My two yr old is looking through a book about prehistoric art and she saw a picture of those cave painting of hands and she held up her own and said "hand!" And I gotta be honest. That hit
its true that complimenting strangers is fun and nice. people will go "awwww really" when you say their hair is cute. people will go "thanks" and straighten up a little when you compliment the colors they're wearing. people will say "oh yeah i got it at (place)" if you say a charm on their bag is cool. people really do appreciate it and its very whimsy and you can just do this for free
Hi ! prompt idea : What if Zuko was armed during the first episode and was stranded with the water tribe while the avatar left with Katara and Sokka, Iroh on his trail for white lotus reasons.
Oh we are going to have us some FUN with "stranded with the water tribe", say no more.
---
Zuko was dripping, and steaming, and staring down two dozen women and their gaggle of small children, plus that old not-the-Avatar crone from earlier. They were all cowering away from him. Which was--
Good. It was good. If they were cowering, then they hadn’t noticed how steam was not flames. He wasn’t sure he could make flames, not after the arctic water he’d landed in, with that last sight of the Avatar glowing; not after surfacing under the ice pack, after swimming, after kicking slamming breaking through and his ship was gone and there was only ocean all around and
and he’d made it back to this pathetic little camp of the Southern Water Tribe, because that was the only place he knew for sure would have shelter, and he wasn’t going to die just because they were all staring at him, even if felt like he would.
Even if the old not-the-Avatar woman could probably take him, right now. But she didn’t know that.
Zuko pulled himself up, taller than her by at least a few inches, and blew steam from his nose.
“I am commandeering one of your huts,” he said. And added, because Uncle said even a prince should be gracious: “You may choose which one.”
---
She choose her own.
...The only one without children that flames might scar, or younger women to catch a soldier’s interests.
Zuko sat by her fire and determinedly started struggling out of his wet clothes and she was still in here with him--
Zuko pulled one of her animal pelts over himself, and finished fighting off his clothes. When he stuck his head back out, cheeks still reddened from what was obviously the cold, she dropped a parka on his head.
“Dry clothes, Your Highness,” she said.
The parka was much bigger than he was. He fell asleep hoping that the camp’s men were on a long, long hunting trip.
---
He woke up again. Kanna tucked her favorite ulu knife away, newly sharpened, and stopped contemplating the alternative.
---
“I am commandeering a ship,” he said.
The crone led him across the village, all twenty paces of it, to a row of canoes.
“Take whichever one you want,” she said. “Will you need help getting it to the water?”
Zuko looked at the canoes. Looked at the ocean. Watched a leopard seal, easily the size of the largest canoe, dozing just past the ice his own ship had broken through the day before. It was frozen again, a great icy arrow pointing from the waves to the village, snow already starting to cover it over.
Beyond was blue sky and gray ocean and white ice, floating in blocks like stepping stones, like boulders, like cliffsides.
There wasn’t even a hint of gray steel, or smoke. Or any land, besides what they were standing on.
He looked down at the canoes again. Somehow, they seemed even smaller.
“I, uh,” Zuko cleared his throat. “I’ll require supplies. Before I go.”
---
They... did not have supplies. Not extra ones. This didn’t stop them from trying to give him supplies, food and blankets and anything else he could think to ask for. But each blanket was a pelt hunted by someone’s grandfather, had been inked with images and stories by someone’s mother, was the favorite of someone’s husband or brother or uncle or cousin--
They couldn’t go to the nearest market to replace things, here.
And when they talked about food, about what they could spare, they kept sneaking glances to their children, who were sneaking glances at Zuko from the huts, sticking their heads just over the snowy ledges like their fur-trimmed hoods would hide them. Their mothers and aunts shooed them away, and they crept back, like barnacle-crabs. Zuko glared, and they disappeared.
“When are your men coming back?” he asked. “They’re hunting, aren’t they?”
Oh. So that was what they looked like, when they weren’t trying to hide their hate.
---
Zuko wrapped himself up in the same blanket that night. It was printed inside with fine lines and images, telling a story he didn’t know. He wondered whose favorite it was.
---
Kanna wondered how quickly he’d wake—if he’d wake—if she built the fire up with wet driftwood and tundra grass, if she had one of the younger girls boost up a child to plug the air hole, if she let the smoke draw its own blanket down over this fire child.
