#the lunar chronicles fanfiction

[gingerale2017]

a kaider fic where Cinder happens to get pretty drunk one evening, which is somewhat unlikely of her to do, but Kai, being sober, is just taking care of her and watching her go from sarcastic, sassy and aloof Cinder to a complete softy. The whole time he’s helping guide her comfortably to bed she’s just confessing her undying love for him, but as if it’s a big secret of hers. Like (slurring her words) “Kai, I’m so in love with you. Promise you won’t tell anyone?” And he thinks it’s very cute and funny. + Other stuff she loves about him, like his hair, that she might not so casually and deeply admit she admires

YEAH YEAH YEAH LET'S SPEED WRITE THIS

Kai stared at the empty glasses of champagne crowding Cinder's seat with amazement and bit of envy because stars knows how useful those glasses would have been an hour earlier. But it was his wife's empty chair that concerned him most when he told her to sit still while he said goodbye to the ever so bland and boring diplomats around ten minutes ago.

There were three glasses of champagne when he found her and now there were nine. How much could a girl drink in ten minutes?

He sighed, rubbing his forehead as he went to go look for her. Luckily, most of the important people had left already so they wouldn't have any gossip to bring home, had they found her. Who knows how unpredictable she was acting under the influence? He couldn't really tell because her attitude changes depending on her alcohol intake.

He walked around the ballroom where servant droids were putting away decorations and storing away all the tables. An event of appreciation for all the Commonwealth diplomats and their spouses had taken place here in the palace with Kai as its host. He wanted to congratulate his bureaucracy for all the hard work he's seen them do, which was evident with how much the Commonwealth had changed for the better. So he gave a party and speech where he encouraged to relax and drink. Unfortunately, the partners of the politicians took the command "drink" a little too seriously, including his own. He had seen many men and women drag their flushed and smiling spouse away before they could cause embarrassment.

Now he had to go haul his own, maybe not flushed but definitely smiling girlfriend to their bed, if he could find her. He tried to act normal as he walked on the marble floors. Human servants would bow, he would smile, and asked androids if they'd seen the empress. They all answered no with apologies until one droid lit up.

"Yes, I have seen Her Majesty at the bar thirty seconds ago."

His stomach dropped. He knew Cinder had a rather high tolerance to alcohol than most because her processing system, something about it made alcohol pass through her system faster, but she could still get drunk. And he suspected by now, if she wasn't already, she was very drunk.

We walked as fast as he could around the droid to bar where were his wife was asking the bar droid for spiked lemonade. He approached her carefully, as to not spook her because in this state she could harm herself.

"Please, one more drink!" His girlfriend begged the android bartender. "I swear I'm not drunk." "Based on the alcohol percentage of the cocktails you drank and your height and body weight, my estimate is that you are severely under the influence. I advise you to not consume any more alcohol tonight." The male robotic voice responded. Cinder pouted and threw her body over the counter.

Kai huffed in surprise. In the nearly two years he'd known her, he'd never seen her under the influence. At least, not this badly. What triggered her to drink so much? Did someone say something? Or was she feeling particularly rebellious tonight?

Cinder giggled to herself as she traced the empty glass with her fingers. Kai got nervous at her proximity with the fragile cup as she wasn't even looking at it. He made his move them and very gently laid a hand on her shoulder blade.

She jumped at his touch, wildly flinging the glass, but Kai smoothly whisked it out of her grasp. She spun around and looked at him with her once nicely-done hair covering her eyes.

Her face burst out in a big smile as she recognized him. "It's you." She mumbled.

He couldn't help but smile back. Even in this delirious state, she was adorable. "It's me. You tired?"

Cinder tried to swipe the hair out of her eyes with not avail. Kai helped her out, tucking the soft chocolate strands behind the fizz of her ears. "Nah. I mean- A little." She paused, quirking her mouth to the side. "Thanks. Is it time for bed?"

Kai checked his watch for her sake; he already knew it was late. "Yes, it's way past our bedtime." False. As policy makers, their bedtime was way later than now on an average day. But tonight was an event, so it meant they could sleep in. How rare.

Cinder frowned. "Crap." She zoned out for a second. Kai gulped, wondering if he should snap her out of it, when she started giggling. "Don't tell that bartender guy, but I think I'm drunk." She proceeded to snort and laugh even louder. Panicking, Kai covered them both with his back by pressing them to the counter. He didn't want the lingering party-goers to ridicule the new Lunar Diplomat for having a too little self-control or some manure like that. Hopefully, no one recognized them.

"Why are you drunk?" He asked, half-guessing she wouldn't give a clear answer.

Her giggle fit became a soft chuckle as she pressed her face to his stomach and played with the buttons of his dress shirt. Kai's hand naturally found the base of her head and stroked her hair slowly. "Thorne said I never lived if I didn't get absolutely wasted at at least one formal event, so I-I wanted to prove him wrong but then I-I got g-got mad and it was too late to stop so I kept going." She chuckled. "And I kept going. And it felt too fun to stop."

She lifted her chin upwards so her gaze could peer into his, so large she was practically doe-eyed. "You're not mad at me, right?"

It was his turn to laugh. "Of course not, my love. I'm just confused. This isn't something I've seen you do-"

"Oh good. I was worried." She sighed and wrapped her arms around his torse. He froze for a second, then leaned into her embrace.

"How about we go to my room tonight? I know you like it better than yours." He tempted.

He could feel her smile grow. "Yes please!"

Despite her enthusiasm, it was hassle to get to his room. He had rolled up his sleeves in concentration and had one arm stiff against her waist; the other arm opened doors and stole things from her oppurtunist hands. Her body squirmed against his grip relentlessy, excited by every idea that crossed her mind.

For example, she would ask to do outlandish things she would laugh at while sober. 'We should go swimming!' She offered. Kai bit his tongue from noting that she couldn't swim. 'The pool is closed' he said in return. 'How about a stroll in the market?' She begged. Kai stopped himself from groaning. 'The market is closed.' He explained. 'Can we visit the gardens?' she asked. Kai wouldn't have minded that if she wasn't drunk. 'Can we please go to bed?' He countered.

Kai couldn't help but wonder why she was commenting this. Perhaps they were things she truly wanted to experience but was too embarrassed to say while sober. He wished to tell her someday that it is okay to want these things, even if they sound stupid or silly. Everyone yearns for crazy things, even borderline outlandish. It's not so embarrassing.

At that Cinder stopped, causing Kai to almost trip over himself. "What's wrong?" He walked in front of her and cupped her face. Worried, he asked her again.

"I'm sorry. I'm annoying you." She apoligized, lip trembling.

Kai's heart broke a little at her genuine sadness. "No you're not, no reason to say sorry, my dearest."

She sniffed. Her hands slowly and clumsily made their way up his arms to her cheeks and rubbed his wrists. She seemed to do it absent-mindedly as her gaze landed away from his stare. Stars, even while out of it she possessed crazy tons of power over him. The smallest motion of her fingertips made his knees go weak.

"I was thinking about you. Earlier." She started to confess.

"Oh? I hope you only thought good things if me."

"Oh yes. I like the silly little names you give me. Like 'love'" She giggled. "No you're my love! Kai-" She gasped, her whole body jumping with the motion. Suddenly, her eyes widened with an inexplicable craze and gripped his wrists with such tightness that his skin started to go red. "I have secret."

"You do?" He leaned in with curiosity. Her earlier words made his cheeks go pink. He was so glad to know she liked being called those nicknames. It was something he picked up from his father growing up, and it came so natural to him that he couldn't keep himself from calling her pretty names. "You can trust me, sweetheart."

"O-okay. It's so secret, though. It's secret secret. But you can't tell anybody. Anybody. Promise?" Her voice began to slur over.

Kai nodded enthuisiastically. "I promise."

"Kai, I'm so in love you. Like super in love with you." Cinder shut her eyes and shook her head sporatically. "Don't tell anyone, you promised!"

Kai's body shook with silent laughter at her 'secret secret'. He ducked his head so she wouldn't misinterpret the pure joy of his grin for a mocking one. Stars, he was thinking of proposing soon: he sure hoped she was madly in love with him. "I know, darling." He tilted his head to the side and met her wild eyes again. "Hey, wanna know my secret secret."

She nodded, bobbing her head (that was still cradled by both of their hands by the way) like an apple in water. "I won't tell anyone. I'm good at keeping secrets."

"I know." He rubbed her cheek with his thumb. "I'm like super in love with you too." He flashed one of his winning smiles, the one with the slight exposure of his teeth, and the one Cinder confessed to liking the most.

Her jaw hung open for a bit. He gently pushed it closed as she laughed. "We have the same secret!"

"I know. Crazy right?" They giggled in unison. Cinder might have snorted. "Let's go to bed, my love."

"Okay." She pulled away from him and paused, expecting him to lead the way. He hesitated, missing her embrace for a moment, then let her latch onto his arm and carried on.

She got less distracted by her impulsive thoughts and more analytical. She was quiet now as she turned her ever studious eye towards him. What was she thinking? He tensed slightly at her silence. Maybe she suddenly felt the urge to turn away from him. Yet, she still held onto him tightly.

Before he could overthink himself to ruin, she spoke softly. "You have a very nice neck."

Kai felt heat rise up into the same spot she complimented. "Thank you?" He responded, a surprised chuckle ripping through his lips. They paused, mere steps away from his room.

She smiled widely. "You're welcome." Her eyes glanced at his blush that was unrelentlessly climbing up his skin. "I love when it does that too." She giggled.

Kai rubbed his neck with his free hand. "What, blush?"

"Oh yes. It's so adorable. It's like giving you away when you try to hide something." Though with an already slurred speech, she adapted a lisp. She was the adorable one.

"You're absolutely right, Cinder." He started to pace to his door, shaking his head with soft laughter.

She clumsily followed him as he walked in. "You got a nice frame too. At first glance, you look skinny, but your shoulders and back prove that you got some muscle on you." She giggled and traced his back.

Kai spun around, his laughter growing in volume. She continued on.

"And your hair. Kai, how I love your hair!" She threw herself in his arms, taking the chance to run her fingers through the top of his head. "It's always so soft, and smells so good, and so pretty."

She liked his hair! For some reason, he felt like he was in grade school again and received confirmation that his crush liked him back.

Her eyes were glittering at this point. They might be man-made but they held so much emotion. They were beautiful.

Her gorgeous smile lit up every corner of her face. Taking a page out of his book she cupped his face and leaned him towards her. "You're so pretty." Her eyes flickered around his face, taking him all in. Kai has been studied his whole life, and, though at first he resented it, he grew passive to the action. Now, he reveled in her gaze. It may sound selfish, but he wanted to hear what parts she liked about him, what parts she found attractive, and even what parts she was repelled by. The glitter in her eyes twinkled even stronger as she put parts together. "So, so pretty."

"I think you're pretty." He murmured.

"I like how you talk to me." She confessed, matching his tone. "So sweet. So gentle. So genuine."

Kai bit his lip from chuckling at her lisp that returned again. Unfortunately, he was not strong enough. His body rocked with laughter and he dropped his head into his should, hugging her tight.

"I like your hugs too." She said, hugging him back. He continued to laugh.

Once his fit died out, he noticed how silent she became. He pulled away worried only to find dropping eyelids and an unsteady posture.

"You tired?" He asked. She nodded, her gaze unfocused. "Let's sleep."

He picked her up bridal style, handling the full weight of her metal extremities for quick short steps to his bed. He lay her down gently and she curled up into fetus position, already half-asleep. After tucking her in, he watched her for a second, how her chest moved slowly, and her face relaxed into a peaceful expression. He adjusted her hair again and moved to change into clothes for sleeping.

Cinder startled and grabbed his arm, pulling him down weakly. "Don't leave me." She croaked, falling asleep again.

He chuckled, giving up on his attempt to sleep in something comfier. Kai at least was able to snag off his tie and belt. "Me? Never." He yawned, hugging her waist.

"Goodnight Your Majesty." She mumbled, barely audible.

Sleep was already invading his mind. "Goodnight my Cinder."

A/N: SO SORRY ANON FOR TAKING SO LONG. I FORGOT THIS WAS IN MY DRAFTS. I'm posting this for the other anon that asked if I had any fics... which I do! Anyways, I'm sure this is riddled with grammar mistakes and ooc, but idc, I DID IT. Hope you enjoy somewhat (I DID LOVE WRITING THIS CONCEPT)

tagging: @just2bubbly @cinderswrench @cindersassasin @the-wee-woo-royal @deprivedmusicaljunkie @crescentchat @wheresmymom-imlost @salt-warrior @rapunzelfromthemoon @briggycat @impossiblesuitcase @kaider-is-my-otp @definitelynotisabel @wassupnye @therealkaidertrash21 @cinderswirecutters @hayleblackburn (these are for my kaider ONLY fics so please ask if you want to be tagged or removed <3)

[impossiblesuitcase]

tu me cherchais?

““Hello, Michelle.” His voice was a wearier version of the one she had adored all those years ago, but it still filled her with memories and loneliness and warmth.” 

Tell him hello

When Logan first brought Selene to Michelle, he stayed in the house. No one visited her anyway and he couldn’t go into town—not with the risk of being discovered. While Selene was still in such critical condition, he would need to watch over her. Once she was stable, he would leave.   

Logan slept on the couch in the living room next to Selene’s chamber. In her current state, she was at risk of a heart attack or capture from enemies. Michelle had offered them the spare bedroom, but the suspension tank couldn’t be brought up the stairs. Once, when she passed by the staircase, she remembered the portraits on her wall. Four-year-old Scarlet playing in a sandbox. Herself and her son, a rare occasion where they were both smiling. Michelle made no effort to conceal them. Logan was far too distracted to pay attention, but she wondered—if for a moment he did—would he look at the photo of her and a three-month-old Luc and notice that she looked around the same age as when they had first met?  

She hoped he wouldn’t. A bizarre fear persisted, that he would be disappointed in her if he learnt of her failings as a mother to his son. 

During the daytime, while Logan was down in the bunker preparing it to house the body, Michelle was tasked with monitoring the child. The form was so grotesque, so mangled and inhuman that she couldn’t bear more than a cursory glance. In the evenings she would prepare them a meal. Again, Logan would eat by the child, and though Michelle initially joined him, sitting on the lounge chair by the lamp, it became too awkward. The silence. The utensils scraping on ceramic plates. The hum of the alien pod.  

