MATCHSTICK GIRL

ADELINE HILARIA MAXIMINA CALORE. 25. PRINCESS. They say the Lerolan Queen could feel the princess kicking in the womb weeks before she developed feet. They say it was her heart. That’s how strongly it beat.

[caloreprincess-blog]

portia-barnes:

date: may 23rd

location: palace garden

status: open

The once contagious smile that stretched across Portia’s face had now become silenced. The sparkling of her warm eyes had diminished into emptiness as she sat with her legs folded into the grass of the palace’s garden.  Her fingers were slightly shaking as they pulled at the yellow weeds. She was there when the king spoke, barely even thinking her name would be called, barely even expecting herself to be considered a ‘new blood’. 

“It’s true,” Portia whispered as she plucked a yellow pedal. 

“It’s not true.” Her voice barely even felt like her own. It was shaky from a sense of confusion, from having attention drawn to her, when she didn’t even want to the attention. The attention didn’t belong to her, but to others. Was it the breaking of light bulbs? Was that all she was good for? Maybe it was a coincidence?  She still couldn’t smile. It was as if Tomas was gone all over again and had temporarily removed her ability of smiling. Her head bowed again wit her eyes closed and fingers still pulling at the petal again. It’s true. It’s not true. It’s true. 

She paused. Her fingers searching for a petal and cracking open her eyes and staring at the sole petal remaining. Her shoulders tensed as she pulled it away and discarded the remaining stem. 

“It’s not true.” Denial was always easier than the truth that she barely knew. A few times the light bulbs had gone enough, but she didn’t think that they might have been because of her. She didn’t want herself to believe that. She was a red blood, she was certain of it. Connecting the dots was harder than she wanted, so she took a breath, glanced up at the sky, and swallowed. “It’s not true.” 

When Max needs to think, she goes to the library or to the gardens, and today she had chosen the latter. 

She thought her engagement would bring dizzying happiness, a kind of pure elation that she had never been able to anticipate; she should have known better than to hope for something so beautiful. She was living in a nation at war with its border and at war with itself and her brother never seemed to realize how that would tear it apart, that a declaration of blood equality for all would need time, would need a gentle hand. He was going to get his head cut off. For this she would need a breath of fresh air. 

She had considered going to him, finding him so that she might drag him into a side hallway and smack him for being so ignorantly hopeful, but instead she had wandered from the large gathering to sit among the grass and the clouds. It was here that she found Portia sitting cross-legged, a beauty hidden from the world she had just exited. 

❝ Portia! ❞ she begins to call out, a shred of happiness coloring her voice at the prospect of finding one of the few people whose name’s she had recognized from the list, but then she sees what she is doing, hears what she is saying, and the princess finds her heart is breaking. 

Quietly so as not to disturb the freshly revealed new blood, she pads her way towards Portia and when she is close enough she says ❝ It’s true, my dear. ❞ There’s a distinctive melancholy to her voice, something uncomfortable and unfortunately familiar. ❝ We both know my brother wouldn’t make that announcement unless he was absolutely sure, reckless as he may be sometimes this is not something to be trifled with. ❞

[caloreprincess-blog]

caldergliacon:

       The delight in her voice positively fizzles through him, like he’s got champagne for blood and firecrackers in his bone marrow. Calder is glad for the dance, because he wouldn’t be able to stand still, the anticipation and terror too much to bear with any sort of stoicism. He is at his worst tonight, but perhaps she would take it as his best — it’s not Max that rejects his enthusiasm, but the memory of harsh words and a stern glare to keep him in line. Keeping so many secrets had threatened to ruin him, and now he holds her warmth in his hands and knows he would be foolish to give that up.

        Yet he still doesn’t know what it is she feels in return. He hopes that the smile she offers and the fire she provides are a sign of her intent, but the words have not been spoken, and his fear of them is mainly motivated by not wanting to let guilt obligate her into saying them in return. If she loves him, she will tell him — at least, he hopes and prays she will. Her giddy you missed me? is enough to rattle his self control, but he manages to steer her toward the door with at least a semblance of elegance. He’ll never be the perfect dance partner, but he hopes she can overlook it.

        She missed him too, and it’s enough to heat him from the inside out. Calder still can’t quite believe that. Princess Adeline, Max, has always been so far out of reach as to be impossible, yet here she is, quiescent beneath his hands and pliable to his suggestion as he leads her away from the people she’s always given all of herself to. He loves her for it, her blind devotion to Norta and its citizens, yet he hates what they steal from her, whether she notices or not. If anything, he would end tonight knowing that she would be selfish between the two of them. That she would keep him if she pleased and toss him aside if she did not, and he would be happy just to see her doing it for herself and her own whim.

        ❝ A surprise, ❞ he replies with no small amount of coyness, leading her on a leisurely walk toward the gardens. ❝ I hope it will be to your liking, but it’s best to wait and see. ❞ After ducking out for an hour just to set it up, he prays it will be. And hopes the staff won’t be too mad when they find out what he nicked from storage. He’ll replace it all, somehow, he’s sworn already. Twice over.

        Nerves assault him as butterflies race through his stomach. He’s always been a sentimental fool, but he didn’t think he would be doing himself in by placing the scene a five minute walk from the party. To distract himself, he begins to speak, hoping to capture her interest and distract her so he can get in range and check with his ability on the decorations. ❝ This is where I walked when I thought you were going to fire me, ❞ he teases, half a smile gracing lips that rarely wear one. ❝ It felt rather like I imagined a walk of shame would feel. I mean, I was walking and I felt shame? But in the end, there was no choice to make. I cannot help but come to your call. ❞

        Calder stops at the entrance to the garden, his thumb brushing Max’s cheekbone as he studies her a moment. He’s close enough now to feel the ice he’s put in place, fortifying the thinning walls of it until the frost glows again. ❝ How was I to know you would speak such sweet words to me? Like I’d never heard before. ❞ There is truly nothing left to lose. This act will lay it all on the line, and there’s no point in pretending to feel less than he does. If he can’t tell her now, when can he?

        He takes her by the hand, leading her forward to where the bushes have grown thickest. Nothing like the place beneath the stars where she took his hands in hers and made the ground feel hallowed. Instead, they are soon arrivals in the densest area of the maze, turning sharply into a dead-end that has been strung with humming light.

        Around them, tucked into the bushes, are frosted spheres of ice. Inside each, a lit candle rests, the flame very carefully not touching the ice but warming it from within just the same. It took him long enough to light them, and even longer to keep them on a shelf of ice long enough to form a sphere around them, fusing them with frost to the thicker branches he could find. He thanks luck and his own control that none have shattered, and instead give an ethereal glow to it — there aren’t too many, so as not to be overwhelming, but there are enough to light their surroundings on a moonless night.

        ❝ It’s like us, ❞ he whispers, facing her and determining not to look away from her, not to hide in embarrassment. He is shy in his romantics, never having witnessed this sort of theatrics outside of stories, but Calder cannot do anything but give her his all. ❝ I’m… not a warm person, you see. Except for you. You sneak into the very heart of me, and melt it all away, until I’m happy for the whole of Norta to see if they wanted. ❞ He brushes his thumb across her knuckles, that shy feeling in his chest causing him to duck his head at last. What is he to do, when she is the sun and any glow left to him is merely parhelion from the light she gives?

        Now begins the hardest part. The part he dreads, because he cannot predict her answer. Only hope may sustain him from here on. ❝ Your brother King approached me tonight. He had an ultimatum. ❞ Calder half laughs to himself. ❝ He — wants you to be happy. If I do that… he would like to see us wed. ❞ He meets her eyes, then, and desperately wonders what he’ll see there. ❝ But I have made a vow of my own. And I would not put you on the spot to satisfy anyone’s whim, even the King of Norta. So I will offer you a choice instead, and I will abide by it in all things. ❞

        He breathes deep, trying to get control of his voice so it does not crack with the emotion lurking just beneath the surface. ❝ If you would not want to consent to the question, I will not ask it. It is entirely unfair to ask, without discussing it first, and I — I cannot bear to think of you feeling anxious for it. No, if you have never considered it, I will stay mute, and we can merely enjoy a dance, here, shielded from the world. Just you and me. ❞ His eyes darken, but perhaps it’s a trick of the light. ❝ But I know my heart well, and there’s never been anyone in this life I’ve wanted to spend the rest of it with but you. I have wanted to marry you, Max, since I was 10 years old, and I’ll want it every day hereafter. And when you’re ready, if you’re ready, I will kneel before you and beg your hand. But only on your order. ❞ He smiles, and it’s bittersweet with all the nerves he can’t stop feeling. ❝ You may ask it of me any time. Now, or ten years from now, my wants will not change. Never have changed. And if the King wishes it sooner, I will cheer as you tell him no, because there’s nothing that I desire more than for you to choose me. Truly, and whole-heartedly, over anyone. To be selfish in it. ❞

        Calder cups her face in his hands and hopes that his daring, bright matchstick of a Princess will give him just a little longer to speak before interrupting. ❝ I have seen you give yourself in every iteration a thousand times a day to anyone who asked, for every year I’ve served you. I couldn’t bear for you to give your heart to me because I asked for it. ❞ He swallows, tilting his head until his forehead touches hers. ❝ I have always belonged to you. And I cannot — I will not take a yes from empathy or selfnessness. I want only a yes from you, Max, if your whole heart, your whole spirit, wants it too. As selfishly and brazenly as possible. ❞ 

        And then, as if to encourage her, he does something brazen too — he kisses her, with sugar-sweetness and butterflies filtering through his torso. He kisses her and knows that if he’s done nothing else right, they will have this.             

