#kiara scuro
Text
Bouquet for sorrow and regret
A mix of AUs and characters
Asphodel to indicate your regret will follow you to the grave (Gilbert, Kiara - Betrayal AU)
Azalea for fragility in a difficult time (Kiara, Gilbert, Lilian - Soldier Poet King AU)
Snowdrop for consolation and hope of better days ahead (Ren, Jade - ATLA AU)
Rue for regret (Thomas, Violet - Pre-P14H)
Willow for mourning (Ren, Thomas - Red Hood AU)
Gilbert Mead, Kiara Scuro - Betrayal AU
Asphodel – regret that follows you to the grave
Kiara smiled tiredly at him from the back corner booth as he entered the Chinese restaurant, one hand on the stroller next to her.
Ren and Skye had texted earlier with their excuses.
<SPSRA mission out of state. Will see you next time>
<Big project due tomorrow. Sorry!>
The unofficial Team Awesome monthy reunions were nearing expiration, with Gilly and Kiara clinging on by their nails. They weren’t doing it for themselves, though, as much as they were trying to keep something alive.
Lilian.
He’d almost backed out today. Made up some excuse about research and apologized. At least with the other two absent, the bitterness wouldn’t be so quick to rise for the blonde.
Kiara blamed Ren and Skye for staying at SPSRA, after what happened to their best friend. For glossing over the false imprisonment and agonizing pain because SPSRA was the “greater good.”
“Tell me who they’re helping?” Kiara demanded, her lips twisted into a snarl as she glared at the other two.
“We’re helping people. The engineers are improving technology so we’re less reliant on the Basement and –“ Skye recoiled as the word spurred a hiss from the shadow walker.
Ren refused to cave under the weight of hostility. “It’s making a difference, Kiara, and Skye and Thomas and I are doing what we can to make sure what happened to Lily isn’t repeated.”
“It shouldn’t have happened in the first place.”
Gilbert was safe from Kiara’s rage, though he didn’t deserve it. The chip was his fault. His work had killed Lilian.
“Hey Gilly,” Kiara greeted when he slid onto the scarlet vinyl seat across from her. “I ordered egg rolls for us already, I’m famished. And I ordered tea for you.”
“Thanks,” he said. He nodded toward the stroller. “How is she?”
Kiara’s smile should have been radiant, befitting a proud new mother, as she pulled the blanket away from the carrier’s opening. The tiny baby with a mess of black curls slept in her seat, tiny squeaks escaping occasionally.
“LiLi would have loved her,” the shadow walker murmured. “With how much she loved kids? It would have been hard to pry Inali out of her arms.”
Gilbert’s heart twisted.
“I’m moving,” he blurted out awkwardly, resting his hands on the table. “T-There’s a company in San Diego that wants my help creating assistive devices.”
Kiara’s gloved hands covered his. He met her eyes.
“I get it.”
Kiara Scuro, Gilbert Mead, Lilian Moros - Soldier, Poet, King AU
Azalea – fragility during a difficult time
“Gilbert!” Kiara shouted between coughs as she stumbled through the masses. Her voice was lost in the barrage of screams and wails as the soldiers set fire to the huts and shacks that had barely sheltered the people of Beryn. “Gilly!”
The soldiers bore no symbols, a shield to protect the lord and his cronies from suspicions when he offered the village protection, but Kiara knew their purpose.
A mercenary barreled toward her atop a piebald stallion, the pike in his grasp aimed at her gut. The blonde snarled as she rolled out of his path, lashing out with a dark tendril. The shadow wrapped around his neck, cutting into his flesh before Kiara gave a vicious yank and severing the soldier’s head.
There will come a soldier, who carries a mighty sword. They will tear your city down
Somebody plowed into her, knocking her to the ground. She twisted in their grasp, wrestling her attacker beneath her with a blade to their throat. Angry brown eyes glared up at her.
A mousy-haired young man glared up at her, straining against Kiara’s thighs straddling his torso. “Bastards,” he spat. “We were fine before you and your friends got here, with your talk of free and fairness. I warned my lord -
Kiara growled, climbing off of him. “Get out,” she ordered. “The blame lies with your lord.”
She strode into the shadows, cursing to herself.
Her role in this ballad was plain. A weapon to be wielded as they severed the chains of slavery and oppression. And unfortunately, her companions knew their purpose too.
Lilian to find the tyrants, to glean as much information for their cause. Sometimes, their hearts could be swayed with words. She was the appeal, a chance for the villain to change their ways before Kiara gave them no alternative.
There will come a poet, whose weapon is their word. She will slay you with her tongue.
And Gilbert.
He was architect, laying the foundation for the people to rule and govern themselves.
There will come a ruler, whose brow is laid with thorn. Smeared with oil, like David’s brow.
“Kiara!” Gilbert’s voice pierced the chaos and the blonde sped up until she laid eyes on him. He was struggling against a chokehold, a thick arm cutting off his air supply.
She surged out of the darkness and lashed out with a razor-thin whip that cut into the mercenary’s arm.
The soldier grunted in surprise at the wound and her appearance, freeing her friend in his shock. “Move!” she barked.
A shadow swept out, knocking the attacker off his feet. The blond man obeyed, scrambling out of the way. The dark tentacle elongated and thickened, thrashing wildly with the mercenary in its grasp until he was a bloody pulp.
Freed, Gilbert ran toward a burning hut. He yelled something at her, the words lost in his coughs and the screams of somebody trapped inside the structure.
“- have to save them!” she caught.
Awareness dawned on her as she recognized the home’s position in the village.
The healer’s hut.
Gilbert slammed into the door, his shoulder shattering the wood. He inhaled deeply, sucking in as much clear air as he could before he went to cover his nose and mouth.
“Like hell you’re going in there,” Kiara snapped, trapping his foot with a shadow so he was tethered to the ground. She ran past him, a wave of darkness gathering over her in a dark shield. Burning thatch fell against it. Her eyes landed on the forms trapped on the other side of fiery pile of debris.
Not debris. Materials. Items piled there and set ablaze.
The soldiers had gone for the healer first.
Rage boiled inside her. She brought the shadow down on herself, rising into the darkness and emerging on the other side. A woman stared up at her, a toddler clutched in her arms as she shielded a third body.
Kiara threw herself on top of the trio, calling the shadows to her. They sank into the black, the blonde pulling them behind her out into the village. She grabbed Gilly and transported them to the woods.
The conscious woman shrieked as they emerged, pulling away from the shadow walker, and pressing the child to her chest. She sobbed as she saw the village in the distance, flames growing as the fields and huts burned, and she collapsed to the grounds, her wails and the toddler’s blending together.
Gilbert crouched beside the healer, his hands hovering fearfully over the warm, wet stain on her abdomen. “No no no no,” he cried. “Kiara –“
She pulled him to his feet and turned him away from the body to envelope him a hug. “We need to go, Gilly, LiLi is waiting.”
~*~
“I don’t know what happened,” Gilbert said, staring into the campfire. “Beryn wasn’t ready for that. We needed more time.”
Their work was tenuous, a precarious tower balancing on a few feeble stones. They worked in stages, careful to time each right so as not set the chain of events in motion too soon.
“Selene – she was my choice to lead,” he explained.
“She was a good choice,” Lilian agreed as she pressed a heel of bread into his hands. The man accepted it, but just turned it over in his hands. She glanced over at Kiara. “She was willing to challenge the lord before we arrived, just for the sickness spreading through the village because of the overwork and rotten food.”
The blonde woman nodded her understanding.
“I don’t know what happened,” Gilbert lamented.
“One of the villagers told the lord. He said as much before I found Gilly, when he blamed us for the soldiers attacking,” Kiara supplied. She prodded a burning log with a stick, shifting the pile so it collapsed in the center. “Mousy hair, ears too big for his head – sound familiar?”
“Jaren,” LiLi offered as she sat between them. “Idolized the guards, but was too scrawny to be one.”
The trio sat in silence, Gilbert leaning against Lilian in support.
She knew Gilbert was blaming himself. He wasn’t considering that the lord could have attacked the healer even if their trio hadn’t shown up, if Selene was prepared to stand up to the nobility. No, he was too caught in the moment, connecting his presence to her death.
“So the question is,” Kiara scowled, “Do we let this behavior go unpunished?”
Ren, Jade – ATLA AU
Snowdrop - consolation and hope for better days ahead
“Here,” Jade said, pressing a warm bowl into Ren’s hands. She grinned when the air bender eyed it suspiciously. “It’s not sea prunes, I promise. Just broth.”
Ren took a sip, closing her eyes as she felt the warmth fill her.
“What happened after –“ she winced at the memory of the lightning strike, her entire body tensing instinctively.
“Thomas held Reed and Kiara off so I could escape with you. We heard reports that he was captured,” Jade answered, sitting back on her feet. She scowled, her eyes bright with fury. “The Fire Prince and Princess are returning to the Fire Nation while the ships converge on Ba Sing Se to –“
“Take control,” Ren growled, her grip tight around the bowl. “I forgot it fell.”
She failed.
Anger clenched at her chest, its claws painful around her heart. Her mouth tightened and she brought the soup to her lips to mask it.
Jade noticed with a frown. “It won’t last, Ren, we’ve still got the Day of the Black Sun and Jasper’s actually got a half decent plan that doesn’t require the Earth King’s armies.”