The meals became simpler as she began to run out of ingredients. She had put off her usual grocery run since his arrival, worried that if she left the property and one of her neighbours flew by and noticed a man leaving her podship hanger, it would arouse suspicion. Then she realised that if the locals didn’t see her at her typical weekly outing, they might come to the house to check up on her. That would be worse.  

She never bought fresh produce from the grocer, usually just the essentials—flour and sugar and meat. On this occasion, as she attempted to escape a conversation with chatty Madame Manon Bouchard, she spied a stand of fresh dragon fruit right by the milk aisle.   

“You don’t even have zucchini?” she had once asked Logan, as they stood together in his kitchen, his hands around her waist.  

He had laughed into her hair. “Now you’re just making up words.”  

Her attempt to make a good ragout with the limited ingredients in Artemisia had left her stumped. Seeing the luxuriant meals in the cafés and restaurants, she had assumed the sparkly city was teeming with cultivation. Logan informed her that that was only the case for the rich; the less fortunate—even a well-paid doctor as himself—had fewer options.  

She peeled the carrots, chopped them and tossed them into the pot. Then came the wine. Or what was left of it; the rest in their bellies.  

She looked over her shoulder, flicking his nose. “Don’t worry. If you come to Earth, I will make you all kinds of things. With zucchini and lychee and rhubarb and dragon fruit.”  

“Sure,” he agreed with a fond shake of his head. “I’ll try your imaginary dragon fruit.”  

Michelle was struck by such an unexpected pang of emotion that she didn’t notice Manon’s offended scoff as she wandered over to the stand mid-conversation.  

That evening, she made dragon fruit tartlets for dessert. She thought, briefly, to pair it with a ragout. But she thought that might be making it a little too easy for him.  

After dinner, Logan brought the plates into the kitchen and washed them in the sink. She never asked him to do this. He always did.  

“Here,” she said, placing a plate by the dishrack. Atop it sat a perfect tartlet, drizzled with cream from her cow and strawberries from her field. “This is for you.”  

He glanced at it. “Thank you.”  

Once he was done at the sink, he sat at the kitchen table and ate. His brow was furrowed, his mind always a thousand light-years away.  

“It’s dragon fruit,” she ventured, tracing her eyes over that brow, waiting for recognition.   

Logan nodded, took his final bite and brought this plate over to the sink. “Thank you, Michelle.”  

A jolt of pain rippled through her. She turned away from him, heading to the living room. “I’ll, uh, check on the princess.”  

His grunt was all to indicate that he’d heard her. But the fruit, the memories, she knew he hadn’t remembered at all.  

———

“She couldn’t imagine how this child could sleep for her entire life and then be expected to become a queen upon her return to society. But that would be Logan’s job, whenever he returned. There were years still before anyone would know who this child was going to become.” 

———

Eight years later, Logan stayed in the bunker while they were waking Selene up, as did Linh Garan. Scarlet could never learn of their presence, yet Michelle was beginning to suspect that even if her granddaughter was removed from the equation, Logan wouldn’t risk leaving the princess’s side. He was cautious, yes, but most of all, he was manically paranoid.  

She hadn’t believed he was losing his mind, but after weeks of observing him, in surgery and in conversation and at meals, she began to believe him.  

The risk of Scarlet discovering them put her on edge, too. Thankfully school had started up again that week, so they had at least a few hours in the daytime where they didn’t need to be as surreptitious. Even then, Michelle would tense; Scarlet—the little hothead she was—tended to get into arguments at school and stomp home without any warning to her grandmother. Today was a Sunday, and Michelle had sent her off to the neighbour’s house. Old Madame Boudreaux had needed someone to help her set up a new netscreen, and fortunately for Michelle, she had a propensity for forcing all house guests to learn the history of every knick-knack and porcelain doll in her museum of a home. Scarlet wouldn’t be able to leave for several hours yet.  

This was the only time Logan was willing to be parted from Selene, no, Cinder, five days before she was to be taken away to the Eastern Commonwealth. She was caked in gel, an insect freshly emerged from its egg, slimy and tinged green. She needed to be bathed.  

Michelle had been more than hesitant to bring the child into her home, but there was no running water in the bunker. It was too difficult to carry the girl up the ladder with old bones, so the task had fallen to Garan. Although the man was set to be her adoptive father, he was rather unnatural in holding her. She hoped it was simply a product of unfamiliarity and not a sign of what kind of father he would be to the princess.  

They took her inside the house while she was still asleep. It wasn’t much different from her waking state, except for the groaning and squirming. Then Logan and Garan left Michelle with her in the bathroom. She woke as Michelle began running a warm soapy cloth over her arms, dissolving the crusted gel. A proper bath would be too aggressive for her fragile skin, the joints between flesh and prostheses still red and inflamed.  

Michelle wished the girl had stayed asleep. Odd as it may seem, Michelle wasn’t quite adept at interacting with children. Her rather disastrous upbringing of her son proved that. She only bonded with Scarlet so easily because the little hothead was just as stubborn as herself. But with this blank slate of a child, Michelle felt almost awkward.  

She grasped the shower head and gently cupped Cinder’s scalp under her palm. “All right, Cinder. Let’s wash your hair.”   

Though the water was a safe tepid she flinched, eyes tearing open and hands scrambling to grasp the corners of the bathtub. Michelle murmured soothing shhs and it’s okay’s. For the first time since waking, she looked at Michelle, awareness filling her gaze, but with it, harshness.  

Logan had assured her that the child would not wake with the mental faculties of a toddler, that the brain stimulations had successfully advanced her to the comprehension level befitting her age. Michelle was secretly unconvinced. The girl moved in a haze, more like a newborn than even a three-year-old, as though she had regressed during stasis.  

But then she would cast a look at Michelle, long and loaded, and she would feel that she had been complicit in some crime.  

Nevertheless, the hair had to be washed, so Michelle used her free hand to still the girl as she soaked the hair from roots to ends. Cinder eventually gave up in squirming, limbs still too weak to offer any form of escape.  

She made quick work of the shampoo and conditioner. With her body carefully untouched by the stream, Cinder began to shiver.   

“All done, Cinder,” Michelle assured. She sat her up and wrapped a towel around her. “Do you want to try your walking?”  

Cinder remained motionless but allowed Michelle to lift her. She groaned as she heaved the child out of the bath and set her on the ground. “Ready?”  

Cinder took the smallest step forward on the tile and immediately lurched forward. Hands at the ready, Michelle was quick to stop her from falling. Righting her, she guided gently, “That’s okay. Let’s try again.”  

Garan had been teaching her to walk and had partial success thus far. A look of concentration encased the girl’s face now as she lifted her stiff foot and forced it in front of her.   

Cinder wobbled but stayed upright. She gripped Michelle’s hand tighter.  

Through several arduous steps and a few stumbles, they reached the bedroom. Michelle considered but decided not to repeat Garan’s encouragements. “You’re doing well,” “almost there,” “good job.” They were perfunctory. No number of pleasantries could coax a ship to fly or teach a horse to run. Cinder alone would decide if she walked.  

Michelle lowered her to the bed, reaching for the outfit she had laid out. “These are your new clothes, Cinder. I have another set for you to take as well.” 

Well, they weren’t new. They came from a box of Scarlet’s old clothes from last year. Michelle had planned to donate them to the local boutique de charité and that’s where Scarlet believed they currently were. Michelle had since found an equally charitable cause for them. She would wash the ones Cinder had lived in for the past week before sending them off in a duffel bag with the girl in tow.  

The goosebumps on her skin calmed as the fleecy cotton covered her arms. Cinder weakly tugged at the sleeves, trying to pull them down with little success until Michelle intervened.  

“You’ll have a new mother soon. She’ll help you get dressed if you’re still not ready yet.”  

Michelle shimmied the pants up her legs. Her fingernail accidentally grazed the link between flesh and metal on her thigh and Cinder whimpered. Michelle flinched.  

“Désolé, chérie.” She patted her leg soothingly, moving onto the socks. Then she stepped back to evaluate.  

She would be warm, at least. Not much could be done yet about the unnatural pallor of her skin. The hair, clean but still tangled, with split ends running up to the roots, now she could do something about that.  

Michelle found her salon scissors and brush, heaving onto her knees on the bed behind Cinder. Her muscles groaned as they rested on the unsteady surface and she swayed, but the scissors stayed firmly gripped in her fist. Cinder couldn’t be trusted around them yet.  

Her fingers picked up some chunks of hair and raked through them. The girl whined even at the slightest tug. “I know it doesn’t feel nice, Cinder” she said as she worked the brush through the ends. “But we have to push through the pain to make it better.”  

Her words had run ahead of her. As the bristles danced through the brown strands, she continued, “I’ve had to do that many times in my lifetime. As will you.”  

Cinder’s shoulders drooped. With the worst knots untangled, she was a statue. 

Satisfied, Michelle lay a towel on the quilt to catch the hair and began cutting. It was long—eight years’ worth of growth—and yet it was still uneven. Michelle had a vision of this girl as a 3-year-old with oozing pus in patches over her burnt scalp. They had since healed, but the hair was brittle in some parts more than others. A good ten centimetres off should even it out.  

Michelle feathered the ends, brushing the loose hair from her shirt. “All done. Would you like to see?”  

To Michelle’s astonishment, Cinder seemed to nod. It wasn’t exactly obvious—perhaps just a meaningless reflex—but perhaps it had been intentional.   

Michelle set the scissors on the towel. It took another test of patience to help Cinder stagger back into the bathroom and Michelle’s arms were aching with exertion from carrying her by the shoulders.  

Cinder took the last few steps on her own and gripped the bench, staring at herself in the mirror. Michelle watched her.  

No expression. No recognition. There was no mirror in the bunker. Did Cinder realise this was the first time she’d seen herself since she was a toddler? Did she even comprehend that it was her? Despite how much Logan swore that she had been educated, caught up to speed on normal childhood development, had it failed?  

Was this girl not a girl, but a dead soul’s consciousness forced into a machine, functioning only through robotics and wires and machinery?  

Michelle had to grip the towel rail to steady herself.  

How could this child become queen? How could she save them all?

“Selene,” she said suddenly, then immediately shook her head, “no, Cinder. You must listen to me.” She released the rail and took the girl’s shoulders into her hands. Cinder turned to face her.  

“Cinder. I don’t know what will happen. I don’t know if they will come for you. But whatever happens, you can’t let them take everything from you.” Michelle pressed her forehead against Cinder’s, awkwardness dispelled by the divine need to impart this instruction. She conjured every ounce of motherly wisdom that she had lacked with her son, and thought about what she would tell Scarlet, had Scarlet been the girl before her.  

“They have already taken so much from you. They will want to make you a leader. They will forget that you are just a girl.” She pulled away, her eyes imploring. “When they ask you to fight, you must learn to say yes. But when they ask everything of you, you must learn to say no.” Exhaling every breath she’d taken in over the past eight years, she asked, “Okay?”  

Cinder blinked slowly through full lashes. A minuscule light darted back and forth in her left eye. A bionic eye. Fake. Her heart. Brain. Lungs. All of it.  

Maybe synthetic eyes couldn’t light up with joy or with recognition. Maybe they couldn’t convey sadness or understanding. So maybe Cinder had been understanding Michelle this entire time. Michelle was the one who had been blind. 

Cinder’s mouth opened. She began to nod. Again, it could be a meaningless tick, but then, in the quietest voice Michelle had ever heard, she spoke.  

“...O–kay.”  

———

“Grand-mère, who is Logan Tanner?”  Her grandma brushed a light kiss against Scarlet’s forehead.  “He’s a good man, Scarlet. He would have loved you.”

———

 

Cinder began speaking sparsely, mostly nos and yeses and whys. She voiced her first full sentence on the day she left. 

“Where are we going?” she asked Garan as he buckled her into her seat in the hover. 

“We’re going home, Cinder,” he explained with a light tone. Once she was strapped in, he stepped away and the door slid shut. 

Garan turned to Michelle and Logan. “Well…” he trailed off. 

“Thank you again, Garan.” Logan said sincerely, taking his hand and shaking it. “This could not have been accomplished without your skills and discretion.” His tone became grave. “And for the danger you have inflicted upon yourself, I am truly sorry.” 

Garan shook his head. “Don’t be, Logan. I am honoured to play this role in shaping history.”  

Thus far, he had seemed to Michelle a curious savant, enticed more by the prospect of having a Lunar subject for his inventions than by the theophanic-like encounter with a resurrected myth. Yet he demonstrated now a trace of comprehension in his tight brow. He understood the risk of accepting this burden.  

He offered Michelle a nod and rounded to the other side of the hover. “Good-bye then.” Garan opened the door and slid inside. 

Michelle’s attention was entrapped by Cinder. She was staring right at her, blinking slowly, and Michelle suddenly felt cruel to not have parted with a hug, a kiss, a promise that everything would eventually work out. But Michelle could not feed such lies to this child. Cinder was somehow entirely different to the girl that had haunted the ground beneath Michelle’s feet for the past eight years. That had been Selene. Cinder was the one who had woken up. 

Mostly, Michelle was sad to send her off, sure in the deepest fissures of her heart that her new life in the Eastern Commonwealth would not be as ‘fine’ as Garan promised it to be. 

The hover lifted from the ground and picked up speed, yet Cinder’s searching brown eyes lingered down the full length of the driveway. 

Once the rattle of whirring motors faded and the disturbed dust had drifted back to the ground, only Michelle and Logan were left. 

They looked out to the road, three arm lengths apart. 

Michelle exhaled shakily. “Well, there she goes.” 

A grim nod. “She has to.” 

Michelle shifted slightly, halfway facing him. “You don’t trust him?” 

“I do…” he sighed. “I trust he won’t betray her to the authorities or treat her badly, I just don’t…” He pursed his lips. 

“Don’t what?” 

Logan clasped his hands together, not meeting her eyes. “Michelle, there is no one on Earth or Luna I trust more than you. If it hadn’t been so threatening to both her and your safety, I would want her under your protection for as long as possible. I don’t know that Garan will manage this burden in the way you have.” 

The honesty rocked her. So confessionally sweet, and yet so obvious in its failings. Because he shouldn’t trust her so, not when they had such a brief connection to begin with. Not when he probably had a life on Luna after her, maybe a wife and children; children that perhaps looked vaguely alike their own son. There was no room for such unbosoming, not for co-conspirators in treasonous affairs that would surely catch up to them both. 

