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swordmaid · 6 months

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in my hc the noble houses of menzoberranzan operate similarly to the houses in ice and fire where they’re constantly feuding with each other but instead of trying to take the throne/control of the whole realm they’re all fighting for lolth’s favour instead. and because they can’t outright declare war on each other (forgot the reason for why they can’t exactly do that but iirc lolth doesn’t like it?? she loves the drama I guess) and if they rise too quickly lolth casts them down so they have to be cunning about it. not to mention if they stay too long in power and do nothing about it that also displeases the spider queen so the nobility’s game of intrigue is constantly moving and working both for self gain and for self preservation.

shri’iia also plays the game but more of a pawn than a player. she’s not born from any noble house (she’s actually a commoner). the only reason why she has any foot in the game is that she’s taken in by the matriarch of faen tlabbar - one of the houses who fervently worships lolth to the point of zealotry - when they’ve heard word that she—a commoner—have managed to succeed lolth’s trials and gained her blessing. lolth blessings are rare to come and making someone a paladin is even more rare so for a zealot house, that’s a a sign they can’t pass up. so, the house matriarch takes her in and keeps in a tower where she’s supposed to pray and train to lolth day and night. the paladin oath that shri’iia swears is both for lolth and her matriarch; she swears to punish the enemies of her mistresses and forever keep her loyalty to them. her matriarch’s word is an extension to lolth’s will, so to disobey her will be disobeying lolth herself.

and ofc shri’iia being born poor with everything to give and nothing to lose, who thought that there is more to her life than a merchant’s daughter, to be known by the goddess she worship and noticed by one of the most influential houses in the city, swears herself to that oath. she never regretted that choice not even when she’s kept in that tower in complete isolation with her matriarch being the only person she could interact with.

#shri’iia’s backstory to me is like og fairy tale of rapunzel but instead of the witch raising her to be a daughter #the witch raised her to be a very well trained guard dog instead #see I’m just thinking; in a setting where subterfuge is key and the truth is what people is made to believe instead of the actual #factual truth .. the fact that you have a person that no one knows about and is unquestioningly loyal to you that is like your biggest #asset. since she can do everything for you and leave without a trace and no one can link it back to you nor accuse you of being the one #responsible. like in ice and fire she’d be the equivalent of varys’ little birds but she’s only one person lol #anyway does shri’iia develop a toxic codependent relationship with her matriarch? ofc she does #shes trapped in that tower for 100+ years and that’s the only person #not to mention constant isolation can fuck up your mind so ofc she gets obsessed with her. and her matriarch KEEPS her obsessed esp in a #city where you’re not supposed to trust anyone .. her matriarch says that shri’iia is the only person she trusts so ofc she’ll feel special #and this is also why she feels so out of place and paranoid in act 1 events where she gets kidnapped and dropped off on the surface #bc not only that’s her first time being in the surface she also hasn’t gone outside nor interacted with anyone in a long time #and her choice of being compliant and following instead of asserting her own dominance and being a general menace as expected for lolth’s #followers is a survival tactic since she literally doesn’t know what to do or how to go home #and that’s the first choice she had made for herself in so fucking long and that’s what also leads her to her oath breaking #= which is being free from lolth’s dogma and her mistress essentially #anyway I have more thoughts abt this but I’m like … it makes sense.. TO ME ..!

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mintaka14 · 2 years

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This is the last chapter of Don’t Go Down By Carter Hall, my ML/Tam Lin Scottish ballad faery AU. For anyone avoiding such things, things get a little sexy, but in a fadeout kind of a way. Enjoy!

Don’t Go Down By Carter Hall

A Miraculous Ladybug fanfiction

By Mintaka14

Chapter Three – Among the roses red

Luka slumped a little in relief when he finally caught a flash of green, and he stepped into the gap between the buildings before the garden could change its mind. He could only hope that it was because Marinette wanted him there, and not because he’d been staring forlornly at the empty gap for so long, his mind full of Marinette’s song and the scent of roses, that the garden had given way.

