#you cannot tell me the way she said go back to the gallows like a good girl

[idolbound]

also to say it, Elthina and Meredith are a political combo from hell, but they're like a Mother & Daughter combo from hell

[dangermousie]

Farscape rewatch 1x22

One of my favorite eps.

No, John, it’s not going to get better.

Where do I start? First of all let me mention the ‘not-good-bye’ good-bye John and Aeryn do. I love it. One of so many in the show, less fraught than later ones but still mmm.

But that comes later, let’s get back to the beginning.

Where Rygel sells them out and it surprises no one. But he doesn’t find a good market, and returns with Crais, Crais who is now seeking asylum. The scene in the hangar bay, as Crais steps out is…

What I notice the most is the way John fixates on him. He associates Crais with being hunted, tortured, though it’s nothing to the reaction he will have to Scorpy on board in S4. That whole scene, with Crais asking for protective custody, and D’Argo knocking him down, and yet through the whole scene, there is John, gun pointed, not wavering in his regard of Crais, an almost uncontrollable fixation and it looks like he is fixating on the thought of shooting Crais. It’s this intensity of concentration that is frightening.

And the fugitives come up with a desperate plan, based on the fact that Scorpius wants John. And you can see the look on John’s face as he realizes the certainty of his being on a suicidal mission as opposed to a probability.

I love the scene with John trying to leave a message to Jack and not being able to, and finally giving up with ‘why don’t I just start screaming, and leave him with a really happy memory.’ Yeah.

And Aeryn coming in, partially because she sees he needs comfort. And she does comfort, instinctively, by sharing about her Mother. And his delight, even under those dire circumstances, at the fact that she is letting him in, telling him something so personal. The way his voice and eyes envelop her, the way she seems to relax and forget the mess outside.

This is getting vvvv long...so

And her asking him if his father is like the man she’s met on fake!Earth and his reply that a bit idealized but yes. I love how important John-Jack relationship is to FS, and how you can feel it, though we barely ever see Jack. He is crucial to John and so we see him through the mirror of John. And oh, how do I love that final message he does leave, ending with ‘This is John Crichton, somewhere in the Universe.’ The wonder is still there, isn’t it? But so is determination to not be taken alive and I find that rather heart-breaking. But there is awesome gallows humor with D’Argo and John and oh, this show is turning me into an emotional yo-yo, as it always does.

The highlight of the ep for me, is John sitting with the gun, on the floor, by Crais’ cell and talking to him. And he is quiet, and beyond despair, and in pain. And he is crying. And that whole scene, which I cannot describe well at all, or even analyze, just kills me. Trying to make Crais understand, still trying, but now it’s not about that, not really hoping for that or wishing it, but just verbalizing it all, head on.

Oooof (and the way he’s almost cuddling the gun as a comfort blanket...)

And when Crais says that there is much injustice and they are all proof of it, John’s bleak rejoinder that if there was justice, Crais would be dead…kills me.

And there are good byes. Chiana refusing to be saved and D’Argo insisting. Zhaan and John, acknowledging they are family. D’Argo and Aeryn, and D saying he thought he’d live much longer and Aeryn (in a sentence that explains so much) replying that she never thought she’d live this long (unknowingly echoing Zhaan who said that every microt is an undeserved gift from the Goddess for her, since she committed murder).

The scene with Rygel and John, which is just…always sideswipes me, so much because they are hilarious and moving and Rygel is a fucking puppet but I never remember he is 100% real to me.

The never-ending references...

And the insane nicknames. The show was gloriously unhinged.

I love this exchange:

This is the bit that gets me tbh...

There is the scene with Chiana and John, which just makes me die. Because Chiana offers him her body, because that is the only way she knows how to repay John for what he did for her and what he is about to do, and it says volumes about the life she’s led that this is the one way she can think to show gratitude. And John turns her down.

But it’s not the fact that he does, it’s the way he does it, that gets me. Because he manages to be so gentle and sweet and not insulting at all, because he recognizes it as a gift and treats it as such. I think that is the reason her relationship with John is more important to Chiana than the one with D’Argo or anyone else. John is someone who wants nothing from her (not that D is mercenary, but because the relationship is romantic, there is a different dynamic, one she is more familiar with). John is family: he really is her brother replacement after Nerri. (Side note - any other show he’d bang the hot alien since he’s not dating Aeryn or even close but not here/)

And yeah, that doozie of a cliffhanger. And John seeing the base go in smoke and his sheer glee at the destruction, at striking back, at saving his crew.

He is millions of miles away from the John who came through that wormhole. But he asks to be patched in to Moya, to make her escape, even though this means certain death to him. That duality, with humanity and self-sacrifice always there, just different, will always remain.

Also, yeah, Crais 100% developed a thing for Aeryn after she tortured him...everyone in this show is a bit insane...

[caffedrine]

Keith Howell - Chapter 22 Dramatic - Summary

Short Summary: In which Clavis comes up with an idea

I pretty much have no idea what I’m doing. I don’t trust me, and you shouldn’t either. This summary is not guaranteed to be accurate, it’s mostly written for myself to follow along with the route.

~Some time, some place~

Before he knows it, he’s in the forest again. This is the third time he’s visited, but unlike the other times, there is no rain or overcast clouds. The moonlight is shining serenely through the gaps in the trees, illuminating his other self.

Alter!Keith’s brows are furrowed with displeasure, and his gaze is hostile and sullen. He complains that the failure is too unreasonable, he should have let him take over back then. Normally, the failure would have run away and left him to deal with the violence. Instead, he rejected him.

In the end, all it took was Emma promising to be on his side to make him relax enough for Alter!Keith to drag him here.

He didn’t realize that was what he was doing, all he could think of was the desire to help Emma. He apologizes for making Alter!Keith shoulder all his burdens until now.

Alter!Keith wrinkles his brows and turns his back on him. It was Alter!Keith’s own decision to deal with it all those times.

How surprising, for a person who supposedly hates him, Alter!Keith looks more embarrassed than upset.

Alter!Keith warns him that he’s spending too much time talking about worthless things as opposed to figuring out how to get out of this situation. While they can agree that it’s good that Emma was rescued, their position just got far worse.

They’ve run away from the messengers from Jade, which is tantamount to announcing that they’re guilty. There is no chance the trial won’t end with a guilty verdict. That’s probably the other goal to kidnapping Emma, and they fell into the trap. If they move forward without a plan, they will definitely be sent to the gallows.

So, he should just leave everything to Alter!Keith.

It wasn’t a bad plan, between the failure and the prince who was competent, it was clear who should take the lead. Nevertheless . . .  he doesn’t like this plan.

For the first time, his heart refused to back down to Alter!Keith. He doesn’t want to run away, especially after Emma has gotten involved. Because of him, she’s in danger, he refuses to run away while she puts her life on the line for him.

(Now of all times)

No, he really should leave everything to Alter!Keith, just like he always does.

It might be too late now, but he can’t sit back and watch. For Emma, who told him it was okay for him to be abnormal, he is willing to face the things he hates. He refuses to run away, even if he’s the failure, and Alter!Keith cannot convince him otherwise.

That’s not what he’s said before. Alter!Keith remembers all those times when he said Alter!Keith was the one who should be the first prince. He remembers the words of self-hatred, of suicidal ideation.

Yes, he did say those words. But now he wants to move past them and move forward.

Alter!Keith sighs. For once, they’re on the same page; he too wants to kill everyone who was involved with Emma’s kidnapping. He understands his wants but Alter!Keith wants to handle this. Unless he has suddenly become okay with killing.

No, they’re still too different, even though they share the same body. Maybe instead they can work together?

Alter!Keith asks if this is even possible.

It is. Besides, Alter!Keith must have a plan already, especially if he wants to take control. Is he planning on killing anyone?

Alter!Keith does not respond.

Tell him the plan, and he will rework it to be less violent.

How disappointing. But, if he wants to get his way, Alter!Keith will have to meet him partway. He doesn’t mind using him, especially if he’s going to be compliant.

The wind in the trees suddenly changes direction, and before he knew it, he was pushed away.

~~~

Emma finds herself lying on the sofa alone, the blanket covering her now sliding to the floor. Oh no! She fell asleep while watching over Keith. Glancing around, she doesn’t see him in the room.

When Keith suddenly collapsed, he was too big for her to do anything but lower him to the floor. He was too heavy for her to carry to one of the bedrooms, much less the couch. Instead, Emma had fetched a blanket and pillow for him and tried to make him comfortable.

Said pillow was under her head, and the blanket had fully made it to the floor.

Emma calls out to Keith. A whispered ‘here’ is blown directly into her ear from behind, startling her. Turning around, she finds Keith’s face close to hers, and her head goes blank.

Keith notes that Emma is finally awake, but he’s worried that she’s still sleepy from the drugs and the flight to the villa. He tells her to go ahead and sleep some more. Confused with Keith’s sudden proximity, Emma stares at him in bewilderment, her hands resting on the back of the sofa.

Lips suddenly touch Emma’s cheek, and Keith pulls back. He noticed her staring at him and wondered if this is what she wants.

Something is off.

(What, does he think this is a R-18 story or something?)

As fingers stroke the cheek she was kissed on, Emma calms herself down and faces the man before her. He’s pretending to be Nice!Keith, but in truth it’s Alter!Keith.

The moment she says that, Alter!Keith’s expression changes and his eyes seemingly shift in color. He is impressed at how quickly she recognized him and offers to give her a reward. Before Emma can respond, his lips cover hers.

Her heart screams, and Emma wonders when this kiss will end. Alter!Keith kisses her lips again and again, each touch sending fire through her body. Trying to turn her face away is a failure, as Keith’s mouth catches her each time.

Finally, Emma bites his lips, and Alter!Keith lets go of her, a surprised expression on his face. He asks if she’s decided to take revenge and tells her that if anything he now wants to bully her even more.

Oh no! Emma has made a huge mistake! She begs Alter!Keith to calm down so they can talk a bit. This time, she covers Alter!Keith’s mouth with her hand, preventing a second round of kisses. She can’t just let him continue to kiss her while her feelings are still reeling from one extreme to another. She hasn’t even figured out which one of Keith’s personalities she prefers.

Alter!Keith tells her not to dwell on things too much, just let him indulge in her for now. Once again, Alter!Keith’s face blocks Emma’s vision, so she quickly backs away, keeping the sofa between them. Now isn’t the time for this, they’re in trouble. Surely, he knows that much from Nice!Keith.

Alter!Keith saw everything Nice!Keith saw, including the part where he was so moved by Emma’s words he fainted. At Emma’s incredulous look, Alter!Keith elaborates; it was a tense situation, and he was so happy to know that she was on his side. Really, Nice!Keith is very, very pathetic.

Emma asks if they can sort out the situation, especially since she wants to help them. Please, place a hold on the kisses until they get everything figured out. Alter!Keith grumbles but agrees.

From an outside perspective, did it look like Keith ran away from the Jade messenger?

It does. Alter!Keith admits that the action is practically the same as announcing he was guilty. Seeing Emma’s expression, Alter!Keith warns her to stop. This isn’t her fault; she was just dragged in by outside forces. If she wants to blame herself, he’ll just go back to bullying her.

Easily vaulting over the sofa, Alter!Keith moves to stand before Emma, and places his hand on her head, stroking her hair. Emma realizes that as much as she thinks of him as the mean one, he has his own form of kindness. She swallows her apology, and instead thanks him.

It’s strange for her to be thanking him. But they shouldn’t worry about the past, and instead, focus on the situation at hand. Things are not as bad as he thought they were.

Alter!Keith pulls out a letter from his pocket. He had just received it a little earlier from Dill, whom he had left behind in his room in the Rhodolite Castle. It takes Emma a moment to remember Dill, and she recalls the cute blue bird, who Nice!Keith had introduced as his exclusive messenger bird.

She takes the letter from Alter!Keith and reads through it, recognizing the handwriting from when she assisted the domestic faction. Looking at it closely, she thinks it’s Licht who wrote it.

As she reads, Alter!Keith briefly summarizes the contents, the messengers haven’t noticed that he’s missing. Emma pauses, asking if that’s true. Granted, she was unconscious, but she’s certain that a good amount of time has passed since Keith has run away. She turns back to the letter as Alter!Keith continues to talk.

~Several hours ago~

In Rhodolite Castle, a certain pleasure-loving beast had a very disturbing smile on his face, as he tells his younger brother, Licht, that he has just come up with an excellent idea. He notes that Licht was friends with Prince Keith, and wants to do a favor for him, right?

With Licht’s expression becoming increasingly alarmed, the door opens without the person bothering to knock. Luke walks into the room, asking if they found Keith yet. Following behind him, Yves warns them that the messenger is about to report that Keith is missing.

But what if they were to spread the rumors?

With an alarmed expression, Licht asks Clavis what rumors he’s talking about.

Oh, just the ones still in Clavis’ head.

Clavis looks around the room and seemingly confirms something turns around to start rummaging through Keith’s closet while giggling. Luke complains that he already doesn’t like where this is going, and Yves demands to know what Clavis is playing at.

Oh, but Big Brother Clavis isn’t playing around. He finds what he’s looking for and turns around, holding it up. What do Licht and Yves think of this?

Uh . . . Keith’s clothes?

Yes, and Luke has a very similar physic to Keith, right? Clavis points out that Yves and Licht are the two who know Keith the best.

Three pairs of eyes look at the clothes Clavis is holding, considering. Then all three pairs of eyes turn to Luke, who seems quite uncomfortable. Licht notes that Luke is almost the right height. Yves adds that both Luke and Keith are quite muscular.

Not liking where this is going, Luke begins to back away. Before he can get far, Licht and Yves quickly run to the door and slam it shut, trapping Luke in the room with them.

(The betrayal is real)

Clavis, the true instigator, places both of his hands on Luke’s shoulders, an outward gesture of solidarity, but to Luke, it was a trap sprung.

Luke . . . no, they should call him Keith, right? They’re fortunate that Keith didn’t bother packing before he ran off, and left his spare clothes behind. And, if it’s just for a day, Big Brother Clavis knows a mixture that will dye Luke’s hair the right color as well. Yves adds that his makeup skills can give Luke Keith’s face. Then they can have Luke ‘run away’ from the messengers, making them give chase and buy them time.

Wait, wait, wait, why does Luke suddenly have to pretend to be Keith?

Because Keith will really owe Clavis those rare herbs.

. . .

Luke doesn’t see the point in doing this. Clavis pouts, why is Luke so opposed to doing this? He’s in shape, he’s great at running, right?

Okay, think of it this way. Keith just ran away to rescue Emma, throwing his reputation into the fire and almost guaranteeing to be found guilty at his trial. Just think: Keith is a true gentleman trying to help their Emma. Doesn’t that motivate Luke to help out, just a little?

Licht adds that he too is begging Luke to help them. Only Luke can fulfill this role. Yves adds that he will vouch for Keith’s character; he is definitely not the type of person who would try to kill the king or his father.

Please, Luke.

A long silence that seems to last forever hangs in the guest room. Aside from Clavis’ meaningful smile, Licht and Yves look as serious as they have ever looked.

A deep sigh breaks the silence. Luke tells Clavis to hand over the clothes.

Clavis is delighted, just as he expected, his younger brother came through for them! Yves adds his own thanks, promising to make lots and lots of honeyed pastries for him. Licht promises to take over Luke’s official duties and give him a day of his choosing off.

Luke tells them all to remember their promises.

Now that that’s settled, Clavis must put into action the next phase of his plan. He turns to the bluebird in the corner of the room. Perhaps sensing that its master was in trouble, the bird is restless and noisy.

Clavis has a letter to write.

Absolutely not. Yves tells Clavis that he has far more important things to do. Licht volunteers to write the letter instead. Not quite catching on, Luke adds that it doesn’t make sense to send Keith a letter he won’t be able to read.

Clavis is hurt, do all of his brothers think that his handwriting is messy?

As the bird continues to chirp from its cage, a fake Keith is born.

~~~

When everything is over, Alter!Keith has no doubt that he will have to fulfill a lot of unreasonable demands.

Emma agrees, but she is also very happy that the Rhodolite Princes are on Keith’s side. Even Alter!Keith has to admit that this has saved them; there is a chance he can improve the odds of his survival. Emma asks if this means that Alter!Keith has a plan.

He does, he had a long talk with him. Together, they were able to work out a strategy. Emma is impressed, and asks if this means that he’s not blocking Nice!Keith from coming forward. She is a bit confused;  she was certain Alter!Keith told her that they had to use notebooks to communicate.

Alter!Keith admits that this is a new development for them, only recently have they been able to speak with each other. He shrugs his shoulders, sitting down on the sofa. Alter!Keith’s guess is that while in the past Nice!Keith was always running away, now he’s trying to face things, including Alter!Keith. Emma has changed that in him.

By the way, Nice!Keith seems to be able to remember what happens with Alter!Keith is in control. Emma asks if she misunderstood him, and their abilities switched.

No, it seems Nice!Keith has gained Alter!Keith’s abilities. He asks Emma if she remembers that ���date’ where he described it as looking through Nice!Keith’s eyes. If he had to guess, Nice!Keith was currently looking through his eyes right now; he’s seen and heard the new developments.

It occurs to Emma that Nice!Keith must have been watching when Alter!Keith was kissing her. Her face burns with shame and a lot of guilt. Suddenly her hand is grabbed, and she sees Alter!Keith press a kiss to the back of her hand.

Yeah, things between them are still complicated. Emma asks if Alter!Keith can wait to settle everything until they’re out of danger. Alter!Keith asks what she means by ‘settle everything’.

If Emma thinks about this logically, once the suspicion around Keith is cleared, they will have to part for real, and permanently. By then, she will know which one she loves.

Emma promises to tell him everything he wants to know about her feelings. Until then, they should just focus on the current problem. First of all, what is Alter!Keith’s plan?

Very well. Alter!Keith reclines on the couch, crossing his hands and feet. The first part is going to the dying king and speaking with him.

[ravnloft]

wip wednesday thursday. we can have a little weirdly sensual discussion of execution methods. as a treat.

“I have to say,” Astarion continues— he’s leaning uselessly against the wall beside her as she leans over a crate, trying to pry it open with her fingers— “I thought we’d all look worse by now, but no! There isn’t a tentacle to be seen. We’re all doing surprisingly well, given the circumstances.”

She resurfaces with an eye full of dust and a fist full of daggerroot. “And that doesn’t concern you?”

“Oh, I’m not taking anything for granted, darling. First sign of a change and I’ll have to stop that pretty little heart of yours.”

Amma drops the herbs into a sack at her feet and mutters, “Like to see you try.”

“I am open to suggestions, you know,” he continues, and she can hear him grinning. “Knives, poison, strangulation— whatever you’d prefer.”

“You couldn’t strangle me.”

“I most certainly could.”

She looks up at him and says flatly, “No, you couldn’t. Takes a lot of time and strength to strangle somebody to death.” Her eyes flicker over his body, and then: “You’d have to put a lot of pressure on me. Use your weight. Know where to put your fingers. Do you crush the voicebox, so I cannot scream? What do you do about my arms and legs when I start fighting? And like I said, it takes a while. Do you have the patience to keep it up for five, ten minutes? Twenty? Longer?”

