#qmau fic

[sothequeensays]

The Pale King unseals the Void, and what he finds is... not what he expected.

Not only is one Vessel standing in wait upon the platform, but two are. Truth be told, he had not expected even the one. The path to ascension is prohibitively difficult, and purposefully so. Only a strong, Pure Vessel could have made it. By his own calculations, he had expected to run three trials at a minimum before finding his Pure Vessel. And yet, here are two on the very first trial.

"Curious," he murmurs, kneeling and taking one's shell in his hands, tilting it to and fro in examination, before examining the other as well. They endure his scrutiny without so much as a twitch of will or mind.

Pure, the both of them.

"Corvus," he calls absently, standing and straightening his robes. His lone assistant scurries forward, reams of silken parchment in his arms. The Pale King takes part of the stack, rifles through it, and pulls out a few sheets in particular before handing the rest back. One pale claw skates over the inked calculations, checking and double checking for error.

Nothing.

Of course nothing. He ran the numbers himself, twice, and even went so far as to commission one of the Teacher's mathematicians to do the same (without any variables or labels of course—just pure numbers). The twitchy little thing had done a remarkable job, even if her report to him had been full of nervously stuttered "Y-Your Majesties".

And yet…

He taps a claw against his mask thoughtfully, lingering over the probabilities section. Well, a slim probability is still a probability, he supposes. There is also the Void to consider. However much he included it in his calculation, there remains the glaring fact that he simply didn't—and doesn't—understand it. The unknowns could easily have skewed the probabilities in one direction or the other. And in the end, what does it matter? The Vessels are Pure; there is no reason to spurn good fortune simply because his calculations were slightly off.

He hands the pages back to Corvus and looks down at the Vessels, who watch him with preternatural stillness and timeless patience. "Come along, then," he says, turning away, and the Vessels trail obediently in his wake.

Despite himself, he feels a pang of regret. These lifeless shades could have been his children, had Fate been different. What would they have been like? What would they have looked like? Pale white carapaces, perhaps, and shells with branching horns that resembled his beloved Root. Instead, here are mindless automatons, stained with void, destined to stand eternal watch over a virulent goddess. He nearly regrets creating them, these empty facsimiles of children.

But of course that is pure sentiment. Their creation was necessary to save every life—every mind in Hallownest. He cannot regret it.

Corvus and the Vessels stand off to the side as the Pale King permanently seals the Void, allowing his mind to wander down a fanciful path as he works. Perhaps, once Hallownest is safe, he might convince his Root to mother a real child? Perhaps she won’t even need convincing—neither had ever brought the subject up until the Vessels' creation. His seal glows bright as he imagines such a thing, conjuring the earlier image of a pale white infant, cradled in its mother's arms. Yes, he thinks as he leads the way out of the Ancient Basin, once all is said and done he will ask his wife if she desires a child.

And he never once notices, much less thinks to question, the Vessels' linked hands.

[aimeelouart]

I've been drowning in WORK, but aaaaahhhh, I have gone through the QMAU blog and I LOVE IT!!! I feel like SSC!Cloud and Regulus would get along and have so much to commiserate over because they've got Things To Do but they're smol and they're surrounded by bigs who can only see An Actual Baby. (On another note, looking at HK fics on AO3, it seems HK fandom adores time-travel fix-its as much as the FFVII fandom. I've spotted a half-dozen on the first couple of pages alone.)

Thank you also absolutely valid observation

[themosttenderestofbees]

Some doodles I did based on the fic I wrote for my two qmau ocs a while back. The story follows Bauble and how they got their button. (also if anyones interested in the fic ill post it lmao)

AU belongs to @sothequeensays

[sothequeensays]

HEY DID YOU KNOW QMAU HAS ITS OWN TAG ON AO3? BECAUSE IT DOES, I SAW IT WHILE LOOKING FOR FIC!! (Sorry for the caps, I'm just very excited about it.)

I do! In fact, I even contributed to it with two fics, one canon (The Queen Mother) and one Bad End (And Death Was on a Pale Horse)

[sothequeensays]

I don’t have a name.

How could I? I never got to live. In fact, I’m barely a me. There are others like me, others who never got to live. My siblings, each a piece of nothingness given form. I am the one who was closest to life, the one who almost got to live. I am almost a person. There were young ones, too, who died before any of us lived. They died too soon, and the stuff that made them went away. Our stuff stayed. I don’t know why. For a long time I didn’t know anything at all.