In the very back of her mind, she is put out by the dance, by the way he seems to have stopped leading her away from the crowds to twirl her in circle after circle; though she’d gladly dance with him until the sun began to rise west and set in the east, until time began to turn backwards and the ocean became the sky, but she had been expecting something else, something altogether new -- she’d been expecting an uncrossed bridge. If she’s being honest though, the smile that has settled onto his lips -- oh his lips, how she longs to lift her weight onto her toes so that she might press her own mouth to those perfectly pink lips -- nearly makes up for the fact that she was hoping for something else. 

He makes it so easy, makes her feel so at ease, and she doesn’t know when the winter of him faded from her sight to make way for the blooming of spring, for the smile reminiscent of the decadent rays of a mid-summer sun, but she would thank the Gods for it every single day if they asked it of her; she thinks perhaps the change began to unfold the moment she showed him her heart for the first time, those moments under a blinding moon where she had laid her forehead against his own, traced the unfamiliar lines of his jaw with her palm, with the tips of her fingers, leaving little pieces of her heart along every plane of his body. Perhaps it was when she invited him into her bed, curling up beside him like a fox in its den, claiming a piece of him for her new home despite never being invited in. She’d been selfish with him then, barely passing a thought to what he wanted, what he may have been thinking or seeing as she tucked herself into the space between his arm and his torso. She hadn’t particularly cared whether or not he wanted her there, had only known that it was the only thing that she wanted, had only known that the sweet, strange scent of lilacs that always wafted from him made her feel like she’d somehow made it into the heavens, made her lungs feel like puffs of white cloud in her chest. Perhaps that was when the winter of him began to fade, making way for the warmth that seemed to plant dahlias in her chest. 

No, she doesn’t know when exactly it faded, but she is basking in this springtime now. 

As they trailed through the crowds, slipping their way between partners and conversations, she hears the words of Norta’s elite as they trail along the air. Magnificent... This is incredible... I still don’t like the King, but he cant throw damn good party... The princess... Still so tragic... Look how she sees nothing but him... And then it was over, the noise fading into the distance to make room for the sudden silence filling the spaces around her. She didn’t realize that Calder had been carefully guiding the pair closer and closer to the exit until suddenly they were through the doors and the cold of the night air was coloring her skin with the unmistakeable silver hue of relief; or, just perhaps, it was desire creeping its way onto her cheeks, dragging itself from the hiding place in her abdomen to fill her veins with the fire she wishes she had discovered a long time ago. 

Curiosity runs wild in her bloodstream as he so coyly decides not to just tell her what she so desperately wants to know. With her arm tucked through Calder’s, she feels anchored to him in a new and exciting way; she is weightless, free of any burdening responsibility she once felt so tied to -- her dedication to the crown had been suffocating, and though the weight of it still makes a home on her shoulders, she feels lighter for it, able to manage it so long as she hangs onto Calder, suspended from stress so long as she is tied to him. She is his, and she is better for it. 

She’s teasing him suddenly, elated to be so close to him with no one there to make her feel a need to draw away from the proximity of him. She should really have already known this, that her personal guard had never taken to a lovers bed -- after all, he spent most nights mere feet away, just beyond a door to her own sleeping quarters. But still, she’d had always had the thought in the back of her mind, the assumption that he would have snuck into an empty side room at least once or twice the same way all young boys at court do. She couldn’t even begin to explain what it made her feel to realize that he hadn’t. ❝ Cal, do you mean to tell me then that you know not what a ‘walk of shame’ feels like? ❞ She lifts a hand then, quickly, to her lips as the makings of a giggle make their way past her rosebud mouth. 

She doesn’t mean to laugh, but she can’t help the explosion of happiness, of pure pleasure that fills her when she realizes what his words mean. If he gives himself to her, she will be the first; she will be the only, and there’s nothing in this world that could make her happier than to hold ever fragile piece of Calder between her steady palms. 

The walk goes quickly; maybe it’s the crispness of the night air mixing with the slight buzz of champagne in her veins, but it feels like one moment she is twirling through the crowded dance hall and the next she in entering one of the hidden groves in the garden. She is so caught up in staring at Cal’s profile that when they first enter the glowing barely enters her attention, but then he is sweeping her closer to the center of the space and finally her eye catches on one of the seeming hundreds of globes, each and every single one reminding Max immediately of herself. She’d hidden the true vision of her own warmth, her own emotions for as long as she can remember, leaving a frosty exterior masquerading itself as the Princess of Norta. Yes, the globes are just like her, and when Calder begins to speak she realizes, absolutely and completely, just how perfect he is for her. They are truly two sides of the same coin, perhaps even the same side. 

And he is saying everything that she could ever want to hear, and doing it better than she could have ever imagined it. It feels like she’s traded the noose around her neck for a pair of wings -- a strong, and mighty pair of wings that might let her take Calder in her arms so they could fly away together, leaving the troubles and woes of a kingdom Max hadn’t asked for behind. All at the same time it feels like an blessing and an opportunity and a dastardly mistake. 

All it would take is a single moment for her to lose it all. 

She hears her father’s voice ringing in her head first: Who have you become, girl? This isn’t what I wanted for you, now was it? I named you for strength, for nobility, and this boy is nothing but a guard, a nobody, a nothing. It doesn’t end there though, no; there have been far too many voices telling the princess what to do her entire life for this moment to pass with ease, with surety, with only a smile. Instead she hears the voice of her mother, the widowed queen, the woman who had never shown Max the warmth she deserved, and her voice practically shouts: you’re not the daughter I asked for. Orion, of course, comes next, but his voice is only a faint whisper in her ear, a breathy wisp of a word -- disappointment. lastly it is the shouts of her people, the many souls that inhabit the streets of Norta, the one’s she had sworn to protect as best she could. They shout that she is a traitor, that she is giving herself to a man when they need her. It nearly brings Max crippling to her knees, the sudden onslaught of doubt and self-loathing. It makes perfect sense, that she doubts her right to these emotions, to this happiness that threatens to surge through her. People learn to love their chains, they say. Adeline didn’t love them, but they were necessary -- or at least, they had been until this moment. 

Because all it would take for her to lose any hope, any light that she still had inside of her is a single moment, which also means all it takes to get everything she has every wanted to the ability to endure a moment of doubt, a moment of fear, a moment of dedication to the girl she had so carefully crafted herself into. Her hands are dangling almost lifelessly at her side, caught in the shock of his proposal, but she is anchored to him in every way emotionally possible, 

❝ I -- ❞ is all she manages to get out before the wind is sweeping through her lungs. 

Because then he is kissing her, before she had even gotten the chance to reply. It came so suddenly that she wasn’t really sure how to react at first, annoyed ( really, would she be the Max he loved if she didn’t get annoyed about having words stolen from her lips? ) about the fact that she hadn’t been given a chance to speak, but simultaneously dizzied by the sudden wave of surety that flushed through her, enlivened and on fire from the way it felt like her veins were singing because after the flash of a moment she is kissing him back. It’s like some sort of connection opening up, the ice in his veins dampening the fire in her own, leaving her with only the warmth and none of the murderous burn -- this was what all of her other kisses had been missing. 

