Ammeh

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[dimilethfever]

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[dimilethfever]

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This is an AO3 fanworks exchange for the ship Dimitri/Byleth from Fire Emblem Three Houses and Fire Emblem Three Hopes. All versions of Dimileth are welcome - when signing up, you can specify what version(s) of Byleths you'd like to create and receive, as well as what ratings and tropes/genres you're interested in.

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[kariniarts]

My Beloved

[ammeh7]

Dusting this off after *checks* three years... I have written a shitton, been neck-deep in FE3H fandom, and expect to remain so! Fic post backlog coming up.

[ammeh7]

7KPP Week 2019 - Day 7

Happily Ever After??? (Angst || Fluff)

Both prompts this time! I was going to just do the doll for the “Angst” side of the prompt, but I felt bad enough to write a “Fluff” ficlet to go with it.

For angst: 

Early-widow!Everly

And because that is NOT AT ALL my actual headcanon for how Clarmont and Everly turn out, a fluffy divergence to go with:

“Oh! She opened her eyes!”

Clarmont, who’s scarcely left the room since the birth, drops the papers he’s been working through and hurries to where she’s seated, resting a hand on her back and leaning down to smile at the infant in her arms.

She follows him with wide, shockingly blue eyes, gives a tiny yawn and blinks as he talks nonsense to her.

It feels strange not to have a name for her, but it’s tradition in Revaire to wait at least a month. Give the name to a person, they’d explained it.

“Elspeth’s eyes were that same color, after she was born,” he says, voice choked with emotion.

Elspeth. That’s a strong contender, then. She runs a gentle finger over their baby’s cheek. “Do you think…”

“Maybe. She’s only a day old yet, plenty of time to decide.” He strokes her back. “Did you have any thoughts?”

She blushes. “Silly ones.”

“I doubt that.”

“‘Clarity’ definitely counts as silly,” she insists, shifting the baby to the breast she’s clearly starting to look for. “People would call for ‘Clar’ and neither of you would know which of you they were asking for. ‘Liberty’ is…”

“Not silly.”

“Perhaps not. Very Arlish, though.”

“You say that like it’s a negative. You should keep your culture—or as much of it as you want to.”

Part of her pushes the idea away, says a good princess assimilates completely to her husband’s culture. She’s pretty sure it’s the same part of her that feels a twinge of guilt for giving Clarmont a daughter and not a son. She’s been trying not to listen to it, but it’s difficult.

“Your name is a bit atypical, isn’t it?” he continues. “For the royal family?”

“I’m told that only one small kindness spared me from being named Everlasting Faith,” she chuckles, ignoring the way her sore body aches even with that slight punch of air. “The quill was on the page to record my name in the royal house of Arland when my wet nurse convinced Mother it was too much of a mouthful.”

He laughs. “Had they already gotten to the ‘L’?”

“I’ve never gotten a satisfactory answer on that!” she says. “So probably.”

That mishap alone is a strong reason to go with the Revairan tradition of waiting a few weeks, she thinks.

But she’ll keep “Liberty” in the running for now.

(No I definitely didn’t just make the fic about the fact that I couldn’t decide on a name for the baby what are you talking about.)

[ammeh7]

7KPP Week 2019 - Day 6

The Road Not Taken || Alternate Universes

This is always her problem, falling in love too easily.

Most of the same country pairings don’t have much draw to me, but I have a major thing for Court Lady/Zarad. Shahira’s (an evolution of) my very first PC so I never actually considered it before she became canonically on Hamin’s path, because I was firmly Here For The Politics, but I think they’d have fit really well together. 

I plan on doing an official Court Lady/Zarad playthrough someday, but for now, have some navel-gazing.

She’s getting on the boat to return to Corval and hoping she’ll feel done with it by the time she leaves again.

She could have been going back for good, but she isn’t. She could have said Prince Zarad’s name to the Matchmaker, but she didn’t.

There’s still a part of her that wants it, wants what it would mean. To have her mother just down the hall, to see how beautiful Constance’s smiles might become without the weight dragging her down.

She’s not sure if it’s the same part of her that hesitated a heartbeat before answering the Matchmaker, the breath that caught in her chest at a man she knew far better than to get involved with.

They would have been terrifying together.

-

This is always her problem, falling in love too easily.

She’s twelve and stifling tears in a corner, and the second prince stops with a comforting word and a tip that will help her out of the pickle she’s in. “No favors owed,” he says with a parting smile. Her thoughts are occupied for months with how kind he is, how handsome, how very out of her league and adult.

She’s fourteen and hoping she might end up so lucky as to marry the boy who danced with her at the ball last night, the one she talked with for hours. When he asks her to ensure a strange vial makes its way into the teacup of one of her mother’s friends a few weeks later, she doesn’t want to believe it—and doesn’t hide her reaction well enough. That evening is the first time someone tries to kill her.

She’s sixteen and she’s finally managed to make Constance laugh. The sound startles her with how gorgeous it is, clear and joyful and perfect, and the bottom falls out of her stomach. The moment crystalizes in her mind, the way Constance’s eyes crinkle up at the corners, the way her lips are split into a proper grin, not just a smile. She’ll think of it for years, even after she’s managed many repeat performances. Sometimes it feels like her head is completely filled with thinking of ways to make Constance happy, with how lovely she is, how sweet, how brave, how privately funny. How…married, and interested in men.

She’s twenty-two and she sees something in the third prince’s eyes she wasn’t expecting, something that makes her want to keep looking. And for the first time, she can’t tell herself there’s no way it could happen. If they weren’t at the Summit, she couldn’t even have called it a bad idea.

(No, that’s a lie, she could have, but she knows she’s more than capable of handling a few jealousy-fueled assassination attempts.)

She’s twenty-two and trying to make a good impression for her country, only to find herself drowning in green eyes and a mischievous grin. It’s disorienting to talk to someone who’s so…genuine. Normally she associates being so open with a lack of astuteness, but she finds in Hamin a strange mix of cunning and candor that she’s never encountered.

She thinks she likes it.

Politically, it’s an amazing match. The best she could do, most likely (if peace is her goal, which it is). She’ll tell herself later that was what sealed her decision, not the fact that his smile somehow whisks her back to that magical moment when she saw the sea for the first time.

But she hesitated, and she still isn’t sure why.

-

She would have liked to get to know him better. She’ll probably never have the chance now, and maybe that’s what she regrets.

She doesn’t know if that’s it, though, doesn’t know if the part of her that hesitated, the part that thinks about staying, wanted him, or Constance, or family, or even Corval Court itself. The verbal dances, the balancing of favors, the constant racing calculations in the back of her mind over what to say, who to trust. The exhilaration of getting it right.

It was suffocating and yet she knows when she’s gone she’ll miss it like air.

The happiest moments in her life, though, have been those where she felt free—slipping her handlers and gazing out on the sea with wonder, introducing Constance to a city she herself knew mostly through servants’ tales and carriage windows, nearly tripping over her skirts to keep up with Hamin on a wild exploration of the castle.

She just…wishes there were some way she could have all of it.

-

The ship starts to move, carrying with it a firm sense of finality.

Hamin waves at her from the pier, and her heart skips a little in her chest.

She smiles.

I feel kind of guilty for giving her these doubts, but 7 weeks is a really short time to go from strangers to engaged. It’d be weird if she didn’t have any, I think.

(I also feel kind of guilty about using Court Lady’s week 4 date with Emmett to fuel my Court Lady/Hamin shipping, but it’s just too perfect.)

[ammeh7]

7KPP Week 2019 - Day 5

A Day of Friendships || A Romance for the Ages

By “a romance for the ages” I of course refer to the game’s One True Pairing of Narrator/Jasper.

This fic probably needed to be at least twice as long as I actually had time to make it, and it’s glaringly obvious that I wrote most of Week 5 Day 4 before a lot of the rest of it, but I figured I’d post the thing anyway and maybe go back and fix it up at some point in the future.

Summary: The narrator wants to vicariously kiss Jasper, but MC has a thing for morally dubious princesses.

Warning: Contains huge spoilers for weeks 4 and 5 of the extended demo

The narrator is some sort of Historian-affiliated spirit thing here, but the specifics are left deliberately ambiguous.

Lady Rosaline was made up for the story, since my Gisette-mancer is immoral and I wanted an ethical one for this fic. She could be any 75-manip-compatible background.

This contains several snippets copied directly from the game; I don’t take credit for those!

You can hear me.

Granted, only when you’re half-asleep, but that’s better than I can do with anyone else.

I can hear you, too—or rather, hear you thinking to yourself—which makes discerning your motivations so much easier.

And you’re special. It’s practically a giant sign over your head, screaming “Stuff! Happen over here!”

Most importantly, Jasper’s your butler.

I’ve decided. You’re the one I’m recording this Summit.

--

Week 1, Day 0

As you drift off to sleep, you contemplate how unbelievably attractive everyone you met at the Welcome Feast was.

It’s a good problem to have, right? And you certainly charmed everyone you met. But as long as we’re discussing unbelievably attractive people: have you seen your butler?

Yes? Okay, good.

--

Week 1, Day 4

“I hope all our encounters can continue being so mutually pleasing, Lady Rosaline.”

A spike of want runs through you. You can’t wait for the next time the two of you meet.

Really? Character assassination does it for you?

--

Week 1, Day 6

More than hijinks, sparring, nature walks, or intellectual debates?

--

Week 1, Day 7

“I think there’s someone who might become special.”

Oh? Really? I hope for your sake they are thinking the same.

It’s Princess Gisette, isn’t it. You have terrible taste. Didn’t you see your gorgeous butler? Or the warrior princess who’s completely besotted with you? The dashing pirate? The thoughtful Revairan lord? Your adorable blushing maid? Did I mention your gorgeous butler? Or pretty much any person besides the one who faked you out with a supposedly private invitation and then tried to manipulate you into slandering an innocent woman?

It could be worse, I suppose. You could have an eye for her brother.

