#hey do you know that sybilla was like the four horsemen of the apocalypse at once

[atypicalacademic]

Spots

(A/N: Finally got this one done- Sequel to this piece, because I love.)

Words: 2.8k

Warnings: Mentions of blood, violence, and some manipulation/abuse themes from Syb’s past though all of it’s only mentioned vaguely.

Sybilla Livsdottir x Amalia Sydgården from @greyvvardenfell

*

They, both of them, are no strangers to ghosts of the past.

*

“We could just go home, darling,” Sybilla pressed a kiss to the top of Amalia’s head, and held her closer, careful not to wrinkle the band of white silk roses around her waist.  

Still clinging to Sybilla for dear life as she’d been all evening, Amalia shook her head stubbornly. “He can’t drive me away from my party.”  

Sybilla held her tongue, knowing that reminding Mali that it was not, in fact, her party was not bound to go well.

Or, well. It might as well have been. Sybilla wouldn’t have come here at all, to this distinctly uninteresting guest list and distinctly ridiculous schmoozing made only slightly more tolerable by Lucio’s hosting skills and having Amalia on her arm, hadn’t the latter been so understandably terrified by what tonight meant.  

Perhaps it was her party, then. At least as far as Sybilla was concerned. She wasn’t here for anyone else.  

Before she could open her mouth to tell her just that, there was a rustle of silk from behind them, and as if on instinct, Amalia folded to her side, nails digging so hard into Sybilla’s sleeve that she winced.  

“Come on now, little sister.” The voice was flat, stretched out into a drawl that instantly made Sybilla’s hackles rise. “Is that any way to greet your king?”

Sybilla hardly needed to feel Amalia trembling against her, struggling to find the words, when she turned around, full force, summoning a silent enchantment to keep Amalia even further out of harm’s way, and faced him.

With some satisfaction, she watched the switch flip.  

Owyn Sydgarden was- shiny. Shiny in a way that was more greasy than brassy, with neither Lucio’s charisma or Mali’s charm- his doublet and coronet and the many rings glittering on his fingers couldn’t make up for the strange staleness of his pallid face.

At the sight of Sybilla, the bluster in his wide grin fell away to shock, and even through the generous coating of rouge on his cheeks, she could catch how he paled even more. Bristling in his doublet, his jaw dropped, and instinctively, he took a step back.  

Owyn gaped at her for a few moments more, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, and then he tried to collect himself, gathering his furs and about him.

Like that would help. “You.”

Sybilla raised an eyebrow, painted as black as the freckles on her pale skin. “Yeah.” She folded her arms, tilting her head to look at him from beneath her befeathered hat. “Me.”

“If you’re attempting something, Amalia, in the company of this-“ he narrowed his eyes- “this blood witch-“

Oh.  

A favorable illusion.  

It had been a while since she spoke Naigen, and when she did, it was still sharpened by the accent from her own native language. And just as well.

“Sangromancer.” Sybilla corrected him, taking another step closer to see him inch back. “Let’s be nice to each other, why don’t we, hm?”  

“I’m warning you, if this is how you’re planning to take me down-“

Sybilla laughed, in the cutting way she’d practiced to perfection. “Take you down?” She scoffed. “Regicide is your glass of wine, isn’t it, Owyn?”

Owyn’s face flushed, and he broke out in sweat, flashing blue eyes darting from side to side as though looking for an exit.

“You’re familiar with my methods, aren’t you?” Sybilla took the time to pick up another glass of champagne, take a slow sip with her eyes still trained on him. “By the look on your face, I can tell you know that it’d be wise not to test me.”

“You can’t-“  

“Alright-“ She drained the glass. “Let’s talk about more pleasant things. Two children wasn’t it? Oh, three.”

His eyes widened in horror, and he recoiled.  

Sybilla smiled. “And the youngest only a child.” She let go of Amalia to circle him, tapping her gloved fingers thoughtfully to her cheek. “We do a lot to protect our children, don’t we? What’s a king without his heirs?”  

“I will-” He sputtered. “I will have you-”

“Have me what?” She dropped the smile, close enough now that her face was inches from his. “Have me what, my lord? On what territory? At what cost?”

He swallowed.  

“I expected you to think twice, you know,” She plucked companionably at the furs on his cape. “You and I both know what happens when you piss off someone who’s got not much to lose.”  

Trailing her fingers down his arm, she snatched his glass away from him, flung it to the trash, champagne splashing against the white of his furs. “Be a good boy, leave her alone, and go home, and you won’t get back to anything unpleasant.”

Owyn puffed himself up, as though he was about to retort, held his breath. Sybilla stared him down, coolly. 

Without another word, he attempted another half-hearted glower at Mali, and turned around, flagging a server down for a glass of wine.

“I wouldn’t, if I were you,” Sybilla called out, as he retreated. “Party like this, anything could’ve slipped into one of those glasses, you know.”

He froze, and slammed it down on a table, and stormed off without a backward glance, his silks and furs trailing after him.  

Amalia sank into her arms, just in time for Sybilla to hold her up. “Did you really-” Her eyes were wide, flashing emerald, her hair swept over her face in a frenzy. “Sybbie, have you really-”

Sybilla shook her head, pulling her aside, away from prying eyes. “Of course not.”  