And to be sure, she’s been kissed before, more times than she’d care to admit in this particular moment. She’d been kissed by strangers, and foreign dignitaries trying to get in good with the Nortan princess to perhaps one day secure an alliance with her nation, perhaps even a royal union. They’d mostly been violent, sultry things, all desperate grabbing and the heated drunkenness of young men. This kiss was nothing like those other ones, all of them taking place in side rooms with her back pressed against the wall; this was something altogether more magical. His lips are pressed upon her and her arms are doing things they’ve never dreamed of -- running themselves along his arms, up his forearm to grab onto his bicep, his elbow, his shoulder, learning and committing to memory the planes of his body in a way that eyes could never accomplish. They trail along him like feathers, like lions stalking their prey, simultaneously light and hungry. This is what it takes for her to be sure; this moment, with his love bared before her and the warmth of him flowing into her she is truly, and incandescently sure. 

It feels like waking up. 

With waking up must come clarity, and max could have none with his lips pressed to her like that, so she broke away -- so much sooner than she ever wanted to. ❝ Ask me, ❞ she said with the sureness of a hurricane that could topple everything in its path; her words were of equal force. ❝ I am asking -- no, I am begging you to ask me what I have never allowed myself to dream of, even in my sleeping hours. Ask me what I never thought I would hear. Ask me the one thing that could bring me the greatest happiness I have ever felt. Truly, Cal; ask me, please. ❞ 

[caloreprincess-blog]

caldergliacon:

✖ MAX

The princess has found herself uncomfortably familiar with the venom-tainted emotions of guilt and grieving, with the brass-knuckled hands of a Fate that favored anyone but the Royal family it would seem. At this point, there was nothing she could do about it, nothing she could do to make it change to make it better to make it end. This was not like a tree, where the roots have to come to an end at some point, or like a stag running through those trees that must come to a halt at some point to catch its breath. This was something else, something otherworldly, something terrible. 

This was the kind of bright red that stayed on the back of your eyes long after the sun had gone, tainting the world around you with darkness and devastation. The world felt blurry under the weight of such mangled grief, as though her heart had been crafted from cardboard boxes and then the blood in her veins had been made to set fire to her own body – she was swimming in the heat of it, in the complete ruination. She kept trying to think of way to explain it, to herself, to the family that she had left, to the kingdom, but the words kept getting jumbled up, tangling in her chest the same way she had misunderstood what Calder had been trying to say to her. 

Could she get anything right anymore?

Perhaps her brother was right to put her on the back burner, to tell her that she did not even deserve the role of pawn on his chest board – she was too much of a wild card, too much of an enemy to his cause, to his rule. Perhaps that was one of the reasons he had given her permission to love whom she wanted – no matter who it was would be a victory for her brother, because she would leave the family quarters and she would be out of his hair, so to speak. 

Staring at Calder’s blue eyes, stark and jolting against the silver streaking through them from crying, time is frozen, and max is swimming in the poison of her thoughts. I won’t cry anymore, he said, as though that was why she was leaving his side, as though she cared about the weakness hidden beneath iron-born skin. As if that wasn’t the safest place. As if that wasn’t the place she wanted to crawl under and hide, right up there underneath his chest alongside his heart, the softest place in his body she’d been able to catalog. Explaining this thought would get her nowhere, so she moves away from it, stepping towards him once and then once again.

Slowly, her arms unlatch themselves from around her waist, from around her shoulder, unlocking herself from that lonely place between the shadow and the darkness, desperately hoping he might drag her from it. Because this is a love scene, right? She thinks so, maybe, thinks this is one of those carefully crafted moments of development where she is meant to see his weakness and turn it into a strength, morph it into an ability. After all, courage is not the absence of fear, but action despite the abundance of it – was this not the same? Was this not pouring salt directly into the wound? Opening it up and infecting it with the poison of pain? Was not grace, after all, the product of violence? 

At least her god had a kind face. Calder, her breathless glory. Calder, her shaking hands.  

She doesn’t really register when it happens, but one moment she is in the corner of the room and the next she has already carried herself back to his side, taken his trembling hands in her own. She can still feel the dampness from his eyes on his palms and she lifts one to her mouth, pressing a kiss there the same way he did so many weeks ago now. You’ve swallowed me whole, it says. I let you do it and it was beautiful. 

❝ I won’t go. Of course I won’t go. ❞

She wouldn’t have been able to stomach it anyways. 

She wants to crawl into bed with him, curl up beside him the same way she did the night she learned what his lips feel lips, but the last thing she wants to do is hurt him anymore that he has already been hurt. But she is selfish in the face of death, and the moment she knew she was wanted she would take it all, even if it was more than he was offering – and she knew he would let her, because that was the man she loved. Yes, she is selfish, so she begs him with her eyes to move over, only just a couple of inches ( the less he moves the closer she is forced to lie beside him, and that is all fine by her standards ) and then slips her feet out of the flats she’d just as easily slipped her feet into and crawls her way into his space, slipping back into the hollow space between his arm and his side like she never left. This time it’s gentler, less of a desperate grab for warmth and more like coming home.

She listens for how he is reacting to this position she’s put him in, where her jaw is still quivering and she doesn’t think the shaking in her spine ( and in her soul ) is going to alleviate anytime soon, but she makes no comments on his breathing, only a quick Is this okay? passing her lips as an address to where she is sitting. Instead she talks about Eve, and she talks and she talks and she talks. Do you remember how she spun the world into gold? And she talks about the time that her half-sister wove a crown from the dandelions that grew in the grass beneath Max’s balcony. Max doesn’t talk about how quickly the flowers wilted atop her head, or how she lost the crown only an hour or two later. Do you remember how she made the world smile? And she talked about how happy she always made Marius, a kerosene heart made to seem like candlelight at twilight. Do you remember how she made words taste like melting sugar cubes? And she talks about watching Calder dance with her sister at the Festival of the First Frost, watching as a smile touches his cheeks and stars danced in his eyes as she twirled around him. 

Max doesn’t think she’s ever shown her sister such love, and with every story she feels more tears and more happiness and she clings to Calder like she never has before.  

     He can’t bear her hurt, especially not at his own hands, but neither can he stop the relief flowing through him at her acquiescence. Calder has never considered himself particularly selfish, but he wants to be, wants it until his mouth fills with the honey of desire and sticks against his teeth. He wants, awfully, miserably, to be selfish with the only person he cannot claim as his and his alone. Princess Adeline must belong to the citizens of Norta first, and Max? He cannot cage her, knows the strength in his hands would crush her. But the way she comes when he asks makes him want it all the more.

     It shocks him, that amid her anguish at Eve’s loss, there is also a rising empathy. For the grief he’s shared with her and her alone, for the tears he couldn’t bear to show anyone else. The thought of opening his wounds in front of another person is anathema, but Max doesn’t really feel like another, wholly outside of himself. More, it feels as though he’s attached himself to her, inexorably, and there is nothing for him to do but be vulnerable, for he is only showing another part of him: the heart she holds, raw and bloody and beating far too fast, in her palms.

     Of course. Does she know, the way the words twist into the hollows inside him and try their best to fill the absence? The lack, deep within him, eats them with such gusto it would seem that he’s been starving. The warmth of her voice, the surety with which she speaks of staying, calls to all the vespertine darkness he’s ever known and tries to breathe fire into the night. It’s easier than breathing, to shift his body, barely more than an inch — merely the pretense of moving, if anyone asks — and help ease her into laying out across him. ❝ Thank you, ❞ he whispers, throat still raw.

     Calder can’t help but think that it might just be the most scandalous thing he’s ever done. Adeline Calore, with her legs fully flush against his and her weight a small, comfortable thing against his side. He doesn’t mind, and once he’s confirmed that it doesn’t bother her shoulder, he gingerly wraps his arm around her waist. The other cards very carefully through her hair, the thick darkness of it spreading across his chest in a fan of tickling warmth. He deliberately doesn’t think about the fact that bandages are the only things between his skin and her hands. 

     It’s soothing to him and he hopes to her as well, the gentle repetition of his fingers through the heavy length of her hair. It certainly feels like indulgence, the way he can inhale the scent of her soap and press a kiss to the crown of her head. Comfort does not come easily to him, but the fact that she’s there, that she’s stayed when others have run or screamed at him for having such emotions that threaten to tear him apart… it means more than he can convey with simple words. So he lets her talk, and when she needs to breathe or to cry, he responds in kind.

     Of the way Eve just seemed to know, whatever it was he needed that day, and how she hadn’t begrudged him anything. Not an emotion nor a distasteful face when offered white wine. It didn’t matter to Eve if he behaved with the comport of a guardsman. She’d wanted him to be free, and he had been. He told the story of the day he’d promised her, both of them impossibly young for such a serious vow, that he would guard both princesses. That she was just as important as any Calore, and he would fight anyone who told her otherwise.