--

Week 2, Day 5

“I think I would regret it if you were to become a ghost in truth.”

She gives you a soulful look, her blue-violet eyes pulling you in, despite not being the true, gorgeous purple you’ve seen on some of the Isle natives. Such as Jasper.

“Not nearly so much as I would!” You smile at her, not even contemplating how much more purple her eyes could be.

Sigh.

--

Week 3, Day 2

Jasper has indisputably won the gift-giving competition, but you’re really fixated on that perfume.

She didn’t even pick it out for you! She picked it out for herself! It was probably just a spare bottle she brought in her luggage!

Yes, it’s expensive, but…

Augh.

--

Week 3, Day 3

Exhausted from herding quarrelsome children at dinner, you drift off to sleep.

There are no assassins around. Nothing noteworthy is going to happen with you for the next seven hours, at least.

Yay!

Across the castle, Jasper is finishing a journal entry, recording dutifully. He’s taken off his jacket and is sitting in his vest, looking enticingly exposed despite not showing an inch more skin than normal. There’s a hint of tiredness around his eyes, but his face is still almost inhumanly perfect.

With a neat flourish, he ends his entry. He pulls off his writing gloves to reveal his long, slender fingers before sprinkling the page with sand to dry it and shaking it off.

He closes the journal, then stands, sticking a finger in his cravat loosen it.

Oh my.

I probably shouldn’t be here. (I might have had to extrapolate the rules of my existence myself, but I’m pretty confident I’m supposed to be watching the actors. And probably not spying on people undressing.)

He removes his cravat and unbuttons his waistcoat, hanging them up neatly. He starts to unbutton his shirt, revealing his pale collarbone, and…I’m being creepy. Sigh.

(See, if you were here, this would be history and not voyeurism!)

I return. You sleep for the next eight hours, rolling over a few times. At one point you scratch your nose.

Absolutely scintillating.

--

Week 3, Day 5

Jasper has been investigating the plot against you, like the darling he is.

You remember an incident you observed last week, with that same type of easily missed servant and Princess Gisette.

…Yes, if that was the story it makes sense. Especially knowing Gisette and her family’s reputation.

“Lady Rosaline, what is it?”

“Nothing, Jasper. It’s nothing. Thank you for your help, and your investigation. I appreciate it.”

You don’t really, though. You can’t truly appreciate what this means for him, how he struggled with this. What devotion.

Somehow, the discovery that Gisette was behind your accident last week doesn’t seem to be putting you off. In fact, I think it’s piqued your interest.

You make no sense.

--

Week 3, Day 7

“I hope you will keep something similar in mind, Princess.”

You continue onto the Matchmaker with a dreamy internal smile, not at all bothered by the fact that she just sent your poor butler on a run-around errand because she decided to procrastinate until the last minute with her love confessions.

Granted, he…apparently procrastinates even more, but despite having just received a regular barrage of clandestine proposals, you fail to recognize his advice for the heartfelt confession that it is.

If you’d just reject it, I could live with that, but how oblivious can you be?

You proceed to lie shamelessly about plans for a political marriage to the Matchmaker. She’s totally onto you, I hope you realize.

--

Week 3, Day 7

Gisette gives you a studying look from across the room. It’s a lot like the look she gave you right after she tried to murder you. Last week.

Are you really sure about this?

You manage to meet her gaze and then give her a significant smile and nod of your own.

Apparently.

--

Week 4, Day 3

You bask in Princess Gisette’s lap, drinking in her condolences about the terrible burden on you this week.

If you would pause a moment to consider the irony, you might remember that you’ve deduced this burden is all her fault in the first place, and also how tragic you found the death of that fellow she murdered, but you apparently haven’t reached that level of self-awareness.

You at least remember that she also tried to murder you, but you’ve apparently decided to let that slide.

Not for the first time, I question your self-preservation instinct.

--

Week 5, Day 2

Jasper wipes your fingers carefully, attempting to gently remove the ink.

When he is satisfied it is clean he stares at your hand for a moment, as if lost in thought. It is only a lapse of a moment though, before he returns to himself and releases your hand from his grip with a start.

“Forgive me, Lady Rosaline.”

“Jasper—”

“I should go. I have other duties to attend to.”

Despite your surprised protests, he hurries off, leaving you alone with your newly finished letter.

“—you really need to get more sleep,” you finish, to the empty air. You read once more over your letter to home, plans already forming in the back of your mind for your return.

Sleep? How could you not see the pining there? The repressed longing? How could you not melt into goo over the yearning devotion in his eyes?

How could you not want to stay?

Your maids help you undress for bed, and you doze off happily, oblivious to the fact that you’re totally doing Katyia’s Legacy wrong.

--

Week 5, Day 4

Jasper sets down your breakfast tray, both he and the breakfast as mouth-watering as always. “Let’s go over your schedule for the day, Lady Rosaline.”

You groan inwardly at the businesslike tone in his voice. Today’s going to be a busy one.

“There’s a rehearsal scheduled this afternoon, for the three hours before dinner. You’ll obviously be expected to attend that. Given that you have a leading role, you may also want to reserve some additional time to go over your lines.”

You perk up at that, looking forward to the opportunity to see Gisette. Perhaps you could even arrange some time alone together under the pretense of practicing your Serah-Vienna scenes.

“You’ve received a last-minute invitation to a tea arranged by one of the delegates from Wellin, Lady Petunia.”

You shake your head. You’ve met Lady Petunia, she’s a dreadful bore. More importantly, she’s not nearly fashionable enough for Gisette to attend her teas.

“You’ve also received an invitation to a group luncheon from Lady Aria of Revaire, as a thank you for the tea you hosted last week. Given your role in the theatrical this week, I believe you can decline without causing offense, should you wish to. Lastly, with the upcoming ball, I believe it would be wise for you to work on your dancing. I would be happy to assist you in that area.”

Lady Aria rarely says anything of substance, but on the other hand, she spends a great deal of time with Princess Gisette.

Do you really want to choose an hour of empty-headed prattle where you may or may not be able to watch Gisette from across the table over dancing with Jasper?

“I’d rather not risk offending Lady Aria. She was a great help to my investigations last week.”

(Yes. Yes, apparently you do.)

“Very well. You should still have some free time after dinner and before the luncheon, which you could spend on dancing, private rehearsal, or something else.”

“I should take some time after the rehearsal to go over the scenes I had trouble with. Perhaps Lord Clarmont or Princess Gisette might even be available this evening to go over some of our scenes.”

Jasper’s eyes widen in alarm, though it does little to disrupt the sheer perfection of his features. “My lady, meeting privately with a man you have not been matched with to rehearse romance scenes would…invite comment.”

You knew that. Etiquette might not be one of your strong suits, but you’re not that oblivious.

“I thought we might be able to find someone to chaperone, but…you’re right, it will be best if I only ask Princess Gisette. I have just as many scenes with her anyway.”

You shrug, as if it doesn’t matter to you one way or the other, pleased to have an excuse for some time alone with Gisette.

“That still leaves this morning. I’m afraid I won’t be available to help you practice your dancing in the hours between now and your luncheon.”

“Perhaps another time. I can practice by myself in the ballroom for today.”

--

You spend some time dancing around in the ballroom. There’s something about this room, because by spending time in it you can feel your natural charisma increasing.

(Perhaps if you practiced with your butler, instead of trying to look alluring for yourself in the mirror, you’d actually manage to improve your grace and not just your personal magnetism.)

--

Gisette is not at the luncheon, which turns out to be a dreadful waste of a couple hours. (Just think, you could have been dancing with Jasper.) By the time the designated hour for the rehearsal rolls around, you are practically tripping over your skirts in your haste to escape.

--

“But Vienna,” you sigh, “how could I possibly trust in his intentions after my most faithful maid saw Lady Matterly leaving his chambers?”

“Sweet girl,” Gisette rests her hand on your back, a waft of sweet perfume teasing your senses. “I know you trust your maid dearly, but you must admit she is…prone to misjudgments. Confront Sir Horus, find his version of the story. He is not a man who would be able to lie under pressure. Not like Prince Armand.”

You turn to face Gisette, clasping her elegant hand between your own. “Oh, but Prince Armand cares for you dearly! I’ve seen the look in his eyes when he watches you across the room. He may be a man who talks all around what he means—not unlike yourself, dear cousin—but I am convinced his affection for you is true.”

“Lady Rosaline!” Lady Avalie is suddenly standing next to the pair of you. “You’re turning your back to the audience.”

Right. You release Gisette’s hand, masking your reluctance to do so. “I don’t think it works for Serah to deliver that line with her back to Vienna. Princess, perhaps if you came around?”

You try a few things, but don’t quite get it right by the time Prince Zarad and Lord Clarmont have finished and it’s time to switch scenes.

“Princess, would you have some time to spare this evening to see if we can get that scene figured out?” You smile apologetically, as if you’re sorry for the bother.

She gives you a coolly assessing look, but you can detect a glimmer of amusement in her eyes. “I had some time planned to review my lines. I suppose we could use it to work on our joint scenes, Lady Rosaline.”

--

After dinner, Gisette knocks on your door, script in hand. “I hope now is a good time to work on our scenes, Lady Rosaline,” she says sweetly, just loud enough to be overheard.

You happily invite her in.

“I admit, Rosaline, I initially found the idea of this theatrical quite a bother, but I’m coming to appreciate its hidden charms,” she says, smiling languidly at you.

You look around for a suitable chair, and land on the one you were sat in yesterday when Jasper so lovingly wiped the ink off your fingers. Without sparing that tender moment a passing thought, you sit and run through your positioning a few times until you have it figured out.

“I confess,” Gisette smiles, “I’m not entirely confident in the scene before the ball, either.”

--

“Oh, Vienna!” you cry, taking Gisette’s hands in both of your own. “I fear I shall never find love!” You clasp your joined hands dramatically to your bosom.

“A lady should hope never to…” Gisette cuts off in the middle of her character’s quip, shaking her head with a smile teasing at her lips. “Really, my dear? I suspect the audience might notice if you have me grope you onstage.”

