#hot girl invited him over and he brought out the finery

[indigoipsum]

Minimal effort funnie drawing for 4/20 posted on 4/21

[late-nite-scholar]

TES Shiptober Day 28-31- Wedding

And here we are, the last prompt (courtesy of @hombrediablo​) of TES Shiptober. It’s been great, and I’ve had the chance to deep dive into some characters and write some really fun pieces. So let’s end it off with a wedding, and of course, with Besharat and Farkas. This is an idea that I had for them getting married. Sure, they did in Riften, but Hammerfell is right there, and to slip down to Elinhir? Only makes sense to me. I have no idea what Redguard vows would be like, so I just made some up. The date of them getting married is the 25th of Morning Star, 4E 202 (in game it was the 25th of Frostfall).

Anyway, enjoy and thanks for coming by for all the fun!

Length- 1800 words or so

Warnings- none

(Left/top: an approximation of how they look like in their Redguard outfits. Made with https://meiker.io/play/14045/online.html . Right/bottom: The actual dress Besharat wears)

***

It was all so surreal; here I was, back in Hammerfell and readying to be married. But, at the same time, it was so good to be here. The fact that Farkas wanted to do this warmed my heart. It’d been his suggestion, in fact, to make a quick trip over the border from Falkreath to Elinhir to the Temple of Morwha. It was only us and the girls and Vilkas, but just being here was more than enough.

I shook out my clothes and began to dress. I’d bought this outfit in Solitude, but never had a chance to wear it. It had just reminded me so much of home, of festivals and parties in Bergama. The underdress was a soft cream, thickly embroidered with gold in swirling patterns. Belted over this was a light robe bearing matching embroidery; soft and silky in rich fuschia. Long, filigreed earrings nearly brushed my shoulders, and I hoped they wouldn’t get caught in my hair.      

Now dressed, I began to fix up said hair. I shook out the curls and pulled back the front half, securing it with long, golden pins. I lined my eyes with black, making them even brighter, and colored my lips a dark plum. 

Just as I finished, I heard a knock at the room's door. I opened it to Vilkas, who gasped. "Ysmir's beard! I hardly recognize you, Sister! I can't wait to see Farkas' face when we arrive!" 

"Is everyone else ready?" 

"They are. I was asked to come collect you, as it were. And I am honored to be your escort. Farkas and the girls will meet us at the temple." 

I stepped forward, and crushed him into a hug. "Thank you. For being here." 

"Of course, Besharat. To me, you are already family. And now we will declare it so. I know we had a rough start, you and I, and I’m glad that’s over. But come on, we shouldn't be late!" 

It was a nice day, warmer than it had been in Skyrim when we'd left, but not nearly as hot as if we'd gone all the way to Bergama. Which was fine, given I was the only one who could deal with that kind of heat. Vilkas offered me his arm, and we made our way through the streets together. People watched, gossipping, but I paid them no mind. I was too focused on our destination. 

The statue of Morwha towered over the market square, smiling down at all who passed under her gaze. She held one of her four hands out, inviting us into the temple behind her. My heart sang. It had been too long since I’d been in a temple to one of my own gods.   

As promised, Farkas and the girls were waiting by the door. As I got closer, I gasped. The girls were dressed in the finery they'd brought from home, the same as Vilkas. But Farkas wore a Yokudan long, sleeveless tunic of dark grey that split up the sides to show matching loose pants beneath. The keyhole neckline and down the front was embroidered with rich blue, matching the color of the loose robe he wore over top. That was embroidered in silver and green and belted like mine. I stood speechless for a moment, until the girls noticed us. Lucia grinned, and Sissel clapped, jumping up and down.  

"Mama, you're here!" They cried. This made Farkas turn, and he stopped to stare just like I was. Or at least, until I got closer. 

"Eshi…that's….wow."

"I didn't expect this…" I stammered. My hand reached out to rest on his chest, noticing the fineness of the fabric beneath my hand; a soft light linen with a silk robe over top just like mine. 

"The girls and I were in the market, and they thought maybe I should get something to wear that would match you. If we're having a Yokudan wedding, I should dress for it, right?" 

"You look perfect. Thank you, my heart." 

The door opened behind us, and we all turned. A priestess poked her head out, and smiled. "Ah, I thought I heard our lovely couple outside. We are ready to begin whenever you are." 

Vilkas and the girls headed inside to take their seats. The girls were chattering, talking a mile a minute about how we’d looked upon seeing each other. They were even trying to pull Vilkas into their conversation, who, for his part, played along gamely. The door shut behind them, leaving Farkas and I alone.   

I looked up at him. "Are you ready?" 

"I am. Never thought I'd be here, gettin’ married. Never really had anyone interested. Guess I was just waiting for you." He reached out and brushed my cheek.  

"That makes two of us. But I was the one who wasn't interested. Guess I was waiting for you, too." 

"Well, let's not leave it any longer." 

Holding hands, we walked into the temple. I didn't notice the empty benches we passed; the only important one was at the front where Vilkas and the girls sat. All three watched with rapt attention as we made our way to the front together, their smiles bright enough to illuminate the whole place. But we didn't slow down until we reached the beehive-shaped altar at the front where the priestess waited. 

She smiled at us both, pulling us around gently so we were facing each other. Farkas immediately claimed both of my hands, squeezing them. I almost couldn't meet his eyes, his expression too beautiful. I didn’t want to start crying before we’d even begun and I was already teetering on the edge.

But the priestess didn't let the moment linger long. "Ah, but what a joyous occasion we have come to celebrate today! Two souls have found one another, and have come to declare that love and proclaim their commitment before Mother Morwha. It gives me the greatest joy to have you both here, and to stand as intermediary between you and the gods as you make your vows. Do you come both of your own free will, and enter into this marriage without coercion?" 

"We do." We said together. 

"Ah, good. We are required to ask. Now that we have settled that, let us continue. The love you share is a gift, a reflection of the love between Ruptga and his favorite wife, Mother Morwha. It is this love that you will carry between you, through this life and onward to the Far Shores. It is this love that will see you through the greatest of joys and the deepest of sorrows. And it is this love that we celebrate here today. Let me ask you in turn, to speak your vow to uphold and honor this great gift." 

She turned to Farkas first. "Farkas of Jorrvaskr, of the most esteemed Companions, will you stand honorably with this woman? Will you love her without condition? Will you lend your sword to hers in whatever battle stands before you? And will you honor the gifts that result from this union?" 

"I will," he declared. He looked down at me with the softest smile, eyes filled with tears.

I couldn't pull my gaze away from him as she addressed me. "Besharat Earth-Breaker do Bergama, will you stand honorably with this man? Will you love him without condition? Will you lend your sword to his in whatever battle stands before you? And will you honor the gifts that result from this union?" 

"I will." 

"Then let it be known that this couple has declared themselves before Mother Morwha as married. May she bless your union now and forever, and may you both prosper together. Here are the rings that you have chosen as symbols of your bond. Take them now, and seal your vows." 

She handed us our rings, and we slipped them back onto each other's fingers. I'd missed the feeling of it on my hand, even for those few short hours. The priestess smiled again. 

"Congratulations, my dears. Go forth now, as husband and wife." 

A cheer erupted from the bench. The girls were on their feet, and Vilkas grinned. 

"You'd better kiss her, brother!" 

Farkas turned red, and the heat in my face told me I was no better. That didn't stop Farkas from taking mine in gentle hands and leaning down to meet my lips. For a long moment, everything else faded into the background. When he finally pulled away, we were both breathless. 

This earned us a chuckle from the priestess. "Morwha certainly smiles on the two of you." 

That made Farkas'  face turn even redder, but we both laughed. Then the girls launched themselves at us, and we were all hugging. They even managed to pull Vilkas into the fray, despite his protests. 

Eventually, Vilkas was the one to be the voice of reason. “All right then, we’d better get going. We don’t want to miss the feast waiting for us. Come on, girls, let’s get back to the inn and make sure everything is on schedule.” 

He herded them out, leaving Farkas and I alone again. We followed them out the door, but lingered again beneath the statue.  

"Married…" Farkas marvelled at the word,  "It doesn't feel like I thought it would, but I'm happy." 

"How did you think it would feel?" 

"I dunno. You always hear that 'everything changes when you get married'. But it hasn't. I don't feel any different." 

"I've heard that too. And you're right, I don't feel any different either." I laughed. “I mean, what more could there be? I already loved you with all my heart.” 

“And I love you, too.” He grinned. "Well, there is one thing that's changed.” 

"Oh?" 

He pulled me close, brushing his lips against mine. "Now I get to call you my wife." 

The thrill that went through me was enough to pull a small gasp from my throat, which melted into a giggle. "That means I get to call you my husband." 

"That's the best thing I've ever been called." His silver eyes shone with tears. "Right up there with gettin' called papa by the girls. Speaking of which, we should go catch up with them.” 

“Before they talk poor Vilkas’ ears off.” I agreed. 

He offered me his arm, and I laughed as I took it. “I walked here like this with Vilkas. I’m sure people thought he and I were the couple.” 

Farkas laughed too. “Yeah, but we match!”

Every step was light as air as we made our way back. We would celebrate tonight with Vilkas and the girls, and tomorrow head back to Skyrim. It would only be a quick stop at home in Whiterun, before we and a much larger group would head down to Riften so we could do this all again at the Temple of Mara. And then, unbeknownst to Farkas, I had one last surprise planned when we returned to Jorrvaskr. I looked over, heart swelling at the joy in my husband’s smile. I couldn’t wait for that surprise, to finally say to him those words that would mean more to us than either temple vow we would make. That I’d wanted to say for so long, because they were what I felt with every fiber of my being.

I would stand at his back, that the world might never overtake us.      

[busterkeatonfanfic]

Chapter 9

Buster hooked his thumbs in his suspenders and stared up with admiration at the 120-foot crane. Having been delivered to the set in multiple pieces by a fleet of huge trucks, the workmen had just finished putting it together. “Beautiful, ain’t she?”

At his side, Joe grimaced. “Did you have to?”

“ ‘Course I did,” said Buster. “How else are we going to lift the hospital off me in the cyclone sequence?”

“I just didn’t expect it … it’s so big, you know?”

“Damn right it is.”

“How much did it cost?” “How much did it cost? Really?” Buster said, feeling like Joe had just stuck a pin in his mood and popped it. “It cost what it cost.”

Joe rubbed the back of his neck as he looked up at the crane. “I just wish you’d said something first. Harry’s worried about going over budget.”

“Tell him he can blow it out his ass,” said Buster. “I’m getting damn sick of Harry. Didn’t we all sit down and agree a cyclone was just fine?” He bit his tongue and didn’t say ‘I told you so,’ because if they’d stuck to the original plan, there wouldn’t have been a crane. He wasn’t sure how much the cyclone had run them so far, but it was already over $20,000.

“Yeah, I guess we did. Just try to—” said Joe. “Well don’t go overboard, is what I’m getting at.”

Buster, who had already handsomely paid to go overboard, kept his silence again. “Sure.”

They took a street car to K Street. The sidewalks were still busy when they arrived at the Senator theater around 6:30, everyone parading around in their Saturday night finery. She felt good about the ensemble she’d chosen, a short-sleeved dusty peach cotton dress with a mauve straw cloche hat and silk stockings. Inside, the Senator was cool. She’d been to a picture there only once before, but it was enough to make her fall in love with the place, which had been built just two years prior and was new like everything on the West coast was new. It was adorned in velvet drapes and jardinières heaped with fresh chrysanthemums, plush wall-to-wall carpeting, and fringed lamps, but her favorite feature was the painted dome and the enormous multi-tiered chandelier hanging from its center.

As she and the Kimbles took their seats in the balcony, she looked to the box seats on either side of the theater, half-expecting to see Buster in one, but she didn’t. Maybe he was in the crowd, but there was only so much gawking she could do before attracting attention. She saw him in person nearly every day now, but always at a distance and always when he was busy in front of or behind the camera. River Junction had been a bustle of workmen and noise in the mornings as they rebuilt sets for the cyclone and put together the biggest crane she’d seen in her life. Bert allowed her to take breaks a couple times a day to watch the filming. Even though she was behind the scenes now and could see everything, from the cluster of noisy cameras to the even noisier rain machines, the sight of Buster falling into a puddle up to his waist or being blown off his feet by a gust of wind was still a laugh. On Thursday, she’d been called upon to place an order for five large loaves of bread from a bakery, but they were spirited off to an unknown part of the set and their purpose remained a mystery. 

Her brief acquaintance with Buster seemed to have come to an end and she wasn’t inclined to press it any further, having made an ass of herself the first day in his dressing room and then later after the party at the blind tiger. It was enough that he knew her name. She’d begun hoping that the company would keep her on when they wrapped filming and packed up for Hollywood in a few weeks. The more she stuck around, the more people would know her face, and the more people knew her face, the greater her chances were of being recognized by a studio.

She shared Joe and Maggie’s jumbo box of Junior Mints as the lights went down and the opening short started. An organ in an arched box with pillars provided accompaniment. 