---
It was hard to know when to wake up, because the sun never set. So everyone was up before him, and they all had spears and clubs and—and nets, and trap lines, and snow googles with their single slat to protect the eyes from snow blindness. Zuko had seen those once, at the Ember Island Museum of Ethnography, where they’d gone when it was too rainy for anything more exciting.
Oh. They were going hunting.
“Give me that,” Zuko said, and took a spear.
The women looked at him. One of them adjusted her googles.
“I can hunt,” he scowled.
He did not, in fact, know how to hunt.
---
“Give me that,” the Fire Prince said, and Kanna almost, almost gave him her ulu. Humans, like most animals, had an artery in their legs that would bleed them quick enough.
She kept skinning the rabbit-mink one of the women had snared.
“I can help,” he said, with less grace than most of their toddlers. Likely with the skinning skills of a toddler, too. She wasn’t going to let their unwanted visitor ruin a perfectly good pelt.
“Chop the meat,” she said, and gave him a different knife. “It’s dinner.”
“...This is really sharp,” he said a moment later, looking at the knife with some surprise.
“Is it,” said Kanna.
---
Things the Fire Prince was convinced he could do: hunt (until he realized he couldn’t tell the tracks of a rabbit-mink from a leopard-rabbit apart); spear fish (at least he could dry himself); pack snow for an igloo (frustrated princes ran hot); ice fish (the prince was a problem that kept coming close to solving itself).
Things the Fire Prince could actually do: mince meat, increasingly finely; gather berries and herbs, once he stopped trying to crush them; dig roots, under toddler supervision; mend nets, after the intermediary step of learning to braid hair loopies.
“Can’t I take him ice fishing again?” asked one of the women, as she watched Prince Zuko put as much apparent concentration into braiding her daughter’s hair as his people had into exterminating hers.
“Wait,” said another woman, sitting up straight. “Wait wait wait. I just had an idea.”
---
Three words: Infinite. Hot. Water.
---
Summer was coming to an end. The sun actually set, now, and the night was getting longer, and colder. The salmon-otter nets were mended and ready. The smoking racks were still full of cod-lemmings. The children were all a little older, the women all a little more used to doing both halves of their tribes’ chores; a little more used to not watching the horizon, waiting for help to come.
The Fire Prince was staring at the canoes again.
“Are you actually going to try leaving in one of those?” Kanna asked.
“...No.”
“Come on, then; someone needs to watch the kids while the women are hunting.”
She didn’t leave him alone with them, of course. But she could have.
---
Elsewhere, the war continued.
The moon turned red, for a moment none could sleep through; they did not learn why.
The comet came and went, leaving their castaway prince laying on the beach, his breath fogging up into the night sky above him, as the energy crashed from his system as quickly as it had come. Above, lights began to dance in the sky; Zuko pulled his hood up, so none of those spirits—children, dead too soon—got any ideas about kicking his head off to be their ball.
The war had ended. The world didn’t feel any different; no one in the south would know until spring came again.
---
Suffice it to say, Sokka and Katara were not prepared for this particular homecoming.
This would be fascinating to imagine the implications of. Like Sokka, Katara and Aang only know him from the first epsiode, and stories told by Iroh(and maybe Azula) which paints an inaccurate picture in a hilarious way. So they come back to find him braiding both nets & hair and used as a hot water provider all with a grumpy pout.
At some point the children realized that not only could he make hot water, but also be very warm, so I'm just imagining toddlers and young children with little concept of why they should be wary bullying him around for cuddles.
Does Zuku fully unpack his trauma with a group of women who have no time nor patience for his teenage angst? Or even funnier get rekted by a child making him realize all the messed up parts of his past? Or is it more of an unsaid thing and no one comments when weeks after the moon turns red he returns from staring at the ocean without his ponytail missing and slowly grows his hair back out. Until of course a child makes a comment about him getting rid of his ridiculous style. Cue a shouting match he loses.
Someone makes a passing comment about him kicking Sokka away so easily and suddenly he's teaching the eldest kids how to fight and also some of the women, and at least at this point he's got enough sense to know he has to teach like Piandao and not his other instructors but he's still shouty and steamy as he does so.
He listens to their stories and eventually tells the kind of legends his mother would, or about the plays they saw together. They don't match the water tribes tales exactly but they fit in the same realm of myths and stories that could be true.
