#everything is really aggressive and people in gold expect to have healing dumped on them from the skies when they overextend

[gazpacho-deluxe]

i love playing zen sm. like i literally can just orchestrate 1v1s to win fights by orbing whoever’s doing shit and discording their opponent and it’s sick and awesome it feels so fun to play

[raevenlywrites]

The Ties That Bind 7 of ???

Two chapters? TWO CHAPTERS??? *nods* Two chapters

Kneeling before Zane and promising to find a way was one thing. Getting back up off the floor and actually doing it was quite another.

So we compromised, staying on the floor but moving the lean up against the bed. It was surprisingly easier to talk to him this way; yes, we were touching, a bit of leg here, shoulder there, but I didn’t have to look at him, and that made all the difference. I suddenly realized that part of what made talking to Andreios in those late nights was that I put my back to him. Leaning into the solid warmth of his chest and talking into the dark made confessing my heart so much easier.

I don’t think it was my heart I was confessing to Zane, but it was still made easier by facing a neutral tapestry covered wall instead of my would-be king.

Shouldn’t that be a sign that this was a bad idea? That I could only talk to him if I didn’t look at him.

But then, he hadn’t tried to meet my eyes either. Maybe we just weren’t that sort of couple.

Couple. The thought took my breath away, and I struggled to release it, to keep from that trembling tension that I knew Zane would misconstrue.

“I’m alright,” I breathed before he could ask. “Just... adjusting. Overthinking.”

“Your thoughts might do us more good out here in the open.”

A surprised hiccup of laughter escaped me. “I don’t think telling you that the thought of us being a couple makes my limbs seize up with fear is helpful.”

“On the contrary.” Zane’s voice was soft enough it made me want to look at him, to see the kind of expression that went with that face. But I kept my eyes on the tapestry, wandering its warp and weft without seeing more than the colors.

“I think it’s extremely productive to talk about exactly how we feel with one another. My people will have a hard enough time embracing an avian queen. One that hides behind her haughty mask of reserve will never be tolerated.”

“And mine won’t like you no matter what face you show them.”

“Do you dance, Danica?”

The question caught me so off guard that I did turn to look at him then, staring in incredulity.

He gestured to the tapestry I’d been staring at without seeing.

It’s threads wove the tale of the first hawk, the golden queen Alasdair. The center was a radiant riot of gold, the hawk queen framed in triumphant flight against the sun. But the borders showed more subdued scenes, of brown and dying earth, of an infant in a feathered nest, of a young woman dancing among the clouds and then the fields, grown green at her feet’s touch.

“It’s just a metaphor,” I murmured. “Avian magic comes through song, not dance. But how do you weave a song?”

My gaze lingered on a corner piece, the queen Alasdair raised in supplication, stretched out long from the tips of her toes to her delicatedly embroidered fingers, raised high overhead with her wrists crossed. The details doublestitched over the base weaving made her pop, standing out in radiant golden threads on the more humbly woven green.

I was focusing on nonsense details again, remembering the technical skills that went into this piece rather than thinking about its deeper meaning.

“I just wondered,” Zane said casually, though this moment was anything but. “She’s woven against a backdrop of the Ahnleh, which is the sign of the dancers’ nests among my people.”

I tried to pick out the sign he’d indicated, but all I saw was the seal of Alasdair, a glyph as common to my eye as any. All coins, contracts, and sigils of protection bore some incarnation of that mark, a single line stretched from heaven to earth, with delicate branching wings meeting in the middle. It was mostly obscured by Alasdair herself on this work, but I knew it well.

 “I’m sure there are differences we just can’t see because she’s in the way,” I said, not really knowing what else to say. Was he just trying to distract me, til I calmed down and could speak more rationally?

 “I’m sure there are similarities, too.” His voice had gone all tender and soft again, and I couldn’t resist turning to look at him. “Enough so that I recognized it.”

 Our faces were unspeakably close, a breath way from touching. I knew that wasn’t objectively true, but... I’d never let my face linger so close to a man’s before. The thought of that beautifully cruel mouth so close to mine...

 “I never kissed anyone before.”