His eyes are wide and shining at her in the dark. He looks utterly enthralled. She’s not exactly bored, either. Still, she waves him off, and goes back to rifling through the crates.

“You want to kill me, just use a blade,” she tells him. “And make sure it’s sharp.”

“Oh, of course,” he says, delighted. “Wouldn’t want to waste time hacking and prodding with a dull butter knife, would we.”

“No, we would not.”

She figures that will be the end of the conversation, but he muses on.

“You know, I don’t think strangling’s for me. I haven’t got the patience, like you said. Perhaps if we had a real gallows, and some rope… Ah, but I always felt decapitation would be a fine way to go. One good swing and then… nothing.”

Amma can’t help it: she snickers. It’s a tiny sound, more like a cough than anything, echoing bluntly around the inside of a crate. But Astarion hears it. And Astarion grins.

“What?” he says.

“You can fuck up a beheading, too.”

“Really? Oh, you simply must tell me—”

“PLEASE TALK ABOUT LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE,” Shadowheart calls from across the room.

[louvay]

You're touring Jugdral. On the last day it snows heavily, so you're practically locked in with a bunch of people you last visited. They said they would try their best to help you get home as soon as possible, though, so at least there's that but the bad weather makes the day a long boring one.

a) Playing board games with the Silessians. Ced is really good, and you'll need to defeat him if you want his magic. You wonder if he'll fall for trickery...

b) Chatting with the Frieges. They want to know what you think of honor and family. You have a good feeling that Arthur is going to spit out your argument back at your face, but their magic is reliable and you may need a helping hand here. Reinhardt looks at you as if assessing you. His hand never moves from his sword. Kempf constantly asks if you hate burger, but he's sincerely impressed when you said you know United States of America, so it's not like he's going to pose a threat soon.

c) Reading with the Od descendants. Larcei is energetic and impatient. Skasaher wants you to read them stuff from your world, whatever it is. You wonder what you should give them. Shannan keeps asking question, looking sincerely interested; Galzus will insert "I know a thing or two like that," and humor you with his own mercenary tales. The problem is, he will only interrupt and talk if you present a new topic. He promises you that he knows where a new time machine is buried though, and you'll only need to get through the night for him to take you there.

d) Linoan politely asks you things. She is very confident in her capability with her tomes, and Tahra's own resource suppose you need a new time machine built. The problem is her questions are sharp and you run out of ideas what to say. Why your current world put pineapple on pizza, she asks? You can't reply by saying some people are simply heretics -- she would want to know what you mean by that, too.

e) Faval and Patty want to be paid if you want them to help you repairing the time machine. You're not a scientist but you can fix your own furniture, and you pray it will be enough for the time machine too the way it is enough for your house. You need to be well-coordinated by putting some essential spare parts at the same time, yet you cannot agree on the payment, and they both are also arguing.

f) Julia asks very detailed questions. Julius asks even more detailed questions. You wonder if they are going to help you or making a bootleg version of your time machine, and whether Julius will have you murdered after this. Julius reassures you however that he just wants to go back to one time where he forgets to force Hilda to demote Reinhardt whilst she had a chance, and you wonder if you should take his word.

g) Ah, Coirpre, the good boi. He's eager to help. He says Hannibal's mansion is a bunker and everyone has been making Molotov cocktails so it's not like hiding a time machine or repairing one will alert anyone. He wants you to completely tell him what "the internet" is. He wants to browse Reddit. Hannibal makes it explicitly clear that he is always eager to help travelers and lost child like you (and practically ignores you when you insist you're not a child), but anyone corrupting his good son deserves the best of the gallows too.

Your choice, your fate...

Gonna have to ask the Frieges here in particular Kempf since he knows where America is and can therefore lead me home. Sure, he might have some choice words for California but I’m sure a burger from In n Out will shut him up

[chaseatinydream]

pirate king (18) || atz

You and Wooyoung are sitting in the rigging, staring out to sea.

The Treasure has left Tortuga for a few days now, sailing in the open sea for the town of Nassau. From what Wooyoung has told you, Nassau, Seonghwa’s hometown, used to be a port thriving with pirate activity… until one day, the Royal Navy decided retake the town from the pirates. Pirate ships were burnt to the ground, the crews hung at the gallows and anyone associated with them brought in for questioning.

It is during that purge that Seonghwa’s parents were killed.

Seonghwa has finally left the confines of the galley, escorted to the sickbay to sleep and rest. Yunho is keeping a vigil beside Seonghwa, while you’ve taken over his cooking duties and Yunho’s lookout role. You may not be as well suited to the job as the two of them are, but it’s the most you can do for being to blame for Seonghwa’s condition.

If only you had known what to do.

You shake your head, squeezing your eyes shut.

If only you hadn’t let the herbs be stolen.

You know it’s stupid, but the thoughts won’t stop echoing in your head.

If only you hadn’t gone out to celebrate your name.

You chew your lips.

If only you hadn’t come to this ship.

Guilt tears at you from the inside like the teeth of a piranha. The pain is all too acute, all to real.

“Hey.”

You’re jerked back from your thoughts by Wooyoung, who’s grinning at you. Somehow, the head gunner has pushed past the air of gloom surrounding the ship, managing to keep a broad smile on his face despite the weight on everyone’s shoulders. How he’s doing it, you don’t know, but part of you resents how easily he can seem to forget that Seonghwa is still in the sickbay, struggling to block out the voices of his dead family from his ears while all of you are absolutely powerless to help.

Even now, Seonghwa’s still refusing the sleeping incense, but Yeosang has given given him back the steak plushie, which he hugs to sleep every night. Jongho helps by singing his hyung to sleep. San mixes relaxing teas for him. Captain and Mingi studying the overlay of Nassau, trying to find the most inconspicuous way they can enter the town without garnering the attention of the authorities.

It’s only you and Wooyoung who can do nothing. And the guilt you feel is swallowing you whole.

Wooyoung suddenly leans forward, shackles clanging as he uses his fingers to turn your mouth up in smile. “I’m sure captain and Mingi will think of something. We’ll help Seonghwa-hyung and everything will be fine soon. Don’t be sad.”

Anger rushes forth.

“Don’t be sad?” You snap, smacking his hand away. Wooyoung looks visibly wounded, pain flashing across his face as his hand falls to his side, but you’re too caught up in your fury to notice. “Seonghwa-hyung is in this state and you have the gall to smile and act happy?”

Something in Wooyoung’s normally bright viridescent eyes darkens suddenly as he silently watches you rant.

“I hate how you’re still so happy go lucky! It’s like you don’t understand what it’s like to lose someone even though you’ve had family like Jongho-hyung and Yunho-hyung!” You continue raving, not seeing the way Wooyoung’s fingers clench so tight around the ropes his knuckles turn bloodless. “ I’m the only one who has no family, alright? I’m not like all of you, I don’t know what it’s like, but you’ve had family before, so shouldn’t you try to be more understanding?”

Silence falls between the two of you as you finish. Then you realise that you’ve just literally just thrown everything, your hurt, your pain, your guilt onto Wooyoung, who must be suffering too somewhere deep down inside. To your horror, his head hangs low so that you can’t see his expression, but from the way his shoulders are curled in on themselves, you must have wounded him deeply. Regret and guilt fills you.

You can’t seem to do anything right.

“Wooyoung-hyung, I’m sorry-”

“What else am I supposed to do, then?” Wooyoung breathes, turning to meet your eyes head on. You desperately want to look away, but his gaze is unbreakable as steel. There’s something utterly frigid about them, almost terrifying, like a dragon rearing its head. “Cry? Complain? Feel pity for myself? Curl up in a ball and hide until all the problems disappear?”

That’s exactly what you want to do right now under the weight of his of his intense stare, pinning you down.

“Hyung, I didn’t mean it-”

“You did.” Wooyoung cuts you off fiercely, his green eyes burning. “You meant every word of it and I don’t blame you. But I want you to know that I don’t intend on moping around because that’s not going to help anything. So get those stupid thoughts about it being your fault out of your head because none of them are true and smile because you need to believe things can get better.”

The resolve in his voice is unshakable, and you curl in on yourself to avoid Wooyoung’s stare, shame burning on your cheeks. All this while, you’ve only been thinking about yourself and your guilt, forgetting that you also affect the members of the crew and that moping around hasn’t helped at all.

“I’m sorry.” You whisper quietly under your breath, but Wooyoung hears you anyway and his smile returns once more.

“I forgive you.” He beams at you gently, wrapping an arm around your shoulders. Your head rests against his shoulder, seeking comfort. “I understand.”

You wipe the tears from your eyes as you swallow down your emotions. Right. Smile. Be positive. Staying negative isn’t going to help anything.

Then Wooyoung frowns as he looks down onto the main deck. “Yeosang is coming over. I wonder what he needs.”

“Wooyoungie! Is Chin Hae up there with you?” The navigator stops in front of the main mast, hand shielding his eyes from the sun as he looks up. Wooyoung nods. “Yeah! Do you need him?”

“Can you tell him to come down? I have something to discuss with him.”

You frown, a little confused as Wooyoung glances at you in surprise. Then he leans forward to pinch your cheeks into a smile again, mirroring his own. “Go on. Don’t forget to smile.”

You manage a real smile for the first time in days.

“Thanks, Wooyoung-hyung.” You say as you climb over the side of the crow’s nest, making your way down and dropping lightly to the main deck. Yunho would be so proud if he saw you doing that. “What do you need, Yeosang-hyung?”

“San spoke to me earlier about your encounter with a fortune teller.” Yeosang explains to you as the two of you make your way across the main deck. Your eyes widen as you realise what he’s talking about. “Since Hongjoong-hyung is steering and Mingi is sleeping in the main hold, the captain’s quarters are empty and I thought that I could take this time to research on what the fortune teller said with you.”

Your heart leaps into your chest with ecstasy at what this could mean, but then you pause a little.

“Should we be doing this now? With everything that’s going on?”

Yeosang stops in the middle of pushing open the door to the captain’s cabin to look at you seriously. You’ve never realised how big and clear his eyes are, completely genuine and free of any trace of ill will. “It’s not like we can do anything now. What we can do is keep our spirits up and be strong for Seonghwa-hyung until we reach Nassau. And you’ve been looking down lately, so I thought I could try to cheer you up by clearing some of your questions.”

Warmth blooms in you at his thoughtfulness. “Thank you, Yeosang-hyung.”

The navigator smiles happily at you, almost radiant. “No problem. It’s my honour you’d trust me with such an important piece of information.” He opens the door and ushers you in.

You’ve never been in the captain’s cabin without the captain being present, so the room is unnaturally quiet and still. Yeosang, however, seems to know the room like it’s the back of his own hand, moving towards one of the shelves at the far end of the room while you hover awkwardly at the door.

“Please sit.” He indicates to the bed as he pulls out a scrap of parchment. You recognise it as the one Seonghwa had written your prophecy on the other time when you were discussing your visit to the fortune teller. Yeosang brings the paper over to you.

“So, what part haven’t you figured out?” He asks seriously, as he reaches in his pocket for a small wooden case, producing a pair of thin, gold rimmed eyeglasses and placing them on his nose delicately. You look over the words.

“The sea witch and the jar of clay.” You answer honestly.

Yeosang nods and moves over to his array of books. The walls are covered in them, from texts to maps to travel rutters to books of varying languages. There are even some tied up in stacks and placed neatly on the floor, all of them well kept and not a speck of dust on them.

He pulls out a few books, putting them in his arms as he mumbles to himself, eyes flitting among the shelves. Then he returns to you, setting the books on the table with a huff. “Let me look through these for a moment.”

You study him intently as he flips through the books faster than you can blink, fingers flying along the pages. The title on some of the books read ‘Legends of the Sea’, ‘Mythical Folk’ and such.

“The sea witch is a powerful entity who was once human with a bond to both the land and sea. She holds immense power, drawing upon the sea to cast spells. In return for a high price, she grants both magical and non magical folk alike what they desire.” Yeosang reads aloud, meticulously focusing on every detail. “Only people in great desperation can find the sea witch, as her lair lies hidden in a magical realm of the sea in which mortals cannot find. The entrance is rumoured to be off the coast of several uninhabited islands in the Atlantic, guarded by the sirens and fierce tidal straits rip through the waters, smashing any ship that dares pass through.”

“That’s… good to know.” You swallow uncomfortably. The only one who probably knows exactly who you are, and she’s probably out of reach. You’re unwilling to put the crew in danger because of your own problems.

“Those who have made a deal with the sea witch tend to have a token on which the deal was sealed.” Yeosang continues, glancing at the necklace hanging from your neck. “The price is often exorbitantly high, and is rarely something of material worth. It often is something of immense value to the person making the deal.”

Your memories.

You had given up your memories.

“In popular folk stories, she was responsible for taking the voice of a mermaid who’d fallen in love with a prince of the land in return for her legs. She also gives out pieces of ropes with three knots. Pulling the first knot could yield a gentle, southeasterly wind, while pulling two could generate a strong northerly wind, but the third knot would unleash a hurricane.” Yeosang looks slightly interested. “Hongjoong-hyung has one of these, but he’s used the first knot already.”

“Really?” You gape. This sea witch can’t be mere legend now.

The navigator nods as he picks up another book. “We were being chased by the Royal Navy, but he used the wind to blow the ships away. That’s when hyung really started to believe in myths a little.”

He opens a book called ‘Symbolism Through Ages’. “Jars of clay, jars of clay… Jars of clay refer to humans. In many books such as the Holy Bible, humans were described to be jars of clay, having mortal bodies while holding precious souls of great value in them.”

A jewel resting in a jar of clay.

Yeosang’s eyebrows pinch together as he continues reading. “This is a interesting explanation, but not rather helpful as it’s quite metaphorical. You said that the fortune teller asked you who’d made you?”

“Yeah…” You shiver a little at the words. “Then she told me the sea witch was my mistress.”

Yeosang frowns thoughtfully, and you can literally hear the gears in his mind turning. He picks up another book, flipping through it absentmindedly as he glances through it. “Made… Clay… Vessel… Humans… Sea Witch… Bargain...”

Then he stops.

All at once, his eyes fly wide open, pupils dilating in realization, mouth going slack, face ashen. The expression on his face can only be described in pure, unadulterated shock, and he stops breathing for a second as if air has trapped itself in his lungs.

Your heart skips a beat in excitement.

“Did you find something?” You begin to ask excitedly, but Yeosang barely seems to hear you, staring in horror at the page, then at you.

Unease begins to crawl up your skin, but you force it to the side and ask. “Yeosang-hyung… what is it?”

That seems to snap Yeosang out of his daze and he desperately tries to smooth his face in a neutral expression, but he can’t quite hide the terror in his eyes. “It’s nothing. I just thought of something, but it’s no big deal.”

The way his voice is trembling tells you it is anything but.

Your eyes narrow in suspicion and barely restrained anger. “Yeosang-hyung, what are you hiding from me?”

“It’s nothing.” The navigator insists, slamming the book shut. You get a mere glimpse of the cover. Prome-, but then Yeosang’s hand slides over the title and you can’t see it any longer. “It’s nothing at all, so just let it go, please.”

Usually, you’d let anything he says go, but this is different.

“Then let me see it.” You hold your hand out to take the book, but Yeosang wrenches it from your grasp before you can even hold it, eyes flaring in panic.

“Don’t touch it!” Yeosang shouts furiously, clutching the book to his chest. Rage fills you, what may be an answer to your identity is right there, but Yeosang won’t give it to you. You storm over to him, ready to rip the book from his hands if you need to.

“What are you doing?” You snarl at him, almost animalistic as you reach to tear your only clue from him, but Yeosang shakes his head, arms folding around the book.

“You can’t see it!” He screams at you, tears streaming down his cheeks and you feel red hot anger thrumming in your veins, purring to life like an awakening monster. Icy calm washes over you, in complete contrast to the fury burning in your heart. How dare he cry as if he’s the one losing anything from this?

Yeosang must see the shift in your eyes as your expression settles into one of dark determination, because his knees start knocking uncontrollably and his eyes dilate with pure, undiluted and primal fear.

“Give the book to me, Yeosang.”

In this moment, Yeosang makes a decision.

His fingers fumble with the latch behind him. Before you can realise what he’s doing, he’s opened the pothole, turned away from you and tossed the book into the ocean.

You feel like your last hope has been crushed into shards and scattered to the wind. Broken fury and grief screams within you like two clashing hurricanes, tearing you apart and ripping through you. Your eyes land on Yeosang, who looks stunned by what he’s just done.

You finally manage to find words in your rage to convey to him what exactly you’re feeling now.

“I hate you.” You spit with every bit of loathing you can muster, and with that, you whirl around and dash out of the cabin, the door slamming shut behind you.

Yeosang doesn’t say anything. Instead, he merely slides to the ground on his knees, body curled into a ball, wishing he could beg for your forgiveness.

And his fist pressed against his mouth to stifle the sobs pouring from his chest.

[andypantsx3]

in cinders | 3 | obfuscations

pairing: Todoroki Shouto / Reader

length: 24,362 words / 9 chapters

summary: You’re just trying to fairy godmother your best friend into a happily ever after. If only the prince would stop hanging around and cooperate.

tags: cinderella AU, prince!Shouto, romance, misunderstandings, reader-insert

warnings: aged up characters, eventual smut

The dress in question belonged to Lady Camie Utsushimi and you hoped she wouldn’t get close enough to notice.

It was a deep blue, almost black in certain lights, and though it wasn’t as fine as Ochako’s gown, it looked like the kind of thing that wouldn’t be out of place in a room full of nobility. In the scant hour you had to prepare, you’d done your best to temporarily alter it, quickly pinning the neckline into a different shape and ironing on spare silver ribbon lifted from Mina’s workrooms.

You’d cut a simple silver mask from the same ribbon, hurriedly stitching around the holes for the eyes and tying off the back with a thinner length. It wasn’t your best work, but then you didn’t intend for anyone to get close enough to take note.

While in Mina’s workroom, you also helped yourself to a scrap of pink ribbon and a pearl button, looping the ribbon through the eyehole to create a simple kind of a necklace. It would look too good with Ochako’s dress to pass up. You made a mental note to feed Mina more pastries in apology.

Back in your rooms, you and Ochako quickly washed down with a rough bar of soap of the type that all the palace servants used. It wasn’t as fine or perfumed with flowers like the ladies’ soaps you often caught passing through the corridors to be delivered to their rooms. It smelled vaguely of the olives that had gone into its production, but at least you smelled clean.

Once dressed, you and Ochako stole down the servant’s passages, taking care to avoid anyone carrying trays to the feast. At a quarter past the candlemark, you crept into the hallway that descended into the ballroom from an onlooking balcony. As agreed, Kaminari had left his post open for the spare minutes you needed to get inside.

“It’s not too late to back out,” Ochako whispered as you pressed open the hidden door leading into the back of the hall. The peerage was still being announced at the entry and you wouldn’t be noticed as you came in.