Marinette watched him from the other side of the garden as he came towards her, instead of coming to greet him as she usually did.

The rose hedges seemed to crowd him as he crossed the garden, and he wondered idly if they had always been so snarled, or full of thorns. He’d already been scored across the back of his hand by a stray runner, and thorny branches caught at him as he drew closer to Marinette.

His sleeve snagged in the barbs, and there was a nasty ripping sound as he pulled it free. Luka held up his arm, eyeing the tear that now ran the length of his threadbare jumper. Bits of grey thread clung to the thorns, but the rose hedge was unscathed.

He said, “I don’t think your roses like my hoodie much.”

“I could understand why,” Marinette sniffed, and Luka let out a breath that he hadn’t realised he was holding when she spoke to him. “That garment is atrocious.”

“It’s my favourite,” he protested mildly.

Marinette sighed. “At least that’s one thing I can do to repay you.”

He raised an eyebrow, and she nodded impatiently at his hoodie.

“Oh, give it here,” she sighed, holding out a hand, until he’d stripped off his hoodie and handed it to her.

“Is this an excuse to get me out of my clothes?” he teased.

Marinette blushed as rosily as the wild flowers around her. “I’m trying to make sure that it doesn’t fall apart on you.”

He couldn’t tell where she’d drawn the sewing materials from, but she sank down and started stitching at the lapful of frayed material. Luka sat beside her and pulled out his guitar, eyeing the roses, but they didn’t seem inclined to draw his blood anymore.

“Marinette,” he said, and she looked up in surprise at the intensity in his voice. “You know I’m not here for the food, right?”

The answering smile was small, but genuine, in spite of the clouds that still lingered in her eyes. “I know.”

Luka settled down to play every song that he knew she liked best, hoping that she would hear them for the apology they were. He always spoke more eloquently with music than words.

He had no idea how long he’d been sitting there, wrapped up in music and the flash of Marinette’s silver needle, but his fingers were starting to feel a little stiff on the guitar strings when she finally shook out the hoodie and held it up to examine her progress critically. And then he got a proper look at her work, and lost his breath.

“It’ll do,” Marinette said disparagingly, rethreading her needle to stitch closed another ripped seam. “At least it won’t disintegrate now.”

“Marinette, it’s a work of art,” Luka choked.

“Any mortal seamstress could have done as much.”

He looked down at the wild roses that she’d embroidered over the invisible repairs to his hoodie, so delicate and life-like that he could almost smell them. She’d turned the grey fabric into a riotous garden, as pink and red and green as the tangled hedge around them.

“I don’t think so. This is a lot, for just a little music.”

She lifted her eyes to his. ““You really don’t know what a priceless gift your music is to me, do you?” she said a little wonderingly. “It’s worth anything I could give you.” The glance of her blue eyes from under the dark sweep of her lashes was devastating. “Except the roses, not that you want those.”

Oh, he wanted the roses alright, but they were nothing to be bartered or bought or taken.

“What gars ye pull the rose, Jennet?” Luka sang softly, and his fingers plucked out the old Scottish melody on his guitar. “What gars ye break the tree? What gars ye down by Carterhaugh without the leave of me?”

Marinette’s needle had stilled, and she was regarding him seriously.

“That’s a chancy song to sing here,” she said quietly. “Things don’t end well for mortals who sing the old songs in faery places.”