“What’s the plan?” Ren demanded, itching to rid herself of the heavy burden of failure. She set her bowl down and grabbed her glider, the wooden weight a familiar feeling in her hand. With a grunt, she pushed herself to her feet and leaned her body against the staff. “What do I need to do –“
“You need to lay down and rest,” the water bender ordered. “You’re so weak after the healing session, I could knock you over with one finger.”
The avatar glared at her as she eased herself down on to the mattress.
“I know it’s annoying and you’re exhausted and drained,” Jade sighed. “But there’s nothing you can do about it tonight and you’re not going to defeat anybody if you don’t give yourself time to heal.”
She cleaned up as Ren spread out on the bed, her eyes fixed on the ceiling.
Thomas, Violet – Pre-P14H
Rue – regret
“Thomas?” somebody asked, shaking his shoulder.
The dream walker snapped out of the trance he was in, staring at the paperwork laid in front of him on tiny metal desk. Violet frowned at him, only taller because of the way the shoddy chair sank to the bottom of the supportive shaft.
“’M sorry,” he slurred, rubbing his eyes. “Dream walkers and their cat naps, you know how it goes.”
The council member squeezed his shoulder worryingly. “I do. I also know that wasn’t helpful in the slightest.”
He sighed.
If it were any of the other council members, he would doubt the sincerity of their questions. A dream walker who couldn’t sleep well enough was useless to them, just a body that didn’t serve its purpose.
“Vance Elliot’s resignation just became official,” Violent explained as she shook her head. “I know you were close with he and his sister, Thomas, and I’m wondering if you needed time.”
Vance hadn’t answered his calls. The times Thomas had sought him out had been met with hostility and rage.
Charlotte Elliot was dreamless. And out of the hospital she’d been sent to after the operation failed.
“There hasn’t been enough time, Violet,” he answered with a bitter chuckle. “Vance blames me. Even if I didn’t perform the surgery. Even if I fought against Lottie getting that kind of treatment. I’m the catalyst.”
If he had known SPSRA would use her as a test subject, would he have told the council about her? Would he have trusted Vance’s ability to contain her powers when the man was restless as a tumbleweed and itching to go on the next mission?
He shook his head.
“Take some time off, Thomas,” Violet urged. “Catch up on your sleep. Stop thinking about what could have been done differently. And when you get back, the paperwork for your promotion will be finalized.”
The dream walker stared at her as if she had two heads. “Promotion?”
“That’s right. The council decided you’ve shown potential,” the older woman informed him with a proud smile. “When you get back, we’ll put you in mentorship training and you’ll soon start working to recruit and train SPSRA’s heroes.”
Why?
A part of him – a voice that sounded like his former partner – wondered if this reward was for his silence. Don’t talk about Charlotte and the organization’s errors. Betray your friends for the ‘greater good’ and get a new title and status among the agency.
Or was this caution. He’d been vocal about the Council’s flaws. He hadn’t been on a retrieval mission since the operation, but could he go on another with the nagging thought that this target could be the next Charlotte Elliot?
He pushed it all down.
“Thank you, ma’am,” he said with a tight smile. “I appreciate the trust.”
Ren, Thomas – Red Hood AU
Willow – mourning
“We can’t find her.”
Ren stared at Morpheus’s office door, her fingers tight on the manilla folder and its contents.
She’s argued against this. Had told the Council that he wasn’t ready, hadn’t given up on Kiara – it was cruel to ask him to take on a new sidekick when he was still obsessively searching for his last one.
Two years is enough time to accept the person you’d promised to protect – and failed to do so – was dead.
She sighed and raised her fist to knock. “Thomas? It’s Ren,” she called. “I have – the Council an assignment.”
The dream walker didn’t answer and the shapeshifter hesitantly turned the knob.
And stepped into an empty office.
“Thomas?” Ren frowned at the lit desk lamp and the papers scattered around the desk. She could see the old photos they’d been sent of Kiara, her face bruised and her body bloody in a sterile white room. Her frowned deepened when she noticed the foot peeking around the corner. “Thomas …”
The redhead was stretched out on his back, his face screwed into a scowl as it did when his dreams weren’t yielding the results he wanted.
She pulled a chair to the corner and settled in to wait for him to wake on his own.
“You can’t find her?” Ren asked as she sat next to her mentor.
“He’d find some way to cut her off from me,” Thomas muttered, raking his hands through his hair. The bags under his eyes were heavy and dark, ironic for a man whose power required sleep. “A drug, another dream walker – he wouldn’t want to risk me ruining this for him.”
“So it’s not as if he’s just keeping her in the dark about where she is, he’s found a way to eliminate the risk of you completely.”
The thought sent a chill down her spine. Morpheus was one of the few things about SPSRA Ren had complete faith in. And somebody knew the faults in his powers.
The redhead wiped his eyes with the heal of his hand. “Vance always did think of everything.”
She opened the folder, analyzing the contents so she’d have ammunition against his arguments for why he couldn’t accept a new protegee and to convince herself of them herself.
Ren was part way through when Thomas stirred, a groan escaping his lips. She grabbed the water bottle off the desk and offered it to him as he sat up.
“Ren? What time is it?” He asked with a raspy voice. He took the bottle and drank thirstily, trying to fight how dry his mouth felt.
“Around 6,” the shapeshifter supplied. “Thomas, the Council held a meeting.”
“They have a lot of those,” Thomas said dryly, pulling himself to his feet. Palms spread on his desk, he scowled. “Anything worthwhile?”
His eyes narrowed on the folder when she laid it out open in front of him, focusing on the photo of the young woman in front of a lined wall and holding a plaque with a number.
“Thomas –“
“No.” He shoved the folder away. “I’m not taking another protegee. SPSRA policies specify a mentor can only have one –“
Ren closed her eyes.
“SPSRA has updated Inkling’s file. As far as the Council is concerned, Inkling is no longer MIA,” she told him stoically, trying to keep the fury out of her voice. She’d argued this as much as she protested assigning Thomas a new mentee, enraged by the cold bureaucracy of it.
“And what about Kiara? Or did they not care that she was – is more than a code name?” he hissed.
She met his eyes. “You better than any one know how the Council considers these decisions.”
Teacher was dead in the eyes of SPSRA too, despite Vance Elliot walking through Manhattan without a care in the world. But if they wanted to divorce themselves from any of his actions, the reports had to say the hero was dead.
How many disillusioned heroes were roaming the world, knowing that their accomplishments and victories no longer mattered since they’d left SPSRA.
“I’m not taking another student,” Thomas insisted.
“What if she needs you?” Ren retorted. “Thomas, this is her last chance.”
Lilian Moros was an alias, one of several SPSRA had noted, but her strikes carried through whatever name she used. If Thomas rejected this, she’d be inhibited and incarcerated.
“Then you mentor her,” the dream walker snapped, folding his arms across his chest. “Meta has enough sway in the community. Your reputation will protect her.”
“It will once. After that, her next mistake will be her last,” the brunette answered, pointing to the list of prior crimes. “Morpheus pioneered the mentor program, Thomas, you know every one – including her – deserves room to make errors.”
He bowed his head. “I need to find her, Ren.”
“I’m not asking you to give up on her, Thomas.” the shapeshifter put her hand on his shoulder. “I’m asking you to do the thing that you stay with SPSRA for … I’m asking you to help somebody.”
#Flower Drabbles#Ren Kobayashi#Thomas Kelley#lilian moros#kiara scuro#Gilbert Mead#Violet#ATLA au#Pre-P14H#Betrayal AU#Soldier Poet King AU#Red Hood AU
2 notes
·
View notes
Audio
Premiere: Kiara Scuro & Timothy Clerkin ‘Lola's Acid’ by djmag https://ift.tt/CnW9Xgy
0 notes
Audio
Kiara Scuro: The Ransom Note Mix
#kiara scuro#ransom note#kiara#scuro#mix#electronic#eclectic#ransom#note#2018#Electronic#dopecheddar#music#electronic music#audio#song#rave#edm
2 notes
·
View notes
Photo
@wanemoose and my characters from P14H - Lilian Moros and Kiara Scuro, a commission done for me by @careamorran!
#Liara#Lilian Moros#Kiara Scuro#press1forheroes#Y'all don't know how long I've waited to be able to afford this
0 notes
Photo
Next up in the brilliant @dimensionsfestival #DJDirectory mix series is Kiara Scuro (@kiara.scuro) aka Rosie & Nadia, a DJ duo from London and purveyors of the finest post-punk, techno and new wave. Check out their latest mix to see what all the fuss is about! Listen now (link in bio) _____ #postpunk #techno #newwave #studio #djsetup #vinyl #mixcloud #radio #recordcollection
5 notes
·
View notes
Video
Wake up all you wonderful weirdos, Its almost time to tear London up! Its been a while since we last played in the back yard so we are chomping at the bit to let loose on your sweet asses! New songs, less clothes, big money, you don't want to miss it. Get tickets now, link in Bio. Also playing are our pals @aptbs, @therealsurfbort, @bo_ningen_band, and a bunch of other famiglia to boot! April 27 Hackney Wick Main Yard / Multi Venue Holler! and here is the event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/2155606274755615/ Complete Line Up MOON DUO / A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS / ANCIENT METHODS / LUST FOR YOUTH / BO NINGEN / SCHWEFELGELB / THE UNDERGROUND YOUTH / TEMPERS / BARIS K / SURFBORT / VIOLET / HIRO KONE / KHIDJA / MIKE KROL / PHUONG DAN / K-X-P / SILVIA KASTEL / WIVES / MULTIPLE MAN / PHILLIP JONDO / C.A.R / BLACK COUNTRY, NEW ROAD / DAR DISKU / LOS BITCHOS / SCALPING / DRY CLEANING / VINTAGE CROP / FAUX REAL / MONDOWSKI / WOOM / KIARA SCURO / NIV AST / HARRY JAMES / MARCUS HARRIS / ASTON HOLLAND / SURFBORT / WARMDUSCHER https://www.instagram.com/p/BwHQDV-guUn/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1qsyxoakpq5af
0 notes
Link
0 notes
Text
A quiet ruse
Reed Scuro. Kiara Scuro. Chiron. Felix the Satyr. Demigod AU
Reed let a hint of surprise slip through his mask as he stepped into the infirmary and saw the preteen curled on the cot. Twigs and grass littered her blonde hair and her body was decorated with scratches and bruises that Asclepius’ daughter hadn’t healed yet. His gaze jerked to Chiron and Felix, the satyr who had escorted him – and now his sister – to camp.