You grin unabashedly, releasing her hands. “My apologies. I was caught up in the drama of the moment.”

Okay, you’re kind of cute together. When she’s not planning your death.

--

“You did not see the so-called ‘love poem’ he sent me, Serah. It contained the most lurid descriptions of my—”

At this point, Serah’s maid is supposed to burst into the room and interrupt, but it’s just the two of you.

She’s standing where Jasper normally does when he’s going over your schedule in the morning. Your eyes meet, tension simmering between you.

You raise an eyebrow, smirking. “Have you ever gotten a particularly terrible poem from a suitor, Gisette? I received one at seventeen that compared my teeth to his mother’s china.”

She tilts her head in thought, her pale hair catching the candlelight without the ethereal pearly shimmer that Jasper’s hair gets in the same light.

“Nothing so terrible as what was recited at that charming little evening you hosted, but there have been a few gems.” She smirks, takes one of your hands in hers and looks deeply into your eyes. “O lovely moon, I beseech you to shine on me eternally, eclipse me in your violet pits…"

You giggle.

“He was so proud of his work that he recited it in person. On one knee. And his father was too important an ally to offend, so I had to smile through all twenty verses.” She wrinkles her nose. “It was all I could do not to gag. But enough of such odious recollections, my dear. I have a rare moment alone with you.” She strokes her fingers over your wrist, not releasing your hand.

“And what would you like to do with it?” you purr.

“Oh,” she smiles slowly, like a cat basking in the sun, “I have a few ideas.”

She steps closer. Her long, cool fingers stroke along your jaw, and she cups the side of your face, her soft lips closing over yours. She kisses you passionately, releasing your hand to bring her other hand to your waist.

You wrap your arms around her, drawing her as tight as you can without mussing her exquisite coiffure. Your mouths melt into each other, her body feeling almost fragile under your hands.

(I wanted to vicariously kiss Jasper, but… this is nice.)

You finally, reluctantly, release each other, and you blush as you realize that you weren’t entirely successful in your quest to avoid disheveling her hair. You were not emotionally prepared for her to pull your lower lip between her teeth like that.

“Let me…” you grab a hairbrush from your dresser.

She raises an eyebrow, looking herself over in the mirror and giving you a fondly exasperated look before taking a seat on your dressing stool. “I shouldn’t give you a hard time. You’re more of a sight than I am.”

You peer over her shoulder into the mirror to find your hair falling out of its twist, bodice off-kilter, cheeks flushed, and lips red and slightly swollen.

“Whoops.” You adjust your bodice and hastily tuck the wayward strands of hair into place. The rest you’ll just have to wait out. “How do I look, cousin?” you tease, sliding a hand into her pale blonde tresses and catching a lock to smooth with the brush.

“Like perfection itself, my dear.” She doesn’t finish the line, tilting her head back languidly and luxuriating under your touch. Hints of the fragrant oils she uses waft up to you as you stroke the brush through her hair.

Once you’ve brushed every lock into place and then some, and can’t really justify drawing it out any further, you twist the strands she had pinned behind her head back into place and replace her hair clip.

She stands, smiling regretfully. “Our time together is always far too short. Until next time, Rosaline.”

With a parting kiss, she picks up her script and departs, leaving you with the trace of her perfume and lips that still feel warm.

--

Week 7, Day 8

As your ship becomes a speck on the horizon, it feels strange to be idle again. It’s been a long time.

Jasper stands at a window in one of the towers, watching you go, a hint of resigned melancholy in his eyes.

I couldn’t do anything for him. Again.

I know he can’t feel me, not like you could, but I concentrate on all my good feelings, all my esteem, all the love I was hoping you’d be the one to give him for me.

It’s so quick, I might’ve imagined it, but for a moment, a hint of a smile flickers across his face.

I don’t know if anyone like you is going to come around again, but…I can always hope, right?

Jasper turns away from the window, heads back down to help with getting the castle out of the state of disarray that sixty entitled visitors always manage to get it into.

And I?

I wait.

My apologies for how glaringly this fic needed to be twice as long and several times more edited. 

I might go back and flesh it out more once I can write about weeks 6/7!

[ammeh7]

7KPP Week 2019 - Day 4

Letters || Learning

When you were 15 your schedule became so filled, your parents insisted you only had time to continue studies with one of your tutors. 

One of my headcanons about my nerdy SP Ambrine is that going into the Summit, she’s best known internationally for having broken down crying when her parents made her give up her tutors at 15 (the other countries clearly have Opinions on how Arland treats its women, royal tutors were certainly often important enough to go back and spread gossip in their home courts, and who could resist the urge to gossip about how tragic and oppressive your termination was?), so I just had to write that scene for the Learning prompt!

“But—” This can’t be happening. All of them?

Her father shakes his head. “I won’t repeat myself, Ambrine. We’ve indulged you on this, but you need to focus your attention on matters that will prove useful to your future nation.”

“As a Princess of Arland, there are certain expectations you need to meet,” her mother adds. “Expectations that we have been remiss in allowing you to neglect. At your age, Constance was far more prepared for marriage.”

She understands everything they’re not saying aloud. She has a great deal to compensate for—she’s taller than is considered becoming of a lady, of a height with some of the men in her father’s court. Her face has been called expressive, pleasant, even handsome, but never beautiful or pretty by any but the most transparent of sycophants. Her waist-length curls look lovely when her maids have finished with her, but muss up at the slightest provocation.

She knows the steps to all the formal dances, but she can’t flow into them, can’t float across a room or make artistry of her motions. She knows all the polite little things to say in conversation, but she sometimes catches herself staring off into space, and it doesn’t matter that she can repeat their last several sentences verbatim, people think she’s ignoring them. Sometimes she even is, her mind running off without her consent.

She’s too forward, has been told that her attempts at being charming cross some inscrutable line into flirtatious. Sometimes she talks too long, or makes leaps in conversation that only make sense to her. At times she misses cues that everyone else seems perfectly capable of reading, and blurts something out at the wrong time, or stands around like an idiot because she didn’t realize she was supposed to leave.

But surely she can improve on all that without giving up all her tutors.

“I—of course I’ll gladly learn whatever skills I need to fulfill my duty,” she says. “But—is it truly necessary that I completely abandon my other lessons to do so? Being well-rounded would surely make me a more appealing bride. I’m certain we could reduce the length or frequency of my current lessons—” she looks over at her tutors, gathered off to the side, for confirmation, and gets some encouraging nods. “It would force me to learn to accomplish more with my time, which is a skill I’m sure would serve me and my future household well.”

The idea of giving up all her lessons is horrifying. Her math tutor, Lady Sumie, has been teaching her the most beautiful patterns with shapes, how to calculate all sorts of measurements from the merest scraps of information. She’d promised that next they’d move onto the art of formal proofs practiced in Jiyel, had already sent for books on the topic. Her ethics and philosophy instructor, Sir Vincent, has lately taken to holding their lessons in the form of lively debates that leave her energized for hours.

Perhaps she can learn from books about the period where Corval split from the old Revairan empire, but her history tutor Mistress Pembrey brings so much more life to the telling. There are entire realms of the natural sciences she’s yet to cover with Master Brelton. She’s finally at the point where vocabulary is her main barrier to conversing in Jiyelian, and she’s barely even started learning Skaltic. It’s not as if it’s unlikely she might need to know those languages someday; that’s half of her options! And—and—the adjective declensions in Skaltic are fascinating, and she’s only just starting to get the hang of it…

“Of course you’ll continue some of your lessons,” her mother assures. “Lady Clemence tells me you still have much to learn about Revairan and Wellish ballroom and dining etiquette.”

“What of mathematics? Rhetoric? History? Language?” she asks, distress breaking her voice and making her inquiry far more abrupt than intended. “Surely those skills are just as important as my comportment at balls.”

Her father frowns. “Watch your tongue, Ambrine.”

Her mother raises a single finger. “I will allow you to continue one additional area of study. You may choose rhetoric or history. I know what you’ve been covering in your mathematics lessons of late, and it’s far outside the skills needed by a lady in your position. You need to be able to manage finances, not…design aqueducts.” Her nose twitches in a way that suggests she would be wrinkling it had she not trained herself out of such indelicate gestures. “You can learn your new country’s language after you’re married should that prove necessary. And allowing you to study the sciences at all was an indulgence, one that I am now regretting.”

She knows that, that’s why she didn’t mention them…

“It’s most important that you focus on polishing yourself and familiarizing yourself with the peerage of the other kingdoms,” the Queen continues with a firm look. “Your other studies are becoming a distraction.”

“But—” She feels tears welling up. “I’m sure I could balance it all if you’d just allow me to try—” Her voice cracks.

“Ambrine!” her father snaps. “Decorum!”

She shouldn’t cry. She’s making a scene in front of her parents, and all her tutors are here, and Lady Sumie is such a terrible gossip, and she’ll be going back to Jiyel, and—oh, she’ll be going back to Jiyel! The loud sob she’s been fighting down breaks free.

“History, please,” she chokes out, clutching at that boon before they retract the offer in the face of such unseemliness. “Master Amari has been missing his family in Corval and might appreciate the opportunity to return to them.”

Sobs continue to escape as she thinks of everyone she’ll be losing. Master Amari, whose tales of Corval were the closest she could feel to Constance. Master Brelton, who can’t stay on topic to save his life but always has something fascinating to share. Lady Sumie, who makes art out of numbers and finds it endearing when Ambrine unconsciously finds new and exciting ways to sit in her chair…who uses the cover of their Jiyelian lessons to share the most outrageous gossip. Sir Vincent, who likes to present moral quandaries that make her want to tear her hair out, always has a cup of strong tea waiting to help her focus. Mistress Nemar, her music tutor, who has yet to give Ambrine a straight answer on why she learned Skaltic.

There’s still so much she could learn from them.