 The words came out on a breath unbidden, my mind tumbling from lips too preoccupied to hold anything back. They wanted nothing more than to press themselves against the hard softness of Zane’s, to see if those lips so clever and cruel could also be gentle and tender.

 But Zane had jerked back at my soft declaration, utterly shocked.

 “You’re joking.”

 The heat of desire flared into outrage. I felt my eyes harden and my lips thin out in a narrow, tightly pressed line.

 “Why would I joke about something like that?” My words were cold, measured, precise. “Why would I admit to such a weakeness in a moment of vulnerability where we are trying to be truthful with one another? You said anything to make this work, yet you’re mocking me for keeping chaste? It’s the way of my people, Zane. We don’t sneak into each other’s bedrooms in the middle of the night--“

 My words caught on the jumble of anger, and the memory of Elanor sneaking him into my room so he could propse to me while I was not even awake to recieve it.

 ”--and propose mad fancies as if that will solve anything! There is no easy way out of this, Zane Cobriana. We either have to work together, or make enmity anew with this pointless conversation!”

 I’d crossed my arms over my middle, holding my own ribs in that way of my most intimate of comforts. It was what I did when Rei was not there to hold so. I did it now to keep from flailing about, letting my hands speak the aggression my tone would not. I would not scream at him. I would not escalate.

 I would not be the reason the guards poured into the room and broke us apart.

 But I would also not sit here and be insulted.

 He was quiet for far too long, face turned away, hiding from me as surely as he accused me of doing with my ‘haughty avian reserve’. How dare he? How dare he! He was such a hypocrite, coming to me with this mad scheme, making grand gestures and pretty speeches and never once suggesting how this mad thing migth be done.

 I was so caught up stewing in my own fury that I almost missed his softly spoken answer.

 “I never said proposing marriage would be easy.”

 “But you never said anything more about how such a thing would be done, either, did you Zane?”

 It was all I could do to keep my voice quiet, to contain my outrage in harhly whispered tones.

 “You just dumped this problem in my lap as if I’d have any more luck solving it than you did. What am I supposed to do with this, Zane? If I say no, your feelings are hurt and we’re still without a solution. But if I say yes, we still haven’t really solved anything, have we? We’ve just made a complicated scenario more messy and entangled and vulnerable--“

 The rest of my words were cut off by his face suddenly in mine. I jerked back so quickly, I didn’t immediately process that he’d been attempting to kiss me.

 Fury burned, hot on my cheeks and in my eyes, and in my fiercely whispered words.

 “How dare you. How dare you! You think this can all be solved with an uninvited kiss?”

 “I thought that’s what you wanted!”

 He cut off my tirade with an equall fierce whisper, eyes dark with hurt and frustration. “Why else would you have brought it up, if not in invitation? I don’t know how you do things in the Keep, Danica, but I am trying my best. I know you expect me to persue you, to be the active party, so that your avian virtue remains intact, but what am I supposed to do when that isn’t the right answer either?”

 I just stared. He’d caught me so completely off guard, I had no idea what to do with him. My shock kept me from monitoring my words, kept me from doing anything but pour out the honest truth of my whirling thoughts.

 “You know--you know, do you? Well tell me, Zane, how am I supposed to act according to your serpiente morals? Because while you think you know everything there is to know about avian pairbonds, I don’t know a thing about serpiente--” I paused, groping for a word I didn’t have. “Skies above, Zane, I don’t even know what your people call it! You don’t have pairbonds, do you even marry?”

 “Would I have asked you to marry me if we didn’t have such traditions?”

 “I dont’ know!” I hated the emotion that crept into my voice. “I don’t know anything about what I’m getting myself into. I dont’ know the first thing about your people or your expectation and you’re asking me to marry you. Don’t you understand how absurd it is?”

 “Yes!” He met my fire with his own, both of us growing ever louder. “Gods, yes, I do, but I’m really out of ideas. I thought spending time with your people would help me understand them better, but I really have no idea--“

 “What do you mean, spending time with my people?”

 Zane looked away, eyes fixed on the floor. He was quiet long enough I almost thought I’d have to ask again, but he finally admited, “This isn’t my first time visiting Elanor’s aunts.”