When the opening credits of Buster’s feature began, Nelly’s pulse quickened a little bit. It was surreal when he finally appeared on the screen, walking beneath an umbrella with his mother in the pouring rain, soaked to the skin; she’d gotten used to him as a flesh-and-blood person. She now knew how his production company made that rain and that there were cameras in front of him tracking his every step. She also knew that the person inside the truck driving down the street in the background was an extra. Nevertheless, the scene still looked believable, and pretty soon she was sucked into the story like the rest of the audience.

Buster played a brainy college freshman without a lick of athletic ability, which happened to be the only thing his girl cared about. He spent most of the picture trying out for sports to impress her and failing miserably. Buster often took two or three-hour lunches to play baseball with his production team, so Nelly couldn’t quite buy that he didn’t understand the rules of the game and couldn’t hit a ball to save his life.

As the movie wore on, she became aware—and it gave her an unpleasant sensation, like an itch—that he was better-looking than she remembered. It embarrassed her somewhat to see him in his skimpy track outfit. In one scene where he sat on the sidelines, the shorts rode up so high she could see where his tan ended and his natural skin tone, considerably paler, began. She was almost glad when the movie ended. The last few seconds had been queer, besides. The scene of Buster and his girl walking out of the chapel after being married had melted into a scene of them sitting at home while their children played in the background, then one of them in old age, before concluding with a shot of two headstones.

The organ died away and the lights went up. 

“What on earth did that ending mean?” said Maggie, with a look on her face.

“I don’t know,” said Nelly, but it had given her a bad taste. Judging by the expressions on their neighbors’ faces, they weren’t alone in their confusion. Even in Shakespeare’s time, everyone knew that you ended a comedy with a marriage. To do otherwise was to let your audience down. The abrupt, morbid ending brought her back to reality and reminded her that the real Buster was not to be confused with his handsome, whimsical on-screen counterpart.

Joe was the only one who seemed to find the ending funny and tried explaining it as they made their way up the balcony and down the stairs. Nelly was busy searching the exiting crowd for Buster’s face and only half listened. They made it out onto the sidewalk before she accepted she wasn’t going to see him that night. 

Maggie proposed getting hamburgers before they went home and Joe and Nelly agreed. They found a diner on L Street and sat in a booth with a checkered red-and-white tablecloth.

“So what’s he really like?” Maggie said, after their food arrived and they were tucking into burgers and coleslaw. She was a heavier girl, pretty, with auburn hair and freckles on her nose. Her claim to fame was that her maternal grandfather had been one of the original inhabitants of Sacramento when it was first incorporated. She’d asked Nelly the question before, but Nelly didn’t mind answering it again. Buster had rubbed off some fifteen minutes of fame onto her and there was no sense in not using them. Of course, she hadn’t told them that he was her savior the night of the party; in her untruthful retelling, Bert had played that role. They did know, however, that he had invited her to be an extra and that she’d baked him cookies after his accident with the baseball.

“Not much like that,” said Nelly. She looked up and scanned the faces in the other booths as if one might belong to Buster, but they didn’t. “He smiles in real life, but you know that, I’ve said that before. He can be very solemn. He’s not boyish like he is in pictures. I think he’s a kind person, mostly.” She was almost surprised to hear herself say it, but it was a conclusion she’d come to in spite of how he’d appalled her at their first meeting. He’d been a gentleman through and through when he rescued her at the party and took her back to his hotel room, and she couldn’t help but alter her opinion because of it. “He keeps a lot to himself and sticks to his own pals. And he’s very funny, just as funny as his movies.”

“He’s a real athlete too,” Joe said. “He can’t hide that.”

Nelly agreed. “Yes, he plays a lot of baseball with his team.”

“I liked the picture anyway. The gags were funny,” said Joe.

“It was alright,” Nelly said.  

Maggie added, “I’m still not keen on that ending.”

“No,” said Nelly. 

They ate their burgers and the conversation moved to the Senators game (everything was called Senator here since Sacramento was the capital) and how, according to Joe at least, the team hadn’t been the same since Brick Eldred (whoever he was) left. It was getting late by the time they left the diner, and they took a taxi back to 22nd Street, Nelly and Maggie deciding that they’d forgo the dance hall for the evening. 

Nelly had almost forgotten about Buster by the time she crawled into bed around eleven. She tried to drift off by boring herself with thoughts of baseball. Her father and uncle liked the White Sox, but she’d never really understood or cared for the game. Her only memory of the game she’d been taken to as a little girl was of eating hot dogs and popcorn and wandering the stands with Ruthie. Although she couldn’t say why, fantasies of men had not been satisfying since the incident with Tommy, not even her go-to of John Barrymore. The idea that a man might take up baseball or another sport he was abysmal at in order to win the love of a girl seemed laughable now that she thought about it, but Buster had done it—and more—in College. He’d even rescued the girl from his rival who was trying to ruin her reputation.

Her eyes shot open. She hadn’t thought of it until now, but Buster had rescued her that night at the blind tiger. Of course, he hadn’t done it out of a sense of love and there was no reading into the coincidence since the picture had been shot long before she’d met Tommy or Buster, but it struck her regardless. Maybe Buster’s pictures did reveal something of his character. As she puzzled over it, her thoughts got hazier and hazier, until finally she dropped off to sleep.

Note: Bonus update this week. I think you all deserve it after current events! Also, do admire this screengrab where Buster’s tan ends and his normal skin color begins. 

[kelyon]

Trio: A Golden Cuffs Story 1/5: Pearls

The Dark One invites his former lover Jefferson to the castle to share his newest plaything, Belle.

A/N: Technically, this is an AU where Rumple never sent Belle to Regina, and therefore there was no relationship fallout from that. The party happened, Belle has already met Jefferson and Leona, but she is not as close to Rumpelstiltskin as she would like to be. Not yet, anyway.

Read on AO3

On the morning of the day when Jefferson would arrive, Belle found Rumpelstiltskin waiting for her at the library door. He began to touch her before she could even say good morning and then they were fucking on the floor like animals.

He started out behind her, shoving her to her knees as he pulled off her robe.

“Gods, you’re wet!” He fingered her briefly before thrusting himself into her cunt. “Why is it that my whore is always such a wet, wanton little thing?”

Because you say things like that, Belle wanted to say, but couldn’t. He was riding her too fast for conversation. 

He had never taken her this quickly before. Rumpelstiltskin must have been waiting for hours for her to come out of the library. She imagined him lurking outside her door, growing more excited and keyed-up with every passing moment. He couldn’t enter the library, he would have had no outlet for his desires. Had he thought about taking care of himself?  Had he considered unlacing his trousers and holding his lovely dark cock in his own hands? Belle moaned at the thought, and her orgasm rose up within her.

“Rumple!” she whimpered. And his hands were on her shoulders and his cock was pushing in and out and his breath was hot and heavy as he whispered in her ear:

“Come for me, sweet Belle. I want to feel you come around my cock.”

The noise that came out of her in response to that command was nothing like he had ever brought from her before. It was a squeal and a groan and a gasp all at once. She shuddered around him as he held her against his body, as he pounded into her.

“Yes, that’s my girl. That’s my thing! Moaning like a whore because of how much you like to get fucked!”  

Then, abruptly, he pulled away. Belle recoiled from the sudden emptiness, the cold air on her back where his warmth had been. He stood up and faced her, his cock still out of his trousers. It was hard and shining with her pleasure. Roughly, Rumpelstiltskin pulled Belle up by her shoulders, bringing her to her knees.

She knew what he wanted and she wanted to give it to him. She faced him with her mouth open, silently begging him to fill her there as well.

Panting, Rumpelstiltskin looked down on Belle. He touched her face lightly, let his fingers drift down to her neck and her collarbone.

“I’m going to mark you,” he rasped. “In a way I never have before. It won’t hurt, though some might find it degrading. But that’s the point, isn’t it?”

Belle looked up at him steadily, keeping her eyes wide. “I’ll do whatever you ask of me, Rumple.”

He touched her face again, rubbing his palm against her cheek. “You will, won’t you, little Belle.”

She closed her eyes and nodded into his hand. There was a moment of tender silence between them.

“Very well then. Are you ready to show the world who you belong to?”

She barely had time to nod before Rumpelstiltskin was inside her mouth. He pulled her hair back and twisted it around his fist, holding her where he wanted her, controlling how she moved around his cock.

The cuffs did not pin her to the floor this time. Her hands rested on her knees, helping her stay balanced in the tumult of Rumple’s passions. In that moment, it was just the two of them. There was no magic at work, and no thought of other people. Only his cock in her mouth and his hands in her hair.  

The pleasant moment was broken when he thrust too deeply and she choked. Damn her throat! Didn’t her body know that she wanted him inside her? Every inch of her belonged to him, and she had no right to gag on his cock. 

But Rumple didn’t seem to mind. He tried again, using shallow, quick motions. His pleasure mounted and Belle submitted the frenzy of him. As he grew tenser and more agitated, she relaxed. She let her body go loose so that he could control her better. She closed her eyes and let him own her completely.

In the moment just before his orgasm, Rumpelstiltskin pulled Belle back by her hair. His cock popped out of her mouth and before she could even catch her breath, she felt the hot, wet, spurts of his seed on her body. He was coming, Belle realized blearily. But not in her mouth, the way he usually did.

He was coming on her neck.

Normally, if Belle didn’t get a chance to swallow Rumpelstiltskin’s seed, he would produce a handkerchief and offer to clean her up. She would let him, because she knew it was his way of caring for her, and he was always so sweet and gentle when he fussed over her.

But today he made no such offer, and there was nothing apologetic in his nature. He looked at the black globs dotted around Belle’s throat with a smug and wicked pleasure. Earlier in their acquaintance, such an expression might have frightened Belle, but now it only thrilled her.  

“Don’t touch that mess,” he ordered. “I have a plan for it.”

What on earth did he have in store? Belle wanted to ask, but she was still overwhelmed by how he had taken her. It was so fast and rough and wonderful.

Bowing at the waist, Rumpelstiltskin extended his hand to help her up. “Now let me dress you.”

“Why?” She found her voice, breathy and small though it might be. Once she was standing, Belle held out her arms. He draped sheets of blue-green magic over her body. “I won’t be wearing clothes for very long anyway.”

“Impressions are important, my sweet. You know that.”

“But Jefferson has seen me before.”

“On the night of the party you were acting in the role of my slave girl. Today you are my treasure. Jefferson is allowed to know now much I value you. He should see your worth whenever he sees you. And he should desire you, though that will be no trouble to arrange.” He stepped back to look at her completed ensemble. “Yes, that should do. What do you think?”

Belle looked down at a gown of sea-foam green. There was a gold trim around the bodice--which was so low-cut it outlined each of her breasts separately--and a strip of gold along the center seam, running from her breast to her knees. Her sleeves were only barely attached to the bodice. They hung from gold bands on her arms, long swaths of sea-foam gauze and lace that trailed onto the floor. At her knees, the skirt split open and would reveal her legs when she walked. When she was still, the skirt covered her down to her feet.

“It’s lovely,” she said honestly. She moved her arm and watched the sleeve trail behind her. The gold of her cuffs gleamed through the pastel lace. 

“Yes,” Rumple agreed as he looked her up and down. When his gaze got to her neck, he licked his lips and smirked. His black leavings still cooled on Belle’s pale pink skin. The effect marked her, just as he had intended.

And Belle had no shame. “Am I going to greet Jefferson with your seed on my throat?”

His smirk became a grin. Was he delighted at the idea or the fact that Belle had said it aloud? “If I wanted to insult someone, make them ill-at-ease and let them know how much they were wasting my time, I would do that. I fuck you intensely, make your pretty body filthy with my foul pleasure, and then have you open the door naked to greet our guests and serve them tea. Would you like that?”

The shiver up Belle’s spine told her that yes, she would like such a scenario. If there was someone Rumple wanted to unnerve and discomfit, she would happily allow him to use her for that purpose. If such a service made him feel powerful, if it brought him any pleasure at all, then she would do it with joy. 

“But Jefferson is our friend,” he said. “If you met him in a compromised state, he would only be put out that we had started without him!” Rumpelstiltskin chuckled, and Belle found his friendliness just as arousing as his nastiness.   

She gestured to her throat, but the cuffs wouldn’t let her touch her skin. “What is your plan for this?”

He took her by the wrist and pulled her hand up to his mouth for a kiss. Gripping her gently, he passed her hand over her neck. Belle felt a tingle of magic and then Rumpelstiltskin pushed her fingers against his splattered seed. 

But she didn’t touch anything wet, or flat. The black globules had become raised, solid, round…

“Pearls!” Belle cried as soon as she realized it. “Rumple, you--you made me a necklace!”  

He smiled and gave a little bow. “I offered you jewels once, in exchange for your services. Do you recall?”

“I do,” she answered. “I asked for the truth instead. And I stand by that.”

“Of course you do. But I still like to see you in finery.”

With the necklace still on her throat, she held it up and looked at what she was wearing. The splatters had remained where they were, banded together by golden threads. The pearls were not pure black, no more than Rumple’s seed was. There were swirls of colors inside the darkness--blue and purple and wine-red tints. And they were all bathed in a golden light that seemed to touch only them. She was adorned in his pleasure, that was all the jewelry she would ever need.  

“Will you tell me something?”

“Anything, sweet girl.”

“Tell me if you’ve ever made Jefferson a necklace like this.”

