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kuroneko1815 · 1 year ago

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Coming of age talks

Because of all the coming of age talk, I remember something I wrote for @eloise175 about a conversation between the Imperial family about their coming of ages. Based on her version of the Imperial family’s composition. I just decided to expound on this.

As Judith’s coming of age drew closer, or rather, as the year turned and she had reached the midpoint of her seventeenth year, the preparation began in earnest. This was a day that her parents had been planning on since her birth. On her father’s part, it was one filled with dread and grudging acceptance that she was no longer the baby he carried around every where.

For her mother, it was a reminder that the years had turned and was another milestone for her to mark the passing of years and her eldest child’s life. A life that her parents had sworn would be nothing like what they had lived through. It was much in the same way her parents had begun to plan for all of the milestones of each of their children practically since birth. A golden and flowery life mapped out for them, filled with nothing but love and laughter.

During one particular dinner, the topic turned to their parents own respective coming of age celebrations. There was a long pause from their Mama and Servant. The two shared a look with one another.

Servant coughed. “Well, I didn’t have the traditional coming of age ceremony. We were at war and I came of age on the battlefield, and to celebrate it, I burned an entire capital city to the ground after they refused to yield. And then my men plied me with lots of alcohol and tried to send some camp followers my way.” He said, reminiscing the past.

“Oh really? You never told me that last part.” Mama said with a bite in her tone.

“Well, nothing happened. I made it clear that I’d cut up any woman that tried to follow me to my tent.”

There was a silence throughout the dining room table as the children looked at their father in disbelief and with quite a lot of dubiousness, still unwilling to believe their father’s old reputation. “And what about you, Mama?” Rigel asked innocently.

“I heard it was so beautiful.” Judith said in a whisper.

“I heard it was memorable for an incident.” Kayden replied.

“Oh, what incident?” Dante, ever the troublemaker asked.

Eden looked on in curiosity. “Was it something bad?”

Their mother bit her lip. “Well, it was a lovely ceremony. I wore a dress your father gifted to me, but we had quarrelled before that and were on a break so I really didn’t want him to attend the ceremony, he still came, of course. But I tried to hurry him along so that I wouldn’t have to talk to him. And the incident was due to the demon Laila that crashed the event.”

“Oh…” The children all said.

Their father snorted. “On a break?”

And then he continued on. “You left out a lot of details, love. Like how you rejected my marriage proposal, which was, now that I think back on it, utterly ridiculous and I couldn’t fault you for it. Broke up with me. And… the grand prize of it all, you got poisoned and nearly died in my arms, and was in a state of life or death for days on end.”

The children all turned to their mother in horror as if to reassure themselves that she was really here and alive. That their beloved Mama was alright after such an ordeal.

Their Mama glared at Servant. “Well, I wasn’t going to tell them that!”

And then she turned to them with a smile. “Don’t worry, sweethearts.” Mama said. “Nothing like that will happen on your birthdays.”

“Yes, you’ll all have celebrations that would be talked about for years.” Servant said.

On Crown Princess Judith’s birthday, the celebration was exceptionally exquisite. There could be no fault found in anything. And it was clear that the Imperial family had not scrimped on any aspect of the celebration.

The former Duke cried on as he toasted his eldest granddaughter’s entry into adulthood with wistful cheer, only occasionally ranting about the wretched Emperor who had tricked his beloved daughter into marriage. The Emperor took it all in stride, turning it all back to remind them that the Empress had happily chosen him and had been the reason why a wedding needed to be planned in haste.

At the end of the celebration, a marvellous cake was brought out, layers upon layers towering over everyone. Just as the Crown Princess was about to cut a small piece of it. Her twin siblings who had been elbowing one another had accidentally pushed each other too hard and Dante careened forward into the base of the cake, toppling it over and nearly killing people as they all scrambled away from the giant mass of sweet confection.

The Imperial couple could only look on with a sigh that turned into a small giggle.

On Prince Kayden’s coming of age, a winter storm came out of nowhere and had trapped everyone within the palace. Fortunately, they were able to accommodate everyone within its halls, with great difficulty. The Emperor had decided to ply everyone with alcohol to ensure they would have a good time.

If a few people snuck off somewhere only to be hastily married a few weeks later and a few children were born nine months after the Prince’s coming of age, well… wasn’t that all a coincidence?

