#note dragon ball side tangent past this point:

[fandom-trash-xl]

Looking at the Red Prince

(Now with attached clips, compiled a few that stood out)

There's a bit we have to unpack here with the Red Prince and the Red King being absent (most likely dead).

With his father(?) gone, the Prince is left with big shoes to fill, much too big for him to responsibly handle at the moment, acting high and mighty to compensate (and also likely by virtue of his upbringing) and having a few childish touches (and slip ups with the crown) that shows he hasn't had much training to fill this role. He's very firm on his title of royalty, though this may also be his generally pompous and spoiled nature unrelated to the King being gone. As the Curious Cat notes, he struggles with things not going his way under his new charge, being unable to do "the one thing he was put on this acre to do"... fill his father's shoes as a winner of games.

And there's clearly some trauma here tied to the King's (likely) death:

The Prince never took up the mantle of Red King after these events, refusing to take his father's place or take up that high of role so soon. He's still the Red Prince and "there is no king".

When one of the guards comments that "if I hadn't been for [Team RWBY's] kind, the King would still be here", he is quickly shushed by the rest. Either because this isn't info these outsiders should be privy too- or to avoid upsetting the prince, likely still wrestling with the situation.

Absolutely panicked, defensive, and frantic at the thought of infiltrators

His tone drops with fear when he asks what Ruby about her kind and both mentally and physically cracks when he hears they're humans, eyes shrink, eye twitches. General negative associations with humans. (The pieces even react too)

His rambling about infiltrators also goes into some very telling specifics. There have been infiltrators before, namely Alyx in The Girl Who Fell Through the World... and the stealing the crown? Likely not referring to just its value as a treasure (and also a final remnant of his father's influence) but also the title behind it. The Red Prince is the last heir to the Crimson Castle, meaning he is the last line of defense for the royal name and he'd likely be hunted to usurp the inheritance.

There is a good chance that Alyx may have been the one to kill the Red King. This world is the "sequel", the Ever After in Alyx's wake... and before we address that Team RWBY would have known about the King's absence from Girl Who Fell Through the World, consider that we've been shown that fairy tales in RWBY tend to leave things out.

Note that the Prince's doll porcelain cracks when he gets upset- becomes fragile due to his emotions. Perhaps this was exploited by Alyx to defeat and subsequently kill the Red King, testing his temper to make him an easier piece of china to break. Getting overheated emotionally (assuming they have a rather high threshold) and cracking seems to be practically a death omen for the Red royalty as it leaves them highly vulnerable to breakage...

...especially considering that, even after the Curious Cat touches his heart to calm him down, the Red Prince's cracks don't mend.

[flowercoasts]

since seventeen, the kids i’ll never be - a beau gen fic

The Mighty Nein pass through Kamordah and Beau wants to close old wounds.