     Dances at First Frost and snow sticking to her eyelashes until she was hitting at his arm. He even mentioned the night of Max and his fight, when he’d let her hold him instead of pretending at being strong. When he’d fashioned her the worst ice sculpture anyone had ever done, but she’d teasingly accepted it with all her grace. She’d been so warm, the warmest person he knew — he feels the sting in his eyes and fights it, instead tilting his head and squeezing his eyes shut against Max’s hair. It wasn’t proper, for him to befriend the bastard-born Calore daughter, but he doesn’t care about propriety and Max knows it. He’ll miss her every day, and the guilt perhaps will never ease. But he has to try. Eve was the person least likely to punish him for this sort of thing.

EXEUNT.

[caloreprincess-blog]

melodywalsh:

date — may 6 location — plaza hotel status — open

The years had been kind to her. Her baby face had sunken in some, lending to her the wisdom that age often bestowed (asked for or not); her humble beginnings were nowhere to be seen in the elegance of her posture, the self-assured slope of her smile. And still, her heart fluttered. The years, it seemed, had turned on themselves. She was sixteen again, surrounded by people who knew her only as Mel, the soft-spoken girl who ducked her head shyly every time she laughed. To assuage her anxiety and distract her lips and hands with something to do, she reached for a flute of champagne. The glass had barely touched her lips when the entire room brightened, and she recognized a familiar face. “Hi — you came, too. I was worried I wouldn’t know anyone here.”

Max was used to being in the spotlight, and had gleaned an unexpected amount of attention from people that she had barely known during high school. It was a bit overwhelming, trying to catch up with friends while others less successful came up to her asking about potential job openings, either at the Met or the MoMA, of which Max was affiliated with both. She’s been working her way through the throng of people slowly, carefully navigating her way between true friends and business ventures (truly, the number of people who clearly felt the need to be kind because her brother was the Mayor was disheartening) one by one when she finally spots a truly familiar -- and welcomed -- face. She practically dives towards the bar where Melody is just procuring a flute of champagne. ❝ Babe, ❞ she says as she signals to the bartender to get her another glass. Quickly then she turns towards her friend and puts a hand on Melody’s forearm, leaning in to close the space between them in an attempt to form some kind of privacy. ❝ Please tell me you knew he would be here. ❞   

[caloreprincess-blog]

caldergliacon:

Date: April 15th Time: Nearing Midnight Locale: Dance Floor Availability: for @caloreprincess

          At this point, his hands are shaking so much that the power his house is known for truly does apply. Shiver. And he is, shaking and nearly delirious with the decision he’s made. It’s not as though he hasn’t always known he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Max. But knowing it’s an actual possibility? That is quite new, and the idea of it still sneaks up and rattles at his brain when he least expects it. 

          There is a devious sort of pleasure in doing something that has never been allowed to you before, even if you’ve done it anyway. Permission makes everything feel new, and he knows that he has never been more grateful. Under the old King, it would not have happened. Of that he’s certain. Yet Orion has trusted his sister, someone he truly loves and is close with, to Calder, which makes it fifteen times more special than if the elder Calore had deigned to grace them with his approval.

          It’s not difficult, to find Max. He feels as though the rings Rahul helped him with are currently burning a hole in his pocket, and his hands feel cold as his power begins to swirl beneath his skin. A response to the anxiety littering his features. Calder schools his face, knowing Max will think something is wrong if he approaches her like this, and not wanting to give away the fact that things are unbearably, unfathomably right. When he approaches, it’s difficult not to see what Rahul was doing. They do, after all, seem to match, to fit in every right place. It makes his blood sing and his face feel warm.

          The music croons into a softened halt, and whoever her partner, it doesn’t matter. He murmurs an apology and asks to cut in a moment, his fingertips brushing her elbow. She can say no. She can always say no. ❝ Hello, ❞ he says, unable to help his smile as he leans low to speak to her alone. ❝ I missed you. ❞ It hasn’t been long, but that’s irrelevant — he doesn’t need to hide his heart from the person who owns it, does he? Calder leans away, spinning her into whatever dance they’re meant to be doing. He can barely focus on it. She’s beautiful in the dim light, but he wants to pull her out beneath the stars, where he first realized she might love him too. ❝ I have something to show you, if you’re willing to sneak away — I would monopolize a bit of your time. ❞

The morning of the circus ball Max had woken up late and lazy, with the strangely happy -- perhaps content was the better word -- feeling of calm in her chest and the kind of smile on her face that people would see and know it was private, that it was a smile made for one person and one person only. There had always been a sloping inequality to her relationship with Calder, a kind of devotion that could only be allowed to be one-sided. She had grown to be okay with that fact, that she would never be able to give herself to him the same way she gave herself to her people, trying to protect them from themselves even if it meant shredding her heart like wood in the chipper. It had been a long line of loneliness and impersonal connections with men that she didn’t care about, and even those small interactions had come to a jolting halt some years ago, about the time that the world realized the princess had gone from girl to woman. 

But this morning, well, now it was all different. 

She had awoken with the feeling of light in her chest, like the fluttering of butterflies wings and the welcoming of spring after a long winter. It was crisp and bright, the clarity she felt about her own emotions -- like one of those days when you forget just how cold it actually is until suddenly your cheek is frozen. The heartbreak she had endured three weeks prior -- had it really already been three weeks since her sister had fallen to the hands of fate? -- finally beginning to feel less heavy, beginning to feel dim, distant and far away even. It would always hurt, but she was learning how to live with it instead of just coping. (And let’s be perfectly clear here, drowning demons in a champagne bottle is hardly even coping. If anything, Max has been running and running and running).

But at least not she was moving forward instead of running in circles, and if she had it her way she would be running straight to the man who would reach out and take the stars from the sky if only she would ask it of him. 

The princess hasn’t missed the game that Rahul has been playing, hasn’t missed the fact that Lord Gliacon is dressed head to toe in her house colors instead of his own, hasn’t missed the fact that the crisp blues of her own gown are reminiscent of the color in Calder’s eyes. No, she hasn’t missed it, the same way the ornate mask covering his features isn’t enough to make him unrecognizable to her. If she’s being honest, she’s terrified to go up to him tonight, because her inhibitions are low ( and she’s already experienced on rejection, she really could do without another ) and her expectations are high. This is the moment that everything changes, so she hasn’t been giving him her full attention. She’s been flitting from room to room, from side to side ( how was it possible that one of those sides had actually involved a proposal -- was the world trying to tell her to get off her ass already? ) in an attempt to build up her confidence, in an attempt to keep running from this changing situation in the hopes that he will make the first move.

She is shocked when she feels like hand on her elbow, but it’s in the best kind of way, and she turns around quickly. 

❝ You missed me? ❞ she says just as she turns away from the man whom Calder had pulled her away from. She’d given the fellow a quick curtsy, a rushed tilt of her head that might as well have said fuck off -- I’ve got a a heart to give away. 

She’s a smiling wolf, all of her canines bared as she stands on her haunches, ready to howl to her true lord and savior. It’s unholy, really, how giddy those words make her feel, how they make her stomach flip because this, well, this is what they have both been waiting for, what they have been holding back. This moment where he can approach her in a crowded room and be unafraid of telling her that he loves her, of touching his lips to her ear to say you’re mine. ❝ Well, I think I’ve missed you just enough to allow you to whisk me away for a time. ❞

She doesn’t question it when she slips her hand through the crook of his elbow, beginning to make herself a home in the space she one day hopes to claim as hers and hers alone. Her hearts, a bouquet of dahlias to give to him, beats faster and faster every moment. 

❝ What is it you want to show me? ❞ They say curiosity killed the cat, but Max prefers to think of it as  a welcomed drowning in the unknown, the sea swallowing the ship they sail on and she wonders where it is that he is going to take her, what it is he is going to show her, what it is he is going to say. She thinks her only response will be Kiss me. 

[caloreprincess-blog]

caldergliacon:

         Her voice sounds farther and farther away, like taking a seashell from the museum and trying to hear her speak through it. That, perhaps, is worse than anything, and isn’t that selfish of him? That he would take anyone dying over Max abandoning him? What a fool he is, to think he has that right. What a bastard, too, that he should care about that over everything. He seems to be wired incorrectly, born in the wrong fashion, for there is nothing on earth that moves him more than she. And in this moment, he wishes that weren’t so. If only so that he could be fair to Evelina, and to her memory.