You grabbed her wrist and pulled her through the door, into the brightly-lit grandeur of the ballroom. At once, you were overwhelmed by the sights and smells of the reception. Bright dresses of every color dotted your vision like spots, their wearers combed and rouged to high perfection. Trays littered the tables at the fringes of the room, piled high with cheeses and sweetmeats and the other labors of Rikido’s love. At one table on the far end of the room, you spied the famous soba noodles.

All around you, the nobility swirled like currents on the sea.

“Wow,” Ochako breathed, sounding just as dumbfounded as you felt. “It’s even more than I thought it would be.”

Something pleased curled in your chest, happy you could give this to her. Even if she didn’t bag her prince at the end of the night, it would be worth it to hear the note of wonder in her voice and see her happily spinning among the party’s guests.

Speaking of Prince Shouto, you peered around in search of his tall figure. As the announcements of noble entries tapered off, you spotted your target in the corner of the room. It was hard to recognize all the courtiers in their elaborate masks, but you knew that head of distinctive red and white hair.

“What do you say you take your new dance skills for a spin,” you said, catching Ochako’s wrist again and pulling her through the splendid crowds.

She followed sedately, right up until she caught on to where you were going.

“Y/N, that’s him!” she hissed, “I can’t go over there.”

You pretended you’d conveniently lost your hearing. “What?”

“I said, I’m not going over there,” she whispered again, furiously. “I can’t look him in the face, what if he doesn’t -- oh hello, your highness! Mr. Midoriya!”

You stifled a laugh, dropping into your best approximation of a curtsy.

“Your highness,” you said, shoving Ochako in front of you. “It’s wonderful to meet you. I had hoped you might grace the Lady Uraraka with a dance. She’s quite new to court, you see.”

The man in question stared down at you, dual toned eyes burning into yours. Up close, you could see he was even more handsome than you had thought, his unusual eyes, sharp nose, and the fullness of his mouth only emphasized by the cut of his dark mask. He wore a doublet in a blue color only one shade lighter than your own gown, and the high points of his starched collar curved up towards his sharp jawline.

Over his shoulder, his valet Izuku Midoriya perked up, dressed in a green that matched his riot of curls.

“I’ve not heard of the Uraraka family,” Midoriya said, dropping into a bow. “It’s wonderful to make your acquaintance.”

Ochako seemed to blush to the roots of her hair at being addressed. “Oh, we’re um. We’re new, as my companion has said.”

Prince Shouto seemed to remember his manners as well, turning to Ochako. “Welcome, Lady Uraraka.” His heterochromatic eyes flicked over her face and he seemed to search for something to say. “I must compliment you on your choice of jewelry. Your necklace is quite unique and beautiful.”

You smothered a grin, proud of your efforts. She had his attention! Time to make your exit.

You bent your knees in a quick curtsy again. “Well, I must take my leave. I’d promised an acquaintance to find her. Please take good care of my friend.”

With that, you all but dove into the crowd, leaving Ochako at the mercy of the prince and his attendant. If the prince had any conscience at all, his chivalrous upbringing would compel him to ask her for a dance. From there, Ochako's inherent loveliness would do all the heavy lifting.

Once you were sure you were out of their sight, you looped around to one of the refreshments tables, intent on getting your evening’s worth out of Rikido’s cooking. If you had to be here, this would definitely beat the scraps you’d intended to scarf down by yourself. You planned on eating ten plates worth as you watched over Ochako from the sidelines. With the luxurious thickness of Lady Utsushimi’s skirts as cover, you might even be able to sneak twice your usual supply back into your room for later.

You were piling your plate high with barely-disguised glee when an elegant hand was held out in front of you. Your eyes followed an arm up a stylish sleeve and into the face of Camie Utsushimi herself. You froze, serving fork hanging from your fingers.

“L-lady Utsushimi!” you cried, quickly abandoning your plate. You swept into another curtsy so fast you heard your knees creak. “It’s a pleasure!”

Camie considered you with an unreadable look on her delicate features. Up close, her face was so symmetrical and pretty it almost made your eyes burn.

After a moment of uncomfortable silence, her features relaxed into something like geniality.

“I’m afraid I don’t know your name, Lady…?”

You panicked. You hadn’t planned on being addressed. Before you could stop yourself, you blurted out the first name you could think of.

“Kamiko. I’m, um, from the Ito family.”

Fuck, what were you doing giving her Kamiko’s name?

“Well met, Lady Ito." Lady Utsushimi smiled. "I must tell you that I quite like your dress. I have one just like it! It appears our tastes are quite similar, and I found myself thinking that I must make your acquaintance.”

Internally, you were screaming. Did she recognize it for her own dress? What game was she playing? Was the king’s guard going to march in here any moment and separate your head from your shoulders?

You forced yourself to calm down. “I thank you, my lady. That is a high compliment coming from you.”

She regarded you. “Do you know me? I’m sorry that I cannot say the same - I don’t believe I know of your family.”

You waved a hand dismissively. “Oh you wouldn’t! We’re, um, from the outlying provinces. We don’t really, uh, get to court much.”

Lady Utsushimi gave you a toothy grin. “Well I’m glad you could make it for Shouto’s birthday. Everyone seems to have turned out.”

You found yourself seizing on the opening she left, desperate to get the subject off of you. “Do you know the prince quite familiarly? You call him by his given name.”

She laughed. “Oh yes, Shouto and I are old friends. I only turned up tonight to give him some company should he need it. He hates these things.”

You turned back to the ballroom, searching out the prince’s mop of hair. You found him easily enough, but were startled to see a distinct lack of Ochako on his arm.

A panic seized you.

“Um, forgive me, Lady Utsushimi. I seem to have forgotten something. I’ll just--um, I’ll be right back.”

Without waiting for her response, you plunged back into the fray of courtiers, beelining straight for the prince.

Emerging breathlessly as though from a cold river, you stumbled almost straight into him. Forgetting yourself entirely, you blurted, “Where’s Och--uh, Lady Uraraka?”

He looked at you, seeming startled. “Pardon, Lady…?”

You waved him off, “Oh, don’t worry about me. Just tell me where Lady Uraraka’s gone to and I can be on my merry way.”

He turned to look at you more fully, something curious alighting in his gaze.

“Forgive me, but is it not rude to address your liege lord without the proper respects?”

You froze, blood feeling like it was icing over in your veins. “I--of course, your highness, please forgive me for any offense. I’d only wondered--um, where my friend had gone.”

You hoped desperately that your disguise as a noblewoman stood between you and the gallows.

A smirk played at the corners of Prince Shouto’s mouth.

“I believe she is with Mr. Midoriya at the moment.”

You looked up at him in shock. Was he playing with you?

“Oh, um, thank you. And where might Mr. Midoriya be at this very minute?”

His smirk widened into something dangerously close to a grin. “I do believe I’m owed a name before I will tell you.”

Fuck. Don’t give out Kamiko’s again--

“I don’t have one,” you blurted, then winced.

Prince Shouto stared at you, something a little like disbelief creeping over his features. “You don’t have a name? That’s the first time I’ve heard something like that. Tell me, are you trying to make yourself interesting?”

You flushed. “There is absolutely nothing interesting about me, I can assure you--” nothing that a royal would find interesting anyway, unless they cared about the best kind of soap to lift grease stains from a pan -- “if you could point me in the direction of your valet, I won’t take up any more of your time.”

The prince stepped nearer to you. This close, you could feel the heat coming off of his left side and smell something fresh like mint, underlaid with the tang of saddle oil and leather. His proximity went straight to your head and you took a step back, feeling dizzy.

“I will take from you a dance, then, in place of a name,” he said. His gaze burned into yours like a torch laid to a pyre.

These nobles sure asked for a lot you couldn’t give.

“Um, I’m afraid I’m not much good at dancing.” You groped around for any excuse, taking another slow step back. “I've been told it's as if I'd never learned! Lady Uraraka, though, is a wonderful dancer. I’ll be sure to add you to her dance card when I find her.”

You moved to leave, but a rough hand on your waist stopped you.

“I must insist,” the prince said, “I’ll refresh you, if you are as unpracticed as you say. You would not deny your prince on his birthday, would you?”

You regarded him suspiciously, noting the wry twist at the corner of his mouth. He was being too obnoxious not to be obfuscating. Was there some reason he wasn’t letting you follow Ochako and Midoriya?

“Your toes will pay the price for this,” you intoned, “I assure you I am not being modest.”

Prince Shouto smiled and steered you towards the floor where a dance was already underway. “Perhaps. I will be the judge of that.”

This man had no idea what he was in for.

In the interest of spending as little time in the stocks possible, you did your best to minimize the damage to his toes. You still found yourself trodding on him more often than not though, confused by the many steps and the spritely movements of the couples around you. It became clear very quickly that you had not been lying to him.

Soon enough, the prince leaned down to put his mouth to your ear. “Stand on my boots.”

You pulled back to look at him in befuddlement. “What?” you asked, stupidly.

He tugged you closer. “Step up onto my boots. No one will notice with your long skirts. I will lead you through the dance.”

Your heart pounding in your chest, you did as he asked. This had the effect of bringing you much nearer to him than was proper, and you noticed that even standing on his boots, you tucked neatly under his chin. You hid your face in his strong shoulder, feeling your face turn pink, hoping desperately that he noticed neither your blush nor the messy stitches of your mask.

“So you were not being modest,” he laughed when you’d spun another few rounds, this time with much less difficulty. You could feel it rumble in his chest. “I, too, would guess you had never learned.”

You cringed. “One of many faults, your highness.”

A calloused thumb smoothed your back. “You do not have a name and you do not dance. What do you do with your time?”

Scrub pots. Wash the vegetables that go into your supper. Clean the fireplaces.

You wracked your brain for something suitable to tell him. What did noble women do that men found duller than dirt? What could you give him that he would not ask more about?

“Embroidery, your highness. I am skilled with a needle and thread.”

“With that mask?” he huffed a soft laugh. “Tell me honestly.”

“Well,” you declared, nose feeling hot, “what do you think I do?”

Prince Shouto looked almost delighted by the question, the blue of his left eye shining at you through his mask.

“Let’s see. You write to the Lady Uraraka, seeing as you are such good friends--”

You nodded. Writing, that was something that ladies could do.

“--and you make your own soaps--”

You looked up at him, startled. “What?”

He leaned into your hair, and you could feel him take a deep breath. Your mind felt like it was melting a little. “Your hair, it smells faintly of olives. Most ladies order florals. I’ve never smelled anything like this before.”

Well, it’s not as though he went around sniffing the help every day. All the same, he was too observant.

“Um, what else?” you prompted, trying to reroute him.

His right hand fell from where it clasped yours to gently encircle your wrist. “And you alter your dresses after they’re ordered for you. Do you not find the current fashion satisfactory?”

To your horror, he plucked at the loose silver ribbon you’d ironed on to the hem of your sleeve. It came away easily, clutched in his long fingers.

You opened your mouth to reply -- though what you might have said was a complete mystery to you -- when a blur of pink and green came rushing at you.

Ochako popped up almost between you and the prince, Izuku hot on her heels.

“Your highness,” Izuku sketched a quick bow, “my apologies for interrupting, but your father has need of you.”

Prince Shouto’s hand tightened on your back for a moment, then fell away as he stepped out of your space.

“I see,” he said quietly. He bowed deeply towards you. “I will look for you later, Lady No Name.” And then he was gone, followed closely by his green-haired valet.

Ochako gaped. “Y/N! That was--!”

You hissed, grabbing her hand and rushing off the dance floor. “I know! We have to get out of here before he comes back.”

She looked at you in concern and you held up the sleeve where he had pulled off your ribbon. “Another couple minutes and he’d have figured me out.”

Her eyes grew round with distress. “Do you think he--?”

You shook your head. “Not if we leave now.”

She nodded, and led the way out of the great hall. Once back in the halls of the castle, the two of you ducked towards the doors to the servant’s hall, stealing quietly through the drafty passageways. You kept to the shadows in the kitchen, creeping carefully down the short staircase that led to your shared room.

When you’d finally made it inside, you let out a deep breath, peeling out of Lady Utsushimi’s dress and stowing it carefully under your pallet to return to the laundry rooms at your earliest opportunity.

The two of you changed and collapsed into bed, laughing wildly at the night you’d had. Ochako wouldn’t share more than a word or two on where she’d gone with the prince’s attendant, but you guessed she might have rushed off too embarrassed to dance with the prince and Izuku may have followed to make sure she was well.

Still, it was clear she’d loved being able to go to the ball in her pretty dress, and you smiled, thrilled that you could have given that to her.

Eventually, she stilled, the sound of her breathing becoming heavy. You eventually drifted off as well, feeling the ghost of the prince’s hand at your back and his breath at your temple.

[galadrieljones]

If you watched it, was there anything noteworthy in the Maggie origins episode?

Hey anon! I actually just watched it last night. I haven’t done a thorough analysis yet or anything, but there were definitely some things I noticed, and some big take-aways. 

The first thing I noticed was how strongly Maggie was cast in her role as a wife. It did not surprise me, but it affirmed my feelings about her character. I have often thought of the different characters and how their roles fit into the family dynamic, ie: Maggie is a wife, Glenn is a husband, Rick is a father, Michonne is a mother, Daryl is a brother, etc.

For Maggie, her entire narrative arc, including her leadership role during the war with the Saviors, is driven by her marriage to and then her loss of Glenn. Every time there is a catastrophe, Maggie is consumed with finding Glenn. I know many people viewed her choice to pursue Glenn after the prison fell rather than Beth as selfish, but I didn't. Glenn was her husband. He was her other half. I, personally, understand this completely. I feel the writers did this to firmly cast Maggie as a wife. Not as a daughter, not as a sister. A wife. And after she loses her husband, ie: her other half, she becomes consumed with grief, which she sublimates into anger, fierce leadership, and revenge.

I believe Maggie was cast as a wife early on to reinforce the fact that she's no longer a daughter. Why? Because Beth is the daughter. In 4b, Beth goes searching for booze in the name of her deceased father who struggled with alcoholism his whole life. Beth places flowers on the "Loving Father's" grave. It's Beth who's carrying Hershel's legacy now. Beth becomes a symbol of Hershel, so when Beth dies, so, too, does the Greene farm. In the Origins episode, Cohen refers to Hershel as "Maggie's North Star." When Hershel dies, that symbolism is passed onto Beth. Then, when Beth dies, Maggie is lost. She has no direction, re: "Them." Also, if you're familiar with TD theories, you know that Beth and star symbolism is very important. Most associate Beth with Sirius, the dog star, or the morning star, connoting a return. But the north star is important, too. Carl shows Judith how to find the north star before he dies. It's a symbol of direction and hope for the future.

Another thing I found really interesting in this Origins episode was the way it reminded us of how, over time, Maggie and Daryl align as a single unit, like their own family. Over time, they even align separately from Rick. Their alignment begins with Beth’s death, for which they are both uniquely crushed, and they align after Glenn dies. Something, too, that this episode brings to light, which I had honestly forgotten, was Maggie’s key role in brokering the deal with Gregory, which prompts Rick to lead the team into the war with the Saviors. It is actually Maggie’s negotiations, which start the war. This is important, because later, Daryl will blame himself for Glenn’s death, but this Origins episode reminded us of how instrumental Maggie actually was in the early days at Hilltop and during the war. In some ways, it was her talk with Gregory that started it all. This monumental guilt she must feel certainly bonds her Daryl as well. Let us not forget, too, that Daryl knew Glenn even before Maggie. He helped save Glenn’s life all the way back in Atlanta.

Daryl and Maggie’s alignment was also explored in Daryl’s Origins episode, particularly in how they unite against Rick to try and take down Negan. Daryl even betrays and lies to Rick in order to distract him, so that Maggie can kill Negan in revenge. Daryl is the man who sets Gregory swinging at the gallows in Hilltop. In Maggie’s Origins episode, tptb wanted to communicate to us that Daryl and Maggie are brother and sister, that the two share a UNIQUE familial bond, which is ultimately rooted in their mutual loss of Beth. They are a family. We see it come to light, too, in "Home Sweet Home" when Daryl helps Maggie, saves Maggie’s life, they talk about the past, and they talk about Beth. There is nobody else left who really remembers Glenn from the beginning, or Beth anymore, nobody aside from Carol, and as we’ve learned in "Find Me" and "Diverged," Carol is currently on her own. I believe that Maggie and Daryl are being positioned as family as another way of remembering Beth, just like so many other references to Beth we've seen in 10c and Origins. All very convenient timing!!

I noticed a bunch of other small things, like, for example, that Maggie is wearing a red handkerchief around her wrist when they arrive at the prison, which echoes the red handkerchief that Daryl carries, as well as the bit of red fabric or handkerchief that Sasha wears pinned to her jacket in “Them.” Carol also, at some point, wears a red scarf, and so does Negan. Further, in 10c, Maggie and Daryl are both shown as having red fletching on their arrows. Does it have something to do with Rick’s red machete, and the episodes “A”/“No Sanctuary?” I don’t know. I think it may be a symbol for wrath, but that’s half-baked at the moment.

Also: Maggie refers to “the loss of Beth,” not Beth’s death. I don’t know how significant that is, especially since we’re operating from Maggie’s point of view. Of course Daryl’s POV communicated that Beth was killed, and also that Rick died. We know that, in that instance, Daryl’s POV is at least half wrong. As usual, POVs cannot be trusted as verifiable sources in TWD. That said, “the loss of Beth” is grammatically cumbersome, and therefore interesting. Why not just say “Beth’s death?” Tbh, there’s still so much we don’t know about the missing time between “Coda” and “WHAWGO.” I don’t know what Maggie knows or could know about Beth’s “loss.”

There was also the moment, as the prison was going down, when Maggie and Beth start off together, but then they separate. I forgot how that went down, and it’s interesting how they decided to show it, ie: Maggie tells Beth to round up everybody onto the bus, but Beth doesn’t want to leave Maggie. It reminded me of “Alone,” when Daryl tells her to go, and she shouts “I won’t leave you!” 

In both episodes, Beth is told to do something, like stay behind, and it’s seemingly for her own protection, but it does in some sense remove her agency. Beth doesn’t want to separate or leave people behind. She wants everyone to stay together. Her instincts are right, of course. But I think a major lesson that Beth has to learn in 4b/5a is how to become her own kind of hero, rather than the babysitter for the hero, the damsel in distress, or the little sister. Because we see in “Still” how Daryl begins to view Beth as strong. He later tells Maggie so, in “Them:” “She was strong, too. She just didn’t know it.”

Another thing: I noticed that the guy who Gregory convinced to try and kill Maggie was named Otis. Very strange. Of course, Otis was the name of the family friend who accidentally shot Carl, and who was sacrificed by Shane to save Carl. There are a lot of odd name doubles in TWD so any time that happens, I give it a side-eye. Other examples of name repetition are Sam and Luke. Weird name repetition in fiction always makes me think of dream logic, ie: familiar names being used in odd, unfamiliar circumstances. It’s not a coincidence. I haven’t thought about this at all yet, however, so I don’t yet have a good understanding of what this is meant to conjure.

