#hothouse princesses | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

autisticempathydaemon · 2 years

Text

Meet me on your best behavior (Meet me at your worst)

aka: I saw a crackship and breathed life and sincerity into it for 4.9k words

cw: sfw, mentions of injuries, no explicit violence, Quinn and the Inversion are mentioned in passing, Shaw Pack feelings, Background Werewolves/Mates, past Amanda/Christian

Finding a mate is a lot different than how Christian’s pack had described it.

aka: Five times Christian and Alexis met and the One time they introduced themselves.

Sequel (of sorts) to this, a primer on Alexis

Also available on AO3

When Christian asks David about mates, his Alpha describes something like love at first sight (as loathe as he is to admit it). His stern expression softens, relaxes in a way Christian hasn’t seen since they were young, and he speaks gruffly but softly of seeing his Angel and not being able to look away no matter how hard he had tried.

“They looked at me right away and just knew I was it for them, and you know what?” David asks, voice uncharacteristically genial, small, secretive smile threatening to break through the glower. “I think, somewhere in my core, I knew they were it for me too.”

When Christian met Alexis, all he knew was that he totally, completely, one-hundred percent should not fuck with her… and that he was going to do it anyway.

There’s just something about a beautiful girl that could kick Christian’s ass and knows it, okay? (Tank absolutely wiped the floor with him in their first spar as teenagers, and Christian learned something about himself that day.)

So when the Shaw Pack and Solaire clan succeeded in their mission, when they finally took Quinn down after months of tracking… when he saw Alexis tackle the bastard and hold him in place so Tank could rip his head off, all Christian knew was that he was fucking screwed.

When Christian asks Milo about mates, his fellow werewolf narrows his eyes suspiciously, like Christian is going to use this information for evil, before giving a wry, languid shrug. He looks down at the stack of paperwork they’ve been stuck with, tries to swallow back the tenderness he feels when he thinks of his Stealth, and fails.

“I don’t just call them Sweetheart for shits and giggles, man,” Milo mumbles to the papers with a rakish, mirthful grin and a bright, loving look obviously not meant for the expense reports. They meet eyes from across the office, and Christian doesn’t know what to do with the uninhibited joy he’s witnessing. “They’re just the best goddamn thing in the world, Christian. I’ve got you guys- yeah, that includes you, fucker- and my home and my cat, but it’s my mate that’s so sweet to me that makes it all worth it.”

Upon meeting the vampire a second time, Christian’s not sure “sweet” is the word that he’d use to describe her or if “worth it” is how he’d describe how he feels; he’d probably offer “confusing” and “awkwardly seduced” as alternatives.

When he sees Alexis of the Solaire clan again, it’s at a grand party being held by the King himself. Anyone who is anyone in Dahlia has been invited to celebrate the rogue vampire being eliminated and the subsequent alliance between them and the Shaw pack, so he’s there and so is the clan princess in all her royal finery.

“Chrissy, you can’t be serious,” Arden had said, pulling at him by the cufflink. His older sister looked up at him, brow furrowed, eyes accusing, expression so completely done but loving in that way only family can manage, and he just grinned down at her. “There is no way this one doesn’t end badly. Don’t even try.”

“Do or do not. There is no try.” was his cheeky retort before Christian grabbed two flutes of champagne and made his way to the wall where Alexis had perched herself like a treasured hothouse flower: gorgeous, refined, and untouchable.

“You looked lonely over here all by yourself, Princess. I thought you could use a little company,” Christian says, sidling up beside the beauty to offer her a glass and his most charming, pearly white grin.

“I’m actually quite comfortable on my own,” Alexis responds bluntly, accepting the champagne and not even looking at his smile. “Thank you for the thought though; that is very considerate.” She takes a sip, eyes never leaving the crowd of dancing Empowereds, never glancing his way.

Out of the corner of his eye, Christian can see Arden holding back laughter, and he has to fight the urge to tug at the restricting collar of his shirt like a boy at his first school dance. Even back then, he doesn’t think he had this issue, having always had the accent and surfer boy tan he needed to get at least a glance. Combined with adulthood and the tall, lean muscle of a shifter, this is not usually how this goes, and Christian is determined to get back on script.

“Not one for dancing or mingling? I can’t tempt you for a single waltz?” he says, dipping his head closer to hers and letting his honey blond bangs fall devil-may-care around his face.

“I’m afraid I’m not very good at either. If you’re looking for a partner for the night, you’d have much better findings elsewhere,” Alexis responds, eyes flitting across his forehead and freckled cheeks before looking up at the crystal chandelier. Her words are matter-of-fact and aloof, but something about the way she says them, the sweet Southern softening of syllables from her lips, draws him in, makes him want to hear more.

“I doubt that, considering I’m standing next to the most stunning woman in all of Dahlia.” Christian gives the vampire his signature once-over, eyes dragging slowly from her dark scarlet evening gown, pausing appreciatively on her ring-studded hands, and landing on her surprisingly soft-edged face framed by curtains of softer hair. “You paint a pretty picture, Princess.”

Then the script well and truly goes out the fine, stained-glass window. When Christian flirts, it has historically gone two ways; either it works or it doesn’t. When he was young and dumb and reckless, Tank punched him in the gut; that didn’t work. Amanda had laughed in his face but still gotten into his bed; that had worked.

The woman in front of him does neither. She- finally- glances up with silver eyes like lakes after a storm, like steel that cuts him to his core. She doesn’t sneer derisively; she doesn’t grin suggestively. Alexis smiles, surprised, genuine, pleased, and gives him a measured once-over of her own.

“That’s nice of you to say, thank you.” She nods appreciatively at him- his leather shoes, his silk tie, his fine Swiss watch that he will thank god and Asher for every day- and meets his admiring gaze. “You look pretty fine yourself.”

Christian spills his drink on his Ted Baker boots. He can hear Arden losing her shit from ten yards away, but Christian can’t find it in him to care when Alexis is giggling, fangs peeking out from behind her lips.

When Christian asks Asher about mates, he immediately regrets it for two reasons. One, because Asher is a big-mouthed asshole who will never let him forget this. Two. Asher immediately begins a gooey, lovesick tirade about his mate and their smile and their hugs and surely more, but Christian stopped paying attention by then.

“They just…” Asher trails off, throwing a heavy, friendly arm around his shoulders and beaming at him. “They fit right in, you know? Babe gets along with everyone, even you! As soon as I told them about werewolves, it was like they’ve always been a part of the pack.”

When Christian meets Alexis the third time, she’s inching along the edges of the pack solstice party, a wallflower wilting in a new, unfamiliar environment. All the Solaire clan had been invited, but it’s obvious no one quite expected her to come by the nervous berth she’s given.

David had done his host duty, of course, shaking her hand and taking her coat. His mate had got her a drink and given her a tour of their home. Tank had given her a nod, an accepting incline of the head. Alexis said hello, complimented the decor and the food, and fiddled with a wine glass in the corner.

“Is that Cabernet or blood? It’s hard to tell,” Christian says, sidling up to the beauty yet again, but this time, she blinks slowly, thoughtfully, before looking up at him with an indecipherable expression. “I can’t continue tradition and bring you a drink if I don’t know,” he jokes, leaning back against the wall, and Alexis takes a deep breath, loosens her shoulders, and relaxes next to him.

“You’re welcome to try it and find out,” she retorts, angling the glass towards him and swirling the liquid inside. “Fifty/fifty shot. Do you like your odds?” Her eyes on his make him brave, silver irises like mercury warming his skin, and Christian doesn’t break the eye contact as he slowly takes it from her and sips. He smiles down at her when he tastes tart, heady wine, and she smiles back, small and amused, before taking her drink back and looking down at the floor.

“That’s not fair, I didn’t even know we had Pinot noir,” he says, taking a sip of his hard cider, and Alexis huffs out a hint of a laugh that fizzes in his veins like solstice magic.

“Will had us all bring wine as host gifts, and your alpha’s mate opened mine to share with me.” She takes a sip, dainty and elegant, and Christian internally curses his intrusive thoughts of lips and indirect kisses. “And it might not have been fair, but I didn’t think you’d mind. If we’re going to continue tradition, Pinot is a lot easier to get out of your clothes than B positive.”

Alexis glances at him in her periphery, eyes glittering and lips grinning behind her hand like the first glimpse of hidden treasure, and Christian is so effervescently pleased that he came over, that he left his own isolated corner to join hers.

When Christian asks Tank about mates, his packmate and friend grips the steering wheel so hard, he can hear the plastic straining to stay in one piece. The moment they stop at a red light, they turn to him with a stern, disappointed look, and he returns it with a combative, stubborn look of his own. They raise a knowing, mocking brow; he curls his lip in a dogged sneer, and Tank rolls their eyes with a sigh as they step on the gas.

“He takes care of me,” they admit, finger tapping incessantly against the gear shift in embarrassment disguised as annoyance. “No one’s done that since… since Gabe, maybe? No one’s really tried to, and I wouldn’t haven’t let them if they did. Sam makes me feel safe, like I can depend on him to watch over me.”

When Christian investigates disturbed wards and a trail of blood on a construction site and meets Alexis for the fourth time, she’s not in any condition to take care of anyone, not even herself.

“So what happened to you?” he asks, doing a practiced, analytical sweep of the room. Scratches and bruises, nasty and bleeding but not fatal. Wide, skittish eyes, too alert to be concussed. The Solaire princess, curled up in the shadowy corner of a vacant building. Her crimson-stained shoes, only inches away from the impending sunbeams streaming in through the windows.

“Some vampires. Stragglers from Quinn’s little posse. Out for revenge or whatever.” Christian listens and acts, grabbing painter’s tarps strewn about the room and throwing them over bare curtain rods. The sun is banished, throwing the room into dusty dimness, and it doesn’t take heightened senses to make out the faint sigh of relief from the corner.

“Are they coming back? Where are they?” A hand- bloody, bent at a wrong angle- points at nondescript piles of ash dotting the floor. “Ah. Not coming back then.” Alexis shakes her head, and Christian can’t resist shoving his foot through the dust before crouching in front of her. “Who can I call in your clan? Do you want me to take a look? Or call a healer?”

“No.” Blunt, cold, without drawl or affectation. Christian leans closer, and Alexis leans back, and he watches as her wrist fights to not buckle under her weight, as her ankle drags against the cement. “...no, thank you.”

“What are you going to do then?“ he asks, sitting on his haunches and raising an eyebrow as she breathes, shaky, harsh, probably through a bruised rib cage. “Wait like a sitting duck for their friends to show up? Fight round two with a twisted ankle and a gash in your side?” Her hand curls around her waist like Christian might not see the red soaking through the dark shirt if she covers it, and his fingers clench on his knees.

“I could. If I had to.” Alexis looks at the door, fidgeting with the torn edges of her blouse, and he fights the urge to roll his eyes at her wolfish stubbornness.

“Well, you don’t have to. And I wouldn’t let you anyway.” With a grunt and a resigned sigh, Christian turns around and sits on the ground in front of Alexis.

“What are you doing?” The vampire asks behind him, the hard -g dropping from her speech in gentle, lilting confusion as Christian digs around in his pockets.

“What’s it look like, Princess? I’m doing my job.” Asher sends a “k” in response to his message, and he rolls his eyes before tucking the phone back into his jacket and looking at her over his shoulder. “This is a Shaw contract site, and you’re on it. That means I’ve got to keep you safe.” Christian sends a cheeky wink in her direction, and Alexis exhales something that sounds suspiciously like a laugh before hiding her bruised face in her knees.

“I am safe,” Christian hears her mumble, accent dragging out her vowels into long, lethargic whispers. “I’ve got it.”

“If by “it,” you mean cracked ribs and a broken finger, I’m inclined to agree with you,” he retorts, getting comfortable with his elbows on his knees, chin on his palm. “You’ve also got a few hours until sunset, so rest and make peace with your vampire gods. If you can’t walk by dark, I’m taking you to Marie.”

“...Is that the woman who dragged your Alpha outta his house by the ear?” Alexis asks, voice closer, hesitant, and laced with an emotion resembling intimidation.

“That’s the one,” he responds with a fond chuckle. “She’s not terribly fond of pack members refusing help, and that means you now, Solaire. You don’t want me to call a healer, that’s fine, but you’re getting patched up one way or another.” A moment passes, and Christian feels something burn through his chest, up his cheeks- warmpleasedhonored- when a tentative, beseeching hand tugs at his sleeve.

When Christian asks Arden about mates, his sister stops, blinks, puts down the kitchen cleaver, thank god, and really looks at him.

“Really?” she asks, not jeering or mocking but surprised, earnest, in a soft tone only reserved for her baby brother. “When you said “there is no try,” you really meant it, huh?” Christian shrugs churlishly down into the pot, because the fettuccine at least won’t look at him like the prodigal son come home. Arden chuckles incredulously before shaking her head and turning back to the cutting board.

“Never thought I’d see the day my philandering asshole of a brother would finally bring up the M-word. Amanda must have really done a number on you.” Christian flicks salt over his shoulder, and Arden laughs louder, tossing a cherry tomato at his head. “Smitten is a good look on you, bro; let’s keep it there. If Alexis sees that surly bullshit you do and puts up with it, matches you eye for an eye? You hold on to her, and don’t let go.”

The fifth time Christian and Alexis meet, the broken arm and dislocated shoulder prevent him from holding onto anything or anyone. The gory scratches down his torso probably don’t help.

“What are you doing here?” Christian says, hurling blood-spattered attitude at Alexis’s feet. The alley the shade cornered him in is dank and dark, only a touch of moonlight revealing the steely glint of her eyes on his. Opposite her, in the light of a glaring neon, he is cracked open and visibly broken, and that boils whatever blood he has left in his body.

“Someone heard a commotion near our territory and alerted Will. He sent me to check it out.” Alexis leans forward to get a better look at him- to look down at him- and her tender, searching gaze along his body stings like salt in his wounds. “Why don’t I heal you some before I call the department?”