         Max’s gown rustles as she steps even further away, and he wonders, as he ever does, why he must constantly disappoint the ones he wants most not to. He is her guard, meant to be stalwart and true, meant to hold her through her tears rather than collapsing inward before her. This is not what she needs from him, but he doesn’t know how to stop. He doesn’t know how to be what she needs when he wasn’t what Evelina needed and she died. The heartbreak of it doesn’t leave him, but he tries desperately not to lose her, too. To have Max leave in the wake of this would devastate him beyond recognition, and remembering their previous conversation, he desperately hopes that perhaps she has misunderstood him again. 

                ( the alternative, that perhaps she only loves him when                   he is strong, is one that he will bear if necessary. he                    would be anything so long as she would care for him                   even half as much as he does for her. as long as she                   would continue looking at him as if he were worthy of it. ) 

         I understand, she says, but her next sentence makes it clear she understands nothing of the sort. She could not burden his grief any more than he has burdened it on his own, and she has misinterpreted his words to the point of mangling them. He wants to reach out, to say or do something to hold her, but he doesn’t know how. In that moment, he nearly loses her trying to figure it out, to navigate the minefield his thoughts have become enough to speak the words.

         ❝ Please, ❞ he says, looking up only for a moment. His eyelashes are still wet with tears, and the vulnerability of it terrifies him, forcing him to face away from her, to look at the ground on the other side of the bed as he speaks. He doesn’t quite know how to bare his soul just yet. ❝ Please, stay. I won’t — I’m not going to cry anymore. ❞ He can’t breathe from it, from the panic or the shame, it feels like his lungs are collapsing and he chokes on the words like they have substance, like they have weight. The words are far too reminiscent of memories he’d like to leave behind, of all the times he begged his parents not to make him go back and they did anyway. Of the cold, removed look on their faces when he would cry, until he learned to stop, because it disappointed them. 

         He shouldn’t ask. He knows better. He’s always wanted, needed someone to stay, to care in return, but asking them for it has always felt wrong when he knows he isn’t worth it. Max said she felt differently, though. He wants to believe her. His chest aches with the longing for it. ❝ Don’t leave me, I can’t — please don’t. Do that. I’m sorry. I can do better. ❞ He isn’t sure what he can do better at, but he will. He will, if it just means she won’t leave. If it means she won’t let him be alone. If it means he will collapse and someone will be there to catch him, even for a moment. 

The princess has found herself uncomfortably familiar with the venom-tainted emotions of guilt and grieving, with the brass-knuckled hands of a Fate that favored anyone but the Royal family it would seem. At this point, there was nothing she could do about it, nothing she could do to make it change to make it better to make it end. This was not like a tree, where the roots have to come to an end at some point, or like a stag running through those trees that must come to a halt at some point to catch its breath. This was something else, something otherworldly, something terrible. 

This was the kind of bright red that stayed on the back of your eyes long after the sun had gone, tainting the world around you with darkness and devastation. The world felt blurry under the weight of such mangled grief, as though her heart had been crafted from cardboard boxes and then the blood in her veins had been made to set fire to her own body -- she was swimming in the heat of it, in the complete ruination. She kept trying to think of way to explain it, to herself, to the family that she had left, to the kingdom, but the words kept getting jumbled up, tangling in her chest the same way she had misunderstood what Calder had been trying to say to her. 

Could she get anything right anymore?

Perhaps her brother was right to put her on the back burner, to tell her that she did not even deserve the role of pawn on his chest board -- she was too much of a wild card, too much of an enemy to his cause, to his rule. Perhaps that was one of the reasons he had given her permission to love whom she wanted -- no matter who it was would be a victory for her brother, because she would leave the family quarters and she would be out of his hair, so to speak. 

Staring at Calder’s blue eyes, stark and jolting against the silver streaking through them from crying, time is frozen, and max is swimming in the poison of her thoughts. I won’t cry anymore, he said, as though that was why she was leaving his side, as though she cared about the weakness hidden beneath iron-born skin. As if that wasn’t the safest place. As if that wasn’t the place she wanted to crawl under and hide, right up there underneath his chest alongside his heart, the softest place in his body she’d been able to catalog. Explaining this thought would get her nowhere, so she moves away from it, stepping towards him once and then once again.

Slowly, her arms unlatch themselves from around her waist, from around her shoulder, unlocking herself from that lonely place between the shadow and the darkness, desperately hoping he might drag her from it. Because this is a love scene, right? She thinks so, maybe, thinks this is one of those carefully crafted moments of development where she is meant to see his weakness and turn it into a strength, morph it into an ability. After all, courage is not the absence of fear, but action despite the abundance of it -- was this not the same? Was this not pouring salt directly into the wound? Opening it up and infecting it with the poison of pain? Was not grace, after all, the product of violence? 

At least her god had a kind face. Calder, her breathless glory. Calder, her shaking hands.  

She doesn’t really register when it happens, but one moment she is in the corner of the room and the next she has already carried herself back to his side, taken his trembling hands in her own. She can still feel the dampness from his eyes on his palms and she lifts one to her mouth, pressing a kiss there the same way he did so many weeks ago now. You’ve swallowed me whole, it says. I let you do it and it was beautiful. 

❝ I won’t go. Of course I won’t go. ❞

She wouldn’t have been able to stomach it anyways. 

She wants to crawl into bed with him, curl up beside him the same way she did the night she learned what his lips feel lips, but the last thing she wants to do is hurt him anymore that he has already been hurt. But she is selfish in the face of death, and the moment she knew she was wanted she would take it all, even if it was more than he was offering -- and she knew he would let her, because that was the man she loved. Yes, she is selfish, so she begs him with her eyes to move over, only just a couple of inches ( the less he moves the closer she is forced to lie beside him, and that is all fine by her standards ) and then slips her feet out of the flats she’d just as easily slipped her feet into and crawls her way into his space, slipping back into the hollow space between his arm and his side like she never left. This time it’s gentler, less of a desperate grab for warmth and more like coming home.

She listens for how he is reacting to this position she’s put him in, where her jaw is still quivering and she doesn’t think the shaking in her spine ( and in her soul ) is going to alleviate anytime soon, but she makes no comments on his breathing, only a quick Is this okay? passing her lips as an address to where she is sitting. Instead she talks about Eve, and she talks and she talks and she talks. Do you remember how she spun the world into gold? And she talks about the time that her half-sister wove a crown from the dandelions that grew in the grass beneath Max’s balcony. Max doesn’t talk about how quickly the flowers wilted atop her head, or how she lost the crown only an hour or two later. Do you remember how she made the world smile? And she talked about how happy she always made Marius, a kerosene heart made to seem like candlelight at twilight. Do you remember how she made words taste like melting sugar cubes? And she talks about watching Calder dance with her sister at the Festival of the First Frost, watching as a smile touches his cheeks and stars danced in his eyes as she twirled around him. 

Max doesn’t think she’s ever shown her sister such love, and with every story she feels more tears and more happiness and she clings to Calder like she never has before.  

[caloreprincess-blog]

jacalynblake:

location ;; grand hall,  date ;; 04/15, ~11:15 p.m. status ;; open

      It was overwhelming. To be admired once more. Jacalyn had almost forgotten what it meant to have people stare in wonder at her. But this was not at her, but rather the beautiful monstrosity that was currently posing as a innovative fashion choice. Rahul had done an amazing job making her wings seem like an accessory rather than actual wings that were attached to her spine and moved like additional limbs. And for a while, it was like nothing had changed.   

      But it had changed. Everything had. The glitz and glamour which once had excited her ( and still did in some ways, though it had dulled in the weeks since the explosion ) had become second to her need to constantly check behind her, to see if anyone was looking too closely.    

      “There’s so much to see and do,” she muttered. “I am not really sure what to do next.”

Adeline felt like a mix between cardamom and coriander, an odd combination of light and lemon. There was something mysterious and magical about the night air hanging around the great hall, and the princess had long ago realized that this was not a night that she wanted to forget ( To be honest, she had been forgetting a lot of them recently, succumbing to the numbing effects of alcohol and other crafted substances in an attempt to rid herself of the many emotions she could not otherwise get a handle on -- funny, really, how champagne could manufacture happiness in a person’s soul. Perhaps the bubbles are contagious ). But this girl was stunning, and she deserved a toast -- or, at least, her outfit did. 

