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snippydippy · 4 days ago

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Making up Lost Time

Midas shares a moment with his daughter late one night. Their connection is frayed, but mending with time.

*This short was written with the context of the Tumblrverse FN-RP community. It is canon to @king-midas-fortnite and his relationships with characters mentioned.*

Midas was sitting in the lounge of the yacht very late at night. Not an unusual time for him to be awake, and he expected to be alone. Especially now that the majority of the crew was living in the condos up the Zipline. Valeria was in his bed. She had stirred when he'd gotten up, but with a soft kiss to her temple, she seemed to have settled back into sleep.

He'd come down when rest again evaded him, bringing along a couple of the books that Valeria had bound for him. He'd poured himself a drink and was reading one that told the story of Orpheus in his native language when movement at the entry way drew his eyes up.

Expecting Valeria to have woken up, he was surprised to see Jules there. She stayed at the doorway, looking unsure as she fiddled with her hands, "Hey, Dad. What're you doing awake?"

"Hey, Jules." He smiled softly, happy to see her, "I should ask you the same thing. What're you doing down here? Wandering aimlessly?"

She smiled a little, stepping into the room and over to the seat across from the couch he was on, "I guess..."

Midas set the book down over his knee to save his page, "Are you alright?"

"Yeah." She answered quitely. Midas suspected she had more to say, so allowed the silence to give her time. Eventually she said, "You know I'm glad you're back, right?"

This surprised him. In a good way, but it pulled silence from him nonetheless. Which she seemed to allow him time for in return. A smile found its way back to his face before he answered, "Of course, though it's wonderful to hear you say that."

They both looked at eachother for another moment. Soft, knowing smiles on both of them. Midas set his drink down on the coffee table, "You know I am glad to be back, right? Glad that you have let me into your life, even more so."

"I know." She replied with a quiet laugh, looking back to her hands, "I came down here because I figured you'd be awake. Wanted to take the chance to say that, I guess. While you were alone. I know you haven't been sleeping...that you barely ever sleep, actually."

"Thank you, Jules." He said. Conversation with his daughter was difficult. Everything their relationship had been through up until this point, everything Midas had put it through had made any sense of normality difficult to achieve. However, Jules coming down to see him warmed the King so thoroughly. He wanted to soak in as much time with her as possible, having lost so much of it already, "I'm sleeping a bit better now than when you had all brought me back. I think spending time with everyone has done a lot of good."

"Hm, probably helps to be sharing your bed with a heater?" Jules asked. They softly laughed together.

"Valeria has helped, yes. She..." Midas paused. He was not an open man with anyone. But if there was anyone with whom he wanted to be, it was Jules. So he stuffed the hesitation, "She has been there for several of my night terrors. Waking up to someone there is new, and sometimes frightening with, well." he lifted his hands, gold catching the warm light in the room. Jules nodded in understanding. He continued, "But, she calms me, talks me through panic. Her company is something I cherish."

Jules nodded again, another small smile on her face. This man sitting in front of her was so different than the one she'd first met. Her father had been cold. Calculating, often downright cruel. She still did not feel completely comfortable being close to him, but she could see that he'd changed. he was trying.

"As is yours." Midas said, pulling her from her thoughts as she looked at him, "Everyone on our team here, but yours most of all."

Jules had to look elsewhere. The tenderness on his face was not unpleasant, but so foreign. Her eyes fell to his book, and she gestured to it, "What're you reading?"

"Oh," Midas lifted the book from his knee, showing her the cover even though he knew the Greek would mean nothing to her, "It's one of several books Valeria gifted to me. Stories older than I am, she recorded and bound them herself. All in older Greek dialects."

"That was thoughtful of her." Jules said, holding her hand out while her father handed it over.

"Very, yes. This one is about Orpheus, which you've probably heard. A story that a younger version of me would have taken as a warning on looking back, rather than a moral on trust I now believe it to be."

Jules flipped through it. The Greek on every page was indecipherable to her, but the writing was pretty anyway.

There was another book sitting on the couch next to his leg. She closed the one she had, gesturing to the couch as she handed it back, "What about that one?"

Midas looked to the other book, a flash of something crossing his face. More hesitations he had to fight against.

"That one," he started, trading the story of Orpheus for the other title. He held it in both hands like it weighed more, though it looked to be a much shorter story, "This one I am.. working up to."

"What do you mean? Is it about you?"