She feels wicked for even thinking it, but if she were only expected to attend mass weekly like the peasants do, instead of every morning, she’d surely have time to continue another area of study. She knows better than to even consider voicing the thought, pushes it down like she’s attempting to push down the completely inappropriate weeping that’s overcome her.

“Very well,” her mother says stiffly, obviously mortified at the display she’s making. “I’ll also be informing Lady Clemence that you’re in need of additional tutelage on your comportment.”

And that was that.

--

“Does that say…Sumie Lian?” Ambrine asks, squinting across the table at the latest mathematical treatise that’s just arrived in the mail for Lyon.

Lyon nods, gathers it up and hands it to her. “Yes. You know her?”

“She was…my tutor, up until I was 15. Mathematics and Jiyelian. She was probably my favorite, in retrospect, though at the time I was just upset to lose all of them”

“I heard. You cried.”

She flushes. With his general lack of interest in social affairs, she’d been hoping there was some way that story wouldn’t reach him.

“I didn’t understand why, though,” he adds.

“Why I cried?”

“Why they thought you should stop learning.”

“They just…decided I was done. Needed to stop filling my head with ‘useless’ things and focus on husband acquisition.”

Lyon snorts. “That’s stupid. Any person with sense would appreciate an educated partner.”

“That’s what I told them!” Ambrine exclaims, feeling righteously vindicated, 4 years late.

“Did you want to invite her over?” Lyon segues abruptly, nodding at the treatise. “You…should have friends over when you want to. And I wouldn’t mind an opportunity to ask her some questions about her writings on the nature of infinity.”

Right. That’s…a thing she can do, now.

“I’d love to.”

And that’s that.

(For folks who picked up on it, yes, Ambrine has ADHD.)

[ammeh7]

7KPP Week 2019 - Day 3

Ambitions & Dreams || Fashion

This might be cheating because I already had these, but:

Corvali gowns

Hisean gowns

Jiyelian gowns

Arlish/Wellish/Revairan gowns

Complete with occasional comments on out-sleeving Avalie, Jaslen’s hordes of dangly balls, border fusion fashion, and That Horrid New Fashion Trend of Giant Puffed Sleeves. (Tragically, Pinterest suppresses some of them in favor of random text from the source site these days.)

[ammeh7]

7KPP Week 2019 - Day 2

Hobbies || Worldbuilding

Valrise + music, at three different times in her life

I finally had to come up with siblings for Valrise for this! 

Names and ages at the start of the fic, for anyone who likes a reference: Ophelia (10), Emmaline (8), Linette (7), Larissa (7), Rhiele (5), Tremont (4, first son), Cerise (2), Brandel (1, second son). Valrise is 6 years older than Ophelia and was probably an accident.

I Can’t Music, and attempting to research for this fic just got me lots of ads for children’s music lessons, so if I said anything that makes her sound like an idiot or is unrealistic, just let me know.

Minor content warning for the middle section (avoiding intimacy with her first husband). If you’re concerned, scroll to the end for details.

The piano was one of the few trappings of nobility they had left.

She suspected it was only still there because her mother hadn’t figured out how to get it down the stairs to sell. Or maybe she’d decided it compensated for the threadbare rugs and shelves conspicuously absent of curios. It made them look, perhaps, like they might hold social gatherings, have their talented daughters perform for their guests.

In reality, it was years out of tune, and of the seven daughters, 16-year-old Valrise was the only one with any idea how to play. There hadn’t been money for individual music tutoring since Ophelia was just starting on basic scales—a couple years of group vocal lessons, and then it was up to Valrise (“You have such a lovely voice, dear, I’m sure you can do better than that overpriced troubadour!”) By that point, the piano twanged unpleasantly, a bulky corner decoration rather than an instrument.

There were probably smarter things to spend her scrimped-together savings on, but…she missed it.

Getting the piano tuned did have a practical justification, she’d convinced herself—with Rhiele turning six, it’d make five of them passing the lap harp around during her attempts at music lessons. Counting Valrise, that would be six of them sharing it for practice. If they had the piano as well, there’d be more opportunity for everyone to practice instruments, more options for accompaniment, better chances for her sisters to grow the skills expected of noble ladies.

So she’d sold a brooch that had been a gift from an optimistic merchant’s son, and inquired around until she found a tuner with a good reputation who was willing to work cheaply. At least in this case. (She might have had to bat her eyelashes a bit and sigh wistfully about how much she missed playing, but in the end she’d gotten three piano tunings for the price of the brooch.)

Hopefully, her mother wouldn’t return from her outing until after the tuner was finished. She might not notice that the piano was suddenly in tune, but she’d have opinions on Valrise’s use of money, or perhaps take this as a sign they had some great trove of savings secreted away and she could afford some indulgences of her own.

Right on cue, the tuner closed his box of tools and stepped back with a smile. “It should be set, Miss—my lady. Feel free to try it out.”

She sat down hesitantly, hovered her hands over the keyboard. “I’m afraid I’m several years out of practice, so I’d request that you don’t judge my fumbles too harshly,” she smiled over her shoulder.

The first few notes were hesitant, but her hands remembered even if her mind didn’t, and soon her fingers were flowing over the keys, a song she couldn’t even recall the name of filling the room.

She hadn’t remembered how satisfying she found this—the range of notes, the expanse of the keyboard, the timbre.

The last note faded out and she came back to herself. “It—sounds lovely. Thank you.”

Movement at the door caught her eye, and she looked over to see Ophelia, Emmaline, and Larissa all peeking their heads into the room.

“I told you she’d be good at it,” Larissa whispered loudly to someone in the hall. Probably Rhiele—she still liked to hide from strangers, and Linette in her determination to be the “good twin” would never have abandoned her math exercises to spy on what was happening across the castle.

“Are you going to teach any of us?” Emmaline asked eagerly, noticing Valrise looking their way. “So we don’t have to share?”

“Of course,” she said, glad they seemed excited. This would be good for them. She knew it was the right choice.

The footman came over to show the tuner out, and the girls entered the room, Emmaline and Larissa rushing up to the piano and plinking at the keys while Ophelia came over to stand by Valrise.

“It’s good to see you play again,” she said quietly. “I missed it.”

“Me too.”

--

The floor harp was by far her favorite thing in the house. Her entertainment and her sanctuary.

The same talents that had helped her to catch a wealthy baron’s eye now also helped her play the part of an adoring wife without having to do anything terribly…wifely. He loved her singing, had had the harp and piano moved to the room below his study and bade her to play with the windows open.

She didn’t mind the man, but she felt no great passion, no tender affection at the thought of him. The thought of kissing him, of lying with him, left her with a sense of cool distaste. She endured the first, but for the other…

The dream-wine had been a terrible plan. It was miraculous it hadn’t crashed apart around her already.

She’d been so childishly terrified of that first night. She’d known the tincture was a soporific, one unpopular due to side effects of disturbingly vivid dreams, but quick-acting and accessible.  She’d just meant to delay things, let him think he’d nodded off after a night of feasting and put the whole affair off until she’d had time to settle in a bit.

But he’d pulled her close, gotten her bodice open before it took effect…and the next morning she’d discovered that if an idea were planted and the circumstances were believable, those “vivid dreams” could be mistaken for reality.

She should have taken that reprieve as the windfall it was and not pushed her luck. But it turned out that if you manage to avoid the first night, the next time…was still the first night.

And “settling in” turned out to be much less of a panacea than she’d hoped.

She could perform the part of the adoring and grateful wife when they were together, but too much and it got under her skin, made her sick with it, made her worry she might let the mask slip.

Playing, though—playing let her escape from pleasing her husband and please her husband all at the same time.

He thought the music was for him. It wasn’t.

And when her husband came in and kissed her shoulder, told her to wait up in her chambers that night, she’d only be acting the doting spouse if she prepared two goblets and some cut flowers, wanted to flirt a bit over a glass of wine before they got to business.

The problem was that it worked too well. She never meant to keep it going for an entire year.

She’d faked her way through one pregnancy already, “late courses” and “morning sickness” and a morning of dramatic weeping in the bathroom. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could maintain the ruse. Soon she might need to—

A loud crash came from the study upstairs, and her fingers halted on the strings with an unpleasant twang.

“Darling? Is everything all right?”

--

“I believe,” Zarad says, “that you promised me a private concert.”

Valrise tilts her head in exaggerated recollection. “Oh? I’m fairly certain I said that I might give you a private concert, if you behave.”

He grins. “Exactly! So as we are surely in agreement that my behavior has been beyond reproach for at least the past three hours—”

She gives him a flat look.

“—and you carelessly neglected to specify a duration when making your promise—”

“It was hardly a promise—”

“—there is really no debating the fact that you owe me a private concert.”

“I suppose that’s fairly ironclad,” she says, walking over to the floor harp in the center of the music room he’s brought her to. She settles herself, takes a deep breath.

She plucks out a single chord, then stands. “Well, since I carelessly neglected to specify a duration in my promise… I hope you enjoyed your concert.”

Zarad laughs, eyes dancing. “Ah, but you must agree that the word ‘concert’ carries an implicit minimum length. At least a quarter hour, certainly.”

Part of her wants to keep arguing, silly hesitations holding her back. Her time with the Baron has turned the idea of playing for her husband into something underhanded, scheming—and as someone used to impressing people with her singing, she’s a bit worried she’ll come off lacking in comparison to the apparently legendary voice of his mother.

But he’s hardly the Baron, and she has no intention of giving up singing permanently, so better to take the plunge now than put it off. And in the end, she really does want to.

She pretends to consider for a long moment, then sits back down. “Fine. But if you get yourself murdered by a bookshelf while I’m playing, I’m going to be very cross.”

“I’ll be the very soul of caution,” he says. “Although, if there exists a bookshelf so determined to murder me that it manages to sneak its way into the music room, I fear I may have met my match.”

She laughs, bringing her fingers to the strings.

She plays.

And maybe it’s a little bit for him.