And then Sokka, Katara and Hakoda come back, with Aang possibly tagging along and the question of did Iroh knowingly leave him or did Zuko get pulled away by the currents and assumed to be lost. How does that change Azula? It's one thing to mock a living sibling another to mock your dead brother, and as a sole heir her position is different. Does she crack sooner? Does she blame Iroh for leaving him to die or does she assume Zuko ran away and Iroh is covering for him?
Is Iroh the Firelord? Is Azula? Are the water tribe siblings and Co suprised to see him alive or just in their home? I mean at this point aside from his features, he looks fairly water tribe considering he's dressed in hand me downs from the warriors who were gone, and the young girls saw his hair being so silky as a personal challenge to be mastered so his hair is in that style only children with the excitement to practice braiding can manage.
Just imagining Katara grabbing Sokka and using waterbending to meet the gathered crowd faster when the men come back and them both hugging Kanna before turning to the rest of the group and realizing the person with a child on their shoulders who had been visible from a distance was not in fact one of women from their tribe and was in fact the prince they threw into the sea.... in their dad's spare parka and Bato's pants. Said prince who is quickly realizing he would rather be anywhere but here because he is not ready for this and his quetions can wait so he shoves said child into Katara's arms because he knows enough to know Sokka would drop them and barely gets out "Actually I have to do that thing Ka-Elder Kanna" before hightailing it away.
Most of Zuko's instruction is a give and take, after all, he knows so little about what he needs to survive here. It's a humiliation for a prince to be taught by toddlers, but Zuko knows it's also a kindness. The women of the tribe haven't been subtle about their contempt for the fire nation and their wariness with him, specifically. Those feelings exist, too, in the children, but it's tempered by their curiosity. Zuko's had many instructors, instructors who have been raised to respect his title in a way no one here has, and even they knew how to bow to a throne without gentleing their punishments. Those instructors called him Prince Zuko with the respect he was due but always followed it with the criticism he was also due. Prince Zuko, do you need an invitation from Agni himself to begin your practice? Prince Zuko, stop flapping like a kitchen turtle-duck and control your arms. Prince Zuko, a toddler could do these exercises.
Prince Zuko is beginning to wonder if the only toddler his instructors ever met was Azula, because the children here aren't learning any quicker than Zuko remembers doing himself.
In the Southern Water Tribe, no one gives his title any reverence, but there is, perhaps, less levity in the criticism part. Sure, they enjoy dropping him into a new chore, watching him flounder for a bit, just so they can ask What, Prince Zuko you didn't learn this in your palace, in your oh so enlightened Nation?
But Zuko figures out (see, he can learn), that they will only leave him to suffer for as long as he pretends to know what he's doing. As soon as he says No, I didn't learn this, they'll bring a child to him and supervise as said child shows him how to repair a canoe, or debone a wale-fish, or butcher the horrifying fish-wale. The lessons are all Watch me, and like this, because. It's weird to see Master Piandao in a small child dressed in blue, but he does, and Zuko thrives on this kind of tutelage.
He learns that it's better to ask questions than to make a mistake that needs to be corrected, though he's punished for neither. He watches the women watching him and waits for them to send the child away, or worse, to send Zuko, himself away, waits for them to rip the loaned tools from his hand, the borrowed parka off his back, and send him, helpless, into the sea.
But that never happens. Sometimes he has to restart the chore, and sometimes a woman has to explain again what the child means to teach him, and sometimes the materials are pried from his frustrated grip before he ruins it, because they don't have the resources to waste on failed attempts. But they let him watch the task to completion, and they let him try again later. The gentleness of the instructions easily balances the mocking way they call him Prince.
It's a give and take, a push and pull. He's learning a lot here.
He thinks about the war, sometimes. He thinks that he thought it was a give and take, or maybe that it should be - could be if he was in charge. But days pass, and the men of the tribe do not come home, and clothes pass from child to smaller child as they all grow, like hermit crab-beetles lining up on ember island beach to trade shells. The Tribe teaches him to cook and build, to trap and hunt, to clean and share. They teach him how to teach and how to parent even though they aren't trying, because Zuko learns best from mimicking behavior. He doesn't shout less, but he certainly shouts at people less, because no one shouts at him or each other, and Zuko learns. They teach him how to live, and Zuko finds that the only thing worthwhile that he can really teach them is how to not die.
