweet.)