“But-”

“Mali, I can’t. I can’t jeopardize Vesuvia, jeopardize you like that.”

“But I-”

“He knows me, Mali.” She said quietly. “He's coming nowhere near you.”

For a moment, Amalia looked as though she was about to argue, the stubborn frown holding on her face before it fell away, and she fell back against Sybilla’s suit jacket, sniffing weakly.  

Sybilla gently brushed back her snow-pale hair, straightening the tiara that was threatening to fall off her head, and Amalia caught her breath, pulled back with another pinched frown. “Ugh, why are we still here?” She glared at the towers of food and cocktails, at the live band plucking up an amicable waltz, like they had all mortally offended her. “You’re supposed to be taking me home.”

*

She didn’t ask, not until later, when she was cocooned in several layers of perfumed fur blankets  in Sybilla’s Heart District suite, the smooth ivory of her hairbrush reflecting the amber of the soft lamplight.  

“Why’d he call you that?”

Sybilla startled, her hands twitching around the buttons to her sleep-shirt. “Call me what?”

“Blood-witch.” Amalia watched her, meeting her eyes in the mirror, emerald to pale green. “That’s one I haven’t heard before.”

“Haven’t you?” Sybilla frowned. “I’d have thought-” She caught herself. Maybe she’d been too young for those secrets- even as heir to the throne. There was no point dredging it up.

No point denying it, either.  

“I used to practice sangromancy, when I was younger.” She rolled her eyes. “Blood-magic, as they call it.”

“Crass.”

“Mm, very.” She walked over to sit at the edge of the bed. “The reputation makes for good use, though, doesn’t it?”

Amalia ignored it. “And you don’t do it anymore?”  

“No.”

Sulking, Mali combed through her silky hair, twirling the ends around her fingers. “Why?”  

Sybilla grinned. “Thought you said it was crass.”

“I asked you a question.” She set the brush down, and scooted closer to Sybilla, long nails scratching insistently at her sleeve. “Why? He sounded so scared of it, that-”

“Mali.” Sybilla sat up. “I can’t.” She sighed. “I don’t need it to protect you, and I don’t need it to have your half-brother vanish from the face of this earth if he ever gives me the excuse of doing one thing out of line, and frankly,” She paused, catching the edge in her voice to soften it, “the damn thing’s not worth the price it asks of me.”

Amalia searched her face for a long moment. “What price?”

There was noone else in this world who could corner her so and get away with it. Or demand answers of her and get to walk away with them. Sybilla wondered if she were really softening with age.

Or if the burden of her secrets had always been so- crowding like liquid against glass, waiting for a force sharp enough to shatter it, for someone who could take them without flinching away from her.

With another sigh, she stretched back against the headboard, running her hand through the blue streaks in her straight silver hair. Then, slowly, she took off her gloves- changed to softer ones for the night.  

Mali had seen them before, but never like this- up close, beneath the chandelier’s light with nothing else to focus on.

The scars ran from her fingertips, all the way up to a few inches beneath her elbow, where the thick lines of her sleeve tattoos ended. Scratches and slashes and gruesome curves of broken, calloused skin seamed to one scar tissue- there wasn’t an inch of skin there that hadn’t been maimed.  

Amalia wrinkled her nose.  

“Oh, for fucks sake-” Sybilla tutted, and pressed a finger against a droplet of blood that had begun to run down to her wrist. With a flash of light, the opening wound healed shut. “Never quite heals.” She murmured. “I’m still trying to figure out-” Her eyes drifted up to Amalia’s.

She huffed. “That’s not an answer.”

“I- you’re right. It isn’t.” Sybilla pulled the gloves back on, and looked away, feline eyes seeing past the Vesuvian night and clouded with somewhere else. “I was born with an affinity to sangromancy. Most of us have a few things that come easier, a few things that never will, but- growing up, at least, that was mine.” She got up off the bed, reaching for the crystal carafe on the nightstand to pour herself a glass of whiskey.

“There’s no such thing- as good magic and bad,” She glanced pointedly back at Amalia, who was lying on her stomach, chin cradled in her palm. “Every magician who’s worth their practice can tell you that. There’s a lot of power in sangromancy, and a lot of dignity and restraint that goes into learning how to wield it right, but I-” She winced. “After I left-” She tripped over the word, wondering if she would ever find the words to tell that story. Never, likely. Hopefully.“Left the place I was born, I fell in with, well. People who knew that- that I didn’t know that.” She took a warming gulp of the whiskey, poured some more.  

“I had raw power- that I didn’t know what to do with; A lot of it, mind you- I was young, I was eager to learn-” She trailed away, her eyes hardening at the memory. “And more importantly for them- I was hungry, and desperate. They took me in, those magicians, and for a while it felt like they treated me well.”

She was surprised at how easily the words came, one and then another, as though they’d always been stacked against each other, leaving the gaps cleanly where she wanted them to. They treated me well.

Or so it seemed. Sometimes.