But perhaps, wouldn’t have been nice if there was no Selene at all? If he had simply escaped Luna to find her, and if he could sleep in the house rather than the bunker? Sit across from her at the dining table and tell stories to Scarlet, whom he would surely adore?    “We are older than Garan,” she said soberly. “But he will learn—as we did.” 

He nodded distractedly, perhaps disappointed. Was he disheartened that she did not acknowledge his praise towards her?     If he was, he didn’t dwell on it. “I leave tomorrow. It would be too suspicious for me to follow the hover. Granted I’m still sane by the time I reach the Commonwealth, I’ll check on her, just for safety.” 

Right. He was losing his mind, or so he said. He seemed always to be present with her, but she did notice him losing his train of thought when conversing with Garan and becoming fidgety when Cinder would refuse their gentle prompts to practise walking. “...And if you’re not sane?” 

His eyes bored into hers, distant as though foreseeing the forthcoming years. “I’ve already done my work.” 

Her port chimed, an alarm reminding her that Scarlet would be due home soon. Michelle had essentially forced Scarlet to go spend the afternoon at a friend’s house, but she wouldn’t be deterred for too long. Logan needed to hide. “You’ll have to retire to the bunker for the night.” 

He stepped away. “Of course. Then this is goodbye.” 

She startled. “I won’t see you off tomorrow?” 

“Tomorrow is Saturday. On Luna, school children have the weekend off. I’m assuming it’s the same on Earth.” 

She’d forgotten, so terrified of Scarlet uncovering the confidential mission happening right under her nose that the days had blurred into insignificance. Logan never spoke of Scarlet, but they had all been aware of the oblivious bystander preventing them from acting in the open. “Right. I hadn’t realised.” 

Logan appeared to contemplate what he said next. “I am truly grateful to have known you, Michelle.” 

She pressed her lips, feeling twenty-nine again in everything but body. “Take care of yourself, Logan.” 

And then he was walking away. No embrace, no handshake or nod as Garan had exchanged.  

The wind whipped through her hair and the sunset before him cast a silhouette—an old man tramping through the crops. 

She hadn’t said it. That she trusted him impossibly more than anyone else, too. That this trust had long blurred the lines of devotion. Their fling was remembered as having lasted an entire lifetime. She wondered if she would soon regret her silence. 

Michelle turned and strolled back to the house. Two—diametrically opposed in direction, no longer having Selene to tether them together. But, with a hand on her chest, Michelle resolved that if Cinder reclaimed her throne, freed Luna and opened the way for Lunars and Earthens to have peace, she knew who she would fly to. 

———

“On Luna, I knew the man who brought you to Earth and performed your surgery. I tracked him down in an attempt to find you, but by then he’d already started to lose his mind. All I could get out of him was that you were somewhere here, in the Commonwealth.”  

Tell him good-bye

“Where is she?” 

Logan was shoved backwards, head lolling as the whiplash caught him. He dumbly flailed his hands but was too blindsided to direct a blow.  

Sage Darnel was much shorter than Logan, but he towered over him as Logan’s knees gave out. He crumpled to the ground. 

“Is she alive?” Sage demanded again, lugging him up by the collar. His sky-blue eyes were stormy and fierce and Logan couldn’t hold them. 

His breaths were shallow and irregular, mind vague and unfocused. He couldn’t remember where he was, why he was here… 

“Logan!” Sage barked. 

“Alive,” he gasped, wincing as nails dug into his flesh. “Alive. Barely.”  

When Sage had ambushed him outside the android dealer, Logan had taken off with the tenacity of a sprinter. But his internal compass failed him and Sage chased him down, cornering him in this alleyway.  

Sage snarled, his canines gleaming in the moonlight. “What do you mean?” 

“Broken,” bubbled from his lips. “Too broken. Bone and skin and ashes.” 

“What are you saying, Logan?” he spat. 

Princess Selene’s burnt corpse flashed past his vision. Blood and pus oozing from welts. Bones and skin mangled. Her charred eyes in his hands. Pieces of her brain sitting on his operating table. “I had to fix her.” 

“Fix what? Her body? From the fire?” 

Chopping and stitching and sawing and praying. “Metal and grafts.” 

His anger wilted with realisation. “She’s a cyborg, isn't she?” 

Stupidly, Logan thought that this shift might give him an advantage. He wrestled against the iron grip, sneering, “Levana sent you to take her!”  

Sage shoved him further up the wall, invading his space so closely that Logan could feel his breath on his chin. “I want to rip Levana apart with my own two hands and return Selene to her throne.” 

“Why?” he choked. 

“Because she killed my daughter. What’s your reason?” 

He had none, no personal stake, except for the sake of his country. “To fight her,” he settled on, not really knowing what it meant. 

“Good. So where is she?” 

Stars, how did they ever take this man’s daughter away from him? Logan was certain he was only a millisecond away from smashing his skull against the brick wall. 

“Logan!” 

“Commonwealth! The Eastern Commonwealth!” he cried, awaiting the blow.  

“Where? Where in the Eastern Commonwealth?” 

He couldn’t feel the blow, but it must have come. Why else was his brain screaming? His body burning hotter than a playhouse in a toddler’s nursery? Incoherent spluttering vomited from his mouth, breaths coming out but none able to come in. He was asphyxiating. He was bleeding. He was brainless. 

Sage’s frantic blue eyes were not enough to keep Logan’s attention. It was fixed at the end of the alleyway—a figure drenched in moon light approached. 

“Where?!” 

“Yes Logan, where? Where did you put her?” mocked Dr Eliot, her silhouette growing clearer. 

“I saved her, I swear!” Logan protested. 

Dr Eliot shook her head, expression vacant. Blood began to trickle down her scalp in rivulets, dripping down her eyelids and lips. Then the trickle turned into a stream, swimming down her white doctor’s coat and staining it, the blood black in the moonlight. 

“I did, I-I promise,” he stammered, “I did, I did, I did.” 

Thud. He was dropped to the floor. He barely noticed.  

“You’ve lost your mind,” Sage snarled and stomped down the alleyway, walking straight through the bloodied ghost.  

It began to rain. 

Logan lay on the damp, cold cement, heart palpitating and eyes unseeing. 

Yes, lost my mind, his mind thought, as Dr Eliot’s blood drifted from the sky and blanketed him. 

Yes, yes, yes, yes yes yes yes. 

———

Before he had lost his mind, it had been kind to him. He needed enough mental clarity to perform Selene’s surgeries. With that accomplished, his sanity promptly handed him a letter of resignation. 

Three months. Logan had elected to wait three months after leaving Michelle before following Garan into New Beijing. Three months before he surreptitiously checked on the child. Time was needed to put distance between Logan and Garan, to stamp out any suspicions of a connection. 

As the reins of timekeeping flung out of his hands—another consequence of the Lunar sickness—three months turned into two and half years. It was then that Sage Darnel found Logan and pinned him to the wall of the alleyway. How long Sage had been on Earth, Logan didn’t know. He no longer remembered how long he himself had been on Earth. 

His encounter with Sage only worsened his fear. It became even more imperative that he avoid the princess. He could only hope that Sage either never found her or that he was true to his word; that he too wished to see her enthroned. 

But any others lurking around, searching for the princess, may not share those motives. 

Logan lived as a nomad, moving from place to place, province to province and never staying long enough to become a local. When he had escaped Luna for Earth, he had left the pilot helping him all his assets, his home and his investments. In exchange, the pilot converted all of Logan’s savings into Earthen currency registered under his new false identity. He had enough to sustain him over the years, knowing there was no possibility of him working again. Not as a doctor, with a mind so demented. Not with the chance of another Lunar finding him. 

He was pitied by some, ignored by most. More than once was he asked if he had wandered away from his nursing home. Once he was robbed, his portscreen stolen from him. It had all his connections to Linh Garan, but Logan had programmed it to delete all incriminating evidence if ever it was opened by someone other than himself. Now he really had to trust in Garan, because he wouldn’t soon be able to reach him. 

Between harrowing visions that reduced him to a trembling ball on the floor and sleeping and eating and shuffling about, he had memories. His younger brother tossing him a ball. His elderly patient sobbing as he delivered a terminal diagnosis. In the library, reading about the atmosphere of Earth. The pictures did no justice to the true colour of the sky, someone had once told him….who? 

One day as he wandered aimlessly around a grocery store, bumping into androids and accidentally knocking over shelf displays, a kindly-looking young woman stopped him and asked if he had a wife she could call to come collect him. 

I don’t think so, he had said, and she smiled pityingly. 

Logan had almost married twenty years ago. Bright and cheery Evelyn Eliot, with the mousy blonde hair and always concerned grey eyes. She was the aunt of one of Logan’s students and an engineer in Artemisia’s maglev system. Logan grew to care for her. He never revealed to her how truly malcontent he was against the regime—he didn’t think she shared such sympathies. But she was kind, and he would not be unhappy with her. 

One afternoon, two months before their wedding date, she burst into the medical centre, face flushed with sweat beading her forehead. In a low whisper, she hastily told him that two guards had visited her at her work and reassigned her to outer sectors to strengthen the security of the maglev system. The people were becoming defiant, the risk they might try to cross borders growing greater. Evelyn didn’t want to leave. She promised him that she wouldn’t go. 

Perhaps Logan should have confessed his hatred of the monarchy to her, because perhaps then she would have been resigned to the knowledge that refusal was not an option. 

That night, Evelyn disappeared. Bioelectrically manipulated onto a maglev shuttle and shipped over to her new assignment in the outer sectors. With the laws prohibiting travel between sectors, she was never to return. With the two of them unmarried, Logan could not follow her. 

He resolutely gave up on all inklings of companionship and love after that. 

A week later, he’d stumbled upon his former student, now Dr Eliot, tearing up her office in a fury. She threw vitals scanners to the floor, smashed vials under her feet.  

“They took her!” she screamed, wrestling with a lab cart. It crashed to the ground with a furious smash! “They stole her just because they can! We’ll never see her again! I hate them, I hate all of them!” 

She raised a stethoscope, ready to hurl it but startled when she realised she was aiming it at him. 

A hand whipped over her mouth. “I don’t, I didn’t…I don’t despise the monarchy—I swear—” 

Logan hushed her with a held finger. “Be careful who you say those things around, Doctor.” And then in an impossibly low murmur, “Not everyone around here shares the same sentiments as we do.” 

Her eyes widened. 

They never spoke again of their shared resistance. But their bond was always stronger after that, even stronger than that of a mentor and a student. More than that of once-to-be uncle and niece. 

That must have been the reason why, when the nursery went up in flames, she sent for him rather than one of the younger, fitter doctors who could have raced over much sooner. Why when she was taken in to be questioned by Levana and her obsequious snake Sybil Mira, she entrusted Selene into his care. 

All he could remember now about Dr Eliot was the blood stretching the lengths of that alleyway. 

———

“I’ll try to keep an eye on her for as long as I can, but I’m not sure I will still be lucid enough to tell her the truth once she’s ready. It’s possible that responsibility will fall to Garan.” 

———

Linh Garan. ID #0082700743. Deceased 121 T.E. Cause of Death: Letumosis. 

It took a week for the understanding to pass through his haze of incomprehension. 121 T.E. That was four years ago. The girl must be now…oh…fifteen? 

It had all been prompted by a ring of blue bruises covering a dead man’s arms. Logan’s roommate—a young man kicked out of home by his ex-wife, almost as vague and aimless as Logan—had stumbled into the share house one day panting and dead-eyed. Logan’s medical training resurged, winning over his incognizance. He triaged the man, asking his symptoms, observing his breathing. When Logan took his wrist to check his pulse, he saw the bruises. 

The blue fever. He commed for an emergency hover from the man’s port and hid when the med droids came to collect him. 

Surely he had contracted it himself. It could take days for the symptoms of the plague to manifest, and they slept on opposite sides of the same room in twin beds. But if the med droids found him and took him, they would discover that he was Lunar. 

No, if he was going to die, he would do it here, hidden away. 

After three days of mania, fasting and acceptance, no symptoms arose. 

He couldn’t fathom a reason why he hadn’t caught it. No Earthen had ever recovered from the disease. Immunity. It had to be connected to his Lunar genealogy. Logan began to posit that Lunar defectors like himself had brought it to Earth in the first place. 

The second realisation came as he was absentmindedly watching a newsfeed about the cyborg draft in the Eastern Commonwealth. If Selene was called in for the draft, exposed to the disease and found to be immune, she would become a subject of curiosity. Garan must be warned. 

He had never once contacted Garan since he took the princess, dreading that someone could hack his portscreen and connect the dots. But as he now searched his profile on the portscreen he claimed from his deceased roommate, he discovered the truth. 

Garan was dead. Gone only weeks after he’d taken the princess away. Now who could tell her of her own identity? Garan and himself were the only ones who knew. Sage still evidently had not found her. 

And… 

And Michelle. 

He hadn’t consciously thought of her in a while. He was occasionally reminded of her; a French voice in a newsfeed, a smell of earth and dirt reminiscent of her farm, some dish filling his belly with the warmth of one of her stews. 

Even now, just at thought of her, a taste of something fruity and tangy coated his tongue.  

He expelled the aching from his chest. Michelle was so much wiser than him. She could help the girl become queen. If he could find Selene and bring her back to Michelle…no, that would endanger Michelle. He couldn’t. 

Logan would find Linh Cinder and tell her the truth himself. 

———

It took three months to reach New Beijing from where he had been decaying in Uzbekistan. Travel was near impossible with no mental legs to stand on, and Logan kept going in circles, catching the wrong maglevs, seeing visions along the way that caused him to flee in the opposite direction. This he could try to push past, but gradually he became more and more certain that he was being followed. Something was chasing him, observing him, but every time he turned around, the pursuer disappeared. 

Finally, a backpacker took pity on him and took him under his wing, guiding him through maglevs and hostels until they reached a suburb just outside the grimy, charming capital of the Eastern Commonwealth. They parted ways amicably at the doorstep of the Linh residence, a squat home among rows of identically small abodes, all with worn awnings, chipped paint and litter strewn across the footpath.  

The house immediately to the left had a broken window, glass shards spilled on a patch of weeds. Logan was well accustomed to less than pleasant lodging, but even this street curdled his stomach. 

“I hope you can find your grandson, my brother,” said the kind traveller. He flashed a two fingered salute. “Peace and love, man.” 

“Thank you,” said Logan, sort of wishing he remembered the free spirit’s name. Once the rickety shuttle hover trundled away, Logan pressed the bell. 

