#or are there tons of undiscovered immortals throughout the world then?

[aardvaark]

i’m not in the x files fandom but every so often, due to tumblr, i will accidentally absorb some info about it. and every time i do it’s something like "scully refused to look at the visage of death one time, which caused her to become immortal, and we guess she still is, but her literal inability to die and speed-healing superpowers basically never get brought up again" and then i’m forced to spend hours googling this because what the fuck

[secret-engima]

That painting of Ardyn's 'Sister' makes me wish she did (does) exist. Or, well- We've had female Nox, Nyx, and technically Regis. Maybe it's Ardyn's turn? All those tacky layers would be very good at hiding any curves. Which, when it finally got out that Regis's brother is actually his /sister/, the resulting spit-takes and shrieks would be priceless. The rage that follow, that Mors had seemingly butchered and traumatized his /baby sister/... Not sure I like how dark it might get, but...

@talisward no. NO. DON’T USE MY LOVE OF GENDERBENDING AGAINST ME LIKE THIS HOW DARE. I DON’T WANT TO HAVE TO MAKE AN ENTIRELY NEW AU FOR FEM!ARDYN WHICH MEANS I’D HAVE TO RETCON SOME OTHER AU DON’T DO THIS TO ME-

hgfdfghgfds. I am genuinely torn on this. Genuinely torn because this would be SUCH a cool thing. But I already have too many AUs and Nox spin-offs I don’t want to make another, but I don’t want to retcon a spin-off with a ton of stuff on it already....

So. I could either submit to fate and make yet another spin-off with a fem!Ardyn, where they’re human and someone finds out by accident (Cid already knew from the scar reveal) and all the spittakes happen and from there spiral off into my usual insanity of yet another AU, of which you can all imagine the hilarious results I’m sure. Or.

Fem!Ardyn in the Nox!Taur verse.

Fem!Ardyn who has visible scars on her scales and revealed herself only to Cid, who kept her secret out of respect, who has Nox call her Uncle out of paranoia because- well. She came from an old fashioned time and was in the grip of Besithia for a while, being known as the lady she is is not exactly going to register as Safe. Honestly, considering my HCs on Ardyn’s and Somnus’s dad, she MIGHT have even been disguised throughout her childhood until Somnus’s birth so that the father wouldn’t be “shamed” by having only a “woman heir”. So in a human verse, Ardyn is very skilled at keeping the secret.

But Taur biology being the strange new world for them that it is, they forget one thing. Ardyn is no longer Accursed, so reproductive functions are now working again (the scourge basically turned that off, Ardyn in the Void would often joke that the One Good Thing about being the Immortal Accursed was no periods, but her tone would be bitter because she’d always wanted children, always wanted to raise her daughters or sons alongside her heart-sister Aera) and that means TAUR BIOLOGY.

HEATS.

That lovely (cursed) remnant from an earlier era, a nasty tack on to the “having a lower half physically reminiscent of animals”. Heats. No bleeding, but increased scent and enhanced sense of touch and rampaging instincts and other symptoms that for an utterly clueless dragon lady and her nephew are NOT FUN. Now, those two years they were undiscovered, Ardyn and Nox just hid in the wilderness until it passed, away from civilization and people who might smell her secret (also they don’t know how anyone would react, because what if people start coming AFTER HER for being in Heat????). But in the Citadel and with their terrible sense of time....

Regis is Officially Concerned when Ardyn abruptly locks himself in his room without warning, refusing to let the servants near, hiding all the way in the back bedroom and refusing to leave or let anyone but Nox enter. Nox is wary and bristly and won’t explain, and even Titus can’t get by into the room without risking being skewered by Nox’s armiger. Concern grows like crazy, enough that Regis breaks his personal rule on not invading his half-sibling’s privacy without permission and using the secret tunnels to break in, bringing Aulea with him as an appeasement since they get along better.

The first thing that hits Regis when he enters is the scent of an unmedicated Heat (because there are plenty of medicines to make a heat milder, if not any to safely get rid of them entirely), slapping him right in the face because in this Taur verse they get mildly enhanced senses to go with Taur bodies thank you.

The second thing to hit him in the face is Nox, wild-eyed and snarling (just a punch though, which Regis knows is mild compared to what his eldest COULD do)

VERY alarmed now and still somehow not putting the pieces together, Regis tries to fend off Nox while Aulea ninja’s her way by into Ardyn’s bedroom and from there to the cracked open door to the bath where she can hear the bath splashing and soft whimpering, hoping to check on the man-

Oh.

OH-AH.

Not a man then.

Ardyn, hiding in the swimming pool sized bathtub, bereft of her layers and shivering as she tries to use hot water and steam to mitigate her symptoms, hisses in alarm at the sight and sound of Aulea, who at least had the decency to announce herself before entering, and looks ready to breathe fire until Aulea drops onto her belly and on pure intuition born of everything she’s already learned about Ardyn goes, “Oh Ardyn, you have no idea what’s happening to you. Do you?”

And Ardyn freezes, visibly debates before deflating back into the water and whining, “No. No I don’t.”

And then not only would Regis have to deal with the RAGE of thinking Mors tortured his half-SISTER, his LITTLE half-sister, he would also have to deal with watching AULEA rage over all the implications of Ardyn not even knowing what a heat is and how to deal (plus the whole, why didn’t you look it up earlier in life question is met with Ardyn’s rare foot-in-mouth moment of “This only started around the time Nox turned 13, I honestly didn’t think I had the ability to have ... such things anymore. Why bother looking it up?” and so now AULEA is rampaging around the nearest training room as well as Regis and Titus)

ALSO. On a romance/fluffy/funny note- If I retconned Ardyn in Nox!Taur to fem, I could do an ArdynxCor pairing. Picture all the lion/cat jokes Ardyn gets to make. All the heart attacks Clarus gets to suffer at the Adrenaline Junkie Lion dating/mating to the Troll Dragon. All the Suffering of Titus as he deals with the courtship. All the Looks Cor gives Regis when his king and friend GLEEFULLY tells him that as mate of the king’s sister, Cor is now a PRINCE. HE HAS A ROYAL TITLE. HAH.

Also also if I did this and Ardyn was a girl and Cor was her S/O then whenever he came back from missions, he would race for the Citadel interior from the parking spot, hoping to avoid-

A whoop and a long screech that might be his name is mangled by wind and prolonged use and Cor gets knocked right off his paws by 100+ pounds of gleeful, dive-bombing dragon.

Cor, breathless even as he uses his training to flip with the impact and land straddling Ardyn: “Must you do that every time I come back?”

Ardyn, on her back and grinning like a loon, hat knocked a few feet away: “But I MISSED you, My Lionheart!”

Cor, exasperated and touched all at once as he sidesteps off her and lets her roll back onto her paws and collect her hat: “It’s only been three days this time.”

Ardyn: “I know! It’s been TERRIBLE. Aulea tried to shove me into a DRESS. Can you imagine, assaulted and attacked and my brave Lionheart wasn't there to protect me!”

Cor: “Like I could save you from Aulea anyway?”

Ardyn: “...Point, actually.”

What do we think? Yay for retconning Ardyn as a fem in the Taur verse or nay?

Hopefully yay because I think I just talked myself into this.

How dare.