Rumpelstiltskin giggled and ran the pearls through his fingers. His knuckles brushed against Belle’s bosom and it felt like her skin was on fire. He stepped away and the pearls rested on her chest, still warm from his touch.

“I promise you, Belle, Jefferson’s rewards are not nearly this personal.”

“You pay him?”

“I pay everyone, one way or another. And I take payment. Haven’t you heard? All magic--”

“Comes at a price,” she finished. “I know.”

There was a soft glow in his eyes when he looked at her. “You’re very beautiful,” he told her.

“Thank you, Rumple. I feel like a princess in this dress.”

“But a barefoot princess will not do!” With a snap of his fingers, he conjured the tall golden shoes that she had worn for the party. 

Steeling herself for the discomfort, Belle put on the shoes. Even with the added height, the gown still trailed on the floor. She showed herself off for Rumple and he nodded his approval.

“Princesses beg me to make them as beautiful as you. And it has nothing to do with your dress.”

Belle blushed and smiled at him.

Rumpelstiltskin made a show of looking at his work shirt and barely-laced breeches. “I suppose I could improve my own appearance a little.”

“Impressions are important.”

With a snap of his fingers, he was wearing a gold-colored coat and a white cravat. “Better?”

Belle nodded. “Now you look like the sort who spends time with princesses.” 

“Come along, my treasure.” He offered her his arm. “I want this princess to serve me tea.”

They stayed in the dining room for the rest of the day. Rumpelstiltskin wrote letters while he drank his tea, and Belle sat at his feet and read until he called for her. It was a companionable time and Belle was glad for it. She cherished these moments when she had him to herself, when he didn’t send her away. 

As part of the entertainment for the evening, Belle had suggested that she remain silent for the first part of their time with Jefferson. They had all agreed that there would be no pain games while he was here, but Belle still wanted to show her devotion to Rumple. Even in front of a man who was practically a stranger to her, Belle had absolute trust in Rumpelstiltskin. What better way to show that trust than to surrender to him even the words from her mouth?

The afternoon passed. She had just begun a new chapter when the scratch of Rumple’s pen trailed off. When she looked up at him, he was sitting still, with his head cocked to the side to hear better. He smiled when she caught his eye. 

“Our guest is on his way,” he explained. “Go to the cabinet.” 

The cuffs pulled Belle up gently and she was mindful of the long skirt and her sharp heels. She straightened herself out and walked confidently to the cabinet. There was a crystal flagon of yellow wine and two crystal goblets. Belle set the tray on the table and then went back to the cabinet to see if there was anything more. There was a platter of meats and cheeses, cut fruit and sliced bread. The food looked good and Belle hoped Jefferson would appreciate what he was being given. 

Magic swirled in the center of the room. The image of a giant top hat appeared and then shrank to the size of a regular top hat, on the head of a regular man. He was dressed in a dark brown coat with a high leather collar and leather on the cuffs of his sleeves. His cravat was bright orange and tied in a very large bow. As soon as Belle saw Jefferson, she remembered how much she had liked him and she relaxed a little. 

Rumpelstiltskin approached Jefferson with his arms outstretched. “Welcome back, old friend!”

“It’s been too long!” Jefferson embraced Rumpelstiltskin tightly. 

Belle hadn’t realized before how much taller Jefferson was than Rumple. When the two men held each other, Jefferson’s chin rested neatly on Rumpelstiltskin’s head. Did that factor into the way they pleasured each other? She would find out, wouldn’t she. She would learn all sorts of things about her master and his old friend.

“How was your journey?” Rumpelstiltskin asked when they broke apart. 

“Well enough. I came by way of Oz.” He took out a small jar from his coat pocket. “I wasn’t sure whether to bring flowers or wine, so I combined the two.” The jar held a red liquid in which floated several red petals.

“Poppy wine, how useful!” Rumpelstiltskin took the jar and made it vanish. “Was it any trouble to obtain?”

“No, no, the witch was off sulking in her castle. She didn’t even know I was there.”

 “As it should be. But now, please, eat. Accept my hospitality. Belle will serve you.”

Jefferson looked at her for the first time. “Hello again!” he said warmly. “What a lovely necklace.”

Belle grinned but said nothing as she poured the wine into both goblets. Jefferson took a piece of bread from the platter and topped it with a slice of sausage. At Rumpelstiltskin’s offer, he sat down in the only chair at the table.

“This is Belle’s first time with a man besides me,” Rumpelstiltskin explained. “And as such, we won’t be doing anything too… strenuous. I hope you’re not disappointed.”

“Of course not.” Jefferson said with his mouth full. “Never!”

“But there is one limitation my sweet slut has put on herself: She has volunteered not to speak until the sun rises.”

“She didn’t say much last time, either.”

“Silence is a simple protection, but a useful one.” He looked Belle in the eyes as he spoke and she nodded slightly. That was exactly what she had wanted him to say.

She set wine in front of them both. Jefferson brought his goblet closer, but didn’t drink yet.

“While we’re on the subject of limitations,” he said, “I do have a request.”

“Yes?”

Jefferson loosened his cravat and revealed the black leather collar at his throat. It was the same one he had worn at the party, Belle remembered. Leona had one to match it. 

“This stays on.” Jefferson wedged his thumb between the leather and his neck. “It’s a sign of devotion to my wife. I’m still hers even when I’m… otherwise engaged.”

“Of course,” Rumpelstiltskin said. “It’s the same with Belle’s cuffs. Show him.”

Belle didn’t hide the way the cuffs moved her hands just before she could move herself. They pulled her over to Jefferson and thrust themselves out for his inspection.

“They are how I make sure my girl follows my orders. Even though I trust her to obey me anyway.”

After an inquiring glance at Belle, Jefferson took her gently by the wrist and examined the cuffs. “Our collars are just symbolic,” he said. “Not magic, but still important.” He tapped his fingernail against the metal. “And not gold either.”

“Well, technically those are made of straw.”

Jefferson laughed and leaned forward to take his glass. “A toast?”

“By all means.”

“To new experiences!” He clinked his goblet against Rumpelstiltskin’s and drank. “Mmm!” he said when he tasted the golden wine. “Is this that stuff from Tir Na Nog?” 

Rumpelstiltskin smiled slyly. “Do you still have a taste for it?”

“I have a taste for everything, Dark One.” He drank the rest of his wine and sighed. He leaned back, his shoulders slumped and his whole body loose, relaxed. “This tastes like being young again.”

Rumple leaned against the edge of the table, facing Jefferson’s chair. “You’re not so old as some.”

“No,” Jefferson agreed, holding out his glass while Belle poured him another drink. “But you’re never as young as you are the summer you fall in love for the first time.”

“No,” Rumpelstiltskin murmured. Then Belle watched as he leaned over Jefferson and tilted his chin up with his finger. The two men kissed, softly, and Belle felt a fluttering inside her that she could give no name to. Her breath caught in her throat and she felt a wanting that was indeed arousal, but also much deeper than that. 

It was the word Jefferson had said, a word Belle had intentionally kept out of her vocabulary, but he had used so freely. And Rumpelstiltskin had not denied it! Jefferson had said the word and Rumpelstiltskin hadn’t rejected him or dismissed him. He accepted it as a fact. And now they were kissing, as they had clearly kissed so many times before, probably starting that summer when Jefferson had fallen in love.

She was trembling, but she had promised not to speak. She wrapped her arms around herself, the long sleeves draping her over as an extra layer of covering, the slightest bit more protection.

The two men broke apart. Jefferson looked over at her, his eyes darting over her face. Rumpelstiltskin kept his gaze on Jefferson and only moved when the other man stood up.

“Were we rude, just now?” Jefferson asked, his gaze shifting back and forth between them. “It’s not my intention to monopolize.” He looked directly at Belle. “I don’t want you to feel excluded on my account.” He went to the flagon and poured wine into his goblet. “Here, you should have some.” He handed the goblet out to Belle. “It’s very good.”

Belle rested her hands at her sides, quietly refusing his offer. Rumpelstiltskin went between them and took the goblet from Jefferson. 

“This is how it is,” he said simply. “The girl takes what I give her. She only takes what I give her. The rules might loosen a bit as our time goes on, but that is the guiding principle. I will tell you what you may do to my property. Is that agreeable, Jefferson?”

“Of course, Dark One. You’re in command of both of us.”

Rumpelstiltskin raised Jefferson’s glass with a grin. “It has been too, too long.” 

He took a sip of wine, and then grabbed Belle by the waist. He kissed her and let the wine run from his mouth to hers. It was a delicious, mellow wine, and all the sweeter for being accompanied by his kiss. He dug his nails into her bare shoulders and then pushed her away with a smack of his lips. 

He beckoned Jefferson over, and the man went to them eagerly. Rumpelstiltskin grabbed Jefferson by his leather lapels and pulled him down to the right height for kissing. The two men kissed again, and then, as freely as he had given her the wine, Rumpelstiltskin poured Jefferson into Belle’s arms.

She kissed him without thinking, without questioning, and he returned her kisses the same way. He also tasted like the wine, like fruit and sunshine and pleasure. Slowly, Jefferson stood up, bending his head but not his knees while he kissed her. He touched her lightly on her arms, just above the start of her sleeves. They broke apart softly. Belle wasn’t sure how long Rumple would want them to keep going. 

He leaned against the table with his arms crossed over his chest. “Yes, like that,” he said brightly. “Excellent job.”

“An easy job,” Jefferson smiled. “This is going to be a fun night.”

[laurasimonsdaughter]

Sari and the Dragon

Let me retell one of my favourite fairy tales, an story from Indonesia that might remind you of the Beauty and the Beast, but with very different protagonists, that make me love it much more. ~1.1k

On a beautiful island the reigning king once had a son called Sudja, who was far too fond of going out riding in commoner’s clothing, as far as his father was concerned. The King gave him a stern talking to and told him that instead of going about in this unprincely manner, he should be searching for a bride. Prince Sudja agreed with his father, but no sooner was he out of his sight, or he disobeyed him again by going out hunting with his friends instead.

After a rather wild hunt, the young men managed to get themselves lost. They got terribly thirsty and hungry and in their desperation they decided to follow a large water bird they saw soaring through the sky. Sure enough, the bird brought them to a lake where they could quench their thirst and there, hidden among the reeds, Prince Sudja found a large, golden egg with blue-green spots. Hungrily they made a fire and the Prince cooked the egg in the hot ashes for himself and his friends to eat. But no sooner had he swallowed the first bite, or smoke began to pour from his mouth and he turned into a frightfully large dragon. His friends all fled in terror and the bewildered dragon prince was forced to roam around on his own for days on end. Eventually he came to the hut of a wise old man who did not fear him and Sudja the dragon begged him for help.

The wise man could not change him back, but he had taken pity on the former prince and he brought him to a cave where he could safely spend his days in secrecy. To the local villagers he said that a pious hermit has taken up residence on the mountain, asking them to bring some food up there every once in a while as a good deed. As his parting words he told Sudja that if a young woman would ever want to massage his scaly belly with her feet, that would give him back his human form.

Now it was so that on this mountain with the dragon’s cave, a little closer to the village, there also lived a girl called Sari, who was as beautiful as the sun, the moon, the stars and all flowers combined. She spent her days caring for her elderly father, who was blind, and rarely went into the village. Because whenever she did go down, all manner of young men tried to convince her to marry them by promising her all kinds of riches and finery. But Sari wanted none of them and at length she only gave one reply: “I’ll marry you, but only if you can cure my father’s blindness!” And not one of her suitors had an answer to that.

One day when Sari had been to the village to buy food, she found out on the way back that she had forgotten something to start her fire with. Unwilling to make the climb back down she picked some flowers as an offering and went to ask the hermit in the cave if he might be able to help her. A kind voice answers her from inside the dark cave, promising to give her all the fire she needs and inviting her inside. Sari got a terrible fright when she first saw the dragon, but he was so polite and listened to her so kindly that the fear soon left her. Before long she was telling him all her about her dear father, their little house and the annoying young men in the village. Finally, the dragon gave her a lit torch to take home and a pretty polished pebble as a present.

A few days later Sari found herself wandering back to the dragon’s cave and once again she told him about her father. She had tried all kinds of medicinal herbs and had asked every healer in the village for help, but nothing helped and by now his eyes couldn’t see anything anymore. “Noble dragon,” she sighed. “Do you not know of any way to help him?” The dragon was very grave, for the cure was a difficult one, but he promised to try and help her. He gave her a magical white stone and told her she had to gently soak this stone in jasmine water for two days. After that she would have to remove it very carefully, sprinkle a cloth with the water and wipe her father’s eyes with it on every hour, for three whole days. After that the white stone needed to be placed on his left eye for six hours and then on his right eye for six hours more. Sari promised she would do exactly what he had told her and ran home with the wondrous stone clutched to her chest.

It took her six long days, but truly, when she finally lifted the stone from her father’s right eye he could see again! Laughing and crying from happiness Sari filled a basket full of treats and flowers and ran to the dragon’s cave. Breathless with joy she burst into the cave and overflowing with gratitude she thanked the dragon for curing her beloved father.

The dragon shared in her joy but he answered that it wasn’t him who had cured her father, but Sari herself, because she was the one that did all the work and cared for him. But after that he did shyly asks if he could perhaps still ask her for a favour in return. Sari agreed most cheerfully and when he asked her to scratch the itchy scales on his stomach with her foot she did so without hesitation.