The same women who watch the children teach Zuko watch Zuko teach the children. The children laugh at him when he explains that he doesn't know how to fight with a boomerang or a spear. But there aren't many weapons to go around anyway, so Zuko teaches them to fight unarmed. It's hard to keep the quickness and fluidity of his fighting style while wearing the bulky layers necessary at the poles, so he adapts. Instead, he focuses on teaching cheap shots that he learned on the Wanyi, on taking down an enemy hard and fast, on getting time and cover. Zuko can picture his instructors telling him that there's no honor in this kind of fighting, but Zuko thinks there's probably more honor in it than abandoning unprepared children to their deaths. He thinks that maybe that's what his crew on the Wanyi were thinking when they taught him. Then he resolves to not think about it again, because he doesn't want to analyze how the crew maybe saw him as a child, as unprepared, as abandoned.
The scales are still uneven. Zuko still owes these people a debt after all his people have taken from him, after all these people have given him.
So, Zuko continues to teach them to not die, and on some days, that means teaching them firebending. It happens on the days when the cold feels like it's burning his skin, the days when sitting next to a fire is too melanchony and burrying himself in furs isn't enough to take away the ache of his scar. Joints and skin feel tighter in the cold. The snow flurries around him, and flakes keep touching his face before melting into water that feels too much like tears. On those kinds of days, he teaches them firebending.
It happens, too, on days when the cold is a welcome relief, the days when the chill is enough to numb the aches. The days when he can blame the lack of visibility on the snow rather than his own eye. Really, there's little difference between those two kinds of days, and if Zuko was a bit more honest with himself, he'd know that the difference comes from whether he's more recently been reminded of his father or his mother, of his palace instructors or Piandao. As the weeks pass, there's more of the second kind of day, not that anyone but Zuko knows it. They just know that when there's an extra chill in the air, extra snow at their feet, extra flame in the fire from what the fuel should produce, that Zuko will quietly find himself a space to the side, where he can be ignored or found depending on whether a person is willing to be around a firebender.
None of the Tribe are firebenders, which is good. Zuko doesn't know what he would feel if a child came up to him, little flame in the palm of their hand. None of them are firebenders, so Zuko doesn't have to teach them to love fire (he does anyway, the same as how the Tribe teaches him what a teacher should be to their student - what a parent should be to their child, unintentionally, and all the better for it).
Instead, he teaches them stances, what they mean for predicting where the fire will come from and where it will go. He teaches them how to get cover, never distance unless you start there and have a ranged weapon. He teaches them the best places to catch the flame if dodging it entirely isn't an option. Not the face, obviously. Hit the throat, lungs, diaphram, anything to break their breath control. Breaking hands and feet is fine, but knees and elbows are better; you don't really need to move your fingers and toes to blast fire, but you can't send it anywhere if you can't control your extremities. He teaches them to get in close, but to watch for hands. A bender, no matter how good, can't kick fire at a target against their own hip - can't punch fire at someone already inside their wingspan - can't breathe fire at a kid taking cover under the firebender's own chin. Nevermind that breath of fire is a rare skill - you never know.
He teaches them to never give up without a fight, to never kneel, to never ask for mercy and expect it to be given. It's a kindness that the Tribe doesn't tell him that they already knew this, that they learned it from their parents in a very different way than Zuko learned it from his. It's a kindness that they let Zuko pretend he is talking about a hypothetical, dishonorable, firebender. A random soldier, perhaps. Certainly not anyone in particular. It's a kindness that they make no comments about how unestablished his tutelage in these techniques is, how obvious it is that Zuko is teaching them something he taught himself and isn't parroting something someone else taught him.
Oh, there is a great deal of kindess given to Zuko in the coming months; allowing him to stay is the least of it.
I just want to point out the core of what the diffuser did in this conversation
They recognized that the mother was also expressing a vulnerable truth about herself - that she felt like a bad mother because her child was expressing gender feelings she wasn’t equipped to help with - and met her where she was, a concerned parent with limited information - to point her where she should be heading, research and resources.