The South was a desperate place- even across the sea- petty kingdoms and small duchies- with their smaller, pettier, dirtier grudges; a greed born only in that desperation, in that smallness. She wondered if Amalia knew this, already. Her own kingdom had been a different story, until it wasn’t.

“Sovereigns take to magicians. You know this.”

Amalia nodded.

“There’s always someone in Court, a faction of it, if we’re lucky, whispering in their ear about what sangromancers can do to their enemies.” Sybilla chuckled. “And most magicians know this, mind you- they know what to ask for- where to draw the line.” She shrugged. “Many of them stand for no dealings with sovereigns. The people I was with, they drew their lines. For themselves.”

“But not for you.” Amalia guessed.

“Not for me. It’s lucrative, you know.” She said bitterly, sinking down to the fainting couch beside the window, crossing her legs. “Pick a hungry kid off the snow who’s scared enough of what she’s running from to trust you- tell her she’s special, tell her you’ve got her, tell her she’s invincible, send her out to do the dirty work you know it costs you too dearly to do.” She raised an eyebrow. “Almost smart, don’t you think?”

She didn’t wait for an answer, and Amalia gave her none. “What work?” She asked, instead, picking up an apple from the basket on the nightstand. “Did you kill people?”

Sybilla had to laugh. “I can still kill people, darling.” She poured herself another drink. “Curses.” She said, waiting till her glass was half empty. “Death, disease, famine-” she counted them off her fingertips, “War, well- you get the drift.”

Amalia’s silence told her that she did.

“I didn’t just kill people- for those who could afford me, I could bring dynasties to dust.” Leaning against the arm of the couch, she pulled the curtains shut. She cut a sharp figure in the chandelier’s light, her shadow black against the walls. “For a while, I didn’t know the extent of what I did, nor the effect I had. They liked to downplay that too. For a while.”

“And then?”  

“But then I did, and, well- I found I didn’t particularly care, either. I was making money, I could afford things. And people were scared of me. I enjoyed it, even. I thought my life was picking up. And every time I had my doubts- ”

They treated me well.

Except when they didn’t.

“They were there to-” She clenched her fists, let go- “To clear them up. I would’ve done it forever, you know, if I hadn’t figured out what it took from me.”

“What did it take from you?” Amalia bit into the apple.  

Sybilla let out a breath. “My- soul? My humanity? Me?” She bit her lip. “These scars come from somewhere deeper than my flesh and blood.” She looked down at her gloved hands, turning them over, and clasped them on her lap. “I don’t know how to explain it, Mali, except that you can only draw demons from the deep woods so many times before you begin to become one of them.”

Mali recoiled. “Become a-”

“Crass.” Sybilla reminded her, dryly. She got to her feet, treading over to sit back down beside her. “Now if I turned into something-” Her toes curled, nearly cracking with the force of the monster, monster, monster she’d always lived with trying to repel. Instead, she buried her fingers in Amalia’s hair- the honeydew and orchids of her shampoo sweetening the fabric of her gloves. “Something else- how could I give you everything you want, hm?” She tried to smile. “Wouldn’t that be a shame?”

“Fair.” Amalia said easily,  tossing her hair back over her shoulders. “And so you stopped?”  

Sybilla nodded, not wanting to dwell on that, either- the long days and the longer nights and the bloody footprints against the snow, the endless, humiliating agony of it all that would rob her of sleep for years to come.

That still did.

And so I stopped.

It was all she was willing to tell.

“But Sybbie,” Amalia dropped the apple, and sat up, her hand hovering over Sybilla’s shoulder. “What happened to those magicians?”

Sybilla raised an eyebrow, an easier smile tugging at her lips. “Dead.” She said simply. “All of them.”

Amalia’s eyes glittered, her smile glittered, brightening with interest. All at once, Sybilla understood Lucio’s propensity to flaunt and embellish as shamelessly as he did.  

“There’s very little that’s beyond me.” She whispered, wanting to soak it in. “Not in the least for you. Leopards don’t change their spots, my dewdrop.”

“I see,” Amalia climbed on to her lap, one hand tightening possessively in Sybilla’s hair, and the other tracing over her freckles. “You’ve still got the spots.”

Sybilla wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her closer. She laughed, and laughed again. “None of this bothers you, does it?”

Amalia snorted. “Why would I give a fuck?” She tilted her head, the look in her eyes somewhere between bored and unbothered. “You’d never hurt me.”

Sybilla felt a wave of something crash into her chest, and she swept Mali into her arms, laying her down on the bed. “I would never.” The sincerity in her voice felt odd, alien to herself, but it came of its own accord, much like the sudden tightness in her throat, the embarrassing sting of tears at the corner of her eyes. “Mali, I would never hurt you. Not you.”

“I know.” Mali’s fingers followed the tattoo lines over Sybilla’s collarbones, her lips lifted into a triumphant little smirk.  

Sybilla waited for the flooding emotion to draw away, and then she smiled back, anchoring her weight to hover over her. “Unless, you know, you ask me to.”

Mali scoffed, rolling away from under her. “Keep dreaming.” She flung a pillow at Sybilla, who caught it with a wink. “I will, your highness.”