#varice kingsford

[checkoutmybookshelf]

Ok, I was relistening to the Emperor Mage audiobook the other day, and holy cow can we talk about Varice Kingsford for a second. Our girl is immensely consistent from Tempests and Slaughter to Emperor Mage that all she wants is to use her gift to make things pretty and use that to smooth diplomatic paths, and there are the seeds of her being...I don't even know how to describe it properly, under Ozorne's power? Ozorne's lackey? In Ozorne's corner? But when it came to the part in Emperor Mage where Daine is wrecking the palace and runs into Varice, the absolute soul-baring honesty of responding to "Did you betray Numair to Ozorne?" with "No, but I might have if I'd been specifically asked to" just hits so hard.

Varice just wanted to plan parties and play house, and literally none of the men in her life accepted that. They kept pushing and pushing and so she ended up in Ozorne's court, watching one childhood friend murder their mutual childhood friend and her lover. That situation will never not be hideously messed up, but the tragedy is how clearly Varice can see the dynamics in her own relationships.

Just let the kitchen witch do kitchen witchy things that make her happy!!!

[fantastic-rambles]

Title: Paranoia

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Category: Gen

Fandom: Tortall - Tamora Pierce

Relationships: Numair Salmalin & Ozorne Muhassin Tasikhe, Varice Kingsford & Numair Salmalín, Varice Kingsford & Ozorne Muhassin Tasikhe

Characters: Arram Draper (Numair Salmalín), Ozorne Muhassin Tasikhe, Varice Kingsford

Additional Tags: Paranoia, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Poison, Magic, Comfort, Arguing, Verbal Abuse, False Accusations, Threats, Threats of Violence, Crying, Protectiveness, Logic, Anger, Orders, Unhealthy Relationships

Word Count: 659

Summary: As the sole remaining heir to the Carthak throne, Ozorne seems to be growing more unstable by the day, worrying his friends.

Read it on AO3 here!

[naurielrochnur]

WIP tag game

RULES: Post the last sentence you wrote (fanfic / original / anything)

I'm going to piggie back off @mihrsuri's tag and drop in a piece of my Tortall fic I'm working on of Arram's early days in Tortall and how he came to be known as Numair Salmalin.

I know I just posted another WIP but I'm very fond of this one and want to share.

“Stop that Arram.” Varice whispered. “Don’t tease. Not now. I can’t stand the thought of you trapped down here.” She—finally—withdrew her hands and crossed her arms, not in a display of anger, but rather the self comforting act of drawing oneself inward, the unconscious instinct to guard the vital organs from an attack. “Will you please reconsider? Not just for your sake, but for Ozorne and all those he may hurt in his rampage. For me.” How easy would it be to just give in? To let go of his mug and reach a hand, still hot and damp from the heat of the tea, to her face and say “Yes, I accept.” To finally be released from this smothering prison and allowed to walk again under the sky, able to truly bask in his Gift again like a flower turning its face to the sun. He kept a hold of his mug. Too hard, was the answer. True, the oppressive weight of this magical prison pulled an unending ache straight through his core and sent it rattling around his bones, but that pain was nothing compared to the agonies of the gilded cage Ozorne held open and waiting for him.  If he were to acquiesce to the Emperor’s whims, sooner or later—probably sooner—the gold would flake away and reveal the harsh barbed iron underneath. Those bars, like vines armed with cruel thorns, would slowly but inexorably wind their way around his entire being, sinking their hooks into his flesh and binding his limbs until he had no choice but to be maneuvered like a puppet on a string. Ozorne’s puppet. Varice couldn’t stand the thought of him being kept down here. Arram couldn’t stand the thought of what being released might entail for his soul.

Again, anyone who wants to be tagged is free to do so!

[six-of-snakes]

Numair/Ozorne/Varice - you will never have my heart again

absolutely! (this turned out more dramatic than I'd planned lol and i definitely took inspiration from your posts on them, but I'm pretty happy with it! thank you for the prompt and happy new year <3)

"You will never have my heart again," Varice says. Her makeup is tear-streaked, her hair a rat's nest, but she meets Ozorne's furious gaze steadily. She draws in a shuddering, raggedly breath. "And I will never, never forgive you for what you did to him." Ozorne has the gall to laugh. "To Arram? Varice, darling-" "No," she says. He stares at her. He is adorned in the riches of his empire, and yet a single word silences him. A single word from her. A kitchen witch, she thinks, a worthless girl. She will not, cannot, forget that Ozorne gave her a chance to use her talents, to do what she liked, when no one else would. But she cannot forgive him, and she cannot love him. "I am not your darling, Ozorne. Not anymore." In the distance, a door splinters open, and stone blocks shatter on the floor. "Varice," Ozorne says, and there's real pain in his voice. She wavers, for a moment, a moment long enough to remember the way Numair looked at his execution, the desperate, betrayed look he'd given her before the axe came down. A chandelier crashes to the floor a few rooms away, and the building shakes. "You will never have my heart again," she repeats. Tears prick at her eyes, but she refuses to let them fall. She turns away from him, and maybe it's a bad idea, but he's already killed Numair. Nothing she does will stop him if revenge is what he wants. She starts for the door, and he doesn't stop her, not even when she pushes it open, or steps into the hallway. As the door creaks shut behind her to the cacophony of destruction, she glances back, despite herself. Ozorne watches her, fury and something that might be despair warring in his dark eyes. She draws a breath to say something, anything, to give closure to this tragedy, but the door closes before she can, and it's over. It's over: Ozorne and Numair and sugar-spun dreams of love and years of clinging to a teenage hope and a man who'd chosen again and again to break them. It's over, she thinks, and she doesn't know whether to laugh or cry.