But now—now I know something. Now I have a purpose. Mother called to us and filled the hollows within us, the empty places that could have been like her. Some of us followed Mother and our living siblings. I wanted to. I wanted mother to see me and love me. But there was another little sibling left, unborn and unnoticed except by the oldest. I tried to tell Mother and her Pale Warriors, but they couldn’t see me. I tried to tell my siblings, but I wasn’t strong enough to make them hear me. No one could see me except the ones like me.

In the end, I didn’t want my living siblings to be alone. So I stayed.

Some of the others like me stayed too. They didn’t want to leave me. They wanted to be with the living siblings who were like us. So we stayed, and followed, even though they didn’t notice us. Then our Father came, and he took the living ones with him. We kept following. Mother would have wanted us to, I think.

I don’t know where Father is taking us. I don’t know why I was made. But maybe if I follow I’ll understand. And maybe if I understand, I’ll be a person.

And maybe, if I’m a person… someone will give me a name.

[sothequeensays]

Bad Ending AU

Little Ghost limped into the final room, their carapace leaking void from the fight with the infected twin protectors. It was strange, actually, how the twins had borne such a strange resemblance to them. Void had leaked from their long, gangly limbs whenever Ghost had managed to land a blow—void and blighted light. And it was strange, too, how they had felt such foreign emotions during the fight. Bizarre images had simply appeared in their head, and sometimes it seemed as if the twins knew what they were going to do before they did.

Another mystery that would remain unsolved, they supposed.

Ghost pushed past the overgrown foliage and into the edge of a small, inner clearing, where they stopped in surprise at the sight before them. They said the Lost Princess would be here, but there appeared to be a...tree? Leaking blighted light? No, those were eyes, though shut, that wept the putrid essence. And in the form of the tree, they could almost see the shape of a slim body, curved over the large basin at its foot that overflowed with infection. As they watched, another glowing tear fell with a goopy splash into the basin.

Ghost took a cautious step forward and a gentle, unnatural wind rustled through the leaves. With a voice like a sigh, the weeping figure spoke.

“Little brothers, have you come to sit with me again?” she said. “Her song grows….louder. It is nearly time.” When Ghost took another cautious step forward, she paused and inhaled sharply. “No. You are not them. But you are...similar. Kin. Oh….oh, little lost sibling. I have been waiting for you.” Her eyes slowly opened, revealing sickly, glowing orange. “Yes. The song is loud.” Her voice changed suddenly, startling Ghost as it shifted from a weak sigh to a strong, feminine timbre.

“But I am not powerless yet.” Ghost watched in astonishment as the orange glow faded away, revealing void-black eyes.

Well. They supposed that they had found the Lost Princess.

“Quickly, we haven’t much time,” she said urgently. “Come closer.”

They took another step forward, then another, until they stood before the basin.

“You don’t know me, but I know you, Larula. Tell me, have you met our foresighted brother?” An image appeared in their head of a tall, black-and-white figure robed in white, one who bore a striking resemblance to the twins they had just killed.

Was she doing that? they wondered in fearful astonishment.

“You have never spoken with one of your siblings,” she said sadly. “Yes, I am showing you him, but it is nothing to be frightened of. We share a link, little sibling. I can hear you just as well as you can hear me.”

That was certainly new. Could she really hear them?

The Lost Princess laughed softly. “Oh, if we only had time, little sibling, I would spend days speaking with you. But we have no time. I can only hold Her at bay for so long, and with each moment Her rage grows. Our mother’s power will only last for so long.

Mother? They wondered.

“Mother,” she agreed softly, a black tear rolling down over the glowing tracks of infection that stained her face. The image of a tall, elegant white bug, crowned with the same branching horns as the Princess and swathed in glowing robes, appeared in their head. Ghost’s heart ached at the sight.

“Mother gave her life for us, for me, so that I might give you the tools you need to slay the Blighted One. Dearest little one, you must succeed where I failed. Break the basin, take the item within, and seek out Regulus. He will guide you where I could not. He will find you if you seek him.” Orange flickered in her Void eyes. “Take it and run,” she said urgently. Several more black tears rolled down her face as she blinked. “Do not return. There will be nothing left.”

But...they had just found her! They had just found a sibling, part of their family, and she wanted them to run?

“Run,” she said sternly. “Nothing of me will remain once my hold breaks, little one. Promise me that you will run!”