Read on AO3, or 

NOTES: implied/referenced child abuse, justice and catharsis for beau

words: 5634

~~~

“We’ll pass through Kamordah then.”

Beau freezes, the ball bearing she was playing with instead of paying attention nearly slipping through her fingers as she tenses, her mind racing a mile a minute.

Jester, standing next to her, lays a hand on her arm. “Are you okay?”

Everyone turns to look at her. Why does everyone love being nosy? Beau wishes the ground would open up or a dragon would come flying by. She swallows. Her throat is much too dry. “Yeah.” That was raspy as fuck. Beau clears her throat, plasters on her usual half-smirk. “Yeah, just was surprised, is all. This fucker -“ Beau gestures to the ball bearing in her palm. “Nearly dislocated my… knuckle.” It’s a lie. A shitty lie at that. From the looks on everyone’s faces, no one believes her either.

“Will you be okay,” Fjord starts calmly, a look of concern painted into the downturn of his lips, “with us going into your hometown?”

Jester and Nott suck in a breath at the same time and let out little “Oh”s that make Beau feel like hitting something. Not them. Well, maybe Nott, but not Jester. She just really hates being fucking pitied and looked at the way they’re looking at her now, though.

She grits her teeth. “Look. It’s not a big fucking deal. I couldn’t give two shits.” Short and sharp. Caduceus frowns at her tone and Fjord holds his hands up placatingly. Beau sighs, runs a hand through her hair, trying her damndest to ignore Jester’s puppy eyes and Nott’s more-than-slightly disapproving glare. “... Sorry.”

Caleb approaches slowly and smiles at her with so much apprehension that just seeing his awkwardness hurts her. “Beauregard, we do not have to go.”

“There are many paths that lead to the same destination, Ms. Beau.” Cadences sips calmly from his tea, his voice a distant afterthought. “This one happens to be the fastest, but sometimes the fastest things are not the best.”

“Ye-ahhh… what Caduceus said,” Fjord mutters with a side-eye and a raised eyebrow.

Jester touches Beau’s elbow fleetingly, drawing her attention away from concerned gazes to wide purple eyes. “We won’t judge you. Not for anything. You know that - right, Beau?” Beau dryly swallows, her eyelids fluttering briefly at the memory of rougher grips on her arms, the disapproving frowns, the ugly sneers of a disappointed father.

She clears her throat. “Uh, yeah. Yeah.”

“Are your parents.. awful people?” Nott questions. Her ears are more alert than Beau’s seen in a while.

It’s slightly weird that it’s Nott who knows the most about Beau and not Caleb or Jester or Fjord, but Beau’s not one to knock another for being nosey and inquisitive. From being a nosey person herself, Beau thinks it’s respectable, if nothing else.

She bites her lip and thinks back to an unhappy childhood - remembering everything from the number of places she left her name etched into old wood to the unrelenting yells of her father. He was never happy with her, no matter how hard she tried. So she stopped trying. Their relationship got worse from there, while all Beau’s mother did was watch uncaringly. She was a bad child. Beau knew that. So yeah, she might’ve given them a hard time and yeah they might’ve caused her emotional trauma to last a lifetime but seriously, it could’ve been worse. Right?

“No,” Beau says finally. Her voice wavers. “I was just a… difficult child.”

Something lightens in Nott’s eyes, like a weight lifted off of her shoulders just by that one sentence. Beau doesn’t know whether to feel relieved or sick. There’s no clear reason to feel sick, though, and it seems stupid to feel that way, so Beau forces herself to feel relieved instead. God, it’s like she’s fucking five. Kamordah sucks. This whole mission sucks.

“Why do we have to go through Kamordah?” Beau finally saunters up to the table in the middle of the war room, finding herself a spot in between Fjord and Caleb while Caduceus pours more tea for everyone on a spot on the table not taken up by the map of the Empire. She glances to the weather-worn yellow paper and finds the image of Kamordah circled in a horribly bright pink ink. It makes her shiver in disgust.

Before she can comment her dislike of the implementation of pink ink on the map, Caleb answers her question. “Well, we need to find Lonardo. He lives just near Kamordah.” He guides her gaze to a point on the map with his finger. “Here. Brightburn Hollow.”

“Oh, Bright Slag? I know that place.”

“You do?” Fjord leans forward in interest.

“Oh yeah.” Beau grins cockily. “I had so many good times there. Used to be a frequent criminal hangout but after the city tightened its leash on patrols it was mostly used for secretive meetings and the occasional fight.”

“And I’m guessing you were a part of them?”

“Of fucking course.”

“Ye-up.”

“So, Beauregard, to answer your question,” Caleb cuts in as Beau’s smirk in Fjord’s direction turns a little too mischievous for his liking, “This Lonardo lives only a 30 minute walk from your former hometown. If it is alright with you, we will be making a short pit stop in Kamordah.”

Beau remembers clenched teeth and stinging slaps and thrown away art projects. She remembers the cutting of hair, the never quite fitting in, the darkness of her room. Beau remembers it all and feels a dull ache in the center of her stomach. By Ioun, she just wants to lay down.

“What the fuck are we waiting around here for then, let’s get a move on!”

~~~

“Ugh,” Beau groans, flipping over onto her stomach and for the fifth time in the past hour: “Are we there yet?”

“Asking every ten seconds doesn’t change my answer,” Fjord calls back from the front the same time that Caleb answers, “30 minutes.”

Beau lets out a long-suffering groan and bangs her head down extra hard on the bumpy wooden floor of their magic cart. Jester nudges the monk’s limp arm with the point of her tail.

“Ow,” Beau mumbles against the wood, not seriously.

Jester nudges her again, this time harder. “Beauuu,” She sing-songs. Beau groans. Another jab, this time at Beau’s side.

“Ugh. Yes, Jester?”

“Why don’t we do something to pass the time?”

“... I don’t trust that wiggle in your eyebrows.”

“Aw, come on! It’ll be suuuper fun!”

“The last time you said that, the guards almost sent us to jail.”

“But there aren’t any guard around right now! And besides, I don’t want to do anything illegal, just something like reading a book like Tusk Love… or something.” The last ‘or something’ comes rushing out of Jesters mouth at the look of disgust that passes Beau’s face.

“Fine.” Beau turns over so she’s laying on her side facing Jester. “What do you wanna do?”

“What about dodge-the-arrow?” Nott pipes up, holding her crossbow aimed at Beau and grinning a little too manically for her liking.

“Uh, pass.” The crossbow lowers, much to Beau’s relief.

Caduceus peers down at Beau from his somehow-still-steaming tea and smiles pleasantly. She tries to mimic it, but her face feels too tight to be correct, so she drops the smile altogether. “When I was younger, my siblings and I would play this game whenever we had time to spare.”

At that mention, Jester shifts closer to Caduceus. “Ooooh! What game? I bet it was something really fun.” Beau questions that assumption but doesn’t say anything about it.

“Well,” Cad starts, eyes alight with reminiscence, “We would count the trees.”

There’s a beat of silence, and Beau half expects Caduceus to keep on talking. He doesn’t. A confused and crestfallen look slowly takes over Jester’s features, but she plasters on a supportive toothy grin to cover up most of the confusion. “That sounds fun, but maybe we could play something else? Just for now?”

That sets Nott and Jester off on a tangent about the best travel games, which then evolves into a conversation about the best shanties and songs and after that Beau stops paying attention. Cad gets lost too, somewhere between the dick jokes and the 88th bottle on the wall.

Instead, Beau looks out at the scenery to pass the time. The trees seem familiar. They’re not quite green during this time of the year, but their bark is still the same. Purple-brown. If they went deeper into the wood, Beau could probably find the tree that she fell out of after carving her name in one of the larger branches.