Im going to make more of an effort to stop reflexively pushing people away when they express biases and make more of an effort to hear the underlying fears when i can
So y’all know the classic edge trope of “my blade cannot be sheathed until it has tasted blood”? What if a magic sword that has that requirement, except it’s sort of inverted. A sword that, instead of being inhabited by an evil spirit which once awakened cannot be lulled back to sleep except by blood sacrifice, was inhabited by a benevolent spirit who would not allow the sword to be drawn unless bloodshed were the only possible solution. A sword whose power could never be misused because it would only allow itself to be used in situations where it was justified. What about a Paladin who spends their entire journey fighting with a sheathed sword, incapacitating but never killing or maiming. The party believes that the Paladin has taken an oath of no killing, until they face the big villain. And it is in that moment, and that moment alone, that the sword will allow itself to be drawn.
Daughter of fantasy villains decides to rebel against her parents by actually going through with her arranged marriage to a local golden retriever of a prince instead of running off with some local villain-to-be or conquering said golden retriever’s kingdom and ruling it solo like her parents expect her to. Plus, sue her, she’s into the clean-cut earnest look.
At the same time, local prince charming discovers that he’s actually very into the gothic fiance his parents have landed him with in order to try and establish peace with the local evil lair down the lane, he would never have guessed a spiderweb pattern could look so fetching on a ball gown…?
Meanwhile, two pairs of parents in a tizzy because they both expected their offspring to whole-heartedly reject this union and give them an excuse to conquer their goody-two-shoes/evil neighbours, they’re not supposed to actually like each other-!
respective friend groups undergoing culture clash like all of prince charming’s knights are like what vile spell has been used to ensorcel our prince. we must be on our guard for surely this is but a ruse for an assassination attempt
meanwhile the villain bride’s friends are all like clearly he loves you not, why do you persist in a manner that will ensure your own heart break, i mean if he was taking this seriously there would be at least three assassination attempts by now. it’s like he doesn’t even notice that you have massive amounts of dark power to covet for his own
smashcut to
fully armored knight, clanging through the hallways in attempts at stealth, blades drawn: i’m just saying, i took an oath of protection. this feels wrong.
prince charming: it’s not wrong, it’s celebrating cross cultural traditions for my beloved bride
@chucktaylorupset Meanwhile the bride has a bouquet of roses, cornflowers, and wheat sheaves on her desk in her room, and she’s not coming out until she’s written a beautiful and moving poem about how they favourably compare to her groom. It’s been three days. She’s gone through an entire raven’s worth of quills (unethically sourced). The ‘toads who used to be my friends’ list has gone up by one. But she’s bent dark forces and eldritch spirits to her will and, by the powers obscene, this will not be the thing that breaks her.
Sorceress friend: Please, just get him an amulet that will double his power at the cost of his soul, no one’s worth this.
Rebellious villainess: (nearly in tears) No, he brought his best knights to the castle and tried to kill me last week, at midnight, I can’t ignore something like that! He even kicked Cathulhu!
Sorceress friend: He nudged it with his foot. And then he apologized to it. In tears.
Rebellious villainess: (actually in tears now, for reasons of feels instead of poetic torment) He’s trying so hard!!!
Prince: Of course, darling - may I inquire as to what for?
Villainess: Blood sacrifice to the dark gods, you know how it is.
Prince: …
Prince: …darling, you know I support your lifestyle choices, but I must say this before it potentially happens.
Prince: I’m not all right with human sacrifice. That’s one of my boundaries. I don’t know if you do that or not, but it seemed a topical time to bring it up.
Villainess: (carefree laugh) Oh beloathed, don’t worry yourself about such things, I would never!
Villainess: (leading him off to the goat market) Only incompetents use actual humans. Skilled practitioners of the dark arts know that a goat is not only a sufficient sacrifice, but the superior one.
@sapphire-monkey One of the nobles against the marriage in the prince’s kingdom invites the villainess to a local village’s blessing ritual, secure in the knowledge that it’s not only custom to wear the absolute palest white or undyed linen/woolen clothing one owns, it’s a requirement of the ritual and sacrilegious to do otherwise. Let’s see you deal with that miss all-black-wardrobe.
She arrives in diaphanous white silk edged with lace that gives the impression of beautifully tattered hems, all of it drifting gently around her on the spring breeze to give the feeling of a wraith from a haunted castle or something of the such. While not her personal cup of tea, she finds the ritual very moving, and absolutely understands why its one of her beloathed’s favorites.