Luka smiled at that, but changed the melody nonetheless, and settled back into the grass to play her anything she asked for.

~~~~~

“You’re here again,” Luka said mildly, flicking a quick glance up at his sister, but he didn’t stop playing.

Juleka was fidgeting in the doorway, but eventually she came in. Her face was turning an interesting shade of red behind the curtain of her dark hair, and she mumbled, “I’ve got a date.”

“Rose?” he asked. The way that she ducked her head was all the answer he needed. “Do I need to give her the big brother speech? Ask her what her intentions are?”

“Don’t you dare,” Juleka growled.

He grinned, but didn’t tease her any more about it. Instead, he turned his attention back to his guitar, wandering from one idle tune into another. He found himself drifting into the chording for the old ballad that had disturbed Marinette, and after a few bars, he looked up to find Juleka still there, frowning at him.

“I haven’t heard you play Tam Lin in a while, not since we were kids. What brought that on?”

“Just… thinking.”

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Juleka snorted, and frowned as something caught her eye. Her hand shot out to snag his arm, bringing the ballad to a halt in a jangle of misplayed chords.

“Hey!” he complained, but his sister was staring at the embroidered flowers winding their way around his newly repaired sleeve.

“Oh, wow, who the hell did that?”

“None of your business.” He prised her fingers off his arm, but Juleka wasn’t letting it go.

“Oh my god, it’s serious, isn’t it? She fed you, and now she’s fixed up your hoodie for you. You let her! I’ve been trying to get you to do something with that godawful thing for ages, and whoever this girl is, she’s covered it in roses, and you don’t even seem to mind.”

“I like them,” he muttered, and his sister pointed an accusing finger at him.

“And you were giving me shit. At least you’ve met Rose, and I don’t even know who this girl is. Please tell me it’s not that bitch in the drama club who’s been telling everyone that you’re desperate for her.”

Luka rolled his eyes. “Give me some credit.”

“Your mystery girl must be really something to knock you on your ass like this.”

“She’s…” Kind and creative, fascinating, complicated and sincere. Fey. The way her mind worked had him spellbound, but no words that Luka could come up with could ever do Marinette justice.

“I look into her eyes, and… I hear music,” he said helplessly.

“Jeez, you may be a genius when it comes to music, but you are not a lyricist, are you?”

Somewhere out in the hallway, Rose called Juleka’s name, and his sister’s head whipped around. An uncharacteristically beatific smile swept over her face at the sound of Rose’s voice. Luka raised an eyebrow at her reaction, and the heat crept up Juleka’s cheeks again.

She muttered, “At least I’m not going to spend the whole night alone with my guitar and a repertoire of sappy songs,” and disappeared out the door to meet Rose before Luka could respond.

She wasn’t entirely wrong, Luka reflected wryly. He went back to tinkering with the ballad, humming the melody under his breath.

Thomas the Rhymer… Tam Lin… All the old ballads he’d grown up with, especially when his Ma had been feeling homesick, were full of dire warnings about what befell mortal men who caught the eye of a faery woman, but seven years in fair elfland with Marinette didn’t sound like such a bad thing, and try as he might, he could not imagine Marinette offering him, or anyone else, up as a tithe to hell. For the sake of those blue eyes of hers, and that glorious smile, he’d be willing to risk it, if she’d have him.

He found himself singing softly about the meeting among the roses between mortal and fey, and what it had led to.

“And he laid the lady down among the roses red –“ Luka broke off, and after a moment he set aside his guitar and the song. These were not wise thoughts to be dwelling on.

In spite of his best intentions, though, he lay awake a long time that night with fantasies of roses and blue eyes teasing at him, and when he finally fell asleep, the melody followed him down into his dreams and left him wrecked by the morning.

~~~~~

Marinette was distracted, chewing on her lip. Her conversation had grown steadily more disjointed, and Luka was fairly sure that she hadn’t heard much of what he’d said.

Eventually, he glanced up at her, and said, “If you need to talk about whatever’s on your mind, I’m here. Or we don’t have to say anything, if you prefer.”

Her blue eyes met his hesitantly at that, and she drew in a slow breath, letting it out again.

Finally, she said, “What…” but the word trailed off. She tried again. “What did you mean when you said the roses were fine where they are? Why don’t you want to pick them? Don’t you find… them… desirable?”