“15 minutes now,” Fjord calls back.

15 minutes. Just a handful of minutes until Beau is back in the town she spent her whole life resenting - still resents. Maybe even ten minutes after that and they’ll see Beau’s parents. Well. They don’t have to right? They’re just going to the inn, buying rooms, stocking up, and then booking it to their target.

Beau sighs, runs a hand through her hair, and stares out even harder into the passing trees. The cart bobs up and down with the bumps in the road; Beau remembers one time that giants tried invading Kamordah and tore the road up in the process. It took the city years to rebuild, and it seems that they did a poor job at it. One particularly large bump nearly sends Beau up in the air if not for Jester’s tail winding itself around her arm like a safety rope.

“Thanks,” Beau blinks at Jester.

“No problem!” Jester sticks her tongue out at Beau.

She can do this. She has her friends with her.

Her parents can’t do anything against the might of The Mighty Nein.

~~~

Tall stone towers loom above their heads as they pass through the gates of Kamordah. Beau stares at the two lion statues hanging halfway up the towers, their soulless gaze sending chills up her spine.

The guards gaze at carefully Fjord’s arm around Caleb’s shoulders as Fjord and Caleb smoothly explain their previously agreed-upon cover story. When Jester first suggested the ‘honeymoon plan’ with Caleb and Fjord acting as the happy couple, Beau was a little skeptical, but seeing the two now… well, they seem more comfortable than Beau could’ve ever guessed. She cuts a side glance to Jester, wondering if that was her plan all along. If Jester’s ecstatic grin is anything to go by, it definitely was.

One of the smaller guards comes closer to the back of the cart. The four hidden under the cart’s invisibility spell collectively hold their breath, eyes widening in fear. As the guard starts to examine the back more closely, the head guard nods to Fjord and Caleb.

“Let them pass!”

While the others quietly sigh in relief, a heavy knot forms in the pit of Beau’s stomach. The twin lion statues mounted on the wall stare mercilessly at her as they drive past. It makes her just as scared as it did when she was seven and running away from home. Those lions always made her turn back. All five times.

“- do we go?” Fjord’s voice slowly comes into focus, like a beacon slicing through the fog.

“Huh?” Beau wrenches her attention from the uncaring statues watchful eyes to Fjord’s warm golden gaze. He’s looking at her with such a concerned look it makes her stomach churn even more violently.

“Fjord was just asking where we should go, Miss Beau.”

The half-orc in question nods at Caduceus’ explanation and turns around so he’s facing forward again. “Yeah, I just figure that you’re more familiar with -“ He makes a gesture with his hand to indicate the general area.

Beau grunts noncommittal in reply and ignores Jester’s not-so-subtle nudge to her shoulder.

Caleb considers her for a moment. “Should we ask someone, then?”

Scrubbing a hand over her face, Beau sighs. “Nah, I can lead you around. I just -“ She looks out into the street, recognizing some familiar faces walking along the side of the road. Quickly averting her gaze, she clears her throat. “Take a left up ahead and we should come across Greasy Ace Tavern.”

Fjord nods and starts the horses moving again, and the cart slowly ambles down the street with soft clacks that break the morning quiet that’s settled over the thoroughfare. The atmosphere of town creeps upon Beau like a too-heavy blanket. It’s warm, sure, and it’s comforting to know they’re some of the only people up, sure, but Beau’s never known Kamordah to be quiet. It leaves a lead weight in her stomach.

Nott voices her unease before Beau can even think to. “It’s very quiet for a trading and tourist town.”

“Our guy may have something to do with that,” Beau speculates. The others nod.

“Let’s go find out then,” Fjord stops the horses, and all of them step off the cart and into the dimly lit Greasy Ace.

Beau can’t seem to shake the growing unease she feels with each second spent in Kamordah.

~~~

“We don’t have to do this.” A blue hand wraps around Beau’s wrist - a solid presence grounding her against the raging tempest she feels caught up in. Beau’s fist pauses, one breath away from knocking on the heavy wooden oak door that haunts her dreams. The brass lion knocker stares at her unflinchingly.

Another hand, this time landing on her shoulder. Beau looks back and finds warm yellow eyes. Fjord nods at her, the hand on her shoulder squeezing comfortingly. Curling around her other shoulder, Frumpkin butts his head against the underside of her chin and Beau blinks at him, seeing her reflection in his eyes. Flanked by steady walls of support, Beau steels herself, breathes in deep, and raps her knuckles against the door.

It takes only a minute or so for someone to answer, but time could not move any slower for Beau. With each passing moment, the urge to run or hide becomes more and more predominant. Beau feels a restless energy thrumming under her skin, like lightning crackling through her blood. She wants to move. She wants to run. She’s wants to -

“Welcome to the Lionett estate. What business may you have here?”

Beau jumps at the sudden appearance of a well-dressed maid in the open doorway. Dressed in fine yellow and purple fabrics, the maid stares at the group with as much disdain as Beau would expect from a worker dressed in the Lionett’s colors.

“Yah, hallo.” Caleb steps forward, posture unusually perfect and smile a little too sharp. “We’re here to do business with Mr. Lionett.”