 Again, I just stared at him. What on earth could I possibly say to that revelation?

 But he carried on, eyes drifting up to the tapestry, as if searching it for inspiration. Or apparently, memory.

 “I knew this tapestry becasue I spent a full night and a day staring at it, as I fought to work through a delirious fever brought on by that damnable falcon poison. Adelina brought me here, to the first shelter she’d found, and demanded a place to keep me safe while I healed. All I can say was that it must have been the will of Fate to bring me here, to a house sympathetic to true peace, with a wound minor enough that the am’haj didn’t just kill me outright.”

 I thought of Elanor’s retelling of his dramatic ride, of declaring it the will of Fate that he find her--and had to wonder if my dearest friend had lied to me. But Zane continued, sweeping me away with his dramatic story.

 “I stared at this tapestry and tried to keep my grip on reality as she sang to me of peace, a halluciantion to be sure. But when I heard of what you did for Gregory, I couldn’t help but remember that fevered dream, and hope...”

 “Hope for what?”

 “Hope that maybe it was a sign. That maybe things really could get better. That maybe hawks could dance with cobras, and peace could rise from bloody fields.”

 “Alright,” I said again, with less conviction than before, but more of an idea of how to proceed.

 “Alright?” Zane echoed with a raised eyebrow. I nodded.

 “I’ll sing you back to health. We send messengers to both palaces that you were injured on your return journey from the Mistari lands, and I’m attending your bedside to give you what healing aide I have. It will give us time to brainstorm, and maybe come up with a less ludicrous idea than a marriage neither of us actually want.”

 Zane just stared. I shrugged.

 “It’s the best idea I have. It buys us time. I just... I just need some time. To do what, I don’t know yet. But I didn’t have this plan until just now, so maybe, with a few more days...”

 “And what’s to stop the Keep from scouring the fields to find me and finish me off?”

 “My word,” I said firmly. “I’ve commanded the generals twice to stand down, and if they cannot obey me in this I’ll... I’ll,” I shook my head, trying to shake off some of the fury that had been building over the past several days. “I’ll discharge each and every one of them. I’ll discharge the entire army if I have to. I am done fighting. This ends here.”

 “Or they overthrow you,” Zane said with a dry wryness that was anything but humorous.

 “They can try,” I said through gritted teeth. “Shardae magic holds the key to the hidden fields on the far side of the mountain. If they want a civil war, we’ll see how long it lasts when their soldiers are starving.”

 Zane gave me wide eyes, but they were marked with approval. “Wisely put, my most bloodthirsty queen.”

 “I’m not--” But I cut off as I realized he was teasing me. I wasn’t used to people laughing at me. I was going to have to learn how to turn it into Zane laughing with me, as it was clear that was how he intended it. I was too accustomed to taking myself seriously. Even if it seemed no one else did.

I realized with a bit of a start that I liked Zane laughing at me--with me. I liked that it felt like he was honestly trying to engage me, not just manage me. I liked the thought that he, of all people, might actually see me. The thought brought color to my cheeks, and again, I felt the urge to get up and move.

 Which was why I made myself stay put, and even found the courage to lean back against Zane, to close the distance our fight had put between us.

 “I need an ally in this,” I said madly, hopefully, absurdly. “I don’t think I need a husband, but...”

 I let myself lay my head over against his shoulder, to show my serpiente counterpart that I was willing to try. Maybe not something as absurd as becoming lover, but at least co-conspirators. Maybe friends.

 “I certainly need an ally.”

 The Ties That Bind Tag list: @thehellinsideyourhead @therecouldbecolorsandlove @adventuresofacreesty​

Raev’s Gen Tag List (should I tag you guys in this? It IS a thing I wrote. I’m gonna say yes unless you guys are like “no of course not we’re sick of hearing about your stupid fic for a twenty year old book XD)

List is currently: @lordkingsmith @writinglyra @drbibliophile @mperialscribe @adie-dee @adie-dee @lexiklecksi @writinginslowmotion @raenawrites @apollon-arium @anika-writes