“She’s -” He fought against the lump in his throat, forcing it down quickly. “You found her?”
Chiron met his eyes – blue-gray irises that he knew matched Kiara’s.
“There was an attack in Philadelphia, a manticore wreaking havoc near Independence Hall, but she wasn’t there when Felix arrived,” the centaur explained, clasping his hands behind his back as his front hooves pawed the ground.
The satyr nodded, scratching an itch at the base of his curled horn at his right ear. “Took me a bit, but I found her at the museum.”
Reed didn’t know if it was shame or guilt that made Chiron look away.
“As you know, the occurrence of two full sibling demigods is rare,” the camp director reminded him. “If we had known, she would have been joined you sooner.”
Reed rapped his knuckles against the door frame, breaking the camp director’s focus from his book.
“Ah, Reed, how unexpected,” the centaur commented, sliding a leather bookmark between the pages and setting the tome back on the shelf. He circled over to his desk, gesturing to the chair on the opposite side. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
The demigod did as instructed, though the tension never left his body. “I think my sister might be in trouble, sir.”
Chiron frowned, pulling open a desk drawer and shifting through the contents until he found a file. Reed kept the pride from his face as he noted his name and how meager its contents were.
“Your half-sister?” the centaur confirmed, lifting his eyes from the paper to verify with the camper.
“I think …” he hesitated for a moment and then sighed, raking his shaking hand through his hair. It was more nerves than he usually showed, but the action drew attention to the faint circles under his eyes. “I’ve been having dreams, sir, where she’s running from something – something mythical.”
There was a twinge of pity on Chiron’s face and Reed wanted to bear his teeth at the sympathy, but it was what he needed. “I don’t think she’s my half-sister.”
Reed looked down at the 11-year-old, seeing the smudges of dirt and faint traces of neglect that he saw too often in the halfbloods who were kicked out by their mortal parents.
“Does she know?” he asked, dragging a chair to the side of the cot and sitting down on it, his long legs bent slightly awkwardly.
“I told her about demigods and promised she was safe here at the camp, but she fell asleep soon after that,” Felix answered. “She said she was coming to New York City, had an old letter from you.”
A let – He caught sight of a backpack at the head of the cot and his fingers itched to search the contents, to see what other treasures his sister brought and what he could glean from them, but he was careful to not let Felix or Chiron see.
He leaned forward to brush Kiara’s choppy bangs from her face and regretted it almost instantly when his stomach twisted achingly. The features they shared were obvious, but he hadn’t time the last time they’d seen each other to dwell on their differences.
He favored their father, with his dark hair, stubborn jaw and more angled features. He hadn’t brought any pictures of her to camp, because he hadn’t had time in the scramble to escape with Felix, but he was grateful for that, because he can’t say he would have allowed any memento to survive the threat of somebody realizing how little resemblance he bore to her. But Kiara ...
The jaw they shared, even if Kiara’s was still slightly rounded from youth, and the eyes, but almost every other feature on her face was an echo of their mother.
He fought the urge to yank his hand away as the 11-year-old sighed in her sleep, her face turning slightly to chase his touch. She uncurled her body, her knees no longer hugging her chest, and rolled onto her back.
“I’ll tell her, when she wakes up,” Reed promised. He pulled the blanket at the foot of the bed over his sister, tucking her in like he remembered Mom doing for him years ago. He forced himself to ignore the sleepy mumble that escaped Kiara’s lips.
Chiron nodded, reaching down to squeeze Reed’s shoulder reassuringly, “Bring her to me when she is ready.”
The centaur and the satyr walked away, talking quietly to each other. The teen’s ears pricked up as he heard Felix mutter “...explains why the boy’s scent was so strong back then ... two demigods born to the same mortal ...”
He waited until he could no longer hear their hooves on the wooden floor before he scooped up Kiara’s backpack and carefully started picking through its meager contents. A hoodie. Some extra socks. A few poptarts and granola bars. A notebook and pencils, worn to various lengths.
He started paging through the notebook, feeling a hint of pride when he realized the drawings that filled the lined pages were Kiara’s and were more than childish doodles like those that had decorated his schoolwork. In a few of them, he could see resemblances to the images that had decorated temple walls and pottery.
An envelope slipped from between the pages and into his lap. He could hear the horn bellow outside, calling campers to lunch and the adolescent voices that drifted through the infirmary as the demigods answered, but he ignored it as he stared at the faded red postal emblem stamped on the front, the only hint of where it’d been sent from.
He unfolded the letter, scanning the contents with a faint familiarity – he’d crept away from camp in the dead of night to send it when he realized that there was a chance she’d share his future, offering a rendezvous point for when she needed it. His hands itched to tear the paper to pieces and destroy the evidence of premeditation, but that would be hasty. He didn’t know how his little sister would react to the invasion of her privacy, but he knew he would never trust somebody who had.
With a strained exhale, he tucked Kiara’s treasures back into her bag and shoved it under the cot.
A thrill of satisfaction raced along his spine as he crossed his legs and waited. It had worked.
The pieces had begun to fall into place months ago, when Kiara’s birthday had passed. He had plotted and schemed, carefully orchestrating the chessboard to his liking. He’d laid out the trail for his sister to find and she’d done so beautifully.
He polished his sword as he sat by the campfire, the trees looming over him. His ears and his body were primed for the slightest noise. The barrier between realms close enough for him to flee if he needed to, but he wanted this reunion to happen as far away from camp as possible.
It was a nightly routine for him. Wait for hours until the embers flickered out and he could douse the remnants with water and bury evidence of his presence. But tonight was different.
The forest thrummed with the shadows’ excited whispers as the darkness parted and Kiara emerged. Her eyes were wide as they met his and he stood, the sword held loosely at his side.
“Reed?” A sob tore from her throat as she launched herself at him, wrapping her arms around his waist. Her body shook while she cried into his chest. For a moment, he froze, unused to this … contact.
The sword dropped to the ground and he awkwardly returned her embrace, his chin resting on the top of her head. “Hey Kiara.”
She smiled up at him, her eyes wet with tears of happiness and relief.
Kiara sighed as her eyes fluttered open, confusion clouding her features for a moment before she recognized Reed. She bolted upright, head swiveling to take in everything. “Is this –“
“Welcome to Camp Halfblood, sis. We did it.”
1 note
·
View note
Text
Composition
Kiara's drawings of Lilian are usually done spur of the moment, from memory or in private, hidden away out of necessity.
Not this one.
Demon LiLi x Angel Kiara. Ineffable AU.
Kiarascuro was, first and foremost, an angel – stationed on Earth for millennia and a celestial being for eons before that.
But if she were to choose to be anything else, she would be an artist.
A brush felt more comfortable in her hands than a sword, though she had been crafted to wield a blade. She had healed many battle scars and wounds in her existence, but she kept the callouses that cushioned chisels.
And just as familiar to her as the tools of her trade were the lines of Lilian’s forms - could they be called lines? The term implied a certain hardness and rigidity, but those were not the words Kiara would use to describe the sinewy forms and movements that shaped her adversary.
Did Lilian know that she had been translated to every medium Kiara had ever practiced? Did she know that if archeologist dug far enough, they’d be baffled by cave drawings far more sophisticated than those crafted by their ancestors, painted by someone who could create paper and ink with a snap of her fingers but who itched to learn this bit of human ingenuity? Did she know that scholars would be confounded by the marble reliefs of Medusa’s twin, who lacked the serpentine tendrils but gazed haughtily at her audience with a single snake curled around her wrist?
Lilian had an inkling, though her estimate would be far off because it only counted the times she’d caught Kiara surreptitiously capturing the shapes of her pose – it would be low, because she didn’t know how long ago the angel had memorized the map of her face; the all-knowing gaze, the curl of her smirk, the jut of her chin.
Kiara had gotten bolder in the two years since Armageddon, no longer hiding the twitch of her hand when it itched for a pencil. Her art had gotten better, now that she was no longer forced to rely on memory to immortalize the gleam in Lilian’s sapphire eyes or the myriad of red threading through the demon’s hair.
Her fingers twitched now, caught in LiLi’s hand as they strode toward the Bentley and Kiara realized that for all her hidden works, none of them included the demon’s most prized possession. “Oh,” she breathed quietly, the potential forming easily in her mind.
“Forget something, angel?” her adversary teased, stopping alongside the blonde.
“More like trying to remember something,” the angel said as she pulled away to study the Bentley from another angle. “I’ve never drawn your car before.”