If she’s intimidated by Caleb’s towering figure leaning towards her, she doesn’t say anything. The petite woman only narrows her eyes before nodding, once, and opening the door wider for them as she steps back. “You can wait in the sitting room. I will fetch Mr. Lionett.”

They are led through the foyer and down into a room that takes up the left side of the front of the house. Looking around, Beau is surprised to find everything just as she’d left it. Perfect, untouchable, and so very cold. The room is bathed in yellow and purple, a garish reminder of the Lionett’s very coveted social status. A lone lion bust sits alone atop the fireplace, frozen in time with a malicious roar that makes Beau avert her gaze.

While they wait, the Mighty Nein make themselves comfortable. Fjord and Caleb sit primly on the center couch, their postures picture perfect and their faces more determined than Beau’s ever seen them. Jester and Nott peruse the walls, touching everything they can get their hands on. If Beau sees Nott swipe a gold decor piece from the shelf, well. What her family doesn’t know won’t hurt them. On the other hand, Caduceus busies himself with his staff as he sits in the uncomfortable leather armchair that Beau’s always hated.

Jester’s halfway around the room in her tour when she pauses upon reaching the bookshelf. “Hey, Beau?”

“Yeah?”

“Is… is this your brother?” All the air in the room vanishes, leaving Beau cold and tense as Jester holds up a framed picture of a little boy with dark skin, blue eyes, and a wide, innocent smile. Beau can only stare at the picture, unseeing. From their seated positions, Fjord and Caleb share worried glances, eyes darting back and forth between Beau and the picture of the happy boy.

Beau wonders very briefly if the Lionett’s treat him like their only living child - if this kid is given everything that Beau was never allowed to have. “Uh. Not sure. Never met the kid.” Her voice comes out scratchy and distorted. Beau can barely remember the last time she spoke in this house.

“Where are your pictures?” Nott scampers up next to Jester, clinging to the edge of the shelf in order to see the frames on top.

Without even looking at the shelf, Beau frowns. “They probably burned them by now.”

“They wouldn’t… Would they?” Nott’s voice is small and sad. Beau doesn’t want to look at her and see the pity there, so she doesn’t. She scuffs the bottom of her boot against the hardwood floor and laughs joylessly.

“Have you met my parents? They hate me as much as I hate them, if not more. Doubt they kept anything of mine after kidnapping -“

“Beauregard.”

One word sends Beau’s mouth snapping shut. She doesn’t have to look up to know her dad’s in the room - she can tell by the feeling of dread all crashing down at once, like the ceiling’s caving in. One word and her posture is perfect, her arms no longer crossed but straight down her sides. Beau feels like she’s seven again and being reprimanded for snooping around in her father’s office. She hates it. She hates it more than anything. Hates that he still has this power over her just by saying -

“Beauregard.” It’s so quiet. Why is it so damn quiet? God, Beau wishes she would stop being such a pushover and just say something. But. Looking up at him. First step. Yes.

Beau looks up.

Mr. Lionett was never the most striking man, but what he lacked in good looks he made up for in extremely obvious symbols of wealth that he had on his person. A plethora of golden rings glitter on his fingers. Beau instinctively raises a hand to touch her cheek. He always wore a pressed purple suit, which he accented with golden detail. Now is no exception to that expectation. It’s so fucking gaudy. Everyone in Kamordah already knows the Lionetts, there’s no reason to flaunt your status like Mr. Lionett did. It makes Beau want to look him in the eye out of spite.

She gets up to seeing his yellow tie. For some reason, her eyes don’t let her move an inch further, instead fixated on his ugly yellow patterned tie that Beau remembers trying to ruin so many times. That tie got her in trouble. She hates that tie.

“I didn’t realize you would be back so soon.” He doesn’t even try to hide his sarcasm and disdain, that prick. “I shall have the help fetch Mrs. Lionett.” The maid from earlier, standing at attention in the corner, simply turns and leaves the room.

The silence is choking. Beau can’t look anyone in the eye - not her father and especially not her friends. She feels too weak, too vulnerable to face any of them. They’ve killed demons and devils, and her father is the thing that has her scared? Beau can just hear the taunts now. Weak. Pathetic. Embarrassing.

Not good enough, Beauregard. Never good enough.

Soon enough, or maybe not soon enough, the maid returns with a taller woman in tow. Beau averts her gaze from the yellow tie long enough to spot Mrs. Lionett in all her ugly-dress glory, frozen in the doorway of the sitting room, expression the picture of comical surprise. If Beau weren’t so damn freaked out she’d definitely be laughing.

“Beauregard! What a pleasant surprise.” Mrs. Lionett glides into the sitting room and comes to a stop next to Mr. Lionett. Beau hates her casual tone, but that was Mrs. Lionett for you. Always the one to keep up appearances, even more so than Mr. Lionett. Beau resented her for it almost as much as she resented being born into this awful family.

From somewhere near the trophy case, Nott whistles quietly. It’s more like an ‘oh wow’ whistle than anything else, and it almost makes Beau snicker. Almost. If Mr. and Mrs. Lionett notice it, they don’t comment.