If you came down here for the detailed content warning: 

During the second section, Valrise (Ambitious Widow) is married to her first husband, who wants an heir. She doesn’t want to sleep with him and has successfully avoided it by drugging him so he’ll fall asleep and think they did, but is worried she might have to eventually (and has been in some intimate situations with him she found distasteful, not much past kissing.) She also faked a pregnancy and miscarriage at one point. It’s all described pretty vaguely and she’s safe at the end. If you’d prefer to skip that but are still interested in reading the rest: You can read up to the first break, then instead of reading the section that starts “the floor harp was by far her favorite thing in the house”, search for the first instance of “Zarad” and pick up again there. All you need to know for the third bit is that she used to play “for” her first husband as a means of avoiding him, and that he died in a freak accident while she was playing in the room below.

[ammeh7]

7KPP Week 2019 - Day 1

Introductions || Favorites

I wasn’t planning to do day 1, but I realized last-minute that a long-standing headcanon of mine fit well with the day 1 prompt, so...have some last-minute Shahira meeting her father-in-law.

Fairly rough around the edges, sorry!

Conway scans the horizon, looking for the ship the spotters at the docks had reported. The Blackwater, they’d thought.

The ship returning with his son. And, if nothing had gotten mucked up on the trip, his future daughter-in-law.

The jewel of the Corvali delegation, to hear everyone tell it. Trust Hamin to manage to do the one thing he wasn’t expecting.

It probably would have been more efficient for Corval to send her on a boat themselves, but Hamin had volunteered. He’s always had a fancy for the idea of properly kidnapping one’s spouse. (At least he, unlike some of Hise’s youth, realizes that the phrase “kidnapping” is mostly a joke these days. Once or twice every year, Conway has to deal with some wayward upstart who took it bit too literally, and their disgruntled would-be spouse.)

Based on Hamin’s behavior shortly before he left, there’s also a very real possibility he would have gone stir-crazy if he’d had to wait that extra week or two before seeing her again. The pacing, the early morning walks to the shore, the smiling off into space when he thinks no one’s looking. It’s good to see him—it’s good to see.

As the Blackwater draws closer, Conway puts the looking glass up to his eye and scans the deck.

It’s pretty easy to pick her out. There’s only one person on deck in a skirt, and she’s got her hands on the railing, leaning forward eagerly, like her new life will start sooner if she can spot it. He knows that look.

The dockmaster catches him then, with a long list of annoyances he’s been meaning to bring to the council. Some of it really does need to be looked into, but a lot of it…

By the time he finally gets free, the Blackwater’s docked and they’re dropping the gangplank. He spots his son directing from the deck, making sure it’s firmly settled before heading over to the woman he’d spotted through the looking glass.

She’s stepped back from the railing, gathering up her skirts as she looks over her shoulder and smiles at him.

Hamin scoops her up and lifts her off her feet, carrying her down the gangplank like a prize.

(It’s pretty much exactly what Conway was expecting, but from the woman’s surprised look, she wasn’t.)

She thumps his chest playfully, laughing. “Hamin, put me down!” If Conway hadn’t already known she was Corvali, the lilting edge to her words would make it clear.

“Mm…no, I think I like you like this.” He looks over and grins. “Hi Dad.”

“I—Hamin!” she breaks off into breathless laughter. “I can’t—introduce myself—to your father like this!”

“Sure you can,” he says. “Dad, this is Shahira. Shahira, Dad.”

She inhales deeply between bouts of silent giggles, clearly struggling to compose herself, and twists around to face him, her cheeks flushed with laughter. “I’m—pleased to meet you, sir.” She tugs at the dangling fall of her skirt in something that might be aspiring to become a curtsy.  

He holds out a hand for her to shake, and she takes it, still laughing.

They look good together. Young, happy, ready to start a life side-by-side.

It reminds him of—

He firmly drags his mind away from that well-trodden path. She’s not coming back. He hopes she’s happy, wherever she is. Hopes she’d be proud of their son.

But he’ll just have to be proud enough for both of them.

(Shahira meeting her father-in-law while being carried and laughing hysterically has been a headcanon of mine for literal years. Not sure I captured the moment quite like I wanted to, so might try it again someday!)

[fyeah7kpp]

Banner created by @heartofbucky with the absolutely gorgeous art of Katyia by @teaandinanity!

Hello all, and welcome to the revival of the 7KPP Positivity/Appreciation Week!

In light of the new alpha build being released (and a rather nasty anon that Aly received), we thought it’d be nice to spread some love for this game! So, we’ve come up with a list of prompts to share writing/art/edits for.

When: Between May 5th and May 11th! Where: Post on tumblr (and elsewhere is fine too but we’ll be organizing on tumblr)

The prompts are as follows!

Day 1 - Introduction || Favorites Day 2 - Hobbies || Worldbuilding Day 3 - Ambitions & Dreams || Fashion Day 4 - Letters || Learning Day 5 - A Day of Friendships || A Romance for the Ages Day 6 - The Road Not Taken || Alternate Universes Day 7 - Happily Ever After??? (Angst || Fluff)

Feel free to use the tag “7KPP Week 2019“ and/or @ this blog, and we’ll do our best to reblog everything!

Please feel free to send an ask/DM me if you have any questions! I hope this gives everyone enough time to prepare! We look forward to seeing everyone’s submissions!

-Mod Tina

[ammeh7]

7KPP week - Day 7 (Winter) - NSFW version

So I apparently lied when I said I was only writing for one day of 7KPP week. I blame all you amazing Adorable Army creators for showering my brain in 7KPP inspiration and tempting me away from the fic I was trying to finish. XD

This is for the “winter” prompt–but it’s really more “the rainy season,” because Shahira running out and dancing in her first Hisean rainstorm is something that’s been kicking around in my head for ages.

When I started writing it I was fully intending for the fic to be entirely SFW…but then my brain was like “Okay but seriously, look at the scenario you’re putting them in, do you actually think this would end without anyone getting frisky?” and I was like “Okay brain that’s a fair point.” 

If you prefer your fic SFW, there’s a version here with the frisky bits mostly removed. Otherwise, here’s the full uncensored version.

Shahira had, in the long days of speculation before departing for the Summit, wondered if she might return to somewhere where the leaves bloomed red and gold in autumn, where flakes of ice fell from the sky in winter. At the dinner to see them off, she’d cupped her hand around the tiny bowl of kulfi, a rare treat, and wondered what it would feel like to step outside and have that chill envelop her whole body.

Instead, she ended up in Hise, where it’s green year-round, where the heat doesn’t quite reach the street-sizzling levels of Corvali summers but comes paired with a muggy humidity that presses in on all sides and manages to make it feel even more oppressive.

And where she’s free to do whatever she wants.

In some cases, though, what she wants to do is precisely what she was doing before. She’s hardly about to let her sterling reputation as a party-planner go to seed merely because she’s moved to a country with no courtly culture, for example. So here she is in a side room of her new father-in-law’s office, huddled over a menu with a no-nonsense chef who once served Revairan nobility, planning a welcome dinner for the group of Corvali ambassadors arriving to next week to hash out all manner of negotiations on matters that were that were too trivial to quibble over during the Summit. The chef hadn’t offered her name, and Shahira hasn’t asked, just in case she was supposed to have known already. She’ll figure it out after the woman leaves. She knows she’s probably being silly, projecting inner court machinations onto a guileless interaction, but some habits are hard to shake.

“This menu will make them feel at home, for certain,” Shahira muses, trailing her finger down a list of hors d’oeuvres, “but you don’t want them to feel like they’re at home. That will just invite comparison, and you don’t want to end up in a Corvali cuisine competition against a Corvali noble’s mental ideal of Corvali food. You’d be setting yourself up to lose. No, you want them to feel like they’re in Hise.”

The woman snorts. “I’ve tried serving Hisean food to foreign dignitaries. A lot of them stare at their plates like I dumped a live crab and a rock on there and told them to figure it out.”

“There was a dressmaker who visited Corval court every few years,” Shahira begins, “whose gowns always had a selection of features perfectly calculated to make the ladies of Corval go ‘Ooo, so Wellish!’ and the ladies of Wellin go ‘Ooo, so Corvali!’ He travelled back and forth between the two countries, selling gowns faster than he could make them, because they were so exotic. You want your menu to be those gowns.”

The chef narrow her eyes. “Gowns, huh?”

Shahira nods, and continues her story. “Eventually word of those gowns’ popularity got out to a proper Wellish dressmaker, who sent an assistant with a selection of his wares all the way to Corval court, hoping to make a fortune—and after a month, his assistant had to pack every last gown back up for the trip home, because not a single lady of the inner court wanted one of those odd-looking bulky things. The key is to offer something that’s familiar enough to be comfortable, but foreign enough to feel exotic.”

“I think I could make that work.” The woman purses her lips in thought as she scans back over the menu. “Sounds fun, actually.”

Whatever else she might have been going to add is cut off when Hamin bursts into the room, giving the two of them a jaunty wave as he swipes one of the dessert samples from the plate in front of them. “You might want to head home, Norna,” he says when he’s done chewing. “Big storm coming in an hour or so.”

She nods, gathering up her papers and heading out the door with a quick promise to check in the next day once she’s had time to put some ideas together.

Shahira grabs another one of the samples herself, absently takes a demure bite. She has got to get this Norna to teach her how to cook.

“And here I thought I was making progress on training you out of your court table manners,” Hamin sighs, shaking his head exaggeratedly. “That is, at best, a two-bite pastry.”

Shahira blinks down at the dainty in her hand, still mostly whole with a nibble off of one end, and shoves the rest of it in her mouth in one go. Her cheeks puff out like a ground squirrel and she has to fight to keep any of it from spilling out as she struggles not to laugh, but it’s worth it for Hamin’s face.

“I was serious about the rain,” he says, chuckling, once she’s finally managed to swallow it down. “We should probably head home too.” He grins like a giddy child over the word “home”—it’s barely been a week yet that that’s been the same place for both of them.  