There was something … public about a drawing of the demon and her chariot, an openness that they had been denied for decades. It was outside, for all to see, no hiding behind the gallery’s four walls.
LiLi smirked. “Should I be jealous that my car is going to replace me as your muse?”
Kiara caressed the car, running her hand over the grill as if to commit the chrome texture to memory.
“Hmmmm? Oh, no, don’t be ridiculous, my dear – I’d include you in the painting as well,” she assured her before muttering under her breath. “Though how I’d pose you … Maybe with the door open, standing in the crux? No, no, too much focus on the Bentley. I believe, thinking about it, maybe leaning against the hood -”
She demonstrated, frowning slightly as she imagined the perspective.
“I can demonstrate,” Lilian suggested as the tether of their hands pulled apart.
The offer broke through the blonde’s concentration, her gray eyes wide. “My dear, no need to inconvenience yourself – I have plenty of practice, I can do it from imagination.”
The demon tutted, closing the distance between herself and the Bentley so she could perch where she imagined Kiara had envisioned. Her body bent, one leg outstretched as she positioned the other so her boot heel pressed against the fender and her torso slanted forward, her palms resting on the hood.
“Like this?” she asked.
The blonde’s lips parted slightly in rapt attention, her heart racing at the ease of Lilian’s pose.
“Could you – if you wouldn’t mind – put your hands in your pockets? But not fully, my dear, I can imagine you can’t fit them in entirely, with how tight those trousers are,” she coached, her hand flitting out to guide Lilian’s before she caught herself and the touch dropped away. “May I?”
The demon arched a brow in amusement. “You don’t even have to ask, angel.”
Kiara could feel her face flush at the easy assurance, an intimate phrase from a being so guarded. She lost herself in the process, her body tingling at their nearness.
(The final design was one of her favorites, Lilian’s fond and trusting gaze captured as she peered at Kiara over her glasses.)
0 notes
Text
Not Powered Enough
Whump-tober. "Now the room is spinning while I'm just trying to fill in the gaps."
It counts as swooning if it's from blood loss, right?
Kiara Scuro. Canon. Pre-Lindsay.
LiLi would call her stupid. An adrenaline junkie.
Kiara would argue, but they’d both know it was for the sake of arguing. Just like old times
She was back at SPSRA. Things were … better? At least, there currently wasn’t a megalomaniac intent on killing her and she was going to therapy for almost killing her on-again-off-again best friend. But there was that itch that she felt frequently in government employ – like she wasn’t doing as much good as she could be.
Go where you’re told. Focus on this assignment. Ignore a rising crime rate in the city – That’s for the local law enforcement officers to deal with.
So every now and then, she gave Will some excuse about spending the weekend in her studio and needing time to get lost in the medium, so she wouldn’t see him. And she’d tell the team the same excuse.
Ignore LiLi’s intense gaze as she focused on a recent artistic frustration, trying very hard not to think about the truth. She thought she was doing a good job so far. And then she’d leave her uniform in the closet and put her insomnia to good use.
They’d understand, she knew. But the team was in tenuous standing at SPSRA and total obliviousness was safer than any whisper of collusion. The only way she could be traced was her phone, turned off and tucked away unless she needed to call police to deal with some perp. If something happened to her … Well, Skye wouldn’t be deterred by something as minor as a powered-down cell phone.
Sometimes, Kiara got to blow off some steam and actually stop a mugging or two. Sometimes, her patrols were just a waste of time and Kiara found inspiration for future art projects, so at least she wouldn’t be lying through her teeth when people asked about her Saturday night.
Tonight … well, she’d stopped a purse snatching from the shadows, a dark tendril snaking across the pavement as heavy footsteps pounded the ground. Somebody trying to jimmy open a car door with a wire hanger had ended up with a foot stuck in his own shadow as police lights flashed behind him.
They weren’t violent crimes, but she did stop them from escalating.
Behind her, the lone lightbulb illuminating an apartment building’s rooftop access door buzzed incessantly. Kiara’s gaze alternated between the street below her, an impressive brick expanse of an apartment building at the end of the street and her design of a technically unauthorized art project in her small sketch book. Reed would call it graffiti, she called it public art … to-may-to, to-mah-to.
It was almost midnight and while the city was never truly silent, there was a muffled air to it – devoid of the amplified roar of daytime traffic or lull of dozens of simultaneous conversations or the not-quite syncopation of hundreds of feet.
It made the woman’s bordering-on-hurried footsteps echo even more in Kiara’s ears as the blonde’s gaze landed on her after she rounded the corner. The artist’s pencil rolled to the divot of the spine when she dropped it and she closed the book around it, rising slowly to her feet.
The woman was probably a waitress getting back from work, judging by button up white shirt under the black vest and denim jacket. She was trying not to be obvious as she switched her attention between her keychain and the man following her. If Kiara squinted, she could see the black cylinder at the end of the chain – pepper spray?
The artist abandoned her sketchbook on the roof as she slipped into the shadows. She emerged across the street when the man – not tall and broad, but a little bit taller than Kiara and stocky with just a bit of a gut – shoved his prey into the alley. A tendril of darkness wrapped around his waist as his target whirled, a burst of spray emitting from her keychain cylinder and her long brunette braid whipping behind her.
“Bitch!” he howled as the chemicals hit his eyes at the same time as Kiara’s shadows slammed him into the wall. The darkness shifted, sticking to him so he couldn’t see his restraints.
Kiara put herself between him and his prey, obscuring the woman’s view as he struggled. “Are you alright? Do you need me to call the police?” she asked, acting as if she hadn’t intervened. She knew she looked androgynous enough in her hoodie, jeans and baseball cap to not immediately be clocked as a woman, so she telegraphed her movements as much as possible.
“H-h-he attacked me,” the woman stammered, her eyes wide as she stared over Kiara’s shoulder. “I was was was walking home from –“
“I saw,” Kiara promised, glancing back toward the man as the shadows hissed angrily. She frowned when she saw him moving more than she’d like him to and shifted the darkness so it was more apparent and curled around his wrists.
If she sank him into the shadows, it would be harder to keep SPSRA out of it.
“Call the police,” the blonde urged. “I’ll wait with you, I promise. You’re safe.”
The shadows practically screamed as something broke them and Kiara grunted as a body slammed her to the ground. One hand fisted in her hood, yanking it back, and Kiara’s vision blurred when something hard and sharp bludgeoned into her head just over her right ear. Almost from far away, she heard the woman she’d been talking to scream.
“Fucking powered,” the man snarled behind her, shifting so he was straddling her. “Ain’t gonna be that easy –“
A wall of darkness crashed down on them, shifting them into blackness and pulling the man off her. He thrashed against the tendrils as Kiara stumbled to her feet, her head pounding and her vision swimming.
She struggled to focus as her sight wavered, but the bindings she created to pin him down seemed to melt away – Her world wavered, not just from her vision, but from something he was doing, jamming her abilities.
“Fucking powered,” Kiara spit back at him, shifting her stance lower like Ren had taught her after the bank.
He charged at her with a smirk, but the shadow walker waited until he was almost upon her so she could surge upward and caught his chin with her fist and her shadowed blades between her knuckles. He staggered away with a groan, a quartet of slash marks running along his jaw.
The shadows roared, their voices stuttering as if there was static.
Kiara knew how her powers worked with other shadow powers – knew it was a greedy game – but this wasn’t the same. The shadows weren’t conflicted about who to serve, this was like water off a duck’s back, where the darkness slid away from her opponent.
But it wasn’t immediately effective, but the shadows’ frustrated howls from this hindrance were warring with the ringing in Kiara’s ears from the man’s earlier blow. Her scalp felt sticky as blood congealed on her hair and her hat and trickled down her head.
The man trudged toward her, his legs encased in shadows as they fought against whatever repulsion he commanded. The claw marks she’d inflicted were bleeding, coating his neck.
Speed it was.
Kiara drove her foot into his groin, fighting the wave of nausea that accompanied the shift in her balance.
“Umph,” he grunted, buckling to his knees.
She pushed him out of the darkness and back into the alley, pinning him with her knee on his chest. Her hands wrapped around his throat, squeezing relentlessly.
“Not … powered … enough,” she grunted, adding a cord of shadow around his windpipe to her own grasp. She didn’t let up until he was limp beneath her.
She slid off of him with a groan, slumping against the alley wall as the city spun around her. The woman had disappeared but Kiara registered the wail of police sirens … somewhere … as darkness crept into her vision.
0 notes
Text
Angels don't dance
Aziraphale Kiara. Crowley LiLi. Ineffable AU.
“I told you, Angel,” Lilian said, languidly reclining on the settee with a glass of wine in her hand.
“I didn’t think they’d take it so far,” the angel muttered as she sat, her own goblet containing the once forbidden brew.
Kiara didn’t know what had eased Heaven’s notion of the intoxicating nectar to where it was considered an acceptable drink. She supposed it had something to do with Jesus Christ transmuting water into it for that one wedding … It was hard to proclaim the sinfulness of something when the Son of God was making it appear with a wave of his hand.
She couldn’t exactly argue, not when some strains of it amplified the flavors of her favorite dishes.
The blonde looked toward the window as the sounds of a scuffle started, quickly ending with a echoing bang.
“Civil War in England. Inconceivable,” she said under her breath before lifting her gaze to Lilian’s face with a slight frown. “Are you quite sure you didn’t stir the pot, just a tad?”