Beau’s fists clench as she stares at the two of them, standing side by side like the two brick walls they always were to Beau. It feels like an open wound, with them standing emotionless and picture perfect. She’s taut like a wire, waiting for them to say something - expecting them to snap at her, maybe. The least they can do is say something. Does Beau even want them to say anything? Her eyes flicker back to Mr. Lionett’s yellow tie, gaze going no further. There’s a wrinkle in his tie. Beau doesn’t remember if he has wrinkles around his eyes, too.

“Did you need something?” Mr. Lionett’s voice is clear, mechanical. It’s his business-transaction voice, but it’s also the voice that he uses whenever he has better things to do than talk to his daughter. Maybe they’re the same voice.

Gods dammit Beau, get it together. The Mighty Nein need this to work. They need information, don’t let him get into your head. Get it together. Look him in the eye. Do it.

She stares at the yellow tie.

The silence stretches on uncomfortably as the Mighty Nein shift in their positions around the room, their gazes carefully flicking between an extremely tense Beau and the unmoving Lionetts.

Mr. Lionett sighs loudly from his mouth, sort of nasally and low. “I don’t have time for this.”

He takes one step backwards, turning halfway to face the foyer and leave.

“Wait.” Fjord’s careful accent curls around the single syllable like he’s afraid to break the silence, but knows they need something from the Lionetts so he continues on anyways.

Mr. Lionett turns around to face them with one raised eyebrow. His upper lip is curled in disdain. Still standing in front of Beau with a passive look on her face, Mrs. Lionett purses her lips at the intrusion. It seems neither of them expected Fjord to speak.

“Yes?”

Fjord gulps audibly, and Beau cringes. The Lionetts were never fond of non-human races, and it seems that fact is still true. When she was younger, Beau had a tabaxi classmate who she’d hang out with around the river. It didn’t take long for the Lionetts to take control over that situation - Beau never saw her friend again. Dammit, she should’ve told the Nein about this. She’s fucking it up before they’ve even started talking; she should’ve known this would happen. Beau feels the phantom grip of a hand on her wrist, squeezing too tight. Her arms are lead weights. Her blood is solid.

You’re a disappointment, Beauregard. Not good enough. Why do you let us down every time?

Fjord and the Lionett’s conversation is white noise, all droning on in the background. Beau’s nails dig into the meat of her palm as her breaths grow shorter and more harsh. White noise pounds in her eardrums, her vision centering all on one point - the yellow of Mr. Lionett’s tie has never looked so garish and loud before. It’s so bright. It’s mocking. Beau feels unsteady, floating. She’s 7 now, and standing in front of her father while he works. Shoulder’s straight, head lowered. No eye contact. These hands aren’t hers anymore.

Her father, her father. He would say nothing. He would do work. Then he would leave. The office would go dark. Beau would stand there, alone.

Her mother sometimes passed by the office, peering in. She would say nothing. She would close the door. Sometimes, she laughed. Mostly, she didn’t pass the office at all. Her heels would echo down the hall anyways.

A hollow feeling - starting deep in the center of her chest, expanding outwards. Beau knew it well back then, and it fueled her fear, her anger, her drive to leave her home as soon as possible. That feeling faded over time, but never went away. The Mighty Nein were great at that sort of thing; they made Beau feel less empty, and even made her forget what it felt like at times. That hollow feeling creeps back, slowly.

An open wound.

An empty room.

A hand, lightly brushing against her wrist. A light touch, nothing more than a whisper of skin but to Beau it’s the anchor she needed to back away from the storm of emotions she feels. She turns to look, and Jester is standing beside her, having made her own way around the room to offer support. Nott peeks out from behind Jester, her eyes endlessly wide and unbelieving as her ears twitch to every derogatory intonation in Mr. Lionett’s voice.

Turning from Nott’s concerned gaze lands her staring directly into Jester’s purple eyes, hardened with worry and a little bit of anger. The pure fury in the tiefling’s eyes is hard to look at, even if Beau is proud at her to displaying her anger so openly.

Beau strains to pay attention to her surroundings as she faintly registers the murmurs dying down to silence, charged with a certain quality that Beau is unable to parse out because she wasn’t paying attention. She’s not sure she wants to turn and find out, but she needs them to know. She needs to know for herself too.

Turning around, Beau finds the rest of the Mighty Nein staring daggers at her Mr. Lionett. It doesn’t take much for her to realize that Mr. Lionett probably said something extremely biting and discriminatory - Beau’s intimately familiar with that type of language from him. Fjord has his eyes narrowed dangerously and his face is tense, a big difference from his usual calm demeanor. Next to him, Caleb has his teeth bared in a predatory grin. Caduceus, who stood up sometime during Fjord’s negotiations, has his hand placed placatingly on Caleb’s shoulder in an attempt to control the situation, but upon further inspection, Beau notices that his own eyes are hardened and cold.

Seeing all of her friends, ready to strike, sets something at ease in Beau. These people have her back; whether its facing a Hydra, defeating demonic entities, or going against her family; these people, they’re with her. That’s all she needs to steel her resolve and return her attention to her father, standing with his chin raised as he looks down at them all. His hands are carefully clenched, the fingers flexing and straining as he grits his teeth in annoyance. Normally seeing all of this would set off the alarms in Beau’s head, and cause the dread to swallow her whole.

Now, she glances back briefly at Jester, sees her icy purple glare soften momentarily as their eyes meet. Nott gives her a small nod, her green hands twitching subtly towards her back, where she hid her crossbow. Beau looks forward and sees Fjord and Caleb, expressions murderous. Caduceus catches her gaze and smiles.