Alright, alright, they promised! Reluctantly, they took out their nail and slashed the basin apart, leaping back from the resulting flood of infection. A little black sphere, which had been at the bottom, floated toward them. They gingerly took ahold of it, avoiding the searing goo. The sphere, apparently made of void, dissolved in their hand, revealing half of a pure white charm.

“The Queensoul,” the Lost Princess said, her voice growing strained. “Our mother’s final gift. Find Regulus, little sibling.” Ghost looked up to see her eyes flutter closed. “Please, bury my brothers, if you can. And tell Regulus…” They stepped back several paces as mixed Void and blighted light dripped down her face. “Tell him...it’s not his fault….and that I love him.” She gasped in pain, a sound both mental and physical, and her gentle touch on their mind vanished.

They turned and ran.

[sothequeensays]

Ghost wasn’t sure what they expected to find, once they were able to unseal and enter the strange dream totem that sat where the White Palace once had, but this...was not it. There was a truly bizarre amount of metal saws, which was one thing, but the fact that so many of them had been torn out of their housings and turned into welded...prototypes? Machines? Overly optimistic new weapons? That went beyond unexpected and straight into unnerving.

Blueprints were scrawled haphazardly on the walls in dripping, multicolored lines, surrounded by technical jargon so thick that Ghost wasn’t entirely sure it wasn’t a different language altogether. They assumed that each diagram explained the function of the mangled prototype before it, but whatever purposes those were they couldn’t even begin to guess.

As they continued cautiously through the halls, the wreckage only got stranger. Mangled corpses of void creatures lay scattered here and there, some on makeshift tables, some laid out in neat pieces on the floor with each detached limb labeled. They paused to stare at a dissected Kingsmould in disgust.

Was this their...father’s doing? They were beginning to think they didn’t want to find out.

Ghost came across a conspicuously untouched throne room, but all that was in there was a shell shaped like the Pale King’s, sitting on a dusty throne. They paused, small hand pressed against the space just below the shell’s empty eyeholes, as a thought occurred to them. Was it his shell? Had he died here, surrounded by mangled corpses and failed prototypes? Had he died sealed away and alone?

They hurried on.

Finally, at the end of their long journey, they heard a sound. It was loud and discordant, the harsh shriek of metal tearing into metal. They followed it through increasingly dense debris, nail at the ready. A door—an actual door, not just an open archway— was propped open with a Kingsmould’s helmet. Ghost hedged past it nervously, eyeing the six-inch-thick slab of metal. What kind of things went on in this room that they needed a door so thick?

The answer was, apparently, explosions. Ghost stopped dead just inside the room, gaping at the carnage. Scorch marks mottled the walls in shades of black and rust-brown, layered over each other in an alarming array. Some of the resulting structural damage had been hastily patched over; some had not. Scraps of metal and containers full of….substance lay strewn about, next to dismembered Kingsmoulds and Wingsmoulds. More blueprints were scrawled along the wall, some in the same dripping inks as the outer halls, some hastily scratched into the layers of explosive residue.

At a workbench directly in front of them, a tall figure was hunched over, lit in flashes of white and blue as they welded two pieces of metal together. A pale garment was tied around their hips. Ghost could just make out mottled white markings creeping up the glossy black of their torso.

“Of course she loves me,” the figure muttered between the shrieking of metal, just loud enough for Ghost to hear. “If she didn’t love me she might have avoided this whole mess. And then where would she be? Alive, at least.”

The figure straightened and turned, and Ghost was struck by their resemblance to the shell he had found in the throne room. The prongs on their shell were thicker, with the tallest in the center of the shell and each subsequent prong growing shorter toward the back, but the similarity was undeniable.

This had to be Regulus, son of the Pale King, brother to the Lost Princess.

“You’re late, Larula,” Regulus said, flipping the welding goggles off his face to reveal Void-black eyes exactly like his sister’s.

There it was again—Larula. The Princess had called them that too. But why?

Regulus snorted and strode toward them, avoiding the wreckage with ease. “Because it’s your name, Larula,” he said, and Ghost remembered the mental link they had shared with their sister. Apparently Regulus could do it too.

“You’re late,” he repeated, unexpectedly lifting Ghost up and onto a nearby table. “Don’t shriek at me.”

It was good that Regulus warned them, because the very next moment a large needle was being plunged directly into their torso and they had to bite back hard on their instinctive desire to demolish the lab with an Abyss Shriek. Still, they flailed, finding to their surprise that Regulus had managed to disarm them without their noticing. Coldness bloomed in their torso for a second, and then the needle was gone.