read on ao3

[dr-dendritic-trees]

Take my word, those two treat Ozorne like gold.

NO THEY DO NOT!!

I am very worried about Varice for several reasons:

I'm worried because she's so dramatically mature compared to the boys in general, and because she is bizarrely confident managing her very seriously ill friend. But that could all just be character decisions I don't really vibe with.

But this is weird. This is just totally not a factual statement. And it makes me wonder: if this is what Varice thinks treating someone like gold looks like, what does she think normal or bad treatment is? What was her life like before she came to Carthak? Because I increasingly think it might have, in fact, been bad.

[malkaleh]

I genuinely think if someone who was an authority figure had sat Varice Kingsford down and said ‘it is more than okay to want to be a cook mage who helps people/makes things look pretty and you do not have to be responsible for your friend who is becoming profoundly abusive’ that would have helped a lot.

[isnt-it-pretty]

Lady (Master) Varice Kingsford (Yes I know my mirror is dirty af)

[the-tiktok-rogue]

Arram/Numair Waiting on a miracle (now with updated effects)

[ladylingua]

I’m about halfway through Tempests & Slaughter and I’ll post full thoughts when I’m done but-

I find it funny that in Emperor’s Mage Daine is all in a yank when Varice makes Numair a plate of fancy foods, thinking about how Varice doesn’t know him well enough to understand that he only likes bland stuff after a voyage,

But now we know that Varice “making a plate” for Numair is an old tradition between them, one that Numair associates with love (at least he does still at the point I’m at in the book), even if he was feeling a bit under the weather that night

So that scene wasn’t really Varice overstepping at all, and instead was Daine failing to recognize elements of Numair’s life before he met Daine. In general during Emperor’s Mage, Daine has a bit of a hard time picturing Numair in Carthak and generally assumes he must have been miserable all the time, and now is only truly happy that he’s free in Tortall. But in reality we know that Numair genuinely loved his world there, he loved studying and Varice and Ozorne. I mean obviously things had soured considerably since his youth at the university, but still, it was complicated and not just all bad.

Kinda makes me think about why the Numair/Daine pairing is still always a little ick for me. Like a lot of grown people are jealous sometimes, or make assumptions of course! But there’s definitely something short-sighted and very, well, 15, about the assumptions Daine brings to Numair’s feelings on his past life, and the way she perceives Varice (which is a whole other topic), that only kind of reinforces for me that Daine may have been incredibly mature in many ways, but I still don’t feel right about her dating her 30 year old mentor.

[byebyebriar]

Me (at 8) reading the Emperor Mage: I don’t like Varice. Why does she have to be so stereotypical? Ugh, she doesn’t deserve Numair, I can’t believe he dated her.

Me (24) after reading Tempests and Slaughter: 

[persephoneofhades]

I’ve decided I’m going to headcanon Varice as ace from now on mostly just because I like her and I can and because she reminds me a lot of Sandry who is confirmed ace. 

Varice seems like she’d be the definition of “Food is better than sex” when she gets older and would honestly find more enjoyment out of baking the perfect cake or eating the perfect meal with a loved one than sex. Letting someone cook with her in her kitchen is the ultimate form of intimacy for her.

I dunno, I just... I love me some ace Varice.

[allxthingsxglxtter]

@foolsentire​ || For Numair

It’d been a busy day for Varice, the heiress and socialite having left her latest social engagement later than she would have liked.  She was the life of any party, but something about them felt..off to her recently.  Like she was missing something.   The feeling had gotten to her tonight, which is why she’d decided to go home to Numair.

Her fiance hadn’t ever enjoyed parties and things like she did, far too dedicated to studying and being brilliant, but it was part of why she loved him.  Varice slipped into his study as soon as she had a chance, slipping her arms around him from behind with a hum.  “Hello darling.  I missed you tonight.”

[annikasafternoonread]

Tempests and Slaughter (by Tamora Pierce)

We’re back to Tamora Pierce again! She writes so much good stuff. I believe this is her most recent book, published in 2018. She’s slowed down a bit from her earlier hectic pace -- between 1994 and 2006, she published at least one new book a year, and from 1998 to 2003 she published TWO a year (that’s nineteen new books in just thirteen years) -- but they’re still coming and they’re still great. 