Suddenly the cave filled with smoke and with a thunderclap and a flash of fire the dragon’s skin burst open. In front of Sari’s shocked eyes a large white egg rolled onto the stone floor and when it broke Prince Sudja came crawling out of the shell. Wild with relief he cried out that Sari had not only cured her father, but had now also released him from his enchantment. As soon as she had gotten over her first surprise Sudja confessed to Sari that he was the prince of the island and earnestly begged her to marry him. She accepted him immediately, but under one condition, that her father might come with them when they left.

Of course Sudja agreed to this and not long after Sari married her dragon prince. The King was overjoyed to have his son back and very pleased with his choice of bride and Sari’s father was just as satisfied. So all four of them were happy and that is how they all lived for a very long time.

[clansayeed]

Bound by Choice ― II.i. The Prestige Waltz

PAIRING: OC x OC x OC (Valdas x Isseya x Cynbel) RATING: Mature (reader discretion advised)

⥼ MASTERLIST ⥽

⥼ Bound by Choice ⥽

Before there were Clans and Councils, before the fate of the world rested in certain hands, before the rise and fall of a Shadow King ― there was the Trinity. Three souls intertwined in the early hands of the universe who came to define the concept of eternity together. Because that was how they began and how they hoped to end; together. For over 2,000 years Valdas, Cynbel, and Isseya have walked through histories both mortal and supernatural. But in the early years of the 20th century something happened―something terrible. Their story has a beginning, and this is the end.

Bound by Choice and the rest of the Oblivion Bound series is an ongoing dramatic retelling project of the Bloodbound series. Find out more [HERE].

Note: Choice is the only book in the series not based on an existing Choices story. It is set in the Bloodbound universe and features many canon characters.

*Let me know if you would like to be added to the Choice/series tag list!

⥼ PART II ⥽

— Paris, 1582. Vampires across Europe gather beneath the bones of Paris for merriment, reverence, and to honor the lives lost in a holy war. But some see this not as meace, but as an opportunity to decimate the enemy ranks no matter the price. And, as Serafine Dupont comes to learn, other's lives are a sacrifice the Trinity is willing to make.

⥼ Chapter Summary ⥽

Beneath the streets of Paris the dead dwell restless. They take up masks and dance through the night. They celebrate freedom and life. And do so, unknowingly, for the last time.

[READ IT ON AO3]

Paris, 1582

She’s a breathtaking thing on his arm. Of course in this the age of beautiful things she still glows radiant; the star that outshines the moon.

As she always has. As she always will.

Long fingers wind through Cynbel’s golden locks absent and curious. She leaves it up to him to solve the labyrinth of the dead and instead finds herself contented  in gazing upon him.

“You haven’t worn your hair this long since Venice.”

“Kind of you to notice.”

“I like it.”

“I should hope so. You spend countless hours in my company, darling mine. If you found me repulsive I can’t imagine what I would do with myself.”

Not a heartbeat passes and Isseya’s grip grows violent; feral. Nails digging into his scalp and a sudden tickling warmth on the back of his neck where blood drips down and threatens to stain his collar.

“Really, Iss’,” his sigh is long-suffering, yet he does not decline her apology of handkerchief dabbing away the mess, “do try and keep civil tonight. You know how important the evening is to me.”

Yet he knows her too well not to feel the falter in her footsteps. The way her mockery of breathing stills and leaves them as permanent and dust-covered as the rest of the catacombs through which they wander with purpose.

“Indeed.”

He would ask if she was having second thoughts about the whole affair but what would that change? Nothing.

What’s done is done. And by the end of the night he will reap what has been sown with a madman’s delight.

Up ahead the darkness gives way to shadows dancing in ritual abreast of the walls of stone and bone. Before they get too close Cynbel stops them; pulls his darling girl against him — allows himself to be pinned against the tunnel and knows her natural desires of dominance will placate her.

Even now.

And she falls into the role as easily as he gives it. Pulling his arms up, up against the linen of his sleeves catching on the stone, to hold him in place. She inhales harsh against the confines of her corset and he, too, feels suddenly tight in the chest.

“You know what this reminds me of?” she practically sings into his neck — has him sofuckingglad he decided to forgo that awful stiff collar and luckily she doesn’t mind that he can’t possibly form words right then.

“London,” Isseya answers her own question in bites across his throat, “and the rack Our Beloved had brought from the Tower… how you stretched and begged for it to end.”

Glad though he is that the attempt at distracting her with delightful things has worked Cynbel can’t help but wonder what price he’s about to pay for it. Not that he isn’t stiff in his hose — but they do have to make an appearance at some point in the night.

And Valdas will start to get worried if they do not show their faces soon.

She pulls back with eyes dark and greedy. Not too far, though, when he snaps blunted teeth forward to claim her lower lip for his own. Watching, transfixed, the way it comes back to her shining wet under the distant candlelight.

“Because I wasn’t tall enough already?”

“Are you complaining?”

“Not in the slightest.”

Cynbel snakes an arm around his lover’s waist and, all teasing aside, claims her in a familiar kiss. Familiar in that they have explored one another so intimately and so often that their bodies are one in the same; that the fabric and flesh between them no more than a false reality.

They part; trade lips for foreheads, and breathe in the silence together. As one.

“Should this night be our last night…”

He stops her there. A finger to her lips that curls to lift her chin. She is a proud creature, his darling Isseya; her head simply demands to be held high.

“Stop. You think me so foolish—nay—so weak? This is merely another night, one of many passed and many to come.”

“You cannot control everything.”

“Watch me.”

He has every confidence that they will survive the trials soon to come. They have weathered every storm, every war, every plague. This, too, they will overcome.

The masques they take from their hips to fasten are as rich as they are detailed. Perfectly carved to their features and even now he gazes upon her with a reverence. Such beauty, and to be seen beautiful by it, was worth living for.

She takes his offered hand and with it some of the fire in his eyes. No words between them, they move as one to round the last steps before the tunnel opens outward and upward into splendor.

The vaulted ceilings are a surprise; as far down beneath the earth as they are. A promise of life and freedom that the world above could never truly give them not even in the nighttime. Chandeliers hang high overhead with candles deep in their flames.

Across the ballroom — they are not the last to arrive. Similarly decorated vampires coming alone and with companions at two doorways just as open and inviting. From all corners of Paris they flock here tonight.

He looks and finds Isseya surveying him warily. So much for distraction.

“A bit cramped in here, wouldn’t you say?” There are more attendees than you assumed.

“We’re under the greatest city in the world my love. I’m sure we’ll find the room.” Then we improvise. Nothing has changed.

Nothing has. If anything their chances of living through the things to come have only grown higher.

Even in the crowd their hearts yearn for who they know stands within. Can feel themselves drawn to him, pulled along by a force more powerful than their understanding.

Yet in crossing the length of the room they are seen; more than that they are witnessed. The status their masques signify earns them collective gasps and bows alike; lesser hoping to placate what they only understand to be more than they are. More than they ever will be; for some tonight.

There are always casualties in war.

Together Cynbel and Isseya come across the only masque that could earn their respect; the only thing older than they. Would bow together anyway, would dirty the hems and knees of their finery if that was what he asked of them. Because that is the proper way to treat a god.

That is the proper way to treat their god.

Valdas looks them over with warmth that quickly ignites hot, passionate. He has always appreciated the beauty of his beloveds but this night there is a sense of urgency and finality with every action in which they partake. The greater the risk the greater the reward.

Hungry is their god — who cannot wait even for Cynbel to come up from his bow of respect before grabbing onto the man’s doublet to pull their mouths together. A kiss met with equal fervor and delight, and no less devoted when shared to their darling.

Those old enough enough to remember the days before reservation and propriety, few and far between though they are, say nothing. Those left avert their gaze and know better than to challenge masques so revealing.

“I was starting to worry you’d lost your way.” Valdas glances between his lovers; their mischief not lost on him.

“We simply took a scenic path.”

“And did it suit you?”

“As only death could.”

When they turn out to observe the party so far it is as they do everything — together as one. His gods touch finds its way into his hair and Cynbel pays no thought to it. It is sacrament, after all.

“Were the rumors true?” asks Isseya in a low breath. It earns the pair of them a heavy sigh.

“Indeed.”

“Then we should away.”

Cynbel stifles a derisive snort. “Absolutely not.”

“What you have set in motion is all the more reason.” When she speaks it is earnest and out of love. They know this. But equally she knows they are warriors first. That they crave blood for sport as well as feast.

“While the idea of the Godmaker’s head on one of their silver blades is enough to send me into a passionate heat —”

“Cynbel.”

“We’re among alike company, Valdas.”

“You don’t know that for certain.”

“Really,” the taller man scans the crowd with a knowing eye, “I do.”

A hush falls over the crowded ballroom — dashes away Isseya’s idle fancies of fleeing before they are found. None other than the man himself could garner such a reaction.

Between them the Made-God grows tense. His lovers share arms around him on instinct — natural and without hesitation.

They enter in deadly beauty, arms lain together with an air of presentation. See us, it says, and know your place under our heel. The response it draws is immediate. None dare allow themselves to be in the way of the King and Queen of Vampires.

And they bask in the attention like gluttons. The Bloodqueen smiles much in the same way as when they last had met — the sultry curve of lips that keeps the viewer in a trance only so that they cannot gaze up to see how it does not reach her eyes. And him — he smiles because he means it. Because he need not ask for respect from the masses, not anymore.

They stop in the middle of the floor and are given a wide berth. Gaius tightens his grip on the handle of his masque before he lets it fall from his face; the only one who could dare to pull off such an outrageous act in present company.

“Friends, subjects, loyalists;” he addresses the gathering with pride already swollen in his chest, “your welcome to this our finest achievement has been a gracious one. To see you all gathered here, to see so many of our kind in one place and pridefully so, is a gift the value of I could never have imagined.”

“Always the wordsmith, Gaius mon chér.”

She emerges from the adoring crowd a vision in red. Velvet gown swept up in dainty hand as she comes up on Cynbel’s open side without so much as a glance. The filigree of her masque dazzles in the firelight; intimate gold that frames the upper half of her face to both conceal and reveal.

A bold choice none but the hostess of the evening could aspire to.

She greets Kamilah as an old friend; takes their hands together and presses delicate Parisian kisses on either cheek. Knows the eyes of nearly every vampire in Europe are upon her as she gives a flourishing curtsy with the kiss she bestows on Gaius’ ring.

“I cannot tell you how pleased I am you could attend us tonight,” continues she, “though I will admit I was near to giving up — what with my last five invitations all met with refusal.”

Something flashes in Kamilah’s eye. Has her hand back on that of her King quickly — in restraint.

“Not refusal, Serafine. We were merely indisposed.”

And she understands. “You shall have to regale me the tales.”

“Shall we now?” asks Gaius with a raised brow. It earns him a coy smirk from the Lady Serafine.

“I insist. But now is the time for revelry! Continuer, mes amis!” On her signal the musicians resume their tune, tentative conversation growing strong once again.

To hide would be a fool’s notion. And the Trinity have been called many things, but fools not a word among them.

Demons and the Devil himself. Bloodthirsty pagans. Hellish temptations.

But never fools. The world knows better than that.

The Godmaker and his firstborn share a long look even as heads in their decorated masques and boisterous dress weave between them. Kamilah’s stare goes hard at the sight of him and for that Cynbel cannot help but feel accomplished in some way.

And because he’s in such a delightfully cheery mood — because he knows — he grins and dares a cheeky wink.

Dares only in that the sudden sting of Isseya’s claws on his upper arm is so very very worth it.

They know what must be done, now. At their god’s back the lovers stand as they approach.

“Valdemaras,” Gaius says as he offers his ring in the same way. And without hesitation—he knows better by now, they all do; this tenuous arrangement of theirs—Valdas bestows his kiss.

“Augustine.”

Nothing could ruin the Golden Son’s jubilance. Nothing.

“Little lotus,” he croons to Kamilah even as her mouth turns downward, “you’re looking in good health.”

Whatever she wants to say, she doesn’t. Bites her tongue enough for the brightest flash of copper to make the tip of his nose twitch.

Their darling goes still as stone when the Godmaker bows to her; nothing reverent but more of a courtly finesse. But as he waits she comes to realize it is her he waits upon; offers up the back of her hand clutching her fan in pale knuckles for him to kiss.

See, we can be civil. Now you must be, too.

Palpable tension such as theirs isn’t lost on the other guests, though, especially on one so close as their hostess. Who takes everyone by surprise when she dares speak of it.

“Ah, c'est intéressant,” as a loose curl falls in the eyeline of her masque, “the stories those looks could tell. Friends of yours, Kamilah chérie?”

She hesitates, as if deciding whether or not to answer.

“I believe you know of them by reputation,” — obviously, as Isseya made quite sure of that upon their arrival earlier that season — “what is that silly name of yours again, Cynbel?”

Lucky his masque hides the curl of his upper lip.

“If we’re to speak of silly things —”

“I present my lovers; Cynbel and Isseya,” Valdas interrupts, probably best for them all, and takes both of their hands in offering to the Lady, “you may call me Valdas.”

A flash of recognition in the Frenchwoman’s calculating gaze.

