#but I’m happy to send a sample of my edited wips if you want something better to look over

[red-garden]

Scummies of the audience, hmu if you’re looking for an editor/beta reader for your scum villain fanfic, especially if it’s Qijiu/liushen. One shots, long fics, whatever you got. I’m fast, efficient, and ask lots of questions 👍

[brosura]

it’s not a party until someone’s face gets shoved into a cake - the luna edition

Word Count: 2014 Rating: G Characters: Lunafreya Nox Fleuret + like everyone Warnings: C-C-CAKE FACE SHOVE 

“lunafreya voice: confection, infant”

takes place in an au where lunafreya grows up insomnia aka an au that i already have and is a WIP that i’m working on, i promise i’m working on it. i promise

also as a primer to understand everyone’s relative age: luna’s 20, gladio’s 19, ignis is 18, noctis is 16, prompto 15 and iris (yes iris!) is 10. ravus is alive in this, but he’s still trapped in tenebrae as a political hostage. and now you’re primed!

As Luna understands it, the twentieth birthday is very important to Lucians.

It’s curious to her, since from her memories of home, Tenebrae’s significant birthday was a few years younger, at eighteen. 

Ravus had only been a few years shy of it when… well.

He’d be free soon. They’d see each other soon.

At any rate, she hasn’t spent either day in the public eye. As the Oracle and the escaped princess of Tenebrae, every birthday she lives to see is an insult to the Empire that took her home, and she’s critically aware of the target that makes her. She’ll give a speech tomorrow because she’s not so afraid that she isn’t eager to rub salt in the Empire’s wound.

You have failed, she will say, in more beautiful words, venom veiled behind silk. I’m alive and you have failed.

But for now, her day continues normally, none of the public festivities that had burned the fuel from a freshly-sixteen-year-old Noctis not five days ago. She’s in her office - studying and looking over the reports she’d been given as Noctis naps on the couch and Gladio stands guard - when there’s a gentle knock at the door.

Gladio opens it easily. Too easily, looking back. He’d always erred on the side of extreme caution whenever she and Noctis, two very high profile targets, were in the same room.

But it’s only Ignis, so Luna doesn’t think anything is off.

Well, until he turns after addressing her to pull in a cart after him with tea and a very large cake.

It’s a lovely cake, more complicated than the things Ignis usually brings her, and decorated with little candied sylleblossoms and delicate white creme frosting in his signature flair. It’s bare on one side, curiously, but otherwise it’s beautifully designed. Gladio presents Ignis and the cake as they enter through the door with a little flourish and a grin before kicking Noctis awake.

It’s nice and it’s a sweet gesture.

But it’s a bit embarrassing, if she’s honest. She’s used to little things here and there, she’s used to birthday cakes coming from a baker by trade that she thanks after her first bite so he can relax from standing stiffly out of fear of disappointing her.

She rarely has to face that a friend with other responsibilities has spent so much time and effort on her directly.

“Ignis, you didn’t-”

“Nonsense, Luna,” he says before she can say what he’s probably guessed. They’re very similar, and they both find gifting an uncomfortable experience. “You’re turning twenty. I couldn’t very well let a friend go cakeless on such an occasion.”

“Yeah, it’s your birthday.” Noct yawns. He wipes at his eyes but seems unsurprised by the cake. She wonders at how well they’d kept her in the dark. “It’s your day to eat as much cake as you want.”

“’Sides,” Gladio adds. “Iggy likes to flex his skills. Don’t feel too bad, he’s been chomping at the bit to make something ‘more advanced.’ Think he would have made a cake if the weather was a little nice.”

“There you are,” Ignis says with finality, but he sends Gladio something like a warning look. He moves the cake onto her desk before she can protest. “If it helps, just imagine this as if it’s a regular afternoon tea. Only instead of little tarts, we’ll be eating cake.”

“I suppose. This is a rather elagant cake for a simple tea, but thank you, Ignis.” She gives him a nervous little smile, relieved at least that once whatever little ceremony Ignis and the others seem to have planned is complete, they can go back to having a normal tea.

It’s around this time that she should have anticipated what was to come, should have seen the signs, really.

The way Ignis went out of his way to face the plain side of the cake towards her. Curious, considering that she was the guest of honor, so to speak. The quick, conspiratorial looks that Ignis, Gladio and Noctis shared. The door that Gladio had left cracked open, something he would never be so careless as to do normally.

“Now, before we light the candles, why don’t you put your papers away?” Ignis says, sounding strange. She’ll later be able to place this as nervousness. “Wouldn’t do for your studies to be derailed by a stray flame.”

Later, she’ll look back on Ignis’ suggestion with a mixture of betrayal and gratitude.

Later, she’ll recognize that the way Gladio and Noctis linger at an odd distance is because they’re trying to stay out of the way.

Later, she’ll recognize that the cracked door has a purpose.

But for now, she just puts away her papers anyway, eager to get the uncomfortable formality of the candles and the cake out of the way so that she and her friends could simply enjoy tea together, as usual.

“And, ah, Luna?” Ignis says when she finishes. “I’m very sorry about this, do know that I objected to this to the best of my ability.”

She doesn’t know what this means, but she doesn’t have time to linger on it before she sees the shimmer of blue coming from behind the cracked door and the familiar fwip and rush of cold air of someone warping directly behind her. There’s a crash and the clatter of someone hitting the Venetian blinds of the window, but before she can turn to investigate, two hands rest firmly on her shoulders and push with a force she wasn’t equipped to resist.

In the very next moment, her face is buried deep in the undecorated portion of the cake.

This was premeditated, is the first thing she thinks when she hears Gladio and Noct’s unconcealed laughter. But still, the experience is so startling she doesn’t know how to react, she doesn’t say a word as she pulls herself from the thing and wipes the beautiful creme frosting (a delicious concoction that was sweet and tasted of vanilla) from her eyes with her fingers.