Silence. He pressed the button again two more times. This was the address listed under Garan’s name; Logan had confirmed it at least fifty times a day. Finally after the fourth ring an anxious looking woman appeared, cracking the door open by a sliver and peeking out. 

“H-hello,” he stammered. “Are–are you...Linh Adri?” 

She shook her head quickly. 

Breathing heavily, he frowned. “You’re not?” 

“No.” 

Logan blinked rapidly. As the woman began to close the door, he shouted, “Wait!” 

Her hand halted. 

“Do you know where Linh Adri is? Or…Linh…Linh Cinder?” 

Her guarded eyes softened, the most infinitesimal change, but noticeable in her tone when she spoke, “The mechanic?” 

“...Pardon?” 

“That girl. Linh Cinder. I don’t know where she lives now. But the neighbours here remember her. She used to fix their water heaters and portscreens. They say she’s a mechanic now.” 

“Where? Do you know?” he blurted loudly, stepping closer. 

She backed away, hands braced defensively. “New Beijing Market. That’s all I know!” 

Then she slammed the door. 

Linh Cinder. He never dared to netsearch her name. He struggled even to say it aloud. Every corner he turned, some vision was there to taunt him, singing the name again and again in a dissonant melody, mocking him. They would find her. They would take her.  

A flash caught his eye. Something, someone appeared—just for a moment. He scanned the street, trying to identify the figure, but there was nothing. Goosebumps erupted on his arms, but he shook off the panic. Still, some premonition deep in his gut insisted the apparition was real. Was familiar. 

Logan stumbled away from the porch, took out his portscreen, and punched in New Beijing Market. 

———

“Scarlet couldn’t bring herself to tell her grandmother that Logan Tanner was dead. Had gone crazy. Had killed himself.” 

———

The hover spat him out at New Beijing Market. It was exactly the sort of place Logan hated to be now; crowded, loud, confusing and hot. His internal compass misfired amongst the cramped booths and overwhelming din. In places like this, he would only escape once the sun was setting and shopkeepers were pulling down the rollers. 

He stumbled forward, moved by a greater purpose. 

His eyes scanned every booth around him, searching for anything resembling a mechanic’s haven. He remembered Garan’s tools and contraptions, the gleam in his eye when Cinder’s metal toes twitched for the first time as he tweaked wires and screwed joints shut. Perhaps he had trained her as a mechanic... 

No. It had only been weeks after he collected the princess that the plague had claimed him. Had Garan blamed her for catching the disease? Did he blame Logan? 

He turned a corner, and there Garan stood. 

His stomach climbed up to his throat. It was him. He was the one who had been stalking him across the Commonwealth. Garan stared at him, eyes unblinking and bloodshot. His arms were ringed with bruises, fingers blue and shrivelled. Green foam spluttered from his lips. 

“Logan,” he growled, clear all the way across the lane. “Come here.” 

Logan turned and bolted. 

Startled pedestrians jumped out of his way as he charged past, clutching their bags to their chests. Mothers tore their children off the path. 

Soon, visions were everywhere. Sage Darnel slithering out of a booth and grabbing him by the throat. His roommate’s corpse writhing on the ground, crying out, cursing him. He was already expecting Dr Eliot’s bloody appearance. Though she taunted him, he was familiar with this vision.  

Visions. That’s all they were. Unreal. Psychotic. 

The ground swallowed him up. The traffic of the passersby threaded around him—all at once, he knew every single one of them. Thaumaturges. Doctors. Aristocrats. The entire city of Artemisia was here on Earth, at this market, trampling him. His eyes squeezed shut. A hand lifted his chin towards the sky. 

He squinted painfully up into the sunlight. 

Queen Levana crouched over him, blood trickling down the tines of her crown and dripping off her lashes. 

Pebbles dug into his palms as he scampered away, but she made haste to follow.  

“Sir!” came from her mouth, unnaturally earnest from those smirking lips and ravenous eyes. “Sir, are you okay?” 

“Go–go away!” he shrieked. 

“Sir, what’s wrong? Do you need a doctor?” Do you have someone I can comm to get you? Children? A wife?” 

Logan scrambled to his feet and barrelled away from the queen. 

A wife. Yes, he had once almost had a wife. Steady hands calloused from digging into dirt. Teasing brown eyes. 

No…the woman he had almost married—what was her name?—she’d had blonde hair and grey eyes. Who was he thinking of? Who was he looking for?  

He was looking for…looking for… 

“Logan.” 

She stood amidst the crowd, ten paces away. Every shouting vendor and sizzling frypan silenced in the void. 

“Michelle,” he uttered. 

She was as young as she’d been when they met. Melting brown eyes. Lips beckoning him. 

Her smile was warm. “Come on, Logan. Let’s go home.” 

People swarmed around him. A woman blocked his view momentarily and once she passed on, Michelle had disappeared. 

His head whipped around frantically, searching for her in every direction. Her voice was ringing in his ears. “Michelle!” he shouted, blindly crashing into a fruit stand and hobbling away, completely unaware of the surprised gasps and curses chasing him. 

The visions transformed. Michelle’s redheaded granddaughter peering at him from a booth table. A boy tossing a ball at him, he recognised as the boy in the pictures on Michelle’s wall. The boy who looked so much like his own brother. 

Twisting and turning through lanes, only spotting glimpses of her hair and smile before they’d disappear again, his calves finally seized up. He folded over his knees, intaking needy breaths as his eyes scanned around desperately. 

They landed on a girl. 

Despite her decent height, she was obviously young. She stood behind a table in a shaded booth, tools splayed out before her. Grease was spotted over her exposed arms and gloves. She was staring in concentration at the body of a woman who lay on her table, limp and dull-eyed. Logan cringed as she reached a hand into the woman’s open stomach.  

Had he wandered into some illicit part of the market where someone would dissect a person so openly?  

It wasn’t until the girl tilted the body slightly that Logan saw her innards of cogs and wires. The body was an android. One of those escort droids, perhaps. 

The girl huffed, blowing miscreant hair from her brow, and looked up. 

At first, she darted her gaze away upon noticing being observed, tugging her left glove higher up her wrist. But then a flash of curiosity caught her face, and she returned to him. 

Confusion. Something else. Recognition? 

Logan wondered if she would be able to help him with his search. She looked kind. Trustworthy. He needed help to find… 

“Logan.” 

Michelle smiled down at him. She appeared this time, not as her younger self, but as he’d last seen her. Greying hair, smile lines and jowling more beautiful than ever. The same spirit and open hands, a magnetism drawing him to her. 

“It’s time to come home, Logan,” she said, eyes twinkling. 

“Not yet,” he spluttered, “I have to find someone. I have to tell…” 

She shook her head in amusement, turning and gesturing to him to follow. “You already found me.” 

“I—” 

She was gone. He couldn’t pinpoint the moment she was there and the moment she wasn’t, but he knew she had been there. That was she out there somewhere, waiting for him. 

Sweet, Michelle-flavoured adrenaline pumped through his veins. He always wanted to find her. After nearly forty years, she was still the only one to have truly owned his heart. He needed to find her and tell her… 

He staggered to his feet. He wasn’t supposed to be here. There was nothing for him here. His gaze again caught on the young girl in the booth. Shoulders set in a hesitant confidence. Brown eyes—cautiously curious.  

His feet willed him away on their own towards the bright sunlight. 

“Logan,” the voice called again, sweet as a dragon fruit tartlet. One he could almost taste as his dry lips formed around her name.  

No, he wasn’t looking for that girl. He was looking for Michelle. 

———

“I hope you’ll meet him someday. Tell him hello for me. Tell him good-bye.” 

———

Notes

Tu me cherchais? = Were you looking for me?

I am aware that I am delusional and no one else is as invested in them as I am.

Fun bit of impossiblesuitcase trivia--the hair cutting scene is actually a deleted scene from my Cut, Comb, Detangle, Repeat series! I think probably only one person remembers that series 😂

Eagle-eyed readers may be able to notice which escort droid Cinder is working on 👀

@cindersassasin @hayleblackburn @spherical-empirical @salt-warrior @just2bubbly @gingerale2017 @slmkaider @luna-maximoff-22 @kaixiety @snozkat @mirrorballsss @skinwitch18 @bakergirl13 @cyborgcourt @linh-cindy @therealkaidertrash21

[invalidstories]

Lunar Reverie (Part 1)

Part 2

In the heart of New Beijing, beneath the watchful gaze of the moon, a sense of anticipation hung heavy in the air. Cinder, the once lowly mechanic turned Lunar Queen, found herself at the center of attention as she prepared to host a lavish gala to celebrate the anniversary of her coronation.

Among the guests gathered in the opulent ballroom were Cinder's closest friends and allies—Kai, the former Emperor of the Eastern Commonwealth; Scarlet and Wolf, the fierce Lunar operatives; Cress, the brilliant hacker; and Thorne, the charming rogue. As the music swirled around them and the laughter echoed off the walls, Cinder couldn't help but feel a sense of contentment wash over her.

But beneath the surface, tensions simmered. Whispers of discontent circulated among the Lunar nobility, their resentment simmering like embers beneath the surface. And amidst the glittering splendor of the gala, a shadowy figure lurked in the shadows, their intentions shrouded in mystery.

As the night wore on and the festivities reached their peak, Cinder found herself drawn to Kai's side, his presence a comforting anchor in the midst of uncertainty. But even as they danced beneath the stars, a sense of unease lingered in the air—a feeling that their happiness was fleeting, and that danger lurked just beyond the horizon.

It wasn't until the stroke of midnight that the conflict came to a head. A masked figure emerged from the shadows, their eyes gleaming with malice as they confronted Cinder and her friends, accusing them of betraying the Lunar people.

Chaos erupted as accusations flew and alliances were tested, threatening to tear apart the fragile peace that Cinder had fought so hard to achieve.

As the accusations hung in the air like a stormcloud ready to burst, Cinder's heart raced with uncertainty. The masked figure, cloaked in shadows, had struck a chord of fear and doubt among the guests, and whispers of suspicion rippled through the crowd like a chilling wind.

"It's her! She's the one who betrayed us!" a voice cried out from the crowd, pointing an accusing finger at Cinder.

Cinder's breath caught in her throat as she turned to face her accuser—a Lunar noble, his face twisted with anger and resentment. His words cut through the air like a knife, casting doubt upon Cinder's intentions and sowing discord among her allies.

Kai stepped forward, his voice ringing out with authority as he addressed the gathered crowd. "These accusations are baseless," he declared, his gaze unwavering as he locked eyes with the accusing noble. "Cinder has dedicated her life to bringing peace to our world. She would never betray us."

As the accusations continued to fly, the Lunar noble's words grew more insidious, each accusation laced with venomous intent. He spoke of secret alliances forged in the shadows, of betrayal and deceit lurking beneath Cinder's carefully crafted facade.

"She sold us out to the Earthens," the noble declared, his voice dripping with scorn. "She's been colluding with them all along, trading our secrets for her own gain."

Cinder felt a chill run down her spine as she heard the accusations hurled against her. The weight of their implications threatened to crush her beneath their burden, and she struggled to find her voice amidst the storm of doubt and suspicion.

But as she turned to her friends for support, she found their eyes clouded with uncertainty, their trust shaken by the noble's words. Scarlet and Wolf exchanged wary glances, their expressions mirroring the doubt that gnawed at Cinder's heart.

"I can't believe this," Scarlet murmured, her voice barely above a whisper.

Cinder's chest tightened with anguish as she searched for the words to defend herself, to convince her friends of her innocence. But before she could speak, Kai stepped forward, his expression grave.

"I need to hear the truth from you, Cinder," he said, his voice firm but tinged with sorrow. "Did you betray us? Did you betray me?"

Cinder felt as if the ground had dropped out from beneath her feet, the weight of Kai's accusation crushing her spirit. A headache began to form, to remind her if she were normal she would've cried. She looked into his gaze, once filled with love and trust, now clouded with doubt and uncertainty.

"No, Kai, I would never…" she began, her voice breaking with emotion. But the words caught in her throat, choked by the weight of her own despair.

As the weight of Kai's accusation hung heavy in the air, a suffocating silence descended upon the room. The accusing noble stood triumphant, his smirk twisting with satisfaction as he watched the doubt and uncertainty spread like a virus among Cinder's friends.

But amidst the turmoil, a glimmer of defiance flickered in Cinder's eyes. Despite the crushing weight of betrayal and doubt, she refused to surrender to despair. With every ounce of strength she could muster, she pushed back against the accusations, her voice ringing out with a fierce determination.

"I swear on my life, I have never betrayed you," she declared, her words echoing through the room like a clarion call. "I would never betray any of you."

Her friends hesitated, their expressions caught between disbelief and longing, torn between the trust they once held in Cinder and the doubts sown by the noble's accusations. And as they searched her eyes for answers, Cinder could see the flicker of uncertainty warring with the bonds of friendship that had once bound them together.

But before the tension could escalate any further, a voice cut through the silence—a voice that carried with it a sense of authority and wisdom that demanded attention.

"It's not enough to swear your innocence, Cinder," Kai said, his voice low and solemn. "We need evidence. We need proof."

Cinder's heart sank at his words, the weight of his doubt crushing her spirit even further. But amidst the despair, a spark of determination ignited within her—a resolve to prove her innocence, no matter what the cost.

And so, with a heavy heart and tears still glistening in her eyes, Cinder turned away from her friends and set out on a journey to uncover the truth. For she knew that even if the road ahead was fraught with peril and uncertainty, she could not rest until her name was cleared and her honor restored.

And so, with each step she took, Cinder vowed to fight with every fiber of her being, to overcome the doubts and accusations that threatened to tear her world apart. For she knew that only by confronting the shadows of betrayal head-on could she hope to emerge victorious and reclaim the trust and friendship she held so dear. Masterlist

[chemicallyyourss]

*Okay, this is the first writing I’ve done in, like, at least 5 years lol. I’m not entirely happy about it, but I’m rusty so I’m cutting myself some slack. Read the bottom after the fic for more notes please!

Reassurance

2.1 k words

[Cinder and Kai are relaxing until Cinder picks up on something bothering Kai and she works to reassure him.]

—

Cinder hummed gently before letting out a satisfied sigh as she scrolled through her netlink, looking at the latest news reports and social updates from her longtime friends. She was sat upright in bed with the sheet and blanket pulled to her hip, Kai lying beside her in the bed with his head in her lap. Her flesh hand curled around the whisps of his hair that occasionally fell in his eyes. He was like a radiating heat on her side. He curled against her while reading the latest of their eldest daughter's favorite books. It wasn't something he would have normally read on a whim, but he thoroughly enjoyed looking into their kids' hobbies and interests even when he was away from them.