“Oh, the precious princess knows how to do magic? I assumed all you do is sit spoiled and mighty in your castle and get your ass kicked.” His voice is barbs and venom, but Alexis persists, crouching by his side.

“I assume you’ve heard the saying about assumptions and asses…?” Her tone is dry, but her expression is concerned, her hands hovering hesitantly over his mangled thigh. “Are you going to make one out of yourself and bleed out, or are you going to let me help you?”

“I don’t know,” Christian snaps, flinching away from her hand, not because he hates her touch, but because this is not how he wanted her to touch him for the first time, because he hasn’t fully come to terms with wanting her to touch him, because that leg has the fucking audacity to keep getting hurt. “Are you going to make me a leech without my permission too, or are you going to let me handle my own shit?”

Alexis physically recoils, and he feels a bittersweet spike of delight at having shaken her, sanding away that cool, kind, pitying face to reveal what’s underneath. Christian may be the one beaten and broken, but he’s never liked to go down without a fight, to bleed alone.

“Alright.” Eyes that slipped closed in pain jerk open, and Christian watches as Alexis pulls back and stands, face impassive, shuttered, and pointed at the ground. “I’ll do a perimeter check and call the department while I’m at it, let them know you need a healer.”

“What, you’re telling me the Solaire Princess lost all her bite?” He blurts out with a callous laugh, sitting up against the wall despite his body’s protests. “Or am I not pretty enough for you to keep around? Because we both know that’s not true.”

“Don’t do that.” Christian freezes at the sound of her voice, cold and hard as the cement beneath him, and realizes abruptly how warm her tone had been before. Alexis focuses on a brick two feet above Christian’s head, won’t meet his eyes, and that is the injury that strikes him to his core.

“Do what, Princess?” he asks, sneering out the word, craning his head up towards her. “There’s a reason I’m the only one who pities you enough to be around you. In case you’ve forgotten, you’re the misfit, and I’m the asshole; this is me staying true to form.”

“This is you pushing me away,” she says, pulling a phone out of her pocket, the bright screen illuminating her closed-off expression. “This is you lashing out and wanting me gone, so I’ll go.” Alexis walks down the alley, away from him, and something wrong, a cocktail of bile, vitriol, and regret, surges in his chest.

“Didn’t know it was so easy to get rid of you, Solaire. Pretty thing like you doesn’t like it when your things bite back?” Murmuring on the phone, Alexis doesn’t even turn or spare a glance; she makes her way around the corner, taking the moonlight with her, and leaving Christian in the dark.

When Amanda asks Christian about mates, they’ve been through enough hard times and drinks together that he actually answers.

“Is she the one?” Amanda asks, twisting the top off another beer and handing it to him. Christian holds the cool glass to his forehead and looks at her through messy, blonde bangs.

“Who?” he asks, playing stupid, and Amanda throws a pizza crust at him, knowing he’s really not.

“Oh, your local barista- Alexis, you dipshit.” She leans forward, leveling him with that look that drove him insane when they were together. Now, with miles and months and history between them, it holds him steady, grounds Christian in his body and feelings in a way only she’s allowed to do because she’s gone. “Word among the pack is you’ve been throwing “mate” around and trying to play it cool- it hasn’t been working, by the way- and I want to hear all about it.”

“There’s nothing to hear,” he says, flicking a bottle cap at her and only barely flinching when she bats it back at him with an earnest, serious expression.

“See, that’s the thing,” she says, taking the beer out of his hands and holding his gaze. “There’s always something to hear with you; you never shut up. You talk and fuck about and dance around shit until there’s something you actually want to keep to yourself.” Amanda smiles at him, small and amused and so fond. “I would know.” Christian smiles back, and something is wordlessly shared between them: too happy to be sad, too pleasant to be bittersweet, too present to be nostalgic. It’s probably the closest thing to love they ever had.

“I hate to disappoint, Mandy, but there really is nothing to talk about. She’s not my mate.” Amanda leans back against the fridge and disapprovingly crosses her arms across her chest.

“You seem awfully sure for someone with the emotional intelligence of a turtle.” Christian curls his lip at his friend, and she waves a finger in his face. “Don’t argue with me when I’m right. Who’s got it in your head that she can’t be the one?”

“It’s just not-” he says, looking down at his fidgeting hands ripping apart paper napkins. “Whatever we were, whatever we could have been, it wasn’t going to be right. It…” Christian hesitates, wrings his hands, looks up at the ceiling, does everything before finally looking Amanda in the eyes with an earnest sincerity she’s pleased to see again. “It wasn’t like how everyone said.”

“I wasn’t aware you were suddenly in the habit of listening to the pack about this stuff; that’s certainly news to me.” He glares at her, and she just grins back, still frustratingly fond. “Last I checked, you were headstrong and cocksure to a fault, or have you really changed that much since I’ve left?”

“Nope, still the same. Still running my mouth off when I shouldn’t, running off pretty girls.” Christian returns her grin with a grimace, more teeth and resignation than actual joy, and Amanda widens her eyes and nods knowingly, leaning on the counter in front of him. When he leans forward, his elbows a hair's breadth from hers, what passes between them is markedly less pleasant than before. As close as they may be, there will always be the memories between them of snubbed touches raised voices cold shoulders angry words packed bags slammed doors. There will always be words that were left unsaid until it was too late.

“You know what I liked about you, Chrissy?” Christian offers her a tired facsimile of an arrogant smirk, and she shakes her head at him, not unkindly. “I liked the person you were when you were with me. I even liked the person you were with our pack, as much of a dickhead you could be. You know what I hated about you?” He doesn’t even attempt to answer, and Amanda points at his chest with a gentle, admonishing finger. “I hated the person you were always pretending to be.” Her hand moves to his face, pushing bangs away from his scarred cheek, and the two of them touch foreheads in a gesture more intimate and loving than any kiss they ever shared.

“Whatever you said to her, I know you’re sorry. You know you’re sorry. Clue her in while you still can.” Amanda punctuates her point with an affectionate ruffle of hair just like she used to do when they were growing up. “Be honest, and be yourself. Then the two of you, and no one else, can decide whether you’re mates or not."

The sixth meeting between Christian and Alexis is unlike the others; there’s no bystanders, no injuries, no safety net. There’s just an abandoned amusement park, a boy looking for a girl, and the dirty, graffitied wooden horse between them.

“This carousel sure has seen better days, hasn’t it?” Christian asks with a nervous chuckle, his Aussie drawl coming out too strong as dull, equine eyes stare into his soul. Alexis, ever so cool, folds her arms on top of the plastic saddle and looks around at the dilapidated ride.

“This is a merry-go-round.” Christian eyes snap up to her face, frustratingly impassive and infuriatingly beautiful in the full moon glow, and she jerks her chin towards the other seats. “Carousels only have horses. Merry-go-rounds have all kinds of animals.”

“That is so interesting. Do you have a favorite?” he says, hands clenching uselessly at his sides. Christian wonders why this is so hard, why he didn’t bring anything as a peace offering, why he’s talking about fucking zoo animals of all things when Alexis glances down at his fidgeting fingers.

“Did you come all this way in the middle of the night to talk about my favorite animal, Christian?” The sound of his name on her lips, soft and sweet as a Dixie breeze, urges him on, makes him step up and stand up straight.

“No, I didn’t.” His accent comes out hard and insistent on the “no”, and that makes Alexis finally meet his eyes, silver against bronze. She waits, eyebrows lifting up into her bangs in expectation, and Christian takes a deep breath, stepping off the mental precipice. “I came to apologize for the things I said. I was injured and stupid and angry, and I took it out on you. I said what I knew would hurt you, and I’m sorry.”

“...did you mean it? When you said you’re around me outta pity?” Voice low and timid, hands picking nervously at her sleeves, Christian thinks this may be the most vulnerable he’s ever seen Alexis, and he feels strong, warring urges to either tear himself limb from limb or kiss her.

“I’ve never done a single thing in my life out of pity.” She smiles, a single peal of laughter from her catching them both by surprise, and Christian feels warm and invincible against the cold Autumn night air. “I’m here because I want to be. Because I want to be around you. Because I want to learn everything about you, even asinine things like why you know the difference between carousels and merry-go-rounds and which seat you like best.” Alexis sheepishly dips her head, hiding her face for a tense, torturous moment, before beckoning him closer. Christian approaches, right up to the wood statue separating them, and she leans over it, turning to the side, the top of her head grazing his cheek in a soft, electric touch.

“See that one right there?” Alexis whispers, reaching out and pointing at a dim shape a few feet away. Christian squints into the shadows and bites back a smile when he makes out the form of a large, charging wolf that he’s sure, if he saw it in sunlight, would be the same shade of gold as his hair. “I find myself pretty fond of dogs recently, so that one’s my favorite.”

“You know, storybook princesses are supposed to be scared of wolves,” he murmurs, voice uncharacteristically hushed. When he looks down, Alexis is looking back, eyes breathtakingly close and impossibly bright as she peers up at him through dark, gossamer eyelashes.

“Is that what you are? The story’s big, bad wolf?” She tilts her head to the side, so sincere, so questioning, and he knows it’s not a trance, knows it’s something from within that compels him to trace the curve of her jaw with his fingertips.

“No, I’m Christian,” he says, lightheaded and foolhardy and dizzy off the scent of magnolias and honey wafting from her hair. “Just Christian. I’m an asshole who’s working on that. I’m a grouchy bastard from what I’ve been told. I’m a stubborn man who’s hard to get along with, but I’m also a man who’d like to get to know you.”

“Hi, Christian, I’m Alexis.” She mirrors his actions and raises a hesitant hand to his cheek with a caress as soft as flower petals. “I’m also an asshole who’s been working on that. I’m a hell of a lot to handle from what I’ve been told. I’m a woman with a long life of mistakes and regrets behind me, and getting to know me means getting to know what I’ve done. If you’re okay with all of that, with me, I’d like to get to know you too.”

Something about the moon reflected in her eyes makes him brave. He thinks it may be the way she watches him so studiously, almost warily, barely blinking like he might disappear. Whatever it is, Christian feels pure exhilaration and possibility and magic course through his veins as he takes Alexis’s hand in his, grazes his lips against her knuckles, and whispers “it’s nice to meet you” into her skin like a greeting and a prayer and a promise.

Tagging:

@themonotonysyndrome who inadvertently put this terrible, wonderful, impossible ship in my head and is the reason you’re reading it now

@ejunkiet who hyped me up when the Christian in my head was being uncooperative 🥹

#redacted asmr #redacted fanfiction #redactedasmr #redactedverse #redacted #redacted fanfic #busybee writes #redacted alexis #redacted christian #Alexis/Christian #redacted darlin #redacted David #redacted Asher #redacted Milo #redacted Amanda #Redacted Arden

41 notes · View notes

jeannereames · 1 year

Note

Hi Dr. Reames, sorry to disturb you. I remember somewhere you mentioned how many times ATG was associated with each gods and heroes in the ancient sources ?But I can't find the blog now. If my memory is correct and you still have such records, could you please send me a link to it? Thank you so much!

Besides, when I read curtius 'Beside her sat one of her granddaughters, mourning for the recent loss of Hephaestion, whom she had married, and in the general sorrow was renewing her own reasons for grief. But Sisigambis alone felt the misfortune that had befallen all her family.....', I wonder if there is anything reliable in this account, does it try to imply that Hephaestion might have been nice to this girl?

Answering the second question first, he probably was nice enough to her. She was a royal princess, and her grandmother was fond of Alexander. And he himself seems to have been in favor of Alexander’s policy of integrating Persians, so he wouldn’t have been predisposed to treat her badly. And she’d have been inclined to make him happy, as her life more or less depending on it. Which brings me to the rest of the story.

The details are likely an exercise in ancient Roman “creative non-fiction.” Curtius does that a lot, embellishing on the historical record, which itself was embellished. So we shouldn’t give a lot of attention to the details, but Curtius was almost certainly correct in the general sorrow-fear these women felt when Alexander died. He’d been their protector. Without him, they’d have no idea about their futures. What Curtius gives to Sisygambus was almost certainly the alarm of every woman in Alexander’s harem: what will become of us now? That would probably generate a lot of tears, and also, perhaps, some cut-throat plans—as we see with Roxana.

The harem was, itself, a political hothouse, especially for those closest to the top. For the novels, I’ve given some thought to how I’ll be portraying the women/girls in the novels, just as I did to the sisters and wives in the women’s rooms in Macedonia.

Returning to your first question, I can find a bunch on Achilles in blogs [asks + Achilles] but none with exact numbers. BUT I do have the original article itself, of course, so below is my footnote that lays it all out:

Footnote 14 from “Philip’s and Alexander’s Use of Religious Cult in Our Extant Sources”:

In Plutarch, Herakles is referenced only twice in relation to Alexander, Achilles three times and Dionysos three. Justin, although shorter, references Herakles four times, Achilles two, and Dionysos only once. Diodoros mentions Herakles six times, Achilles three, and Dionysos two. Predictably, Curtius and Arrian have more. Curtius references Herakles nine times, Achilles once, and Dionysos seven, but Curtius is missing the first two chapters, which would have included the Troy visit, and has a large lacuna including the death of Hephaistion, both of which would likely have involved references to Achilles, and probably more of Herakles as well. Arrian shows the same disproportion: Herakles has twelve mentions, Achilles four, and Dionysos seven.

No, I’m not sure yet when this Companion is coming out, but probably in 2024. Edward Anson is the editor, and the title will be Brill's Companion to the Campaigns of Philip II and Alexander the Great.

#asks #Hephaistion #Hephaestion #Drypetis #Death of Alexander the Great #Alexander the Great #Alexander's heroes #Achilles #Herakles #Hercules #Dionysos #Dionysus #Emulation of mythical heroes #Classics #tagamemnon

8 notes · View notes

isfjmel-phleg · 2 years

Note

BEFORE THE BEGINNING for The Blackberry Bushes: Book 2?