A moment of clarity: If these people have her back, she can take on anything.

“Fuck you,” Beau says, voice rough and cracking like she hasn’t spoken in ages. Although, she hasn’t spoken so long in this house that maybe that’s the reason why it feels like the breaking open of an empty crypt.

Mr. and Mrs. Lionett’s turn so comically and abruptly to face Beau that the monk actually smiles. She can count on one hand the amount of times she’s surprised them, and she’s glad that this will be the last.

“Excuse me?” Mrs. Lionett’s hand goes to her throat as if she was personally attacked by the foul language.

Mr. Lionett grabs his wife’s hand. “Now, Beauregard -“

She still flinches, but it’s not enough to deter her. It’s improvement. “You heard me.”

Mr. Lionett takes a menacing step forward, hand outstretched far enough that Beau’s half sure the rings on his fingers will slide right off. At least then, they wouldn’t imprint on her face. He stops, a couple of feet in front of her.

“Don’t speak your mother and I like that.” His voice is low, threatening. It used to scare Beau on the rare occasion he would be more angry than annoyed. Now it’s funny, seeing him so riled up and knowing it’s meaningless.

“Why not?” His hand twitches. “Look,” Beau says, voice steadier now. She casts a glance around the room and finds the assured gazes of her friends. “We’re only here to find information about a guy. If you don’t have that, then fine. We’ll leave.”

Mrs. Lionett comes forward to lay a placating hand on Mr. Lionett’s shoulder. “Who is this man you seek?”

Beau wants to say, ‘classic mom, always the mediator’, but she bites her cheek and replies, “Guy named Lonardo. Know him?”

“He’s a business associate. Why?” Mr. Lionett stares at her with distrust, body still tense like a coiled wire. Good, Beau thinks, he should be careful of me.

“Because he’s a bad dude who’s done shitty things.” And, just because she can: “But you’re familiar with that, aren’t you, Thoreau.”

Maybe it was hearing his first name come out of his daughters mouth so brazenly, or maybe it was the blatant disrespect and insult. Either way, Mr. Lionett snaps and steps right up to Beau’s face, his hand coming from his side to his shoulder in an instant, stopping only just barely an inch from her face.

In response, the whole room steps forward, and the Mighty Nein ready their previously sheathed weapons. Beau can only just barely hear the scrape of metal against leather as blood rushes in her ears from her father lunging at her. She feels frozen as her heart bumps erratically in her chest, despite her willing it to calm down. All her bravado gone, the crashing waves threaten to drag her under. She goes to take a step back, but a light touch on her arm drags her to the present.

Turning to look, Jester mouths the words, ‘we got you’, to Beau, while Nott’s hand squeezes Beau’s arm reassuringly. Beau smiles at the two of them before turning back towards her father, still waiting like a snake.

“This is my family now.” For once, her voice doesn’t waver around the word, and Beau’s surprised at how right it feels, saying family after all the years of resenting it. “I love them.”

“We have her back.” Fjord meets her eyes, his own filled full of unspoken hardships of his own but also with certain depth of warmth that Beau knows she feels too.

Caleb lays a steady hand on her shoulder. “We are her family, too.”

Her heart fills, and Mr. Lionett scoffs derisively. “You expect me to -“

Beau just shakes her head nonchalantly as she cuts him off. “If you do not provide us the information, I have nothing to say to you.”

Then, to the surprise of everyone in the room, Beau turns, and begins to walk out of the room. Behind her, the Mighty Nein begin reaming into Mr. and Mrs. Lionett, and she grins at the pure rage and indignation she hears.

She crosses into the foyer, and the lion statues at the base of the stairs don’t seem to stare at her, for once. The paintings on the walls don’t taunt her either. Everything in the house looks different, even though Beau knows that everything’s the same.

Beau only pauses when she spots something. Up the stairs, a small boy sits on the top stoop, carefully watching her. She takes a short, brief pause, to think about everything she hated about her childhood. In that moment, watching her brother stare at her with young, innocent eyes, she vows to never have her brother experience the same.

“I’ll be back.” Beau promises. She contemplates going up the stairs to introduce herself - it’s her brother for crying out loud. But…