The room was quiet besides their breaths and the occasional turn of a page. Just the two of them were alone in their large suite. The kids were out somewhere, Peony probably studying the flowers in the Palace gardens, Rikan more than likely following Torin on his heels everywhere he goes but his parents more hoped that he would be enjoying himself and being a sweet boy to the Palace staff. Yue, still just a toddler, was set down for her evening nap in the nursery, which meant that Cinder and Kai had a rare evening to themselves, and they wanted to savor every second wrapped up in peaceful quiet with each other.

About 43 minutes had passed since they had settled into their positions beside each other in the large bed when Kai started to stir. He wrapped a bit more over his wife, a leg hooking over hers as he reached for her hand and ran his fingers over hers, stopping at the ring he had put on her years ago. He twiddled it in his fingers, spinning it around her finger. He still had the book in one hand but didn't seem as interested in it. His eyes bored into the ring on her finger instead. Cinder blinked the stream of media pulled up in her iris away and watched him quietly as he set the book down on the edge of the bed and turned to fully encompass her around the middle with his arms. She ruffled his black hair.

"A univ for your thoughts?" she posed.

Kai pressed his lips together slightly with a short hum before turning to look up at Cinder from her lap. "Can I braid your hair?"

Cinder blinked and frowned. He wasn't talking and he usually fiddled with things- Cinder's jewelry, her and their kid's hair- when his thoughts were racing with worry. Kai had a good amount of steel nerves from being a ruling emperor of an entire nation but over the years it had dwindled slightly. His parents' untimely tragic deaths when he was still young, Levana's threats of marriage and war and death, being kidnapped and shot (albeit with a tranquilizer) by his future wife and mother of his children... It had really just dwindled after they had each of their children. Before, the things Kai went through almost brazened him. He cheekily lied to Levana and her lackies without much concern to hide it, he almost laughed at her at times. Bringing their children into this world made him much more anxious. Cinder understood it in a way. Their children worried her at times as well. She worried whether they would get hurt, or slip up, or feel any way other than happy.

She nodded quietly and scooted forward on the bed so he could slip behind her. She felt her hair slip out of the ponytail she had messily shoved it into earlier after getting out of the last meeting of the day, and then his fingers were in her hair, combing through little tangles and knots. There was a gentle tugging in places but she didn't mind. She leaned back slightly on his stomach. "Kai?"

Kai hummed an inquisitive response around the hair tie of hers that he held in his mouth.

Cinder was quiet a moment before continuing. "Do you have something going on in your head?"

Kai's fingers stilled in her hair and his body stiffened for just a moment before he unsurely continued his pursuit to detangle her hair. "No, just been thinking a little too much about little things."

Cinder turned her head as much as she could while he worked at her scalp. "You can tell me, you know. Whether its big or small. But if it's big and you keep it from me I might not take it as well, so out with it now."

Kai chuckled lightly and wrapped his arms around her shoulders from behind and his face appeared beside hers, a slight smile playing on his face. It didn't reach his eyes. He kissed her temple before leaning back and parting her hair for a braid. "Just thinking about the future."

"Kai." She turned around in the bed and looked at him pointedly.

He put his hands up, conceding. "Okay, okay. Just let me busy my hands with your hair and I'll talk."

She settled back into her spot in front of him with her back to him and he began to braid. Since having two daughters, he'd added intricate braiding to his list of skills. "Peony's getting older."

"Yes?" Cinder replied, slightly unsure where he was going with this. Their eldest daughter was 13 years old now.

The room was still quite quiet, save for their talking, the rustling of the bed and his fingers in her hair, and their breath. She could feel his breath at each exhale behind her neck.

"I just... I don't know." Kai sighed, struggling for the right words. "Its getting closer to the time that... she'll be taking the throne, and she'll have what all lies on us will be on her."

Cinder's eyebrows furrowed. Peony was still 13. She couldn't take the throne until she was at least 16, and even that would only happen if they both passed away- which they didn't plan on doing. They planned to pass on the throne in maybe a decade or two, when their kids will have a good standing and a confident ability to take care of the responsibilities of a national leader. They wouldn't do it until their kids were ready to pick up the torch, but also didn't want for them to have to take on this role in the same tragic, lost way that Kai did, moments after becoming an orphan. They wouldn't rule forever and would pass on the role to their children when they were full grown adults and then Cinder and Kai would "retire" and be there for their children. For stars sakes, Peony wasn't even out of school, or had even had her first kiss yet, what was he doing thinking this far ahead of time?

She put a hand over her shoulder and laid it on top of his hand, stilling it while he was still weaving her strands of hair into a braid. "Kai, honey- that won't be happening for at least a decade, two if we can help it."

Kai heaved a heavy sigh, and some loose strands of Cinders hair blew past her face from the force. "I know. It just always gnaws at the back of my mind. It's been an honor to service my country, no matter the sacrifices and the sheer weight of the job. But our sweet Peony... and Rikan, and Yue..."

Cinder smiled lightly at the sentiment and emotion in her husband's voice whenever he spoke of their children. His whole world was his family.

His voice was quiet. "I just can't imagine willingly putting this on them."

Cinder felt the hair tie slip over the end of her hair as Kai finished the long, intricate braid in her hair. She finally turned around and sat facing him, their knees touching, and took his hands in hers. She looked into his eyes and wished he could see the amount of adoration she felt for him in her synthetic eyes. "Kaito. You're the strongest moral ruler I know. We will have this country- and the world, including Luna- in a truly wonderful spot before any of our children have to take on our responsibility. We will teach them absolutely every little thing they should know about being Emperor and Empress, ruling a country, foreign affairs, alliances, balancing the act with their own lives, and anything else we feel they need to know. And when the time comes for them to step into power, we'll still be here to help them and guide them through it when needed. We'll still be a shoulder to cry on and a light in the storm. We've taught them all how to walk and we'll teach them all to rule."

Kai smiled, his eyes shining as he leaned his forehead against hers, their noses brushing. "Thank you for being my cool voice of reason," he murmured, his breath wavering on her mouth. She smiled back and intertwined the fingers of her left metal hand with his right hand and wrapped her right flesh hand around the back curve of his neck.

"Always." she said simply.

Kai's smile grew impossibly wider. "I love you."

"I love you too," Cinder kissed him sweetly on the mouth before leaving a peck on his forehead and leaning away to look him in the face again. "They'll do wonderfully. They have the best teacher," she poked a finger at his nose. His arms circled around her waist and he laid her down parallel to him on the bed, laying on their sides to face each other as he closed his eyes.

"I just can't even imagine them going through this," he murmured. "The sweet little things that couldn't even sit upright at first..."

Cinder snorted. "Kai, we both started as babies too. And now we rule a country and have three kids together."

Kai grinned, eyes still closed. "You know what I mean."

It was different when it was their kids who had to do it.

Cinder grinned back. "Yeah, I do. They're too sweet for this and the weight of the world on them. They won't have to go through what all we did to get here at least, and they've got tons of years until they take the throne and multiple good advisers for the time being. Including us. They'll be capable adults by then."

Kai hummed in agreement. Cinder closed her eyes. The door creaked open.

"Mom, Dad?"

They both sat up and looked to the door where Peony stood with Yue balanced on her hip and her portscreen in the other hand. Her eyes, a deep chocolate brown, swept over her parents and inspected the scene. "Is that my book?"

Kai looked to the edge of the bed where he'd set the book, his ears turning a faint shade of pink. "Uh, yeah. I wanted to see what all the hype was about."

Peony snorted, much like her mother. Cinder held in a laugh herself. Kai gave his daughter a pointed look and held out his arms. "Come here, my princesses."

Peony rolled her eyes but walked to the bed and handed Yue to Kai, while Peony crawled in next to her mother, who pet Peony's jet black hair. Kai kissed Yue on top of her brown hair that was identical to Cinders and held her to his chest. Fast, thudding footsteps outside made them all turn back to the doorway in time to see Rikan in the doorway, his black hair standing at attention, Iko standing behind him. "We saw the girls heading this way and I told him I'd race him," Iko said.

Cinder nodded. "Must've been a long run," she said, referencing her son's wild copper eyes.

Iko hummed. "We might've had to duck around some guards. And Torin."

Cinder and Kai both snorted and Kai put a hand to his brow.

"I'm joining!" Rikan announced before piling on the bed.

Kai yelped and tightened his grip on his youngest child when the bed shook. "Careful, Rikan, your sister-"

"Oh, sorry, Daddy."

Peony reached over and grabbed Rikan, pulling him down beside her. Yue fought a little to get out of Kai's arms and get to her siblings, so Kai laid back down on the bed and set her on the bed as well. He grinned as she piled on top of her two older siblings. He made eye contact with his wife over the huddle of their children. "Maybe I'm thinking too much," he said. "Governing the country seems like light work compared to parenting."

Cinder laughed hard.

—

I’ve kind of created this whole sort of idea for Cinder and Kai’s future after the Revolution- like their kids, their names, appearances, Cinder and Kai’s plans to help their kids adjust to royal life and get ready for their ultimate rolls as government leaders, etc. I’d love to dive more into it in other works if anyone ever wants! I also strongly believe that Kai will be an absolutely awesome dad. I didn’t really see him as too terribly anxious in the series, as he’s been royalty from birth so he’s used to a good amount of stress, and it shows in his calmness in a lot of high-stress scenes, but I feel like the times where he smiled sort of daringly at Levana to defy and lie to her and at one point laugh at her and dare I say stab her, I feel like this sort of showed a little crack in his calm and collected show. He’s always been said to not be good at masking emotions, but I feel like when it comes to legitimate government issues it takes more to get at him. I feel like after all the events of the series he’s sort of lost the amount of nerves he had before, being more prone to anxiety and such, and I feel like when he would have kids he would just dissolve. I literally could see him crying thinking about what his kids will have to deal with and the expectations set upon them leading up to taking the throne. And sure Cinder is also anxious, especially having a hard time adjusting to royalty herself and never having good familial relationships, but I feel like they’ll both be rocks for each other through it all, and I feel like they’ll try their best to plan and build up their children so they don’t struggle as much.

Ugh. When I have tons of feelings or thoughts about something it’s hard for me to organize what all I mean to say and I just babble so I’m sorry haha.

The asker messaged me again to sort of give me more of an idea of what exactly the gist of his anxiety would be, sort of giving me free reign as to what I’m writing, since it’s been so long and I’m rusty so I have to get into the swing of things again lol.

If anyone else has any requests or prompts, asks, whatever they want to send me, please feel free to do so! Eventually I want to add all my previous works here and add to them. Please leave feedback if you will! Send me asks, message me, suggestions, requests, let me know if maybe anyone wants tagged, whatever! I hope this goes over well haha.

ALSO, I do wanna say, I DONT have kids, but I DO have a goddaughter that I absolutely ADORE and I am family planning with my husband so while I don’t have kids I embarrassingly have a TON of soft feelings towards parenting and parent-kid relationships, and my goddaughter isn’t my daughter but I care for her like she was and I SWEAR if she ever had to go through anything at all I’d burst into tears and throw hands bahahah

Also for another user who asked for this fic as well- @taliasims5

I’m thinking of a Kaider fic where they are laying in bed in the evening all lazy, cinder is scrolling social media and Kai is reading. Then all the sudden Kai puts his port down and rolls over to her and asks if he can braid her hair in the back. She says yes and he starts making tiny braids in the back of her hair. She knows he likes to do this when his anxiety gets bad, so she turns over to gently talk to him about it.

I’d definitely be down with writing this (and anything else) but what do you think his anxiety about? Or do you think it’s just the chronic anxiety he probably had after everything he’s went through. If you want you can dm me if you want to discuss, otherwise I’ll be reblogging with my writing :)

[cyborgcourt]

YOU CANNOT SKIP THIS.

I know I tend to post all the cutsie kaider bits, but I also believe that moments like these show the complexity and depth of their relationship just as much as their lovebird scenes. Both of them are clearly very distressed with the conflict between the state of the world and their relationship. Kai is upset because he felt that Cinder wasn’t completely honest with him about herself, and her genuineness and honesty was a significant part for the liking he had taken towards her. But Cinder makes a good point in her own defence that, yeah, his character at the time probably wouldn’t have handled the news very well. Then Kai revisits his concern about her hiding this information from him “forever”, obviously implying he saw something in their relationship, which is why when she shuts it down with a reminder of their differences and that “there was never going to be a forever” it stings for him (and most likely her as well). A thing I like though, is how in this moment, their relationship between an emperor and a cyborg is labeled as an “absurdity”. This is so amazing because they literally go on to defy adversity, this being part of it. And now for the awesome part, MORE EMOTIONAL CINDER! I REPEAT! MORE EMOTIONAL CINDER! (This part breaks my heart a little though). When Kai asks her how many times she manipulated him, she’s clearly taken aback by this because she never did. Then it says “a fire stoked behind her eyes” when she asks him if he was worried that he “may have had actual feelings for a lowly cyborg”…

MY POOR BABY FELT LIKE CRYING. BUT SHE CANT. You can’t tell me she wasn’t upset and hurt by that. A lowly cyborg. And this ladies and gentlemen is why Kaider is all around beautiful. Because they had THIS. This hurt and conflict that makes all their love. That. Much. Better.

[definitelynotisabel]

what people do when your desperately waiting for your favorite fanfic to update

sincerely,

someone reading their first incomplete fic.

[i-am-befuddled]

Me defending any mid show/book that my brain latched on to

[just2bubbly]

I need where they are engaged, & he gets jealous because someone is flirting with Cinder and she doesn't realize

Masterlist

Cinder's Perspective:

Cinder adjusted her shawl as she leaned against the cold metal of her chair, eyes glancing over the dancing crowd. She sighed, fingers loosening the tension between her eyes.

"You look quite tensed, cariño," a man whispered, pulling a seat beside her.

She looked up the meaning of 'cariño'—sweetheart. Cinder pretended not to hear the man's words, too frustrated with the party going on.

"Am I disturbing, mia? I didn't want to leave a pretty lady alone, lest she be in trouble," He asked again, and Cinder was happy to have used her glamour before hiding in this corner. She could easily ask him to shut up without causing a scene.