Per the season 11 preview: I was very intrigued by the silent walker, which had its vocal cords cut. For me, this echoes the broken music box, and is a reference to Beth (the songbird who can’t sing anymore). I think it's also a reference to Connie, the other "dead" sister. Connie says a great deal to Daryl during their friendship, but she doesn’t use her voice to speak. Very interesting choice, for sure.

The stuffed rabbit made me think of Lizzy, who kills rabbits. Lizzy is a symbol of madness and the deranged childhood. It also reminds me of “A,” and “Here’s Negan.” In both episodes, a dead rabbit is removed from a trap and seems related to the theme of predator vs. prey. Beth is certainly related to rabbits thematically, ie: she is a rabbit who gets stuck in a trap (Grady). But the stuffed rabbit also makes me think of childhood in general, and here it could be reminding Maggie of Hershel, or her own childhood back at the farm. Of course, she sets it down, because she is putting that stuff away.

Also, as you can see in the above photo, there’s a storm in the distance. There’s also “[thunder rumbling]” in the background of both “Still” and “Find Me.” The theme of the ominous, coming storm is very loud in general in TWD, but it’s especially loud right now.

Anyway, this is all I have for now. Any other thoughts?

[crescentmoons-and-stardust]

Twisted Tales: The Boy Who Lied (Sequel to The Path in the Woods)

Peter saw things no one else did. A ghost walking a graveyard, fairies drinking milk from cats’ dishes, a poltergeist knocking pans from the shelf. No one believed Peter when he shared what he had seen. First they were concerned but that concern turned to annoyance and melded into anger. He was lying, he just wanted attention, they all reasoned. Soon Peter learned to stop sharing but his reputation as the village liar lived on.

Peter was fascinated by the strange woods that isolated his town. He saw things come in and out of it. He watched as his village sent girl after girl alone into it and wondered what things they’d see in there. He didn’t doubt that there were wolves but there were many other things as well. 

Lizzy had been a close friend of his, he was too young when she had been sent into the woods to realize it was love he felt for her. It had been three years since she had left and never came back. He was a young man of seventeen, and she would have been the same age. He liked to think she was still alive in there but he doubted it. At least he did, until one day, he saw her.

He was closer to the woods than he should have been. Trying to gather firewood that wasn’t damp from the previous night’s rain. He saw a wolf and then he saw a girl. And then he recognized her. “Lizzy?” He was startled. She was surprised to see him. She turned and ran. Peter thought of following but his feet were frozen to the ground. Instead he fled to Lizzy’s home. 

“I saw her! Lizzy I saw her! She’s still in the woods. Alive. We need to get her!”

Lizzy’s mother wept and her father scolded Peter so harshly it brought tears to his eyes. They did not believe her and as he was yelled at, he started to doubt himself as well. Did he actually see her or not? Did he actually see any of the strange things he thought he did?

Days passed. Peter kept his head down and tried not to think of Lizzy or the woods. The town glared at him as word spread that he had broken poor Lizzy’s family’s hearts with his cruel lies. He tried to avoid the woods but he needed mushrooms that only grew on the outskirts. He would not look into the woods he thought as he gathered. He would not. But then something flickered in the woods. A white dress and red cape. This time Lizzy was not surprised to see him but he was still surprised to see her.

“You aren’t real,” He told her.

“I am,” She smiled and it broke his heart. “I’ve missed you Peter,” She said  before turning back to the woods and running away. He swore he could hear her laughing sweetly as she did. This time Peter ran to the village courtroom.

“I saw her! She’s real and she’s alive. Maybe all those missing girls are. We have to save them!”

They flogged him this time. They brought him to the town square, tied his hands above his head to the gallows and flogged him till his back was covered with blood. They threatened to cut his tongue out if he told his lies again.

That night, Peter escaped into the woods. He knew it was forbidden but he know longer cared. His back ached with each step but he kept moving forward. He’d find Lizzy and bring her home, that way they would believe him. She was waiting for him this time.

“Come with me,” Peter said. 

“I cannot Peter. And you should not be here,” She said solemnly. “But you shouldn’t be in that village either Peter. It’s evil. The men know what happens in these woods and at the end of it. They know and they still send us here. We’re tired of it. It ends on the next full moon.”

Wolves had gathered around Lizzy as she spoke. They watched Peter but did not attack. Lizzy leaned in and kissed him gently on the lips. “Flee while you can, Peter.” And with that she shed her skin and ran off with her sister wolves.

Peter was frightened. Both by what he saw and what she had said. The village was his home. He had to warn them, they had to believe him.

They didn’t. And with a red hot knife they cut out his tongue. When the full moon came, the wolves descended. They tore at the flesh of every man in town. They fed on the mayor but let the women and children go. Some of the younger girls even turned into wolves themselves. When three of the wolves found Peter sitting in his kitchen they stood on their hind legs and shifted back to girls. One was Lizzy. Another he recognized as Roana. Lizzy cupped his face lovingly. “They hurt you too,” She said. He opened his lips and showed them his tongueless mouth. 

“He can’t tell our secrets anymore,” Roana said. 

“He’s harmless,” The other said. “And he’s not quite human. I can smell it on him.”

“Then he can come with us,” Lizzy smiled and took him by the hand. He followed the wolves deep into the woods and there he stays till this day. A guardian of sorts, a father to Lizzy’s cubs. He keeps the woods secrets and helps raise a new generation. He thinks of his village from time to time and feels anger. Not because they didn’t believe him, but anger that he tried to warn them at all.

[navigatrixnarrations]

Sometimes Always, Part 5: Thief In the Night

Catch up here

Warnings: Canon-typical violence, language

Word Count: 2841

The night is moonless and the road is blocked by branches and debris. From out of the gloom, a rasping voice rumbles “Stand and deliver! Your money or your life!” The coachman’s lamp reveals a broad-shouldered man standing beside the makeshift barricade before the stopped carriage, completely swathed in dark clothing, face hidden, a cutlass at his waist, aiming a pistol.

The adrenaline sings in Charles Vane’s blood; he’s missed the thrill of the plunder. This promises to be a rich prize, one that will assist in repairing the Adventure. One that may make Margaret see him as a partner rather than a burden, an obligation, or worst of all, an object of pity.

The coachman is older, with a soldier’s bearing, but seems disinclined to put up any resistance. In the coach, a man made rich off the blood and toil of those he claimed to own. His shaking hands are trying to load a pistol, which Vane snatches from his hand. To think this sniveling, scared weakling who would call him a scoundrel had the confidence to travel unguarded with this amount of coin — there’s the difference between those who dwell on land and those whose home is the sea, he supposes. The ocean is unforgiving and even wealthy men cannot stay sheltered in its domain.

Vane hoists the sack of coin over his shoulder. A pistol shot rings out, but misses, and despite the snow on the ground, he’s into the trees and out of sight before the coachman or the mark could reload. By the time he pushes his skiff from the riverbank, he almost feels like a proper pirate again.

The night is bone-achingly cold, even more so on the water. If he hadn’t botched things so terribly, he’d be warm in the West Indies. He’d be known and feared, not a thief in the night with his face and name hidden. He’d have a crew, and he’d be sailing under the black with Margaret at his side...

Can he pinpoint it, the moment he started to trust her? Perhaps it was when he awoke aboard the Revenge and she told him he was free.

“What kind of weapon made that?” She pointed at the brand on his chest.

“Hot iron.”

“Why?”

“So the person who owned me” -- he felt his face twist as he said it -- “could tell I was his slave. Find me and take me back there.”

“I won’t let him,” she said with a ferocious scowl, her voice surprisingly dark for one so young. “I won’t let anyone.” And he believed her. He was right to believe her.

He shakes himself from his reverie. He’s got to focus on the task at hand. There’s little traffic in the harbor tonight, but still enough for him to blend in as he sails around the horn of the Battery and makes his way back to the garret. With his hair tied back, a woolen cap pulled low and his laborer’s clothes, with the sack of coin slung over his shoulder he looks like any other longshoreman coming home from a long shift of loading and unloading cargo.

He imagines the look on Margaret’s face when he shows her what he’s robbed, and smiles as he climbs the stairs.

His smile fades as the door handle is jerked right out of his hand by her, her expression one of worry and anger. “Thought you’d have been back hours ago. Was out looking for you.”

“I told you I’d be back.”

“I was afraid someone recognized you! I was afraid you’d been captured or killed!” Her chest heaves under her coat, and he feels his body warm more than the small fire in the hearth should have allowed.

“Well, I wasn’t. And look what I’ve brought us.” She was worried? About him? He drops the sack on the table and opens it. “Coin, Magpie, more than enough to complete the repairs to the Adventure.” When she doesn’t respond, he repeats “It’s coin. We won’t even need to fence it.”

Margaret sits down heavily and wrestles her temper. “Where the fuck did you get all this?”

“A bit of highway robbery.”

“Charles. Next time, if there is a next time, take me with you.”

���Didn’t want to put you in danger.”

She narrows her eyes and her lower lip juts out stubbornly. “Says the man whose life I’ve saved how many times now?”

They stare at each other, neither willing to back down.

“I’ve got things to do besides make sure you don’t get yourself killed,” she informs him. And then, more quietly, so quiet as to be nigh inaudible, “I lost Sully. I can’t lose you too, not again.”

“You won’t.”

The table is between them, and he’s about to upend it, coins and all, just to get it out of the way, when Margaret gets up to stoke the fire. “It’s not that I’m ungrateful, Charles. But you’ve a recent history of getting yourself nearly killed to help friends.” She pauses. “They’d never say so, but Anne and Jack are beside themselves with guilt about what happened.”

“How the fuck do you know about that?”

“Idelle told me.” Margaret fixes Vane with a fierce stare as she returns to her seat across the table. “She loves you dearly, you know.”

“Idelle is a good woman.” He’d sensed sometimes that she did, and not only because she didn’t always charge him in full for her services, though at the time he’d mostly put that down to being one of the few who took care to make sure she enjoyed herself as well. And he respected her directness and sharp mind -- traits she shared with Margaret. Yes, there was the rub.

“She almost broke when you shook your head no from the gallows.”

Vane doesn’t reply.

“I wouldn’t have thought you’d be one to give up, regardless of your pretty speech about fearing death being a choice.” He can almost hear in her accusatory tone the words Margaret once cried out: I thought I knew you, Charles! More fool me.

“Didn’t want to risk more of us getting killed trying to save me. Thought my death would drive a rebellion.”

“It wasn’t at all because some part of you no longer wanted to live?”

Sometimes he swears the blasted woman has the ability to see into his mind. Though if that was the case, perhaps things between them would have taken a different path. “I was worth more dead than alive. Had to leave Nassau. Fucked over your father a second time to help Flint fight England. And…” he trails off and stares into the middle distance.

“And?”

“The woman I was in love with loved another.” Vane’s voice is low, confessional, but there’s an edge of challenge in it.

“The woman you were in love with loved only power. Control. Wrapping her soft, weak little hands around whatever bits of influence she could grasp,” Margaret says waspishly.

Vane’s thin lips curl back, baring his teeth. “I’m not talking about Eleanor.”

“No?”

“No!” Vane slams the palm of his hand into the table for emphasis. Fucking hell, why can’t she understand what he’s telling her? He’d stopped loving Eleanor well before her final betrayal, well before she battered his face in his cell as he awaited hanging, well before he saw the sickening, smug look on her face as he stood at the gallows, though that certainly drove the point home.

His arm tremors, and from the slight furrowing of Margaret’s brow, she noticed. He wonders if she takes any satisfaction in seeing him like this, broken and brought low. He can’t say he would blame her if she did. But her lips part in concern, and her eyes are worried. She wraps a hand, callused and graceful, around his forearm.

“I need you to know that I took the shot the moment I was able; I didn’t delay or let you hang any longer than necessary.”

“I never doubted that, Magpie.” And he didn’t. Margaret never struck him in anger, never lied or broke her word to him. The scar on his brow is his own fault for startling her when she was holding a marlinspike; as for the scars on his heart, well, perhaps those are his own fault too.

It was barely dawn when Sully staggered shirtless out of Margaret’s tent, reeking of drink. Vane, up all night on watch duty in the Revenge camp, wanted to gut him. How dare he go to her drunk like that? Vane felt sick to his stomach, as though he’d been sucker-punched while nauseous. Hearing him approach, Sully turned to him with a grin. “Morning Charles…” His smile turned to a look of surprise when Vane shoved him, knocking him over backward into the sand, his long plait flying over his shoulder as he fell.

“Charles!” Margaret yanked on his arm, spinning him around to face her. She was fully clothed, though she looked like she just woke up, and she was livid. “What the fuck did you do that for?”

“You’ve a right to fuck any man you wish to, Magpie, but you at least deserve one who isn’t stumbling drunk.”

“Charles.” Margaret’s voice was patient, as though speaking to an idiot or a recalcitrant child, “I didn’t fuck Sully. I’ve never fucked anyone, of any state of sobriety. I’m likely the only virgin in Nassau.”

He didn’t smell sex on either of them, it was true, and Margaret didn’t even smell of rum. But even so. “What was I to think, when he stayed the night in your tent?”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but he decided to drink on an empty stomach, and I dragged him in there to sleep it off.”

Sully hauled himself to his feet. “I was a perfect gent to our Maggie-Pie, I was,” he announced. “And I’ll knife anyone who isn’t.”

Margaret whirled on him. “If you call me Maggie-Pie, I’m going to call you Mick.”

“I hate it when you do that,” Sully said cheerily. “Look sharp, here comes Hands.” The three of them straightened their postures; it was important to present a united front before that bastard.

******

The first year after Sully was killed passed in a haze of agony. The second year, Margaret was mostly numb. By the third year, the grief had become sneakier, creeping up to knife her when she least expected it. She could go days feeling what now passed for fine, and then something -- the scent of the tobacco he’d favored, a snippet of a song he’d liked -- would rip open the wound.

What a fool I am, thinking Charles might care for me, Margaret berates herself. Her flirtations the night of the skiff race went uncommented-on, unacted-on. Of course she should have expected that: the moment there was a girl fawning over him whose body was unscarred by blades and musket balls, whose hands weren’t roughened by rope and salt, whose face wasn’t bronzed by the sun, he’d stopped paying her any attention, hadn’t he.

He’s finally asleep, and she can weep. Quietly. She forces herself to stay silent despite the sobs wracking her body. Then a hand, Vane’s hand, reaches for her in the dark, finds her own, and holds it. She glances at him, crouched beside her bed so as not to loom over her. She hadn’t even heard him come into her room.

“Turnabout is fair play,” he says. She sits up, and he sits beside her, using his free hand to wipe her tears. Margaret tries to affect a steely dignity, but his voice, honey over gravel, cuts through. “You held my hand in the dark. I was a fool to have let myself ignore that. A man should never forget who held his hand in the dark.” She lets him gather her in his arms; it’s been so long since the last time she’d been held. She feels the stubble of his cheek pressed to the top of her head, his long hair hanging over her arm, the deep inhale he takes. She allows herself to lean into him, to nestle her face into the junction of his neck and shoulder and inhale the smoky scent of him. “Now,” he continues, “do you want to tell me what this is about?”

“Of course I fucking don’t.”

One of Vane’s hands is stroking her hair while the other rests between her shoulder blades, heavy and warm and anchoring. “I recall,” he says, his voice a purr reverberating through her torso, “a smart girl once telling me that there is nothing wrong with accepting help from people who care for me. That I’m not alone in the world.”

Margaret raises her head and looks at him sharply. Did he just say he cares for her? She had been telling herself that she’d laugh in Vane’s face if he showed any signs of being sweet on her. But here, in this moment, in his arms, she can’t bring herself to be cruel to him on purpose, not when his gaze is so gentle, so uncharacteristically unguarded. God knows they’d caused each other enough pain already, however inadvertently. “And turnabout is fair play, Charles?”

The strong shoulder that her cheek was just resting upon lifts in a shrug. “You ought to take your own advice.”

She leads him into the main room, where it’s warmer. Brings out the rum bottle. Vane is leaning toward her, letting her have her silence, but his own silence has a questioning quality to it.

“I’m thinking of the nature of promises. How to keep them. What it means to keep them.” Vane is simply watching her, waiting for her to continue. She takes a swig of rum; she wants liquid courage for what she’s about to tell him. “When Sully got killed, I threw everything he owned overboard. Any reminder of him was too much to bear.” She’d been certain she’d lose her mind with grief if she saw a shirt of his on someone else. She sees Vane trying to connect what she’s saying. “He once made me promise if he should die first, that I wouldn’t spend my life in mourning. That I’d find a way to be happy again.” And someone to be happy with, Sully had emphasized, though she’s not ready to tell Vane that part. “But I can’t see a way forward.”

“You were happy, though. With him.” He isn’t asking a question.

“Yes.”

Vane nods to himself and stares down at the coin he’s rolling back and forth between his fingers. “That’s all I ever wanted for you, Magpie. For you to be happy.”

For a moment, Margaret is afraid she’s going to burst into tears again, and she forces her expression into one of stoicism. “Were you happy? With her?”

The coin ceases its glittering dance across Vane’s knuckles. “I thought I was, for a time.”

“Do tell.”

He raises his face with a scowl to meet Margaret’s eyes, but his expression softens when he sees the real curiosity there. “In the beginning, she pursued me hard, lavished me with what I thought was love. Then she’d withdraw her affection, and I’d try to regain it. I see now that was her strategy.”

“To hear Idelle and some of the others tell it, Eleanor had you dancing like a puppet on a string.” Vane recoils as though she’d slapped him, and Margaret wonders if she pushed him too far, twisted a knife in him that she hadn't meant to insert, truly she hadn’t. “Charles, I…”

He cuts her off. “I assure you that I’ve got long-overdue clarity about the manner of woman she is.” He closes his eyes for a moment and sags slightly in his chair. He huffs out a short, mirthless laugh. “She’s a shit and everything you told me was correct.”

Margaret stands with an unstifled yawn. Damnation, but she’s exhausted. She considers telling him it took him long enough to figure out what she and Sully saw from the start, but what purpose would that serve? “I’ve got to be up early. Tide’s coming in about five, and the Adventure should be coming out of drydock with it. Got to move her to a proper slip.” Vane rises as well and they stand for a moment, looking at each other with uncertainty. He looks like he’s about to step towards her, so she simply says “Good night, Charles.” In response, he reaches out to squeeze her hand, ever so briefly.

As she settles herself back into bed, she smells him brewing coffee; he’s gotten in the habit of fixing a pot of it so that it would be ready when they woke, something she appreciates. If she could see through the door, she’d note him sitting before the fire, elbow on his knee and chin in his hand, staring into the flames, a man lost in thought.

Tag List: @whenimaunicorn @n3rdybird

[dreadwulf]

Love is a Burning Thing

(part 1) (part 2)

He is riding away from her. Farther and farther away.

Jaime is riding at the head of his battalion across the Crownlands. Glory trots along quite amiably, at pace with hundreds of other horses around him. Without his needing to move a muscle, at every moment Brienne is farther away. He can feel the distance stretching between them like she is still holding onto him somehow and pulling with all her might, ever since she had left him this morning.