“Do we have to go hole up inside?” she asks, even as she stands and brushes off her skirts. “I haven’t seen a proper Hisean rainstorm, yet.” People had told her she’d arrived towards the end of the dry season—which was hardly dry compared to Corval, but all the rain so far had been in the middle of the night, or come and gone so fast that it had already tapered off by the time she’d ended her conversation and gotten to a window.

Hamin frowns thoughtfully. “It can be pretty dangerous to be outside during one, Glitter. The winds can be fierce, and sometimes trees get knocked over. It’s not safe to be standing under them.” He strokes his chin, considering, and finally grins. “If you are set on experiencing a Hisean storm out in the open, I think I know just the place, though.”

To her inexperienced eye, the skies look clear when they step outside—but as Hamin leads her through the town and down a footpath into the forest, he points out the signs on the horizon, the slight change in the air.

“You are sure about this, right?” He asks as they walk. “Once the storm starts, we won’t really be able to turn around and head back home until it’s over.”

Shahira nods. “We didn’t see much rain in Corval, believe it or not. I want a chance to properly marvel at it before I become jaded and desensitized like all you strange folk who grew up with ‘rainy seasons.’”

Thinking back on it, she’s been waiting for that chance for years. One wall of the Imperial palace had looked out onto a bustling market. There were plenty of windows where a lady of the court might look down and watch the activity below, posh merchants bartering with wealthy clients over silks and jewelry and perfumed oils. There was one particular window, though—in an area of the palace where Shahira was not, strictly speaking, supposed to be—that was perfectly situated to offer a glimpse of the true heart of the market in the distance, where harried mothers and brassy housekeepers haggled fiercely with plainly-attired but shrewd merchants over things like fish and soap and lamp oil.  

Shahira had been peeping out that window between teas one day when the first rain in several months rolled over the city, covering the market in a sudden downpour. She’d watched the farmers who’d ridden from miles outside the city to peddle fruits and vegetables from a worn blanket tear off the scarves they’d been wearing to shield their heads from the sun, tilt their laughing faces to the sky and dance in the street with competitors they’d been trying to out-shout moments earlier, celebrating the simple miracle of rain.

She’d never wished so badly to be part of the world she could see outside her window.

 Hamin leads them through the forest for quite a ways, down a well-hidden footpath and then along the edge of the stream it leads into. The stream starts to follow the edge of a cliff, and eventually widens into a shallow pool, shielded on three sides by the cliff face, with a waterfall tumbling over the far edge. Along one side the cliff curves inward, creating a slight natural shelter over some mossy boulders.

“It looks like something out of a painting,” she marvels, hitching up her skirt and splashing over to inspect some pink and orange flowers growing out of a crevice in the cliffs.

Hamin grins. “Thought you’d like it.”

In the time they’ve been walking, the sky has started to darken, and by the time Shahira has explored every corner of the pool, there are black clouds overhead, sounds of wind shaking the trees in the distance.

Hamin strips off his vest and sets it on one of the boulders under where the stone creates an overhang. “I figure we don’t want to walk back in wet clothes,” he says, untying the scarf that he uses as a belt and tossing it over to join his vest. “So you should probably get naked.” He waggles his eyebrows.

“It’s good to know you’re always looking out for my best interests,” she chuckles, pulling off the loose open vest she’s been wearing over the strip of cloth crossed over her breasts. (All the exposed stomachs in Hisean attire make a great deal of sense now that she’s experienced how the humidity here makes fabric cling suffocatingly to the skin.)

She pulls off her skirt next—an airy orange fabric covered in silver embroidery dotted with chips of turquoise and flat mirror-like disks of silver. It’s one of the things she brought from Corval, taken up a few inches to end at the ankle instead of the floor but otherwise left alone. Under it, she has a plain white underskirt that falls a little past her knees to protect the fabric from sweat and oil.

She pauses a moment to forcibly remind the part of her brain devoted to guarding her reputation that she’s married, and in Hise where getting caught carousing in public would result in a few weeks of good-natured ribbing rather than a lifetime scandal. She’s distracted, though, by a rumble of thunder in the distance, and blinks in startlement as a fat drop of water plops down on the bridge of her nose.

Another two fall on her head and shoulder in rapid succession, and she holds out her hand to catch one—but she barely has time to examine the size of that lone drop before they’re swarming, the bead of water in her hand quickly swallowed into a puddle. She throws her arms out and tilts her face to the sky, twirls around in amazed delight.

“It’s raining!” she exclaims.

“I’m guessing this is a Corval thing?” Hamin calls back over the drone of rain hitting the pool and the surprisingly loud sound of trees shaking in the wind. “We should kidnap more of you, if all of you are this cute when you see rain.”

“Don’t you dare ruin my treaty right after I’ve managed to wrangle our countries into an accord, Hamin of Hise,” she threatens, laughing, then grabs his hand and pulls him into a wild dance, jumping in joyous circles like the farmers she’d watched in the street so many years ago.

It doesn’t take long before she’s soaking, hair plastered to her face and back, underskirt clinging to her thighs, no longer sure where she’s wet from the rain and what’s been splashed up by their dancing.

Hamin picks her up by the waist and lifts her. He grins up at her, blinking the water out of his (still) startlingly green eyes, and spins them around in a circle.

Her body slides against his front as he sets her down, and she throws her arms around his neck and kisses him, tangling her fingers in his wet braids.

“You know, you never did finish getting naked,” he husks into her ear when they finally part.

“Good point,” she says, looking down at the sopping fabric clinging to her body. “I’d hate for my clothes to get wet.”

She unwraps the cloth crossed over her breasts, wiggles out of the underskirt stuck to her skin. They can’t actually get much wetter, but she listens to the little voice in her head that manages to simultaneously sound like a bit like every ladies’ maid she’s ever had, and brings them over to the boulder with the rest of her clothes rather than just dropping them into the pool.

When she looks back up, Hamin has shed his pants and is watching her with an exaggerated leer, his prick fattened with interest but still hanging heavy between his legs. He tugs her close and slots her back against his front, slides his hand up her stomach towards her chest, only to hook his finger into the chain of her necklace and tug it up for inspection. Not quite what she was expecting.

“You know, when you showed up to the Matchmaker’s banquet wearing this, I didn’t think it was possible for it to look any better,” he says, letting the gold coin fall back down between her breasts. “But I think I like it even better like this.”

“All that time I spent trying to look nice for you at the Summit, and now I find out you would have just preferred me naked,” she sighs in mock affront, rolling her hips back against his groin.

“Naked and wearing my presents. It’s an important distinction!” He thrusts forward into her movements, his prick nestling between the cheeks of her rear, sliding through the rainwater on her skin.

She’s soaking in yet another sense of the word by the time his hand finds its way between her legs, two fingers pressing inside her while the base of his palm grinds up against her clit. Torn between pushing forward into his hand and backward against his cock, she clenches around the fingers inside her, groans when they press hard into the new, inner sensitive spot that she’s just recently discovered. She’d only known she had the one down there.

She rocks back against him as he strokes her inner walls, the air around them still teeming with rain. Her nipples are already long pebbled up from the chill when he cups her chest with his other hand and rolls one between his fingers. She digs her nails into his thigh, keens without meaning to as the movement of his hand picks up.

He thrusts against her rear in little aborted pushes, the water not slick enough for their bodies to slide together as easily as could be desired, but the groan in her ear is far from a frustrated one. It shouldn’t be as good as it is, but the open air, the thrum of rain splashing onto their skin, is thrilling in a way that soon has her gasping into the soaked air, knees trembling with the effort of continuing to stand.

Before the rain can wash her slick from his hand Hamin grabs his cock and gives it a few frantic pumps, his teeth muffling a shout into her shoulder as his seed splashes hot onto her back between the cool raindrops. (It’s funny…she’d come into this expecting him to be loud, based on her admittedly gossip-based knowledge of how people behave in bed—and he’s certainly vocal, but years of sharing quarters on a ship mean his first instinct is always to muffle it.)

She turns around and kisses him, reaching behind herself to assist the rain in washing her skin clean—and frowns in confusion as rather than washing away like liquid, his seed sort of—rolls into a rubbery little ball under her fingers. She picks it up and brings it around for inspection, staring in bemusement. “What kind of bizarre liquid turns solid when it comes into contact with water?”

Hamin laughs at her baffled expression. “The kind that comes out of pricks, Glitter,” he says rhetorically, kissing the confused frown off her face as the rain starts to lighten around them.

Once it’s stopped entirely, they wring the worst of the rain from their clothes. Hamin laughs again at her disgusted face when she pulls on her damp underskirt. “You’ve never worn wet clothes before, have you?”

“Historically my clothes and I have seldom had opportunities to get soaked in water unless one of us is bathing,” she replies. “I’m grateful to have the opportunity.” She tugs at the underskirt sticking to her leg and wrinkles her nose. “Less so for the wet clothes.”

“I’d happily take something like that over wet pants.” He points at the way his pants are clinging to his inner thighs. “Less chafing.”

She looks at her embroidered skirt, considering. “I do have one to spare, if you’re interested.”

--

Hamin’s second mate is just walking away from the porch when they get back home—clothes rumpled, hair in damp disarray, and Hamin resplendent in an orange skirt embellished with turquoise.

It says something about Hise, or perhaps his relationship with Hamin, that after a brief double-take he just falls in step with a grin and starts talking their ears off.

Humidity or no, she thinks she’ll like it here.

(If you noticed that Shahira uses weird terms to describe the fact that it’s raining--that’s not me trying to be poetic, it’s intended to be a joke about the fact that she hasn’t had enough exposure to rain to drill the phrases stereotypically used to describe it into her subconscious.

The idea of the palace having windows from which ladies of the inner court could observe part of the market is based on the Hawa Mahal.)

[ammeh7]

7KPP Week  - Day 7 (Winter) - SFW version

So I apparently lied when I said I was only writing for one day of 7KPP week. I blame all you amazing Adorable Army creators for showering my brain in 7KPP inspiration and tempting me away from the fic I was trying to finish. XD

This is for the “winter” prompt--but it’s really more “the rainy season,” because Shahira running out and dancing in her first Hisean rainstorm is something that’s been kicking around in my head for ages. 