She threw a glance in his direction, taking in his attire, of a white shirt layered with an oversized pink-hue blazer and matching cut pants. Her retina scanner gave Alex Murel as his name, PA to the Spanish Senator Mateo Furlkren. It seemed Alex didn't take his time out to put down Garan's device, something he would come to regret if Senator Mateo wanted a good man to work for him.

"No, I'd wanted a moment alone," she replied, a curt nod in his direction.

"Funny how I share the sentiment," he said, flashing a smile, modest yet unnecessarily vibrant.

She hummed, swirling the amber liquid in her glass, as she caught sight of Kai talking with someone, his face dazzling as he chuckled at something they said. Cinder felt envious of his charming stance, always ready to put on a polite smile and friendly greeting. She tried hard to present herself as a warm person, but always ended up putting the wrong impression than what she had planned.

"Would you like a fill-up? I was going to get one for myself-" he asked, to which Cinder cut him short, "- thank you, but don't want myself getting drunk tonight."

"Don't want to wake up with a hangover, I see," he murmured, a slight frown donning his face.

Cinder saw Kai walking towards her, and to maintain her cover, she glamoured him, squeezing his hand as he pulled closer.

Noticing no sign of resemblance flicker in the man's eyes, Kai greeted him, eyes searching for confirmation in hers. She quietly asked him to pretend along, as she leaned against his form, putting some of the strain on her shoulders away. Cinder felt his hands come at the small of her back as she pulled her shawl closer against her body.

"Hello, Sir," Alex said, a hand reached out for a shake. Cinder found the sight comical, knowing very well that had it not been for her glamour, Alex would have fleed at the very sight of the Emperor, instead, he shook hands with him.

"I'm Zuko Alee, a journalist for the New Beijing Times, and you must be?" He said, the practised lie rolling off his tongue easily.

"I'm Alex Murel, I work in the Spanish Senate. Senator Mateo's advisor to be exact, you must know him?"

"I don't think it clicks a ring, can't be bothered with the Spanish Senate while I cover the Commonwealth News," Kai replies, "It was nice meeting you, Mr. Murel. I would like to share a dance with my wife before we call it a night."

Kai kisses her hairline, taking the empty glass from her hand, as he pulls her up towards the dance floor.

"What was that?" Cinder asked eyebrow arched as she felt Kai's nimble fingers thrum at her waist.

"What was what?"

"My wife," she mouthed, pressing her lips against his cheek. It seemed Kai had other intentions, as he dragged her chin to look into his eyes, lips crashing against hers, with more vigour than she expected. A groan escaped her without meaning to, and she felt quite thankful for having the false identity of the glamour.

"You're jealous," she stated, a giggle on her lips, as she noticed how Kai had positioned them to be in the direct line of sight of the man from before.

"That guy was trying to flatter you with 'I work for the Spanish Senate', you're getting married to the Emperor," Kai mocked, his voice dripping with satire.

"You're really jealous," Cinder laughed, hugging him as she lay her head in the crook of his neck, rising to lay a red kiss mark stain on his jaw.

"I don't want anyone flirting with what's mine."

"He wasn't even flirting with me. Some lady I'd glamoured myself into."

"That doesn't change anything," Kai muttered.

"I'm dropping the glamour, you have lipstick stain on your jaw." She didn't want him to be clicked for some dramatic headlines, without consenting.

"What are you marking territory now?" He teased, lips quirked up in a smirk.

"Don't want anyone forgetting what's mine."

...

A/N: It was fun writing experience, especially so since I was not writing angst after a while.

tagging: @gingerale2017 @slmkaider @impossiblesuitcase @fangirlforever0704 @cinderswrench @selwithwonderland @therealkaidertrash21 @salt-warrior @cindersassasin

[creampuffqueen]

Creampuffqueen Account Birthday Fic Bash!!!

Hello all my dear friends and followers!! Today is this account's sixth birthday, which is just wild to me. It's hard to believe I've been on tumblr for that long, but here we are. I just wanted to come on here and say how grateful I am for this account and all of the lovely friends I've made from it!

And, as a celebration, both of this account's birthday and the 400 follower milestone I recently passed, I will be opening up my fic requests!

It's been quite a while since I've done this, and it will likely be a long time before I do it again once this is over, so please take advantage of it while y'all can! I'm very excited to create things from my lovely followers' favorite characters and ships!

Now, there are a few rules/guidelines for this. Please take the time to read these before requesting!

When you send in a request, please send in the characters/ships you want AND some kind of prompt. it can be a quote, it can be one of those ship prompt things from a list, it can be some ideas and a general vibe. But please give me something to work with!

If I've posted for the fandom before, it's fair game. This is a multifandom blog and I enjoy all kinds of media. It doesn't matter how long ago it was, if you saw me post for that fandom then I will be down to write for it

These don't all have to be ship fics as I'm more than happy to write gen/friendship focused fics. If you do send in a ship, just note that for the most part I enjoy canon ships over non-canon ones. That's not to say I won't do something non-canon, not at all. But if you're stuck between two ships and one is canon while the other isn't, I'm more likely to enjoy the canon one. If you have a question about a particular ship, please feel free to send in an ask and I will let you know my thoughts on it!

Please keep all prompts SFW

BABYFICS!!! they are my specialty and I love writing them. If you've been craving seeing your favs with cute babies, this is the place to request it. Just putting this out here as I know babyfics aren't a lot of peoples' jam (which is totally cool) but they are mine! In fact they're some of my favorite things to write ;)

I reserve the right to refuse any request. If I won't write it, I will do my best to answer your ask with why so you can send another request if you want

You can send in multiple requests, but please keep in mind that I am just one person, and a busy college student at that. Please have patience! I will be doing my absolute best to get all of these written in a timely manner, but life happens, and I won't be sacrificing grades/personal life for these, no matter how excited I am to write them

I know that's kind of a lot but I want to keep things as streamlined as possible so everyone can request things easier!

Fic requests will remain open for a week or two, depending on how many I get. The fics themselves will be pretty short, probably ~1000 words each, give or take, so I don't burn myself out by writing all of them. This post will be my pinned post for as long as requests are open, and I will remove it once they are closed.

Happy requesting!! I can't wait to see everyone's ideas! Thanks for participating in my account's birthday bash!

For examples of my writing:

Writing Masterlist

Ao3 Account

[ibismessage]

Fic Recomendations

I'm not sure if this will reach anyone, but I made this tumblr because I've been having a particular hankering for The Lunar Chronicles fanfiction. I've been looking for some fluffy fics, and some fics that dive into the Lunar Gift in an interesting way.

I definitely intend to write my own, but I really need something to decompress after this past week. If someone has any good Lunar Chronicles fics they can recommend, send them my way!

I'd also be interested in the following fandoms:

Mouthwashing (post-game, or jumbotron-less aus)

Legend of Zelda (always my fluff go-to)

Batman

Avatar the Last Airbender (where my zukka shippers at???)

Basically, feel free to use this post as a dumping ground for fics, I'd love to read them and escape for a while! <3

[crescentchat]

my contribution to jacinter week!

wonderland 🍰🗝🫖🍄🃏

"tell me" 🎺🗽🕝⛓🍾

poison 🧪🪞🕊️❄️⚗️

[gingerale2017]

A Moment for Jealousy

Fluff Words: 2k Pairing: Cinder Linh x Kai Fandom: The Lunar Chronicles Setting: Dating AU post-college Warnings: None that I know of Ao3 Link

“Stars, you’re kidding right?” Seventeen-year-old Cinder asked her then-boyfriend at the time.

He smiled like a moron and giggled. “Darlin’ I know what I’m doin’. Have some trust, will ya’?”

Cinder sighed, though he was an idiot, she adored when he faked a deep southern drawl. At least she did before he annoyed her to death.

Naive, dumb, desperate teenager Cinder.

Blue eyes sparkling up at her, he turned on the bike and sped away without adjusting his helmet all the way first.

“Wait! Your helmet!” She cried but he was too far gone.

By the time he came back, she was waiting for him with a grumpy expression on her face.

“What’s with the frown?” He asked, innocently raising an eyebrow.

She scowled. “That was dangerous. Don’t do that again.”

He smiled, ignoring her. “That was glorious, thanks for fixing up the bike for me, hey.”

“Thorne, I’m being serious.”

“So am I.” He laughed. Then he tried to kiss her. She dodged his mouth and backed away.

“What’s with the attitude, babe?”

“Don’t call me that!” She whipped around and walked away.

He grabbed her hand and turned her back around. “Seriously, what’d I do now?”

“What do you mean ‘what I do now?’”

“I mean, you’re always mad at me for something-”

“I told you why I’m mad at you, and you don’t listen to me!” She cried. Stars above, she wanted to slap this guy.

“Yeah, and it’s stupid!-“ She actually slapped him. “Hey! What the hell?!” He spat out.

“I’m done, Thorne. I hate this relationship and I hate you-“

“WHY?! WHAT’D I DO?!”

“Don’t cut me off.” Cinder lifted a gloved finger and glared at him into silence. He felt her quiet threat and quieted down. “You never listen to me and you always do what you want. I’m done trying to mother you around all the time.”

He stared at her for a moment. Then he said the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard in an argument before. “Aw, come on. Y’know I got mommy issues.”

She yelled curses at him and broke up with him. Then she walked away without turning back.

“You’re kidding, he actually said that?” Kai said, giddy like a mother gossiping on Facebook.

Twenty-seven-year-old Cinder nodded. “Yup.”

“Come on! At least it was funny!” Thorne said, scrambling for a defense.

Kai began to choke with laughter. “You are SO embarrassing, dude!”

Thorne scowled. “You’re not much better.”

Kai cocked his head as if he sensed a challenge. “I’m a better boyfriend, though.”

“Okay, let’s not go there.” Iko crawled towards the middle of their circle where they sat on the floor. Iko sensed some sort of animosity going on, one that Cinder definitely missed.

“Go where?” Asked Thorne innocently.

“Jealousy wars.” Iko said without explaining.

Kai scrunched his eyebrows. “What jealousy? No one’s jealous, I mean, how could I?”

Iko side-glanced at Cinder who was playing with the rug. Oh, why couldn’t this girl comfort her own boyfriend before his mind spiraled with jealousy? He only found out about Cinder and Thorne tonight because Cinder never thinks of it as important. Telling your partner that you dated your current best friend that you still hang out with often is pretty important. At least to Iko, it was. And she had the sense it was pretty important to Kai too.

“I’m hungry! Scarlet!!! Hurry!!!” Iko whined.

“What am I, your personal chef? Give me a second.” Scarlet yelled back.

Iko sniffed at the insult. “Sorry!” She cried. Kai and Thorne laughed about some separate joke. Good, it didn’t seem to affect them that much.

Yet, throughout the whole night, Iko couldn’t help but notice how Kai would watch Cinder talk with Thorne, and when during those interactions he would get close to Cinder and just stand there. How he made a face when Cinder sat next to Thorne at dinner. How he offered to help Cinder with every action she made. How he kept interrupting Thorne when he talked to her. Thank the stars Cress wasn't here. Who knows how that tiny overthinker would rack her brain?

When it was time to leave, Cinder and Kai were the first to leave. She hugged everyone goodbye, including Thorne. To everyone else, including the ones hugging, it looked like a normal embrace. To Kai, it felt as if Thorne’s hands were a little too low on her back. He completely forgot Thorne had Cress, whom he absolutely adored, waiting back home.

The drive to Kai’s apartment was spent in comfortable silence, at least to Cinder. Kai’s mind kept working itself, saying not to worry, nothing was going on! That was ten years ago. It was also saying that if they had feelings for each other once, they could have it again.

Oh, but they did have feelings for each other. Feelings of familial love. But Kai refused to acknowledge that. Poor guy was always self-sabotaging himself.

What did she even see in that douchebag anyways? She kept commenting on his blue eyes and his recklessness. Kai had brown eyes and was quite precautious. They were so different.

“Hey, darling?” He murmured while they were stopped at a light. She looked at him.

“What’s up?” She asked.

“Nothing, I just never thought you and Thorne never would’ve dated. You guys are basically like siblings.”

She cringed. “We are. That’s what makes that whole situation horrible. One of my biggest regrets.”

“I know. But how did you even… I don’t know how to phrase this.” The light turned green.

“Fall for him?” She groaned. “Aces, I don’t even know. I think I never did actually, and I misread my feelings for him. They were supposed to be platonic, that’s why romance didn’t, and never will, work out for us.”

She smiled at him, but he continued to worry his lip. “What’s wrong?” She asked.

“Nothing.” He said said non-reassuringly. They pulled into the apartment complex parking lot.

“You sure?” She hesitated before continuing as he parked. “You aren’t jealous, are you?”

“NO!” He jumped, slamming the brakes. She yelped as her body flew forward. He set the gears in park and apologized.

Cinder laughed at the revelation, even when he opened the door for her, and stared with discontent. “Kai, I can’t believe it!” She snorted. “You’re jealous of Thorne!”

“I’m not!” He yelped, helping her out of the car. “Never say that again.” Him? Kai Prince? Jealous? Unlikely. Jealous of Carswell Thorne? Highly unlikely.

She kept teasing him until they reached his unit. As they walked in, Kai kept trying to think of ways to convince her he wasn’t jealous when she calmed down.

“There’s nothing to be jealous of, Kai.” She murmured, getting close to him.

He gulped as she smiled. She was so pretty, it almost hurt him. Kai didn’t even think twice when he pressed her against the door and kissed her.

Cinder made a surprised sound that he muffled with his mouth before getting lost in the kiss. He moved his hands up and down her body with the pace of their movements. When they sped up, he squeezed her waist and kissed her deeper, enough to manufacture another sound out of her. He couldn’t help his smile, effectively breaking their kiss. She smiled back up at him.

An idea sprouted in the corner of his mind that he subconsciously chose to act on. Once they caught their breath, he moved to the length of her neck. Kai did this often, and Cinder noted it as one of his favorite ‘moves’. She wasn’t wrong.

This time, though, as pressed himself against her he murmured: “I bet he didn’t kiss you like this, right?”

The vibrations of his voice were deep enough to send shivers down her body. “No one ever has, Kai.” Cinder was barely able to whisper back. Her hand slid up to the base of his neck where she absent-mindedly pulled on the baby strands there.

He chuckled against her skin, she held on to him tighter. “I hope no one ever does. Besides me, of course.” He said breathlessly, too preoccupied with pleasing her.