Tempests and Slaughter focuses on the early life of Numair Salmalín (fun fact: for the longest time I thought his name was pronounced and written “Salamín” and didn’t realize I’d transposed letters until I heard an audiobook version), at that time called Arram Draper, who was a major character in the Immortals Quartet with Daine. I don’t know if it exactly qualifies as a “prequel” given that it’s a completely separate series. Tamora Pierce does jump around in time between her series -- but usually she jumps forward, and I think this is the first time she’s taken known characters backwards, since the Beka Cooper books were centuries earlier. 

Anyways, that’s a bit of a sidetrack. Numair -- or Arram -- was born in Tyra and then came to Carthak to study magic at the Imperial University. He was an incredibly powerful mage, and was picked out for special courses and advanced training. Two other young mages were also in these accelerated studies: a girl named Varice Kingsford, and a boy named Ozorne Tasikhe who was part of the Imperial family. The book follows the trio through adventures in education, friendship, romance, betrayal, disagreement, power, leadership, corruption, murder, and more. 

I’ll reveal my hand in advance: I’ve mentioned this before, but part of the reason I’m interested in rereading this book is because I’ve noticed a lot of parallels between Arram Draper and Critical Role’s Caleb Widogast. Both were incredibly powerful magic users, plucked from obscurity for special training. Both formed a friendship trio with a girl and a boy in that program, with romantic relationships also winding through. Both found themselves deeply tied to Imperial forces who were not always kind or honest. Both were ultimately forced to flee their homeland and change their name. To be clear -- I’m not alleging intentional plagiarism or anything, plenty of this is pretty standard tropes that just happened to overlap, and there’s a lot of differences that I just haven’t mentioned yet. But I feel like the comparison will be interesting, to think about how different circumstances -- different role models, different manipulations, different choices -- how those changes affect the characters and the outcomes. 

As for other themes, as usual, I’m interested in dynamics of power and leadership. I’m interested in what makes a good leader and what makes an effective leader (very different), and I’m interested in how power can be wielded and people and stories can be manipulated. Also I’m a nerd so I like stories about super nerdy people who do cool school things. But I’m also interested in how people react to certain expectations placed on them -- whether by following those expectations or refusing them. Those will probably be some of my major foci through this book; there will likely be others, but although this is a reread, I’ve only read it once (as opposed to three or four times like most of my other rereads) so the smaller details are a little less embossed into my brain. 

I thought I was just going to post this and dip, but then I found out that a meeting I thought was tonight had actually been rescheduled to next week and no one bothered to tell me! So I’m irritated but also in need of distraction! So let’s get reading :)

[amarguerite]

Thanks to Libby (if you’re American, I highly recommend it! You can get ebooks and audiobooks from your local library system instantly) I’m listening to an audiobook of Emperor Mage and it has like, a full cast of voice actors. Love the guy who does Numair’s voice, it sounds just like it, but I’m disappointed Daine doesn’t have the extremely heavy Appalachian accent I always imagined she has.  

Also, feeling real bad for poor Varice Kingsford. Your childhood BFF/ first lover comes back after fleeing the country on charges of treason and instead of wanting to reconcile... is very clearly into his 16-year-old student. Like how... do you deal with that. Do you have to completely rethink everything you thought you knew about yourself?? Do you start thinking, “Well I dodged a bigass bullet there???”

[malkaleh]

Numair book ot3 regency AU

This will be in bullet point form. Also Regency is not my area so this is mostly inspired by (a) Sorcery & Cecelia and (b) Regency Romance I Have Read 

Lady Varice Kingsford is the only daughter of a father who has only just been elevated to Sir Kingsford. She is very interested in becoming a pastry chef but as she has her own magic and it’s very strong she is sent off to a university on the continent that caters to both sexes (they tried a young ladies with magic finishing school - she may have gotten kicked out)

Arram Draper is the youngest child of cloth merchants from Venice who are (a) Jewish and (b) come by way of what is now Pakistan 

Ozorne is in direct line to the throne of somewhere 

Spoiler alert the biggest centre of magical learning is in Morocco. 

OT3 happens. Also magic, spying, shennaganians, Arram Just Wants To Be A Doctor Here And Also Is A Softie And Loves Babies. 

[malkaleh]

My main AU!Varice thing is that she gets to go to Tortall and be valued for who she is and what she wants to do - rather than being so pressured to live up to all these expectations and manage someone’s emotional stability.

Like she’s the royal baker - I like to think she has a shop as well - she uses her magic to make some absolutely gorgeous creations and also some just beautiful everyday baked goods. And no one is pressuring her!

(G-d she and Lalasa bonding would be absolutely beautiful as would her and Thayets friendship)

I absolutely also believe she’s the one who gets work first - because no one thinks to look for Varice Kingsford working in a bakery.

Really really really with the Venn Diagram of Melissa Caruso fans and Tamora Pierce fans wasn't literally just, my blog.

Because my AUs are eating my brain without ever actually coming together.

@mihrsuri I specifically feel like your Varice opinions on AU would be more interesting than mine.