And POV--Rietta's POV when she first meets Rachel in Ch 1 of Book 1?

Thank you for waiting so long with this one!

Here's Rietta's POV of the entirety of Book 1 Chapter 2! Because of length, I'm going to give you BEFORE THE BEGINNING in either a reblog or a separate post later (it's not done yet).

Tableaux vivants were not meant for one person. Without an audience, how could anyone appreciate the intricate lengths to which the actress had gone to recreate the scene?

Rietta had planned this tableau for a week. She had rummaged through wardrobes until she found something white and draping, probably from her great-grandparents’ youth, when the gowns were loose and airy. A little coaxing had convinced one of Rietta’s mother’s ladies-in-waiting to alter the gown into something reminiscent of the figures sculpted in high relief on Dorin buildings. The satin slippers worn for Rietta’s thirteenth birthday celebration were a little tight now, but they would do. And surely the gardeners wouldn’t miss a couple of poppies from the hothouse.

From a book in the library, Rietta learned how to create false blood from flour, water, and beetroot juice, and she horrified the cook by mixing up the concoction in the kitchen with nonchalant openness. She had a flask of the blood ready to apply to her finger, along with the sharpest stalk of stiff grass she could find. She couldn’t have been more prepared to portray the Sleeping Maiden if she had stepped straight out of the fairy tale.

Florianne would have loved it. Probably. Rietta didn’t know the Duke of Decousineau’s daughter well, but no one in her right mind could resist the siren call of a detailed tableau.

If only Florianne could have seen this one.

And that was why Rietta lay on the ruined wall in the tithe barn garden all alone that afternoon, a Sleeping Maiden without the Young Noblewoman who fatefully introduces her to the needlelike blade of grass. The March day was cool, and Rietta’s bare arms had broken out in goose flesh. She hardly noticed. Inside, she blazed with indignation.

At any other time, she might have gradually immersed herself in the role by falling asleep. Today, her mind swirled with all the things she wished she could say to Mother when she returned from Dorin. Things like How Could You and Didn’t You Remember and It Would Have Been Fine Anyhow. She was in a mood to have shouted these to the heavens, but that would have ruined the tableau, and Rietta had committed too much to this production not to make the most of it. So she buttoned her lips against the flow of wrath and tried to feel like a princess cursed to lie alone in her castle indefinitely. It didn’t take much imagination.

Somewhere out in the visible world, the rustling grass whispered a secret: she was no longer alone in the garden. At her request, the gardeners had retreated elsewhere, and none of the other staff would disturb her unless in an emergency. So it could only be her mother, home early from her Council meeting. Rietta lay stiller than ever. She didn’t even crack open an eyelid. Let her mother be the first to speak. Rietta was engaged in a crucial tableau.

The steps neared, but Rietta’s mother still didn’t speak. It seemed hours before a hand brushed Rietta’s hem. She couldn’t take the suspense any longer. She sat bolt upright and opened her eyes.

And that was when a miracle happened.

The person standing hesitantly at Rietta’s hem was not her mother. It was not even Florianne. It was someone Rietta had never set eyes on before. Heaven had seen her grief and given her the companion she had been denied. It was a girl.

A girl about her own age in a well-worn wool coat, with a waterfall of ruddy gold hair flowing down her back, clutching a book and staring back at Rietta with frightened eyes. No one had ever looked at Rietta like that before, and she would have been a little offended if she hadn’t realized what her sudden rising from the wall would have looked like to this stranger.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” she said. “Don’t you know a tableau vivant when you see one?”

The girl’s expression went from frightened to confused. “Pardon me,” she said in a thick Coregean accent. “I speak only a little Faysmondian.”

“Coregean, then?” said Rietta in that language. Coregean was one of the tongues of international diplomacy, and she had been studying it since early childhood. It would be enjoyable to have a native speaker to practice with, since she hadn’t had many opportunities for international diplomacy lately.

The girl nodded. This wasn’t much of a start to the conversation, so Rietta changed the subject.

“Tableau vivant,” she said in her best imitation of the Duke of Normorot in one of his more pompous moods. “I am the Sleeping Maiden. I have been here for a hundred years and I have been guiding the prince to my rescue through our shared visions. If he doesn’t get lost on the way.”

The girl still didn’t reply. Perhaps she had never read “The Tale of the Sleeping Maiden.” After all, some people were more or less illiterate, and it was no good holding something like that against someone who deserved pity instead. This situation required all Rietta’s training in diplomacy. She rose to the occasion. She changed the subject.

“How did you get here?”

“Through the green door in the wall,” mumbled the girl, not meeting Rietta’s gaze.

“The door that’s always locked? But how?” The green door led to the garden of the cottage bordering the castle grounds. Rietta knew nothing of the people who lived there, besides that they were commoners, of course, and had some young visitors. She had watched them arrive the other day and had longed for the nerve to cross the wall and introduce herself to these neighbors.

“Weren’t you the one who unlocked it?” asked the girl.

Rietta tossed her hair. “If I could unlock it, would I still be here? You had to have opened it yourself somehow.” By lockpicking, hopefully. Rietta had always wanted to know how that was done, but none of her books would divulge such secrets.

“I—just turned the knob and it opened today. I don’t know why. But I’m so sorry.” The girl sounded on the verge of tears.

“Sorry for what?”

“I’m trespassing on your property. I know I don’t have any right to be here, but I came anyway. I don’t even have an excuse. I just really, really wanted to know what was here, and I should have left as soon as I saw. I’m sorry.”

Even better! Not only a miracle visitor, but someone who hadn’t been thoroughly investigated and prepared and terrified into her best behavior before her admittance to the presence of the Queen. As much as Rietta had looked forward to seeing Florianne before her mother had canceled the visit, the duke’s daughter wouldn’t have been her own genuine self. Not for her. But this girl hadn’t even dropped a “Your Majesty.”

Rietta raised an eyebrow. “And curiosity is a dreadful sin, would you say?” What was this girl so upset about? Nothing would have stopped her from having her fill of exploration if she had been granted an unlocked garden door.

“Yes, mademoiselle,” said the girl, as meekly as if she were repeating her catechism. “If it’s curiosity about...something you aren’t supposed to be curious about. I am very sorry. I will accept whatever the consequences are, just please don’t tell my mother.”

Rietta fought back amusement. “Do I know your mother?”

“I suppose not?”

“Then why should I tell her? I wouldn’t know her if I saw her, if you’re not mistaken.”

“But you’re supposed to tell people’s parents when their child commits crimes. And since my father is at sea, it would have to be my mother.”

She truly believed she had done something dreadful when in fact she had been the greatest benefactor of the monarchs of Faysmond since St. Jehanne herself. Poor thing, she was so distraught Rietta ought to have set matters straight immediately. But the temptation to continue to play along was too much to resist.

“In all my years of imagining criminals getting into my garden,” said Rietta, “you look exactly like what I pictured. And I know what I’m going to do with you.”

Up she sprang from the wall, nearly tripping over her draperies and almost losing her shoe in the process, and dashed for her box camera, stashed away behind a nearby bush. This was too good an opportunity to miss.

She held the camera out to the girl. “Would you please photograph me?”

The girl shrank back as if she had been presented with a snake. “But I’ve never taken a photograph before.”

Where on earth might a Coregean-speaking person unexposed to cameras or fairy tales come from? Had this strange visitor been orphaned and brought up in a convent? Isolated by cruel guardians? Raised by wolves? Whatever the case, she needed Rietta to assimilate her into this glorious new century, and the young Mother of Faysmond was only too happy to oblige.

“Oh, it’s the easiest thing in the world!” said Rietta. Having urged the girl to set down the book she had continued to cling to, she quickly and succinctly demonstrated what every child in Faysmond knew: how to work a Lutin. “And that’s all there is to it. Do you think you can do it?”

Rietta steeled herself for a refusal. The look of terror on the girl’s face all but confirmed it. “Well,” she stammered, “I suppose so—”

At the sound of those beautiful words, Rietta threw her arms around her newest friend. “Oh, thank you! Thank you so much! I thought I’d never find anyone to do it, after I went to all this trouble with the dress and the flowers, you know. It would be a shame to waste it. Or to waste this day. Isn’t this the most beautiful weather?”

The girl squirmed out of Rietta’s reach. “It’s cloudy again.”

“The sun will be back any moment. It has to do something to keep things interesting.” Rietta returned to the wall and draped herself across it in her former pose, flinging her arm over her heart artistically and assuming a rapturously dreamy expression.

“Which one do I look through again?” asked the girl.

“On the left. I mean, my left. Your right.”

Hours seemed to go by without any signal that the photograph had been taken. An insect was crawling on Rietta’s arm, and her nose had started to itch. Surely the directions had been plain enough. Anyone could use a Lutin. Rietta cracked an eye open and watched the girl still trying to position the camera with wobbly hands.

“Is everything all right?” asked Rietta.

The only reply was “Your train’s bunched up.”

With an exasperated sigh, Rietta sat up, swatted the tangled fabric back into place, and smoothed her hair as she resumed her pose “Better?”

The girl’s reply and the familiar sound of the shutter and flash confirmed this. Rietta gratefully rose and brushed the persistent insect off her arm.

“I probably got it wrong,” said the girl.

An odd thought for someone who had successfully taken her first photograph. Rietta in her place would have been giddily triumphant. But she only replied, “Getting it wrong would be not taking it at all. Now let’s try another!”

After studying magazines for months, Rietta had all sorts of ideas for poses. Her costume equally befitted a faery, so she flitted from one corner of the garden to another to commune with flowers, emerge from shrubbery, glance longingly over one shoulder at the world of mortals the faery could never know. The girl didn’t laugh at her once or tell her she was being childish and wasting time. No matter what theatrical pose, she obligingly took photograph after photograph with as much care as the professional photographer who shot a portrait of Rietta annually. Unlike the photographer, however, she had fascinating things to say as she worked.

Rietta asked, “Do you live in that blue cottage on the other side of the wall? The one with all the blackberries?”

“Not exactly,” said the girl. “But we’ll be stopping there for a long time. Do you know my grandparents? Florentin and Adelie Carothier?”

“Oh, goodness, no,” said Rietta before it occurred to her that she should have made something up to keep her visitor believing she was just another girl from the village. “I’ve never even heard their names.”

“Then how do you know they have blackberries?”

Grass clung to Rietta’s hem. That wouldn’t do. She brushed it off, slowly and deliberately. “Doesn’t everyone have blackberries? We probably do. Somewhere.”

“We?”

“My mother and I. We live here.”

“You live in a ruined castle?”

Rietta’s face burned. She knew perfectly well how shabby her home was, but the girl needn’t speak of it so disdainfully, especially when she only lived in a cottage. To her relief, the girl gestured to the walls around them to clarify.

“This isn’t a castle at all,” said Rietta. “It’s just an old tithe barn. No one’s used it in four hundred years, and no one ever lived here. We’ve got more ruins, but Mother and I don’t live in them. Just an ordinary small castle.” She shrugged and tried to sound casual, as if living in a castle whose upkeep they could hardly afford were the lot of all the aristocracy. “You can’t see it from here—and it’s only ruined when I chip the plaster or spill something on the floor.”

“Forgive my misunderstanding, mademoiselle,” said the girl stiffly.

“Oh, please, call me Rietta.”

The girl smiled, unoffended after all. “I can remember that. That’s my cousin’s name. But there are many Riettas my age, of course.”

Which was the only reason Rietta had admitted her name. That alone wouldn’t expose her identity. But—

“Were your parents admirers of the Queen?” asked the girl. “Or rather, the Princess, when you must have been born.”

No one would ask such a question innocently; the girl clearly suspected something. Why couldn’t Rietta have thought up a false name? Or given one of her middle names instead?

But still, the girl hadn’t asked if she were the Queen. Rietta could answer honestly enough, as long as she continued to sound offhanded.

“Yes,” she said breezily. “I believe they were. But it’s an old family name too, so I was stuck with it one way or another. I rather like it though. It’s something everyone will remember, and it’s a nice feeling to know everyone knows your name. What’s yours, by the way?”

“Rachel Doncath.”

An unusual name, exotically biblical. Her parents must be quite devout.

“Well, Rachel,” said Rietta, letting the name settle on her tongue like a lemon drop, “I think that’s enough photographs here.” Flinging her train over one arm, she marched toward the garden doorway. “Come on! Let’s take some more by the trees.”

She longed to be a wood nymph now. Who wouldn’t?

“No!” shouted Rachel, racing to Rietta and gripping her arm.

Rietta froze. She was the Queen. No one outside a extremely limited circle of intimates was allowed to touch her, let alone with such abruptness. She hardly heard whatever Rachel was babbling. The words she had been trained to say in response to such flagrant breaches of protocol, “Unhand us; you have violated your Queen,” nearly flew from her lips. Those words would bring guards running to release Rachel from her like a leech.

Shoving aside the instinct, Rietta quietly pulled her arm away. Hopefully that was an ordinary enough reaction. Now Rachel was saying something about an elephant on the loose? This, at least, made sense.

“It just so happens,” said Rietta, “that this elephant is an old friend of mine. Come!”

She brought Rachel to the bush where Eugène, the little wooden elephant who was the sole survivor of a decorative menagerie displayed long ago, stood forever raising his trunk to the foliage.

“Dangerous little fellow, isn’t he?”

Rachel crossed her arms. “It looked real enough earlier. From far away.”

“I wish he were,” said Rietta, throwing her arms around the elephant’s neck. “Eugène wouldn’t hurt anyone, the darling.”

But the business of photography among the trees remained. Rietta gloried in being a wood nymph for pose after idyllic pose, until, in the middle of a particularly lovely arrangement beside the crooked oak, Rachel let out a pained cry.

Never dropping her expression of Mysterious Allure, Rietta asked, “Is everything all right?”