He began to kiss her again but Cinder froze. She couldn’t tell what about his phrasing threw her off, but some part of it did. It knocked right out of that ‘kissing headspace’ or zone, whatever you call the haze you’re in while making out.

He didn’t get the hint and continued to kiss her neck, wrapped in his desire.

“Kai?” She started. He didn’t budge. “Kai, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Hold on.”

He froze, immediately pulling away. “What happened?” He panicked as his brow furrowed as he continued to hold her near to him.

“Nothing!” She scrambled, noticing the hurt look on his face. “Just give me a second.”

“What’d I do?” He asked, practically begging her for an answer with his eyes.

Cinder blinked. Virtually nothing about their relationship reminded her of the disaster that was her and Thorne, but his little ‘What’d I do?’ was oddly similar to Thorne and their breakup day.

Except when Thorne said it, he was accusatory and angry. Kai looked like a kicked puppy.

She smiled, trying to reassure him by rubbing his cheek with her thumb. “I know you feel about me, and that you love-”

“Endlessly, I love you eternally, darling.” He butt in.

She gave him a knowing glance that told him to let her finish. “You love me endlessly, got it. And I love kissing you, don’t get me wrong. You’re a very good kisser.”

Kai smiled proudly. She continued. “But I don’t want you to kiss me like you have something to prove.”

He cocked his head, confused. “I don’t understand.”

She sighed. “I don’t know how to say this. Bottom line: you’re jealous and you want to prove to me that you’re better than my small list of exes.”

Kai was speechless, a rarity amongst his characteristics.

She squeezed his cheeks with both hands. “Trust me, Kai. I already know you’re better than all of them. You don’t have to prove it to me.” Cinder rubbed his arms, pleading with her eyes. “Just kiss me.”

He chewed on his lip, a habit he picked up from her. “Just kiss you?”

“Yeah, just kiss me.” He was still confused but was trying not to seem like he was. She could tell. “I just want to get this out; I also get jealous sometimes.”

He sputtered. “Of what?!”

“Your not-so-small list of exes.” She said with a raised eyebrow.

He softened, petting her sides. “Oh, Love, there’s nothing to be jealous of.”

“Even when I don’t look like that one model you dated? I was thinking about curling my hair like hers once.”

“No, of course not! You don’t have to change anything about yourself. The way you are is the reason I fell in love with you.”

Cinder sighed dramatically. “How do I know that I’m better for you than her? How do I prove that to you?”

He leaned closer to her, trying to convince her of what she already knew. “You don’t have to prove anything to-” He paused, suddenly shutting his eyes.

“Oh, I see.” He said, finally. He dug his head into the crook of her neck like an embarrassed ostrich.

A ridiculous smile broke out on her face. “You see, babe?” She laughed, petting his hair.

“I’m sorry.” He said, muffled by her skin.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for.” She kissed his ear. “I forgive you regardless.”

He pulled away and flashed her with sparkling puppy-dog eyes. “In that case, can I kiss you again?”

She smiled. “Of course.”

A/N: Basically this is more of a practice for a type of writing style i’m trying out, though i don’t know if i dod it well. also i personally love writing kai jealous, it’s one of my favorite past times. i would have done this more differently if i thought about it more, but this is a quick fic. hope you enjoy regardless. also, I DO NOT SHIP CINDER AND THONRE. hopefully this fic will forever serve as evidence.

tagging: @just2bubbly @cinderswrench @cindersassasin @the-wee-woo-royal @deprivedmusicaljunkie @crescentchat @wheresmymom-imlost @salt-warrior @rapunzelfromthemoon @briggycat @impossiblesuitcase @kaider-is-my-otp @definitelynotisabel @wassupnye @therealkaidertrash21 (these are for my kaider ONLY fics so please ask if you want to be tagged or removed <3)

[impossiblesuitcase]

Hope In It

“The queen is dead! The queen is dead!”

Imperial Adviser Konn Torin’s hand paused mid-air from where it had been directing bodies to a bay of ships.

“The queen!” screeched the young woman, rushing into the crowd of diplomats. She was plainly dressed in a beige tunic—the rank of a servant, and Torin didn’t think he’d ever seen one of Luna’s maltreated servants acting of their own volition.

The clatter of Lunar aristocrats and frightened Earthen leaders filled the loading docks. Since the emperor had threatened to bomb the protective biodomes, the crush of people were practically clambering over one another to board the ships. They hadn’t heard any updates on the situation unfolding in the throne room since Kai had raced off to find Linh Cinder.

“What? What does she mean?” reverberated off the walls. People stopped on the ramps of the ships, watching on curiously.

“Queen Levana is dead! She was shot!” the servant choked out. Her cheeks were coated in tear tracks, her eyes manic. Torin wondered if this state of delirium had arisen from loyalty to the queen, or rather, disbelief that the tyrant could be truly dead.

“No!” cried an older man, whom Torin recognised as from one of the Lunar families. His age was only apparent from the startled slip into his natural, worn voice. Recomposing, he asserted, smooth and youthful, “This is just speculation!”

“Princess Selene shot her!” She circled aimlessly, recycling the news to every guest that would listen. “The queen was shot! She’s dead!”

A hundred murmurs repeated those words under their breath. The Lunars connected eyes in horror—and some—feigned sympathy. 

The Earthens barely held back raucous cheers.

Torin’s ears tingled. He was not a man wont to extreme emotional fluctuations, but this news almost stopped his heart. Could it be true?

Realisation swiftly cloaked him. Kai went in search of Linh-dàren. If the Princess did shoot Levana, what other blood might have been shed? 

Kai.

He abandoned his position as sentinel and reached a fellow Commonwealth representative. “Ensure that everyone remains here until you receive an all-clear,” he instructed. “We cannot yet substantiate this claim. I will go and locate His Majesty.”

“We will wait for your return,” the man replied, bowing.

Torin shook his head as his mind paced two, three, ten steps ahead. Leaving this dock now could very well risk his own life. “I may not be able to. Lend me your portscreen and I will comm Representative Li with updates.” 

The man nodded and unclipped the device from his belt.

Taking it, Torin marched ahead, ignoring the whirlpool of sentiments trying to suck him back in. The cacophony was barely distinguishable, but laughter and crying and cheers spoke much of its meaning. Fury. Rejoicing. Anticipation.

———

The trek to the throne room was much shorter now than it had been an hour ago. The once packed hallways were now absent of officials, flashy nobles, servants, even guards. It was almost ludicrous to imagine that the coronation had been on that very same day when so much carnage and destruction had occured in such little time.

Fierce shouting grew louder as Torin neared the throne room. He began to run, turning the corner to a swarm of bodies blocking his path. Doctors and nurses wearing bloodied scrubs were huddled, shouting, “Pulse is weak! We need oxygen, stat!”

He came to hover nearby but could not identify the victim past the doctors’ tight shoulders. His own pulse faltered as it led him to the worst scenario. Where was Kai?

“He’s inside.”

He spun on his heels towards the magnificent mahogany doors. The voice was heavily accented—American—and weary. 

Torin composed himself. “Thorne-jūn,” 

Carswell Thorne had not struck Torin as a serious or even responsible man in the brief time they’d met. Yet the man in front of him now looked broken and old. He was covered in blood, his clothes ripped. 

“He?” Torin ventured to ask.

“Kai. He’s inside the throne room.” Carswell’s heavy eyes scrutinised Torin—flitting from his white dress shirt down to his dark pants. Pulling an arm from behind his back he revealed a black suit coat draped over his elbow. “I think this is yours.”

Indeed it was. Torin had lent it to Kai’s young friend Crescent, hoping to calm some of her hysteria. But if the small, frightened girl was not wearing it, where was she?

“I had no intention of reclaiming it,” Torin said, taking the jacket into his hands all the same when proffered to him. It was damp and left redness in the creases of his palm. “Where is Darnel-mei?”

“She was hurt,” Carswell said, voice barely audible and tinged with…shame?

He chose to not enquire further as to what this implied. As Carswell’s hazy gaze attached to the retreating backs of the doctors, Torin wondered if the victim was Crescent. And if Carswell Thorne was somehow responsible for what had befallen her.

Partly relieved but not yet satisfied, he straightened. “Is the emperor all right?”

“Dunno. They wouldn’t let him follow her.”

His brow furrowed. Kai did seem to care for Cress, but not enough, he thought, that he would abandon his search for Linh-dàren.

The two exchanged a nod. Carswell staggered away in the same direction as the doctors. He may be in need of a doctor himself, or at the very least, a glass of scotch.

Once the young lad was out of sight, Torin cast the jacket to the ground and thrust open the heavy doors.

A figure lay sprawled on the marble floor. Getting closer, Torin’s blood congealed. It was Kai. Blood pooled around him and over the throne near where he lay, dark like the black strokes of a Japanese ink painting. The stone of the backrest was cracked in the centre.

“Your Majesty!” he cried, racing over and halting just before crashing into Kai. He slid to his knees, examining his body with burgeoning dread. “Where is it?!”

Completely dazed, shock written over his face, Kai murmured, “What?”

He seized his hands into his own. “Where were you injured?” 

Appearing confused, he squinted blearily before following Torin’s gaze to his own torso. His white coronation outfit was bright red, his skin slick with blood.

“Oh,” Kai answered flatly. “Not me. I wasn’t…It’s Cinder’s.”

Torin pursed his lips. …Cinder’s?

Kai tried, weakly, to wipe it from his arms.

Blood. Cinder’s blood.

Torin shifted his hands to the boy’s forearms, pulling him to his feet. “Where is Linh-dàren now?” 

“They just took her.” Kai’s empty gaze drifted to the doors. Ah. It was not Crescent that he’d seen being carted away.

He recovered his sensibility rather remarkably. “Shall we follow them, Your Majesty?”

Kai rubbed at his eyes. Torin hadn’t seen the boy this shellshocked since the death of his mother. “No…I don’t know if Cinder…they wouldn’t let me follow her.”

He scoffed, guiding Kai to the entrance. “You are the Emperor of the Eastern Commonwealth and the King Consort of Luna. You can go where you please.”

Kai dully shook his head. “Was King Consort.”

As they reached the doors, he retrieved the black dress coat from the ground and draped it over Kai’s stained shoulders. “If Princess Selene survives—as she will—you very well may become King Consort again someday. We will not let mere doctors stop us.”

Slowly, a light filled the boy’s vacant eyes, as if waking up from a nightmare. Without notice, he took off.

Torin fell into step, trying to match Kai’s steady pace. But Kai had transformed, emboldened by the promise of again seeing his princess. Flickers of a rowdy ten-year-old and then a slouching fifteen-year-old returned to Torin; along with his reminders to walk orderly, like a prince should.

But this determination was nothing childish. This was the gait of a man in love.

———

Blood had dribbled on the marble floors like proverbial breadcrumbs for their quest. Streaks dragged through it, suggesting fast footsteps. Neither Torin nor Kai knew where the medical wing was located, yet the second they saw that crimson evidence, Kai began running.

Slow down, Torin wanted to call for both their sakes, because the emperor would overexpend himself, and Torin was not a young man. But such a request would be cruel to him now.

They were not the only ones running. Servants fled the hallways while others huddled in trios with nervous murmurings. Just as Torin was about to reach into his pocket for his inhaler, Kai skidded to a halt. A crosspath emerged—to the left, a lavish hallway of purple carpets, ancient moon sculptures and a grand piano at its end. The right, stale white walls, dim lights and no such frivolities. In between these two was a large reflectionless window, slightly ajar. Cries of battle and howling slipped through from below.

“Your Majesty, should we perhaps—”

Kai chose right and sprinted. This time, Torin could not keep up.

As he bumbled after him, he passed Carswell Thorne, standing at a distance from a different mob of doctors. They surrounded a gurney, and when Torin saw a gleam of a shimmering orange skirt, he now knew where Darnel-mei was. Slumped against the wall nearby was a disorientated red-headed girl, cradled in the arms of one of those ghastly wolf soldiers. Torin choked on his tongue but then recognised the particular shade of green in the beast’s eyes. This was Kai’s ally, whom he had met when they concealed the Rampion in their ship on the journey to Luna. He reproached his own thoughts for the snap-judgement, especially when the man held the girl as though she were the finest bloom in a garden.

Turning the corner, Torin found Kai beside a flashing red operating room sign, motionless as a nurse explained the imperativeness that he do not impede their recovery efforts.

Resigned, he bowed his head. “Do your best, please,” came his weak voice. He watched—jealously, Torin thought—as the nurse whisked behind the large double doors.

The port at his waist pinged, an unfamiliar chime that reminded him it was borrowed. He punched in the override access code, opening to a comm from an Eastern Commonwealth officer.

“Kai,” Torin called, gently. “Her Maje–Her Highness, Princess Levana has been confirmed as dead.”

Staring at the closed hospital doors, Kai nodded. “I know. I saw her.”

And then, the memory of the throne returned to Torin. Certainly Cinder hadn’t been seated there. But it too was tainted with blood, and that pool contained much more than a single body could have produced. He drafted the cracks in the seat in his mind, the point of impact small and precise.

Princess Selene shot her.

Her body must have been taken away before Torin had arrived. But not before Kai had seen it.

The raging battle below their feet niggled at his thoughts. Hesitating, he recommended, “I suggest we declare temporary control, until Her Majesty The Queen’s status is known.”

Another slight nod. “Tell them…as King Consort, or…whatever. Just direct them to stop the fighting.”

He bowed and turned. He would first comm the Eastern Commonwealth officials to handle the loading docks, then contact their own fleet of security to instate control. Perhaps they could reason with the Lunar guards to help as well. The wolf soldiers would be impossible to restrain, but if they could at least remove the thaumaturges…

He compelled his muscles to contract, to walk forward, unsuccessfully. His feet were solid beneath him, his conscience arguing.

Torin heard a shaky exhale.

He could not leave Kai.

He spun back around and covered the distance. “Kai.”

Kai’s gaze arrived, weakly, in that of his mentor’s. It was the little warning he received before Kai buried his eyes in his wrists, sobbing.

“I can’t…” he choked. “I can’t…”

Torin planted stabilising hands on his elbows as they trembled with his shuddering breaths. 

Anyone in New Beijing Palace could have attested to the fact that Konn Torin was not known for having a propensity for affection. But Kai, he realised bleakly, guiltily, had hardly hugged a body since the late emperor’s demise. That was unacceptable.

The distance discarded, his shoulder offered, Kai collapsed into him.

“It will be all right,” Torin promised into his hair. “She will be all right.”