One of the nobles from her kingdom, meanwhile, decides, fuck it, and just turns the prince into a frog. It takes her two minutes to find and fix him.
Villain noble: How.
Villainess: True love’s kiss, bitch.
Villain noble: (seethes)
The prince, meanwhile, pissed off the entire villainous court for the recent engagement ball that was held by knowing and responding accordingly to all the proper threats and insults. He studied before doing this, and he’s not going to shame darling in front of her peers! Bastard even managed to subdue his chivalry long enough to flirt with one of her friends right in front of her, how dare he be so considerate and sensitive to her needs like that-!?
First time the Prince finds out Villainess can transform into a gigantic fire-breathing dragon is a very O_OU moment for him.
Villainess: Are you surprised I can? It’s a common ability.
Prince: I didn’t want to assume.
Villainess: …
Prince: (sweats)
Villainess: …you’re picturing me turning into a dragon and riding on my back into battle, aren’t you?
Prince: N-no, no, of course not-!
Villainess: (drapes in his lap) It’s okay, we’d look fantastic. (sly expression) And probably scary enough to get the enemy forces to surrender without any needless bloodshed.
Prince: (sweating) Darling, are you trying to tempt me into putting you into a position where you could be injured in battle?
Villainess: A little. :3 (more seriously) But it is also on the table if we ever need to defend our throne. It’s the sort of thing that form’s for, really.
Prince: If you’re comfortable with it, then very well, it shall be added to the list of acceptable strategies.
(comfortable cuddling for a moment)
Prince: I imagine you make a very majestic dragon.
Villainess: (preening) I really do.
Prince: Perhaps we should have a tapestry done of it, then? It could hang opposite the one of my family’s crest in the throne room when we someday ascend the thrones ourselves.
Villainess: 8O! Beloathed, I would adore a tapestry of that! (cuddles further against him) Oh, and across from your family crest! That would be such a slap in the face to my parents, having a tapestry of me there instead of their own crest.
Prince: (hadn’t thought of it that way, but is happy that she’s happy)
Villainess comes in one night thoroughly out of sorts because her stupid cousin’s decided to make a move on her rights to the souls of their ancestors, and the jerk’s competent enough to actually have a potential chance at getting them, too, like he’d even wear the necklace of jewels they’re trapped in-!!!
The Prince listens patiently to her frustration until she’s finished, then considers for a few minutes.
“Darling, about that banquet your family’s having next fortnight - will your cousin be in attendance?”
“Yes, he’ll be using it to lay the groundwork of his plans. Why?”
“Would it be all right if I popped in for a bit? And was rather more… myself than I usually am around your parents?”
“…I suppose it’d be all right.”
“Wonderful!” (kisses her hand) “Perhaps wear those full-arm gloves your friend got you for the event - the ones that allow you to handle blessed objects without them interfering with your dark powers?”
“Well now I’m just curious. I shall do as you request, beloathed.”
The night of he shows up to the banquet positively radiating charm, good will, and benevolence, decked out in full armor that’s glowing slightly. Oh this? It’s the ancestral trappings of one of his relatives who was a champion of the stellar deities, those who guide ones who have become lost in darkness? He’s not a holy champion himself, but he is a fully-realized warrior of light and family, so he’s permitted to wear it at times. Oh yes, he completed his warrior of light trials when he was eighteen, when on a quest and everything! That’s where he earned his sword - it’s actually a shard of sunlight, you know, not metal. That’s why he’s called Prince of the Sun and Stars sometimes - bit of a grandiose title, really, but the artists and poets enjoy playing with the imagery, and who is he to deny them, especially when Darling is so fond of the stars herself! There’s a lass in one of the kingdom’s villages doing a portrait of the two of them together playing with that motif, actually, and it looks like it’s going to to be absolutely lovely when it’s done-
And he continues to be cheerful, charming, and just the nicest, most polite guy for the time he’s there while also reminding everyone in no uncertain terms that, for as long as the forces of evil have been trying to quash the forces of good, his side has been working at the opposite. And his side tends to win more often. And maybe it would be wise not to pick a fight with Darling because he’d hate to have to do battle with a potential in-law in the path of supporting her family’s traditions regarding people who cross them…
Jerk cousin is thoroughly cowed out of making an attempt at the family-filled jewels, and Villainess’s friends are standing with her off to the side going, “Okay, beginning to see what you see in him now.” Villainess herself is walking around with on safely-gloved hand on his arm as he intimidates the hell out of everyone she knows in order to help her protect what’s hers, swooning a little bit inside the whole time.