During the twins’ birthday, Prince Dante and Princess Eden had, with their first bit of alcohol secretly given to them earlier in the day by their Uncle Reynold, decided to challenge one another to a drinking contest. Normal people would have died by the quantities they’d imbibed in but they were dragon blooded, it was no more than a buzz for them.

If they were a bit chatty, then there was nothing wrong with that. If they were a wee bit too friendly, that was fine too. And then came the toasts and more alcohol in their cups. The hotheaded twins had then gotten it into their mind to challenge each other with displays of magic and had, as a result, nearly burned down the palace with a bout of pyromania.

The Empress wasn’t amused, the Emperor was merely angry that he hadn’t been the one to give the twins their first sip of alcohol as he’d done for Judith and Kadyen. Lord Reynold Eckhart, was subsequently banned from the Imperial palace for two months, and was sent away by his brother and father to some remote property to repent and reflect on his actions.

He came back exactly two months later with a baby that no one could account for (not even him because he’d been drunk), and a donkey. (The baby was subsequently returned to it’s birth parents and he was sent to another place to reflect and repent once more, the donkey came with him).

Penelope had been truly dedicated in the idea that nothing, absolutely nothing, would go wrong for her baby boy’s birthday. All of her older children had mishaps on their coming of age ceremonies, but she swore that Rigel wouldn’t have any such thing happen. This was her last chance at throwing a flawless celebration.

And it would have been perfect, had not the Prince in question been a mage with a particular affinity to animals. And as though to celebrate with them, the animals all came in, storming the celebration hall at his call and had cuddled him, nuzzling into his side.

The Empress could only smile serenely as the onlookers looked on in disbelief. Yes, of course, she gave up. This was something that would happen. It almost seemed as though their family was cursed.

“Cheer up, Love.” Callisto told her. “At least people will remember and talk about it for years to come. Well, talk about all of their celebrations, not just this one.”

#death is the only ending for a villainess #villains are destined to die #vadd #callisto regulus #death is the only ending for the villainess #fanfic #death is the only ending for the villain #judith regulus #penelope x callisto #penelope eckart #penelope eckhart #penelope eckart x callisto regulus #coming of age ceremony #imperial family #there’s a curse on them #they’ll never be able to have a normal coming of age ceremony ever again #Even generations down the line #the imperial family still has memorable mishaps on their 18th birthday

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totally-here · 5 months ago

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3 times Phantom's Guardian was Mentioned + 1 Time He Showed Up

One

Phantom’s introduction to Young Justice wasn’t as dramatic as Empress’ or Slobo’s, or even Arrowette’s first introduction to the cave. No, it wasn’t during the Olympics, or on a battlefield, and he didn’t come in injured and looking for help.

Impulse just brought Phantom in one day and insisted that he should join because he’s their age, interested in justice, and now that Greta’s human again they need another ghost member. So Phantom stayed, popping in and out for missions but never really sticking around all that long.

Today is one of the days that Phantom’s with them on a mission, that being looking around a lab of the Brain’s that had an energy surge recently, despite it being presumably abandoned.

Kon got paired up with Phantom to check the rest out first, since they both have better hearing than Anita and Tim, who were both still in the main room working on checking the computers for previous activity.

The room is dark except for the light green ball glowing slightly above Phantom’s hand. He waves it around enough for it to reflect off of glass, then throws it up to the ceiling. The light expands enough to illuminate the room.

Phantom mumbles about not knowing he could do that. Kon ignores him and moves closer to inspect the glass tubes to the side of several monitors set up.

“Looks like cloning equipment,” Phantom says, casually. He drags a finger through the dust gathering on one of the monitors. “Don’t think they’ve been activated recently, though, so that’s good.”

“What? You got a problem with clones or something?” It’s a quick and defensive answer, and Phantom puts his hands up in surrender.

“Not in concept.” He shrugs and joins Kon near the tubes. “But not a lot of people ask before making clones.”

“So I don’t need to sic Superman on you?” Obviously Kon could chew Phantom out himself, but few can do a “not mad, just disappointed” face better than Clark.

Phantom scrunches his face. “Why would you need to?”

Kon stops pretending to inspect the tube and stares at Phantom. “You do know I’m a clone, right?” The blank look on Phantom’s face tells him that no, he did not. “Well I am. Clone of Superman, though we’re pretty much brothers now.”

“Cool,” Phantom says, not a bit less friendly. He hesitates for a second before continuing, “Could I maybe ask you how you got there? Me and my clone have landed on cousins, but that was also, like, given to us by her evil dad. So.”