Shouting chased them from the closed doors; elevated alarm from hard-wearing professionals that made Kai gasp. Torin covered the boy’s ears. He needn’t know what lay behind those doors. Because none of them knew. There were no protocol-issued, well-worn documents assuring that Selene would live. They could only rely on her demonstrated stubbornness and talent of living to spite all naysayers.

But Kai’s father had been determined. Kai’s mother had been stubborn. And they were both dead. Torin had lost two great friends but Kai had lost his parents. If he let this spread to his heart, he may never awaken from this grief-stricken stupor.

“Kai,” Torin breathed, “You must live.”

“...What?” Kai whispered, confused.

He pulled back, hardened eyes peeling away to reveal softness. “No matter what happens to her, you must live.”

Kai looked to the ceiling. “I know…my people…”

“No. You must live for her. And for yourself. Only then can you have the strength for your people.” He wiped the tears away with his sleeve. “She needs you right now.”

“I can’t do anything for her right now, Torin,” he argued miserably. 

Despite it all, Torin smiled. “Do you really believe that?”

Kai’s sharp inhales syncopated with the beeps and clangs from within. Torin had always answered his questions. ‘Towin, why can’t I play with Daddy in his meetings?’ ‘Torin, why do I have to go to the gala?’ ‘Torin, why is Mama sick?’’

This question, only Kai could answer.

As those eyes had managed every time before, they reached a horizon point somewhere over Torin’s shoulder, and the determination crystallised. Torin masked a sigh of relief. For a moment, he truly believed this time might be so severe that there could be no return.

Another embrace, this one Kai initiated and pulled away from resolved. “Call off the fighting and order the thaumaturges back into the palace. I’ll collect the Eathern leaders from the docks and have them organise the crowds. We need to remove the wounded from the battlefield.”

“Shall I divert medical resources to those groups?”

“Yes,” he ordered, turning on his heel and his feet moved in step with his thoughts.  “Repurpose as many rooms in the palaces as needed. Send”—he paused, briefly, slipped a look at the closed doors, and righted himself—“Send our own medical staff as well.”

Torin followed dutifully. “And…you’ll leave Linh-dàren?”

“This is what she needs me to do right now.”

In this moment, Torin was walking beside his dear friend Rikan. This boy, this emperor, galvanised for a new purpose. To prepare Luna for its queen. To carve out a space for Linh Cinder to fill. To aid her as a friend, an ally, a partner.

The closer they got to the docks, the louder the shouting became. Frantic servants and muddled aristocrats still cried the refrain: “The queen is dead!”

No. The queen would live, and Torin dared to hope in it.

Bonus

Sometimes, Cress felt like she was getting the hang of this being around people thing. Sarcasm was becoming more obvious. Body language more telling. But then there would be a little quirk of human interactions that would demonstrate just how unaccustomed to everything she was. Today, she learnt about sneaking up on people.

Cress was halfway through closing the door to her suite when a voice purred, “What perfect timing.”

She gasped and flung around to the apparition.

“Captain!” she exclaimed, clutching her stomach. The jolt was not kind on her still-tender stab wound. 

Thorne grinned, all purple button-up and dimpled cheeks and bergamot cologne, materialised in the spot that was seconds-before empty. “Hey darlin’.”

Cress pried away her hand before he noticed it serving as an anchor and got that guilt-tinged frown. Any reminder of his (unwilling) role in her injury was a doleful experience for them both. Still, at least she could now walk without fearing her intestines would unravel.

“You scared me half to death.” She batted his shoulder.

A pleased look spread over his face. “Stealth is one of my greater qualities.”

She blinked at him. Repeatedly.

“Okay,” he relented, tone faltering. “Not necessarily.” He jutted a thumb at the door behind him. “But my room is just opposite.”

“So that gives you the right to near knock my soul out of my body?”

“I was simply coming out to say hello. I can’t believe that you’d accuse me of trying to catch a fright from you.” Thorne rested a hand on the door frame, pressing her back to the door as he craned his neck towards her. “I wouldn’t do that to my girl.”

His girl. Her heart began dancing an Irish jig for an entirely new reason. At least if she swooned from giddiness, he was in prime position to catch her. “Did you come to tell me something?” she murmured, unable to meet his eyes.

“Oh, you know,” he drawled. “I was checking out Cinder’s new place, all the bells and whistles. It’s not bad.”

“It isn’t bad,” she agreed. “It’s magnificent.”

“It’s no Rampion.” He retracted his hand from the doorframe to take hers. This time, she could look at him. “I stumbled into the gardens—nice, sure—but something was missing.”

“A waterslide?”

“Your hand in mine.” he corrected. He kissed that hand. “As long as you’re up to it, would do me the greatest honour and accompany me for a stroll?”

Her stomach throbbed. She shouldn’t walk for more than ten minutes at a time, and she’d already walked all the way to and from the dining hall for breakfast that morning. But her excitement rang louder than the ache.

“I know, it’s tough to think of an excuse not to go,” he said. “But I promise it’ll be fun. I even brought a token as a security deposit.” Reaching to his back pocket, Thorne procured a single rose, pink in its petals and tinged with brown at the base.

Cress pulled it into her fingers, awed. “It’s beautiful!” she cooed, burying her nose in the creation. “It’s a rose, right?”

He looked surprised, but only momentarily. “Indeed. You’ve probably never seen one before.”

“No.” She twirled it in her fingers, eyes fixed on the rich, fathomless colour. Oh, now she understood why roses were romance personified. She noticed that they were thornless, though she wouldn’t have minded if they weren’t. She happened to like Thornes a good deal. “Do they have more?” she asked, eyes gleaming.

“Hundreds, sweetheart.” He looked smug. His plan had succeeded beyond expectations. She was too happy to care.

“In that case, yes, of course.” She turned to the door, saying, “I'll just pull on a jacket,” when a knife twisted in her gut. She clutched her side, gasping as Thorne stole her shoulders into his hands.

“Cress! Are you okay?!” 

She gritted her teeth, hissing and attempting to take air into her lungs until the pain finally subsided. “I’m fine,” she said wanly.

He frowned. “No, no you’re not. You should’ve told me the pain was acting up.” He wrapped his arms around her sides supportively, sighing. “You need to lie down.”

“No!” she protested. “No, I want to come.”

He cast her a grim stare then pecked her cheek. “Tomorrow, okay?”

She scowled. Her injury was a poor wingwoman to her romantic life. “Okay,” she conceded, only slightly mollified.

“Here. I’ll help you get into bed.” Thorne pulled a hand away from her waist to push open the door.

Prickling erupted on her skin. She suddenly remembered what lay inside. “Oh, no, I’m fine. It’s not that bad—I can just—”

“Nonsense.”

She barely cried a “wait!” before the door swung open and the evidence spilled out in a rich floral perfume.

Thorne walked them both inside, gaping at the garden on the centre table. A mammoth bouquet of lilies, peonies, gazanias and foliage reached almost up to the ceiling. He plucked the creamy white card from the base and read it aloud:

In hopes of a swift recovery. Best Wishes, Konn Torin.

Thorne hadn’t yet blinked. Cress just about felt his token wilt in her hand. “I still love your rose,” she assuaged.

Thorne lowered the card, staring dejectedly at his intimidated rose. “I need to up my boyfriend game.”

She laughed. Cress tucked the rose behind his ear, giggling at his quizzical look. She leaned up, thirty excruciating stitches be damned, and planted a firm kiss on his lips. She pulled away. “Let’s start with that date tomorrow.”

Notes

This one's for me and @hayleblackburn, maybe the only members of the Konn Torin fan club. We're a small but loyal pit crew 😔✊

@cindersassasin @hayleblackburn @spherical-empirical @salt-warrior @just2bubbly @gingerale2017 @kaider-is-my-otp @slmkaider @luna-maximoff-22 @kaixiety @snozkat @mirrorballsss @skinwitch18 @bakergirl13 @wassupnye @linh-cindy @therealkaidertrash21

[salt-warrior]

I’m weeks late, but happy birthday, @cosmicnovaflare! Thanks for being my oldest and dearest tumblr friend. I hope you enjoy this fic, dedicated to you and all your ancientness<3

Wildest Dreams

Summary: Kai wakes up before Cinder, and she wonders what’s up with him. (WC: 1.3k)

Cinder awoke to the gentlest caress down her nose. In years past, a sensation of such a sort would have startled her—eyes open, body out of bed. But her head was filled with softest sleep, and she felt safe here, warm, as if all were right and good in the world.

She let out a soft hum, tilting her face upward as Kai’s fingers traced the curves of her cheeks, the line of her brow, the arch of her lips. She heard him laugh, a low sound so early in the morning. A smile claimed her face, and she opened her eyes to see Kai, propped up on one arm as he looked down upon her, hair clouding his eyes, the faintest blush decorating his cheeks.

“What are you doing awake so early?” Cinder asked, raising her chin to accept his kiss.

Kai rolled his eyes. “I can wake up before you.”

“You never do.”

“Now that’s just not true.”

Cinder propped herself up to look at him, eyes as level as they were mischievous. She poked him in the chest. “Name one time.”

“Oh, don’t you start.”

She laughed, then flopped back down on her pillow, pulling him toward her, his face pressing into the crook in her neck as he mumbled inaccurate words in his defense that only made Cinder laugh harder. Her fingers played with the ends of his hair, her spare arm creeping around him to hug him close.

“What?” Cinder asked when Kai mumbled something she couldn’t quite hear.

“I said I love hearing your laugh in the morning,” he said. “It’s the only thing that makes waking up worth it.”

Cinder felt her heart pinch, as it so often did where Kai was concerned. Once, she hadn’t been sure whether she was capable of love—whether she would ever have it in her life. Between Adri and Pearl and everyone else who regarded her as a monster because she was a cyborg, she hadn’t thought it possible that another person would want her. Would love her. Would be happy to wake up beside her in the morning. She didn’t think she would ever get over her own surprise. That she would get over how dearly she loved Kai.

Shifting, Kai pulled back, resting his face on her pillow, their faces only inches apart. The soft glow of the sun’s gentle haze bled through the window, shedding warmth and light on them both. Their hands, resting upon the bed’s cover, met and twined together. Kai brought the back of her hand up to his lips, then rested their joined fingers below his chin. She watched him all the while, until his eyes met hers, unmatched in understanding, and she wondered where she would be if not for him.

“Today’s our anniversary,” Kai said, voice quiet. “That’s why I woke before you. Although, let the record show that this is not the first time this has happened.”

Cinder blinked, her chest tightening. Her brain interface conjured the day’s date, and she shook her head, confused.

“Kai, our wedding was in—”

“I’m not talking about our wedding anniversary,” Kai cut in, rolling his eyes once again. Had her heart not been racing, Cinder would have told him—not for the first time—that if he continued to roll his eyes as much as he did, they might stay that way.

“Then what are you talking about?”

“The anniversary of the day we met. It’s been five years. Five years since I came to your booth in the marketplace. Little did I know I was about to meet the love of my life.”

Cinder scoffed. “If I remember correctly, you thought I was supposed to be an old man.”

“Once again, you were not what I was expecting,” Kai said dryly. “But if you had been an old man, I probably would have still fallen in love with you.”

“You were that desperate to get out of marrying Levana?”

“Definitely. But in your defense, I think you would make an attractive old man.”

“Gee, thanks,” Cinder said, struggling to maintain a straight face.

“But I’m glad you’re not an old man. To be clear,” Kai added. He blew a little puff of air at her face, scattering her bangs. She scowled at him. “I like you just the way you are.”

Cinder watched his face, that little piece inside of her that doubted herself—that piece that spoke in Adri and Pearl’s voices—waited for him to laugh. To say he didn’t mean it.

He did not laugh. Instead, he watched her intently, every action reassuring. His thumb rubbed the back of her hand. Her fingers squeezed his tighter.

“You’re my favorite part of every day,” Kai said, his voice completely sober. “I woke up this morning wondering where I would be if not for you. And I realized that I would likely be dead. My brain manipulated, my body and title used until Levana got what she wanted, before she killed me. A knife to the heart, the plague, my own hand turned enemy.” Cinder let go of his hand and pressed hers to his cheek, brushing hair and wetness from his eyes.

“I never thought I would have the opportunity to marry for love,” Kai continued. “I never thought I would be with someone that I even liked. In all my wildest dreams, I could have never imagined you. You saved me. You saved us all.”

“It’s not something I did alone.”

“But it’s something that no one else could have done,” Kai said. “Help or no help, no one could have stood in your place and united Earth and Luna. You did what both my father and I failed to do.”

“Kai . . .”

He smiled at her. “I’m grateful, that’s all. And proud. And so unbelievably happy.”

“Me too,” Cinder said. “Five years ago, the best I could hope for was my own emancipation. To run off to Europe with Iko. I never could have imagined you, or our friends, or intergalactic peace. It just—sometimes I worry that I’m going to wake up and discover that it was all just a dream.”

Kai shifted his face beneath her hand to kiss her palm, his own hand circling her wrist. “It’s not a dream,” he whispered. “My imagination definitely couldn’t have conjured finding Princess Selene at the marketplace. Or you escaping prison with an American convict. Or me being kidnapped on my wedding day. Or anything else that happened. It’s too crazy.”

“You’re right,” Cinder laughed. She wondered why, five years later, Kai was thinking of the first time they’d met. Not once in any of the other years of them knowing one another had either of them brought it up. There were always more pressing anniversaries to consume the mind in the middle of August. Rikan’s death. Peony’s. But perhaps time was allowing them to move forward—not to forget, but to make room. Maybe time—space, everything—let the light shine through, gave them the eyes to see the good that had happened with the bad.

Cinder would never not miss Peony, just as she knew that Kai would never not miss his father. That grief and pain would always be a part of them, but so would all the joy and peace that they brought one another.

She leaned forward, pressing her lips to Kai’s. It was a sweet, slow kiss, tangled with five years of knowing and loving one another. Of making it through everything, of proceeding in the world together.

“I’d do it all again,” Kai said when they broke apart. “Just to be here now with you.”

Cinder kissed the tip of his nose, a smile playing on her lips. “Me too.”

[theviolettulip]

I'm refering specifically to fics that have more than one fandom, but it's all part of the same challenge. Would you prefer all chapters together or each one being a seperate fic in a series? Like how Ao3 has the option to make a series.

[cyborgcourt]

GUYS.

Look at her little baby hand just dangling and those lashes aw. Plus the red lips okayyy. My girl came out the womb serving since day 1