She nods at the brother she has never met, and opens the door to step outside.

~~~

The road home is quiet, but not in the way that hurts Beau the way she’s used to. In this quiet, Jester interlaces her fingers with Beau’s. Caleb settles a hand over her shoulder as Frumpkin purrs genially in her lap. Fjord hums a soft shanty while he drives the cart. Caduceus makes tea in the back. Nott is fiddling with Beau’s hair as she tries to braid flowers in the monk’s hair. Beau’s sure that if Yasha were here, she’d be helping Nott braid her hair too.

Beau’s thankful, in that moment, for the kind of silence she knows that only her family could achieve. It brings out a calm and clarity within Beau that she never associated with the quiet before, after a whole childhood of her own quiet moments filled with dread and anxiety.

She thinks of how successful the meeting with her father was. She thinks of how the Mighty Nein defended her to the bone. Most importantly, she thinks of a little boy with blue eyes and brown skin that just learned he has a sister.

That promise she made to her brother was genuine. Although her hands still shake in the Lionett house, and although just hearing her father's name fills her with inescapable dread, Beau feels lighter than ever. It feels like hope. As Caduceus would say, it’s progress.

[vernonfielding]

Don’t be a fool don’t throw it all away

Story No. 13 of my Season 7 Countdown Project.

Summary: “I was walking home and I passed a pawn shop. And then I went into a trance.”

Charles buys an engagement ring. Takes place during Full Boyle. (Read on AO3.)

He cancels the plane tickets.

It breaks his heart – no, shatters it, like his heart was a fragile, beautiful thing that is now just millions of shards of glass, piercing his chest from the inside. And suddenly he can’t breathe, he’s clutching at his shirt, loosening his tie, gasping from the pain of it. He stares at his phone, and he knows the cancellation button must be staring up at him but he can’t see it for the tears welling in his eyes.

Charles fumbles a thumb for the button even as one fat drop tickles down his cheek and he swipes at it with his other hand. Well, he thinks, at least the tickets were refundable. And it’s not like they can’t go to Rome some other time.

(‘Like tomorrow,’ his brain supplies, instantaneous. ‘You could take Vivian to Rome tomorrow. Or Dubai! You were just talking last night about what a tragedy it is that you’ve never tasted grilled camel!’)

Still, the loss is acute. He was going to give her Rome, and now he’s walking home alone, and Jake is back at the restaurant, explaining that he’s having a bathroom emergency. Charles stuffs his phone in his pocket and sniffles, and he rubs his hands over his eyes, and through his blurred vision he sees it: a sign. It’s flashing neon and two of the letters are burned out and his heart is suddenly beating again, the broken pieces reforming into an organ more powerful, more full of love than ever before.

The sign says: PAW HOP. Charles steps into traffic without looking, and when a taxi screeches to a halt mere feet away he just waves distractedly and keeps walking. He doesn’t stop until he’s at the window, nose nearly pressed to the smudged glass, and there, right in front. It’s like it was calling to him. A ring. Platinum, princess cut diamond, bezel setting. It’s screaming “Vivian” at him. His ears are ringing with it. He can’t hear a single other sound – not the traffic behind him or the people pushing past him on the sidewalk, not even his own pulse thumping in his temples or his panting breaths.

Charles keeps his eyes on the ring as he steps to the side and pushes against the front door, which is a pull, so he pulls it instead, yanks it open, and only then (and only very reluctantly) does he tear his gaze away.

“How much for the ring in the window?” Charles calls out as he walks down the narrow center aisle to the counter at the back of the store. He’s fishing for his wallet in his back pocket. “I can pay you $2,000 right now.”

The woman sitting at the counter is filing her nails and she just stares at Charles for a long time. Her hair is pink and tied up in a ponytail on top of her head, and she has a tattoo on the side of her neck. It’s a dragon holding an umbrella in its tail.

“Which ring?” she says.

“The one in the window!” Charles shouts again, and points over his shoulder. “The engagement ring!”

“Uh huh,” the woman says. She blinks at Charles. “It’s $200 if you pay-”

“Sold!”

“-in cash,” the woman finishes.

“Oh.” Charles butterflies open his wallet. He pulls out all of his cash and lays it on the counter. He has $52.

“There’s an ATM down the street,” the woman says, nodding her head to the right.

“And risk someone else coming in and buying it out from under me? I think not,” Charles says. “How much if I put it on a credit card?”

The woman sighs and sets down her nail file. She pulls a keyboard toward her and begins punching at it one-fingered. Charles is bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet and trying to decide if he should propose tonight or tomorrow. His body is thrumming with such furious electricity that he’s not sure he can wait more than the 15 or 20 minutes it will take him to buy this ring, but his heart is singing at him too, that he needs this to be perfect

Is it possible to rent the entire top of the Empire State Building and have the ring delivered by helicopter? Should he arrange for the ring to arrive by ferry under the Brooklyn Bridge at midnight? He could cling to the bottom of the ferry and crawl up the sides and surprise her – does he have time to learn how to scuba dive?

“It’s $500,” the woman says.

Charles practically throws his credit card at her.

+++

He knows Jake is right. As he stands over his kitchen sink pouring goat milk into his eyes, which are still weeping from the pepper spray exchange, he can admit that now.

Charles loves fast and he loves hard and he wouldn’t have it any other way. When he connects with someone, he commits. He’s all in. He doesn’t actually understand how people can be any other way. If someone is important to him – if someone is Jake, or Eleanor (before it all blew up), or Vivian – he wants to be the best version of himself he can be for that person. He wants to be with that person all the time, and learn everything about them and experience every part of life through their eyes. And he wants to do everything in his power to make that person’s heart burst from the same joy and love and lust (as appropriate) that he feels when he’s with them.

It’s simple, really. But he does understand that somehow not everyone feels that way, and that some people might find him – overwhelming. He understands this because he’s been told it’s true, even if he doesn’t quite get it.