“Ah… Les Trois Amants.”

Isseya’s chin raises with pride. “And you can be no other than tonight’s hostess, no? Mademoiselle Dupont.”

“Please, call me Serafine.”

“Such informality…”

“It breeds a certain… intimacy, non?”

Her lovers need not worry of her — but what they know and what they do are different things. None in their little circle miss the way Valdas’ hand tightens over hers and the angle of Cynbel’s body as if to cover her from such intimate eyes. Instinct for them both; to claim and be claimed by one another for all to see.

Thankfully the pleasantries are made to end there. The soft tunes of conversation dying on instrumental lips as the concert prepares to begin playing for the first dance of the midnight hour.

“Mademoiselle, may I have he honor of your prestige?”

Even Gaius has a hard time concealing his surprise when Serafine’s hand comes out in offering to Isseya. Objectively they all understand — know the worth of a millennia by virtue of living it. But some things just simply aren’t fucking done.

Isseya knows this and still accepts. Takes their hands with a sparkle of mischief in her eye before they away to take up positions within the circle gathering on the dance floor.

Paranoia only begins to breed when Cynbel watches the Godmaker’s hand fall on the middle of Valdas’ lower back. “My prestige is yours, Valdemaras.” Not that he is given the choice — is already being led to follow.

Which leaves…

“No.”

Cynbel’s eyebrows barely raise in surprise. Not that he’s entirely inclined to do so with her, either, but they seem to have little say in the matter.

“You would rather take the first dance with someone so mundane?” He sweeps a lazy gesture across the floor. “You know none save our companions are even close enough in age.”

Kamilah’s eyes narrow; she scans the floor for those left unpartnered as though someone will spring miraculous from the stone with enough years under their belt to not serve as a grave insult to her.

He doesn’t have to look. No one else will do.

“I doubt one dance will be the end of you, little lotus.” Offering his hand in defeat for them both.

“You give yourself too much credit.”

“Luckily ‘tis not my credit you need, but my prestige.”

They slide in together, hand in hand, moments before the waltz begins. No effort made on behalf of either to keep the disdain from bleeding through their garb to stain the floor at their feet.

This is simply the way things are done in polite society. They know this. Both of them helped shape it in their own way. They’ve certainly had the time to.

With their betters paired off it was simply the only way to save face. For either of them to dance with one of the lesser attendees would have been tantamount to suicide of status. No other vampire in attendance could have been over a millennium—not even the Lady Serafine. But being a hostess had its perks, and Cynbel could attest… his darling Isseya was so very worth it.

One of the violinists drags the first note out; a true delight to perform for an audience with hearing unsurpassed.

Cynbel lays his hand on the cusp of her waist. Kamilah squeezes his hand hard enough to grind bone. Good, he would expect nothing less than resistance.

Humans held court to catch a glimpse of their betters. For their kind it was this — La Valse de Prestige, the Prestige Waltz. Faces trained on their partners all around but eyes unable to help themselves in how they wander.

There is no slow build. There is only the abrupt beginning, and the flurry of the dance.

Here lay the ability—nay the obligation—to pass judgment on one another. On who danced with whom; on what masque partnered with another. For many it was a matter of life and death. For the likes of the Trinity, of the Godmaker and his Queen it was a chance to see a new breed of blooded potential. For the rest; a fruitless attempt to climb the staircase.

Only it wasn’t so much a staircase as a sheer cliff dropping off into an abyss.

Even in the confines of her dress Kamilah’s movements are limber and fluid. He hardly has to guide her at all.

“You look well.”

“If you are attempting to make me falter —”

“Which would look terrible on behalf of us both. Can I not give a simple compliment?”

“No, you cannot.”

Hands joined they follow the motions; fling themselves outward with faces turned away. Cynbel sees Isseya in almost direct opposite. Their eyes meet and as one they see their beloved focused on his own movements on the far curve of the room.

And they pity him. Know firsthand how beautifully he can dance… but in the hands of the Godmaker he is made mortal again — if only for a short while.

His exact argument against coming tonight, and why they had never ventured to the crypts with their beautiful promises of community before.

If they were lucky, perhaps the events of the night would change that.

What was the phrase, ah yes. To kill two birds with one stone.

“For a man so craven to violence, you feign deep thought quite well.”

Blue eyes unfix themselves from a rapidly-changing distance to lay on the Bloodqueen. “Was that you asking what my mind wanders to?”

“Of course not.”

“Then why say anything at all?”

Of course he knows why; the din of hushed conversation is all around them. Attuned ears catch the familiar bell of Isseya’s laughter. A couple at his back carry on a hissed debate over Cynbel and Kamilah’s statuses — why their masques are so revealing and embellished.

They are a gaping void of silence in comparison. But he’d rather she say it.

She doesn’t give him the satisfaction.

“Very well,” clicking his tongue—he dares to be civil with the woman who nearly left him to join the ashes that littered Pompeii, “when did you and the Godmaker set sights on Paris?”

“France has been home to our court for several decades now.”

Our court. Two words that drag his sights along the room. Surely not this court, not with the surprise at his attendance as there had been. “And before that?”

“What does it matter to you?”

“I’m writing a memoir.”

“Of course you are. Always such a learned thing you were, preferring the company of books over bloodshed.”

Rouged lips tick in her effort not to smirk. Personally he finds her wit humorless and dry.

“If you must know… we only recently came up from the Mediterranean. There was rumor out of Venice that sent us into hiding; a hunter who had felled the great Bloodqueen.”

She is strong but still so young. What a difference two thousand years makes; in the eyes and in the mind, in the control of the body. But there is still a mystery that can render even the oldest of their line a prisoner to their impulses.

He knows it well.

He lets their eyes meet; holds her captive with the light stroke of his thumb along the outside of her index finger. A direct touch; a private one. But enough to release the sudden grasp of iron at his words.

There is a part of Cynbel that relishes in her silent suffering. Because even the sight of her reminds him of Rome, of his Lord taking a knee to keep his lovers alive.

And then there is a part that feels her pain as his own. Who remembers the howl of his own bleeding lungs at the sight of the sword that nearly came down on Isseya’s neck. Too soon, too soon.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” is all he says. And he hopes that, even if for the rest of their dance, she believes him.

The music ends as abrupt as it began. Almost as if the musicians were taken in the middle of the piece — but they all know better. The Prestige Waltz is a symbol as much as it is a dance. And are they not all to be ended with a swift act of a cruel fate?

Around them bows and curtsies of thanks. The orchestra starts up a far more leisurely tune. The formalities are done.

Cynbel gently pries himself from the little lotus’ grasp. Kisses the back of her hand and risks everything to whisper against her skin.

“I would not be displeased if you survived tonight.”

Kamilah tugs her hand back and the inevitable question that he will not answer is poised on her lips — but the return of his lovers is reason enough for Cynbel to take a more permanent leave of her.

“I like her.”

He snaps a look to Isseya, very nearly alarmed, before the realization that she stares at Serafine with delight edging on desire.

“She certainly knows how to throw a party.”

They both linger in a half-silence; so familiar now that a voice should follow but it does not. And has them turning, in sync, to Valdas’ silence with curiosity.

They comfort him as only they can; her touch on a cheek, his hand at a waist. Giving him only the praise and adoration their Made-God deserves even when he looks as he does now — when he looks as though he does not.

Such times are when he needs it most.

When Valdas finally speaks it is with crimson eyes. Once following the Godmaker’s eyes move across the floor now given just as intensely to Cynbel much to his surprise.

“Your amusement for tonight must be postponed.”

Surely he speaks madness. “Not even your divinity could do such, darling.”

“Do whatever you must — but none shall come upon us tonight.”

So foreign is how Valdas pulls from his lovers’ touches that they are left, for a moment, unmoored.

“It cannot be done.” Cynbel repeats in fewer words. Harder, clipped.

“It must.”

“It. cannot.”

The hand Valdas runs over his own face trembles with the weight of him. “Then we are all doomed.”

He tries all he can; reaches out but finds his touch rejected — outright rejected. Tries to speak but the words simply never ring right in his ears. Companionship for as long as they have had comes with its share of arguments but this…

Something so small, so inconsequential. Yet the disappointment brimming from his Love and Light is… rattling to say the least.

Yet the answer is as plain as day.

“Does he know?”

Here in their secrecy they dare not chance a look. Cynbel has already risked enough saying what he has to his consort.

It’s a relief to them all when Valdas shakes his head. “Not quite. But that means so little. And with him here… they could never hope to win anyway.”

“It isn’t my intent to let them win. And should he fall prey to their righteous hands… well all the better.”

Not for the first time Valdas silences him with a kiss. Bruising and harsh; holding his jaw in place because he is commanded to accept such a gift. As if he could do anything less.

“Cynbel, my Golden Son…” They pull from one another with obvious reluctance. Foreheads resting as their blind hands search and find sanctuary in that of their third.

He isn’t prepared to hear the crack in his love’s voice. It wounds him far worse than a stake ever could.

“Please. Save your appetite for another night.”

“What is done cannot be undone.”

Isseya steps between them. Steals a kiss in offering from them both. The temple of her always demanding more, more, more that they give her without hesitation.

“You cannot fault him for that.” Because she knows her strengths Isseya punctuates her words with a forlorn twinkle of the eye. Squeezes Cynbel’s hand behind her and he knows — knows even gods are made pliable under such a gaze.

The music picks back up before Valdas can speak. All around them the cacophony of merriment and delight and they cannot let their worries cut through such a veil lest they be discovered… something even their Maker knows.

“On your head be it.”

His dismissal is clear. And something Cynbel will not take lightly. He takes that benevolent hand up to his lips for a kiss. “Trust that I will keep you safe, my Light, my Love. As I always have.” He dares to look upwards and is met with tragedy in dark eyes. “As I always will.”

A shock of red pulls from the dancing crowd towards them and the Trinity pull from one another — close but not uneasily so.

When the Lady Serafine takes them in her mirth wavers for the briefest moment. Something that cannot be helped — something about them has always roused suspicion even in the merriest of souls.

They are close; closer than can be defined with words in any language, closer than anyone can understand. That kind of devotion creates a wall between them and the world.

It is meant to.

“I had hope to pull you into the revelry… but perhaps it would be out of turn of me.” Even with half of her face hidden her hesitance is transparent.

Valdas steps forward — one breath quicker than his lovers — and offers their hostess his arm.

“We would be the ones out of turn to decline the lady her dance.” He muses; smiles down as she takes his upper arm softly, tugs him towards the mingling array.

The look he throws back to his lovers is a reassuring one.

Enjoy the night while you can.

The intent is to take the hands of the next partner — something the rest of the circle does with ease.

Yet as Cynbel looks down… down… down until he rests his eyes on his would-be partner he stops and finds himself unsure.

How is he to proceed when his partner is…

“Are you well, monsieur?” Yet even when the child asks it is clear he has no intention of letting the taller vampire get away so easily. Grasps Cynbel’s hands with his own and the comparison in size is almost astounding enough to trip his feet. As it is — he’s now more conscious of every step than ever.

“Quite.” Not as smooth of a save as he would prefer, but better than none.

A familiar trilling laughter whirls his head to the sight of Isseya with an unfamiliar man. Her eyes, as ever, fixated on her golden lover. Much to her partner’s obvious chagrin.

The child whirls the pair of them wild and free and with all the abandon of youth.

“The pleasure is all mine!”

“Indeed.”

Help me, his silent cry to Valdas; who has taken up with a slim woman obscured fully by her masque. His act of generosity for the night.

As predicted the moment his lover pulls himself from her grasp she is flocked by other, less prestigious attendees eager to bask in the attention given by someone so old.

He approaches them calmly — calmer than Cynbel would like but appearance is everything even at the eleventh hour — and easily slides his lover from the young man’s embrace.

“Forgive me, Marcel,” he muses to the child, “but I find myself wilting without my beloved’s touch.”

Marcel, with an air of familiarity Cynbel doesn’t quite understand, coos at the pair of them before skipping off to a different part of the room. His boisterous demeanor seems equally repulsive to his chosen victim; a surly man with a surlier masque in armor that doesn’t quite shine like it should.

He keeps note of that. The only one adequately prepared for what is to come.

“I know that look.”

A crooked finger under his chin draws Cynbel’s attention away and to the center of his world. To the hesitance he sees still but not without its own resignation. That his god humors him still is a blessing without compare.

“What look?” He’s always feigned innocence terribly.

He interrupts the purse of Valdas’ lips with a kiss. Tangles his fingers in dark hair like staining himself with shadow and cares little for anyone who might be watching. Their kind may try to keep up with the social niceties of humanity but they will never be ruled by it.

“You are not the only soldier here, my Golden One.”

“Good, then they may stand a fighting chance.”

“And will you rally them?”

“Hardly. This is between Baltasar and myself; another battle in our seemingly endless war.”

He continues even when a hand claps over his mouth. Even when his god’s eyes bleed red and chance hasty looks to assure they are unheard.

To utter such a name in present company may very well doom them all.

“Relax, my divine love — I would not speak were I worried of discovery.”

“I doubt that.”

“You doubt me?”

“Only in that I know your desire for bloodshed is enough to fill the Seine to brimming.”