Luka looked up from the tune he’d been playing and raised an eyebrow.

“Because you asked me not to. And I know the stories, Ma sang me those songs in my cradle. I know what picking those roses means. That’s not something I’ll take or force from you, not ever.”

Marinette’s lips parted at that, those impossibly long dark lashes of hers sweeping up with heart-stopping effect as he put aside his guitar and came to his feet. There was something like a breathless kind of hope in the endless blue of her eyes.

“And what if you have my leave to gather the roses? What if I want you to?” she asked softly.

Luka felt his breath catch in his throat at the thought, but he managed to say lightly, “Then that’s an entirely different matter.”

Marinette reached out and touched her fingertips to the back of his hand. Slowly, carefully, with her eyes on him the whole time as if she was waiting for him to pull away, she slid her fingers between his, and lifted them towards the green tangle of the hedge. He let her curl his hand around one of the roses.

Luka felt a tiny thorn bite into his palm as the stem broke.

“Oh no!” she said, her eyes widening in disingenuous dismay. “You picked a rose, and now you have to pay the forfeit.”

Luka laughed. “And what forfeit would that be?”

She bit her lip. “Your songs.”

“I can’t give you those – they’re already yours.”

She glanced down at his hand. “Your ring.”

He looked down at the cheap ring he’d picked up at the student markets one day, because he’d kind of liked it.

“No,” he said slowly, “I can’t give you that.”

“Then… yourself,” she whispered, moving closer until her breath was soft on his mouth.

“That you can have, body and soul,” he agreed, and closed the gap to finally kiss her.

The rose fell from their hands, unheeded, as her other hand caught in his hair, and everything faded away but the feel of Marinette in his arms and the taste of her kiss, sweeter than strawberries, sweeter than roses. When her hands slid down to push the old grey hoodie from his shoulders, he helped her, and the rest of their clothes were stripped away eagerly as they tumbled down into the waiting grass, among the wild red roses. The sounds she made were the sweetest music he’d ever heard.

They lay together a long time afterwards, his bare skin stained by the grass they’d crushed under them, and Marinette in his arms. He brushed back a lock of silky dark hair and pressed his lips to the top of her head.

She lifted her head to look at him, but when he leaned in to kiss her, she pulled back slightly.

“Be careful,” she teased, but there was a note of warning in her laugh. “Kiss me again, and you’re mine for seven years.”

Luka answered her by pushing himself up on one elbow to kiss her again, his fingers tangling in her dark hair.

“Marinette,” he breathed against her parted lips, “I’ve been yours from the moment I saw you. You can have a lot more than seven years from me.”

They were both dazed and rather breathless by the time they came up for air.

“You know,” Luka said speculatively, and his voice was still a little ragged. “There are a lot of roses in this garden.”

Marinette giggled softly, and propped herself up on his chest. Those devastating blue eyes of hers blinked at him.

“And what do you plan to do about that?” she challenged.

Luka reached out his free arm blindly until he felt soft petals under his fingertips, and he gently broke the stem beneath them.

“Oh no, I picked another rose. I’ll just have to pay the forfeit.”

Marinette’s giggle became a full-blown laugh.

“There are always more, you know.”