“Tiny,” Regulus commented, holding their nail between two fingers as he peered at it. “Suitable.” With a flick of his wrist, the nail was embedded in the wall, right in the center of a large bullseye. Ghost stiffened in outrage.

“You would have stabbed me.” Regulus tossed the explanation over his shoulder as he waded back into the wreckage, plucking up vials and beakers as he went. “I wouldn’t have liked that. As I was saying—“ he hefted a roll of mesh-like material and tossed it onto the table beside Ghost with pinpoint precision “—of course it’s my fault. Of course, it’s also not my fault. As always Blossom is right and wrong in a single sentiment. Optimistic. She knew how I’d answer.” He tossed a bag of something beside the mesh. It landed with a wet splat. “And you’re confused. But you’re always confused. You don’t remember, and you never would.”

Regulus waded back to them, and Ghost was very tempted to launch a spell at him. Their torso was starting to feel warm and tingly where Regulus had stabbed them, and every word out of his mouth was strange and basically incomprehensible. If he would just talk sensibly!

Regulus patted the space between their horns, pleased by their restraint. “Good, good, you don’t often do that,” he said. “Now hold still and maybe I’ll give you some answers.”

Maybe he’d like to start with where exactly they were, Ghost groused inside their skull.

Regulus huffed as he deftly wrapped the mesh around Ghost’s shell, doing Wyrm knew what with it. “Haven’t you guessed? You sometimes do. We’re in the White Palace.”

The Palace was...in a dream?

“A mind,” Regulus corrected. “Father’s mind, specifically. He pulled a Mother to make it happen, but—“ the netting was pulled tight around their horns “—it happened. And here I am, safe and sound in a prison of necessity.” He slathered something cold over the netting, his voice dripping with bitterness. “Necessity made by inevitability. Or is it the other way around? Thousands of years of pondering and I’ve yet to make a dent in it.”

What?

“You didn’t inherit Father’s gift,” he said, as if that explained it. Suddenly there was a blade dancing around their face, but Regulus avoided their flailing with preternatural perfection as he cut away at...whatever it was he had done to their shell.

“Predictable,” he tsk’d. “Now hold still, I’m helping.”

Helping how? Ghost thought they’d be a lot more cooperative if Regulus would just tell them what was going on!

“No you wouldn't,” the crazy Prince laughed, shoving a vial of black and white goo into their eye with absolutely no warning. “You would have tried to fight me, and then I might have been tempted to put that unusual immortality of yours to the test.” He paused, utterly unbothered by Ghost’s attempts to pry the vial—and by extension, his hand—out of their eye. “And then Blossom would have killed me before all this mess started. Hm. Maybe I should have explained.”

He pulled the empty vial out. Ghost had a split second of relief before another, larger vial replaced it, this time depositing bright blue something in their carapace.

“I’m helping you,” Regulus repeated impatiently as Ghost beat their tiny fists ineffectually against his hands. “It doesn’t even hurt, you big baby, and I would know. I’m my own test subject.”

Oh, was that why he was so crazy?

Regulus sharply flicked the side of their shell. “Rude,” he huffed.

When the vial was pulled out, Ghost made a flailing attempt to roll off the table and away from their psychotic brother. Regulus promptly caught them and hung them up by their horns. They kicked with all their might, but couldn’t move an inch.

A tiny white bodysuit was produced from the depths of Regulus’s folded-down robes. “Hold still,” he scolded again when they sullenly tried to kick his hands away. The bodysuit was pulled on despite their resistance.

The crazy Prince stepped back and tapped a black claw against the side of his shell. “What am I forgetting?” He flinched in pain. “Ah, right,” he said, plunging his entire hand into one of his eyes and pulling out a little black orb identical to the one that the Princess had been guarding. “Here. Take this to our birthplace. You’re stronger now, but you’re not invincible, so watch that third jump. Don’t trust pretty lights. Now, off you go.”

The void orb was summarily thrust into Ghost’s eye. Immediately they woke on the palace grounds, flailing in the dirt. Bewildered, they sat up and looked down at themselves. Whatever Regulus had done hadn’t translated into the waking world, because their carapace was still void-dark. Gingerly, they drew the void ball from their shell. It dissolved in their palm, revealing the matching half of the Queensoul—the Kingsoul, they knew, since this half lacked the delicate, glossy blue eye of their mother.