Rachel cradled the Lutin in both hands. “I think I broke it. I don’t know what I did, but it’s stuck. I’m so sorry.”

Was that all? Rietta had broken that camera within fifteen minutes of owning it and multiple times since. The trouble was never anything she or one of the staff couldn’t fix. “Let’s have a look at this,” she said and took the Lutin back.

The shutter was jammed. Rietta brushed off her hands and tried to coax it back into mobility, murmurering encouragements in Faysmondian, but nothing worked. She shoved harder and nearly broke the piece off entirely. “Idiot,” she muttered to herself. She was only aggravating the problem. A curl fell tauntingly over her face, and she batted it away. “It’s never done this before,” she said to Rachel. “But—”

She cocked her head, listening. Footsteps were crashing, nearer and nearer, accompanied by dishearteningly familiar voices. The gardeners whom she had earlier dismissed must have grown tired of waiting for her to finish and were approaching, red-faced and armed with shears and hoes, ready to return to work. Rachel ducked behind the nearest tree, as if gardeners, like wooden elephants, were dangerous creatures, but Rietta stood her ground. Her staff had disobeyed her, and she could not allow such insolence to go unaddressed.

As long as these men chose to listen to her, of course.

“Donat, Constant, what are you doing here? I told you to wait until four-thirty.”

Donat bobbed his head. “Begging your pardon, Your Majesty, but what are you doing with that girl? She is a trespasser. A potential danger to you.”

“Or,” said Constant, “did you let her in? You know better than that, madame.”

Rietta drew herself up to her full height. Not that it would have made any difference to the gardeners, who answered to her mother, not her, but her own confidence could benefit from a display of majesty.

“She is not a trespasser. She is a neighbor, coming to pay a call on me. She got in from her own garden. What were you thinking scaring her like that? Is that any way to treat a guest? You two are getting overzealous, and quite frankly, I don’t like it. What harm could a girl like her do here? You have much greater concerns than that. Go and do something useful instead—chase out a mole or a rabbit or something. Kill aphids. Clip some branches. I don’t care. Just leave her alone. She is—she is my friend!”

Rietta didn’t realize how much she meant those last words until they spilled out. She had made a friend. Of course she had. She had had the most delightful afternoon of her life with someone whose company she enjoyed and who—she was certain—enjoyed her company too. If that was not the essence of friendship, what was?

“Begging your pardon, madame,” said Constant, “but Her Majesty will need to be informed of this before it can be allowed. You know that.”

“How do you know,” said Rietta, “that she has not already approved? My mother is not obliged to tell you of every visitor she invites.”

“Yes, madame.”

“Now please, get back to work.” The gardeners didn’t budge. They stared at her with skeptical expressions. “Go!” She waved them away, and they nodded and retreated. Not to fully leave, of course. She was sure they had every intention of hovering in hiding nearby.

Rachel had emerged from behind her tree and was staring wide-eyed at the scene that had just unfolded. She likely hadn’t understood a word, thank goodness, since Rietta and the gardeners had spoken in Faysmondian.

So Rietta beamed as if she had just put her subjects in their place and said, “I got rid of them all right. They won’t dare bother you now. Now where were we?”

“Your camera.”

“Oh.” Rietta found the machine still in her hand. She had almost forgotten it.

“I can pay for it. I don’t have much money, but I can give you all I have now and then the rest later. Perhaps I could clean Madame Puits’s house for her or be her companion in the afternoons. I don’t know. But I will pay for it.”

“Don’t bother.” Rietta wrinkled her nose at the treacherous Lutin and abandoned it at the foot of the nearest tree. “It’s old. If it hadn’t jammed for you, it would have for me sooner or later. I can pinch some tools and open it up and have a better look tonight. It’ll be good as new tomorrow.”

“Are you certain?”

Rietta lifted her chin. “Would I have said so if I didn’t mean it? Of course I’m certain! You have my word. I will fix it.”

Even that didn’t alleviate Rachel’s anxiety. “Thank you. It’s very good of you.” She wouldn’t stop twisting her hands, as if she were trying to unscrew them like a jar lid. “Did you—I mean, did I hear—earlier, when you were—” At the sound of the church bell chiming, she trailed off.

“Yes?” said Rietta. “You were saying?”

“I have to go! I have to get home now. Which way is the green door?” Rachel flailed about looking for the boundary wall, which of course was nowhere in sight among the trees.

“Really?” said Rietta in a small voice. “But we were having so much fun! I was, at least. Weren’t you?” What had she done? She hadn’t done anything. She had fended off the gardeners. She didn’t intend to press the issue of the broken camera. She had been the ideal friend all afternoon.

“It’s not that. My mother will be cross.”

Yet another commonality of theirs. Rietta’s mother would not be happy if she found out that her daughter had spent the afternoon with a trespassing stranger from the village. “Oh!” said Rietta sympathetically. “We can’t have that. You can borrow my bicycle. It’ll get you there in no time.”

Rachel shook her head. “Thank you, but—I’d rather walk. Which way?”

* * *

Not a single topic Rietta attempted to introduce as she led Rachel through the garden nearest the boundary wall had tempted her to stay a little longer. Books, animals, athletics, geography facts, objects of interest along the way—all of these seemed to leave her cold. Before long, the wall loomed ahead, and there was no more time to draw out. Rietta had to face the dismal reality: her friend belonged to the other side of the wall, and to her own she must return. The green door creaked as it swayed in a slight breeze, beckoning Rachel back within. And perhaps not only Rachel…

“May I?” asked Rietta. Not waiting for an answer, she poked her head through the doorway and gasped. The tangle of blackberry bushes blocking the other side spread so far that she couldn’t see beyond them and so thick that she couldn’t see through them. It was as if the entire world on the other side were a giant blackberry bush. “They’re even bigger than I expected! How did you grow them so huge? Do your gardeners never cut them?”

“Shh! They’ll hear you,” said Rachel.

“The gardeners or the blackberry bushes?” Rietta wanted to ask. But she only replied, “Oh, I don’t care. What’ll they do? Come out and say hello? I can handle that.”

“It’s all right for you. But then they’ll know I trespassed. And I am still sorry for that, by the way.”

Rietta crossed her arms. “I do wish you’d stop apologizing. We’ve been over this already. There’s nothing to apologize for. Don’t think of it as ‘trespassing.’ Such an ugly word. You were…” She dug into her limited supply of legal terms. “You were invited post hoc!”

“I don’t know what that means, but I don’t think they’re going to believe that one.” Nevertheless, a hint of a laugh hovered around Rachel’s mouth, to Rietta’s satisfaction. She would get through to this girl’s sense of humor yet.

“You were supposed to come. Why else would the door be open today after years and years of being locked? I’m not a bit sorry you came. And I hope you’ll come again? If the door is still open? Please say yes!”

“Well, I don’t know if my people would like it.”

Rietta’s wouldn’t either, but she insisted to herself that she wouldn’t let that stop her. “I don’t see why not. They wouldn’t if they only knew that—”

“That what?”

That I am the Queen. That I could order you to come if I wanted to—hypothetically, of course, I really wouldn’t order you to do anything…unless it’s for your own good. That anyone would be overjoyed if their daughter befriended the Mother of Faysmond.

The toe of one of Rietta’s satin slippers had a hole in it she had never noticed before. She peered down at it, not brushing aside the waterfall of hair that dripped over her face as she did so. “That I—that your friend has invited you. Of course.”

And when she resurfaced to take in Rachel’s answer, she got a smile in return.

“Thank you,” said Rachel.

It was not a yes. But it was not a no either. Rietta nodded. She would take it as a yes for now.

* * *

It wasn’t until much later, when Rietta was gathering up her belongings now scattered across the gardens—her camera, her bicycle, a stray poppy—that she found Rachel’s book in the tithe barn garden, laid for safekeeping on the ruins of the wall. She examined it: the red cloth cover embossed with the title The Enchanted Land of Yew, the smooth edges of the pages, the colored illustrations of strange and amusing creatures, and, best of all, inside the front cover, in a tiny, cramped hand, the signature “Rachel Doncath.”

It was as good as a promise. Rachel would have to come back for this book, and when she did, Rietta would be keeping it safe for her.

In the meantime, one couldn’t pass up such a delightful temporary gift. Rietta opened to the first page and began to read:

“Far away in the Plenta Country, at the south of the Land of Yew, lived a boy named Nilletarius...”

#asks #scarvenartist #The Blackberry Bushes #The Blackberry Bushes Book 1 #my writing #Rietta Valencourt #Rachel Doncath

15 notes · View notes

ithillyienseowyn · 4 months

Text

ithillyienseowyn reading list: re-read-a-thon edition

Again, this is just for me to pre-plan this isn't the official layout for my reading in the new year just a list of what I plan on reading/re-reading just so I have a visual to keep track of, it will be under my new re-read tag, anything under a series or trilogy will be titled in bold with the singular books listed beside the aforementioned title.

Red White and Royal Blue

I'll Give You the Sun

The Duff

Beach Read

Book Lovers

The Hating Game

Grishaverse: The Lives of Saints, The Language of Thorns, Six of Crows, King of Scars

The Wrath and the Dawn: Wrath and the Dawn, Rose and the Dagger

Cruel Beauty: Cruel Beauty, Crimson Bound

The Secret Circle: The Initiation, The Captive Pt. 1 and Pt. 2, The Power

Simon vs: Simon vs the Homo sapiens Agenda, Leah on the Offbeat

THUGverse: The Hate U Give, Concrete Rose

Alex Stern: Ninth House, Hell Bent

Off Campus/Briar U: The Deal, The Mistake, The Score, The Goal, The Chase, The Risk, The Play, The Dare

All For the Game: The Foxhole Court, The Raven King, The King's Men

Anna, Lola and Isla: Anna and the French Kiss, Lola and the Boy Next Door, Isla and the Happily Ever After

The Kiss Quotient: The Kiss Quotient, The Bride Test, The Heart Principle

The Witcher: The Last Wish, Sword of Destiny, Blood of Elves, Time of Contempt, Baptism of Fire, Tower of the Swallow, Lady of the Lake, Season of Storms

ACOTAR: A Court of Thorns and Roses, A Court of Mist and Fury, A Court of Wings and Ruin, A Court of Silver Flames

To All the Boys: To All the Boys I've Loved Before, PS, I Still Love You, Always and Forever Lara Jean

Poldark #7-12: The Angry Tide, The Stranger From the Sea, The Miller's Dance, The Loving Cup, The Twisted Sword, Bella Poldark

Lord of the Rings: The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings

Bridgerton/Smythe Smith Quartet: The Viscount Who Loved Me, An Offer From A Gentleman, To Sir Phillip, With Love, When He Was Wicked, It's In His Kiss, On the Way to the Wedding, The Sum of All Kisses, The Secrets of Sir Richard Kenworthy

One of Us: One of Us Is Lying, One of Us Is Next, One of Us Is Back

Sweet Magnolias: Stealing Home, A Slice of Heaven, Feels Like Family

The Hunger Games: The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, Mockingjay

The Lunar Chronicles: Cinder, Scarlet, Cress, Winter, Fairest, {Heartless}

Bloodlines: Bloodlines, The Golden Lily, The Indigo Spell, The Fiery Heart, Silver Shadows, The Ruby Circle

Throne of Glass: Throne of Glass, Crown of Midnight, Heir of Fire, Queen of Shadows, Empire of Storms, Tower of Dawn, Kingdom of Ash

The Raven Cycle: The Raven Boys, The Dream Thieves, Blue Lily, Lily Blue, The Raven King

Shades of Magic: A Darker Shade of Magic, A Gathering of Shadows, A Conjuring of Light

Heartstopper: Heartstopper Volume 1, Heartstopper Volume 2, Heartstopper Volume 3, Heartstopper Volume 4, Heartstopper Volume 5

Shadowhunter Chronicles: Clockwork Angel, Clockwork Prince, Clockwork Princess, Chain of Gold, Chain of Iron, Chain of Thorns, City of Bones, City of Ashes, City of Glass, City of Fallen Angels, City of Lost Souls, City of Heavenly Fire, Lady Midnight, Lord of Shadows, Queen of Air and Darkness

Addicted/Calloway Sisters/Like Us: Addicted To You, Ricochet, Addicted For Now, Kiss the Sky, Hothouse Flower, Thrive, Addicted After All, Fuel the Fire, Long Way Down, Some Kind of Perfect, Tangled Like Us, Sinful Like Us, Charming Like Us, Wild Like Us, Fearless Like Us, Infamous Like Us, Misfits Like Us, Unlucky Like Us

#misc #pinned post #ithillyienseowyns re-readathon

0 notes

nursc · 6 months

Text

@wornkindness asked: [STYLE] Sender offers to style receivers hair

❛⠀⠀the seat is for me? oh... ⠀ ❜ ⠀ despite her confusion, or because of it, christine promptly sits down in comfortable, upholstered chair, quickly finding amelia’s gaze in the mirror, questions swirling in her eyes. there is no denying the princess is unusual. more open than most royals she’s known in her travels, and far gentler than anyone she’s ever met, a hothouse flower with the personality of a spring bloom.