When I started writing it I was fully intending for the fic to be entirely SFW...but then my brain was like “Okay but seriously, look at the scenario you’re putting them in, do you actually think this would end without anyone getting frisky?” and I was like “Okay brain that’s a fair point.” This version has the frisky bits removed, though, for anyone who prefers their fic frisk-free. (Or at least frisk-light--fair warning that this is still well into a T rating.) If you’d prefer to read the full version, it’s here. 

Shahira had, in the long days of speculation before departing for the Summit, wondered if she might return to somewhere where the leaves bloomed red and gold in autumn, where flakes of ice fell from the sky in winter. At the dinner to see them off, she’d cupped her hand around the tiny bowl of kulfi, a rare treat, and wondered what it would feel like to step outside and have that chill envelop her whole body.

Instead, she ended up in Hise, where it’s green year-round, where the heat doesn’t quite reach the street-sizzling levels of Corvali summers but comes paired with a muggy humidity that presses in on all sides and manages to make it feel even more oppressive.

And where she’s free to do whatever she wants.

In some cases, though, what she wants to do is precisely what she was doing before. She’s hardly about to let her sterling reputation as a party-planner go to seed merely because she’s moved to a country with no courtly culture, for example. So here she is in a side room of her new father-in-law’s office, huddled over a menu with a no-nonsense chef who once served Revairan nobility, planning a welcome dinner for the group of Corvali ambassadors arriving to next week to hash out all manner of negotiations on matters that were that were too trivial to quibble over during the Summit. The chef hadn’t offered her name, and Shahira hasn’t asked, just in case she was supposed to have known already. She’ll figure it out after the woman leaves. She knows she’s probably being silly, projecting inner court machinations onto a guileless interaction, but some habits are hard to shake.

“This menu will make them feel at home, for certain,” Shahira muses, trailing her finger down a list of hors d’oeuvres, “but you don’t want them to feel like they’re at home. That will just invite comparison, and you don’t want to end up in a Corvali cuisine competition against a Corvali noble’s mental ideal of Corvali food. You’d be setting yourself up to lose. No, you want them to feel like they’re in Hise.”

The woman snorts. “I’ve tried serving Hisean food to foreign dignitaries. A lot of them stare at their plates like I dumped a live crab and a rock on there and told them to figure it out.”

“There was a dressmaker who visited Corval court every few years,” Shahira begins, “whose gowns always had a selection of features perfectly calculated to make the ladies of Corval go ‘Ooo, so Wellish!’ and the ladies of Wellin go ‘Ooo, so Corvali!’ He travelled back and forth between the two countries, selling gowns faster than he could make them, because they were so exotic. You want your menu to be those gowns.”

The chef narrow her eyes. “Gowns, huh?”

Shahira nods, and continues her story. “Eventually word of those gowns’ popularity got out to a proper Wellish dressmaker, who sent an assistant with a selection of his wares all the way to Corval court, hoping to make a fortune—and after a month, his assistant had to pack every last gown back up for the trip home, because not a single lady of the inner court wanted one of those odd-looking bulky things. The key is to offer something that’s familiar enough to be comfortable, but foreign enough to feel exotic.”

“I think I could make that work.” The woman purses her lips in thought as she scans back over the menu. “Sounds fun, actually.”

Whatever else she might have been going to add is cut off when Hamin bursts into the room, giving the two of them a jaunty wave as he swipes one of the dessert samples from the plate in front of them. “You might want to head home, Norna,” he says when he’s done chewing. “Big storm coming in an hour or so.”

She nods, gathering up her papers and heading out the door with a quick promise to check in the next day once she’s had time to put some ideas together.

Shahira grabs another one of the samples herself, absently takes a demure bite. She has got to get this Norna to teach her how to cook.

“And here I thought I was making progress on training you out of your court table manners,” Hamin sighs, shaking his head exaggeratedly. “That is, at best, a two-bite pastry.”

Shahira blinks down at the dainty in her hand, still mostly whole with a nibble off of one end, and shoves the rest of it in her mouth in one go. Her cheeks puff out like a ground squirrel and she has to fight to keep any of it from spilling out as she struggles not to laugh, but it’s worth it for Hamin’s face.

“I was serious about the rain,” he says, chuckling, once she’s finally managed to swallow it down. “We should probably head home too.” He grins like a giddy child over the word “home”—it’s barely been a week yet that that’s been the same place for both of them.  

“Do we have to go hole up inside?” she asks, even as she stands and brushes off her skirts. “I haven’t seen a proper Hisean rainstorm, yet.” People had told her she’d arrived towards the end of the dry season—which was hardly dry compared to Corval, but all the rain so far had been in the middle of the night, or come and gone so fast that it had already tapered off by the time she’d ended her conversation and gotten to a window.

Hamin frowns thoughtfully. “It can be pretty dangerous to be outside during one, Glitter. The winds can be fierce, and sometimes trees get knocked over. It’s not safe to be standing under them.” He strokes his chin, considering, and finally grins. “If you are set on experiencing a Hisean storm out in the open, I think I know just the place, though.”

To her inexperienced eye, the skies look clear when they step outside—but as Hamin leads her through the town and down a footpath into the forest, he points out the signs on the horizon, the slight change in the air.

“You are sure about this, right?” He asks as they walk. “Once the storm starts, we won’t really be able to turn around and head back home until it’s over.”

Shahira nods. “We didn’t see much rain in Corval, believe it or not. I want a chance to properly marvel at it before I become jaded and desensitized like all you strange folk who grew up with ‘rainy seasons.’”

Thinking back on it, she’s been waiting for that chance for years. One wall of the Imperial palace had looked out onto a bustling market. There were plenty of windows where a lady of the court might look down and watch the activity below, posh merchants bartering with wealthy clients over silks and jewelry and perfumed oils. There was one particular window, though—in an area of the palace where Shahira was not, strictly speaking, supposed to be—that was perfectly situated to offer a glimpse of the true heart of the market in the distance, where harried mothers and brassy housekeepers haggled fiercely with plainly-attired but shrewd merchants over things like fish and soap and lamp oil.  

Shahira had been peeping out that window one day between teas when the first rain in several months rolled over the city, covered the market in a sudden downpour. She’d watched the farmers who’d ridden from miles outside the city to peddle fruits and vegetables from a worn blanket tear off the scarves they’d been wearing to shield their heads from the sun, tilt their laughing faces to the sky and dance in the street with competitors they’d been trying to out-shout moments earlier, celebrating the simple miracle of rain.

She’d never wished so badly to be part of the world she could see outside her window.

 Hamin leads them through the forest for quite a ways, down a well-hidden footpath and then along the edge of the stream it leads into. The stream starts to follow the edge of a cliff, and eventually widens into a shallow pool, shielded on three sides by the cliff face, with a waterfall tumbling over the far edge. Along one side the cliff curves inward, creating a slight natural shelter over some mossy boulders.

“It looks like something out of a painting,” she marvels, hitching up her skirt and splashing over to inspect some pink and orange flowers growing out of a crevice in the cliffs.

Hamin grins. “Thought you’d like it.”

In the time they’ve been walking, the sky has started to darken, and by the time Shahira has explored every corner of the pool, there are black clouds overhead, sounds of wind shaking the trees in the distance.

Hamin strips off his vest and sets it on one of the boulders under where the stone creates an overhang. “I figure we don’t want to walk back in wet clothes,” he says, untying the scarf that he uses as a belt and tossing it over to join his vest. “So you should probably get naked.” He waggles his eyebrows.

“It’s good to know you’re always looking out for my best interests,” she chuckles, pulling off the loose open vest she’s been wearing over the strip of cloth crossed over her breasts. (All the exposed stomachs in Hisean attire make a great deal of sense now that she’s experienced how the humidity here makes fabric cling suffocatingly to the skin.)

She pulls off her skirt next—an airy orange fabric covered in silver embroidery dotted with chips of turquoise and flat mirror-like disks of silver. It’s one of the things she brought from Corval, taken up a few inches to end at the ankle instead of the floor but otherwise left alone. Under it, she has a plain white underskirt that falls a little past her knees to protect the fabric from sweat and oil.

She pauses a moment to forcibly remind the part of her brain devoted to guarding her reputation that she’s married, and in Hise where getting caught carousing in public would result in a few weeks of good-natured ribbing rather than a lifetime scandal. She’s distracted, though, by a rumble of thunder in the distance, and blinks in startlement as a fat drop of water plops down on the bridge of her nose.

Another two fall on her head and shoulder in rapid succession, and she holds out her hand to catch one—but she barely has time to examine the size of that lone drop before they’re swarming, the bead of water in her hand quickly swallowed into a puddle. She throws her arms out and tilts her face to the sky, twirls around in amazed delight.

“It’s raining!” she exclaims.

“I’m guessing this is a Corval thing?” Hamin calls back over the drone of rain hitting the pool and the surprisingly loud sound of trees shaking in the wind. “We should kidnap more of you, if all of you are this cute when you see rain.”

“Don’t you dare ruin my treaty right after I’ve managed to wrangle our countries into an accord, Hamin of Hise,” she threatens, laughing, then grabs his hand and pulls him into a wild dance, jumping in joyous circles like the farmers she’d watched in the street so many years ago.

It doesn’t take long before she’s soaking, hair plastered to her face and back, underskirt clinging to her thighs, no longer sure where she’s wet from the rain and what’s been splashed up by their dancing.

Hamin picks her up by the waist and lifts her. He grins up at her, blinking the water out of his (still) startlingly green eyes, and spins them around in a circle.

Her body slides against his front as he sets her down, and she throws her arms around his neck and kisses him, tangling her fingers in his wet braids.

“You know, you never did finish getting naked,” he husks into her ear when they finally part.

“Good point,” she says, looking down at the sopping fabric clinging to her body. “I’d hate for my clothes to get wet.”