With a tired shake of their head, they got to their feet. Time to re-visit the Void, then. The mystery of their crazy older brother could wait.

[sothequeensays]

1 / 2 / 3

The White Lady contemplates the miniature Vessel statuette in her hand—one of ten such miniatures, crafted for placing on maps and plotting out the route they will use to bring the children home. Lily, the head of her handmaidens, sits on the other side of the planning table, busily researching old texts on the Ancient Basin in the hopes of discovering just such a route. Miniatures of each handmaiden and Queensguard member stand in neat lines beside an enormous map of Hallownest. The miniatures of Dryya, Isma, Ogrim, and the White Lady herself have yet to be completed.

She turns the Vessel in her palm, watching the light of the lumafly lanterns shift over its painted white shell. “Lily,” she says suddenly, “am I doing the right thing?”

Lily pauses, the busy scratching of her quill at last going silent. She looks up, perplexed. “My Lady?” she asks.

The White Lady’s eyes do not move from the miniature. “Am I doing the right thing? Stealing the children away?”

Lily is never one to speak rashly, and now is no different. Silence envelops the office for a long time.

“May I have permission to speak freely?” Lily says at last, her tone slow and thoughtful.

“You may.”

To the White Lady’s surprise, Lily reaches over, takes the Vessel miniature, and clasps the Queen’s hand in her own. “You are letting fear consume you,” she says, earnestly meeting the White Lady’s eyes. “This is beneath you. You need only remember how much it took for you to even consider this to know the truth of the matter. You have weighed this action against every viable alternative. If you are wrong, it will be through no fault of your own.”

“And if the children are truly hollow?” The White Lady whispers, grasping Lily’s hand like a lifeline. She looks down, feeling a tightness in her throat and heart. “If I am wrong, I will have done nothing but damn Hallownest and sow the seeds of mistrust between me and my husband.”

But Lily shakes her head so firmly that the White Lady can feel it in their clasped hands. “If you are wrong, then we will close the Void. Nothing will be lost. But my Lady, you are not wrong.” She frees one hand and gestures to the materials strewn across the planning table, the product of countless hours of research. “I would stake my life on it.”

The tense, coiled fear, like a rope of thorns wound tightly around the White Lady’s heart, at last relaxes and falls away. She laughs a little, pulling her hands from Lily’s grasp and smoothing down the front of her robes. “You are right,” she decides. “Of course you are right. My wise Lily, always blooming in hardship.”

“You flatter me too much, my Lady,” the handmaiden demurres. “Fierce Dryya would have given you the same answer.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. You are too modest.” The White Lady sighs. “Forgive the interruption of my silly fears. We still have much to do.”

“One day soon you will hold your children here, safe and sound,” Lily promises as she picks up her quill again. “And on that day, every fear will have proven itself worth the burden of carrying.”

The White Lady glances at the neat line of Vessel miniatures, each pale white shell gleaming in the light. “It already has,” she murmurs.

[sothequeensays]

1 / 2 / 3

The White Lady has absolute, unfailing faith in her husband. Not once has he let her down, or been proven wrong. Not once has his foresight failed. So she does not hesitate to agree when, in his desperation to contain the growing plague that threatens every life in their Kingdom, he asks for her assistance in a last-ditch scheme. If he says their hybrid offspring will have no selves to be lost, that they will never have even been truly alive, then she believes him. Her faith in him is absolute and unfailing, never once broken. And yet—

And yet.

A doubt plagues her, brought about by the pure sentiment of having any sort of offspring. Just four damning words, and she cannot rid herself of them. What if he's wrong? He can't be wrong, she assures herself. He's never been wrong before. Why would this be any different?

But what if it is?

What if he’s wrong?

Many long days pass before her perfect faith splinters and she finally considers the potential consequences. If is a damning word, and it takes only a few moments of contemplation for her to wish she had refused him.

No cost too great to save Hallownest, to keep the fetid mind-rot of a castoff goddess from spreading beyond their borders. But this? The sacrifice of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of children if his first batch is unsuccessful? The execution of babies found wanting? The sacrifice of their children? Her children?

This, she cannot abide, not even for the Wyrm. The cost is too great, and the more she watches him, observing his frenetic calculus, the more certain she is. Normally he is a scientist of the highest order. Calm, methodical, accounting for every contingency, every possible factor. But not now. Now, desperation has made him sloppy. He never even considers what he will do if he is wrong, so certain is he that his plot will work. Not because he has accounted for every factor, but because it must work.