❛⠀⠀that's too kind, but i'm afraid there's no making this better. it is my curse. pretty eyes, terrible hair. ⠀ ❜ ⠀

𝑃𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑜𝑛𝑖𝑐 𝐼𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑎𝑐𝑦 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑚𝑝𝑡𝑠

#can you tell i love amelia from afar by reasding your stuff about her??#˗ˏˋ ― don't thank me. ， 𝚊𝚗𝚜𝚠𝚎𝚛𝚜. ´ˎ˗

1 note · View note

saintmeghanmarkle · 10 months

Text

I believe Tom Bower's claim that they are thinking of changing their name to Spencer by u/ElectricalAd9212

I believe Tom Bower's claim that they are thinking of changing their name to Spencer So Tom Bower stated on GB News that he understands that Markle and Harry have discussed changing their surname to Spencer.Some people expressed their doubts about this and whether it is true. I believe it.First of all let me say that Bower isn't someone I blindly agree with. His demand that King Charles and William make public statements about Markle and Harry was absolutely wrong. It would have handed victory to them because they want the attention and they'd have received a new lease of life. Instead the King and the family have played it perfectly.However I do believe Bower when he says the mad duo have thought of changing their name to Spencer. Why?She in particular is an absolutely deranged sociopath without any shame or morality. This is a woman who saw dead children in Uvalde and flew there to feed off their murders for self publicity.These are people who planned and executed a hoax car chase to imitate the death of Diana. They have no morality or shame. They plot and plan the most hideous act simply to gain attention and supposed sympathy as a kind of war game against the royal family. Again, they have no ethical limits or shame.Harry's book was a creepy book that suggests deep sociopathic obsessions likening Markle with Diana, including a demented scene in which she communes with Diana at her grave. He believes they are synonymous. Markle genuinely thinks she is the reincarnation of Diana.Markle would dig up Diana's grave and sleep with her skeleton if she could. She is mentally unhealthy and deranged and probably dreams of wearing Diana's skin on her face like a creepy psycho stalker.They are running out of options. Their schemes have failed, they are on the path to bankruptcy. The only thing that matters to them is publicity and being written about and talked about and monetising that. Changing their names to Spencer will have been cooked up inside the insular hothouse of their minds, in which they desperately try to think of something that will 'reset' them, and earn them attention, headlines, and interviews.Here is how it would work in their mad demented stalker brains -- 'We have watched with deep sadness as Princess Diana, my late mother-in-law, has been marginalised by the royal family, deliberately. Because my life mirrors hers so much, and in order to keep her memory alive, and in order to be the keeper of the flame of Diana, we shall change our name to Spencer, and keep her spirit alive forever, for the sake of our children too, who are the true inheritors of the Spencer spirit and heart. We hereby also announce the Spencer-Diana Foundation, a charity we devote our lives to help continue the work and life of Princess Diana, who has been betrayed by the monarchy in Britain, much to our deep sadness'They will then give a prime time interview to Gale King, and seek to monetise their new status, including trademarking Diana's image etc, and style themselves as keepers of the saintly goddess Diana, with Markle as her chosen child and inheritor of spirit.You better believe I believe it is true. It is 100% the kind of thing scheming psycho Markle and her snivelling shameless husband will do, as they realise they are drowning, failing and falling and consumed by the contempt of the world. post link: https://ift.tt/tqk1xMh author: ElectricalAd9212 submitted: June 22, 2023 at 03:11PM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit

#SaintMeghanMarkle #harry and meghan #meghan markle #prince harry #sussexes #markled #archewell #megxit #duke and duchess of sussex #duchess of sussex #duke of sussex #harry and meghan smollett #walmart wallis #harkles #megain #spare by prince harry #grifters #ElectricalAd9212

0 notes

ruthlessreaders · 2 years

Photo

Hades: Stephanie and the Merciless Reaper

I was born a few moments after midnight on January 1st. On my 21st birthday, my father throws me the most lavish New Year's Eve birthday party Baton Rouge has ever seen—then he tells me I'm a woman now, and that means I belong to a man he owes a blood debt. No, not a man. A demon who feeds on my family’s pain and suffering. Especially mine. His name is Hades Fairgood. But he is neither good nor fair. He's the twisted ruler of a biker underworld, and everything my dead mother warned me to avoid. Dirty rich, stupid hot, and merciless. There's not even a smidge of human left in his bitter, vengeful heart. I find that out the particularly cruel way when he renames me Persy--short for Persephone and has PROPERTY OF HADES tattooed across my back. So that I never forget... I'm his possession now. He owns me, mind, body, and soul. He’s a needlessly beautiful monster who I must escape. Of course, I must. It’s just… The longer I’m with him, the more confusing it becomes. Is he a merciless monster or a wounded man in need of love? My love? It doesn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter either way. I just hope I can escape his wrath before he ruins me.

Hades: Stephanie and the Ruthless Mogul

Is my husband a dream come true? Or the nightmare I was trying to escape before I lost my memory? I didn’t know true desire until the first time I laid eyes on him. Tall, dark, beautiful as a god—completely forbidden. He was the penniless son of the help born in the Lousiana bayou, and I was a pretty southern princess, cultivated like a hothouse flower to become the trophy on some well-pedigreed man’s arm. My mother slapped my face when she saw us together and warned me he would ruin me. A few weeks later, my father made me sign a contract vowing I wouldn’t have relations with anyone until I married. So, I tried to forget him. Until one day I woke up to find out I actually had. There’s a near-decade hole in my memory. My disapproving parents have passed away. And the biggest surprise of all: that boy my mother warned would ruin me? He’s my husband now. He’s still beautiful as a god, and he’s now rich as one, too. He’s made himself over from a poor Cajun boy living on the bayou into a ruthless mogul with enough money to give me anything my heart desires. A huge house on a lake, the perfect job, and endless pleasure. He’s a total dream husband. Until one day I receive a note from someone I trust, telling me three unsettling things. 1. The beautiful god I sleep next to every night is not my real husband. 2. Before he re-invented himself as a ruthless mogul, he was the even more ruthless leader of a notorious motorcycle gang, and… 3. I was hiding from him all the way up until my accident. Could it be? Is my dream-come-true actually the nightmare I was trying to escape? What would you do if you were me? Live with the perfect illusion? Or do whatever it takes to uncover the truth?

Character Profiles: Stephanie Perreault + Hades Fairgood Tess Malloy + Benjamin "Bono" Keane

#theodora taylor #hades: stephanie and the merciless reaper #hades: stephanie and the ruthless mogul #ruthless mc series #queue #50 loving states

0 notes

aestheticdriven · 4 years

Note

✱ + Thomas

Manhandling symbol starters @elysicn

✱ - take my muse by the hips to carefully move them out of their way

Matthew had gotten to the top of the stairs to their club room and then stopped, too exhausted to take another step. Stupid annoying demons, why did they have to be so hard to kill? He was considering if he should go take a shower, grab a drink, or just throw himself on the couch and fall asleep like this when suddenly there were hands on his waist moving him aside. He startled for a moment but then relaxed when he saw it was just Thomas.

“Sorry Tom, I didn’t notice you there. Sorry for being on the way.” He yawned as he took one step to the side. “Oh, how I wish a friendly giant would carry me to bed right now, I don’t think I can take another step.”

#nudge nudge wink wink tom #you are a friendly giant #carry the princess to bed xD #ic #Questions are never indiscreet but answers sometimes are (ask)#It might be too thrilling for a Wednesday (meme)#Thorned mysterious plants in the hothouse of the nephilim (Elysicn)

1 note · View note

homestucksongcomics · 3 years

Text

Masterpost of Song Comics Part I (A-K)

*Unfortunately, due to a peculiarity of tumblr, a post containing too many links will not have any of them function. Thus, the masterpost has been broken into two parts.*

Organized by musician alphabetically

Last updated on 07/18/2021

See Part II here: Masterpost of Homestuck Song Comics Part II (L-Z)

Kryptonite - 3 Doors Down by absinthianlyunheroic

This is War - 30 Seconds to Mars by caffieneandcarpaltunnel

I’m Not Your Boyfriend Baby - 3HO!3 by awildcale

Almost Lover - A Fine Frenzy by irlmako

New Tomorrow - A Friend In London by maria-artz

Hand Over Mouth, Over and Over - A Lot Like Birds by binart

Skyfall - Adele by stormfather

Song of Healing - Adriana Figueroa by talkshitnojutsu

Everything Stays - Adventure Time by starchip-one

Kiss my Eyes and Lay Me to Sleep - AFI by 413art

Prelude 12/21 - AFI by toastyhat

Another Day - Air by chubsintubs

A Whole New World - Aladdin by copper-fish

Mercy Me - Alkaline Trio by brainbent

Hothouse - Aly & AJ by dristr

Evelyn, Evelyn - Amanda Palmer by p-pamda

Luck - The American Authors by timehwimeh

21 Guns - American Idiot Cast by jankyweeaboo

Pittsburgh - The Amity Affliction by anafigreen

Inevitable - Anberlin by suchirolle

Ready to Die - Andrew W. K. by askherroyalcondesce

The Age of Not Believing - Angela Lansbury by toastyhat

Director - The Antlers by gin-and-djinn

Kettering - The Antlers by cloudymew

My Mamma Said - Aqua by xamag-homestuck

Suburbs - Arcade Fire by porrim-maryam and collaborators

Wake Up - Arcade Fire by catprinx

We Used to Wait - Arcade Fire by drawingspecibus

R U Mine? - Arctic Monkeys by dacadaca

The Ballad Of Love And Hate - The Avett Brothers by umjulikins

Hey Brother - Avicii by esmeblaise

Wake Me Up - Avicii by a-vodka-mutini

Sail - AWOLNATION by theamazingzombiegirl

If I Die Young - The Band Perry by japhers

Memory - Barbra Strisand by toastyhat

Glitter and Gold - Barns Courtney by chibigaia-art

Daniel in the Den - Bastille by tomato-bird

Pompeii - Bastille by maria-artz Broken

Pompeii - Bastille by toastyhat and oskarna

Above the Clouds of Pompeii - Bear’s Den by groveofsketches

Let it Be - Beatles by toastyhat

The Fool on the Hill - The Beatles by robotoucan

All the Pretty Little Horses - Becky Jean Williams by purplecalamity

Pieces of Sky - Beth Orton by awildcale

Sweet Dreams - Beyoncé by dacadaca

River Below - Billy Talent by kamdensl

Rusted from the Rain - Billy Talent by crispychocolate

Just a Game - Birdy by redwordsoncavewalls

Kill the Lights - The Birthday Massacre by xamag-homestuck

Red Stars - The Birthday Massacre by lord-caliborn and tricotee

These Days - The Black Keys by digitallyimpaired

In the End - Black Veil Brides by rinasart

Let it Be - Blackmill (feat. Veela) by awildcale

Bad Sun - The Bravery by crashtest-therapist

Dear Agony - Breaking Benjamin by yukishii-chan

Diary of Jane - Breaking Benjamin by nevernoahh

Give Me a Sign - Breaking Benjamin by perceptur

I Will Not Bow - Breaking Benjamin by themockingcrows

First Day of My Life - Bright Eyes by usatoria

Can you feel my heart? - Bring me the horizon by domingoos and Yumegurren

Seeds - Brooke Fraser by anno-bannano Broken

Kodaline - Brother by zzpopzz

When I Was Your Man - Bruno Mars by babynarwalshineyeyes

P.O.W. - Bullet for My Valentine by anafigreen

Angel with a Shotgun - The Cab by dawngyocry

How Are You - Cage the Elephant by facetiousfanatic Part 1

How Are You - Cage the Elephant by facetiousfanatic Part 2

How Are You - Cage the Elephant by facetiousfanatic Part 3

The loneliest Girl - Carol and Tuesday by cassandraooc

Morning Has Broken - Cat Stevens by thlange

Star Spangled Banner - Chase Holfelder by chillybuns

Between the Bars - Chris Garneau by roselalondee

Dirty Night Clown - Chris Garneau by idontevenknow-anymore

Dirty Night Clown - Chris Garneau by immabananana

Enter the Circus - Christina Aguilera by askinsanegamzee Broken

A Thousand Years - Christina Perii by angstyelf

A Thousand Years - Christina Perii by mari-victal

Burning Gold - Christina Perri by raspberrylemonhead

Fall - Cider Sky by nevernoahh

Falling (Demo) - The Civil Wars by zomdi

Safe and Sound - The Civil Wars by karaokekarkat

Hum - Clara C by nymphicus

3 Foot Tall - Classifed by kyrah-art

Summer Day - Coconut Records by kathysbrotherssister

Fondu au Noir - Coeur de Pirate by derperistical

Fix You - Coldplay by absinthianlyunheroic

Paradise - Coldplay by Moonpaw

The Scientist - Coldplay by ikimaru

Up with the Birds - Coldplay by the-rag-tag-earl

Viva la Vida - Coldplay by raspberrylemonhead

Viva La Vida - Coldplay by rozeart

Yellow - Coldplay by mariedisgrace

Young Volcanos - Coldplay by kawo-shin

Princess of China - Coldplay (feat. Rihanna) by sora-la

Chin Up - Copeland by vriskamidfangserket

Accidentally in Love - Counting Crows by hopelesslyblithe Broken

Crywank are posers - Crywank by p-666t

Thrice - Daedalus by foramen-magnum

Something About Us - Daft Punk by moxel

Something About Us - Daft Punk by yazzdonut

Emotion - Daft Punk (MissingNo remix) by doomzy

The Spine - Darren Korb (Transistor) by rose-ebottles Broken

Youth - Daughter by zelpixel

Raise Your Weapon - Deadmau5 by marintan

Go Get Your Gun - The Dear Hunter by mcsiggy

Whisper - The Dear Hunter by prospt and collaborators

I Will Follow You Into the Dark - Death Cab for Cutie by davsturdur

I Will Follow You into the Dark - Death Cab for Cutie by inusushi

I Will Follow You Into the Dark - Death Cab for Cutie by kawaiifarts

Bottom of the River - Delta Rae by wwhatevven

Perfect Insanity - Disturbed by vasheren

Just Be Friends (Instrumental) - Dixie Flatline by cheese3d Inspired by Litlte Red Riding Hood

Pity Dance - Dn Stith by jazzango

Venus Hum - Do You Want to Fight Me by shubbabang

Everything You Ever - Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog by thesassylorax