It hurts. Like a steadily increasing stomachache, only it’s some other organ down there in his gut. If there is a structure in the body that secretes devotion like eyes spill tears, it is surely there, somewhere in his belly, and it is contracting violently, whispering at him to turn around and go back. But his gut is perpetually wrong, and cannot be trusted. This is exactly what he wants, to be getting away from Brienne as fast as he can. If it hurts, well, Jaime is quite accustomed to being hurt by the things he wants.

They ride for King’s Landing, and the ache simmers inside him like a low fire. But there is enough else to occupy his mind, and surely it will fade into the background, unimportant, beside the urgency of a Targaryen invasion.

His squire is watching him worriedly from his palfrey nearby, and Jaime straightens under the young man’s scrutiny. Smiles back at him until his squire grins cautiously back, and spurs his horse to ride over to the flanks. There, that’s more like it. Lord Lannister is no lovesick boy pining after some maiden. He made a foolish mistake, but fortunately it has cost him little. A few days away from his post, some chagrin before his men, and this wretched ache in his gut. That is nothing he can’t recover from.

His squire is riding, he notes, much more smoothly than he did when last they rode the Kingsroad, leaving the capital. He has grown tremendously in these months. Just as he had told Brienne, he will have to knight him sometime soon, Peck. Else some other knight will do it, and deny him the honor. He has been a good squire, and Jaime will regret losing him. 

Does he hope for it? Jaime wonders. At his age I thirsted for battle, and if there are truly Targaryens on the march there will be some promise of glory. If he knights him today, Peck will have to fight for his King. He will probably have to fight either way, but as a squire he will keep to the periphery, and a knight will be expected to charge on horseback, into the thick of the fighting. But Peck has not shown any remarkable talent at swordplay, not as Jaime had when Ser Arthur Dayne had knighted him. Not that, not yet. Let him squire a little bit longer.

His eyes drift to the wagon where the sons of the Riverlands are riding, where until this morning Podrick Peck had sat chattering and playing at dice with the other boys. What will he do with the hostages when they ride to battle? They could squire for his men. But if he loses any of them in battle, he will lose the cooperation of their parents as well.

I think Peck was sorry to see young Podrick go, Jaime thinks. His squire had taken the smaller boy under his wing, and the younger Payne had looked up to him with the kind of hero worship reserved by young boys for older, not-quite-grown boys. Peck enjoyed that attention, clearly. Podrick had a starry-eyed eagerness that his squire would be just outgrowing. An innocence. 

Jaime had spoken with the child as well, the night they had caught him sneaking into the camp. A scared and reticent boy to begin with, with a fearful glaze and a pronounced stammer that made one wonder if he had lost his wits. But with only a little encouragement, he had turned into a fair chatterbox. He had been startled to learn that the boy had squired for his brother Tyrion during the battle of the Blackwater; it had been he that saved his life, though not his nose. Timid he may be, but the young squire does not lack for bravery. It seems he had left King’s Landing looking for Tyrion, and followed the Maid of Tarth in hopes that her quest would lead him there. His brother had been good to him, Podrick said. 

As not many people have been, I’ll wager. Cast-off of a cast-off of House Payne, small for his age, and guileless as a newborn. 

Jaime had offered the boy a berth in his army. He could squire for Jaime’s cousin Addam Marbrand, or at least apprentice to someone in his camp, earn his keep. He would not be a hostage like the Riverlands’ noble sons, but he could still run about and play with them, as he seems to enjoy doing. I suspect the boy has not done much of that either, he notes.

Pod refused his offer, however. He said, with some hesitation, that he hopes Lord Tyrion is well, and thanks Ser Jamie for the kind offer, but he would rather stay with Lady Brienne, wherever she will be. He has a fair cavalcade of praise for the lady, which Jaime endures without comment. All in all, he seems a good lad. Loyal. From what little he saw, they are quite tightly bonded, the boy and his lady knight.

He ought to feel better knowing that. If he was to be sacrificed for another, at least the other was a good-hearted and clearly beloved child. It could have been Lem Lemoncloak. 

It does not make him feel any better.

He had gritted his teeth to look upon the boy, to be honest. Can one be jealous of a child? But Podrick very obviously had his lady’s love, and Jaime does not.

He has only just learned how much the wench meant to him, and how comparatively little he had meant to her in return. For her, at a moment’s notice, he had thrown over his family, his house, his responsibilities, to follow her into the Riverlands on the flimsiest of excuses, all because he thought she needed his help. It had been startlingly easy to do it, and as he walked away from his life he had felt lighter and merrier with every step.

What a fool he had been. As it turns out, she would not do the same for him - no, he was no more than a hostage himself, intended to free the companions she valued more. This boy, and that Hunt fellow, a hedge knight of some sort, who awaited them at the Dread Lady’s Gallows. Brienne had risked a great deal to come and find him, but the risk had not been for his sake. 

But no matter. She is gone now and he will not see her again. He will return to his life and go about forgetting her. That should make these feelings stop. It will have to end sometime, the crawling betrayal, the creeping shame, the sharp sting of rejection, and that time will come much sooner without the constant reminder of her presence. With time he will stop thinking of her, and it will be like he had never met that stubborn, ugly beast of a woman.

This is not making him feel any better either. Cheer up, he tells himself, tomorrow you may die. 

The Targaryen pretender has already taken Storm’s End in a rout. This “Aegon” has a band of supporters and a hired troop of mercenaries, the Golden Company, and at last word was riding out to face Mace Tyrell and the Crown forces. Of course it isn’t Aegon Targaryen - Jaime knows all too well the babe was slaughtered, skull crushed against the wall by his father’s creature The Mountain - but he looks the part, with the Targaryen hair and eyes. Perhaps he is some unknown cousin, some lost branch of the Targaryen family tree using Aegon’s name. Should Westeros be nostalgic for the relative peace of Targaryen rule, they might find the young man very persuasive.

He turns the details over and again in his mind. The Golden Company, a fearful force, and Targaryen banners stirring the populace to rebellion. They could be marching into a battle they cannot hope to win. Impossible to tell from the increasingly vehement missives he has received from the Queen Regent. She commands him to victory, but does she truly expect it? As has been amply demonstrated to him recently, he cannot expect even his closest allies to place much value on his safety. After all, what does anyone care if the Kingslayer should die?

My sweet sister would summon me regardless. She has shown that often enough. As coin she would spend me on a hopeless trial by combat merely to flaunt her purse. No doubt my beheading at the gates of King’s Landing would be just as gloriously pointless. 

Though Cersei, it seems, wants him only to return to her side directly, to serve as her personal bodyguard. She is grown obsessed with some prophecy that the children will all be murdered and her choked to death at Tyrion’s hands. Hearing that Tyrion himself is approaching the city has sent her into a kind of frenzy. Her last letter was nearly incomprehensible, raving. 

Yes, that had been the last bit of news the Spider had passed along, with the rest of his whispers: his own brother Tyrion rides with Aegon, and advises the Targaryen pretender how best to defeat their House in battle. That was the lowest blow, and it had knocked his usual confidence right out of him. Jaime does not fear battle, but he dreads this confrontation.

If one side wins, his sister and son are dethroned and probably executed. If the other side wins, he will have to kill his brother. Jaime loses either way.

He should not worry about defeat. The Crown forces are superior, the Lannister army vast and well-provisioned, and King’s Landing is by design a difficult city to take. But his brother is fearsomely clever, and he was Hand. He defended King’s Landing against Stannis Baratheon, and a man who knows how to hold the city will know how to take it. If he does, he will have his revenge for a lifetime of slights. He knows Tyrion holds it against him still, the lie he had told him about Tysha. After all the years they had been beloved brothers, after Jaime had set him free and saved his life, his little brother saw fit not only to murder their father but to conspire with their enemies to contest Cersei directly for the throne. He does not expect Tyrion will pull any punches now for old time’s sake. Not when they will face each other across a battlefield.

If there is anyone left who has not yet stuck a knife in my heart, they are running out of time to do it. 

He mulls over such thoughts feverishly as the dimming winter sun lowers in the sky. For a time he considers pressing the Lannister troops onward into the night to reach King’s Landing. It will be only a few hours march from here, and their summons have been increasingly urgent. Still, he would rather rest his men so that they can arrive fresh to the fighting and not exhausted from the road, and he commands them to set camp.

“Milord,” a lieutenant interrupts him tentatively as he unhorses, “we have Thoros of Myr bound in your tent as you requested, awaiting interrogation.”

Jaime smiles thinly. They have captured Beric Dondarrion’s Red Priest, who had somehow turned Catelyn Stark into the apparition who had lead the Brotherhood without Banners to capture him. Somehow during the conflagration with the Brotherhood he had run away and vanished into the trees. But Jaime’s scouts found him in the night, Thoros, stoking a meagre fire near Maidenpool. There was no time to deal with him in the morning, so they bundled him up and brought him along on the march - though they gave him no horse, and forced him to walk along tied to one of the wagons, thinking it would make him more cooperative. 

The Lord Commander’s tent is first to rise, and resplendent before ever he sets eyes on it, not that he notices. He leaves Peck to unsaddle his horse and enters it in full uniform. He will get through this interrogation before undressing and taking his supper.

He sits in the armchair they have carried across the Riverlands for him, and accepts a glass of sherry. The muddy priest is bound on the floor before his desk, and at his command his bonds are loosened, and he is allowed to sit in a wooden chair before his desk. Jaime observes all of this as he finishes the first glass of sherry, and requests another.

Once a huge man, both tall and fat, Thoros of Myr is now considerably diminished. His red robes are cavernous around him, his skin hanging loosely off his skeleton in great folds. Formerly a fierce swordsman, the fire that he once brandished by burning swords has seemingly gone out. The old Thoros could wear this one like a cloak. 

Even before Jaime can begin to question him, the Red Priest is firing questions back. First among them, “What have you done with the girl?”

“Which girl?” he stalls, disconcerted. 

“The maiden with your blade.” He may be physically smaller but his eyes are bright and sharp, and he holds Jaime’s gaze without flinching. The priest explains patiently, “the tall young woman with the king’s seal, she who brought you to the Brotherhood. I saw you strike her down. Where is she now?”

Jaime ignores this questioning; it is none of the man’s concern. Instead he asks him of his escape from the ambush that night, which quiets him a bit. He could have fought them, could have produced a flaming sword and defended his Lady Stoneheart, but instead he had fled. Thoros does not seem to be interested in explaining why, averting his eyes and answering  him shortly with “yes” and “no”.

He questions the Red Priest about Catelyn Stark, about Berric Dondarrion, about remaining members of the brotherhood and the commonfolk who supported them. Still Thoros turns the conversation back and back again to Brienne.

“But what of the Maid of Tarth? I saw her nowhere in your formation, amongst prisoners or soldiers.” He pokes and prods, Thoros, and his brow furrows with concern. “It has not gone unnoticed that she is gone. Some here have it that you have done away with her.”

His patience at an end, Jaime snaps back, “And what if I have?”

Thoros puts on a perplexed expression, blinking at him curiously. “That cannot be. Surely even you are not so cruel as that.”

“Surely I am, ask anyone in the Seven Kingdoms.” Thoroughly tired of judgement, he decides to go along with the Red Priest’s poor opinion of him, if it will loosen his tongue. “The wench lured me to my barely-averted death. I am well within my rights to punish traitors such as she.”

“Brienne of Tarth never betrayed you for a moment.” The Red Priest is disturbed, shaking his head sadly. “That poor, brave girl. She defended you to a crowd baying for your blood, said that you were a changed man, that you were not responsible for your reported crimes. We called her your whore. But you never touched her, did you? Wouldn’t trouble yourself with someone so pure of heart, when you have your sister the Queen in your bed.”

Ah, so Thoros still has a sense of humor after all. Jaime snorts. “So pure of heart she would lead me to my death, while calling me friend. How is that not a betrayal?”

“She was forced to it. Our dread lady commanded her to kill you and she refused. The entire Brotherhood demanded it and she refused. We offered her a choice, the sword or the noose.”

“And she choose the sword to save her own skin.” Jaime swallows from the glass. “I understand it, of course. It is a hard lesson for one such as her. No one is pure.”

“No!” Thoros smacks the palm of his hand against the commander’s table, and Jaime cannot help flinching. “She chose the noose. Brienne said she would not betray you and they put a rope around her neck and hung her, hung her choking and kicking from a tree. She would have died there without relenting but for Podrick Payne, the boy.”

No. No, it isn’t true, he tells himself. But it tracks with what the boy had told him. She did it for me, my lord, you have to understand… He had assumed the choice had been a simple one. Podrick or Kingslayer. But had there been another choice as well? Hadn’t he seen the angry red marks around her neck, or decided not to see?

“They hung him from the tree next to her, and when she saw him dying, she called for a sword. Not before. Not for herself. She would have died for you.”

“Lies.” Jaime has gone very still. Only the muscles of his hand flex, where he holds tightly onto the drinking glass. “The Brotherhood’s Red Priest. Why should I believe anything you say?”

The priest raises his hands, palms beckoning to the air. “What reason have I to lie about this? What benefit to me? I care no more for factions or grudges. I have seen war render this land a hell beyond anything my lord R’hllor or any the Seven could dream up. So far as I care whoever is left standing at its end is welcome to its rotten fruit. All that matters is that in the ruins of honor and justice I met a maid who embodied both, and now she is dead. That, my lord, is a calamity, and I would have you know just how great of one.”

He hardens his heart. “In this world you are either faithless or dead. She is both, and soon enough we will be too. It’s no calamity.”

“You utter fool.” The Red Priest has the nerve to look sorry for him. “Let me tell you: when we found that girl she was dying of fever, battered and broken by brigands, and all she would do is talk about Jaime Lannister. She said your name in her sleep. She said she had to find your honor. She pleaded for you to come for her when she was next to dead. Not her companions, or her kin. Only you. No sword could have been more loyal to you, and no woman more true to anyone.  

Jaime’s guts are churning now, his heart clenching painfully enough to turn him inside-out. What a stupid organ, the heart. If he could, he would carve it out himself. 

It makes him snap back at Thoros tightly, “Gold will buy loyalty as reliably, and a woman too.”

“Not like her, not to you. You are only too cynical or too stupid to see it. That girl loved you. She loved you.”

The glass in Jaime’s left hand abruptly shatters.

Thoros jerks back, more at the noise of it than anything else, and stares down wide-eyed at the Lord Commander’s desk. His hand had squeezed and squeezed the glass until it finally popped, in a small explosion of shards and blood. Now his hand opens and stretches, and the Lord Commander examines it curiously. A few jagged bits of glass stick out of his palm and fingers. It hardly hurts at all, but it produces an impressive amount of blood.

Lannister guards burst into the tent at the sound of breaking glass, and the sight of blood makes them draw their swords. Jaime waves them back. “My golden hand holds drinking glasses not so well as I’d hoped. Stay at your post.”

“My lord…” Thoros, distinctly alarmed at his lack of reaction, darts his eyes between the bleeding hand and Jaime’s impassive face. “Your hand…”

“It’s nothing.” For a second he moves to pluck the glass bits out of his hand, but his other hand is made of gold. Not much good for that. He can only poke at the bloody shards with a strange fascination. His guards watch warily, not leaving but keeping their distance. 

“You know I am a healer. Allow me.” 

He shouldn’t allow it, and his guards are visibly appalled, but Jaime makes no move to stop him when Thoros kneels at his side. He moves aside the golden hand, taking his flesh hand and extracting shards of glass with careful attention.

“I can’t imagine why,” the priest murmurs, “but Brienne thought very highly of you. I owe her some kindness, for what we did to her. If she is gone, you will have to do.”

Then it comes again; the pain. Worse than ever. Jaime bows his face to the floor at the weight of it.

“I let her go,” he manages to say, hoarsely. “I gave her the sword and I let her go. Her and the boy.”

“Truly?” Thoros looks up at him dumbfounded, uncertain whether this could be another of his jests.

But of course he let her go. What else could he do? He couldn’t keep her prisoner forever.

He sees it now, too late. Brienne in the cell, wasting away. The tears she had shed when he denied her Oathkeeper. How she had hesitated so inexplicably when he allowed her to leave. The way she had looked on him, as though she would accept any punishment he would give her. He had thought it was her simple goodness that made her contrite. But it could have been more. It could be true; somehow, she had loved him. 

When he could not bring himself to harm her, he thought it his own weakness that stayed his hand. Perhaps they share the same weakness.

He jumps up from his chair with that thought, snatching his one working hand back from the damned Red Priest and sweeping out of his commander’s tent. He strides rapidly to the stables and grabs the bridle of the first horse he sees. Honor, not yet unsaddled from their ride. 

Jaime rides hard against the twilight, back down the trail they’d come. Back to the place where he’d left her. It was a day’s ride back as an encampment, but a single man riding as fast as his horse is able made the distance in a few hours.

She won’t be there. She could have gone in any direction with a day’s advance. But if she stopped there. If she stayed to rest, and to think out her next move. If she waited there. If she waited for me. 

He urges Honor to run faster at the thought.

The Riverlands rush by headlong and the pounding hooves drive every thought from his head until he is pure instinct, animal-simple: find her.

The clearing is empty when he arrives, and quiet. 

Jaime slings down from his horse looking around him wildly. It’s dark. There’s no sign of anything. No fire, no trail, no sign she had been there at all except that he knows this is where he had left her. He knows that in his bones. He will never be able to forget this place. 

He walks aimlessly in one direction and then another. Which way would she have gone? East is Maidenpool, closest of anything, where she might find Tully allies. Riverrun in the other direction, a farther walk but where she might potentially find a ship, go back to Tarth. Or would she have headed singlemindedly North, towards the Vale, without even stopping to supply herself?

He takes not much time to decide. He thinks Maidenpool, then North. Climbing back onto Honor he rides East, alert for any campfires or single riders,scouring the forest hour after hour, and shouting out her name until his voice is nearly gone. 

He reaches Maidenpool with the dawn and sees no sign of her there. 

In a haze of desperation he accosts passers-by, one after another. Have you seen a maid pass this way, with a sword and a young boy? Riding a chestnut horse?

They all say no. They step back from him like he has gone mad; but of course it sounds a bit mad, doesn’t it? A lady knight with a Valyrian steel sword, as big as The Hound, with her own squire. While he’s at it, he should ask after Galladon of Morne, and mermaids, and the Crone with her lantern. But perhaps it is the stench of a cursed man they respond to, a man who has held riches and lost them. Such ill fortune is catching. They give him a wide berth, they murmur, they leave him standing in the street lost and alone. Perhaps they do not know a Kingslayer when they see one, but anyone can spot a man laid low by love.

Have you seen a woman, an absurdly large woman? With the bluest eyes you’re ever seen? A woman with a sword - a broadsword, two-handed? Looks like she knows how to swing it? Have you seen her? Big and strong as an ox but pure as a maiden? Straw-blonde, a hand taller than me, shoulders as broad as a barn. Has no one seen her? A knight? A true knight? The truest knight that ever walked this land? Tell me where she’s gone. Please, tell me if you’ve seen her. I saw her and I sent her away. She loved me, and I let her go.