“Humans are truly proactive … I barely have to breathe and a war is breaking out,” her companion drawled before she took a sip of the devil’s drink. A smirk twisted her lips. “Do you think so little of me, Kiara, that you immediately thought I’d go against our arrangement?”
Cover for each other. Don’t make too much work for the other, and occasionally, maybe lend a hand.
“I should have known better,” Kiara said, trying to ignore the heat rising in her cheeks. “I’m sorry.”
The dark-haired woman sat up, setting her glass on a side table. “Well, that was a little feeble, wouldn’t you say? For such an grievous offense – questioning my honor?”
“You’re a demon, you lie,” the angel scoffed lightly.
“Not to you, Angel.” Lilian’s gaze felt like it pierced her soul, her pupils narrow slits. “Not for centuries.”
Kiara swallowed, forcing a small lump down her throat as she guiltily stared at her drink. “What would you have me do?”
“I want a dance,” the demon purred, a smile tugging at her lips as she watched Kiara’s very pale visage turn a hue that the blonde was sure rivaled a tomato.
“A-angels don’t dance. Out of the question,” Kiara stammered, trying to still her trembling hands enough so she could set her glass aside. “You know that.”
“Ah, but you’re an angel who goes along with Heaven as far as you can,” Lilian pressed. She leaned forward, her hands clasped together and a mischievous gleam in her eye. “You’re dining with a demon, drinking the once-forbidden wine, and you’re worried a tiny dance will do you in?”
The blonde met Lilian’s gaze. “Just a little one?”
“With a song,” the demon pressed amusedly, no doubt enjoying Kiara’s discomfort.
“Fine,” Kiara sighed, rising uncomfortably to her feet. She tugged at her bodice, straightening out a nonexistent seam.
Lilian leaned back, her dark glasses sliding down her nose so her view of Kiara’s torment was unobstructed.
The angel cleared her throat and pushed her hair back from her face.
“I was wrong, I was wrong,” Kiara sang lightly, doing a small parody of something she’d seen in a ballroom. The way her hands and feet moved felt unnatural and foreign as she did a small pirouette. “I’m sorry. I was wrong.”
She ended with a deep curtsy, spreading her arms as if they were her wings, and lifted her head to meet Lilian’s eyes. “Satisfied?” she asked sardonically while she straightened.
“Immensely,” the demon purred, reaching for her wine. She tried to hide the smile on her face with her glass, but Kiara saw it.
She couldn’t suppress the small titter that escaped her lips.
~*~
Kiara smiled giddily as pedestals and easels moved away from the center of the shop, clearing a wide space.
“You’re up to something, Angel,” LiLi drawled as she watched from the staircase. She strolled over, her hips swaying exaggeratedly.
“I’m merely putting a plan into action, LiLi, as we’ve discussed,” the blonde soothed. “Something sure to make Nina and Maggie fall in love.”
She ignored her friend’s suspicious gaze as she pushed away the chairs and side tables strewn around the shop to clear the center.
“I can’t believe you’re going through with this,” Lilian muttered, looking out the shop window.
“If you’re going to complain, you can at least be useful and go make sure Maggie and Nina are coming. We’ll be starting any minute,” she ordered lightly. Her smile grew when Lilian rolled her eyes and slid her glasses on her nose. As Kiara heard the chime of the bell above the door that signaled the exit, she raised her hands and coaxed the miraculous chandelier down from her rafters, the wrought-iron arms dripping with cystals. She lit the candles and pulled out several freestanding candelabras.
An actual ball, here, in her gallery – Oh, Jane Austen would have been delighted at the scheme, orchestrating the perfect atmosphere for the blossoming beaus to recognize their feelings for each other.
“Ah, Mrs. Sandwich! Welcome to the meeting of the shopkeeper’s association,” Kiara greeted as the first guest stepped through the door. The rather ... abrasive woman looked around, eying the décor warily.
The woman had not noticed the way her outfit had transformed from that leopard-print lounge suit to the sequined-covered clothes she now wore. If Kiara were willing to put just a little bit more strength to her miracle, her guests could have been decked out in full regalia fit for a regency soiree, but she’d have to settle with the language and dancing – no use arousing too much suspicion from Heaven for a miracle she technically was supposed to have already performed.
“I’m a bit confused as to what I’m doing here,” the woman scoffed as the bell’s chime announced another arrival. “We’re about to hit the after work rush and the girls are left alone.”
“I’m sure they’ll manage just fine on their own,” Kiara assured her with a wide smile. “I’ve been meaning to ask, Mrs. Sandwich, what do your girls do?”
“As the government says, they stand on their own two feet,” Mrs. Sandwich explained with a … lecherous smirk.
The angel frowned slightly as woman departed and Mr. Brown slid in to fill her place. “Ms. Scuro, where are the chairs I dropped off this morning?”
“In the back, we won’t be needing them – they’ll only get in the way of the dancing,” the angel answered brightly, brushing past him. “Now excuse me, I have to get the hors d’oeuvres.”
She slipped away, the smile back on her face as more guests filtered in, slowly filling the room. “Jim, come help me, please!” she called out as she went into the backroom.
Gabriel was quickly at her side, buttoning up his powder blue blazer over the ruffled shirt. “What can I do?”
“Help me serve these?” Kiara asked, not waiting for a reply as she set a platter in his hands. “Just offer them to our guests.”
“These … aren’t books?” the amnesiac angel said in confusion, looking down at the tea sandwiches.
“No, no – its food, for our guests to eat,” she explained, arranging the vol-au-vaunts on a silver platter. “Thank you, Jim.”
Gabriel wandered out, still looking befuddled.
She heard the strains of the piano being tuned and she smiled pleasantly. The dancing would be starting soon and she still had guests to welcome.
As she stepped into the main room, she spotted one of her targets looking around the room and she brightened.
“Ah, Nina!” she called, weaving between the groups of conversing shopkeeps, using the tray as a way to clear her path in cases where the guests weren’t as quick to move. “I’m so glad you’re here! The dancing is about begin.”
“Ms. Scuro, what is going on?” Nina asked, her brow furrowed as was customary for her.
“Is Maggie here yet? I heard she never misses one of these meetings,” Kiara deflected as she set down her platter.
“I know I’m really upset, but I don’t feel upset. Why is that?” the coffee shop owner pressed.
“Ah, no long faces tonight,” the angel ordered jovially, the command deceptively light considering she had made that part of her miracle. “I just want to see you young people enjoy yourself.”
“Dancing?” Nina supplied incredulously.
“Well, it wouldn’t be a shopkeepers’ association meeting without dancing, would it?” the angel answered.
“Have you ever been to one of these meetings? Because meetings don’t usually go like this … this is far too much dancing.” The woman wrapped her arms around her midsection, closing in on herself. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on, but your friend said something dangerous was happening, and I’d be safe here – what did she mean by that? What’s going on?”
Kiara waved her hands dismissively.
“Oh, LiLi is always pessimistic about things like that, but she’s right about one thing. You’re completely safe here,” Kiara assured her. She nodded toward one of the few chairs that had been kept in the gallery – some humans couldn’t stand for long periods of time, she knew, and the night would only be a partial success if her guests didn’t have a good time. “Now, why don’t you sit for a spell? I’m sure Maggie will be here soon.”
She picked up the hors d’oeuvres and bustled away, occasionally stopping to greet a guest or offer a vol-a-vaunt.
Kiara felt practically effervescent as she watched her favorite shopkeep made her way over to Nina, who’d secluded herself as much as she could in the open chamber. She tittered when Maggie offered her hand to the coffee shop owner.
“What are you doing?” Lilian hissed, appearing at her shoulder.
“I told you!” the blonde reminded her, nodding toward the scene. “Jane Austen. We’re having a ball!”
Lilian clenched her teeth. “I’ve got to talk to you. It’s important.”
“I’m afraid I’m hosting a business meeting. I’ll be with you in two shakes of a lamb’s tail,” she promised before offering the platter to the temptress. “Have a vol-au-vaunt.”
She left the hors d’oeuvres in her friend’s hand, moving between the guests. With a gleeful grin, she gave Mr. Arnold a thumbs up and moved out of the way of the dancers.
Her smile split her face as she saw Maggie and Nina join the first few couples line up for a cotillion. It wasn’t as lively or energetic as the gavotte she’d learned more than a century ago, but she quite preferred the intimacy and intricacies of this one – the way the dancers subtly pushed and pulled at each other, their hands linking them through the notes.
If she was being honest, more than once when she was lost in one of Austen’s tomes, she’d imagined Lilian facing her, the room slowly revolving around them as they circled. Their hands would clasp, accompanied by the pleasant tingle she always felt when she touched her friend. And in her daydreams, her eyes never left Lilian’s, unencumbered by the dark lenses so the sapphire hues were apparent.
“Making it rain is one thing, but a ball -” The demon cut herself off as she realized her voice was raising slightly. She glanced furtively around at the people who were quickly migrating to the dance floor.
Kiara snapped out of her reverie, giddy as a new idea formed in her head.
“Look, something is wrong,” Lilian told her, sounding a little exasperated with the angel. “Very, very wrong.”
“Well, perhaps you can tell me …” The blonde turned to face LiLi, practically reverberating out of her skin, “while we dance?”
She could feel Lilian’s piercing gaze behind her glasses. “We don’t dance. YOU don’t dance,” the dark-haired woman reminded her, with a note of incredulity.
With a nervous giggle, Kiara grabbed her hand and pulled her into the line.