Phantom trails off. Huh, that makes three members of the team that have been cloned. Not a lot, but it’s weird that it’s happened three times.

“You’re making sure she feels accepted, right?”

“Yeah! Well, whenever she’s around. She,” Phantom waves his hand around, looking for the right word, “She’s a wanderer. Exploring the world and stuff. But Richard has a room for her at home, and I remind her of that whenever she does stop by.”

“Well, first of all, don’t push it so hard,” Kon says. Phantom nods enthusiastically. “And second, who’s Richard?”

Kon doesn’t know a lot of Richards, and he doesn’t think that Phantom ever mentioned one before. Or even if he remembers his living life.

“Oh, he’s my, uh, guardian? I guess that’s the best term. The guy I’m living with who forces me to go to school sometimes.” Phantom looks away and back to the tubes.

Before Kon can ask for more details, Robin and Empress come in with a report of dead computers and wanting to know where they’re at with the cloning room.

They’re unimpressed with their lack of progress.

Two

Wally doesn’t really need to come by the Hamilton Lodge that often, not when that’s Young Justice’s territory and he doesn’t want to get involved in all of That.

But Red Tornado said that the team has a file on a planet that’s very quickly becoming a league problem, and he figured it might be a good time to try to check in with Bart, anyway. Make sure he hasn’t run any cars off cliffs again and all that.

So he stops by Manchester to ask Bart about the file, then they both head East to actually find it.

When they arrive at the hotel minutes later, Wally’s surprised to actually find it… clean? There’s no visible trash or overturned furniture or anything else he’d expect from an abandoned hotel filled with teenagers. Well, maybe not filled, lately. He doesn’t think anyone’s living here currently, with Greta at Elias’ for the school year and Slobo gone.

Still, the room smells slightly of artificial pine scent, and Bart perks up before disappearing and reappearing rapidly, holding a teammate up by his armpits. Said teammate just accepts this, his legs folding into a wispy tail, and head rolling against his shoulders.

“This is Phantom!” Bart holds him up higher. Phantom waves. Wally’s only heard of him through Max’s updates, the same way he would hear about Preston or Carol, but with more wariness about the supposed ghost.

Actually looking at the pale face and glowing green eyes contrasting against the darker than dark jumpsuit, Wally’s a little more ready to accept his claim at being undead.

“He stress cleans,” Bart explains, moving to carry Phantom under his arm. Wally bites down the urge to tell him to put him down, but only because Phantom doesn’t resist the hold, only moving to get into a more comfortable position. His hands are touching the floor. “So what happened?”

Bart directs the question downwards, and Phantom heaves a very dramatic sigh. Definitely a teenager. It does raise the question of who exactly this kid’s mentor is. Hopefully he does have one. Maybe he’s the Spectre’s kid?

Phantom phases through the arm holding him only to lay on top of Bart’s hair. “I accidentally called Richard dad. And then fled.”

Bart nods sagely. “Classic. One time I accidentally called Max dad, so I had to start a fire to distract him.”

Phantom sighs again, almost dreamily. “Genius.”

Wally doesn’t have time to unpack all of that. Well he does, but he’s not going to, because there’s really only one Richard that comes to mind that might have the heart to take in a dead kid, even if he doesn’t go by his full name.

But surely Dick would have told him, or any other Titan, if he had adopted a kid. Right?

But there’s still a little shadow of doubt. Maybe Dick wanted it to be a secret, or it was really new or had a rocky start. Phantom doesn’t seem to hold himself like a Bat, but it’s not a guarantee Dick would have trained him.

“The lodge looks nice,” Wally offers out loud, which Phantom shrugs at and wraps his tail around Bart’s head to keep secure. “Anyway, Impulse. The file on Myrg?”

“Oh yeah!” Again, Bart disappears then reappears a few seconds later with a paper file. They really need to start digitizing more of these things. “That’s the planet where we played baseball so that they wouldn’t destroy Earth!”

“You what.”

The prospect of Dick following in his dad’s footsteps is forgotten in the face of what the hell Young Justice got up to on Myrg.

Three

Tim may be in a…Predicament.

It’s not his fault. Really. He knew what he was doing. He couldn’t let a civilian fall for the trap. But they were already so close, so he just, kinda, pushed himself into the rope instead.

So there Robin is, tied upside down in a warehouse, with the Joker below next to an overly complicated control panel. The clown’s rambling about bombs hidden all over the city that Tim knows Batman is already tracking down with Batgirl.