❝ Well, my first choice for a course of action, ❞ she says, slipping two flutes of champagne off of a passing tray. Quickly, she extends one out towards the girl with wings, ❝ is going to be a toast to whoever designed that gorgeous outfit of yours. It is truly awe inspiring. ❞

[caloreprincess-blog]

scorpiusmerandus:

“ Absolutely, ” Scorpius slid the robe off his shoulders to reveal his bare chest with the provided bathing suit covering his lower half. He flexed every muscle in his body as he took the time to gaze down at the princess for a moment. One step down into the water was enough to seat himself beside the princess with a large smile already taking hold of his lips. If there was a single pawn in this whole game that deserved to be on his side, he knew it was the princess as the caged beauty deserved to shine in the light over her weak-willed brother. “ Have you missed me? Because I must break what is acceptable in our society and openly admit I have missed gazing into your eyes. Though, I have heard whispers that someone has already captured your heart. Please tell me this is simply rumors, and I might still have a chance to earn a genuine place in your heart. I would never want to follow such tradition of seeking the king’s permission when it is your life that I would be desiring to share. ”

The princess smiles knowingly, ever familiar with the charm of the Merandus heir. They had, after all, only been three years apart growing up. Scorpius had been the boy she had pined after when she was sixteen years old, drunk on royalty and champagne. When she was addicted to the game of cat and canary and not-so-chaste kisses behind closed doors ( the party going on just outside the door had been half the fun, after all. ) were her life blood. Then the Lord Merandus could have had his way with her; the only thing he would’ve had to do was wink. As it was, she found the display of dominance, of peacocking if you will, generally good entertaining if not highly flattering. But she’d been given permission to sell her heart, and it had already been bought. ❝ Lord Meranuds, ❞ she says, putting her unoccupied hand onto his own forearm. ❝ How you tease me so. We’ve barely spoken as of late, and I fear you want my more... reckless teenage self. Are you positive you even know the Adeline Calore of recent times? ❞ 

[caloreprincess-blog]

jacob-riley:

Date: April 15 Location: Room of Metal Status: Open

Even with the castle opened to everyone. Even with identities hidden carefully behind fragile, elegant masks and fine, exquisite clothing, Archeon still favored Silvers. The rooms so carefully designed to celebrate were all decorated with Silvers in mind. All with Silver powers in mind. And with all the luxuries a Red would never know. These fine halls and fancy feats were nice, but they would only last one night for the Reds and then they would all be out on their own, starving on the crowded streets again. If he had to be there, and had to find himself alone for a time, he might as well at least attend to the room of the one Silver he did like he supposed. The Samos bent metal trinkets were a small thing, but having anything of their own held something heavy. He stepped up to one of the molders, daring to meet their eyes the way he was never able when he was nothing more than their servant boy, called to quarters to make beds and empty trash. “A rose,” he said, knowing that if he sent the small gift home to his mother it should make her smile (not an easy feat with half her children dead and the other half working at the castle so far away). He all but rolled his eyes when the crafter gave a sniff at him and his crimson jacket. “Please,”  he added, though the added word dripped with disdain.

The evening was young when the princess entered the Room of Metal. To be honest, Adeline wasn’t sure why she had entered this particular room; she had enough trinkets in her her life, and she surely didn’t want this evening to be filled with reminders of the Samos family -- she hadn’t particularly enjoyed the company of either daughter ( though, to be fair, she’d be willing to give both more chances -- the princess always wanted more friends ). It’s her desire for friendship that lends it’s hand to her tone of voice when a metal rose is presented before her. The man’s own tone was sarcastic in a vague sort of way, as if her knew better than to speak in such a matter and yet... it couldn’t be helped. Lucky for him, she wasn’t a drunk princess yet or she may have had his head. ❝ Why thank you, ❞ she says, painting her voice in oblivion. She extends her hand towards the metallic flower and grasps the stem between her slender fingers.  ❝ What ever have I done to deserve this gift, kind Sir? ❞

[caloreprincess-blog]

DATE: April 15th LOCATION: Room of Rejuvination OPEN TO: All

The princess’s evening had started out... okay. Seeing Orion after their last conversation was both exciting and confusing, leaving Max unsure as to how she was meant to act around her brother. All in all, the last month and a half had been more overwhelming and heartbreaking than she had ever wanted for her life. A party was more than likely not the right place to put a guilt-ridden griever, but alas here she was, still reeling from the conversation she’d had with Nyssa only a half hour before. She knew she really should to lay off the champagne, but she couldn’t do that surrounded by the festivities and temptations --

So she escaped to the only room she knew she could find relaxation -- the Room of Rejuvination, as her brother had deemed it. A fitting name for the Blonos Heir, for sure. Max sits at the edge of the bubbling pool, her left hand occupied by the woman rubbing lotion into the skin there; soon her nails would be painted a gorgeous shade of red. The princess glances up quickly when she realizes there is someone near. ❝ Care to join? There’s plenty of room for us both, after all. ❞ 

[caloreprincess-blog]

caldergliacon:

     She’s sliding through is fingers, but the tips of two rest against her cheekbone before falling to his side as he says, ❝ But I would forgive you. ❞ He is desperate to prevent her unhappiness, but it’s a lost cause, and the way she pulls from him makes him feel bereft of something necessary. He wonders if he’s done something wrong — should he have demanded the truth? Would that make him seem better in her eyes?

     Tears in her eyes cause her lower lip to tremble, and he wants to take the shakes from her skin, wants to freeze her tears before they have a chance to hit her cheeks. But he stays, and he waits, because he knows he cannot push her into anything. Max must do what she thinks is right — he loves and admires her for it, and cannot begrudge her that trait. She continues stepping back, until they feel like mighty strangers, and it only serves to set his teeth on edge. 

     Hands that should be his are replaced by hers, wrapping around her torso in a facsimile of the hug he wishes to give her. If only he weren’t relegated to this damned bed, useless and weak until his blood replenishes itself. He has half a mind to tear the equipment from his body just to give himself peace of mind, because the thought of being far from her when she is hurting is as painful to him as his physical wounds. But her voice stops him short, arresting his heart and the very breath in his lungs.

     Calder is held on a precipice by the pause of her tongue, and then, without warning, he falls. 

     Like Icarus, he has flown too close to the sun, tasted the ichor of true happiness only to have it stolen from his lips. Only to cough it from his lungs as he drowns on the sunlight that had been replenishing his spirit, until it becomes fire in his veins, until he is choking, choking, can’t breathe, can’t think — 

      ❝ She – what? ❞ He isn’t sure what his face must look like, but he knows it can’t be good. He holds it very tightly in his hands, pressing his fingers to his eyes because if he cries he won’t stop. The memory is as sharp as each piece of shrapnel in him, how he’d acquiesced to being away. How they’d said they could handle Max just fine. How he hadn’t bothered to ask who was guarding Eve. Had anyone? He had thought better of his fellow guards. He had thought, of course they will protect her just as avidly as they protect Orion or Max. 

     But they had not. And he had not been there to do so. He hadn’t – he hadn’t been there. He promised. That she was just as important as any Calore. That he would fight for her if anything happened, and he hadn’t even seen. He hadn’t been there. The silence in his room is so profound that he can hear the shift of his shoulders against the pillow as they shake, and he doesn’t know what Max is doing, but he doesn’t know if he can look up to ask. His voice has deserted him the wake of raw guilt and horror and shame.

     There was so much Eve wanted to do. She had such a vivid imagination, a joy in life and in others that he’d never quite seen matched. She was the person he could be anything to, or anything with, because she would never be so lofty as to judge another, and he trusted her. As much as she’d trusted him. Would she hate him, knowing he hadn’t fulfilled that trust? He hates himself for it. If there was a promise made, a duty, and he did not keep his oath, what is left of him? Where is he, if he is not that pact? 

     A raw gasping noise escapes his throat and he muffles it, clenching his teeth until he feels as though they’ll crack down the middle. He forgets Max is there at all, forgets everything but the way Eve’s eyes had lit up during First Frost. How light her feet had been on the dance floor. How she’d delighted in his little ice sculptures even as she teased him for them, and how she hadn’t been afraid, to be affectionate or free. How she’d been so opposite to him but had reached across the divide anyway, to take his hand and pull him forward when he was most stuck in his ways.

     His hands slide over his face into his hair, the pain of pulling on it at least reflecting what he thinks he should be feeling. How is it that his skin does not burn, when his heart feels as though it will collapse? How has his chest not burst with the weight of it, this truth he wishes so desperately were a lie? He feels selfish as he thinks of who Eve was to him, of how much he’ll miss her, even just as a presence across the room. Instead, he thinks not of what he’s losing but of what she has lost. Of the way she always wanted her family to be closer, to get along even when they couldn’t always do so. The way Narcisa looked at her and the way Eve was only barely starting to notice. There are a million things he thinks she could have done, and each one is lost, to time and to blood and to fire. 