0 notes
Text
Paperwork
Aziraphale Kiara. Crowley LiLi. Ineffable AU
This was going to mean a mountain of paperwork if it didn’t work.
She fussed at a spot on her skirt, massaging the dirt out of the ivory brocade.
Kiara jumped as the thud of a blade meeting bone and flesh echoed through her cell. The manacles felt heavy on her wrists, binding her to the rough walls. She flinched at the thunderous cheer filled the square outside.
The jangle of keys drew her attention to the cell door, a robust man in a scarlet overcoat and a sash in the colors of the French flag draped over his chest. He spoke in French, gesturing to the exuberance outside her jail.
The blonde frowned, maybe slightly cursing her terrible grasp of the language.
“Ah, excuse moi,” Kiara started, recoiling as the man reached for the chains linking her wists. “C’est un grandeur … errr mistake.”
Rising to her feet to address the newcomer, she put a bit more space between them. She opened her mouth to continue to plead her case but he held up a hand to silence her.
“I speak English,” he offered bemusedly. A new clamor of blade and exuberance drew both their gazes to her window. “Listen to that. The fall of the guillotine blade. It is terrible, no?”
“Yes,” Kiara muttered in sympathy. “Cutting off that poor woman’s head. Terrible.”
“It is Pierre, an amateur,” her jailor explained. “Always, he lets go of the rope too soon.”
The angel rolled her steely eyes.
“You are lucky that it is I, Jean-Claude, who will be separating your traitorous head from your shoulders.”
Really, celebrating your role in a murder. Uncouth, to say the least – downright barbaric to do so with the level of glee. If Lilian did not appear soon, Kiara would have to abandon the ruse and then this whole debacle would have been for naught.
“There has been a terrible mistake,” Kiara interjected. “I don’t think you understand –“
“I have good news,” the executioner – Jean-Claude – told her jovially. “You are the 999th aristo to die at the guillotine by my hand … but the first English.”
The blonde gave a tight, polite smile.
“Now … shall we begin?” he said, moving behind her as his hands shifted to her neck.
“Please. No.” Kiara darted away from him, glaring at him indignantly. “Dreadful mistake, discorporating me. Oh, it’ll be a complete nightmare.”
The paperwork alone would take her months to finish.
The guillotine crashes. The crowd cheers. And the executioner chuckles as he looks out the window, his hands lifted as he stilled unnaturally.
“Animals,” she scoffed.
“Animals don’t kill each other with clever machines, Angel, only humans do that,” a familiar voice drawled.
“Lilian!”
The blonde wouldn’t stop the delighted smile that spread across her face, but she quickly controlled it as she turned around. The demon was lounging on a stool by the cell door, her hand draped over her knee in dark garb marking her as a revolutionary – a chance for Kiara to mask her joy with disapproval at the choice.
“Oh, good lord,” Kiara tsked, ignoring the pleased lilt on the demon’s lips.
“What the deuce are you doing locked up in the bastille?” Lilian pressed while she straightened. “I thought you were opening a gallery.”
“I was!” she tittered indignantly, shifting from one foot to the other. “I got peckish.”
“Peckish?” The word was incredulous.
The angel rolled her eyes. “Well, if you must know, it was the crepes.”
She paced back to the wooden bench in the center of the cell, the chains rattling with every step.
“You can’t get decent ones outside of Paris,” she explained sheepishly as she sat. She dipped her head in acknowledgement. “And the brioche.”
And a certain inkling that at the center of all this turmoil, she’d find one fallen angel to dine with her.
“So you just popped across the Channel during a revolution because you wanted a nibble,” the demon drawled, languidly gesturing to the angel’s ivory outfit. “Wearing that?”
“I have standards,” Kiara sniffed, smoothing the panel over her corset. “I’d heard they were getting a bit carried away over here but –“
“Yeah, this is not getting carried away. This is cutting off lots of people’s heads very efficiently with a big head-cutting machine,” Lilian interrupted. “Why didn’t you just perform another miracle and go home?”
“If you must know, I was reprimanded last month,” the blonde supplied quietly. “They said I’d performed too many frivolous miracles. I got a strongly worded note from Gabriel.”
She’d been especially stringent with herself in the weeks leading up to this excursion, working to make sure the higher ups didn’t have cause to do an audit.
“Well, you’re lucky I was in the area, then,” the dark-haired woman teased dryly.
Yes. Lucky.
“I suppose I am,” Kiara admitted. “What are you doing in here?”
Lilian looked away. “My lot gave me a commendation for excellent job performance.”
Kiara’s eyes widened. “So all this is your demonic work?” she pushed as she rose to her feet, glancing out the window where the world had frozen.
That didn’t make sense. Lilian’s machinations were never specifically bloody (Job’s kids and his children were a technically – the demon hadn’t actually harmed a hair on their bodies, save for a little mental scarring and Kiara’s nagging suspicion that the youngest of Job had spent years trying to scale walls once again.) And this was brutality, raw and swift.
“No, the humans thought it up themselves,” Lilian answered. “Nothing to do with me. I told you, clever machines to kill each other.”
She snapped her fingers and the manacles dropped from Kiara’s body, clattering on the stone floor. With a small noise of relief, Kiara started massaging her wrists.
“Well, I suppose I should say thank you for the um … rescue,” the blonde said.
Lilian rose gracefully and fluidly from her seat. “Don’t say that. If my people hear that I rescued an angel, I’ll be the one in trouble and my people … do not send rude notes.”
“Well, either way, I’m very grateful,” Kiara retorted. “What about if I buy you lunch?”
“Looking like that?” A smile tugged at the demon’s lips.
Kiara sighed, scrunching her nose in distaste as she miracled the executioner’s clothes onto her body and vice versa. “Well, it barely counts as a miracle, really,” she commented, stepping shoulder-to-shoulder with Lilian.
The demon raised her hands and snapped her fingers, letting the world start to turn again as the executioner continued his statement.
Realization dawned on Jean-Claude as his hands touched the finery now adorning his body and the guards strode through the door to escort him out.
“Dressed like that, he’s asking for trouble,” Lilian drawled sardonically. “What’s for lunch?”
A mischievous smirk danced across the angel’s face. “What would you say to some crepes?”
~*~
“So tell me, Angel, what really brought you to this hotbed of turmoil and sin?” Lilian asked as she pulled the knife through the crepe with an ease that belied the strength in the action.
“I told you, it was the crepes,” the angel insisted. She fiddled with her own utensils.
“Oh come off it, you and I both know that you could have popped in and out before any of those bumbling fools noticed you,” Lilian retorted as she took a bite. She stabbed the air between them with her now-empty fork. “No, I’m betting there was something else.”
“It could be crepes,” Kiara muttered. “You know I’ve always been fond of them.”
Before humans had had proper time to devote to art and leisure and were toiling all day in the fields, foods had been her gateway temptation, with Lilian and Kiara sneaking away from their realm’s gazes to partake in whatever new delicacy the demon had stumbled upon.
“Yes, I suppose, but I know you’re fonder yet of fine art and, in particular, several rarer pieces that I know for a fact were housed in the palace of King Louie XVI and his … extravagant wife. That would be perfect tinder for a mob’s bonfire,” the demon drawled with a knowing smirk. She leaned across the table, her glasses sliding lower on the bridge of her nose so she could peer at the blonde. “Have you been looting the palace, Angel?”
Kiara fidgeted in her seat, stabbing a strawberry with an unnecessary amount of force. “Well, I couldn’t just let them be destroyed.”
“That’s positively sinful of you,” Lilian cackled as she threw back her head.
The blonde blushed, feeling the flush creep up her cheeks. “It’s not really! I’m not keeping it for myself or anything so … selfish. I’m redistributing it to people who could have potentially owned it if the piece’s previous owners had been aware of the peril!”
“You say tomato, I say breaking a commandment,” the demon teased. “Thou shall not steal, Angel…”
She should have been more affronted by a demon’s insult to her honor, but this was Lilian.
“Well, I couldn’t sit back and allow another Alexandria situation. All that precious knowledge – gone forever,” Kiara rationalized before she took a bite. She closed her eyes in delight as the taste hit her tongue. “I told you no where makes them like Paris.”
“Would it be worth all the paperwork if you’d have been discorporated?” Lilian prodded, her eyes gleaming playfully.
Seeing Lilian was worth the paperwork. The crepes were just a nice bonus.
0 notes
Text
Too Fast
Aziraphale Kiara. Crowley Lilian. Ineffable AU.
The blonde miracled a handful of bread crumbs into her pocket before tossing them out over the pond, watching the ducks scuttle forward to collect the food. Her other hand was tight around the handle of her parasol, the heavy fabric shielding her body as she joined her demonic associate.
“I’ve been thinking. What if it all goes wrong,” the dark-haired woman murmured, no question in her voice. “We have a lot in common, you and me.”
Kiara winced ever so slightly at the statement, the sense of unease natural at the comparison. Millennia ago, the difference had been smaller – primarily marked by their stations among the angelic. (Lilian was an architect, crafting galaxies and planets, as Kiara’s stature was lower, more akin to the builders who crafted the things inside the factories).
“I don’t know. We may have both started off as angels, but you –“ the word was pointed, sharp to emphasize their tenuous alliance, “- are fallen.”
“I didn’t really fall. I just … y’know,” Lilian scowled, “sauntered vaguely downward.”
The latest reminder that the dark-haired being wasn’t like the others doing Hell’s bidding. (“I go along with Hell as far as I can.”) It was just another way Kiara could justify this … partnership in her mind.