My Eyes - Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog by equiu5

Close Every Door - Donny Osmond by allegro-designs

Baby Mine - Dumbo by gayrupunzel

I See Fire - Ed Sheeran by arachnerdsgri

I See Fire - Ed Sheeran by themockingcrows

Small Bump - Ed Sheeran by janecrockeyre

Cosmic Castaway - Electrasy by themockingcrows

Telephone Line - Electric Light Orchestra by daily-beta

You are my Sunshine - Elizabeth Mitchell by the-rag-tag-earl

Goodnight Sweet Ladies - Emilie Autumn by amporasexual

Asleep - Emily Browning (originally by The Smiths) by joker-ace

O Come O Come Emmanuel - Enya by pseudocon

One for the Money - Escape the Fate by ikimaru

Follow the Sun - Evermore by ladygrit

Fever Dreamless - fadeintocase by peregr1ne

Centuries - Fall Out Boy by sixofclovers

Immortals - Fall Out Boy by etcterrayellowmoon

Immortals - Fall Out Boy by mari-victal

Immortals - Fall Out Boy by quiversarrow

My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light Em Up) - Fall Out Boy by toastyhat

The Kids Aren’t All Right - Fall Out Boy by i-am-a-riceball

The Kids Aren’t All Right - Fall Out Boy by scarlettheknight

The Last of the Real Ones - Fall Out Boy by dopingues

The Phoenix - Fall Out Boy by orangelemonart

Caught Like a Fly - Falling in Reverse by viria

Tragic Magic - Falling in Reverse by elasticitymudflap

Heavy Storm - First Aid Kit by moxel

Wolf - First Aid Kit by spooneaterarts

100 years - Five for Fighting by orangelemonart

Superman - Five for Fighting by grimbarke

Hurt Feelings - Flight of the Conchords by koroke

Rise - Flobots by lyricstuckbeatdown

Blinding - Florence + the Machine by collaborative

Cosmic Love - Florence + the Machine by rosemaryserver

Cosmic Love - Florence + the Machine by starkthirdeye

Cosmic Love - Florence + the Machine by toastyhat

Dog Days Are Over - Florence + the Machine by greatbiglyricstuck

Dog Days are Over - Florence + the Machine by m0thboy

Girl With One Eye - Florence + the Machine by kingdomzombified

Kiss With a Fist - Florence + the Machine by miraculoustang

No Light, No Light - Florence + the Machine by dacadaca

No Light, No Light - Florence + the Machine by nappotuna

Only If for a Night - Florence + the Machine by glueball

Seven Devils - Florence + the Machine by fangirlinginleatherboots

Seven Devils - Florence + the Machine by themockingcrows

Shake it Out - Florence + the Machine by cod-tier

Tear out my Tongue - Florence + the Machine by wheresmyhamlet

What the Water Gave Me - Florence + the Machine by colonoscolypseart

With an Axe - Foxy Shazam by oldshiel

Something Stupid - Frank and Nancy Sinatra by toastyhat

Some Nights - Fun. by greatbiglyricstuck

Mad World - Gary Jules by ahabsiconoclast

Mad World - Gary Jules by prospitheir and aze

Mad World - Gary Jules by synnesai

Where Everybody Knows Your Name - Gary Portnoy by calliotp

Child of Light - The Getaway Plan by dingohugs

It All Dies Anyway - The Gits by skittykitty55

Take Me Away - Globus by toastyhat and splickedylit

You’re the One That I Want - Grease by doodlebonez

Top of the World - Greek Fire by eggsand-santoast

Song of the Century - Green Day by babakinkin

Song of the Century - Green Day by delinked

Song of the century - Green Day by the-rogue-0f-light

Boats and Birds - Gregory and the Hawk by striderprovider

Hard Knocks - Griffinilla and Alex Cole by colouredteapot

Colors - Hasley by innocuoussketches

Anything - Hedley by valeriannnn

The Unquiet Grave - Hellen McCrocry by madreamcanular

Coming Back Down - Hollywood Undead by flynnagan

Coming Back Down - Hollywood Undead by skittykitty55

Levitate - Hollywood Undead by anafigreen

SCAVA - Hollywood Undead by scarlettheknight

Temporal Shenanigans - Homestuck ost - Rachel Macwhirter by arachnerdsgrip:

Almost (Sweet Music) - Hozier by metaname

Take Me To Church - Hozier by sailerscrimshaw Broken

God Help the Outcasts - Hunchback of Notre Dame by velocitiestrumpet

The Court of Miracles - Hunchback of Notre Dame by moc-tod-ffuts-modnar

That’s Okay - The Hush Sound by porcupet

Where We Went Wrong - The Hush Sound by canni8al

Wine Red - The Hush Sound by zeborah

Volatile Times - IAMX by xamag-homestuck

Bad Karma - Ida Maria by margarethours

Amsterdam - Imagine Dragons by paperseverywhere

Bleeding Out - Imagine Dragons by rapidopatter

Demons - Imagine Dragons by muraokami Broken

Demons - Imagine Dragons by rapidopatter

Fallen - Imagine Dragons by maria-artz Broken

I'm So Sorry - Imagine Dragons by abbiwhozit

I'm So Sorry - Imagine Dragons by catkindness Part 1

I'm So Sorry - Imagine Dragons by catkindness Part 2

Nothing Left to Say - Imagine Dragons by paperseverywhere

On Top of the World - Imagine Dragons by lickfoot

Radioactive - Imagine Dragons by falloutboyonboy

Radioactive - Imagine Dragons by rachelhungry

Thief - Imagine Dragons by mikimosh

Warriors - Imagine Dragons by turretsyndr0me

Hide and Seek - Imogen Heap by kingdomzelaybli

The Devil’s Carnival - In all My Dreams I Drown by artblogofminji

Don’t Stop - InnerPartySystem by spocktalia Broken

What We Will Never Know - InnerPartySystem by lets-lyricstuck

Cinders and Smoke - Iron & Wine by laughingandgrief

Walk the Moon - Iscariot by cissaisthisyou

The Weekend - Islands by daily-beta

R.I.P. Everyone - J.J. Demon by trickstercarlos

Fallin’ - Jake Bugg by awildcale

I Won’t Give Up - Jason Mraz by impudentkid

I’ll Be Good - Jaymes Young by asexualls Broken

Sufferer’s Final Sermon - jbriner by sketchloft

Be Thou My Vision - jbriner (originally a hymn) by mrdespondency

O Death - Jen Titus by canni8al

Oh Death - Jen Titus by artweaver5

If the World Should End - Jennifer Damiano by atrueenglishman

The Hanging Tree - Jennifer Lawrence by sixofclovers

Highwayman - Johnny Cash by toastyhat

What A Wonderful World - Joseph William Morgan ft. Shadow Royale by jayspants

The Stars - Jukebox the Ghost by innocuoussketches

Die Young - Ke$ha by gelasticat

[S] Ke$ha: Enter - Ke$ha (Die Young Remix by captaincrapster) by ket3

Because of You - Kelly Clarkson by timehost

Breakaway - Kelly Clarkson by karaokeoctoberkat

Britland City Theme - Kenashcorp by stormfather

Animals - Kids in Glass Houses by faun-songs

Dustland Fairytale - The Killers by spiritleaf

Mr. Brightside - The Killers by mlle-annette

Sam´s Town - The Killers by gei-may

Smile Like You Mean It - The Killers by toastyhat

I Will Never Forget - Kimya Dawson by moxel

All I Want - Kodaline by godtier8itch

#Homestuck #lyricstuck #song sets #masterlist #Song comics #song comic #homestucksongcomics

79 notes · View notes

sabraeal · 3 years

Text

All That Remains, Chapter 8: The Flower Garden of the Woman Who Could Conjure [Part 5]

[Read on AO3]

Obiyukiweek 2021, Day 3: Strength Upright: Compassion, Courage, Self-Control Reversed: Weakness, Doubt, Discord

Once upon a time, a troll makes a mirror.

Is that not how we started this story, so long ago? How so many start: a vile creature forges an object. Who and what change in the telling; a troll makes a mirror, a god conjures a box, knowledge grows in a garden. In the end, it is all the same: what is once contained is opened, unwitting. Or lost, foolishly, in a heart so cold and cruel that it becomes bent to another purpose entirely.

But that is merely an allegory, a fiction composed to cover the raw edges we leave when we rub against each other. For that is the truth, is it not? There is no fell creature, no capricious and omnipotent beings to blame for our misery. There is only us, carving our place in our story by smoothing pieces off another. A snow queen is not made from frost and cold but by the blades of others, slicing slivers from her flesh until only ice remains.

That is the truth we cannot bear: the only monsters we face are the ones we have made. The only poisons we drink are those human hands have brewed.

And it starts like this, always: a girl in a garden, remembering the image of a rose, and wondering, how could I have I forgotten?

“You were quiet at dinner tonight.” Shirayuki hasn’t been at court long-- or rather, in court, privy to all its secret signals and capricious undercurrents-- but she knows that this is as close to an “are you all right?” as Haki can come. If confrontation is only allowed the glint of a knife, affection is stifled to a hint of warmth, a fire made in a room one is forbidden to venture. “I hope that the meal agreed with you.”

A flash of pharmacy white flutters at the corner of her vision, frustratingly out of reach. It’s been so long since she’s been there, since she’s thought of anything but silverware and schottische; when she tries it’s like a hundred voices shouting at once, each demanding to be heard. Just like being at Lilias, heads bent over a knotty problem--

“Shirayuki.” The consort does not crouch; it’s best, Lady Mihoko often remind her, to pretend one has no anatomy beneath the waist. But Haki does perch on a cushioned stool, her brows drawn tight over the elegant line of her nose. “You are not...indisposed, I hope?”

A solid shake dispels the fog mired around her. “What? Oh, no! I only...” It would be a mistake to speak of loam between her fingers, of the satisfaction of hearing a pod snap from its stalk. “I didn’t have much to say with my, erm, conversational partners.”

Royal brows raise to stunned arches. “Is that so? I would have thought you’d find much in common with Lord Kazunori and Lord Seiichii.”

They had both been older men, southern lords drawn to court for Seiran’s summit. Kind enough, but they spoke to her as they would their own daughters, which is to say: warmly, but brief. Not of any topics that one might sink their teeth into, lest it leaving lines around her mouth.

“I think they were more interested in talking to each other than to me,” she admits. In part because of her sex, and in part because-- well, her body may have been in that chair, obscuring the twining gods and goddess painted across it, but her mind had been a wing away, wondering if it was yet time to harvest the roku berries, or whether this year’s crop of apprentices knew akegi from yura shigure. “It seems there’s much to discuss before they all meet for, ah...discussion.”

Haki hands her a rueful smile. “There always is.” With a sigh, she sweeps to standing, as statuesque as any marble in Wistal’s halls. “Well, I suppose there’s nothing for it. I’ll have to ask the majordomo to find you some more scintillating seatmates tomorrow.”

“Ah..!” Tomorrow. Never had a day seemed so far away, so much more than a handful of hours between dawn and dusk. At Lilias, the nights had wavered between seasons, some so short she hardly slept between sun set and rise; and others so long that she woke in darkness, only to leave the lab in the same. But still, none seemed so long as this, and for no reason at all.

“Is something wrong?” Haki turns to her again, concern rumpling the curved lines of her mouth. “Do you have plans...?”

“No!” Shirayuki rushes to assure her. “It’s only...you mentioned dinner, and suddenly I felt so...”

“Weary?” Haki offers, when she won’t. Her eyes soften with mouth to match, smile turning her from heavenly to beatific. “I’m not surprised. You have been hard at work these last few months.”

And hardly anything to show for it, in Lady Mihoko’s learned opinion. Shirayuki bites back a groan. She would be sixty before that woman found her approaching passable, and even then, she still wouldn’t be good enough for a prince’s wife. Not when his children might have some chance, no matter how slim, of seating their sullied bloodline on the throne of Clarines.

“Perhaps you have earned a break.” Shirayuki blinks, staring up into the consort’s glowing face. “A private dinner seems in order. A night of no pressure of expectation.”

It sounds too good to be true. “Oh, no! I couldn’t--”

“Give me but a moment.” Haki hesitates at the door to her boudoir, lips lifted in an impish grin. “Perhaps my good brother might find himself available as well?”

Her mouth snaps shut. It’s been ages since she saw Zen, just the two of them. He came to dinner rarely-- understandable, with the summit only weeks away, and entirely under his purview, despite Seiran’s tacit position as host-- and where he went, Mitsuhide and Kiki went too. Haki had been her closest companion these past few weeks, the only friendly face, but Shirayuki longed for someone who didn’t look at her and see a princess, but--

Nervous energy courses through her, jolting her to her feet. Her hands itch, wanting for something to do, and with no plants to hand, they land upon the package on the receiving table. It’s wrapped in humble brown paper, folds clean and crisp, twine tightly tied. Haki’s medication, she realizes, dropping it from her numb hands. Made in the pharmacy. There’s a note on top-- instructions. She’d recognize them anywhere; after all, she’d written more than a few of them herself.

It’s curiosity that makes her pluck it from where it sits. It’s been ages since she’s been in the lab, but her knowledge hasn’t faded; there’s no harm in seeing whether there are any mistakes. An apprentice could have made this, after all. The dose does, as Garack was so fond of saying, make the poison.

She flips open the card, already flushed with the thought of being useful, but--

It’s not some apprentice’s writing at all. Oh no, she knows this spidery scrawl all too well. It was on every jar at her bench, every treatise she read late into the night.

It’s Ryuu’s.

Ignorance is bliss, they say. Always with a laugh, but stewing beneath it is envy and longing in equal measure. A pining for times past, for a childhood never quite as innocent as we remember.

For that is what we miss: innocence. Not the not-knowing, but state of not needing to know. The trust we felt towards those who always knew in our stead, who kept us safe from the dangers that pressed in around us. The ones who protected us with little lies; the small pauses to omit what might scare us, the careful editing to make our worlds the giddy fantasy we dreamed.

But there comes a day where all children must grow up. There is a day we must know these things for ourselves, so that we may see the world with clear eyes. For even innocence can be a cage, should some other hand try to lock you within it.