Tim’s not really paying attention to the rant because of that, more focused on wiggling enough to get the spare mini-birdarang out of his glove to cut the rope without notifying the Joker.

“Yikes, bad time?” Asks Phantom’s voice beside him. Based on the source and accounting for the slight echo, he’s floating with his head near Tim’s, likely upside down. “Want some help?”

Tim gets the birdarang out and starts sawing at the thick rope. They should be fine anyway, but stalling the Joker for extra time would be helpful. “Can you possess the Joker? Just hold him still.”

“The correct term is overshadow, but sure.” The voice disappears, and a few seconds later the Joker freezes.

His body jerks forward, then backward, and a laugh chokes out of his throat. His hand claws over his mouth at the noise and he hunches over. All movement halts before he rights himself, shaking out his hands and rolling his shoulders. Phantom looks up at Tim and his eyes are glowing.

Tim cuts through the rope, kicking and using the momentum to right himself and land on his feet. He brushes past Phantom in Joker’s body to handle the control panel. He turns off the radio broadcast and dismantles the bomb strapped to the panel.

Threat handled, he turns to Phantom and holds up some handcuffs. “Let me arrest you?”

Phantom obliges, turning the Joker’s body around and putting his hands behind his back. Tim lets him walk by himself out of the warehouse and moves the handcuffs around a lamppost. The Joker’s body jerks again, then slumps forward, just as Phantom reappears next to him, scowling down at the unconscious body.

“That felt really slimy. Zero out of ten, would not do again,” Phantom grouches.

“Why’re you in Gotham?” Tim asks. It’s not like Phantom makes a habit of visiting. The last time he came into the city, he complained about feeling the dead under the streets. Fortunately, that let Tim uncover a few tunnels that Talons travel through. Phantom, however, was unnerved by the Talons and left quickly.

“Oh, Solomon Grundy’s back in our sewers. Richard said I should probably tell one of you Gotham heroes, since you keep track of those guys.” He shakes out his hands like they were cramped in the Joker.

They hadn’t seen Grundy in a while. Tim assumed he was currently in a less violent personality. “What’s he doing?”

Phantom shrugs. “Just chilling. Mostly underground. I tried to talk to him but he only grunted back at me. He also tried to pick me up, dunno what that was about.”

“Maybe because you’re both dead?” Tim guessed. That would be a surface level connection. Ivy and Woodrue have had more luck working with Grundy than anyone, and Phantom definitely doesn’t have the connection to the Green that’d help with that.

Police lights turn around the corner, and Tim shoots a grapple to get to the roof above them. Phantom follows, but disappears as soon as they’re on the roof. Going back home, probably.

Cass drops down from the roof she was listening on. “Richard?”

“Not the same one.”

They both stick around long enough to watch the Joker get put into the cop car.

Plus one

A spaceship landed in the forests of New York, and Cassie’s team was the first to respond to it. Technically not respond, but check it out, since there wasn’t any alert or anything.

Still, Wonder Girl has Empress, Robin, and Superboy on the other side of the ship, watching what looks like the back door, while she, Impulse, and Phantom watch the other door and main window. She has binoculars, but the windows are so tinted she can’t quite make anything out.

No aliens have come out yet, and she hesitates to have anyone go in, in case whoever inside does turn hostile.

Impulse has offered to run through a total of five times already, and it’s a testament to his restraint that he hasn’t, and a testament to Cassie’s that she hasn’t yelled at him yet. Phantom at least isn’t being annoying, but he’s not necessarily helpful, either. He’s not even watching the spaceship anymore. Now he’s trying to make a flower crown out of dandelions.

“Door’s opening on our side,” Robin says from the comms. “But no one’s coming out.”

“Alright, good enough to try to get in,” Cassie decides. She turns to Phantom, who’s closing off the circle of flowers. Beside him, Impulse has since pulled out a gameboy. “Phantom, go in invisibly through the open door and report back. Try to see what their plans are.”

“Oh, sure. One second.” Phantom finishes the crown and tries to put it on Bart’s head. It doesn’t quite fit over his mane of hair, but Phantom shrugs and leaves it sitting there anyway before going invisible.

“Maybe I should shave my head again,” Bart says as his game character dies.

He gets a resounding no in response.

Half an hour later they have a very annoyed Green Lantern lecturing them about league jurisdiction and knowing when to call someone else.