Charles goes to bed that night with a tea towel soaked in milk draped over his burning eyes. He dreams of Vivian. She is wearing a golden caftan covered in pink and purple flowers and her hair is flowing, and she is feeding him bites of camel. On her left hand a ring catches the sun, and the glint of it is blinding.

Charles’ heart sings in his sleep.

End Notes:

Title is from Focus on the Game (Bash Brothers).

@fezzle saved my life by catching a dumb error in this story – y’all, betas are the f-ing best. Hug yours close tonight. (Or just tell them you love them. Tomatoes-potatoes.)

I’ve always loved Charles’ description of falling into a trance and accidentally buying an engagement ring. It turns out it’s kind of hard to write someone in a trance, though.

Re: eating camel in Dubai. While researching this story to make sure that people do eat camel in UAE, I found this whole interesting history about a famous stuffed camel dish that maybe doesn't actually exist? The dish is described as: eggs stuffed into a fish, the fish into a chicken, the chicken into a sheep, and the sheep into a camel. Which is SO TOTALLY something Charles would go to Dubai for, yes? I actually had a whole long reference to this mythical dish in the story and then was like, okay, this is quite the tangent. Let's just leave it at camel. But apparently I wanted to share it anyway.

[fishdavidson]

Dream Journal 2017-07-25: The Route

Before we get into the main course, I’d like to talk about a dream fragment where I was playing Dungeons and Dragons with a sizable group of people (4 girls, 5 guys, and the GM). My character cast a spell that summoned snowman ghosts. The ghosts were literally the spirits of deceased snowmen, and couldn’t really do anything (because snowmen), so they just kind of floated around doing nothing. They had carrot stick noses and dashing hats, sticks for arms and buttons of coal, but their bodies looked vaguely like Slimer from Ghostbusters. “Summon Snowmen Ghosts” is a pretty useless spell, so you should never use it.

Enough tangents! Let’s get to the big dreams! And in the interest of disclosure, there are some superficial similarities to the movie The Village, but I haven’t actually seen this movie and am just going by what’s on the Wikipedia summary and the mixed reactions from some of my friends.

At the start of the dream, I was on a vacation with my family and we were modestly wealthy. Not wealthy to the point of having an exaggerated British accent, but wealthy enough to have multiple tuxedos that are worn a few times a week. It seems that we’re making a road trip to see the world from outside our wealthy bubble. We’re staying at budget hotels for the “optimal” middle class experience, but we’re still wearing our tuxes because we’re not a damnable clan of savages. Side note: my oldest sister makes an appearance in this dream, but instead of formalwear, she’s wearing a tasteful ballerina outfit. It’s because the family has enough disposable income to send her to a boarding school for ballet. Truly we are wealthy.

We check out of the hotel in the morning after partaking of a breakfast of waffles and playing in the complimentary ball pit. Near the hotel is a rail yard, and because we are unsure where to go next, we yell at the guy driving one of the trains for suggestions on where to go next. He ignores us and tries to block us from passing the train when we all get back in our road trip vehicle. A second train does the same damn thing, so we keep traveling down some backroads until we get to an intersection in the middle of nowhere.

There’s a guy standing at the intersection. A young-ish guy, who maybe just barely turned 21. My dad asks the guy if there’s anything cool to see down this road, and the guy’s like “Sure, man. Whatever. You’ll probably find something if you keep going that way.” This is an acceptable answer for Dad, so we turn down the road and head down a road that is little more than a dirt trail for about 20 miles. The road ends upon reaching a perfect replica of a medieval village in the middle of a dense forest.

Literally everything about the place seems to be accurate for a medieval village. Nobody has cell phones, the clothes are old, and nothing seems to have progressed beyond the technological heights of the year 1650. All eyes turn to us as we roll up to the town in our horseless chariot. The town appears to be eerily mesmerized by our car, and although we thought it was just actors pretending to not know what a car was, it soon became clear that these people had never seen a car before.

We’re exploring the town as a family and doing tourist-y stuff while half of the townsfolk gawk at us because we’re strange beings from the distant future. Soon we hear the sound of machine gun fire and screaming. We rush toward the source of the sound only to see a military convoy laying waste to everyone in the town. My family and I scatter in all directions and hide. About a half hour later, the gunfire died down and I peeked out from my hiding spot inside a pantry. Don’t worry, guys! My family and I are safe!

A military dude was yelling at the “whatever” guy we saw standing at the intersection earlier. I woke up at this point, but not before experiencing one of those dreamtime infodumps that gave me a bunch of backstory about what happened. Apparently this medieval village was a sort of cultural preserve that was designed to exist as an anachronism in the present day. Nobody from the modern world was supposed to ever visit this place, as this was part of some bizarre social experiment. 

The “whatever” guy was only supposed to let a team of scientists in that day, but because he thought it would be funny to see what would happen, he let my family in first. Our presence unintentionally contaminated the results of the experiment (which was scheduled to run for another several years). Because the experiment was not compromised, the military (who was running the experiment for some reason) decided that all the unwitting participants in this medieval microcosm needed to be executed. And that’s what happened. Every one of the town’s inhabitants perished in the skirmish except for us, and we chalked that up to wearing unnecessary formalwear.

Lastly, what we misinterpreted as the train drivers ignoring us was actually a concerted attempt to stop us from going past a chainlink fence that marked the perimeter of the medieval nature preserve. They were trying to stop of from potentially contaminating the results of the experiment.

But we sure messed up those plans. Sorry about that, science!

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Header image is the painting “Village Feast” by David Teniers the Younger.