******************************************************

The sun is marking mid-morning by the time he returns, and there are dark clouds looming in the distance, swirling up from the horizon.

He has hardly left the saddle before he is accosted by a barrage of debriefs and dreadful news. 

King’s Landing is burning. Aegon’s forces arrived faster than anyone predicted, are thoroughly breaking Mace Tyrell’s formation, and their secondary forces sneaking up the bay have set Flea Bottom afire. The Goldcloaks have surrendered already, and the Red Keep will soon be under siege. Even if they ride full-tilt for the capital it will be a rescue mission now, not a defense.

“Ready us to ride directly to battle in an hour,” he instructs his captains. “Leave the camp set here, and I set my cousin Addam in command. Peck, you and your lady Pia will stay behind with the hostages and the provisions. If we face defeat see that they are returned to their homes - quickly as you can, the Kingsroad will be dragon territory before long.”

His squire’s face turns quite red and he looks ready to argue with him, and Jaime quickly turns his back to him. He hears the lad sputtering behind him as he throws the tent flap aside and goes into his Commander’s Tent. 

Jaime sits alone in his tent for that hour and he burns. He feels the flames of wildfire in King’s Landing, hears the screeching laughter of Aerys Targaryen getting his fiery baptism at last. His most sacred oath is to guard his King, and his King is in mortal danger and he is not there. He left Tommen unprotected. Left his sister, his son, his duty. His doom awaits him there, is waiting for him still. He must go.

All around him his men are making ready for battle. He knows, with a dreadful foresight, that it is not a battle they can win. It will be glorious, and at the end of it he will be dead and he will never see Brienne again.

Brienne. Brienne. His heart blazes in his chest. 

He should have kept her with him. He should have let her tell her tale. His stupid pride would not allow it and now she is gone.

Where is she now? Sheltering in some rain-soaked forest? Hiding in some Tully supporter’s house in Pennytree? Could she have seen him foolishly asking after her, and held her tongue?

He has been cruel to her. He has let her suffer. He denied her Oathkeeper. He had been badly wounded, his pride wounded, his poor sore heart wounded, and he had wanted to hurt her too. When he saw her tears some sleeping part of him wanted to take it back.  He felt monstrous for doing it, and told himself it was because he was a monster. He had stood there and watched her with her shoulders hunched and fists balled at her sides, tears running down her face. What might she have done if he had tried to soothe her tears? He could have been kinder.

Now she will remember him as bitter and petty and hateful when he is gone, and there will be no one left in the world who thinks on him fondly. 

But at least she will not see this battle; at least he gave her Oathkeeper to keep herself safe. She will have to think on him when she wields the sword, and perhaps she will remember whatever it was that had made her care for him. Perhaps she will know, when she holds the blade, that he had loved her too.

Mother, let her know it for certain. Give her my love.

When the hour is up, he leaves his tent, mounts Glory, and rides to battle. 

[giurochedadomani]

I’m working on a little thing in which Primo tells Regina that Leonardo and him are having an affair, and he means well, on his own, very particular way. 

Anyway I wanted to post a little bit:

“She said she understood”. 

Anxiety ties up Primo’s throat like a gallow’s rope. He stares at Leonardo, trying to discern a damn clue as the other continues counting banknotes, stacking them neatly into wads. He puts the suitcase over the table, slowly. The sound reverberates among the somber silence of his home. 

“I’d say congratulations, but I don’t know if that’s what you were aiming for?”, Leonardo adds when he doesn’t answer, seemingly distractedly as he makes a note with a little pencil on a paper by the ever increasing mountain of cash.  

He’s being— sarcastic. Primo’s moderately sure of that. Which is stupid, but frankly not surprising. The knot loosens up around Primo’s throat and tightens up around his chest. 

“Then I don’t see how it’s a problem”, he replies, because it’s painfully clear that Leonardo is not about to just let the whole thing slide. ���Or my problem”. 

And there goes the possibility of a tactical denial, thrown out of the window before it even occurs to Primo that he could at least have started with a and what the fuck are you talking about now. 

Fuck it. 

He squats, grabs some vaguely more manageable bundle of money and drops it carelessly at the other side on the table, trying to look as interested in it as Leonardo does as he sits and starts counting. One hundred, two hundred— Regina understood. That’s what Leonardo said. That didn’t announce shouts, tears, or ultimatums, the kind of stuff that could fuck up their little routine. Leonardo should be fucking thankful.

“Well, that’s not going to work. Because it’s a problem, you see”. 

Primo stops sneaking looks and pretends to ignore him the moment Leonardo finally decides to look at him. 

“Did you want her to leave me?” 

His hands stutter when he’s about to reach one thousand, Leonardo’s surprisingly direct question ringing into his ears. It’s not quite like— He’s already made his peace with— He finishes the count while feeling vaguely nauseous and stacks the money into a wad meticulously. “What does that even have to do with anything?”

It’s such a far fetched leap, truly the dumbest thing he’s heard this week, this month and most likely this year, if anything because Regina went down the exact same route when they spoke. (I like it here, and he likes it here, and him liking it here includes you, so. Why the fuck would I even want that?). 

“If you didn’t want her to leave me, that was a shit way to go about it”, Leonardo points out. He looks sad in a way that makes Primo feel fifteen all over again, like a disappointment for some reason that scapes his fucking understanding. 

“You can do whatever the fuck you want”, he deadpans. It’s not as if he’s settling any kind of rule on their— whatever the hell they’ve got going on. Leonardo is free to come and go as he pleases, and to do with his dear wife whatever the hell he prefers. Primo’s a grown ass adult, he doesn’t need to be explained the difference between being Leonardo’s boss and being— he understands the situation perfectly fine, that is. “You’ve got thirty thousand, but it’s just for show, okay?”, he continues, forcing the awkward impasse away into familiar territory. 

“Primo”. 

He ignores him, making an encompassing motion over the pyramid of wads on Leonardo’s side of the table and the sad, little one on his own. 

“The offer stays at fifteen thousand, although you can go up to twenty thousand if Bosco doesn’t get too fussy with the terms. But I care less about the money and more about finding out if Mourad is trustworthy enough to go on with the thing at Rabat”. 

“Primo”. 

For the love of God and everything holy— “I should have just told her you were about to fuck off with some waitress”, Primo snaps.   

Leonardo hits the table. 

“You shouldn’t have told her anything, that’s the fucking problem!”

Primo stares at him, pointedly, because it feels like a slap, and it’s out of place, and Leonardo of all people should know that he’s very past just taking in whoever wants to shout at him. He observes the other’s clenched jaw, the tense line of his shoulders. There’s something in his chest that wants to roar back. He reigns it in.   

He cannot help but feel that he’s missing something crucial. 

“So what, I should have stayed silent? Just, like, let her assume the worst of all the possibilities she was ranting about?”, he asks, tone dripping on ice, making an all encompassing motion with his hand. Leonardo has the gall to look confused, frowning a little and— Primo feels relief washing over him as he realises which piece he’s missing. “What the fuck did she tell you?”

[nothewraith]

ok here’s our cursed retelling of the purim story i wrote in 2016. i dont feel like going off mobile so theres no read more. suffer. i cannot vouch for accuracy or anything this is just copied from a text i sent to my friends in 2016 that no one responded to :/ chag sameach

———-

So these are our characters:

King Ahasuerus: fuckboy. Fuck king? Super oblivious

Queen Vashti: poor woman who didn't deserve Ahas' shit

Mordechai: fearless leader of the Jews at the time.

Queen Esther: our disney princess/queen/hero. Girl power!?

Haman: BOOOOOO (in tellings of the story, the audience will make noise to drone out his name when it is said) our villain, the prime minister. The namesake of hamantaschens, which my dad named his dog when he was younger

So our story in Shushan, set after the fall of the Temple and Persia was the sovereign power over the Jews. Our fuck king Ahasuerus had been in power three years and was throwing a massive party. This is his where his fuckboi identity shows thru most. His wife, Queen Vashti, was chilling with her homegirls. A few days into the party, he commanded her to appear in front of all his party men to show off her beauty, and, as one may expect, she was like wtf no. Fuckboi was super pissed and had her executed.

Well, the king couldn't be wifeless for long. It was suggested that he host a beauty contest to choose a queen, and he took to this idea, because he's a shallow piece of shit. At the time, Mordechai was the leader of the Jews, and he had raised his cousin Esther as his own daughter. She was forcibly taken into the contest and was chosen by the king. As per her cousin/dad's instruction, she didn't tell anyone, not even the king, she was Jewish. Shortly after she became queen,

Mordechai overheard two of king's chamberlains plotting to assassinate Ahasuerus and had them hanged.

Haman (BOOOOO📣📣🔈) was appointed to be the Prime Minister. He is super Disney villain-y and definitely sings an evil plotting song. Actually, imagine him singing "Be Prepared" from the Lion King whenever he plots. Anyway, Ahas issued a decree to bow down whenever Hamen appeared. Mordechai refused to bow down, because Hamen would walk around with a large idol necklace. Hamen was like out of his mind mad and swore to take revenge against all Jews. He threw lots for the lucky day he would carry out his plan (BE PREPARED), which fell on the 13th of Adar.

Hamen offered the king money for permission to exterminate the Jews. Ahasuerus, the pushover, was like lol keep ur money do what u want #liveurlyfe. Hamen sent declarations that ordered the people to kill all theJews on the 13th.

Mordechai, being the super smart babe he is, became aware of the plot. He sent a message to Esther to approach her king and beg for him to spare her people. Esther responds anyone who approaches the king unsummoned could be put to death if the king decided not to extend his scepter. She had not been summoned in 30 days! Mordechai is like girl you can do this you're are only hope!!! Esther is like ......... but agreed to put her life in danger to try, but have the Jews fast and pray for three days.

After the three days, Esther enters Ahaseurus' quarters. He extends his scepter, but like tf u want??? She requests to have a small feast with him and Hamen.

At the feast, the king asks if she has anything to request. She asks for them to join her again tomorrow,and she will tell Ahas her request then.

On the way back from the feast, Scar...sorry I mean Hamen....passes Mordechai who still refuses to bow. Hamen is super pissed. His advisors tell him to erect gallows and get the king's permission to hang the thorn in his side. Hamen is like hell yea and prepares to ask the king tomorrow.

That night, the king asks his servants to read from the Royal Chronicles, which includes Mordechai saving him from the chamberlains. Ahaseurus is like yo man was this guy rewarded? To which they answered no.

The next morning, Hamen is approaching the king to ask permission to hang Mordechai. Before he can speak, Ahaseurus is like okay bro i need your advice- what would you do to honor a super bro?

Hamen is like ok yas he's talking about me, so he advises the king to bring him royal garments and horse, have a noble dress him, and lead him thru the streets. Ahaseurus is like yeayeayeahhh good idea. Btw wld u mind doing that all for my bro Mordechai?

So rn Hamen at that scene where the villain just humilitated himself (like all muddy or something trying to get the hero) and is realllllly pissy. He rushes on to go join Esther and the king for the second feast.

Finally, Esther presents her request to the king at this feast. She says, and i quote bc this is super eloquent and badass "If I have found favor in your eyes, O King, and if it pleases the king, let my life be granted me by my plea, and the life of my people by my request. For my people and I have been sold to be annihilated, killed and destroyed!" Esther then identifies Haman as the evil person who wished to perpetrate this. Ahaseurus is pissed out of high hell but thats not it. He is informed the Hamen built gallows for Mordechai, thats the last straw- he orders Hamen hung from the very gallows he erected. Mordechai is appointed in his place 😏😏😏😏

But thats not all!

Hamen's decree was still in place. Since a kings edict can not be rescinded, the cousins wrote up a counter which allowed the Jews to defend themselves against their enemies. Cue big celebration.

On the 13th, the Persian Jews killed THEIR would be killers. Like, surprise bitch:)))

Esther asked Ahaseurus to have one more day to celebrate, the fourteenth, which he granted. The Jews killed yet more enemies, including more of Hamen's sons. Then, they rested on the 15th.

Basically, now Jews reenact this glorious irony, wear costumes, and do other celebrate-y things on Purim.

———

hope you all enjoyed that disaster:) happy purim

( @sunsummoner bc u asked :/ )

[spell-cleaver]

DAY 17: WHUMPTOBER: I Didn’t See That Coming - Dirty Secret @whumptober2020​

The Pirate Son AU Masterpost. This is an immediate sequel to the previous ficlet (The Song).

Luke was still sitting in a small puddle on the floor of his room when Vader returned, staring into space. Vader just sighed, knelt down next to him, took the towel and wrapped it around Luke’s shoulder, starting to rub at his hair.

Luke looked up at him. Now dressed in a complete departure from his usual black ensemble, some ragged brown trousers, a beige shirt and a scrappy dark jacket, he looked totally different from the monster who’d hunted him for so long. That, and—

“Your…” Luke swallowed. “Your mask.” He wasn’t wearing it at all.

His father smiled at him—it was a quick, bitter smile, more a flash of the teeth, as though he hadn’t bothered with letting anyone see him smile in a long, long time. “It was getting rusty, and cold. I took it off for now.”

“Oh.” Luke was still staring.

Vader looked… He’d been right, Luke thought, all those years ago when he’d first met his father and worried that they looked alike. They did look similar, from the colour of their hair to the clefts in their chins to the shapes of their eyes. Vader’s were a vicious yellow though, and Luke found it uncomfortable to make contact with them for too long.

His father was deathly pale, too, with his skin clinging close to his skull and faint blue tinges at his temple. His hair was cut severely short, shorn close to his head, only adding to the harsh effect, enhancing the blue, and Luke couldn’t help but compare it mentally to his own hair, getting long enough that Leia had starting braiding it in the few days before his capture. He wondered what his father would’ve thought if he’d shown up with that. He wondered if he could try and braid his own hair, now that it wasn’t like he had much else to do…

He wondered why he kept distracting himself.

“What…” His voice was hoarse, his back ramrod straight—he wanted to lean into Vader, but he couldn’t—as he whispered, “What happened, then…?”

Vader paused in drying Luke’s hair and laid the towel around his shoulders again. “When Palpatine inherited the crown of Coruscant and started expanding his Empire with the promise of eradicating piracy from the seas, I joined him wholeheartedly. I hated pirates—they carried the slave shipment that my mother died in—and he promised he knew a way to make sure they never stained the seas again. My wife, Padmé, the light of my life… She was pregnant. I had a family to protect—scouring pirates from the face of the seven seas was certainly a way I was going to achieve that. So I joined him, as one of the most powerful sorcerers to sail the seas, and when I confided in him that I was worried about one day dying in battle and leaving my family alone, the way my father did to me… He told me there was a way to stop myself and others, from dying.”

Luke swallowed, and tried very hard not to think of the way that bullet three years ago had punched right through Vader’s chest, yet still he’d continued on. “That way was to become undead?”

“It was to strip you of your humanity, in the long run,” Vader said, his voice flat. “Taking your mortality is a vital part of that. I cannot eat—not that I need to—and nor can I die. Padmé was horrified by what I’d done to myself—and…”

Vader hesitated. He stood up, to open a drawer and pull out a change of clothes for Luke, so his back was turned to him when he said, “Horrified by the implication that this sort of half-life was what I’d been planning to give my wife and child, as well.”

Luke sucked in a breath.

He felt like he’d been punched.

“You…” He took several heaving breaths. “You— you want me to live like this!?”

“No,” Vader said. “I had not asked Palpatine for the details of the curse, and nor did he offer them. And it is a curse—one that was passed onto all my men, once he gave me a ship with which to serve him. I am bound to him so long as I am in this form, he can sense me and track me wherever I go, he can control every aspect of my life, and I will serve him.”

Luke gaped. “And you agreed to that?”

“No. I did not know what he was offering me—Padmé was right to object to foisting this hellish existence on our child as well, but…” He straightened up again, a nightshirt in hand, and half-turned back to Luke. His eyes were closed.

“She left,” he whispered. “She left me, when she was still pregnant. I searched for her for months.”

“I thought you said you killed her.”

“I searched for her for months,” Vader reiterated, slightly more harshly—then calmer, again, when Luke flinched. “I did not find her until I boarded and inspected a small fisherman’s craft, which she had paid for passage to Alderaan on, with our baby. She’d… she’d set up a life in the hills of Naboo, as far from the sea as she could be, in the months she was away, she’d said, but then… But then you had got sick,” his throat was tight, “with some illness, something magic-related that she couldn’t understand… Sorcerer children get it, frequently. She was travelling to Alderaan, where she would find Kenobi, an old friend who’d turned her against me when I was first cursed, who’d convinced her to leave me in the first place—”

“I know who Ben is,” Luke said shortly.

Vader took a breath. “Yes.” He turned around fully to sit cross-legged opposite Luke, and passed him the nightshirt. Luke put it on with scepticism, but it was dry and warm; he felt slightly better. “She had been travelling to him, to get advice, leaving her home in Naboo under the care of her sister.

“I told her that I could help you. I offered all my services, all my training—magic-related illnesses are tricky, but they are rarely fatal, and I could have found something—so long as you both came back to me. I wanted you back. But she refused and… we fought…”

Luke clenched his fists in the towel and didn’t meet his father’s eyes—suddenly, suddenly he had an idea— “Tell me you didn’t… No…”

“Pirates attacked.”

Luke jerked his head up. Vader continued, “Pirates attacked the ship we were on—bold of them to, but the Executor was separated from their little schooner by the fisherman’s ship, and they couldn’t easily fire on it without fearing to hit me… They boarded the schooner. I ran out to fight them off. But it was only me and a few of my men… You were in a crib on the other end of the ship, watched over by the fisherman, and…”

Luke bowed his head. He… could see where this was going.

“I tried to fight them. But they knew you were my son—they threatened you, they took you, and in the heat of the battle, I— I pulled out my pistol and I shot—”

Vader let out a breath.

“She was in the way,” he said. “I should have been more careful. I should never have argued with her—not to the extent that she made sure you were separated from us, away from our spat. I shouldn’t have ever driven her away.

“The bullet caught her in the chest. She died in minutes. And by the time we were able to hunt down the pirates… We caught up to them days later, but they said they had thrown you overboard and laughed as you drowned.”

Luke… didn’t know how to react to that.

That was awful.

“I… I knew that Ben rescued me from pirates,” he said shakily. “That he saved me as a baby. And he told me that you were my father, several years ago, and that my mother had made it clear to him while pregnant that if anything were to happen to her, she wanted him to look after her child rather than let me go back to you.”

Vader clenched his fists at that, stiffly, but said nothing.

“I made,” he said, “a grave error. And I have lived with it, and my curse, ever since.”

Vader looked away violently, for a second, voice choked. “They took you, son. I was haunted by dreams of a little ghost boy wandering the seas for years. I— I watched that ship retreat and knew that I had lost everything, and when I learnt your name—”

“When you learnt my name,” Luke said, “you decided that anything was justified, in order to get me back?”

Vader let out a breath. “Yes.”