Ignorance is bliss, they say, but oh, only if they can keep you from knowing what it is you do not know.

May I ask you a question? the little girl asks, her gaze no longer on the garden, but the horizon beyond. It is bent in her vision, the glass made in such a way that each diamond blows out the edges, warping the world around it. She had never noticed when she looked only at the garden so near to it, but now...

Now the imperfection is all she can see.

Anything, the sorceress replies, her fingers wrapping around the caps of her shoulders. They’re cold, as cold as the glass beneath her palms.

The girl looks at their reflection, at the way the wave of the glass make those fingers bleed into talons. Where have the roses gone?

Shirayuki’s hands tremble, her eyes tracing every last loop, every hurried curve. “I didn’t...”

Haki peers around the jamb, letter folded in her hand. “Did you say something, my dear?”

This is the closest she’s been to Ryuu in months; even from where she holds it, the scene of lavender and akegi shigure waft from its paper. Not scented, not on purpose, but just from being left in a desk’s cubbyhole with his hastily tidied samples. His parchment smelt the same in Lilias, fragrant as the hothouses themselves.

Her chest can hardly contain her breath. “I didn’t realize that Ryuu was overseeing your treatment.”

A shadow flickers over the sorceress’s face, her grip painful for but a moment before she is her usual smiling self. A moment that could have been imagined, if only the girl was so sure it was not.

Roses? the sorceress asks airily. I’ve never grown any roses.

“Excuse me?”

“It only makes sense,” Shirayuki hurries to add, placing the card back atop the package. “He’s taken over for Chief Garack, and she always oversaw the royal--”

“Shirayuki.” Her name is firm from Haki’s lips, just shy of a scold. “I’m quite sorry but...who are you talking about?”

So many tales speak of trust as a blade, one that may be used to cut, that breaks when forged from brittle iron. A weapon, wielded and forgotten on the battlefield once the story is done.

But you and I know better: trust is a spell, woven to protect. It is a shield, unseen but always felt; sense by faith and not by fingers. And when it wavers, it does not break, does not shatter like a blade upon a stone; no, nothing so dramatic as that. Instead, it frays, unwoven one thread at a time, unnoticed until--

Until the hole can no longer be ignored.

She doesn’t leave the consort’s chambers meaning to break her curfew; oh no, when the door closes behind her, Shirayuki has every intention to head straight to her own. Her feet drag beneath her, weary from contorting herself into a mold that barely fits. There’s nothing she’d like more than to divest herself of all these courtly trappings and pass effortlessly into oblivion.

But she turns a corner, her mental map of the palace resolving, and she realizes: in one direction is her room, and in the other, the pharmacy. It’s late, but Ryuu would still be there, committing his last-minute thoughts to page while the offices emptied around him. She misses him, a longing so intense it aches.

It would only be a short visit. If Izana brought her before him in the morning, trying to act as both judge and jury-- well, Ryuu would be her physician, once she and Zen finally managed to make it down the aisle hand-in-hand. It only made sense to keep a cordial relationship with the man who would bear the next branch of the Wisteria tree into the world.

And if she missed him, the boy who straddled the line of friend and brother and son both-- there was no need to explain that to the king. It wasn’t as if Izana made a habit of confessing his ulterior motives to her. Though strangely, she thought he might understand that better than anyone.

Or all but one. And he...

Well, if there was a single person who might know where he went besides her, her feet were carrying her to him now/.

Were you to ask the girl, she would say she had not chosen night on purpose. The sorceress had housed her, fed her, loved her in her way; even with the image of the rose burned behind her eyes, she trusted her still, in the desperate way one does when one knows they should not, but cannot bear to contemplate why.

Opportunity chooses for her; the late afternoon sun burns hot, and when they finish their dinner, the sorceress excuses herself to lay down in the dark, to merely rest her eyes-- and does not wake, not even when the door creaks as the girl slips around it. The moon guides her steps when she walks into the garden, bright as the day itself, but she does not need it: her feet carrying her better than memory could.

There is one there, just as there was this morning: a petal, pink and sweet, fragrance so familiar she knew it even without sight.

Come out, she murmurs, digging her hands into the earth. Come out my lovely, my dear. I have been searching just for you.

A tendril spirals up from the ground, tentative. It flips and flaps, and oh, she is too shocked, too awed to help it. Even still, it finds her, wrapping around her finger, and with a single drop of blood the bush emerges, whole and dirt-smeared, from the soil.

What, it murmurs, impatience tinging its words, took you so long?

In the day, the pharmacy is all rush and chaos: apprentices burning tinctures and ushering patients to their rooms; masters emptying drawers as soon as they are filled, only for other herbalists to hurry to replace them. Guards arrive with injuries and nobles with ailments, no moment ever dull while the doors are open.

But at this hour, when the lords and ladies are all tucked in their beds-- or are at least pretending to be-- and the work is done, the pharmacy sleeps. There is no herbalist at the front desk, only the push bell Ryuu despised when she was his apprentice, since it always meant she would be pulled away from him or he away from his project.

A necessary nuisance, he called it once, and Obi had laughed. Just like me, eh, Miss?

She no longer remembers what she said-- it was early enough when he was one still, though she’d like to think she was too kind to say it-- but now she wishes, even if just for a moment, that she could tell him how much of a gift he was to her. How much he had made tedium bearable, even when she hadn’t known it for what it was.

Instead she bites her lips, rubbing at the ache in her breast. It’s hardly the first time she’s forgotten to say what matters, but-- but this won’t be her last chance. Obi might be away now, but he will be found, and she will tell him...

Everything. Every last thought she had since the moment they last spoke; her apologies and her worries, her failures and her triumphs. Because Obi hearing them-- that’s what makes them real.

Her hand wraps around the third door’s knob by habit; even now she expects to open it and see her projects spilled across her desk, to see a curtain closed beneath the other, and a window open between them. To see it waiting for her the way her heart waits for them, empty and waiting to be filled.

But there’s nothing of them there anymore. Nothing besides memories that no longer fit over the space it has become.

Her feet carry her onward, down to the last room, a sliver of light slipping across the hall where it’s been left ajar. She still expects to see a curled mass of blonde hair bent over the desk, long tables sprawled with books and half-finished studies, a bottle of roka medicinally sitting in the corner. But instead--

Instead it is a dark one, a riotous shrubbery of walnut and teak in desperate need of pruning. That had been her job in Lilias, along with Yuzuri’s helpful hands, but is seems no one here has yet talked the Chief Herbalist to task.

Give it a few years, Garack would tell her, and he’ll have herbalists as eager to get into his hair as you three were with me.

She leans against the jamb, a sigh slipping past where her heart clogs her throat. Ryuu had once fit beneath a desk half this size, and now he towers over it even seated, looking more and more like Shidan with each passing day, a man overgrown by time and deadlines.

“Ryuu.” It’s a palpable hit when their eyes meet. Everything else about him might change, but that gaze, so wide and thoughtful-- that never does.

Until now. One moment they spark, a fire lit behind blue glass, and the next...

It gutters, his gaze slipping away.

“Shirayuki.” His voice is so much deeper than in her memory, so much older. And colder too. “Excuse me, Lady Shirayuki. Is there something you need?”

“No.” She clings to the doorway, too aware of how fine her dress is, of how little it belongs in this place, his sanctum sanctorum. How little she belong here, now. “I saw a card you wrote to the consort, and I...wanted to see you.”

“A card?” His eyebrows twitch; she can no longer tell if it’s in surprise or confusion, not on this stranger’s face. “Ah. The powder for her migraines. Did you want some as well?”

“No, I’m-- I’m well.” It feels like a lie, even as she says it. It wouldn’t have, only hours ago. “I just...I’m here for you.”

His knuckles blanch where he grips his pencil. “Well, you’ve seen me. I trust you know your way out.”

You’re too late, too late, the roses say, their sing-song jangling in her ears. I’ve been hidden away for so long, and even now I cannot find him. The betrayal in their voice is thick when they ask, How could you forget us, your flower and your boy, when we have always grown together?

“Ryuu.” It leaves her lips cracked, broken; her mouth no longer knows how to form the shape that calls to him. “I know it’s been...a while, but please don’t think that I didn’t want to-- that I wasn’t thinking about you. I just...”

His pencil pauses on the page, but he does not speak. He just looks at her, the way he would at a stranger, and this room is suddenly a desert and ocean both, too far and deep to go by foot alone.

Still, there is nothing she will not brave, not for him. “It was hard to come,” she admits. “I’m not allowed in the gardens, and I’m not allowed to take patients. Coming here, watching everyone working the way I always have...”

It would have been like watching someone eat a feast while she was starving.

His eyes soften, even if they don’t precisely thaw. “I know that you’re marrying the prince, and that you don’t have time for m--” his lips press tight-- “this. I’m not upset because you’ve set your career aside.”

“But you are...” Her words limp as she says them, wounded fawns searching of an elusive mother. “You are upset.”

His hands flex as he places them on the wood, utterly silent. “I knew...” he breathes, so harsh it scrapes her own throat too. “I knew you’d have to give things up--important things. But...”

Ryuu had always spoken slowly, thoughtfully. But still, these moments when he meant what he said, when he composed rather than conversed-- it had never taken him to long to tell her what he meant. He trusted her, knew that even if his words came out garbled or his message was lost in a sea of ellipses, she would salvage it, gluing it back together with his intention.

So when he sits silent, it wounds her almost as much as his words.

At last his gaze lifts again from his work, but the glare he fixes on her-- “But I never thought you’d let one of them be Obi.”

Her mouth works, but the well from which she draws her reason is empty, leaving only pain in its wake.

“I didn’t...I didn’t let him leave,” she murmurs, more wind than whisper. “He never told me he was going. He just left without even...”

Saying goodbye. As if all these years had meant nothing at all.

“There’s a guardsman,” she says instead, her voice trembling toward something approaching even. “He said he saw Obi leave with--” a woman-- “someone.”

Ryuu grunts.

“He ran off with Torou, once.” She wants the words to come easy, but each one emerges from her trembling, the way her fingers are against her skirts. “On the way back from Tanbarun. That’s...that’s probably what this is. An old friend that needs help, and then he’ll come right back--.”

“He won’t.”

Each breath is a stab, deep in her chest. “You don’t know that.”

“I do.” He stands; a production with how much of him there is now. Cautiously, his hand extends, a fist hovering over the knotted wood of his desk.

It takes all her courage to take the first step, and all of it again to take the next. On and on until she’s crossed the room, hand outstretched, quivering beneath his own.

His palm opens, and into hers falls...a seed. Tiny. Blue. As clear as glass.

“An orbia seed?” Shirayuki lifts it up to the light, the plumule a hazy bead nestled in its luminous cotyledon. It’s impossible to tell by sight, but still, she’s sure-- it would germinate, if she planted it. “I was collecting these before we left.”

“I know.”

“It’s funny,” she murmurs, a smile lifting her mouth. “I never did find a blue one.”

“I know.” His explanation comes in fits and starts, a path never worn in the telling. “I had one. I gave it to Obi.”

“You...?” The thought catches in the light, just like the seed between her fingers. “Oh. Oh. But...” Her mouth curls, a silent question: why?

“I don’t know. I thought he might...” Ryuu’s shoulders twitch, as narrow as Obi’s when he first blew in with the wind. Before he settled into the man he became. “When he was ready...”

Of course. Her hand closes tight around the seed. Obi had what she needed all along. And she’d never known, not until...

Not until he was gone. “Where--?”

“I found it on my desk.” Ryuu’s fingers flex, falling by his side. “The morning after he left.”

Where did he go? the little girl asks, desperation choking her as surely as her tears. Where can I find him?

How should I know? the roses reply, thorns in their words as well as their stems. You are the one who left me buried under the ground. How could I watch him when you let us be trapped together?

“Did you...” Her mouth works, cutting itself against her question. “Did you tell Zen’s men, when they came? Do they know that he...?”

Said goodbye, she cannot say, to someone at least.

“No.” Ryuu blinks, his eyes as round and innocent and blue as ever. “They never did. Come by I mean.”

This is not the first time we have spoken of betrayal, is it? Of the wound that never heals, the jagged cut that scabs over only to be ripped open anew. The injury that teaches one to be wary, lest one be inflicted again.

But that is only after the wound is made. When it is first done...

Well, it is strange how long a heart can bear a blade through it without ever feeling the killing stroke.

“You are thinking,” Haruka remarks, with no small amount of disapproval. “I can tell.”

Shirayuki blinks down at her place setting, expecting to see broth dripped across the tablecloth, or perhaps the edge of her sleeve dipped in yolk, maybe even her tea dribbling over the edge of her cup--

But there is nothing. The white linen is pristine beneath her gold-rimmed plate, her sleeves and elbows tucked up and off the table, and if anything, her beverages of choice are picturesque in their vessels, juice beading with moisture and tea gently steaming. “What am I doing wrong?”

It, historically, has been the wrong question to ask the marquis, sure to send him into a silent huff that will stretch from first course to fifth, disapproval deepening with each sorbet. In his vaunted opinion, the fact her inexperience might cause her to trespass the unspoken rules of good manners is bad enough, but to not know precisely when and how it was done-- now that was truly unforgivable.

However, today he merely settles back in his seat, rubbing his fingers against the cloth tucked over his lap, and fixes her with his unerring gaze. She doesn’t shrink beneath it; oh no, instead something in her chest shifts, almost as if-- as if it grows.

His lips twitch, just the slightest upward tremor. “Nothing.”

Her mouth opens, then closes, stymied. “Then how did you know?”

A single, noble arch lifts. “Because you have never once stopped.”

It is to the tiger-lily the little girl turns, after the roses. They are a pompous flower, no doubt, as proud and self-important as any big cat, but despite their bluster, they are honest. The noblest flower in this garden, hearty and constant, and though they sniff when she kneels down upon their bed, dirtying her hem, they listen.