     It’s been a long enough time that he should say something, he’s sure. Yet he feels… a cavernous loneliness, one that makes it nearly impossible to believe Max is still there. He should have said he was sorry, for she is a woman without a sister, but he can’t make the words come. He can’t push beyond anything into a thought coherent enough to be spoken. ❝ I can’t, ❞ he says, a broken, rasping thing flung from his chest without volition. How do you say the impossible? He presses his palms against his eyes once more, though he’s positive tears had escaped anyway. ❝ I’m — I’m sorry, I’m sorry, sorry. ❞   

A part of her recognizes that she should know better by know, that she knows him far too well to actually believe when he I can’t that he doesn’t mean he can’t have her near. She knows him as intimately as the sea knows the southernly winds, or a nightingale knows song. For longer than her parents ( Damn -- she had to stop doing that. She’s only got the one. ) would care to recall, she has studied him so closely that he feels as soft to her as the skin on her palm; ironically, the very same place she wants to use to cradle his face to claim for her own. Yes, a part of her knows that to feel rejected would be ridiculous. A part of her.

The other part was screaming in insecurity. 

( Because wasn’t it, of course, all about her? )

❝ I know... I- I know. ❞

She doesn’t know what she’s meant to do, the only course of action for her own arms wrapped around her waist and shoulders to pull tighter, to pull desperately; she suddenly feels horribly, terribly alone. All her adult life, he had been on her side, lifting her up from any darkness that manages to weave its way into her wildflower crown soul. And now here she stood, with more darkness than she had ever had to encounter, and Calder was drowning in his own. Max forgets, sometimes, that he has his own emotions, that while she is the center of his world, she is not his entire world. She can’t be. 

It’s juvenile, truly juvenile the way she seems only able to think of herself in this dark moment. He can’t? He can’t what, have her near? He can’t bear to be near the one who came bearing bad news and heartbreak? Could she really blame him?

Of course not.

So instead she will continue to wallow, allowing the pain she feels to take its course through her bloodstream when she watches the grief play out so clearly on Calder’s body -- she takes in the tension in his shoulders, in the spot on his forehead not hidden behind callous palms, wishes her own hands were the ones dragging through his night-dark tresses. Alas, there she stood, a distance that could have been crossed so easily, and yet it felt like she was standing at the ocean’s edge, Calder an entire world away. She had never seen such plain heartbreak on a person’s face before, and to see it on his -- at her own hand -- made her bones turn to dust, her heart to shattered glass. 

❝ I -- I understand. I will leave you be then, ❞ she says, thinking that is what he wants when he says I can’t and I’m sorry once and then once again, as though he cannot believe he is incapable of having her near, as though there’s an incredulity to these words passing his lips. Her own jaw is quivering and tears have ruined the black paint that had been so delicately traced over her lashes for her brother’s announcement. ❝ I do not want to burden your grief further. ❞   

[caloreprincess-blog]

nyssc:

There was so much to imagine, shrouded in the safety of inky black rooms, music drowning out voices, even in one’s own mind. But Nyssa’s screamed louder than most and it wailed at her now, a warning, sirens going off in her eardrums. What happens when someone ignores an alarm, that sense of self preservation, of survival that kept them all breathing? She feared if she brushed away the ringing of bells, the scream of her brain in the dark, she’d come to regret it. But where Adeline was concerned there was only apprehension and regret for Nyssa.

She didn’t understand the foreign words but they sounded endearing as opposed to patronizing. For a moment she let herself enjoy this, the delight of Adeline and her inclusion of Nyssa in a private joy she had never been privy to before and likely never would be again. Especially since she was about to ruin it. 

“Decadent, yes.” she was barely swaying now, that momentary joy withering away like smoke. IT was impossible to tell if the light emanating from Adeline was real or imagined but Nyssa had to swipe caution from the wind and put it back in her chest. Her hands began to shake as she spoke words she knew would not fall gracefully. “Forgive me your highness” she stopped dancing, she just couldn’t fake it, she didn’t know how. Nyssa had nothing to go off of, no context for how girlfriends act around one another, in scenarios like this. So when she spoke her mind she could only hope for the best, but expect the worst. 

“I can’t—I’m sorry but we are not friends and I am positive you have not and never will care to try anyhow. I don’t blame you, we all have our preferences and judgements after all. But I can’t fake the joy and delight you exhibit and I don’t want to get drunk just to attempt it. I’m sorry Princess, please, I’ll take my leave.”

She didn’t want this, this false and momentary burst of what friendship might be. Nyssa was selfish, she was vain, she wanted nothing less than the real thing and she wouldn’t settle for this.  

She hears the words that Lady Samos dares to speak and can’t help the cruel thought that passes through her mind: It’s no wonder this girl seems to have no friends. She can’t be bothered trying to make any. 

❝ Right, ❞ the princess says without thinking, the single word tumbling past her lips before she has a chance to catch it. It is uncouth of her, to be so abrupt, to be so curt, unbecoming of a princess. But then again, was it not to be said the same of Lady Samos’s behavior? To so openly disrespect the kindness of a member of House Calore? It was one thing to be an independent woman who sought out change, but another to so blatantly disregard someone who could one day help her perpetuate that change (This is not to say, of course, the Adeline ever had any intention of helping the Samos woman bring about revolution, but she didn’t know that. She should know better than to spit on the affections of a ruler).

Immediately, as though it is finally becoming reflex to rid herself of toxic ( Perhaps Adeline isn’t being fair, but she thinks she deserves a degree of petulance ) people, she drops Lady Samos’s hands from where she once held them in her own.

❝ You’re right, ❞ she begins as she straightens her shoulders, not that anyone can see her. ❝ And if you must insist on refusing to make any efforts to change that, well, then that is your decision. ❞

If she couldn’t work her way through the opening scenes of friendship, she would never find herself under the truly golden halo of its warmth.

❝ You’re dismissed, ❞ though she doesn’t wait for the blonde to walk away. Adeline instead steels her spine against the inevitable sadness rejection will bring her and carries herself to the doorway, leaving the Samos woman behind her. She thinks about looking back -- of course she does -- but instead she casts open the door to the rest of the party, momentarily allowing a flash of light to enter the dark room, and then steps into the warmth. 

She wouldn’t be returning to the Room of Darkness again.

EXEUNT. 

[caloreprincess-blog]

caldergliacon:

        He is basking in the glow of her. Perhaps that’s why the tone of her voice, the way it drops from worry to near-panicked anger, the way she looks at him with such sorrow in her eyes, hits him in the gut. Who? If not Max, if not Romilly, than who? He can’t bear to consider the many people he would hate to lose. Sofiya? Eve? Cassius? Any thought is painful, riddled with guilt and hopelessness, and still he waits for her to tell him it’s better than he thinks. Who was so seriously injured that it would put such horror in her eyes?

        In the end, however, his concern for Max outweighed his terror at the news to come. ❝ I only just woke up, but no. No one has said anything. I don’t know why, either. It’s better to have truth than to sit and enjoy a pretty omission. ❞ His hand slid, almost feather-light, up her spine, a comforting gesture that ends with it on her cheek, cradling her jaw against his palm. She’s looking at his eyes and he’s looking at hers, studying the amber of them and marveling at just how close they are to his. 

        Max looks on the verge of tears, and quite suddenly, Calder would do anything to make them go away. ❝ It’s okay, ❞ he says, murmured nonsense to try and end her obvious discomfort. ❝ We don’t have to talk about it. Not yet. We can – I can read the lists, I can ask a healer, anything. ❞ He brushes a thumb over her cheek and is entranced by the softness of it, distracted by everything new and lovely they have shared between them. ❝ I would not steal light from your eyes, Max. I would rather be an escape from worry than an additional burden. ❞

❝ I could never forgive myself if I didn’t tell you, ❞ she begins, having heard all that softness leave his lungs to fill the space between them. Her jaw is still quivering and even as he passes his hand over her cheeks to wipe away the weakness displayed there, more tears take the old one’s place. He deserves to know, she thinks. You have to tell him. 

Still though, not a single name has passed her lips. 

( Perhaps it is better this way, if the  news does not come from her. Then they could continue on in this new state of bliss they have found. 

Perhaps she really could use him as a means for escape. 

She is lying to herself. She will never use him that way, not anymore. )

She stares at him for what feels like years, drawing a strength from him that she knows he does not have, that she knows he will need in the coming moments, and then she pulls away. She wants to stay there, safe in his arms until the end of time ( maybe if they stayed there the world would fade away. they could live their happily ever after, if only she just stayed in his arms ) but she knows that she cannot. One moment his arms are a home around her waist and the next she has arisen from her perch beside him, her legs stretching out as she moves back one, two, and then three steps. 