{Gee I wonder where the NSFW bit was}

Once the rain has stopped, they wring the worst of the rain from their clothes. Hamin laughs at her disgusted face when she pulls on her damp underskirt. “You’ve never worn wet clothes before, have you?”

“Historically my clothes and I have seldom had opportunities to get soaked in water unless one of us is bathing,” she replies. “I’m grateful to have the opportunity.” She tugs at the underskirt sticking to her leg and wrinkles her nose. “Less so for the wet clothes.”

“I’d happily take something like that over wet pants.” He points at the way his pants are clinging to his inner thighs. “Less chafing.”

She looks at her embroidered skirt, considering. “I do have one to spare, if you’re interested.”

--

Hamin’s second mate is just walking away from the porch when they get back home—clothes rumpled, hair in damp disarray, and Hamin resplendent in an orange skirt embellished with turquoise.

It says something about Hise, or perhaps his relationship with Hamin, that after a brief double-take he just falls in step with a grin and starts talking their ears off.

Humidity or no, she thinks she’ll like it here.

(If you noticed that Shahira uses weird terms to describe the fact that it’s raining--though I think there’s just one instance of that in this version--that’s not me trying to be poetic, it’s intended to be a joke about the fact that she hasn’t had enough exposure to rain to drill the phrases stereotypically used to describe it into her subconscious.

The idea of the palace having windows from which ladies of the inner court could observe part of the market is based on the Hawa Mahal.)

[leahazel]

Oh my glob I’ve been running the numbers and there’s no way that Woodly’s actually 37 or whatever it says on his profile. At a stretch, he could be 40 or 39. Which maybe doesn’t seem like a huge difference, but since his timeline is incredibly compressed, those couple of years mean a lot.

[ammeh7]

You can’t just taunt us with number-running and then not give the details! ;)  From what I recall, the things we know about Woodly are that he attended the same Summit as Jaslen, married an older woman after the Summit, and has 3 sons, one of whom tried to court Countess MC. 

Guessing the thing that throws off the timeline is that with the Summit age range being 18-30 (skewed heavily towards the younger end with 30 being Not Done) means he and Jaslen must have attended the Summit 14 years ago, since he would have been 16 for the one prior? So even if he married almost immediately after getting back and his wife conceived right away, his eldest son would have at best just turned 14 when the game starts. 

I think these timelines *can* work, but it’s definitely quite a stretch. 

-Countess doesn’t specify how long ago Woodly’s son tried to court her, but since she says it was part of the reason she’s avoided him she’s presumably had multiple opportunities to avoid him in Wellin since it happened. It wouldn’t make sense for her to refer to it the way she does if it happened just a few months before the game. At a stretch, I could believe it happened 6-8 months ago, but it does sound more like several years.

-Similarly, it’s *possible* that Woodly married within a couple months of getting back from the Summit and that his eldest was conceived right away--but it does seem weird that he’d marry so soon after getting back from the Summit. Since it’s Woodly, though, I could buy him having pretty much decided on his wife before the Summit, but waiting to make anything official purely so he could go to the Summit.

-Aly responded to an ask about this with “yay ambitious 12-14 year olds” in regards to Woodly’s son. I can believe a son of Woodly’s would try to court TC at 12-13...but the eldest son would be inheriting Woodly’s title, so presumably it was the second or third son who courted TC.

-If we say the courting incident was 6-8 months before the game, Woodly married right after the Summit, his eldest was conceived right away, and his second son was conceived a few months after his eldest was born, his second son could have been 12 for the courting incident--but since his wife is in poor health, it’s hard to believe she’d be popping out babies like that. If his two oldest sons are twins, it works a little better.

So I think there *is* a way it can work, but it requires that pretty much everything be compressed as much as believably possible (Woodly married as soon as believably possible after getting back from the Summit, his second son was born as soon as believably possible after his marriage, and the courting incident was as recent as believably possible given the way TC refers to it.) The courting incident would indeed seem a lot more probable if Woodly were 39+ and attended the Summit 21 years prior.

[ammeh7]

7KPP Week (Day 5)

Much like the last two years, I come bearing content for exactly one day of 7KPP week. (Seriously admire all you productive all-7-day goddesses!) 

This is for the “Family” prompt, and was originally going to be a few hundred words each of various LI family members meeting different MCs...but attempting to get inside the mind of a baby Corvali princess turned out to be way too much fun, so instead you just get a bunch of Sina.

Not super happy with how this turned out, but I figure the more content the merrier, right? (I also just realized that I’ve been missing like half of said content because I’ve only been tracking #7kppweek2018 and not #7kpp week 2018--lots to catch up on!)

Sina's new sister is pretty much the best sister ever.

For some reason, though, some people don’t seem very happy she's here.

Sina thinks some of them might still be mad that Sina was right. When she heard the boats had come back, Sina had managed to slip past her ladies, to where all the people were standing around the big room by the doors and trying to pretend they weren't there to watch big brother Zarad and the others walk in.

She'd heard some pretty ladies wonder if Zarad was bringing a wife back, and then laugh like it was a joke—so she'd corrected them, told them yes, brother Zarad was definitely bringing her a new sister like she'd asked—and they'd just made that face like they thought she was saying something funny but didn't want to disagree with her. It's very frustrating being a princess sometimes. How is she supposed to explain why she's right if people refuse to actually tell her when they think she's wrong?

But then big brother Zarad walked in, and next to him was a beautiful lady who Sina knew immediately was her new sister. The ladies next to Sina gasped when Zarad introduced her to Papa, though, and when Sina looked at them again they were all upset but had those fake smiles like they were trying to pretend they weren't. They were like that for weeks, which Sina really thought was a bit too long to pout about being wrong.

And there was really no reason to take it out on Sina's new sister, but Sina's heard those ladies and other ladies whisper all sorts of nasty things about her. Constance told her the ladies were jealous that they weren’t Sina’s new sister, but that would be silly, because being a princess is Very Frustrating and because most of the upset ladies aren’t nearly important or clever enough to marry big brother Zarad.

People whisper that big sister Valrise isn’t important enough to marry Zarad either, that her family has no influence and she inherited everything she owns from her old husband. They say that she killed her old husband, too. Sina’s gotten the impression that a lot of people have killed someone, and that it’s not always the ones people say have killed someone, so she doesn’t really care as long as Valrise doesn’t like killing husbands in general. Papa kills people all the time, except he doesn’t have to keep it secret because he’s Emperor.

She’d asked Valrise if she was planning to kill big brother Zarad, just to make sure. Valrise just laughed and said, “Only if he really annoys me,” then sat Sina on her lap and did up her hair like a fancy Revairan lady. Her new sister Valrise isn’t as silly as big brother Zarad, but she’s a bit like him in that she’s almost never serious. (Sina isn’t sure how they got to know each other if neither of them ever says what they actually mean.) She also has curly hair, like Sina, so she knows how to make Sina’s hair look nice and not like a ridiculous ball of fluff, like it did after Lady Nasrin tried to brush it the time Sina was practicing somersaults right before she was supposed to visit Papa.

Lots of ladies whisper that big sister Valrise isn’t pretty enough for brother Zarad, but also that Zarad must have only married her for her looks. That’s how Sina knows Constance must be right that they’re jealous, because only jealous people make that little sense. Sister Valrise has pretty hair and a pretty face and wears pretty clothes, and she’s smart and funny like big brother Zarad. Sina knows Zarad must have chosen her because she makes him so happy, even if he pretends to like other ladies better when other people are around. Sina isn’t entirely sure how their relationship works, because the romance books Lady Isra reads aloud sometimes (when she’s supposed to entertain Sina but wants to be alone in her room) make it seem like people in love normally exchange more “I’ll die without you”s and fewer fake insults. However it works, though, it makes brother Zarad really happy. He doesn’t look tired as much anymore, even when Sina sneaks up on him and doesn’t give him time to put on his not-tired face.

Some people told Sina that big brother Zarad wouldn’t have as much time for her once he was married, but they lied, because he actually has more time—plus she has a new sister who can spend time with her too. Big sister Valrise asks for Sina’s help with all sorts of things—helping her choose between dresses, advice on who she should consider to be one of her ladies. She’s even going to get a pet fox and let Sina help her pick a kit. She doesn’t just ask Sina for help, though, she also helps Sina with things—like saving her from having Lady Nasrin fix her hair, or from being so bored she thinks she’s going to explode, or from losing her sandal under a table at a party she was supposed to be in bed for.

She’s pretty much the best big sister ever. Which makes sense, because she told Sina that she has eight younger siblings, so she must have a lot of practice.

Constance is a good sister too, but she isn’t funny like sister Valrise, and lot of times she seems sad when they’re alone and she thinks Sina isn’t looking. Sina can’t figure out how to cheer her up, so it makes Sina kind of sad, too. She thinks a lot of ladies who grew up in other nations just don’t like Corval court much. She was a little worried that her new sister wouldn’t either, but sister Valrise seems to enjoy court stuff like talking in circles and charming people who are being fake-nice until they forget they’re faking. (It probably helps that Valrise is married to big brother Zarad and not big brother Aamir. Sina wouldn’t want to be married to big brother Aamir either.)

It’s why Sina doesn’t understand why people talk about how long big sister Valrise is going to “last.” Constance has lasted forever, since before Sina was born, and she doesn’t even like it here. Valrise does like it here, so she must be going to last longer. “People keep wondering how long you’re going to ‘last,’” she’d told Valrise. She knows that sometimes people still forget she’s not a baby and say things around her that they wouldn’t say in front of other grown-ups, and that sometimes people like big brother Zarad and sister Valrise like to hear what those things are.

“Probably longer than whoever was asking that,” Valrise had said, tugging on the scrap of paper Sina had been watching her fold and unfurling it into a little swan. “They don’t sound very perceptive.”

Sina doesn’t think so either. She and big sister Valrise and big sister Constance can all take care of themselves.

After all, they’re princesses.