Have you seen him? she asks, heart lodged tight in her throat. Have you seen my precious boy?

“So what is it,” Haruka murmurs into his glass, “that has you so engrossed, young lady?”

Her lips press together, teeth plucking at the scar. “You told me once that I should know who is my ally, and who is my-- Zen’s.”

The rim has hardly touched his lips, but Haruka sets down the crystal, hands folding behind his plate. “I did.”

“But those are not the one two options, are they.” It’s not a question, not anymore. “Sometimes they may seem to be one or the other, or both at the same time, but really-- it’s their own, isn’t it? Everyone is just trying to do what they think best.”

“That is...” The marquis takes in a steady breath. “A very mature way to see a frustrating problem.”

“The consort has said that she is my friend,” she says slowly, each word shaken loose from her heart. “But she is also lying to me.”

“Is she?”

Haruka, she had said once, these long skirts tangled around her legs, binding fast as any chain, he’s hard to read.

Is he? Zen’s hand was cold against hers, like touching marble. Izana’s had been the same so many years ago; she wonders if it might be a problem with their circulation, perhaps passed down from a parent, but this doesn’t seem the time to ask about his mother’s medical history. He’s always seemed clear as crystal to me.

Though, he continues, mouth set in a rueful grin. After a childhood of lectures, maybe it’s easier. I can tell how stupid he thinks I am just from the degree of his eyebrows.

His brow is furrowed now, a tight knot over the bridge of his nose. There’s no angle, no lift, and Shirayuki isn’t quite sure what that might say about his perception of her intelligence. If it were anyone else, she might even call it concern.

“Is she lying to you,” he asks, posing it like Lata when he wants to ask something particularly perverse as a rhetorical. “Or are you not asking the right questions?”

Her fingers clench tight on her lap, linen rucking up between her fingers. She likes this far less than Lata’s. “Your Grace...”

Now his brows raise, shock stark on his face, “Yes, Miss Shirayuki?”

“Do you...?” The words stick in her mouth; to ask them is to admit defeat. No-- distrust. That the best interests everyone has been working towards are not her own. “Do you know where Obi is?”

I have seen no precious boy, the tiger lily trumpets, as proud as ever. Only a little girl loved by all who see her. How lucky she is to garner such attention!

I care not for me, the little girls mutters, impatient. Where do you think he has gone?

Away, away. The flower bobs beneath its own self-importance. He has been taken away. Down and gone and buried with the roses. Perhaps you are the better for it.

“No.” It’s the truth; he wouldn’t bother to lie to her. “As of now, his location is unknown, even to the king himself.”

She licks her lips, nails biting into her thigh. The orbia seed burns a hole in her hip. “Are they looking for him?”

A shadow ripples over his face, gone before she can follow it to its source. “Someone might be.”

“I mean Zen,” she clarifies. “Or Izana.”

“I know,” he replies, voice impossibly gentle from such a forbidding mouth. “I think we’re ready for the next course, don’t you?”

Innocence and ignorance, truth and illusion, trust and betrayal-- we have meditated upon each, as if they are but separate concepts that can be held to the light and have each facet revealed in turn. But surely you seen that they have all brought us here, to this part, to this singular place: a knife buried in a breast, a garden made into a cage. A girl in each, who has finally seen the truth beneath the illusion.

We should rejoice, should we not? For these girls who might free themselves, might heal themselves? But yet you do not, do you? For you know the trick of it:

A wound does not truly begin to bleed until the blade is removed. And a girl like this--

Ah, her hand is already at the hilt.

For once, Shirayuki is relieved that it is her round-faced guard that awaits her and not a more experienced one. Or worse yet, Kiki, who would anticipate her before she could get a word in edgewise.

But luck is on her side; this dear boy springs from his place on the wall, every muscle tense with anticipation, quivering to do his duty, and she-- she is ready to take advantage of it.

“Ready, my lady?” he asks, bouncing on the balls of his feet, a hound eager to be given his leash. “It’s off to the ballroom next, isn’t it? With Master--?”

“Not today,” Shirayuki informs him swiftly. “I need you to take me to the king.”

The color leaches from his face. “The...the k-king?”

She nods, tight, officious. The sort Lady Mihoko gave her maids; the sort that belonged alongside a command obeyed.

“But, my lady...” He shuffles on his feet, loath to disappoint her. “Don’t you need an appointment to see His Majesty? I don’t think you can just go right in and--”

She’s already walked past him, chin held high. “He’ll see me.”

It may seem humble before the dawn, its petals as rumpled as bedsheets, drawn over its head like a child-- but when the sun casts its fiery crown over the garden, it is the convolvulus that is ascendant. It needs no dazzling pattern, no fanciful pinwheel of petal and sepal to make itself stand above its floral brethren, but only purity of color. For there is no other here that is so purely white, that has a color so simply blue. The tiger lily might roar among the plots, but it is to the convolvulus it bends, when it rises from its nightly slumber.

The little girl watches as the sleep falls from its petals, witness to its splendor. What, it asks, ruffling its delicate mane, could have made you seek me out, girl?

There is a not-insignificant portion of her life that has been spent waiting; not in the way of most of her colleagues-- for water to boil, or a titration to drip, or even for a letter of acceptance to arrive-- but for men with nothing else to recommend them but birth to decide they’re bored enough to receive the royal pharmacist. Shidan had called it fundraising and Kazaha glad-handing, but Shirayuki can admit now, as she flies past Izana’s steward, leaving him and her guard in her wake, what it really is:

Insulting.

The view always arrests her when she enters the royal solar, and this morning is no different; the sun setting, finishing its bright arc through the sky, but the angle of it, with the windows as they are-- it sets the king’s hair alight, a halo burning.

A target, she names grimly; and she the arrow. With his steward calling her name behind her, she takes a determined step toward him.

“Have you not heard then?” Izana asks, hardly bothering to look up from his papers. “I already approved your request to be excused from dinner.”

Shirayuki hauls up short, skirts swishing around her ankles. “Dinner?”

“Yes.” His brows raise, as does his gaze, already bored. “My brother already spoke about at length this morning. So if you seek to move me as well, please note that I have already stepped aside.”

“I...” She blinks. “I wasn’t here for that.”

Interest sparks in his eyes, quick as a struck match. “Then by all means, scold away. At least--” his mouth quirks, too amused-- “I assume that is your intention, marching into my office unannounced as you are.”

“Forgive me.” The steward presses a hand to his heaving breast. “Mistress Shirayuki--”

“It a force of nature,” his master replies, mouth curling like parchment corners. “So I have often had occasion to find out. You may leave us.”

“Your Majesty--” Izana merely lifts his brows, and the man stutters to a stop. “Of course. As you wish.”

“Now,” he hums as the doors close. “Just which wind sent this storm spinning into my office?”

Bound here you might be, but I know the trick of this place, the girl says, kneeing at the bed’s edge. What roots grow here touch the roots of all the morning’s glory. And you who wake with the sun-- you keep the closest watch on the horizon.

If there are any in the garden who know of my precious boy, she continues, the breeze rippling the convolvulus’s ruff. It would be you. So tell me, please...have you see him?

“It’s Obi,” she admits, heat stinging her cheeks. “I want to know the, er, status of the search.”

Izana blinks.

Oh, how kind it would be if this confusion was feigned, if it were all just a show to drag out her loyalties; to force her to admit that even if Zen was her heart, she could not turn her back on her home. That this was simply another moment where she would show him that friendship was strength, and the walls he erected himself were merely a folly.

But there is no smug satisfaction buoying his words when he asks, “The search? Didn’t Sir Obi leave my brother’s employ months ago? The beginning of the summer, I believe--”

“He didn’t quit,” Shirayuki insists, even as the seed weighs heavy between her skirts. “He disappeared, and Zen said he had put men out to search for him.”

A flower has no face, but the girl need no smile, no hooded eyes to discern the sorrowful bent of its stem.

I am but the morning’s glory, the convolvulus sighs, and when the night comes, I fold myself tight. Your boy does not pass me in my waking hours, so perhaps it is that he travels in the night.

But what does that mean? asks the girl. Why would he only travel at night? He is but a boy, a boy, and he walks in day.

The convolvulus is quiet, swaying in the garden’s eternal summer. I do not know, he admits. I do not know at all.

“Ah.” His eyes soften, no longer the unrelenting velvet of the night, but the waves of deep water, and Shirayuki finally has cause to find out: to experience Izana’s pity is a thousand times worse than his disdain. “I am not privy to the movement of my brother’s men, so long as I do not need them in attendance. He must not have put in his last report...”

“Please.” Her hand flies up between them, earning her an incredulous lift of a brow. “It only makes it worse that you are being decent about it.”

His laugh surprises her. “So you’d like me to gloat?”

“No.” Her breath saws out of her, great heaves that shake her shoulders. “I want you to grant me leave to find him.”

“You?” His brows raise, even his eyes widen, but to his credit, he does not ask, but what could you do? Instead his mask settles back over his face without a ripple, the king staring out from behind it. “It would be a waste. I have heard from your tutors that you are making good progress. Lady Mihoko even ventured to say you might make a passable princess, if you pushed out an heir fast enough.”

Her mouth twitches. Only yesterday, she would have nearly fainted with relief, but today-- “What praise.”

There’s a stern tilt to his mouth, a forbidding set to his eyebrows; if she didn’t know any better, Shirayuki would call it concern. “As I recall, our agreement did address this.”

“Then you mean...?”

“Yes.” He nods, splaying his palms across his desk, almost as if he were bracing himself. “If you leave the palace grounds, you forfeit your chance to be the one at my brother’s side. A princess leaves such things in the hands of her guardsmen--” his mouth twitches-- “and her husband.”

You want her to go, do you not? Even now you quiver at the edge of your seat, begging this little girl to open her eyes, to keep them open, to see through the illusion and run as fast as she can. You want her to leave the garden, to break through the last of this enchantment and leave safety behind.

But tell me, what would you do, with the knife quivering it in your chest? To forget it is to live with the pain. To remove it is to be free.

An easy choice, you might say. Who could live with a blade in their breast? Ah, but do not forget:

There is no way to know if the wound is fatal until the knife is removed.

“There is something I wonder, Mistress Shirayuki.”

His musings shatter the brittle silence between them; that fragile bulwark that has kept her in his skin. Now that it’s gone, she trembles, every muscle in her body fighting the urge to cross the king’s study and shake him until decency falls it.

A hopeless quest if there ever was one. “Is there something else you could possibly say to me?”

She says it sweetly; most would hear only that-- the tone rather than the content. But Izana has not sat so long on his father’s throne by being that sort of man; no, his mouth curls, amused.

“No. It’s only...” he hums, gaze lifting from his paper. “I wonder when you started to think Obi left.”

Then what do you know? the girl says, anger and bile rising in her tone. What good are you?

A flower cannot smile, but she feels teeth when it replies, I know that it will cost you, and cost you dear.

Izana might as well have struck her. Shirayuki rocks back on her heels, only just catching herself before she trips over her own hem. “I-I...what do you...?”

“When you came in here, you first talked as you had before.” Long fingers knit beneath his chin, though he does not deign to rest on them, not alert as he is. A cat before a kill, still toying with with the prey between his paws. “You insisted on his disappearance-- the implication being, of course, that you deny his own agency in his departure. Kidnapping or coercion, one might say.”

She cannot see its teeth, but Shirayuki isn’t so foolish to believe there is no trap. “Y-yes..”

“But now you come to me and ask after my men.” His mouth quirks. “You ask for my permission.”

“Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do?” she asks, fingers clenching in her skirts. “A princess wouldn’t depart without the approval of her liege.”

“Of course.” He waves a hand, as if all those rules she spent late nights learning mean nothing at all, as if they were worth less than the paper on which they had been printed. “A princess would. But you, Miss Shirayuki, you--” his eyes spark, the way she only saw that night in Lilias as he closed the gates-- “you jump from windows. You follow a flower into a cave. If you truly believed your companion in danger, I doubt there is a single promise that would keep you by my side.”

She cannot breathe, let alone hazard an answer. Not when even a flutter of an eyelash could give her away.

“Which begs the question, doesn’t it?” His gaze fixes her to where she stand, pins through a moth’s wings. “Just what reason would make him leave?”

Me? the girl cries, already thinking of her lovely red shoes, of the boat they bought her down the river. Why me?

Because my dear, the convolulus hums. It is your fault that he has left.

The doors swing open, and the steward steps inside, sparing her an infuriatingly smug glance. “Sir Lowen, Your Majesty.”

“A moment,” the king tells him, “Mistress Shirayuki and I are nearly done her.”

The man nods. “I will tell him to await your will.”

Shirayuki blinks. “What--?” It’s trial to catch her breath, to make her heart stop pounding in her breast. “What is Mitsuhide doing here?”

“You need an escort to your dinner, do you not? I thought he would be the most palatable option for you.” Izana fixes her with a meaningful look. “I do hope you find your answers, Mistress Shirayuki.”

You don’t know me. Obi’s gaze is raw in her memory, too gold. You don’t know anything about me.

You know how he is. Zen’s smile curls at the edges, brittle, like parchment pasted to vellum. Obi has always come back on his own before.

Zen will take care of it. Mitsuhide won’t meet her gaze. I’m sure Obi will be back any day now.

“Don’t worry.” It’s a miracle that the words don’t catch between her teeth, the way she’s clenching them. “I will.”

A hand wraps around a hilt. A breath shudders. And with one, swift tug--

The blade moves but an inch.

#obiyukiweek21 #obiyuki #akagami no shirayukihime #snow white with the red hair #my fic #All That Remains #snow queen au #ans #YET ANOTHER CHAPTER #WHERE I DO NOT REACH THE END OF THIS PART #it's coming guys #really it is...#...one day....#but at least you get this small glimmer of hope #FOR NOW

21 notes · View notes