She does not know why she is afraid to be the deliverer of this poison; Calder has never been one for cruelty. The princess has wrapped her own arms around herself, hands clinging at her own shoulders as some sort of half-assed version of comfort, as though she believes herself undeserving of the warmth her sister would have radiate, of the warmth she knows would come from Cal’s embrace. If she knows him at all, his first reaction will be for the princess herself, not to mourn his own friendship with her sister. If she knows him at all, she should not be afraid. 

Emotions are a funny, fickle thing. 

❝ It’s, well -- ❞ she breaks again, the set of her mouth so firmly in a line and shaking that she finds she can barely get air to her lungs, much less for a coherent sentence. ❝ It’s Eve, Cal. She, she died right when the bomb went off. ❞

What a bloody mess. 

[caloreprincess-blog]

nyssc:

Before she could say or do anything she felt a tug in the dark and allowed herself to be strung along by the Princess. It wasn’t that Nyssa didn’t like to have fun, although to be quite fair she had never had friends to dance at parties with, always so focused on maintaining her facade. Even now, with this open invitation she couldn’t loosen up, perhaps because it was Adeline vibrating with the thump of the music. Nyssa didn’t trust the princess, she never had the opportunity to change that perception and their one conversation was a blight on any possible friendship they might’ve formed.

Warmth wrapped around her hands and she could feel the sway of the other girl, the thrum of the music and heat unlike the kind Adeline could issue zipped down her spine. With extreme reluctance she began to sway, moving her body in time, letting the darkness wash over her just to become one with the song and the base in her collarbone. She might not be any good at dancing like this, she’d never tried but she was safe in the dark and so, she figured, was Adeline. Drunk on champagne but still in control of her wit and judgement, it seemed dangerous to engage her and Nyssa was sure this encounter would be long forgotten, or ignored, in daylight. 

But, for now, she took the advice and let herself be a young woman at a party, her veins full of music as her gown glittered in her mind’s eye. She thought of Calista and her ability and was happy no one could see the flush, though if she’d been caught she could blame it on Adeline’s heat. 

What was it, to have a mind that screamed in technicolor? To have a mind so vibrant, destroyed by the greying shreds of the society that chained her? Orion had tossed a rope woven of twill down into the abyss and dragged her from it’s depths with mere words. I will not mark someone off because you love them. It was funny, really, the weight words had on their world. Words, flighty little things, had begun to bring back all of the colors of a pink painted horizon on a summer day, had replaced the darkness that had so long clouded the princess’s mind.

What was it, to be alone in the mind of Adeline Calore?

Tonight, there was an inferno kind of sunset raging behind her dark eyes, an abyss to mirror the one she’d found herself escaping from. She coaxes her new ( more than likely temporary ) friend into the depths along side her. 

❝ Isn’t it just decadent, mon cheri? ❞ She says as she moves to spin Lady Samos about, all of her own pearly whites bared for no one to see. The lilt of an older, freer world touches her tongue, all rolling syllables and a pension for devilish tendencies. Such was the life of a royal. It had been too long since she’d felt she was making a new friend. It felt like a new kind of intimacy.  

[y2k-goth]

Gently, we howl at the stars together. Gently,we swallow each other whole.

 Emily Palermo, Love in the Time of Monsters (via mythaelogy)

[aly-naith]

moon or stars? gold or silver? strawberries or blueberries? summer or winter? rose gold or pastel blue? roman mythology or greek mythology? long hair or short hair? tv series or movies? 

[caloreprincess-blog]

caldergliacon:

         He sees Max and the world shifts. He sees Max and the whole room is brighter, like the sun has finally come out. His mood does not abandon him so much as it is brought to the back-burner, his relief at actually seeing Max okay instead of hearing it from others poignant. He tries to sit up, as always trying to stand stronger in her presence, before wincing and leaning back down. His skin pulls taut in far too many places for either of their comfort. ❝ No mood, ❞ he assures her, his hand reflexively reaching out before falling short and back to his side. It’s still so new for them, the body language in discovery rather than settled into familiar patterns. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands, now that he can touch her if he wanted to. He remains set in certain boundaries, waiting for her to reach out rather than instigating much himself.

         It surprises and pleases him, how easily she slips into his arms, at his side. She’s about half his size, or at least it feels that way, but he shifts anyway, aching arms and chest shuffling aside to accommodate her. He notices a slight wince as his hand brushes her shoulder and takes care, instead wrapping his hand almost delicately around the back of her neck, beneath her hair. ❝ Or maybe a little bit of a mood. I… was upset, that I wasn’t there to stand between you and harm. I never wish to repeat the horror of it. ❞ 

         Her mouth trembles slightly against his skin, her breath fanning across the open span of his throat, and he thinks for perhaps the thousandth time that this is a dream. A fantasy. He wouldn’t be surprised, even with the pain and discomfort he’s feeling, because it’s still the best damn thing he’s ever felt. Calder gingerly wraps his other arm around the delicate span of her waist, curling his body toward hers in an easy, protective fashion. Everything is better when she’s there. When he can hold her and know she’s alright. 

         ❝ Is everyone alright? I haven’t had any news since I got in. I suspect people are trying not to upset the injured. ❞ He scoffs a bit at that, because he is already upset. He is already filled with shame and loathing, so what would a little more add on? She admits her worry and he feels like soaring, even as he wants to tell her she should not. That instinct hasn’t gone away. The feeling that he’s all wrong for her, even as she fits so pleasantly against him now. Her head is entirely downturned, and he chances a moment of affection, just the briefest press of his mouth to the top of her head. Her hair smells like flowers and fire, and it makes him smile where she can’t even see it. 

         The hand beneath her hair squeezes slightly in reassurance. ❝ I worried for you, too. Even though Nyssa told me several times you’d been taken to safety. I had to see you for myself. ❞  

His words, of course, are a delicate kind of intimacy, a new kind of delight -- both familiar and strange all at once: a glory song sung by the armies of Hera, a soldier returning home from war. I was upset. I worried for you. I had to see you. They all ring in her ears and envelop her in a warmth that she’s never felt before, a kind of softness one would expect from a mother or father that Adeline had never grown accustomed to. Children weaned on poison consider harm a comfort, they say, and they were right. The warmth, despite the fire in her veins, felt foreign. 

That being said, Max never wanted to let go. 

When he wraps his arm around her slender waist, she thinks this must be what prayer tastes like on the gods tongue. This has to be what it taste like to be given a blood sacrifice, what it feels like to gain the world but cast death upon the earth as penance. Because that’s exactly what this was, wasn’t it? Some sort of greek tragedy? The princess found her happiness, found her blessing, and the Fates lit all of her strings on fire and shoved them down her throat. 

Max can feel it, the exact moment that her heart drops from its place between her ribs like a thunderbolt at it crashes straight through to the floor, crossing the space and all the blood and marrow to leave her open and bleeding. Her throat feels like the ground after it has rained, something open and caught all at the same time, as though the moisture as slicked her throat for easy speaking while also clogging the spaces between her lips. She finds the words cannot come, but she cannot move. Maybe, just maybe, if she stays there buried in the warmth of him the world will just fade away. Max is too tired to feel the pain, is too tired to fight the good fight against the darkness and all of that bullshit. 

She was done with death. She was done with loss. She was done with mortality.

❝ No -- nobody’s told you anything? ❞

She knows how much he loves ( scratch that, loved ) her sister, and she knows that he will be ruined by the death of one soul that he had sworn to protect. Maybe it hadn’t been a formal oath ( Calder was, after all, meant to be pledged to one soul and one soul only, but one of the many reasons Max loved him was his inability to adhere to that rule, his love far too expansive to allow for the protection of only one ), but it had been an oath he made with himself. 

❝ How, how could they not tell you? How could no one tell you anything? What kind of cruelty is that, to make you sit in the unknowing? ❞ She pulling away from him now, but it’s not far. She couldn’t stand it if his hand left her waist, if his hand left her neck. No, she’s just far enough back that she can look into his eyes, just close enough that he can see the terror or torment that fills her own. She jaw is quivering and there are tears in her eyes and then suddenly they are on her face because she is angry: at the nurses, at the silvers for not seeing this coming, at Orion for being the kind of king people want to murder, at herself for not loving Eve as well as she should have, at everything. She is a jumble of mixed up puzzle pieces and she knows that Cal is the only one who will be able to make sense of her chaos, the only one who will be able to calm her from this sudden onset of grief and guilt. ❝ I -- I can’t -- I can’t believe -- ❞

❝ I can’t believe no one’s told you. ❞

She can’t do it. She can’t be the one. But she will have to be.