"No, older than me." He said with a dry chuckle, "It's a children's story. A short one, about a minotaur."

"You're working up to a children's story?" Jules asked, leaning forward with elbows rested on her knees, "Is it like, scary or something?"

"No, no." Midas laughed again with a shake to his head, "Certainly more violent than stories meant for kids these days, but that's not why."

He stared down at the book in his hands, the corners of his lips slowly falling down. Jules could tell the answer also took some working up to. She waited patiently, bringing up a hand to rest her cheek in.

After a moment, Midas tore his eyes from the title to glance at Jules. A smile returned to his face that didn't meat his eyes, "It's just a bedtime story. One that I..."

He paused again, his throat suddenly feeling a little tight. As open as he desired to be with Jules, he did not want to cry in-front of her. He cleared his throat against the feeling, "One that I used to tell to my daughter. My first daughter, Marigold."

Jules blinked, her turn to be made silent once more. She didn't want to let this one linger, though all she could manage was, "Oh."

"Yeah." Her father said in close to a whisper, setting the book down on the coffee table between them. His eyes flit between her and it, "Valeria didn't know what it was when she gave it to me. She couldn't have known, obviously. But seeing it in the collection was a surprise. I have not laid eyes on it since...back then."

Jules nodded, looking at the book before holding out a hand, "May I see it?"

Midas looked to her hand and then picked up the book, handing it over with a nod. Jules slowly flipped through it in silence. Again, it was filled with beautifully written words that she could not read.

"Marigold..." She said as if pondering the name. Her father watched her face as her eyes showed contemplative thought, "My half sister. My uh, much elder half sister."

He smiled with a short breath of affirmation at her attempt at levity, though he felt a pagne in his chest. While born some 2000 years before Jules, Marigold had never reached the age his daughter was now. The stubborn lump in his throat grew harder to swallow down.

He looked down to his hands folded together over his knees. The precious metal over his skin refleced his eyes, threatening to well.

The silence came back. Jules closed the book, letting her fingers trail over the title that had been carefully burned into the leather.

"What was she like?" Jules asked.

Midas blinked, eyes quickly raising to her. She was still looking at the title. He was grateful for her tact as he felt the sting of tears.

"She was..." Another hard swallow, his voice trembled as he continued, "She was beautiful. Intelligent from the moment she could talk, and friendly. She hated her classes, sitting still for too long bothered her. She always wanted to speak with everyone in the palace instead. Her mother had to come and carry her out of my meetings many times."

Jules smiled, keeping her eyes on the book, "She sounds kinda like me."

Midas felt moisture on his cheek, and he brought a quick hand up to clear it, leaving it to rest over his mouth, "You remind me of her."

While he still saw Marigold often enough in his night terrors to know they shared a few features, he wished he could confirm the likeness in their developing personalities. But, he could not. He had not known Jules when she was that young.

He wished that instead of keeping his distance, that he had been around for his second daughter's childhood. He wished that his anger, his guilt, and his fear hadn't kept him away.

Jules finally looked at him. Her father was glad not to find pity in her expression. Only a small, empathetic smile. One he returned. She looked back down to the book, taking a breath before asking, "Would you read it to me?"

Midas let out a single laugh. A heavy sound, edging on a held-in sob, "You want me to read you a bedtime story? You're a little old for that, aren't you?"

She laughed, too with a roll of her eyes, "Yeah, but I want to know what the story's about, and I can't read Greek."

Another look exchanged between them, Midas eventually nodded with a smile that did reach his eyes. He expected Jules to simply hand over the book, but she surprised him again by getting up from her seat and moving to sit with him on the couch.

"Hang on, I want to get comfortable for my bedtime story." She said, placing the book in his confused hand. Jules then grabbed a throw pillow to hug in her lap as she faced him and leaned back against the arm of the couch, "Okay, go."

Midas laughed softly once more, turning to face her while he opened the book to its first page. Live-translating to English would be a little tough, but he was happy to do it. Thankful, even. The tears in his eyes remained, but they did not spill over again as he began the story.

#fortnite #midas #midas fortnite #jules #jules fortnite #fortnite fanfiction #fanfiction #my art #my writing #shut your trap snippy #Midas and his relationship to Jules is one of my favorite things to explore #His feelings on his first daughter as well #Really anything with this man and his deepest feelings of love and regrets #fortnite rp #fortnite tumblrverse

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