Apparently, the alien ship was just stopping to complete some maintenance, and did not appreciate any spying on them, and especially did not appreciate who did it. Green Lantern was more than happy to explain that Wonder Girl’s team is not really a part of the Justice League and he can help with their maintenance. They denied his help and left to find a place with less people in it.

“-and you!” Green Lantern rounds on Phantom next, but Cassie knows none of them are really listening. Sure, they messed up by freaking out the visiting aliens, and yeah maybe they should have contacted the league about it, but they’ve dealt with stuff worse than this! It’s not Cassie’s fault she thought that this would have stuck to the formula.

“Who even are you?” Green Lantern runs a hand through his black hair, stupid green gauntlets shining in the sunlight. “Do I need to call your mentor?” He frowns. “Or do they know you mess up alien technology by just being around it?”

Phantom scoffs and rolls his eyes. “How was I supposed to know their tech would go all fuzzy when I came in?”

“You wouldn’t have to know if you just stayed out of the spaceship!”

“Hey!” Cassie cuts in. “Technically that was my call. It’s not all on Phantom.”

“I still could've been more careful,” Phantom says to her, ignoring Green Lantern as they argue about blame.

“Cut it out for a second, okay?” Green Lantern puts a hand between them and they stop to glare at him. He pulls the hand back. “Look, can I just talk to one of your adults about this?”

Robin glares. “We don’t need an adult. We have this under control.”

“Only because I’m here now.”

“I’ll call my mentor,” Phantom says. Kon opens his mouth, most likely to offer to call Superman instead in hopes of a lighter sentence, but Bart covers his mouth, smiling like he knows something Cassie doesn’t. Tim and Anita share a look, and don’t intervene as Phantom pulls out a phone from his chest.

It rings once before it’s picked up. Cassie can’t hear the other side of the conversation, but Kon’s eyebrows scrunch in confusion. “Hey, do you think you can pick me up? Green Lantern wants to talk to you.” Phantom looks Green Lantern up and down then says, “No, this one doesn’t have a cape.”

Phantom says goodbye after rattling off their coordinates, hangs up, and stares at Green Lantern in silence for a few seconds.

And then a swirling mass of black seeps into the space next to Phantom. The end of a cane steps out of it, followed by a leg, then the rest of the immaculately dressed man holding the handle of the cane that’s shaped like a bird’s head.

“Phantom,” The man says. His voice drips with condescension in only a way a british accent can, yet Phantom smiles up at him. The shadowy portal behind him disappears. “What, exactly, happened?”

“That’s the fucking Shade,” Anita hisses to Robin, who shrugs noncommittedly at her. Green Lantern seems to recognise him too, taking a step back and clenching his hand that holds his ring.

“Well, the team and I were staking out this spaceship–super cool, by the way–and I went inside to check it out, but my presence messed with their tech–which was an accident–and they freaked out, so I freaked out, and then we kinda got into a little fight until Green Lantern came to mediate.”

“Hm. Is that right?” The Shade asks Green Lantern, who nods slowly, still anticipating an attack. “It seems like the problem’s fixed, then.”

“Well, yes, but–”

“And it does seem about time for these kids to get home, doesn't it?” The Shade pulls out an actual pocket watch, chain and all, from his suit pocket and takes his time in checking it. “I’ll see them home.”

Shadows grow from behind the team, swirling until they become a giant, gaping maw that swallows them up and spits them out in a different forest, or maybe just a different part of the same forest.

Either way, Cassie has to take a moment to make sure she doesn’t throw up from the sudden vertigo the shadow portal caused.

The Shade looks at Phantom, and raises an eyebrow. “You can’t expect me to always bail you out.”

Phantom shrugs, looking guilty. “I know. Thanks, Richard.”

Oh, so that’s who Richard is. Annoyingly, neither Tim or Bart look surprised by this revelation.

#dp x dc #dc x dp #dp x dc crossover #this post was brought to you by me recently finishing starman 1994 #which i totally recommend it was rlly good and im happy i was able to read the physical version because there are some double page spreads #that were beautiful and i just know the online ver would've butchered #this is also part of my put danny in opal agenda!!#come on guys!! partially if not all powered by cosmic energy #missing heroes other than like benetti and the shade as far as i know #and used to have a ghostly curse on it!!! perfect place #also it's no-pulse coded because im still rotating them in my head like a microwave #the gl is supposed to b Kyle but sry if he's off i only know him from his appearances in yj and hitman #and i tried to do a read more thingy because it got long i hope it works

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