“I need a favor,” Lilian supplied, coming to the point of this rendezvous.
It had been decades since she’d seen the demon, vanishing in the Edinburgh graveyard. Years of discomfort at the uncertainty. If Lilian had slipped … had spilled their secrets. But there had been nothing from Heaven or the demon to signal a change.
(“Calm down, Angel. I’m not going to tell on you.”)
A favor. Not a demand.
“We already have our agreement, Lilian, to stay out of each other’s way.” She tossed some more crumbs out over the water. “Lend a hand when needed.”
“This is for something else,” the demon said, a slight hitch in her throat before she continued. “For if it goes pear shaped.”
“I rather like pears,” Kiara continued, trying to stall and gather her thoughts. They weren’t the apples packed with biblical symbolism, the orange with its sweet juice or the lemon and it’s acidic notes. Pears were pleasant, soft, agreeable.
“If it all goes wrong,” Lilian went on, “I want insurance.”
The angel’s heart raced. After all this time, the demon was showing her hand. “What?”
“I wrote it down,” her companion informed her, handing over the bit of parchment. “The walls have ears. Well, not walls, trees have ears. Ducks have ears.”
Kiara opened the note as Lilian looked around.
“Do ducks have ears? They must, to hear the other ducks,” the demon mused.
Normally, Kiara might have been amused by the tangent, the bit of levity she rarely got to see – unless poisoned by laudanum – but the words scribbled on the paper elicited a sharp gasp.
Holy water.
Her gaze rocketed to the demon, her lips parted in surprise. “Out of the question.”
This wasn’t leverage against her, to seal their bargain and their lips. This was … guaranteed destruction for the demon.
“Why not?” Lilian pressed lightly, not meeting her gaze.
As had happened over the years since the graveyard, Kiara wondered what had happened to the demon. What punishment had she endured to be seeking something so perilous to herself.
“Because it will destroy you,” the angel emphasized. “Absolutely not. I’m not giving you a suicide pill.”
Elspeth flashed before her eyes, the barely-not-a-child’s face thin and haggard from the stress of living. Lilian had seen the poison before Kiara and intervened before she could – but that was Lilian. Always too fast for Kiara.
Would Hell have ripped her down, if Kiara had been quicker?
Kiara handed back the note, the frown deep on her brow.
“That’s not what I want it for,” Lilian bit out, pushing the paper back into Kiara’s hand. “Just insurance.”
Something was not right. If it were just for protection, there were other outlets, ways that a demon of Lilian’s caliber and cleverness. And the Holy Water could just as easily be used against her.
“I’m not an idiot, Lilian,” Kiara hissed, her grip tight on the parchment. “If they knew I’d been … fraternizing. It’s completely out of the question!”
The demon turned to look at her, her jaw tight. If Kiara could see behind the black glass guarding her eyes, she wondered if they’d be unnaturally blue, flashing as they did with anger.
“Fraternizing?!” Lilian hissed.
“Or whatever you want to call it,” Kiara fired back, using this as a shield. She couldn’t do something that would hurt Lilian. Not when the demon was her closest ally on this plane. “I do not think there is any point in discussing it further.”
“I have a lot of other people to fraternize with, Angel,” the demon snapped.
For a second, Kiara winced at the sharpness of the endearment, normally so playful.
“Of course you do,” the angel retorted, turning away out of frustration.
“I don’t need you,” Lilian said.
Kiara turned back to see the scowl, indignation rising within her. “The feeling is mutual. Obviously.”
They didn’t need each other. This was merely convenience.
She threw the note into the pond, storming off as the paper caught fire.
If she didn’t need Lilian, then why did the thought of not having her hurt?
~*~
Kiara shifted the thermos from hand to hand, staring past the easels and pedestals at nothing in particular as she weighed her next steps.
It wasn’t as if she kept tabs on Lilian – neither of them did really, just heard rumors and whispers of activity that sounded right for each other, or reaching out when they needed to meet.
LiLi was almost always the one finding her. In Paris. In Edinburgh. In St. James’ Park.
But the murmurs Kiara was hearing were buried deep, things that wouldn’t go noticed unless somebody was truly listening to them. Which the angel had started doing shortly after their adventure in 1941.
(“Look at that. A whole font full of Holy Water,” the demon marked, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot in the hallowed ground. “Doesn’t even have guards.”)
Kiara had been too occupied with the Nazis to pay too much attention to the comment. And afterword, she was too focused on her introduction on the Prestigious West End Stage.
Now, the contents of her hands heavy, she could do nothing but focus on it.
It’d be more than a hundred years since Lilian had first asked for the weapon, since Kiara had vehemently rejected the notion of giving something so dangerous to her best friend. But if she was plotting something so risky as a heist on hallowed ground … Kiara would rather eliminate some of the peril herself.
Hell was a dangerous place. Their near exposure in London had reminded her of that. When that demon had waved the photo triumphantly in their faces, gloating about how LiLi was going to be punished, Kiara’s heart had nearly beat out of her chest. (“The Miraculous Bullet Catch requires the aid of a trusted stooge and confidant.” The dead Nazis, their bodies bloodied and rotted. The photo. “Enjoy your last night on Earth.”) She’d only managed to mask it through mastery of her stagecraft, using the tricks taught to her by the Great Prof. Hoffman.
In her centuries on Earth, she had never faced that kind of threat. But then again, what other threat did Hell have besides torture or destruction? Heaven, if they didn’t banish angels to Hell for the terrible sin of blasphemy, would simply bury somebody under paperwork.
(“Just insurance.”) Please let this be one of the times Lilian didn’t lie.
The Bentley was easy to find in Soho, as distinctive and sleek as its owner. Kiara waited as Lilian finished whatever conversation she was having with that unscrupulous character and sauntered back to the car. As the dark-haired woman slid behind the steering wheel, the angel used her more … frowned upon abilities to appear in the passenger seat.
“What are you doing here?” Lilian asked, only a hint of surprise in her voice.
Kiara gave a tight smile before she stared out the window. “I needed a word with you.”
“What?”
She could feel Lilian’s gaze on her, her eyes still hidden behind the black frames, and she fought the urge to wiggle under the intensity of such scrutiny.
“I work in Soho. I hear things. I hear that you’re setting up a –“ she paused and licked her lips before she turned toward her friend, “caper. To rob a church.”
Lilian looked out the windshield, not bothering to deny the allegation.
“LiLi, it’s too dangerous,” the angel pressed frantically, trying once more to communicate the severity of this gift. In case she had lied again. “Holy Water won’t just kill your body, it will destroy you completely.”
“You told me what you think,” Lilian drawled nonchalantly as she met Kiara’s wide gaze. “105 years ago-“
“And I haven’t changed my mind!” Kiara asserted quickly, with a small shake of her head. She could practically feel the dark-haired woman roll her eyes behind her glasses as Lilian looked away. “But I can’t have you risking your life. Not even for something dangerous.”
She pulled the thermos out of the darkness, lifting it gingerly as if going too fast would shatter the container and destroy Lilian. “So … You can call of the robbery,” she offered as she held her gift out to her companion.
Lilian looked between her and the thermos incredulously several times before she carefully accepted it.
“Don’t go unscrewing the cap,” Kiara said as she tried to swallow her discomfort.
The neon lights of Soho’s nightlife reflected off the thermos, painting Lilian’s beautiful visage in bright hues that Kiara itched to capture … even if it was something as ordinary as one of those newfangled cameras.
“Is this the real thing?” Lilian questioned as she studied Kiara’s face.
“The holiest,” the blonde promised, searching Lilian’s face for any sign that she’d been wrong.
“After everything you said?” There was a quiet sense of awe in the words. As if she couldn’t believe that somebody would do something to help her like this, after all these years. (“You said trust me.”)
Kiara nodded quickly, turning away from Lilian’s disbelieving expression to stare out the windshield at the world around them. Safe here, in the Bentley.
“Should I say thank you?”
The blonde swallowed several times, her lips pressed tightly. “Better not.”
“Well, should I drop you anywhere?”
Kiara had to get out of here before her tongue got the better of her and she begged Lilian not to use it on herself. To make her promise that she hadn’t lied.
“No, thank you.” Kiara shook her head slightly and forced an uncomfortable smile on her face at the barest hint of an expression on Lilian’s face. “Oh don’t look so disappointed. Perhaps one day, we could … I don’t know. Go for a picnic. … Dine at the Ritz.”
Both were practically impossible. Not when Heaven and Hell were both watching.
“Look, I’ll give you a lift. Anywhere you want to go,” Lilian promised, gesturing out over the city through the windshield.
Maybe Lilian could be on her own side. Ignore Hell’s rules to live by her own special code and blur the edges but that was because she was a demon. She could make her own choices.
And Kiara?
Kiara swallowed, the offer hanging in the car. “You go too fast for me, LiLi.”
0 notes
Text
Trying to make you understand
Crowley LiLi, Aziraphale Kiara - Ineffable AU
“Tell me you said no.”
Kiara’s brain stuttered at Lilian’s growl, her eyes wide. She faltered, the exuberance she’d felt seconds ago fading rapidly as she met the serpentine gaze.
“Tell me you said no?” No longer a statement. No, now it was a desperate plea for affirmation. Had she left out some detail? Something that Lilian had missed – it happened when she was excited, too caught up in her joy to be able to speak plainly.