“Killing my friends. Hunting me. Nearly sending me to the gallows—”

“I cannot disobey my master—he ordered that you join us, or be hanged, and I had to tread very, very carefully—”

“You sent me to my death!”

Vader said, “Yes. I did. And I am going to make sure that that is something that will never happen, ever again. I am going to break this curse.”

“How!?” Luke gave him a sceptical look. “It’s a blood oath, isn’t it? It has those hallmarks. Only Palpatine can break it, unless...”

“It is not quite a blood oath, no. It was his adaptation of an old myth—about pirates who stole the wrong person’s gold. Once you took a single coin from that chest, you were cursed for life, until it was broken. He adapted it to swords—there was an old creed of sorcerers, the Sith, who forged a thousand sabres and hid them in a cave on the island of Mustafar. The perfect killing weapons, imbued with the sort of magic that sees its wielder become the ruler of the seas, but once you fasten your hands around the hilt, the curse sets in. You cannot die—but neither can you truly live.”

Vader met Luke’s eyes again, for the first time, and somehow the yellow even had a tinge of red to it, now. “He married it with a blood oath, to make it especially binding. I am his immortal servant, forever.”

“And how do you break it?”

Vader was suddenly very interested in the hem of his shirt. “It is a steep and difficult price,” he said. “Now rest. You need it—your back—”

His back had been in agony the whole time, yeah, but that wasn’t what was important here. “What is the price?”

“We will find a way,” Vader promised, and then he left the room.

Luke listened carefully, but there was no tell-tale click of a lock. He wasn’t locked in, this time.

How did his father plan to break the curse?

Blood oaths… blood oaths often required, well, blood to be broken. The death of the person bound, or the person binding. Or…

Or of someone who shared their blood.

Luke swallowed.

His father had killed his mother.

But he wouldn’t do that, would he?

Luke didn’t know. He didn’t know the man at all. Everything… everything he told him could be a lie. Everything he did could be a lie.

Had he saved him from the sirens just so he could sacrifice Luke himself, later?

Luke didn’t want to die. He especially didn’t want to die like that.

He didn’t sleep very well that night at all.

[aerialsquid]

How to Bury a Gentile

I wrote a short vaguely historical vaguely spooky ghost story about Jews and burial rites and I have to justify it existing so here it is.

“Are you the leader of the Jews?”

There was no good that ever came from that question. Rabbi Jacob stood in the doorway, one hand on the knob and the other on the frame, ready to yank it closed at a moment’s notice.

“Well, not all of the Jews.”

The man at the door made a frustrated little grunt. He was clad almost completely in dark grey clothing that seemed to fade into the shadows of the darkened street behind him. The collar of his coat was pulled up so high that it was impossible to make out more than a pair of sharp grey eyes beneath the brim of his hat, and the cloak he wore over the top of it concealed most of his body. There could be any number of guns, knives, or angry mobs hidden under there.

“But the ones in this town, yes? You are their priest, you lead prayers and weddings and so on?” the man said impatiently.

“Rabbi. Yes. I’m the rabbi, that’s correct.” Jacob said, stiffening his posture and assuming the most neutral expression he could manage. Being completely ignorant didn't exclude someone from being completely dangerous--if anything, that heightened the risk. "What can I do for you?"

“Rabbi,” the man repeated, as if to seal it into his memory properly. One gloved hand squeezed the pommel of his walking stick. “And you preside over the funerals of your people, and perform the rites to send them to the next world?”

“Yyyyyes?” Jacob shifted his weight to his back foot, poised to slam the door in his face. This sounded unpleasantly like an opening for a death threat.

“To any of them, regardless of the sins they carried in life?” An eagerness entered the man’s voice.

“Of course. Though sin as a Jewish concept differs from the Christian…mm. Yes, of course.” The scholars of old might have debated the nature of the evil in men’s souls until the crack of dawn but Jacob had no intention of doing so at half-past midnight with a complete stranger.

The shadowed man took a half step forward and Jacob leaned back to maintain the distance between him. “What about a gentile?” the man pressed. "Would you tend to his corpse too?"

“Huh?”

“There is a man needing to be buried tonight who requires absolution. He is not a Jew, but a Jew’s prayers may be close enough for what is needed.”

“Um. It’s not usually a request I get.” Jacob tried to keep his voice calm and soothing. There was some kind of entrapment lingering in the conversation, he just knew it. That or a giant box of crazy that had managed to dress itself stylishly. Gentiles asking Jews intrusive but urgent questions never turned out well for their target--a day-long case of irritation was the best outcome the target could hope for.

The man’s hands pressed together as he completed the full step forward, making Jacob back up into the doorframe. Desperation was in his tone and Jacob was forced back over the threshold just to stay out of his grip “All I need is someone to accompany me to the cemetery to consecrate the body and pray for its soul. Barely an hour of your time. I cannot pay you with anything but my gratitude, but you will have it eternally.”

“And you came to me?”

The man sighed. Even the top hat seemed to slouch slightly as his body slumped. “I have asked every holy man in the city, Catholic and Protestant alike, and they have refused to come to the cemetery," he bemoaned. "The last one told me to visit you. Likely a ploy to make me leave faster, but you are all I have left.”

“What did this man do, that so many people refused him? Who was he?”

The man at the door hesitated. The sharp eyes vanished as his eyelids slid down, and then appeared a few moments later.

“Must you ask?” he said quietly. “Is it not enough that it is a corpse which can do no man harm any longer, and you will lose nothing but a half-night of sleep?”

The inside of Jacob’s head was ringing with warning bells like the frantic clanging of gongs announcing a fire. He swallowed and tried to ignore them.

“You say he wasn’t Jewish?”

“He was not…much of anything. He felt God had no interest in him, and returned a lack of interest in kind. Perhaps if he had been more attentive he wouldn’t lie in a pauper’s grave…or perhaps he would have not changed a whit.” The man’s voice was bitter and the sharp eyes briefly looked away from Jacob, to Jacob’s deep relief.

“Who was this man, to you?” he asked.

“Close. I would prefer to say no more. Please, rabbi. It must be done, and it must be tonight.”

Seminary did not prepare me for this, Jacob thought, and then thought again. There is absolutely something in the Talmud about this and I’ve just forgotten it, because I’m an idiot and I’m half asleep and there is a goy on my doorstep asking me to go out to the cemetery with him at midnight to bury a man whose name he won’t tell me.

“Look, I’ll need someone to help dig the grave.”

“Of course."

“And a coffin. A plain pine box. And I’ll need to get my supplies from the--”

“But you’ll do it?” said the man excitedly, standing up even taller. “And do it tonight, before the cock crows?”

Jacob held up his hands to keep the man from getting even further into his personal space. “Fine. Yes. Give me half an hour and a lazy rooster.”

The cloak almost seem to inflate as the man gasped for joy. He grabbed Jacob’s hands and shook both with enthusiasm, sending Jacob stumbling. “Thank God for you, my good rabbit! Whatever God there is, thank God for you!”

The man ran off into the shadowed streets and was out of sight almost immediately.

Jacob’s hands slowly fell back to his side as he mumbled, “Rabbi,” to the darkness.

My wife is going to kill me if whatever’s at the cemetery doesn’t.

Twenty six minutes later, going by his watch, Jacob showed up at the Jewish cemetery that back-ended the only synagogue in town. It was guarded by high brick walls that made it impossible to see inside, but when Jacob went to put his key into the wrought iron gates he found them already unlocked.

Only a few other people had the key, and he briefly prayed that it was one of them who’d opened it. Then he prayed again, a more general ‘please keep me from being murdered in my own cemetery’ plea as he passed through the gates. One hand patted his pocket, feeling the edges of the folded knife he’d brought along just in case matters went nasty.

In the very corner of the cemetery a lantern burned beside an open grave, a long wooden box, and three figures with two shovels. As he approached he recognized Maud, the gravedigger’s wife and her two eldest children.

The city’s Jews and Christians kept separate cemeteries but shovels didn’t need any particular religious affiliation and neither did the hands who were paid to hold them. Maud’s husband served the dead of all faiths as long as they needed a few feet of dirt to rest their heads in.

“You’re out late,” Jacob said, casual, like they'd met at the grocer's instead of the graveyard.

Maud shrugged. She was thin with unkempt, slightly greasy hair that fell around her face in soft waves and a dress that had no functions besides the practical. Jacob knew her to be much like her husband – not bereft of compassion, but very straightforward when it came to the rites of death. It happened. The mourners mourned, but someone had to dig the holes and move the coffins, and tears only hindered the process. “And what are you, out for an evening constitutional among the headstones?”

“Let me guess, a man in grey showed up on your doorstep and asked you to come out here in the middle of the night with minimal justification but great urgency."

Maud laughed bitterly. “The same.”

“Where’s your husband?”

“Visiting family. Had to bring them instead.” She gestured to the two young people with her, one a stringy and acne-ridden lad of thirteen and one a sixteen year old young woman who was growing into having her father’s thick arms. Both looked profoundly uncomfortable with the situation.

“And he’d put up a storming fuss if a mysterious stranger asked him to dig a grave at half past nonsense at night. Me, I know better.” Maud put a finger next to her nose and tapped it. “There’s something strange going on about this. Otherworldly. Not to be trifled with.”

“Do you have any idea who this man is?”

“Not a clue. Wouldn’t give me a name, even.”

Jacob gestured to the open grave. “Who are we burying here, Cain? A murder victim?”

Maud shrugged, followed by shrugs from her two children. “Whatever he is and whoever wants him in the ground, I’m of no mind to tell him no. He’s too determined for someone who’d take it for a good answer.”

They waited in the stillness, listening to crickets softly chirp in the bushes lining the graveyard. Suddenly Jacob could see movement in the fog, then the billowing of a grey cloak, and then the shape of a man dragging something behind him on a pull cart.

Sticking out over the rim of the cart was a large, curved piece of  rock that Jacob recognized as the rough draft of a gravestone. There was a crack down one side of the stone, indicating it had likely been tossed aside as defective before it could be engraved. Beside it was a long bundle wrapped in a dirty sheet.

The four at the grave steeled their nerves in the way that best suited their spiritual preferences as the man in grey approached.

“That’s our man, is it?” Jacob asked, pointing at the bundle. The man in grey nodded.

“Do what you need to tend to him, rabbi. But do it quickly.”

Jacob uncovered the man and winced at the smell. The man had obviously been dead for at least a day, and hadn’t died in any particular state of valor. There were ligature marks around his neck, which tilted at an uncomfortable angle. That plus the bulging of his eyes and the shape of his face meant he’d died of strangulation—a slow death on the gallows, with no kind executioner ensuring that he fell fast and far enough to snap his neck at the bottom. He’d also been stripped down to his underclothes by whoever’d taken him down off the rope, and those garments that remained were…messy.

“Lay him out flat,” Jacob said. “We’ll need to get his clothes off first.”

The man winced. “Must you? He’s endured enough humiliation.”

“Do you want him purified or not? He’s covered in his own…ugh. Covered in a number of things.”

Maud took out a long pocket knife and began cutting the undergarments off the corpse, nose wrinkling. “Hate hanged corpses,” she muttered. “Wish they’d just behead them, it’d look neater and go faster.”

“But then you’ve got the body in two pieces,” said the son.

His sister rebutted, “You could tie it back on afterwards under the shirt.” The pair descended into a discussion of ideal execution methods that Jacob tried to block out with sheer willpower.

As a distraction, he studied the dead man's face. Besides the strangulation the man wasn’t unhandsome. Jacob would put him at an elegantly-aging 45 at the oldest, with stylishly cut ruddy hair and a strong jaw. It wasn't the kind of man you'd expect to find on the gallows.

“I’m going to need a name,” Jacob said, looking to the man in grey.

The man in grey hesitated, staring down at the corpse.

“James,” he said finally.

“That’s the truth, right?" Jacob pressed, in the tone he used on children who were too young to lie effectively.  “It’s actually James?”

“Yes, actually James,” the man snapped.

“James…son of…?”

“Haven’t a clue.” The sharp eyes stared daggers into Jacob’s face. Jacob sighed and went with the one sure bet he had for ancestry.

“…James ben Adam, I ask forgiveness for you, for your family and friends, and for

all of Israel, and I ask forgiveness from you for any mistakes or indiscretions I may unintentionally commit during this service.”

“He’s dead,” the man in grey interjected. “Don’t waste time asking him how he feels, just prepare him.”

“It’s part of the ritual. Besides, I hardly want him coming back tomorrow to complain.”

Jacob ran quickly through the rest of the prayers in Hebrew– the prayer for forgiveness from the corpse, the prayer for those preparing it, the prayer for compassion for the dead. The man in grey was silent. Maud and her children answered with a hasty ‘amen’ after each paragraph, even though they had no real idea what he was saying. Their religious policy seemed to be ‘whatever gets the job done’.

Jacob sighed. “All right, let’s get to the business.”

Maud and her children huddled by the corpse as Jacob poured water over it and recited the familiar words. He is pure, he is pure, he is pure. Amen, amen.

Between pourings the four rubbed the filth from the man’s skin. There were bruises on the man’s body, and scars ranging from years old to less than a month. As he cleaned under the fingernails Jacob noticed how soft his hands were, as if he’d lived in wealth and luxury until recently.

Tahara was usually the domain of the synagogue’s chevra kadisha, the funeral society, not something one rabbi did on his own. Jacob hoped that whoever was supervising the legalities of the affair would accept one rabbi and four multi-gender gentiles as a valid substitute for meeting adult male Jewish quorum.

Jacob looked up at the grey-clothed man, who’d taken a seat on a nearby headstone, cane resting beneath his folded hands. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to help?”

The man shook his head. “Willing, yes. Able, no.”

“Why?”

The man angled his head to the side, voice going soft and hoarse. “There are a lot of things I cannot say. If I did, it would not…be what was necessary.”

“And what is necessary?”

“That he be buried tonight before the cock crowed, with full funeral and rites, by a man of faith, without promise of wealth or other reward for the deed,” the man rattled off as if by rote.

“You say that like it’s in a contract of some kind.”

“It is legally binding, in its own way. Now please, enough questions, we’ve not much time.” The man looked up nervously to the moon.

“Fine. Can you at least go fetch us more water?” Jacob asked the man in grey. Once he’d left with the jug, Maud huddled down next to him.

“Think I know who this dead man is,” Maud whispered.  “Heard about him over the local gossip from my cousin. He was a criminal. Nasty one, a thief and a murderer. Mutilated bodies. They say he even made a deal with Lucifer himself. Must be why this one sought you out.”

“You know we don’t believe in your Devil, right?” Jacob muttered, almost by reflex. “Let alone have any positive relationship with him.”

“The people what hanged him this week in the next town over believed in the Devil. What else would be so bad the church wants nothing to do with him And why else would he need consecrating so badly and so quickly, if he’s not got something he needs absolving form?”

Jacob watched the fog for the return of the man in grey. “And this gentleman who’s such an advocate for him, you think he’s…”

Maud followed his gaze. “If I believed in such things, I’d think it,” she whispered.

“But you don’t?”

Maud gave him a sharp look. “You think a gravedigger’s wife can afford to believe in ghosts? It’s bad for business, Rabbi.”

“Might not be, if you convince them a ghost prefers an expensive grave. Ah, hush, he’s coming back.”

Rather than put it into Jacob’s hands, the man in grey set the jug on the ground and stepped back from it. Jacob continued to pray as they wiped the corpse down and combed through his ruddy hair, reciting so quickly that Jacob ran out of prayer before he was done and ventured off into additional prayers that couldn’t hurt to add on top of the pile.

Jacob reached for the bag next to him and pulled out piles of white linen. “Now we dress him.”

“You just finished undressing him! He’s a corpse and he’s going to rot, does it matter?”

Jacob gritted his teeth, half-rising to his feet. “It. Is. The. Tradition,” he hissed.

The man in grey put his hands up in surrender. “All right, all right. Do what you will. Just do it quickly.”

Jacob wrapped the corpse gently in the burial clothes – pants, shirt, belt. As he laid the white cloth in place over the face he felt the tension growing in the air, an odd pressure he’d previously chalked to humidity.

You can’t buy and sell a soul, he told himself. All souls belong to God. That’s how it works.

On the other hand, God might rent them out on commission. If he made it out of this intact he really needed to see what the Talmud said on the subject.

The man in grey was fidgeting. He kept looking to the moon, then to the watch in his hand, and then worrying the cane between his legs until it dug a long furrow in the dirt in front of him.

“Get his feet, I’ll take his shoulders.”

“Yes, mum.”

Maud and her daughter dropped the corpse into its plain pine box.

“Nails,” Maud said over her shoulder.

“Here, mum.”

The gravedigger’s son brought the hammer down hard. The resounding noise of the pine box being nailed shut jangled Jacob’s nerves after all the hushed prayers. The youth gave the nails a few extra swings each, just to make sure that nothing inside the box decided to come back out again.

The four of them lifted the coffin and crab-walked with it until it was vaguely over the grave, then dropped it in.  The man in grey leapt to his feet. “Now. Funeral. Perform it, and quickly,” he insisted.

Jacob steadied himself at the edge of the grave. Maud and the children took up the politely sympathetic stances identical to the one the gravedigger did when waiting for the funeral to finally end so he could get to his business.

Jacob was used to these. He was just used to them during the daytime, with a row of mourners lined up neatly with their ritually torn ribbons pinned to their chests as a substitute for rending their actual clothing. Even the most loathsome of people had someone to show up in order to keep up social status. A funeral for a man with no mourners to comfort was novel.

He looked at the man in grey, who was standing well back with his arms folded. “I will say, I’ve never done a eulogy for someone I don’t know the identity of, so I can’t promise anything quality.”

“I don’t care. Do it.”

Jacob took a long, deep breath, and let it out slowly. He thought back to other eulogies, pulling together scraps of them and tying it nicely with a scriptural bow.

“We are all cracked vessels,” he pronounced in his Official Rabbi Voice. “But we are all vessels made in the image of God, and even in death that vessel is subject to respect. As the Torah says, even if a man commits a sin so severe that he is sentenced to death, his body shall not be left out overnight, but buried that same day, for a hanging corpse is a blasphemy to God and a defilement of the land.”

The man in grey made a small noise, like a half-stifled bitter laugh. Jacob forced his voice to be steady.

“And from this we see that there is no crime that separates man from God. He is not spared from judgment, but he is still in God’s image, and to disrespect his right to burial is to disrespect God himself. May those that James ben Adam has harmed in life forgive him and gain healing, and those whose lives he has enriched remember him. Amen.”

And may this not come back to bite me in the arse, whatever strange theological zone I may be playing in.

“Amen,” echoed Maud and her children. Maud’s daughter shivered, a strange act when the night’s heat seemed to be growing ever more oppressive on Jacob’s shoulders.

The words of Kel Maleh Rachamim felt heavy on Jacob’s tongue. Towards the end he felt himself slurring vowels and having to stop and go back to repeat them properly. His throat burned, and he took a swig from the dirty water jug just to soothe it, but found it brought no relief.

“Please,” whispered the man in grey.  “Now! Bury him now!”