The smile such a compliment earns is, obviously, not meant for so. Yet even at the pout of Valdas’ bottom lip Cynbel cannot help but feel proud to be known as such.

He gathers his Maker close with one arm; protects him from the world as he always has. As he always will. “Everything I do, I do for you and Isseya.” Peppering kisses across his tanned throat just shy of the stiff collar. “Even now it may seem petty or trifling, but when we are free of their wretched hounds at our heels you will understand.”

It takes longer than he’s used to but eventually the inevitable comes — eventually Valdas does yield to each touch. Though not without a sigh of his own; his own way of saying he does not approve, but he will not stand in the way.

It is a middle ground to which they have grown familiar.

He is always forgiven.

It is a break in the heavy clouds which have hung over the vampires of Paris for too long. A brief flicker of moonlight which they bathe in, frolic through not unlike the pagans of old. There are even a few times in which — only to be certain there is no suspicion to be found — Cynbel looks to see true enjoyment on the Godmaker’s carved features.

A sight that makes him ill.

Following a dance that certainly could have been performed with the entirety of her ensemble but was much better enjoyed in nothing but her underclothes, Isseya drapes herself over the back of the chair both her lovers occupy. Not a space to fit two grown men but like everything they make it work.

She leans forward expectantly and devoted as they are the men comply; showering her throat with kisses and bites worthy of the envy the less prestigious among their kind have thrown their way all evening.

“Do you think they might begin to grow suspicious?” she asks idle; winding her clutches at the backs of their heads as possessive as they are thoughtless. An act of instinct.

Cynbel flicks the tip of his tongue over the shell of her ear. “Why would they?”

“We’ve a reputation for abandoning these affairs for our own.”

“They should be honored by our continued presence.”

“And yet whispers abound.”

He pulls back to watch his lovers where their temples touch. To bask in the glow they create together. Almost seems a shame to ruin an evening of their radiance but… no.

That’s just a little seed of doubt. Something to carve out of him like fleshrot.

“That my heart —” thumb brushing over Isseya’s lips, “— and my soul —” other hand cupping the strong angle of Valdas’ jaw, “— continue to doubt me so is insult enough. Lest they forget that I do this for them and the pleasure I take from it is not solely selfish in nature.”

Walking away from them is a difficult thing; always has been, always will be. But difficult things are merely difficult — not impossible. And one more word from them against him may just be the spark that ignites his smothered temper.

He hears them call out but resists the impulse to turn back. Leaves the merriment through one of the few doorways and casts off his masque as he does. Prestige, masques; he could care less for the things that can be bought and bribed into.

Let them meet him across a battlefield with naught but their hands as fists and see, then, that he will always win. Such is the way of the soldier, of the hunter. Of the primordial creatures they are yet seem to have forgotten.

He throws a fist in a fit of rage. Watches it collide with the wall of bone with a sickeningly delighted crunch that breaks the face of a skull off into little pieces. So fragile, so withering.

So fucking satisfying to see.

“At what point do they cease to become faces?”

Without her masque she is of the same beauty, though perhaps with more emotion about her now no longer hidden.

Serafine’s fingertips trail along the rows of foreheads; some still with places for the eyes and jawbones and some not unlike the poor victim of Cynbel’s rage.

Dirt and bone dust gathers on the heavy fabric at the train of her dress. She doesn’t seem to mind.

He holds her gaze as he reaches out to an almost perfectly preserved skull. Caresses the voided eyes with his fingertips and hooks his thumb through a gap in the teeth. All it takes is the slightest twitch of muscle — no longer preserved almost or not.

Serafine flinches; a telling thing he does not miss.

“I would assume when I do that.”

“I mean the faces behind the bone. To whom these lonely heads once belonged.”

He regards her with a glint in his eye. “I heard tell of the far-reaching influence of the Mademoiselle Dupont but I had no idea she knew so many.”

The coy smile that tugs at her lips is forced. An easy thing — the hallmark of a woman used to the machinations of courtly intrigue. She could learn a thing or two from his darling girl; she does so without tell.

But the silence between them echoes. Hard and bright. It makes him sigh.

“If one sees a sea of bones and plucks them by identity, they will do so regardless of whether they are alive or dead.”

A bold thing to admit. There is power in truth but when the truth is soaked in the blood of ages…

“I am sorry if this is not the answer you were looking for.”

“Non, no… I would rather the reality than a beautiful lie. We carry such lies enough, do we not?” Cynbel raises an eyebrow; there is no vanity in the way she tucks a lock of curls behind her ear. “You and I would be no different than these bones, were our bodies to show the years. Yet we remain beautiful well into eternity.”

“Some more than others.”

“Indeed.”

But that isn’t the reason the hostess abandoned her own affair. Now is it?

When she looks from one dead thing to another Serafine is met with expectant eyes. She has the decency to feign a flush.

“Forgive me—but what sort of hostess would I be were I not to entertain all of my guests?”

“You have entertained us enough.”

“‘Us?’”

Cynbel stills his exploratory hand. “My lovers and I.”

Us — we — always a unity. Together even when they are apart.

The woman nods. “Ah, oui. I count myself among the lucky few to have been graced with their prestige this night. But not yet from you. It leaves a woman to wonder why.”

“I doubt it has escaped your keen notice, Mademoiselle Dupont, that my social skills are lackluster in comparison to my better selves.”

“And you would not stray from such notions even for the sake of propriety?”

It makes him snort a laugh — a noise that takes his companion by surprise. Brings an easily-detectable pity to his eyes.

“Now it is I who must be forgiven.”

“For what, monsieur?”

“For in any way giving you the impression that I am proper.”

Laughable, really. A joke he will think of fondly for years to come when all this is done.

And should she have any doubts in his words he would have those cast aside, too. Closing the gap between them in a single stride. Escape through such narrow corridors more than a fleeting whimsy as he leans against the burial wall to take her in.

Cynbel would be lying if he said the minute trembling of her under the touch of his thumb was not exciting.

There is a different fear in their kind than that of humans. Humans are always afraid. But vampires… no no. Vampires fear with reason, cause; knowledge. They fear things that deserve to be feared. Things that have earned it.

And he has earned it so.

“A room full of admirers, the progenitor of our lineage, the prestige of the Bloodqueen—of Les Trois Amants, or two of three anyway, tucked beneath your skirts…”

With thumb and forefinger Cynbel raises her chin; easily tilted upwards to his unabashed amusement, “I find it hard to believe a hostess with such pretty achievements to crown herself with would willingly follow a single solemn soul because of something as silly as duty.”

The change under his hand is equally a delight. How Serafine steels herself; hardened eyes and a clenched jaw and command dripping from painted lips.

“Believe me, or do not. That is —”

“I do not believe you, no. I believe someone sent you out here to me. A little lotus, perhaps?”

Regret, like a shooting star in the endless sky. There one moment and gone in a flash; burned behind the eyelids but never to be seen again.

He should not have told her.

Inconsequential.

“You would do well to back. away.”

The chance to answer—or act—never comes. Not when the ground rumbles over their heads and noises foreign to all but the valiant begin to trail in on the same chord as the silenced orchestra. Then the thundering boom of a cannon, of doors blown from their hinges and the singing opera of swords torn from their sheaths.

“Finally…” Cynbel exhales like ecstasy; picturesque like the trembling waif on her wedding night.

The armies of the faithful have arrived.

[goy-bullshit-translator]

I'm not the anon who asked about Purim but what is the Purim story?

ALRIGHTY *cracks knuckles* I got off mobile and on desktop for this so you know it’s serious.

Purim Story: They tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat. 

The year is 367 BCE. The town is Shushan, Persia. The scene zooms in on a large castle in the middle, big, decadent, just the right amount of finery and prestige for a king who’s a complete asshole. The king Ahashverous is sitting on his throne, lording over his subjects in the way only a completely pompous and detached king can. His wife Vashti is off in her rooms, chilling, doing something, enjoying her queenly life. King Ahashverous decides he’s in the mood to party, so calls up all his dudebro friends, they’re chilling, dancing, drinking, having a great time, when King A gets this great idea to call his wife Vashti down for a little entertainment, a little dancing for his guests. Wearing only her crown. So, for reasons obvious to all but the most entitled frat boy (Ahashverous), Vashti declines and refuses to do as he asked. He gets super pissed by this and demands her killed, which is promptly followed out. Vashti is out of the picture and villianized in children’s purim skits for eons to come. 

So the King is sitting there, having just disposed of his unruly wife, when he realizes he needs a new queen. Well shit, how’s he gonna get one on such short notice? He calls up his right hand man, his advisor Haman (BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO), and tells him to go fetch all the women of Shushan, as he will hold a beauty contest and whoever wins will have the blessing of being the King’s wife. 

Enter Esther, a young Jewish girl, orphaned at a young age and who has grown up with her uncle Mordechai (THE JEWISH GUY), who works in the Palace. She’s young, sweet, innocent and pretty, so of course she’s a prime subject for the King’s beauty contest. She shows up, struts her stuff, and lo and behold, the king has a new wife! They get married, and she’s trapped in a world of pompous royalty and anti-semitism. Oh yeah, no one knows she’s Jewish. 

Meanwhile, Mordechai, on his daily trip to the palace, overhears two guards, gossiping about how they’re gonna murder the king, just gonna kill him brutally and painfully and all that good stuff. So, let’s be real, the king probably deserves this, but that’s besides the point. Mordechai is shocked and appalled, and rushes immediately to notify the court of this impending murder plot, the guards are taken and executed, and life goes back to normal. 

Mordechai continues his walk around his Shushan town, when he happens to cross paths with Haman (BOOOOOOOOOO). Haman, being the asshole he is, insists that everyone who he walks past must bow to him. Mordechai, being the Jew that he is, refuses. Now Haman fucking hates this. If Mordechai won’t bow to him, then all the Jews won’t bow to him, so he must not be the most important person in the world and that’s simply not permissible. So he sidles up to his personal pal the king and is like “hey. hey bud. hey my dude my pal there are people who don’t respect my authority or yours. They won’t bow to me what kind of filthy rats.” and the king’s all “holy shit there are people who wont bow to you we gotta do something!!” and H*man smiles and goes “yeah dude i got the perfect solution. Let’s just kill them. Kill them all. There’s no way that could go wrong.” And the king, (who’s probably still drunk), is like “Yeah dude sounds cool!!”, and willingly signs off on the order to murder all the Jews. Now, H*man is a little bastard who doesn’t give a shit about what he’s doing, so in order to decide when he’ll commit this mass murder, he rolls some dice, called Purim, to choose a date. (Hopefully you see the obvious connection to the holiday). The dice land on the 14th of Adar, the decree is made and sent out into the city, and the Jews of Shushan collectively go “oh fuck we’re gonna die.”

Back to our good pal Mordechai, who’s walking around Shushan again (he seems to go on a lot of walks), when he notices one of the posters declaring the murders of the Jews, and is like SHIT SHIT SHIT WAIT my niece lives in the palace. She’s the gotdamn queen. She’s gotta have some sort of power, right? So he runs over to visit Esther, and is like Esther sweetie babe please go talk to your husband please make him reconsider mass murder maybe? Thanks? and Esther’s all “what the fuck i haven’t seen my husband since the wedding if i enter his quarters without an invitation i’ll be fucking murdered” and mordechai, who’s had enough of his niece’s wishy washy shit, goes “YOU”RE GONNA GET FUCKING MURDERED ANYWAY IN CASE YOU FORGOT YOU ARE ALSO A JEW” and Esther’s like “okay yeah i’ll see what I can do.”

Zoom in on the king, who’s trying to go to sleep in his big kingly beds, and just can’t fall asleep. So instead of suffering through insomnia like the rest of us plebians, he calls for someone to read to him from the royal records, cause they’re so fucking boring they’ll have to put him to sleep. So one of his servants is doing so, and he stumbles upon the time when Mordechai saved his life. He realizes that Mordechai never actually got an award for all that snazzy shit, so calls in his boy Ham*n. “Hey. Haman. My dude my bro my man. If there was someone I really liked, who did a huge huge favor for me, like, yaknow, really helped me out, how should I reward him?” Haman, the stuck up brat that he is, of course things Ahashverous is talking about him, and so says “well…. i would dress him in the king’s finest robes and put him on the king’s finest horse and have someone parade him around the streets of Shushan yelling “THIS IS A MAN THE KING WISHES TO HONOR LOOK HOW GLORIOUS HE IS” and Ahashverous is all “dude you’re brilliant. Okay tomorrow afternoon, get that Mordechai dude and have this done to him. You’ll be leading the horse and yelling.” Haman realizes he fucked up. Haman reaaaaaaaaaaaaally hates Mordechai now. He hates him so much in fact, that he builds a set of gallows specifically for murdering Mordechai alone. 

Esther, meanwhile, is trying to build up courage to go see the King and explain the whole “I’m Jewish please don’t kill my people” issue. First, she fasts for three days to be ready, and asks all the Jews of Shushan to fast with her. Once those three days are up, she figures she can’t just waltz right in to his quarters and say “don’t kill me”, so instead she dresses up all fancy, and waltzes into his quarters with some fancy (skimpy) clothing on and an invitation to a party. The king is thrilled to be invited to a party, and manages to overcome his instinct for murdering his wives to accept the invitation. At the party, they’re chilling, they’re laughing, they’re having an all around wonderful time. when Esther goes to make an announcement. “Hem hem hem” she coughs. “I brought you here today for something very important.” Everyone is paying attention. “I’m having another party tomorrow night and you’re all invited!!!! And so is that Haman dude. Make sure he’s there. Really.” Well of course our frat boy king is delighted and agrees that he and Haman will absolutely 100% be there. 

