#the glaives are all waiting for the train wreck to start honestly

[secret-engima]

Snippet of Stand Strong Chap 2

(There aren’t enough Cor-centric romances out there in my opinion. There also aren’t enough Galahdian OCs around in my opinion, because there can never be too many Galahdian OCs. Ergo: this will be the story in which Cor and a Galahdian OC fall in love. Not that they know that. Yet. This story will also feature - Big Good Guy-Tired Bro!Titus, Prompto getting ALL the Found Family in the Kingsglaive/Galahdians, Galahdian Customs, Cool Magic Things, Fem OC being a deadpan OP Badaft, Galahdians being Nightmare Things of Myth for the Nifs and idiot Insomnians, and Unconventional A/B/O dynamics because Why Not™.)

...

     Amissa glanced at the clock on the wall, then at the light under the door of the office back down the hall and bit back a sigh for the hundredth time that week. She told herself not care as she went about washing and polishing stone floors. She had enough people working or living in this Citadel to worry about. Most of her Kids worked here and this was the home of the Little Sky that had recently become the source of Tredd’s good-natured whining ever since Prompto had introduced them —“He’s cute, Mamaí, I can’t call him a snobby noble when he’s cute!”—. She didn’t need to add a dangerous, distant Marshal to that list.

     Even if this was the latest in an unbroken string of nights where the Marshal haunted his office for the majority of the night rather than going to bed. She wouldn’t have known if she hadn’t had to cover the shifts and floors of one of the older janitors that had randomly fallen and broken his leg, and really it was none of her business what the Marshal chose to do with his health. Even if she didn’t think his string of all-nighters and the dark temper her Kids had heard the Crownsguard muttering about were a coincidence. Even if Little Sky had been morose the other day when he mentioned that his father was usually too busy to spend time with him, but recently Cor had been far too busy as well and it made him feel sad.

     She paused in her cleaning efforts and glared silently at the door. I don’t care about you, she mentally snarled at the door in annoyance, if you choose to work yourself to death, it’s not my problem. But if he worked himself to death, Little Sky would be sad, and one of the few voices of reason that always kept the cockier Crownsguard from pushing her Kids around would be gone.

     Amissa hissed softly through her teeth as she set down her mop. Why am I the only comparatively responsible, healthy adult wherever I go. By the Six. Ducking down a few of the hallways that she had memorized as soon as she was hired here, she filled up a little paper cup of water and then doubled back to the office door, fishing one of her protein bars and a minor pain reliever out of her pockets with one hand as she did so. Bribe in hand, she knocked on the door and waited. Two minutes later, she knocked again. Three minutes after that, she kicked the door with her foot hard enough to make it shake a bit. That finally got a reaction from the other side in a startled half-swear and the sound of someone dropping their paperwork. A moment later the door yanked open, Cor the Immortal half-hidden behind it with a hand on his sword hilt.

     She stared at the Marshal. He stared at her. Underneath all her irritation, she was amused to notice that she had about two inches of height on him. Not much of a difference really, unless she ever decided to torture herself with high heels, but amusing nonetheless. Her amusement faded as she took in his rumpled clothing —same set he’d been wearing when she came to fix his printer days ago she was certain of it—, tired shoulders and dark bags under his eyes —not getting nearly enough sleep, probably not getting enough food and water either—.

     Finally, the Marshal blinked, glanced past her to the half-mopped corridor, then looked back, “…Is there a problem?”

     Amissa held out her offerings with a bland expression, “Yes. You.”

     The Marshal eyed the water cup and protein bar like they might bite and outright glared at the pain medication, “Explain.”

     Candid in the way only someone too desensitized to royalty and rank could, she pushed the items into a startled Marshal’s hands and elaborated, “I keep coming up here to clean the floor when no one but the night guard is around to slip and fall. But you’re always here. I’m not going to be responsible for the famed Immortal slipping on a freshly washed floor and cracking open his skull because he was too sleep-deprived to notice the wet floor sign. Also, you’re making Little Sky worry. Stop that. Eat. Drink. Pain killer. Sleep. In a proper bed, not that couch hiding in your office. Your work isn’t going to up and walk off in six to eight hours.”

     The Marshal stared at her, like he wasn’t certain if he was insulted, confused, touched, or straight up hallucinating. Even his scent —faint as it was from suppressing— held a confused tinge. Amissa didn’t bother giving him time to choose a reaction, as she didn’t actually want to lose her new job because of disrespect, “Please go to bed. So that I can get my work done in peace if for no other reason. Or so that the little prince doesn’t have to cry during your funeral when you work yourself to death.” She turned to go back to her cleaning supplies, then paused and belatedly added, “Sir,” over her shoulder. Not waiting any longer, she grabbed her cleaning cart and went off to the next hallway over, determined to ignore the man now that she had done her moral duty and lectured him for his stupidity. If he refused to take her advice, then it was no fault of hers.

     She poked her head back into that particular hallway an hour later and was gratified to see that the light was gone from the office. A careful listen through the door as she finished up cleaning the hallway floor told her that the man wasn’t camping out with the lights off either, he had well and truly left. Good. Satisfied in a job well done, she resolved to put it out of her mind. She had helped out just that once, now she could go back to only worrying about the usual suspects and letting the Marshal forget she existed.