Jacob could feel dawn coming somehow, though he hadn’t checked his watch since they began. He could feel it in his bones as the heat surged through him. Maud and her children went for the shovels.

Jacob kept the prayer flowing, rocking slightly on the balls of his feet. “Yitgadal v’yitkadash sh’mey rabah!” he muttered as dirt flew into the grave. The words of the Mourner’s Kaddish were some of the most familiar he knew. They were said every Shabbat morning, and the same words were repeated for their own reasons several other times during the service. In the dense air they seemed to be the only thing keeping his throat clear, when he would otherwise suffocate.

The two children shoveled as fast as they could but they were slumping under some unseen pressure. The girl winced, gritting her teeth, and tears were gathering at the corners of the boy’s eyes.

The man in grey jumped to stand beside them, waving his hands. “Faster!” he shouted.

“You heard him, faster!” shouted Maud.

“Mum, my arms hurt, let me rest!”

“Keep going!” the man in grey snarled. “We haven’t much time!”

When the shovel fell from the young man’s limp hands Jacob grabbed it and began piling in the dirt furiously. He felt claws dig into his arms draining the strength from his muscles. The man in grey urged them onward, with pleas and with threats, and Jacob tried to ignore both. There were whispers invading his mind and he drove them out by chanting at double speed. Beside him Maud was saying the prayers of her own people and her daughter was fumbling along behind her in repeating them. It made a rhythm to shovel to, up and down and deep into the dirt again, until the coffin was covered completely. Maud’s son heaved the crudely-carved rock from the cart and nearly dropped it on his own foot as he planted it at the head of the grave.

“Amen!” the young man shouted.

“Amen, amen, for god’s sake, are we done?” asked the daughter, thick arms limp at her sides.

“We’re done!” said Jacob, barely getting the words out.

“You’re not!” shouted the man in grey. He had his arms around himself, head bowed as if under unseen blows. “It’s not finished!”

Jacob ground his teeth, his muscles screaming in pain. “There’s nothing left!” The gravedigger’s son was on his knees trembling.

“You must have forgotten something!” yelled the man in gray in a shaking voice, huddled inside his cloak.

“I didn’t—"

Oh.

Of course.

Jacob pulled the knife from his pocket. The act of opening it felt like moving a boulder. He took his shirt cuff and with great effort jabbed the knife into it, dragging it down until he reached the hem.. The sound of the cloth tearing reverberated through the graveyard and magnified a hundred times, until it was shaking Jacob down to his bones.

Like rain breaking on a broiling July day, the tension snapped and vanished. The pained sniffles of the gravedigger’s son faded into silence. Across the graveyard, the crickets started up their song once more.

The man in grey uncurled slowly. “What did you…do?” he asked, looking to Jacob in awe.

“Mourners,” Jacob gasped, the knife falling from his hands. “There were no mourners. Had to—you tear your clothing, when you’re mourning. Funeral’s not just for the dead. It’s for the living. It needed mourners.”

A feeling of cool mist enveloped Jacob as the man in grey launched at him for a deep embrace. It was the first time the man had touched any of them since the night began. “Thank you,” the man said, voice nearly a sob.

Jacob patted his back. The man felt like a damp blanket cloying to his skin. “Shalom Aleichem, James.”

“Whatever that means, the same to you, Rabbi.” The weight of the man vanished from his arms, followed by the man himself. The first rays of morning light shone down upon wet grass dented by absent boots.

Maud’s daughter slumped against her mother. Maud’s arm reached around her and gave her a hard squeeze, a weak smile coming to her face.

“Do we get to believe in ghosts now, Mum?”

“No, dear. It’s bad for business.”

[sunmoonandeddie]

spilled wine

pairing: king!bucky barnes x reader

word count: 3,346

summary: You’re nothing more than a servant who happens to warm the bed of the king.  At least, that’s what you thought you were.

warnings: Some swearing, little bit of violence

a/n:  This was written for @cametobuyplums‘s 2000 Plums Writing Challenge!  Congratulations!  My prompt was “Pour moi, c’est toi la plus belle : to me, you are the prettiest.”  Also, shout out to my betas that basically agreed to read this because we’re in a group chat and I’m a brainless noodle that needs all the help I can get: @wastedavenger @curvybihufflepuff @siren-kitten-his @starwarsgazer Let me know what y’all think!

You were angry.

No, angry was too simple a word.  You were vexed, aggrieved, irate.  And you had every god damn right to be.

Well, kind of.

“What has you all riled up?” Wanda asked as she sidled up next to you.  You were two peas in a pod with your matching servant’s dresses.  They were slightly nicer than your usual uniforms, trading plain brown wool for dark blue muslin.

“Nothing,” you said with a huff as your eyes landed on the King, who was currently twirling Princess Natalia around the ballroom.

But your best friend was as observant as ever, her eyes following your gaze.  “She’s beautiful.”

And she was, with her red silk gown that matched her fiery red hair.  Gold was woven throughout the fabric, making it almost luminescent.  But nothing could be more beautiful than her emerald green eyes, you were sure of it.

“She’d make a fine queen.”

You hummed in response, the bottle of wine sweating in your hands.  “I’m sure she would.”

“You know, political marriages happen all the time, even with commoners such as us,” she said, her eyes searching your face.  Her voice had dropped to a low whisper to ensure that no one could overhear the two of you.  “It doesn’t mean there’s feelings between them.”

“I know.”

“Then why do you look so upset?”

Because I am upset, you wanted to say.  But you couldn’t.  It didn’t matter that Wanda was smart and had figured out about your little affair over a year ago.  Or that she had told you that you would inevitably have to watch him marry someone else.  When she told you that, you’d simply shrugged and said, “He only wants someone to keep his bed warm, and I am in no place to deny my king.”

“Y/N, please tell me what happened,” she said as she reached up to tug on one of the ribbons she had braided into the strands of hair that she’d pulled back into a half-up, half-down sort of look.

“We got into an argument,” you finally admitted as your mind flashed back to what had taken place just a few hours before.

“I have to go,” you said as you straightened out your hair in the mirror.

It wouldn’t do to look as though you’d been rolling around in the hay.

Granted, your virtue wasn’t worth as much as the nobility that walked the halls of the castle, but still.  The principle was there.  And someday you’d have to get married and there was no doubt in your head that your husband would want to know that whatever children came out of your union were his.

“The ball doesn’t begin for another three hours,” James said as he rolled out of bed.  He didn’t even have the decency to get dressed before crossing his chambers to where you were standing, peering into his looking glass.  He looked almost godly in the afternoon sun that was streaming in through the open balcony doors.  “It wouldn’t hurt you to linger, my love.”

There it was again.  ‘My love.’  The title that he had given you that would never truly be yours.  It stung your heart every time he uttered the words, though you knew that you couldn’t say anything about it.

His arms wrapped around you from behind, your hands automatically clasping over where his rested on your sternum.  His lips trailed soft, feather-light kisses against any bare skin he could find.  His hair fell in a curtain around his face.  Your eyes were locked on your own in the mirror.  You wished for nothing more than to be able to stay right there, in his arms, hidden away from the judgmental eyes of the world.  “Stay… for just a little longer…,” he purred.

“My king,” you said after clearing your throat.  You knew how much he hated it when you used his title, and for the most part, you agreed to use his actual name when the two of you were alone.   But right now, you needed to get your point across.  You wriggled out of his grasp, turning away from him to pull on your shoes.  “This needs to come to an end.”

The air in the room changed as he froze behind you.  “What?”

You swallowed, knowing that defying your king could get you thrown into the dungeons or sent to the gallows.  You could only hope that you had gained enough respect in your time together for him to allow you to keep living your life as you knew it.  “This…  This needs to end.”

“I heard what you said.  I suppose I’m just wondering what’s gotten into you,” James said, letting out a chuckle as he tried to grab your hand.  He clearly thought you were joking, playing a little trick on him before the big night.

But you snatched your hand away before he could grab it.  “My king,” you said sternly, your voice void of any warmth.  “Tonight you are choosing a queen.  You are throwing an entire ball for it.”

“I don’t see how that means this has to end,” he said, his brows furrowing.

“I don’t think your wife would appreciate me warming your bed,” you replied dryly.

James rolled his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest as he leaned against the wall.  There was still a playfulness in his eyes because he didn’t get it.  Because he was a man and men get what the want, especially if they have a crown on their head.  “My wife—whoever she may end up being—will have her own chambers, as is normal.”

“And what then?” You snapped, your frustration reaching its boiling point.  “I will not—no, cannot—be your little plaything—your whore—for the rest of my life.  One of these days, I will be married to a man who wants to be sure I’m not bearing another man’s heirs.”  You could get in so much trouble for this.  You could be beheaded, for God’s sake.  But you didn’t care.  You’d spent the past two years warming the king’s bed and you truly only had yourself to blame for the current situation.  You’d lost your heart to him.  You should’ve ended it the second you realized you had feelings for the man, but you couldn’t bring yourself to do it until now.

“You’re getting married?”

And maybe it was because you were so pissed off, but you could’ve sworn he was laughing at you.  “Yes, I am,” you said, your hands fisting at your sides.  “To the blacksmith in the village.”  You swallowed, willing yourself to stay strong, to not cry.  “And he may not be rich and he may not have a title, but at least I won’t be a toy to throw away when he’s done with me.”

James scowled, his hands having dropped to his sides as he stood up straight.  “I am your king.  And regardless of whether or not you’re getting married to some commoner, I want you.”

“If you want me, then you have to earn me!” You snarled as you whirled on him.  “I might just be a servant, but I am not yours!”

He was left completely silent as you stormed out of the room, the door slamming shut behind you.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Wanda cooed as she gently rested a hand on your arm.  Because it didn’t matter that she could be saying, ‘I told you so.’ What mattered was that you needed your best friend more than anything.

Because underneath all your anger was a deep sadness, a despair that only came from a broken heart.

“It’s alright,” you said, though it was clear that you were more trying to convince yourself.  “I’ll forget all about him once Adam and I are married.”

The redhead’s nose scrunched as she was reminded of your now fiancé.  “I don’t particularly care for that man.”

“Well, it’s a good thing you’re not the one marrying him,” you teased as you moved to refill some of the Lord’s cups.  Plus, you could see the head of the kitchen, Vision, glaring at the two of you.

It didn’t matter that he was set to marry Wanda, he wouldn’t risk getting in trouble for two of the servants under his watch talking the night away instead of working.

The music continued to play as you moved through a few of the tables that lined the edges of the room, refilling goblets whenever you saw they were half empty or lower.  There were a few sly comments here and there, but nothing too out of the ordinary of the sleazy men.

You were pouring more wine for Lord Rumlow when your eyes drifted up to the dance floor, only to find James’s eyes already on you as he danced with the princess.  His startling blue eyes met yours, freezing you in place.

But you were pulled out of it by the sound of a someone shouting.  You gasped as you looked down, realizing that you’d overflowed Rumlow’s goblet and that it was dripping all over him.

“You stupid girl!” He snarled.  His hand swept across the table so that the goblet flew towards you, wine covering your dress.

There was no way that was coming out.

“I-I’m so sorry!” You said, stammering as you tried to mop up the wine with your dress.  People were starting to take notice of the commotion, Wanda included.  You could see her from the corner of your eye across the room.  She looked more like a raging bull than a girl, pushing up her sleeves as though she was going to storm him herself.  Vision appeared behind her, though, holding her back before she could do anything rash.  “Please, f-forgive me, Lord Rumlow.”

A yelp tore from your lips as the Lord gripped your upper arms, his nails digging into your skin through your dress.  He shook you harshly as spit flew from his mouth.  His face was twisted into something so horrific, you were sure that he’d been possessed by a demon.  No holy creature could be so ugly.  “I’ll have you hanged for you insolence, you—"

“LET HER GO!”  The king’s voice boomed across the room, and everyone fell deathly silent.

You whimpered as Rumlow’s grip tightened as the king stalked towards him, murder in his eyes.  You knew there would be bruises in the shape of his hands in just a few hours.  “Your Majesty, this worthless—“

“Have you lost your hearing, Rumlow?” James asked as he came to a stop in front of the two of you.

The man blinked in confusion.  “What on Earth are you talking about?  Of course not.  This kitchen mouse—"

“Then why have you not put her down as I’ve ordered you to?”

The other man’s jaw clenched as he stared down the King for a long moment, before tossing you to the floor.  “She spilled wine all—”

“She apologized, and spilled wine no reason for you to turn into a rabid animal,” James interrupted, his eyes still narrowed.  He was making it clear that Rumlow wasn’t getting anywhere with his excuses.  He hadn’t looked at you yet, and you didn’t dare move from where you’d landed on the marble floor.  “Maybe we should have you for prey on our next hunt.”  He sneered at the lower-born man.  “Get out of my sight before I send my dogs out after you.”  When the man was out of earshot, the King turned his head to speak to his right hand, Lord Rogers.  You’d heard all about him while lying in James’s bed after a night of love-making.  He was the King’s best friend as well as his most trusted adviser.  “Ensure that he leaves, Steve.”

“Of course, Your Majesty.”

Your cheeks flamed as you stared down at the floor, your palms pressed flat against the cold marble.  You couldn’t look your now former lover in the eyes.  Not after what had just occurred.  You were a servant.  You weren’t meant to be seen, and now every person in attendance was staring directly at you.

But James surprised you, getting on his knees so that he was on your level.  “Are you alright, my love?” He asked softly, gently tilting your chin up to look him in the eyes.

“Your…  Your Majesty, wh-what are you doing?” You stammered, eyes darting around the room to see everyone watching him.  “You shouldn’t be—”

“Y/N, are you alright?” He asked once again, making sure to enunciate each word.

You stared at him with wide eyes, swallowing.  “Y-Yes.  I’m so-sorry about the wine, I—"

James’s hands rested on your elbows so that your hands had to rest on his chest.  He didn’t care that the two of you were still on the floor.  “I don’t care about wine.  Or Rumlow, for that matter.  What I care about is whether or not you’re okay.”  He stared at you for another long moment before pulling you to your feet.  “Dance with me.”

“Wha…  What?”  You blinked at him slowly, unsure that you heard him.

“Dance with me,” he repeated, though he was already pulling you to the dance floor.

“B-But there’s people staring, and my dress, and I’m just—”

“You’re just what?” He countered, frowning as he brushed his knuckles against your cheek.  “Let them stare.  I don’t care about a dress.  And you…”  He smiled faintly as he took in your features.  “You are worth more than all of them put together.”  He held out his hand to you.  “Now, will you dance with me?”

After just another moment’s hesitation, you placed your hand in his.  He nodded towards the band and a slow waltz floated through the air.

“How is Princess Natalia?” You asked as he held you close.  You were avoiding his eyes.

“She’s fine, enjoying her engagement to Prince Clinton,” he said, though when you looked up at him, there was no cocky smirk that said he was poking fun of your jealousy.  No, he was being completely serious in wanting you to know that he wasn’t interested in her.

But even so, your eyes drifted over to the many eligible noble women that had come to try their hand at winning the King’s heart.

“What are you thinking?” He asked, his voice barely audible.

“One of them is going to be your wife.  They’re all rather pretty,” you hummed, unable to stop yourself from staring at the girls.  They stood there in their fine silk gowns with diamonds dripping from their ears and their necks.  Every single one of them was glaring at you, reminding you that you weren’t one of them.  That you didn’t deserve to be dancing with the King.  That he would never choose you as his bride.

“Pour moi, c’est toi la plus belle,” he said as he gently turned your head to look back at him.

You bit your lip as you followed his lead, surprised at how easy it was to dance with him.  The most dancing you’d ever done was in the village square during festivals, and those boys were never any good at it.  They spent most of the time stepping on your toes.  “What does that mean?”

“To me, you are the prettiest.”  Before you could reply, he twirled you under his arm and brought you back in.  There was a thoughtful look in the depths of his blue eyes.  “I’ve done a lot of thinking in the… five hours or so since you left my chambers,” he said, his voice dropping so that no one could hear.  He knew how damaging it could be for you if someone heard that you’d been alone with him.

“Oh?” You prompted, not quite sure where the conversation was headed.

He nodded, humming as he looked down at you.  “Did you know that my father was a lowborn Lord before he married my mother?”  His brows were furrowed as he recounted the story.  “He was the fifth son of my grandfather, who was the fourth son of my great grandfather.  My great grandfather, James II, was a rebel that was pardoned by his king due to his lineage.  But he was barely left with enough land and money to keep his title as a Lord.”

You were growing less and less aware of everyone’s stares on you as you simply focused on the man holding you.  The man that you considered to be the love of your life.

“But my mother didn’t care about any of that.  She was the only child born to my grandparents, the future Queen.”  He paused, his eyes flickering over to the Queen Mother.  When her husband had passed, she’d decided to step down and let her son take the throne, despite the fact that she could rule without him.  She was adored by her people, loved and respected, just as her husband had been.  “Anytime she told the story to me when I was little, she always said, ‘I loved him, which meant his title didn’t matter.  He was born my equal.  I simply raised him to my level in the eyes of the world.’”

Your throat felt dry as you stared at him, your heart beating so loudly that you were sure he could hear it.  “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that I have never bowed to anyone in my entire life,” he said, drawing out the words as the two of you came to a stop in the middle of the ballroom.  “Not even my parents.  But I will bow to you as the sun bows to the moon every night, allowing it to shine for the world.”  As if to show that he was serious, he bowed deeply at the waist, shocked gasps ringing through the air.  His lips pressed to your hand before he came back up.

“James…  What does this mean?” You asked as he straightened up once again.  You thought you knew where this was heading but you didn’t want to get your hopes up just in case.

“Let me raise you in the eyes of the world.  Let me show them that you’re my equal in every way,” he said as he slowly sunk to one knee.  His eyes were swimming with tears as he looked up at you.  “Marry me.  You’re already the love of my life, my light in the darkness.  Be my wife and my queen.”

You couldn’t form words.  Tears streamed down your face as you rapidly nodded.  “Yes,” you finally gasped out, letting out a bit of a laugh.  “Yes, I will marry you.”

James got to his feet, pulling you into his warm embrace.  His lips met yours as the room erupted in applause.  When he finally set you down, he opened up his arms to present you to the room proudly.  Wine-stained dress and all.  Your cheeks flamed as you curtsied towards them, before remembering that you would never have to curtsy to anyone ever again.

“Come.  There’s someone I’d like you to meet,” he whispered, his breath hot against his ear as he led you towards where the Queen Mother, Winifred, sat on one of the thrones.  “Mother,” he said, eyes shining.  “This is Y/N, my fiancé.”

You knew the Queen Mother, of course.  You were the one who brought her tea every morning and every night.

She got to her feet, waving you off when you started to cursty.  “None of that nonsense,” she said, pulling you into a hug.  “Truth be told, I was wondering when my son would tell me about the girl he was so taken with,” she said, low enough that her son couldn’t hear.

Your cheeks flamed as she pulled away, but a fond smile tugged at your lips as your fiancé caught your gaze yet again.

James made a big show of bowing to you yet again.  “My Queen, will you give me the honor of a dance?”

Your heart fluttered as you placed your hand in his.  “I will.”