Cut to the next night, where they’re at the party and Esther goes to make an announcement. “hem hem hem.” she says. The king gets ready for another party announcement. He loves parties “Someone” says Esther. “Someone, in this very room, is trying…. TO KILL ME!” Shock! Terror! Awe! Emotions! The party guests are very confused, until Esther gives the full explanation. “I’m a Jew… Haman’s a dick… etc.” So of course the King is so distraught, because he can’t have his lovely wife that he loves so very much (that he thinks looks hella hot) be murdered! But he’s also in a bind. Cause here’s the thing about kingly orders, like the one about killing the Jews. They can’t be undone or retracted. Looks like the Jews are still screwed. That is, until Mordechai gets this great idea. More murder. “Look.” he says. “People have been given legal permission to kill us. I propose you simply do the same. Write out a little kingly decree, saying that the Jews have the legal right to kill anyone who attacks them, and can fight for their lives. Then, it’ll just be a battle of the strongest and of course the Jews will escape just fine. We’re good at surviving.” The king, who’s really just a pawn at this point, is all “well that’s a MARVELOUS idea! Let me write up this order immediately, I’ll get right to it!” This second kingly order gets written, the decree goes out, and the 14th of Adar rolls around.

There’s mass murder. Everyone is fighting or killing or dying. Mostly goyim are dying though. The Jews successfully manage to protect themselves, keeping their culture alive, turning what was supposed to be a day of mourning into a day of wildly happy celebration, the Purim festival we know now. They also found and seized Haman, hanging him upon the gallows he built for Mordechai. And to this day, we eat hamentaschen to mock this fool’s hat/ears/pockets. Whatever we’re mocking, Haman was a dick who looked ridiculous. And we’re still here bitch, so ha. You lost. 

[spideyxchelle]

Princess Michelle’s land has been invaded. And to save her country she knows what is expected of her, she knows she is set to marry a man she does not know, hardly respects and hates for forcing her homeland to its knees. Affection cannot grow in the face of war. Not even when the face of that war has the most gorgeous eyes she has ever seen.

[part 1] [part 2] [part 3] [part 4] [part 5] [part 6]

Like a pair of scolded children, Peter and Michelle stood sheepishly outside of the large, brass double doors. They were still dressed in all of their finery from the botched engagement tournament. Michelle’s dress and corset were still jadedly torn open from Peter’s uneven knife and her stole was the only thing that shielded her modesty from the elements. She did not ask to change, she was too terrified to even speak. So, the two heirs waited anxiously for the set of rival kings, their fathers, to invite them into the throne-room.

Peter shattered the heavy, burdened silence between them, “A lady’s maid?” The accusation was clear in his tone but Michelle did not rise to his bait. Instead, she tightened to stole wrapped around her shoulders. Peter did not stand idely as he waited for her to speak. He began to unfasten his armor and let the metal clang to the ground loudly. He briefly paused to untie the blue, silk ribbon she had given him that morning from his breastplate. He tucked it safely in his pocket, which was a maddingly curious gesture to Michelle.

They caught eyes for a moment. It was long enough for something significant to pass between them. Michelle turned her head away, “Yes, a lady’s maid, Mister Parker.”

Peter did not respond for some time as he divested himself of the rest of his armor. When it was awkwardly piled near the door and he was left only in his leathers he spoke, again, “That was my name on the mountain.”

The princess whirled on him in surprise. Michelle had grown up with stories about the dragon riders on the mountain. She knew that all children from the Stark Lands that showed an affinity for magic were sent from their homes at eleven and brought to the mountain on high, The Tower. It was at on the mountain every girl and boy, all equal, were taught to harnese their magic and picked their dragons, their gochs, from the herd.

When she had imagined herself as that warrior maiden in her whimsical childhood sometimes she envisioned herself as a dragon rider. The stories said that all children that were brought to the mountain were allowed to pick a new name. The name they choose would be their marchogwr, their dragon name.

If she had been allowed to train on the mountain she would have called herself Mary Jane.

But Michelle was not a dragon rider. She was an unimportant, voiceless princess forced to wait in humilation in her tattered clothing in front of a betrothed she had not chosen and barely kew. Mary Jane never would have waited impishly in silence while a council of men decided her fate. She would have torn down the tapestries, boarded her magificient beast and flown far, far away from her dreary castle. Those were Michelle’s secret wishings.

“Parker,” she said and tried to ignore how false the name now felt in her mouth. “Why Parker?”

He turned to look at her and the light caught his nearly auburn hair. She murdered the impulse to reach out and touch his curls. They had turned wild under the hot restrictions of his battle helmet. His voice broke her from her trance, “I had a tudor as a child. His name was Ben Parker. He came down with sweating sickness when I was twelve and died.”

Peter blinked twice and turned away from her to hide the creeping blush that was traveling up his neck. Now that all of his armor was gone Michelle had the room to really admire his form the way she had that morning. His neck was the least attractive thing about him and still awakened some secret need in her. She had a wild urge to run her lips along the column of his blushing neck.

Michelle cleared her throat and tugged the stole even tighter around her person. Peter chanced a glance at her, “I don’t know why I told you that.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she met his eyes, “You lied to me.”

He narrowed his eyes, “Pardon me, your highness, but you lied to me as well. Or have you forgotten.”

“I was a woman alone with a man I did not know. A man I did not trust.” His eyes flashed with hurt. It made her falter, if only for a moment, before she pressed on, “You cannot expect me to have told you the truth.”

The prince worked his jaw like he was trying to get some offending article out of his teeth. No, he was counting. He was a curious fellow and an even more curious prince. He spoke so evenly she knew he was barely contaiing whatever words he actually wanted to say to her, “Pardon me, your highness. I misunderstood our entire meeting.”

“Misunderstood what?” she said, lifting her chin in a mockery of confidence.

“I had thought there was some genuine connection between us. Forgive me.” Whatever the princess had expected him to say it had not been those words. Her lips parted in the smallest gasp of surprise. Her thoughts whirled around her head untrollably. Every time she tried to grasp onto one singular thought to inspect it and pick it apart, it slipped away and another more confusing one took its place.

She took a step toward him for reasons beyond her and nearly spoke when the double doors flew open and the two matched kings stood in front of one throne. Prince Peter straightened his back and took a step backward as a sign of respect that he would allow her to entire the room first. She was a lady, after all. In fact, she was meant to be his lady one day.

Her feet felt like lead but she forced herself to walk. Her father watched her severely and Peter’s father, the King of the Stark Lands, looked almost bored. She felt a flood of that familiar anger against her foreign aggressors. They had invaded her land and threatened her kingdom and their King had the gall to look bored, as if this meeting was an inconvenience to him.

Michelle’s eyes narrowed but she curtsied. She felt Peter take a deep bow beside her. They were together in this, at least.

“Father,” Peter tried.

“You will speak,” King Anthony growled out, “when spoken to, boy.”

Michelle could see him out of the corner of her eye buckle under the weight of his father’s words. He looked no older than a boy, then. The stirrings flared again.

“And you,” Michelle’s own father said, addressing her, “what do you have to say?”

She clutched to fabric of her stole and allowed herself to be as self-assured and wondurous as the Mary Jane of her dreams. She was a dragon rider starng down the face of her enemies. Men, all, were her enemies today. “I have done nothing wrong. I fainted from the sun. My betrothed was very gallant and helped save my life, would you not agree, father?”

Her father’s jaw ticked, “I wou-“

“And,” she cut him off, “I believe such a heroic act is a wonderful beginning to what will, no doubt, be a very fruitful union.”

She felt Peter snap his head toward her. She was defending him. It had not been a conscious choice on her end but she did not want to be looked down on by the men here as a foolish girl that had ruined the tournament with her hysterics. She had turned her failings into a roarous success. Michelle almost dared any of the men present to argue with her. She knew they would not.

King Anthony snapped at his son, “And you? What do you have to say for yourself? This is a lovely, regal lady. And you dishonored her with that token.”

Her eyes went to the blue scrap of ribbon that was hanging out from his pocket. She had not realized what this meeting was truly about. They had been angry with Michelle for causing a scene at the tournament, but Peter had recklessly sported his favor for another lady in her presence and to their entire kingdom. It had been seen and judged as a dishonorable act of war.

Peter flinched, “Father-“

“It is mine,” Michelle interrupted him. If the room had been surprised by her before, they were all openly gawking at her now. She could feel the intense heat of Peter’s eyes on her, waiting to see what she would do now. Only moments before she had told him that their meeting that morning had been fake, that their had been no connection between them. And yet, she was jumping into battle for him in front of their fathers, in front of two kings.

Her father whispered her name in shock. She quickly tried to wind a fanciful lie to protect both her virtue and Peter’s dignity. “I did not meet him before today, my King, I promise. My virtue and his honor are both still in tact. I had one of my lady’s maids bring the ribbon to one of his bannermen this morning to deliver it to their master. If it was to be our engagement tourney, I wanted him to have something from me. It was a foolish girl’s wish. And I’m sorry.”

Her father turned to Peter who was standing shell-shocked beside her, “Is this true?”

Peter dumbly nodded, “Yes, sir.” He hesitated before adding roughly, “A lady’s maid and bannerman did meet this morning.” His eyes slid over to Michelle when he said that and she had to look away. Whatever magic had fired between them that morning could now only be a memory. No matter what was expected of them, what their duties would be, she could not forget that he had brought war to her homeland. It could only be war between them.

She would not crumble beneath the soft eyes of a foreign prince.

[kane-and-griffin]

“I Put a Spell On You“

A Kabby Halloween fic in three parts for the AU The Woman That Fell From the Sky, in honor of @brittanias‘ birthday! 

(Yes I know it’s 6 weeks away, but it’s her favorite holiday and I regret nothing)

PART 1: “Cara Mia” (Halloween 2004)

GOMEZ: “How long has it been since we’ve waltzed?” MORTICIA: “Oh, Gomez . . . hours.” --The Addams Family

Holidays for the first few years are muted affairs.

Clarke is four when they move to Massachusetts, and the move is as great a shock to her system as the loss of her father.  The entirety of her small young life, undone and turned inside out.  Neither of them have the stomach for Thanksgiving or Christmas that year; Jake died in April and eight months is not enough time for them to face the misery of attempting to replicate holiday traditions without him.  New Year’s, Easter, Valentine’s Day, their wedding anniversary, Father’s Day, his birthday.  The endless, endless repetition of moments for which Jake is supposed to be there, but isn’t.

Then, a year and a half later, the terrible thing happens, the worst day of all their lives, and Marcus arrives at their doorstep with ash in his hair and kisses Abby’s mouth like she thought no one would ever kiss her again, and something, ever so faintly, begins to click into place.

He’s still there a month later, when the leaves begin to turn from green to gold to crimson, and the town begins to don its autumnal finery for the fall festival.

Clarke and Abby did not go to the festival last year.  Jake had been the one who carved their jack o’lanterns every year, elaborately detailed masterpieces of witches on broomsticks and black cats arching their backs.  He had a box of delicate, fine-bladed woodworking tools he used only for pumpkins, something Abby had long ridiculed him for.  She’d brought the box to Massachusetts, only because she could not bear to throw it away, but it had been moved straight to the garage and she’d never looked at it again.  She’d put a bowl of candy on the porch for the neighbor children, in the interests of seeming neighborly, but that was as much holiday spirit as she could muster.

Marcus, however, has never lived anywhere that was not New York City, and the fall festival is a thing of wonder to him.  So, to appease him – and because once he says the words “free candy” it’s impossible to dissuade Clarke from adding her pleas to his – they walk down after dinner on Halloween, and Abby – against all expectations, and very nearly against her will – finds herself slowly giving in to its charms.

There are orange twinkle lights wound around the columns of the gazebo in the town square and a small hay bale maze for the children.  There is a long table of caramel apples and popcorn balls and chocolate truffles dipped in orange fondant with charming toothy grins.  There is hot spiced cider in big black iron cauldrons, steaming with dry ice and scented with ginger and cinnamon, ladled out by a line of moms in pumpkin-embroidered aprons.  (Marcus and Abby’s steaming paper cups get discreetly spiked with bourbon by Roan, the hardware store owner, who shoves the flask back in his pocket as Officer Pike pretends not to notice.)  Clarke is the only child not wearing a costume; tiny witches and vampires and princesses and Frankensteins abound, along with one particularly grotesque blood-spattered zombie, introduced to them as Octavia Blake from down the street.

Everyone in town knows Dr. Griffin’s story by now – knew it within hours after the “SALE PENDING” sticker went up over the “FOR SALE” sign on the old white house on Birch Street.  Vincent the realtor had stopped by Indra’s for coffee that morning and told her everything, so by dinnertime everyone knew.  They orbited her at a safe distance for the first year or so, treating her rather gingerly, as though she were made of glass.  Under other circumstances she would have found this profoundly irritating, but inside that cocoon of grief, the less she had to talk to people, the better.