(Hers might be more diversely applicable, but Villainess isn’t the only one bringing something to the table in terms of power. Prince is generally more useful for things like getting birds to sing in chorus or making friends with bunnies, but his family does specialize in slaying evil. She may be skilled at facing enemies of all sorts, but he’s prepared specifically for anyone in her home court who might try to backstab her.)
Villainess is chilling in Prince’s court one day and a lady of the court storms up to her in tears, make-up running, and is just, “One of your friends turned my fiance into a newt, a newt, and he fell in the moat before I could catch him and I don’t know how to find him, or how to change him back if I do find him, and the library only has information on frog and bear transformations, and no one knows what to to do and you’re the only person who might know what to do, please help me-!” (bursts into inconsolable tears)
This throws Villainess through a loop, people don’t tend to whole-heartedly throw their trust in others like this at her place, this is super unsettling, so she just responds in the way she usually would, “Oh? And what price are you willing to pay?”
“Anything.”
…ooooooooh that is so, so tempting, why are people in this court so earnest, don’t they realize that the reason the higher nobles are worried about her marriage to their prince is the very real potential that she could use this opportunity to cast their country and its people into a thousand years of ruin and despair, bare minimum…?! But it would make Darling unhappy if she’s too mean about this, so, “How about your dignity, then? First off, we’ll have to get you out of that dress…” (seductive smirk and cock of the hips)
Court lady: (still in tears but hands immediately go to her bodice laces to start undoing)
Villainess: (grabbing her hands) OKAY, WHOA, HOLD UP, WE’RE IN THE MIDDLE OF COURT, HAVE SOME STANDARDS!!! Just- just go put on something you don’t mind getting all messed up, we’re going to have to get in the moat a bit for this, and even the edges are all muddy.
Court lady: Oh. (sniffles) Okay. Thank-you.
They spend the next three hours dredging around the moat to find the right newt and then perform the right ceremony to turn him human again. He appears naked and covered in mud and court lady unabashedly flings herself into his arms, sobbing in relief this time, and it’s disgustingly wholesome and romantic.
Newt Lordling: (once he’s finished doing a bit of sobbing of his own into his fiance’s hair) Wait, aren’t you Neskatina’s friend? Could you tell her that my sister likes daffodils? Girls, and daffodils? I tried to tell her myself, but the newt thing happened before I could get past asking her to stop with the threatening letters. We- we really don’t send those around here unless we mean it, she’s been finding it a bit upsetting. Daffodils would be much better received.
I thought about them more and… there’s no way Court Lady isn’t going to decide to be friends with Villainess after all this, is there? She helped her save her fiance when she thought him lost to her forever and had nowhere else to turn, they did what amounts to a mini quest together, they’re friends now. Villainess has no idea how to handle it when the next court function comes along and Court Lady scampers over (tear-free this time) and proceeds to spend a decent amount of the evening with her just being… so unabashedly friendly. It’s unnerving.
Prince: She’s grateful to you and wants to be friends.
Villainess: (glowering suspiciously) Sounds fake.
Prince: She thinks you’re nice.
Villainess: Disgusting.
She still goes when Court Lady invites her on a trip to the meadows with some of the other ladies to pick greens, all of them surprised by the discovery that going out to gather flowers and useful herbs and such is something ladies from both courts do from time to time (though for very different reasons). It’s common sense to wear an older outfit that’s all right to get a bit grass- or mud-stained (ladies from the Prince’s court call them their ‘daisy dresses,’ Villainess and her friends call them ‘gathering gowns’), and Villainess is kind of shocked that the pretty nobles from her beloathed’s court do this sort of thing.
The ladies all titter, then it’s story time, because you can bet most of them have a heroic/clever/wise relative somewhere in the family tree who was born a peasant and married or gained nobility for some feat or other, and it’s fun to have someone new in the group who hasn’t heard all the stories before. Villainess is surprised again, because she does actually know some of these stories, but from the relatives of the villain involved (usually told in a ‘you’ll never guess what so-and-so’s idiot relative got thwarted over’ sort of tone). Going on outings like this helps you stay connected to your roots!