“Nice job for beginners, you two,” she hears Gladio say along with the distant click of the door as she rubs cake bits from her eyes. This was premeditated, all of it. “Coulda stuck the landing better, Prompto, but lucky for you, Iris here’s got a bit more warp experience under her belt.”

“Yup! I completed the mission!” comes Iris’ familiar voice. Luna turns to find the little girl in question bouncing cheerfully behind her. She has the decency to give Luna an apologetic look. “Sorry, Lulu. I wanted to be part of the celebration!”

“C-celebration?” she stutters.

“Yeah! It’s your twentieth!” Prompto says cheerfully. To add to the situation, he’s a little behind Iris and by the window, struggling to remove his arm from a tangle in the Venetian blinds. She remembers the crashing sound. Could have stuck the landing better, indeed. “That’s a big deal here, Lu! Couldn’t let you celebrate alone!”

“A-ah, I see,” she stutters, this time around a shaky laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation. Prompto struggles on. “Must all Lucians eat their cake with their faces on their twentieth birthday?”

“Not all,” Noct answers, smiling. “Just the few who don’t have to make public appearances.”

“It’s not by choice!”

“And just the few that insist on working through their birthday,” Ignis adds.

“Ignis!” She laughs. “To think I would hear that from you!”

“Well, I may not have the best history of celebrating my birthdays, but twentieth birthdays are a landmark,” he says, then gives her a warm smile. “And you deserve to enjoy yourself every once in awhile, Lady Lunafreya.”

And perhaps she does. It’s been eight years since the fall of Tenebrae. Eight years of a long journey that she’s nowhere near the end of.

But it is her birthday. She only turns twenty once.

“Very well then,” she says with a warm smile of her own that probably looks strange because of the cake. “Let’s celebrate. But I do hope you all know I’ll remember this.”

“Well, you’ve got my support when we get to this guy,” Gladio smirks, jostling Ignis pointedly.

Ignis only huffs. “It’d be good of you to remember that you’ll be reaching twenty before me, Gladio.”

Noctis brightens. “Oh, I want in on that!”

“Me, too!” Prompto grins, having finally untangled himself from the blinds.

“I want to shove Gladio into a cake, too!” Iris pipes in.

“Would you?” Luna laughs. Iris only grins in response, clearly happy to be included. “Well, for now, would you like to help me cut the cake?”

Iris frowns, but she wanders closer anyway. Completely unsuspecting. “Why cut it? Let’s just eat it with our hands!”

“An excellent idea,” Luna says, then reaches out both of her cake-smeared hands to rub frosting all over Iris’ cheeks as she squeals in surprised delight.

“Oh no, she’s going rogue!” Prompto shouts, but it’s laced with the same surprised delight.

“Indeed,” Luna nods, sagely. “Now then, Iris. Didn’t you say something about Gladio?”

Iris brightens with a vicious joy and realization, and she shoves both little hands into the cake where Luna’s face had made contact. Gladio realizes her game as she’s rushing towards him, but he has nowhere to go when she reaches him to smear both hands all over the parts of the uniform that she can get to at her height. He collapses to the ground, playing at being wounded even as he allows her to spread the remaining frosting into his growing beard. The room erupts in laughter again, but this time Luna is in on the joke.

“Traitor!” Gladio cries in mock disbelief. “I taught you everything you know!”

“Not everything,” Luna says with a sly grin. She dips her own hands back into the cake and comes away with a good fistful of frosting and crumbs. “Now then, would you like to sample your masterpiece, Ignis?”

The subsequent cake battle lasts nearly an hour.

As the target of the first, coordinated attack, Luna has taken the most damage, but no one’s unscathed and everyone will have some laundry to do (will have some explaining to do, in the case of the still in-uniform Gladio) once they’re done. But for now, they drink tea, eat the remains of the cake - still delicious, even after everything - with their hands as Iris had suggested and chat about nothing in particular.

And it’s nice.

The frosting is starting to get uncomfortable and Luna’s a bit concerned about the cleaning that will have to be done, but it’s nice.

There are things she must do, as Oracle and as Princess of Tenebrae. Important things. The letter she will receive later tonight - the hastily written note from Ravus with a scarf and flower that he’s secured around Umbra’s neck for her - and the little sylleblossoms of ice that she’ll find in the vase by her bed are reminders of that.

But she thinks moments like these are important as well. Moments where the burden of his future doesn’t weigh so heavily on Noct’s shoulders as they shake with laughter. Where Ignis can look sheepish and unkempt in the company of friends. Where Gladio and Iris enjoy the simple things about being family with no regards to their legacy. Where Prompto feels the confidence to stop measuring himself against his company and to simply enjoy being with them.

Where she can see all these things with them, see the bright futures ahead of them.

Where she can hope for the brightness of her own future without having to remember the pain and darkness of her past.

Moments like these are important. They will give her strength.

But for now, the moment isn’t over.

In their revelry, no one hears the door open. Gladio is the first to jump to attention, puffing up in the way that he does, but it’s hardly threatening with white frosting strewn throughout his beard and hair.

Luckily for them, it’s no assassin that steps through the door, but simply Regis holding a small cake of his own. King Regis, she reminds herself, when Ignis and Prompto snap to attention, cake flying from their hair and uniforms.

“Oh my,” he says, looking around the room with a mixture of amusement and surprise. “It seems I've missed my chance.”

not pictured: regis getting in on the eating cake with our hands action and luna conceding to a second cake face shove

idk man i just wanted to give my girl a good time with friends for her bday and my little hands must always shove ppl into cakes if it’s their birthday

anyway!! let me know if you enjoyed that -fl0 rida voice- cake!