But now she’s at the fall festival, she’s drinking cider and holding hands with a tall dark-haired man in a leather jacket and she’s letting her tiny blonde daughter race through the hay bale maze at full throttle, excited squeals of glee echoing through the night air, and she’s smiling, and this is the moment the town falls in love with Marcus Kane for the very first time.

Because he made the doctor smile.

He comes back for the fall festival the next year, and the year after that.  Abby still can’t bring herself to open the box in the garage, and says a gentle but firm no to Clarke’s pleas for elaborate decorations.  They put out a bowl of candy on the porch, as all the neighbors do, and they stroll down to the fall festival and drink their cider.  Abby lets Clarke wear a costume (a cat the first year, Belle the second), but declines to wear one herself.

By their fourth year in Massachusetts, Clarke is eight, and Abby’s lackluster commitment to Halloween becomes a bone of contention before school has even started.  Marcus let her watch The Addams Family with him one night over the summer when Abby had an emergency late-night surgery and he was on parenting detail alone.  Clarke loves anything Marcus loves, so she is prepared for his favorite movie to become her favorite movie before he even turns the television on, and she falls head-over-heels for the glaring, morbid Wednesday Addams.  Maintaining basic table manners, after this, becomes a trial (“Pass the parmesan cheese.”  “What do we say, Clarke?”  “MORE.”) which Marcus’ badly-concealed chuckles do not help.  But she sets her heart on dressing up as Wednesday Addams in July, and by the time September turns the corner into October, she has worn her mother down.

Abby does not sew.  Or, more accurately, she does not sew fabric.  (Her surgical stitches are a thing of beauty, but those skills do not translate to any domestic project more elaborate than repairing a loose button.)  But her neighbor Callie does.  Callie was Abby’s first real friend in town, inviting her to book club and backyard barbecues and brunch potlucks until she slowly began to get her feet under her again, and begin to feel marginally less alone.  Callie is the neighborhood’s resident domestic goddess; her flower garden is always perfect, her table settings colorful and elegant, her sugar-dusted loaves of holiday gingerbread appearing like magic on doorsteps up and down the street every Christmas morning.  And she can sew, because of course she can, so once she overhears Clarke at the supermarket staring covetously at the racks of polyester costumes and lamenting the lack of a Wednesday, she steps in immediately.

“Oh, I love The Addams Family,” she tells Clarke, smiling.  “I’d be happy to make you a Wednesday costume.  Easy as pie.  And your mom should be Morticia, don’t you think?”

And once the words are said, of course, there is absolutely no peace in the Griffin household until Abby finally, finally, finally heaves a weary sigh, walks across the street, knocks on Callie’s door, hands her a bottle of merlot, and says only, “I give in.”

Callie goes to work immediately, laughing Abby’s checkbook out of her hands (“don’t be an idiot, this is a gift”) and taking both mother and daughter’s measurements, occasionally leaning down to whisper conspiratorially in Clarke’s ear and making the girl giggle so hard her blonde curls bounce against her shoulders.   Two weeks later, two long flat boxes (wrapped in black paper with black silk ribbon, with the beheaded stem of a rose tucked in each, which makes Clarke shriek with glee) appear on the front step.  In Clarke’s, a crisp black dress with a starched white collar, black tights, little black boots, and even a black wig already combed sleek and braided into perfect tight pigtails; in Abby’s, a long black wig and a dress that makes her eyes widen when she puts it on its hanger and realizes how low the neckline plunges.  (“She’s bisexual,” points out an amused Marcus when she calls him that night, his voice sounding bitterly disappointed that he’ll be working that weekend and won’t get to see it.  “It’s a gift for you and for her.”  Marcus has always liked Callie.)

Clarke loves her costume so much she has to be forcibly restrained from wearing it to school every single day for the whole last week of October, and something of her giddy joy begins to chip away, bit by bit, at Abby’s reserve.  She remembers this herself, after all, she’s not so old that she’s forgotten the year she dressed as Princess Leia and grew out her hair all year so it would be long enough for her mother to braid into side buns, or the year she was six and it rained so hard she had to wear galoshes under her Cinderella dress instead of glass slippers and cried about it all the way to the first house on the block but stopped as soon as she was handed a Kit-Kat.

Jake has been gone for four years.

The box has been in the garage long enough.

On Friday, when the school bus drops Clarke off on the corner, she is momentarily disoriented, and for a second, she is unsure whether she has arrived at the wrong house.  Because it looks like Halloween, for real, it’s the Halloween house of her eight-year-old dreams, with pumpkins and hay and a wreath of dried leaves on the door.  And when she opens the door, she gasps so loudly Abby can hear her in the kitchen and comes outside, wiping her hands on her apron.  (Mom is wearing an apron?)  There are shiny glass pumpkins and pretty black candlesticks and pretend spiderwebs on the dining room chandelier.

“You were too little to remember,” Abby says, “but me and your dad, we used to love Halloween.  We dressed up and had parties in the apartment every year.”

Clarke looks around, eyes even wider, taking it all in.

“Did all of this belong to Dad?”  Abby nods.  “Did you not want to look at it before because you were too sad?”

Abby is startled, as always, by the depth of this small child’s perceptiveness; sometimes it’s like talking to a tiny grownup.  She nods, not quite trusting her voice yet, but Clarke doesn’t press her any further.  “I’m glad you’re not so sad anymore,” is all she says, and trots into the kitchen where her eight-year-old senses have unerringly detected the scent of cookies.

The next morning, after pumpkin pancakes (picked up from Indra’s diner, of course; Abby’s baking skills were maxed out yesterday in baking ghost-shaped cookies and letting Clarke decorate them), Abby takes her daughter by the hand and leads her out to the backyard, where she has laid old newspaper all over the surface of the old rickety picnic table, and two absolutely perfect pumpkins – round, sleek, glossy, their sunset-orange skins free of every blemish – sit next to a cardboard box duct-taped shut which Clarke has never seen before.

“Pick one,” says Abby, and Clarke can’t do anything but fling her arms around her mother’s waist.

 Sunday dawns crisp and clear, perfect Halloween weather.  Clarke is incandescent with eight-year-old glee, and even Abby is finding herself, surprisingly, getting into the spirit of it.   They eat dinner early, around four-thirty, and Callie comes over to help them dress.   The knock at the door, around five-fifteen, just as Abby is finishing her makeup, startles her.  It’s far too early to be children; the fall festival kicks off around six, with the trick-or-treaters beginning their rounds shortly thereafter, once their parents have each had time for a cup or two of Roan’s “special” cider.  Abby leaves Clarke sitting on the side of her bed, Callie winding her blonde ringlets into neat little pincurls so the wig will lay flat, and descends the staircase reluctantly, already feeling a bit ridiculous.  If it’s the FedEx guy, and she’s in a skintight black dress cut so low she can’t even wear a bra . . .

The door swings open while she’s halfway down the stairs, startling the life out of her, and she freezes in place.

It’s definitely not the FedEx guy.

“Cara mia,” says Marcus, who is standing at her door in a flawless Gomez Addams costume – pinstriped suit, slicked-back hair, his face clean-shaven save for a perfect pencil mustache – and Abby feels her heart crack open inside her chest.

She stands there, a little stupidly, not entirely convinced she isn’t simply imagining this, until he closed the door behind him and she finally collects herself enough to descend to the bottom of the stairs and meet him in the foyer.

“I would very much like to kiss you,” he says, fiery warmth in his gaze as his eyes travel up and down her body in the curve-hugging black dress, “but it looks like you just finished your makeup and I don’t want to ruin it.  So just know I’m saving one extra for later.”  But he does put his arms around her, pulling her close, pressing his mouth against the creamy bare skin of her shoulder, and she has to swallow hard over and over again to keep from crying off the perfect wings of black eyeliner that took her three tries to get right.

“How are you here?” she finally manages to whisper, but the mystery is solved before she can even finish her sentence.

“Clarke,” she hears Callie’s gleeful, mischievous voice from above her, “I believe your Halloween present is here.  Run downstairs so I can come take some pictures.”

“Pictures of what?” Clarke demands, little feet scampering out of her room towards the staircase, where she too stops short at the sight of him.

But Clarke recovers faster than her mother did, launching herself down the steps with lightning speed to fling her arms around him and let herself be lifted up and pulled close to his chest in a massive hug.  “You look just like him!” she squeals.  “You even have the mustache.”

Marcus sets her back down on her feet and examines her costume.  “Perfect,” he pronounces emphatically.  “She did great.”

“I told you I would,” laughs Callie, descending the stairs, camera in hand.

Abby stares from one to the other.  “Did you two cook this up together?”

Marcus and Callie grin at each other conspiratorially, like mischievous children.  “Maybe,” he says, refusing to elaborate further, then bows deeply at Abby and holds out his hand to her.  “Cara mia,” he says again, his low voice making her shiver even with Clarke and Callie standing right there.

“You’re staying the night, right?” she murmurs into his ear as they pose for photo after photo, so quietly that Clarke doesn’t hear her.

He chuckles, warm and low.  “That depends.  You don’t have to give the dress back, do you?”

“Nope.”

“Then I’m definitely staying the night.”

“I can’t promise you I’ll want to wear the wig any longer than I have to.”

“I’m willing to compromise on the wig,” he says, winking at her, and then pulls back and pivots smoothly on his heel to dip her dramatically in his arms, making Clarke giggle, and suddenly even the delicious thought of Marcus unzipping her out of the tight black dress is pushed out of her mind by the realization of what this is and what she’s doing.

They have matching Halloween costumes, so they can go trick-or-treating together.

Callie is taking family photos of them.

These are family photos.

They are a family.

She feels that old, familiar pang in her chest, thinking of Jake, but it doesn’t push the smile away or dull her happiness.  Not like it used to.

Jake always meant that box to be opened.  He always meant those orange paper Halloween lanterns to hang over the dining room table.  He always wanted this for Clarke.  He would want this for her now.

Perhaps it is possible, after all, to get back the thing she’d lost.  Something different, but no less real.

Because Marcus is family now.  She knows this, down to her bones.  Yes, he came to see her, and yes, she can tell from the way his eyes never leave her that the allure of Abby dressed as one of his favorite movie characters was a powerful draw.

But he did this for Clarke.

She knows this even before she makes him say it to her, out loud, later that night, as they stand in the white glow of moonlight streaming in through her bedroom window, as he steps in close to her and kisses the back of her neck to unzip the black dress.  She knows it as he leans over to steal a bite from Clarke’s candy apple, knows it every time he reaches out instinctively for her tiny hand as they cross the street to get to the next house, knows it as he lifts her into his arms to let her sleepy head droop onto his pinstriped shoulder as they make their way back home.

Every time he gets in his car and drives out of Manhattan and through the long stretches of forest-lined highway to pull up in front of her front door, it is not only Abby he’s coming home to.

“I just like to see her happy,” he says helplessly, when she asks him, and she does kiss him then, turning around in his arms, unzipped dress sliding off her shoulders, black wig and red lipstick gone, face pink and clean.  Just Abby and Marcus, alone in the moonlight, with a tiny blonde creature snoring two rooms away, sleeping the sleep of the candy-intoxicated, hair a wild golden cloud from Callie’s pincurls.  “I just wanted to see the look on her face.”

“I don’t know how to tell you,” she starts to say, but can’t finish the sentence.  She doesn’t have the words for him, for what it means to her.  He bought a suit for this, shaved off his beard for this, cut his hair for this, and drove four hours from Manhattan with a jack o’lantern in his back seat, just to make Clarke smile on Halloween.

He tilts her chin up to look into her eyes, and she sees that his are shining with tears.  “I like to see you happy too,” he says softly, and then bends his head to kiss her, and no one says anything for a long time after that.

He lets her sleep in the next morning, since it’s her day off, and takes Clarke to school himself.  She wakes around nine-thirty to the smell of nutmeg and cinnamon, and comes downstairs in her pajamas to see a pan of pumpkin-cinnamon bread pudding on the counter.  The kitchen is empty, but she knows he must be home; there’s a steaming mug of coffee on the marble island, with more in the pot for her, and his keys and wallet are sitting next to them, along with a little rectangle of yellow paper, creased like he’d folded it up and put it in his pocket.  But it’s unfolded now, and she can see the logo of Saint Henry’s Church at the top of it, which is unexpected enough that it prompts her to pick it up and read it.

It’s a receipt for a five-dollar donation.

She stares at it for a long time, bleary with sleep, puzzling it out, before she hears the back door close and sees him come up the steps, holding the glass votives he took out of the jack o’lanterns before putting them into the compost bin.

“Dia de los Muertos,” he says softly, as he enters the kitchen.  “Tomorrow is All Souls’ Day.  Clarke and I stopped by the church to light a candle.”

“For Jake,” she whispers, and he nods.

“I don’t know how to do this,” he confesses, coming closer and putting his arms around her.  “Any of this.  But I always want her to feel like there’s room for both of us – for him and for me – to live side-by-side.”  He kisses the top of her head.  “Is that okay?” he murmurs into her hair, sudden worry in his voice.  “Should I have asked?”

She shakes her head, face still buried in his chest, the cotton of his sweater warm and soft beneath her cheek.

“No,” she whispers.  “It’s perfect.  You did everything right.”