“I certainly hope so,” he said fervently.

~~~~~

Juleka looked up at the unexpected knock, and frowned at her brother leaning against the doorframe of her dorm room, his guitar slung across his back. He didn’t seem phased by her expression.

“What are you doing here?”

“Missing my baby sister,” he teased.

“Bite me.”

She saw his eyes flicker to her neck, and, before she could stop herself, she self-consciously tugged her collar up over the red mark there and waited for him to say something about bites and Rose, at which point she would have to kill him. He gave her a soft, pensive smile, which was almost more disconcerting.

“I just wanted to let you know, I may be away for a while.”

Juleka was a Couffaine, and so she eyed her brother narrowly, and simply asked, “How long is a while?”

Luka shrugged. “Don’t know yet. I just wanted to let you know I wouldn’t be around for a while. Might be a long while.”

“What have you got yourself into now, dumbass?”

“Your faith in me is touching.”

“Is it that girl?”

Instead of answering, he bent and engulfed her in a quick, warm hug. “Love you, you pain the ass. I’ll be back when I can, but don’t look for me.”

Juleka sat there, frowning at the doorway for a long moment after he’d gone, and then she swung herself to her feet just as her roommate came in.

“Was that your brother in the hall?” the girl asked. “Why didn’t you tell me he was a hottie? You have to introduce me.”

Juleka ignored the twit, and snatched up her coat, flinging it on as she strode out the door and headed for Carter Hall.

She rounded the corner just in time to see a flash of green, and her brother striding with the ease of familiarity between the narrow gap between the engineering faculty and the concert hall into a garden that she knew hadn’t been there a moment ago. She reached the gap just as he lifted a hand in greeting to someone in the garden.

The dark-haired woman who came forward to meet him in response could have been formed of the blue sky and wild roses. She moved across the grasses with a light tread and a smile that was brighter than the stars, and her eyes were all for Juleka’s brother.

“What are you doing, dumbass?” Juleka called out, and her voice sounded unexpectedly loud and sharp in the enchanted tranquillity. “Didn’t Ma teach you better than to just wander into a faery circle?”

The fey woman met her eyes across the wild span of the garden, and Juleka suddenly got what her brother had meant.

“You’re his sister,” the faery said softly, then, a little wistfully, “Are you here to claim him back?”

Luka glared at his sister. “Don’t you dare!”

“You think I want to claim you?” Juleka shot back. She met the faery’s eyes again, and shrugged. “You fed him, you’re stuck with him now.”

Luka bent to say something softly to the faery, and Juleka saw the way her blue eyes lifted to his as she reached up to touch her fingertips to his cheek. Luka’s hand came up to cover hers as he turned his head and pressed his lips to her palm.

Juleka was starting to feel uncomfortably like a voyeur, before he turned and strode back across the garden to his sister.

Yeah, he wasn’t coming back to the university again.

“Are you really going to do this?” Juleka asked when he drew close enough.

She felt her brother’s arms tighten around her, and she leaned into the hug.

“If Rose actually was a manic pixie instead of just acting like one, wouldn’t you?”

“In a heartbeat,” Juleka muttered into his shoulder, and hugged him harder for one moment before she let him go. “I guess it’s not any weirder than some of the places Ma’s been. At least you’re technically still on campus.”

Another thought occurred to her. “Can I have your dorm room?”

Luka grinned at her, and said, “You don’t want to move into Rose’s dorm? Look after yourself, monster child. And tell Ma, when she comes back from… wherever it is she went.”

“I don’t think she’s going to be that surprised,” Juleka told him, “when I tell her you finally got yourself abducted by the fair folk.”

Luka shot a look over his shoulder to where Marinette was waiting for him, and Juleka watched his grin melt into an expression of dopey besottedness.

“The fairest,” he sighed happily.

With that, Luka shouldered his guitar, reached out a hand to his faery love, and stepped out of the mortal world.

~~~~~

From time to time after that, Luka would turn up out of the blue, his guitar slung across his back and looking not a day older, except for his deep blue eyes full of laughter and secrets. There would be strange gifts for his sister and Rose and their daughters, exquisitely stitched and wonderfully embroidered, and stranger songs that pulled at the heart long after he was gone again.

And every time Juleka’s daughters begged her for their favourite bedtime story, Juleka would tell them about their dumbass Uncle Luka who stepped into a fey circle for a free meal, and followed his music and his heart into faeryland.

#lukanette #pro lukamari #ML AU #music student Luka #faery Marinette #tam lin #fairy tales #if you give a Couffaine a pastry #he's yours for life #pick the roses entirely at your own discretion #don't go down by carter hall

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