She knows she cannot dissuade him, not now, but a more devious solution presents itself. She hesitates—the plan amounts to treason, though she doubts he would hold it against her. No cost too great, she thinks, and is resolved.

He cannot sacrifice their children if there are no children to sacrifice.

[sothequeensays]

1 / 2 / 3

The White Lady’s private office is less of an office and more of a greenhouse that just so happens to contain records and writing materials. Nestled deep in the heart of her Gardens, the office is one of the most well guarded spaces in the entire complex—and so the perfect place to form her plot. It is here that she is sitting as she scrutinizes her husband’s reports, gathering every piece of information she can in preparation. A handmaiden stands to the side of her stone desk, transcribing the White Lady’s words whenever she reads aloud a particularly relevant passage. Dryya is absent, but fully half of the Queensguard stand sentinel at the doors.

When those doors open, around midday, she pauses and looks up from her work. Another handmaiden walks in and curtseys gracefully before announcing the visitors who trail in her wake. “My Lady, may I present the Great Knights Ogrim and Isma.”

“Excellent,” the White Lady says, setting aside the report. “Thank you, Agerata, you are dismissed.” Agerata curtseys again and departs, leaving the Knights to stand alone before their Queen.

“You have my gratitude for coming so quickly,” the White Lady says, rubbing tiredly at the space between her eyes. A mild ache has formed there over the course of the day.

Ogrim and Isma exchange a glance. “Of course,” Isma says cautiously. “No less for you, my Lady. Do you have need of us?”

“Perhaps. But first—“ she gestures to her handmaiden—“Iris, if you would?” The handmaiden pulls two records from a cubby in the wall and hands one to each Knight before returning to the Queen’s side. The office is utterly silent as they read, expressions growing uncomfortable as they realize precisely what the records outline.

Isma finishes first and looks up. “My Lady,” she says haltingly, searching for words, “what...is this?”

The White Lady folds her hand together and offers the Kindly Knight a grave look. “Has the King informed you of his plan? To contain the pestilence?”

“A limited amount,” Isma admits with a shake of her head. “He…described an automaton, a biological creation with no true life, hollowed out to contain the Light. But this…” she trails off, looking back down at the document in her grasp. “This is...unspeakable.” When she raises her face again, desperation is written across every line of her body. “Why would you show this to me—to us?”

“Because I require your assistance in preventing a tragedy,” the White Lady says quietly. “My Wyrm is no longer thinking clearly about this. There is no hope of dissuading him. But I have resolved to rescue my children when they emerge, and spirit them away to these very Gardens, where they might grow in peace and safety.”

Ogrim speaks up for the first time, sounding deeply conflicted. “My Queen...this is treason.”

She sighs at the accusation, though it had lacked any bite. “Perhaps,” she acknowledges. “But I mean no harm to my husband or to Hallownest. I only hope that innocents might be spared and in doing so I might force the King to find another way.” She bends like a burdened sapling, pressing her forehead into the palm of her hand. Her voice drops to a whisper. “Another cost to pay. Anything but this.”

Ogrim and Isma exchange another, longer glance. “Dryya supports you,” Ogrim says, and it’s not a question.

The White Lady raises her head. “Yes. As do my handmaidens—“ Iris nods, boldly meeting each of the Knights eyes— “and my Guard.”

“We stand with our Lady,” the guards at the door say in unison. “We stand with our Lady’s children.”

“Against the King?” Isma murmurs to herself. “Or…” she looks down at the document. “...against an act of ill-considered evil?”

“I will stand with you in this,” Ogrim declares suddenly, startling both Isma and the White Lady. He looks to Isma, a silent question communicated between them.

Isma’s answer comes slowly at first, then with growing confidence. “I will stand with you as well, dear Queen. I will stand with you! And I will stand with your children!”

The White Lady exhales, slumping as if a great burden has suddienly been lifted from her shoulders. “Thank you,” she says, pure relief on her face. “Thank you.”

Then her expression turns from relief to determination. “Now come. We have much to prepare for.”

[sothequeensays]

The activity on the blog has kinda died down, huh? Most of the interactive content is on the Discord now. If you want to pop in every once in a while just to look at the Official QMAU folder, you’d find a lot of my content that I don’t post outright. A lot of fics, especially.

Anyways, here’s a sketch dump

[sothequeensays]

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