Also, Court Lady turns out to be the daughter of the royal apothecary and has a deep knowledge of the properties of various mushrooms. She even knows about poisons because they’re used in medicine sometimes. Villainess might be starting to like her as a person.
Another lady finds a patch of old teasels and braids them into a crown for Villainess, because “They’re all dark and spiky, and about the same colour as your daisy dr- ah, your gathering gown! We tend to make each other flower crowns when we go out, but I thought you might like these better.”
Villainess: …won’t they get deceptively yet horribly tangled in my hair, making the crown stay on well but an absolute nightmare to take off?
Lady: (terrified that she’s judged wrong) Yes…?
Villainess: (trying so hard not to be horribly touched, she’s just allergic to all these non-lethal flowers, that’s why she’s suddenly feeling sniffly) That’s really thoughtful of you.
To get a touch spicy - both are shocked to discover that their fiance is under the belief that the alignment they’re not a part of invented bondage.
Prince: It had to have been a villain that invented it, your side’s the one that gets all clever with ropes and knots and everything!
Villainess: No no no, it must have been your side, because safe words and after care!
They are both very perplexed, but also in absolute agreement that they will not be asking their parents about this.
(Because why go with the trope ‘good folks are vanilla in bed and evil folks are spicy’ when you could go with ‘actually one’s moral alignment has no effect on what they’re into in bed and actually it’s a pretty even division of spiciness levels all around’ and have both groups get tripped up by the discovery?)
@moviegirlsincedisney #amazing #I need comics and books and a tv show #also I imagine after neskatina has sent a bouquet of daffodils with a black ribbon binding them together #she receives a letter threatening her for turning the lordling into a newt from the sister #It’s filled with scathing comments the likes of which neskatina has never heard from the lips of the Good Folk #at the end of the letter written in tiny print is a post script saying ‘did I do it right? you’re cute’ #Neskatina is disturbed when instead of ruining the effect of the whole letter she is instead only further endeared
[Image ID:] A short comic of someone with pointy ears wearing a hat reading something from their laptop, which results in them pulling their hat over their head and screaming. [End ID]
There’s that semi-common trope in a lot of stuff where the King’s advisor turns out to be super evil, right? I imagine that could play back into this, where the Prince’s father’s advisor is like. Visibly evil and malicious and conniving, complete with backhanded comments and an unsettling name. And Villainess finally meets him and realizes this immediately. She personally finds him to be one of the most tolerable people in the castle, but she is a bit concerned that the Prince doesn’t know and that this man could cause some out of place stress to her Beloathed. Eventually she decides to tell him, and so later that night she asks about it.
Villainess: Beloathed, what do you think of your father’s advisor?
Prince: Him? Oh, he’s been with the family since my father was a boy. He practically raised Father when my grandfather fell ill. We are lucky to have him with us.
Villainess: …are you aware that he’s evil?
Prince: Hm? Oh, yes.
Villainess, now a bit confused: And you haven’t removed him from the job? I would have assumed that your people would not tolerate this kind of darkness, especially so close to power.
Prince, shrugging: It’s kind of a tradition, to be honest. The King’s advisors have all been evil for… well, centuries now. It’s something that mostly goes unspoken. The position tends to corrupt people. Eventually he will reveal a daring plot, and I will defeat him to protect the light and discover something new about the side of good.
Villainess: Hmm. I suppose that makes sense.
And later on the Villainess begins to foil the advisor’s plans, mostly because all of them are mediocre and her beloathed deserves a much more challenging trial than that. The Prince is touched that the Villainess is putting this much attention into such a small, unspoken tradition. The advisor is very confused and upset because “what do you mean that was a bad plan, I even included poison!”
you KICK cathulhu? you kick her e̵l̷d̶r̸i̵t̷c̸h̵ ̴f̴o̵r̸m̸ like ye olde foote ball? oh! oh! dungeon for prince! dungeon for prince for a̸̧̪͑ ̶̨͍̐͑t̸͎͒͊h̵͆̔ͅo̷͙͎̿ǔ̴̞͔ṣ̶̜̔͠a̵̭͗͜n̴̰̜̍̒d̴̘͂ ̷̙̗͐y̴͓͐͜e̵̗̓̏a̶̳͎͂r̵͚̈́́ś̵͎͊!
tangentwithtanner
titsay
2087