“If I’m in charge …” she started, focused on delivering the important news - The key to this whole conversation – “I can make a difference.”
No. It didn’t work. Lilian exhaled, turning away from the angel with a frustrated groan. She paced, her normally long, confident gait shortened to small steps as if struggling with the urge to flee and was limiting herself to this space.
She didn’t understand. What hadn’t Kiara explained. Why didn’t Lilian see?
Her hands fell to her sides, uncertain and awkward.
“I didn’t get a chance to say what I was going to say. I think I’d better get it out now,” Lilian said, the words fast as if she were trying to put them into existence before they left her mind. She did this sometimes. When she was aggravated about something. Especially something Kiara did. “Right. OK. Yes. So -”
Kiara waited as her best friend looked down at the ground and forced herself to stay.
“We’ve known each other a long time,” the demon continued. “We’ve been on this planet a long time, I mean – you and me.”
She paused, meeting Kiara’s eyes. “I could always rely on you. You could always rely on me. We’re a team – a group. A group of the two of us.”
The blonde’s heart jumped as it always did when Lilian singled them out. A pair. A united front. Exactly what she wanted to be, so maybe the fallen one did understand what Kiara had been saying. So why wasn’t she excited?
“And we’ve spent our existence pretending that we aren’t – I mean, the last few years, not really,” she gestured to the gallery, to their small sanctuary.
Exactly, and now they could work together and not have to pretend. LiLi would be good again – like Kiara had always known she had been, from the trials of Job and on.
“And I would like to spend – mhhhhm.” Lilian pressed her lips together tightly as she looked toward the window. “I mean if Gabriel and Beelzebub … could do it, go off together, then we can.”
Kiara stared at her.
Lilian had offered this before, before the last Armageddon, spoke of Alpha Centauri and how lovely it was. And earlier, the suggestion had been effortlessly offered to Gabriel and Beelzebub as a sanctuary. Kiara knew how much she loved the star system and the universe (“Look at you, you’re gorgeous,” the nebula’s creator had uttered with awe as the cosmos formed before them.) Last time, the plan to flee together had been frantically formed in the midst of a crisis. And now …
There was no peril. There was just redemption and partnership.
“Just the two of us,” Lilian went on, “we don’t need Heaven. We don’t need Hell. They’re toxic. We need to get away from them. To just be an Us. You and me. What do you say?”
The blonde felt her head shake as the demon’s words sunk in. No no no – they didn’t need Hell. They needed Heaven. To do good. To make things better.
“Come with me,” Kiara breathed, closing the distance between them. “To Heaven. I’ll run it – you can be my second in command.”
Lilian stared at her, no sign of joy in her yellow gaze.
“We can make a difference,” the angel promised.
“You can’t leave this gallery,” Lilian said, her brows lifted incredulously.
It had been her haven for so long, a place to collect her curiosities and treasures before it had been offered as a hideaway for the demon in recent years. But it wasn’t Heaven. It wasn’t where they could do the most good –
“Oh, LiLi … Nothing lasts forever.” she offered.
Nothing. Lilian knew that – had expressed her incredulity with it at their first meeting when Kiara had offhandedly mentioned her creation had an expiration date close to 6,000 years ago.
Her best friend nodded, a seemingly final motion as if she made up her mind. And she looked – for a second – as if she might cry before the expression faded and there was nothing.
“No,” the dark-haired woman said, putting on her glasses to hide her eyes. “I don’t suppose it does.”
No.
“Good luck,” she drawled as she strolled past the angel.
For a moment, Kiara wanted to rip the cursed lenses from Lilian’s face and shatter them on the ground.
“Good luck?” the blonde repeated as her body turned to follow the demon as she strode toward the threshold. “LiLi? LiLi, come back. To Heaven.”
Lilian stopped, turning to look at her through the dark glasses.
“Work with me –“ she pleaded, her hands spread as if the span could encompass what she was offering. Redemption. Partnership. “We can be together! Angels! Doing good!”
The demon wouldn’t meet her gaze.
“I need you,” she begged, her voice shaking as she tried to make the stakes clear. Her lip quivered slightly at the refusal to look at her, to acknowledge how important this was. “I don’t think you understand what I’m offering you.”
“I understand.” The retort was immediate, devoid of the uncertainty or frantic hesitancy of her monologue minutes before. “I think I understand a whole lot better than you do.”
Kiara looked away, pressing her lips together as to steel herself from the tears that threatened to well in her eyes. “Well, then there’s nothing more to say.”
She swallowed hard, forcing down the pain and rejection of this moment. This was what they did. They argued. They clashed fantastically.
“Listen. D’ya hear that?” Lilian asked, pointing skyward.
The blonde paused, intently straining to hear whatever she was talking about. “I don’t hear anything,” she spat, frustrated.
“That’s the point,” the demon explained with a lifted chin. “No nightingales.”
No angels dining at the Ritz. No magic in the air.
“You idiot,” Lilian said, something … sad, hurt … creeping into her voice. “We could have been –“ her breath catching in her throat, “Us.”
(“How could someone as clever as you be so stupid?”)
Kiara tore her gaze away as she turned her head, refusing to look at the demon before she parted. She braced herself as she heard footsteps, not connecting that they were coming toward her until Lilian’s hands fisted in her lapel and her lips crushed against the angel’s, muffling Kiara’s noise of surprise.
The kiss was brutal, demanding and desperate as Kiara cried silently, her eyes squeezed shut while her hands fumbling to grab Lilian. Her fingers found perchance on LiLi’s shoulder and for a moment, the blonde held herself tightly against the demon.
(“You go too fast for me, Lilian,” she said simply as she stared at the demon from the passenger seat of the Bentley. The demon was basked in the bright glow of Soho’s neon lights and Kiara was once again struck with a familiar feeling to the one after the torment of Job – the nagging doubt of the Almighty’s Will.)
This wasn’t – was – what she wanted and it was so cruel of the demon to tempt her this way when they were so close to having a life together. To being an Us. In Heaven. Where all their doubts and questions were forgiven.
She loosed her grip and let out a small, pained sob when Lilian broke away. The inches between them felt like a miles-wide chasm. LiLi’s glasses were still on but there was no hiding the plea in her face.
Lilian should know. Kiara didn’t – she couldn’t – she was an angel and she couldn’t be tempted.
“I-I-I ca-“ she cried, barely perceivable before she swallowed the words. Instead, she forced the phrase from her lips. “I forgive you.”
Anger replaced desperation on the demon’s face and then Kiara was faced with coldness.
“Don’t bother,” she growled before she crossed the threshold.
The angel pressed her trembling fingertips to her lips, still stinging from the kiss, and cried.
0 notes
Text
Running out of time
Kiara, Jason - Red Hood AU
Nettles - Cruelty
Kiara moaned weakly as pain blossomed through her body, interrupting the blissful void. She started to shift to her side and curl up into herself, but a hand on her chest stilled her.
“Lie still,” a voice ordered with a firm gentleness. “Too much movement and the bleeding will restart before I’ve had a chance to heal you fully.”
She opened her eyes, her sight blurry and only being able to distinguish a man’s figure. “Sper-sa?” she croaked, relaxing against the bed.
She was safe. Thomas and Ren had found her.
The last thing she remembered was a winged woman with scales. The woman’s lips were stretched in a terrible grin as her claws pierced Kiara’s shoulder, widening as the 19-year-old screamed in pain.
Her eyes started to drift close, the healer’s powers seeping through her body.
“No,” the man answered tersely. “I’m not with SPSRA.”
His hand moved to her side, eliciting a sharp hiss as he pressed against the wound. “Get some rest –“
“Uh uh uhhh,” a painfully familiar voice taunted. Kiara cried out in pain as claws wrapped around her ankle, digging into her porcelain skin. “No sleeping until Vance allows it.”
The healer pinned Kiara against the cot, stilling her thrashing as he glared at the torturer. “Valerie, stop – I can’t keep her alive if you keep ruining my work.”
The pain subsided, but Kiara’s sobs didn’t as she struggled weakly against the weight on her chest
“If you insist,” the woman sighed in disappointment as she retreated beyond the limit of Kiara’s hazy vision.
A string of pleas escaped Kiara’s lips as her struggles faded, her hands tight on Jason’s forearms.
~*~
“I can’t keep doing this, Vance,” Jason snapped as he left the lighted cell. The teenager was unconscious in her cell, drugged beyond any ability to fight or dream.
The blond man sighed in boredom.
“I thought you were capable of anything as long as you got paid,” the mastermind drawled with an arched brow.
Jason frowned, his hands clenched before he hid them inside his pockets.
The teenager grew more delirious each time he revived her, leaving him wondering what her near resurrections were doing to her brain.
“You can amplify my abilities until I resurrect the dead, but you can’t change her body’s immunization to my power,” Jason reminded him. “Every time I heal her, it loses its efficacy. I can already feel the resistance.”
Vance waved him off. “Then she’ll have served her purpose and she won’t be needed anymore. And we won’t have to worry about whether you can heal her.”
The healer frowned at him.
He was only called in when the shadow walker was on the brink of death, the time between his visits growing shorter and shorter. And as of yet, her torturers were limited to Valerie and Amber – a twisted blessing when he knew that the others’ powers would have required more healing.
In any situation, Kiara was running out of time.
0 notes
Last Seen Blogs
stephy-gold
Steph_M&S
naturalbeautytalks
Untitled
fuseum
FUSEUM
juancastan
Juan Castañeda / Fotografía
marsfluffo
mars